Heroes III VS Heroes IV

[ThunderTitan]

@TT: stealth doesn't make you invincible. Much the opposite. If it were not offered for free, getting Agraynel to GM stealth would be a bad choice.
It does make her campaign a lot less exciting though.

Right, you can only sneak up on every creature and hero and take their towns when they're unguarded (GM Pathfinding). You also get XP just by passing by a creature and then invest in Combat and attack/retreat, if you have a town, until you pick off every creature in the other heroes army.

You can't really lose that campaign unless you do something stupid. Heck, I defeated Hexis by having all the other heroes attack him, then when they died I had Agraynel pick up the bodies with her Stealth and ressurecting them, then I had them attack again. Repeat 3 or 4 times and ur done.

[csarmi]

Still, going for stealth is a very big mistake in 99% of the maps. Unless you are given it for free OR you play on a map like "After the Flood", where XP can be bought for gold (yes, there is hut where you can buy constantly for like 1:1 ratio) and there a lot of loosely placed relics. I won on that map once because of my GM stealth (rescued some heroes with a nice trick), but I guess you can do it only once vs an opponent...

Against the AI, everything works... And the original campaigns are very easy. Still I liked the storyline and they DO teach you some nice basics, from then on, it's your choice whether you go further. If you want campaiogns that offera challenge, look for user made ones. And if you want to try nice maps, I recommend the same, 3DO came out with a bunch of useless, buggy, badly-designed, crap maps --- but now a lot of good maps are available on various sites (for singleplayer and multiplayer too). If you want a challenging campaign, try Wind of Thorns, for example. Want a nice rpg map? Life of the Hobbit. Want multiplayer maps? Go to toheroes page...

[wimfrits]

Right, you can only sneak up on every creature and hero and take their towns when they're unguarded (GM Pathfinding). You also get XP just by passing by a creature and then invest in Combat and attack/retreat, if you have a town, until you pick off every creature in the other heroes army.

The thing is, in about every situation where you can stealth your way through something, you can fight your way through that same something as well. So stealth is redundant, especially on campaign heroes.

So we have a situation where it is possible to win every battle:
hero 1 invests 7 points to get GM stealth (M/GM scouting/ B-GM stealth)
hero 2 invests 7 points in a combat-influencing skill.

Now, it is obvious that hero 2 is better equipped to win battles.

You can't really lose that campaign unless you do something stupid. Heck, I defeated Hexis by having all the other heroes attack him, then when they died I had Agraynel pick up the bodies with her Stealth and ressurecting them, then I had them attack again. Repeat 3 or 4 times and ur done.

Nice trick indeed! Didn't hear that one before.
But unnecessary. You can also defeat Hexis with Dogwoggle or Alita alone.

[ThunderTitan]

Yes, a GM combat hero would defeat a Stealth one, but for the purposes of that campaign you are undefeatable because they can't find you. I wasn't talking about general situations, but how the campaign heroes like Waerjaek usualy get some very unfair advantages.

And csarmi, in a long campaign it might be worth it if you start a map with GM Stealth, which gives you a great advantage in the begining, on a single map I agree, it's not really worth the effort. GM Stealth is great, but getting to it isn't really worth the effort.

You can also defeat Hexis with Dogwoggle or Alita alone.

What lvl where they?! And how did you do it?

[Banedon]

I remember how I did it with Alita (she was around level 47 at that time, if I remember correctly). Start by casting Sanctuary. Walk Alita next to Hexis. Wait. Hit Hexis twice in a row, and again and again until he dies. Then the battle becomes ridiculously simple.

I can't remember if Hexis had a Robe of the Guardian, but with Alita having both her own artifacts and Dogwoggle's Dragon Strength, it was quite simple. The impossible part is attempting to win without killing Hexis first

[ThunderTitan]

Hmm... I think i'll try that one some time.

[RollingWave]

If H4 didn't have so many problems i would vote H4, but it did, it was slow to run on either decent speck comps, and the AI was dumb etc etc.. it had many great ideas and features, but it just wasn't a finished product.

So voted H3, I would think that the artistic level of H2 +the refined balance of H3 +the ingenuity of H4 would make an exellent game.

