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bluehawk
Tavern Dweller
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posted January 07, 2024 05:51 AM |
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A crashed airship object would be cool. Maybe it gives resources like a wagon or a random minor artifact.
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted January 07, 2024 06:30 AM |
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Serious suggestion: Make the official mode to play online only XXL two-level continental map templates and remove JC from template stack, so that everyone sees that the game is actually *not* balanced, much less perfectly so, and stop thinking their way is the only way to play and have place for ideas and suggestions valid for other formats 
Also incidentally nerf late game factory being able to eventually steamroll everyone with two lvl7 weekly growth which is only remotely "balanced" by very short games.
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Never changing = never improving
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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted January 07, 2024 10:38 AM |
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Doomforge said:
I've been going through the limited feedback on Factory strength. What I gathered so far:
1. Dury is one of the best heroes in the game (or the best). Already banned under some rules.
2. Except Dury and the earlygame powerhouse Henrietta, other Factory heroes (esp. mages) are underwhelming.
3. The town shines early on with overpowered halfing grenadiers, esp. with archery, but those are very fragile units with obvious limitations.
5. Since it's a new town, based on new type of terrain, it's somewhat impaired in popular (richer) biomes.
6. Having two level 7s is a problem; the external tier7 dwellings will be also split in two -> harder to get a powerstack.
7. The town struggles quite a bit with pretentious crystal/ore costs, and the tier 7 are either slow and easy to play around (mechs) or weak (coualts).
Most players seem to agree that under typical templates, like Jebus, it's a mid tier town at best.
This is mostly what I've understood, too. Even it's still very early, I think it's pretty clear the Factory doesn't match the power of the original factions. There's nothing wrong with it not being as strong, I've had very much fun playing the new faction.
Doomforge said:
4. While engineer-automaton combo works fine, it requires upgraded buildings, which goes against the meta (that is mostly focused on racing to level 7 creature ASAP).
This is what I left wondering thou; what do you mean by the upgraded buildings? I've found the Mechanics 10 HP repair pretty generous all things considered, it's not like you're going to have much hp in your mech stack early on anyway. I also wouldn't rush for lvl 7's as Factory. I've had better success if you just eat your pride, and build the Town hall at during first turn allowing the Halfling upgrade on turn 2. Normal Halflings are better units than Master Gremlins, but not that much. Also, average Henrietta Halfling roll is only slightly better than what player's are used with average Master Gremlin roll. I think the Halflings ask for being upgraded, it's especially important after leaving the home biome, as the defence cutting ability comes handy pretty quickly.
Dreadnought's building also is very expensive, and I have only had few games where building it during the first week has even been a possibility, whereas the Couatls are much more reasonable building costs, and are usually the go-to unit. However, whereas other towns with fast, flying tier 7 creature can solo certain early stacks (such as pretty much every 1-2 creature, including shooters), Couatls are nowhere near as capable.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted January 07, 2024 11:08 AM |
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This is quite a difficult issue for Factory. Unupgraded Coualts are the weakest T7 unit in the game. If you recall my numerical analysis, a weekly population of those units is only around 20% better in damage dealing than halfing grenadier pop (!) and their EHP, even though better than most low level units, is pretty terrible for Tier7.
Also they are "just" fast, 11 speed (same as Wyvern monarchs), which is enough to reach whatever is in front of them but only that.
Their special is useless without an upgrade.
Rushing them doesn't really bring much to the table. And upgraded automatons are 10 speed units, Couatls are just 1 speed faster. You will eventually need those units (upgraded) but due to bad stats, they are mostly utility: 15 speed (so you can cast spells without waiting for an entire enemy army to move) and their upgraded special, which allows you to block an enemy powerstack of shooters 1st turn without getting killed straight away by his whole army. That is assuming you can't just do the conservatory meta, because angels would make more sense.
I personally find factory the best for a slow-approach, almost camping style.
