/vr/ - Retro Games

I need complete edition + Wrath of the gods already patched.

I've found one on pirate bay, but the fucking version also change the portraits of some characters,

this just happened in week 2 or 3

If you want a decent challenge, play Marshland Menace or Gelea's champions on impossible. I think Marshland took like 15 tries for me. Personally I play without town portal, fly or dimension door, as I feel those pretty much break the game.

By the way, is there a way to edit allies on default maps?

>>1112703
Shipwreck survivors always crack me up. If the dud had angle wings, why didn't he just use them to fly away to safety?

It's even more hilarious when they are holding on to the inexhaustible cart of ore.

>>1113168
WoG has a feature that allows you to define arbitrary alliances at game start that override any defaults. You can disable all WoG features other than that, so you can still play a vanilla game aside from using that one feature.

>>1113226
Other than the easy WoG override, I suppose editing the map in the map editor is also possible, but more cumbersome.

So while looking around kijiji for Dreamcast games I found a guy selling a ngp with metal slug for 50 bucks.
Should I do it /vr/? I know people love this system but really have no idea what I'd really play on it, as I'm not a very big fighting or rpg person

>>1113168
If you want a decent challenge, you should download some of the epic maps such as Unleashing the Bloodthirsty.

>>1113191
The wings got wet and he couldn't fly, duh.

>>1113248
shiiitt, was intending to make a thread out of this.

I've been playing some online multiplayer on Balance with a not completely terrible friend lately after a lifetime of singleplayer and hotseat stomps on premades, and god damn the game is hard. It seems just having 10 minutes of idle time during your opponent's turns gives you so much more time to think and makes the mistake that costs you 1-2 turns impossible to brush off with an End Turn, even if you're multitasking at that time.

>>1110898
is VCMI useable?

Whats the best way of getting HoMM all set up?

>>1113270
>is VCMI useable?
Yes, but IMO there is no reason to play it just yet, unless you want to test, look for bugs etc,

>Whats the best way of getting HoMM all set up?
Vanilla+AB+SoD. Optional HD mod.

>>1113302
thank you. I havent played this since I was like 8.

I didnt get very far

>>1113191

>>1113226

Ah right, WoG can do that. Thanks-

>>1113249

I tried Unleashing the Bloodthirsty, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong since I can't get through the first fortress hero. Is she supposed to have expert air magic and haste? Because even with tactics I can't defend my grand elves long enough to get some damage in. Slow doesn't help since she just casts haste and I'm fucked again.

Man my old computer of 3 years recently blew up, and I lost all my HoMM images, and I figured this'd be the place to ask: Could you please help me reconstruct my folder?
Like, the pic with the gorillion power liches, the gorillion ranged stacks, the whole shabang.

I swear to God I should've made a backup.

so if I love HoMaM 3 and Civ IV: BtS, what other TBS games would you recommend?

>>1115071
I have this.

>>1115108
Similar to Homm?
Warlords 3, Disciples 1&2, Lords of Magic. Maybe Age of Wonders, but I could never get into that for some reason.

>>1115148
already played Warlords 3 which is pretty fun. I'll try the others, thanks

>>1115071

This literally makes me laugh every time I see it

>>1115071

Sandro Master Race

Man I wish I had saved html versions of some of those threads, they were hysterical

>>1115146
Countless times those evolved fuckers guarded the best artifacts.
Want Shackles of war? Fuck you, 300 damage per SHOT.

>>1115189
This. Only, played HoMM2, but Sandro was the man.
Sandro (Nec), Kastor (War), Halon (Wiz[Piccolo]), Ergon (Barb), Maximus (Kni), Vatawna (Sorc).

How the fuck do you get good at this game?

>>1118525
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B29K9wqYz_uSNDkwMDk2ZDItNDkwNy00MzlhLTkzYzUtYmJiODdiOTgzOGRm
is a good start

>>1113401
Yes, that is what I meant.

>>1115071
>the pic with the gorillion power liches

this one?

>>1115189
>>1115185
>>1115146
Thanks a lot, bbs. Exactly the pictures I was looking for. Now I feel at home in these threads again.
>>1120863
And nah man it's where a necromancer turns some mob camp into hella power liches instead of skellingtons, you know.

Man there has never been a game that I wanted so badly to git gud at.
I get my shit slapped left and right, goddamn.

>>1115108
Master of Orion 1&2. Battle mode is HOMM-like, management is like Civ.

I know its not retro but the newest one isn't terrible

>>1123403
VI is by far the most disgusting shit I've ever played

>>1123089
How exactly are you getting wrecked? There's a lot of helpful information in the Tribute for Strategists google document, and posts floating around on the heroescommunity forums linked in the OP. You can also get input on stuff here, of course.

Are there any mods to change the fuck-ugly hero portraits in HOMM II?

>>1123784
Yeah I'm browsing the document.
I think it's just a matter of getting the basics down. Like, knowing exactly what to do for the first few turns, knowing what camps will fuck me up, stuff like that.

>>1121013
google

>>1123789

>>1116961
I would throw army of heroes at them constantly if they were guarding the most powerful artifact in game, whenever I see shackles I go straight fo them for I hate PC running away so much

Luckiest game of my life. Balance, randomed Castle, Nymus for main from the tavern. Then I go and blow my starting army at day 3 on a bunch of rogues. Well, that means you're fucked, right? Nope! There's more free gold and chests lying around than I've ever seen on Balance, and I get Cavaliers and Castle for Week 1 despite not being able to do any fights for 3 turns after losing my army until I got my Cavaliers. It gets better; I had neutral Stables next to my main, so my Cavaliers evolved into Champions for free. Come Week 2, I walked around to the next zone with 6 Champions and grabbed Centaur's Axe on the road, and then found Shield of Yawning Dead and Spirit of Oppression lying around guarded by something weak. Next turn, there's Boots of Speed equally lightly guarded, and my Nymus got Logistics on level 2 so I'm running around with 3470 movement points (Logistics+Boots of Speed+Stables+9-speed Champions) on w2d4.

It gets better. There's a lightly guarded Armor of Wonders and a Marletto and I take two Dwarven Treasuries, bringing Nymus to level 10 in the process. So I now have a Nymus with 8/11/3/4, 3470 movement points and 6 Champions running around killing everything after fucking up my entire starting army on a dumb mistake.

>>1126450
Man when I fuck up I just get fucked.
I can't seem to get lucky with artefacts either.

>>1125634
>question about HoMM2
>post picture from HoMM3
Fuck you Alagar.

>>1126685
:(

What is a good resource for maps?

What is your favorite map both included with the game and downloaded

>>1124871
>>1121013
The best part about this image, and also the one with the bajillion liches vs azure dragons: I took both of them.

>>1126450
This reminds me - what is the fastest range shooter in the game? To not bog down hero movement points too much. I think Titans, or Faerie Dragons if they can be counted as such.

>>1126687
It was meant to show that HoMM3 has bad portraits too

HOMM1&2 have some really silly ones but then they have the best Sandro ever, so all is forgiven.
>>1126450
Really cool stuff there. A bit of a shame you have to resort to Nymus; I used to play Inferno quite a bit and I was always frustrated by Demoniac secondary skill preference (Fire Magic gets offered all the time).

>>1128656
Knight portraits in HoMM1 are funny because they're all humans except for this one green lizard whose presence no one questions.

>>1129008
That's half-orc Maximus, he's one of the default party members in Might & Magic 3. Several heroes in HoMM1 and 2 are characters taken from the RPG series.

>>1128656
Demoniacs are no Barbarians but Pyre, Marius and Nymus are the next best thing, along with the Overlords and Elementalists that have good starting skills. Logistics is pretty much guaranteed and the bad skills aren't too common. Having higher probability to learn Fire Magic rather than Earth does suck as you say, though.

>>1129404
Yeah, alright, they're still pretty okay for primary heroes.

I just had to random Tower with Thane as my main hero to realize that.

No Neela or Orrin in tavern. Good thing at this point I'm just playing vs AI games with friends, but still, fuck karma.

Do people play Inferno at all?

>>1127869

Warmongers is probably my favorite default map. Very balanced and the starting area is just rich enough to get you started.

If you like Dragon utopias and OP artifacts, Jebus Cross random template is neat. Also pretty hard on impossible if you ally 3 computers vs yourself.

Sort of related:

What's the best (non-Heroes) Might & Magic game to start with? The new M&M X Legacy got me interested, but I don't want to support Ubisoft's shit nor put malware like U-Play on my computer ever again.

>>1130262
2D - 4+5 (World of Xeen)
3D - 6 or 7

What sucks about these games is that the absolute best of the series, HoMM 3, is also the ugliest. The color palette is gray and limited, the spell effects are all kinds of stupid, and the creatures are all some of that early shitty CGI.

I'd love a chance to play the third game with the second one's graphics.

>>1130269
You can't talk about "Ugly" and "Heroes of Might and Magic" without bringing up the fifth game.

>>1129572
Nope. I heard somewhere that an experienced player mained Inferno for two months (real life, not ingame) trying to find ANYTHING Inferno could do better than other factions, but he found nothing at all. That's quite sad.

>>1123403
But it IS terrible.
I have tried it, and it's not utter and absolute shit like anyone says, but it's still one of the worst in the series.
Very few factions, no alternate upgrades, only 3 resources, bugs everywhere, always online, area of control (if it was well implemented it would have been good, but it just takes away the possibility to steal others mines) magic system sucks as town management does and so on.
The only thing i appreciated was the level system, in wich you choose how to develop your hero, but even there the skills are very unappealing.

>>1130269
I have to agree here.
Heroes 3's first graphic impact is terrible. After a while you manage to appreciate them, but compared to all other games (maybe 4 is an exception) it looks the ugliest.
However, the graphics aren't a big issue: after a while you get to at least tolerate them, and the gameplay definetly makes up for it, so i would'nt say heroes 3 sucks because of this.

>>1130280
Actually heroes 5, after heroes 2, is my favourite heroes game (talking about the looks).
Heroes 6 is not bad graphically, but the style is "okish" for me.

>>1130427
They do have Demon hoarding, that's pretty much it.

>>1130269

>>1130269
>Homm 3
>ugly
What. It's one of the best looking PC games of all times. It's gorgeous. The little trees. The animated stuff. The town screens. There is a couple of creatures that could look better in combat, but that's about it.
I like how Homm 2 looks but it's a little too cartoony for my taste, same with 1. 4 is an abomination (adventure map is alright, everything else looks like placeholders). 5 is hit and miss.

>>1130516
>a couple of creatures

You mean basically all of them.

>>1130517
No, I mean a couple. Mostly from AB.
What's wrong with them?

>>1130521
Stupid designs combined with ugly CGI.

>>1130527
I see nothing wrong with the designs. If you don't like the kind of animation, then I guess that's your opinion.
They're certainly better than "made in MS paint" 2, "it hurts to live" 4 or "hueg shoulderpads and animu" of 5 and 6.

>>1130530
Well, I guess that's a matter of tastes. I find the ones in 2 and 5 infinitely better than 3, even with the stuff you mentioned.

>>1130265
If you go with 6 or 7 make sure to get the mod that allows moving the camera with the mouse. I didn't know how much I wanted it until I used it.

>>1130432
Other terriple things. Town flipping, was in my opinion, a fucking awful idea. Getting a second town of your main type was a joyous occasion in other games. Auto town flipping in 6 is dull, you really have no chance to raise a secondary hero who could hold his own.

