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| Thread: Your opinion about the Tactics skill (HOMM 3) |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted October 02, 2015 09:15 PM |
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That is an entirely different discussion. And like many other things it is situational and also depends on difficulty setting. I tend to build Capitol earlier on higher diffulty settings as you start with few/no money and really could use some. Of course if the enemy is knocking at your front door week 2, you probably wished you bought some creatures instead...
Back to topic now. 
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BlackMagik
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 02, 2015 11:21 PM |
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doesn't mean it's true
By the same token, one doesn't have to look very far around here to find someone who disagrees with your point
Don't think the OP is saying that their viewpoint is true...just boring.
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It's does'nt really have much to do with tactics either, more like a pre-emptive strike
My point, as well...the skill should be titled "First Strike" as it has little to do with actual battlefield tactics
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted October 02, 2015 11:37 PM |
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Or "Pre-emptive Strike" or "Pre-emptive Positioning", though those names suck. 
Glad we agree BlackMagik
Looking forward to play with heroes I would never pick as main heroes before, because of that boring a** skill. Dace, Gunnar, Shakti, Tyraxor, Terek, Tyris here I come.
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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted October 03, 2015 12:00 AM |
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I usually pick that skill when my usual army has not much movement points, or when there are too many walkers or strong walkers with low movement, or some good shooters I want to protect.
It's a skill I usually pick whenever I play with Fortress, Stronghold, Tower, Castle and Rampart factions. For other factions I feel, for some reasons, much less inclined to have this skill.
But that's only a general idea. It truly depends on the map, if it feels the need to have this skill or if you are facing a strong foe with this skill and his positioning may be too threatening.
It also improves a bit your first assault power in a siege, also depending on some variables. All in all, it's a useful skill. Differently from Eagle Eye which requires much more favorable variables to have some usefulness - and lifespan before becoming useless.
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted October 03, 2015 01:12 AM |
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Yeah, it's not like I would choose Eagle Eye, Learning, Mysticism or First Aid either, these skills are much worse than Tactics. But even those skills manage to be more interesting than Tactics imo.
Really hope they will improve those 4 skills in HotA soon... (And yes Salamandre, maybe Sorcery too.)
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PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
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posted October 03, 2015 03:38 AM |
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These days I was thinking on First Aid having a preemptive functionality, 'to tend wounds so fast, it would decrease the damage taken'. Which would mean that your tent would act first in the turn, not in last (would be able to Wait), and that the chosen unit would have a % of damage protection. That protection would only last for one attack. Levels of that skill would increase % accordingly.
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"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted October 03, 2015 09:39 AM |
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Hmm damage protection, interesting. I am assuming it only applies to physical attacks?
My idea of improving it would probably be to let it heal 100/150/200 hp instead of 50/75/100 and the tent itself would have 150 hp. If this effect is still too weak, it could maybe cure a negative spell also or it could work as a mass spell and heal all your wounded units.
Not a fan of the resurrection idea, it is a First Aid Tent after all not Tent of Resurrection...
I wonder what wen't on in developers heads when they gave Necropolis First Aid Tent, when neither of it's classes can learn First Aid and why does Rion have speciality in a weak tent, when he can't even buy it in Castles. Castle should have had First Aid Tent and Necropolis ballista.
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BlackMagik
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 03, 2015 01:22 PM |
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Castle should have had First Aid Tent and Necropolis ballista.
Yes, the idea of necromancers being able to heal goes against traditional D & D style where some games go as far as using curative spells to damage undead...
IMHO, blacksmiths should offer every form of war machine. Having once been a modern form of blacksmith (worked in a welding shop), we fabricated just about anything imaginable...tho' getting out needle and thread to make a first aid tent would have been stretching it
...and the problem with a First Aid tent, AFAIAC, is that the healing skill is too variable. Even with a First Aid specialist like Gem or Verdish at expert level, you can get a decent three figure healing boost one turn and....12 the next. Better to assemble the Elixir of Life when possible.
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted October 03, 2015 01:29 PM |
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But doesn't harmful spells heal undead, while healing spells harm them in D&D?
