HOMM 3 : "A matter of Honor" User-Map Review

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Matthew Charlap, the Qurqirish Dragon proudly presents journal entry
#310, as recorded by the cleric Aylyra:
The land of "A Matter of Honor" originally discovered by Linda Watson
Date of land exploration: 18-March-2005

DESCRIPTION: Medium, 2-layer, single-player map of normal difficulty.
Armageddon's Blade map
Win condition: Capture the town "Chateau Douleu"
Loss condition: Lose the hero "Sir Reginald"

# OF PLAYERS: 1H Castle, 1C Inferno, 1C Tower.

COMMENTS: This is a nice, straight-forward story map. It is a tale of a
wayward prince making good. On the first day you find the capital is
overrun, the queen missing. You need to rescue her, and in the process
eliminate those who caused the problem. Storyline events are fairly
regular throughout the map, and if you take your time to complete the
map (as I did- having the main hero do everything, with other heroes
simple ferrying troops to the lone hill fort, and then the main hero.)
The surface layer of the map is fairly open- you can work it out in any
way you wish, but the underground layer is very linear. More
experienced players may decide to circumvent much of the underground,
but that would only save a day or three at most, in my opinion.

SOME TIPS: Follow the advice you are given in events. Clear the snow
areas first, and capture the rust dragon dwelling early. If you are a
novice player, use the angel wings to pass border and quest gates
without opening them, so that if you have to flee, the AI player cannot
cause you problems.

BUGS AND PROBLEMS: Only one that I found- an event near the end of the
map says you are joined by five angels, but the event only gives you
one. By this point, however, your force will probably be so large that
it doesn't matter.

SCORE: On my first try at hard difficulty, I won on day 133 (month 5,
week 3, day 7) for a score of 274 and minotaur rating.

PROS: Good story. Nice, quick map.

CONS: A bit too generous with troops and powerful artifacts.

THE BOTTOM LINE: This map uses the map space very effectively, but does
seem a bit artificially restrictive in the second half. Also, the type
of awards available makes the map a bit easy, even for a normal
difficulty map. It earns 9/10 for utilization and 9/10 for rating, to
earn ****1/2 on description. The physical terrain is not overly
special, but is used nicely in conjunction with the storyline. It gets
7/10 on appearance, 9/10 on Story, 8/10 on Flavor, and 10/10 on style,
to earn ****1/2 on entertainment. The hardest part of the map is the
earliest part- and then only if you try to do too much too quickly, as
you start out with a good force. The reverse-ramping detracts from its
balance score, the placement of the angel wings removes the one serious
threat a player may encounter, lowering the placement score a little.
It gets 16/20 for balance, and 15/20 for placement, to earn **** on
design, for an overall rating of ****1/2- (83 out of 100).

BELOW THE BOTTOM: If you want to allow an artifact such as the angel
wings to be available, you need to be certain that it doesn't allow
you to circumvent barriers you have placed. One way is to place small
resource piles along the opposite side, so there is no "landing"
site for the hero.
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Disclaimer: All opinions expressed are my own. Any criticism is of the
map, not the designer (so if you are offended for some reason don't
complain to me! :) Comments and questions on the review are welcome,
simply reply to this message.
This map is available for download at Celestial Heavens:
www.celestialheavens.com
and at Maphaven: heroes.mycomport.com
Want to know how I rate maps? Point your browser to
http://members.aol.com/qurqirishd/hommreview.html
Wonder which maps I liked most? Point your browser to
http://members.aol.com/qurqirishd/reviewlist.htm
 
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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"The Qurqirish Dragon" <qurqirishd@aol.com> wrote in message news:<1111331829.427404.247350@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>...
> Matthew Charlap, the Qurqirish Dragon proudly presents journal entry
> #310, as recorded by the cleric Aylyra:
> The land of "A Matter of Honor" originally discovered by Linda Watson
> Date of land exploration: 18-March-2005
[SNIP]

Thanks Qurqirish, It make a refreshing change to actually have
stratagy talk in this newsgroup rather than some guy talking about
Steam. :)