If I remember correctly, Clone is rather useful here: you can clone your Archangels and resurrect 'til the end of time.
(I hope I don't confuse it with other TEW map)
No idea, he will finish the map in 1/5 the time is done usually, so skills need to fit such rush. I don't remember if berserk is available, but Water is indeed more useful than Air here. Mass haste can be replaced by mass prayer (only 1 speed difference but stats increase too) then clone/resurrect is a save mana/time thing.
I only feel sorry for that tavern reload. I mean, whats the point to show us you reloaded until the good hero is in, just use the invite tavern; if you recruit available heroes, then is no less of a cheat than show quick battle results or creatures movement. Thats masochism what you do there.
It can be considered as a cheat only when you force heroes unflagged for your faction to join.
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Air Magic is close to useless without the travel spells for these kind of games. Of course, there's a way to get them in TEW2 but I decided against building the Grail in one of the Conflux towns seeing as the author's intent was to not make them available. The other "good" spells (Disrupting ray, Precision) don't gain much from having Air Magic and in any case, Frenzy is better
But yes, Clone/Prayer/Bless/Forgetfulness/Waterwalk/Cure are much better for this kind of map. It's even in the hints of day 1 by Darklord himself.
Berserk is only available through the Tome of Fire... which you only get at 95% completion and have to give back before the last (anti-climatic) fight.
Regarding tavern... well before HDmod the feature was not there. You could count tiles, do Quick Combat (with save, and then realize the stupid AI spent your spell points so reload and do it yourself) but not hire any hero. I do like the invite hero feature and usually will use it - but I wanted, masochistically, to keep the vanilla aspect for at least this portion of the rush. The good news is I'm not going to bore the readers anymore with videos about tavern hiring
Berserk is the only spell I will never use, you won't find it in any of my maps neither. I just despise it since I found it is the only spell missing from AI fight scripts. So this is like going to a box fight with a gun.
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Salamandre said:Berserk is the only spell I will never use, you won't find it in any of my maps neither. I just despise it since I found it is the only spell missing from AI fight scripts. So this is like going to a box fight with a gun.
Yah, yah. We all probably heard that one before comming from you. Problem is: you are not all map makers, other people make maps too and some don't share your ideas. I wonder if you could win Wayfarer without it? Even better, a Wizard's Tale, the garrison with the nagas. Will you pretend there is any other way of winning that battle that is not abusing Berserk?
Is not a matter of opinion, is a matter of functionality, you seem to confuse one with another.
Look what happens in the game: AI is scripted to react to various situations, and therefore those situations are ranged in priorities, they have an ID, a list, an order. It will equip resistance artifacts, it will equip orbs, it will go for offense and armorer, it will retreat if you are too strong so he can keep artefacts, it will use town portal to get additional army, and so on.
Now, on this list, there is one thing which lacks, is berserk. AI has no code concerning it. It does not know that must wear badge of courage to prevent, it does not know how to counter, because for AI Berserk simply does not exist.
So, while I can understand that mapmakers let berserk inside 10 years ago because it was fun then they had no clue about the major flaw, I certainly look more suspiciously at a recent map needing berserk to win. And of course, I won Wayfarer without berserk, if you need berserk to win a fight, then the fight is bad setup. Sure I didn't make the record times chinese do, but I have an allergy to maps requiring 1 billion saves in order to break records.
Sure I enjoy this thread because is tew2, but when I read for example Bird's walkthrough to Wayfarer done in 6 months, I see no interest to follow a story where he must load round 1 until his enchanters cast slow, then next cast must be haste, if not, reload all. Then, once, his ballista must take out all 3 towers without opening any hole in the wall, then be destroyed. This is like 0,000001 probability.
I call this cheating, moreover is a terrible waste of time. If you are going to do so, script enchanters to cast slow then haste and you don't lose 5 hours.
bloodsucker said:Even better, a Wizard's Tale, the garrison with the nagas. Will you pretend there is any other way of winning that battle that is not abusing Berserk?
Probably not, but what's the point in creating a battle vs 15000 nagas which you must win with berserk? Is it hard to kite them and put together? No, even a 5 yo can do it. As I said, bad setup ask for bad actions.
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Salamandre said:Is not a matter of opinion, is a matter of functionality, you seem to confuse one with another.
I don't, I totally accept your reasons. I truly think Berserk is a broken spell, kind of like ghosts are broken creature or Cloack of the Undead King is a broken artifact. On the other hand, I don't believe it is going to stop anyone from requiring it to win some of the battles in their maps or at least being themselves unable to win without using it. Unless you're talking about superpuzzlers like Nautilus and Aeris Quamarine, of course.