Both halfings and Bounty Hunters are above average shooters. Three of your walkers have blind immunity, two (mechs) have complete mind immunity, which makes it harder to crack you with AOE berserk. The mechs can attack quite a bit of hexes if they are not moving (without retal), automatons also attack without retal. Olgois are fantastic T5, they are almost as strong as Minotaur kings but they also fly and have a great special (which, I wasn't aware of initially, can be used the same turn as you attack). Engis can repeair the mechs.
In non-Duel or jebus settings where you're routinely faced with 30-40 SP heroes in 3rd week, you can often simply afford to camp and shoot, because of how good your shooters are and how hard it is to break through the walker trio, with upgraded Couatls blocking enemies turn1. Without ridiculous AOE spells, it's hard to beat such a tactic because many units either shoot or attack without retaliation + free repair. you can get simply decimated. The only factions that can outlast this are Cove (because Sea Dogs' instant kill will wreck your tier7s and you'll lose from there) and Tower (stronger shooter lineup).
There is however another problem. If spell research is enabled (and it is on most HOTA maps, if not all?), then you have to pay the price for tier4 guild thrice to get a guaranteed town portal spell. That's 24 resources each. This is ridiculously hard for a town that needs to use over 70 crystal to fully upgrade its tier 7s. And if you give up on one of the tier7s, you either end up without the heavy hitting mechs, or you end up being extremely slow, which makes you weak to 1st turn mass haste armywipe. 20 crystal for basic mech dwelling is too much; those units aren't strong enough to warrant those types of costs. Compare them to Giants, which dwelling only costs 10 gems and 5000 gold - WTF? You can get giants 1st week on many maps, even on impossible difficulty if lucky. Gantry? Forget it.
The town could use some tweak in crystal costs (maybe -10 crystal for upgrarded Couatl dwelling and -5/10 crystal for basic Mech dwelling). Getting upgraded tier7s AND town portal takes ~100 crystal. Compare that to Castle, which only needs ~30ish of each resource to fully develop the town, and 50ish to reach town portal. Ugh.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted January 07, 2024 11:41 AM |
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Doomforge said:
In non-Duel or jebus settings where you're routinely faced with 30-40 SP heroes in 3rd week, you can often simply afford to camp and shoot, because of how good your shooters are and how hard it is to break through the walker trio, with upgraded Couatls blocking enemies turn1. Without ridiculous AOE spells, it's hard to beat such a tactic because many units either shoot or attack without retaliation + free repair. you can get simply decimated. The only factions that can outlast this are Cove (because Sea Dogs' instant kill will wreck your tier7s and you'll lose from there) and Tower (stronger shooter lineup).
I'm sorry, but what kind of analysis is this?
Outside of Jebus and Duel settings, as what I would expect to be more traditional styled templates, it's not routine to get high amounts of spell power in a short amount of time as the game tends to be quite strict when it comes to giving out artifacts. And Cove beating your tier 7's instantly with their pirates, beside you just telling us the Factory Couatls can simply block and kill shooters at the beginning of the battle? I'm sorry, but this seems pretty theroticial to me.
Also the when it comes to Factory shooters, yes, they have quite a lot stopping power when you're up against some basic walkers, but against shooters or just creatures that do match your speed, they will get taxed hard during the game, as they are even more squishy than their closest counterparts Master Gremlins, so good luck maintaining a reasonably big stack for the end game.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted January 07, 2024 12:23 PM |
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Hourglass said:
And Cove beating your tier 7's instantly with their pirates, beside you just telling us the Factory Couatls can simply block and kill shooters at the beginning of the battle? I'm sorry, but this seems pretty theroticial to me.
Not really. Couatls do low damage, so you'll not lose an entire powerstack. You can simply walk away, block with nix/ayssid/ seamen. And the very next turn, you no longer can prevent them from shooting. And the chance of you having powerstacks of both Couatls and Mechs are fairly low, I'd say you have one powerstack or the other. Couatls don't make for great powerstacks since they are fairly poor units.
The point is, you need both those tier 7s to have presence. One to simply prevent the pirates from reducing your mechs to nothing from range, the other to provide actual damage since Couatls suck at it.
