Quote:

---

This is the final iteration of ULTIMATE mod done with the mostly default game engine. If there are ever further versions, they will be done with more advanced modding techniques and the game will be significantly altered.

This is focused on bugfixing, summoning, and elemental rebalance and abilities.

See below for "full changelog", there is a lot of things this time around.

________________________

Heroes 4 Ultimate Mod V7 changelog
________________________

TERRAIN
________________________


V* Added small green patches (number three, or "tactical") to "Rough, rocky" terrain

V* Added better descriptions for rivers and terrains that use grass in combat due to NWC's oversights.

V* Changed faction recruitment backgrounds for Might and Life. Now Might image shows their native Rough terrain.

V* Changed Sand terrain background for town screen in Haven/Life town so it is no longer ugly as before.

________________________

ANIMATIONS
________________________

V* New fireball and implosion animations, courtesy of Unknown_dark_g

V* Recolored/substitued two swords "cat reflexes" spell anim, since now is Order's Phantom Strike.

V* Changed "mana potion animation" to be like Mana Vortex.

V* Altered Elf portrait hair color to not look as unnatural.

V* Slightly altered Forest Warden portrait.

V* Altered Earth Elemental portrait to better reflect its Stone Gaze new ability.

________________________

ARTIFACTS
________________________

Rebalanced several artifacts after checking their actual use.

V* Angel's Blade made into Treasure from Minor, after seeing that the +50% damage to undead only applies to the hero, not all creatures. Description updated.

V* Greatsword -50 gold cost after seeing it only gives +12 melee attack, not +13. Description updated.

V* Purse of Penny Pinching made into Treasure after seeing that it only diminishes cost of recruiting creatures in 10%. Description updated.
** Can only occupy misc_4 because it is not stackable.
-> This could still be worth Minor considering it affects the whole town as long as a hero with the artifact is there...

V* Axe of Legends now (back) in Relic category.
V* Axe of Legends was still too close to Sword of the Gods to my taste, so I made it Left-handed, for a more offensive style (replacing shields).
** This means you can get +90% creature damage with Axe of Legends and Sword of the Gods in one hand each
*** Renamed to Axe of Leftends to remind people.

V* Changed viewing crystal to not uselessly use Ranged artifact place (now neck, to be combinable with left hand telescope and ring birds)

V* Ring of Warlords and the Defence one given a fixed ring location (right and left respectively). This works so you cannot stack two Ring of Warlords in the same hero to get +40% attack to all army, for example. You must settle for +20% attack and +20% defense.

V* Made many wands into "charms" that can be used from the Neck slot, to not waste the right hand in things such as casting Bless and Curse. This makes them more useful in general. Animate Dead and Illusion are still right hand Wands because of their power (they have potential infinite illusions/animate since they recharge mana during combat - animate creatures may end with lack of bodies, but illusions don't).

V* Several chains moved to Misc slots, such as all five "skill emulators" (Summoning, Resurrection, Necromancy, Diplomacy, Charm).
** Diplomacy doesn't stack so it uses a fixed Misc slot to not confuse players.
** Necromancy doesn't stack so it uses a fixed Misc slot to not confuse players.
** Charm artifact is now a handband (uses Ring slot), since it can stack up to two at once only.
*** Descriptions of skill emulators updated.

V* Renamed Master's Spellbook into Expert's Spellbook - Since it only gives "expert" level spells, not Master ones.

________________________

MAPS & CAMPAIGNS
________________________


V* Fixed a serious passability bug in Dogwoggle last mission.

V* Added more decoration to Spazz mission 1/4 (ULTIMATE exclusive).
V* Passability, landscaping and playability improvements to spazz mission 2/4.

V* Active player fix in Price of Peace (Emilia-Order) mission 4.

V* Fleshed out mission 4 in Erutan Revol's campaign (ULTIMATE exclusive)

V* Added polish campaign partial translation (beta) by Shaylo.

________________________

MAP OBJECTS
________________________

TODO- Tutors have to look like actual people and not floating sprites of nonsense. Use/recolor Equi standing heroes map objects.
...Small and not animated. What a deal breaker. Do I have to do everything myself?
... The big creatures would be enough in theory but are insuficient in practice. Tere is also the matter of players confusing them for actual monsters unless they are completely recolored and effects added (would use gimp border glow if not for changing frame sizes...).

V*+ Added artifacts/items/parchments for more creature banks that didn't give anything interesting before. For example, you can now find Items in Red Dwarf Mines.
* Now the Temple of Light always has at least one Angel guardian

V* Changed Magic Lamp creature bank so it has different colors (orange checker, red smoke) to distinguish it better from the default place to recruit Genies.

