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Groovy
Hired Hero
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posted July 17, 2022 09:05 PM |
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I was playing on impossible. I played both might and magic heroes, two games each. Magic heroes did better because they could rely on Magic Arrow to deal 40 damage in both games, and bless the Harpy Hags in one game. I didn't get Haste in any of the games. I got Slow, but this didn't help against shooters. Might heroes struggled to inflict enough damage to take down the shooters even after Harpy Hags got to them. Neither hero had Tactics. Regardless, Basic Tactics isn't enough for Harpy Hags to reach the enemy line (they have a speed of 9, but need 11).
Level 2 Mage Guild is a major expense in week 2. Trading for 1 mercury or gem is costly but manageable; trading for 5 is not. Even if you have all the rare resources, chances are it will delay you getting Minotaurs or Manticores. This wouldn't have helped the might heroes anyway, unless I also built Mana Vortex, or played on a map where they could easily gain knowledge.
You are correct that Medusas are on par with Beholders when it comes to ranged damage. I forgot because my Beholder contingent is usually much bigger than the Medusa one.
It costs 27,205 gold to recruit a week's supply of Dungeon units, fully upgraded. More if you have external dwellings. A lot less if the map has a Hill Fort. Nothing during a plague. Of course, you have to build up the town first.
A town with a capitol produces 28,000 gold per week. More if you have gold mines, gold heroes, or estates. You also get to pick up resources on the map, and sell what you don't need.
It's simply not true that you always have to choose which Dungeon units to recruit because it's too expensive to recruit them all. This varies from map to map, and is only a chronic problem when you have multiple towns that you are trying to recruit from.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 17, 2022 09:14 PM |
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Oh, come on. You did so much better with Beholders, sure - and you had the gold to buy them. A capitol cost 10.000. It needs Castle and Town hall, another 10.000. You have 1000 per day. You have to invest 5000 to get Town Hall and then another 15.000 to have Capitol. You also need gold to build creature dwellings.
Just name a map already.
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Groovy
Hired Hero
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posted July 17, 2022 10:23 PM |
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Sorry, I thought you were asking The_Green_Drag for a map.
Seeing that you like fighting with multiple heroes and don't like adventure mobility spells, try Reclamation. Just beware that you start with two towns, on different parts of the map. If this is not your cup of tea, I suggest playing purple.
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted July 17, 2022 11:08 PM |
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Edited by NimoStar at 23:09, 17 Jul 2022.
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Getting City Hall with 5000 gold is extremely easy, all prerequisites are cheap. You can get the 5000 gold in early gamer and from starting resources (if not playing in absolute max diff but the game was not meant for this). You can also choose +350 gold starting hero or try to get it from tavern.
Capitol is harder but this is more because you need Castle first, with city hall (which you need anyways) Capitol only costs 5 days income and doubles your daily income. You can full recruit Dungeon and even have excedent,. Artifact merchant also allows to sell useless artifacts. Mines will usually give you more money if only from selling excess resources.
My brother holed up in a Dungeon in an ancient memorable game in All For One and I coudn't beat him since I lost the main battle. He coudn't get out because it was possible I would beat him in the open and if cut from his creatures. But I coudn't get in since with my main hero defeated he had the level advantage over my secondary heroes. Even with much more massive necro armies I still lost because my hero was Magic and his Might.
Beholders are key to Dungeon strategy as are Medusas, ranged capability is never superfluous and specially not so without melee penalty. You can't just let your enemy shoot you down without retaliation, but it's also hard to go with them toe to toe as they are still powerful stacks in melee.
Anyways, the fact this thread devolved into speaking of H3 shows which is the most memorable game already  not even out of prerelease and no longer speaking of SoC
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 18, 2022 12:05 AM |
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Reclamation map's problem looks to be opposition, not flagging stuff. Gold and Sulfur taken in week 1 without hiring stuff, building up to and including medusas, but opposition is near, so you got to be flexible to be able to hire out, if opposition comes too close.
Economy isn't much of a factor with gold mines being abundant.
