Hi folk
adam i will certainly take a look at your suggestions some of them seem very good.
Banedon there are a few different strategies but the blue border is there for such a strategy that you used. There are of course other ways but thats what i tried to do with the map is make it a challenge and make people think when playing it.
Valery is correct some of the stuff on the map is for the look of the map more than the usefulness. BUT THERE IS ANOTHER REASON!! This may sound wierd but as i have made a lot of maps i found sometimes that the heroes just dont move out there castles ect especially when you have them already starting with high stats. What the windmills and the water wheel do is draw them out each week. This then allows for the player to utilise such strategies that you spoke off running past sir mullich and using the blue border ect.
Also i reduced the amount of stacks to fight but added more to the fewer stacks. Also added some of adams suggestions.
Map tester needed please
Made a bit more progress with the map.
Teal turned out to be very difficult to vanquish. A lot of my battles vs. him came down to whether or not he will cast Mass Dispel. Sometimes he casts it on the second turn, whereupon I immediately restart. It may be just me, but I suggest removing Dispel from the hero. The battle against him is still a difficult one, and one in which losses are forced.
Tazar turned out to be a lot more ... weird. He refused to attack me in a castle, in fact he refused to fight me on even ground. But I had zero chance of beating him on even ground. I was all ready to go into another super-long guerilla warfare battle, but then it struck me to simply move most of my Archangels to another hero to tempt him to attack. It took a bit of persuasion and I found out that equipping a different artifact can make the AI not attack, but eventually I did get him to attack me and won without losing anything except the Amno Cart. Also learned a new tactic, if there's only one target left keeping it Berserk'ed means his hero will never cast again
About Tazar and Teleport, this may be too dangerous because with over 1.2k Mighty Gorgons when I fought him, if that stack is Teleported it is game over. I think Earthquake is a good idea, he could use a higher level Earth Magic though because with two tiles of the moat, the player has more leeway to defend. Also with high level Earthquake he can take out all the turrets so they don't ruin Blind tactics
Will keep playing.
Teal turned out to be very difficult to vanquish. A lot of my battles vs. him came down to whether or not he will cast Mass Dispel. Sometimes he casts it on the second turn, whereupon I immediately restart. It may be just me, but I suggest removing Dispel from the hero. The battle against him is still a difficult one, and one in which losses are forced.
Tazar turned out to be a lot more ... weird. He refused to attack me in a castle, in fact he refused to fight me on even ground. But I had zero chance of beating him on even ground. I was all ready to go into another super-long guerilla warfare battle, but then it struck me to simply move most of my Archangels to another hero to tempt him to attack. It took a bit of persuasion and I found out that equipping a different artifact can make the AI not attack, but eventually I did get him to attack me and won without losing anything except the Amno Cart. Also learned a new tactic, if there's only one target left keeping it Berserk'ed means his hero will never cast again
About Tazar and Teleport, this may be too dangerous because with over 1.2k Mighty Gorgons when I fought him, if that stack is Teleported it is game over. I think Earthquake is a good idea, he could use a higher level Earth Magic though because with two tiles of the moat, the player has more leeway to defend. Also with high level Earthquake he can take out all the turrets so they don't ruin Blind tactics
Will keep playing.
I'm a hypocrite because I suggested that all life is sacred and should not be wasted without good reason.
I finished the map (in the 5th month), and would have some more comments.
The underground part was too easy. I got two huge titan stacks (one on the barbarian land and one underground) which made all the fights very simple. Biggest army (except the two main enemy heroes) I fought was like 60 ghost dragons + 40 phoenix + fodder. I would drastically lower the number of joining titans.
I went with only 3 heroes and all of them could advance without losing anything. I did not even had to use the other heroes and many units (~ 700 mighty gorgons, 200 chaos hydras, 500 ancient behemots just to mention the biggest ones).
I could not pass the Den of Thieves at (99, 57), it blocks the way so I had to cheat fly into my spellbook there (this should be changed unless I missed something). Maybe this thing prevented the pink player to do something but I do not think it would mean such a big difference to make him challenging. His stats are high and he could not get more creatues in the rest of the underground as I see.
He was really stupid, his main hero was collecting the water wheels and did not even try to capture a castle after I conquered his conflux. Would have died due to the 7 days limit if I did not attack him. His 400 phoenixes were still way too weak compared to my titans so I killed him without losing anything again.
