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Heroes Community > Library of Enlightenment > Thread: Stronghold strategy
Thread: Stronghold strategy This thread is 2 pages long: 1 2 · NEXT»
maretti
maretti


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted June 22, 2005 10:19 PM bonus applied.
Edited By: angelito on 23 Jun 2005

Stronghold strategy

These days most players play castle or rampart but other towns are usefull too and since I have just won the tribe random subtournament playing most of my games with stronghold on balance I will reveal my strategy here since it seems to work:

Picking hero is easy: Crag is the man, if for some reson I cant get him I go for Tyrexor, Gretchen, Gurnison or Gundula.

Bonus should be resources since you will often have major wood problems.

The key to stronghold is double building, balance is the perfect map because you got the second stronghold town day 2 or 3. On other maps you have to prioritize finding the 2nd stronghold town by following the road and breaking into as many areas as possible. You have to find it week 3 day 3 or at least day 5. That way you have time to build behemoths and castle or just behemoths.

Here is how I think you should build:

Day 1: wolfs, Day 2: rocs, Day 3: town hall, Day 4: marked, Day 5: citadel, Day 6: castle, Day 7: behemoths.

The reson why I build marked is that I often have problems finding the money to get behemoths, if I build 2 markeds I have a good chance getting enough money. Remember all you need for stronghold is wood, ore and crystal, everything else can be traded.

Week 2 I get a spellbook for Crag, upgrade to T-birds for speed, buy the 3 behemoths (behemoths, T-birds and some goblin fodder should be army enough for week 2) and then build up to capital as fast as possible. I dont build ogres or cyclops and in most cases not orcs either.

Week 3 day 3 you build fort in the 2nd town and then castle and behemoths.

Late week 3 or early week 4 you begin to upgrade goblins, wolfs and behemoths.

Until you have everything upgraded and are ready to break and for main fight your main focus should be on finding money, wood and crystal, finding some good artifacts and getting some xp to get the skills you want.

The skills that I find are needed are these in prioritized order:

Air magic (mass haste is key to main battle), logistics (allways important to be fast), earth magic (usefull in main battle, very usefull in other fights), tactics (important to avoid opponent from blocking his shooters and very handy for other battles), armorer (makes you less vulnerable) and magic resistance (after you cast mass haste its important that one of your stacks resists the massslow counter)

A little advise on battle strategys:
Week 1 you should buy all goblins, wolfs and rocs from the starting town. A balista or a tent is very usefull. (Be carefull not losing wolfs. They are very strong in main battle.)

The main problem is taking out shooters like lots archers, marskmen, elfs, gogs, lizards and horde mastergremlins or halflings without losing to much. (elfs and marskmen can be a little dangerous) In most cases you will have some shooters in your starting army. Depending on the expected strenght of the enemy you should bring the 3 rocs in 3 stacks and then 2-4 shooters in single stacks. First round u wait with the rocs and the enemy will now take out your shooters. 2nd round you attack with the rocks and are able to block the shooters so you shouldnt lose any rocs this way.

Against nonshooters you will normally have a speedadvantage so you just hit a stack with a single goblin and then with your 3 powerstacks.

Week 2 you should buy a spellbook, 9 t-birds and 3 behemoths. It helps alot to get tactics. Then you can block shooters round one and u can fight nonshooters much easier. An example: With adv or exp tactics you can take out horde royal griffins without losing anything important. Thats not possible without tactics. What you do is place the behemoth in 3 stack, the birds in 1 stack and then bring 3 small stacks of goblins. Place each of the behemoths so that 1 stack of griffens can reach each of them. Then each of your behemoths will take out most of the 3 stacks of griffens by hitting them 2 times round 1. The birds will take out 2 stacks round 1 and 2 so when its the griffens turn again they will kill your goblins and the rest is easy.

If everything goes well mid week 4 you will have Crag with stats like 18 12 6 6 the  2nd skills I mentioned before and an army consisting of 10 abs, 30 t-birds, about 120 wolf raiders and 200 hobgoblins. If the game goes into week 5 you will have 14 abs, 42 t-birds, about 160 wolf raiders and 250 hobgoblins. If ur opponent plays rampart he will by week 4 normally have 5 green or gold dragons, 14 war unicorns etc.

In the final battle you place 1 or 2 single birds and wolfs to avoid retaliation on your powerstacks and then you cast masshaste at your first opportunity. Now all your units will move and you should be able to do so much damage that the battle in reallity is over. I prefer letting my birds hit the stack next to a shooter (dendroids or dwarves), my abs hit the lvl 7 unit (dragons) and the wolfs the lvl 6 stack (unicorns)It is obvious that moral artifacts will be nice to have.

