Posts from World Championship in Heroes of Might and Magic III.

2positive (Kirrya) def Javdet (Brogkh) jebus 112 WT under SOD 2-1

What a blunder :D
I accidentally confirmed an autobattle, which resulted in a great outcome:D. All that was left was to capitalize on it. After dominating, the morale of the grand players to fight against the next stack was depleted.

I would like to congratulate my opponent on a brilliant victory.

And why doesn't the block work anymore?

Does RE no longer work on the block?

these aren't Hota rules
another thing is that I personally never refused an opponent a rest on the block despite the signature under my messages)))) but it's everyone's personal choice - his arguments were convincing from his point of view, the guy really wanted to win, even if like this.. after getting crushed in the 1st game and a ridiculous mistake in the 2nd, such a turn of events, I think, was seen as a godsend ) especially since I had the opportunity to fiddle around for about 4 days on rough terrain looking for a better life. But I had no desire to sit in front of the monitor waiting for the opponent to finish playing single-player, just as I had no desire to give him the chance to enjoy tearing apart a helpless Broc somewhere in week 3

Deep Mike (red, Castle, Valeska) def Mike_SPb (blue, Fortress, Bron, Galthran), 2sm4d(3), 2-1-6
This turned out to be one of the most intense and hard-fought games in my entire practice. I got a good spawn, many external dwellings at the respawn, 2 Griffin Conservatories, and a Dragon Utopia, though the territories were large and the secondary mines were far away, so everything was very spread out. My opponent, on the other hand, had a much smaller and poorer setup, but had his own bonus in the form of boots and gloves on his home respawn, which allowed him to develop momentum. I didn't get many shooters — only 19, and they weren't upgraded — but my native hero had a ballista. I immediately took the external dwelling of Swordsmen and on day 3 took the external dwelling of Cavaliers, although by that time only 16 shooters were left and there was little meat. I used a scout hero to place an external dwelling for marksmen, but I couldn't deliver them home in time. By the end of the week, Valeska took the Inferno secondary mine up top, where 33 upgraded Cerberi guarding the hive caused me a lot of trouble at the entrance — their morale triggered about 5 times, killing a Cavalier and some of the meat, which forced me to slow down and wait for reinforcements. Still, I took the smallest hive and went for a couple of dwarves for money. After gathering enough gold to buy out the Cavaliers, I returned home, where I took 2 Griffin Conservatories with 2 Angels each and 2 Pandora's Boxes with 10000 and 5000 experience. Valeska was leveling up well, having Logistics, Attack, and Defense. The scout hero found another Griffin Conservatory in Inferno territory, so I sent the army to him while Valeska, after taking the biggest hive on home turf with 2 Angels, rode into the underground, where she took another Inferno. After that, she disbanded back home, and upon getting the army back plus another 3 Angels from the scout hero, she went into the Dragon Utopia. It turned out to be a triple Black Dragon one, giving Titan's Plate for magic and a Shield with -3+12. But Valeska didn't have any strong spells. After the Dragon Utopia, she disbanded in Inferno-1 and from there went to the underground Inferno. By that time, my opponent was finishing clearing his treasury, gathered about fifty Wyverns, and took a Dragon Utopia, but he had no melee troops. I also had a fair number of hives, as well as a Pandora's Box for money and a library, and I built Angels by week 3. Then I took another double Dragon Utopia there, getting a Crown of Magic +4+4 and a Book of Air; earlier I had found Shackles of War. The Pandora's Box gave me all level 5 spells. I upgraded the Angels by week 4, now having 10 Archangels, 23 Champions, and 46 Wyverns, and I headed through GO toward my opponent. There was no resistance — Galthran, after taking another Dragon Utopia, was clearing yet another treasury. In his own underground, near a close secondary mine, he hadn't cleared it and moved into the grassy area up top. Valeska quickly took all his castles and, sending scout heroes ahead, rode to clear the opponent's uncleaned treasury, where the scout hero took another 3 hives with 18 Wyverns. However, I started making mistakes near morning — I decided to disband with Valeska but forgot to remove the Shackles, forcing me to summon elementals and use them to win in order not to lose the hero — fortunately, no enemies were nearby to finish Valeska off with a couple of wolves. Galthran, with his super speed (he also had Logistics and a scout hero helper with Log and Boots — in fact, he collected 3 pairs of Boots on the map), gathered more Wyverns in the grass, ending up with about 90, took a Sword +5 all stats, and the level 5 spell hat, and came to my Inferno-1. I couldn't meet him there with Valeska — she was stuck in the uncleaned underground. My opponent sent a super-fast Necromancer sub-hero ahead, but he didn't reach my capital. Galthran was left with just 1 Angel and a couple of Dragonflies. At that point, a plan formed: disband in the castle with Valeska, give the Shackles and all artifacts to the scout hero, and with the remnants of the unbought home army, attack Galthran with the Shackles. But we'd been playing for almost 10 hours, it was already morning for me, and I was completely confused by the countless castles and heroes — even with a program to transfer troops, 6 minutes was nowhere near enough, and in the end I made a huge blunder, almost throwing the game. I ran the time down to the clock countdown. Instead of immediately disbanding with Valeska and attacking Galthran herself, I got involved in returning troops from the treasury, though there was no need to rush that — I couldn't transfer them to the castle anyway — but I at least wanted to give the artifacts to the scout hero and disband Valeska in the Fortress. First, the scout hero could easily lose even with artifacts if Galthran still had the elemental spell book for summoning elementals; second, in the chaos, the Shackles ended up not on the scout hero but on Valeska, and she went to disband with them again. I thought I had stupidly ruined the game, because I had to kill neutrals and Valeska was left without a turn, at the mercy of the enemy — but luckily, the blue hero was standing very close by, and the scout hero managed to take the Shackles from her, and Valeska disbanded on the blue hero. My scout hero reached Galthran and killed him with the Shackles, but only 8 seconds were left until the end of the turn — I had to manage to remove the Shackles and buy out Valeska, since the scout hero with the artifacts would need to flee from the opponent's second Necromancer on the next turn. I managed to remove the Shackles, but due to shaky hands, I failed to buy Valeska, clicking past the button. So there was a risk that the scout hero, after fleeing, would spawn on top of Valeska, but that didn't happen. After my scout hero fled with the artifacts from the Necromancer, a surrender followed. Even though he had a horde of Wyverns and 600 skeletons, the rest of his army was small, while I had Valeska equipped with speed artifacts after the battles and a much stronger army overall, plus decent magic — Explosion for 2000 and Chain Lightning with an Air Booster for 1500. Thanks for the game. 1-0.