I do not see what is the underground prison guarded by the azures good for. The computer won't attack that huge army and the player won't need that hero at that stage of the game.
One note on Tazar: I agree that teleport would make him very dangerous and earthquake is also a good solution. If he has teleport, the player has to think more. Berserk the gorgons just before they come or similar tactics (but one high morale can be lethal though).
My only fear with the earthquake is that a blinded monster in the gate can also make the fight too easy. This battle could be tested separately to see what the AI does.
If Tazar does not attack you in the castle sometimes it helps if you just leave one archangel on your hero and put everything else into the garrison.
Edit: I just checked and Tazar already has earthquake. I do not know why he did not use that against me.
The underground part was too easy. I got two huge titan stacks (one on the barbarian land and one underground) which made all the fights very simple. Biggest army (except the two main enemy heroes) I fought was like 60 ghost dragons + 40 phoenix + fodder. I would drastically lower the number of joining titans.
I went with only 3 heroes and all of them could advance without losing anything. I did not even had to use the other heroes and many units (~ 700 mighty gorgons, 200 chaos hydras, 500 ancient behemots just to mention the biggest ones).
I could not pass the Den of Thieves at (99, 57), it blocks the way so I had to cheat fly into my spellbook there (this should be changed unless I missed something). Maybe this thing prevented the pink player to do something but I do not think it would mean such a big difference to make him challenging. His stats are high and he could not get more creatues in the rest of the underground as I see.
He was really stupid, his main hero was collecting the water wheels and did not even try to capture a castle after I conquered his conflux. Would have died due to the 7 days limit if I did not attack him. His 400 phoenixes were still way too weak compared to my titans so I killed him without losing anything again.
I do not see what is the underground prison guarded by the azures good for. The computer won't attack that huge army and the player won't need that hero at that stage of the game.
One note on Tazar: I agree that teleport would make him very dangerous and earthquake is also a good solution. If he has teleport, the player has to think more. Berserk the gorgons just before they come or similar tactics (but one high morale can be lethal though).
My only fear with the earthquake is that a blinded monster in the gate can also make the fight too easy. This battle could be tested separately to see what the AI does.
If Tazar does not attack you in the castle sometimes it helps if you just leave one archangel on your hero and put everything else into the garrison.
Edit: I just checked and Tazar already has earthquake. I do not know why he did not use that against me.
I ran into a roadblock with Orange. He's got over 800 Titans who can't be Blinded, can't be Berserked, can't be Forgetfulness'ed, and there's such a long road to his castles so I can't sneak past him to defend in the castle (not like I can do anything anyway, since he's got more than four times my creatures with much higher stats). Am I missing something?
Also I'm beginning to think that it's better to just ditch Alakazam and use a hero like Dracon, who has much higher stats to start with. Since I already have all the spells I'm likely to want (except Prayer) there's no point keeping Eagle Eye.
Also I'm beginning to think that it's better to just ditch Alakazam and use a hero like Dracon, who has much higher stats to start with. Since I already have all the spells I'm likely to want (except Prayer) there's no point keeping Eagle Eye.
I'm a hypocrite because I suggested that all life is sacred and should not be wasted without good reason.
Yes, I also started to use Dracon because he has higher stats and logistics + sorcery instead of eagle eye + scholar.
Against the orange for me what worked was to stay next to the blue border guard with Gunnar (having only 1 fast unit) and next turn (for me on 337) after opening the guard he reached the first city. Then with the help of town portal my other heroes killed the other orange heroes and captured all castles + dwellings. Of course the main orange hero takes the castles back but not all at the same time so with 2-3 heroes you can keep him busy. With 8 giant dwellings + hiring creatues from 4 castles (or 3 if the computer stays on day 7 in one of them) you can grow strong pretty fast.
For me the orange hero attacked me in his castle at 346.
Defender: Dracon (64, 63, 63, 70, 959 mana) 191 titan, 2 silver pegasi, 592 sharpshooter, 6 centaur, 121 archangel, 1 silver pegasi, 200 enchanter
Attacker: Sorsha (58, 66, 62, 65, 2296 mana) 204 titan, 2262 iron golem, 205 titan, 231 naga queen, 1162 archmage, 2924 obsidian gargoyle, 510 master genie
A few tries may be needed as high morale can separate the enemy stacks but finally I lost only the pegasi and centaurs.
From the numbers it seems you reached this area later in which case he has a high advantage in creature numbers so you need to weaken him for some weeks.
