Been playing some HoMM 3 user made maps.
Treasure of the Elves turned out to be impossible on Impossible, but when I played on Hard it kept crashing on the computer's turn after a while. Very annoying since it was a very promising map.
Fall and Rise of the Sharai is made by same mapmaker who made the classic Lord of War. I thought that was her last map, but she started using a nic instead of her real name.
Starts out as a story driven map, but turns into an epic war map, with you in the middle of the map. Starting as a Fortress you will never be able to get Town Portal in your own towns, and you can't afford to lose your own HQ, so you have to consider carefully where to expand. Very strategic map, being both open and dynamic, with some of the enemies being allied with each other and others being enemies, so anything can happen.
Excellent map which showcases how well the Fortress can defend against overwhelming odds.
ReadMe said play it on Hard, but should be doable on Impossible, since like in Lord of War you get lots of stuff through events in the beginning turns.
Grandmaster is very different. It's a a semi open (lots of quest guards and border guards) map with static enemies. But it's a tour-de-force of creativity and clever design, with a rich background story. The writing is good, and confined to hero bios (several starting as prisoners) and events, of which many take place behind Inns and Stables. Nice change of pace from too many maps that throw walls of bad fan fiction at you in classic Heroes Chronicles style. If there's one thing I really hate it's when a game uses dozens of pages to tell me what my character feels and dreams.
Anyway, this is probably the best HoMM 3 map I've played, with so much to explore and discover.
Not a map for casuals or if you want something you can finish in an evening. An extremely intricate map where it pays to play slowly and really plan ahead. I think it took me about a week to finish.
Next game on my play list is Icewind Dale. I've played it several times, twice with conventional parties (with and without a bard), once with a LOTR themed party, and once soloing a F/M/T. This time I'll play the original game without the expansion, and with a Sword&Sorcery power trio of Gray Mouser, Fafhrd and Cappen Varra.