FireToSky - Tiamant 2:0
FireToSky (blue, Dungeon, Shak) def Tiamant (red, Rampart, Ivor), SM, 115
Broke through to the surface steppe, took an external dwelling of birds, barbs, and it seemed an aerial strike force was shaping up, but the opponent somewhere folded
FireToSky (red, Dungeon, Shakti, Isra) def Tiamant (blue, Fortress, Tazar), SM, 212
This was much more interesting:) With control banned, the game naturally dragged on for a couple of weeks...
Starting artifact dropped - Amulet of the Undead + Israel (hereinafter he will be male gender :))) Shak cleared the +3 mana regen artifact and an external dwelling of Troglodytes
112 - hit a guard obstacle of Archers, got Intelligence as a secondary skill
113 - scouted a Griffin Conservatory - a tough one. Damacon broke through to the Inferno secondary town
114 - Inferno secondary, the build is pretty modest: Market, Pre-fabricated structure, Eyes
115 - scouted the respawn, took a map-revealing spot, of several directions only one is feasible power-wise - through Fire elementals to the opponent's secondary. I split up Isra into the Dungeon
116 - build a Mage Guild, get the necessary Haste, only 90 Skeletons
117 - 138 Skeletons, get Air Magic. The build is terrible overall :D 1,3 in a
Citadel + Portal, Market, Mage Guild and a thousand. Well, that's all that's needed for now, the strike force of Skeletons \ Troglodytes with Haste is fine
121 - broke through to the secondary, Barbarian territory, can see a Griffin Conservatory
122 - second hero is Barbarian, I buy him out, now moving is easier on Wolves and Goblins. Skeletons at 202
123 - 200+ Skeletons, 164 Troglodytes, 10 Eyes destroy a level 3 Griffin Conservatory. -120 Troglodytes and 10 Eyes and some Skeletons. We can fly now :) Skeletons at 255
124 - 2 Medusa spawns, Town Portal to the treasure zone is cleared. Skeletons at 282
125 - Barbarian secondary, I also buy Vidomina there))) She flies on an Angel to work :) Isra splits up back home towards a Griffin Conservatory.
126 - I take the Griffin Conservatory, split up back to the Barbarian.
Tazar runs into the steppe, intending to jump into the treasure zone through a monolith.
127 - I attack him, his stats are a bit higher, around 8-7 I think versus my 3-8. Army is decent:
14 Wyverns, 3 Hydras, 57 Lizardmen, 8 Basilisk, 20+1 Serpent Fly and Gnolls. With Tactics, he very boldly deploys the Lizardmen forward,
luckily the terrain made a bog that needs to be circled around :) He covers them with whatever he can. Nothing to be done, I'll have to trade Angels until the Skeletons arrive, and I have
about 500 of them and a Bolt for 150 damage. I get Oil, everyone piles onto the Angels, I cast Mass Haste. Then the Skeletons finally break through, in one hit they take down around 7 Wyverns. After the trade, Tiamant retreats with 3 Hydras,
10 Lizardmen, Basilisks and 3 Monarks. I have - 4 Angels and about 100 Skeletons. I enter the treasure zone.
131 - I see no point in running to the opponent to die under arrows, so I start clearing the treasure zone. Out of strategic habit, I finish building the Mage Guild )))
132 - I grab a couple of Pandora's Boxes: one for a horde of Furies, another for a tough group of Beholders. Both give experience, I level up Wisdom, Pathfinding and max out Earth Magic + a Dragon Fly Hive for level 6. I had to sweat quite a bit,
especially on the Furies, so the Skeletons didn't increase much that turn, about 500.
133 - in the level 4 Mage Guild I got Meteor, and in the level 5 one Fly (URAA!!!) pity I can't use it :stenka:
134 - another Dragon Fly Hive in the treasure zone, I split up first to the Dungeon for Meteor, then to the Barbarians, there's a Naga Bank, another Dragon Fly Hive, 16 Wyverns, Skeletons at 540.
