Posted 2 days ago
This is a place to write about and compare your high scores on HoMM2 maps. I would like to share some of my stories and read some of yours. I also want to focus on theory crafting and describing conditions necessary to win a scenario in X number of days.
The 'Impossible' difficulty level is considered the default one, so unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that you play the game on this level.
The results below are from the GoG version of the game.
High scores from all maps are welcome, but I would personally like to focus on several maps that I consider the best in the game.
This includes what I call 'puzzle maps': Pandemonium, Pyramid, Slugfest and Last Hope.
It also includes what I call 'adventure maps': Broken Alliance, Seven Lakes, Beltway and some PoL maps including THUNK.
The 'puzzle maps' are played mostly for high scores and all the conditions are known before the start of the game or revealed during gameplay. The aim is to finish as quickly as possible, often by manipulating computer's actions. There is little to no exploration and your focus is on endless optimization, which includes plenty of save/load and going back to older saves once some new information is revealed.
The 'adventure maps' tell a story through gameplay - daring escapes, legendary sieges, surprise attacks etc. Though they can be played for high scores as well, they are most fun when you go in blind, without knowing your opponents castles, the value of resources, the neutral camps and their disposition etc. There is a lot of exploration, risk and fun from acquiring artifacts and followers. The best way to play these maps is without any save/load, to keep the game challenging. The best example I have of this type of gameplay is Broken Alliance, when the Purple invades early and you are forced to leave your starting castle, keep running away, sieging new castles and regrouping until you are strong enough to finally mount a counter-attack. Who cares for high scores when this is so much fun!
Let's begin with high scores.
PANDEMONIUM - 5 days (7 days with random enemies)
Im going to start with Pandemonium because it is my most recent accomplishement. I think this map offers the most fun and variety for speedrunning and I sometimes play it just for fun as well. My old high score from years ago was 9 days and I used to be quite proud of it. It was done with a Sorceress castle and the best moment of the game was defending the Yellow castle from a few Yellow heroes in succession, with only one sprite remaining at the end. In that game, computer cheated by 'defeating' the Bone Dragons near the teleporter in the fog of war, so I was able to use it to siege the Yellow's castle. But because of this I also needed to allocate a lot of resources into defending my castle.
Several days ago I decided to play again and see if I can improve the old score. It required somewhere between 5-10 tries before I remembered how to approach the map and what strategy to employ. This time I decided to play the Barbarian (for increased efficiency in chasing those random bastards away from my beach) and play as aggressively as possible, leaving almost nothing to chance. My opponents were chosen randomly by the game - Necromancer and Knight. This required beating the three Yellow armies on day one and getting rid of all random enemy heroes on day one and two (well, one evaded me and was dealt with early on day 3). With some troop shuffling to maximize distance and some unfortunate and unexpected visits from Blue and Green near my castle, I ended this game just one movement point away from winning on day seven. I won the game during the computer's turn on day 7, which the game actually treats as day 8 on the leaderboard... So two days later I tried again, went back to some earlier savegames and finally managed to win on day 7. I was pretty happy. This time there were two exciting battles where only one Halfling and Goblin remained on the battlefield at the end. The Goblin miraculously defended the main castle when I thought it wasn't possible, and now spends his days drinking grog in the tavern and shouting his story at strangers.
Yesterday, I thought what the heck, lets try one last time. I chose the Barbarian castle again and I was content with the starting RNG on the first try, so I didn't have to reset the map even once. I chose both of my opponents to be Knights. There was a lot of save scumming on day 1 and 2 but I managed to get what I wanted from all the small fights on the beach, and then conquer the Green's castle on day 3 and the Blue's castle on day 4. Which left the Yellow's castle as the last thing on the schedule for day 5. I managed to get it with Ergon, who, tired of being a pack mule for the last few days wanted to prove that he is also a hero. So he did, somehow reaching the castle with no stamina left, won the fight and then quickly retired to the tavern, leaving the chase of the remaining three Yellow generals to some newly promoted Warlocks, eager to test their magic powers and experiment with the recently researched Fireball spell. The war had bankrupted the treasury, leaving the king with no resources and only four hundred gold coins, which was barely enough to organise a feast for all his victorious generals. The king might also have been the one responsible for poisoning all of the generals during that night, but that is another story...
