After-Action Reports

[Kristo]

I am outright stealing an idea from the GalCiv 2 forums: a thread dedicated to after-action reports (AARs). The idea here is someone posts a detailed summary of how a game went (win or lose) and everyone else asks questions, offers tips, etc. I picked the Heroes I-IV forum because, well, most of my AARs will be Heroes 2. Of course, H5 games are more than welcome as well. To give everyone an idea of the sort of discussion this will generate, see this thread about the Heroes 2 map Revolution.[/b]

[Kristo]

Since I started it, I might as well post one. Here's a game from last night:

King of Death (H2 PoL)
Size: Small
Difficulty: Hard
Player: Green Warlock

The goal of this map is pretty simple: you and one opponent race to capture the AI-controlled Necromancer castle in the SW corner. That is, provided you survive the first three turns. One look in the editor and it's obvious that Blue's position is HORRIBLE. Both players start with a Red hero a few turns away, but Blue starts in swamp with a long walk to reach his mines. Needless to say, I lost badly on the first couple of tries. I decided to "cheat" and switch to Green player (who starts in grass) and pick Warlock.

I bought the Nest and Crypt in the first two turns and bought out the creatures. After flagging the ore mine nearby I retreated home at the sight of Red. Bought a Mage Guild and (phew) got Magic Arrow. A 30 damage spell, a castle wall (!), and the garrison tower were enough to put my army over the top. Now I can breathe. It's about this time that Blue was vanquished. Greeeeeat. After kicking aside some Orcs to grab the chests (spell power up to 7) and resources they guarded, I stopped home for a fresh load of creatures on day 8. Armed with a nastier Magic Arrow, I took the town just SW of my home castle, also Warlock. I only have one goal at this point: Black Dragons.

I cleared out all the resources in the common dirt area and killed off the other Red hero when he came after me (spell power up to 8 now). Fast forward a bit from here to week 6. I now have 3 Black Dragons ferried out to my main hero and decide to see how much Red built up Blue's (Knight) castle (I never bothered with a Thieves' Guild). Answer: fully. 6 Paladins, 22 Champions, 20+ Swordsmen and Veteran Pikemen, and ~50 Rangers. Umm, yeah. I surrendered for 2k gold with 1 Dragon left. But then my luck turned. I rehired my hero, turned the calendar page into week 7, and it's Week of the Black Dragon! Awesome.

I'm starting to think I can win this with nothing but Black Dragons. Well, almost nothing. I purchased as many Dragons as I could afford and cleared out some Magi. They guarded an Arcane Necklace (+4 spell power), a Genie Lamp with 4 in it, and a Shrine of the Second Circle containing Lightning Bolt. It's on now. I ferried the last of my Dragons down to my hero and busted into Red's territory.

The final battle was very anticlimactic. I'm sure the AI had calculated I couldn't reach his castle because his main hero left to evenly distribute troops amongst the five (!) heroes. There was almost no room for them to move. The AI failed to figure in the Stables nearby however. I charged in, swept aside a Sorceress carrying a dozen or so Vampire Lords, and waltzed into the castle.

I had 16 Black Dragons and 4 Genies against 61 Mutant Zombies, 22 Bone Dragons, and 42 Royal Mummies. Despite my 14 spell power, all I really needed was one Slow spell. I Slowed the Bone Dragons and killed the Mummies. Then the Mutant Zombies lined up the Bone Dragons for me. Oops. One no-retaliation hit from my Dragons and a stack-halving attack from the Genies and it was all over. My only losses were the 4 Genies.

Final result: 53 days, score 159, Troll rating.

[grobblewobble]

I'm starting to think I can win this with nothing but Black Dragons.

That's a general rule of H2, not an exception. Black dragons grow 900 HP a week, with top-level attack/defense and anti-magic. Once you have about five of them, in the hands of a competent knight or barbarian, you're almost invincible.

