Posts from The second tournament for Heroes of Might and Magic II!

I wish they would publish the results sooner!

Kyle's save has been received...

Today is the last day to submit saves for the competition. Tomorrow, if everything goes well, the results will be announced.

Save file sent.
Just arrived at work (it's 2:45 PM now), I was playing the map before.

The save file was received from QWERTY.

Here. On the last day, I decided to play in this tournament, although the last time I played Heroes II was about 5 years ago, so where is my last place? :)
I sent the save file; I hope it gets there.

2 Sage Please resend the save file to g-andrew@mail.ru, as I just checked my email and there is no save file...

Added after 15 hours 5 minutes
Well, this tournament has come to an end... Ten people sent their saves, and I went through them. The results will be in a separate thread.

I am grateful to everyone who participated in the tournament; I hope it also left you with pleasant emotions and impressions.

Thank you all for participating!!!
Sincerely, Alan.

Added after 2 hours 14 minutes
In general, the results have been summarized, but I need to clarify something with one of the participants, and after he responds, I will announce the results.

Added after 45 minutes
Everything, the results of the tournament have been summarized. /topic/1467/

Congratulations to Qwerty on the victory! We're looking forward to the walkthrough. By the way, where is the result for nprf?

Well, I'm fifth :eek:, and I thought I'd be last :( .

Friends, in order to write the Walkthrough, I need to remember the heroes' names.
If Alan happens to have the opportunity right now to check my final save and send me an email with the name and location of each of the five heroes - I will write the Walkthrough immediately.

Added after 3 minutes
Alan!
I want to say a huge thank you to you!
Magnificent map, great Tournaments!

Guys, I left a post here about Alan: /topic/1193/
Give him some support, will you? He is certainly worthy!!!

QWERTY, personally, I CONGRATULATE YOU!!!;

I just don't understand where NPRF and PALADIN are?

Their result was 5 days.

Sincerely,
Prorock.

QWERTY CONGRATULATIONS!!!

To Alan
Didn't nprf and Paladin send their save files?

Sincerely,
Prorock.

I have published all the save files that were sent to me... and I confirmed the receipt of the save files for the tournament... so nprf and Paladin apparently didn't think it was necessary to participate...

CONGRATULATIONS QWERTY on your well-deserved victory!
You're a beast!

I messed up pretty badly; it's been a while since I played:o.

P.S. I hope no one will object if I make this thread important!

Thank you, Alan, for the wonderful tournament!

P.P.S. At least I won't have to write a walkthrough:D. I hope to read the walkthrough by the esteemed QWERTY;

Sincerely, VDV_forever

Walkthrough of the tournament map for the Second HeroesWorld Tournament for same-series Heroes II
by Qwerty
/an essay in two parts with a prologue and an epilogue/.

Prologue.
When I was running the First Tournament on our HeroesWorld forum, at some point I really wanted to play myself. And thanks to Alan (big respect!!!), I was able to play in the Second Tournament!

Part 1.
Formal Description.
Scouting the map revealed the following:
1. There are 4 opponents on the map, and they are not allied;
2. There is no water or difficult terrain;
3. Free upgrade opportunities: north of the main castle there is an upgrade for dwarves, orcs, and ogres; south of the main castle there is an upgrade for golems;
4. Opportunity to join neutral stacks: none.
5. Opportunity to recruit creatures from external buildings: archers north of the main castle, goblins in the upper right corner of the map.
6. First-level direct damage magic: a Magic Arrow is available in the castles of the Sorceress, Knight, and Barbarian.
7. Presence of blockades when passing between castles: zombies (about 18, I think) between the castles of the Sorceress and Barbarian.

