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86wyp
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 27, 2006 05:33 AM |
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Edited by 86wyp at 06:39, 27 Nov 2006.
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Academy:The Best Race in HOMM5
Hello everyone
I am a homm5 player from China. It¡¯s great to meet all of you here and I am very glad to have this chance discussing races and strategies in homm5.
I have just spent some time looking through the Temple of Ashan Forum. One thing that really makes me surprised is that many players on this forum consider Academy the worst race in homm5 simply because of ¡°useless racial ability¡± and ¡°ridiculous resource cost¡±. I don¡¯t know whether the results of your multiplayer games reflect that or not; however, in the most ¡°advanced¡± forum of homm5 in China, we have draw the conclusion that in version 2.0, Academy is one of the most powerful races, even somewhat overpowered, at least in the first two months of the game.
Currently there is a homm5 match on our forum; many experienced players have taken part in that match and we saw a lot of new strategies. The result may be surprising to you: the Academy won almost all the games against inferno, haven, dungeon, necropolis and sylvan(the new race fortress has not been included in the match).Even the most famous mighty heroes like Deleb, Vittorio, Sinitar and Dougal are not able to stop the supremacy of powerful Academy army.
How can that be?
At first, nobody thought Academy could win so many games, but when a new strategy of Academy was created and put into practice, everyone got shocked. We call that strategy: MMR (multiple-magic rush).
The central idea of MMR is using magic. At the beginning of the game, an Academy player would creep as many as possible and get a level 15+ hero(hopefully) in the third week. Instead of building high level creatures like titan and rakshasa raja, the Academy player would use all of his/her resources to build magic tower and library. In heroic level, an Academy player would normally have a level 10 hero at the end of the first week and 5th magic tower and library in the second week. When leveling up, the Academy players would put all skill points into two or three classes of magic, usually summoning the first, followed by destructive and/or dark magic, sometimes light magic instead of dark magic. What magic to be chosen depends on what magic the tower and library provide and what race they are facing. For example, when the players see slow or confusion appears in the magic tower, they will then learn dark magic skill asap, and when they see deflect missile in the tower and the opposing race is haven or necropolis, they will learn light magic skill. Normally the summoning magic skill is a must have. Of course they would also learn sorcery and enlightenment to improve their magical power. Finally, they would buy artifacts to even improve their power and make artifacts for their army. The interesting thing is, because they creep a lot at the beginning and take over many mines, the Academy players will have nearly infinite resources after the third week which can be used to make artifacts or build titans.
Using the magic, the Academy players can find the weakness of any enemy, and no race is able to defend all types of magic at the same time. In fact, the opposing players even didn¡¯t know what magic they would face in the battle field. Up to now, the only way that seems to be effective against MMR is to rush in the first or second week when the Academy hero doesn¡¯t have high level magic yet. Otherwise, game would normally end in the 4th or 5th week with Academy dominating the last battle.
Here is the most recent game between Academy and Dungeon:
This is Academy hero level 20 Jhora in the 5th week:
Jhora¡¯s skills:
Jhora¡¯s artifacts:
Look at the titans we see that the artifact provide 70% magic reduction, 24% initiative improvement and 3 luck. This is a team of SUPER titans:
The Dungeon hero level 16 Yrwanna:
Yrwanna¡¯s skills:
Yrwanna¡¯s artifacts:
Level 16 for Yrwanna is little bit low but ok. Both heroes have excellent artifacts, Jhora¡¯s are better.
Now lets see the battle:
Jhora has Phoenix, Resurrection, and Implosion. With 12 power and emerald slippers she can deal nasty damage. Further more, Jhora can also use mark of the wizard to make her implosion twice as powerful. Not mention her horrible casting speed. Yrwanna has implosion too, but her mana could only support 3 empowered implosion, and destructive magic are not as useful against golems and SUPER titans as against dungeon army without black dragon; besides, Jhora has resurrection and faster casting speed.
So, this is the result:
Quite one-sided isn't it?
Titans are good, but Academy can win easily without them.
No Armageddon Dragon in homm any more? Now there is Armageddon Gargoyle and Golem
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted November 27, 2006 10:07 AM |
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"In heroic level, an Academy player would normally have a level 10 hero at the end of the first week"
umm, WHAT?  Level 10 with what? You take exp from chests or? If so, DON'T do it.
