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| Thread: Retreating and Diplomacy | |
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Shonji
Tavern Dweller
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posted February 28, 2014 03:16 AM |
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Retreating and Diplomacy
Hi, I am new to these forums, played Heroes 3 for years now and just now trying to get into Heroes 5. I wanted to ask a few things about the 2 subjects.
I want to say in advance I apologize if a thread was already made about these.
I wanted to ask is there some way to prevent the AI or a human player from retreating so easily? I know about Shackles of War but other than that one artifact, it seems every hero and their mom runs away without a care in the world. Does WoG or some other mod reduce it and make it more harming? I feel retreat is to light on the penalties hence why everyone does it so much. It gets annoying fast when you fight someone and they all retreat or pull of an annoying Lightning Bolt then run. I want retreating to be more punishing and make surrendering more likely to happen. Losing your entire army is hardly a punishment since you keep your Hero as well as all artifacts, and armies are often not that hard to remake. (I don't play those massive 50 month+ games, most games I play often end in the 10-20 mark)
If surrendering actually happened, or if someone retreated, the winner still gets experience or even an artifact falls off while they run then it would actually make someone not so easily retreat since they could lose a valuable artifact as well as make the winner actually feel like they didn't get screwed. Retreating should be something doable, but not just press a button and the Hero is safe and sound in town ready to come back out.
If none of the above is doable, would at least Heroes that retreat be gone from the tavern for a short time? Even just a week would make it better. On a smaller note, if a Hero dies, they should stay dead the entire game, I personally find it terrible to have someone lose a Hero and then they buy them back or the enemy buys them the next turn.
I also wanted to ask how Diplomacy works? I read a few times that it is meant to make surrendering cheaper, which is a rarely used choice so it doesn't matter, but it also makes creatures more likely to join you. But by how much exactly? I recall that it said it should almost always make a stack that would run from you try to make an offer to join. I often get Diplomacy when given the chance, and yet never see even a single stack still offer to join. I could have 10 Azure Dragons and even the small group of 50 Peasants wouldn't join, so how does this skill work? Since as it is I am starting to view it as worse than Eagle Eye since at least Eagle Eye DOES SOMETHING!
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Shonji
Tavern Dweller
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posted February 28, 2014 11:36 AM |
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Ok now I am really confused with Diplomacy, I have an army superior to all the neutrals and most if not all Heroes on the random map, but 95% of creatures run away, 1 group of 70 enchanters join for free but the group of 50 run away? A group of 20 titans attack me! and a group of 60 giants will join for gold. And yet 2 stacks of 16 rust dragons each join for free? I am so confused. The rust beat everything here and yet they both happily join me and for free.
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hippox89
Famous Hero
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posted February 28, 2014 11:51 AM |
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Edited by hippox89 at 14:07, 28 Feb 2014.
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About diplomacy, all the math is explained in this thread:
Diplomacy explained
Some hints, on random maps all neutrals will be set to hostile which means that each neutral rolls the aggression dice from 4-10. Neutrals with 10 is savage which means that they will never join or be buy-able. They will still flee if they're afraid of your army, tho. Diplomacy levels makes it more likely that neutrals will flee and thus also if they will negotiate. A hero's attack and defense skill combined + the hero's overall army value is also a factor in this. If the neutrals are not afraid then they will attack. Neutrals with 4-6 aggression is able to join for free, but dependent on the sympathy between your army and the neutrals. Neutrals with 7-9 aggression is buy-able but they will never join for free, again it depends on sympathy (0, +1, +2). Also, use the spell 'Visions' to see what mood the neutral are in compared to your hero.
About retreating, loosing your army by retreating is actually very significant because having more creatures provides you with more momentum for advancing on the adventure map and thus getting ahead of your opponents(s). It will absolutely matter by the end. But tactics and superior speed will let you hurt an inferior army before it can surrender to you.
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Shonji
Tavern Dweller
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posted February 28, 2014 01:53 PM |
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I see, I just always found it strange how you can run into one stack and it runs or even suicide attacks you, but then his buddy, same unit that is twice as strong will join you. I will try playing around with Diplomacy more if given the option. I usually never get it and when I do, it is usually to late in the game to matter so I have a low opinion of it.
I guess retreating hurts in the long run, but you aren't losing your army since by the time they retreat, it is mostly dead already. I don't see it as a lost in the slightest if you lost most your creatures already and dealt some damage to the enemy before retreating without injury at all, or losing some low level troops on a scout. I just think that surrender should be used more often or have a chance of random artifacts to drop if a Hero retreats too often. Like first time it is like 5%, nothing fancy, but the 2nd it ups to 15, 3rd 35, and as it gets higher, the higher the chance as well as more than 1 artifact. Like a retreat or two isn't special, but when another player or the AI runs with the same Hero 5-10+ times, they should be punished, with that many times it should no matter what have them lose at least 1 artifact with a chance of even a few extra falling off during the retreat.
I just really hate retreat spamming is all, I often set a rule where you can surrender as much as you want, but you only get 3 retreats for the entire game. At least surrender the victor gets some benefit, since retreat is literally a big middle finger to the winner, since now they lost a chunk to maybe even most of their army, and didn't get even experience. At least a big lump of gold will make it more tolerable.
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hippox89
Famous Hero
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posted February 28, 2014 02:34 PM |
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Edited by hippox89 at 14:52, 28 Feb 2014.
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Well, in some cases you might be able to do enough damage as to be worth it and then retreat before all of your creatures can be killed off. You can do the same thing by surrendering with little difference, though. But in some other cases you'll be fighting a superior army and thus the exchange will favour your enemy, and in such a case, surrendering can be the better choice. The way I see it, retreating/surrendering allows you to take some risks without it necessarily costing you the game outright. Otherwise, the game might come down to a single fight, which it still can, of course, but not necessarily with this dynamic.
Now, if something is a little OP then maybe it's how diplomacy lowers the surrendering costs by 60% at expert. This is 60% off the 50% that it costs to surrender per creature value when combined and this is without the cost of any special resources added. But I'm not sure it's truly OP. Also, with of any of the diplo arties then you'd only have to pay 30%, 20%, 10% of the 50%! That's almost free surrendering and in such a case, you'd probably need Shackles of War to counter it. 
But a lot also depends on how you play the game. A casual game will probably have some different dynamics than those of a more professional game. Like, if the players in a casual game have 100000+ gold each that they cannot spend than surrendering might seem without much consequence, and so on.
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