Imo, warlocks are one of the worst types of heroes for dragons unless you have armageddon. But getting armageddon takes huge piles of sulfur and other stuff, while you already need all the sulfur you can get for the dragons. To make it worse, even if you do manage to build a level 5 mage guild *and* a black tower (within reasonable time), you still cannot count on getting armageddon.
You said your spell in the final battle was slow. A knight or barbarian could have cast that spell for you just as well. Slow and blind are the best options in many situations! Just think of all the extra havoc your dragons would cause with the superior attack/defense. And how much better you would have done against the knight army.

Ok, now I don't have PoL unfortunately (really should consider buying it), so I will give an AAR of one of the maps in the original Succession Wars version.

This was perhaps the best game I played so far, at least it got me the highest score so far.

map: terra firma
difficulty: impossible

You start out with one wizard castle, with two hostile wizard castles as close neighbours. Goal is to capture a heavily guarded necromancer castle at the other end of the map.

The first two days I hired grabbed as much gold as I could and visited a nearby halfling dwelling, hired a barbarian and gave him all of the halflings. In the first week the barb raced between the three wizard castles to capture them. It was somewhere in the early second week, I think, that I had control of the three castles and eliminated the enemy heroes. An unexpected boon was that the first week happened to be week of the steel golem.

So that gave some time to breathe and think about the next goal, capturing the necromancer castle. Homm2 is all about the level 6 dwellings. Time to concentrate on getting titans. Unfortunately, the only source of gems nearby was a single mine (I knew because of a watch tower), and it wasn't even that close. So one of the heroes took a sufficient army to kill the guards and get it.
But then I took a closer look at one of the artifacts and recognised it as the pouch of gems! Not easy to get, however, as it was guarded by several green dragons.
Following the rock/scissor/stone logic of walker/flyer/ranged units, I reckoned it would be best to take them on with a heavy walker type unit. Then remembered it had been the week of the steel golem!
Buying all of the golems was a big investment, but worth it. About forty golems bashed the dragons down without too much trouble. The endless pouch of gems was mine!
The only thing that remains to be said about the rest of the game is that I was a bit too optimistic at first and rushed the final castle a bit too early. I had to reload from a saved game and was more careful on second try. Finished in 40 days, for a rating of 352. It's still the highest score I ever got.

[Darmani]

You said your spell in the final battle was slow. A knight or barbarian could have cast that spell for you just as well. Slow and blind are the best options in many situations! Just think of all the extra havoc your dragons would cause with the superior attack/defense. And how much better you would have done against the knight army.

I half-disagree with that statement. Blind is a lot better if you don't have to recast it all the time.

[Metathron]

Just a comment: Wouldn't it be better to have a separate thread for each map that is being played? Because it seems to me that having everyone post their findings on a random map and commenting back and forth will be chaotic at best.

[Kristo]

Ok, now I don't have PoL unfortunately (really should consider buying it)

If you ever get it, try Valley of Death on impossible. My original best was 13 days, improved to 9 days with help. Final score: 413. Ghosts are so much fun.

An unexpected boon was that the first week happened to be week of the steel golem.

Oh that's a winner right there. Even without this event, I think you can cut a week off your time if you forget about Titans. A bigass pile of Steel Golems and the Slow spell will win you this map almost by themselves. Max them out and bring along as much of the other stuff as you can afford. I wouldn't bother upgrading your Magi - their job is to attract attention. Every week sooner you launch your attack means 3 fewer Bone Dragons to deal with. The fastest time I've heard of is 28 days. My fastest is 33 or 34 I think.

Just a comment: Wouldn't it be better to have a separate thread for each map that is being played? Because it seems to me that having everyone post their findings on a random map and commenting back and forth will be chaotic at best.

You're right, but only if this thread becomes popular. Let's see how it goes and if it gets too crazy we can start new threads for each AAR.

[grobblewobble]

Ghosts are so much fun.

Yes, I sure missed the experience of being able to fight with ghosts.

Oh that's a winner right there. Even without this event, I think you can cut a week off your time if you forget about Titans.

Thank you for the advice. Next time I will try a direct attack.

[PhoenixReborn]

Yes, I sure missed the experience of being able to fight with ghosts.

It's not as much fun as it sounds.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

I have bought PoL the day it came out and I cannot even remember having used Ghosts once.