And, wait, game isn't MEANT to be played on impossible difficulty?
What? It gets a bit silly now.
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Groovy
Hired Hero
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posted July 18, 2022 05:44 AM |
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Indeed, it's about balancing town development and recruitment on different parts of the map that can't reinforce each other, to fight a war on multiple fronts.
Economy becomes a factor when you have to recruit from multiple towns in the same week, though it's more a question of which towns to recruit from than which units.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 18, 2022 07:32 AM |
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But this is a different situation then. I said, that Beholders are good for survival, not for getting jobs done cheaply. Which means, they are good on defense, when you are assaulted. They can harrass an enemy from afar, but can also close down a vulnerable shooter and go hand to hand on them (although you would want the upgrade if you had the choice, due to the +2 speed). On that map it looks like you have to tread extremely carefully, starting with week 2 already, since as blue I saw a glimpse of purple, green and orange already.
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Groovy
Hired Hero
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posted July 18, 2022 12:02 PM |
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What scenario are you looking to play? How affordable units are depends on whether you are playing one town or multiple, and how resource-rich the map is.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 18, 2022 01:19 PM |
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Well. Free For All is good (although it involves a second town, just a village, but still).
I generally tend to dislike XL maps, since they are simple too big. Free For All is L with 8 players, underground being partially available only, so it's ok. I like M maps for 4-6 players which shouldn't be too rich (defeating the purpose of playing on impossible difficulty).
Anyway, if there is easy and early contact the game changes because the point of complete hiring-out suddenly looms as a potential necessity each turn. You need a gold reserve to be able to hire, if necessary, and you need to get the logistics right, while you can't abandon exploration, flagging and building completely. There is no rule of thumb in that situation. (Don't get me wrong, the Reclamation map is very interesting - just not the map to prove or disprove a point with.)
As I said earlier, if you haven't done it, you may want to try out the (regular) Good Neighbors map in SoC. Very nice setup. 4-player map, all positions fixed for all factions. You start with a up to T5 buildable T1 town in one corner and three small settlements T2, all three having a guard tower and a money-giver pre-build - basically trading posts - plus one free medium build space. You also start with 10.000 gold, so you can hire a Wielder everywhere. Interesting set-up.
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Groovy
Hired Hero
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posted July 18, 2022 08:56 PM |
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Where can I find the Good Neighbors map? It didn't come with the game and it's not on community maps.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 18, 2022 09:53 PM |
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It's a regular map. Might have come with the last big update or something.
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Gandalf196
Disgraceful
Supreme Hero
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posted August 17, 2022 04:29 PM |
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So, JJ, still having fun?
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 17, 2022 05:05 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 18:36, 17 Aug 2022.
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Alright, since I just happened to see this thread after a long while off this forum.
Something doesn't feel right after returning to the game. Trying Alreon campaign now, 3rd map. I am still drawn in by the atmosphere and art and everything, but the gameplay is just lackluster. I believe that they went too heavy on the "fast" aspect of the game and too little on the "epic". The first turns of any map are great, you feel there's nice stuff to do, securing resources, planing ahead on the town, doing battles, etc. And by the time you reach midgame, everything feels like a foregone conclusion and there's just no point to go through the motions. At that point I decide to head straight for the objective, or just kill the enemy AI on regular maps. It's just uneventful. Every map after turn 20-30 it's just not challenging anymore. So, not sure how the devs feel about it now. I think their game design, gameplay loop and balancing is kinda backfiring. Maybe with the release next year something changes.
EDIT: I think this guy here made all these points for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWjYhAT2jn0
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 17, 2022 10:58 PM |
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Gandalf196 said:
So, JJ, still having fun?
Yup. 170 hours of play.
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Gandalf196
Disgraceful
Supreme Hero
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posted August 21, 2022 11:35 PM |
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Stevie said:
Alright, since I just happened to see this thread after a long while off this forum.