135 - I go to attack
136 - Arena, Isra is a half-turn away from the opponent's capital. Stats 5-14-5-7
137 - I take the almost empty capital. I run back, Tazar is wandering somewhere
141 - not keen on searching for him in the fog, he's probably already clearing the treasure zone, so I upgrade Wyverns, split up home, replenish mana, take a Dragon Fly Hive near the castle
142 - another Dragon Fly Hive for a horde of Fire elementals + Peasant horde, I emerge into the opponent's Snow secondary. Both Dragon Fly Hives are minimal, Skeletons at 740
143 - war of the noobs, a chain is built to the Swamp capital. I place Shak there, buy all Lizardmen and Basilisks, thought I could shoot it out. Don't remember why I didn't buy Wyverns (either I goofed or didn't notice - same thing)))
Result is again a bunch of Lizardmen (he had 2 external dwellings) and the meat still kicks me out of the castle.
144 - this is starting to get tedious... week 4 for an SM game is excessive :) I fight with Vidomina using Dungeon growth at the Inferno secondary, there's a minimal Dragon Fly Hive. I run Isra to reclaim the Swamp.
145 - some commotions are happening north of the Swamp castle: maybe a Dragon Utopia there? I decide not to run 2 turns to the castle and catch Tazar somewhere in the swamps, but instead go down to the secondary of Citadel #2, there I take a map-revealing spot and see an elevator to the treasure zone.
From my own treasure zone I can see a bit that there's an unexplored Pandora's Box with Devils, and judging by the stats, Taz probably wasn't there.
146 - I jump into the treasure zone, there right behind some Monarks lie the Boots of the Undead (o_О). Vidomina in the meantime finished clearing Inferno :) Earned 120 Skeletons and hit 2 shooter blocks into different treasure zones.
147 - I eat a couple of Dragon Fly Hives, grab an artifact giving +2 speed and +2 HP - excellent! Skeletons at 932 + 120 from Vidomina. Taz in the meantime is flying at full sail towards my capital, the chain to Isra isn't built, not very efficient, but I wasn't getting much
enjoyment out of the game anymore and decided to just eat everything tasty, and I figured Taz couldn't possibly kill a dark mass of Skeletons anyway. But instead of my chain, the opponent's noob is chasing after me ))))
211 - Level 3 Dragon Utopia: Shield of the Watcher, Shield of the Ogre, Blue Hat, Heavenly Hat. Vidomina was set to hold the siege (she has Expert Earth), it would have been better to put Damacon (he has Expert Armorer and Expert Offense), because Tazar had a Red Orb!!!
Well, who knew :) Taz doesn't reach the capital
212 - I take another Dragon Utopia, there's a Necklace +3 all stats and various junk :) The enemy noob is somewhere nearby :D
Tazar attacks, long siege, there was a desync, when we started to replay, the Monarks cast Poison, I shot in the wrong direction :D It was impossible to remember all of this, so we continued as it was,
Well, I held up okay) I dealt with a good part of his army. Then he stayed in the castle with Tazar, a couple of Serpent Flies and Hydras (6 of them), and ran with the remaining 9 Manticores and 10 Basilisks to beat my noobs))
That's when a cunning plan was hatched, which came to mind as suddenly as all genius things are born :smile14: Pay off the annoying noob with Isra, buy him back in Inferno and via the chain take over the capital and bury Tazar in the Dungeon caves :smile04:
I figured it out, I have enough money, I paid 50k, still had 5k left)
Chick-chick, jump-jump along the chain and hello :)
Thanks for the game!
P.S. The funniest part was that towards the end of the game Tiamant started writing in Russian using translit )))
saves http://slil.ru/29634892

