So what's the final verdict on Heroes V?

[Muszka]

That's like saying that guns must exist to stop criminals that have guns...


you want to calm down? Do some fuking breathing exercises...

Yes, guns are made to stop the criminals with guns. Guns should be forged to protect the innocent, not to harm, but since we don't live in utopia, isn't so. A gun should help a 16 year old girl who is raped and violated, but the guns just can get in wrong hands and then monsters like Ceausescu are born with a terrifing regim. Than guns are made to suppress tyrany, to suppress other guns. So I think your santance is true.

And I'm calm, I'm not a smoker, nor I ever was. But I can see the effects of smoking, I work with cigarettes, and I think you can admit it too, that smoking has a placebo effect, thus can calm people.

I agree. Unlike H4, H5 has much lesser value of strategy part

So after you, how would look like an order between HoMM games.

[ThunderTitan]

Yes, guns are made to stop the criminals with guns.

I think you missed my point... i said exist, as in the opposite of non-exist.

[Muszka]

I think you missed my point... i said exist, as in the opposite of non-exist.

Something exist because it had been made.

[Darmani]

Yikes, I've missed a great thread!

I've just read all 8 pages, and found a clear winner for post post.

Unless TotE changed multiple features (which I'm unaware of) I've decided I dislike Heroes V. It's impossible to move quickly, with spellcasters (guaranteed, unavoidable, deadly damage) and town levels hindering fast expansion. The game de-emphasizes speed and allows one to play a lot less quickly - equivalent almost to de-emphasizing skill in my eyes. There are strong and good innovations, yes, but the weaknesses ruin the game. Right now I find I enjoy Heroes III more than Heroes V, and that says something.

Banedon makes a great point about the de-emphasis of speed; the need for blitzkrieg is probably one of the main reasons H2 is still my favorite.

However, there is another type of speed that HV sorely lacks that may initially sound frivolous, but is actually very important: Scroll Speed.

As part of its general performance inneficiency, HV's adventure map scrolls fairly slowly. This means, that, in order to gain a complete view of more than a segment of the map is agonizing; the 3D view certainly doesn't help. This reinforces the game speed issue by making the tactics of well-coordinated offenses over long distances much more difficult.

As for AI, while HoMM has always had poor AI, it was in a different way. HoMM II's AI was simple, governed by predictable rules. These rules were decently well-chosen considering how simple they must be. For example, if the AI has a strong stack of shooters and a decent stack of walkers nearby, it will move the walkers in front of the shooters. If your own troops get too close, the AI walkers will engage.

HV's AI, however, was just stupid. I've played too many battles where the AI kept strong walkers in a corner while its neighbors got clobbered.

On the few pages, there was a good argument going over the nature and relativity of art. To all participants in that, I must reccommend this essay: How Art Can Be Good. While somewhat long, it is well-written, insightful, and even entertaining, certainly well worth the read.

Overall, I'd rank HV as easily far inferior to H2 and H3, and arguably inferior to H4 (I haven't played H1 in a long while). I did not finish H5's campaigns, and have no desire to. I did not purchase HoF, and have no desire to. I did not purchase TotE, and have only a little desire to.

From playing the TotE demo, I can tell the H5 has certainly far improved. Nevertheless, it is still wrought with problems. That it took so long to get the Wait button, a much desired feature that should take less than a day to implement, certainly says a lot about Nival.

In playing that "Father Sky's Wrath" scenario in the TotE scenario, I was able to sit back in my castle for 6 months and still win, defeating the large armies that the AI would throw at me with nothing more than several Cyclopes, a couple tiny support stacks of Shamans, a few fodder stacks of a few Centaurs, and a lot of Blood Rage (not to mention destroying the catapult with 1 hit using Powerful Blow). If I can win by sitting back in my castle, the game has problems; in H2 I would have certainly been crushed by attempting that tactic. TotE may be heaven compared to HV without expansion, but that does not a great game make.

[MistWeaver]

In playing that "Father Sky's Wrath" scenario in the TotE scenario, I was able to sit back in my castle for 6 months and still win, defeating the large armies that the AI would throw at me with nothing more than several Cyclopes, a couple tiny support stacks of Shamans, a few fodder stacks of a few Centaurs, and a lot of Blood Rage (not to mention destroying the catapult with 1 hit using Powerful Blow). If I can win by sitting back in my castle, the game has problems; in H2 I would have certainly been crushed by attempting that tactic. TotE may be heaven compared to HV without expansion, but that does not a great game make.

