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Heroes Community > Heroes 4 - Lands of Axeoth > Thread: Playing Preserve
Thread: Playing Preserve This thread is 3 pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV
Damacon_Ace
Damacon_Ace


Famous Hero
Also known as Nobris Agni
posted October 19, 2003 08:27 AM

Yeah...those bird-lions really do rock!
____________
No one knows my true nature here...

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Medusa
Medusa


Famous Hero
Yeah, right
posted October 19, 2003 10:58 AM

I choose griffins too, they're faster, stronger and has first strike.
____________
Guardians Grove forum

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csarmi
csarmi


Supreme Hero
gets back
posted October 19, 2003 12:27 PM

(repost for clarifying)

Insat said:

"what if you have 2 nature towns, 1st has citadel other not.
gotcha

then you go by the map i guess, or by the mood or by the luck , mistake, misclick.. "

Then it's easy, Griffins for town#1 and Unicorns for town#2.

____________
Yes, I play the game only on the forums.

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LordZXZX
LordZXZX


Famous Hero
Overfished
posted October 20, 2003 06:18 AM

Quote:
I choose griffins too, they're faster, stronger and has first strike.


Griffins don't have 1st srike. They need the spell snake strike for that ability. They are deadly if they have first strike.
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delfontes
delfontes


Known Hero
Sorcerer Extraordinaire
posted October 20, 2003 06:21 PM

A lot of things are deadly with first strike .

I usually choose griffons for the reasons above, but sometimes it is nice to be able to blind opponents .

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LordZXZX
LordZXZX


Famous Hero
Overfished
posted October 22, 2003 05:40 PM

Quote:
A lot of things are deadly with first strike .




uh...duh...

Anyway, griffins rock, but they can't be chosen with elves.
Ranger's guild, citadel, griffin cliffs all cost a ton of wood. I'd prefer unicorns if i chose elves.

Tigers works well with griffins. Snake strike on griffins, tigers, phoenixes, mantids, and sprites make and all-out offensive team. Water elementals won't work here then, as they'd slow down the army. I've tried air elementals and surprisingly, they worked with that setup.
Of course, fairy dragons also work as they don't slow down the army. They are a must if there are no elves or water e's for support
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csarmi
csarmi


Supreme Hero
gets back
posted October 25, 2003 10:31 AM

You take it all wrong. All you really need is a creature portal as soon as possible, and get a Mantis from it. You are ready to go then.

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dushan
dushan


Hired Hero
posted October 25, 2003 11:23 AM

It all depends on how you like to play:
1. Offense: As Lordxx said: sprites, tigers, griffins, air elementals and any L4 - high adventure map movement and all units flying. With archer - develop melee not archery very good army. Air elementals in the first row.
2. Defense: Here Water elemental are the most important unit - in few stacks of course. Elves, hero with archery, unicorns, here F. Dragon would fit better. Low movement but this army will take easily all resources guarded by non-fliers.
 
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csarmi
csarmi


Supreme Hero
gets back
posted October 25, 2003 01:24 PM bonus applied.

Some fast tips:

(1) Quicksand does wanders. You can shoot down any non-flying army if you manage to stop them. Heroes and Water Elementals can cast this spell to utterly prevent them from reaching you. Shooters or flyers can be a problem though.

(2) Archer hero can become a one-man-army with GM combat+GM archery/GM melee.

(3) Sprites can "hit and run" many units.

(4) Mantis is very powerful and all you need is a Creature portal building (he appears only two days after you built it, though). Use him in combination with sprites (bounded enemy cannot chase them) and heroes.

For best performance, try to use as few army slots as possible. If the enemy is divided into 7 stacks, much harder to bind them then in 3 stacks, for example.

(5) Mostly because of (1), Water Elementals are very powerful (but slow).

(6) Do not underrate your Level 1's. Wolf does a lot of damage, and so does Sprite. Battle tactics is very important here, though, cause these troops fall like flies if hit. Use summoned creatures and 1 wolf stacks to prevent it.

(7) Let your heroes die if they have to, they can be resurrected with all movement points restored.

(8) Do not care too much about Level 1-3 creatures, you won't need them in the long run, so they can die. This also means, that choosing between Elves and Tigers is not an issue. Just choose the one that is faster (and cheaper) to build.

(9) Do not forget to train your pathfinder hero (thief) in time. He speeds up your army. Also, for speed reasons, you'd better use only the creatures above in your main stack: Sprite, Griffon, Mantis, Feary Dragon, Phoenix.
That is, after you can afford it.