That's how I managed to beat Pandemonium on day 5. I'm satisfied with the score, it was fun and I'm happy it didn't take too much time to accomplish. It could have been a frustrating experience, yet somehow it all actually was very fun and satisfying.
I couldn't help myself, so I also spent some time thinking about improving the score afterwards. But, if my theory-crafting is correct, there are so many things that would need to happen before one can hope to improve the score, that I'm not going to try it, for the sake of my sanity. Restarting the game hundreds of times before everything is randomized exactly as needed is too much for me. Especially because the editor doesn't work in the GoG version so there would be no way of knowing what's where without playing the game, and doing so dozens or hundreds of times would be crazy.
I believe that the map can be beaten in 4 days. 3 days is extremely unlikely, bordering on impossible. Here are the key points for any future speedrunners:
- There is a maximum ca. 11k gold to be found on day 1 and one needs almost exactly as much to hope for success (4 heroes and starting troops cost 10.5k).
- It is possible to reach all enemy castles on day 3 (so in theory finishing the map in 3 days can be done but is extremely unlikely, as it requires ideal conditions and ignores the important fact that Blue, Green and Yellow will have around 3 heroes each which may block your way or run away. When the luck is on their side, they can sometimes just kill you as well. Fortunately our magic is stronger than theirs and the save/load spell will no doubt save the day. Provoking them into attacking you on the way to their castles would be the only way to finish the map in 3 days, as you will most likely lack enough gold to hire new heroes).
- All of the random Blue and Green enemy heroes on the beach can be dealt with in 2 days (maybe 3 without barbarian heroes), given enough luck and correct enemy manipulation. They can also be beaten by our random heroes and do not require any armies from the castle.
- The only faction that seems to be capable of beating the map in 4 days is the Warlock. I estimate that you would need both the random one and four heroes from the castle to all carry max number of troops (10 Centaurs and 4 Gargoyles) or very close to it. The main reason is that, if my estimations are correct, you need to be able to survive two turns when sieging castles, and they all have three turrets (which deal around 60 points of damage per turn). That means around 58 Centaurs and 20 Gargoyles for a start (plus potentially 6 Gargoyles on day 2) and this army needs to be split into three parts (Compare with 38 Centaurs and 10 Gargoyles on really bad rolls, probably not enough to even beat the three Yellow armies on day one without significant losses). A tiny fraction of the army needs to be left in the castle to provoke attacks and the remainder needs to be separated between the three main heroes. Knowing the enemy armies and their behaviour would dictate the proportions. But going back in time is no problem with the magic we wield.
- Choosing the easiest factions for Blue and Green seems crucial. For the Warlock, the Knight or the Sorceress seem the easiest to beat given our resources. Probably the Knight because Sorceress and Magic Arrow could be bad for us. But you can beat a bigger part of the starting Sprites stack with your Gargoyles without any losses compared to a stack of Peasants. Embarassing, I know.
- Why the Warlock you ask? Because it's the only faction that can move fast, has a tough flying unit necessary to endure castle towers during sieges and get behind castle walls, and use magic efficiently early.
- All our random random heroes would also need to have close to maximum stacks. Especially the Sorceress (taking close to 20 Sprites from her will make sieging castles that much more efficient and will allow you greater flexibility when dividing armies) and Barbarian and Wizard which will have to get rid of the rascals occupying our pretty beach.
- Gargoyles (and Sprites) are the only available creatures that let you block enemy shooters and manipulate the movement of big stacks of Skeletons in battles, making time to cast magic or use Centaurs. If you have both, you can potentially conquer a castle on your first turn, without any losses, depending on the strength of the defending army.
- The shrine of the second circle must have the Lightning Bolt (Cold Ray would be acceptable too, maybe even better actually, depending on other circumstances)
- The starting artifacts would need to be the Minor Scroll of Knowledge and the White Pearl or similar. The problem is that the starting 2 points in Knowledge on Warlock heroes only lets you cast Lightning Bolt twice, and you definitely need a lot more to deal with Yellow. There will be no time to visit the Stonehenge or Gazebo or the well northeast of the Yellow's castle if you aim for 3 days. There should be enough time during the 4 day attempt. There is most likely not enough time to get the buried White Pearl and transfer it to one of the Warlocks. But I'm not sure about that as it is a bit unpredictable. The artifacts would let one of your Warlocks cast LB 4 times and the other one 5 times before having to visit the well. That could be enough to deal with enemy heroes and siege a castle.
