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Heroes Community > Heroes 4 - Lands of Axeoth > Thread: How strong is the vampire?
Thread: How strong is the vampire?
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Hired Hero
posted January 06, 2011 04:34 AM
Edited by tttttc at 04:50, 06 Jan 2011.

How strong is the vampire?

To convince people that vampire is way superior to venom spawn and correct the false impression that one loses vampire easier because it's a melee unit, I did some simple studies. Basically I control 1000 vampires and fight against all level 3 creatures with the amount equal to 1000*weekly growth of that creature/vampire growth(3). I think this should be a fair way to conduct the test, 'cause 1000 vs 1000 vampire smashes anything below level 4 (tested). People who think other wise can use 1000 venom spawn to conduct the test and post their results.

But first some reasons why vampire is superior:
- high speed (8) and movement (12) and flying and no retaliation enables hit-and-run strategy against any melee creature with movement equal to or below 6 and speed below 8. In other words, 1 vampire beats 10000 of those creatures if morale is neglected (and if you are patient enough).
- life drain. No explanation needed. The secret of not losing vampires.
- undead. Being undead is nothing but a bonus. It would even be greater if it indeed incurs a -2 morale penalty to non-death units. During my test I found that all enemies that have morale have +1 morale (should be -1 if there is indeed the morale penalty)
- superior attack and defense ratings. The damage is a little low, but if it were higher vampires would be illegal...

The results:

1000 vampires beat the following Lv.3 creatures without loss (number of defeated creatures in parenthesis):
Naga (1333), Unicorn (1666), Griffin (1333), Monk (2000), Crusader (1666), Nightmare (1333), Cyclop (1000), Orge Magi (2000), Venom Spawn "Ha!" (1000), Earth elemental (3000), Ice demon (1333), Wasport (2333), Goblin Knights (1333) weekly growth of 4 for goblin knights is rather unfair in my opinion, but whatever.

Note: Hit-and-run strategy possible against Naga, Crusader, Orge Magi, Earth elemental, and Ice demon. Hit-and-run necessary if loss is to be avoided against Crusader (due to death ward, less HP drained, and double attack), Earth elemental (non-living, no HP drained), and Ice demon (freezing attack).

1000 vampires beat the following creature with loss (in parenthesis: number of defeated creatures/number of lost vampires):
Efreet (1333/49), Air elemental (3000/313), Fire elemental (3000/289).  

And surprise surprise, 1000 vampires lost to the following creature (in parenthesis: number of opponent creatures/number of opponent creatures lost):
Genie (2000/292), Water elemental (3000/345). In both cases, ice bolt... well, when might fails, try magic. Hence the title of this game.


General considerations:
- Due the special property of life drain (the more you hit, the more you drain), the results might not be reproducible on a smaller scale or with a different vampire to opponent ratio. For example, (in another test, results not posted) 1000 vampires beat 1000 champions without a loss, but 1000 vampires lost to 1333 champions with 1000 champions surviving.

- The battlefield used in this test is grassland. On other grounds that incur movement penalty to walkers, the hit-and-run strategy can be used against a wider range of units, although in this test it doesn't really matter.

- Shooters do kill 1000 vampires when firing from the siege tower, consider the siege tower bonus and that vampires have to take three steps to reach them. Therefore, as I said in another thread, venom spawn is indeed good, but only good for garrisons. However, since 99% of the time you will not be fighting in a town, chose vampires 99% of the time. Even during a siege, I would easily kick the shooters off the siege tower using displacement or teleport.

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pacifist
pacifist


Famous Hero
posted January 06, 2011 11:53 AM

Vampires + nature magic and nothing stops them . Nature magic mainly for anti-magic or wasp swarm.
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Fauch
Fauch


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted January 06, 2011 02:36 PM

Quote:
Crusader (1666)

it is the first surprise. and with haste? do they cut vampires in pieces? equilibris crusaders in particular should out-might vampires.

Quote:
Efreet (1333/49)

though they drain more life than they lose with fire shield, so with a bit of luck, maybe 0 losses is possible?

Quote:
Air elemental (3000/313), Fire elemental (3000/289).

of course, you can't drain life from them. it's even surprising that vampires survive against such numbers. I thought they had a growth of 6, not 9. it means insane defense for air elemental  

Quote:
Genie (2000/292)

this one is surprising. yes, they have ice bolt, but their defense isn't very good. vampires should drain lots of life from them.

Quote:
Water elemental (3000/345)

yeah, elemental + ice bolt...


