H5 Quiz: Round #2

[Kalah]

The second part of Maciek's <i>Heroes V</i> quiz is entitled "<a href="/admin/kalah/Birds.h5m">Brittle birds</a>". Let's see if you can solve it or come up with different solutions. <img src="/images/smiles/creative.gif">



- Jhora wakes up with a terrible headache. Her town is in ruin and she doesn't know what happened last night. Her knowledge is a very low 4. And she is level 40. She thinks: "Hey, that town over there has an Altar of Wishes, perhaps I've been there last night?"

- Bad news: There is over a million Phoenixes blocking the way to that other town. And Jhora has only a single Peasant in her army. You think it can't get any worse? Well.. Instant Travel and Puppet Master spells are banned.

- Good news: Jhora has one thousand Spellpower. She doesn't know why, her knowledge is too low. She also has all the 2% skills in case you want any of them.

- Also: There is a lot of unguarded gold lying on the floor and a Memory Mentor nearby so that you have somewhere to spend it. There is nothing built in your starting town except a Village Hall and you can build nothing more in there. You should capture the enemy town on day 1, because there is a castle and some creature generators built (but the garrison is empty on day 1).



<center><img src="/images/news/maciek2_birds.jpg"></center>



The answer to the first round is <a href="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/133643 ... 7">here</a>.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1337007921

[cjlee]

As evidenced by my lousy responses in most quizzes, I'm not good at figuring out these excellent puzzles.



If you can put your peasant on a corner and slap an arcane crystal diagonally from the peasant, he's safe.



Then I'm guessing you can use Frenzy (if phoenixes are in over 1 stack) or decay. With an initiative of 15, Phoenixes get to act 1500 times in 1000 turns. Your arcane crystal should last that long.

With spellpower of 1000 and master of pain, probably you can kill several hundred phoenixes per decay. In 1500 turns that's several hundred thousand phoenixes.

Of course, your mana should be bolstered by intelligence, arcane training, enlightenment.

I'm still not confident I can kill off 1 million phoenixes by decay alone. Since no puppet master, none of that 'raise enemy dead to reduce their hp' trick like in the previous quiz.

I think a wizard's Mark of Wizard could be useful here to increase the damage, but I just don't see how that could work. You don't have enough mana to keep doubling the damage and a Wizard has no way to replenish mana in-battle.

Jhora could hit the phoenixes every time during the 1500 turns and wipe out a few thousand phoenixes that way.
Edited on Mon, May 14 2012, 12:34 by cjlee

[Warmonger]

Blade Barrier (reflects physical damage) + Deep Freeze?

She would also need the perk that boosts starting initiative to survive the first round, Sorcery and Master of Ice.

[Cristian]

First of all the max mana Ihora can have is 140 in day 1. So destructive spells I think are out of the question.



The ONLY solution I think is with arcane omniescience and a hero that looks like this - http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/9350/1 ... 233324.png



Storm Wind is a MUST as otherwise the pheonixes will kill the peasant as the battle starts.



First spell - Blade barrier (it occupies 3 spaces on the map). Then let the pheonixes kill each other with frenzy - only one stack of ~244k phoenixes will remain (rebirth already took place on that stack). Also a couple more blade barriers and then summon elements (fire) and a phantom forces spell on them.



Don't know why, but phoenixes will not attack if there are many blade barriers.



The best idea would be to charge the first summoned fire elements into the phoenixes and then keep the phantom forces from that stack, and summon another + another phantom forces. A total of 2.5k+2.8k+2.8k (3 stacks) of fire elementals that can kill ~ 450 phoenixes per round.



So in ~500-600 rounds the phoenixes would be dead. btw, the blade barrier last for 1010 rounds.



I didn't have the patiente to win the battle, and I am very curious if the one who thought about this riddle has a more elegant (and less time consuming) solution.



LE: I tried to let the AI (auto combat) finish the battle, but it charged the peasant into the phoenixes
Edited on Tue, May 15 2012, 16:47 by Cristian

[Aequitas]

I believe i have solved the fight quite elegantly.



Firstly: i start out exactly like Cristian explained (same skills and let birds kill of one another with frenzy until one stack (without rebirth) has about 244k left - allthough i substituted summoning magic with expert attack - however i believe this is not necessary)



After casting an arcane crystal to protect my brave peasant and let birds kill one another with frenzy, I cast blindness on said stack of 244 000 birds and summon my own phoenix. then i proceed to cast reighteous might on my bird, and a couple of vulerabillity on the blinded stack of birds.





Then lastly, i move my phoenix in such a way that it can NOT reach the enemy stack (remember summoned bird is not as fast as the neutral one) in one turn, all the while being far away from my peasant. Then i cast frenzy on my bird and deep freeze on the blinded stack (you should have just enough mana for this. Buffed bird with +3000% damg from frenzy one-hits 244 000 de-buffed birds that suffer 3000% extra melee damg from deep freeze.



Voila!

[Maciek]

Bingo! That's pretty much the 'official' solution, Aequitas. I casted Deep Freeze first and Frenzy second and put my Phoenix behind Blade Barriers. I didn't cast Vulnerability or RM, so your Phoenix's finnishing blow was a 'slight' overkill. Welcome to CH

Fire Elementals have 'only' 50 shots and Jhora has no Ammocart. You'd have to recast and you would've probably ran out of mana if you haven't ran out of patience.

Blade Barrier + Deep Freeze won't work. Phoenixes don't always attack the barriers and the freezing effect lasts only one turn.

An Arcane Crystal is surely cheaper than a Blare Barrier, but it's also a little risky - the Birds sometimes 'wake up' and do attack it.
Decay? Phoenixes will wait, so they act 3 times a turn(assuming Jhora has Stormwind) and Decay lasts 5 turns at Expert Dark. That means a single casting of Decay hurts the Phoenixes 15 times. Mass Decay can be twice as effective(costs twice the mana and affects up to 4 stacks). You could calculate how much damage you could do with 140 mana this way. It won't be enough.

[Lepastur]

I'd swear that you need Swift mind to avoid the first blow, unless the battlefield has some obstacle, or maybe you got an initial artifact which affects flyers or something like that... and thus, you cannot get the ultimate ability.

[Maciek]

That's what Stormwind is for. It decreases the Phoenixes' Speed(to 8) and Initiative(to 15.2 or 15, I don't know) so that they can't attack the Peasant on their first move if he starts in the back row. Also, remember that Jhora has 12 Init due to her specialty.

In the absolutely worst case, the Phoenixes start the battle with 0.25 ATB and the hero with 0. With good morale on first move, they need 1.25 ATB to move twice. The hero needs 1 ATB to move. I'm not sure how is Init and ATB rounded. With 15 and 12 Init in the worst case and no rounding of ATB there would be a tie. With 15.2 and 12 it's possible that they act twice, but unlikely.

[Lepastur]

D'oh! I was playing with 3.0