The player tries to fix the time itself, for something wrong happens
to it. The main hero called Year is supported by his four daughters
- the seasons. And among the enemies the most important is... time!
A year for finishing this scenario is not much!
There are 20 quest huts on the map, some of them giving more than one
task to a player. All the main heroes have unique special abilities.
Warning! This map has a lot of scripts susceptible to the difficulty
level setting. The general nastiness of this scenario grows rapidly
with this setting. Playing as a 'Novice' should not be hard, but every
step up means much less positive events and much more powerups for your
enemies. Just to warn you, I've set the map difficulty switch to
'Impossible'. But it is possible to win this scenario, at least at lower
player skill settings. Think twice before you choose the difficulty
level!
To sum up:
Novice: You have two enemies: time and yourself. AI players should not
be any problem here.
Intermediate: For adventurers. This setting is recommended for players
who want to explore the whole map, to try every quest etc.
Hard: For fighters. I recommend this setting for the players who like
battles. Caution: you will probably have not enough time to visit
every location on the map.
Expert: Are you sure you want to set the difficulty that high? I don't
recommend it unless you are an extremely tough player.
Champion: Only Wimfrits is allowed to play on Champion. If you are not
him and you play - I am not responsible for whatever happens. This
setting is not, I repeat NOT, recommended.
Author: alan (United States), 04-03-2021 01:15 around the calendar - Around the Calendar despite getting the message the portal has been opened, I am unable to locate said portal and therefor cannot finish the map. Any help in finding this portal would be great. thanks
Author: Donny (Toronto Canada), 04-03-2013 11:00 Like Space invaders Good map but very tough setup, just gotta get lucky with these invisble seeming invaiders and make sure you train the gals properly!!! Umm I think tatics sucked at the end except for year of course.
Author: Victoria Sen (LA), 16-07-2012 15:17 how to finish it in 8 months or less I played this map three times.
First time on advanced; I fell so far behind I gave up after 11 months because I had clearly no hope.
Second time on intermediate, I completed about 80% of quests by the end of Nov and was able to finish in week4 month12.
Third time on intermediate, I was able to visit all oracles and rescue all daughters by Month 6, wipe out all enemies by Month 7, finish in Month 8.
How did I do it? SPOILER ALERT BELOW!
...
Here’s how to make winning this map easy. Author already has filled the map with all kinds of places where you can learn skills. This includes your starting castle, where the academy is set to offer pathfinding or stealth. As well as a Beastmaster hut near you which offers scouting for free. Author also has kindly provided you with two quest locations near your castle where you can get boots and gloves. These should be obtained within a few weeks.
Your starting hero is a Wizard King. Don’t turn him into a Seer, which is what I did on my second time playing this map. You need your starting hero to be a lot better than a Seer so put all experience points into Order magic. Besides, trying to turn him into a Seer is too slow. Instead, save your money and wait until he captures Tun (your second town, a barbarian town). You can easily get a thief and level him to Grandmaster Pathfinding by level 10. (Also thanks to Author, you get morale bonuses so don’t worry about mixing a thief with your army.)
You should get two or three Pathfinders to help you complete your quests (as well as to steal resources, flag structures, open up the map, etc.) There are plenty of battles to fight and lots of experience and skill offering structures, so you can have three Grandmaster Pathfinders by month 3 and a Wizard King with at least Master Order Magic. Send two thieves to visit oracles and keep one with your Wizard King.
A commentator on a forum said diplomacy was crucial for this map. I don’t find diplomacy useful on this map because there are too many creature types and you are unlikely to build up a good army collecting a few creatures each time.
Movement is key on this map. You have enough money to buy Basic Stealth and Basic Pathfinding on any hero you wish. With Expert Stealth, you should be able to visit nearly all required oracles. Get a bit of experience sneaking around, and you will be a Grandmaster in Stealth easily. If you want your main hero to get all the experience, at most have the Grandmaster thief step out of his army just before major fights.