Too much happens in these days so I'll mainly outline the goals and give a few examples here and there when something warrants it.
213
Christian continues toward the Angel dwelling.
Maximus visits the Fountain before preparing to sail.
But first, the Admiral's Hat must be transferred from Dessa.
Maximus now boards the ship but God of Water takes back the hat so that the new heroes can continue on their trek.
Maximus heads over to Brother Tuck, he has a few extra movement which lets him grab some gold along the way.
A small trick to generate more movement: bring a slow troop before boarding a ship then dismiss it in the water.
The result is that Kyrre (who started 1 tile behind Dessa) can now go a few tiles further.
The Admiral's Hat must then be brought back over to the other side... I used the only 2 heroes with Earth Magic. TP+hire new hero who brings the hat to the guys moving over.
At the end of the day, heroes are all over the place, having made good progress. Longbow has done his job and is dismissed.
214
A relatively easy fight for Maximus. After the fight, he will replenish spell points at the well and go free Marion afterwards.
Christian captures the Angels dwelling. I guess that expert Luck can sometimes be useful
The Admiral's Hat is transferred towards Kyrre to board ships. All four newcomers will get into water this turn... Kyrre gets to do a bit of fighting for extra experience as I want her to develop first.
Their destination will be the Learning Stones over there. (Except Isra - needs Pathfinding before leveling up)
Meanwhile, I finally find some movement to pick up the Dragonbone greaves
215
New heroes...
Maximus refreshes and frees Marion as I already said.
Meanwhile I hire Gelu to make OP sharpshooters. They cost an arm unfortunately.
The next process involves swapping Christian (picked up Angel's dwelling near Longbow) and (God of Water) GoW's (has Tome of Earth) places with those of Marion & Maximus. Both now know Summon Boat and Waterwalk so they can leave this area.
First GoW switches place with Marion.
Then Christian takes the Tome of Earth from Marion and switches with GoW. GoW then brings it to Maximus.
Maximus heads straight towards Mongolia and Marion will go upgrade her skills.
216
Marion gets some new skills from the seer huts.
The 'crew' heads toward the starting area. GoW heads north towards Unknown and Christian goes to sea, the same place where Maximus arrived near Brother Tuck's area.
A few minor fights for Maximus while starting the trip towards Mongolia.
Watch around 1 minute in the video, what can I say...
I reloaded and gave the Boots to Marion instead of having two of them on Maximus
217
Xyron's a tough customer and he's supposedly "fast"... but not enough! I disregard the peasants' suggestions and run for it.
GoW gets back in action from this angle and hires some Monks (twice since new week starts). While Christian comes ashore as well.
Marion uses the Tome of Earth and some troops to get a head start on levels, clearing creatures near Brother Tuck's area. Usual 4 troop split and forcefield. At the end of the day she has expert Intelligence so she can get decent spell points and be of some use already. Her only problem right now is the lack of Advanced Wisdom which means she can't learn Resurrection/Waterwalk from Prince John
221
Dessa/Kyrre/Andra come ashore. GoW, Christian and Marion do some movement to get in useful positions for later turns.
Maximus summons a boat to cross the lake (movement in water is more economical as 100 out of 5250 is a lot less than 100 out of 3370 movement points so at the end more remain) and takes a small intentional detour to grab this Mercury before moving on.
222
The fights vs. Archdevils are actually pretty easy with the current troop count. Spell points aren't really an issue at the moment, there'll be an opportunity to get more of them soon.
Marion finally gets here and grabs this crystal cavern before TP to Unknown and giving the Earth book to GoW who then brings boots and troops to Kyrre. Slow troops left in the Gem pond.
223
GoW does some administrative business before swapping Tome of Earth to Marion and ending in Unknown for the turn.
Scouts are really slow in this map, Robin Hood is long gone! Maximus captures the Inferno town (after a hilariously poor fight).
Marion TPs to Maximus's location and swaps the Tome of Earth for his Admiral's Hat, having opened up the guard quest with the +6 Shield and grabbed 200k gold and explores ahead.
Maximus then takes a moment to double spell points.
Dessa goes to the swan pond to kill the Dendroids.
Isra is slow.
Kyrre kills remaining creatures in this area from the beginning.
Andra gets to 5k experience and then will learn some skills.
Christian brings some troops to Dessa for the fight.
So far, things are progressing very well. The new heroes are starting to develop, there's a decent stash of gold/gems to be spent and everyone is in an area where they serve some purpose. The Mage Guild lvl 3 will be built this turn in the Inferno town and lvl 4 next turn to get Clone spell (this was verified at game start).
