Masters of Sighisoara - a whole new continent!

[hobowu]

I'm running Heroes III Complete, and it crashes at the opening video.
Has anyone else experienced this?

I can run this through wog, but then those pesky commanders are there...

[Salamandre]

Disable them.

[ByteBandit]

Sorry to barge in here, but I think Hero of Punk wants to discuss his project here. Thanks guys!

[Salamandre]

It seems Hobowu wants to play the Sighishoara campaign, but can't open standard Heroes without crashing. Then on topic, as it can be played on WOG platform if he disables the right things

[ByteBandit]

You're right....my bad. Carry on then gents....

[Koni]

..., but I think Hero of Punk wants to discuss his project here.

And I wonder, if there isn't anybody, who finished the whole campaign, and why there is NOTHING to report/comment/criticize ... here about the work for weeks. Come on, guys!

[Kalah]

Does anybody here have the German file? It seems to have fallen out of the database, somehow. Please email it to my CH address.

[Koni]

I will send it again.

[ByteBandit]

Does anybody here have the German file? It seems to have fallen out of the database, somehow. Please email it to my CH address.

Koni beat me to it.

[Kalah]

*checks the kalah@ch mailbox*

.. nope, still nothing.

[Koni]

Häh? It WAS send by my at 15.20 h (German time). To the same ***kalah@cel.....heav....com address as the first time (on Oct. 2nd).

[Kalah]

*checks again*

Nope. Still nada. Delay, maybe?

[EDIT: There we go. German file is back up.]

[MadMax]

Hey everybody! Just wanted to let you know that I am alive still! I am being crazy busy atm and havent had time to truly start the work on the prolouge map! Allthough I could let you know that I have started on the story and the overall graphical things are nearly done! I may also let you know that I have a feeling that once this map is done it will be a very good successful map!:D

[Yurian Stonebow]

And I wonder, if there isn't anybody, who finished the whole campaign, and why there is NOTHING to report/comment/criticize ... here about the work for weeks. Come on, guys!

Hello, Koni. I've been in contact with a fellow Heroes fan by the name of dhalgren17, and he has completed the First Sighisoara campaign, wrote a little feedback and even volunteered to assist me (us) in future projects, which was great to hear Judging by his private message to me, I can tell you that he did enjoy the campaign commenting that it was challenging enough even for a Heroes veteran such as himself who has hundreds and hundreds of hours of hardcore H3 playing sessions in his record.

I feel that this could be the start of yet another highly succesful and productive working relationship. Splendid news indeed



Yurian

[Salamandre]

And I wonder, if there isn't anybody, who finished the whole campaign, and why there is NOTHING to report/comment/criticize ... here about the work for weeks. Come on, guys!

Give some time:)

Played the whole campaign and here are my thoughts. Finished it in 250 days at expert difficulty with quite unusual troops (minotaurs and black dragons). Used the editor open to see whats going, so I guess it would take the double if playing blind.

First, congratulations to the team for giving a very interesting campaign, a nice storyline and increasing challenge.

Now, the things I did not like 100% and things I liked:

Overall, my regret is that the whole campaign is based on mostly swamp (well I can understand the connection with minotaurs?) and then it may require restart if not right skills. I played first scenario and did not pick pathfinding when offered, thus I gave up on third scenario, as travel took me ages. Restarted and picked pathfinding this time then it went smooth. Please notice that swamp is a very special terrain and it is used very few in most maps/campaigns because it simply frustrates the player and prohibit smooth leveling of secondary heros. The editor could be used more deeply, terrains could vary much more, so the player is "blown" in the eyes how beautiful looks the land. Maybe next?


The Murdered Innkeep:

Nice storyline, fast leveling of both heros (got also Grac to level 12), slow and blind a must to have for the final fight. I played the map several times as I wanted to finish it fast (I am not the kind of player which waits weeks to gather enough troops) but the 280 minotaurs were too strong. Eventually I understood that intelligence was also required and replayed until I got it.

So important skills were (further scenarios are much easier if you get them) pathfinfing, water, earth and intelligence. Once I had this setup I felt confident to play the second. Last fight was easy with intelligence (shoot then blind), otherwise it is a pain.

Tip: 1 pikeman in 6th slot, so you can cast blind after the whole halberds group attacked.

Flight of the Minotaur:

Nice layout, of course having an angel on start + cure expert speeds the things greatly. The AI is handcuffed so it was very easy. It took me the more time to play this scenario as I went through ALL guilds and built them until I got clone/resurrect. Once I had them + archangels I knew nothing can stop me.
Garc went easily to a spell power of 18 with some artefacts and found a gold dragon in camp. Once he got chain and meteor he was the perfect stop for necros while Yurian was in other business.

