my first attempt (or rather, 4-5 attempts) at heroic (TOE)

[Arzang]

I was playing that map where you have a computer ally. it's a large map where you are red, (bot) allied to green (top) and fighting blue and yellow (left and right respectively).

everyone had their own island, the ally islands were connected with two way teleporters and the map was very much symmetric to a fault. now here is what happened:

first attempt: vinrael and sylvan. I crept poorly without splitting stacks in order to protect my hunters. needless to say, I lost hard.

second and possibly third/fourth attempts: same team/hero, and on the luckiest attempt I fought goblins=cannon fodder.

but still no matter what I did the neutral stacks were TOO BIG, and my ally came and stole my gold mine RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY ****ING FACE. and I couldn't take it back. now what disturbs me the most is the computers endless supply of gold. they kept coming at me with heaps of units, so as you can figure out; I lost.

then I switched. I chose deleb, and I was damn proud of it. everything seemed to go better but as always, my cpu "ally" stole my gold mine. but I let him play his little game. not only that, but he takes an opponent town but does not have the balls nor the brains to keep it. eventually he loses his own town, takes yellow's town, loses that town as well and leaves me alone.

now with deleb I do my best to get flaming arrows but it seems like god hates me for whatever reason. and I usually give money to hobos so it must be something else, like my appearance or whatever. in any case my oh so imba ballista was not so imba lategame.

but I could properly defend my castle and despite me getting some good heroes through the tavern (level 17 grok for running all over the place) I can't hold out forever.

now yellow is all alone on top so I figured I'd give him a visit, and I tried the "boat trick", blocking my shore. even though I tried rearranging the boats and buying boats until no boats could be bought when I got to yellow, my town was home alone and he somehow managed to get a boat on my shore and even if I had pooled ALL MY UNITS from both of my towns (just acquired yellows town, former green, who also was inferno luckily), it would be no match for his 18 titans, 8 red dragons and 75 (!) djinn viziers.

now seriously.. WTF. HOW DO YOU WIN HEROIC?! are some maps just not made for heroic?

[Banedon]

I'll give the map a try in ... maybe two weeks' time ... and then post the results here. If you have a smaller map, that'd be even better

Just one thing. Any preference on which race I use? Otherwise I figured I might try Sylvan or Inferno, since those are what you tried.

[Banedon]

OK so the stars aligned and I find myself playing the map today, and thought I'd keep a running commentary. It's my first game in over 6 months, so imperfect play all over, but then again I have the save game / load game buttons (which I usually use liberally to save even a single Sprite or similar from death).

Start of the game. I pick Sylvan and my default hero choice with Sylvan, Ossir. Turns out the town you start with doesn't have a Tavern. Ew. Means the first building has to be the Tavern. I'm lucky and get the Unicorn specialist as well as a Dwarven hero (don't know the name, don't even know the speciality, I just know he [she?] came with 26 Shieldguards and 10 Skirmishers [or whats-it-called]). My town gets the "increased Pixie growth" bonus, which is great.

Begin clearing the map. With Sylvan the Sawmill is a priority, and I'm in luck again: guarded by Conscripts. Ore Pit is also guarded by Conscripts. There were other mines about with hit-and-run'able guards (one set of Warriors for my Gem mine, one set of Steel Golems for the Sulfur mine, another set of Magnetic Golems for the Witch Hut). Lost a few units here and there but by the end of the first day of the second week I had the afore-mentioned mines, the Battledance Terrace (never bought any though) and Pixie Hut. Also have 26 Hunters. Yay for Sylvan! But I had to skip one turn of building in the first week because of an out-and-out lack of Wood. Nay for Sylvan. It takes a bloody 15 wood to upgrade to Arcane Archers too, ewwwwwwww.

Ossir is level 9 or so right now. I've given him Luck, Leadership and Avenger. The Witch Hut gave him Destructive - not a bad ability for a Ranger. The remaining stacks in my corner of the map should be doable soon. Gold Mine is guarded by a Pack of Foul Hydras (can't remember if they can be done by Sprites; I know I did Deep Hydras once though). Give me Arcane Archers and I might even be able to take out the Magma Dragons and Green Dragons before long (and heck with the save / load button I'm going to try anyway).

