Posts from Walkthroughs for custom maps. Auto-translated

Author: Jay7, 19-08-2005 12:12
Hi to everyone who has started the Walkthrough.
It's been a long time since I've had as much fun as I did on this map. I've played it two or three times, a long while ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
Don't start with Titans — crappy position; Black Dragons are also a waste of time. Play as Castle — to complete it better, faster, and without headaches or other #####, I suggest the following: buy a Necromancer mage and level them up alongside your main hero. When you reach the Dragon Utopias — and there are tons of them there — get the Lich King's Cloak regardless of the game progression; I had 5 of them by the end of the game. Give it to your pedophile — and that's it, the game is in the bag. I had over 30,000 Liches in every pack; 1,000 more or less doesn't matter. Just play through it, don't sweat it.
Option two: if we want true satisfaction from the process, we complete it without Liches based on available forces. It will take about 2 times more time and effort. My advice for this: level up Diplomacy and don't overthink it. For me, the ideal hero looks like this: Air, Water, Fire, Earth, Intellect, Wisdom, and of course, Logistics, and on this map — Diplomacy, otherwise whatever comes up. Well then, good luck in battle.

Author: Azur (Russia), 15-11-2009 20:10 +1
Good map, but there are balance issues toward the end; when 4k magic elementals join, it's not an option! I played as "Titans" and the problem really exists and it's not a simple one — quite soon the computer arrives with a massive army and kills everything. The solution is non-trivial: I had to send several of my heroes to him who, using the portal system, constantly took the computer's castles, dwellngs, and mines. Thus, the computer had to spend its time taking them back from me, but this wasn't easy because, having a town portal, he had a significant advantage in maneuverability, and I had to reload very often to choose a position so that the computer wouldn't have time to take the castle and kill one of my heroes. This didn't last long. Another plus of this strategy is that the computer is forced to kill its own growth and receives significantly less income since at any moment it is deprived of more than half of its castles, gold mines, and dwellings. The key to controlling its castles is the ability to constantly buy heroes; even if you have only 1 of its castles, they are all connected by portals, and even if it's taken on this turn, he won't have time to kill all the heroes and it all repeats — you grab another empty castle (or not empty) and breed heroes again if someone was killed. It's unpleasant, but it's a matter of time. When your group becomes capable of killing its main group, everything ends, and this is not a moment of equal strength; to calmly kill the computer, one-fifth of its group's strength or even less is enough. The key is the Berserk spell, necessary for killing vastly superior forces; you also need a Negator. Proper use of magic allows you to win against enemy heroes with armies far exceeding yours, and with insignificant losses. Also, an important point is obtaining the Air Magic book; this solves all other problems. Taking it is not simple, but having a Negator and magic, it's generally not a big problem. The tactic is simple — build up an army — sail for the Negator — don't let the computer start expanding by taking its castles — build up an army — kill the Conflux — sail for the Air tome, and at this point the game stops being interesting because you can move freely and recruit monster groups that have grown to epic sizes.

This is the most interesting part: comparing different walkthrough methods.

How do you play with a large number of heroes, so that you have 3, 4, or 5 heroes who are not too different from each other in terms of primary skills, and can be used equally well against AI heroes? Because I usually have 1-2 main heroes and the rest are just runners.

