|
| Thread: Very weird match (or not?), need clarify! | |
|
Momo
Promising
Famous Hero
|
posted December 31, 2010 04:09 AM |
|
Edited by Momo at 04:16, 31 Dec 2010.
|
Very weird match (or not?), need clarify!
Hello boards,
I need help from some HoMM3 veterans out there to understand what exactly went wrong in my last game (for those who don't want to read the whole description of the game, just go to the last paragraph of the post for the central question).
As I do each Christmas, this year I moved in northern Italy to see my relatives and among other things we celebrated with a match at HoMM3 (Shadow of Death Expansion).
My pick as usual was Necro. My older cousin always goes either for Tower/Solmyr for a Chain Lightning-centered creep, or Dungeon/Deemer for a Meteor Shower-centered creep as he did this time. My youngest cousin opted not to play as we had just finished a HoMMV match so we were left with two AI opponents (Conflux and Inferno). The map was Cher's Compass.
I can't see what my cousin is doing (we play with his LAN) but he always follows the same tactic - dominating early game with Deemer, slowly growing more offensive with neutrals and AI opponents, trying to collect as much artifacts as he can and ALWAYS chosing to get experience and never cash with treasures. Then he tries to control the late game with Implosion, Meteor Shower and Town Portal mostly relying on the hero absurd magic strenght to win duels.
My hero was Aslinn but I lost her, her Meteor Shower and 100 skellies due to a huge mistake on my part (thought 40 gold golems were in fact 15 at most); I also lose pratically my entire secondary army (20 liches) and the scout to a surprinsingly fast incursion of the green AI via boat, but the AI stops its hasty assaults. From that point I rebuild a quite strong hero with Vokial and his vampire special.
My cousin is confirmed to follow his usual strategy when I look in the tavern/den of thieves and see Deemer ALWAYS had twice the statistics of Vokial. At some point one of the tan AI loses Fiur, quite a strong hero, and I strongly suspect it's my cousin's doing. A few turns after, green's strongest (Nymus) is KO too. Deemer harvests exp. and artifacts.
As I calculate my cousin's army must be thinning smaller and smaller, I try to amass as many skeletons as I can to win with sheer numbers. However, the more I look in the den of thieves the more Deemer becomes powerful. As I know my cousing usually builds mage guilds until he finds Implosion and Town Portal, I understand that even 2600 skeletons plus the whole necro ensemble won't stand to twelve Implosions (2200 dmg) plus a mid-sized Dungeon army which is still quite superior to Necro's. At this point I decide to change strategy and use my secondary cities to build mage guilds until I find Town Portal too to counter his own, and Artifact Merchants as I think that only an anti-magic artifact could do win my game. The merchants in my Dungeon don't sell anything interesting (and hoping for an Orb of Inhibition in the merchant was stupid anyway) so I head for the black markets at the center of the underground, slaughter all the neutral red dragons guarding them, and finally trade for a Decanter's Cloak (not the orb, but better than nothing).
At this point I assume, with Implosion, Meteor Shower, and Armageddon out of the picture, 2600 skellies plus the usual army should be enough to take care of my opponent. He tries a surprise assault at the Necropolis but Expert Earth Magic and Town Portal make me counterattack effectively within my turn. I win the central fight, but end up with an empty army and 1500 skellies, though.
I had a few terrible times trying to keep up with my opponent and I'd just have lost if I hadn't found the artifact wich as far as I know is quite luck-dependant. Thus, apart of the first two mistakes (wich costed me 120 creatures and a lvl2 hero anyway, so it wouldn't have changed much) it seems that my margin for winning was incredibly strict. Still, I won.
End of story.
NOW, THE QUESTION: why common knowledge of HoMM3's strategy as I know tells us that investing on hero's spells to win is a bad route, and that investing on numbers and strenght to win is a brilliant route (especially with Necro) if, in fact, I came so closely to being crushed?
|
|
Casper
Tavern Dweller
|
|
posted January 01, 2011 03:49 AM |
|
|
Sounds to me like the reasons you almost lost were: playing much slower than your opponent - he cleared much more land than you by your own admission, and you had some bad luck/tactical mistakes that led you to lose battles to the AI. To me, it sounds like you won because of: playing necro, superior might, and perhaps better in-battle tactics in the end fight.
This game seems to confirm conventional wisdom, rather than challenge it - necro is very strong, and might is superior to magic. Wi your early losses and your opponent clearing the map quickly, if you had told me nothing else, I would have thought it extremely likely that you would have lost.
|
|
angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
|
|
posted January 01, 2011 03:05 PM |
|
Edited by angelito at 15:05, 01 Jan 2011.
|
If you play necro, it doesn't matter if you play might or magic hero. Your chances to win are excellent.
