Is Inferno outclassed by Castle?

[Pitsu]

Salamandre is trying to be provocative. While mass berserker is too much, berserker per se is a very interesting spell and demanding brainwork from both the caster and receiver. Cure, dispell, clone, fodder stacks and even force field can be used to counter it.

And a major boost to conflux is their magic heroes who strart with more skills than other heroes and have access to all schools of magics. Although true that on singleplayer maps that rely on the actually most broken spell in the game- ressurection- conflux sucks. :p

[Salamandre]

@Singleplayer:

Looking through the 1 million maps available, Conflux is rarely selected by mapmaker (in fact, I know none). If you can't resurrect, you can't prevail. Your phoenixes will not be able to win all the map by their own.

All maps I played with mass berserk became broken from that point, without exception. Once you had the spell, only the few AI having one of the two counter artefact could offer opposition. As the fastest unit is usually the most dangerous in SP maps, you cast on it, so cure/dispel is too late. And not mentioning how easy is to hit&run AI if you have berserk (see Unleashing the bloodthirsty -final fight). Mapmakers are forced to change the factions components and give azure dragons more often, because of berserk. We assist at unnatural set ups, with the only purpose of countering one spell.

@Multiplayer:

Conflux is good because fastest unit. But has restricted access to morale boost, and 7th level has low HP. Sprites are awesome but lead to very long early battles, hence the ban. The other units are meh. Grail is of course the best, but if you get it then blame the opponent for inactivity.

About heros, they are not on first place. Elementalists develop weak, and if you are still fooled by their few magic schools already available, you also can get same on every other hero through leveling. Planeswalkers are weaker than beastmasters or barbs and none of them has armorer/offense specialty.

The problem with vanilla H3, is that you can't say "now you have the spell, but next battle not", as in WoG. There is no way for even a genius mapmaker to set battles forces regardless if berserk mass is used or not.
In WoG you can restrict spell access for every battle, thus create possible and creative use of force field and berserk, without banning them. But in vanilla, they just broke the game. It became even an obsession in recent SOD maps, where every one of two AI heros has badge of courage/expert resistance for this matter. But giving them changes many other aspects of the battle, not tied to berserk only.

Now I realize that for most of players it is FUN to just make a cake-walk through maps with mass berserk, therefore will defend it teeth and claws out. But for me, as mapmaker, it is a not solvable issue. My principal concern is to find a perfect progression, and berserk/force field break it.

[Banedon]

Last I checked Conflux was the strongest faction (except vs. maybe Necro on a very large map) for a variety of reasons:

1. Many of their units are mad strong, and they're fast too. Their armies start fast, stay fast and creep fast.
2. Phoenixes are easy to get to and reproduce at 4 per week.
3. They have access to any magic on demand.

I haven't played a competitive game for years though, so I may be wrong.

[Pitsu]

Looking through the 1 million maps available...

On some reason i have the feeling that you are making up facts here. Unless you have some kind of proof, i canot find more than perhaps 2000 unique maps available.

If you can't resurrect, you can't prevail. Your phoenixes will not be able to win all the map by their own.

All maps I played with mass berserk became broken from that point, without exception.

It is fine that you cannot win without ressurection but it is bad if you can win with berserker? Could i kindly ask you to idi nahui with this logic? Since ressurection has instant effect, besides orb of inhibition not even a human palyer can counter it, while there are many counters for berserker. Last time on To kill for power i spent a good portion of gameplay with blind ressurection combo, and i cannot say that i enjoyed it.

[Salamandre]

Pitsu,

I mostly had in mind singleplayer, as in MP you have very low chances to get berserk, and the badge of courage is common.

And for single player, you can idi nahui as long as you want. Point me a single map you played, and from the point you had mass berserk, you still had interesting battles. There are endless spell combinations which can make the use of resurrect interesting and realistic, proof maps as "to kill for power" which you quoted. If you like to play this game using mass berserk, that's fine with me. I will probably enjoy it too the day when someone makes a map where mass berserk does not break the game.

Facts:

AI can use resurrect, as well as human.

Resurrect use a lot of mana when you need to win hard battles. Without proper skills and objects visited, resurrect will not win a game. Requires planning.

Berserk use very little mana for a considerable damage amount.