Deep Mike (blue, Castle, Valeska, Gurnison) def Mike_SPb (red, swamp, Tazar), 2sm4d(3), 1-3-5
I went with the same setup that brought luck in the first game. The generation was promising for both again, but this time I had speed while my opponent had a bunch of external dwellings (2 wyverns and 1 cow already taken by the first week), but I had plenty of money, and the home respawn and elven secondary were rich. The main bonus was an angel external dwelling and boots nearby guarded by efreet sultans; the key was to survive until they could be taken. Additionally, there was a hive near the castle at the respawn and another hive with Dragon Utopia in the thickets. There were 2 conservatories on the secondary. On the primary, I built horses in my Castle, and elves and dendroids in the Stronghold on the secondary with an eye toward the Dragon Utopia. Although, at the end of the week, I stupidly lost 1 horse as a "loser" unit. Gurnison got logistics at level 7 and quickly leveled up earth magic. On 1-1-7, Gurni teleported home to buy a book on 1-2-1 and then immediately head for the 2 conservatories on the secondary with the stables. Along the way, I took a Pandora's box with 35 dwarves. Gunnar, acting as the "loser" unit with tactics, took an art +4 attack item by chasing monks; Vsklore became an expert in logistics—it's nice to have such a fast "loser" for transport. One conservatory was minimal, and the second was level 3; I left another 2 horses there since magic was only 1-1 and expert slow was quickly removed, and my army was small. After the conservatories, I teleported home without wasting time on the maximum dwarf dwelling that I took with the "loser" unit. From home, I took a naga-band and a small dwarf dwelling, a hive with 8 wyverns; using the "loser" unit, I broke through to another secondary. On 1-2-5, I built angels and killed the efreets with 5 angels, taking the boots and the angel external dwelling. Nearby was an entrance to the underground; I went there, but it turned out not to be a secondary but a thoroughfare through a treasure zone. There I took a gold mine, a Pandora's box for experience, and a black market where I also bought gloves. On 1-3-1, I took another hive of 8 there, exited the other side of the underground onto a snowy secondary; there at the entrance was another conservatory for 2, and nearby in the snow were a well and a shield +4. The "loser" unit scouted the Dragon Utopia in the treasure zone. I decided not to go deeper into the snow and headed back toward the Dragon Utopia; I had plenty of meat and had already scouted 3 Dragon Utopias at the respawns. The Dragon Utopia in the underground turned out to be excellent, with 3 blacks; they gave a kettle +6 all-around, an earth book, and a breastplate +4+4. With the "loser" unit, I also took a magic breastplate +5. Teleported home to restore mana. There was no point in wasting time on 2 more Dragon Utopias; they were in different directions, and my stats were already excellent and my magic strong with huge speed. On 1-3-4, from my Castle via ГО, I reach the opponent's capital in 1 turn and settle there. Right then, on his own turn, Tazar emerged through the underground toward my castle. His stats are lower, but with his external dwellings and treasure zones, he had already gathered 54 ducks. Gurni reached Tazar again in 1 turn; instead of a strength breastplate, I equipped a magic one, making the explosion 1500 hits. However, this was an unsuccessful decision—the opponent had a cloak of denial in reserve, but he didn't have time to give it to Tazar. Nevertheless, the first explosion on the wyverns was resisted; it became a bit scary, and after mass slow, the opponent went on the attack. But in the second round, the explosion worked, softened the wyverns, and everything became obvious, especially since there was also resurrection from the book. Tazar himself had shackles and could not escape. Thanks for the games, it was a pleasure playing. 2-0.

