Holy crap-You MUST see this! (academy strat)

[Mytical]

Well I have no problem with any non-upgraded walkers (zombies, footmen, horned demons, just about any unupgraded never make it to me). Upgraded I don't have any trouble with Squires, demons, cerebus, or even vamp lords). The really tough ones are the zombies (they may be slow but that plague hurts, and they do have a fair ammount of hp), War Dancers, bears (oh my!), and steel golems. Your gremlins can not kill them fast enough, your magic is near useless (vs golems especially) and you can run them arround and arround, but your hero just can not do enough damage without magic to matter. One unlucky IB and your done. If you stay put with them, it's just over faster. I really would like to know your strategy for these.

No not all the buildings are blocked by ranged/casters. Just either the Gem (needed badly for mages) and crystal. Or Gem (seems gems always guarded by some archer or caster ) and Mercury. Now if I don't claim those quick the map is pretty much done.

Usually by the time I reach these (heading left remember) I have plenty of mana (over 100 at least) so mana is not a problem.

[raistlinz]

The really tough ones are the zombies (they may be slow but that plague hurts, and they do have a fair ammount of hp), War Dancers, bears (oh my!), and steel golems. Your gremlins can not kill them fast enough, your magic is near useless (vs golems especially) and you can run them arround and arround, but your hero just can not do enough damage without magic to matter. One unlucky IB and your done. If you stay put with them, it's just over faster. I really would like to know your strategy for these.

Well, keep practicing.

Another tip: if you can't take all these creatures you said easily, my suggestion is slow down the building of magic guild and boost out Iron Golem. Combine with the repair ability of Master Gremlin, I'm sure you can take them with these army and a little calculate.

[Mytical]

Ok what I am asking for; however, is how you personally handle these situations (week one), or how the best of your people would. Day by day for the 1st week. And tell me what creatures are guarding your mines, if you take them, how...I am really curious. Do it via private mail if nothing else.

Just so you don't think I am unwilling to do this myself first thing in the morning when I get home, I will do just that. Make a list of all the creatures arround my castle, what they are guarding, how I fought them, ect. I will spare no detail. Buildings I build, in what order, how much gold, resources I have at the end of each day, the whole nine yards. Skills I get offered, skills I choose, heroes I hire (and which hero is my main), spells I get offered, number of enemy stacks, no of enemy units...and I will post the first week of the game in whole on this thread.

Since my computer is a bit pressed with heroes the only thing I can not do is screenshots. When I try my computer crashes after sitting there for about 2 minutes (I can swear it's glaring at me as if "Why me?!" during that time). (hehe)

[86wyp]

Well I have no problem with any non-upgraded walkers (zombies, footmen, horned demons, just about any unupgraded never make it to me). Upgraded I don't have any trouble with Squires, demons, cerebus, or even vamp lords). The really tough ones are the zombies (they may be slow but that plague hurts, and they do have a fair ammount of hp), War Dancers, bears (oh my!), and steel golems. Your gremlins can not kill them fast enough, your magic is near useless (vs golems especially) and you can run them arround and arround, but your hero just can not do enough damage without magic to matter. One unlucky IB and your done. If you stay put with them, it's just over faster. I really would like to know your strategy for these.

If you don't have problem vs zombies, then I don't think you will have problem against plague ones, yes they have plague, but don't let them hit your main stacks. For war dancers and bears, they are fast, the best way to beat them is to have either fire trap or swarm, that 's why in all build orders mage tower 2 is built on day 4, if you only have arrows then you must have enough power and army to strike them down fast enough, that's obvious to me, so fight them on day 1 is not a good idea. And you need to do what you can to block them or lead them away from your main stack.Sometimes you don't even need many gremlins to fire, it depends on many things, level, artifacts(do you choose random arti at the start), magics skills, warmachines and so on. The point is that you must know when you can fight them and when you can't, then choose the best route of leveling.

No not all the buildings are blocked by ranged/casters. Just either the Gem (needed badly for mages) and crystal. Or Gem (seems gems always guarded by some archer or caster ) and Mercury. Now if I don't claim those quick the map is pretty much done.

You know what, mages are not important at all so if it is really impossible for you to beat the guards of gem mine at the time, don't worry, you just need to build magic towers and keep leveling then use your magic against them.
Sometimes you can't avoid loss of army, we both need more experience, but try your best to get better result and no matter what just don't stop.
btw You don't have to fight every mob you see, the purpose of creeping is to get you enough magic skills and power and resources.The key is always better magic! with that you can do much more things.

I recommend you read raistlinz's post to see if you can get some tips from it.

[raistlinz]

Ok what I am asking for; however, is how you personally handle these situations (week one), or how the best of your people would. Day by day for the 1st week. And tell me what creatures are guarding your mines, if you take them, how...I am really curious. Do it via private mail if nothing else.

