Finally getting serious with Heroes V

[Mirez]

with claus jousting can get over 100% iirc

[wimfrits]

For the Thanes to be comparable they need their runes, and to be honest I've not found runes strong eough to matter.

I absolutely agree on the first bit. Overall Fortress units are weaker than same level units of other factions (with some exceptions).

But runes increase a single unit's effectiveness up to say +100%. A unit may use dragon form or battle rage in the first round. Or magic control to steal an enemy buff. Charge ensures a stack will always be able to land a hit. And the opponent will be 'forced' to destroy a crippled stack to prevent use of the resurrection rune; which is made hard by the dwarves' high defense.

Playing with Fortress feels like holding a full deck while the opponent only has 7 cards

[danhvo]

I have stopped playing necro because, for me, it's by far the easiest race to play. If I have to judge how powerful a race, that would be my basic criteria.

As Banedon pointed out, ore can be a bit of a problem. But since it's so easy for the main hero to attack neutrals aggressively, right from the beginning, to collect resources, it usually isn't too bad (ooh, some ore over there - attack!). Because the main hero's army grows naturally every week, he can just keep on exploring and exploring, not having to return to town to recruit, until much later when he needs to learn spells from the magic guild.

And if you manage to give the main hero the Mentoring ability, boy will you have fun. Create 7 more necros to mentor, and see how your Dark Energy pool swells.

[Banedon]

champion can only hit up to 2 stacks, thunder thanes can hit up to 8, his awsome ability is why his attack is nerfed so much

Yeah, until your opponent splits up. If he does split up then even after you double your damage with Storm Strike, Champions deal more damage. 9-13x2 = 18-26 < 20-35, and there's still the 8-point difference in attack to consider, and still not considering Jousting. Also, like with Succubi Mistresses, you usually want to concentrate all your damage into one big punch. Secondary damage is great if you can hit more people with it, but if most of your damage comes from that bouncing attack then you'll have a hard time knocking out the most dangerous stacks first.

But ... I won't say anything more about Fortress until I get the replay.

And if you manage to give the main hero the Mentoring ability, boy will you have fun. Create 7 more necros to mentor, and see how your Dark Energy pool swells.

Good idea, didn't think of that. Mentoring would also mean my heroes win any clashes between secondary heroes as well as guard against the AI. I'll give it a try.

Anyway wimfrits you asked how my Necro early-game went so smoothly. It's a combination of the early shooter, plus Raise Dead, plus Necromancy. The broad classes of creatures and how to creep them -

Walkers: block Skeleton Archers with Zombies.
Flyers: block Skeleton Archers with Zombies.
Shooters: shoot it out, then Raise Dead near the end of the battle.
Casters: shoot it out, then Raise Dead near the end of the battle.

Because of Raise Dead you can afford to lose a few creatures here and there. You'll have mana problems early but Mark of the Necromancer goes some way to solving that problem (remember to use to restore mana in less-dangerous fights). You can even afford some losses because it's really hard to attrition Necro - even if you can't Raise Dead, you've got Eternal Servitude, not to mention Necromancy raising more creatures. Eternal Servitude means also that so long as the Skeleton Archer stack suffers no deaths, your meat shields will be regenerated.

You can easily amass an army of Skeleton Archers early too - you start with some, first building = Skeleton Archer building, you buy another hero who gives you some, and then prioritize raising Skeletons / Skeleton Archers early (and if you raise Skeletons, chain to town and upgrade to Skeleton Archers). I think in my game I had some 200 Skeleton Archers early week 2, but I don't remember clearly. Possibly I was lucky enough to raise the 20 Vampires from the Grim Raiders, but I don't really use them any different from using Zombies, except of course if they die they are going to get Raised.

In this game creeping started getting really smooth after 2-3 days. Could be because I was offered Mark of the Necromancer early though.

[wimfrits]

But ... I won't say anything more about Fortress until I get the replay.

Don't focus too much on thanes then
They're good for creeping and harassing but are not the key damage dealers. Magma dragons and, if they're not targeted early on, berserkers.

...
I think in my game I had some 200 Skeleton Archers early week 2, but I don't remember clearly. Possibly I was lucky enough to raise the 20 Vampires from the Grim Raiders, but I don't really use them any different from using Zombies, except of course if they die they are going to get Raised.

In this game creeping started getting really smooth after 2-3 days. Could be because I was offered Mark of the Necromancer early though.