- During my 5 day record game, no wandering armies wanted to join my cause. If one of the two armies south of the castle decides to join you (especially if that army is an army of Gargoyles) you may be all set, maybe even for a miraculous 3 day win, who knows?
- Movement of enemy armies has to be strongly in our favour, meaning no exploration and staying close to the castle.
- This is a big one. Yellow needs to have no Lightning Bolt, Cold Ray or Death Wave in their Mage Guild. Having them would most likely cripple our main army too much. Magic Arrow and Death Ripple may be ok. Or not.
- There are probably other important factors that I fail to see or remember at the moment.
LAST HOPE - 5 days
A long time ago I beat it in 9 days which seemed like a good score back then. Another time, much later, I managed to do it in 7 days. Finally, a few years ago, after several more tries, I found a way to complete it in 5 days, and it seems to me that it's not possible to do it faster.
This map is much simpler than Pandemonium. We start with one hero and can get a maximum of 6000 gold on day one, which means two extra heroes. Hiring one or even two Barbarians would help. There are three main challenges on this map. The first one is how to split the armies. The second one is which heroes should attack which opponents and how to get there, as there are a few options. Last but not least is fighting all the battles in an optimal way, as they can get pretty close e.g. I got to siege the last castle with Corribus with one Crusader... Each opponent seems to only have one hero, to make things easier for players. There is also, as always, some luck involved in movement of enemy heroes, their spells, the shape of the battlegrounds and luck and morale boosts.
Unless I'm missing something, Corribus has to siege two castles, while the other two heroes each get one. There seems to be no way of buying four heroes on day one and having each one get to each of the four enemy castles in time to finish the map on day four. There might be a way to play with the Surrender mechanic but I can't see any way to use it in this scenario. In my opinion, there is no way to win this in 4 days. I wonder if anyone can prove me wrong...
DUNGEON BELOW - 2 days
This one is here just for fun. I don't even remember what I did to finish it in 2 days. It must have been something reasonably smart or lucky, cause normally it takes 3-4 days to finish. I just found the leaderboard on an old PC and thought I would mention it here.
PYRAMID - 11 days (or maybe 9)
This is an old high score which has been easily surpassed by several people who published their videos online. I might have also done it in 9 days later, but I'm not sure. One madman recently finished it in 6 days (!!!) and I'm not even going to try to get the same score, not to mention beating it, which seems impossible. The amount of lucky RNG you need to get to finish in six days is insane. But the guy who did it implemented one very simple 200 IQ move, which I did not even consider when playing the map - restraining himself from conquering one of the Necromancer castles asap, to use it later for the Surrender mechanic when conquering Warlock castles. That simple idea was executed in a really smart way, perfect for this map.
THUNK - 30 days
This map is all about conquering the castle of the main baddie on day 5 (could day 4 be possible?) with Corribus, which requires quite a lot of luck manipulation. But it should be doable in several attempts. It also helps to roll even Attack and Defense, low Spell Power and high Knowledge. If the Mage Guild in the castle has Dimension Door, it's game over. You get an army from the hero locked in prison and from there on it's all smooth sailing. Beating Thunk himself requires one simple trick (and some luck as always) which should be obvious to any experienced player. When I played this map for the high score for the first time, I managed to beat it in 46 days. I then replayed it from earlier saves and finished in 30 days. I'm sure it can be finished much faster if you figure out an optimal way to do things and have some luck on your side, but I don't know how many days can be saved by playing a perfect map. Maybe it's a few days, maybe a week, maybe even two weeks. It's too much work to try this again. I don't wanna, so I'm not gonna. If you wanna try - have fun!
I have some scores from other maps on another computer but I can't check them now. I will try to add them later.
It would be great to see some veterans of this game engage in the discussion and share their high scores and stories. There is a Facebook group for HoMM2 ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/209903865171265/ ) which I cannot join, so maybe someone can post a link to this thread there and invite people for a chat.
