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| Thread: Strategy: Things learned at Gencon | |
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TheFoeHammer
Known Hero
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posted August 23, 2005 10:53 PM |
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Strategy: Things learned at Gencon
These are just some initial pointers.
1. The phase you attack is very important. You can modify this in a few ways. The Tactics skill is probably the easiest and I recommend everyone use it in some way. There are also artifacts like The Helm of Command and the Ring of Speed that help with this.
2. Remember that the attacker goes first on equal phases and no one can be lower than Phase 1. So if you need to fight your opponent and both of you are phase 1, it probably makes sense to hit them before they hit you. The best way is to have a higher map speed so you can stand off your opponent. Several things can help with this. Higher level tactics bumps your map speed as well as artifacts like the Equestrian Gloves.
3. Protect your hero. Once you define a location, attack its guards, and defeat them, it no longer has guards that you can fight. Since your hero levels up by winning these fights, losing your hero and all his earned skills and artifacts can be devastating, since due to the limited number of locations on any map, you will quickly run out of places to level up again for a newly purchased hero. So its imperative not to let your hero get wacked. The best way to do that is to remember the items above, use skills like Combat and town bought artifacts to boost your defense and use items like Robe of the Guardian to prevent initial attacks from hitting your hero. There are also other protective spells to consider, just keep in mind that your hero does not cast a spell until their action, whereas a skill or artifact is in effect immediately.
4. Define and conquer locations and creature dwellings as early as possible but don't waste them. Since as mentioned above there are a limited number of locations, you want to go up a level AND gain something valuable with each location you find. Define creature dwellings if you just want to go up a level even if you don't really need one. But don't overlook the value of a good forward outpost to purchase creatures from, sometimes its a long way back to your castle. Also consider when deckbuilding that it is valuable to have multiple copies of key skills (i.e. basic tactics) and key locations (i.e. your required resource for your Level 4 unit(s).) You want to define and/or learn these early and start earning greater income so they need a greater probability of being pulled. The extras can be used as money.
5. Don't be afraid to put a couple of Phase 1 level 4 units in your deck that you have no plans to build. You always can use them during guard flipping to add to the stack your opponent has to fight provided you were the one who flipped the guards. These make nice deterrents when your opponent has just defined one of their key locations as mentioned above. Just remember that they must all be the same alignment as the first card flipped, so don't just pick any card just because its tough.
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mariners95
Hired Hero
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posted August 24, 2005 12:02 AM |
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Yes I have actually thinking about strategies and was thinking it advantageous to put creatures that the deckbuilder has no intentions of using except for flipping for guards, and storing them in your adventure deck to use for adding to the guards.
Very interesting.
Just wondering at any time in any of your games, how many cards in your adventure deck did you have...
on the average?
and what do you suppose the most you had?
Later
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TheFoeHammer
Known Hero
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posted August 24, 2005 12:12 AM |
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Quote:
Yes I have actually thinking about strategies and was thinking it advantageous to put creatures that the deckbuilder has no intentions of using except for flipping for guards, and storing them in your adventure deck to use for adding to the guards.
Very interesting.
Just wondering at any time in any of your games, how many cards in your adventure deck did you have...
on the average?
and what do you suppose the most you had?
Later
Well an Order deck has a lot at times. But typically my adventure deck stays right around the 5 mark from what I have seen. You only want to cycle into it something you will use in the future. But with the Nobility Skill combined with Estates you cycle a lot of cards, so during brief periods you may put up to 8 or more in there then by them out next turn.
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doc8466
Known Hero
Event Coordinator Annapolis MD
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posted August 24, 2005 10:51 PM |
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Ah yes, the Order deck!
I was drawing 5-8 cards a turn, cycling from my hand into my adventure stack after buying lvl 1 units from the adstack so routinely had 7-10 cards in my adstack.
I echo the comment about only putting things into your adstack that you are going to use. It's just as well to cycle to your discard pile any card not usefull at the time. It'll come back around later, quickly if you're playing Order!
____________
First place GENCON 2005 HOMM IV CC&TG tournament.
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taraba
Hired Hero
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posted September 01, 2005 08:10 PM |
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Quote:
5. Don't be afraid to put a couple of Phase 1 level 4 units in your deck that you have no plans to build. You always can use them during guard flipping to add to the stack your opponent has to fight provided you were the one who flipped the guards. These make nice deterrents when your opponent has just defined one of their key locations as mentioned above. Just remember that they must all be the same alignment as the first card flipped, so don't just pick any card just because its tough.
Yes, I noticed this too. Adding cards to the flip is about a good way you can keep another player from getting a mine, second town or nice artifact without spending your money to build your force. The downside is if you want to take it yourself then you'll have the same guards to defeat. In a game we played 2 teams of 2, one player put a large stack of guards on the underground entrance to stop me from attacking them. Worked well, but also kept them stuck in the underground.
Quote:
...and units with an "X" as their cost, this is the only purpose they serve.
Who has that as the unit cost? I've seen some things that can be summoned by other creatures (Devils can summon Ice Demons). Is that one of those.
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doc8466
Known Hero
Event Coordinator Annapolis MD
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posted September 01, 2005 10:22 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
...and units with an "X" as their cost, this is the only purpose they serve.
Who has that as the unit cost? I've seen some things that can be summoned by other creatures (Devils can summon Ice Demons). Is that one of those.
Seamonsters and Mermaids both have cost X. They are water creatures (Might) that can only be used withing 1 space of water and can move in water. I can only see this being used after a successfull roll with the diplomacy secondary skill and these creatures become part of your army stack.
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