Walkthrough.
111. Starting hero Dawn-Wizard leaves hobbits in the castle and heads south. On the way, I picked up stone and wood – by the way, they weren't needed.
112. Dawn continues south, ending the turn one cell to the right of the sawmill.
113. Dawn takes the sawmill (why? – I don't know myself), goes further south, takes 500 gold from the water mill, increases knowledge by 1, and then moves right.
Sarakin-Wizard is purchased in the main castle. He leaves hobbits in the castle and heads north toward the archer recruitment. He falls one move short.
114. Here you need to make sure that the Knight hero didn't go to the sawmill (right), but is wandering somewhere far away. If he went to the sawmill – reload until the desired result occurs.
Dawn moves right, picks up a thousand experience on the way, and reaches the Sorceress castle and enters it.
Sarakin takes 16 archers from the house and attacks (down-left diagonally) the Necromancer. I set the formation as 1 pig, 1 pig, 16 archers (far right slot). Losses – 2 archers.
115. The longest day.
Dawn leaves the castle, moves slightly left and up, then stops.
Barok-Warlock is purchased in the Sorceress castle. He (unfortunately without entering the thousand experience, although he levels up great!) attacks the centaurs; note that you must bypass the castle specifically from the left, not the right! My formation was 5 centaurs, 1 gargoyle, 1 gargoyle, 2 gargoyles, 5 centaurs. No losses, obviously, and without spending mana. For those interested – see my analytical materials on Heroes II by Qwerty – the technique for such a battle is described there. After this, without even rearranging, I attack the Sorceress hero. Against me are 19 fairies, 9 dwarves, 4 elves. Battle technique: Magic Arrow at fairies, hit fairies with 1 gargoyle, hit fairies with 2 gargoyles (they died), 1 gargoyle stands next to the elves without attacking. Well, obviously, 2 gargoyles are taken out by dwarves, elves try to attack the gargoyle, centaurs shoot ONLY at dwarves (not elves!). Next turn: Magic Arrow at elves, one gargoyle flies away, the second stays near the elves, elves hit the gargoyle, centaurs shoot ONLY at dwarves (not elves!), dwarves take out the gargoyle. Third turn: Magic Arrow at elves – they are gone. Centaurs smash the dwarves. From then on it's simple – as long as the centaurs have arrows, they shoot the dwarves, avoiding a personal encounter. When arrows run out – melee, until three dwarves remain. I assume it's clear that you first need to wait until mana runs out and there is no blessing on the dwarves. Then we retreat.
Dawn finishes off the Sorceress hero and takes the money chest. I didn't replay it, but my Magic Arrow failed 6 times!!!
Sarakin goes down-right and takes the campfire. After that, he moves left.
Barok-Warlock is bought out in the main (central) castle; he must have at least 9 centaurs, and I'd like more gargoyles. I had 3 gargoyles. As we remember, this hero cannot move this turn.
116. At night, a Barbarian attacked the main castle (Barok with 11 mana was there). He had 8 upgraded orcs (upgraded for free in the north), 5 wolves, and around 22 goblins. Magic Arrow (this is why we saved mana last turn) at orcs; on the first turn, we block the orcs with one gargoyle. With centaurs and hobbits, we first smash the archers, then everyone else. In general, 1 gargoyle died (I think) and several hobbits.
Barok leaves everyone in the castle except the gargoyles and goes north.
Dawn goes north, takes the campfire, and heads left.
Rasmont-Warlock is purchased in the Sorceress castle. Gargoyles are split one by one, centaurs stay in the castle. We go through the thousand experience to the left.
Sarakin moves left and then up.
117. Dawn goes left and, it seems, enters the thousand experience. Then he turns slightly down-left and then slightly right for a scroll and takes the money chest.
In the main central castle, we buy Castor-Warlock. He takes all the power in the castle, even buys hobbits (first troop buyout of the game), approaches Barok and unloads everything.
Barok goes north and wipes out the Barbarian. His troops: about 5 orcs, 4 ogres, nearly twenty goblins. First turn Magic Arrow (the last one!) at orcs, then the rest are shot down. There are losses, but not that many. Naturally, you shouldn't enter direct combat with ogres – that's what archers are for (while ogres chase some, others shoot them).
Rasmont-Warlock continues to move left, regardless of the Knight hero looming nearby.
Sarakin goes north and falls one cell short of the Knight hero.
121. At night, a Knight attacked Sarakin with 10 archers and 55 peasants. Stone at the archers and forward. I don't remember the losses anymore, maybe about 4 archers.
At night, a Knight attacked Rasmont. But against Magic Power 4 (meaning Magic Arrow removes 40 health), he could do nothing.
At night, a Barbarian attacked Barok. Troops: some orcs and goblins. No problem.
Sarakin goes north and takes the Necromancer castle. There are 3 or 4 non-upgraded archers – everything went without big problems, even 4-5 archers remained.
Rasmont, entering for some reason the 1000 experience and fountain of luck, takes the Knight castle. There were, I think, 3 pikemen and 3 swordsmen. Magic and that's it. Even 2 gargoyles remained.
Barok goes left and takes the Barbarian castle. There are 3 (I think) orcs. Immediately charge forward with both gargoyles plus shoot them down with remaining centaurs and one hobbit. Castle taken.
Sarakin moves away from the Necromancer castle – clearing the path.
We buy Roxana-Necromancer in the Necromancer castle. We buy her mummies (I bought one more skeleton besides 6 mummies) and save – this is the final save.
Roxana attacks the last hero. He has one mummy, 1 (I think) zombie, and 4 skeletons. We have over a dozen skeletons, 2 zombies, and 6 mummies. No direct damage magic. Victory – and the map is completed in 8 days.

