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Heroes Community > Heroes 5 - Temple of Ashan > Thread: Help on strat against Academy
Thread: Help on strat against Academy This thread is 3 pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT»
Ake11
Ake11


Hired Hero
posted October 14, 2007 06:44 PM

Help on strat against Academy

Hey! I need help with a good strat?

Me and a friend is playing Heroes over LAN and he always pick Academy and on a hero he choose Nathir (the guy that do more firedamage spells)

He also only want to play small maps so I have some question

1. What is best strat against his choose

And this question I take in here even it have not much to do with this

2. I wonder if you guys try to get the best of skill tree, if we say you are necromancher, do you try to get Howl of terror? Becouse I try this all the time but is it good or should I not try to get the spec skills?


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Duncan
Duncan


Famous Hero
The Pathfinder
posted October 14, 2007 07:44 PM

1. Check this thread. It actually  discusses how you should play the Academy, but at the same time also tells you how to beat it.

2. Howl of Terror is a terrifying skill, dampening enemy's morale by -6. If your opponent doesn't have morale booster, chances are you'll keep on butchering his/her troops. But if you play under H5/HoF, you'll need a large map as that ultimate skill is only achievable at level 28-30. Unless it's TotE, you can get it at level around 22.
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But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it.

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grow
grow


Adventuring Hero
posted October 16, 2007 08:59 AM

sylvan can be tricky sometimes for academy
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nothing is predictable
grow me

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Slim-Sleeper
Slim-Sleeper


Hired Hero
Lazy
posted October 16, 2007 09:50 AM

If you play on a small map you can try to ultraboost your army by building a tavern, buying bouth heros, and move the heroes armies to the main hero, and rush!

I'm not saying its a 100% safe victory, but you could try it out : )

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grow
grow


Adventuring Hero
posted October 17, 2007 08:19 AM

the special skills are good and all but youll probably have to take
some skills and abilities that you wont want...i dont really try for ultimate or those special skill really
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kermit
kermit


Known Hero
Soul hunter
posted October 17, 2007 11:47 AM

Since he's a fireball specialist best way to neutralize his special is  to get some fire resistance/ magic resistance.

Here are a few options
1: Get the ice shield, it reduces fire damage by 50%
2: Get luck and magic resistance perk
3: Get magic resistance artifacts
4: Use magic resistant troops (Gargoyles, golems, black dragons, etc..)
5: Get light magic with fire resistance perk

If the map is small it means that factions like heaven, sylvan or  fortress won't do great. A magic faction would do be better there.
It also means your oponent won't have mini artifacts so his troop initiative will be low, so use fast units to quickly engage him.

If you're playing necromancer you will have very easy creeping.
Build up your magic guild a little then go into his territory and fight as much stuff as you can while raising army through necromancy. Without ressources academy can't really develop.

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Mytical
Mytical


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Chaos seeking Harmony
posted October 17, 2007 11:52 AM

Since this is a small map, I would probably suggest the following.

Go with Inferno, upgrade to (familiars? the original upgrade) as quick as possible.  Rush them.  Academy's main strength is it's magic.  Without it, its going to be tough, and this strat does not work if they get too much mana.  So go early.  Normally their creatures will be weaker then yours.  If you can upgrade to Horned Devils, explode them when close to their gremlins.  They only draw back to this is that you will have no range.  If you have any DD spells, take out there 1st tier creatures first.  There are other ways of doing this also.

Haven can make good rushers.   Especially with the crossbow guys.  They should target the 1st tier academy unit unless there are more dangerous creatures...(don't count golems tho, they should be your last target).  If you can somehow get soldiers luck even your peasants (upgraded of course) can be a great help.  

Keep in mind it takes quite a bit of resources to build mage guilds.  The second option is getting to the resources before they do.  Necros are good at that, as they often have little or no losses.  Limit their resources as much as possible.  Not only does this help you (you have more resources), but it hurts them.  Again, this generally is a small map plan, not a large map one.
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Slim-Sleeper
Slim-Sleeper


Hired Hero
Lazy
posted October 17, 2007 08:47 PM bonus applied.