The only map with the Ghosts dwelling I have played was Dragon's Eye... and when I discovered it, I had already pretty much won the scenario. ( I erased it from the map immediately afterwards). I'm surprised the AI didn't recruit any.

They're the most unbalanced thing ever. I'm glad they were included, but mapmakers should be more responsible with them, for crying out loud. Especially the game developers themselves!

[Darmani]

This thread deserves to be resurrected.

This report is based on both memory, and the fact that I used 12 distinct saves throughout the course of the game, some of which I never re-used or did not re-use, and only three of which I overwrote in the game I played between finishing this game and now (on a much easier map, of course).

I played this game over the course of a week. I sometimes only played one turn per sitting, as at some points I would have to do quite a lot of things per turn (defend against multiple heroes, move troops, build things, capture mines, explore, prep garrisons against heroes who would be attacking next turn, etc), which could be rather stressful. As a result of the time gap, my memory of the first week of gameplay is sketchy. And that was a rather important first week.
Map: Pyramid
Size: Medium
Map Difficulty: Expert
Game Difficulty: Expert
Map Description: Your opponents are allied against you and each is twice as powerful as his predecessor. Is it possible to win?
In this map, you start on Desert terrain. A couple day's travel away is Green's only castle (Barbarian), on Rough terrain, with no neutral stacks preventing an attack on Day 1 (not that that's a good idea, of course). Green has a starting area more than twice as large as yours, and with more resources. Above him (this time the way is guarded with neutrals, thank goodness) is grass terrain, containing Purple and his two Necromancer castles (and, of course, more resources). Above him is empty terrain (which effectively belongs to Yellow), followed by Yellow's four (!) Warlock Castles on Snow terrain (who, of course, is given lots of resources). As said in the description, all enemies are allied against you. As your saving grace, there is an Oasis a short trek off the road near your castle, and a nearby undefended Gold Mine (this map overall has a lot of Gold Mines). However, there is no Crystal Mine in your starting area, and the Gem Mine requires you to take a detour around some mountains through Green's territory that will either leave you vulnerable to Green (if you send your main), or will result in nothing but the loss of a hero (if you send a secondary hero).

I first tried this map with varying factions on Impossible difficulty. However, Green was too strong on this difficulty, and Purple began to attack me even before I had dealt with Green. I soon gave up, and tried playing on Expert.

I decided that Barbarian was the best faction to choose for this map for several reasons:
1)The Advanced Pathfinding is helpful for the Desert and Rough terrain at the beginning.
2)Your first opponent is also a Barbarian, and you can combine the troops.
3)Trolls are incredibly useful for dealing with weak turrets.