Pit for LM (red, Tower, Nila, Galtran) def Stinger (blue, Castle, Valeska, Valeska), panic, 133. The opponent quickly took the restart points; I got a better generation, and I didn't take any restart points. 111 - I take the Necropolis village through a portal; Galtran is found in the tavern. There's a stable and a hidden stash of skeletons near the village. 112 - I buy Galtran, scout the area; there should be enough money. 113 - Galtran goes to the snow to gather skeletons, and he spends the rest of the week there. 117 - Galtran, with earth magic, remains at the stable; nagas are built in the citadel. There's no money, but resources can be exchanged. The artifacts are +1+1 magic boots and a +3 mana medal. 121 - I buy 4 nagas, give them to Ignat; he fights the elves. Against the gremlins, there's a stash of 8 medusas, and without them, there's a chest behind the archers, where a naga almost died due to carelessness (4 HP left). With the earned gold, I buy a new hero and the remaining gremlins and give them to Nila, who enters another stash of 8 medusas. When the turn reaches the first naga, I surprisingly find gremlins in the second stack, and they had already moved... 20 of them died, but there's gold. The army goes to Galtran; he passes through a horde of ogres to the Tower village, upgrading earth magic to expert along the way, building a guild and getting stone skin (slow). 122 - a barbarian village, a passage to the opponent is visible, but it seemed too bold to attack on turn 123, so I decided to check the treasure, which is fortunately on dirt. I take the boots of speed. 123 - the treasure has a Necropolis, a suit of wonder, and a +2 spell duration ring; a minimal naga bank and a Hive behind the monks, but I didn't take it; morale is already low. 124 - I take the Necropolis, return the army home. Melody, behind a group of gorgons, takes a dead-end barbarian village; 60 goblin groups in Pandora. Nila breaks through a group of basilisks to the swamp, spots an observation tower, and takes the Conjunction village. From there, the only path is to the treasure on the snow, guarded by snipers - both directions are unpromising. 125 - Melody takes a stash of 8 medusas with mass haste, upgrades nagas and gremlins from the secondary market, upgrades goblins, the remaining imps from Ignat from the first week, and the imps of Nimussa from the tavern into skeletons - there are almost 400 of them now, which is not bad. I break through a horde of blood eyes and reach the opponent. I cut off Valeska from her home by standing on the portal. 126 - I take the capital, 127 - the Necropolis village and the Tower village. 131 - I decide that Valeska in the only treasure is unlikely to find anything and go to my treasure, where I already was at the beginning of the second week - there are several Pandoras and Hives on the dirt road. 132 - +4 wyverns, a vampire cloak, I lost more skeletons than I raised. 133 - Nagash scouted Valeska's grassy treasure and saw Yog with 30 wyverns there. Galtran crashes into the Tower and, with expert logistics, a stable, and boots, reaches Yog. There's no money for a bribe, and there aren't any other troops, really. Thank you for the game.