First of all, the only town I'm experienced with is necro.

On a smaller map it would mean that the creeps are generally weaker (or is it just me?) so that means that you will be able to raise the units that you are going to get quick. And yeah, DONT raise zombies, they are no good against the human player since they will prolly never act unless the battle goes on for like.. 4 turns wich is unlikly. So if you plan on getting a rush on the go, try to fight tier 1, 3 and 4.

If you plan to wait untill you get vamps then I generally like to use Lucretica, if not you should use Vlaad or maybe Kaspar as they are bouth good creepers. However, Lucretica does better in the final battle if she is a rather high lvl, say 13 - 20 and you have some 40 vamp lords (think that is possible at around week.. say late 2, early 4).

The archers are good in numbers, but if you plan to rush them very fast then they are not that very good, you need to get like 1000 of them to make any real impact, and that takes some time with the new necro.

You should try to get the pillar of bones as fast as possible to be able to raise more armies at no cost. Also get eternal servitude as fast as possible. I know that 39 vamps is pretty much the same as 40, but 30 vamps are not the same as 40.. So as long as you loose men of only 1 type, the eternal servitude can raise them back up as long as you dont loose alot of men of that type.

The zombies are good at creeping (being a tank when your hero and archers do the killing), but the ghosts are also very good blockers! I once split the specters into groops of 1, 1, 1 and the rest, and I had a very good enviorment that allowed me to hide myself behind those 3 spectres. The enemy was mele 2x2 troops and was only able to engage with 1 stack at the time. The one that got to me first missed all together 4 times on the togheter 3 spectres wich gave me time to shoot them down! But then again, I was lucky with enviorment.

But to creep without losses, or with loosing 1-2 zombies with necro is no problem, even at day 1! You mostly need an extra hero anyway, so I sometimes buy the tavern first, and hope to find a necro enemy! If you find kaspar there you get 60 zombies, a tent AND a hero for only 2500 - 3000! Thoose 60 extra zombies can make a difference the first day in creeping, maybe getting you the 1 mine you need for the superrush!

But if you plan on playing a few weeks then I'd say Lucretica is the best hero since she boosts the best unit!

So now you have some tips on how to build the army, so, how to slay the acadamy!

First of all, you can take your other hero, equip him with a ballista (if you can aford it) and alot of zombies in stacks of say 4. So 6 stacks of 4 zombies, thats 24 zombies, and 1 stack with abit more, say 20 zombies. And send him in first. It will take time to kill thoose zombies, and in that time your ballista and hero can do some damage, maybe take out their mages, or weakening the gremlins! And hopefully the stack of 20 zombies get off a kill or 2. DONT move your zombies foreward, just have them seperated so only 2 stacks can be hit by the same spell (that would mean, this early, stonespikes, circle of winter and fireball), so keep 1 space between them, and 1 "up and down" so he cant even hit 2 stacks with stone spikes. After you weaken him with this puny army that cost you very little you can move on with your bigger army.

Lets asume he dont have titans or rakasha's, and only very few djins.

Dont focus on the golems first, they are slow, dont focus too much on the gargoyles, they do puny damage, and if you can guard the archers they are useless. That leaves us with Gremlins, Djins and prolly some mages.

The mages can do more then 1 thing, they can shoot, and they can cast. If they are few you can prolly act before they can do anything with archers and hero. If you are able to do this, then GREAT! If you cant kill them before they act then ok, they will act!

Always remember to look on the ATB bar to find out what you can do before the enemy can act, and also see how far an enemy mele unit can move. Not that a normal djinn cant get to your menwithout artifact, but a djinn sultan can! So dont hit the norman djinn the first round since he cant to anything to you! (exept maybe throwing some spell)

If you can take their ranged troops before their mele blocks yours, the the game is on!

