Quiz: Round #3

[Kalah]

Question time again - this time two more questions, number 4 and 5.



<i>4. How many stacks of the same creature can there be on a battlefield in one moment? How to achieve this number? You can control both sides of the battle.



5. You can use four level 40 (starting skills plus any 39 other skills) heroes and each hero can use at most 1 Major Artifact and as many Minor Artifacts, Treasures and Items as you wish. Relics, Potions and Artifacts that belong to a set are banned, though. With that, how do you defeat 1 million Black Dragons?</i> <img src="/images/smiles/devious.gif">



<center><img src="/images/misc/maciek2_1M_dragons.png"></center>

<a href="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/featur ... c">Here</a> is a map for testing it out.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1327685866

[CloudRiderX]

(4) 7 stacks of Genies on both sides, where each stack casts Illusion on itself, resulting in 28 stacks of Genies total.



(5) I would use three max level Priests and four max level Barbarians. The Barbarians would attack the Black Dragons using melee, with the Priests casting Guardian Angel, Retribution Aura, and Mass Heal as much as possible.

[Kalah]

There. Fixed.

[cjlee]

Dalai, awesome!

Q4: I came up with max 16 stacks, but you're clearly right.



Q5: I think the crux of this question lies in whether the BD will be in split stacks. As long as there are no split stacks (ie Ring of Greater Negation + Hypnosis/ Berserk), this is impossible to solve. Your heroes could indefinitely get no retaliation with the Halberd of the Swift Watch, but even if you kept the dragon stack from hitting the healers and had every possible artifact to boost/restore healer mana, it is impossible to keep casting an ultra expensive spell like Divine Intervention.



Would retribution aura have any use? The dragons will at most suffer a few dead for every barbarian they killed. And then the healer would have to cast the same spell again on the newly-resurrected hero. Not possible.



The mainstream way to solving this should be using 1 barbarian and 3 casters. It should be taken for granted that the casters are capable of blinding the BD and summoning all kinds of things to distract the dragons. The problem is I don't see how the 3 casters can avoid running out of mana. Aren't we limited to 64 items in a backpack?

[CloudRiderX]

It's been ages since I played H4 and I haven't tested any of these ideas. It's just fun to conjecture.



I misread about the number of heroes. But yeah, with Ring of Greater Negation, couldn't you just Forgetfulness/Hypnotize every turn until you kill them.

[Dalai]

There. Fixed.

Now my post is not seen in forums, although the topic is.

I'll just copy it here once more.

====================

I can comment here, but I don't see the topic in forum.

2 CloudRiderX
Q4: Illusions will stack into single stack. So you'll have 8 stacks of genies on each side of the battlefield.
Q5: 4 heroes in total are allowed. Even if you took this strategy, you'd just run out of mana without doing much harm to 1M BDs.

2 Kalah.
Q4. All ways of putting extra stacks on battlefield: summon, illusion, phantom image, animate.
You take 2 armies of 6 stacks of Ice Demons and a Grandmaster Demonologist with Expert Order, so he can do all of the above. You kill some (but not all) Ice Demons, animate some, summon some, make Illusion and Phantom Image, and summon Devils so they summon their own Ice Demons into separate stack. You'll have 11 stacks of Ice Demons in each army, giving total of 22 stacks of the same creature.

Q5 - I have to think about it some more time. It's definitely tricky

===============

I think I have almost figured out the main idea for Q5, now I need to see if it works.

But yeah, with Ring of Greater Negation, couldn't you just Forgetfulness/Hypnotize every turn until you kill them.

I hate to bring you the bad news again, but Ring of GN is not allowed - it's a relic.

Question to Maciek
Do we have to attack BDs on the first day? I mean, having unlimited time you can summon unlimited army using Druids with summoning.

[Maciek]

Looks like growth of neutral armies is something like 10%/week, limited to their growth rate(1/week for Blacks). I'm quite surprised by the latter. In my solution, I attack the Dragons on day 1. After a test and some calculations, I think I will give you 1 year.

[cjlee]

Assuming the barbarian kills 10 black dragons (5 dragons x 2 attacks) every turn with the black dragons only attacking the illusions and not getting retaliated, he needs 100000 turns to wipe out BDs.



Your mana cannot be devoted 100% to summoning or illusion. You must open the fight with Mass Fervor to ensure that you can always move before the BDs. You could also use purely Nature and Barbarian heroes to reduce morale penalty and have a stack of morale-boosting artifacts, but I think it’s cutting things a little close here because you really cannot afford to have the dragons move first. I personally think you should have a Nature, an Order and a Life (with Nature) spellcaster.