As I see there is no well in his area (only one very far which he does not use), only a magic sping so if you use it up every week (it can be used twice!), he will run out of mana (defend the castles with 6x1 fodder + 1 pegasi, he usually casts an earthquake + resurrection). I know this takes much time but if you need time to gather forces anyway you might as well weaken him every possible way.
Against the orange for me what worked was to stay next to the blue border guard with Gunnar (having only 1 fast unit) and next turn (for me on 337) after opening the guard he reached the first city. Then with the help of town portal my other heroes killed the other orange heroes and captured all castles + dwellings. Of course the main orange hero takes the castles back but not all at the same time so with 2-3 heroes you can keep him busy. With 8 giant dwellings + hiring creatues from 4 castles (or 3 if the computer stays on day 7 in one of them) you can grow strong pretty fast.
For me the orange hero attacked me in his castle at 346.
Defender: Dracon (64, 63, 63, 70, 959 mana) 191 titan, 2 silver pegasi, 592 sharpshooter, 6 centaur, 121 archangel, 1 silver pegasi, 200 enchanter
Attacker: Sorsha (58, 66, 62, 65, 2296 mana) 204 titan, 2262 iron golem, 205 titan, 231 naga queen, 1162 archmage, 2924 obsidian gargoyle, 510 master genie
A few tries may be needed as high morale can separate the enemy stacks but finally I lost only the pegasi and centaurs.
From the numbers it seems you reached this area later in which case he has a high advantage in creature numbers so you need to weaken him for some weeks.
As I see there is no well in his area (only one very far which he does not use), only a magic sping so if you use it up every week (it can be used twice!), he will run out of mana (defend the castles with 6x1 fodder + 1 pegasi, he usually casts an earthquake + resurrection). I know this takes much time but if you need time to gather forces anyway you might as well weaken him every possible way.
My game:
Month 5 Week 4 Day 3
Me: 247 Titans, 247 Enchanters, 70 Master Genies, 216 Archangels
Him: 880 Titans, 2033 Archmagi, 3776 Iron Golems, 516 Naga Queens, 4691 Obsidian Gargoyles, 1069 Master Genies
I'm impressed that you finished the map in 5 months because I'm so far away from completion lol. How'd you do it? Build multiple armies and advance on multiple fronts? Against armies of that size? At this rate I'll probably have to restart the map, something which to be honest I'm not interested in doing.
PS: Oh yeah about Tazar, I used 30 Archangels (which was enough to persuade him to attack). 1 Archangel won't work because it's the stack I used to snipe the Catapults. I was lucky enough though that his initial Earthquake + Catapult shot destroyed a section of the wall and ALL his units balled up around it, and Berserk literally turned 6 stacks into 1.
Month 5 Week 4 Day 3
Me: 247 Titans, 247 Enchanters, 70 Master Genies, 216 Archangels
Him: 880 Titans, 2033 Archmagi, 3776 Iron Golems, 516 Naga Queens, 4691 Obsidian Gargoyles, 1069 Master Genies
I'm impressed that you finished the map in 5 months because I'm so far away from completion lol. How'd you do it? Build multiple armies and advance on multiple fronts? Against armies of that size? At this rate I'll probably have to restart the map, something which to be honest I'm not interested in doing.
PS: Oh yeah about Tazar, I used 30 Archangels (which was enough to persuade him to attack). 1 Archangel won't work because it's the stack I used to snipe the Catapults. I was lucky enough though that his initial Earthquake + Catapult shot destroyed a section of the wall and ALL his units balled up around it, and Berserk literally turned 6 stacks into 1.
I'm a hypocrite because I suggested that all life is sacred and should not be wasted without good reason.
I think my lucky decision was that I left the rampart area once I saw their army (something like 210 gold dragons against ~80 archangels + ~80 titans - not to mention the grand elves and other stuff). I tried it and the dragons killed all my angels with a lucky strike - and I said "no, thank you. see you later". At that point I felt I was too slow and the computer players have grown too strong.
Here is the timeline how I advanced:
313: kill teal
316: kill 3 underground heroes (posted previously the numbers)
323: capture two empty rampart towns + kill Ufretin, secondary hero hides behind blue gate so easy to capture them again and again - Kyrre does not get more units (and loses 14 elves every time he takes back a castle).