Sorry about your PC, my PC sucks too, it even unable to run the game.

Well, if you ask for the detail....I may got a chance to play it this weekend, I'll shot some pics to show you how I work it out in first 7 days. But it referrence anyway, even I sit next to you and show you step by step, you open a new war and all changed. So just keep practicing, I believe you can break it.

[asandir]

Well thanks Raistlin, you seem eager to at least backup your claims, and help us plebs improve , so thanks for that

[Mytical]

I will try some more, just because I can be stubborn, if it does not pan out for me in 12 more tries (at least to a degree) I will shelve it and not worry about it for now. More interesting things to do (like practice with dwarves) and finish this blasted Campain I am on. After 12 more attempts I will post my findings, and leave it for those who are better at academy then I. That is how my brain works sadly. Either I get it quick, or it takes a small atomic explosion to pound it into my skull .

[raistlinz]

Well thanks Raistlin, you seem eager to at least backup your claims, and help us plebs improve , so thanks for that

Well, you're welcome.

The fact is I start play h5 this summer and stop in Oct. because I played in my work place and then I quit. Since then I can't get too much chance to play h5 at all, so I'm gonna play it this weekend anyway, even just for fun.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Since my computer is a bit pressed with heroes the only thing I can not do is screenshots. When I try my computer crashes after sitting there for about 2 minutes (I can swear it's glaring at me as if "Why me?!" during that time). (hehe)

Try the freeware program MWSnap.
http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2006/P ... hp#0437-PW

GOW

[zuraffo]

Hi,

Just out of curiousity, I tried a game on the said mystic vale with Heroic difficulty. The only thing I can say is ... It's an eye opener. There are a lot tricks I pick up that I usually don't observe in my campaign game. Like:

1. Always split into small stacks of 1s. This will make enemy waste one turn just to kill that one unit of yours, and hopefully your main damage unit (at the beginning, gremlin, later ur hero) can kill them in time.

2. Besides the mandatory wood and stone mines, which usually are lightly guarded, getting experience for your hero is more important than flagging mine. What I mean is, if a mine looks like it's going to take your too much to flag, you would rather give it up.

3. With Nur, one of the trick I use during early game to conserve mana is to drag the battle with normal attack instead of magic if I know the opponent is unlikely to inflict heavy damage to my units.

4. Market is very important!

5. I use hit and run to fast travel back to my main castle. I pass my main army to the backup hero, attack a creep and flee. Cost me 3000 gold but saved me a lot of time. It probably wasn't worth it, but wth... and that point I have already realized that the computer is developing slower than me...

Anyway, I didn't do as wonderfully as other guys, I only got to lvl 8 at the end of week one. I do, however, manage to finish my lvl 5 mage guild in week 3 and flag the second town in week 3, but I think I mess up some of the build order. I got armaggadon from the School building, and then clear all the range creep with Obsidian gargoyle + armaggadon.

I must say it's rather fun, although quite stress. I realize it all boils down to how effecient you can creep during the early level (Most exp with least loss). those guys must be very good at creeping, there were a few times I have to load a savegame just so that I can reduce the loss. I don't know how they maintain optimal creeping in a MP, but kudos to them. for me, I am content just to play a few light games here and there and what for the expansion


BTW, Armaggadon is a sight to behold. I never realize obsidian gargoyle is immune to fire until now, I also never really pay attention to them until now. AFter this game, I am having this strange fondness for these cute flying stones .

[Elvin]

Just 1 tip: your developing is ok, your magic is great(motw+wasp swarm is perfect way to clean the map). But the built colossi part in week 3 is not a wise choice. I said the building order is just a referrence, it should be changed base on the condition, I think you should build castle before the colossi, I believe more Master Gremlins& Obsidian Gargoyle would help you more than 1/2 Colossus.

I never act on rigid rules and tend to be adaptable according to the situations.About unwise,I don't know...My army needed this tank a lot and greatly enhanced my potential.One of the few times I enjoyed some colossus action too The increase in my other units wouldn't be as useful at the time because I depended on magic firstly and seconly I saw that while the others suffer casualties the colossi do not.The only reason I would go for castle would be to afford the prices of artifact merchants and buy some arties right away.I'll see how that turns out.

@Mytical
You sure are persistent Don't let it spoil your fun!

[raistlinz]

Hi,

Just out of curiousity, I tried a game on the said mystic vale with Heroic difficulty. The only thing I can say is ... It's an eye opener. There are a lot tricks I pick up that I usually don't observe in my campaign game. Like:

1. Always split into small stacks of 1s. This will make enemy waste one turn just to kill that one unit of yours, and hopefully your main damage unit (at the beginning, gremlin, later ur hero) can kill them in time.

