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wog_edn
Promising
The Nothingness
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posted October 25, 2006 09:18 PM |
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I think it is the second best town, Dungeon is best. As said many times it has 3 shooters and 2 flyers, the Naga/Naga Queen is the second best Level 6 creature if I am not wrong. Stone/Iron Golem has high defence but is a real slow down, good for town defence or defence of shooters. Titan is the only level 7 shooter, and is really usefull. Level 1 shooter is good for offense, but you lose them fast. A great defence level and vial of life blood would make them extreme. Magi/Arch Mage reduce the spell cost, and the library in town make the mage guild get +1 per level. So I can't see what's bad with that town...
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted October 25, 2006 11:35 PM |
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Quote:
...Initial stack of master gremlins and gargoyles means great begining - try to compare with stronghold, on small map, tower will wipe them out....
Would love to meet ya with such a setup. You tower, me Stronghold. Small map. 130% at least.
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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vhilhu
Famous Hero
We are NOT schysophren
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posted October 25, 2006 11:44 PM |
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Quote:
Dungeon is best.
whatever... except for the great blackie and minotaurs, dungeon DOES NOT rule. unless you practise casual armageddoning, it just isnt as great as others. on any kind of map, i do better with fortress than dungeon.
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Two little Gnoll boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Gnoll boy left all alone;
He went and hung himself and then there were none.
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HoMMage
Hired Hero
Unundead
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posted October 26, 2006 12:40 AM |
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Hi, I'm new here, the board for this game at GameFAQs isn't that fun anymore and I stumbled upon this where HOMM is actually alive! Great.
As for the topic at hand (and I will obviously repeat some of the things already said):
TOWER
Advantages
- 3 shooters, 2 fliers
- No really weak units
- Big affinity with magic
Disadvantages
- Mediocre heroes
- VERY expensive on both gold and other resources.
- Slowest fully built army (together with Stronghold), so no first strike in the big fights
Creatures
Gremlins:
Are useless, but cheap, high growth rate, and easily and cheaply upgraded to the very useful Master Gremlins. As they come for free in big numbers with recruited heroes, you should invest in an Upgraded Workshop on day one, so you can easily flag all the guarded mines, you'll need them later on. Be careful fighting other ranged units, you might need to pack a good number of Gargoyles so you can avoid fighting them.
Later on when you start sieging, they'll be targeted by towers, rangers, and fast fliers, so you'll have to recruit a new hero each week if you want to keep up.
Gargoyles:
Not bad, good HPs. Upgrade gives them good speed and decent A/D. Plus, they fly. Quite costly, though. Used offensively, preferably against archers and low-level units. Later on, their speed stops being impressive and as they can't be resurrected, their stack will eventually be too weak to still bother with.
Stone Golems:
Castle defense, since they're slow but sturdy. Upgrade them so their retalation actually does some good damage, and they'll be laughing at lightning bolts etc. They're pretty cheap, too. If you get them in large numbers, you'll want to take them with you and watch them crush those pesky fliers bothering your (Arch) Magi. Expert Haste helps, too.
Magi:
Awesome, but hard to come by. Costly as a unit, extremely expensive dwelling. The upgrade requires the Library, which also eats into all your resources, and I always go for Cloud Temple first. Eventually it's worth it - apart from their useful specials, they are a strong unit with good overall stats and excellent damage for a shooter (compare them to Medusa Queens for example).
Genies:
Upgrade is important. Low HPs but good otherwise stats, excellent damage and speed. Reasonably priced. Hates Efreet, but attacking them is not very wise. It's usually best to have them cast a beneficial spell on Magi or Nagas the first turn, then finish off remaining stacks in the second turn (possibly archers, but they will have to be hasted). Also a good idea to place one Master Genie in each of your empty creature slots, to maximize the chance that their spells will actually be useful.
Against in Inferno army, place them so that the Efreet Sultans can't reach them with their 13 hex movement.
Nagas:
Again, important to upgrade for a whopping 50% damage increase - fixed damage at 30 and no retaliation is amazing. Good attack, great HP, defense is quite low but no retaliation counters that. Low speed, but still best lvl 6 afaic. Most expensive, too. Use them to kill the fliers that harass your archers - be they dragons or serpent flies - and after that the slow and sturdy units (Dendroids, Hydras, Behemoths etc).
