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| Thread: HotA 1.7.0 is out - Factory creature analysis |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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FdgK
Known Hero
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posted April 15, 2024 10:04 PM |
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For me it completely depends on the map. On small maps, I find it very difficult to buold both level 7 dwellings so the one missing naturally gets left out and the Armadillos are back on board. Another scenario where the Armadillos are back in the main army is when the enemy has focused down my Halflings so much that their number is too low to make it worthwhile carrying them with me.
All this discussion only applies if you want to use a pure Factory army without any troops from other town types.
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted April 15, 2024 10:14 PM |
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FdgK said:
All this discussion only applies if you want to use a pure Factory army without any troops from other town types.
Yes which is mostly the case in the games I play.
I realise a lot of people get creatures from banks and Pandoras Boxes, so their experiences might be different.
I still feel Factory has one unit too much, I don't know if it should be the armadillos, couatls or juggernauts to go, but the town is just way too expensive, unless you wanna deplete all your resources on that town.
On top of that they have Mage Guild 5, Artifact Merchants and Mercenaries have very good chance of learning Diplomacy, which also costs money.
Damn Factory is an expensive town!
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FdgK
Known Hero
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posted April 15, 2024 11:12 PM |
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In fact, I like to mix it up. Sometimes I limit myself to one faction, too. Other times I mix and match. But what I usually don't do, is playing the typical multiplayer RMG templates that are used online by most players nowadays where it's all about Pandora's Boxes and creature banks.
I think that the high price and the possibility of having more than one homegrown level 7 unit are balancing each other out quite well most of the times in my games.
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted April 15, 2024 11:31 PM |
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Yeah I guess you could say the very high cost of the town balances things automatically.
It's just the town feels very "heavy" to play, compare it with Stronghold or Fortress and they feel super "light" in comparison.
Ideally you should find a way to buy all creatures in your starting town, before the end of the month, in case of plague.
But this is a very difficult task with Factory!
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted April 16, 2024 12:18 PM |
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Phoenix4ever said:
I realise a lot of people get creatures from banks and Pandoras Boxes, so their experiences might be different.
It's not a lot, it's everybody else. Do you realize one of the perks people love about HotA is the new creature banks? Why do you think that is? Cause they can join 8 cyclops to Stronghold or two firebirds to Conflux?
Playing HotA older templates, I was getting free creatures of so many races I had to use more then one hero and split banks for faction.
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phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted April 16, 2024 12:31 PM |
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Oh pardon me oh great Bloodsucker, of course it's everyone but me that enjoys creature banks and Pandora's Boxes all over the place.
How do you even have room for Wyverns, Angels, Cyclops, Giants and Firebirds? and what about your morale?
All of them are also downgraded, so you can't even directly combine them with upgraded stacks, taking up another slot.
What is even the point of town creatures, if you get so many creatures from banks and P-boxes then?
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gatecrasher
Famous Hero
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posted April 16, 2024 12:49 PM |
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FdgK said:
All this discussion only applies if you want to use a pure Factory army without any troops from other town types.
Why would you do that? You only get away with this on not too hard single player maps or vs. unexperienced players or extremely rich games.
What kind of games do you all play? I usually leave behind at least 2 native units, be it due to financial contraints, because there are better options available or in order to facilitate common battle tactics which require splitting stacks. It's only final battle when I want to bring along as much army as possible.
With Factory all tiers are somewhat worthwhile but I'll usually skip upgrading or building the horde building.
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FdgK
Known Hero
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posted April 16, 2024 05:42 PM |
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If you check again, you will notice that I didn't write how I usually play my games. 
Anyway, if you are really interested: I don't play online since I wouldn't have the time to play for long periods uninterruptedly and I don't think, I would really enjoy it anyways. And regarding army composition: I rarely use a one-faction-army and when I do (which I sometimes do just for the fun of setting myself constraints) it is on rare occasions that I bring all seven of the town's creatures with me. It depends on many circumstances, and especially the faction I'm playing.
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Hourglass
Supreme Hero
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posted April 16, 2024 06:15 PM |
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phoenix4ever said:
How do you even have room for Wyverns, Angels, Cyclops, Giants and Firebirds? and what about your morale?
All of them are also downgraded, so you can't even directly combine them with upgraded stacks, taking up another slot.
What is even the point of town creatures, if you get so many creatures from banks and P-boxes then?
Well, I start from beginning, but try to keep it short:
In order to get going as fast as possible, it's often necessary from the very beginning to do fights that might be challangeling, and will lead to at least some casualties. However, in order to have a striking force for the next fights as well, players try to manipulate the damage as much as possible, meaning that certain, offence-centered/"good" creatures are trying to be spared, whereas creatures that will likely not do as much damage/have somehow diminishing role will eat the pain as much as it's necessary.
For example, if you look at Rampart early game, we can clearly see that Centaur Captains and Grand elves can dish great amounts of damage, turning fights for you over and over again. Dwarfs on the other hand, cannot do that as they lack the offensive capabilities, and in the early game aren't even that numerous. So, if we ever need to get a hit for other than Centaur 1-stack, it would be in the best our interests that it's indeed the dwarf stack that is taking the beating.
Now, in order to get to the point: after multiple, exhausting fights, the Dwarfs start dimishing, and assuming you didn't somehow find a way that would shockingly increase their numbers, their stack will look very small, or will become non-existant even after just week one. The new week will eventually come, but if next to no original dwarfs from the previous week didn't make it, a handful of fresh dwarfs will make little difference. And tell you what; the dwarf population will not recover from this, and there will be likely very few reasons why the dwarfs would end up as a part of the final army composition, and thus, there's a room for other type of creature.
And this "process" can happen multiple times during the game; whereas the Centaurs are indeed very useful in the early game, it's likely their role will switch as the game goes on. In short, the town creatures are never pointless, but they might serve greater purpose for something else than being part of the late game army.
