Heroes of Might and Magic II Mod

[dudejo]

that's the whole point of Knight units ; to be weak but numerous.

the real issue is that wells increase the growth for the stronger units by a factor of 3.

normally, you only get 1 black dragon per week but with the well, you get 3. with their power level, that's insane if we consider the weaker units only get up to 4 per week.

there's been talk of finding how to nerf the well once we figure out where the code for it is located.

but until then, all that can be done is to nerf the strong units themselves.

[Soronarr]

1. Knight units being weak but numerous is a bad decision IMHO

2) Even if it's so, not EVERY unit needs to follow the mold. Exceptions prove the rule. For pitty sake, the Pally/Crusader has 60-65 HP...dragons have 300. That's PATHETIC. A friggin holy knight should be tougher. Where's the divine protection?

This isn't about HP tough...but rather how easily killed they are are and how "powerful" they feel. Something shoukld be done.

Maybe buffing attack and defense considerbably, while leaving HP as it is? Or adding some other special ability? Or just upping HP...something.

I prefer more expensive, less numeroes, stronger top unit to cheaper and weaker ones.

[blueskirt]

I think the idea behind Crusaders was to counter undeads, not dragons.

I've read all 17 pages of the thread, it was rather insightful.

Several persons worried that drastic changes in your mod would make scenarios and campaigns impossible to finish, IMO, concentrate on making your mod as balanced as possible for multiplayer games only, changes any rules you want to and don't worry about scenarios and campaign backward compatibility. Earlier scenarios were designed for the previous balance, playing them with any changes in the balance would either make the game easier (and nobody wants to cheat) or harder/impossible to finish (and I doubt many people would like that).

Ultimately, your mod should have its own button in the main menu, just like you can't play original scenarios with the Price Of Loyalty rules, you shouldn't be able to play H2 or POL scenarios/campaigns with the mod's rules. Save for several balanced maps that were obviously designed for multiplayer games that could be easily converted to run with the new balance, your mod should develop its own scenarios and campaigns, designed specifically for the new balance and rules.

I have this theory that the Well wasn't part of the original plan when they developed H2.

I have this theory that H2 is like a huge stand alone expansion to H1. Absolutely everything that was in H1 is present in H2, and that include the well.

[Soronarr]

^
I just used dragons as an example. All top tier units have roughly 300 HP.
It just sucks.

You can double the HP (or ATT and DEF) and adjust the price and number accordingly.

[blueskirt]

Only Titans, Red and Black Dragons have +300. Bone Dragons have 150, Phoenix have 100 and Cyclops have 80. It would be easier to downgrade titans and dragons instead of upgrading everything else.

But I agree that Paladins/Crusaders are easily killed. And you must always sacrifice your first spell to cast anti-magic to protect them from thunderbolts and berserk spells.

[Soronarr]

Top Tier units need balancing anyway. I'd do it myself if I knew how.

Some towns are made to work on the "horde" principle, where a single individual unit doesn't have that much value..because of reserves....for example - necromancer, barbarian.

Others, like Knight and Sorceres, are built around the idea of protecting life...in other words, avoiding losses. That's why more powerfull knight units have a lot of armor (not that one would notice)

Personally, I'd give a Pally/Crusader 125 HP (at least), and buff his ATT and DEF considerably, reduce growth and increase price. I'd also increase the DEF (armor) for knights and swordsman

I'd also buff phoenixes. Why should the play second fiddle to dragons?


Hm...any links as to how to mod that?

[Soronarr]

Hmm...I think I've gotten the hang of this...data is configured a bit strangely, with the name of the unit being at the end of the file (go figure!)

What I'm having trouble is figuring out how unit cost is determined. A unit that costs 1000 gold has values 232 and 3 in the hex editor for the two price fields... Heh..I've gotten too rusty.

b.t.w. - how does one set a resource price (like 1 crystal)?