Giants:
You don't want giants, they suck. What you do want are Titans, the strongest and fastest archers in the game, with a wonderful damage stat and pretty high A/D. 300 HP and no melee penalty effectively fends off the fliers, although Black Dragons still pose quite a problem.
It'll take quite a while before you've assembled the gems to afford them, though. Keep your Giants unrecruited until you can upgrade them, and spend your gold on Naga Queens and Arch Magi, so you can conquer some towns for more gold.
Special buildings
- Artifact Merchants
It'll be a while before you can afford 10000 gold, and it requires at least 5 marketplaces to get artifacts at a reasonable price, but then it may be of great benefit to you.
- Library
Very nice, but expensive, expensive. But you want the Arch Magi, and the extra spells may just turn out very lucky (Town Portal? Resurrection? Implosion?)
- Lookout tower
Useless most of the time, because there are much more important things to waste wood and turns on. By the time you can build it, you've probably covered all ground it reveals to you, but if that's not the case, or if you've just taken over a Tower castle, it's a worthwile build.
- Sculptor's wings
Its use is debatable. Gargoyles are pretty good units, but expensive. If you're on a map with a lot of opponents, you'll get the investment out by taking over one or two maps with the advantage they'll give you. If not, you might want to spend your gold on something else.
- Blacksmith
Gives you ammo carts, which are no more than targets for Liches and Magogs to increase their carnage, and Dragons/Phoenixes to decimate your archers without retaliation.
- Wall of Knowledge
You can't afford to waste wood on this until you've secured Castle, Capitol and Cloud Temple. After that, sure, +1 Knowledge is good to have, worth the buy, and helps your castle defense (multiple Blinds by a level 1 hero, for example).
- Resource Silo
Gives you +1 gems per day and therefore should be built ASAP.
Building order
Assuming Workshop is present, best would be:
1. Upg. Workshop
2. Town Hall
3. Parapet
4. Golem Factory
5. Mage guild level 1
6. Mage Tower
7. Citadel
Alternatively, don't upgrade the Workshop or don't build a Town Hall in favor of building the Golden Pavillion - but if you want to maintain a good amount of resources, this will be the way to go. On Difficult levels, the Mage Tower may not be affordable. In that case, go
1. Upg. Workshop
2. Town Hall
3. Parapet
Then Citadel, Sculptor's Wings, possibly Castle, and head towards City Hall building Marketplace first in case you really run out of wood.
Obviously the building order doesn't really leave a lot of money for actually recruiting any creatures other than Grems 'n Goyles the first week, but that's why Master Gremlins are the way they are.
Always take the money from any Treasure Chest you find, and gain your experience fighting stacks of rather slow level 4 and 5 creatures that you would otherwise fight in week 2 or 3, 100+ Master Gremlins handle those fine.
Heroes
As said, the Tower heroes aren't that good. Wizards focus on Knowledge rather than Spell Power (they will probably need Sorcery), and Alchemists don't really focus on anything.
If you can get Castle's Orrin, you'll be happy.
Otherwise, Wizards:
- Solmyr is pretty good - Air Magic, good chance at Logistics and Earth Magic, and if you start out near an opponents town, early Chain Lightning might allow you to take over that town pretty soon, giving you more gold and more relaxed exploring.
- Halon's Mysticism is good on large maps where you want to Fly, Town Portal and Dimension Door a lot.
- Theodorus boosts your Magi and comes with Ballistics, which I personally don't really care for but some people seem to swear by it.
Alchemists - Neela has Armorer, Torosar has Ballista and Tactics - both considerable depending on your style. Fafner with Nagas would be nice if he didn't start out with Scholar and Resistance.
Secondary heroes: Aine gives +350 gold, Rissa +1 mercury. Josephine boosts your Golems.
Good/bad on which maps
Tower can win on any map, but the poorer the map, the more you'll have to use micromanagement in the first stages, carefully calculating how much you can spend on your forces. If you can take over another town soon, make sure to hire a hero there to take over all the adjacent mines, so you can build your forces quickly AND build Mage Guilds where you can.
Rank among other towns
Probably 4th, after Dungeon, Castle and Necropolis. 5th when you count Conflux.
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tenzor
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 26, 2006 12:52 AM |
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Quote:
Quote:
...Initial stack of master gremlins and gargoyles means great begining - try to compare with stronghold, on small map, tower will wipe them out....
Would love to meet ya with such a setup. You tower, me Stronghold. Small map. 130% at least.
Ok. Will you host the game on Friday 8 PM GMT?