One curious thing though. Is there only one portal into my corner? If there is only one portal then I'm pretty safe, I don't have to guard two fronts at once ...

*******

Game goes on. Ossir is offered Master of Storms, and I notice there's that Trident that +50% Lightning damage so I take it. Creeping goes on as per normal. I had to sacrifice all my Shieldguards and my Unicorn to take out the Hunter's Lodge at the end of week 2. Only problem after that was I had to use my Sprites to tank the Foul Hydras by the Gold Mine, which is sad because I hate seeing them die Still I took all of it out. Building up my town goes on as per normal as well.

After the Foul Hydras went down I took out a stack of Succubi Seducers guarding a Colloseaum. I'm offered Battle Commander, which I'm happy to take since I'm going for Retribution (still not offered Attack though). The skill gives me ... 20 War Dancers!? Lol!? I don't even need reinforcements from my town now to proceed. 18 Death Knights guarding the Hill Fort went down without a hitch.

Here's what I had at the end of the first turn in the third week:

33 Hunters (soon to become Arcane Archers!)
Level 15 Ossir
Some Arcane Archers and Druids being chained to Ossir
All my mines ... well not all. There's something guarded by a stack of Vampire Lords halfway across the map from where Ossir is right now, and I have no time to go get it. There's also a stack of Battle Mages guarding my Shipyard, which I didn't attack. And a stack of Succubi Seducers there too but then I didn't have as high level an Ossir and the +7 Hunters from the lodge, so I didn't attack them either.

Game is progressing smoothly. If my enemy's progress is like my ally's, I'd wallop them right now.

*******

3rd week. Game goes on. I push through the Green Dragons and Lava Dragons guarding my high-level items and the portal with minimal losses (lost a few Sprites to the Green Dragons - I remember there were 6 Greens and 6 Emeralds - and even the game gave me 0 losses vs. the Lava Dragons). High level artifact spawned as the Armor with +2 to all stats and 20% magic resistance. Woot! Was hoping the portal would bring me to one of my opponents' lands so I could eliminate him quickly, but it brought me to my ally's land. Too bad. You can't have it all.

My ally is unlucky. The creatures guarding his portal and high level artifact (Sar-Issus staff or something) are Emerald Dragons and Archangels. Well his misfortune is my good fortune. I take them both out, losing one Sprite (yay for large stacks). And then I move on. His land is rich and ripe for the picking so why not? At this point I'm a little worried about having to defend my own town and also that I should push for my opponents' jugular to end the game quickly, but hey, let's take my own sweet time. I hate sea voyages anyway. I took out the Nightmares guarding his gold mine hoping to claim it for myself - after all, your ally blatantly stole your gold mine so why don't I do the same back to him? Then turns out I didn't have enough movement points to claim the mine. Sheesh. Stupid snow terrain. He promptly took it on his turn.

I build the Capitol on turn 5 of this week, and the Dragon dwelling on turn 7. I still have 3 heroes, but I'll probably be hiring next week to keep up with my increasingly long supply chain. I've realized I made two significant mistakes so far. First, I traded off crystal and gems to build my Capitol, and then realized I needed that crystal and gems to build my Dragon dwelling. I was so close to failing to reach this critical milestone, but then I took out some neutrals in my ally's land and stole a stack of crystal and gems, which let me build my Dragon dwelling with a little bit of trading. Yay!

The second mistake is that way back in early week 2 I'd taken a Ring of Caution. Well not taken of course. Ossir didn't take it, but my Dwarven hero (just found out his name is Brand) did. I should've transported the Ring to Ossir when I transported my new weeks' creature growth, but didn't. Oh well. Fortunately for me I don't need it. The Unicorn specialist started with a First Aid Tent that I didn't transfer as well. This might've saved my Unicorn from dying to the Ghosts in the Hunter fight, I dunno.