Ofcourse stronghold also has some weaknesses. You will rarely be very fast, so if the opponent is fast he can surprise you. Another thing is that in the middle of the game your army wont be very strong compared to a castle or rampart army. So hope you dont run into the opponent and try to avoid confrontaion before you have everything ready. And finally you have a problem if dont get air magic or cant find the haste spell. A slowed army with no shooters has a problem.


Edit by angelito

Nice to see some really serious and usefull tactics again in the library. All towns have been discussed before, but after that long time, meanings could have changed....
Keep going maretti
____________
Crag rules, Orrin and Ivor suck

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Sir_Stiven
Sir_Stiven


Honorable
Legendary Hero
banned
posted June 22, 2005 10:36 PM

good post.

Just a couple of objections


First is something i guess you count on by just to clarify, for the skills offense is vital. Stronghold is an attacking town and will as maretti pointed out launch an all out attack as soon as they mass haste.

Another hero that deserves a mention is terek, his tactics and haste speciality is a bless. It also removes the problem about not getting haste spell


As for the tactics, i save my dogs. I dont buy em out as i usually can kill off most things with starting goblins and rocs. wolfs can be used to draw attention from orcs if you start with any. An exception to this is if you have tyraxor as one of 3 starting heroes. Then the wolfs will be your powerstack week 1 instead of gobs.

As pointed out, you need those dogs in end fight.


Then as for tactics, go for creature banks. As you will most likely have no clopses first or second week you will have atleast one open spot. IF you can fill that spot with some angels or a bunch of wyerns you will have another good dmg stack and if angels a faster starting unit. Good if you fight lets say tower who shares the unitspeed peak of 11. And the speed on angels is ironically also your problem as you cant use 1 stack bird to attract retaliation and use your angels to smash the same unit unless you wait. But then "smashcreature" can be blocked.

So practise on hitting banks.

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maretti
maretti


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted June 23, 2005 12:38 AM

Quote:

Another hero that deserves a mention is terek, his tactics and haste speciality is a bless. It also removes the problem about not getting haste spell



The problem with Terek is that he dosent get the same attack stats or as good 2nd skills(he starts with the useless wisdom) as barbarians, and you really need a very heavy attack. He has tactics yes but not offense. Whether you have spellpower 4 or 6 dosent really  matter. Normally finding the haste spell isnt a problem with 4 or 5 towns and magic scrines. And finally the exstra speed from his specialty isnt that important. Whether your goblins can reach round 1 or not dosent mean much.

Quote:

As for the tactics, i save my dogs. I dont buy em out as i usually can kill off most things with starting goblins and rocs.



Wolfs will often be very handy in your week 1 army. For example if you choose to take out a 75 dwarf treasurie you will need them.

Quote:

wolfs can be used to draw attention from orcs if you start with any.



You mean so that you can use them as fodder another time?

Quote:

Then as for tactics, go for creature banks.



Ofcourse, the reson I didnt mentioned it was that my opponents didnt allow cons and hives.

Quote:

As you will most likely have no clopses first or second week you will have atleast one open spot.



Why would you want clopes at all?
____________
Crag rules, Orrin and Ivor suck

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zsa
zsa


Famous Hero
posted June 23, 2005 05:20 AM

I sometimes go for behes day 2 - 3 if money allows cause one behe week 1 day 3 in your starting area can go a long way . If i have enough resources I usually try to build the ork tower week 1 as well as the oggre fort

Like it was said, attacking shooters in the beggining can be a bit tricky, especially if the shooters can dish out some pain. What I usually try to do when attacking shooters is get the archer stack from the secondary foreign hero (inferno, fortress, castle, prolly rampart or dungeon) and put it in my army.

It eliminates my chances of getting morale, but it also draws the fire from the shooters, and it can allow you to get out of a battle like that with no home town casualties.

Tactics would be awesome, so if you can get your hands on terek or tyraxor, you're a happy man (crag hack is better, but you rarely get what you want )

The problem with stronghold is that it has a very simplistic tactic, so everybody knows what you'll try to do when you're with stronghold - tactics if you can, mass haste, bash the snow out of your opponent. Easely the best strategy for stronghold around, but if your opponent isn't braindead, he'll know that's what you're going for and try to do everything to stop you (ie get tactics himself, get armourer hero and try to get mass slow etc. ).