Goddamn it, people STOP judge AI by its play on scenario/campaign maps. Only scriptless maps can show how good or bad AI is.

[tb5841]

Mistweaver wrote:

Goddamn it, people STOP judge AI by its play on scenario/campaign maps. Only scriptless maps can show how good or bad AI is.

I agree - the whole stay-in-castle-for-six-months thing definitely does not work in multiplayer maps. The original H5 release was awful, but TotE is everything I wanted from the game.

[PhoenixReborn]

People like to complain but they rarely like to put in the work to actually fix problems.

If anyone is interested the scroll speed of the adventure map can be changed in the config files beyond the maximum allowed by the in-game slider.

And it's easy enough to get behind in creeping speed compared to another player just as in the earlier games, so I'm not sure I understand the point about the deemphasis of speed.

[P0i50Z]

Well I don't know why you people complain about it, but HoMM V is the best game in the series, especially TotE (in my opinion).There's nothing wrong with it, I have 1 gb of RAM and it works perfectly with all graphics at high (TotE) and I can always beat the AI at heroic (though I usually play at normal, rarely any other difficulty).

[Meandor]

I agree. Unlike H4, H5 has much lesser value of strategy part

I`m one of the bigger H4 fans but after TotE i would never say such thing. Only thing H4 has on H5 when it comes to strategy is flagable windmils and creatures being able to travel without hero. Other than that? Please name them.

[PhoenixReborn]

Could be turned into a decent game if level design was good.

That might be a valid point, I know when I booted up heroes 3 the first map I tried was definitely had more open than most h5 maps. By that I mean there were multiple routes everywhere.

But, have you tried all the maps available?

http://www.maps4heroes.com/heroes5/maps ... ze=&sort=4

I remember Zandragar's stratagem being pretty good but it requires one of the expansions.

[Darmani]

I agree. Unlike H4, H5 has much lesser value of strategy part

I`m one of the bigger H4 fans but after TotE i would never say such thing. Only thing H4 has on H5 when it comes to strategy is flagable windmils and creatures being able to travel without hero. Other than that? Please name them.

That's really easy.

In H5, it is possible to defeat large stacks of slow neutrals with tiny stacks of fast creatures and a hero. That kind of battle requires pure tactics to win. In HIV, that kind of battle would require strategy.

I'm not saying that the strategy and preparation needed in HIV makes it better or deeper than HV's tactics, but it's never a good idea to speak in absolutes. Oops, I mean it's almost never a good idea to speak in absolutes.

[ThunderTitan]

Something exists because it had been made.

Which is irrelevant to my example...

[Wulfstan8182]

In H5, it is possible to defeat large stacks of slow neutrals with tiny stacks of fast creatures and a hero. That kind of battle requires pure tactics to win. In HIV, that kind of battle would require strategy.

what's the damn difference between tactics and strategy?

[Darmani]

There's a huge difference, Wulfstan.

Chess analogy: A player who can calculate 15 moves in advance is an extraordinary tactician. A player who knows that attempting to take control of the center will somehow, eventually give a good advantage is a good strategist.

A Google search found something that explained it well:

Military minds often think in terms of strategy and tactics.

Strategy is immutable; it is a Big Picture look at a problem that focuses upon the entire forest and not individual trees. Military concepts such as objective, offensive, simplicity, unity of command, mass, economy of force, maneuver, surprise, and security represent the timeless principles of strategy. Why do you think Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has been a best seller for thousands of years and translated into every imaginable language? Because it teaches strategy and the lessons of strategy are timeless. They are bound to our very nature as humans.

Tactics vary with circumstances and, especially, technology. If I were to teach you how to be a soldier during the American Revolution, you would learn how to form and maneuver in lines, perform the 27 steps in loading and firing a musket, and how to ride and tend to a horse. Naturally, yesterday’s tactics won’t win today’s wars – but yesterday’s strategies still win today’s wars… and will win them tomorrow and into the future.

So, tactics present a Small Picture perspective where individual trees are in focus but the Big Picture of the forest is not. Just as your eyes have to look up from this page to refocus on the larger room you’re reading it in, so strategy and tactics require a different focus.