Is this 1:0, or is Stinger already done playing?

Deep Mike (red, Tower, Nila) lose Arch Stanton (blue, Barbarian, Crag Hack), 8mm6, 2-1-5
Now it's fashionable to bash the 2sm template, but I'll be spitting on 8mm for a long time after this game. The generation was completely idiotic and unbalanced, and there was no restart. For the first 3 days I travelled along the only road (and a fast one at that) to reach the only exit in the form of a teleport. I enter it, the exit is in the underground, and the road ends after 2 tiles, running into the exit of a one-way teleport... I had to wander around the underground off-road. I found 2 teleports there, but both were one-way as well, meaning you go in, and God knows how far you'll have to search for the way back. There were also a couple of passages to treasure zones, but the guards were strong. Overall, superb, I could have surrendered right there; at least on smk you don't encounter such idiotic tricks with passages. Further on, I basically played just to study the opponent, since I knew nothing about him and where strong players come from in Croatia... And the template choice was unexpected too; it's believed that foreigners don't like 8mm, but he was like a fish in water on it, and the generation helped him in every way possible. Still, out of desperation, I went into one of the one-way teleports, picked up a tiny respawn with a village there, and found an exit leading back. At my main town, I built Nagas in the Citadel, but there were practically no prospects. There was only 1 minimal Griffin Conservatory in my homeland, and the only bonus was an external dwelling of Nagas behind strong guards, which you could only tackle on month 2. That's what I did, spending the second week returning home, and a financial crisis set in because there was nothing left to collect and no new territories, and the external dwelling was in the snow. I still took it and 1 Angel by the end of the week, and after exchanging resources, I upgraded the Nagas and prepared to go into the treasure zone. But Nila was only level 9, she had taken Logistics but hadn't leveled it yet, and there was no land yet. For comparison, here's the opponent's situation. Instant easy access to the green computer, which was destroyed without losses by day 3, building a Mage Guild for the opponent in the process. Crag gets Logistics as his first skill, there are passages everywhere, Griffin Conservatories are scattered all over, a couple of Hives to boot, and 4 Dragon Utopias are compactly located in the nearby territories. By the end of the second week, while I was struggling, Crag was already level 16, had collected 8 Angels, owned 4 towns, and at the start of the third week, he took the first Dragon Utopia, which immediately gave him the Book of Air for control and Boots of Speed. Meanwhile, his scouts had already explored a fast road to my respawn, and he could have easily come to me in a couple of days and crushed me with one hand. But he either decided to mock me longer or just run around for his own pleasure—fortunately, there was plenty to do and a ton of stuff left to collect. In short, he didn't touch me. In the end, Nila went on foot into the treasure zone, where she got bogged down for almost 2 weeks because it stretched across half the map in the underground, with no other exits except the way back, and I found no control spells or any Magic above level 2 there. I picked up a couple of Griffin Conservatories there with 3 Angels each, a couple of Hives with 20 Wiverns, and only at the end of week 4 did I find 2 Dragon Utopias. The first one had nothing outstanding; the second at least gave a Sword +5 to all stats and some magic artifacts, but they didn't really matter since I had no strong magic and kept the Cloak of Disavowal on me. Meanwhile, Crag took 3 more Dragon Utopias, found the Boots of Speed, amassed 20 Angels (building them in his secondary town too) and over 60 Wiverns. Crag's total stats were around 100, while mine were still a third lower even after the Dragon Utopias; Nila did find the Gloves and Boots too, but later than Crag. While Nila was in the treasure zone, my scouts miraculously captured the Orange computer's Castle for free right on day of growth and held it; I built magic there, and on floor 4, I got Town Portal. Nila returned on foot, picked up the Shackles of War, my last hope that the opponent would make a mistake and I could catch him with the Shackles somewhere. At the exit of the treasure zone, I took a computer town, where I split off a mage and had Nila learn Town Portal; she jumped to the Elves, where there was another Dragon Utopia. The opponent upgraded his 20 Angels, found another Book of Earth, and with full control and super speed, he kept almost the entire map under control, never leaving a turn without troops, always sleeping with them in castles. The Dragon Utopia gave me nothing again—just a duplicate of some magic artifact and the Book of Water. I had long lost my native castle, only the village and the Elf castle remained, so the very next day Crag easily caught Nila, having superiority in everything by several times. Just a super-balanced template. I only wasted a huge amount of time on this XL. 0-1.

The map is perfect for playing with tears.

In my opinion, the Tower and the Swamp are quite challenging castles in 8mm. It's very likely that you'll get stuck on difficult map sections, and there are other drawbacks as well. It's better to choose something like a Dungeon-Rampart combination. Or rely on getting lucky with the map generation. For example, hoping that the game will give you flight and teleportation, cheap lairs for Naga-Giants, and other similar advantages.

What’s so bad about the swamp? Its attack power is even higher than many castles in *The Shadow of Death*.

It’s just bad luck with the map generation. It happens. It’s like having only one road in *Heroes of Might and Magic* on a small map.

By the way, the script for one-way roads was created largely because in *Might & Magic VI*, they are usually placed in a quantity of 1 and right at the exit to the center. Some people might not be so lucky.

However, old Chaos players, on the contrary, consider one-way roads to be an advantage of XL+U templates, because they make the game more challenging.

In my opinion, the Tower and the Swamp are quite challenging castles in 8mm. It's very likely that you'll get stuck on difficult blocks, and there are plenty of other drawbacks.

Give examples of difficult blocks for the Swamp that can be easily bypassed by other castles.

Playing as Swamp, I often found myself getting blocked specifically on the 8mm attack. Perhaps it's subjective. The attack power on level 1 heavily depends on luck and resources. That castle, where you get restarts, is mainly about the strength of the starting army, which isn't particularly interesting for Might & Magic VI.

P.S.
Valentine)). I hope you're not serious.

Well, the complaints about the starting castle are more about the army. Because you need to defeat guards with 6000 hit points, and a single starting spawn point is usually not enough for a decent build-up. In Might and Magic VI, there's no such requirement; the guards in neighboring zones have 3000 hit points, and you can gather some money and resources from three zones. Also, you can build a Watchtower even with the starting money, which significantly increases the army's offensive power. I would say that the Swamp is one of the most resilient castles. And regarding ranged units, it's the most resilient overall.