To break the cycle, you might be able to pull off something cool on a map template where magic heroes are viable. Like flash a good barbarian at the tavern, power creep with soly and then strike early week 3 with some 500 damage chain lightning. Misdirection can go a long way if you know what you're doing .

Of course if you guys play the same templates (especially the closed ones I dread, like blockbuster and jeebus) then no, but then again, you don't even need to bother much with strategy on those. If you play them a couple of times, you'll know what to do (oh sure, it will always be different, but in the end you'll be doing the same crap).

Does anyone around here play or at least cares to try that ring template?

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Sir_Stiven
Sir_Stiven


Honorable
Legendary Hero
banned
posted June 23, 2005 05:45 PM

Bah.. i hate post disecting so here goes..

The haste speciality means alot more then you obviously think. As lower lvl creatures gets a higher speed boost you can use gobs to take retal.


As for the dogs, yes there are some battles you will need em for. But unless you fight at a position you wont go again on map there is no big urge for it either.

As for the "dogs sacrifising".. you only do attract attention with em. I never said anything about losing em or using em as fodder

If i expect that i send down a goblin instead.

As for the clopses.. i said there would be an open spot, that would mean not getting em wouldnt it?

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tigris
tigris


Supreme Hero
Supreme Noobolator
posted June 23, 2005 08:21 PM

Quote:
The haste speciality means alot more then you obviously think. As lower lvl creatures gets a higher speed boost you can use gobs to take retal.



What you say about the haste speciality is obviously true Stiven, but...your conclusion is what i don't understand.
At lvl 17(avergare level in endfight) Terek with exp haste vs a castle army for exemple.You already have tactics so you can choose your fighting positions.AA will go first, after that it's the T-birds time to act.When terek casts haste all his units will have their turn before his opponent gets to move again.The problem is that both the rocs and the wolfraiders(who are low hp but great damage critters) who need retaliation taken for them are faster than the hogoblins even with that special.Hasted wolfs will have speed 17 and rocs will have 18,whereas hoboblins will have speed 16.So what do you do now?You wait with both rocs and wolfs until hogoblins  take retal or you attack with all you have?
IMHO the way to do it(with Terek or Crag doesn't matter) is to have fodders made by 1 wolfraider on the firsts slots of your army(1 or 2 or even 3 of them depends  if you bring your orcs and your ogres along).This way you can avoid your wolfs being retaliated against while the t-birds can take on some slot that's not really able to do some harm them back.The hogoblins can follow up the birds or take charge of another stack to open the way for ogres for instance.Ancients won't be needing someone to suck the retaliatin for them cos there won't be much left after they strike.

For me Terek is a pretty usefull hero cos he starts with tactics, but in endfight his speciality often sucks(except for the case oponent has tactics too).If your opponend doesn't have tactics and you do you can reach every hex with tactics and exp haste without needing the speciality.

____________

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Axel
Axel


Hired Hero
Centaur Master
posted July 03, 2005 08:58 PM

Another good hero is Yog . I prefer cyclops insted of behemonts in the firs weeks because they grow in higher quantities and have ranged attack

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angelito
angelito


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
posted July 03, 2005 10:07 PM

Axel....perhaps u should first play some games against human players online before stating such posts.
You really think 6 cyclops on week 2 day 1 are stronger than 3 Behemots?
Or 1 behemot day 3 (4) is weaker than 2 cyclops day 5?

....hmmmm....
____________
Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.

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zsa
zsa


Famous Hero
posted July 04, 2005 06:33 AM

Well I think the developers were really high on some stuff that you can't buy at your local drug dealer and they swapped the crystal cost of the two buildings.

I mean really, what were they thinking when they made the cyclops dwelling. I have to pay less snow for giants, and the same resources (not gold) for green dragons.

I know they look really mean and hurl big rocks at your castle gates, but common dude, wtf.

Well the only time I went for cyclops and not behes was when i had two cyclops caves around. 16 cyclops week 2 is pretty sexy.

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Gidebar
Gidebar


Hired Hero
posted July 05, 2005 03:12 AM
Edited By: Gidebar on 4 Jul 2005

I like the costs, its something different and thus nice to play with.
Zsa: its great to have those cyclops week2, but i still would have built the behemoths first cause you need something to protect the clops, and later on it can slow you down to have less behes, in utopias for example.
And even without the town building you would have had 8 cylops, plus 3 behes.

Maretti: i agree with you mostly, but i would always build ogres if possible, great unit to block and let the enemy beat on.
Goblins die fast, wolves are too good, same goes for birds...ogres are the best stronghold fodder.