That all sounds familiar. However, I find that skeleton archers generally are unable to whittle down walkers and flyers enough (about 20-30%) before they break through the blocking zombies. No raise dead can compensate for that. Could be a higher map difficulty though.
Archers and magic users waste my skellies completely. With 20 vampires things would be different though
200 archers is pretty high. Some early external dwellings?

[Elias_Maluco]

Most of the times I play undead I also gather an incredible amount of archers fast, simply due to necromancy. If you get lucky on the neutrals and get the upgrade early, is very easy to accumulate archers. They are great early game, but will die too easily and make too little damage later.

But with the undead, is always easy on the beginning, hard at the end, because their troops are mostly mediocre and easy to kill. Thats why I find very useful to get skilled in magic.

Necros have great spellpower, they can be killers with any kind of magic. Early on, you will have too little knowledge to take full advantage of it, later on you will have enough.

I recommend Summoning (powerfull raise dead, conjure phoenix with high spellpower is very effective, the hive can be used to neutralize shooters) or Dark (Dark is always cool, with high spellpower is even cooler and even better when your own troops are immune to it).

Sometimes I get Summoning, Dark and Sorcery; then Leadership (the undead are mostly slow) and Enlightment (for the stats and Mentoring which, as someone mentioned, can be used to train other necros and boost your dark points).

Sometimes I replace Summoning or Leadership with Luck (always great). Destructive is not worth it, will not be very effective by the end of the game. Light could be cool, but you will probably never get it.

[Banedon]

That all sounds familiar. However, I find that skeleton archers generally are unable to whittle down walkers and flyers enough (about 20-30%) before they break through the blocking zombies. No raise dead can compensate for that. Could be a higher map difficulty though.
Archers and magic users waste my skellies completely. With 20 vampires things would be different though
200 archers is pretty high. Some early external dwellings?

They can break through but Raise Dead compensates - it did for me. Which hero did you use? The game was on Heroic, so it can't be a higher difficulty setting.

The 200 Skeleton Archers mostly came from the Skeletons I started with, plus the Skeletons from a second hero, plus any I raise via Necromancy (Skeletons / Skeleton Archers were the only thing I raised). I don't know the exact numbers and I don't have a savegame to check. It might be closer 150.

@Eliase_Maluco - you take Leadership?? Of all attributes you pick the one that does not affect the Undead?

[wimfrits]

No I meant the map difficulty. The mapmaker can set base strength of neutral stacks.

When playing Necro I usually pick either Lucretia; aiming for a smooth clearing with vampires in week2 or 3 and settle for the useless mana regen ability, or Vladimir for the bonus to raise dead. For some reason my Vladimir rarely picks up knowledge so he's not able to cast all that much. Moreover, I find that the strength of summoning magic lies mainly in tactical blocking; which I think Necro needs least of all factions.
Occasionally Naadir as she offers some great early tactics but having 2 magic skills is a waste later on.
What heroes do you use?

[Mirez]

I like casper, even though he's not a top-class hero like vladimir or naadir a second raise dead is so convenient, it makes creeping even more easier
My favorite spell is arcane crystal, you can do such fun things with it if you use it together with archliches

[Banedon]

@above - Naadir is top class? Why? I suppose you can use the raised Ghosts to steal retaliation and stuff, but they don't have high initiative. Might give him a try in a duel map regardless.

Also Arcane Crystal is fine and all but where do you get the Ore to build Mage Guild level 2?

@wimfrits - I used Vladimir this game. Raise Dead is useful all through the game after all. I think the only two other Necro heroes who can compare are Lucretia (stronger late-game) and Kaspar (more tactical options early). I'm not sure if they start with Raise Dead; if they don't then it's a massive strike against them.

Why do you say having two magic skills is a waste later on? You can live with one magic school, but a second one doesn't hurt. Summoning offers Conjure Phoenix (awesome destructive spell) while Dark brings a variety of curses, some extremely deadly. I can certainly see a Necro cast Conjure Phoenix to start with and then switch to the Dark spells - further Summoning spells aren't likely to be as effective.

[wimfrits]

Why do you say having two magic skills is a waste later on?

Because in a crucial battle your hero can only cast 1 spell at a time. Better to have an extra passive skill.

As for summoning: summon phoenix is nice but not necessarily better than puppet master or frenzy. And not counting sorcery you can cast 2 mass dark spells instead; which definately is a lot better.

If I'm not mistaken; the game was released with only Vladimir starting with the raise dead spell, but this was changed later on.