326: kill Tazar (my army was 90 archangels + 80 titans)
Then capture other fortress towns, rescue Gelu (after town portal to rampart area) and go towards tower area.
337: capture wizard towns
341: kill purple
346: kill titan army
411: kill orange (did inferno area in two days with a suprise attack)
If you managed to capture a tower you already see the map, so I think it's not much spoiler if I tell you that on the tan island you get a huge number of titans (300) which helps a lot.
417: kill tan
512: go underground (I wasted almost a month by sailing and collecting artifacts which were not needed but I did not know that)
Finished the map at the end of the 5th month.
You can see that after killing the titan army the map did not take too much time, I think that army was one of the hardest to kill.
One more note: If you did not do it yet, you can assemble the Angelic Alliance, maybe that also helps a little.
Armor and shield are on the teal coast, sandals on Ufretin, necklace on Tazar, sword on Gelu, helm on island just below the sharpshooter island.
Here is the timeline how I advanced:
313: kill teal
316: kill 3 underground heroes (posted previously the numbers)
323: capture two empty rampart towns + kill Ufretin, secondary hero hides behind blue gate so easy to capture them again and again - Kyrre does not get more units (and loses 14 elves every time he takes back a castle).
326: kill Tazar (my army was 90 archangels + 80 titans)
Then capture other fortress towns, rescue Gelu (after town portal to rampart area) and go towards tower area.
337: capture wizard towns
341: kill purple
346: kill titan army
411: kill orange (did inferno area in two days with a suprise attack)
If you managed to capture a tower you already see the map, so I think it's not much spoiler if I tell you that on the tan island you get a huge number of titans (300) which helps a lot.
417: kill tan
512: go underground (I wasted almost a month by sailing and collecting artifacts which were not needed but I did not know that)
Finished the map at the end of the 5th month.
You can see that after killing the titan army the map did not take too much time, I think that army was one of the hardest to kill.
One more note: If you did not do it yet, you can assemble the Angelic Alliance, maybe that also helps a little.
Armor and shield are on the teal coast, sandals on Ufretin, necklace on Tazar, sword on Gelu, helm on island just below the sharpshooter island.
I stomped Purple without losing a single unit. Killed all his units bar one, spammed Resurrect and lost nothing. Using Dracon as the main hero really makes a huge difference; he has over 70 in each stat, way higher than Alakazam. I don't know if it's just me, but if Purple should be defeated before Orange, it might be advisable to linearize the map so. Perhaps removing Resurrect from the player might be advisable too.
Can't find the secret area ... in fact I can't even find it on the map editor @_@
Will keep playing.
Can't find the secret area ... in fact I can't even find it on the map editor @_@
Will keep playing.
I'm a hypocrite because I suggested that all life is sacred and should not be wasted without good reason.
Playing difficulty: impossible, time 7+ months, but i really did not hurry.
Start had not much troubles, even naga garrison fell in first try. Enemy from Camelot caught me off guard, but won nevertheless with some losses. First surprise was when reaching the 4 key heroes, who seemed unreasonably strong. As i said before, Drakon was easiest and therefore tried to take swamp as first, but could not. After some tries switched to Castle (Teal player). First steps on his area were problematic and required many reloads, but once i found the blue gates it got easier.
Teal: killed secondary heroes and played cat'n'mouse with the main until strong enough to beat him. A King Arthur hidding behind blue border and constantly capturing towns. In the meanwhile Recruit hero sailed and explored the ocean. Main hero gathered troops and killed the rest of undergroung key heroes.
Tower and rampart: Once teal was gone, decided to go for towers. Released Dracon and captured first town before realizing there is a knight with tower troops who has roughly triple the skills i have and four or five fold larger army. Town portaled away from tower area, but due to tower grail, i now saw movements of all enemies easily. A lot of help was that. At the same time a secondary hero started to harass ramparts, by killing his secondaries and taking towns near the safe landing zone. By town portaling in and out, occasionally took all towns and also reached the other end of the island and freed Gelu. About this time i had serious troubles with income. Lot of troops to hire, but no gold. The problem solved by the end of next chapter.
