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| Thread: Must have skills for MP in HoMM4 |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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Thunder
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted May 22, 2002 07:56 PM |
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Problem with Order Magic is that the default spell it gives seems to be Magic Fist rather than Dispel. Which in turn requires that you have to find dispel either from shrine, scroll or to conquer/have a town with dispel possibly in it.
I strongly disagree with Stealth heroes. They are quite good, especially in higher difficulties, to disrupt your opponent and to gain important artifacts and mines. Obviously you won't be using Stealth hero as a one of mains until much later in the game. When you are tracking Stealth hero down, (s)he migh be so filled with artifacts that you are kind of doing the opponent a favour when you enable him to retreat to town to share those artifacts to other heroes, unless you have shackles of war or a speed advantage. Latter is quite unlikely if the map has speed boosts. One stealth hero is most of the time enough for player. Every town that has an access to stealth hero should hire one as soon as possible. And you will have other heroes with your army.
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bestanden
Adventuring Hero
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posted May 23, 2002 01:32 AM |
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skillses... BEWARE, LONG AND DULL!!!
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1. Tactics, Offense, and Leadership. With long-lasting games where you're able to build up a sizeable army, this combination puts even GM Combat heroes in jeopardy in round one. Even in shorter games the combat advantage is tremendous.
IMO, 1. Stealth 2. Pathfinding (Logistics) and 3. What you said. If you don't get stealth early in the scouting tree, you will get logistics, not a bad deal. And the BIG reason is that scouting/stealth levels are the cheapest in the game, you don't have to deplete wandering monster resources or buy creatures to get them. There are only so many traditionally obtainable levels on the map. You will have to maximize all levels available on the map to win, both traditional and those obtained by stealth. Let's say it a different way, all other things equal, he who harvests the most levels the fastest (gets there fustest with the mostest) wins homm4.
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2. Estates and Nobility. On smaller maps or maps with fewer towns the boost both of these skills give you is enough to significantly alter the balance of power.
On small maps? hmmm, large maps yes. My basic calculation for homm4 is how many levels will I get before the game is over and how do I want to spend them? If I will be getting fewer levels, magic, combat and nobility will go lacking and levels will be spent on scouting and tactics. If I am getting more levels, then I will blend in more "luxury" skills. In a game of uncertain (but usually shorter rather than longer) duration, it is harder to waste levels spent on scouting (other than seamanship which is usually avoidable until you get what you want out of the skill tree), tactics, combat and death magic than it is on the other skills (unless you think charm/ summoning/ resurrection/ diplomacy are great)
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2. Pathfinding. The extra movement will come in handy certainly, but I'm wondering how many people want to devote the necessary levels for a hero that will be killed in battle quickly (or you will at least lack in some other skill).
The thief moves the army (+50%), and when near deployment, drops out and either waits out the combat or scouts ahead. If heroes are lost, the thief scoops up the tombstones, goes quickly to sanctuary or castle, and then the heroes return to meet the army. One funny thing that you might see in MP is tombstone sitting, i.e. if you kill my main hero, you may just split out enough of a "thief killing" army and literally sit on top of the grave (how sacrilegious)to prevent me from picking up the tombstone.
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2. Summoning. It's still too early to tell whether those 7 extra Water Elementals/week are going to make a significant difference enough times to warrant getting this skill.
Agreed, too early to tell. The nice thing about summoning is that, with a little luck and a couple of structures, you can reach GM summoning by 6-8th level. On a larger map, if you run a "druid" strategy and get several GM summoners (which you can do while clearing your area and spending relatively cheap levels), your opponent had better come to you fast. Unlike necromancy, once the levels are spent, summoning is not map and creature dependent, i.e. you can sit on your ass in and around your castle and do it. There is NOTHING scarier than a stack of 200-300 water elementals aimed at you and your army and they will trounce vampires. Every day they just grow and grow. Phoenix works well with this strategy to provide some muscle against ornery magic resisters.
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3. Stealth. I don't care what anyone says about the ability to sneak around the map - it's just not as usefull as people think. Once you've built your main town up it doesn't really matter whether some Stealth hero flags all your mines. The Stealth hero really can't do anything else as he/she has spent 13-15 levels getting to the GM level.
It's not the ability to sneak around, it's:
1. the chance to flag resources a week or so earlier than an army otherwise could... Stealth, like all the major elements of homm games (chaining, logistics, roads, gloves, boots, heroes with a dragon fly LOL, "squires," etc.) as you know, is all about SPEED.
2. the cheap, cheap levels it takes to get there... you don't even buy any troops forchrissakes. On day one, how do you develop that second hero without splitting your tiny little army or the precious experience from wandering monsters? a THIEF, that's how.