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hobowu
Known Hero
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posted October 26, 2006 10:06 AM |
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uhh... HOMMage, your building order goes for the times you play 160 or 200% right?...
for those people that play online (not me), they always say that on day 7 you should have your cloud temple built....
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HoMMage
Hired Hero
Unundead
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posted October 26, 2006 11:28 AM |
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Quote:
uhh... HOMMage, your building order goes for the times you play 160 or 200% right?...
for those people that play online (not me), they always say that on day 7 you should have your cloud temple built....
Yeah... I don't play online, just campaigns and random maps on high difficulties.
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hobowu
Known Hero
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posted October 26, 2006 01:41 PM |
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that's why tower works so well for you. Chain lightning works wonders against AI, but does nothing if versing another human player... only good magic heroes are probably like Gundula...Thant...and Adrienne 
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HoMMage
Hired Hero
Unundead
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posted October 26, 2006 02:00 PM |
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That is interesting, so what town works best for you when doing Multiplayer online?
For the record, I don't use Chain Lightning much except for some initial map cleaning, but Solmyr gets kinda nice stats and secondary skills as well.
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russ
Promising
Supreme Hero
blah, blah, blah
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posted October 26, 2006 05:16 PM |
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Quote:
Would love to meet ya with such a setup. You tower, me Stronghold. Small map. 130% at least.
This should be fun. I'd love to see you try doing it. Would you like to play me too? I can play today in about 6 hours or on the weekend (after PartyPoker's 15K freeroll on Saturday is over).
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted October 26, 2006 06:20 PM |
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Edited by angelito at 20:18, 26 Oct 2006.
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I'm on Gamespy from now on. Come in and find me, then we start it.
Did the first test right now on gamespy with an experienced online player. Was a wipeout. Tower stood no chance. He even has chosen Torosar to have tactics. He had 88 mastergrems, 4 magi, 6 golems and 8 gargs. I had 25 upgraded wolves, 35 hobgoblins, 13 orcs, 3 thunderbirds and some troggies as fodder. Expert offense and advanced tactics. Tbirds attacked magi, 2 left. Haste on wolves, 2 masters left. Game over. Torosar even got advanced armorer. We met week 1 day 5 btw.
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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tenzor
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 26, 2006 10:07 PM |
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Quote:
I'm on Gamespy from now on. Come in and find me, then we start it.
Did the first test right now on gamespy with an experienced online player. Was a wipeout. Tower stood no chance. He even has chosen Torosar to have tactics. He had 88 mastergrems, 4 magi, 6 golems and 8 gargs. I had 25 upgraded wolves, 35 hobgoblins, 13 orcs, 3 thunderbirds and some troggies as fodder. Expert offense and advanced tactics. Tbirds attacked magi, 2 left. Haste on wolves, 2 masters left. Game over. Torosar even got advanced armorer. We met week 1 day 5 btw.
This great victory has been reached thanks to advanced tactics vs. basic tactic. I also wonder how you can have hobgoblins, orcs, raiders and thunderbird on day 5? You got wolf pen to begining? And what about the number of wolves, somewhat high, isn't it?
By the way, I prefer playing random games with random heroes.
I have also tried this match with friend and with about 60 gremlins, 13 obsidian gargoyles and 6 iron golems. He has about 30 hobgoblins, 15 raiders and 3 thunderbirds. We met on day 5 too.
Thunderbirds couldn't reach my gremlins and died in first round. With help of obstacles, iron golems and obsidian gargoyles blocked raiders successfully. And they died soo quickly, especially due to magic arrows  In the end of battle, master gremlins fought against last hobgoblins but they won.
As for Gamespy, I am playing HOMM III&IV on Macintosh so I am afraid that only Game Ranger and TCP/IP is supported.
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Xarfax111
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
The last hero standing
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posted October 26, 2006 10:23 PM |
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I think tenzor is right...Mastergrems and some magic arrows will win the fight for tower on a normal day 5 meet 160 difficulty.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted October 26, 2006 10:32 PM |
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I started with Tyraxor. Speciality wolves (+1 speed). He starts with 12-19 wolves. Yes, wolf pen was prebuilt.
Day 1 rocs, (found 2nd town day 2, so i built mageguild there) day 2 rocs upgraded, day 3 orcs, day 4 goblins upgraded, day 5 wolves upgraded.