AI can't use berserk, it is not even flagged as spell in its scripts.

How can you compare them?

My concern: create battles which go as I intended. This exclude spells as mass berserk, I could not find a way to use it creative and balanced -within AI 100% restrictions for it-. Waiting for proofs that it can. Your arguments do not replace a map, it is just talk. How that requires brain to target the fastest unit and wait for everybody around to attack each other, I don't get it.

Conflux as strongest faction:

It was allowed in TOH for 6 consecutive years and had no better win ratio than other towns. Heros, their setup and tactical skills are the victory conditions, not faction starting choice. You can discuss and spit over MP leagues as ToH, and continue to think your way. Don't count me in, I learned to leave discussions when there is no point to continue.

[Korbac]

Um... I guess the discussion went a little offtopic here.

I would refer to the Jolly Joker guides about the faction's strenghts and weaknesses.

While Castle has above average speed and specialises on dealing damage (with their high morale and double-attacks) its speed structure sucks. The Archangels, being one of the fastest units in the game, have a huge difference in speed with the champions, hence the opponent often has a chance to blind them in the first round. (when everyone clicks on wait)

Inferno on the other hand indeed requires more skill from the player to conserve those precious HPs, but they have a lot of means to do that - like Fire and Earth magic spells (curse, shield, slow, resurrection etc...) and not to mention expert Berserk.


Btw, talking about expert berserk, I think that there is a counter to it, however I have never tried that in practice. Basically when you expect to face an enemy with expert fire magic you position your troops so that units that move after each other are on the opposite sides. For example castle should put Archangels and Champions on opposite sides to get a chance to cast mass dispell.

[Panda Tar]

Btw, talking about expert berserk, I think that there is a counter to it, however I have never tried that in practice. Basically when you expect to face an enemy with expert fire magic you position your troops so that units that move after each other are on the opposite sides. For example castle should put Archangels and Champions on opposite sides to get a chance to cast mass dispell.

Well, then we shall try. Besides, berserk/mass, depending on when opposite hero cast it, can be countered easier by certain factions: Tower has Titans which are immune to mind-based spells. So you can cast dispel while Titan's turn (they are the fastest troop in Tower, are they not? I quite don't recall). Dungeon also has an upper hand, with Black Dragons immunity, also the fastest troops. Problem is with Rampart. Berserk is a Lv5 or 4 spell? If 5, then Gold Dragons are going to be a problem. Necropolis is completely immune to berserk. On the other side, other factions may be a little too exposed: Stronghold. Hoping that Magic Dampener will help is a bit too risky.

[GreatEmerald]

Salamandre, I don't think we're talking about the same viewpoint as you are here. As far as I'm concerned, we're talking about randomly generated maps in SP/MP. Scripted maps are something entirely different (and honestly, to me HoMM is not supposed to be scripted to begin with). And, as it was pointed out, most factions have a way to counter that, the obvious examples being Necropolis with seven of seven and Conflux with three of seven unaffected creatures.

[Pitsu]

And we aren't really talking about the same thing with berserker either. As far as i see, Salamandre, your problem is not actually the spell, but AI incapability to handle it. For me this is not spell's fault, but AI programming fault. And to enlighten why i prefer it over ressurection is that the latter comes down to nothing more than bulk numbers. If you do not have such jokers like berserker you can more easily predict battle outcome by only looking at which side has managed to collect more troops, more spellpoints and more skillpoints. For balancing a map it is certainly easier if entire game is only about amassing numbers, but for game variety not.

You asked an example map where not just berserker but even expert berserker was not autowin, then the recently tested "a wizard tale" would be an answer. At the same time i am not sure that i read correctly that "kill for power" had interesting battles. The map has good story and excellent layout, but after first quater the battles were repetive IMO.

PS. I maybe sounded a bit too harsh in last post.

[Salamandre]

@Korbac

JJ based his guide on raw numbers, without any gaming experience other than single player. As AI does not offer a decent resistance, it is always wrong to conclude final results from botched battles.

@Emerald

I was talking about initial scripting of AI, they forgot to script berserk for AI.

