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| Thread: Best Alignment: Good, Evil, Neutral |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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c0ldshadow
Known Hero
ig chr0meice91
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posted October 24, 2008 11:07 PM |
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Best Alignment: Good, Evil, Neutral
What are the best alignments for the following groups as teams, and who would have the best forces combined?
Good (castle, rampart, tower)
Lvl 1: Centaur Captain
Lvl 2: Battle Dwarf
Lvl 3: Royal Griffin
Lvl 4: Arch Magi
Lvl 5: Zealot
Lvl 6: Naga Queen (hands down)
Lvl 7: Arch Angel (hands down)
Rank: 3rd place
Neutral (stronghold, fortress, conflux)
Lvl 1: Gnoll Marauder (hands down)
Lvl 2: Storm Elemental (hands down)
Lvl 3: Ice Elemental
Lvl 4: Ogre Magi (hands down)
Lvl 5: Mighty Gorgon (hands down)
Lvl 6: Magic Elemental (hands down)
LVl 7: Phoenix (hands down)
Rank: 2nd
Evil (necropolis, dungeon, inferno)
Lvl 1: Skeleton Warrior (hands down)
Lvl 2: Harpy Hag
Lvl 3: Evil Eye
Lvl 4: Vampire Lord (hands down)
Lvl 5: Power Lich
Lvl 6: Dread Knight (hands down)
Lvl 7: Black Dragon (hands down)
Rank: 1st
Overall ranks are definitely debatable; anything marked hands down is very hard to make an argument against.
Very interested to hear opinions, especially regarding overall rank of the Good, Evil, and Neutral.
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killa_bee
Bad-mannered
Known Hero
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posted October 25, 2008 02:52 AM |
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Quote:
What are the best alignments for the following groups as teams, and who would have the best forces combined?
Good (castle, rampart, tower)
Lvl 1: Centaur Captain
Lvl 2: Battle Dwarf
Lvl 3: Royal Griffin
Lvl 4: Arch Magi
Lvl 5: Zealot
Lvl 6: Naga Queen (hands down)
Lvl 7: Arch Angel (hands down)
Rank: 3rd place
Neutral (stronghold, fortress, conflux)
Lvl 1: Gnoll Marauder (hands down)
Lvl 2: Storm Elemental (hands down)
Lvl 3: Ice Elemental
Lvl 4: Ogre Magi (hands down)
Lvl 5: Mighty Gorgon (hands down)
Lvl 6: Magic Elemental (hands down)
LVl 7: Phoenix (hands down)
Rank: 2nd
Evil (necropolis, dungeon, inferno)
Lvl 1: Skeleton Warrior (hands down)
Lvl 2: Harpy Hag
Lvl 3: Evil Eye
Lvl 4: Vampire Lord (hands down)
Lvl 5: Power Lich
Lvl 6: Dread Knight (hands down)
Lvl 7: Black Dragon (hands down)
Rank: 1st
Overall ranks are definitely debatable; anything marked hands down is very hard to make an argument against.
Very interested to hear opinions, especially regarding overall rank of the Good, Evil, and Neutral.
i only read the first one... naga queen hands down eh? i'd MUCH rather have champions
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c0ldshadow
Known Hero
ig chr0meice91
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posted October 25, 2008 03:29 AM |
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you are right, that could go either way. i overlooked champions but overall i think the no retaliation and increased health and constant damage makes nagas better
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MrCash
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 25, 2008 04:15 AM |
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Edited by MrCash at 04:20, 25 Oct 2008.
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Good gets 3rd place? Sorry, but Im just not sure how that is true. Halbs or centaur captains will annihalate trogs, familiars and skeletens hands down. Archangels annihalate any evil lvl 7 troop there is. I believe good deserves at least second place over neutral.