HoMM2 is my favourite game of all time. I hope you have enjoyed the post and will enjoy the challenge.
The 'Impossible' difficulty level is considered the default one, so unless stated otherwise, it is assumed that you play the game on this level.
The results below are from the GoG version of the game.
High scores from all maps are welcome, but I would personally like to focus on several maps that I consider the best in the game.
This includes what I call 'puzzle maps': Pandemonium, Pyramid, Slugfest and Last Hope.
It also includes what I call 'adventure maps': Broken Alliance, Seven Lakes, Beltway and some PoL maps including THUNK.
The 'puzzle maps' are played mostly for high scores and all the conditions are known before the start of the game or revealed during gameplay. The aim is to finish as quickly as possible, often by manipulating computer's actions. There is little to no exploration and your focus is on endless optimization, which includes plenty of save/load and going back to older saves once some new information is revealed.
The 'adventure maps' tell a story through gameplay - daring escapes, legendary sieges, surprise attacks etc. Though they can be played for high scores as well, they are most fun when you go in blind, without knowing your opponents castles, the value of resources, the neutral camps and their disposition etc. There is a lot of exploration, risk and fun from acquiring artifacts and followers. The best way to play these maps is without any save/load, to keep the game challenging. The best example I have of this type of gameplay is Broken Alliance, when the Purple invades early and you are forced to leave your starting castle, keep running away, sieging new castles and regrouping until you are strong enough to finally mount a counter-attack. Who cares for high scores when this is so much fun!
Let's begin with high scores.
PANDEMONIUM - 5 days (7 days with random enemies)
Im going to start with Pandemonium because it is my most recent accomplishement. I think this map offers the most fun and variety for speedrunning and I sometimes play it just for fun as well. My old high score from years ago was 9 days and I used to be quite proud of it. It was done with a Sorceress castle and the best moment of the game was defending the Yellow castle from a few Yellow heroes in succession, with only one sprite remaining at the end. In that game, computer cheated by 'defeating' the Bone Dragons near the teleporter in the fog of war, so I was able to use it to siege the Yellow's castle. But because of this I also needed to allocate a lot of resources into defending my castle.
Several days ago I decided to play again and see if I can improve the old score. It required somewhere between 5-10 tries before I remembered how to approach the map and what strategy to employ. This time I decided to play the Barbarian (for increased efficiency in chasing those random bastards away from my beach) and play as aggressively as possible, leaving almost nothing to chance. My opponents were chosen randomly by the game - Necromancer and Knight. This required beating the three Yellow armies on day one and getting rid of all random enemy heroes on day one and two (well, one evaded me and was dealt with early on day 3). With some troop shuffling to maximize distance and some unfortunate and unexpected visits from Blue and Green near my castle, I ended this game just one movement point away from winning on day seven. I won the game during the computer's turn on day 7, which the game actually treats as day 8 on the leaderboard... So two days later I tried again, went back to some earlier savegames and finally managed to win on day 7. I was pretty happy. This time there were two exciting battles where only one Halfling and Goblin remained on the battlefield at the end. The Goblin miraculously defended the main castle when I thought it wasn't possible, and now spends his days drinking grog in the tavern and shouting his story at strangers.
Yesterday, I thought what the heck, lets try one last time. I chose the Barbarian castle again and I was content with the starting RNG on the first try, so I didn't have to reset the map even once. I chose both of my opponents to be Knights. There was a lot of save scumming on day 1 and 2 but I managed to get what I wanted from all the small fights on the beach, and then conquer the Green's castle on day 3 and the Blue's castle on day 4. Which left the Yellow's castle as the last thing on the schedule for day 5. I managed to get it with Ergon, who, tired of being a pack mule for the last few days wanted to prove that he is also a hero. So he did, somehow reaching the castle with no stamina left, won the fight and then quickly retired to the tavern, leaving the chase of the remaining three Yellow generals to some newly promoted Warlocks, eager to test their magic powers and experiment with the recently researched Fireball spell. The war had bankrupted the treasury, leaving the king with no resources and only four hundred gold coins, which was barely enough to organise a feast for all his victorious generals. The king might also have been the one responsible for poisoning all of the generals during that night, but that is another story...