[dudejo]

most units are actually fine.

the problem comes from Dragons and the Titan. by themselves, they can generate enough HP to match the entire HP output of some other hero classes.

and at a growth of 3 per week combined to their severe damage output, well, let's just say they can win battles without a lot of assistance.

UndeadHalfOrc, in his mod, made Dragons and Giants/Titans grow at 0. meaning, you need a well to get ANY units and their effective battle ability is cut by 33%.

while i didn't adopt this approach, i did severely cut their HP and nerfed some stats in my own mod.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Yeah, I did lower dragon & titan growth from (effectively) 3 per week to 2, also lowered their HP from 300 to 280, and buffed Cyclops and Crusaders HP.

Guys, don't forget that Knights and Barbarians can get their top units WAY faster than the other factions. (Especially with my 10 less wood/Ore to build them)

With my balance patch, typically, by the time you get your first two dragons, the knight has at least 10 crusaders already: 2 from building the cathedral, and 8 from having the dwelling 1 week earlier than the warlock. If it's 2 weeks earlier than the warlock, than it's 14 crusaders vs 2 black dragons... and let me assure you that it's a landslide victory for the crusaders either way (especially with their 75 HP).

Soronar, I think you're changing the game too much if you bring top units too similar in power to each other; you're making H2 too similar to H3.
The knight and barbarian factions were designed as the rush factions, lots of low cost units to gain an early advantage.

My approach to modding isn't to redesign the game (as the H3 WoG guys did), merely tweaking the balance.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Here are some unit statistics comparisons, taken from my own Patch's topic, page 3:

Here are the raw, fully upgraded HP per week output of each town, before my patch and after my patch.

BEFORE
Knight----------902
Barbarian------1230
Sorceress------871
Necromancer--1202
Wizard----------1624 (!!!)*
Warlock---------1785 (!!!)*

AFTER
Knight------------1004
Barbarian--------1226
Sorceress--------906
Necromancer-----1172
Wizard------------1284
Warlock-----------1445


CREATURE GOLD PER WEEK
BEFORE
Knight----------11865
Barbarian------13450 + 4 crystals
Sorceress------13200 + 3 mercury
Necromancer---16100
Wizard----------24000 + 6 gems
Warlock---------22180 + 6 sulfur

AFTER
Knight------------12295
Barbarian--------13400 + 4 crystals
Sorceress--------13240 + 3 mercury
Necromancer----15630
Wizard------------18130 + 4 gems
Warlock-----------18080 + 4 sulfur


Here is the raw Damage output per week of town creatures.
Unmodified by Attack skill.
Far from a perfect table, because the area of effect attack of units (Hydra, Cyclops, Dragon, Phoenix, Lich) is not calculated, and 2x attacking creatures get full credit here but are actually penalized when THEY get attacked first. And non-retaliation attacking units don't get credit. So that means Hydras don't get credit twice.

Paladin, Crusader = 120 (Halved when retaliating. 240 vs Undead)
Bone Dragon = 105
Phoenix = 90 (area of effect)
Green Dragon, Red Dragon, Black Dragon = 75 (area of effect)
Cyclops = 72 (area of effect)
Wolf = 56 (Halved when retaliating)
Giant, Titan = 50
Ranger = 50 (quartered when attacking at melee range)
Skeleton = 45
Unicorn = 42
War Troll = 40
Minotaur, Minotaur King, Cavalry, Champion = 37.5
Lich, Power Lich, Hydra = 36 (area of effect)
Peasant, Halfling, Ogre Lord = 36
Orc Chieftain = 35
Goblin, Swordsman, Master Swordsman = 33
Druid, Greater Druid = 32.5
Mage, Archmage = 32
Sprite, Ogre, Roc, Vampire, Vampire Lord, Troll = 30
Elf, Grand Elf = 30 (quartered when attacking at melee range)
Pikeman, Veteran Pikeman = 28
Centaur, Iron Golem, Steel Golem = 27
Archer, Orc = 25
Boar, Dwarf, Battle Dwarf, Griffin = 24
Mummy, Royal Mummy = 21
Gargoyle, Zombie, Mutant Zombie = 20