"Good (castle, rampart, tower)
Lvl 1: Centaur Captain
Lvl 2: Battle Dwarf
Lvl 3: Royal Griffin
Lvl 4: Arch Magi
Lvl 5: Zealot
Lvl 6: Naga Queen (hands down)
Lvl 7: Arch Angel (hands down)"
The naga queen's superiority is debateable. I love them, but they have low def and cost an arm and a leg. Lvl 4 arch magi are nothing compared to crusaders. Halbs beat centaur captains in 1 vs 1. Battle dwarfs? Marksmen are usually better. Royal Griffins dont stand a chance against iron golems.
Anyway, its all a matter of opinion...I personnaly prefer good, though...
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c0ldshadow
Known Hero
ig chr0meice91
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posted October 25, 2008 04:41 AM |
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Good could be ranked above neutral; I see your point. Possibly better than evil as well.
I personally think royal griffins are more valuable than the iron golems because they fly and have better speed. In a large fight I think the griffins are slightly more useful. It is a tough call though.
You could go with crusaders over arch magi. The only reason I picked arch magi over crusaders was so my Good alignment had 2 shooters.
I admit I am not confident at all in my choice of zealots as the best lvl 5 to represent Good. It's just they have such horrible health. Dendroids are pretty much the opposite, although the speed is a major issue. Genies have the spell casting but die so fast.
What do you all think about the level 5 for Good?
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted October 25, 2008 09:34 AM |
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Quote:
Royal Griffins dont stand a chance against iron golems.
Calculating the outcome of a battle 1 on 1 is not the best thing to do.
How many times you fight 1 on 1? Never.
30 royal griffins will always kill 30 iron golems. How? Speed, split, morale. And splitting the golems will not help.
Quote:
Lvl 4 arch magi are nothing compared to crusaders.
Are you sure?  No melee penalty can here help. Reduce spell cost also.
Did you ever try "To kill for power" map to find out which is the best level 7 monster 1 on 1? Not upgraded however. Let's say you start a random map with strong neutrals and you have the option having ONE level 7 monster as gift from the first day? Which you will choose over all others? My choice is not in the list...
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Era II mods and utilities
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 25, 2008 11:25 AM |
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Ok. I'm analyzing the good alignment first.
Quote:
Good (castle, rampart, tower)
Lvl 1: Centaur Captain
Lvl 2: Battle Dwarf
Lvl 3: Royal Griffin
Lvl 4: Arch Magi
Lvl 5: Zealot
Lvl 6: Naga Queen (hands down)
Lvl 7: Arch Angel (hands down)
Let's look at the structure of this army: 2 medium level shooters, 3 walkers, one of them slow, 2 flyers. The Speed structure sucks: Dwarves come with 5, the level 6 is at speed 7. Which means that the army has no threat potential. If you look at the the 3 good alignments, where are their strengths?
a) Castle: extreme damage potential
b) Rampart: extremely dangerous low level shooter combined with extremely solid hit points
c) Tower: combination of shoot/no retal and magic plusses.
All three suffer, for different reasons, in the speed structure department: Castle has to be big a gap between fastest and 2nd fastest; Rampart's solid HPs are too slow; Tower is too slow overall.
So the aim of a combined army has to be to keep the advantages and cover the insufficiencies.
The above setup doesn't do that.
The worst pick here are the Dwarves - hands down. They don't have anything to offer except a lot of hit points and a good magical Resistance. Gargs are flyers and come with speed 9, Marksmen are powerful shooters, both are clearly the better pick. Tactically spoken, while the Griffins are an excellent unit the Elves have a high threat potential. If it's Ramparts biggest tactical asset, why would the combined good faction don't use them?
That means, picking level 2 Marksmen and level 3 Grand Elves will create a massive tactical threat: Rampart+. If we go for that we have cut the slow, but sturdy Dwarves out, adding to the plus. What that means is, we need the heaviest hitter possible to make use of the fact that the opposition can't stand and wait that Elves and Marksmen will massacre them. The heaviest hitters on level 4 are Crusaders, on level 5 Dendroids and on level 6 Nagas. Furthermore on level 1 we have a choice between the more defensively designed Halberdiers (which would be like Dwarves, more or less) and the more flexible, but 2-hex Centaur Caps.
