Help needed on Sarvi's Heroes IV map Armageddon

[cjlee]

Please! Good players, lend me your tips!

This map has really driven me nuts!

The storyline looks interesting, but I'm struggling so hard and need as much advice as anyone is willing to give.

4 months into the game and I'm barely into 'Chapter Two' and too weak to fight my foes.

I restarted, but even with the benefit of hindsight I found it so impossibly hard. And I'm only playing on Normal difficulty! I'm a pretty decent player who has completed almost all Heroes campaigns from H1 to H5 on hard, and played a good many maps.

Basics:
You start with a rookie hero called Denzel. He starts out as a warlord with scouting. He is almost never given the chance to get pathfinding. He was offered order magic at a shrine, but doesn't get a chance to become a battle mage due to lack of options.

Denzel is assisted by another weak hero. It took 9 levels before she could become a Monk. There are no other heroes available. The only artifacts you pick up are: Crystal of Forgetfulness and Crest of Valor.

The landscape is snow. You have only one (later two) castles where you can only hire a few low level crappy creatures. You have no access to a university and minimal access to spells. Every step on this damn map is a pain, because your archers can't walk over snow and you need them. You are even forced to take a few very long trips to waste your time (using water and underground terrain) before new territory opens up, so your enemies have far bigger armies.

Even to get to the second castle is a great pain. You need 160 creatures, and with minimal losses I still took until end of first month because so few creatures are available for hire.

Your morale is perpetually low because you mix nature and order. You even need Death faction Ice Demons to bolster your miserable army.

Thanks to the enemies set up by the mapmaker (eg griffins and ghosts), most enemies can reach you in 2 turns. Casting morale only allows you to take down two stacks before your archers get hit. And only one hero can cast song of peace. Slow isn't available.

If there's a map where the mapmaker has deliberately made it so difficult to do anything, it must be this one. I'm willing to hear advice from anyone and restart, but not willing to give up. Advice, please!!!

[bot]

Well, Sarvi's maps are not so difficult. They have storyline. They are nice. You tried to develop magic skills, but you haven't magic at the beginning. Try to develop combat an life for Fulla and combat and scouting for Denzel. Here you have savegames. I haven't finished yet. I played this map long time ago. Due to the fact it's been time since I've played homm4 I set the difficulty to expert only.
http://www.filehost.ro/1329542/3_ZIP/