But one hint from me for your next game:
Do NOT take Aislinn as starting hero, take GALTHRAN. He will bring much more advantage to your main army power (skellies) than any other necro hero.
Maybe 2 more hints:
- Try to build amplifier as soon as possible. Don't attack level 1 wandering monsters too early. Those are the stacks which raise your
skelly army the most. Expert necro + amplifier makes 40% necromancy.
- Build up 2 more heroes to expert necromancy. This way, you can clear your area much faster while still raising your skeleton army.
You can't lose vs any opponent this way....
____________
Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
|
|
Momo
Promising
Famous Hero
|
|
posted January 03, 2011 01:21 AM |
|
|
First off, thanks for the helpful replies. A few doubts:
Quote:
Sounds to me like the reasons you almost lost were: playing much slower than your opponent - he cleared much more land than you by your own admission, and you had some bad luck/tactical mistakes that led you to lose battles to the AI.
Sure, but he did so because he could attack neutrals I couldn't, leveled up faster (ALWAYS going for EXP rather than gold in chests, wich once again is a mistake as far as I know) and generally speaking, letting Deemer and Beholders take care of the 70% of the troubles. On the other sides, my stupid mistakes aren't bad luck - due to me growing more used to HoMM5 I march in to battles I should avoid; yet, while they sure set me back a bit, nonetheless his creeping phase just seemed superior in every way.
Quote:
To me, it sounds like you won because of: playing necro, superior might, and perhaps better in-battle tactics in the end fight.
I don't think so, and that's sort of the crucial the point.
If by the endgame I wouldn't have decided to seek some countermeasure via artifacts (either Orb, Hat, Cloak or some massive statistic booster), AND if I had not found exactly the second best artifact off my list (Cloak), AND if I had not taken into account that maybe my cousin was going to break our alliance and attack me rather than the already weakened AIs (wich is a very unusual move for him, justified by the fact that I was raising way too much skeletons), AND if I had not found Town Portal in the fifth Mage Guild I built in order to deal with such possibility, AND hadn't I -successfully- bluffed when he could have attacked me earlier discouraging him to face 1600 skeletons (he still had to face 2500 later on), if ONE SINGLE THING in this list didn't go fine, I'd just have lost without the slightest doubt.
Deemer could cast about ten Implosions, where three where enough to neuter the skellies. From that, we had almost equal troops in most tiers, except he had more Medusas than my Liches and I had 2 Bone Dragons against his Black Dragons. Looks like a battle I simply could not win, especially with Deemer still full of spells. And even if I somehow managed to win that, he announced he planned to run away with Deemer and then return back with a Draca-Geddon or so, wich as I read at AoH is a very good counter-Necro strategy even if my cousin never red AoH's strategy guide.
Simply put, I'd have been crushed.
Quote:
This game seems to confirm conventional wisdom, rather than challenge it - necro is very strong, and might is superior to magic.
Yes, necro is strong, and even stronger without my incompetence with HoMM3, and I certainly would not fear anyone else but Tower or Dungeon, the only ones who can realistically pull out such a monstrous magic firepower. Then again, too bad my cousin always picks one of those two.
But I'm not that sure that might is superior to magic. This is the second game I manage to win with him, and was mostly because I hindered most his spells and I had one spell (Town Portal) myself. Plus, the first game I won with him ever was because he was retreating in the Dungeon, but he didn't know I had the "Fly" spell, wich allowed me to seize his castle and turn his retreat into a desperate siege.
I'd thus say that maybe Might is superior to Magic, yet Magic shouldn't be taken lightly.
Then again, one could argue that Magic is inferior exactly because it's so unreliable - spells found are random, as are artifacts that affects spells.
|
|
bash
Tavern Dweller
|
|
posted February 24, 2011 03:25 PM |
|
|
Hallo, I am new here, but have played Homm3 alot with my friend online.
Here is a question about rules of your online games. We have had a situation like this some time ago, and I still don't know what to think.
Suppose you play multi 1 on 1. This is the situation in the beggining of the second month:
1. My opponent's heroe is a little stronger and plays with fortress. He has found a tomb of fire magic (is that allowed in your games?) and has berserk, which i fear. I mean I would be able to defeat him in the open, but not in his castle.