3. the "side" benefit of logistics, the only favorite killer homm3 skill that remains relatively intact (diplo is much different and 4th level heroes don't exist)
4. DEFENSE, DEFENSE, DEFENSE! See your well reasoned argument below
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At the very least your opponent can build a GM Scout a lot more quickly than you can a GM Stealth hero and constantly hunt him down. Consider this: a GM Stealth hero moves at a basic 22 moves/day plus the bonus from Pathfinding (50% at GM). So at most he moves 33 tiles. A GM Scout with somethig as simple as an Imp will move at a basic 30 moves/day and 45 moves/day with GM Pathfinding. The Stealth hero doesn't get the benefit of traveling with a creature (and thus using its movement rating as its own) because to do so would defeat the purpose of being Stealthful.
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It will just be too easy to counter/nullify the benefits of a Stealthy hero.
I disagree, but even granting this, if it is so easy to counter a stealth hero then everyone will be developing a counter-stealth hero, which is also a stealth hero.
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My daddy drives a UFO
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haile73
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted July 23, 2003 01:00 PM |
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hehe funny to read this now. stealth isn't that much of an issue as people thought back then. is it?
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the_teacher
Supreme Hero
Talk to the hand!
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posted July 24, 2003 03:05 AM |
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nice thread , it made me travel back in time. 
P.S. ...and the real special delight comes only in the end... I wonder everytime i have to wait so much ?
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AzureDragontm
Known Hero
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posted August 06, 2003 12:21 PM |
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This time I totally agree with the teacher ... it's funny to read those early posts regarding MP strategies... 
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Evil Ghost Pirate LeChuck
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themany
Hired Hero
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posted August 13, 2003 09:54 AM |
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When they play death I'd prefer life
The first thing I need in MP is a good priest/cleric/life mage. Then I seek for a healing spell (bind wounds would do). After that I get a combat class hero either an archer/nature might hero or a barbarian/might hero. Then I try to get some protective spells and blessings: spiritual armor, bless, death ward (50% resistance to death-aligned). All I need is a martyr spell cast on my might hero to protect a stack of crusaders (they attack twice and are quite powerfull agaist those Almighty Vampires). Now it is time to heal the hero before he gets killed. Vampires can't do much harm to the crusaders, cause they are not very numerous at the beginning. Some opponents are not wise enough to cast dispell or something to prevent such tactics. In case they do disrupt the harmony of my crusaders/might hero I still should have holy shout/holy word and some holy water potions. If you are worried about life drain/blood sucking try to take some balistas with you. Even though they are so slow they are very accurate and deadly. Since the vampires are likely to use rush tactics (they are quite fast for that and they can take out most of the guarding creatures before you) you are not going to wait for a long time. Of course, death hero could have more xp points by the same time, but what would be the skills? Death magic? If we play no GM Necromancy rules (many people do so) it can't be very dangerous - for better spells hero should visit his/her town when he has the necessary skill. I think he would rather try to fight very soon not returning to the town if he thinks he has an advantage against you. And resurrection is also helpfull.
Once I was fighting quite a competitive player. The battle finished with nothing when a half-dead priest (4-7 hp) killed the last imp. So, after winning I regained half of my army, while he didn't even have any good hero to defend his town. Vampires are difficult to get inexcusable to lose, so he resigned.
I think this tactics is more suitable for medium maps, on larger ones with some neutral towns vampires and death itself would get the advantage of getting through the guards and taking all the benefits (first come first get).
And I got nothing to say about L-XL maps except that you should have many heroes and appropriate skills for them.
Thank you for your attention
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the_teacher
Supreme Hero
Talk to the hand!
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posted August 13, 2003 01:56 PM |
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themany
Hired Hero
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posted August 13, 2003 04:06 PM |
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combining skills
Lol, I don't believe you can learn anything new from this. Everyone has his own opinion which is sometimes absolutely different from the opinions of the other honored HoMM4 players. First of all I can't understand why you are talking about Chaos class heroes. You should leave some dozens of balistas in your town and come out for the fair open combat. Even a group of well trained thieves together with an army of lvl 1 bandits can't take them out. Who would send a group of thieves with an army of bandits knowing that this slows down them all. Who can keep more than one high level thief? Even if he has GM combat lots of potions of immortality a single lvl 1 life priest/order mage/death necromancer could keep him without those beneficial spells. Of course, he would take many fire potions, but this means he would have spent much money for it and a hundred of balistas will take care of him (*tip try to get a hundred before he rushes into your town). A fire potion is dangerous in the beginning, but a hundred of balistas won't turn a hair (*wink have you seen hairy balistas? I bet dwarves still have hairy buttocks). So you should take your chance and finish you opponent when he is out of money. Mass chaos ward spell would help a lot with those offensive fire spells. A skilled combat hero can deal with a black dragon in case he has potions of immortality and regeneration cast on him. The hope is that there are few dragons (1 per week +no nobility skill for chaos). You can also choose nature town, so you have an archer and hire a priest in the beginning (you should always have one to heal your combat hero(es) and enforce your troops with the help of sacred faith). Finally, you can block the way to your town in some narrow place, so that no one can pass unnoticed past the guards. There is always a chance, so you should use every opportunity to take the benefits of any alignment.