Something doesn't feel right after returning to the game. Trying Alreon campaign now, 3rd map. I am still drawn in by the atmosphere and art and everything, but the gameplay is just lackluster. I believe that they went too heavy on the "fast" aspect of the game and too little on the "epic". The first turns of any map are great, you feel there's nice stuff to do, securing resources, planing ahead on the town, doing battles, etc. And by the time you reach midgame, everything feels like a foregone conclusion and there's just no point to go through the motions. At that point I decide to head straight for the objective, or just kill the enemy AI on regular maps. It's just uneventful. Every map after turn 20-30 it's just not challenging anymore. So, not sure how the devs feel about it now. I think their game design, gameplay loop and balancing is kinda backfiring. Maybe with the release next year something changes.
EDIT: I think this guy here made all these points for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWjYhAT2jn0
Yeah, pretty much. It's rather shallow, unfortunately. I wish the game were in an earlier state, say 0.3 instead of 0.75, as they said themselves...
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 22, 2022 08:13 PM |
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I wouldn't say shallow yet, it's just not complete. And it's also very possibly because it's early access. Although I would say that the avenue of design is pretty much decided by now. I don't think they will reconsider a rework to the limited stacks or magic system and the balancing around them. The game is too far gone in development for that. My hope for the release is to alleviate the issues with creatures not being unique enough and to add more factions, at the very least. I'd be pleasantly surprised if they added more vitality to the mid to late game, but as I said, design so far feels restrictive to that end. They could definitely make a move with an improved AI, to add more challenge to the game...
To me it would feel like a pretty big shame if this title ended up in a place of no redemption. They absolutely nailed the atmosphere, the graphics and music and overall presentation. Map creation tools are powerful as well, tons of possibilities. I think they need to leverage more the potential of the world they carefully and lovingly put together. This game has the soul of a great spiritual successor, but if it lacks the replay value... It's a big problem.
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Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 22, 2022 10:31 PM |
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Just lacks the AI at this point.
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The_Green_Drag
Supreme Hero
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posted August 26, 2022 09:01 PM |
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Stevie said:
I believe that they went too heavy on the "fast" aspect of the game and too little on the "epic". The first turns of any map are great, you feel there's nice stuff to do, securing resources, planing ahead on the town, doing battles, etc. And by the time you reach midgame, everything feels like a foregone conclusion and there's just no point to go through the motions. At that point I decide to head straight for the objective, or just kill the enemy AI on regular maps. It's just uneventful.
Yeah this is basically the gameplay loop that I experience as well, no matter the map size. The early game (about 10 mins) is fun and promising, mostly because it plays like a heroes game, but the lack of rng and faction differences gives me a Been There, Done That feeling if I try to play through the same map with a different faction.
I don't like calling it shallow either but I can't think of a better description tbh. The game is basically complete and this is all there is to it. They're working on random map generators, developing sim turns further, and making a new campaign at the moment; none of which will have an effect on the game play loop mentioned above.
They recently denied the simple Make factions more asymmetrical after it gathered almost 1.5k upvotes, citing, "We have chosen to "deny" this feature request not because we think it is a bad idea, but simply because with the current design of the factions, it would be very much work to re-design and make them much more asymmetrical. However, we will add more unique traits and abilities to the various troops of the different factions, which will to a certain extent, make them play a bit more asymmetrical." - admin
So thats a fat NO to any unique research or buildings. And whatever handful of new traits or abilities coming to the current factions are likely to not have much of an impact, if at all. Something along the lines of an aura that gives +/- to a stat that doesn't have an aura already, which isn't many. Something that fits nicely into their rather shallow game play and doesn't shake things up at all. What a bummer. Huge waste of potential.
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted August 27, 2022 08:47 AM |
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It's evident that any Heroes game (with the sole possible exception of Heroes 1) is more complex and multi-layered than this, plus obviously more single-player geared. With greater spell variety, more magic depth (yes creature essence pips don't give depth, just make this a mobile-like game), subtler hero progression and skills and greater variety of factions and creatures.
Pretty pixel art aint gonna make up for oversimplified game mechanics.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted August 27, 2022 12:06 PM |
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This thread is pages long: 
