Any good HOF maps?

[Caradoc]

Are any of the HOF maps worth playing?

I just had a run at "The Forgotten" (as it says on the menu) aka "The Forgotten Kingdoms of Elrath" (as it says in the description) aka "4 Kingdoms of Elrath" (as it says in the mission statement). This has got to be the lamest map ever to ship. Each of the four "Kingdoms" gets half of a Large map to roam around in. The connector is through a ridiculously overprotected garrison, so you have several months of roaming to do before you meet an opponent. Your territory is flat, undecorated, monotonous terrain containing only mines and power ups. And oh there are lots of mines -- four complete sets of them for each player, arranged in little clusters with random guards. There are no high level neutrals to fight, so you just wander around flagging mines. There is nothing else to do. (I suppose they intended this as a multiplayer map, but it would take many hours of play before players even meet. )

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

So far I have only played one HOF non-campaign map, "Temptation", a single player academy map. I was disapointed.

It is a "big" linear map with no towns and no enemy heroes except for the final battle. So basically you fight for dwellings, power ups, and spell shrines. The wizard racial special is yet again wasted so if you play it avoid leveling up artificer. The thing I liked best about the map was the cutscene you get just before the final battle.

It seems Ubival has a thing against wizards using their racial special.

On a brighter side I've played through the first two HOF campaigns and am ready to start map 3 of the final campaign and have enjoyed them up to this point.

GOW

[Dudu]

After completig the campaign I played "The Union". It was a very good map indeed. You start with one necro town and one haven town vs three academy towns. You also play with two new heroes, the knight with same special as Isabel and a vampire necro with Naadirs special.

[Firenze]

This is way off topic but does anyone know why i can't play the dwarf heroes on Warlords?

[Jolly Joker]

It's a bug to be corrected in 2.1. Currently you cannot play Dwarven heroes on any of the old maps.

[DaemianLucifer]

Actually you can if you use this mod.

Original topic.

[Firenze]

Ok thx I'll probably use the mod till the patch comes out.

[PhoenixReborn]

Well the multiplayer maps are fine.

I had lots of fun on maps like former friends, disputed lands, and another one that has a hotly contested middle ground, (a little bit like heritage).

I'm still trying to finish the original campaigns so I've put HoF on hold for a little while. Damn Nicolai.

[Sir_Toejam]

If you want to spend more time experimenting with dwarves, I can recommend "the Iron Throne" as a great XL maps that is ALL dwarf, dwarf, dwarf.

there are enough neutrals, powerups, towns and the like on the map that you should be able to explore developing several heroes at once (and really should, actually). So you can try out other build types than the one you used in the campaign, and directly compare their efficacy in combat. I still like focusing on logistics, defense, luck, and destructive magic the most, but you can build a decent offensive skill based dwarf too I noticed, especially combined with leadership and enlightenment.
I found even a pure magic based build to be functional.

diplomacy was actually a worthwhile skill on this map, as there are so many large neutral stacks, you can really pump up the numbers in your army.

there isn't too much dialogue/cutscenes - only at the beginning and at the very end.

You will need to focus on both a good "exploratory and open field combat" army as well as a "town-defender" type of army, as you will be doing a lot of both (eventually - you get a lot of time to build up before the AI manages to reach you) which I really liked about this map.

my only complaint is that it is simply TOO big; it took me days to finish it. Most will probably like the large size however; it plays almost like a campaign in and of itself.