And what's so special about jhora? Se sucks.The extra point of initiative you can receive on level 20 or so doesn't work with mass spells.
Getting mass-magic schools is bad. BAD. Instead of it, I suggest getting some army-improvements. Seriously.
And on the screenies you've posted, you've defeated much weaker army than yours and your hero had better arties/level. What's so amaizing in trashing a weak army?
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted November 27, 2006 10:47 AM |
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apart from what doomforge said, about your opponent being a weakling  , I see only games against Dungeon (which is the best opponent for academy since resistance artifacts are really anti - dungeon ) , and Inferno ... I don't see a screenshot against 1000+ skelies or 500+ marksmen in week 5! Those are the top towns, so you should compare academy to those , while playing a decent opponent! Only after that you can proclaim academy the king 
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86wyp
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 27, 2006 11:03 AM |
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Edited by 86wyp at 11:14, 27 Nov 2006.
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Quote:
"In heroic level, an Academy player would normally have a level 10 hero at the end of the first week"
umm, WHAT? Level 10 with what? You take exp from chests or? If so, DON'T do it.
And what's so special about jhora? Se sucks.The extra point of initiative you can receive on level 20 or so doesn't work with mass spells.
Getting mass-magic schools is bad. BAD. Instead of it, I suggest getting some army-improvements. Seriously.
And on the screenies you've posted, you've defeated much weaker army than yours and your hero had better arties/level. What's so amaizing in trashing a weak army?
Why not take exp from chests? Do you really need that a few thousand gold? In MMR strategy you don't. From our experience,the most important thing in the first a few weeks for Academy is hero level and the most powerful weapon for creeping is hero's magic.So take exp from chest can make your creeping much faster, and give your hero much more exp/level and much more resources, which make your developing even more easier.
It seems you don't fully understand Jhora's power, maybe she's not the best hero in Academy but she's great.First of all she gets eldritch arrow which is very helpful in the first few days, then she gets arcane training with her which will make her leveling much faster at the beginning.Finally,do you cast ONLY mass spell in the last battle? If not, then windspeaker will give Jhora the right to cast powerful desturctive spells BEFORE opposing hero.Do you still remember swift striker before 1.3?
I am so sad you don't see the advantage of this strategy. I believe you didn't try this strategy before or you tried it in the wrong way, that's why you don't understand the power of Academy.MMR is almost unbeatable in the first 6 weeks.You can learn defence, or luck for example, but will they be more useful than a mass haste?
Will they be more powerful than a phoenix in the FIRST FEW WEEKS? Notice that this strategy is invented for RUSH.It means you will get extremely powerful in the second week with phoenix or implosion or both with you,and you get even more powerful in the following weeks with artifacts and titans.
Much weaker enemy? Considering the fact that the battle took place in the 5th week and it is HEROIC level, how strong army could you get for dungeon? The second battle, if I am right, took place in the 4th week, then what a MUCH STRONGER army could you got for inferno? Yes Jhora got higher level than Yrwanna,but did you think why? The truth is Jhora got higher level because she took chests for EXP at the beginning which made her leveling much faster.
Dont want to be rude anyway.
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86wyp
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 27, 2006 11:09 AM |
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Quote:
apart from what doomforge said, about your opponent being a weakling , I see only games against Dungeon (which is the best opponent for academy since resistance artifacts are really anti - dungeon ) , and Inferno ... I don't see a screenshot against 1000+ skelies or 500+ marksmen in week 5! Those are the top towns, so you should compare academy to those , while playing a decent opponent! Only after that you can proclaim academy the king
You want to see games between Academy and Haven, or Necro? I can give you our pictures for that. Tell you what, Haven did get 445 marksman in the first month but then it got raped by Jhora. Necro? The battle wouldn't last longer than 3 weeks, You will never see your 1000+ skelies but ok, we have games for that, necro got 1k skelies and got raped by Academy, maybe you want to see that.