Death of Orange. Orange wizard came after me as there were no blue guard to stop him anymore. Once his two main heroes were on boat near my start area (Arcadia and camelot), navigation expert secondary hero went to capture his towns. So it happened that I took 3 towers in the south of the map and Orange took my starting are maps (including the on you have at the start of map). Orange player also got light blue key. Inferno (also under orange flag) sailed out to sea. Me captured inferno towns. Inferno main armies tried to pick up dragonfather artifact, but was vanished by its invisible defenders. I guess the hero was Xeron or whotever was needed for one quest guard on dragon utopia island. Even after complete ellimination of orange, the guard claimed that Xeron is still out there and no way to pass. The other orange main hero - kinght with tower troops came to sea again and me, as you guessed, went to take his last towns. Blocked some narrow landing zones with my heroes (digging is cheap, so i just stood there) and so he run out of 7 days with no town. About the same time lured rampart's main to attack my main and in siege battle managed to defeat him.
Barbarians. Went to their island and picked 300 titans for a secondary hero planning to try first without their help. Opened blue border and town portaled away. Crag Hack went fishing, and my main rushed to their land (thanks to admirals hat the boarding/landing was a nice way to get ahead of AI). Kilgor had orcs and ogres only and not much problem. All other towns taken in a blitz. Mr. Hack was still fishing and while I made towards the portal to underground i had a chance to fight him. Tried and won, but reloaded and let him die off due to 7 days without towns.
Underground and swamp. Thanks to thieves guild I had info that my army is stronger than underground players although conflux and undead immunities may cause a problem. Still so confident that dismissed the 500 titans that joined for free. Sandro of blue needed reloads, me being a siege defender and still caused losses. After that it was much only cleaning up and finding way in the network. As noted by Adam, one way was blocked by a thieves guild, so i used a cheat too. Do not remember anymore whether dragon utopias can give disabled artifacts (why are most artifacts disabled BTW?) or not. During this time also went to swamp area and defeated them without much effort. Army for last fights was ca 600 titans, 250 aangels, 1000 sharpshooters, 500 enhancers and some random minor stuff.
Concluding thoughts:
I do not remember any map requiring nearly as many reloads as this. Particularly the ca 2-3 month of gameplay. At some times it got frustrating. At the same time the crazy armies forced me to think outside the box, which i liked. I am not sure that a casual player likes this map and challenge, but on the other hand none who plays homm3 at year 2011 is probably a "casual" player...
The final underground players need a boost. It may be only a problem of activity as they had not cleared much and some towns were full of unhired creatures. At the same time purple and orange may need a reduction in power.
About the 4 key heroes in the beginning. If you intent to have all four paths playable you need some corrections i think. You can get 3rd hero and town portal only from Arthur and Dracon (doubt that Gunnar can get to Gelu without being caught). Swamp area gives you no hero or any free joiners and to me it seems impossible to take it as first of the four areas. The choice is IMO strongly biased towards teal as first victim and only thereafter the other 3 can be dealt in whatever order. It is fine, but could be more strongly hinted by story and warnings.
Start had not much troubles, even naga garrison fell in first try. Enemy from Camelot caught me off guard, but won nevertheless with some losses. First surprise was when reaching the 4 key heroes, who seemed unreasonably strong. As i said before, Drakon was easiest and therefore tried to take swamp as first, but could not. After some tries switched to Castle (Teal player). First steps on his area were problematic and required many reloads, but once i found the blue gates it got easier.
Teal: killed secondary heroes and played cat'n'mouse with the main until strong enough to beat him. A King Arthur hidding behind blue border and constantly capturing towns. In the meanwhile Recruit hero sailed and explored the ocean. Main hero gathered troops and killed the rest of undergroung key heroes.
Tower and rampart: Once teal was gone, decided to go for towers. Released Dracon and captured first town before realizing there is a knight with tower troops who has roughly triple the skills i have and four or five fold larger army. Town portaled away from tower area, but due to tower grail, i now saw movements of all enemies easily. A lot of help was that. At the same time a secondary hero started to harass ramparts, by killing his secondaries and taking towns near the safe landing zone. By town portaling in and out, occasionally took all towns and also reached the other end of the island and freed Gelu. About this time i had serious troubles with income. Lot of troops to hire, but no gold. The problem solved by the end of next chapter.