At the start of week 4 I'm progressing pretty well. Ossir's been offered Attack, finally. He's got 48 Arcane Archers, 8 High Druids, some 40+ Sprites, and rolling through every neutral stack I can find, it's just a matter of getting there and attacking them. In my town I have the Druid (unupgraded), Hunter (upgraded), Unicorn (unupgraded), Pixie (upgraded) and Dragon (unupgraded) dwellings. I have a Capitol, but no Fort. I have a Mage Guild level 3 that offered Frost Ring, which Ossir did learn before his long voyage away, but with Imbue Arrow who needs Frost Ring? He doesn't have much Spell Power unfortunately (only about 5 ... ) but has quite a bit of Knowledge (15). With the +50% Lightning artifact and the +2 Spell Power torso, and Channeling, his Lightning Bolts deal almost 500 damage. Add Imbue Arrow and it's great death and destruction for this stage of the game.

At the start of the first turn of the 4th week, Yellow shows up. So, one of my opponents is a Necro (don't know yet about the other - is there a way to check? Haven't really tried). He's got a few Wights and an otherwise weak army. But he's on a boat pretty close to my land and probably strong enough to overwhelm what I've left behind - after all, I don't have a Fort yet and chances are this is a fairly high level hero. Here's a game-changing choice. Should I push on, explore my ally's land and purchase a boat there and keep going, or should I retreat to defend my own land? It'll be 5 turns to get back. Probably defend, it'll let me start putting points into Avenger as well as learn whatever new spells might be offered in the Mage Guild (cross fingers for Chain Lightning + the Trident).

What will happen next? At this point I decided to just quit the game and stop for the day, I might not continue the game for a while, too, so ... you'll have to wait and see

[Banedon]

I have some free time today, so ...

In the intervening days I'd decided that I just want to finish the game as fast as possible, and to do that I had to invade one land as fast as possible. After such an invasion the portals would let me hit the last player as well. Since Yellow was so kind as to poke his head in my territory, he would be the first one to die.

It took 5 turns for Ossir to come back from my ally's land. 5 long turns. Turns out they were too long. The Yellow hero landed on my land and had a free shot at my castle. I evacuated, recruiting all my needed creatures and transporting them as far away from the soon-to-fall capitol as possible. Then ... wonder of wonders ... Yellow decides not to take the free city in front of him! He goes off chasing one of my transporters with a Green Dragon. Poor him. My hero surrenders, preserving the Green Dragon, and Ossir flattens Yellow's impudent hero.

Clear the last neutrals off my land, or move on? I just wanted to end the game, so I headed off. But then not so long after embarking into the sea Ossir runs into Blue's main hero. Wow. Heroic difficulty indeed, Anwen had massive forces. He had a throng of Master Hunters while I, carefully conserving all my Arcane Archers (haven't lost one yet), had only 80+. The guy has Savage Treants (10), Silver Unicorns (19), Emerald Dragons (4), Dryads (100+) and Wind Dancers (79). Too big to fight.

I retreated. He pursued. My supply chains arrived. I turtled. He went off chasing my transporter heroes. I'd built up my Avenger and Mage Guild in the meantime (Yay! Chain Lightning!), primed up to meet him (unfortunately could only set the Dragons and Sprites as favored enemies) and engaged him in the field.

Then came a big stroke of misfortune. The battlefield was uncrowded, and his fast-moving units quickly crossed the map. The Emeralds were the only one able to cross the map in the first turn, and they pounded my Emeralds, while his Silver Unicorns and Wind Dancers took up threatening positions. I used the Dragon stack to block his Master Hunters, and they were promptly finished off by the Master Hunters' melee attacks, his Dryads and his hero move. Too bad. But then my artillery swung into action. I had 96 Arcane Archers split into 4 stacks, and two of them wiped out Emeralds. Here I had my first hero turn and was looking forward to unleashing my super Chain Lightning on him before I found out ... the bugger has both Protection and Ring of Lightning Protection! My Chain Lightning does less than 100 damage!

At this point I wanted to give the computer the universal two fingers insult, but yeah whatever. I Imbued Deep Freeze instead - no Master of Ice, sigh - and the rest of my artillery + luck + good morale annihilated his Unicorns and Wind Dancers. The battle wasn't over; he still had over 80 Master Hunters, 10 Savage Treants and 90+ Dryads. But he could no longer win. My Sprite stack picked up where the Dragons left off, blocking the Master Hunters, and after another round of artillery fire he fled.

