Conceptually I like the idea of this map, your controlling a High Necromancer with some rabble under his command and you sort of have to make do with what you got. Its implementation could use a good bit of work though, as currently the 'tech tree' for this concept consists of incredibly powerful ranged poison throwing spearmen, and basic melee bandits.
Building reinforcements is tedious from the one tent that you are given, and i think most players worth their salt will just mass the powerful ranged as I did melting any heroes you encounter in less than two seconds and as a countermeasure to the abundance of 'towers-up-on-cliff-over-there" present in the map.I did like the introduction cinematic but it also could use a bit of work, the camera locked at to Semtex at the end of it for example.
The first verbal callout by the rifleman is neat but felt a bit odd, perhaps "undead?" rather than "dead?" would be more prudent.
When I eventually killed yellow's paladin "Gavinrad" I found myself before a stoney patch of terrain where Blue continuously spawned units from. Killing the Paladin didn't seem to stop the spawn, so I had to camp the stony patch and kill the waves of Blue forces as they spawned while I sorta just waited for my forces to rebuild from the tent. The better part of seven or so minutes passed just sort of regenerating mana and rebuilding forces.
After taking the Bastion it was neat to see it replaced with a Necropolis but I still had no resources to use nor a gold mine to haunt so that was unfortunate. But still at least the camera unlocked in time for me to watch my one spearman that had been building for the last minute run into blue's uncapped buildup from its Stony Patch spawn.
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When it was stated that the map is "hard", and I say this curtly as I often find that this is the case in the community, a so-called "Hard" map means staring at the screen waiting for little green and blue numbers to go up 1 or 2 seconds at a time for an extended period instead of... just having a heal? Personally I think that you can fix this issue by killing two birds with one stone, Semtex should have some more original abilities instead of being a default lich reskin after all. You could consider giving him a reskinned healing wave, or perhaps a rejuvenation that regenerates mana (could be cool for the necromancers you start with).
Still to not get lost in criticisms I believe that the terrain was quite nice. Though I joked about the abundance of towers on cliffs it is nice to see terrain being properly utilized in the map design. Its also quite nice to have little chokes and barricades and burning villages, still pathing is tight (another reason why I would only restock on ranged units). I would suggest looking at areas where you can open up the map a little bit more, the fight against reds militia was sorta neat for example.
I would also suggest you look into using items to reward explorative play, slaying reds militia leader might drop a horn with devotion aura, killing yellow's paladin might drop a maul of strength, little things like that go a long way to acknowledge the player and reward them for engaging with the game.
So far, a good effort! Its nice to see someone willing to put their work out there for others to see and critique, above all else this is exceedingly commendable. Keep it up, chug along, and this will turn out absolutely radical in no time. My only cautionary note is that I saw you made plans for 14 missions, for a first campaign I would advise you to not be so ambitious. This one map could use alot of work and has nuggets of content that can (and should) be deepened and explored. Best of luck friend, and thank you for your efforts thus far!
). This version in this thread is the most updated one