This is all I can think about now.

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TheRealDeal
TheRealDeal


Promising
Supreme Hero
Foobum* of Justice!
posted January 02, 2005 07:30 PM

Revived!
____________
*We all know the that Foobum is the class of all that is Cake.

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csarmi
csarmi


Supreme Hero
gets back
posted January 03, 2005 01:54 PM
Edited By: csarmi on 5 Jan 2005

OK, here is a game I played with nature.

It was a round table battle (RTB) map in september, the aim was to get as high a score as possible. So it is played on champion (that's unusual), but the difficulty is equalized by a relatively good startup, some reloading (I suck you know ) and with some special quests - also the map was not poor.

Nevertheless, it is a good way to show the strength of nature - and a good way to learn some tricks as well, because I saved at the end of all the turns.
It was played in 3.0 version - in equilibris a lot of these tricks does not work.

You can find the map here:

http://www.math.bme.hu/~csarmasz/heroes3/themenace.h4c
Here is my starting save:

http://www.math.bme.hu/~csarmasz/heroes3/start 2.h4s

Here are the other saves:

http://www.math.bme.hu/~csarmasz/heroes3/turnreplays.7z

Compressed by 7-zip:

http://www.7-zip.org/

So how can you use the saves (after you managed to uncompress them - go get that 7-zip program it is VERY good anyways)?

First, set army speed in your settings to as low as possible.

Second, reload the save at the end of turn 1. Now click replay turn. You'll see what I have done in slow motion (except for the fights - any question about the fights themselves is welcome). Reload the endsave of turn 2, etc...

You can even try to do this after me - but unless you are a very good and experienced playerd, you'll most likely will not succeed at all points. Worth a try though.

Note: I would have risked 95% of the fights I've done in a multiplayer game without chance to reload too.

Now here is a summary I wrote about this game (in heroes round table forums):

--------------------------------------------------------

I am starting to write my diary and I shall back it up with some saves too.

I have quite a good startup. Quite a good? Actually, I saved this first try and typed nwcprometheus (to check my surrounding area fast instead of scouting for 2 turns and reloading). I almost fell off my seat when I saw it.

What did I see? Slow monsters around for hit and run with my sprites. Good artifacts - two gloves, a halberd to the east. I have also spotted a binding arrow (guarded). Defeatable guards on the XP buildings.

Checking the editor a lot of the above-mentioned facts were not simple luck - a lot of monsters are fixed, one of the gloves too and there are enough skeletons and treasures around to have a good chance to find a bind arrow. There are a lot of potions too and the map is rich.

So I reloaded my starting save, took a deep breath and started playing. Actually I don't think I would have restarted even with a worse setup - I am sick of restarting.

Even though it was my first try, I did not play it blind - I had a plan in mind.

Something like this:

I clear my area and level up some heroes. Namely:

I'll buy an archer and teach him GM combat from quest hut (requires 35 wood and ore, can be done any day).
I'll use a druid for speed, quicksand and other good spells in the beginning. For level 5 nature spells later. This druid can learn GM magic resist (expert combat included) at my ally's hut.
I'll buy an archer to use my ally's quest hut to give him GM tactics.
I'll buy an archer to build a pathfinder: I shall use the expert stealth quest.
So, after I clear my area I'll kill the trolls and do the quests.
At this point I had nothing else in mind, I had no idea how shall I defeat the map or anything.

Day 1:

I send out several scouts to collect resources. Ore and wood are top priority. I need enough gold to buy a hero, to spend 4000 gold in the war university and to build in the town. I also want to buy all my level 1's, I'll need them.

The mission of my scouts is successful.
I buy my second hero. Her name is Jenova and she'll be a fearsome fighter.

I split my little army.

Jenova, 45 sprites and 45 wolves move east. They kill a company of troglodytes (I lose several wolves). I remove the wolves (they start wandering around aimlessly). I kill the first dozens of trolls (they guard a learning stone). Jenova does not want to learn. She insists on visiting the war university for basic melee and basic resistance. She moves forward with the sprites to kill the other troll group - those beasts guard her long lost gloves!

Labetha and 20 sprites go west. This brave group manages to kill hundreds of peasants and a lot of mummies. There is no stopping of her superfast sprites. The mummies guarded Labetha's new gloves.

(seriously, these hit and run fights are only risky until you manage to kill 10% of the opponent army, when they get to 0 morale, the game is over; for the trolls I needed enough sprites to kill 1/round, against the mummies I needed speed on sprites AND Labetha)

The council decided to build a sacred grove to help our brave heroes!