[csarmi]

Well it was slow only until the first patch or so, and only after you played a lot (there was some memory handling problem).

[chaynhanh]

I vote for H4, clearly a winner.
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guess that most ppl that say that "superman that kill 100 dragons" havent played the game and only repeat the same stuff from others..

really is pretty hard to reach such supeheroes, maybe in a map with a bunch of trees of knowledge and lvl buffs, but in a normal standar map isnt good idea to focalise in superhero, u need a loot of buffs, need a priest, a druid, a guardian robe, and other special artifacts, im sure if the game shouldnt have such artifacts that effect would be impossible, also the dumbie AI just give u time to do it

i have killed 50 black dragons, but with town portal strategy
.........

What are you talking about? H3 or H4? If it's H4 then your are wrong. It isn't so hard for a low lvl hero to beat a dozen or score of BD. He just need to strike first and have the fear ability (by item or magic doesn't matter) and good morale or use the famous portion of imortality. So it would be problem for map makers when a lvl 8 hero kill 50 BD in an important place of the map, especially if save/load is used in single play.
But this problem was well discussed in the old forum and it can be easily fixed, not a real thread to blame H4 and I believe isn't as annoying as the Dimension Door in H3 on adventure map.

[wimfrits]

So it would be problem for map makers when a lvl 8 hero kill 50 BD in an important place of the map, especially if save/load is used in single play.

He'd need like 100.000 gold to do that though...

[chaynhanh]

He'd need like 100.000 gold to do that though...

Not really if he can find the proper artifact. It's not a piece of cake i know, but with a bit of luck, there is very high possibility that one can win this kind of battle. I remember while I was playing the map Taming the Brew with friends, one of them chose the option to take the Hideous Mask as the starting artifact so he can beat it easier.
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Oh, and just a lil off-topic, I always wanted to say it to you Wimfrits, that your "Winds of Thorns" is a fantastic map. I did realy enjoy it among all maps I've played from H2-4. Thanks!:)

[wimfrits]

I agree. Mapmakers need to carefully consider such situations.
(but you can't kill 50 black dragons with only a hideous mask )

And you're welcome. I'm glad you liked my work

[csarmi]

Hideous Mask is not enough against really big odds, unless you can cast sorrow. Even if you fight the AI, your opponent's morale will go to negative sooner and later and then he is going to have a turn with bad morale AND a turn after it with normal morale and you won't react on the 2nd hit.. if it's too big for you to handle, you die right there.

[chaynhanh]

Hideous Mask is not enough against really big odds, unless you can cast sorrow. Even if you fight the AI, your opponent's morale will go to negative sooner and later and then he is going to have a turn with bad morale AND a turn after it with normal morale and you won't react on the 2nd hit.. if it's too big for you to handle, you die right there.

That's why I wrote "if save/load is used". Otherwise, you would need both hideous mask and some portion of imortality to have the job done, thus is not always possible to have them all in the beginning of a map. Oh, and I am talking of course about fighting with AI.

PS: i've just reminded myself, if you have a spell to stop the ai in 1 or more turn like confusion/swarm/SoP, it could be possible too, exept BD, spell casters and shooters. But sure you all know this, just my 5 cents ^^.

[csarmi]

Save/reload is cheating. I prefer nwcares then...

[Banedon]

Save/reload is cheating. I prefer nwcares then...

And who's the king of taking 30 minutes to finish a single turn?

[chaynhanh]

Save/reload is cheating. I prefer nwcares then...

Hehe, you mean save/load in battle is cheating or both in battle and at the beginning of the map too is cheating?:D

[Gaidal Cain]

And who's the king of taking 30 minutes to finish a single turn?

Is MtR masquerading as csarmi now?

Sorry, Quill joke.

[csarmi]

Save/reload is cheating. I prefer nwcares then...

Hehe, you mean save/load in battle is cheating or both in battle and at the beginning of the map too is cheating?:D

I think save/reload to alter gameplay is cheating. To use nwcares to win a fight that would last for 5 minutes, but otherwise it's clearly won - is not.

[ThunderTitan]

Quick combat not good enough for you? And unless it's the final battle i'm pretty sure that the extra creatures you get with nwcares will give you an unfair advantage.