Thank you to the author for reviving my long-lost faith in the immortality of the third Heroes game. As a mapmaker accustomed to using WoG with its scripts whenever I wanted to enhance the plot or gameplay with something unusual, I was simply amazed to discover how powerful all the same things can be when done with the purest "Breath of Death," seasoned with only a few externally modified objects...
At first glance, a classic long, "linear" adventure with a hero starting with a single peasant in a war against the whole world. In reality, the adventure turns out to be not so linear, although undoubtedly progressive.
Almost complete absence of various restrictions on the strategic part of the game, so characteristic of adventure maps. In the castles, almost all buildings are available (capitols are prohibited, in some places - high-level mage guilds, somewhere else something - but these are all "point attacks," not a general rule). Mines and external dwellings are plentiful. Taverns are in place...
Practically perfect balance. Neutrals guarding passages and all sorts of bonuses gain strength gradually, as you move away from the starting area. Battles are moderately difficult, but not hardcore. In almost five months of playing, I have not encountered a single place where it would be necessary to simply accumulate troops to move on, which many similar maps also suffer from. Here, there is quite enough of what you can realistically collect "along the way," if you don't slow down too much.
A strict ban on the aforementioned slowing down: despite the fact that the map does not have a special defeat condition, the author allocates a definite period of time for each of its stages, which does not allow for "tea ceremonies." We must complete the very first task assigned to us in no more than two and a half months, otherwise - 100% defeat (yes, that's how it is - without special defeat conditions, in pure SoD without any scripts!). Subsequent "deadlines" are even shorter, but they behave less harshly - simply at the right moment, the player is subjected to a sudden attack by several strong enemy heroes, with whom it is not so easy to cope without proper preparation. Despite the great importance of these moments for creating the appropriate tense-military atmosphere and timely development of the plot, it is here, in my opinion, that the only serious drawback lies: some of the established deadlines are simply too short. They do not in any way make the map impassable, but they can quite force you to replay fairly large sections of time. The fact is that after completing the first key task, the territories available to the player expand sharply and simply beg to be thoroughly explored. However, there is very little time for exploration: it is assumed that the player will immediately begin to actively prepare for the next threat, but, firstly, he is not yet aware of it, and, secondly, he has no idea where and in what sequence it is best to run to have time to get everything useful. In general, in its current version, the map requires extraordinary clairvoyance skills, thereby actively provoking the player to scout using the editor and cheats before completing the next section. However, the author has already promised to fix the situation in the coming days by creating an easier version with slightly shifted deadlines for enemy attacks.
Wide possibilities and an abundance of tactical tasks. The map is extraordinarily (again, for its class) generous with powerful artifacts and spells. Sometimes - even too generous (for example, most of the heroes released from prisons immediately have boots and gloves of speed, and the book of earth, when finally obtained, is given out in four copies at once). In the early days after receiving this gentleman's set, it seems that here it is - happiness for a true tank, that we are now invincible and the devil himself is not our brother. Several of the nearest battles with enemy heroes only strengthen this deceptive impression. But you don't have to be bored for long: even with such possibilities, we will still encounter difficult or even unsolvable combat tasks...
Thought out in every detail, beautifully described with a multitude of very appropriate texts, a constantly developing plot as the gameplay progresses. Here, I simply have to repeat myself: I never thought that a plot of this level was possible in pure SoD. And the point here is not that it is a revelation in itself or something incredibly original. No, here we encounter a rather standard warlike and pompous, although very well-written "high fantasy," full of quite stereotypical elves, gnomes, dragons, emperors, and wizards. The point is how all this is presented. How harmoniously and naturally the author's ideas are woven from the most standard heroic tasks, which for the most part are not perceived as "another seer's hut." If I had a hat on me now, I would definitely take it off and applaud standing... In the end, this is also the first known to me truly story map that has appeared on our Portal since the opening of the Cartographers League two years ago...
I recommend that everyone who has time and faith in their abilities play Paragon.

I've heard about the map ""Paragon"" for the second time now. On HP, it ranked among the best; the discussion there already has 162 comments, even though it was posted on January 1, 2013! I downloaded it once, then read about the twisted mapmaking technique the author used, got upset, :( deleted it, but then downloaded it again – let it be with a note about what technique was used. But I'm afraid there might be other oddities as well, however, the map looks very good, and it's worth trying to complete it. The author also wrote that there are alternative ways to complete it, so there shouldn't be any dead ends. I'll take his word for it! :)

PLOT-RELATED ones, i.e., those without which completing the map will become absolutely impossible:
* Books of Water, Fire, and Earth magic. There are 4 books of Earth; they are issued almost simultaneously, and losing even one will be fatal.