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted November 27, 2006 11:18 AM |
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I doubt that you can defeat a smart Dougal player leading marksmen ... choosing Light magic + Mass Cleansing & Blessing(maybe also Mass Haste + Righteous Might ) , Defense + Vitality + Protection and Attack + archery(starting skill) + Battle Frenzy... if the game lasts long enough, Logistics and Luck should be his other skills ! Anyway it's true what you said , Jhora is nice with that eldritch arrow start , but taking 3 magic schools for her is useless and stupid 
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86wyp
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 27, 2006 11:29 AM |
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Quote:
I doubt that you can defeat a smart Dougal player leading marksmen ... choosing Light magic + Mass Cleansing & Blessing(maybe also Mass Haste + Righteous Might ) , Defense + Vitality + Protection and Attack + archery(starting skill) + Battle Frenzy... if the game lasts long enough, Logistics and Luck should be his other skills ! Anyway it's true what you said , Jhora is nice with that eldritch arrow start , but taking 3 magic schools for her is useless and stupid
Want to see more proof? fine I will show more competitive games that Academy won by using MULTIPLE classes of magics.
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raistlinz
Tavern Dweller
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posted November 27, 2006 11:39 AM |
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Quote:
I doubt that you can defeat a smart Dougal player leading marksmen ... choosing Light magic + Mass Cleansing & Blessing(maybe also Mass Haste + Righteous Might ) , Defense + Vitality + Protection and Attack + archery(starting skill) + Battle Frenzy... if the game lasts long enough, Logistics and Luck should be his other skills ! Anyway it's true what you said , Jhora is nice with that eldritch arrow start , but taking 3 magic schools for her is useless and stupid
Do you really know how to play academy?
The advantage of academy is endlessly mana & better chance to learn different magics. And you only mention Dougal's skill trees and light magic, but do you think heaven's hero could throw all of those magic before the army crushed? Or do they have enough mana and speed to do that?
It's rush, which means you won't have too much time. Can you make you army as big as 400+ marksman in 28 days?
Don't say it's stupid or useless unless you try it!
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted November 27, 2006 11:51 AM |
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in 28 + 1 I surely can ... if I get Ellaine in tavern it might be a 500+ marksmen army ! And the Reason why I say having 3 magic schools is stupid is really simple : you can only use one spell / turn ! if you have let's say implosion and meteor shower , the other two schools won't get used at all in that battle, so you wasted at least 6 skill points on something that won't help you ! It's the simple concept of passive and active skills ! The passive skills give smaller benefits but they can add the benefits one to the other, in one huge benefit, while the active skills give better benefits but they can't be added one to another !
PS : and also you forget that casting mass spells wastes only half of your initiative, so i'd say i'll have the time to cast them
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raistlinz
Tavern Dweller
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posted November 27, 2006 12:11 PM |
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Quote:
in 28 + 1 I surely can ... if I get Isabel in tavern it might be a 500+ marksmen army ! And the Reason why I say having 3 magic schools is stupid is really simple : you can only use one spell / turn ! if you have let's say implosion and meteor shower , the other two schools won't get used at all in that battle, so you wasted at least 6 skill points on something that won't help you ! It's the simple concept of passive and active skills ! The passive skills give smaller benefits but they can add the benefits one to the other, in one huge benefit, while the active skills give better benefits but they can't be added one to another !
PS : and also you forget that casting mass spells wastes only half of your initiative, so i'd say i'll have the time to cast them
You said that means you really don't know how to take advantages of academy's specialty.
It's rush( I repeat), if I use academy, how can you prepare for the battle? Light magic I guess. But do you know which kind of magic I have? No. Can you guess? Maybe, but it's like gambling, you never know what can I do on the battle field. And uselsss? I'll take that as a joke. Destructive/summon/dark, maybe you can point out which is useless? With expert sorcery, I can use 2 or 3 times of magic while you might just use 1 then you're busy cleansing what I just throw out, do you think you still have time or enough mana? How about a mass slow combine with mass confusion and phinex? Even you have 500+ marksman, what can you do then?
So maybe you can try it for a little bit then we can discuss more.
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted November 27, 2006 12:23 PM |
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raistlinz you don't know what you are talking about man ... Sorcery 2 or 3 times faster faster casting ? looool ... you must be playing another game ... if you cast mass slow, mass confusion etc. , then sorcery doesn't even kick in ! casting mass cleansing for me will be as fast as casting mass slow for you, but i'll probably use mass haste insted. countering mass confusion and mass slow is easy with mass cleansing, and every shot of 500 marksmen means instant death for one of your stacks , no matter which ... titans , rashka , you name it !