This fight cost my first serious casualties the entire game - the earlier one against Yellow hadn't cost me a single Sprite. But it wasn't too heavy. I had 3 Emerald Dragons and all of them died. I had 100+ Sprites and half of them died. But my beloved Arcane Archers all survived unscathed, as did all my High Druids. This fight ends the game. Survive the Heroic AI's initial assault and the rest is just mop up ...

... and it turns out my ally does the mop up for me! Lol. While Anwen attacked me, one of my ally's heroes went off and finished off Yellow, and afterwards as Ossir got on a boat and looked for Blue's corner, his heroes used the portal in Yellow's land to take out Blue. Anwen was still alive, and while his army was greatly reduced it was still pretty big. His base was under threat but instead of retreating to fight my ally, he chose to advance and face me a second time. Backs to the wall in this high stakes decision he fought to the death, and although my artillery annihilated him he did kill 8 Arcane Archers, my only lost Arcane Archers the entire game. Blue still had another hero on the open seas, promptly hunted down. Game over!

2 Months 2 weeks 7 days. Pretty good. At the end I was building up another army to take out stragglers, but it turned out it wasn't necessary. In retrospect I could've done better by building for a quick match not the long term, I never got to Retribution after all, and Logistics -> Navigation would've given me more initiative on the sea. Although my ally wiped out both computers, I did most the work by defeating their main heroes. My ally's multiple hero approach actually worked pretty good since he could attack on multiple fronts, it speeded up the end. His armies at the end were pretty impressive, although if we wound up fighting he'd almost certainly lose.

[Jac]

That was a good read. Makes me want to fire up the game and have a go at it... I bet this is enough to make non-Heroes players feel like they're missing out on a great game lol.

[Mirez]

impressive to say the least

[ywhtptgtfo]

Tried the same map. I started as red and randomed Academy with Gremlim specialist. Got Mages at week 2, Capitol at the end of week 3, and Giants at week 4. Other than the gold mine (guarded by Runemasters), the rest of the mines were guarded by ground melee which was easily dispatched of.

I only focused on one hero and maxed Enlightenment and Summoning quickly. Then maxed Dark and Sorcery later. The core of my creeping strategy was Landmine turtling with Gremlims. Against range, I used Phoenix + Blindness.

Blue (necro) showed up at week 5 with a modest army (still stronger than mine). Since my main was out creeping, I transferred his troops to a nearby secondary hero, attacked a neutral stack, and rehired at the castle. I defended the siege with 7 stacks of single Obsidian Gargoyles. In that battle, I summoned Phoenix and took out the Liches, Vampires, and Ghosts ASAP. Lost 5 Gargoyles although I had to reload once due to a bug with Toxic Cloud killing all my Gargoyles (wtf?).

Afterwards, the game was a breeze. I sailed out and captured Blue's castle, who then captured my ally Green's. Green took out Yellow and then Blue followed him there and destroyed him while I captured Green's starting time. Blue then when through the portal and recaptured his starting town at staggering costs. Then I caught up with his main hero and took him out. The game ends shortly ater when I captued Yellow's initial town.

Big cat and mouse game with no difficulty at all (even at Heroic level) since A.I. was dumb.

[Arzang]

thanks for all the input and I'm sorry for the late answer! my late answer does not mean I did not enjoy the answers, they helped me a lot.

here is how I beat the map:

by default you are south and you ally is north. enemies are west and east.

so I changed myself to west, ally to east, and enemies to north and south. think I used academy. either way, this made the map into a breeze. what I also realized was that the ai has NO way to realize it's repeating moves. if you are somewhat equal in army strength and close to home, you can make them follow you home to their base. now the ai will realize that you are "stronger" since you are fortified.

this means that they either lurk outside your base until, I guess, you get strong enough to scare them away or they run away directly. either way you cal reel a somewhat strong hero into a battle that favours you this way. of course you have to be close to home to do this but it seems like you always get town portal anyway..

[Banedon]

Yes, it's noticable in games against the AI - they push you into your castle (while conspicuously ignoring all the mines and such that lets you function pretty well still). Since you are in a castle they suddenly decide not to risk an attack, and stays nearby. New week rolls around, and with the new unit growth you crush them and win the game.

It's a big weakness in the AI and should be plugged ...