Everyone being able to town portal, did the developers not see how much the community hated town portal?

I have to disagree with you on the leveling system. I found I would fall into predictable paths.It really made me appreciate the randomness of skills before. Although I still rage when my last skill slot has a choice of eagle eye or scouting.

>>1130508
Oh my. What a delicious little haul.

>>1130584
That's pretty good. If you can find that undead sword, you'll instantly have Armour of Damned, which is one of the best combo artefacts.

Speaking of which, what do you guys prefer, Angelic Alliance, or Armour of Damned? I prefer Armour of Damned because it casts more debuffs and leaves you space for that necklace that gives +3 luck and morale, as well as the speed boots for way more movement points.

>>1130672
XL or L maps, nothing, NOTHING, compares to Cloak of the Undead King. Otherwise Armour of the Damned, but it is still a close call. CotUK is OP as fuck.

>>1130689
Samefagging here.

I find it interesting that the 'evil' artifact combinations are so powerful but the 'good' troops are easily all above the 'evil' troops. Although dungeon has some nice troops (mins, dragons). They don't compare to crossbows/elves/crusaders/centaur even dendroids/pegasi/monks/unicorns and last but not least fucking angels. Easily the strongest creature in the game. Behemoths may win stack v stack with heroes but it is never stack vs stack alone. Plus as level 7 killers behemoths are out classed by Mighty Gorgons.

>>1130689
Necromancy is always banned in multiplayer.

>>1130703
Only in tournaments. I don't know any people who ban things when just playing with friends.

>>1130703
not really, heroesworld ruleset, which currently seems to be most popular one, doesn't ban necro, just puts few restrictions

>>1130710
If playing AB, then AB is always banned with the people I play with.

I doubt anybody would allow it in a friendly match.

>>1130719
You don't know what friendly means then. Don't cry when someone goes full necro mad. It's funny in a friendly game. Everyone knows why that match was won.

>>1130719
>friendly match
>AB banned
what

>>1130719
If it's a truly friendly match, no one would want to take it either.

>>1130484
Necromancy > Demon hoarding, so even that's not something Inferno does best.

>>1130698
I believe that's even mentioned in the booklet that comes with the game. It was something to the effect of "Although a devil is powerful, he will never win from an angel". Azure dragons are the most powerful creatures, by the way.

>>1131481
When Diplomacy and Necromancy are banned, it is. And even if Necromancy is allowed, it does have something over Necromancy - you can have Crag Hack with it while Necromancy requires you to use a Necromancer or a Death Knight. If Necromancy is allowed with restrictions, I think Demon hoarding has a fair shot if it gets going.

>>1131491
You need money to buy troops to kill when demon hoarding, whereas with Necromancy you only need a few troops to kill neutrals with. It's true that you'd need a Necromancer or Death Knight (unless you find a scholar or university which teaches Necromancy) but Necropolis has got some pretty good heroes so I don't see how that's an issue.

>>1131493
That's part of the bigger problem with demon hoarding which is its unreliability. Necromancy will always do its thing in any situation and is simple enough to use, but demon hoarding requires you to have spare gold after getting your Archdevils, neutral camps to suicide your guys on, having to spend turns and heroes sacrificing stacks and gathering forces from offrace dwellings rather than being able to ferry your army straight to the action on day 1, and so on. Hence "if it gets going": if things don't go right, the demons will be too little, too late.

>cant get townportal in 3 or 4 mage guilds
>this happens

>>1131481
Demon farming is costly and slower than necro, but nevertheless it lets you build massive stack from combined growth of all towns, while other factions are limited to growth from their native castles.
Obviously necro is better because it's free and not restricted by weekly growth, but inferno isn't completely hopeless.

I want to win with Fortress, what tactics or exploits do you use? Can it be done?
I like how, like, every single one of their units come with an annoying ability.

>>1131610
pick tazar
gather wyverns from dragonfly hives

>>1131617
Aight thanks.

>>1131617
I always find wyverns too squishy. I protect my gorgons. I will do anything to make sure my gorgons don't take a retaliation.

Anyone played Peasant Leader?
Anyone won it legitimately?
Can we discuss this or am I the only one who ever tried that map?

>>1131684
Well with Tazar you get that extra defence bonus.

>>1131716
True, I still don't rate wyverns very highly. A shame because I like them. Fortress defence bonus is great. Nothing more satisfying than plonking a big fat stack of hydras in a broken castle wall. I really wish they had unlimited retaliation, it would really make them a top tier creature and would suit the idea of a hydra.

>>1131684
The point is that wyverns and angels are the only units you can get "for free", from dragonfly nests and griffin conservatories respectively.
If you can take small hive on week 1 you gain extra 4 or 6 wyverns, meaning you can take even more nests and snowball really fast.
Gorgons stack usually won't grow fast enough even if you have external dwellings.

>>1131723
You need to keep your vyvers safe, and utilize their venom. Apart from that they are really shitty, but if you manage to ruin the hp of the enemy stacks, they become very useful. Still, gorgon, hydra, dragon fly and basilisk go in front.

>>1131713
Never played it, but I'm intrigued. What is it?

>>1131726
I don't dispute that. Chances of having that many hives are low though. I honestly just use wyverns as fodder. I just can't be bothered keeping them safe when other troops are needed more. Losing wyverns is inevitable so Gorgons, Gorgons GORGONS! I really like Gorgons. They remind me of my mother.

>>1131734
It's a story driven heavily scripted map. You can find as Peasant Leader V1.0 i think. Basically, it has a lot of interesting puzzles and battles, but there's mainly two that ruin the map. They are kinda buggy and I don't know if it is possible the win. Years ago I could win once with wogifying the map, but it screwed up a lot. Since then I couldn't win legitimetaly, because of the necklace puzzle, and also the enemy AI attacks too soon if you continue. I guess it's something with the scripts.

>>1131738
I actually haven't bothered with it because I heard it was so broken.
And that's apparently true.

>>1131747
>Life of Adventure is unfinished
>Peasant Leader is broken
Playing wog is suffering.

>>1131610
Gorgons are your primary unit really, even though they're "only" level 5. The thing that a lot of people don't realize is that the % for Death Glare is counted off of every unit in the stack so it really snowballs with each Gorgon you have in stack.
Necro is kind of a hard counter to you because they are unaffected by Fortress troop effects.
Water Magic seems to be common for Beastmasters and it can be utilised for Expert Teleport which can be a boon to Hydras.
Beastmasters > Witches, Witches are actually kinda terrible as heroes even for magic hero standards (weak initial stats, the heroes tend to have bad specialties, iffy skills, favor Knowledge over Spell Power) while Beastmasters are like defensive Barbarians and that's pretty damn good, as mentioned Tazar is a top tier hero, but Korbac or even Drakon are alright as well.
Bron can possibly start with Basilisks - the only hero that can start with a level 4 unit - though it doesn't always happen and I don't know why.
Get early Wyverns and use them like you would use Rocs in Stronghold and be aggressive. Outfit your scouts with single Dragon Flies.

>>1131773
When I play wog, dragon flies are my main units. They are so bad.

Zounds of black dragons.

>>1131830

Favourite creature? Not for ability but stylistically. I fucking love the arch-devil. They look pretty cheesy but that teleport is great, I love it.

>>1131830
God I used to have a scrap of paper taped onto the left speaker which contained the break-down of the numbers and served as a reminder as to how exactly many units a throng encompassed.

Haven't played anything HoM&M in years aside from the Duel of Champions card game. Which is kinda interesting but you hit the ceiling quick and are forced to grind for those decks that happen to be the most broken atm.
Also the fucking elitist community of elo-inflated blowhards. Worth trying; has decent music and eye-catching artwork - but don't get too invested.

>>1131773
Gorgon's death stare is 10% per unit, but the maximum is 1 per 10 gorgons

>>1130427

On the plus side, it means Inferno is an excellent "handicap army" for when you've beaten the hardest maps on Impossible and still want even more challenge.

>>1131493
>You need money to buy troops to kill when demon hoarding

Yeah, but only imps and such. Plus if you have democracy, you can get lots of free troops to sacrifice.

>>1131830
>Zounds of black dragons.

>>1131986
it's 10 % to kill the creature on the top of the stack, isn't it?

>>1131840
You've fairly poor taste.

>>1132619
They kill 1 creature for every 10 gorgon. I'm not sure how often the stare happens though, for me it happens almost always.

I remember playing, and having loads of fun with, the GBC port of one of the Heroes of M&M games. The label had a minotaur and a knight standing back to back. Would they have been considered to be good ports?

>>1110898
You're so dead.
Kinda reminds me of that time I encountered a swarm of Black Dragons...

You know the one thing I want to see on VCMI?

More than 8 (32 would be best) players + XXXL maps. Making/breaking alliances during a game. Multi-faction battles (having a 3-way FFA or 2vs2 with allies) I'd love the game to get some grand strategy-inspired features.

>>1132761
as was mentioned, every gorgon has 10% to "activate", if at least 1 does, death stare animation will appear, but total amount killed is capped by 1 per 10 gorgons (1-10 kill max 1, 11-20 = 2, ...)
Statistically, 10 gorgons will kill at least 1 (and only 1 in this case) with 65% probability, 20 with 87%, etc (1 - 0.9^n).
I don't know if it's truly done per every creature in stack, maybe it changes for large amount of gorgons

So where would I find a good download of the best version of HoMM? Whichever one in the series you think is best, give me a link to a full download.

Thanks a bunch for the effort to anyone that helps me out here.

>>1131840
all the dragons.
I still remember that scenario in HoMM2 where all you have is a hero with 1 green dragon

ghost dragons aren't good units but they are way cool

>>1132581
Why isn't that screenshot a 4chan banner yet? It's been around for aeons!

>>1132575
>Plus if you have democracy, you can get lots of free troops to sacrifice.

I thought you get that benefit from Fundamentalism.

>>1130269
>What sucks about these games is that the absolute best of the series, HoMM 3, is also the ugliest.
Seriously? Did you even play HoMM4?

Graphically that was by far the worst. The "towns" were technically just small random buildings placed on a barren and desolate landscape. There was absolutely no feeling of unity that gives you feeling of a city.

This is matter of taste but I think units looked ridiculous, I get it that they were going for humor and parody but why make a photo realistic white tiger and wolf and make vampires look like Dracula from 1930,demons look like armored monkies with a fork for a hand, unicrowns with ranbow manes, medusa look liek dinosaurs and so on.

HoMM3 units looked way more appealing. Here a lot of units are just naked, and generally lack polish and detail when compared to HoMM. Minotaurs, Medusas, Elves, Centaurs, Hydras, zombies, Harpies, Nagas.

Why won't Harpies use swords? Why don't Minotaurs wear armor? Why do Nagas use tiny scimtars and knives? Why are monks just a basic guy with a book? Why are elves just a basic woman in pijamas? Why are faeries naked?

Why do almost all units make DERPfaces on their icons? It's like they made everything look stupid on purpose.

>>1132538
Very true.

>>1132575
True, but still, it's nice to get your creatures completely free when you're using all of your money to build things. With Necromancy you can get a pretty decent army without spending anything on it. Also, Necromancers benefit from Democracy as well (assuming you have a Skeleton Convertor or whatever it's called). I'm not saying demon hoarding is BAD, or anything, I'm just saying it's inferior to Necromancy in most ways.

