This map is timed, challenging, and plays similar to a campaign. I designed it specifically to require thought, skill, and detail.
The crowd cheers you on as you battle the land's greatest Gladiators in a fight to the death.
The more enemy blood you spill, the higher you ascend in the rankings.
Only by uniting the four regions can you optimize your wealth and military strength, but this alone may not be enough to resist the impending forces that threaten this pristine region.
Bloodshed, Loyalty, and Exploration are paramount to your success in a land where things are not always as they seem!
Author: Kubuś (Polska), 09-02-2025 14:14 Like satisfying - Sanquinary Ascension a very satisfying, although short and simple map
Author: celestor (germany), 22-06-2024 08:58 Crash - Sanquinary Ascension Dont download this map. You will get a random town which is exactly random It will ruin all your other maps and your game will crash.
Author: Uganda Knuckles (Taiwan), 15-03-2021 12:31 Kinda annoying without Eldritch Well - Sanquinary Ascension I always ran out of mana early game.Pretty similar to Shadow rising with a more straightforward version.I suggest giving buffs with those Lucid altars,I feel kinda meaningless visiting all of them.
Author: Michel (France), 10-11-2020 21:57 Like tres bonne carte Very good Map - Sanquinary Ascension une très bonne carte merci
A vey good map ...Merci
Author: Valery (Riga, Latvia), 05-11-2020 11:11 One of the best - Sanquinary Ascension One of the best maps for HeroesV I've ever played. Interesting storyline. Whith great pleasyre spended two evenings for this map. Highly recomend to everyone. Many thanks to author!
Author: HA4ever (Florida, United States), 08-03-2020 00:21 Wonderful map - Sanquinary Ascension Just re-downloaded my HoMM5 a month ago and looked for map to enjoy. Love the storyline and the playing style. Highly recommend to follow the story instruction to get artifacts to save your troops. In the last battle, my 70 thanes slaughtered the wizard by 2x att rune and luck ^_^
Thanks again for your work.
Author: killllen, 01-12-2019 20:27 Crash issue - crashes all custom maps - Sanquinary Ascension Looks like a cool map and concept, unfortunately I can't say from own experience since I couldn't even load the map before the game crashed. Somehow this becomes the case with all the other custom made maps as well when this is added to the "Maps"-fol der. :/
Author: flamesky80 (China), 11-03-2019 00:10 Crash Issue - Sanquinary Ascension TOTE ver3.1
When I put this map into "maps" folder ,
use any custom map which can select race , game will crash at loading .
killllen writes:
01-12-2019 20:24
Crash issue - Sanquinary Ascension
Same for me, this map is broken and somehow manages to break every other custom made map. Some cancer virus the OG managed to create here
Author: 6 (moskava moskva), 11-03-2017 01:03 very annoying. - Sanquinary Ascension i see myself as an experienced player, i know every aspects of game, most tactics, i played first after when it was released. I play custom maps on heroic, 90% of them is easy for me. But, this one...i read the comments first, thought it won't be hard. Noone said it will be. Well, since there is no mentor I got scrap skills, and magic guild failed, no puppet master for me, freezy, even blindness, only confusion. I didn't take seriously the gladiators I didn't want to waste troop because I thought the profit is minimal, so I didn't get the tear of asha, defeated the glad almost at the last week (the inferno.) and the wizard was moderate to me, but I hardly beat it...this is a good AI, always use dark magic. i didn't have cleansing or magical immunity ..... . I only killed it 3rd try, change africrafts, I didn't reload any map about half year before.. But it was very difficult for me. perhaps because there is no mentor, skill sucks. I played maps witch some players said hard without any bad, but this one noone complained about it, but it was great challenge.
The good point: very scenario-like, good story, enjoyable, no boring part. I liked it much. nice design, requires tactics.
bad point is the mentor. i think that it didn't really wroth to go for all the articrafts aganist the heroes, especially aganist the dark elf, if U had resurrection. In fact, I didn't really conquered the sandy island, waste of time....I thought I won't go for the africrafts, defeat the hero early, to get the barracks, so more troopps... Idk if it wroth to play it as the original plan, maybe you can defeat the Elf early and get rewarded, instead of take the articraft.
Depends more on luck/r unluck than Tactic, but if you're unlucky, it can be a disaster.
9/10!
Author: leloup (China), 08-02-2015 11:29 A great piece of work I just write to say I enjoyed this map very much. It is certainly one of the best of its class. The map is thematically similar to another map created by the same author, but this one is a bit easier. It is also more balanced. There is no bug whatsoever, and the author makes sure that every minor clue of the plot is alluded to in some way. Really an exquisit piece of work.
Mike80D (US) writes:
12-02-2015 16:08
Thank you leloup
Thank you for the feedback leloup. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much :)
Hopefully Heroes VII map editor will be good so that I can make some more maps.
Author: Mike80D (USA), 07-05-2012 07:09 There is No bug In response to Vadim_T: There is no bug that you wrote of, nor is there a portal to the nemesis in this map. You must be thinking of my other map.
IMO, this is my best overall map.
Author: vadim_t (Crimea), 27-01-2011 20:11 Bug? Well, I have play this map, but I cannot complete it: I DON'T see any portal to Nemesis at the last day
Author: Mike80D (USA), 30-11-2010 18:51 Re: Jaydogg Jay, thanks for the comments, and sorry you didn't enjoy it. I agree that when something says "to the north" it should be farther, and this is so in my future maps.