That's how I managed to beat Pandemonium on day 5. I'm satisfied with the score, it was fun and I'm happy it didn't take too much time to accomplish. It could have been a frustrating experience, yet somehow it all actually was very fun and satisfying.
I couldn't help myself, so I also spent some time thinking about improving the score afterwards. But, if my theory-crafting is correct, there are so many things that would need to happen before one can hope to improve the score, that I'm not going to try it, for the sake of my sanity. Restarting the game hundreds of times before everything is randomized exactly as needed is too much for me. Especially because the editor doesn't work in the GoG version so there would be no way of knowing what's where without playing the game, and doing so dozens or hundreds of times would be crazy.
I believe that the map can be beaten in 4 days. 3 days is extremely unlikely, bordering on impossible. Here are the key points for any future speedrunners:
- There is a maximum ca. 11k gold to be found on day 1 and one needs almost exactly as much to hope for success (4 heroes and starting troops cost 10.5k).
- It is possible to reach all enemy castles on day 3 (so in theory finishing the map in 3 days can be done but is extremely unlikely, as it requires ideal conditions and ignores the important fact that Blue, Green and Yellow will have around 3 heroes each which may block your way or run away. When the luck is on their side, they can sometimes just kill you as well. Fortunately our magic is stronger than theirs and the save/load spell will no doubt save the day. Provoking them into attacking you on the way to their castles would be the only way to finish the map in 3 days, as you will most likely lack enough gold to hire new heroes).
- All of the random Blue and Green enemy heroes on the beach can be dealt with in 2 days (maybe 3 without barbarian heroes), given enough luck and correct enemy manipulation. They can also be beaten by our random heroes and do not require any armies from the castle.
- The only faction that seems to be capable of beating the map in 4 days is the Warlock. I estimate that you would need both the random one and four heroes from the castle to all carry max number of troops (10 Centaurs and 4 Gargoyles) or very close to it. The main reason is that, if my estimations are correct, you need to be able to survive two turns when sieging castles, and they all have three turrets (which deal around 60 points of damage per turn). That means around 58 Centaurs and 20 Gargoyles for a start (plus potentially 6 Gargoyles on day 2) and this army needs to be split into three parts (Compare with 38 Centaurs and 10 Gargoyles on really bad rolls, probably not enough to even beat the three Yellow armies on day one without significant losses). A tiny fraction of the army needs to be left in the castle to provoke attacks and the remainder needs to be separated between the three main heroes. Knowing the enemy armies and their behaviour would dictate the proportions. But going back in time is no problem with the magic we wield.
- Choosing the easiest factions for Blue and Green seems crucial. For the Warlock, the Knight or the Sorceress seem the easiest to beat given our resources. Probably the Knight because Sorceress and Magic Arrow could be bad for us. But you can beat a bigger part of the starting Sprites stack with your Gargoyles without any losses compared to a stack of Peasants. Embarassing, I know.
- Why the Warlock you ask? Because it's the only faction that can move fast, has a tough flying unit necessary to endure castle towers during sieges and get behind castle walls, and use magic efficiently early.
- All our random random heroes would also need to have close to maximum stacks. Especially the Sorceress (taking close to 20 Sprites from her will make sieging castles that much more efficient and will allow you greater flexibility when dividing armies) and Barbarian and Wizard which will have to get rid of the rascals occupying our pretty beach.
- Gargoyles (and Sprites) are the only available creatures that let you block enemy shooters and manipulate the movement of big stacks of Skeletons in battles, making time to cast magic or use Centaurs. If you have both, you can potentially conquer a castle on your first turn, without any losses, depending on the strength of the defending army.
- The shrine of the second circle must have the Lightning Bolt (Cold Ray would be acceptable too, maybe even better actually, depending on other circumstances)
- The starting artifacts would need to be the Minor Scroll of Knowledge and the White Pearl or similar. The problem is that the starting 2 points in Knowledge on Warlock heroes only lets you cast Lightning Bolt twice, and you definitely need a lot more to deal with Yellow. There will be no time to visit the Stonehenge or Gazebo or the well northeast of the Yellow's castle if you aim for 3 days. There should be enough time during the 4 day attempt. There is most likely not enough time to get the buried White Pearl and transfer it to one of the Warlocks. But I'm not sure about that as it is a bit unpredictable. The artifacts would let one of your Warlocks cast LB 4 times and the other one 5 times before having to visit the well. That could be enough to deal with enemy heroes and siege a castle.