>>1132912
> Multi-faction battles (having a 3-way FFA or 2vs2 with allies) I'd love the game to get some grand strategy-inspired features.
Russians did that in some sort of a Homm3-derived game. Don't have any links, sorry.

>>1133174
>that picture
Oh god why did you remind me this exists?

>>1133174
I kinda liked the animations, at least of the heroes melee attacks. DROP KICK! But those were over the top too, and I can see how most people dislike that.

>>1133226
>Hero has the legendary Axe of KILLEVERYTHING equipped.
>Enemy comes in melee range
>Hero kicks it in the shins.

>>1133237

>>1133174
Personally I like the detail-less units in HOMM3. Actually, they don't lack detail, they just look more functional. Nowadays "detail" means putting an insane amount of bling bling on any character, sixty belts, a 7 edged sword with intricate details in the hilt, a chain dress with skulls and a helmet with bat wings, generally more armour than what would be practical due to its weight...
It's like the units are dressed for a costume party, not a, you know, WAR.

Heroes 3 doesn't have that problem.

>>1133240
Except this is exactly how hero attack animations work in Heroes 4.

Once your hero learns to use a ranged weapon his in game model will have that model by default with a bow in their hand and will use the same animation for melee attacks.

My face when Waerjak is soloing the last level of his campaign and he smashes 5 Behemoths with one kick.

>>1133314
Compared to the terrible art of Heroes4, Heroes 3 is full of bling.

>>1133382
They were huffing some serious turpentine when they made Heroes 4.

>>1133314
>comic sans

>>1133383
To be fair, 3DO/NWC was going under during development. It might well not have been released at all, and much of it was rushed. I can't imagine, for example, thhat the hideous town screens were what the developers wanted, given how much better H3's looked.

Excuse me for asking but I hope someone can help me. I played a Homm3 map ages ago that I can't find anywhere. I think it was L or Xl map, and it had a description that you can get a good challenge if you choose the inferno which alone while the rest of the players are in allience (8 player map).
It had an upper level with squared areas for tower and rampant towns, in huge mountain ranges to prevent them from using dimension door or flying. There was only a single corridor leading out of their territory which was guarded by stacks of azure dragons. Middle area was neutral with a conflux with grail in it, guarded by 7x10000 enchanters. Lower level had a huge two part area for inferno. I remember I needed to gather several hunded devils before I went up. Anyone?

I'm on a mission that niggas say is impossible
But when I swing my swords they all choppable

>>1110898
So if Conflux is gay, which it is, and Necropolis is also relatively gay, which it is, what's the best legitimate town?
Fortress?

>>1137332
>Necropolis
>gay

>>1137348
He means it's unbalanced.

>>1137332
Depends on the template and map size when it comes to multiplayer games (in single player it's fuckall).
In general when I started dipping my feet into the MP scene I started off with Rampart, went into games with non-random heroes, and went Ivor for easy camps early on in order to expand over the map. I think Rampart is a really good newbie castle, it's not too expensive, it has really good level 1 units and it remains competitive overall (just don't pick Druids - people like Alagar and Elleshar for some reason even though Druids suck as a whole)
Castle tends to be really damn strong because the units are very good for each tier and Griffin Conservatories give you Angels so they bolster Castle armies. On very rich templates Castle tends to dominate.
Stronghold is great for rush games but it's also really good for 200% games and so is Fortress because you can get Rocs/Wyverns quickly and overall they're pretty cheap castles, and Barbarians/Beastmasters rock.
Dungeon takes balls to play on 200% because of the Evil Eye building wanting 1 of each resource to build.
Inferno is challenge tier. Unless you know how to demon farm, don't bother. Efreeti are cool, but still.
Tower is a town I have no experience with because I just can't handle it at all. Most heroes, magic or might, suck. Giants aren't that cool until they become Titans. Golems feel like level 3 zombies. Everything's expensive. I'm sure there's a valid playstyle and that it has valid strengths but I think Tower is hard to play.

>>1137363

>Tower
>tl;dr: town that focuses on archers and spells, pricy, but carries a retarded late-game assuming your Mage Guild doesn't fuck you in the ass

Rushing Magi and Gremlin Masters is how you play early tower. Gargoyles and Golems suck, always will suck, and should generally be left in your town and the extra slots used to split up archer stacks that get high enough for it to be done comfortably.

You can clock something like 30 Gremlins weekly before Grail so you back a considerable ranged punch very early, and inexpensive compared to the likes of Castle or Rampart. They're not very good, but you can subsist pretty decently with just a handful of golems to mop up hits while Master Gremlins go to town. You might want an Ammo Cart for anything over level 3, though. They also respond poorly to other archers being that they're made of paper.

Magi are where the Tower really shines. You grab Solmyr, you rush Magi, and now you can Chain Lightning all fucking day without issue. This guy starts out with Wisdom and Sorcery IIRC, making him pretty much designed to wreck the early game out of the box (where shit splits up); this is where your dogpile of retard flipper gremlins comes in as they start whipping iron balls at people.

There are other heroes for the Tower that aren't bad, but Solmyr is about the best, and the Alchemists all blow serious nut, coming with such record-breaking skills as Mysticism and Scouting right out of the box. Wow. So swoosh, you dumb fucks.

Tower isn't a beginner town. It's the least-friendly of the towns in my opinion, because it is the most fuck-expensive shit and the last four buildings +upgrades start demanding very serious strains on your resources. There's also the potential that your Mage Guild and Library will deliver total crap on your spells, leaving you without critical area attacks that would otherwise make you a powerhouse with that half spell cost.

>>1137386

So: spells, gremlins and magi. Let's cover the others.

Gargoyles and golems suck, as said before. Golems could be passable in higher stacks as they might sop up hits, but neither of these have any retaliation bonuses and despite flying, Gargoyles are not terribly quick in either iteration. Their flying status is a novelty soon worn thin by the fact that they will crumple under the most basic assaults. Golems, at least, are surprisingly durable level 3s but also have no movement. With Teleport, they would be great for a critical fight to teleport them into the base, hope the enemy blows a spellcast on them and to watch them suck up damage-- they do this with surprising expertise and more so with defensive spells on. Other than that, they're pretty much disposable units. They're probably my least favourite 2s and 3s; while Zombies are slow, they also Disease on hit, which is kinda nice when you can use them to burn up a level 7's retaliate while weakening them in the process. Golems and Gargoyles are pretty bare-bones, and it's sad, because they're not exactly prepping for amazing units...

Genies are flying, fast, have a random spellcast ability and aren't so bad at hitting things. They are, at least, more aptly able to kill where Gargoyles will take the brunt of retaliations shot their way.

Nagas are, on the other hand, fucking intense. No retaliation, flat damage, high stats, decent speed? Yeah, sign me up. They're expensive to get and upgrade as per typical fashion, but they're also incredible to have in general. For a team that is all archers, these guys also work as teleport bombs. They're also great for trashing 7s because no retaliation and stupid high damage.

>>1137391

Giants, on the other hand, come from an expensive building, are expensive per-unit, are pretty much total ball-sweat until upgraded, and are passable comparatively when finally upgraded. By comparison, Archangels have some of the highest stats in the game. I have no raw numbers but they have amidst the highest attack, defense, somewhere in the realm of fifth or fourth highest health IIRC (not counting neutral dragons, pfff) and the second-highest speed next only to Phoenixes.

Titans brag the highest health and archery, but are so expensive per unit that you're almost better to build your Magi and Gremlins from multiple towns and to ignore your Titans.

Now don't get me wrong; Titans slap serious shit. The problem is, they're just not slapping it hard enough. Archangels, right out of the box, are generally some of the best units in the game. Rez powers, high speed guaranteeing you first go against most of the game, high stats allowing them to completely axe lower leveled stacks with far lower numbers... For roughly the same price, Titans bring another ranged attack to your party, but by this point and if you rushed Magi, you will have plenty of both your other archers saved up; Titans will quickly become a luxury when you've got the spare money and will otherwise be lowest priority behind your Golems and Gargoyles. They're just not bang-equivalent to their buck cost.

Everything else in the Tower pretty much comes up Wizard, with +1 Knowledge, the Library, but there's the added bonus of the Lookout Tower or whatever it's called that gives some early game intel, useful for those who don't like to be caught unawares. It's also nice to have an Artifact merchant, but Towers are generally so busy watching their levels 4 through 7 plus Mage Guild suck their funds dry that it won't see as much use as, say, in the likes of the Conflux or Dungeon.

>>1137397

So in the end, the more time gets sunk into the game, the scarier Tower gets. High-stacked MGs/AMs/Titans gives you three fucking archers, and you can separate stacks pretty small and still have five stacks of archers with relative ease. People give Master Gremlins a lot of shit but they're probably one of the better level 1s, all things considered; they're not Halberdier-tier, but they're damn close and having an archer unit that early is just baller.

With the time to earn and spend resources, Towers will build up high-defense forces and supplement them with a wicked array of spells and at half cost, ensuring that pitched battles will sway dangerously in their favour without proper anti-spell precautions; even with, they can whittle down ranks of slower towns such as the Stronghold or Inferno before they've even had the chance to take a turn, and with a high likelihood of having expert Haste, them getting the first turn can easily spell the end of the battle right off.

I don't play MLG pro-league srs or anything, but I've played a shitton of HM&M3 and that's my essay on the Tower. They hurt early and late-game, but their mid-game becomes a lot of relying on what made it through the early game up until they can seize enough resources to start living the high life.

>>1137332
Castle, Rampart, Stronghold and Fortress are the contenders, I think.

Stronghold has the best heroes in the game and a guaranteed Crag Hack if you pick him, fast Rocs for a strong week 1 army, cheap Behemoths for a very strong army at the start of week 2, and later super mega awesome Ancient Behemoths that will make anything explode, including but not limited to every other tier 7 unit. They suffer from speed problems, though, with Thunderbirds being their fastest unit and Ancients Behemoths crawling along the side of the road. You need Expert Haste, but even with it you'll be at a disadvantage against opponents that have Expert Slow, Expert Haste or both in addition to inherently faster units. Pray for Expert Resistance and Expert Air so you don't just get smashed in the speed department.

.>>1137424
Fortress is a lot like Stronghold, so much comparisons will be made here. They have Beastmasters, which are like Barbarians that get Defense instead of Attack and have a strong desire to learn Water Magic. In a main fight the Defense great but when clearing neutral camps you usually want to hit things hard and fast and have fodder absorb hits, and Defense does you nothing at all in such a scenario, so you won't be advancing as fast as Stronghold can. They also kinda suck with Ballista and Artillery due to their low Attack, whereas Barbarians kick major ass with them. Things are generally cheap, but Hydras require more tech and cash to get than Behemoths, so if you're not off to a hot start you won't be able to get Castle and Hydras as easily as Stronghold would be able to get Castle and Behemoths. Hydras are like Behemoths when clearing neutral camps in that they own everything they can get their hands on, with no-retal monsters as their only weak point, but they don't blow things up in a main fight. Dragon Flies are extremely awesome at all points in the game and the Weakness/Dispel special does a lot more than you'd think, and they're easily worth getting on week 1 if you've got the resources and build time to spare, but that's only viable if you start with Lizard Den and/or know you won't be making it to Castle with the money you're (not) getting. They've got speed problems like Stronghold does, though not quite as severe. Overall, I like them a lot but Stronghold is just better at most things and you probably want to have them over Fortress most of the time.