Breaking the Threshold:

(Ah man I got pissed when Grac died, as I took my time to develop him to 24 in previous scenario then bam!)
This I liked the less. First time I got inside without pathfinding and after 3 weeks I restarted the whole campaign as it would take me months to travel there and here. I did not like much the design, but appreciated fast travel through monoliths. I really expected to see more terrains, lakes, grass hills, but only swamp and swamp everywhere. Oh well...
Of course I kept the badge of courage as its bonus is more important than 3 archangels. With clone+resurrect and some blind I managed to do the whole map without loss, and was pissed when it asked me 2 trolls to visit some arena as I should dismiss 150 halberds for that. Did not visited it.
AI was quite inexistent but I suppose it is because I did it very fast with pathfinding. Without it I would expect 10x more armies but I declined it:). I also think I killed someone called Koni inside, sorry, had no mercy for that traitor.

The Final Truth:


Great plot, but I had a fast intuition on first day when I saw summon boat in guild and further actions changed completely the map and outcome. I took the boat, killed easily the 20 black dragons on second day with 1 archangel +18 marksmans + some fodder (force field) then attacked the dungeon at east and killed Gunnar. Once I did that, I took the dungeon at west and from then the AI was crippled and never moved out from his north corner. Headed straight for black tent and got Town portal. So map was a "promenade", I could play it longer but it had no sense. I did all the AI quests, got some 100 minotaurs and black dragons and headed straight for his last town.

While Yurian ran after scarred warlocks some secondary heros cleaned the most of map with archangels/marksmans. Just for fun, I collected the elixir of life and bow of the sharpshooter but it had no use as AI lost in 2 rounds every time. Very interesting connections between monoliths/gates/tents so with some analyze before they could be all visited in one week.

At the end 50% of the map was fully cleaned but I felt no urge to continue cleaning further as the AI was not real threat. I never could recruit Grac as I did not have anymore the parts of the ring. I guess I changed them at the sacrifice altair earlier to get some additional levels for Grac. Funny.

Conclusions:

"+":
Nice storyline, increased challenge, well done events, complex connections between areas, angry minos everywhere.

"-":
I would prefer to see a more detailed layout, more various fights and an AI more aggressive. More secondary heros involved would give more strategic gameplay too. The SOD editor is great, use all of it!:)

Overall: Very good campaign, hope to see a next one soon.

[Koni]

Thanks a lot for such a splendid and detailed report and for your frank comments. Reading some of your points, regarding skills and spells, I must smile. These all were things, that I regarded as "important" as well. And it would have been not only nice, but a MUST to get them in map 1 already.

[Salamandre]

You mean giving them to main hero in first map? It will be too easy. It took me some time and replayed the 2 first maps several times until I got the idea of what is need, and I like that. Does not bother me to replay so get better each time. In fact I would love to have the leadership removed on first map so we can choose a more valuable skill, leadership is low usage.

I think the campaign can be played with another setup too, like fire/air (in third we get berserk, right?).

Like almost all Heroes maps:

Earth 100% must have

After that:

Water 50% much faster with it
Air %10 don't bother if have water (prayer better than haste and expert cure saved my a$$ a lot)
Fire 50% good in third scenario, and certainly 100% in final, where berserk it is not disabled.
Intelligence 100% if water, less interesting if fire
Offense/armorer 10%, they are good against similar armies but here forces are superior so magic is the key
Logistic 0% not need
Pathfinding should be 0% but 3rd and 4th are unplayable without it (it is a question of map design more than a strategic solution)
Archery, well we can't avoid it because the main is specialist, but really useless skill here. The archers never made the difference in this campaign but they were good to have.
Leadership: nah, don't wanna it:) Gimmi better skill.

I remember first time I tried Yurian got estates and scouting on first scenario, I was like "what the hell is this crap class". Restart required.

[MadMax]

Thanks alot for the splendid report

And thanks alot for giving me good words on the story writing

Also I may tell you that Prime Suspect is currently in 0.85 mode It is playable atm but not yet finished I may also tell you that this map will have a great variety of landscapes Swamp and snow and grass etc

I am currently working on the story part of this map and everything is coming along really nice! I look forward on the reviews that will come on both this map and the Sighisoara campaign

[Yurian Stonebow]

I guess we could reveal some more information about the current status of the project, eh Max?

[MadMax]

Well current status report is that I recently have written some storybits into the map, and now I have sent it to you Yurian so that you can update the map once again perhaps into a 0.92, then next time I get the map in my hands I will implement more story-bits into it and then by monday hopefully I will have it resent to Yurian, perhaps updating it to a 0.97 version after that? So my guess is that the map will be done in 2 weeks
Is it just me who can't wait?

WBR,
Maximilian the Knight