Note that the Vampirelords can drain life and have no retaliation, so  lets say they atack, get hit by ranged, get hit by living mele, then the retaliation tanks place (since you should try to fight him before he get rakashas), and drain on the retaliation, then next hit hopefully killing the stack and drain back all or most of his strength! The life that the vamps drain will not reduce their total hp like raise dead does.

The gargoyles will get to you rather fast since they are flying, but they are puny! So try to fight them with your zombies if you have some left after the first battle. Dont waste arrows on gargoyles or golems in the beginning, waste them on their shooters!

If you pick darkmagic then there is not much to do unless you are skilled (and lucky) enough to get frenzy and or puppetmaster. Uf you get them then use frenzy on their djinn (if they act after you can cast the first time. if they get close to your troops then you are just stupid to cast frenzy). If not then use it on a ranged unit close to a mele, hopefully the golems, and hope that the golems smack the enemy ranged almost dead (almost since you can use them again to anoy the enemy). If you dont have them then I dont think dark will help you too much.. but if you are unable to build magic guild lvl 3 (or 4 if you have that skill that lets you learn all the spells in 3rd circle) the you should not focus on the magic skills unless you are able to get mass spells, like mass slow, or mass decay/suffering/woulnerability or some other nice mass spell.

If you are unable to get a lvl 3 spell in any case (either unable to get the skill to get the 3rd circle spells, or are unable to get the magic guild), and are unable to get any nice mass spells,  then you are better of with AND skill then you are with getting a magic skill.

I'm not all that good with rushing, but what about (with say Lucretica that starts with sorcery), necro, sorc, att, deff, enlight, log? Or maybe luck instead of one of them. And yeah, enlight is for the stats to boost your vamps even more, and the extra xp is also to boost your vamps even more (more lvl's, more stats).

If you have say 10 more in stats overall (like.. 2 more att, 3 more deff, 3 more SP and 2 more know) then your enemy just because enlight, then its a very nice skill early on!

If you get motn (Mark of the necromancer) and use it wisely then you dont need a high knowlage that much, but I find it nice anyway since it takes time to get mana with the new motn in early battles with low damage fights..

You can also try to split your skelli archers into 2 stacks with the same size using 1 of them as "bait for the mele by leaving it all alone in the 1 edge! That will save your main army 1 turn of mele damage, and maybe even get the first strike on the enemy! Yes, you will loose half your archers, but 1-2 raise dead can get them back up again!

To go agro with necro in a battle is not too good since only the vamps will get there rather quick (and since the enemy has few living mele the vamps will waste retals on nonliving and thereby not draining life! Use your vamps against living, and waste your other troops on nonliving letting the vamps do the final blow with their very high speed. Try to keep every fight within range of the vamps in case of a possible stackkill for the vamps.

Their golems will use 2 turns or more just to cross the battlefield, so dont do anything with them unless you have taken out most of the other army (espessialy shooters).

If you see that your vamp can act 2 times before the enemy mele can act 1 then you have a golden opurtunity to take out some shooters, but then leaving the vamps in the fight!

In the early battles, with few men on each side, 1 wrong move can screw the whole battle for you, so try to make the enemy make that 1 wrong move : )

I hope I didn't say too much wrong, or had awfull english, I'm just a noob checking if my tacs are any good : )

But if you despite playing with necro, then I guess I wasted some 5 minutes of your life or something : )

Have phun! And yeah, aint he your friend? Arent you just playing for fun? Then have fun! Dont ruin the game by focusing on winning! Just think about how happy you make your friend by loosing too him!

Just think about how dreadfully painfull it is to loose the battle that you fought perfect just because your enemy had more men, or was more lucky (with the ingame luck I mean). It was painfull, but you played perfect! I like that kind of loss.. You know you did your best, but it wasn't enough! That means you can only get better!

And yeah, if you always loose, and he always win.. Then he has 1 bad thing to look foreward to, and you have 1 good thing to look foreward too : )

I should stop now : P have phun!