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Living time backwards
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted October 03, 2015 01:34 PM |
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Since you can't cast cure on the enemy, making cure harmful to undeads makes little sense, but I could understand if the healing effect of cure did'nt affect them. And using first aid on undead (or golems or elementals) sounds very weird.
I like the idea of every town having their own war machine (HotA even invented the cannon for Cove) and Stronghold having 2, but imo Necropolis and Castle should switch war machines.
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BlackMagik
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 03, 2015 02:11 PM |
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But doesn't harmful spells heal undead, while healing spells harm them in D&D?
Certain spells do. For instance, in NeverWinterNights, using a Negative Energy spell on undead heals them, while using Cure or a curing potion damages them...
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted October 30, 2015 12:28 AM |
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Just wanted to say I changed my opinion about Tactics a bit.
I played a map with Tyris (Leadership & Tactics) as main hero and she could easily destroy shooters with champions and griffins. Later on the skill became less necassary and with expert haste/slow and/or speedartifacts it also loses some effectiveness. But for early to mid game it is a nice skill.
I also found it much easier to arrange troops by speeding up animation speed and that new HD mod update that allows you to click on creatures you wan't to arrange.
I probably still won't pick the skill when leveling up, as it's best used from the start, but at least I will now choose heroes starting with it sometimes.
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MeKick
Hired Hero
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posted October 30, 2015 06:18 AM |
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Edited by MeKick at 06:18, 30 Oct 2015.
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phoenix4ever said:
Just wanted to say I changed my opinion about Tactics a bit.
I played a map with Tyris (Leadership & Tactics) as main hero and she could easily destroy shooters with champions and griffins.
Good observation. This is one very powerful use of the secondary skill, which is why it's one of my go-tos for a main hero.
phoenix4ever said:
Later on the skill became less necassary and with expert haste/slow and/or speedartifacts it also loses some effectiveness. But for early to mid game it is a nice skill.
The fact that you can potentially negate a substantial amount of losses in the early/mid game can only point towards a stronger late game. Furthermore, at Expert Tactics you can move your units up to 7 spaces forward or have a chance to reposition your units perfectly to cover your shooters without having to worry about an opponent's speed advantage. Thus, I disagree with Tactics losing some of its effectiveness -- it can be just as strong in the late game as it is in the early game.
phoenix4ever said:
I also found it much easier to arrange troops by speeding up animation speed and that new HD mod update that allows you to click on creatures you wan't to arrange.
Yes, I absolutely agree with this -- it's a very handy feature to have.
phoenix4ever said:
I probably still won't pick the skill when leveling up, as it's best used from the start, but at least I will now choose heroes starting with it sometimes.
Fair enough. But if you don't mind me asking, what secondary skills would you then rather have in place of Tactics?
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted October 30, 2015 08:53 AM |
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Probably Offense, Armorer, Logistics, Navigation (because I play an XL +underground island map) Wisdom and Earth Magic. Then there are 2 skills that could be what I'm in the mood for.
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zmudziak22
Supreme Hero
Heroes 3 Fan
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posted October 30, 2015 07:55 PM |
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I played as Necro and Isra was my main hero. My Build was:
Necromancy(Standard for Undead)
Tactics(It is good with Mass Haste and Big Stack of Skeletons)
Wisdom
Earth Magic
Air Magic(Mainly Haste, but also Elementals and Lighting Spells)
Water Magic(Cloning Skeletons or Prayer army, forgetfullness to disable range units)
Logistics(Standard for XL Map)
Offense(More damage by Skeletons)
Tactics is great in any stage of game. If not a Necromancy I would go for Intelligence or Armorer. I was lucky having Galhatran in Tavern so starting game with 100+ skeletons was very easy to build town.
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BlackMagik
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 01, 2015 05:32 AM |
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Despite its' usefulness as designed, Tactics still has very little to do with actual battlefield tactics and more with first-strike capabilities.
I cite comments like these to support my stance:
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and she could easily destroy shooters with champions and griffins
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at Expert Tactics you can move your units up to 7 spaces forward or have a chance to reposition your units perfectly to cover your shooters without having to worry about an opponent's speed advantage.
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It is good with Mass Haste and Big Stack of Skeletons
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or when there are too many walkers or strong walkers with low movement, or some good shooters I want to protect
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When you don't move first, tactics can make a huge difference, by protecting key stacks.