On Day 1, I sent Atlas, my starting Barbarian to the Oasis, and then on to capture some junk Gold and a Gold Mine. The junk gold was important - it allowed me to build something at my castle that day so as not to waste the day, while recruiting a second Barbarian hero, whom I sent to the Oasis and then down to capture an Ore mine. I forget much of what happened over the rest of the week. I know I captured the Sawmill the next day, forgoing much of the nearby free-lying resources. I believe Green and I may have traded the Alchemist lab back and forth a few times. With the help of a secondary hero to bring Atlas some Orcs, I defeated the (IIRC) Mutant Zombies guarding the Sulfur mine NE of my castle, as well as several chests. I know Green attacked me at least once during this week. The first time, I had to do some skillful maneuvering to keep my expensive secondary heroes alive. The last time, which may or may not be the same as the first time, I attempted to get my main hero in my castle garrison with just few enough troops so that the Green hero would attack (I think I had the rest of them on a secondary hero in the corner with the Sulfur mine). I think I might've failed that though, and ended up meeting the Green hero in the open field. Either way, I greatly crippled Green's forces. Day 7 soon arrived. By the end of the day, I had every building I wanted to build in the first week except the Garbage heap, including an Upgraded Stick Hut, Den, Adobe, and Bridge. I set up a chain so that, the next day, a secondary hero used the Oasis to deliver most of the new troop production to Atlas, who then moved out and captured Green's castle. I saved there. A Green hero was NW of the newly captured castle. The next day, I grabbed troops from the castle and chased him with Atlas as my secondary heroes begin assimilating the conquered territory, grabbing nearby undefended mines, including another Gold Mine. I defeated the Green hero, thus vanquishing him, and then began chasing two (?) Purple hero to the western corner of the area. I was defeated by the second one. I then reloaded my save, and replayed the entire sequence. This time I was sure to buy a spellbook from Green's castle, which made all the difference. As Atlas caught up with the second Purple hero right next to an undefended Gem Mine, I sent a secondary hero, Agar the Warlock, to begin exploring Purple's territory. He was promptly attacked, and forced to retreat. I called off Atlas's plans to grab the Gem Mine, and sent him straight at the Purple hero who had defeated Agar, taking heavy losses, but getting several artifacts, including the Lightning Helm (the AI pretty much only used Cold Ray and Magic Arrow, though). The next day was Day 7. I tried multiple times to grab the nearby Necromancer castle with my army of 11 Orc Chieftains and 35 Goblins (I have an intact save at this point, you see), and eventually gave up. I spotted a stack of Lots of Pikemen blocking the fastest route back to my castle. I tried multiple times to defeat them and failed, but was never convinced victory was impossible. Finally, I found a strategy that worked. In the lower corner, I had 10 Orc Chieftains and 35 Goblins. In the upper corner, I had 1 Orc Chieftain. The Pikemen thus split their stacks between each corner. As the Pikemen finished off the Orc in the upper corner, my Goblins and Orcs were able to clear the lower corner. As the Pikemen came down to the lower corner, I was able to get off a few good shots at them. With the help of good morale, I defeated them handily. I then rehired Agar, gave let him end the day with nothing but Gargoyles, and thus establish a chain that allowed me to reinforce Atlas and capture the Necromancer castle on Week 3, Day 1. I captured the second Necro castle the next day. Unfortunately, the Purple hero Crag Hack moved to recapture the first Necro castle. And, the first Yellow hero showed up.

While the battles with Purple had been raging, on Week 3 Day 1 I had also hired 16 Ogre Lords from my first castle and began bringing them over. By splitting them into groups, thus causing the shooters to split their fire, I defeated the Halflings guarding a Crystal mine NE of Green's former castle and then defeated a stack of Grand Elves guarding the path to the eastern Necro castle, both with few or no losses. With these reinforcements in hand, Atlas crushed the yellow hero and then moved on to chase Crag Hack. Crag Hack took the undefended western Necro castle. Atlas caught up with him there the next day, and enjoyed the bonus 1000 XP from his defeat and the castle's capture.

Around this time, I also hired Jezebel, a level 1 Barbarian who had somehow acquired Expert Pathfinding and Basic Logistics.

I proceeded to explore and assimilate the surrounding area, grabbing the undefended mines (which did not include the Sawmill or the Gold Mine) and building Laboratories in both Necro castles. Then the game reached its climax.

On Week 4, Day 1 two Yellow heroes arrived: Kastore, with 1 Black Dragon and a fair contingent of other troops , and five Spellpower; and Crodo, with 14 Gargoyles, ~55 Centaurs, 12 Minotaurs, 5 Black Dragons -- and 10 Spellpower. In addition, a decently-strong Purple hero, Natasha, whom I thought must be the last one, came to play.

However, both only had two Knowledge. Atlas had, in addition to his excellent combat skills, 1 Spellpower and 4 Knowledge. Both would Blind my 24 Ogre Lords as their first priority, so I thought I could just use the old strategy of dispelling their Blinds until they ran out of spellpower. Unfortunately, Crodo had an artifact that halved the casting cost of mind spells. Perpetually casting Dispel would come at too great a price to my own SP.

Thinking to attack the stronger of the two with my full army, I attacked Crodo, after several tries deciding on the strategy of splitting my Ogre Lords in two, letting him Blind one of the stacks, and casting Dragon Slayer on my 6 Bone Dragons every round, just taking the damage from Crodo's spells. Soon enough, Crodo was forced to retreat. I then forced Kastore to retreat in combat, depleting my troops and mana reserves in the process. Meanwhile, I placed Jezebel in the western Necro castle garrison, and combined the 54 Goblins and assorted other troops there with the cheapest garrison I thought would be able to withstand Natasha, and sent Agar north to capture mines and scout.