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Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted October 17, 2007 09:08 PM

Considering small rusheable maps

Quote:
Dungeon:
you are a better mage, you have better units, unless your units get out numbered really bad, you shouldn't have any problem.
Sinitar is a really good hero.

LOL! You have not faced a good wizard player on small have you.

Quote:
Haven:
Dougal as main hero to abuse the marksman and get Ellaine ASAP.
Haven have the best units when you put them together.

Sure crossbowmen/marksmen are awesome but alone they have little chance against academy's spells. Better to build a guild 2 for cleansing or just buy everything and hope the opponent did not get good spells.

Quote:
Necropolis:
I havn't played much game with them, but from what i heard, they are really overpowered.

Yep a bit better than academy early Though 3.0 hurt their earlygame a bit so they are just good.

Quote:
Sylvan:
If you want to, you can even get the defense-protection, luck-magic resistance, light magic-fire resistance. combine those skills with your silver unicorn. have fun look at the fire work.

Hard to plan. What I know is that against motw + eldrich arrow early sylvan is toast, you must be lucky with resistance. Warmachines can help.
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MartectX
MartectX


Adventuring Hero
posted October 17, 2007 10:06 PM

Quote:
I'm not all that good with rushing, but what about (with say Lucretica that starts with sorcery), necro, sorc, att, deff, enlight, log? Or maybe luck instead of one of them. And yeah, enlight is for the stats to boost your vamps even more, and the extra xp is also to boost your vamps even more (more lvl's, more stats).

If you have say 10 more in stats overall (like.. 2 more att, 3 more deff, 3 more SP and 2 more know) then your enemy just because enlight, then its a very nice skill early on!

Your post is very informative, thank you very much! But here you made one mistake: A rush can't wait for 6 skills to develop, or getting +10 stats by enlightenment (which would make the hero level 20 I think?). I'd suggest going for dark, attack and necromancy. The latter first, because in the little time you have until the big battle you have to make the most of it.

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feluniozbunio
feluniozbunio


Promising
Supreme Hero
posted October 18, 2007 04:00 PM
Edited by feluniozbunio at 16:08, 18 Oct 2007.

The strategy depends on faction you want to use.

Basically best short game factions are magic factions. Academy however is very resistant to direct damage spells so i wouldnt recommend warlocks. (maybe with invisibility it has changed, i dunno , havent played ToTe dungeon yet)

Id probably pick necro coz its castle that rocks short game too. If youre sure he goes with Nathir heres what can you do. You can take Zoltan or Orson, both are very good(you wanna raise as many zombies as possible with Orson). Skills you want then are enlightenment sorcery summoning (defense if Orson). If he wont get any anti summoning skills and you got phoenix thats almost autowin, If you dont get phoenix you can try to get summon elemental. You want to get all fire resistance artifacts possible. Dark isnt very good against academy i guess. Dont bother with ultimates, they are worthless in multiplayer.

If you are sure he wont do any tricks and will just try to win with fireball only then any faction with fire resistance and war machines(and flaming arrows preferably) should be enough to win it. Maybe Orcs with additional shatter destuctive magic

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Anakrom
Anakrom


Known Hero
(Scroll) Out of the blue
posted October 18, 2007 05:02 PM

Quote:
You can take Zoltan or Orson, both are very good

Sounds like good idea, since Zoltan can simply block Nathirs Fireball and make him easier to defeat.

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Slim-Sleeper
Slim-Sleeper


Hired Hero
Lazy
posted October 18, 2007 05:03 PM

Yeah, you are prolly right.. Enlight only works good if you get it fast (to be able to get the next lvl's faster) and end up on lvl 20 or so..

So if you only have basic enlight, and end on lvl 12 before the attack you only get 3 more stats.. 1 for first, 1 for fift, 1 for 9th.. So dont get enlight. Althou it will make you stronger, its prolly not enough.

