Posts from The third “New Year’s” tournament for Heroes of Might and Magic II.

Save accepted. The results have been summarized at /topic/1893/.

The following users submitted saves:
AlexeyPank
Inquisitor
Isabel
OlegRS
Qwerty
Sergh
Zingel

Thank you very much for participating!

well, no, that's not the case.

No, that's not quite right...

I really hope you participate in the next tournament. And for this one, you can just complete it and upload your save to this thread so you can compare your skills with the other participants.
Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your save in the skeleton tournament.

I really hope you participate in the next tournament. And you can just complete this one and upload your save to this thread to compare your skills with the other participants.
Also, taking this opportunity, I would like to express my gratitude for the save in the skeleton tournament.

Yes, I will definitely participate in the next one; I just wanted to practice before the tournament for all parts. Well, never mind, I hope there will be descriptions from other players about how they completed it; that would really help me.

And by the way, I would definitely not be last in the table; I gained about 20,000 experience just by running around the map the first time...

Congratulations to Qwerty on winning the tournament!!! :smile12::smile12::smile12: I hope to see comments on the walkthrough and tips for the others soon...

Congratulations to Qwerty on the victory! :smile15:

Actually, the task was simple: collect the maximum number of chests and visit the maximum number of gazebos in the shortest possible way, destroying everything that can be destroyed in 22 days.

P.S. Alan, thank you for organizing it :)

Thanks to Alan for organizing the tournament; it was a great experience! I hope there will be another tournament soon. Congratulations to Qwerty on another well-deserved victory. I'm looking forward to reading the description.

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:)))

Interesting, how else did people manage to complete it? My experience was somewhat different. The beginning was very similar, except I built my Castle on the third day (I had to dismiss the pikemen and archers). I had to convert 4 starting chests into gold because I didn't have enough. But on the second week, I bought all the swordsmen, spearmen, and almost all the archers. Then, like Qwerty (I think, like everyone else), I went for the Boots. And then I went through the Nomads (bottom of the map) to the Barbarians. I captured the middle Castle. Then, on the first day of the third week, I captured the right Barbarian Castle. I could have done it earlier, but I had to spend a whole day resting near the swordsmen and spearmen upgrade building (one Barbarian stood right on it at the end of his turn). After capturing the second Barbarian Castle, I equipped my hero with wolves and orcs and went north through the Medusas and Grand Elves to collect chests. Immediately after the Grand Elves, I disbanded all my troops except for the wolves, picked up the Djinns, and headed north. After entering the swamp, I turned left and went to the center, along the way defeating the Dwarves, Orcs, and Gargoyles, and taking a village (which gave me more than 1000 experience). Then I went further left and slightly below. On the last turn, I barely managed to defeat a group of Pikemen (with 2 Djinns), took (I think) 2 chests, visited the gazebo, and on the last step, I reached the Hobbits. That's it. A subsequent analysis showed that I could have increased my experience by approximately 7,000. Some of the initial chests could have been taken for experience, plus an extra day, during which I had to clear out an entire grove, would have added a very productive turn at the end of the game. Here. Share your tactics, what did you do?

I completely forgot about the Castle. :) (It's not that useful anyway.) I also avoided encounters with enemy heroes, but I killed everything I could on my way.

On the last turn, I barely managed to defeat a group of Pikemen (with 2 Djinn).

Is this allowed by the rules? :confused:

what does "allowed" mean? :) A turn is a turn, no matter where. If it weren't possible to kill anyone, then what would be the point of this turn? They would just say to send saves on turns 1, 3, and 7. :)

Added 7 minutes later

I completely forgot about the castle :) (and it's not really needed) and avoided encounters with enemy heroes, but I killed everything I could on my way.

How did you get so much experience???!!! And were you walking around without boots? :) When I tried to get boots right from the start, I fought archers, killed hydras, and I was left with 2 or 3 swordsmen and the same number of pikemen. And that's not an army at all! (although the idea was doomed anyway. there were only 4 sulfur elementals, and you need 5)

What about VDV?
Wasn't he supposed to participate as well?

Thank you for your concern:o

I apologize for my sluggish participation in this important topic! And also for the absence of my humble person in this tournament!
I have a lot of work in real life… I hope that the rush will end soon.

Congratulations to all participants on the completion of the tournament, Alana for the preparation and organization, and Qwerty for the well-deserved victory once again!

P.S. I invite everyone to participate in the first stage of the Kanenghem Memorial Tournament, starting on February 1st (Heroes 1).

Sincerely, VDV_forever

Thank you for your concern:o
....
P.S. I invite everyone to participate in the first stage of the Kanenghem Memorial tournament, starting on February 1st (Heroes 1).

Ah, we lost such a good opponent.

You're talking about the first Heroes game?
I will definitely play in the first and second games!

By the way, we can organize another tournament for the second Heroes game.
Alan, what do you think? Maybe we can try collecting some skeletons here?

Yeah, I managed to get some. I stole a couple of chests right under the noses of a Necromancer and a Wizard. By the way, Archers join you (12 of them) after you reach Diplomacy level 2. :smile13: My army is the contents of two Fairy dwellings. :smile13:
Regarding the boots... I was one tile short of being able to grab them at the end of day 22. :D