Mechs may be slow, but they can absolutely obliterate groups. Pretty fun with teleport, I must say.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted January 07, 2024 04:09 PM |
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Doomforge said:
Not really. Couatls do low damage, so you'll not lose an entire powerstack. You can simply walk away, block with nix/ayssid/ seamen.
And this is supposed to be a good move by some sort?
Shooter retreats, while multiple creatures are used to block the already heavily weakend stack? There simply ain't any tempo in this play, and the first round is mostly lost here and the enemy is left moving how they want. Basically the Seadogs would be a non-issue at that point, no reason for the Cove player spare their resources trying to save them.
Besides, building a really threatning Sea Dog stack rarely happens, as the neutral enemies love targeting them due their squishiness. Only templates you could really constantly pull a frightening stack are exactly the non-traditional templates, eg. those that are more or less based around pandora boxes.
Look, I know there basically cannot be many games against certain town within one week of play. That's why I said it sounded too thereticial for my taste.
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted January 08, 2024 06:51 PM |
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Hourglass said:
And this is supposed to be a good move by some sort?
Sure. Even if you lose 25% of them 1st round, they can still kill several tier 7 creatures per turn. So getting them out of there instead of abandoning them sounds rather decent.
Put it this way: those units, even wounded, can deliver damage per round that greatly exceeds pretty much everything you own, except for ayssids and wounded haspids, if attacking tier 7s specifically.
Hourglass said:
Besides, building a really threatning Sea Dog stack rarely happens, as the neutral enemies love targeting them due their squishiness.
Idk, I pretty much never lose them. But I always start with Illor, so I always have tactics. For shooters, the pirates are surprisingly low priority for the AI; it loves nymphs way too much.
also, wrong thread.
I wonder if we'll see one more town from HotA team. 11 feels an awkward number. 12 is more like it.
Bastion and desert terrain, plz!
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted January 08, 2024 11:40 PM |
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More thoughts about factory:
- bad for Impossible difficulty which I like to pick for SP - constantly out of Ore. The amount of Ore this faction needs is twice as much as other factions, pretty much.
- spell research (for TP and DD) is such a pain, extremely improbable if you wish to get two tier 7s because it requires you to reach over 100 crystal for just TP and two upg tier7s, assuming worst luck possible (3 spell researches necessary).
- without both tier 7s, it seems really lacking, either it becomes too slow, or doesn't hit hard enough.
- halfings & bounty hunters are great units offensively, but made of paper, they will die to a sneeze.
- due to how AI works in this game, drawing enemies to a single automaton stack is extremely hard to pull off. It won't really win you utopias for free.
As such, while the town is fun and original, it's hard to really find a good playstyle with it. It's bad for big SP maps, because you need your army and that delays TP and DD significantly, slowing down your expansion and making you weaker.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted January 09, 2024 11:17 AM |
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Doomforge said:
As such, while the town is fun and original, it's hard to really find a good playstyle with it.
So... another two, please?
I was wondering what would came out after such a long waiting but this is an underwhelming town and heroes pool, something quite different from what I was expecting but not necessarily a bad thing. It just falls on the opposite side of Stronghold and Fortress, hard to build, expensive and without outstanding units like Archangels and Titans.
I wouldn't say it's a bad town for SP (not like Conflux and their non resurrectable units) cause it has a few remarkable heroes, specially campaign ones, but it will require a few extra Dwarven Treasuries and/or warehouses of Crystal to build up at the same time as the others.
For me, I feel it will be trashed, like Fortress, cause we still can have only have 8 players, so three factions will remain without a player and I generally prefer to leave the weaker ones.
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted January 09, 2024 11:58 AM |
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Doomforge said:
- halfings & bounty hunters are great units offensively, but made of paper, they will die to a sneeze.
I've not played yet.. But Bounty Hunter seems to be stronger than Enchanters or in the tactics can showing great tricks same as Enchanters.. Halfings are sick OP, I replace 7 tiers.. I planned to use 3 tiers.. So depend on gold also Diplomacy.. What more creatures, you've less chance to join your creatures, think about S-L map size, if you get Bounty Hunters, its your great gift.. But "older" and H3C maps, you can't join Bounty Hunters.. Hard!