@Pitsu

No, my problem is not about AI being unable to handle it ONLY, but with human making AI creatures attacking each other in a mass effect. We don't learn to battle properly if such spell is in book. About your analysis, when a battle issue is related to who is stronger in raw numbers, it is time to change map. But I believe that regular Heroes offers a very restrained possibility of different battles, due to poor editor choices. You played one of the best ever maps, (kill for power) and still not satisfied, I understand, I felt same. Wizard Tale: I find that map poorly designed and planned, a reason for which I restrained from commenting in appropriate thread-but I ENJOYED magwyan previous map where berserk was only single target allowed-. Now read that thread and see how Benbird changed map settings, used berserk mass and won the map in twice less time then us. I guess it says enough on how broken is the spell.

Again, I express only my opinions, based on trials and 10 years constant gaming/mapmaking. I have nothing against discovering new paths and situations, will not stubbornly freeze on opinions. Still I will never go back to vanilla, because WoG can address important editor/gameplay issues and offer more story support and variety within same mechanics (hell, in the current map I work on, AI casts mass berserk, now that's hard to handle)

I maybe sounded a bit too harsh in last post.|

If you are taking about using swineherd words as idi nahui, this is more than harsh. It is vulgar. To each one his standards.

[Pitsu]

@Korbac
I ENJOYED magwyan previous map where berserk was only single target allowed-.

_Isn't that what i have tried to say? It might be better to take H1-H2 where no mass berser is available. It is certainly a strong spell, but I cannot see it as "MOST LAME and unbalanced spell ever". As i said above the mass berserk is indeed too much, as is AI handling of the spell poor, but this is a problem with spell implemention in H3 not that the spell has lame idea behind it.

[cjlee]

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Castle heroes can get expert fire magic. That’s what makes Expert Berserk so lethal for Inferno and Dungeon heroes.

But really, no spell is perfect. That’s one of the great things about Heroes III. As you said yourself, Salamandre, there are artifacts (cheap and easily available often from treasure boxes!) that can guard against Berserk. There is no need to fear Expert Berserk if the mapmaker has thought it through.

Lots of strong enemy heroes have magic resistance or magic resistance artifacts. Cursed ground is a perfect anti-Berserk strategy. And Berserk is also dependent on the enemies you face. Inferno’s tactic is to take advantage of human weaknesses - especially the Castle. But Inferno sucks at fighting undead and Conflux - no berserk possible; enemy often has magic to counter them, etc.

How can you claim that Expert Berserk makes a map a cake walk? Expert Berserk is useless in many scenarios! How about I give you Expert Berserk and create a map that involves fighting mostly undead? (The standard Hero vs Evil Undead Plot To Conquer the World story.) Or the typical ‘dragon slayer’ scenario vs Azure, Gold, Ghost and Black Dragons?

You think Expert Berserk creates a cake-walk problem because you always give players Archangels. If you had players fight faster enemies, expert berserk will be far less effective.

Besides, enemies often have a chance to counter Berserk. If you’re going first with Phoenix or Archdevil, you cast Expert Berserk. Then next turn it is the Gold Dragons, Black Dragons’ turn. Enemy can retaliate with Expert Cure or Expert Antimagic. These are even more readily available spells than Berserk; you should be able to get it at some altar! If you are a Wizard, you should expect to take losses first round anyway on your genies and you have no excuses for not having spell counters when your mind-immune Titans' turn comes up. (What is your library for?) If you are barbarian, of course you should have magic resistance. Only a moronic barbarian player will go all out on the brute force and have no magic resistance. Surely you remember Heroes IV where all Barbarian heroes above level 15 have Grandmaster Resistance? Or Heroes V where Expert Shatter Dark is a must for winning with Barbarian heroes? If you are a barbarian with no magic resistance, the AI WILL kill you.

Castle has no way to easily counter Berserk if the enemy moves first, but then again they should not be bunching together their troops. Inferno, Dungeon and Necropolis all have pretty lethal area of effect spells. It takes really bad luck for all 7 stacks in Castle to be Expert Berserked.

If you’re playing Castle and your Archangels are Berserked (pretty unlikely, isn’t it, unless you are invading the Devils’ turf?), you have to suffer a severe first round damage. But Castle has the most powerful brute force magic - Prayer, Clone. And practically all their heroes will have Expert Cure unless you’re too eccentric to get the Water Magic perpetually being offered. So the Castle player will either cast cure and play as normal, or suffer on the first round and cast Prayer when their slowest non-Berserked unit moves, after which they get to hammer you in the second round.

