Shadow of the Dragons

[cjlee]

Recently I have been replaying some old Heroes 4 maps.

Now I am playing Shadow of the Dragons, a really epic and gigantic work by Qrystal Dragon. It is truly a well forested map aka it is full of those lovely level up trees.

Right now it is the first week of month 3. I have wiped out all my underground foes, and am being utterly decimated on the surface now by the Dragon faction. I am being forced to go back and replay an earlier savegame.

This makes me wonder.

My heroes are now barely level 29. I deliberately wanted to avoid using all level up arenas and trees, and my current army is 'natural' aka whatever I built up along the way to killing all other opponents, without special trips made to level up.

The first time I played this map years ago, I did not use a single tree. I still managed to win, by maxing my use of level up arenas so that my army consisted of 6 level 40+ heroes by the time I went to the surface. I know that should I choose to use the trees, I'd easily have an army of godly level 70s, and probably every battle could be fought and won using autocombat.

Now I'd like to ask you guys, since most of you are better than me in playing. What were the lowest level your heroes were when you attacked the upper level on this map? Can you guys actually win this map with an army of level 20s and 30s without usage of a single level up structure or tree? Any tips will be appreciated. I'm playing on hard and the enemy's numbers of level 4 creatures are all in the hundreds. Because this is only start of month 3, my own creatures aren't in any particularly big number.

[BoardGuest808888]

I remember playing this map. But I don't remember how I beat it though. Regardless, I never pass a chance of power ups for heroes. Perhaps that's the key ?

[cjlee]

I remember playing this map. But I don't remember how I beat it though. Regardless, I never pass a chance of power ups for heroes. Perhaps that's the key ?

Its one thing to take all power ups. It's another to take all level ups. If you take all level ups, map becomes overly easy even on championship. There are actually only a few really tough battles on the surface, involving enemy generals with huge stacks.

I found that even taking half of all trees is enough to make the map too easy. But not taking a single tree is impossible. The natural experience available on the map is simply insufficient to prepare your heroes for the surface battles.