Here’s my experience with this map on Heroic. First, I’m an old hat at this game playing since HoMM I. My heroes did not have empowered spells, summoning magic (phoenix), or town gate when starting this map.
My first go round on Heroic, I captured the first town and took all the mines with hardly any losses. I also built the first town up before the waves of enemies started attacking. I killed the first hero, but then the Mass Decay hero attacked me and he had more creatures than I did and I lost.
So, I thought about a different strategy and it worked (so far). Second, I’m only on four towns and a defeated inferno hero twice; however, I feel that the map is roughly over now that I have town superiority.
What I did was capture the first town again and took all the mines I could (one had upgraded succubi). Build the town up with the thought that they have more enemies and creatures than I do (I believe I only upgraded enough to Matriarch Witches or something). Then, the Mass Decay hero came through the western gate and I ran for the eastern gate. One of the heroes got in my way, but I took him out. I started for the eastern town, but they had a too strong hero at the bottom of the path coming for me, so I ran for the middle town with him on my heels. Took the middle town (had lost the first town). By this time all the enemy heroes are after me. So, I ran up to the northwest to see if I could take that town, but it has the garrison, so I swung south on the western part of the map and took the middle western town (near the dragon utopia).
By this time I had lost the middle castle. Here’s where I got “lucky” or chose the right strategy. The Mass Decay hero went behind the northwest garrison and stayed there. The rest of the heroes left me alone. So, I think by approaching their “home” town it scripted their strongest hero to defend. This gave me enough time to upgrade the town I took to get some needed money, experience on random mobs, and take out the strong heroes one by one. In the meantime I also took the Dragon Utopia and it’s 20,000gp (and town gate spell). I hired all the strong heroes I defeated and checked the artifact merchant for the expensive good artifacts I needed. Once I had defeated 3 of the 4 strong heroes and had enough of an army to handle the first inferno army, I went south and took the other town. (Remember to visit the +2 attack/defense power up and I visited the above ground area in this area)
The first inferno hero came for this town and I waited for him recruiting from both towns before he hit. He was easy at this point. Cleaning up the rest of the area and any enemy hero that decided to attack. By this time I had capped (and luckily got empowered spells). Then, I moved to the middle town because it was the weakest. After that I went for the northeast town and moved toward the southeast town wiping the second inferno hero, which didn’t slow me down too much.
So, this is the point I’m at…outside the fifth town. It should only be a matter of cleaning up the two bottom towns and wiping the northwest hero before the third inferno hero gets to me, if I wish to run from him. Course I haven’t checked the garrison yet though…lol.
I don’t know if this is “the” strategy to use, but there are ways to beat this map…
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