2. My heroe has expert logistics and boots of speed. I am standing in a place where I can reach his castle in one turn. He cannot reach me. If he left his castle, I would take it and be able to defend it. So he stays in his castle forever, being able to buy all his troops each week, as fortress is cheap.
3. I was short on time, so I asked him to surrender. He refused
4. I had 3 towns - so I was reach. I could improve my heroe no more (only attacking wandering stacks if they occur in "a week of...".
5. I 3 mage guilds - 2 level 1, and 1 level2. the map was very poor in resources. So I could wait for hours, trade wood and ore and buy mage guilds one by one. All of this would take a few hours of real time, before I would feel I am able to defeat him in his town (+2defence, 2 hex moat).
Question - what would happen in an online game? Would the guy in the town surrender? Because after each hour I would grow a little stronger, and let's say in about 10 hours I would have 100% chance to defeat him. He could do nothing but wait.
____________
|
|
Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
|
|
posted February 24, 2011 08:27 PM |
|
|
Well, is there any tower, conflux or black market on the map? Artefacts sold are resetting every month, so you have high chances to find either
Pendant of Dispassion or badge of courage, both making your units immune to berserk.
He has the right to hide in town as long as he wants, on the other side you want his town to do the same thing, hide in, heh. If you both enjoy this style of play, I see no problem.
____________
Era II mods and utilities
|
|
bash
Tavern Dweller
|
|
posted February 24, 2011 10:15 PM |
|
|
Neither of us enjoys this kind of play. The question is, has anyone ever been in a situation like this. That now you're balanced, but its 100% sure that with time, long time, one player would gain advantage. By the way: I had a lot of cash, I could hit and buy myself out, 1 archangel, one lightning bolt, damage 250 (had nothng stronger). Is that allowed? My point is: I had 100% certainty to win, but it needed long time (real outside heroes hours). Did you ever had that?
|
|
tigris
Supreme Hero
Supreme Noobolator
|
|
posted February 25, 2011 12:21 AM |
|
|
If I was you I would get myself tactics and expert air.
Move everything forward, even liches to get full arrow. You will move first with Ghost dragons.
If you are smart, next time you will pick Galthran so your skeleton warriors will have speed 6.With expert haste speed 11.
Kill his master genies first because they have speed 11 too..then your skeletons will probably decimate his titans or nagas before he even got to move.
After you finished moving with ALL your units, he will finally get a chance to cast a spell.And if he cast implosion?so what you lose 6-700 skeletons.
next round you will move first with all your units again and you can cast mass slow or even blind his nagas and kill everything else.
easy win
____________
|
|
bash
Tavern Dweller
|
|
posted February 25, 2011 06:43 AM |
|
|
I was wondering. As I said, I am new here. Should I have created a new topic for my question. The title of this one worked perfectly for my question, but I guess this is Momo's thread?
____________
|
|
SAG
Promising
Supreme Hero
WCL owner
|
|
posted February 25, 2011 08:14 AM |
|
|
Quote:
By the way: I had a lot of cash, I could hit and buy myself out, 1 archangel, one lightning bolt, damage 250 (had nothng stronger). Is that allowed?
depends on your agreement with opponent. Normally it's called "hit-and-run" and not allowed by the rules. Ask yourself, would you be happy to see this tactic used against you? ...and imagine that this is not lightning bold, but Implosion - doing 3000 damage?
____________
I play HoMM3 at www.heroes-
III.com
|
|
bash
Tavern Dweller
|
|
posted February 25, 2011 08:26 AM |
|
|
I don't knot about hit and run. For some people it seems unfair, for some - it is one of many tactics. I remember when I first used it - me and my friend were beginners - he aproached my castle and stopped very close (lyonis with mass prayer and a huge army). I played with deemer who was then my favourite (I liked how good he was in the early stage). I took one black dragon and performed 3 hit and runs with armageddon. I literally invented it for myself then. The army which was left was a little to weak to beat me in the castle. He lost and was furious.
Now I think this tactics sucks and should be forbidden.
On the other hand - you question was nice - should everything that I would not like to happen to me be forbidden? But I agree, hit and run sucks. Especially against vampire lords. Killing them this way is very rude, as they can't hit back and rise.
____________
|
|
Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
|
|
posted February 25, 2011 08:46 AM |
|
|
Hit and run is great  .
It teaches to other players to choose wisely where their main ends its turn, without posing proudly just because he has bigger stats or army. It restore the fear of the shroud and the use of scouts for exploring new areas, which was lost over years.
But well, it is a matter of taste...and respect of the game integrity also.
____________
Era II mods and utilities
|
| |
|
|