By Month 4, you should have all or most of your oracles revealed. Author has created a map with certain predictable patterns, and once you find out how his patterns work, you can very quickly rescue your daughters. Your daughters are crucial for opening certain gates which will aid your conquests even more quickly. At this stage you don’t need them in the same army as Year, so split your main army into 2 in order to conquer the map more quickly. I was never short of cash on this map so feel free to hire. (On hard you will be forced to hire everything possible due to more numerous enemies.)
At some point, get rid of all slow creatures in your army. On intermediate and advanced the enemy isn’t that dangerous, so you should just travel with your fast creatures and leave the slow ranged attackers for castle defence. Your main castle will be attacked once or twice – and you will really love poison!
Don’t worry about losing units. I lost very few, but units are not crucial towards winning this map. My only grouse is that a significant amount of experience had to be given to the additional Grandmaster Pathfinding heroes. You can only fight your final battle with certain heroes, so don’t waste time making your hired heroes too powerful. And make sure you visit as many power-ups as possible.
You can finish this in month 8. A better and more aggressive player, month 7. I spent a lot of time leveling up Year and his daughters.
What I couldn’t figure out on this map, despite playing 3x, was the final Ring problem. So I won the map via the good old load and save method…
Oh, I also could not open the author’s spoiler file. The password ‘Year’ doesn’t work.
Author: cata (Romania), 12-11-2005 17:37 Wow! This is the greatest map i've ever played. thanks a lot UT. i was especially impressed about the resurection parchment. i'm really curious how you made it and if there is the possibility to make it stronger (the ideea is great, but it is not very useful when you compare it to the spell in heroes 3)
Author: Nemanja (Serbia), 31-08-2005 00:23 original! anyone who plays D&D will find this map totally fantastic!!!!! Like a real D&D!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Author: Ururam Tururam, 11-04-2005 15:33 To Zimmie: You have promised Spring to be the vife of Shevts, don't you?
Keep your promise!!!
Author: Vigga, 06-04-2005 19:21 Thanks I thought I knew everything about HoM&M, but I was wrong :-) I didn't know there was a radius for the marked point (I guess I've been making too little maps myself and just enjoying everybody else's maps). But thank you, UT, I found the artifact :-)
Author: Zimmie, 06-04-2005 19:16 Problem I get this message when I try to get through the gate with Year and his daughters: "Spring feel that this gate pushes her back not letting her pass". Can someone please tell me what I do wrong?
Author: Ururam Tururam, 25-03-2005 14:22 Radius! Please note that the artifact may be a few tiles from the marked point! You can see the allowed radius in the editor. Get it a try if you please. I don't know maybe it's a H4 bug but I've never experienced it myself.
Author: Vigga (Denmark), 22-03-2005 16:05 Thank you Thank you UT, but it doesn't help. I know where the artifact should be (I looked in the editor), but when I dig for it, it's not there - so I guess it must be a bug. I have had the same problem once before in another map.
Author: Ururam Tururam, 22-03-2005 01:36 Hint The cross might hide behind a tree!
Try searching at the center of the puzzle map.
Author: Vigga (Denmark), 21-03-2005 19:27 Fantastic I give it 10 for the idea, 10 for the map and 10 for the story. Great!
But unfortunately I couldn't finish it. A bug prevented me from finding Winter's artifact. It didn't show on the oracle map and I couldn't dig it up, but in the map maker it was there. Strange. And disappointing, since I had spent the last week playing this map.
Author: Emma (Copenhagen, Denmark), 11-02-2005 16:10 Around the Calender Really great map. I enjoyed playing it allthough I would have preffered to play another allignment than Order. Specially when time is the enemy, and movement of the army means everything. Love quest, but I hade quest houses where nothing happpens :o)
I have also played your other maps and enjoyed them as well. Looking forward to see what you can come up with next :o)Keep up the good work
PS: Love that you are an artist as well as a great map creator
Author: Reptyl (Powsin, Poland), 09-02-2005 17:59 Around the Calendar Great job Ururam. A nice challenge at HARD level, proving that 12 months can be a short time. Also in the early weeks shows the power of DIPLOMACY can be the only way to go.
Author: Muadib (Krakow Poland), 03-02-2005 15:41 Around the Calendar It's great map. And it's not easy:))
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