500 marksmen @ Dougal do ~ 2000 dmg / turn when blessed ... and there are also the paladins , the imperial griffins , the squires which shield them really nice from ranged attacks ! you obviously never faced a skilled haven player !
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raistlinz
Tavern Dweller
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posted November 27, 2006 12:41 PM |
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Quote:
raistlinz you don't know what you are talking about man ... Sorcery 2 or 3 times faster faster casting ? looool ... you must be playing another game ... if you cast mass slow, mass confusion etc. , then sorcery doesn't even kick in ! casting mass cleansing for me will be as fast as casting mass slow for you, but i'll probably use mass haste insted. countering mass confusion and mass slow is easy with mass cleansing, and every shot of 500 marksmen means instant death for one of your stacks , no matter which ... titans , rashka , you name it !
500 marksmen @ Dougal do ~ 2000 dmg / turn when blessed ... and there are also the paladins , the imperial griffins , the squires which shield them really nice from ranged attacks ! you obviously never faced a skilled haven player !
ok, you talk for real battle, don't you?
When I say 2\3 times, I mean I can do different spells at start, but what can you do? After blessing all you can do is keep cleansing, What about I throw mass curses for 10 times? You still have mana?
What if I cast destructive magic like ice bolt on your marksman with skills like master of ice? Your army won't even get a chance to move. Maybe you can split the army, but then you can't "instant death for one of your stacks". And I won't mention the using of "mark of the wizard".
Marksman is good and I play haven too, but 500? How much money do you have after training this number of marksman? The paladins? The imperial griffins? Do you know this is heroic level? you can have squires as shields, but nothing more. I may never find a skilled haven player or maybe just you think you are skilled? If you're a skilled player, you won't even try this new kind of tactics(which is very popular in the bbs of our country) and just say somrthing like "stupid".
My word is over because if you won't even try it, I can't see why we should talk more. You find a "skilled player", fight once, maybe you'll see what I mean.
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86wyp
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 27, 2006 12:51 PM |
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Edited by 86wyp at 12:54, 27 Nov 2006.
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All rightLet's see another game between the famous haven hero Vittorio and Academy's Nur. Someone may say that Vittorio is not as strong as Dougal. I would say, Dougal is the best hero with mass marksman after the first month, but in the first month, especially the first two weeks, Vittorio is faster and more powerful with his triple ballista and first aid tent. The map was Mystic's Vale.
Vittorio's strategy was to rush Nur before her magic got too powerful, he knew that Nur would not have mighty army in the first two weeks.From the first screenshot we see that Vittorio's army(green)appeared in Nur's minimap on day11 when Nur was creeping,but Nur still managed to go back to her castle in time. More that that, she even got time to creep! How? Just see the following screenshots.
btw: In this game, Nur hit level 11 in 7 days and built 5th level magic tower in 11 days.
The first battle began on day 12,Vittorio had much stronger army, but Nur had Phoenix, Nur won!
This is the last battle. Despite the great loss in the first battle, Vittorio still trained 208 marksman in a few weeks, and he also got cavaliers and light magic.His army was still much stronger than Nur. But did he win? No. Because Nur learned dark magic. Mass dark magic and phoenix and phantom forces dominated the battle. Although Vittorio had magical immunity, his casting speed was too slow without sorcery.
I think this game shows the power of combining two or more classes of magic together. Nur didn't build large army though she had enough resources, because she didn't need it! The dark magic can make the enemy cripple and mass summonings will then crush them.
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted November 27, 2006 12:52 PM |
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i thought you were talking about hard difficulty ... I doubt that you'll have Titans in week 5 on heroic ! Only building the Collossi + Titan building costs huge , not to mention you also have to recruit them ... I doubt that game was on heroic ! but than again who knows what map you played .
and for the casting part... you won't be casting faster than i do, don't you get it ? mass spells use only 50% of the heroes initiative, and sorcery doesnt work in combination with that ! i'll have 4 spells and that is enough : mass haste , mass bless , mass righteous might and mass cleansing !
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted November 27, 2006 12:56 PM |
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what can I say more than : Vittorio was an idiot !