Once I had a tough barbarian on Eldorado, and I took death magic for him twice to get the speed boost. As the time passed by he got more and more levels. So I thought why don't I get a companion for him - another female barbarian - untill he has taken all the cheap xp and put it into high levels. Further more I thought why don't they make love together all the time to get some extra sexual XP from this. She could pretend she was riding a horse, and he could think he was sticking his 'long sword' into enemies' throat... The whole point out of it was that he had got GM Necromancy and could produce Almighty Vampires from the deaders by the time I found a pretty girl for him(lol). So my aim for the girl was to get GM Leadership to combine death and might without penalties. The game became very funny with the blood-suckers but I don't know if you can use such tatics in MP. Still you can try. I this was amusing for you, cause you asked for more.
Thank you for your attention.
Anything for honor.
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the_teacher
Supreme Hero
Talk to the hand!
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posted August 13, 2003 04:14 PM |
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i knew it that you are resourceful ...
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mike11
Adventuring Hero
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posted August 13, 2003 08:10 PM |
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Lol, I don't believe you can learn anything new from this. Everyone has his own opinion which is sometimes absolutely different from the opinions of the other honored HoMM4 players. First of all I can't understand why you are talking about Chaos class heroes. You should leave some dozens of balistas in your town and come out for the fair open combat. Even a group of well trained thieves together with an army of lvl 1 bandits can't take them out. Who would send a group of thieves with an army of bandits knowing that this slows down them all. Who can keep more than one high level thief? Even if he has GM combat lots of potions of immortality a single lvl 1 life priest/order mage/death necromancer could keep him without those beneficial spells. Of course, he would take many fire potions, but this means he would have spent much money for it and a hundred of balistas will take care of him (*tip try to get a hundred before he rushes into your town). A fire potion is dangerous in the beginning, but a hundred of balistas won't turn a hair (*wink have you seen hairy balistas? I bet dwarves still have hairy buttocks). So you should take your chance and finish you opponent when he is out of money. Mass chaos ward spell would help a lot with those offensive fire spells. A skilled combat hero can deal with a black dragon in case he has potions of immortality and regeneration cast on him. The hope is that there are few dragons (1 per week +no nobility skill for chaos). You can also choose nature town, so you have an archer and hire a priest in the beginning (you should always have one to heal your combat hero(es) and enforce your troops with the help of sacred faith). Finally, you can block the way to your town in some narrow place, so that no one can pass unnoticed past the guards. There is always a chance, so you should use every opportunity to take the benefits of any alignment.
Once I had a tough barbarian on Eldorado, and I took death magic for him twice to get the speed boost. As the time passed by he got more and more levels. So I thought why don't I get a companion for him - another female barbarian - untill he has taken all the cheap xp and put it into high levels. Further more I thought why don't they make love together all the time to get some extra sexual XP from this. She could pretend she was riding a horse, and he could think he was sticking his 'long sword' into enemies' throat... The whole point out of it was that he had got GM Necromancy and could produce Almighty Vampires from the deaders by the time I found a pretty girl for him(lol). So my aim for the girl was to get GM Leadership to combine death and might without penalties. The game became very funny with the blood-suckers but I don't know if you can use such tatics in MP. Still you can try. I this was amusing for you, cause you asked for more.
Thank you for your attention.
Anything for honor.
WOW!!!...????? This is the guy that holds entire conversations with himself in GS right?
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Wez - WoW Darkspear 60 UD Priest - Herb/Alch
Timezone = PST ( EST -3, GMT -8 )
Wez - WoW Archimonde 60 Human Priest
Wez - SWG Bria TKM/Doc/Fencer
Mike11 - HOMMIV TOH Legionaire
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vesuvius
Hero of Order
Honor Above all Else
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posted August 13, 2003 08:18 PM |
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hes trying to increase his post count.
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Targan
Known Hero
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posted August 13, 2003 09:37 PM |
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WOW!!!...????? This is the guy that holds entire conversations with himself in GS right?
Exactly, he is many
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haile73
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted August 14, 2003 09:39 AM |
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hehe,
GS has themany
zone has the MANNY
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