NEW OBJECTS
(find in editor under "Rpack" -> "ULT")

TODO* Recolor (to red) green vapor in my Magic Lamp, and move to ULT objects
TODO* Add Mermaid dwelling and Megadragon dwelling.
TODO* Add dead-dirt and ash-covered undergrowth vegetation recolors.
** There is already some dead-ish vegs for volcanic in the combat objects. Convert, resize.

V* Added several new terrain overlays...
v* Mossy ruins
v* Desert ruins
v* Snowy ruins
v* Ice sheets
v* Paved plaza
v* Dead farm

V* Added several Babylonian-style city objects

V* Added several Mesoamerican city objects

V* Added several Middle Eastern objects
* Includes arab-style pirate islands, treasure island and dock.

V* Added three church variations in East Slavic style
* Temple of Light
* Life Conservatory
* Ogre Magi dwelling

________________________

COMBAT MAPS
________________________

- Added more object variety for Subterranean battlefields.
- Adjusted the ocurrence rate of some obstacles for diverse environments.

________________________

SPELLS
________________________

V* Re-enabled Bloodfrenzy.
V* Bloodlust reversed to default.
V* Zombie Apocalypse now replaces Bloodfrenzy instead.

V* Reduced by 10% the power of Rally the Hordes for heroes.

V* Fixed previously missing icon for Life Ward.

V* Zombie Apocalypse +33% power.

V* Sacrifice spell (second phase) counts as healing.
V* Sacrifice spell (second phase) resurrection works on elementals (after all, "sacrifices to the gods" and all that).
V* Sacrifice spell description now specifies that only it works on creatures (not heroes).

V* Power of Elemental summons was slightly adjusted.

V* Adjusted power of some other higher-level summons.

V* Phantom Strike (ex Cat Reflexes, now Order) specifies in description it works both for ranged and melee attacks.

V* Modified the Harvest hand spell. Either make unilateral with less power, or change for a completely different spell. It had the "AI suicide" problem much like Experimental Shock.
V-> Made unilateral.

________________________

HEROES
________________________

V* Movement percent changed for heroes in the following way:
100% -> 135% ... No Pathfinding
100% -> 140% ... Basic Pathfinding
100% -> 145% ... Advanced Pathfinding
100% -> 150% ... Expert Pathfinding
125% -> 175% ... Master Pathfinding
150% -> 200% ... Grandmaster Pathfinding

In practice and due to unknown factors, this only changes hero base movement slightly, from 25 to 30, as if 15 is the base used (perhaps there is an unaffected pre-base of +10).
Grandmaster Pathfinding makes hero movement 45.

V* Terrain movement penalty reduction updated in the following way:
.0   -> .0   ... No Pathfinding
.25  -> .25  ... Basic Pathfinding
.50  -> .50  ... Advanced Pathfinding
1.00 -> .75  ... Expert Pathfinding
1.00 -> 1.00 ... Master Pathfinding
1.00 -> 1.25 ... Grandmaster Pathfinding
(no terrain curently has 2.25 movement cost, the greatest being the swamps at 2, so the last one is largely ceremonial; grandmaster still gives extra movement.)

V- Update Pathfinding descriptions.

.-> These changes mean that creatures walking with heroes will be some % faster in the adventure map than creatures without heroes by default. Be mindful of the gameplay implications.

V* Added some new unique hero appearances, such as the blue Efreet (used for male genie heroes) and the red genie (used for female efreet heroes).
V* Removed the map appearance of some creature-specific heroes as to not be confused with "free creatures" in Adventure mode.

V* The hero Kineta no longer uses the "Harpy" appearance, sice we have few human Impostors and the Harpy isn't a chaos unit anyways in H4. Instead, the appearance was given to might heroes Vix and Lanya.
V* Kamses III made into Kamsesa III, female. This may fit the portrait better, also there was already an excess of male necromancers due to campaign ones.

V* Sephinroth description updated to better fit with the H3 characterization of the heroine.

________________________

CREATURES
________________________

V* Changed to Gloom Sorceress from Toxic Sorceress.
Explanation: Toxic Sorceress used a color scheme and ability kinda unfitting for Order (poisoning), which was already being used on numerous other creatures (Rogue, Hydra, Zombie, Frostwight...)
Now uses Hypnotize instead, which is only used by Succubi and Mermaid. Gloom Sorceress due to high movement and teleport and attack and return could hypnotize from anywhere, making it more unique.
Recolored to blue. Changed adventure map stand with fidgeting.
[The other alternative was Freezing Attack, but since Genies are also an order spellcaster which now freezes on melee, I deemed this less unique in context.]