Consider this, Salamandre: on the difficult maps, especially those you make, practically everything depends on an Archangel-Clone strategy. If that isn’t an overpowered strategy, I don’t know what is. Don’t you know how tough it is to face an enemy with Archangels and Expert Water magic? So many uber difficult maps rely on one standard strategy for a player with a small army: archangels, expert water magic, oasis or magic fountain, then clone and resurrect like crazy. Why don’t these mapmakers give you a lousy Fortress Army, deny you the Teleport spell, then make you besiege a Castle defended by Sir Mullich with Expert Water Magic? The mapmakers won’t need to give Sir Mullich fantastic stats or a really big army and it will still be a hard battle!

On your Conflux comments:
I agree! As a guy who loves playing Conflux, I don’t find it overpowered at all. Everything has a price, as you said. Conflux has some incredible abilities (e.g. can go for Armageddon strategy; mind spell resistance, etc.) but also incredible weakness (Storm Elementals are always targets of lightning). Their Planeswalker heroes are not on par with other Might heroes in terms of brute force.
I personally feel that Conflux is only overpowered because of the 4 phoenixes per week. I really think it is ridiculous that when all other races get 2 tier 7 units per week, Conflux gets 4. Phoenixes should be fast but weak, like they were in Heroes II!

-=-=-=-=

@Singleplayer:

Looking through the 1 million maps available, Conflux is rarely selected by mapmaker (in fact, I know none). If you can't resurrect, you can't prevail. Your phoenixes will not be able to win all the map by their own.

All maps I played with mass berserk became broken from that point, without exception. Once you had the spell, only the few AI having one of the two counter artefact could offer opposition. As the fastest unit is usually the most dangerous in SP maps, you cast on it, so cure/dispel is too late. And not mentioning how easy is to hit&run AI if you have berserk (see Unleashing the bloodthirsty -final fight). Mapmakers are forced to change the factions components and give azure dragons more often, because of berserk. We assist at unnatural set ups, with the only purpose of countering one spell.

@Multiplayer:

Conflux is good because fastest unit. But has restricted access to morale boost, and 7th level has low HP. Sprites are awesome but lead to very long early battles, hence the ban. The other units are meh. Grail is of course the best, but if you get it then blame the opponent for inactivity.

About heros, they are not on first place. Elementalists develop weak, and if you are still fooled by their few magic schools already available, you also can get same on every other hero through leveling. Planeswalkers are weaker than beastmasters or barbs and none of them has armorer/offense specialty.

The problem with vanilla H3, is that you can't say "now you have the spell, but next battle not", as in WoG. There is no way for even a genius mapmaker to set battles forces regardless if berserk mass is used or not.
In WoG you can restrict spell access for every battle, thus create possible and creative use of force field and berserk, without banning them. But in vanilla, they just broke the game. It became even an obsession in recent SOD maps, where every one of two AI heros has badge of courage/expert resistance for this matter. But giving them changes many other aspects of the battle, not tied to berserk only.

Now I realize that for most of players it is FUN to just make a cake-walk through maps with mass berserk, therefore will defend it teeth and claws out. But for me, as mapmaker, it is a not solvable issue. My principal concern is to find a perfect progression, and berserk/force field break it.

[cjlee]

Yes, you can't target unoccupied hex. But if you target the second hex of a 2-hex creature, it won't hit your own units.

Alternatively, kill your own units with Magog. Yes, I do that to resurrect as Demons!

[/quote]

Think there wasn't possibility to target unoccupied hex like in homm4 cyclops. Also unlike liches they harm own units just fine, thus making fireball abilitie somewhat questionable. If we count times it was useful or harmful I am not sure what's more.[/quote]

[cjlee]

I agree with you. I really hated wasting so much time doing blind-resurrect in To Kill for Power. Heroes III is about solving puzzles. You shouldn't have to do repetitive stuff more than once - not every single battle repeated the same way.

By the way, most mapmakers who make tough maps like Salamandre are reliant on Clone-Resurrect-Archangel. It's probably because it is easier on the mapmaker's brain to figure out how to calibrate battles to remain challenging in late game. By ensuring that his player keeps 100% of his army and steadily grows it via known factors like number of castles and dwellings, the mapmaker will know how powerful to make the boss enemies.

