Haunting Mines

[Anthriel]

Haunting mines: Bug, or intended to be that way?

Curiously, I have seen no one comment on that ability yet, though my friends always complain how broken it is when I use it.

Basically, the deal with that ability is that a hero with it who claims a mine, will get 5 Ghosts in the garrion for that mine on low levels. I think you get 5 ghosts per 5 levels of the hero, but I'm not entirely sure. I have only been able to create 10 Ghosts so far, but I think I was not higher than level 10.

Anyway, in itself, that is not a problem. Your mines are guarded, so what?
However, the funny thing is, you can remove the garrision and put it into your army. So if you steal 5 mines from your enemy, you get at least 25 ghosts for free, on higher levels probably closer to 75.

And you can imagine what happens if your enemy reclaims them, just so that you can resteal them again.

[Ethric]

Sounds like a bug->exploit to me. They just need to add a "Can't be removed from garrison"-flag like what you have in H4 but for the summoned ghosts only.

[Alamar]

Sounds like a bug->exploit to me. They just need to add a "Can't be removed from garrison"-flag like what you have in H4 but for the summoned ghosts only.

I agree 100% .... although there are others that told me that they thought it was a GREAT idea to be able to remove these creatures ......

Grrrrr why can't people sniff an exploit when it's in front of their noses!!

[ThunderTitan]

Maybe they can, but like the smell.

[Dublex]

Its still an issue of course, but don't you have to have to get the skill to haunt the mine?

[Alamar]

Maybe they can, but like the smell.

I really wish I could argue with your statement .....

[DaemianLucifer]

I agree 100% .... although there are others that told me that they thought it was a GREAT idea to be able to remove these creatures ......

I know people that are so fond of the day 7 exploit in HIII(and now in HV as well).Some people simply dont know how to play a game without exploits

[Jolly Joker]

People get real. What power do you expect an ADVANCED ability to have? Placing a couple Ghosts into the mine as GUARDS? Right, it will guard the mines against scouting heroes having no troops, except of course, the hero has a halfway decent damage spell like Ice Bolt, but you need Summoning Magic and Master of Animation to get it and you need to newly conquer a mine. If you do that you get those Ghosts. The last time I checked this was possible only once per game and mine, so it's a rather limited skill. With a lot of luck and good timing you may get something like, well, 50-60 Ghosts out of a small and medium map which is good but by no means a reason to cry exploit all over the place.
Note further it makes you slow (your hero has to flag all mines himself) and you need a free slot (you will get Ghosts, not Spectres, no matter your army).

[Alamar]

People get real. What power do you expect an ADVANCED ability to have? Placing a couple Ghosts into the mine as GUARDS? Right, it will guard the mines against scouting heroes having no troops, except of course, the hero has a halfway decent damage spell like Ice Bolt, but you need Summoning Magic and Master of Animation to get it and you need to newly conquer a mine. If you do that you get those Ghosts. The last time I checked this was possible only once per game and mine, so it's a rather limited skill. With a lot of luck and good timing you may get something like, well, 50-60 Ghosts out of a small and medium map which is good but by no means a reason to cry exploit all over the place.
Note further it makes you slow (your hero has to flag all mines himself) and you need a free slot (you will get Ghosts, not Spectres, no matter your army).

I would expect the number of garrisoned ghosts to be significant enough to deter all but an enemy's main 1-2 heroes from wandering around and grabbing mines .... Also because the skill is an advanced SUMMONING skill I would NOT expect it to add permanent troops to your army [an advanced Necromantic skill could allow for the possibility of permanently adding troops to your army]

Of course if you're argueing that all skills should necessarily be useful then that's another topic alltogether

[Ethric]

So if you steal 5 mines from your enemy, you get at least 25 ghosts for free, on higher levels probably closer to 75.

And you can imagine what happens if your enemy reclaims them, just so that you can resteal them again.