>>1137425
>Fortress
Aw yiss teach me

>>1137425
Rampart has strong and fast Centaurs that'll destroy ranged creatures on native terrain without Tactics, which no other t1 can boast. Because they're so damn good, the Rampart starting army is ridiculously strong and things that might give other towns hiccups on Week 1 will be no problem. Heroes-wise you get Kyrre and Mephala and a bunch of other decent Rangers. They're no Barbarians, but they'll get the job done. The units are quite affordable aside from Dragons, and they remain good on maps both rich and poor. You can't really ever go wrong with picking Rampart.

Castle has Knights, which are not very good aside from Mullich. Anything better you can snatch from the tavern will be preferable. Pikemen are slow, but they also have ridiculous HP so they won't suffer as much from it as some other t1s. The tech tree is a bit awkward and you might have a bit of trouble before getting your hands on Cavaliers, but once you get your hands on them, it's all good. Crusaders are a ridiculous t4, Archangels are the embodient of overpowered and only threatened by Ancient Behemoths, Champions are very strong, Marksmen are a great shooter, and as an added bonus you can upgrade Angels you get from cons to Archangels, making them even better than they already were. The only unit that's not so hot is the Zealot, but everything else is very strong. You may have money troubles getting Archangels depending on the map, but that's the only obstacle you'll ever have.

Overall, Stronghold is my favorite, with Rampart and Castle also being very strong and a soft place in my heart for Fortress.

>>1137427
You get Wyverns on day 2 at the latest and kill things with them. If you get Serpent Flies on your starting heroes, use 1-2 of them to kite where applicable; if not, bring them over once you build the dwelling. Once you have Hydras and Dragonflies at the start of Week 2, possibly Dragonflies on Week 1 if you could afford them, Hydras along with your other troops will destroy all things melee aside from a select few and Dragonflies will block all things ranged with no Tactics necessary and kite anything that can be kited.

>>1137439
Aight thanks.

>>1137386
Solmyr is a pretty overrated hero who's, at best, a decent secondary. His early creeping gets fucked if he can't replenish mana readily. He's a mage, so he'll get rather outscaled by a might hero pretty soon (not to mention the fact that as you say, you can get left out on damage spells). I'd pick Neela any day even if she's a little screwed for a main hero because of Scholar, but at least she specializes in Armorer. I'd rather have a magic hero from any other town, Malekith or Ciele or someone who can just spam the magic arrow all day. Magic arrow lets you take early dwellings much better than that CL stuff.

The fact that it's hard to rely on a good starter hero in Tower makes it random in the sense that you'd really, really want Orrin to maximize the shooter playstyle or at least some offense specialist. Relying on damage spells in the late game doesn't work in multiplayer. Mass buff spells are prioritized, and they usually revolve around giving you the initiative so you can make strong attacks with all 7 of your units - instead of one strong attack per turn with a damage spell.

Also >>1137429
Knights have Tyris and Orrin. Tyris has Tactics and a decent boost to Cavalry (the #1 unit against shooter stacks early and decent later too) and Orrin is Tower's best friend. Knights are actually not terrible.

Otherwise I'd say your posts are good.

>>1133174

Hey m8 thunderbird looks badass.

But yeah all the other units in 4 looked like ass.

>Playing HoMM5 with AI mod
>Chasing enemy hero over the ocean
>Have him cornered against an island
>He lands on it
>Runs to opposite shore
>Summons his boat over to that side and gets in
>Can't catch up to him now

What a fucking cheeky little cunt.

How does one get gud at this game

I never last very long because I always get wiped out by an opposing hero

Is it worth it to play through the campaign stuff?

>>1139176
Start by learning how to properly use Wait, and that gold is always better than Experience when it comes to chests, and that any hero who starts with Estates or has a +Resource specialty is always worth getting.

>>1139189
>Start by learning how to properly use Wait
What does that mean?

>>1139176
Buy one or two heroes early on. They give you extra troops and you can send them around to pick up the resources for your 'main' hero.

>>1139275
Well if you use wait you can make sure that your weaker creatures don't get in the way of your more important ones, or maybe make sure that they do.
You can also use it to get an opponents creature to spend their counterstrike on like a peasant or something, rather than a strong creature.
Stuff like that.

>>1139301
Wouldn't "defend" be better?

>>1139302
Not always.

>>1139302
If the extra 20% Defense would be more valuable than being able to move again, then yes. Most of the time being able to move later in the turn is better for defensive purposes as well, since it lets you move the stack away after tanking a hit (so you don't get hit on the next turn and take less damage total than if you chose Defend) or deliver one more hit on the enemy stack (so you get hit for less on the next turn since the enemies die).

>Open up, excited to play
>New random map, random team
>Play the first week
>Lose all will to live
>Quit
Whhhyyyy

So i have decided that I will completely finished HoMM 3 from the beginning. How long do you think it will take? I swear it takes a good 5-10 hours to clear a map and win, but there are a lot of campaign levels.

>>1139378
I'm already fucked by the second week.
I just can't git gud.

>>1139395
Play an XL map with 6 or more factions on hard. They'll likely be too busy fucking with each other and the size of the map will give you time to experiment and play about.

>>1139395
See >>1139413 . Play super big map with underground, set some shit up to keep the AI busy, and you can dick around wth at least a third of the map before worrying about the AI.

>>1139413
>>1139423
Thanks, I'll try this out.

>>1139176
Try starting off by playing the campaigns.
Though if you do, don't get too used to rushing Capitol. With proper tactics it's better to get creatures as soon as possible and scavenge resources from the land. You can snag mines and towns this way, get crypts and other buildings worth money and also have a way to defend yourself once the enemy comes over. The Town Hall line of town improvements is really only worth considering early if your map is piss poor or you're forced to turtle from the start.

>>1139395
If you play one of the popular templates with several areas separating the players, the AI will be expanding so slowly you'll never have to worry about him running into you. If you're really scared of the AI, you could also play hotseat alone and just keep pressing End Turn on the other players' turns.

If you're playing really rush-y templates then early contact is the whole point. Doing that against the AI would be unoptimal, though, since the AI isn't exactly the pinnacle of human intelligence, making the early contact part of it somewhat dull.

Fuck this thread, I have to reinstall it now

>>1139572
What templates are those? What are some fun templates in general?

>>1140945

JEBUS

At the risk of going full retard, am I wrong in saying that, when playing against AI, the computers don't actually fight with each other? I feel like I'm constantly fending off computer players while they seem content with either claiming more resources or fighting me.

Does anyone know if there are templates without the one-way and two-way monoliths? I really hate those.

>>1141201
They do fight each other. For simple proof, try a 8-player map and do nothing but sit in your castle pressing turn for months - eventually, you'll see a notice for a player being eliminated from the game. Or you could just use a cheat to see the whole map and keep pressing turn to see the computers lazily attacking every now and then.

You having to fend off more computer players could be because you control more of the map and have more towns than the computers, making you the biggest target on the map and the most likely one for AIs to stumble upon, AI being unwilling to attack armies that are around the same size as its own (which other AIs will be a lot of the time with their similar tactics and resource cheating) leaving you as its favorite target, or something along those lines.

>>1141267
Also, the AI doesn't really "fend off" other players like you do. It's perfectly fine with losing towns and mines and continuing to crawl around the map without a care as long as it keeps at least one town in its possession and therefore isn't in immediate danger of being eliminated.

>>1141270
Thanks brother

Regardin AI, which is the recommended setting to play against? 200%? Also, in multiplayer, what difficulty settings do you use?

>>1141301
Anything above 100%. At 130% and up, the AI is playing its best. It's still pretty bad, but it's less exploitable; for instance, on 100%, there's a Hydra trick which basically has the AI take free hits from Hydras who have no retal. 130% and above, you can still do something like that but it's much more tricky.

>>1141301
AI is "best" (but still plays badly) at 130% and higher, 160 and 200 give human players less starting resources.
In multi 160% is typically used, because on 200% you start with 0 gold and can't even buy second hero on day 1.

>>1141323
>>1141320

Thanks

I want to complete any single map that comes with Heores 3 complete.
When showing proof of my accomplishment, i'd share my save files. However, i don't know how to setup the AI.
I usually go 200% difficulty, and every enemy randomized. However, when i look at the settings after the game has started, it shows what everyone got, so someone could question my legitness saying it's not random.
Is there a way to prove that i've set random every time? (except videos, i don't want to record hours of playing for each map)
Thanks in advance.

>>1143310
Take a screenshot at the exact moment you're starting the game, while showing the page of participating players, I guess. To whom are you showing your achievements and why would they be so sceptical as to call bullshit on whether it's random or not?

>tfw getting into WoG for the first time ever
>hated this game before WoG

It just adds so much, and can be tweaked a lot for balance reasons. Every town is a lot more fun to play, even Inferno has a change against the other towns.

>dem commanders
>dem stack experience bonuses
>dem new monsters
>dem adventure caves

Seriously, why didn't I play WoG earlier?

>>1143310
No, but in all honesty you should just retort with this.

"Give me a reasonable way to prove it."

How am I doing /vr/?
8 AI, random medium map with underground and landed on Fortress.

>>1145960
Needs more mighty gorgons.

>>1143565

ive always been so afraid to download it because i dont want to spend ages adjusting balance tweaks and all the new stuff might be imbalanced or overwhelming.

I really love playing random maps, but sometimes the generator fucks up so badly it's funny. There are some more Seer's Huts to the north, I couldn't get them all on one screenshot

>>1148626
Who needs mines, right

>>1131514
>morale drops after your leader finds one of the most converted artifacts in the world

>>1148854
>Tombs
Doesn't it mean he found it in the undeads crypt?

>>1148882
I know

>>1115185
my god, zydar is so fucking mad in that pic

speaking of random maps, what are everyone's preferred templates?

ive been playing jebus a bunch, seems to be the overall favorite. its a ton of fun to basically start with 3 towns + lots of accessible relics, utopias, etc. unfortunately vs the AI it gets crazy unbalanced fast.

theres so many random templates in heroes 3 complete, which ones do people like?

>>1148981
I prefer poor Jebus. It's really great on 200%.

Okay I rolled a map with a Pandora's box, like, less than a day away from my town and I'm itching to open it, it's only guarded by lots of halberdiers.
When, if ever, is it smart to open these?

>>1131617
can you explain that to me please? Tazars special skill is bonus to armorer, right? How can he gather wyverns from DF hives?

>>1149004
you can use a 1 troop hero to look inside

>>1149007
isnt tazar a gnoll specialist or some other troop?

>>1149017
Neat

>>1149019
No Tazar starts with some level of armourer.

>>1149007
Because Wyverns are the reward you get for conquering Dragonfly Hives. That's not exclusive to Tazar, by the way.

>>1149004
On random maps, ALWAYS open Pandora's Boxes. I've never had something bad happen. Just make sure there's a free slot in your army in case there are troops inside.

>>1149026
oooh for some reason I thought "dragonfly hives" are the monster recruitment dwellings found on map.. I haven't played the game in a long time

Best starting bonus in your opinion?