PS : and also heroic difficulty is kind of unbalanced , everybody knows that ... hard is the most used difficulty for a balanced game ! not to mention that you were lucky , and got havez in tavern .. that was a major advantage considering the heroic difficulty
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raistlinz
Tavern Dweller
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posted November 27, 2006 01:03 PM |
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Quote:
i thought you were talking about hard difficulty ... I doubt that you'll have Titans in week 5 on heroic ! Only building the Collossi + Titan building costs huge , not to mention you also have to recruit them ... I doubt that game was on heroic ! but than again who knows what map you played .
and for the casting part... you won't be casting faster than i do, don't you get it ? mass spells use only 50% of the heroes initiative, and sorcery doesnt work in combination with that ! i'll have 4 spells and that is enough : mass haste , mass bless , mass righteous might and mass cleansing !
the magic part has somthing misunderstanding. Let's say you have 4 spells, but first 3 round I can use 3 different kind of curse, you can just bless 1 time then keep cleansing my spells. If I do it many times your mana won't enough.
About the heroic level: In our bbs, most of the players use heroic level. If you don't believe, Try once in hard level, you never make your hero level 20 in 4 weeks. In heroic level, I can make am academy hero like jhora level 16+ in 3 weeks.
If you have some knowledge about mandarin, you can visit our bbs for more details:
http://gamebbs.enet.com.cn/forum-96-1.html
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raistlinz
Tavern Dweller
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posted November 27, 2006 01:08 PM |
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what can I say more than : Vittorio was an idiot !
PS : and also heroic difficulty is kind of unbalanced , everybody knows that ... hard is the most used difficulty for a balanced game ! not to mention that you were lucky , and got havez in tavern .. that was a major advantage considering the heroic difficulty
I see your point: you don't have the good concept of this game and just keep talking dirty words on someone plays better than you. Maybe you can shut up and stop complain the balance and keep training yourself on a new level.
If not, someday on the battlenet, I will use academy and make you shut the hell up!
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TowerLord
Promising
Supreme Hero
Hero of Good, Slayer of Evil
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posted November 27, 2006 01:08 PM |
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but you won't get to live more than 4 rounds man ! dont you understand that ? 500 marksmen will kill one stack / round ( the 4 main stacks die from marsken ) ... and the other from the leftovers !
anyway we are talking about different things here : heroic and hard ... as I told you heroic is unbalanced ... hard is the difficulty you should choose
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86wyp
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 27, 2006 01:12 PM |
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Edited by 86wyp at 13:25, 27 Nov 2006.
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i thought you were talking about hard difficulty ... I doubt that you'll have Titans in week 5 on heroic ! Only building the Collossi + Titan building costs huge , not to mention you also have to recruit them ... I doubt that game was on heroic ! but than again who knows what map you played .
and for the casting part... you won't be casting faster than i do, don't you get it ? mass spells use only 50% of the heroes initiative, and sorcery doesnt work in combination with that ! i'll have 4 spells and that is enough : mass haste , mass bless , mass righteous might and mass cleansing !
Yes we can. Just see the first game I posted, Jhora was able to train 5 SUPER titans in 5 weeks in heroic level.
Are you sure you would have mass cleansing in one month? It seems that you have so many skills to learn, what if you didn't learn light magic or mass effect ability in time? What if you didn't get cleansing in your tower? How many knowledge would you get? As you know, mass cleansing would cost you TWENTY points of mana each time. btw, what level can you hit with dougal in one month in a heroic level game? Even if you got mass cleansing and had enough mana to cast your mass spells, you still need time to wait for your turn to use it after your army were affected by dark magic.Your army wouldn't immune to confusion because of mass cleansing.Don't forget Academy may have motw+implosion which can kill each one your stack with a single hit.
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86wyp
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 27, 2006 01:21 PM |
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Quote:
what can I say more than : Vittorio was an idiot !
PS : and also heroic difficulty is kind of unbalanced , everybody knows that ... hard is the most used difficulty for a balanced game ! not to mention that you were lucky , and got havez in tavern .. that was a major advantage considering the heroic difficulty
If i am right, Vittorio got dougal in that game And Vittorio is not an idiot. OK well he might become an idiot when controled by an idiot
We don't always use heroic level, you can use this strategy in hard level too and it will become even more powerful because you might have phocnix in one week!What can dougal do when facing a phoenix in 10 days?
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