Death of Orange. Orange wizard came after me as there were no blue guard to stop him anymore. Once his two main heroes were on boat near my start area (Arcadia and camelot), navigation expert secondary hero went to capture his towns. So it happened that I took 3 towers in the south of the map and Orange took my starting are maps (including the on you have at the start of map). Orange player also got light blue key. Inferno (also under orange flag) sailed out to sea. Me captured inferno towns. Inferno main armies tried to pick up dragonfather artifact, but was vanished by its invisible defenders. I guess the hero was Xeron or whotever was needed for one quest guard on dragon utopia island. Even after complete ellimination of orange, the guard claimed that Xeron is still out there and no way to pass. The other orange main hero - kinght with tower troops came to sea again and me, as you guessed, went to take his last towns. Blocked some narrow landing zones with my heroes (digging is cheap, so i just stood there) and so he run out of 7 days with no town. About the same time lured rampart's main to attack my main and in siege battle managed to defeat him.
Barbarians. Went to their island and picked 300 titans for a secondary hero planning to try first without their help. Opened blue border and town portaled away. Crag Hack went fishing, and my main rushed to their land (thanks to admirals hat the boarding/landing was a nice way to get ahead of AI). Kilgor had orcs and ogres only and not much problem. All other towns taken in a blitz. Mr. Hack was still fishing and while I made towards the portal to underground i had a chance to fight him. Tried and won, but reloaded and let him die off due to 7 days without towns.
Underground and swamp. Thanks to thieves guild I had info that my army is stronger than underground players although conflux and undead immunities may cause a problem. Still so confident that dismissed the 500 titans that joined for free. Sandro of blue needed reloads, me being a siege defender and still caused losses. After that it was much only cleaning up and finding way in the network. As noted by Adam, one way was blocked by a thieves guild, so i used a cheat too. Do not remember anymore whether dragon utopias can give disabled artifacts (why are most artifacts disabled BTW?) or not. During this time also went to swamp area and defeated them without much effort. Army for last fights was ca 600 titans, 250 aangels, 1000 sharpshooters, 500 enhancers and some random minor stuff.
Concluding thoughts:
I do not remember any map requiring nearly as many reloads as this. Particularly the ca 2-3 month of gameplay. At some times it got frustrating. At the same time the crazy armies forced me to think outside the box, which i liked. I am not sure that a casual player likes this map and challenge, but on the other hand none who plays homm3 at year 2011 is probably a "casual" player...
The final underground players need a boost. It may be only a problem of activity as they had not cleared much and some towns were full of unhired creatures. At the same time purple and orange may need a reduction in power.
About the 4 key heroes in the beginning. If you intent to have all four paths playable you need some corrections i think. You can get 3rd hero and town portal only from Arthur and Dracon (doubt that Gunnar can get to Gelu without being caught). Swamp area gives you no hero or any free joiners and to me it seems impossible to take it as first of the four areas. The choice is IMO strongly biased towards teal as first victim and only thereafter the other 3 can be dealt in whatever order. It is fine, but could be more strongly hinted by story and warnings.
I'm very close to completing the map, but I ran into a roadblock. I can't access the top NE corner of the underworld; the road is blocked by a Thieve's Guild. It's possible that some hero has Fly or Angel Wings or something and I'm supposed get it off him, but if that's the case then it's definitely not well indicated and / or my inventory was full so Angel Wings didn't end up on me.
Will write more later, but suggest you remove Artifact Merchants from all the towns so there's no need to put up with so many artifacts
Will write more later, but suggest you remove Artifact Merchants from all the towns so there's no need to put up with so many artifacts
I'm a hypocrite because I suggested that all life is sacred and should not be wasted without good reason.
We also did not find a way into the NE corner, probably the Den of Thieves is not placed correctly.
I would leave one artifact merchant in either the starting town or Arcadia so the player can sell the junk but I would also remove all the others. I ended up with my main hero having full backpack which is not a good thing.
I would leave one artifact merchant in either the starting town or Arcadia so the player can sell the junk but I would also remove all the others. I ended up with my main hero having full backpack which is not a good thing.
Can't complete the map then if I can't get into NE corner ... Anyway:
I think the map, especially the beginning, is a great one - but the difficulty needs some tweaking. The first skirmish vs. Castle was fun, the next battle against Fortress was fun too, but after that the rest got boring quite quickly. Admittedly Orange was too strong for me to fight first time, but after I beat Purple and assembled the Angelic Alliance he just scampered away from me.