Since Ring of Greater Negation is not in play, I see no use for a Chaos spellcaster (Confusion) and not much use for a Death caster (no dead to animate). I don’t think a demonologist is useful because Ice Demons freeze their enemies 1/3 of the time for 3 turns (ie can keep Black Dragons out of action 1/3 of the time at best, not enough to justify their minimum 2 mana cost to summon.)



You could increase the number of BDs killed by casting Retribution on your summons/ illusions, but that’s nowhere enough to close the gap between 100000 turns needed by the barbarian and 1500 spells. So you should take it for granted that at some point, you will run out of mana and be forced to flee. But you should have killed 30k black dragons at least.



Returning to your base ‘in disgrace’, you will be restored to full health and mana but have few movement points. So your turn ends for the day. The next day you will sally forth, visit all luck, moral and spell point boosters available and hammer the dragons again.



In HOMM4 there are 28x12= 326days in a year. Killing 30k dragons per day, by the end of the week your enemies should be at 800,000. Population growth of 10% brings them back to 880000. Knock off another 200k in week 2 and you have 680,000 on day 7 which becomes 750,000 in week 3. It won’t take over 2 months to wipe them all out.



If you only have freshly-levelled heroes without any stat boosters, I don’t believe level 40 barbarians are capable of killing 10 black dragons a turn so my assumptions must be tweaked down and you need the entire year that Maicek gives. If you have a really powered up barbarian like Dogwoggle or Mongo, you should be able to meet expectations.


Edited on Sun, Jan 29 2012, 14:38 by cjlee

[cjlee]

Okay, here’s a suggestion on how to beat the BDs. I’m rusty at HOMM4 here, please forgive me – I don’t know which order the Black Dragons will attack and I could be absolutely wrong. But if I haven’t become senile and forgotten everything, they normally hit the weakest/ the stack with the lowest retaliation; something significant because in Heroes IV retaliation is done simultaneously. This should mean that Black Dragons will prefer to kill illusions or summons everytime as they hurt less.



The following are probably indispensable regardless of which 4 heroes you use:

Wand of Illusion, Staff of Summoning, Staff of Wizardry, Mage’s Robe (1 for each of 3 spellcasters), Halberd of the Swiftwatch (for the barbarian).



You probably need a Crusader (max morale to start the fight although he is primarily a Nature spellcaster here and should hold the Staff of Summoning); a Warlord (more melee damage); a Nature magic caster who purely summons; a Life or Order magic caster who creates illusions.



These are not that important but you will have inventory space so may as well max out on whatever Maicek lets you have: Ring of Cobra’s Eye to help increase damage; Leprechaun’s Ring for luck; You could give the arrow of stunning, poison arrow, arrow of slaying and barbarian throwing club to a caster.



The ‘logical’ choice, Shield of Order and Armor of Order, don’t work here due to the overwhelming power of one million BDs. Even if you took only 1% damage from them they would still kill a level 70 hero with one attack. Likewise, healing is useless. You can only Resurrect, use Guardian Angel or Divine Intervention to protect your heroes. These are way too mana-expensive so you have to avoid using them by avoiding being hit. Wand of Illusion is for only 1 hero - I don’t want it for all 3 spellcasters because they need to cast other spells periodically.



Assume you have reduced mana costs to just 1 for each summons/ illusion. Let’s say you have 1000 mana on each spellcasting hero. You could probably cast a summoning or illusion spell 1000 times. With 3 spellcasters that’s 3000 times. You’ll get more casts in with Wand of Illusion, but 2 other spellcasters will be buffing periodically so they get fewer illusions/ summons cast. I figure it comes out to around 3000.

[Dalai]

In my solution, I attack the Dragons on day 1.

Ok, that answers my question.

After a test and some calculations, I think I will give you 1 year.

My next question - do you have 1 single fight or you can (can you, btw?) flee to the castle after hit-n-run?

If my idea is correct, there will be little difference between 1M and 1,5M BDs.

Halberd of the Swiftwatch (for the barbarian).

It is relic

Shield of Order and Armor of Order, don’t work here

Both Majors, you are allowed to have only 1.

[Maciek]

No, you can't hit-n-run, just like in the map.

Growth: from what I observed, neutral armies on Champion:
- grow every day
- grow at approximately maximum[10%/week; growth rate(1/week for Blacks, 36/week for Peasants)]
This means that 1 million Black Dragons will only grow by 1 every 7 days(long term, it's even a tiny bit slower than that).

In the map the Dragons are in 4 stacks. I haven't tried battling a single stack, just made some estimates about this fight. In my battle against 4 stacks I reloaded 7 times(I did make some mistakes).

Some information in case somebody doesn't have h4 installed right now, but wants to try to guess anyway:
Heroes have 10+[level]+[bonuses from skills and artifacts] mana.
You can check the power of spells in Archmage Aurelian's SpellBook. You can also check hero skills and advanced classes, Artifacts and Equi changeson the relevant CH pages.