Sadly, there's a wasted day here and I couldn't find a solution. Ideally, a hero would take Maximus's spot and proceed on towards Mongolia. The problem was that there's about 600 spell points (iIrc) that need to be used before grabbing the next town. At the time being, only Maximus himself can pull this... so a day is lost.
An alternative solution would have been to get a second hero following Maximus initially so that 2 heroes could share the workload towards the first Mongolia town (Marion&GoW). But this was also not possible because the 2 candidates to follow (GoW and Christian) had just switched places with Marion&Maximus. Slowing down Marion's development would be a problem for later on so I took the 1 day loss here instead.
Salamandre said:When we know that 99% of people playing this map finish with only main hero > level 1, this is awesome.
I thought I had messed the map but there should really be possible to build a tavern in Princetown?!
In the underground there is a gold mine that is guarded by ents and a few other battles. They couldn't be done and still be on time to conquer a town before day seven and now another hero must take them, so at least Christian should level up, unless you came back with main hero to pick some minor stuff.
Sure you can, but the map is designed as solo adventure; the fact that only the tome gives town portal makes it very tedious to start a multi heroes adventure. Which is why I admire what is done here.
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A tavern in Princetown would be handy, but I've not seen a version with it enabled. I took the map from maps4heroes FWIW.
Regarding the underground gold mine: during week 1 it's impossible because creatures are too strong. And in any case, I wouldn't want to take it because it would:
-delay development of other heroes
-slow down progress towards Unknown and everything else
As a matter of fact, Kyrre will kill all creatures near the gold mine but I don't even take the time to flag it
RoseKavalier said:A tavern in Princetown would be handy, but I've not seen a version with it enabled.
Ops! I meant Kings Castle, but it is really enabled in that version. Since mapmaker has been giving you some enhanced heroes I tought it was a mistake, a kind of bug.
I just checked and the map isn't caped. What level do you expect main to be when finnishing? I guess those crazy levels above 72.
The only non-level-1 heroes I could get were the AI heroes that were already defeated (all of Red) + The Guard (green) so far. As I kill more of them, I will start hiring the ones with Earth Magic and they will garrison castles a bit all over the place so that I can use these guys to recruit troops and other stuff
From my 543 attempt in post #1, I think Dessa reached level 50 by using the Trees of Knowledge.
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223 Part II
So there's a small detail I didn't show in my previous update concerning where Maximus ends up... All I said was he doubled spell points.
lol what? wrong direction?
224
Spanked. This was possible because mapmaker gave a spellbook to Xyron but the only spell he was given is Waterwalk
Some comments about the fight:
-the RNG became "fixed" at the start of the fight, meaning I would get the exact same results so long as I did the same actions e.g. casting slow right at the start was resisted by several troops. As a result I found the pattern which gave me victory
-the stack with 2 ADs was important in controlling the movement of the AI. It very much prefers to inflict more damage even if it kills him in the end
-stats are so low that Frenzy is useless in the beginning. When I ran through here I didn't use Frenzy/Disrupting Ray to try and save spell points but it didn't help much.
-excessive slow/blind is conservative play in case enemy resists spell
-killing the Efreet 1st was done so that Pit Lords couldn't resurrect as many demons. Other candidate would have been Gogs so that I didn't have to cast Forgetfulness again
-Forcefield & Blind are OP
-Xyron walks into the Garrison and leaves the imps behind. This is very helpful: 1 less stack to kill now and more exp for one of the developing heroes
I'm slightly guilty of misleading in the last update (regarding the wasted day) but I thought it'd be a nice little surprise But hey, I gave a small hint last time:
It takes several days to come here from Longbow therefore one "wasted" day was more than made up for.
Kyrre kills some more creatures and skips the gold mine.
Dessa kills the trees and grab whatever's there before getting his MP eaten by the pond.
Andra and Isra pursue their goals from last time.
Christian picks up slow troops and moves closer to remaining creatures.
GoW/Marion shift a bit around without anything worth showing. Maximus will finally go to Mongolia and replenish his spell points at the well. Spell points are a concern before the first Mongolian city is taken so I will keep another hero with him to clear some creatures so he can keep most of his refreshed spell points.
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Short update but it took a good amount of time to replicate the fight - one of the hardest of the rush (it's pretty easy if you survive the first 3 rounds).
Next time will start the conquest of Mongolia for real.
Nicely done, I think Darklord was more focused on the role playing situation, Xeron pursuing you through border gates so he didn't think about possible early battle (will you do the wizard on cursed ground too?).