One problem is that I did all these battles the same way: kill, not caring about casualties, and then blind + spam Resurrect. Everything dies that way without losses. The first battle against Castle was a challenge because of no Resurrect, while the next battle against Fortress was a challenge because Expert Tactics made it impossible to fight him outside a castle, yet within a castle the towers tended to spoil Blind tactics. After that though everything was easy, and my toughest battles were against neutrals that were immune to Blind (Gold Dragons, Azure Dragons). I don't think it has anything to do with the Swarm of Titans joining; after all most of the Necropolis armies had living units I could blind. I suggest making a border guard or something require the Blind scroll, or if that makes things too difficult then remove Resurrect from easy acquisition. Alternatively, force the player to equip the Power of the Dragon Father somehow (maybe by removing Angelic Alliance), which I think makes it impossible to res his own units.
There's quite a bit of fluff that I honestly think aren't needed. Most obvious would be all the flotsam on the seas. Gold island, Dragon cities that give endless pouches of gold, etc may not be needed either, and it's hard to see much use in Armageddon's Blade when armies are so big. Many of the stats buildings later in the map are superfluous as well, because the player will have near max stats anyway.
I ran into a bug opening the Pandora's Box on Dragon island, it set my attack stat to zero (from 99). Don't know if this is intrinsic to the map or not.
If people sailing around is a problem (like what Pitsu experienced) then you could try removing Summon Boat from the AI.
I found Cover of Darkness from the Necropolis towns really annoying.
I think with some tweaking this map will be really fun
I think the map, especially the beginning, is a great one - but the difficulty needs some tweaking. The first skirmish vs. Castle was fun, the next battle against Fortress was fun too, but after that the rest got boring quite quickly. Admittedly Orange was too strong for me to fight first time, but after I beat Purple and assembled the Angelic Alliance he just scampered away from me.
One problem is that I did all these battles the same way: kill, not caring about casualties, and then blind + spam Resurrect. Everything dies that way without losses. The first battle against Castle was a challenge because of no Resurrect, while the next battle against Fortress was a challenge because Expert Tactics made it impossible to fight him outside a castle, yet within a castle the towers tended to spoil Blind tactics. After that though everything was easy, and my toughest battles were against neutrals that were immune to Blind (Gold Dragons, Azure Dragons). I don't think it has anything to do with the Swarm of Titans joining; after all most of the Necropolis armies had living units I could blind. I suggest making a border guard or something require the Blind scroll, or if that makes things too difficult then remove Resurrect from easy acquisition. Alternatively, force the player to equip the Power of the Dragon Father somehow (maybe by removing Angelic Alliance), which I think makes it impossible to res his own units.
There's quite a bit of fluff that I honestly think aren't needed. Most obvious would be all the flotsam on the seas. Gold island, Dragon cities that give endless pouches of gold, etc may not be needed either, and it's hard to see much use in Armageddon's Blade when armies are so big. Many of the stats buildings later in the map are superfluous as well, because the player will have near max stats anyway.
I ran into a bug opening the Pandora's Box on Dragon island, it set my attack stat to zero (from 99). Don't know if this is intrinsic to the map or not.
If people sailing around is a problem (like what Pitsu experienced) then you could try removing Summon Boat from the AI.
I found Cover of Darkness from the Necropolis towns really annoying.
I think with some tweaking this map will be really fun
I'm a hypocrite because I suggested that all life is sacred and should not be wasted without good reason.
Hi guys glad you all are enjoying the map and i have fixed many issues like the thieves guild and the underground armies. you guys have been a great help in my tweaks. Unfortunately i did plan on finishing all the tweaks ect but i was rushed into hospital with an heart attack. I have just got out and feeling weak but better. Glad to be alive and i will work on the finishing touches once i feel up to it.
The map is designed to be either incredibly difficult or not so hard if you pull out all the stops and use all kinds of strategies. It also makes you really think about every battle but still allows you to decide and take different strategies which can either lead to good or bad outcomes. I really do appreciate everyones input and there ideas and hopefully the finished map will be one to remember.
Thank you so much for helping me guys. If it wasnt for such dedicated players as you all maps wouldnt be made but through your imput and suggestions us mapmakers can really try and push maps to there bounderies.
maygwan
The map is designed to be either incredibly difficult or not so hard if you pull out all the stops and use all kinds of strategies. It also makes you really think about every battle but still allows you to decide and take different strategies which can either lead to good or bad outcomes. I really do appreciate everyones input and there ideas and hopefully the finished map will be one to remember.
Thank you so much for helping me guys. If it wasnt for such dedicated players as you all maps wouldnt be made but through your imput and suggestions us mapmakers can really try and push maps to there bounderies.
maygwan
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