Day 2:
The scouts keep collecting resources. One of the sprites finds a binding arrow in a skeleton. She accidentally binds herself with it and has to take the long road to home on her legs. At least that's what she told when she finally arrived with it a bit later.

Jenova and her sprites kill the other troll group and take the gloves. Jenova decides to move to the west to find Labetha. She has important news for her.

Meanwhile Labetha kills some dumb dwarves and captures their sawmill. Dwarves are supposed to be mining, aren't they?

The two heroines meet in the southern forest. They decide they'll vist the stables next day and will try to persuade some leprechauns to join them. But wait. What is this company of leprechaun doing here? They must be planning an attack on Scrotum. They must be stopped.

They are stopped in a hard fight which claimed the lives of a few good warriors.

The group is tired and needs a rest.

The high council decides to build a rainbow. What for? No one knows. Maybe it just looks cool?

Day 3:

Jenova and Labetha visit the stables together but they quit ways soon as Jenova wants to visit one of her friend's hut to the west. This guy is known to be a great warrior and the young warrior would like to learn some tricks.

Labetha moves east and Jenova follows. Both heroines use the two gloves and sprite bodyguards wherever they go. They are getting ready for their fight to follow tomorrow.

Some leprechauns follow them too (no, not for free) and the wolves are persuaded to join the upcoming fight too.

The wingless sprite arrives with the binding arrows.

White tigers join the town to help defending it while the army is away.

Current army:
Jenova: level 3 archer, GM/Adv/Adv/Bas
Labetha: level 3 druid, Adv/Adv/-

Armies move at the speed of 51 (or even more with fresh sprites), 1 learning stone is visited by both heroines. Labetha has no level 2 spells yet. Crest of Valor, some immo potion(s) and a binding arrow.

Day 4:
Another annyoing group of leprechauns is killed, a rogue camp is cleared, woodcutter's cottage and miner's guild captured. Jenova is still several steps behind her friend.
Unicorns join the ranks.

Day 5:
Creature portal is build and several hard fights are fought. Two almost identical groups dispatched (dozens of mummies, dozens of gargoyles) with identical losses: 1 sprite and 6 wolves died in both fights.

Jenova is level 6 and hits grandmaster in melee skill. She kills a large group of skeletons with some army backup while Labetha travels home - she has to bring her level 2 book along with her and that'll be ready tomorrow in the guild. She is alread an expert of the arts of magic.

Day 6:
Level 2 guild is built and Labetha learns quicksand. She moves forward with sprite speed ups to meet Jenova at the city gates they are planning to capture (thanks dino!).

Jenova has such a bad day! She has to kill scores of ghosts (almost dies in the fight even with a potion of immo drunk). She has to help convince a druid named Tonwen to help them to take the vampire city. She succeeds.

Now the three heroines (Tonwen, Jenova and Labetha) marches to the city but they have to kill an annyoing group of dozens of minotaurs (with scores of orcs). They hardly manage to do it.

Now the champions go and take the city. The great army consists of:

Jenova: level 7 archer (GM/GM/exp/bas), binding arrow and crest of valor; she forgots to bring her holy water to the fight, she has a potion of immo and 1(!) hp left though.

Labetha: level 6 druid (exp/exp/bas), quicksand, speed, no summon leprechaun!

Tonwen: level 1 druid (bas/bas), speed vial of bind

This army moves in and kills 26 vampires (with the help of 4 sprites). Only Jenova stays alive in the end with 10 hp and no immo potion left.

Jenova moves out of town and kills the evil eye group next to it (guarding the other binding arrow). The new heroes move westward to look for experience and spells.

Mephala is bought. She'll be a general with the gm tactics quest. Now she moves west on the road with two gloves and sprites to speed her up. She manages to move 63 tiles!

Day 7:

Pyre and level 2 guild built in towns.
Tonwen visits all the XP places and ends up at (125,42) (south of treetop tower).
Labetha and Jenova kills Tigers and move to central area bypassing the vampire town from the north. Their aim is simple: money, money, money. They take forest glenn and hideout, kill some pikemen and crossbowmen. Labetha dies in one of the fight and tp's home due to that. She helps for the phoenixes to come out of town fast.

Labetha and Jenova both hurry to the meeting point at the road junction next to the windmill in the middle. Labetha from west, Jenova from north. Both heroes are 4-5 tiles away from reaching that.

