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Men, and the lovely lady who joined us!
First of all, I want to thank Alan for the tournament!
Thank you to all participants for the great game!
Now, a few words about the map.
At first, it seemed original and quite interesting. For example, starting without a castle, a starting hero with expert logistics, boots located not far from the castle – these seemed like good ideas to me.
However, after several attempts to complete the map, my opinion changed drastically. It turned out that, for example, the hero acquires wisdom as one of the last skills, and only in one or two upgrade paths. Also, the troops aren't very fast...
After a final playthrough of the map, I realized – the map is simply excellent!!! Thank you, Alan! The main highlight of the map is the variety of ways to complete it, alternative paths, and the possibility of implementing various ideas.
Now, directly about the walkthrough.
1. Map exploration.
The following can join strong troops: gargoyles to the left of the starting town; upgraded gnomes near the wood mine closer to the center of the map; wolves standing in the passage to the barbarian zone closer to the center of the map; and some other troops, I don't remember anymore.
To the right of the starting town, archers guard the passage; further to the right, hydras stand, and behind them are boots that can be bought for 3000 gold and sulfur (I think 5).
The first time you pass through the passage to the second town, you receive money and resources.
The Dimension Door spell is only in one place – in the necropolis town. This town is not built by the computer, at least not until the middle of the third week.
2. Walkthrough.
Idea: maximize the collection of chests and visit +1000 experience locations.
A detailed description day by day is probably not necessary.
First, I left the archers and peasants in the nearest town. Then I went up, took the second town, then through the centaurs up and to the left. I built a castle on the fourth day, although with an ideal playthrough, this can be done on the third. Next is the key moment of the entire playthrough. At the top, we have the computer player who is playing as dragons. There is a passage from it leading down, guarded by upgraded pikemen; there is also an orc recruitment building nearby. So, if the computer doesn't break through there (it worked for me every other time), the following algorithm works.
So, we go along the edge of the map upwards, collecting chests and so on. In the castle, I decided to build a statue, pikemen, and archers. The hero reaches the wolves at the top near the mercury mine and goes back along the edge of the map.
Week 2. We buy a warlock hero with 4 gargoyles. We send one gargoyle to collect free resources. The main hero goes down, reaches the zombies, defeats them, and enters the castle. There are pikemen, swordsmen, and upgraded archers built. We take as many as we can, also some gargoyles, and go through the archers to the hydras for the boots. Then we go through the orcs to the +1000 experience location and a chest. Then we turn upwards and slightly to the left (towards the hobbits). The second hero arrives at the castle for reinforcements.
Week 3. After the hobbits, we buy fairies and defeat (but don't recruit!!!) the gnomes. The fact is that, with my path, these 24 gnomes are not very useful; if you choose a different path, they might be useful. Then we go up, collect experience, and defeat whoever we encounter. The second hero goes from the castle with troops to join. The main hero reaches the neutral town (dragon town), takes it, goes to the skill-boosting location. He boosts his skills, then goes up, takes a couple of chests, defeats the upgraded golems and thieves, takes another chest, and boosts his attack. The second hero continues to move towards the meeting point.
Week 4. The second hero is almost at the first. The main hero takes troops (it turned out to be 16 pikemen, 16 swordsmen, 25 upgraded archers). The pikemen are defeated. Then, we enter the luck and temple locations, and with one final step, we have the first encounter with the computer hero. He had 125 skeletons, 7 upgraded liches, 5 vampires, 15 zombies, and 21 goblins. I replayed the battle 7 times – as a result, I managed to make it so that he didn't run away. By the way, my hero finished without a spellbook:)))