And I asume that a good tank might be better then a good "backbone".. But I just love the vamps : )

And yeah, Orson will make a good rusher since the zombie are actually rather good and you get it in large qty! That he starts with vitality makes the skellies last longer, and together with zombielord ability it also makes the zombie a cutting edge warmachine! If you can boost the init and speed of the zombies witht the help of arties, then go for it! The neck of bloody claw is also a winner : )

Thanks for the QP whoever it was : ) Thanks for the confidence!! : )

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feluniozbunio
feluniozbunio


Promising
Supreme Hero
posted October 18, 2007 06:42 PM
Edited by feluniozbunio at 18:44, 18 Oct 2007.

Well.. zombies arent really killing machines, they are just there and its not so easy to kill them all which buys you time needed to kill your opponent with spells. (like every  unit in necro army i guess)

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Lord_Evil
Lord_Evil


Famous Hero
Evil lolcat
posted October 18, 2007 07:12 PM

Dungeon:
IMO i will pic Kythra,Lethos,Sinitar or Yrwanna.

Haven:
Klaus as the best special skill (Cavalry Commander).

Necropolis:
Deirdre is awesome and Kaspar is also good (only when he is high level)

Sylvan:
Ossir,Ylthin,Wyngaal or Dirael.

Inferno:
absolutely Deleb, Triple Ballista+Flaming Arrows (TotE).

Academy:
Havez or Jhora.

Fortress(HoF):
Ingvar or Helmar.

Stronghold(TotE):
Kragh (Powerful Blow+Stunning Blow+Excruciating Strike+Weakening Strike) or Shak'karukat or Kilghan.

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Anakrom
Anakrom


Known Hero
(Scroll) Out of the blue
posted October 18, 2007 07:19 PM

Quote:

Sylvan:
Dirael.


Why?

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radar
radar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Castle/Haven player
posted October 18, 2007 07:21 PM

He just typed what he like

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sdfx
sdfx


Famous Hero
posted October 18, 2007 08:30 PM

The problem about discussing vs academy stuff is pretty annoying because wizards are littered with those stupid "silver bullet" perks.
Cold death > might hero + war machines
Counterspell > high spellpower magic
Banish > phoenix etc.
Of course each of them is easy to get and easy to use for a wizard but the point is that he can't counter everything(can't take all siver bullet perks) and they may get sucky spells in the guild. So, yes rushing academy with a magic hero is pretty good but it's still risky nonetheless.
Necromacer is the best and strongest rusher: mass slow, mass confusion, phoenix, fire trap - there is nothing that AI can throw at a necromancer to stop him. Playing with necro is like moving straight to opponent's casle(except vs 1 "more magic" hero - warlock. Attacking a warlock and getting smacked by hit and run empowered destructive or dying because of empowered arma is not what the necro rush is really about. With the right spells there is no leaving vs AI battles for later. Waiting for some stupid creature growth just doesn't make sense:
1. Later = relatively less powerful main stat: spellpower
2. Best creeping = getting the stronest stuff from the map before the oppoenent does = winning.
I wouldn't recommend creature specialists like Orson or Lucrecitia - they are the best but mid game. Necro is much more about early game rush with enlightenment + intelligence + dark + summoning. Now, even a rush with CotN is pretty hot - it can easily win the game for necro..  Mass slow is in fact excellent vs academy. Sure, a wizard could have taken light but so what? Light sucks early so such wizard built is inferior/unlikely anyway.

Also, a warlock can pwn academy too if he rushes fast enough with enlightenment destructive and summoning. Why pwn? Because an academy player X may assume that "banish is good vs necro but it's useless vs warlocks because they use destructive and don't take summoning" etc.

Generally: beating academy = beating their stupid silver bullet perks by assuming/guessing the skills that won't be countered.

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feluniozbunio
feluniozbunio


Promising
Supreme Hero
posted October 18, 2007 08:33 PM

Now everybody has silver bullets

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Doomforge
Doomforge


Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
posted October 18, 2007 08:35 PM

unless he doesn't bother with "silver bullets" as you call them, but rushes you himself with whatever he could get during few level ups (destructive, phoenix, havez with artificed gremlins and stuff.. a lot of possibilities here)

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