Heroes II - Making it harder, better AI?

[themaster]

My problem with heroes2 these days is it's too easy.. I would love to make the game harder by at least giving the AI x2 to x10 the number of units..

I was wondering if this mod made it harder.. or if there is a mod for that too..
viewtopic.php?t=8724

I would gladly maybe take a heroes3 mod to as.. my problem with that game is it's way too easy.. it makes heroes2 look super good..

[Kristo]

Even on Impossible it's too easy? If you don't mind sharing strategies I'm sure we'd all love to hear about them.

[ByteBandit]

Don't tinker with one of the best PC games in history along with being in the Hall of Fame for PC games. It's blasphemy! Shame on you for even considering it my friend.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

themaster: no, my mod doesn't make it harder (or easier); it mostly makes the factions balanced for multiplayer games

well it DOES make it harder if you're used to start with Warlock castle, and easier if you play with the Knight castle.

[Darmani]

Well, it's now much harder to kill 20 Zombies or Dwarfs with 10 Halflings and the Haste spell. That can significantly slow my start. Also, many Impossible maps are made trivial if you rush Bone Dragons with Necro, which is now also somewhat harder.

[darknessfood]

Increasing the ammount of units the AI has will make it harder in the beginning. Also, you will level up faster, thus gaining more stats, and making it easier in the long run...

[themaster]

themaster: no, my mod doesn't make it harder (or easier); it mostly makes the factions balanced for multiplayer games

well it DOES make it harder if you're used to start with Warlock castle, and easier if you play with the Knight castle.

Then I shall try your patch on the Archibald campaign.. advance my evil army!!

To Kristo: I can't even remember my strategies.. except I know the computer loves to come out of hiding to advance on your empty castle..

All I know is years of heroes playing and strategy games makes most games easy for me.. games I can't beat on impossible (and is rare exception) for example is Civ IV

Even the very well done King's Bounty is too easy.. had to mod it.. but wasn't enough and as for heroes5 it's not worth my time.. (it's that poorly done as a strategy game)

[themaster]

Increasing the ammount of units the AI has will make it harder in the beginning. Also, you will level up faster, thus gaining more stats, and making it easier in the long run...

I don't think you get to carry over hero's.. until the 2nd to the last map.. I think you be thinking about heroes3 too much..

Even on Impossible it's too easy? If you don't mind sharing strategies I'm sure we'd all love to hear about them.

Okay, here's what I remember.. based on a few hours of playing..

- Spawn lots of hero's when you have the money and use them to sometimes change out archers units (when you don't want them damaged) and or if you have a lot of artifacts.. swapping that can be good for different effects.. Also newly spawned hero's make good troop carriers for your main hero..
- I just beat the 1st archibald map in about 1-2 hours and I did it the lazy way.. I'm a save and loader and usually I don't lose units ever.. but even losing only 3 bone dragons I wiped out 3 castles (started w/ 7)
- Always do your best if you can to build the best unit (the hardest one to build) w/ the first 7 days including a well so you can re-grow/recruite more
- Always build the money right away.. and consider gold resource high priority.. along with the resources needed for the BEST units only (it's not a bad thing if you have to give up 40 wood for 2-3 sulfur so you can build dragons)
- Given that hero's don't carry over.. gold may be better then experience for a hero..
- It's easy to trap the computer into logic errors.. by guarding your castle with instant on the fly new hero's and pulling out units if they try to take it.. then they'll turn back to another one of your open castles (I always leave my open) and 7 days will have melted away if there home's been taken..
- If you've got heroes sitting around.. have them mine free units from huts and free resources from windmills and the like..

So far the patch isn't helping much.. I did see some weirdness where I attacked skeletons and got zombies.. later on I attacked that unit (after a save and load..) and then it was skeltons..

I wonder if it's going to make a difference on what King Roland has at the end.. as I remember it he's always stacked with like 60+ of everything..

I think unlike other games.. I will actually try and use the units I have more.. and do less saving and loading as is normal for me..

[UndeadHalfOrc]

>>Then I shall try your patch on the Archibald campaign.. advance my evil army!!

I have yet to try the campaigns again since I did the patch, but I suspect two evil scenarios will be ridiculously hard: the Peasants revolt one (peasants are faster and archers are slightly hardier) and Country Lords (so many knights castles... better find those dragons FAST)

It will also change the way you play the Gauntlet scenarios (both sides) because since you will only be able to accumulate 3 or 4 black dragons at best, due to reduced growth, you'll be better off getting the troops from the path you choose (like you are basically supposed to).

[themaster]

Hmm.. the game was pretty easy till map 7 or so then it got harder.. I'm on map 9 the one you choose if you want to take your units over.. (took me 2 months and 4 weeks for map8 that was a new high from all other maps )

But your patch doesn't appear to be working.. I'm gettin 2 dragons a week.. (though I get 0 dragons when I build the tower)

Your patch shows a date of 12/07/2008 and I'm pretty sure I installed it.. running it in a vmware emulator if that matters..

[MistWeaver]

I think what would really help H2 AI - is somehow, make it stop dividing armies each time he captures town.
Currently after each capture, AI leaves some of his troops there. Basically he makes first part of "divide & conquer " for the player.