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Personally, I'd give a Pally/Crusader 125 HP (at least), and buff his ATT and DEF considerably, reduce growth and increase price. I'd also increase the DEF (armor) for knights and swordsman

If you change a unit that drastically, don't forget to tweak the FIGHT VALUE accordingly, something most people just tend to forget about. Thankfully I did no drastic changes in my mod so I could pretty much leave it alone, but with your suggested changes, you WILL have to tinker with the FIGHT VALUE, unless you want the AI vs AI auto-calc battles, and pretty much every AI decision, and many other subtle CPU decisions about overall monster strength, completely screwed up.

The FIGHT VALUE is at byte 2 and 3 of each creature (bytes 0 and 1 are Gold, byte 7 is base growth per week)

[dudejo]

does the fight value do anything else?

for example, would giving the peasant a high fight value reduce the size of wild encounters?

[UndeadHalfOrc]

No, but it would make an AI Hero with, say, 20 goblins, likely refuse to fight the stack. And if he goes for it, he'll have a higher chance of losing (since all AI vs AI fights are not done "for real" but use a weird calculation that is heavily dependent on Fight Value.

[blueskirt]

Not to mention that AI would charge your army of dragons with a handful of peasants believing his peasants are stronger, or flee your heroes whenever they amass an army of peasants.

[Soronarr]

Soronar, I think you're changing the game too much if you bring top units too similar in power to each other; you're making H2 too similar to H3.
The knight and barbarian factions were designed as the rush factions, lots of low cost units to gain an early advantage.

My approach to modding isn't to redesign the game (as the H3 WoG guys did), merely tweaking the balance.

Well, I'm tweaking the balance too...to fit my likes better. I consider undead a perfect candidate for the "swarm" approach - not knight.
A knight has all those unit in heavy armor, that look pretty, but are otherwise pathetic. And lets not forget that the town balance is not good to start with - a warlock with a mihght hero will DESTROY everything.
A magic user can butcher crusaders/cyclops, even phoenixes, with nothing but magic alone. One or Two lightning bolts, and your whole weeks worth of top tier units is gone.
Even more irritating when a weak enemy hero blasts you with a spell, and then retreats. Reepeat ad nauseum.

And let's not forget that the damage calculation is not entirely correct - while the pally/crusader strikes twice, more of hten than not he gets retaliated upon between strikes. Given hte low HP, this cna lead to the second strike doing far less damage, as you already lost a few units.


Regardless, can you tell me how to edit the cost and fight value? It takes two bits and every time I try and edit it, it doesn't work. I?m not sure if my math is OK.

B.t.w. - where are the building costs located. And how to add resource cost to a unit?

[dudejo]

for starters you need a hex editor.

second, if you don't mind searching the thread, all the addresses you need are displayed in the different pages.

[Soronarr]

I nkow that. If I didn't have a Hex editor, how do you think I edited what I did.

No, I hit a brick wall with 2 things:

1) Gold and FightValue - both values take two fields, and editing those fields is a bit more difficult. For example, Crusader cost of 100 should be 3E8 in hexadecimal....but in the field it's E8 03. If I want it to cost 2500, that should be 9C4 hexadecimal, or following this logic C4 09 . Except the game crashes when I do that.
Also, I still don't know how to add resource cost to a unit. Let's say I want the unit to cost 1 crystal.

2) buildings. Can't find where they are.

[dudejo]

where does it crash? i tried the changes you did and my game worked fine. i wrote in F04FC and F04FD, the two bytes for the Crusader's gold cost.

also, make sure you don't accidentally add or remove bytes. only overwrite.

as for buildings, i think they start at F1FF0.

and at the moment, no one has found how to add other resources to the unit's cost. they're not stored at the same place as the units.

[vhilhu]

Hello; I found a HoMM2-style basilisk the other day, in Public Domain:


http://opengameart.org/content/heroesof ... e-basilisk

[blueskirt]

Nice! Good work!