Anyway, this shows what we already know, magic hero on single-player maps rules all others; intelligence + blind + disrupting ray + force field is a 100% win combo.
Yet I guess his resistance skill made you nervous a bit.
Yes, the resistance possibility made me play conservatively for certain. I had a failed attempt right before the successful record attempt because Blind was resisted
Short answer:
no
Long answer:
Merlin is a tough customer and there are a few tiles where it is possible to face him off cursed ground before getting the black tent.
But the real questions that must be asked are:
- is the army available at that time?
- do I save time by killing him early?
For the first question, one must consider that going to Merlin from King's Castle takes about 4 days which means 4 days without army - I don't see how this would be possible without slowing down other progress. Similarly, a hero chain to bring the troops swiftly in/out would require a diversion from the main progress lines.
For the second question... the only thing that speeds you up while killing Merlin is to get another pair of boots (+6 heavenly helm and +2 sandals are irrelevant at that point). There are no progress quests requiring his death.
Furthermore, given that his castle must be taken for victory (and that this can only be done around the time where the Black Tent is accessed), it means one hero is needed to go back over there anyway at some point.
Xyron's death OTOH is required to continue progress in the barbarian lands.
These turns are hell. I'll show a bit of the zigzagging that goes on.
225
Marion kills the first encounter and then Maximus can go replenish SP (spell points).
The Tome of Earth ended up in GoW's hands, who brings it to Kyrre.
Kyrre goes to hall of gods to get some primary skills and will TP out next turn.
GoW now has the AA stack and gives it to Dessa.
Andra gets the learning stone then his secondary skills then goes east a bit to kill some sharpshooters.
Marion came over here for the Necklace which will be useful at a later point...
"100 thousand Greater Basilisks"... maybe next turn.
226
Now. Humor from the mapmaker.
Maximus pushes on towards the first city. I don't pickup what I don't need to to have more progress. Finally he enters this hidden path which everyone missed in their first go
Kyrre grabbing some bonuses before TP to Longbow to swap the Tome of Earth to someone else.
Easy fights for Marion and for Dessa.
227
Maximus's progress into capturing the first Mongolian city. If it weren't for the city capture, GoW would have done this part of the story but more SPoints were needed.
This is Andra's destination. The boots of levitation from Xyron are certainly handy. Troops and artifacts are given back to Christian afterwards who is nearby.
Tie your seatbelt...
GoW gives Maximus a ride.
Maximus gives Kyrre a ride and since it is 227, he can double spell points again at the start of the new week.
Kyrre goes to the Inferno town, learns Clone and kills the imps left in the garrison.
Now Kyrre must visit the seer huts to learn Water Magic.
Next Kyrre heads to Princetown to slay trolls.
Finally Kyrre is as tired as I am atm and sleeps in Forest. The Tome of Earth is exchanged to GoW who had given the Tome of Earth to Maximus (and picked up the 4000 lumber)
Now GoW goes back to starting area and walks as far as he can... Marion does the same so that they meet.
Then Marion starts moving east as far as she can... not far enough. Christian does the remaining.
Finally Christian can bring the book to Dessa.
I forgot to do a few things here with Dessa while taking these screenshots (visit some mage guilds) which is why he has so much movement left at the end of turn. Anyhow, he goes to Forest and stays the night to refresh spell points.
231
I'll be more brief in complicated turns in the future
Dessa now has enough SPoints to go level up a bit. He's now ready for adventure! ...but needs to wait his time and give the book to someone else
Christian sacrificed his movement to have Andra spare some by bringing the Tome of Earth. Isra helped too.
Andra is going to get some experience from the behemoths. Admiral's Hat + Tome of Earth.
Kyrre is already pretty fast and starts on her quest to conquer Mongolia.
Maximus will open the door for Dessa's quest (kill God of Earth) and several heroes converge in that direction to chain troops and artifacts.
###
Next time we'll kill another god and pursue the conquest of Mongolia. Maybe some more too.
Salamandre said:the map is designed as solo adventure; the fact that only the tome gives town portal makes it very tedious to start a multi heroes adventure. Which is why I admire what is done here.
@RoseKavalier Thx for the update. I think u are some how losing time and experience while you develop such a big group of heroes and (by now) that isn't making u faster, besides having quite the same secondary skills makes them interchangable but doesn't provides an advantage for using this guy istead of that one.
@Salamandre And maybe this is exactly the reason why u admire what is done.(?)
This thread is pages long: 
posted September 11, 2015 05:13 PM