[Dalai]

No, you can't hit-n-run, just like in the map.

Yep, I discovered that already. The hard way.

In the map the Dragons are in 4 stacks. I haven't tried battling a single stack, just made some estimates about this fight.

I don't think you can make them not split into 4 stacks. The only way I see is to add 3 more stacks of different melee creatures.

In my battle against 4 stacks I reloaded 7 times(I did make some mistakes).

I managed to kill half of Dragons, but obviously I forgot to take something into consideration.

Some information in case somebody doesn't have h4 installed right now, but wants to try to guess anyway:
Heroes have 10+[level]+[bonuses from skills and artifacts] mana.
You can check the power of spells in Archmage Aurelian's SpellBook. You can also check hero skills and advanced classes, Artifacts and Equi changeson the relevant CH pages.

Do you think it's possible to emulate this battle in your head without actually playing the game?

[Maciek]

Yep, I discovered that already. The hard way.

I don't think you can make them not split into 4 stacks. The only way I see is to add 3 more stacks of different melee creatures.

Oh, well, I guess 1 Pirate, 1 Bandit and 1 Troglodyte won't make that much of a difference.

Do you think it's possible to emulate this battle in your head without actually playing the game?

I think you'd have to make some guesses to simplify it. About Dragons' priorities, about influence of obstacles on the battle. You'd also have to remember something about the battlefield size.
Anyways, before you actually attacked the Dragons, I guess you already had some kind of battle plan in your head?

[wimfrits]

I don't think number of BD's is relevant except for time played.

Once the BD's number 2 stacks, you can fully control the battle without using mana...

How to bring the stacks down to 2? I would toy around with sanctuary and divine intervention (4 x GM life) and summoned stacks to force attacks in specific angles making the BD's hit each other.

[ThunderTitan]

>>how do you defeat 1 million Black Dragons?<<

With too much patience then i for one possess...

[Dalai]

I don't think number of BD's is relevant except for time played.

Me too.

Once the BD's number 2 stacks, you can fully control the battle without using mana...

You obviously consider using wands, right?

How to bring the stacks down to 2? I would toy around with sanctuary and divine intervention (4 x GM life) and summoned stacks to force attacks in specific angles making the BD's hit each other.

My idea of winning this battle relies heavily on BDs fighting BDs. Heroes with any artifacts can not defeat that much high-quality cannon-fodder by just using mana and combat.

Oh, well, I guess 1 Pirate, 1 Bandit and 1 Troglodyte won't make that much of a difference.

That is what I meant. Do you think it still can be won with the same setting as before?

Anyways, before you actually attacked the Dragons, I guess you already had some kind of battle plan in your head?

Yep. But I had to change it. Drastically

[GreatEmerald]

You know, it would be pretty awesome if you made videos for the different solutions of different quizzes there. It would be rather epic to watch, I assume.

[wimfrits]

You obviously consider using wands, right?

Yes. 4 x illusion to ensure 2 casts per round. Also, I think 1 hero should have GM nature for the occasional phoenix. Another hero should have GM tactics to speed up the summons.

[Dalai]

Also, I think 1 hero should have GM nature for the occasional phoenix. Another hero should have GM tactics to speed up the summons.

I think ALL of them must have GM Nature, at least one of them GM Tactics+GM Leadership, one or two GM Life + little extra.

[cjlee]

No hit and run? OMG. It will take a tactical genius to win this. How are you going to get BDs to burn each other consistently, without moving away or changing position in a way inconvenient to you?



I’m guessing the most important spells will be: Mass Fervor; Sanctuary; Summons/ Illusions in this order? 4 casters instead of 3 and 1 barbarian? I’m also guessing Grandmaster Tactics and Leadership becomes a must, otherwise your summons won’t move fast enough to provoke BDs into burning each other.



I’m guessing your main objective must be to keep the summons popping up and charging into battle. That will keep the BDs from flying closer. Summons must be small in order to fly between dragons. Is it going to be a nonstop game of ‘summon the sprite’? But it’s tactically hard to achieve. It’s easy to get 3 stacks of BD to burn 3 stacks of sprites, but the 4th stack? We can’t let any BD stack get too big, I presume, because otherwise it is impossible to kill using ordinary spellcasting heroes?



Maicek, why not put screenshots showing each move? Benbird has done a great job on the forums.



In any case, why give us one year if you don’t plan to allow hit and run?



If you want us to grow creatures, might as well tell us how many castles you are giving us. There’s no way one year’s worth of ‘Grandmaster Summoning’ on 4 level 40 heroes is capable of producing any stack strong enough to distract even 1 stack of 250000 BD for two turns. At most you go to battle with a legion of sprites and an illusioned and an animated-dead legion of sprites?