>>1149189
Depends on the town and map. Artifact can net you some really good stuff, but most of the time you get something relatively useless, so you can end up with nothing. Resource is usually negligible on the towns that get a precious resource, but the Wood&Ore bonus for Stronghold, Fortress and Castle is quite substantial and never really useless - even if you don't end up needing the resources, you can pawn them off on the marketplace for something you need later. Gold is for playing on 200% and an alternative negligible resource bonus for the races that get a precious resource as their resource bonus.

tl;dr: Gold on 200%, Artifact if you can't get Wood&Ore or don't need it, Wood&Ore if you could use the reliable extra resources.

>>1149228
Awesome. Thanks a lot man.

>>1148626
>I_ve_seen_some_shit.jpg

For anyone that wants to run this on a mac:

DL the gog version
Run Wineskin Winery, use it to create a new wrapper (named after Heroes III), choose it to open up the gog install exe

game installs

In user>applications>Wineskin you'll see the wineskin wrapper, and using it should run the game.

If you right click the wrapper and choose properties you should be able to change some options here and there.

>>1123789
Stay away from Sandros Necromancer Bitchez

>>1115185

Oh my god. There is nothing about this that isn't fucking hysterical. From the "Gotta go fast" haste sanic Sir Mullich, to how powerfully shitty that start is, to fucking eagle eye, to Zydar raging so hard.

The only thing is, is the comment on expert scholar ironic or not? I feel like it's kind of a waste of a skill slot on the main hero.

>>1129008
Isn't there an Elf too?
Or did they add him in homm2?

yo whats gucci /vr/

it's my night off and a nigga just downloaded HoMM3, played 2 before and enjoyed it greatly

any tips or suggestions? and what you drinkin tonight?

>>1115185
Hey come on Zydar, don't be so angry.
At least you got some gogs.

>>1149341
just try it out and play castle

>>1149359
ite

what you drinkin tonight tho? am i the only one drinkin

i'm on them redd's pounders omg

and can we talk about the intro to HoMM3 tho like am i going to have to deal with this cutscene every time i start this game

>>1149373
you can skip it, did you get the HD mod for HoMM3? it allows you to play it in windowed mode for a combination of HoMMing and 4channing. It is at the start of the week, then I have my lectures, and I tend to limit my drinking to the weekend to not turn alcoholic.

>>1115185
... out of interest, which map is that, anyway? Now I want to try it out.

>>1149381
nah son i'll check that out tho ty

also i work weekends so like monday is my friday more or less don't get it fucked up

>>1149396
you should, even if you play fullscreen you see much much more of the map than with the standard settings.

>>1149401
word this shit is way better

>>1149396
>>1149373
also why the hell do you write like a nigger

>>1149320
Maybe you should reread that comment.

>>1149373
Cutscene is unskipable the first time you play it, after that you can easily skip it.

>>1149320

>going to siege a castle
>doesn't have much troops
>it's day 7

>>1150428

Shouldn't have made all those detours.

>>1150428
that is not a problem, you get your turn again because it is day 1 for them

>>1150428
If that's the AI, then on the next turn it will buy all available troops and you'll have to deal with 4x the garrison.

Then on the next turn it'll buy whatever it can from the next weeks additions (I believe you are always the one whose turn comes first).

>>1150430
This. You click "end turn", it's AIs turn on day 7. When his turns ends, it's your turn on day 1 - you can attack before it's gonna be day 1 for AI.

or not?

Unless you're Necropolis this is a trap.

They are not worth the morale hit.

>>1150428
Cast dimension door

>>1150436
you mean not worth the slowdown

>Playing a modded Brave New World with all campaign heroes and Artifacts
>Decide to go pure magic a Tower with Solemyr.
>Blue enemy to the north is Rampart with Gelu. He already has 40 Sharpshooters.
>3 Failed Sieges and 2 weeks later I capture his town.
>Gelu was up in his northern island city and it's a Rampart.
>Retakes town with 300 Sharpshooters on Week 3.
>Capital gets attacked by Tan
>Hit the Pink / Teal Island in the center because Blue and Tan are too fucking strong.
>Both are Necropolis.
>Lose my Capital at Start Position to Gelu's Sharpshooting Horde.
>Week 5 Hire a level 12 Hero with 8 artifacts - it's Motherfucking Thant and he already has Expert Earth Magic with 14 Intelligence and a Power of 18.
>300 Master Gremlins instantly become Skeletons.
>Take Northern Necropolis less than a week later.
>It has the Grail Structure.
>End of Month 2 - Thant finds Shackles of War and I stay on island building. End of the Week he's level 20 with a power of 25 and an Intelligence of 30.
>Over 4K skeletons.
>Double Dimension Door to Blue's Rampart Capital.
>Gelu mobilizes. Strong Rampart force with over 500 Sharpshooters and 12 Gold Dragons.
>Gold Dragons Base Liches and hit my Joaquin Dead and Skeletons (Bad Army Placement).
>Mass Slow - Dread Knights deal double damage and Kill off his Sharpshooters before they have a chance to do anything.
>Teleport the Skeleton Ball next round - it's on now.
>He only has his Dendroids left - 78 of them. So I decide I'll minimize my losses and raise my Skeletons (I had lost almost 3k at this point so it was looking to be costly) - 800 Skeletons Raise from the dead. I decide to take another couple of rounds and not kill his slowed tree people.
>Throws a magic arrow but he can't run.
>Animate the last of my Skeletons.
>His army losses : 312 Sharpshooters, 80 War Unicorns, 12 Gold Dragons, 400 dwarves, 500 Centaurs, 150 Pegasi, 90 Dendroids
>My army losses : none
>Using the dark art of Necromancy 1.2k Skeletons raise.
>MFW

>>1147672
Give it a go, play a few games, see what options you like and what not, then disable what you don't like.

WoG gives a fuckload of more replay value, and balances towns. I even sometimes pick Inferno now, since they can do something other than lose.

>>1151024

I'll give it a shot once I git gudder at the basicgame. I have such problems making good progress in the midgame. I always get stuck with not enough resources or the feeling I am falling behind.

I'm switching to necro.

>>1151080
In the middle game you somehow need to get as much production as possible with the least amount of possible attack routes

>>1151024
In what ways did they boost Inferno?

>>1152010
Well first off, every town has a commander unit. The commander levels up with your hero, and you can choose to boost his attack, def, damage, speed, magic or hit points.

Inferno commander is a flying succubus, who can cast Fire Shield on your units, and also charms some % of all neutral enemies to retreat before you fight.

Also, with stack experience enabled, all of your troop stacks "gain levels" too, meaning they get somewhat tougher or even gain extra abilities. Imps and Familiars learn to fly after level 10 or so, for example, and Demons get a change for double damage like Dread Knights. Magogs may cast a fireball + shoot their own fireball, maybe with 10% propability.

Stuff like that helps the shitty town it used to be. The heroes themselves and their specials are boosted/improved in a lot of ways.

I haven't found any town to be too OP in WoG, like in the vanilla game Necro demolished in big maps, Tower rushed good early and became unstoppable in late game, Dungeon became too powerful later too. Castle, Rampart, Stronghold and Fortress were quite balanced in vanilla I guess, Conflux was fucking insane.

>>1152236
I take it other towns also get commander units. Does inferno get bigger bonuses than other towns?

>Got Mephala
How good is leadership exactly?
I mean what's a good way to utilise it/what's a good point to utilise it at?
Or is it just highly situational?

>>1152348
Leadership is one of those skills that aren't terrible but aren't exactly in the "must have" tier. In general it's not really reliable, but when the +Morale does kick in, you can save a few troops during early creeping or it can maybe even win a crucial fight.
Copious morale trinkets that maps tend to spawn make Leadership obsolete - that's the problem with the skill.
In general, if you are playing Mephala, you're practically enjoying Tazar-lite (Armorer specialty though without the Beastmaster emphasis on Defense upon level ups), so don't worry that much about it, you should be okay.
In general the fact that you have a "non-perfect" skillset only comes much later in the game into play. I know I've won games with Neela as my main and her Scholar isn't something too useful to have on a main hero, even though I always OCD about that shit.

>>1152240
Yeah, everyone gets a commander. All commanders have a magic spell to cast, and they start with 2 different specials. I still think every town is quite balanced.

Castle Paladin has Cure+Bless, commander has unlimited retaliations, and gets 150% hero exp

Inferno Succubus has Fire Shield + Bloodlust, commander can fly, charms some neutral creatures to leave before a fight

Tower Temple Guardian has Precision, commander can shoot, restores some hero mana after a spellcast

Rampart Hierophant has Shield+Mirth, hero's first aid tent is more effective, commander has permanent fire shield

Necropolis Soul Eater has Animate dead, enemy troops may freeze in fear (negative morale)

Dungeon Brute has Bloodlust+Stoneskin, enemies cannot retaliate against commander, gain gold from each battle

Fortress = Haste+Fortune, commander gets 150% of hero attack and defence, commander has Death Stare

Stronghold = Stoneskin+Retaliation, commander may block all incoming melee damage 30% of the time, hero's ballista is more effective

>>1152369
right, so inferno gets buffed but the others along with it making it not matter in the end

>>1152348
When luck is on your side, it's very, very good.

If I could mod just one thing in this game, just one, it would be this.

Retreating is removed, and is replaced by a 3rd level spell. Want to flee a battle? You have to surrender and fork over money.

>>1152393
except the punishment for retreating is already that you lose all your troops and have to rehire your hero.

>>1152357
Thanks.
Guess it could've been worse.

>>1152401
>and have to rehire your hero.
But the hero gets to keep his artifacts and is re-hireable instantly, and that's why the faggot AI retreats every time.

>>1152374
Well, just try out the game, playing Inferno or going against Inferno, and you'll see they ain't half bad.

>>1152374
Unit rebalance scripts, select them and enjoy your finally-good-Inferno-units.

Hey /vr/. My friend and I just finished off a hotseat Titan's Winter game in HOMM3 and the Castle team (Purple) confused us.

As we were clearing the middle island full of Dungeon towns the Purple team's heroes started to appear. We assumed that they had learned Water Walking in one of their Mages Guilds, but then they started to clearly use the Fly spell, crossing over trees and other obstacles. We noted two of their heroes moving like this.

I had already killed the hero who had cleared the Dragon Utopia (could tell when I picked up Helm of Heavenly Enlightenment and Orb of Vulnerability), so I didn't think their heroes had the Angel's Wings, let alone two pairs. Given all of the Mages Guilds they had access to only upgraded to level 4 how could they have learned the Fly spell?

>TLDR: How could the Castle team on Titan's Winter access the Fly spell?

does anyone build mage guild day 1?

i read about strategies about people taking down decent sized groups in just the first couple days of a map, which seems difficult to me for most factions without some kind of spells (slow, haste, at least magic arrow)...my temptation is always just to build only creature dwellings until i kind of have to build my mage guild but i am questioning whether i should just start off with a guild to grab some spells.

on that note does anyone select their first hero(s) purely because of the spells they start with? solymyr seems an obvious one, but if creatures arent split up into multiple stacks then your going to zap your own dudes. other good picks seem like jeddite for ressurection, luna for fire wall, etc...thoughts?

>>1154231
I usually get the prayer guy with castle. Prayer is attack, defense and speed in one. And it is T4, and necro/inferno cant get it in their mage guild. Making it great. Luna is pretty sweet too because her fire wall is pretty insane if you abuse the AI. Also mages get a free spellbook and wisdom which is pretty handy.

If the town doesnt have a good starter mage I usually go with a might hero because spellpower isnt really an issue and knowledge is easy enough to get from the map, only advantage is there if you constantly dimension door or fly. But just using mass haste isnt that expensive.