2. Besides the mandatory wood and stone mines, which usually are lightly guarded, getting experience for your hero is more important than flagging mine. What I mean is, if a mine looks like it's going to take your too much to flag, you would rather give it up.

3. With Nur, one of the trick I use during early game to conserve mana is to drag the battle with normal attack instead of magic if I know the opponent is unlikely to inflict heavy damage to my units.

4. Market is very important!

5. I use hit and run to fast travel back to my main castle. I pass my main army to the backup hero, attack a creep and flee. Cost me 3000 gold but saved me a lot of time. It probably wasn't worth it, but wth... and that point I have already realized that the computer is developing slower than me...

Anyway, I didn't do as wonderfully as other guys, I only got to lvl 8 at the end of week one. I do, however, manage to finish my lvl 5 mage guild in week 3 and flag the second town in week 3, but I think I mess up some of the build order. I got armaggadon from the School building, and then clear all the range creep with Obsidian gargoyle + armaggadon.

I must say it's rather fun, although quite stress. I realize it all boils down to how effecient you can creep during the early level (Most exp with least loss). those guys must be very good at creeping, there were a few times I have to load a savegame just so that I can reduce the loss. I don't know how they maintain optimal creeping in a MP, but kudos to them. for me, I am content just to play a few light games here and there and what for the expansion


BTW, Armaggadon is a sight to behold. I never realize obsidian gargoyle is immune to fire until now, I also never really pay attention to them until now. AFter this game, I am having this strange fondness for these cute flying stones .

Well, you work it out very good.

1—4 Exactly.

5 It depends, if you're far away from your town where enemy will attack in 1 day, you can use that.

Level 8 is not bad at all, it depends on the creature you meet.

Gargoyle is great, ugly outside but really helps a lot both in creeping and final war.

[raistlinz]

I never act on rigid rules and tend to be adaptable according to the situations.About unwise,I don't know...My army needed this tank a lot and greatly enhanced my potential.One of the few times I enjoyed some colossus action too The increase in my other units wouldn't be as useful at the time because I depended on magic firstly and seconly I saw that while the others suffer casualties the colossi do not.The only reason I would go for castle would be to afford the prices of artifact merchants and buy some arties right away.I'll see how that turns out.

@Mytical
You sure are persistent Don't let it spoil your fun!

As you mentioned , you depended on magic firstly, so I can't see 1 or 2 Colossus can be a great help to your development. Castle is expensive, but you can have your money back in 3 days, so I prefer to build Castle and then maybe boost up Djinns, I think with 10+ Djinns you can do more stuff than with 4 Colossus. Anyway that's just my opinion.

[Elvin]

Yes but even with a magic user you need a tough unit to shrug off blows.
4 colossi will survive,10 genies won't.Disappointing and not self-reliant.If I continue to build colossi on week 3 will depend if I see the artifacts I'll be able to buy can make up for it.Or if I will have the money in the first place.

Edit:
I think it would be better if you edited your posts instead of double posting.

[raistlinz]

Yes but even with a magic user you need a tough unit to shrug off blows.
4 colossi will survive,10 genies won't.Disappointing and not self-reliant.If I continue to build colossi on week 3 will depend if I see the artifacts I'll be able to buy can make up for it.Or if I will have the money in the first place.

Edit:
I think it would be better if you edited your posts instead of double posting.

That depends on the habit, I just prefer Djinn because they have high initiative so split them on the battle field can curse most of the creatures before they act. But Colossus is really strong, so, suit yourself.

Double posting thing: I don't know exactly what you mean.....plz explain that

[Banedon]

Double-posting is essentially making two posts in a row - that is, clicking the "Post Reply" button twice before anyone else made something. It's something that's normally not condoned, but then I notice your bbs doesn't mind. Here however we generally click the 'edit' button by the post and make the post longer / shorter as we wish.

I'll be testing things seriously once my exams finish (that's on Saturday). Until then, I'm just going to try to kill 29 Deep Hydras with 10 Sprites and my hero

[DaemianLucifer]

Thats easy.Do it with blade dancers.More of a chalenge

[raistlinz]

Ok, I don't know the rules around here and I'm awfully sorry about that.

kill 29 Deep Hydras with 10 Sprites and hero--wow, which race and which hero with what level?
````````````````````
Well, just check--
Deep Hydra, speed 5 initiative 7
Sprite speed 7 initiative 14

That's surely easy.

[DaemianLucifer]

Its not a rule per se,more like a show of respect for those that read you.

And why does that about hydras suprise you?It can be done even with a level one hero in some 100 or so rounds.

[raistlinz]

The reason is I'm not familiar with creature's speed & initiative, espacially Dungeon, cos I don't play Dungeon that much. In fact, I just familiar with the light side and necro. My Dungeon & Inferno sucks.