"I should probably buy Elves rather than White Tigers and get them to my hero before exploring in that direction" is an example of strategy at work. "I should attack that stack of Zombies first, deploy nothing but a single stack of Sprites, move to the corner, wait two turns, circle around to the opposite corner, rinse and repeat, all while battering down the smallest stack of Zombies with my hero" is an example of Tactics at work.

[PhoenixReborn]

I should probably buy skirmishers instead of harpooners because they have a chance of slowing down enemy creatures and that's useful in creeping. But for a hero fight, harpooners make more sense to disrupt enemy formations.

What you described isn't tactics it's an exploit, and heroes iv had exploits too.

[Wulfstan8182]

wow, so you're pretty much saying that tactics is just more complicated than strategy. you can just say: i'll kill the zombies, stick around for a while and repeat. . oh, i see a "really" big difference

[Darmani]

I should probably buy skirmishers instead of harpooners because they have a chance of slowing down enemy creatures and that's useful in creeping. But for a hero fight, harpooners make more sense to disrupt enemy formations.

What you described isn't tactics it's an exploit, and heroes iv had exploits too.

I'm not going to argue whether it is or isn't an exploit.

It certainly does take tactics though. If you do it incorrectly, you'll get into a situation where you cannot move your Sprites anywhere the Zombies cannot reach. Well, that's assuming the speed difference between the two isn't too ridiculous - I haven't actually tried it in HV, although I've done similar things by running back and forth with creatures in H2 in order to maximize turret fire.

This was just my attempted example of a "pure tactics" situation is which the H4 equivalent requires strategy. As I stated in my post, I am not attempting to say that that this can be done somehow contributes to HV's inferiority.

I have no interest in bickering over examples. I just don't like people saying "A has no advantage over B except in ways X and Y, and absolutely nothing else."

wow, so you're pretty much saying that tactics is just more complicated than strategy. you can just say: i'll kill the zombies, stick around for a while and repeat. smile_teeth . oh, i see a "really" big difference

No, not at all.

Tactics deals with specifics, a certain, concrete plan of action.

Strategy is more general and long term, knowing that particular actions will be helpful even if you can't plan out exactly how and when it will help.

[Muszka]

Something exists because it had been made.

Which is irrelevant to my example...

I got bored from this, and it's way off-topic.

I have no interest in bickering over examples. I just don't like people saying "A has no advantage over B except in ways X and Y, and absolutely nothing else."

Why? If we take math, is a simple yes or no, if things turn complicated, there can be more than X and Y. I agree that you can't say that a man has only 1 or 2 advantages over another. But in a specified exemple as such:

Only thing H4 has on H5 when it comes to strategy

it may have only X and Y, and nothing else. Of course it's not necessarily true.

A good tactician can win big fights both in H4 and H5, and I don't really see how can be a perfect strategy in H4 concerning the buildng choises. Just to use your Elves vs. White Tiger example, there are battles that only Elves can win and there are battles that only WhiteT can. And you just can see that much of the adv. map before building a 2nd lvl creature gen., to see what kind of strategy would fit, not even with scouts.
I like H4, but if there is a part what I dislike, that is the simultaneous strike, because I can have 100 Black Dragons, still I cannot strike a single Sea Monster without the chance of loosing a unit. And that's where H4 tactics and strategy lacks in my eye.

P.S.: That sounded much too offensive. In fact isn't.

[Pitsu]

I like H4, but if there is a part what I dislike, that is the simultaneous strike, because I can have 100 Black Dragons, still I cannot strike a single Sea Monster without the chance of loosing a unit. And that's where H4 tactics and strategy lacks in my eye.

Well, attacking a sea monster with strong units is a bad choice. Ranged attacks, direct damage spells and soaking retal with low-value units are the ways to go. Fact that you cannot steamroll every army with hundreds of dragons is just diversing the game IMO.

[Pol]

I like H4, but if there is a part what I dislike, that is the simultaneous strike, because I can have 100 Black Dragons, still I cannot strike a single Sea Monster without the chance of loosing a unit. And that's where H4 tactics and strategy lacks in my eye.

That varies a strategy a bit, isn't it?
It's not exactly where the tactics lack but where it is gain.