As for first build mage guild, you wont get a profit from it. First of all you are better off maximalising your dwellings, second you only have 1 or 2 knowledge. That is like 4 magic arrows. The troops you can get instead of those 4 magic arrows will probably provide more use. Maybe necro, but even zombies help you out more early on

>>1154231
Situational about the mage guild.
It's mostly good if you want to be scouting aggressively. Secondary heroes with Scholar can be useful for trading spells in Shrines to main heroes.
Magic heroes are best as secondary hero scouts since they get outscaled by might heroes, but yeah - Luna has some of the most creeping potential in the early game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G29vSPGbDPY for example). Ciele has a boss Magic Arrow. I'm not a big fan of Solmyr because that spell has huge mana cost. Magic heroes tend to be good starters if they get good spells.

>>1154231
I try to get a castle and as many unit dwellings as I can. If gold is in short supply I'll shoot for a capitol.

>>1154191
Maybe there is one of these pyramids on the map?

>>1113191
a shipwreck survivor once gave me Armageddon's Blade.
Guessing he was REALLY happy

>>1154458
Those guys are hysterical.

I just got this game and holy shit it's one of the best games I've ever played.

But I'm having problems with gold. Every turn I'm scraping the bottom and only able to buy a few of my troops, while I look at the enemy AI and they have 2-3 heroes with the same amount of troops as one of mine.

Basically my question is how do I get and keep a decent amount of gold?

>>1154980
Get the gold from the treasure chests, not the experience.

User the gold to get troops, use troops to fight battles (more troops - bigger chance to overpower enemies and win with minimal losses). The more battles you fight, the more experience you get.

Getting xp from treasure chests is a trap.

I didn't know there was still ppl around that still remembers this pearl of a franchise!!

>>1154980

Adding on to what >>1155005 said, also, don't be in too much of a hurry to uprgrade your creature dwellings. Just getting the basic ones will let your troops accumulate, so it's important to get the basic ones up and running quickly, (along with a castle for double growth)

Get a secondary hero to do all the grunt work of picking up treasure, your main guy should be devoted, as solely as you can manage, to killing shit.

And hire any hero with the 350 gold specialty you can find.

>>1154980
First off all get gold from treasure chests. Remember that if you need to get exp for some reason you at least get it from 2000/1500 chests as there the ratio is best. The first 2 weeks you get dwellings+castle, once you have that focus on getting capitol. Second get more towns and improve their money making potential as soon as possible. If you have loads of marketplaces you can trade in precious resources you no longer need (as you already maxed out your towns) for gold. Late game this can get you boatloads of money. You dont need 100 gems by that point

>>1154980
Adding on to the people before me, once you play some more and get some experience you'll realize that you don't need all your units to clear stuff. In many cases you only need a powerstack (lots of units that can one-shot mobs on the map) and some fast units (often flying) to clear the map, also shooters.
So for example Castle can wreck fights with shooters on the map with just Cavalry + whatever, Rampart can use Unicorns to close the gap and Centaurs as power stack (with Elves as ranged support), Tower can get Master Gremlins, Inferno can make use of Efreeti, Stronghold uses Rocs to tank, etc...

Basically this means that if it's still early game and you're just clearing your whereabouts and trying to tag mines, you don't need to buy, for example, your Walking Dead (Necro) or Golems (Tower) or Dwarves (Rampart) because they're slow (slowing down your hero's progress on the map and not contributing much to fights, especially against shooters). Learn what are the essential units and work with them.

Fun idea/Exercise: Try playing as Dungeon with Shakti as starting hero. Shakti starts with Tactics to close the gap to shooters and set up good fights against flyers; and on Day 1, he can potentially have 100+ Troglodytes (Shakti's starting army + buyable Trogs + another Dungeon hero in tavern). That's the kind of powerstack I'm talking about. Use them to wipe the floor with the map cheaply. Get Manticores and split them when fighting shooter stacks so that you don't lose Trogs. Plunder the map. Every week focus on Trogs, then Mantis, and maybe Evil Eyes. Rest can wait until you can sustain yourself better with gold from special buildings, towns and gold mines.

>>1155005
>>1155015
>>1155114
>>1155270

Thanks. I've just started to figure out that exp. from chests are a ripoff after getting almost solely that for the past week. It's made a lot of difference.

Also using the Tavern troop husks as gatherers helps a lot too. I wish there was a way to automate it though.

I've been playing mostly on Small and Medium Random maps and it's harder on these (especially when you do Normal or Hard monsters, which I find more fun). But I started an XL map and now I have a massive surplus of Gold due to the sheer amount of stuff on the map. So that makes a difference. I'm going to try again on a Medium map, but I worry it won't be enough. Small is easy because you can rush the enemy(ies) and XL so far is a bit dull due to the amount of gathering. Medium is the most fun but most difficult I'm finding.

>>1155270

I've been playing Castle a lot with Marksmen and ranged seems to be where it's at, but Castle I think has a huge advantage with this. I might try Shakti next time I play Dungeon though, as Dungeon's probably the one I have the most trouble with (except maybe Inferno obviously).

>>1154507
I fucking love shipwreck survivors

>>1155451
Inferno is the one town that people agree upon being the weakest. There's a certain advanced tactic known as demon herding that makes it viable, but it's also very micro-demanding, so don't worry about it yet.

Still, Inferno can also do some pretty good creeping. Get the Efreeti dwelling and Castle. Six Efreeti in week 2 can, on their own, make mincemeat out of the map.

>>1155904
I'd like to see a picture of how this could happen.

>>1156096
Shipwreck survivor:
A Water 'object' that gives a random Artifact. Disappear after first 'use'. 55% gives Treasure Artifacts, 20% gives Minor Artifacts, 20% gives Major Artifacts and 5% gives Relics.
(Source: http://heroes.thelazy.net/wiki/Shipwreck_Survivor )

>>1155451
Dungeon is a pretty powerful faction once you get it rolling (and one of my favorites because of this) but I believe it's relatively expensive to set up. If you get better at gathering resources it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out how to play Dungeon.

>>1156180
I think he was talking about how a man on a log can give you the big ass statue.

>>1155904
>>1156096
I was sure they can't give you combined artifacts. Hm.

>>1156182

I've always found one of the more annoying things with the Dungeon is that they're tricky to play on Impossible, a much bigger difficulty jump from Expert than it is from the other factions.


Starting with 0 resources is doable most of the time, but the pillar of eyes need 1 of each resource, and that can sometimes be difficult to dig up. At it messes up your whole development if you can't get your hands on that stuff, and fairly quickly.

>>1155451
Instead of random maps you can get user made maps on the internet. The problem with random maps is that they are pretty low on the resource produce structures and except for wood and ore they are pretty much all about pickups. Which gets pretty crazy with larger maps. User made maps tend to lean more on resource structures with a few piles around them to kickstart your building. And you often have to fight monsters that guard multiple piles of resources instead of them just being scattered.

>>1156182
dungeon is one of the more expensive yes, tower is pretty close with upgraded cloud temple and mage tower+library+upgraded mage tower. Dungeon has that too with beholders and dragons.

>>1156197
Im playing on free for all and near my starting location a red dragon protects a cloak of the undead king (and im reading my necro hero to accept this mantle of rape as we speak). So I think they are just rated as high tier artifacts and can be gotten as single item.

Sandro-culture aside, how good is Isra?
He specialises in necromancy, but I'm not sure if it's worth it as opposed to Sandro's sorcery.

>>1156197
>>1156252
They appear randomly, they just have a low chance.

Now, what I've never seen is one of them appear in the artefact merchant. Not that I can recall for certainty anyway.

>>1156338
Isra and Galthran are best necro heroes, Sandro is shit

>>1156338
Sandro isn't the best necro hero, he's only good because he's cool and a mainstay since HoMM1. Malekith (Dungeon) is a better Sorcery specialist than Sandro is because he gets more Spell Power per level (as a Warlock). Then again, Magic heroes are outscaled by Might ones.
You get Isra for making a fuckton of Skeletons or you get Galthran for an early game Skeleton powerstack and slightly stronger (and faster) Skeleton horde in the late game.
If you wanted a Necro magic hero, you'd take Vidomina because she's Isra-lite. That's how good Isra is.

>>1156359
>>1156386
Thanks.

Any tips for campaign mode in HoMM II?

I'm playing both routes at the same time and struggling with both of them.

>Playing the same map for the third time.
>Rush heroes to 6/8 castles.
>Actually manage to take all 6 castles. Within 2-3 weeks.
>All of the sudden the AI starts churning fucking doom stacks of black dragons forcing all my heroes to hide away in castles and giving them complete freedom of movement.
>5 months later, still no change.

>>1156407
Which map?
Also, if you're ever at a stalemate you can try the C&C Engineer Ploy where you bait out the enemy main hero with one of your heroes and then march into his castle.

>>1156252
>>1156345
Is that the unmodded game? I've been playing Homm for years and I don't think I've ever found one just laying around.

>>1156412
Good #4 Carator Mines, I did the dwarven one first BTW so I got the free dwarfs.

>>1156421
You seem to be doing the right thing so I don't know what else can you do. The map, if I recall correctly, has a ton of gold. Can't you just rush your own level 7 dwellings and finally crush him? Or use all the free Dwarves from the map to crack down on the final towns no matter how many Dragons they have? (I can hardly believe the AI can have a critical mass of blackies in Week 3...)

>>1156429
Blah, I of course meant level 6 dwellings, sorry, had HoMM 3 on the mind when I wrote that sentence.

>>1156429
By week 3 I have to stop the advance, or otherwise the castles I'd taken would get run over. Right now I have all level 6 dwellings in all of my castles. I've seen a 40+ stack of crusaders get massacred.

>>1156439
How about Phoenixes?
The map should be rich enough to allow you a really early (Week 2?) Red Tower.
Just hire a lot of heroes (you should have the gold) to chain all of the units and launch a direct attack on his beefiest hero.

So if I want to play again after a long time, what is the best? Just random map against x computers? Any good scenarios or maps I should know of?

>>1156456
Roll an XL random map with underground against the max number of AIs and set them to 200%, although you can set them at 100% to really ease into it.
Choose whatever town and hero you want if you wanna be a bitch.
Random if ya cool.

>>1156456
>>1156464
IMO XL with no underground or L with underground (with 5-6 players) on 200% is optimal. All random preferably.
XL+underground goes for way too long after you're already in control of the game.

>>1156492
>>1156464
people finish their games of HoMM?

I always decide to finish it, then never continue after I get dominance. Mostly because I dont want to load 3 heroes full of angels, dragons and skeletons and dimension door around to clean up the enemy

Anybody have some suggestions when playing Castle? Heroes, what troops are best, that kind of stuff.

>>1156868
prayer guy, marksmen for dat double shot. Save crusaders till you hit a critical mass where they slash dragons in half with 2 fierces sweeps

>>1156868
Lord Haart is useful to have at the start. The bonus gold he gives can give you a nice earlygame boost, and if he winds up a main he'll rake in a few thousand a week.

Castle is a powerhouse.

>>1156868
Castle is a great town, rather simple to play too.
A non-native hero is preferrable (they seem to prioritize Water Magic which isn't top of the heap, Clerics prefer Knowledge over Spell Power, almost all Knights have Leadership which is meh), but a good starting hero is Tyris with her Tactics and +1 movement speed for Cavalry. Sir Mullich is a pretty unique hero and one of the best, but he's only available in expansion pack scenarios (in Restoration of Erathia scenarios Lord Haart is available instead).