Speed structure is still important, though. Marksmen, Elves, Crusaders, Dendroids, Nagas and Titans may look like a powerful combination of shooting power and slaughtering capacity, but it misses unit speed - the army might be half dead before the first unit actually gets to move. With the fastest non-level 7 available being the Pegasi with a still unsatisfactory speed of 12, Titans for level 7 are out. Moreover, picking THREE slow heavy hitters may seem to overdo it, since we will suffer in speed structure.
So we will have to find the right guards with heavy hit power now and the right speed structure for the rest, starting with either Gold Dragons or Arch Angels.
We basically have only 2 semi-fast units, the Pegasi and the Genies. Both are flyers, both are mediocre. Pegasi are underrated, but that's only because they are so cheap.
Moreover, if we look at level 5 we see that we have a very slow blocker (that has not much damage potential, though), a nondescript shooter that suffers from not doing anything really well and a fast flyer that is a bit vulnerable in HPs. I'd rule the Zealots out.
At level 6, the decision is between a slower no-retaliation tank and 2 faster medium tanks with solid specials, which doesn't seem to crusial a decision at this point.
This means, for reasons of speed we MUST take either the Pegasi or the Genies, but since both are somewhat light on HPs we cannot take both. That in turn means, if we take Pegasi on 4 we take Dendroids on 5. If we take Genies on 5 we take Crusaders on 4.
I think now that Pegasi are on level 4 what Genies are on level 5, however, Crusaders are a lot better on level 4 than Dendroids on level 5.
That brings us to (speed in brackets)
2: Marksmen, shooter (6)
3: Elves, shooter (7)
4) Crusaders (6)
5) Genies (11)
It's clear that we need a speed 9 unit at level 6 due to speed strcuture. I think that both Unicorns and Champion would do. The Champions may have a slight edge and a solid, good usable special, while the Unicorns have an unreliable, but rather powerful special, however, that special will be useless more often than not against the adversaries, a combined neutral (with elemental) and a combined evil (with undead) town, so Champions are the pick of choice here.
That leaves level 1 and 7. I'm going to opt for the more offensive and faster Caps for level 1.
For level 7, this may be more difficult than it looks like. There is no doubt that the Angels are the better unit. However, the Gold Dragons have their advantages as well. Their speed is high enough, and they cannot be Blinded, Slowed and Armageddoned. The double-hex attack will count in an all-out fight.
Which means that it depends on the hero and his or her skills and the town you'd start in. I think that choice would depend.
1: Centaur Caps
2: Marksmen
3: Elves
4: Crusaders
5: Genies
6: Champions
7: Angels/Dragons
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Gregonar
Hired Hero
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posted October 25, 2008 12:00 PM |
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Hah, that's a pretty good analysis. Elves/Marks/Centaur would be a killer combo in early game.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 25, 2008 02:35 PM |
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So let's see for the neutral town, which is pretty boring, actually.
Conflux is unbalanced anyway. It's the strongest town, excelling in low and high levels and having pretty sucky mid level ones. So it's actually a no-brainer to keep the good Conflux units and add better mid-level units. Gnoll Marauders are slow, expensive and pretty much useless in the time when a level 1 should be useful, so for level 1 it's Sprites - hands down. This gives us:
1: Sprites (9)
2: Storms (8)
6: Magic (9)
7: Phoenix (19)
Interesting speed structure. Level 3 is quite obvious, Dragonflies, easily a better pick than Water Elementals, plus they come with speed 13 and are another Flier.
For Level 5, while the Mighty Gorgons are indeed a stand-out unit, I wouldn't feel any pressure to actually take them - the line-up is so fast that I'd prefer T-Birds, with their speed of 11 and being yet another flier.
That leaves level 4, and that one is the most difficult, actually. Ogre Lords suck because they are too slow. With an army having speed 8 as the slowest up to now and that being a shooter I wouldn't want to add a speed 5 unit. They HAVE solid HPs, sure, but they are basically out of any battle as well.