It's all about getting there "fustest-with-the-mostest" and covering your shooters, and not about maneuver and tactics.
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MeKick
Hired Hero
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posted November 01, 2015 05:36 AM |
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BlackMagik said:
Despite its' usefulness as designed, Tactics still has very little to do with actual battlefield tactics and more with first-strike capabilities.
I cite comments like these to support my stance:
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and she could easily destroy shooters with champions and griffins
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at Expert Tactics you can move your units up to 7 spaces forward or have a chance to reposition your units perfectly to cover your shooters without having to worry about an opponent's speed advantage.
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It is good with Mass Haste and Big Stack of Skeletons
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or when there are too many walkers or strong walkers with low movement, or some good shooters I want to protect
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When you don't move first, tactics can make a huge difference, by protecting key stacks.
It's all about getting there "fustest-with-the-mostest" and covering your shooters, and not about maneuver and tactics.
But getting there faster and covering your shooters ARE tactics.
Supposing that you could actually change the Tactics secondary skill so that it would suit its name, how would you do it?
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MeKick
Hired Hero
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posted November 01, 2015 05:43 AM |
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zmudziak22 said:
Water Magic(Cloning Skeletons or Prayer army, forgetfullness to disable range units)
Why would you need Water Magic to clone Skeletons (a level 1 unit)?
Moreover, if you already have Expert Tactics and Expert Air for Haste, then why would you need Forgetfulness to disable enemy ranged units?
I do admit Expert Prayer is quite nice, but I would still personally go with Expert Armorer over Expert Water Magic if I already have access to Air and Earth.
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted November 01, 2015 10:34 AM |
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I agree BlackMagik. The name of the skill is a bit misleading, it's more about arranging your troops before battle than actual tactics. Guess we already agreed on this once. But everyone knows what Tactics is, so changing the skills name now would be weird, NWC should have thought of a better name 16 years ago.
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BlackMagik
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 02, 2015 04:35 AM |
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But getting there faster and covering your shooters ARE tactics.
I suppose you could loosely consider that to be so, but "bum-rushing" is not tactics, IMHO.
Some of the most commonly cited principles of battlefield tactics are the objective, the offensive, surprise, security, unity of command, economy of force, mass, and maneuver.
Objective is the destruction of the enemy army, but I view that as the most simplistic tactic and the very broadest description.
Being on the offensive is not within the scope of the game since there is no advantage to being the attacker (a short-coming of the game, IMO).
Ambush is also not within the scope of the game, so surprise is not an issue.
Security of ones units is certainly possible, so that IS a factor.
Unity of command, economy of force, and mass are likewise non-factors.
Which leaves the last, but not least, maneuver.
Since there is no advantage to flanking or attacking from the rear (also short-comings, IMO), and no 3-D battlemap to utilize terrain, that leaves maneuvering ones own troops to get favorable match-ups as the only viable way to achieve actual tactics on the battlefield.
Being able to pre-arrange your formation is not maneuver, but an artificial way for one side to gain an advantage on the other.
So....
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Supposing that you could actually change the Tactics secondary skill so that it would suit its name, how would you do it?
I would not change the skill per-se...I would make the battlefield much larger (I saw such a map somewhere around here several years ago), I would decrease the movement rate for many of the higher-tier creatures (I just think there is too much disparity in the movement rates between the low-level grunts and the speed demons like Phoenixes, for example).
Now you cannot get all the way across the battlefield on your first movement turn even with speed bonus items and mass haste. This would eliminate the bum-rush method where many battles are over on the very first turn or shortly there-after.
Now true battlefield maneuvering has to occur as both players (or player/AI) scramble to set up favorable match ups or stop the "speed demons" from reaching vulnerable units quickly (ie. the very first turn).
Possible? Like I said, I saw a battlefield map that someone here had designed that was at least 50% larger than the size currently used. It would be fascinating to try out battles on such a map
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But everyone knows what Tactics is, so changing the skills name now would be weird, NWC should have thought of a better name 16 years ago.
Agreed on all points. IMHO, First Strike more aptly describes the skill, as I've already stated....
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