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angelito
angelito


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
posted July 05, 2005 09:41 AM
Edited By: angelito on 5 Jul 2005

Quote:
... but i still would have built the behemoths first cause you need something to protect the clops...


Are u serious with that?
You would use the best attacking unit in the game to protect a low number of shooters?

____________
Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.

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Gidebar
Gidebar


Hired Hero
posted July 05, 2005 01:53 PM
Edited By: Gidebar on 5 Jul 2005

?

what i ment is even if you have a larger amounts of cyclops, you may need something to defend them vs. stronger monsters.
and you can use behemoths too since they wont die as fast as goblins, i dont consider 8 cyclops a low number of shooters week 2.

An example a pack of unicorns, you may not be able to defeat them with the 3 behemoths alone without risking to lose one, since they are faster and blind.
But you can put the clops into a corner, split your behs and move them around the clops.
The unis wont be able to take down the behs and are shot down by the clops, my guess at least

But are you serious about Behs being the strongest attacking unit?
I dont think so i wouldnt argue about ancients, but behs are weaker than angels, dragons etc.

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angelito
angelito


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
posted July 05, 2005 02:27 PM
Edited By: angelito on 5 Jul 2005

That will be the difference....
I will always have Ancient Behemots before i even build cyclops cave.
So when u talk about "a pack" of unicorns (which means at least 10), it will be week 3 (without dwelling). In week 3, i have 5 Ancient Behemots and probably still NO cyclops coz i needed the crystals for the upgrade. But T-Birds and Ancients are a very deadly combination, especially when u have tactics.
Stronghold army doesn´t count on shooters like Tower and perhaps Castle does nor do they "defend" anything.....they count on pure, brutal, attacking force...
____________
Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.

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Gidebar
Gidebar


Hired Hero
posted July 05, 2005 03:18 PM

omg do you even READ my posts?
unicorns on the MAP, and clops from DWELLINGS, as explained in Zsa´s example...
and i was talking about week 2, and why should you not want to build a clops cave if you have 2 dwellings.

Excuse me, but what a horrible post for a moderator...

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a_rebirthing...
a_rebirthing_flight


Supreme Hero
with rebirthing power
posted July 05, 2005 03:24 PM

man listen and listen good. i dunno much about angelito but i know one thing for certain. he knows everything about h3. from tactics to formulae to what to do in every situation angelito knows it well. aguing with angelito about H3 is not something u wanna do. i know

so step back
____________
'Tis better to rely on the the wit of your brain rather than the speed of your hands and mouse -me
Being happy isn't just an emotion, it's a choice!-Leo_Lion
It's Gortex!!!

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Gidebar
Gidebar


Hired Hero
posted July 05, 2005 03:31 PM

aha, i dont care what someone thinks to know, if he doesnt read what others post its still worthless to me isnt it.
I dont need a lesson in how to use strongholds or someone telling me why he will rule with his ancients, i was just playing around with the situation Zsa told us

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a_rebirthing...
a_rebirthing_flight


Supreme Hero
with rebirthing power
posted July 05, 2005 03:34 PM

man just dont go there next time
____________
'Tis better to rely on the the wit of your brain rather than the speed of your hands and mouse -me
Being happy isn't just an emotion, it's a choice!-Leo_Lion
It's Gortex!!!

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Gidebar
Gidebar


Hired Hero
posted July 05, 2005 03:35 PM

Quote:
man just dont go there next time

and who are you, the 14 years old spammer of the board?
Why dont you go away noone was talking to you

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mr_niceguy
mr_niceguy


Famous Hero
of power
posted July 05, 2005 03:39 PM

hey dont insult someone because of thier age, he's not just a spammer either

just calm down both of u

this is a forum meaning ur rarely actually talking to someone in particular, anyone can join any conversation at any time
____________
a stich in time saves nine... what the hell does that mean?
If u enjoy telling ur friends of how uve never been beaten with ur own legs, u'd rethink making a comment

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angelito
angelito


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
posted July 05, 2005 03:39 PM

Perhaps u should use the "quote" function when u refer to a post from another member....and i guess u should think about words like "horrible" twice before u use them regarding to such issues.

But still i would never protect my clops with single behemots. They have 160 hitpoints. A pack of unis could easily kill one of them especially coz of the low defense skill stronghold has. I would protect the clops (placed in the top corner) with 2 single goblins in front and 2 single goblins to the bottom, so the unis need at least 4 rounds (with moral 3) to reach my clops. In that time, the unis should be dead by the Behemots and the Clops already. And a single haste spell also helps against faster units.....
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.

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