The Basilisks are not worse than the Ogres. Speed 7 and 2-hex creature would allow them to cross the battlefield with Haste, no matter what, and everything considered I'd see both units pretty equal with the advantage for the Basiliks for better speed.
The Energies are worse, but they are Fliers and come two more, making their weekly output not that much worse than Basilisks or Ogre Lords. Their only weakness are Cold spells and have a lot of immunities.
In the end I'd probably go for Basilisks due to their potentially very useful special and their solid damage doing capabilities in comparison with Energy Elementals.
This would bring my line-up to:
1: Sprites (9)
2: Storms (8)
3: Flies (13)
4: Basilisks (7)
5: T-Birds (11)
6: Magics (9)
7: Phoenixes (19)
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doomnezeu
Supreme Hero
Miaumiaumiau
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posted October 25, 2008 03:10 PM |
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Quote:
Did you ever try "To kill for power" map to find out which is the best level 7 monster 1 on 1? Not upgraded however. Let's say you start a random map with strong neutrals and you have the option having ONE level 7 monster as gift from the first day? Which you will choose over all others? My choice is not in the list...
well, 1 on one you can't win the vs. angel fight without spells, so no.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted October 25, 2008 03:17 PM |
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Edited by angelito at 15:19, 25 Oct 2008.
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I think you overact with your unit speeds. There is no need for having 7 ultra fast units when most of them have weak stats in general...or low hitpoints. Just keep in mind you probably need some tough guys to protect your shooters aswell.
The only gap problem I see is between level 7 and level 6 unit, or better said: the unit which has turn after your level 7.
So when you got Phoenixes and then Dragflies (13), you're are doing fine. So I would chose moos over tbirds any time. The only real threat you got against a strong level 7 unit.
And the big tough guys from stronghold are the much better choice for protection than the basiliks.
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 25, 2008 04:17 PM |
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That's your opinion.
There isn't anything to protect though. 
You have to consider the fact that in these 3-somes every army you face is (or should at least be) considerably better than everything you face in a regular H3 game.
The neutral faction lacks ANY shooter power worth the while, which means they cannot sit back and wait that is becomes night or something. I'd probably even go for Wolf Raiders for level 2 just for increased hitting power.
Anyway, sure, Mighties have a lot going for them in terms of hitting power against level 7s, but I tend to think in game terms, not in last battle terms. Looking at the other two possible factions your winning strategy would be speed - the Mighties won't help you against the Skeletons which are a safe bet in the evil alignment, and you are not keen on waiting until you mass a decent number of upgraded Gorgons to really make them count heavily.
Instead with the neutrals I'd try to make it fast and furious with Sprites Flies, T-Birds, FIREBIRDS and Magics EARLY - your winning Conflux strategy isn't wrong when you get better mid level units.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted October 25, 2008 06:35 PM |
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So how would a final battle look alike with your neutral alignment? When would you cast which spell? Against good, and against evil?
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 25, 2008 11:12 PM |
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Too many possibilities. Would depend on the overall situation, the heroes and the army strength.
Ok, let me edit this.
For the evil side the obvious thing to do would be to go with a Necro hero, amassing Skeletons on level 1. As with the Flux you can imagine a Necro being strengthened by the other evil factions and quite obviously this would primarily include the levels 2, 3 and 7. As a matter of fact it wouldn't matter much which one you would go for. You might switch even Efreets in or Minos.
However, the longer the game would last the more the balance would tilt in favour of the evil side.
And this is what I make of it: you'll have an early neutral domnination. Fast overall, lots of fliers, blitzing, having tons of unupgraded level 7s early (4 Firebirds are a lot better in relation to 2 of the other unupgraded level 7s than 4 Phoenixes compared to the upgraded versions), strong magic. Your levels 1, 3, 5 and 7 would be able to take out any town attacked that was not defended with everything a side had, and even then... Anyway, the hero would be fast as well with those fast troops, so they can cover a lot of space. In light of this and depending on the building and resource situation I might still go for Energies on level 4: another flier with magical immunities, keeping it with speed 8 and 18 tiles per basic turn.