No sooner had I defeated Kastore and Crodo than a third Yellow hero arrived, sporting 3 Black Dragons and 7 Hydras. I attacked him with Atlas, but, with few troops and now magic, Atlas had considerable difficulty in defeating him. Worse, Agar went to a Redwood observatory, and found that Kastore and Crodo had been rehired, and had already been resupplied with decent armies. I knew their strong magic would keep me occupied, and I would not be able to strike quickly. Soon, Yellow would use its superior resources to acquire 4 total Black Towers, against which my Ogre Lords and Bone Dragons, even supplemented with Cyclopes, would not be able to compete. My end was in sight.

So I reloaded an earlier save. This time, Crodo and Kastore would not get away.

I managed to reinforce Atlas with Ogre Lords from the nearest Barbarian castle. I hired a Warlock to reinforce Atlas with a few extra troops (I forget which - I think it might have been a couple extra shooter stacks to act as meatshields), and then attacked Kastore, doing weak damage, but getting Kastore to waste mana. I then attacked Kastore with Atlas and defeated him with few losses in troops. Unfortunately, I had to spend 26 of my 40 mana to do so. I knew I would have trouble with Crodo and the next Yellow hero with such meager reserves.

Then came my big break. After the battle with Kastore, Atlas leveled up.

And I got Spellpower.

With the extra point in Spellpower, my Dragon Slayers would last twice as long, leaving me free to cast something else in the interim. I managed to defeat Crodo, depleting my mana and Bone Dragons but with still a hearty contingent of Ogre Lords yet. When the next Yellow hero came, I was at the mercy of his spells, but, with careful deployment of my troops I defeated him, losing the remainder of of my Bone Dragons and around half my Ogre Lords in the process. My army was depleted, Yellow had superior resources and troop production, but I had nevertheless defeated three of Yellow's strongest heroes.

But I had lost the most important part of that week's production of troops, and it was still early in the week. When the new week came, Yellow would outmatch whatever new troops I got, even if I built Pyramids in both my Barbarian castles.

But then, after making a temporary save, I scouted north along the path the third Yellow hero had arrived on. There, I found Yellow's fourth castle. Although its garrison was medium-strength, the nearest Yellow hero was on the west side of the area, and would likely not put up a fight if I came and took it.

I reloaded my temporary save, and sent Atlas back to the eastern Necro castle to rest and regain mana. (The next day, I noticed the magic well slightly SE of it. ) After reinforcing Atlas with some more Barbarian troops as well as some Vampires and Liches, I sent him north to the the eastern-most Warlock castle, visiting the Standing Stones on the way. I handily defeated the garrison on Week 4 Day 6, and smiled at finding the Black Tower inside.

Meanwhile, Jezebel defeated Natasha as she attacked the western Necro castle's garrison. Yet Purple was not yet defeated. I meanwhile scouted some more with Agar, picked up some free archers, and saw a weak Purple hero. Though Atlas's army was pitiful - ~20 Skeletons split into four stacks and some Archers, he hadpreviously visisted a Tree of Learning and a Gazebo, and was level 3 with 4 Spellpower and 3 Knowledge. I attacked and defeated said weak Purple hero and then, to my shock, discovered that Purple had acquired a ninth castle (probably upgraded from a town) whose existence I did not expect. While Purple was incredibly weak, it nevertheless meant I had to open a second front.

After capturing a nearby Ore Mine, I saw that Purple had hired Crodo and given him a small army. Fearing the damage he could cause if allowed to live, I promptly attacked him with Agar and defeated him. Unfortunately, Agar's magic was depleted, and he was soon forced to retreat.

Meanwhile, on Week 4 Day 7, Atlas captured the next Warlock castle. I hoped to be able to hire 6 Black Dragons the next day, and then crush Yellow. Unfortunately, it lacked a tower. Nevertheless, the next day I rehired Agar at the eastern Warlock castle, delivered Black Dragons to Atlas, and then defeated two Yellow heroes and captured the remaining two Warlock castles over the next couple days.