Refering to your example:
How can 3 tbirds die in round 1? 60 gremlins will never deal 180 damage with broken arrow. If your friend didnt wait round 1 but moved them towards your grems, he isn't a very good tactician.
So i think in normal case, your gremlins get 1 shot with broken arrow. Second round, tbirds, wolves and goblins can reach. And orcs shoot.
The only chance i see for Tower is a HIGHER tactic skill to protect shooters, and 1 or 2 gremlin dwellings. Solmyr would be tough to beat that early, coz with 1 chainlightning, he will prolly kill nearly all wolves and half the tbirds.
About the setup:
Yes, I play random town and random heroes 95% of all games myself. But then I play L or XL maps. On those maps, it's not a big deal if u have a weak starting hero and maybe no level 2 dwell prebuilt. But on small map, the starting hero can decide the game, especially if u find a creature speciality hero or a big magic hero like Deemer or Solmyr.
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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tenzor
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 26, 2006 11:32 PM |
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Quote:
How can 3 tbirds die in round 1? 60 gremlins will never deal 180 damage with broken arrow. If your friend didnt wait round 1 but moved them towards your grems, he isn't a very good tactician.
Of course, he could wait but this won't solve anything. With 5 stacks of gargoyles (9+1+1+1+1), no problem to protect the master gremlins. I think that he had no chance to attack them with thunderbirds before they die. Maybe with help of wolf raiders, but 2hex wide walkers can be blocked easily and with offensive units only (no orcs), he MUST attack me.. Of course, he hasn't split his stacks and maybe this was his worst fault.
Quote:
So i think in normal case, your gremlins get 1 shot with broken arrow. Second round, tbirds, wolves and goblins can reach. And orcs shoot.
The only chance i see for Tower is a HIGHER tactic skill to protect shooters, and 1 or 2 gremlin dwellings.
As I wrote, no orcs were on his side - he hasn't got wolf pen like you on 1st day
But no doubt I have underestimated some Stronghold heroes.
Ok, tower really won't wipe out stronghold each time, but I would prefer Tower anyway
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durell
Adventuring Hero
Sub-n00b
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posted October 27, 2006 09:58 PM |
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I played the test game in question vs angelito and realised almost from the very beginning that i had almost no chance.
Stronghold would have owned me even in the hands of a complete n00b....nevermind in the hands of an esteemed player like angelito.
Better tactics is the ONLY thing that would have prolonged the final battle,even then it would only have given me a loss perhaps 1-2 rounds later in the face off.
The game was lost for me as soon as we chose our towns and map size......only extraordinary good fortune would have saved me on these setting(i dont base my standard strategy game on having to rely on luck).
I simplyu suggest trying a test on these settings and THEN come back here and debate your point.....it would be more valid..... be lucky 
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Stars are just pin holes in the curtain of night.
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Metonomy
Tavern Dweller
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posted October 31, 2006 05:42 AM |
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I'm not sure if this has been said already, but a resource silo on the first or second week helps greatly in the long run. I have never had gem problems, and I play on king (200% difficulty I assume?)
And yes, I have sacrificed building a citadel/castle to build the resource silo.
I'm not sure if the review for necropolis is still needed, but I'll still throw it out there to anyone who needs it, I guess.
Necropolis
Advantages
Very good at open-ground assaults and seiges
Strong walker (death knights and skeletons (considering you have them en masse)
Strong flyer (ghost dragon's special, the vampire lords)
Something I call a Wraith bomb - before attacking a magic hero, send a support hero with 7 wraiths. Drains upwards of 14 mana usually.
Skeleton Transformer
Necromancy
Not affected by morale (no need for leadership)
Cheap overall
Heroes (magic-wise, and relatively might-wise)
Relatively balanced
Disadvantages
Again, not affected by morale
Zombies are rarely employed in main army due to their speed
1 low health shooter (death cloud makes up for it)
Weak stat level 7
Slow to climb up unit ladder
Creatures
As I have already mentioned above...
Skeletons, to me, are the best level 1 units in the game, due to the amount one can accumulate, not to mention their above average stats.
Zombies are used for defensive purposes, normally. Their specialty increases their effectiveness for defense.
Wraiths are a mediocre level 3 (expensive sometimes) but have a nice specialty.
Vampire lords, to me, are one of the best units in the game. Combined with the animate dead spell, they seem... immortal(unless you place a stack, dead or alive, on the dead carcass of the vampires).