Tyris or not, first week you build up to Cavalry and Castle (or even Angels if the map is rich enough), then use the Cavalry to wreck shooter stacks (and virtually everything else). Upgrade Archers early for the double-shot. Monks aren't much to write home about - they're okay shooters but have very low HP for a level 5 unit.

Late game tips include the fact that Cloned Archangels can also use their Ressurect specialty and that you can split Archangels and use them to ressurect each other for efficient creeping.

Cavalry deals more damage the more hexes they travel before striking something and it doesn't have to be in a straight line, so try to be fancy with attack directions to maximize damage output. You can upgrade your Cavalry for free to Champions by visiting a Stables on the map with a champion that has Cavalry.

Is sorcery a good skill? I almost never use any damage spells. Am I missing something here?

>>1157040

It's only good on cramped maps, where early game fighting against other players is more common and direct damage has more of a relative effect, since you'll probably be fighting before endlessly large armies and the mass bless/haste/slow/shield/whatevers come into play.


But overall, it's pretty shoddy.

>>1156973
why is spellpower more important than knowledge. Spellpower increases the time on spells but stuff like haste and slow are long enough without 20 spellpower. And getting your units to move first is much more important than a nuke.

>>1157053

You don't need lots of spellpower or knowledge to cast haste and slow, even might heroes can do it fine. Focusing on knowledge you just end up with a huge mana pool you'll never spend. And if you ever get DD/Town Portal mana won't matter anymore because of wells.

>>1157053

Play a magic hero with either resurrect or one of the summon elementals, and you'll see just exactly what a big spellpower can do.

>>1157053
Unless you're getting your shit pushed in from multiple enemies at once or you need to spam Armageddon, there's a point where Knowledge isn't really worth increasing if you can choose spellpower instead. Wells are reasonably easy to find and a single day in a town replenishes all MP anyway.

>>1156407
21673

By the way, how did HoMM VI turn out after the expansion? As I recall it was garbage upon released, then elevated up to "meh" after a fuckton of patches. Did the expansion finally make it good, or is it still a mediocrity?

>>1157179
Still mediocre. HoMM needs to go back to its roots, iron out the flaws, and not add useless shit nobody wanted. (not to mention taking a note from King's Bounty where bad morale and leadership would make your units revolt)

Will there be a VII?

>>1157902
If it's made by the same people who did VI, I hope not.

>>1157902
Well, they're releasing new game of the series, so I guess the sales are at least acceptable.
But I doubt it will be good. My bet is better than VI, worse than V.

>>1157053
Also thing is you mostly run magic heroes as early game heroes and for that reason you basically want a hero who can put out a really strong Magic Arrow or Lightning Bolt.

That's why for example Alagar sucks because he's a Druid with like 1 starting spell power and prioritizing knowledge and his special spell is Ice Bolt which will be weaker than, say, Malekith's (Warlock, Sorcery specialist) Magic Arrow so he's trash.

>>1156973
>Late game tips include the fact that Cloned Archangels can also use their Ressurect specialty

And THAT is why Castle magic heroes prioritize water magic. That and Prayer.

>Attempt to watch some HoMM3 campaign playthroughs on YouTube
>All players are awfully terrible

>>1158074
Water magic isn't a bad school at all, it's just that Earth and Air are more versatile and bolster more accessible spells (Mass Slow and Haste and you win) so I tend to prioritize them if at all possible

>>1158074
Also, really, Water magic is the one school that Magic heroes don't take much benefit from. You can have a Might hero with some Spell Power/Knowledge artifacts and have great, long-lasting Prayer to make your units even stronger or also use Clone (which against any competent player should die in one turn anyway). The spells mostly don't scale much because they're buffs (Bless, Prayer, etc.). I'd avoid mastering Water on magic heroes.

So what are the must have talents for all heroes besides Earth and Air magic?

>>1158108
Logistics, Offense, Armorer are the top. The bonuses from those are just enormous whether you're fighting the map or participating in the final battle.
Then it's Tactics which is the better the earlier you can get it since it can really help minimize casualties while early creeping.
Aside from that other skills are fine, you can even have a "wasted" skill and it won't bother you too much (Neela might be the best Tower hero and she has Scholar, which isn't that big of a deal in the big picture). Pathfinding, Archery, Wisdom, etc. are all good skills depending on the map and playstyle.

Is there anything like the HD patch for HoMMIII, but for HoMMII? I miss playing it.

>>1158089
Clone is best used after you shut down all the ranged attacks. Then it becomes bloody terrifying. You think 700 marksman are bad? Wait until it's 1400.

so what do you guise think about the F2P Heroes online? did anyone of you try it?

>>1158165
Fast units, flyers and even the lowly Magic Arrow can make the Clone disappear. Also personally I'd rather use it on fast units so that the enemy doesn't have the time to retaliate.

>>1158169
Haven't yet but it does look promising after three consecutive fuckups.

>>1158180
If your enemy's best option is to cast an offensive spell, you're doing it wrong.

>>1158185
Well, really - if it's gotten to the point where you've casted all the buff spells and the first clashes happened, and then you Clone, then what else do I do?

Unless you're implying that you're going to just kill off or Blind or block my Archers without me having a say on the matter.

Though honestly it's kinda pointless to resolve in a discussion, it all started as me evaluating Water Magic as inferior to Earth and Air because it's not as versatile.

>>1158185
But it's always the best option against clones.

I found a bug, but didn't have an opportunity to post it. Place big creature(I tested on Archangels), on the upper corner, place a creature below(or the enemy would surrond) and clone it. Clone wouldn't appear, but the original Archangels would convert to clones with their 1 life.

I like starting as rampart in "Vikings we shall go".

>>1158309
Oh yeah?
I play all scenario maps as inferno.

>>1158359
Dear god...

>>1158359
Jesus Christ, how heretical.

>>1158193
He means hammering out buffs and debuffs like crazy. By not using a mass dispel you're leaving a clone. By doing in the clone you're leaving those buffs there for another round (and I can pull a second clone out of my ass)

>>1158374
Clone is best used as a one-shot attack magic, as long as you have enough units, it can outdo Implosion in damage (or Resurrection in unit stacks revived). Clones can also be used to use up an enemy stacks retaliation. And if the enemy has no way of destroying the clones, they can stay there for more rounds, doing more extra damage.

Expert Prayer, Bless, Cure, Dispel, Weakness, are all very useful if not necessarily the game-winning spells. So is Teleport. Ice Bolt is the best 2nd level attack after Lightning Bolt.

Water spells in general won't make you win a fight immediately in the first round (except maybe Bless in some situations), but they can make hell of a difference if the fight goes on longer than one round.

necropolis too good

>>1158935

Only if the game drags on for a very long time. You have terrible t1-3s, you essentially sacrifice a skill in every hero, your t7 is lame and a lot of your units are very upgrade dependent.


Rampart all the way.

>>1158940
>terrible t1
>skeletons are bad

top lel

>>1158943

Skeletons have:

Attack 5
Defense 4
Dmg 1-3
Health 6
Speed 4
Cost 60, get 12 a week.

If you up them to skeleton warriors, they get an extra attack, 2 defense, and 1 speed.

That makes them far weaker than Pikeman/Halberdiers, Centaurs/centaur lancers, Gnolls/Gnoll Marauders.

They're also on a cost adjusted basis weaker than Troglodytes and Goblins/Hobgoblins.

About the only other t1s they can really beat are gremlins and imps, both of whom are uber-pathetic.


Look, they can be dangerous because of how many you accumulate through necromancy skill, but as a t1 unit in their own right, they're between "Mediocre" and just plain "terrible".

And you only get the chance to build up an unstoppable ball of skeletons in a very long map.

>>1158940
One wasted skill isn't a big deal especially if the game is quick or your main is good. Not even specialty matters much. If I have to choose between a shitty native main and, say, a Beastmaster like Alkin (whose Gorgon specialty won't come into play, but his high Defense and Offense/Armorer right off the bat will) I'd choose the latter.
That, and good Necro players manage to raise hordes upon hordes of Skeletons by the end of the first month.
Necro is banned everywhere except Russia where a league rule says that the Amplifier building is restricted.
And against the AI, well, you can just steamroll with Skeletons even harder.

Necropolis is kinda weak against early shooter stacks though at the very least. It has its weaknesses, make no mistake - but Necromancy just scales too hard, offsetting those.

>>1158976

Granted, it's been a very long time since I did a lot of pvp, but I can't ever remember a game still having the outcome in doubt by the end of the first month. Usually, someone either won outright or had 60% of the map under their control by that time.


We all considere the conflux overpowered, but the Necro at least used to only be considered good on XL maps or ones where you had enough twisting and turning of the paths to make it hard for the players to get to each other.

>>1158981
In general MP games come down to lots of chaining units between heroes and extremely fast exploration. Having a few Necromancers (particularly the specialists like Isra or Vidomna) running around the map collecting units quickly snowballs the advantage, also you can collect dwellings and transform whatever bad units into skeletons.

And even without Necromancy, Necropolis isn't so bad. Death Knights can get to shooters early and pack a decent punch, Galthran has a pretty good early game with a powerstack of Skeletons (I bet he'd be able to solo full Crypts [the ones with 10 Vampires and other goodies] in Week 1), there's no offset to using Spirit of Oppression for creeping purposes...

>>1158981
>>1158998
Also, check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm-y2b48Y3k
Take note of how much more work it takes to get Demon herding running (with Diplomacy being banned) and yet take notice of how many Horned Demons the winner of this battle has by the end of Month 3.

>>1159005
beginning of Month 3, I'm a retard

>>1158084
earth has town portal and air has DD and fly. Both really worth having on expert. Water is kinda weak, you have prayer and clones, and frost ring, not really special

>>1158108
>>1158120
diplomancy is pure gold

>>1158943
their power is their numbers, outside that they arent that impressiv

>>1160391
I'm not seeing it.

>>1160412
more troops are always worth it.

>>1160425
Even if they're of different alignments, you probably have more than one castle.

>>1160431
You can have 2 different alignments without having negative morale, and with an angel you can keep another one.

>>1160436
So you get more troops when you encounter weaker stacks, but they aren't exactly free.

>>1160448
no, instead of having to field a massive army to get the "the troops seeks higher glory" message you need a pretty okay big army.

About to play this for the first time, need some help. Do I extract the package for VCMI to the Heroes 3 folder or The Heroes of Might and Magic folder?

>>1160456
>>1160456
Isn't glory message just luck-based? Also, on random maps they are set to seldomly join player, and even usual setting gives you rather poor chances. Diplo meanwhile will work almost always provided you have eonough forces.

>>1160468
I believe it is a combination of the amount of forces you have and some RNG roll

>>1160461
pls respond.

>>1160481
Why would you use mods at all if you're playing for the first time?

>>1160485
Why not?

>>1160487
Because VCMI is work in progress, while WoG and other mods change the gameplay.
Just download HD for increased resolution

>>1160487
because the game isnt broken like VTMbloodlines

>>1160472
>>1160468
Creatures joining you for free is random, with the chances being increased if you have a big army and have a stack of said creatures already.

Diplomacy allows, on top of all that, for x % of creatures to join you in exchange of gold. I don't know if it increases the chance for free joins though, but I think it's pretty likely.