V* Nightmare has Chaos Ward, bringing the Chaos Warded creatures up to three (same as Life and Death ward)
V* Nightmare -1 DEF.
V* Efreet +3 DEF, since it is hard to compete as a creature vs Nightmare.

V* Ogre Magi has Death Ward, bringing the Death Warded creatures up to three (same as Life and Chaos ward)
V* Ogre Magi +1 ATK and +1 DEF.
V** Ogre Magi now has Mana Leech ability. Description updated.
* Ogre Magi has Bloodlust ability back, instead of Zombie Apocalypse, due to game stability/map loading concerns of disabling Bloodfrenzy required for this at the time.

V* Ice Demon -1 Growth (5 to 4), +1 defense, +1 max damage, +20 gold cost -9% spell summon HP, +6 XP.
V* Succubus -1 min damage.

V* Rogues -3 movement (24 from 27)

V* White Tigers -2 DEF, -1 HP ; they have to rely a bit more in the extremely powerful first strike + binding combo.
V* Satyr stats adjusted slightly.

V* Thunderbird initiative increased.

V* but increased Devil's summon power to partially compensate for Horde power reduction in this case.
V* Devils start with 10 SP instead of 7, meaning they only need two Imp charges to summon again.

V* Champion combat footprint slightly smaller so they can pass through allied ranks in default formation.
V* Champion base damage slightly (-7%) reduced since this change gives more possibilities for Charging.

V* Dragon Golem recolored, to show significantly changed abilities from original. Also fits more with Copper Golems, and allows Dragon Golem hero to look different from the creature.
ny- Recolor portrait too to match.
x* Changed Mechanical Dragon (Dragon Golem's) fidget anim from walk to melee_up, and added walk as (unused) blocking anim.
v** Changed fidget again, to Flinch animation. Since they are mechanical with unlimited retaliation you will seldom see them flinching (only vs no retaliation units such as Nomads, which are rare, and when under certain spell effects); while being three-time melee attackers you will see them biting plenty.
ny***Actually do hybrid melee_up and flinch

________________________

ELEMENTAL REBALANCE
________________________


V* Made Earth Elementals back into melee and gave Stone Gaze (summoning and ranged attack once/twice isn't necessarily a good combination, since it encourages your summons to die; at least Leprechaun has no melee penalty and is low level). Change stats (reduce damage/atk).
* May modify Earth Elemental portrait (and potentially sprite itself) with more glowy/glare eyes to show stone gaze.
* Change Earth Elemental creature description.
Final abilities:
** Elemental
** Fly (wut, we need a flying elemental)
** Stone Skin
** Stone Gaze
(+** 50% Magic Resistance)
* Earth Elemental -2 max damage, but creature growth has been standarized with other elementals.

V* Made Air Elementals ranged. Removed First Strike.
* May recolor sprite/portrait to show change. (Sprite could be darker/slightly sharper)
* Change Air Elemental creature description.
Final abilities:
** Elemental
** Teleport
** Insubstantial
** Ranged (14 shots)
[Ranged uses original melee, Melee uses fidget, Fidgeting uses walk]
* Air Elementals movement somewhat reduced (around 7%) since escaping as ranged is more powerful. It's still the fastest ranged unit and can completely skip around several creatures.

V* Despite some previous nerfs, Water Elementals continued to kick ass, easily beating all other elementals in combat (even Earth Elementals with 50% magic resistance)
* Water Elemental -4 Mana (one less Ice Bolt)
* Water Elemental -15% spell power.
In return they lose the negative ability Cold Attack since they don't look very cold and Cold Resistance gives immunity to Ice Bolt anyways. This will probably only encourage the snows...

V* Fire Elemental +4 HP, +1 Min DMG.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Elemental stacks fight results:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Air Elementals VS Fire Elementals
* Air Elementals WIN in all cases.
+ 1.00
Air Elementals VS Earth Elementals
* Air Elementals LOSE if they are AI, but a human player will have Air WINning easily due to ranged and escape ability.
+ 0.50
Air Elementals VS Water Elementals
* Air Elementals LOSE in all cases.
- 1.00
Total balance:
+ 0.50
Notes: High speed to escape means high usability against everything but magic damagers and stronger archers.