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Bones_xa
Bones_xa


Known Hero
posted January 06, 2011 04:44 PM
Edited by Bones_xa at 16:46, 06 Jan 2011.

Yeah the vampire is definitely a great unit. You can win a game alone with just GM necromancy and/or a good stack of these.

However as the results are interesting, its hard to generalize these results to an actual battle because so many other factors come into play.
Another thing is that you said you did hit & runs with the vampires. That could explain some of those victories without losses and others where there was defeats, like for the genie & water elemental. Hit & run won't work on those creatures becuase they will just fire an Ice bolt at you.
Why not do a test where you just park the two units in front of each other and let them have it out?
In an actual battle, it may not be possible to do a hit & run depending on different factors.

Also, who controlled the units when you did the battles?
Did you control both? Or did you just control the vamps and let the computer control the other unit?
Or did you let the computer control both? If not you could try to let the computer control both units of the battle, that way you would eliminate any biases or unfair advantages of human over computer control.

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Theunknown
Theunknown


Known Hero
posted January 06, 2011 05:08 PM

Crusaders are generally better than vampires in a fight, this kind of testing is situational.
You will get more real results without hit and run, you will be surprised to see that ogre mage wins against vampires.
Also you should do testing with tactics too because if you play against humans they will surely have tactics, maybe tactics will give different result, specially if there is leadership.

What to do against Vampires concerning lvl3 creature choices:
Order: Genies, maybe Naga (Genie is a lot better, Naga is decent)
Chaos: Efreet only (Nightmare has almost no chance against Vampires)
Death: Vampire only (Venom does usually lose against Vampire)
Life: Crusader or Monk (depends on heroes skills and spells but most likely Crusader)
Nature: Griffin most likely (blind doesn't work against undead, Mantis or Water Elemental from portal)
Might: Cyclops with lvl 4 support, otherwise Ogre Mage (if you cannot have lvl 4, than Ogre Mage is good counter for vampires, but you must focus on getting basic spells like dispel, haste and similar...)

And the most important, if a map is not well balanced and there are too many (many many) neutral creatures it doesn't matter how strong you are, you cannot possibly win against a necromancer except maybe in equilibris.

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radar
radar


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Castle/Haven player
posted January 06, 2011 05:15 PM

Quote:

- undead. Being undead is nothing but a bonus. It would even be greater if it indeed incurs a -2 morale penalty to non-death units.


As far as I know the morale penalty applies to creatures in the army the undead are in.
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pacifist
pacifist


Famous Hero
posted January 06, 2011 05:43 PM

Well the problem in a real game is that the ratio will most probably be 3:1 in favor of the vampires not the other way . The real strenght of the vampire is not the unit itself but the numbers via necromancy. Otherwise the simple lv 4 spell vampiric touch is enough for other factions to have the same advantages (not losing anything). Even mechanical units like the Dragon golem benefit from this spell . Of course, there are other methods of not losing anything with any factions , it was just one of them
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tttttc
tttttc


Hired Hero
posted January 06, 2011 05:54 PM

Quote:
Crusaders are generally better than vampires in a fight, this kind of testing is situational.
You will get more real results without hit and run, you will be surprised to see that ogre mage wins against vampires.



I will test vampire vs crusader without hit-and-run today. I have to admit that I think crusader will win. However, I doubt that orge magi can beat vampires even without hit-and-run.

Quote:
Also, who controlled the units when you did the battles?


I controlled the vampire to show no loss in most cases. I will do a reverse testing as well.

Quote:

quote:
Efreet (1333/49)

though they drain more life than they lose with fire shield, so with a bit of luck, maybe 0 losses is possible?



Yes. If the stack of efreet before the last hit is large. In my case, there were 49 efreet left and fewer than 1000 vampires, so they didn't restore to 1000.

Quote:
I thought they had a growth of 6, not 9. it means insane defense for air elemental



I used the number for creature portal.

Quote:
this one is surprising. yes, they have ice bolt, but their defense isn't very good. vampires should drain lots of life from them.



with one ice bolt, vampire number is cut into half. So it can't drain too much.


Admittedly, this test is purely informational and does not necessarily  reflect actual battles.

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Fauch
Fauch


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted January 06, 2011 08:07 PM

the tests weren't done with equilibris?

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Bones_xa
Bones_xa


Known Hero
posted January 07, 2011 04:27 AM

Ah the differences between H3 and H4. Two great games but each are quite different and involve many different strategies.