- During my 5 day record game, no wandering armies wanted to join my cause. If one of the two armies south of the castle decides to join you (especially if that army is an army of Gargoyles) you may be all set, maybe even for a miraculous 3 day win, who knows?
- Movement of enemy armies has to be strongly in our favour, meaning no exploration and staying close to the castle.
- This is a big one. Yellow needs to have no Lightning Bolt, Cold Ray or Death Wave in their Mage Guild. Having them would most likely cripple our main army too much. Magic Arrow and Death Ripple may be ok. Or not.
- There are probably other important factors that I fail to see or remember at the moment.
LAST HOPE - 5 days
A long time ago I beat it in 9 days which seemed like a good score back then. Another time, much later, I managed to do it in 7 days. Finally, a few years ago, after several more tries, I found a way to complete it in 5 days, and it seems to me that it's not possible to do it faster.
This map is much simpler than Pandemonium. We start with one hero and can get a maximum of 6000 gold on day one, which means two extra heroes. Hiring one or even two Barbarians would help. There are three main challenges on this map. The first one is how to split the armies. The second one is which heroes should attack which opponents and how to get there, as there are a few options. Last but not least is fighting all the battles in an optimal way, as they can get pretty close e.g. I got to siege the last castle with Corribus with one Crusader... Each opponent seems to only have one hero, to make things easier for players. There is also, as always, some luck involved in movement of enemy heroes, their spells, the shape of the battlegrounds and luck and morale boosts.
Unless I'm missing something, Corribus has to siege two castles, while the other two heroes each get one. There seems to be no way of buying four heroes on day one and having each one get to each of the four enemy castles in time to finish the map on day four. There might be a way to play with the Surrender mechanic but I can't see any way to use it in this scenario. In my opinion, there is no way to win this in 4 days. I wonder if anyone can prove me wrong...
DUNGEON BELOW - 2 days
This one is here just for fun. I don't even remember what I did to finish it in 2 days. It must have been something reasonably smart or lucky, cause normally it takes 3-4 days to finish. I just found the leaderboard on an old PC and thought I would mention it here.
PYRAMID - 11 days (or maybe 9)
This is an old high score which has been easily surpassed by several people who published their videos online. I might have also done it in 9 days later, but I'm not sure. One madman recently finished it in 6 days (!!!) and I'm not even going to try to get the same score, not to mention beating it, which seems impossible. The amount of lucky RNG you need to get to finish in six days is insane. But the guy who did it implemented one very simple 200 IQ move, which I did not even consider when playing the map - restraining himself from conquering one of the Necromancer castles asap, to use it later for the Surrender mechanic when conquering Warlock castles. That simple idea was executed in a really smart way, perfect for this map.
THUNK - 30 days
This map is all about conquering the castle of the main baddie on day 5 (could day 4 be possible?) with Corribus, which requires quite a lot of luck manipulation. But it should be doable in several attempts. It also helps to roll even Attack and Defense, low Spell Power and high Knowledge. If the Mage Guild in the castle has Dimension Door, it's game over. You get an army from the hero locked in prison and from there on it's all smooth sailing. Beating Thunk himself requires one simple trick (and some luck as always) which should be obvious to any experienced player. When I played this map for the high score for the first time, I managed to beat it in 46 days. I then replayed it from earlier saves and finished in 30 days. I'm sure it can be finished much faster if you figure out an optimal way to do things and have some luck on your side, but I don't know how many days can be saved by playing a perfect map. Maybe it's a few days, maybe a week, maybe even two weeks. It's too much work to try this again. I don't wanna, so I'm not gonna. If you wanna try - have fun!
I have some scores from other maps on another computer but I can't check them now. I will try to add them later.
It would be great to see some veterans of this game engage in the discussion and share their high scores and stories. There is a Facebook group for HoMM2 ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/209903865171265/ ) which I cannot join, so maybe someone can post a link to this thread there and invite people for a chat.
HoMM2 is my favourite game of all time. I hope you have enjoyed the post and will enjoy the challenge.
Post edited Yesterday by ttakitam