[lumpoor]

Not to mention arcane armor works very well with vampires.

I thought Naadir was awesome. The ghosts can both steal retaliations and block archers, I've never used him in practice, but it sounds nice. Remember that incorperality givesthe ghosts a chance to survive several hits even in late-game, even though the opposite army deals alot more damage than twice their health.

I've never found raise dead miraculous for creeping. You can only raise one stack at a time, you have to do it at the end of the battle, it takes mana etc. But especially the one stack at a time thing is annoying.

Yeah, until your opponent splits up. If he does split up then even after you double your damage with Storm Strike, Champions deal more damage. 9-13x2 = 18-26 < 20-35, and there's still the 8-point difference in attack to consider, and still not considering Jousting. Also, like with Succubi Mistresses, you usually want to concentrate all your damage into one big punch. Secondary damage is great if you can hit more people with it, but if most of your damage comes from that bouncing attack then you'll have a hard time knocking out the most dangerous stacks first.

Why are mistresses bad because you want to concentrate the damage? For melee attacks, yes, you most often want to concentrate the damage, because you want a smaller retaliation, but for ranged attacks, who cares?

And even for melee, you don't always want to concentrate the damage. Sure, in some situations, where the enemy will retaliate, you want to kill as many as possible before the retaliation.

But what if theres a really strong enemy, and you're really scared of the retaliation? Then you can attack a weaker stack, and spread out the damage so the scary stack also gets hit. You've damage the strong stack without giving it a chance to retaliate.

If you take champions vs thunder thanes, none is better, you have to list theadvantages of each one.

Champion pros:
ALOT more damage

Thunder thane pros:
More survivability
Runes
Better multi-attack
One-time ranged attack


I think it's quite even. It depends.

[Derek]

I was skeptical of the Fortress, too, but then gave them a shot(not on heroic, mind you--this could be the source of your ire towards them). They are dependent on their rune magic, but the effects of which make such an absurd difference that there is almost no chance to make a retaliatory strike. Rune of Dragon Form might as well be the "win" button, and even at early game creeping they can afford to spend 1 wood to double the movement of their level 1 tanksofdoom. Additionally, there is a hero which specializes in giving righteous might when spells are cast(mass haste can, additionally, be nearly a mass righteous right spell, too). And, of course, they can do the armageddon strategy, which has a theoretical usefulness. I highly suggest you give them another go.

Then again, I've only had the game for the week. I figure it's the only town which could be better than the Haven, which is something in of itself. Haven is far too overpowered...

[Elias_Maluco]

@Eliase_Maluco - you take Leadership?? Of all attributes you pick the one that does not affect the Undead?

Really?? I never knew that. Why it is even avaliable to the undead then?

[Derek]

@Eliase_Maluco - you take Leadership?? Of all attributes you pick the one that does not affect the Undead?

Really?? I never knew that. Why it is even avaliable to the undead then?

You do get Herald of Death through leadership, but that doesn't seem worth it. Perhaps it's allowed so the hero could theoretically lead a multi-faction town?--you got me, really.

[Elias_Maluco]

@Eliase_Maluco - you take Leadership?? Of all attributes you pick the one that does not affect the Undead?

Really?? I never knew that. Why it is even avaliable to the undead then?

You do get Herald of Death through leadership, but that doesn't seem worth it. Perhaps it's allowed so the hero could theoretically lead a multi-faction town?--you got me, really.

Yeah. I guess Im never taking leadership with undead again. Better go with luck.

[Banedon]

Because in a crucial battle your hero can only cast 1 spell at a time. Better to have an extra passive skill.

As for summoning: summon phoenix is nice but not necessarily better than puppet master or frenzy. And not counting sorcery you can cast 2 mass dark spells instead; which definately is a lot better.

In a crucial battle there's a lot to be said for versatility. You might get 3-4 spells before the battle fully resolves itself, and you might need some of those 3-4 spells to override your opponents', or to react, eg. Mass Slow vs. his Mass Haste, or Cleansing / Vampirism to remove Puppet Master. I think just having one school is too narrow. Certainly I'd feel uncomfortable with only Summoning; it would leave me vulnerable to getting rolled over by uberbuffed / ubercursed creatures. Only Destructive would be possible if I'm a Warlock. Only Dark or only Light ... could be better. Would be rather a waste of Necro's considerable spellpower.