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tttttc


Hired Hero
posted January 07, 2011 05:16 AM
Edited by tttttc at 17:10, 07 Jan 2011.

I just tested 1000 vampires vs 1666 crusaders (computer controlled) on Equilibris. Vampires won with 500 vampires left. Equilibris does have improved AI, and with multiple stacks of crusaders, a single stack of vampires can never win. I lost quite a few times before I exploited the weakness of the AI to win. I think even if the crusaders were controlled by human if they don't try to counter this strategy they would lose as well.

The strategy: the main idea is still exploiting the movement difference between crusaders and vampires, although not hit-and-run. I split 1000 vampires into six 1 vampire stacks and a 994 stack. The computer split the crusaders into four stacks with equal numbers (416/417). First round all vampires wait, and computer controlled stacks all marched forward. Now is the point. If you march in a loose formation, you lose. I would use 994 stack to attack, and the rest 6 vampires surround three of the fours stacks that are farthest from the stack I choose to attack (without any terrain obstacle, it's difficult to surround, but at least set up a blockage before each crusader stack). The surrounded/blocked crusaders cannot reach the 994 vampire stack, and they can either waste they turns to attack the 6 single vampire stacks, or reroute trying to reach the 994 stack. When they move, I can also change the placement of the blockage as well. By the time the rest 3 stacks cut their way to the 994 stack, I would have already killed one of the 416/417 crusader stack with still 1000 vampires left. And then the battle is over. 1000 vampire vs. 1250 crusaders, equilibris or not, crusaders lose. If crusaders don't split, a single stack 1666 vs 1000 they lose (tested).

Of course you can counter this by splitting crusaders into more stacks (maybe) or march in tight formation (definitely). Also, the results are highly conditional. E.g. if there happen to be a lot of terrain obstacles. The second time I tried the strategy, I lost only 182 vampires. And a final note about vampires: don't divide the stack other than strategic use. You want to hit as hard as possible to restore maximum number of vampires. In the tests I lost, dividing vampires equally into the same number of stacks as the crusaders gave poorer results than using a single 1000 stack. I know it doesn't make sense consider n-1 stacks of crusaders don't get the retaliation.

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted January 07, 2011 09:29 PM

Quote:
You will get more real results without hit and run, you will be surprised to see that ogre mage wins against vampires.

Why would one necessarily need to test without Hit and Run? That would be similar to saying that you had to test Crusader without his double attack. Hit and Run is something Vampire can do because of his speed, that cannot be counted against him, only for.

I'm not expert on H4 in any way, I only played sporadically, and when I played death, I upped for GM Death Magic and then trampled the map with a single and ever-growing stack of Vampires. Pretty one-sided.

They always seemed imbalanced to me. Of course, I didn't know about patches then, so I trust they have been better balanced there.
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What will happen now?

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Fauch
Fauch


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted January 08, 2011 12:27 AM

I had the feeling vampires and genies were still imbalanced in equilibris.

but in academy, they managed to make both the nagas and the genies imba.

they added multi-attack to the naga while it wasn't a weak unit. and nerfed the genies, but compensated by giving them mass slow lol

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tttttc


Hired Hero
posted January 09, 2011 06:15 PM

Equilibris reduced vampire's attack and defense to 27, and adventure movement to 25. WTF??? Now vampire is the slowest among all flying creatures on the adventure map. And no whatsoever compensation for that...

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tttttc
tttttc


Hired Hero
posted January 09, 2011 06:27 PM
Edited by tttttc at 18:28, 09 Jan 2011.

Just my 2 cents of thought: Equilibris may have achieved balance, but now a lot of things don't make sense. Different creatures ARE different. Now it's like everything just converged. If they were too weak, increase their stats. If they used to be too strong, cut their stats. The aforementioned vampire movement is an example. Especially compared with Titan and Hydra's increased movement. You want all lv4 units to be faster than lv3? But damn it vampires fly!

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nimd4
nimd4

Tavern Dweller
posted February 09, 2011 10:09 PM

Do you have the Hero card?..

[URL=http://img713.imageshack.us/i/hommivcard.jpg/][/URL]
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winchestergirl
winchestergirl


Hired Hero
posted February 17, 2011 08:45 PM

isn't the vampire one of the best creatures in the game?

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winchestergirl
winchestergirl


Hired Hero
posted February 19, 2011 03:10 AM

Seriously? So all I have to do is choose my guy from the first one that I want to carry over for the selection in michelanious hero and then all his spells and leveling with transfer?

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