Liches are perhaps a very debatable unit. Their low health make them extremely susceptible to flyer attacks, spells, and arrow towers. However, if they are well protected, they can wreak havoc among enemy lines, especially during a seige, where the death cloud effect can come into play quite often.
Death knights, in my opinion, are even better than naga queens. I'm sure many people will disagree with me, but I believe that they are better than, God forbid, sultans (heh, the irony). They're above average in stats, with health being the highest (correct me if i'm wrong), but what gives them the edge, is their specialty.
Ghost dragons. They suck. Bottom line. Their specialty is very useful later on, however. If you attack a stack of 50 titans, and their health is reduced to 250, that is the equivalent of... I'm not calculating it. You catch my drift.
Special Buildings
Necromancy Amplifier. I normally build this the first week because of its low cost and increased necromancy (every unit counts when you play against 7 computers on king). Relatively good.
Skeleton transformer. Self-explanatory. Skeletons, skeletons, and more skeletons
Depending on your hero, the holy grail structure could be one of the best or just average. If you have a might hero, and spells are of a lesser importance, I believe that this town's holy grail structure trumps even conflux (reason-being as your opponent will most likely find more use for it than you, and in the setting I play in, your main is going to be taken over in some maps. And more than once.
The blacksmith's first aid tent is relatively cheap, and it comes in handy later on, esp. to provide extra space to guard your liches.
Building Order
I cannot be comprehensive in this, I'm sorry. I don't play online (I probably won't ever) and I only play at 200% level. Therefore, I don't have a strict building pattern. It just depends on the amount of gold I find, the amt of treasure cheasts I find, and the current threat of the opponent.
But for 200% level (0 of everything at start), this is my building order, assuming even have a fort and a level 1 structure.
I will assume that you will find 3 treasure cheasts/gold resource the first day, 2 the second, 1 the third, and .5 every day coming up. I am not taking into consideration gold mines. Resources, I expect you to deal with that. Maps differ.
Start with gold bonus.
I normally start with thant or clavius. Thant clears units quickly with the animate dead skill (combined with wells and a mage guild). Clavius provides an extra 350 gold.
Day 1: Collect skeletons (make secondary hero and town hall)
Day 2: Construct level 2 dwelling or necromancy amplifier
Day 3-Day7: construct mage guild lvl 1, wights, and skeleton transformer
Next week: If you have not been attacked, you most likely will not be attacked for another week. The computer is not rushing. Construct a citadel, a city hall, and get vampires. Recruit wights and skeletons.
Third week: Castle, liches if you have the sulfur. If you don't vampire lords, if you have the gems. If neither, upgrade skeletons and wraiths, recruit everything except for zombies. If computer attacks, upgrade to zombies and recruit them also. If computer doesn't, it's time for you to go scouting.
Fourth week: Capitol and mausoleum and upgraded vampires (if you don't have the resources by now, shoot yourself. or just don't play this setting)
That's kind of how I play, although it varies quite often depending on the way the map is set up.
Heroes
Thant, Clavius, Sandro, septienna, and vokial (lords get an extra space or two, and an increased atk, and therefore more resurrection)
In a non-king setting, I believe Sandro or vokial would be best as a starting hero.
Map
I believe that a medium-sized map and a small map would be suitable. However, i have played all the maps available in the cd (plus expansions) with every race, and necropolis works out alright in larger and extra large maps. I suggest splitting your army into two groups, however. (ghosts, dread knights, and vampires) and (Skeletons, Wraiths, and liches)
Rank
Overall, I rank them number 3, behind conflux (sprites own against neutral stacks, you don't even have to mention storm elementals and phoenixes) and dungeon (black dragons, minotaurs, and harpy hags in terraneous maps, along with the mana vortex, portal, and artifact merchants.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted October 31, 2006 10:44 AM |
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Thanks for that good review, but it is placed in the wrong thread. This is TOWER. Maybe u copy paste your whole post in the NECROPOLIS thread here.
When done, I will delete this post (yours and mine) here.
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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HoMMage
Hired Hero
Unundead
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posted October 31, 2006 03:57 PM |
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On that subject, is there still any need for Town Reviews? Because I have a lot of fun writing them, but the fact that all those threads except the TOWER one have not been posted in for over six months makes me hesitate a little.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted October 31, 2006 06:13 PM |
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If u read all the reviews and u think there is something missing, feel free to add your own. We still have the plan to write a "perfect" review for every town as summary from all reviews of the members here, and add them to AoH.
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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This thread is pages long: 