The last time I checked this was possible only once per game and mine, so it's a rather limited skill.

So, who's right? If it's only possible once per mine it seems quite weak. What I was thinking of was running around AI player's territory flagging mines, then move of so the AI reclaims, then take them again etc etc, all done with a fast hero that's there for the purpose of harvesting ghosts. And that would be cheesy.

People get real.

We're not real, we're figments of your imagination. You're conversing with yourself, and you know what that says about someone's sanity...

[Dublex]

But then maybe its simply the case of adding advanced necromancy as a pre-requisit for the haunt mine skill if you are that worried about ghosts being added to the army from a miine?

[DaemianLucifer]

So, who's right? If it's only possible once per mine it seems quite weak. What I was thinking of was running around AI player's territory flagging mines, then move of so the AI reclaims, then take them again etc etc, all done with a fast hero that's there for the purpose of harvesting ghosts. And that would be cheesy.

I think its just once per mine,but Im not sure though.

We're not real, we're figments of your imagination. You're conversing with yourself, and you know what that says about someone's sanity...

[Wolfshanze]

Sounds like a bug->exploit to me. They just need to add a "Can't be removed from garrison"-flag like what you have in H4 but for the summoned ghosts only.

I agree 100% .... although there are others that told me that they thought it was a GREAT idea to be able to remove these creatures ......

Grrrrr why can't people sniff an exploit when it's in front of their noses!!

I like the exploit (if you can call it that).

Frankly, the Necro guy needs the Mine Ghost bonus to counter the Inferno guy's Phantom+Gate ability.

I'll bet every race has one of these so-called "exploits". Seems to me a rather dubious intentional act to balance every race with some sort of "hey you can't do that" trick.

Now we know both the Necro and Inferno tricks... where's the other four (oh, that's right, Sylvan doesn't need any tricks to dominate).

To think, I passed on the haunt mine thing because I thought it was useless... need to get it back!

[DaemianLucifer]

I like the exploit (if you can call it that).

Frankly, the Necro guy needs the Mine Ghost bonus to counter the Inferno guy's Phantom+Gate ability.

I'll bet every race has one of these so-called "exploits". Seems to me a rather dubious intentional act to balance every race with some sort of "hey you can't do that" trick.

Now we know both the Necro and Inferno tricks... where's the other four (oh, that's right, Sylvan doesn't need any tricks to dominate).

To think, I passed on the haunt mine thing because I thought it was useless... need to get it back!

So instead of removing one exploit,they added an exploit to every race to balance things out?Interesting.

[Gaidal Cain]

Well, I'm with JJ on this one. You get, what, 10 ghosts a mine at most? Considering you also can get a number of skeleton archers per fight (and you'll be fighting more battles than you'll be flagging mines), I don't see what the big deal is.

[DaemianLucifer]

A nice solution would be increasing this to 10xhero level,and making it unmovable from the mine.

BTW,did any of you ever guard a mine(except if it was some victory condition or a joke)?

[Gaidal Cain]

I sometimes put joiners I have no use for in there. In H4, I did it sometimes to get a wider sight radius around the mine.

[Anthriel]

Well, I'm with JJ on this one. You get, what, 10 ghosts a mine at most? Considering you also can get a number of skeleton archers per fight (and you'll be fighting more battles than you'll be flagging mines), I don't see what the big deal is.

Well, against the AI you can keep reflagging mines and build a gigantic army. In Multiplayer it probably isn't too much of a problem ... though you really don't want to flag a Necro's mines.

And apart from that, the flavor is off, and it seems like an obvious bug.

[Gaidal Cain]

Against the AI, you can most often get off with just about anything, so I wouldn't see that as much of a problem. If the AI is half decent, it will go after you instead of the mines, unless it doesn't feel it can defeat you, and then you probably won't need the ghosts anyway...

[DaemianLucifer]

Since the AI doesnt need mines,even against it you wont be able to do this.