Part 2.
Informal Description.
I scouted this thing. I liked the map immediately – no water, deserts, or other crap. The symmetry also pleased me. And most importantly – the map size. Just right!
Ran through the map. Normal, in principle, although the Necromancer's deadly magic only appears at level two, whereas the Sorceress has Magic Arrow immediately. So, it's time to play for magic. Well, heroes here are mostly relevant from the Dragon castle (Magic Power 3) or the Sorceress castle (Knowledge 3).
Let's see what other perks there are. Archers (16 of them) above the castle. Good. Next. Oh! +1 Knowledge at the bottom! We're in business!
Let's go!
111. The main thing is to gain momentum! So we take only fast pigs – and run down.
112. Run, run down!
113. Paint the sawmill (out of habit) and down – to the knowledge booster and mill. Because I'm exactly 500 short for buying a second hero. Then go to the right castle (Sorceress).
Take the second hero (decided not to suffer too much, took a native one), again take only pigs for speed – and to the archers. Otherwise, a Barbarian is already approaching from above. Fell half a move short – but that's good, otherwise the archers would slow us down.
114. Had to reload several times so that the Knight would run up toward the Necromancer.
Anyway, the first hero runs right, enters the booster and captures the empty Sorceress castle. "We say together – thank you Aunt Grune!".
The second hero grabs 16 archers and slides diagonally down-left – to talk with the Necro. Talked.
115. Move away with the first hero upwards.
Buy a hero with gargoyles in the Sorceress castle. A real guy. Break through the centaurs (good guys), save. Then fight the Sorceress hero. Must spend no more than three Magic Arrows (on fairies and elves), and talk to the dwarves via centaurs. Well, obviously, had to run around with centaurs. Retreat.
And then ...
Guys, have you ever dug for heroes in the morning after two days of celebrating a birthday? I mean that kind of celebration where you can't count how much you drank the day before? Honestly – it was something else ...
The whole trick here is that this hero needs to be born with enough troops!
Anyway, after that, the first hero grabs the chest, the second (who dealt with the Necro last turn) takes the campfire – seems there's enough money.
Alright. Then spent another half hour fishing for a Warlock hero, Rasmont, for the next day.
Basically, I bought Barok in the main castle (the guy who was killing kents this turn and talking to the last Sorceress hero).
116. At night, a Barbarian entered the main castle. Wanted to talk to Barok. Well, Barok convinced him to leave the map. He agreed.
And in the morning we rode. Barok kept only gargoyles for himself and went up – at the Barbarian!
The first hero (who finished off the Sorceress) went for the campfire, and then I sent him to pick up a money chest not far from the castle.
The one who buried the Necro went toward the Necro – left and then up. There, by the way, the Knight and Necro started practicing.
And in the Sorceress castle, I bought Rasmont, immediately raised his level in 1000 experience – got +1 Magic Power. Obviously didn't take centaurs – why?
Under Rasmont, I dug up some other Warlock. He will be needed the next day.
117. The first hero finally took the money chest.
I took that Warlock I dug up last turn, took all troops, even bought hobbits – and gave this whole household to Barok.
And Barok went up and thrashed the Barbarian. And then he went toward his castle, to the right.
The Necro specialist went up (in the left part of the map), and there was a Knight. Fell half a move short.
A Knight came out to meet Rasmont. Well, whatever, we went past him straight to the castle, meaning to the left.
121. At night there were talks.
A Knight came to Rasmont. They didn't talk long – Magic Power 4 = Magic Arrow for 40 damage.
A Knight also came to the Necro specialist. Here it took a bit longer ... But an almost one-and-a-half times advantage (peasants not counted) in troops – and everything is fine.
And a Barbarian visited Barok. Didn't show anything special ...
And in the morning – we rode.
The Necro specialist, obviously, captured the Necromancer castle.
Barok handled the Barbarian castle.
Rasmont – the Knights'.
One Necro remained, wandering above near his castle, top left.
And that's it – move the Necro specialist aside, buy a Necro in the Necromancer castle, use remaining money to buy troops (I took mummies and one skeleton for change) – and forward. He thrashed the last Necro and everything ended.
That's how it went.

Epilogue.
Guys, I made it to the end of the tournament thanks to all of you. You encouraged me, waited for the walkthrough and all that. Huge thanks to everyone.
Alan, respect once again.

Qwerty, 05.12.2006.

QWERTY, personally, I CONGRATULATE YOU!!!
I just can't understand where NPRF and PALADIN are?
Their result was 4 days.
Sincerely,
Prorock.

This is IMPOSSIBLE!!!
It takes 3 days to reach any town.