It should also be said that multiple heroes can carry an actual army, and the fights can happen in multiple places at once, so there's always good reasons to include creatures gotten from banks/boxes/through Diplomacy. At my newest Factory game, I managed to get really lucky and found a Green Dragon from refugee camp during week one. Now, I could have "two" armies; one with creatures that I've access on (Factory troops) and a single dragon that can solo most of the lvl 1-2 neutral creatures without ever dying, giving me access to everything those creatures were guarding. However, if I would get masses of certain creatures, it would be best to include them to my "main" army.
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted April 16, 2024 06:58 PM |
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Thanks for an always thoughtful answer Hourglass, though I was looking for an answer from Bloodsucker himself.
Well I am not saying I only use creatures from starting town(s), but it's mostly what I do early to mid game.
Later level 1 units (except skeletons) and maybe some vulnerable ranged troops will be mostly destroyed anyway and then there are the slow, defensive units like zombies and armadillos that doesn't help you much, unless they are there to just soak up damage or take retaliations.
So those units might be replaced later.
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted April 16, 2024 06:58 PM |
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phoenix4ever said:
Oh pardon me oh great Bloodsucker, of course it's everyone but me that enjoys creature banks and Pandora's Boxes all over the place.
How do you even have room for Wyverns, Angels, Cyclops, Giants and Firebirds? and what about your morale?
All of them are also downgraded, so you can't even directly combine them with upgraded stacks, taking up another slot.
What is even the point of town creatures, if you get so many creatures from banks and P-boxes then?
Sorry if I've sound too aggressive but you're making my point.
That some people, me included (the first template I ever designed is called So Many Angels and only allows for banks linked to terrain, that is linked to towns, and conservatories) prefer a game with less banks is a given but that doesn't mean it's what people play. Most people play custom maps (many of them) and there you do what the mapmaker allows you to do or random maps based on the templates that come with the updates, in these you bet you'll always find tons of different banks.
And YES!! since the moment I've start watching competitive multiplayer, the creatures you get from your main town generally play a lesser role in final battles, being the powerstacks something you got a lot from banks. In the old days it was always angels and wyverns, now it varies a bit more but still.
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted April 16, 2024 07:04 PM |
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I wonder what those competitive players would do without their beloved banks and P-boxes, would they even know what to do... 
It would be fun to give them a real "culture shock".
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted April 16, 2024 07:38 PM |
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The idea that single & multiplayer have much in common in this game is nonsense. From secondary skills to that constant attention to one hero only when, as HourGlass said it, it seems more effective to split creatures between other heroes. So, I once asked a champ why he was massing all the greater stacks on main, making it so that at the moment he had 7 stacks of 7 factions, when he could be using some elsewhere and, by doing so, deal with the moral problem.
The answer: I have no idea when the opponent will appear and what he will have, so I keep max power on main.
This is not how I play closed custom maps...
Yet, I bet some of these guys would beat your record on your own map first try, that one included.
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted April 16, 2024 07:50 PM |
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bloodsucker said:
Yet, I bet some of these guys would beat your record on your own map first try, that one included.
No they would'nt, as I play by completely different rules that they are used to.
There are also very few banks and no P-boxes with creatures in my map.
They would feel so lost and think they are playing a completely different game.
No, let them find out how to break a day sooner with Luna, get into the desert to collect relics and finish the game before week 3.
Same thing as they have been doing for the last 25 years, must really be super fun. (Not!)
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted April 16, 2024 08:09 PM |
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What?
Started weaker..
I know some players are a very fast regardless of the rule and the version.. A new MOD, for example, but some players never down..
One guy from Korea, for example.. But you start at an easy map https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAnl176WMo
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Fight MWMs - stand teach
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bloodsucker
Legendary Hero
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posted April 16, 2024 08:59 PM |
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Phoenix4ever said:
They would feel so lost and think they are playing a completely different game.
That's what I'm doubting.
My rules are special, yahdah yahdah. Have tried Empire of the World IV? Those are different rules... but people beat that, all variants. And establish records.
With ALL the respect, I doubt a guy that doesn't play but one map, as excellent as it may be, and doesn't at least watch the great maps playthroughs, can have the imagination and experience to really surprise us all.
P.S. I'm not saying I am the expert in Heroes III. My own maps are so weak, they are testimony enough of how far I am from the masters.
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FdgK
Known Hero
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posted April 16, 2024 09:30 PM |
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Edited by FdgK at 22:13, 16 Apr 2024.
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bloodsucker said:
a guy that doesn't play but one map
@Phoenix4ever: I've read this more than once in this forum. Is it true that you only play one map? If yes, I would be curious to see what that map is all about, that it provides fun for years and years!
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted April 16, 2024 09:38 PM |
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@FDGK Mostly one map yeah, but the map keeps evolving all the time and I also keep changing the rules and sometimes try to make things tougher.
I sometimes play the map co-op with a friend though and we usually give all AI's some pretty extreme bonusses.
I have played a lot of different maps and campaigns before, but for now I am mostly interested in creating and playing my own map(s) and mod the game how I feel like.
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FdgK
Known Hero
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posted April 16, 2024 10:41 PM |
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So it's a map which you keep on editing to change it up, I understand.
Do you share it somewhere with the community or do you prefer keeping it to yourself.
Sorry for posting off-topic. I will stop now.
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Phoenix4ever
Legendary Hero
Heroes is love, Heroes is life
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posted April 16, 2024 10:54 PM |
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No the map is not public, exactly because I change it constantly and then there would become 1000+ versions of it, which would probably be pretty confusing and annoying to people.
Besides it is really meant to be played with my rules (mods).
But who knows, maybe some day... 
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