Meanwhile, when the new week came I gave Jezebel a force of Necromancer troops, including Bone Dragons. I then had her capture the Gold Mine whose guardians Natasha had defeated en route to my castle, defeated the Mutant Zombies guarding the Pendant of Free Will and a boat, and then boarded the boat. The sea chests proved helpful in letting Atlas purchase Black Dragons from the third Warlock castle, which proved helpful against the fourth Yellow castle's garrison. Jezebel then landed on the other side of the strait. I smirked and prepared to take Purple's last castle.

Little did I realize, however, that that oddly placed large stack of Air Elementals was guarding all my landing zones.

Jezebel defeated them with very heavy losses. She was still able to take the pitifully weak Purple castle and defeat the rest of Purple's heroes, but she was helpless as Yellow's last hero led a strong army down to crush her.

With a heavy sigh at having my game prolonged an extra few days (and thus having my score reduced), I brought Atlas down and then finished that Yellow hero and his newly acquired castle off.

Days: 33
Score: 334

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Very interesting report.

Have you considered starting with Warlock instead since there's a sulfur mine right next to the starting castle?

[Darmani]

I think that would indeed be very interesting. I'd furthermore be interested in trying it with both a Barbarian and a Warlock as a main.

My prediction is that it will become more difficult to defeat Green and Purple, but easier to defeat Yellow.

[Kristo]

That AAR pretty much sums up why I never play that map. After that many reloads it just wouldn't be fun anymore. Congrats on a hard-fought victory.

[darknessfood]

KInda oftopic,sorry but it's funny:).AARs means kont in dutch,and a 'kont' is your behind

[Artas1984]

OMG, you guys are hard core fanatics - talking about how gameplay went - you'r crazy! That's the addiction i have never seen before!

[PhoenixReborn]

I'd like to see pyramid map made in heroes 5.

[Kristo]

I've started up a new game, saved in progress. Here's what I've done so far.

Mountain King (H2)
Size: Medium
Difficulty: Hard
Player: Blue Barbarian

I went with Barbarian due to starting in snow. I'd forgotten that you start right next to a Crystal mine. Score. All right, so I've done the usual week 1 stuff - bought a second Barbarian, combined the troops, flagged some Ore, Wood, Crystal, and Mercury. The Oracle says I'm already behind in the money-making department. And I have Basic Estates and a Statue! Sheesh.

Anyway, I wasn't able to amass the Ore needed for the Bridge by day 7, so I get Trolls on day 8 and head north. I stole the Endless Purse of Gold from some Veteran Pikemen and then revealed from the shroud was a Trading Post. BONUS! Ok, cash in stuff for Crystal and Ore and ... I'm still 6 Crystal short. But I can see a pile. I work my way over there, and there's a Yellow Knight in my way. Rat Bastard. Little did I know, there was another Yellow Knight with a much larger army sent to grab the Crystal pile. He stops one tile short and the other hero wanders off for some reason. I swoop in and steal the pile (5!!!) and promptly get my butt kicked.

I retreated to save my artifact and had just enough cash left to rehire my hero and buy the Pyramid on day 7. It's on now. And with that, I'll save and continue another day.

Update: it is, in fact, not on, apparently. This game ended in retirement two weeks later because the Cyclopes couldn't stand up to Green's spellcasting. I think my critical error was ending a turn outside of Green's castle the day after taking it. I got caught outside the protection of the moat and turrets. Oh well. Had I known how poorly developed he was, I would have waited another week for a larger army. Then I might have been successful. I certainly had the resource production to go for Titans while holding down the fort at home.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

I'd like to see pyramid map made in heroes 5.

I couldn't care less about Heroes 5 (or 4) but if enough people are interested I might do a version for Heroes 3.

[Kristo]

I tried to do Terra Firma (H2) in Heroes 3 and it didn't work out very well. Heroes have longer movement, so the scale doesn't come out right. Also, the early game army strength for Tower is different than for H2 Wizard. The first two weeks don't play the same and that throws off the whole map experience.

I suspect you will run into similar problems should you ever try to remake Pyramid.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

May I have that version of Terra Firma of yours? I'd be very much interested in taking a look at it