Meph finishes xp places, meets phoenixes. They kill some level 1-2 guards north of town (capture ore pit, for example). This army ends up a little south of Scrotum. They hurry to capture the ring of flares!

Day 8:
Life library in Scrotum, ranger's guild in vampire town.

Labetha and Jenova meet. Labetha gets a bow from ranger's guild (to be able to use the 2nd binding arrow!) and some mana potions too.

They move south together, kill griffins at their nest (lots of gold and wood!), move to trough and capture the prison. They have a little time left and use it to get closer to the nomads+crossbowman group (they have some gold ).

Tawni Balfour is rescued. Level 4 thief with advanced scout and advanced pathfinding. She moves to visit all xp places at high speed and carefully planning her movement (speed up sprites, double visit of trough and stables!) she manages to do all and ends up just as where Tonwen is to start this turn.

Tonwen goes home for quicksand. Kathleen bought at Scrotum (bless, bind wound, summon ship).

Kathleen+Mephala+Tonwen+Mantis+Phoenix+2 leprechauns move south, capture the ring of flares (killing 90 ghosts and 45 nomads), the hideout, the keep, Mephala takes the tactics altar there (it is just enough for the phoenixes to cross the field instantly in the cyclopes fight!).

Kath and Tonwen dies in the fights and get tp'd home to scrotum. They move out to meet Mephala.

Day 9:
Jenova+Labetha clear the SW area capturing the halberd and ending up between the vampire town and the horses guarding the tree. Labetha gets some spells at the town.

With two phoenixes and a mantis, Meph and Tawni clear the Scrotum area (except the cyclopes).

The 4 heroes (I can't rememeber now what Tonwen and Kath were doing but they must have been up for something important too) are to meet tomorrow and kill the cyclopes.

I think I simply started building up the second town (for mantises and level 5 guild in time) and must have improved mage guild in Scrotum.

Ah, nice. Kath visited the XP buildings and joined Jenova and Labetha in the nomads fight. She was not needed there too much (helped with bind wound a bit though). She died in the fight and thus got TP'd (body took) back to Scrotum. Meanwhile, Tonwen helped the Tawni group a bit in the fights and got TP'd (tomb portal'd) back to Scrotum too and they moved out together to meet their group in time for the cyclope fight.

I have the following heroes to start day 10:

Tonwen, level 4 druid (adv)
Tawni Balfour, level 6 thief (master path)
Jenova, level 10 archer (GM)
Labetha, level 8 druid (expert)
Mephala, level 5 archer (GM combat, basic tactics)
Kathleen, level 3 priest (advanced)

(to be continued)

--------------------------------------------------------

Troll fights (for example) were with sprites+archer.

In hit and run fights like this you have to be afraid of two things (some you can't even do in equi! too many stacks there):

- your hero should not get cornered
- opponents should not get morale before you get it down to 0

The troll fight was particulary annoying for I needed to kill trolls for good (they regenerate) and sometimes I had to shoot for that too.

Some other fights - including mummies - depended on my druid casting speed on himself AND the sprites (btw I can't just keep casting things, spell points are very limited before ranger's guild is built).

I did not realize on that map till day 12 or so anyways that the phoenix dwelling was accessible without fighting the guards (no chance to do that fight, several phoenixes + dozens of feary dragons ).

Some fights were really hard and there were a few where I was forced to reload.

I also had to reload for logistical optimalisation quite a few times. I learned a lot about speeding up. One of the greatest advantages of nature was the fact that you have cheap and sacrificable sprites as speedup to speed up everything to move always at max speed (or even beyond max speed in some cases). From turn 3 I moved at LEAST 63/turn with every hero I had.

--------------------------------------------------------

Now it is week 3 day 1 here and I have 3 towns (own, aligned, ally secondary town).

I have the following army (my and my ally's area is more or less cleared (yes I killed the evil sorceresses and the frenzied gnashers too).

Level 16 fireguard with expert chaos, gm all in combat, basic nature
Level 15 beastmaster with gm nature and master combat
Level 14 ranger with gm path, advanced seaman, master combat, adv res
Level 14 beastmaster with gm nature, gm combat, gm resistance
Level 13 crusader with gm life and advanced tactics
Level 11 general with gm tactics, gm combat, advanced order
Level 5 druid with expert nature
Level 5 ranger with GM pathfinding
6 phoenixes, 3 mantises, 2 feary dragons and 20 unicorns (not everything bought yet)

I have two problems currently. First, I'll have to make that long underground river voyage (after I captured the life castle, that's an easy fight) and my top pathfinder hasn't got gm seaman yet.