@lumpoor -

Well half the problem with Naadir is that he doesn't scale much with levels - once past level 2 (if you have Last Stand) there's nothing more to gain. The Ghosts aren't that great too. You have to kill an enemy stack first, which can be hard to achieve, and then their initiative is pretty bad so you can't use them too often. I gave him a go in a duel map, don't like him that much.

As for Succubi Mistresses, the point isn't so much to deal damage as it is to kill your opponent's most dangerous stacks. If your damage is spread out, the dangerous stacks stay alive and your army suffers consequently. Example: in a late-game fight vs. Sylvan, you want to kill the Dragons, High Druids and Arcane Archers first, then the Wind Dancers (if there are some present) and Unicorns. But if you get your Mistresses to shoot the Arcane Archers, much of the damage is spread out among all the units. Some of it could get redirected to irrelevant creatures like the Treants, and you can't deal enough damage to the Arcane Archer stack to incapacitate it. They'll still get their shots and they'll get serious damage in. If you could focus all your damage though can you greatly thin their numbers, a big difference.

Therefore when comparing Champions vs. Thunder Thanes, the "multi-attack" is a lot less important. Champions have a better multi-attack to be honest, since their single-target damage is huge and they aren't counting on the second attack to deal their damage. The superior survivability only matters in the endfight(s); you should not lose Champions to neutrals. In the endfight both sides will lose units. Survivability in the endfight can be rather curious since it's arguable that Peasants have greater survivability since they won't be targetted first, while the Champions all die since their huge damage output makes them priority targets. I'd rather be so dangerous as to draw fire than not, too. The ranged attack is OK I guess, not much damage though.

@Derek - Helmar is a great hero, agree. Fortress creeping is terrible though. They might even be the worst of the lot. Sylvan, Dungeon, Necro and Haven are all light-years ahead. Academy has spells, a level 1 ranged creature and fairly disposable tanks. Inferno has Gating, Stronghold has Centaurs + Goblin Trappers + Rage. Counting the runes it might be possible to overtake Academy and Inferno, but not much further up the heirachy I don't think.

I won't be playing Fortress since it's not my style. I like offensive races, I like dealing big damage. Fortress is extremely defensive and not for me. It's just that in addition to being not my style, it seems underpowered to me

@Elias_Maluco - probably just to fill out the skill wheel, the chance to learn it is 2% though.

[wimfrits]

In a crucial battle there's a lot to be said for versatility. You might get 3-4 spells before the battle fully resolves itself, and you might need some of those 3-4 spells to override your opponents', or to react, eg. Mass Slow vs. his Mass Haste, or Cleansing / Vampirism to remove Puppet Master. I think just having one school is too narrow. Certainly I'd feel uncomfortable with only Summoning; it would leave me vulnerable to getting rolled over by uberbuffed / ubercursed creatures. Only Destructive would be possible if I'm a Warlock. Only Dark or only Light ... could be better. Would be rather a waste of Necro's considerable spellpower.

That's why you shouldn't take Summoning in a MP game
Light or Dark. Destructive if you're playing Dungeon. In a crucial battle spellpower is most interesting for Divine Vengeance, Puppet Master, Summon phoenix and all Destructive magic spells.
And ocassionally Blind, Resurrection, Raise Dead, Arcane Armor and Vampirism.
I don't really see why high spellpower combines better with Summoning but that may be just my style of play.

[Mirez]

fortess creeping is pretty decent imo

1) Crippling wound stops walkers from attacking you for quite a while
2) Defenders do a great job and defending your archers (they hardly die and even if they do it's not a big loss)
3) Bear riders + Rune of Charge > any kind of neutral archers (however you need to have rune of charge, I'd say rune of charge improves fortess creeping by 300%)

[Elias_Maluco]

That's why you shouldn't take Summoning in a MP game
Light or Dark. Destructive if you're playing Dungeon. In a crucial battle spellpower is most interesting for Divine Vengeance, Puppet Master, Summon phoenix and all Destructive magic spells.
And ocassionally Blind, Resurrection, Raise Dead, Arcane Armor and Vampirism.
I don't really see why high spellpower combines better with Summoning but that may be just my style of play.

Light and Dark can be effective even with low spellpower, while Desctructive and Summoning are pratically useless.

I used to think Summoning was the worst until I saw what a Phoenix can do when you got 35 spellpower: it really kicks ass and has an enormous amount of HP. And plays fast, unlike elementals. Dont know if would still be usefull in a MP game though, in MP Dark and Light would probably be more effective.