By the way, the manual says:

Diplomacy
Increases the chance wandering creatures will offer to join the hero’s army and lowers the cost of surrendering to another hero.
- Basic: 25% of creatures normally fleeing from your army offer to join. Cost of surrendering is reduced by 20%.
- Advanced: 50% of creatures normally fleeing from your army offer to join. Cost of surrendering is reduced by 40%.
- Expert: All creatures normally fleeing from your army offer to join. Cost of surrendering is reduced by 60%.

My god this game is fun. All those wasted years...

>>1160806
>14_years_later.jpg

alright im gonna do it guise im gonna git gut

RANDOM MAP GO

>>1162438
Did you find lots of ranged unit stacks?

>>1160756
The Tribute for Strategists google document contains the exact mechanics. What the manual says is bollocks - even with Expert Diplomacy, stacks will sometimes flee your army instead of joining for free or for a price. You also get either all of the creatures or none of them, so the desciptions for Basic and Advanced are also wrong.

Tribute for Strategists explains Diplomacy better than I could, so that's where you should look. It covers everything that's been asked in this line of discussion.

so whats good about this game?
except the sound track

jesus christ it isn't even fun to play without shackles of war god fucking damn fuck this shit

>>1162605
With a Wait into moving first on the next turn (Expert Haste and Expert Slow help), it's possible to kill the AI before it manages to retreat if you've got good timing and sufficient firepower.

>>1162605
Yeah, fleeing is like saying "Fuck you, no experience for you sir" and paying 2500 for your buffed up hero.
Actually would welcome the prison system from HoMM IV, as much as immortal heroes were retarded. Would make fighting to the very end and dealing as much damage as possible more viable.

please, explain why is this game good, except for the soundtrack

>>1162637
you fight battles of strategy and honor. What not to like?

>>1162637
everything?

>>1158968

>very long map

by week 4 you can easily accumulate 1000 skeletons.

most multi maps have the 2 sides meeting in week 3 or 4.

having even 400 extra T1's at that time is an absurd advantage.

so sure, 1v1 skeletons are a weaker T1, but necromancy completely breaks necro, hence why it is usually banned.

>>1162761
Yeah. A -good- player can steamroll a group of cyclops in week 3 losing a few centaurs and get to the middle section of the map (which is usually resoruce-rich, like in Jebus' case). So just imagine what can be done if with each fight he has a net gain.

>>1160412

diplomacy is probably the most broken skill in the game to the same degree of TP/DD/fly/etc.

you can amass absolutely ridiculous armies over time. its like necromancy except instead of skeletons you get whatever you happen to be fighting. its a snowball too, since as creatures you join you, you get stronger, which makes it more likely that others will continue to join.

played a random once where i had advanced diplo around week 3, and had 35 ghost dragons join me. total joke.

on that note, diplo is probably the only reason ive ever lost to the AI, as its the only one of those mechanics it seems capable of abusing, though of course thats probably just pure chance.

>>1163183
It really does suck when the AI 1ups you with diplomacy, especially if it's like a ranged doomstack, a gorillion marksmen or whatever.

>>1162629
Especially when you saw that hero JUST picked up that fucking artefact you needed, and he just casts magic arrow and flees.
>For valor in combat, your hero receives 0 experience

>>1163283
I think I once saw getting negative experience from something along those lines. It could be WoG.
But the whole notion of your hero losing XP... It's like after the battle he was "You know what? Fuck this shit.", went to his tent, got drunk and forgot how to Heroes.

>>1163293
>For valour in his tent on a hooker after getting slapped in the face by a magic arrow he now has -1 spellpower and a brand new STD

>>1163308
You know what would be interesting? Seeing how Heroes would manage their troops between battles.
>Lord Sandro...
>What? I'm busy counting my skeletons.
>Dragons are eating vampires.
>GODDAMIT NEGATIVE MORALE.
>What should we do, sire?
>Show them this pedant and tell them to calm their shit down.

>>1163315
>guards, let me through
>lord lyous does not wish to be disturbed soldier, come back another time
>1 turn later
>using the dark power of necromancy, sandro raises 5500 liches

>>1163315
>>1163337

So I decided to try out Jebus Cross and damn why is there so much stuff everywhere. I heard it was richer than the normal RMG but this is crazy. There has to be like 10x as much wealth.

Are there any good RMG templates that are on the leaner side?

>try to download WoG of the official site
>all filefront files are gone

;_; I wish I could play this on linux without wine.

>>1163738

ive heard poor jebus is good.

jebus is fun because of the richness though, it lets you buy 8 heroes day 1 and therefore is a good way to learn to chain.

ill admit it can get pretty tedious later vs AI if you dont get town portal.

so which one do I play ? erathia? armagedon? shadow?

>>1164880
All mentioned.

>>1164883
ye well I've bought them all, whats the difference? which one is the most intresting

>>1164885

the order they are supposed to played in is

RoE
armageddon's blade
shadow

most campaigns are pretty easy, but RoE especially is really easy. if youre new to the game though theyre still quite fun to run around fucking shit up

>>1164885
>>1164891
Or you can play chronologically, which is (mostly) SoD - RoE - AB. But, some SoD campaigns can be a bit tricky at the beginning.

Is there a way to run Heroes 2 on Win8? Even compatibility mode doesn't seem to work.
Also, any way to make things bigger in HoMM3 HD? They are so small, I just get sick of it really fast and can't play the game normally.

>>1165086
get the gog version

>>1164885
just install them all and play normal games.

>>1165086
>Also, any way to make things bigger in HoMM3 HD?
Lower the resolution.

When exactly do you actually complete Seer's Hut-type quests?
When you've duplicate artefacts? Because I mean, I turned in a Pendant of Negativity and got some bullshit like 50 dorfs. I felt a little jewed.

>>1168391
are you a jew?
go /pol/

>>1168391
I don't have to give them the artifact if you don't like the reward.

>>1168391
You can refuse, so it's always worth checking.
On random maps, rewards are similar to pandora box - exp, gold, or creatures. Quest artifact has fixed spawn point on the map and the zone it's placed in determines the type of creatures you get, as in, units will be from the town native to that zone.
The amount you get also probably depends on strength of neutrals that guarded the artifact.

>>1168412
>The amount you get also probably depends on strength of neutrals that guarded the artifact.
Huh, didn't know that. Interdasting. Thanks.

>>1168412
>On random maps, rewards are similar to pandora box - exp, gold, or creatures
You forgot spells. You can get lots of spells, including town portal, DD, armageddon. But chances aren't high.

>>1162761
>1000 skeletons.
>in four weeks

I've never gotten more then 450 in 5 weeks!
still, i've had better succsess with Stronghold (mah favorite) as goblins are easy to raise and can run like crazy on the combat map.

>>1168929
Stronghold is strong early due to impressive Behemoth rush. Goblins are also decently useful, as they don't slow down your army on adventure map that much.

>>1168952
I find that wolf riders/raiders aren't worth it. too squishy.

Ogre Magi are mah niggas though.

>>1168952

I actually find it's the third day rocs that really get me going with the stronghold. Behemoth rushes are nice, but especially on higher levels, it can be tough to find 10 crystal that early, and that 10,000 gold can often be better put into troops that snowball.


Lategame, I actually find that hte stronghold has an advantage that a lot of people overlook; pretty much all of their units have the same speed. in that 7-9 range. I usually get into trouble in the mass spell war, but when I do make contact, and either throw down a mass haste or a mass prayer, (lucky if you can get), I cnan blow a big hole in their army because most of my guys get to move at once.

>>1169056
Wolf Raiders are a great unit but they have a very specific use. They make for great scouts early for starters, but they also pack really hefty offensive punch with their double strike.
The thing you pretty much want to do is to preserve and save as many wolves you can before the final battle and then make sure they do not get attacked first. If you do, they hurt. Taking off people's retaliation beforehand is welcome. They're your kamikaze units and they're very good in that function, you just gotta make sure they amass.

>>1169060
Well, Behemoths first week (or even day 2) aren't a hard thing to do unless on 200% of course. Rocs are really good though, agreed.

But yeah, basically what you want to do with Stronghold is get a big and strong Crag Hack (or any barbarian, they're the best hero class) and just make the first attack.

>>1169074

I hate to sound like a snob, but don't most people play on Impossible? All my multiplayer games were on that difficulty level, dim and musty as that past is.

>>1169096
Depending on the template (and on some, like Jebus, even 200% is easy to build on), preferences and other things it can be anything, really, though I've never seen anyone go below 130%.

>>1169096
Only tryhard SO1337HARDCORE people play on Impossible, really. At that point, you're purely at the mercy of the random number generator.

>>1169103
Kinda. Sorta.
I mean, It is just a fact that above hard, only things that change are numbers of resoruces. And yeah, if maps screws you over (espiecially if you start in say, underworld, where pathing is really fucked up on randoms), it can be unwinnable.
But as I said - if you can get around 5000 g and 10 ore and wood, you can basically win on any setting whatsoever.

>>1169096
I always play on the diff under impossible. I find the lack of resources kind annoying, if you cant find enough of your main resource fast enough you get stuck and either go fully autistic on abusing AI and resurrecting or you get overpowered. With some starting resources you get thrown in a situation that is less than get resources or get fucked

>>1169109
Actually, there are minor AI changes when going above 130%. The amount of heroes the AI can use (per player and total across all computer players) is limited, and this limit increases on both 160% and 200%. I don't recall other differences offhand, but there could be some.

>>1169374
I believe the tower (160%?) is the final AI enhancement. After that it is just inhibiting the resources.

I've been playing some Tower recently. Master gremlins feel like a ranged, faster, less damaging Trogdolyte with the amounts of them you can get, and at Week 2 you can often have 160+ of them which is quite a nice stack to have. Shooter stacks absolutely murder them, so some luck is necessary to get a good earlygame - if there's ranged stacks you can't ignore, your gremlin count will pay for it dearly.

On Week 2, the priority upgrade is Naga Queens, which are really strong. They've got sufficient speed to reach shooters in 2 moves, which finally lets you take on shooter stacks comfortably (be sure to leave your gremlins on a scout). The building itself isn't too expensive, but the Queens themselves are ridiculously costly at 1600 a pop, which can make getting five or six of them early on Week 2 a tall order.

You want to get Giants and Castle on Week 2, and probably also a Capital if there's no massive amounts of gold in sight - Titans are very expensive and you need the economy of Capital to be able to eventually afford them unless you're filthy rich. Giants are surprisingly strong, and their damage output is quite close to that of Titans with equal damage and 5 less Attack. Three of them on Week 3 is a good addition to your army, and an attack from your 9-10 Naga Queens followed by your Giants lets you one-shot a lot more things. The start of Week 3 with Giants is also something of a plateau for your army until you get your hands on Titans - if a main fight could be happening on Week 3 and you can't wait for Titans, it's often better to grab all you can get and attack as soon as possible rather than end up being forced into a fight a few days before you would've gotten your Titans.

>>1110898
dear lord, THIS is what HoMaM is like? god, good thing I saw this before playing it, I was under the impression that it wasn't simply a board game on the computer.... or are the later installments different?

>>1169494
>>>/v/

>>1169494
it is a turnbased strategy game in which you build up towns to provide you with troops, command heroes that lead armies and collect stuff on an adventure maps. And the combat is like that yes, but it is nothing like a boardgame.

Why are you baiting in a /vr/ thread