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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CsArOs
Tavern Dweller
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posted January 09, 2024 01:15 PM |
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First of all, I love Factory, honestly my favourite town in the game now. I came back to playing almost every day the moment it was released, there is so much to it, especially in the campaign (which requires a lot but is nicely orchestrated).
Is nobody else surprised that Dreadnoughts run on Crystals and not on Mercury, like you would expect? I know it's for balance (so that you can't get both lvl 7s easily) but it's a bit weird how a giant robot is powered by a shiny crystal. I would prefer it to be Mercury (perhaps 20-25 for base building, another 20-25 for upgrade and 1 per Dreadnought 2 per Juggernaut) or something else more fitting like it (Automatons require Mercury and they're happy with it). Perhaps Bounty Hunters could eat some crystals instead to balance things out; this would in my opinion feel more appropriate in terms of the feel (we use Mercury to power our robots).
I would also love to see Engineers get a Master's degree in Mechanical Enginering and repair some golems, war machines and other non-living (maybe except elementals and bloodless). I feel like Steel Golem is the closest neutral unit to Factory, except it sticks out like a sore thumb that an Engineer capable of fixing mechanical creatures cannot fix mechanical steel golems, which are basically robots too. This would also make Factory work better with their Giant brethren from the Experimental Workshop.
There is no building or bank to recruit Steel Golems, which is a shame because they would fit the town perfectly as a neutral unit (the way Mummies fit Necropolis) and it would be a great tool for mapmakers to allow Steel Golem recruitment.
Finally, while I know I'm asking for a bit much, I'd love to see a bank for some Factory unit. Maybe make Experimental Workshop provide dreadnoughts? Maybe a bank guarded by Mechanics who protect a bunch of Automatons or Dreadnoughts? Right now Factory is missing a way of getting these fitting creatures on Random Maps (especially that their external lvl 7 dwellings are of random type and may be different than the one player wanted to build).
What do you guys think? Can Hota include at least some of these small elements?
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gatecrasher
Famous Hero
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posted January 09, 2024 02:30 PM |
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Was thinking about this as well but at least the original Golem (from jewish mythology/folklore) isn't exactly a mechanical contraption, no machine.
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LordCameron
Known Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted January 10, 2024 01:34 AM |
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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted January 10, 2024 08:14 PM |
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Doomforge said:
Sure. Even if you lose 25% of them 1st round, they can still kill several tier 7 creatures per turn. So getting them out of there instead of abandoning them sounds rather decent.
It indeed sounds promising.
However, the reason why I commented in the first place was to call out for things that I suspect didn't actually happen. If you want to make an analysis of something, it makes no sense trying to claim things that one didn't actually witness.
To put it in practice, a low level shooter kiting with multiple, actual stacks of units, is pretty much unheard of. Too much pressure is put on a stack that has 15 hp a piece. First and foremost, such formation would be extremely vulnerable for all forms of spellcasting to say the least. Also, the tempo loss for building such thing for the desciribed situation would almost certainly lead for a disaster. And the average roll of pirates hardly exceeds a horde status in week 3.
Doomforge said:
Idk, I pretty much never lose them. But I always start with Illor, so I always have tactics. For shooters, the pirates are surprisingly low priority for the AI; it loves nymphs way too much.
There are no "perfect" gaming when it comes to Homm3, and this is true for all level of play, that is why the game has been a success even after all these years - there's always room to improve. To put it nicely, it's a bit bold claim to say one would never lose units from certain stack, tactics/any other ability included. Not everything is under player's control. Btw, the industry standard has been Cass for a decade for multiple reasons, one being the Tactics skill.
Doomforge said:
also, wrong thread.
Why post the analysis here in the first place, if people cannot reply back?