Fire Elementals VS Air Elementals
* LOSE; - 1.00
Fire Elementals VS Earth Elementals
* WIN most of the time, but Earth could win if they don't split or if they carefully avoid breath attack.
+ 0.50
Fire Elementals VS Water Elementals
* LOSE in all cases.
- 1.00
Total balance:
- 1.50
Notes: Fire Elementals may actually be the weakest ones, since nothing "nerfs" them Vs other elementals yet they still perform mediocrely to bad. It should be noted that both range and magic counters them while in melee they are a match for Earth while being 93% faster, but considering they are immune to Stone Gaze while Earth still takes 50% damage from Fire Shield, this isn't that much of a compliment.

Earth Elementals VS Air Elementals
* LOSE vs human players; - 0.50
Earth Elementals VS Fire Elementals
* LOSE most of the time considering Fire Breath; - 0.50
Earth Elementals VS Water Elementals
* WIN unless water; + 0.75
Total balance:
- 0.25
Notes: Considering other elementals are immune to Stone Gaze, the growth-enhanced Earth Elementals perform just fine. Nobody can defeat Water Elementals on water and both other elementals actually lose outside of water too, so Earth is fine if we consider that and the only (partial) "counter" to them amongst the elementals, disregarding Ice Demons.

Water Elementals VS Air Elementals
* WIN all cases; +1.00
Water Elementals VS Fire Elementals
* WIN all cases; +1.00
Water Elementals VS Earth Elementals
* LOSE unless on water; -0.75
Total balance:
+ 1.25
Notes: It must be noted that Water Elementals still inflict near 70% losses on Earth Elementals even on land. Nothing can defeat Water Elementals on shipboard (water) fights due to their bonuses.

BONUS Ice Demons
Ice Demons VS Air Elementals
* LOSE in all cases
- 1.00
Ice Demons VS Fire Elementals
* WIN
+ 1.00
Ice Demons VS Earth Elementals
* LOSE in all cases
- 1.00
Ice Demons VS Water Elementals
* WIN for the Demons on land, Ice Bolt immunity is key here, though the Demons still have a tough fight.
+ 0.75
Notes: These scores aren't counted on the other elementals since Ice Demons have another faction and are stronger and more expensive per-unit.
Total balance:
- 0.25
Ice Demons are balanced save for Water Elementals on ships. The weakness of Fire Elementals is once again evident, though again they are faster than Ice Demons (+55%).

________________________

FORMERLY Remaining bugs:
________________________

x* Any maps/campaigns that make reference to the "bloodfrenzy" spell (which is set to unlearnable), for example in events, will be unopenable and unplayable in the mod and the mod's editor (the spell can be set to scrolls or parchments, it will just do nothing; but trying to read "learn" events will crash the game). The manual solution to this is opening the map/campaign (with the normal, unmodded map editor) and replacing the spell (for example, with "Bloodlust" [Zombie apocalypse] or Inferno). This is not fixable if I want to change the Ogre Magi's spell.
** In the future, either a mass spell plugin, or knowing where are creature's spellbooks stored could allow for a full fix to this.
** A fake partial "solution" is to turn bloodfrenzy to the partially implemented "might" school. This will make the game crash whenever you would see the spell in your spellbook (such as while equipping a Bloodfrenzy scroll), as well in other cases, but otherwise prevents the "unloadable map" problem. Since the instability generated by this "solution" is greater, I opted not to change this.

-> I re-enabled Bloodlust to fix this. Now "bloodfrenzy" (zombie apocalypse) can be added normally and the game never crashes because of this.

---

Quote:

---

Pete is now sus

---

NimoStar said:

---

PS: The system is rigged against me, teasers get QPs but not a release of this magnitude with a gigantic changelog and hundreds of hours of work and testing

---

NimoStar said:

---

I didn't see that, sorry.

But anyways it's standard practice to have new threads "for the same mod"

---

Quote:

---

Oh well, I will just post future threads in the other Heroes forum.

---

Quote:

---

Seems like a paradox that you say the new warriors "suck" and at the same time early battles against Warriors are "unwinnable" due to unlimited retaliation.

---

Quote:

---

Since in A Pirate's Daughter you get Rogues, Orcs and Pirates, all 1st level that allows you to not get retaliated against, this should be unusually easy if retaliation is your problem.

---

Quote:

---

As it stands, only two level 1 creatures have unlimited retaliation: Warriors and Wolves.

---

Quote:

---

mainly because of how much of a ridiculous early game advantage they gave a Might player who knew how to use them. Anything remotely balanced would suck in a 1-1 comparison.

---

Quote:

---

For a neutral stack of creeps? It's amazing, completely negates the ability to tank.

---