That said, I'm confused as to why you downloaded & played it in the first place? The picture on the front indicates how much land vs water there is, you knew it was normal size, and it said it was an RP/campaign style with message boxes (as people here commented on). Also, that artifact you're referring to actually triggers a -12 spellpower loss for the hero, so it makes him easier to beat.. the quest to get it is not futile.
I know you defeated the 4th gladiator, but did you beat the final hero (Wizard) who arrives? (while at least on 'hard' difficulty)? Just curious. Thx for at least commenting tho.
Author: jaydogg (vancouver, canada), 23-11-2010 10:59 dashed hope i've played too many heroes 5 maps to enjoy this one. too much irrelavent story line crap. i enjoy the thought and effort, but reading is not necessary for victory. additional heroes that join the fold have no bearing on the game. all the effort to find useless artifacts. (keymaster tent to find 50% less damage from earth spells artifact??) don't think i had an earth spell cast on me in that last battle! who cares if i did; i pulverised him! when the story reads "look north of here for blabity blah, it should take more than half a turn to reach that point! come on; bigger map please! or make 'north of here', a few days walk! normal size, and 2/3 water!! how adorable
Author: Łukasz (Moscow, Russia), 03-11-2010 20:54 Sanquinary Ascension l
Author: elion (Russia), 30-09-2010 18:35 Yes Yes, I removed all other maps from the map folder, and it went OK. True, I don't like to play for goodies (for me personally they seem to be dull - not because I'm a blood-thirsty freak)... Please, give a chance to choose the race in your next map, if possible
Author: Mike80D (USA), 28-09-2010 22:22 @Elion Did you ever get the map working and able to play it?
Also - My next map in November will actually be two maps. One will be Moderate difficulty for good players, and another map will be "hard" for epic players. Both will have different end rewards :)
Author: Mike80D (USA), 25-09-2010 00:15 Re: Future Maps If you enjoyed this map, I wanted to let you know that I will be publishing a new map in November. It will be the last HOMM5 map I'm making (b/c of Homm6 in March 2011), and it will be somewhat similar to this map... but bigger, better, and different :)
Author: jpindseth (Norway), 22-08-2010 06:46 Like great map A very well made map indeed. Had great fun playing trough it.
Good work 10 points :D
Author: fiur (from ToH)... heroes V map maker (Norway), 18-08-2010 17:46 continue.... well mike master of disquise was a looong time ago...
if U like check out this link:
http://heroescommuni ty.com/viewthread.ph p3?TID=26667
The Giants and the Abysmal is my latest maps.... :)
I've stopped making maps 1 year + ago tho :( (and Im not so active Heroes player anymore...)
Author: Mike80D (USA), 17-08-2010 16:27 Thanks Fiur! Yes I did disable Resurrect, as well as Cleanse, and several of the very important Runes. HOWEVER, you can still learn the Resurrect Spell & Resurrect Rune... hint, follow the lead given to you when you conquer the town of Tharaa ;) Also, the runes are available throughout the map.. if you have time to get them.
And yes, I'm sure I did look at some of your maps and think "how did he do that? I Like that!" One example that comes to mind was your map: Master of Disguise. As you know, figuring out how to do things in the homm5 map editor can be frustrating haha. Thanks again.
Author: fiur (from ToH)... heroes V map maker (Norway), 17-08-2010 14:06 Great map for sure hi Mike80D I just finished your map and wow this is the best singleplayer map Ive played so far (and yes Ive played a "few" ;) )
me myself have made a few maps myself and I could see some of my elements in your map :)
1 more thing did U disable the ressurection spell cause I couldnt get it but if U did great job cause it makes the map even better/harder
Im glad to give a map a 10 !!
Author: elion (Russia), 13-08-2010 19:56 Thank you, guys! Thank you guys for good advice! I will try what MBaker did and Mike80D advises and see what will come out of it.
Author: Mike80D (USA), 13-08-2010 16:06 Re: Map crashing for some people Thank you M.Baker for trying to isolate it. I deleted all of my maps in my "maps" folder, as well as the "editor/homm5 mods" contents. I then downloaded both "Sanguinary Ascension" and "Путешес твие" and got both to work.
For those that don't know: Most maps on this site will automatically fill in the "editor/homm5 mods" folder, so clearing this might help! Let me know what you find, but so far everything works for me.
Author: M Baker (Thailand), 13-08-2010 14:48 elion I managed to get other maps working by removing the last 2 maps I'd installed. "Путешес твие" and this one. Now other maps work again.
I will try putting just this one back in to see if it is this one or "Путешес твие" that caused the problem.
Author: Wardibald (Belgium), 12-08-2010 23:27 Splendid A rare SP map that stays interesting to the end. Also appreciated that it runs smoothly on my greying Barton.
Timed perfectly too. Hard to finish on first try. No way I could give this any less than 10.
Author: Dennis Weiler (Sweden), 12-08-2010 16:58 One of the best ever Must say that this map is one of the best ever, I really like the storyline and all the events.
I skipped getting the artifact and killed that demon-gladiator anyway, and managed to kill the wizard-prince at the bridge.
Used my own wizard to slow him down a bit first :)
Thanks for 7 wonderful hours of play Mike!
Author: Lomedae (Amsterdam), 12-08-2010 15:19 Like A++ Hands down one of the most enjoyable maps I've played for HOMMV. Thanks to mapmaker for the experience. I finished it first try and had a blast doing it.
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