CsArOs said:
Is nobody else surprised that Dreadnoughts run on Crystals and not on Mercury, like you would expect? I know it's for balance (so that you can't get both lvl 7s easily) but it's a bit weird how a giant robot is powered by a shiny crystal. I would prefer it to be Mercury (perhaps 20-25 for base building, another 20-25 for upgrade and 1 per Dreadnought 2 per Juggernaut) or something else more fitting like it (Automatons require Mercury and they're happy with it). Perhaps Bounty Hunters could eat some crystals instead to balance things out; this would in my opinion feel more appropriate in terms of the feel (we use Mercury to power our robots).
Not sure if you know, but their initial plan was indeed to make Dreadnoughts to cost mercury as well. I don't know exactly why it was changed, but it may have something to do with lvl 7 resource cycles. Mercury and Sulphur were both used for 3 times (ghost dragons, devils, phoenix / black dragons, hyrdas and haspids), whereas crystal where only used in twice (green dragons and behemots) So, if we will ever have a 3rd extra town, their lvl 7 will almost certainly cost gems.
CsArOs said:
There is no building or bank to recruit Steel Golems, which is a shame because they would fit the town perfectly as a neutral unit (the way Mummies fit Necropolis) and it would be a great tool for mapmakers to allow Steel Golem recruitment.
This is most certainly coming at some point, as it was said so when the golems were introduced back then.
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CsArOs
Tavern Dweller
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posted January 10, 2024 08:29 PM |
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Edited by CsArOs at 20:48, 10 Jan 2024.
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Quartz watches use quartz to measure accurate time (the way a tuning fork measures frequency) but are not powered by it. They're powered by metal batteries which often contain sulphuric acid. I feel like the explanation with 7 lvl creature balance makes more sense as the actual reason (but does slightly ruin their lore feel).
Btw, I vaguely recall speculations based on leaked screenshots that Armageddon's Blade will be an assembled artifact from Sword of Hellfire, Shield of the Damned, Breastplate of Brimstone and the Helm of Chaos (like in the Campaign). Is this still planned? Are we going to see an assembled Armageddon's blade in Hota 1.7.1? Are other unofficial artifact sets (Crowned Seas, Rampart set, Fortress set) planned to be released at some point?
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted January 10, 2024 09:02 PM |
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Hourglass said:
There are no "perfect" gaming when it comes to Homm3, and this is true for all level of play, that is why the game has been a success even after all these years - there's always room to improve. To put it nicely, it's a bit bold claim to say one would never lose units from certain stack, tactics/any other ability included. Not everything is under player's control. Btw, the industry standard has been Cass for a decade for multiple reasons, one being the Tactics skill.
Never been a fan of Cass or Nymphs myself. Even Lexiav rates her as "A" tier while Jeremy, Illor and Eovacius get an "S". Though some of Lexiav's ratings are controversial, he's undoubtedly a dedicated and passionate PVPer.
as for the claim, maybe it is indeed exagerrated, because I do screw up a lot, obviously. However, if I judge things right, then I don't lose pirates, because tactics and nymph baits are often completely enough.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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pol11234
Tavern Dweller
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posted January 12, 2024 09:01 PM |
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Hello everyone, I wanted to change the statistics of units in the hot, but I don't know anything about the hexeditor that is required.
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted January 13, 2024 11:01 PM |
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I read a proposal on the russian forum about Factory's 2 level 7 units. It was to be able to select in the map editor if Factory should be allowed to build both level 7's or just one of them. (As in Heroes 4)
I would really like this feature, that or just make (both) couatls neutral units.
But I never liked pirates having 2 upgrades either, especially with that OP Accurate Shot ability.
How do you guys feel about Factory's 2 level 7 units?
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted January 14, 2024 12:29 AM |
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Should be 4 Phoenixes.. You can see Factory has 2+2.. Cheap! I don't need Halflings nor buiding upgrading dwellings.. So 2+2 and then Angels, Giants, etc from banks.. Remember TP..
I like Pirates.. When you can make ranged death stare in the WoG/ERA.. Pirates are less raw units.. and weak HP too..
IMO, Phoenix4ever..
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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