Second, I really hate splitting my armies and I'll have to - I'll have to have an underground and an above ground army for maximum effectiveness.

I thought that now I'll go down the dragon pass (have to kill some easy dragons on the way) and my lesser army will travel there (weaker heroes and all my creatures) while my stronger army (5-6 heroes and a feary dragon) will go underground and kill what's needed to be killed.

--------------------------------------------------------

No science, just

- carfeul planning of movements
- using movement modifiers well
- knowing what's needed to win certain fights
- being able to win those fights
- careful management/choice of skills

skill requirements:
nobility, tactics:

basic offense/defense needed for expert tactics, advanced for master and expert for grandmaster (and vica versa, meanin you need expert tactics for gm defense/offense)

nobility is the same (offense/defense -- mining/estates)

scouting practically the same, but (offense/defense -- pathfinding), seamanship works as a normal bonus skill (bonus skills ALL require 1 for 2, 2 for 4, 3 for 5 - for example advanced death magic for master necromancy)
, while stealth is an exceptional bonus skill, needs equal level of scouting

magic skills work all in the same way
M - guild level, , S - spellpoints, E - effectiveness, B - bonus skill

For M2 you need S1
For M3 you need S2 and E1
For M4 you need S3 and E3
For M5 you need S5 and E5

You need M2 for E1 and S2, M3 for E3 and S3, M4 for E5 and S5.

All this means that if you do not pick other type of skills at all, you need level 2 for advanced, level 5 for expert, level 9 for master and level 14 for gm. Some altars can help you do it faster.
If you do pick other skills, however - combat for example - before you'd get your desired level, you have a very big chance to mess up all your plans. For example, I have a level 13 nature mage who learned gm resist (expert combat included) from a quest hut. After that she took a combat altar and a veteran's guild so she has gm combat now.

She has all the prerequisites for gm nature (has 14 of 15 needed nature skills). But at her next levelup she has to choose from basic summon, basic melee and basic archery. Messing up all my plans because she has to wait another (another two?) level to get GM nature which can mean all the difference (the dragon strength and summon mantis spells).

As long as you have only life skills on your priestess, you will have to choose from 3 life skills in most of the levelups (you get a third non-life skill offered regulary, like 1 out of 3 times and you WILL get combat offered regularly, it's programmed this way) and that means you will always have what you want. Just pick two combat skills and your priestess will need 2-3 more levels because you'll be forced to choose resurrection 1 or 2 times.

My priestess has maxed out on GM life (divine intervention and sanctuary!) on level 13. It gets harder and harder to gain more levels. The difference between master and gm life is the world for me - at gm life i can start the fight with sanctuary and can revive all my other heroes when they die. It practically means that now I can easily kill ANYTHING. Yes, anything. Because after i learned all those life skills i taught Kathleen advanced tactics (from war univ and altar of tactics) making her a crusader ->always maximum morale ->starts all the fights.

Yes, you read it right, she has NO combat skill at all! What for?

My archer (78 attack, 103 defense, gm all in combat), my better druid (dragon strength, summon mantis, my priestess (divine, sanctuary) along with a ranger (pathfinding, seamanship) can move fast with a feary dragon for example and can kill anything on the map. Priest casts sanctuary (she and the creatures will stay there all the time). Druid casts dragon strength on archer. Archer moves to melee range (with her halberd) and waits. After the archer shall do about 2*800 damage/turn in melee (to the deadly catapults, for example). When my druid and archer dies, the priest just casts divine intervention...

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That's all for now. I know it's long and I know it's a lot too.

I recommend you to read around in the heroes round table forums too. There are some very nice posts there.

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Asmodean
Asmodean


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Heroine at the weekend.
posted January 05, 2005 01:59 PM

Whenever I play Preserve I generally use:

Sprites, Tigers, Griffins, Water Elementals, Phoenix/Fairy (whatever I can't summon).

Build Creature Portal quick as possible, get one mantis to clear the area with.

As for heroes:
Nature & Tactics hero (Warden). I also find it's useful to at least have basic Death magic on this hero. You summon more imps than you do sprites, and they're useful as fodder.
Archer with Nobility (for diplomacy and extra troop growth) and life magic (for ressurection - can help in a pinch) Get the combat and archery up to GM and then pour the rest into the other 2 skills. Can be a one man army if stuck.
____________

To err is human, to arr is pirate.

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