The middle ground might be pretty balanced indeed and here it would depend on the specifics of map and situation. If the good side wants to win, it's here. Based on a solid, balanced formation with two extremely strong lower level shooter and massive damage capabilities overall. The evil side may come with Liches and Magogs for 2 splash damage shooters (which is absolutely possible), and in this case good versus evil will be extremely contested at any game stage until the skeletons become unmanagable.
Longer games would invariably go to the evil side.
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Gregonar
Hired Hero
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posted October 26, 2008 09:40 AM |
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Longer games would invariably go to the evil side.
Maybe, a devastatingly powerful start with all those fliers is hard to overcome. Besides, skeleton mass require a lot of fluffing from support units and magic whereas flyer masses can take care of themselves.
Also I might go for wyverns over magics for the same reason you'd take energies over basilisk. There is no way you can get magics across in one turn unless you have tactics.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 26, 2008 10:10 AM |
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Agree about the Wyverns.
The interesting thing would quite obviously be, making a mixed town with all the resource demands of the original structures. where you could indeed pick a dwelling on each level, like, Heroes 3, in 4 style
On first look the good side seems to need quite a lot of wood, while a Conflux with the cheap T-Birds on 5 and Dragonflies on 3 may see you building on 6 what you can easily afford.
For evil I think you have a lot of options: you can pick Gogs or Hags. I'd go for Cerberi, naturally, but some would go for Evil Eyes, I'd think, while on 4 Vampires would be the pick of choice. 5, 6 and 7 would be pretty open. Sure, Dread Knights ain't bad, but I might go rather for Efreets with their superior speed, having a speed 9 unit with the Vamps already.
In any case it might be pretty interesting.
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Gregonar
Hired Hero
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posted October 26, 2008 11:47 AM |
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I just don't see enough X-factor in the evil alignment. I'm not convinced they'd even be better than good. Skeletons would means really slow start, and vampires are worthless without expensive upgrade; and then even with upgrade, they won't really get to use their specialty against smarter humans. All the rest - harpies(no attack), gogs(no attack), cerberus(no attack) and evil eye(expensive and no attack) - none of them jump out at me.
Observe:
Units Damage* population/week Hp/week
harpy 2.5*16 = 40 224
gog 3*16 = 48 208
marks 2.5*2*18 = 90 180
storm 5*12 = 60 300
marks or storms are clearly better
cerb 58.5 325
evil 56 308
grand 112! 225
flies 56 320
only grand elves jump out at me. at least flies go really well with the proposed line up.
I think we must consider also the possibility of matches of lower members only, in which case evil is totally inert compared to the other two. In fact, good actually has an edge especially if the hero has tactics.
cent/mark/elf/sword >>> sprite/storm/fly/energy >>> skel/harp/cerb/vamp
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Gregonar
Hired Hero
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posted October 26, 2008 11:54 AM |
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Also, just on the note of building choices- H4 does this doesn't it? Too bad the game sucks. On another note, I think it'd be much more interesting and even realistic if towns allowed players to build multiple dwellings. I mean what towns has exactly ONE barrack???
This would allow an army of only grand elves!! Hah. Obviously it'd present some problems. Instead of a week of units, I'd much rather just take the cost equiv in mighty gorgons 50 Gorgs a week and nothing else....kind of a cool thought.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 26, 2008 12:18 PM |
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Errm, all mixed towns would have the potential to creep with more than one hero...
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Gregonar
Hired Hero
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posted October 26, 2008 10:07 PM |
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Quote:
Errm, all mixed towns would have the potential to creep with more than one hero...
Yes, and does your God give you a bunch for free?
I think you're missing the main point I which was that evil alignment would start slower mostly because their lower level units have less bite. Good would have the least to lose during this process because of elves/marksmen whereas evil is forced to play hack/slash every battle. Even with no retaliation, it would only mean at most 2 free hits meanwhile shooters generally get 2-4 easily. Not to mention they've much higher dmg to begin with.
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