It is fine that you cannot win without ressurection but it is bad if you can win with berserker? Could i kindly ask you to idi nahui with this logic? Since ressurection has instant effect, besides orb of inhibition not even a human palyer can counter it, while there are many counters for berserker. Last time on To kill for power i spent a good portion of gameplay with blind ressurection combo, and i cannot say that i enjoyed it.

[cjlee]

Actually, it works. It's another of those little things I had to learn after many games.

In the particular scenario where I was Castle facing a difficult siege by Inferno, I also learned that I had to adjust my units during the tactics phase. The Archangels can fly so they're never blocked - but if enemy berserks the champions, you don't want them to run across the castle to inflict lots of extra damage.

Um... I guess the discussion went a little offtopic here.

I woul


Btw, talking about expert berserk, I think that there is a counter to it, however I have never tried that in practice. Basically when you expect to face an enemy with expert fire magic you position your troops so that units that move after each other are on the opposite sides. For example castle should put Archangels and Champions on opposite sides to get a chance to cast mass dispell.

[BoardGuest808888]

As also it's the only town with a unit that can hit their own, save efreets. Magogs explosion must be taken in consideration if you send in your units into melee battle. They're the only ranged units and may come to no use depending on the chosen strategy.

Yes, you can't target unoccupied hex. But if you target the second hex of a 2-hex creature, it won't hit your own units.

Alternatively, kill your own units with Magog. Yes, I do that to resurrect as Demons!

Tar, that might not necessarily so. As was pointed by cjlee.

It's true that magogs can hit their own allies, but by taking advantage of larger units (which occupies more than 1 hex), that can be avoided.

Moreover, while the magogs themselves can not target unoccupied target, the player him/herself can create such hex. Either use Clone or Teleport would do. Come to think of, magogs are also very good to wipe off clones themselves. IIRC that while Knights didn't use Fire, Demoniacs did use all magic spheres.

Thus it can be taken as while, Castle good against AI (the easier it is, the better). Inferno, good against another player...

[wimfrits]

Moreover, while the magogs themselves can not target unoccupied target, the player him/herself can create such hex. Either use Clone or Teleport would do.

There just might be more effective actions for the hero than assisting a mediocre unit

I agree there are some situations where the magogs specialty comes in handy. But I think the main reason to upgrade gogs to magogs is to have a stronger cerberi-saving fodder unit like was pointed out earlier.

[Korbac]

@Korbac

JJ based his guide on raw numbers, without any gaming experience other than single player. As AI does not offer a decent resistance, it is always wrong to conclude final results from botched battles.

I would say his guides can be applied to both single and multiplayer. All his statements are well argumented and he does not take advantage of AI flaws.


But getting back to Inferno vs Castle. I guess cjlee showed how mass berserk can be countered - resistance, artifacts, natural creature immunities, placing units on opposite sides of the battlefield.

Would you guys say that Castle if definitely stronger as a faction compared to Inferno? Like, if there were 2 players of the same skill (imagine playing with yourself) would Castle win more often than Inferno?

[Salamandre]

I guess the best answer are statistics from WCL league, MP games played in last 6 years:



The weakest town seems to be tower, but it is important to add that those guys play medium-large maps at max, and tower gets strong late, also getting titans is very hard, comparing with other towns 7th level. It is closely followed by dungeon.

Necropolis statistics are to be ignored, probably they played on little and fast maps, anyway it is banned.

The best win/loss ratio is fortress and stronghold (probably hero specialties related as well). Inferno has win/loss ratio very close to castle. Conflux isn't shining too much, although very few played.
The G column is about how many times those faction were selected, don' t be fooled by that, it is a matter of taste.

I would say his guides can be applied to both single and multiplayer. All his statements are well argumented and he does not take advantage of AI flaws.

Let me quote just a sentence from JJ guide (fortress)

"because you won't get Air and Fire Magic anyway"

Care to show me how it is well argumented saying beastmasters can't get air? And even if they couldn't, which is wrong, how conclude on the future leveling of an hero without taking in consideration witch huts, scholars, magic academies, universities, pandora boxes and magic terrains? A Heroes game is not Hack vs Tazar on an empty map, like the one JJ used for testing.

[Korbac]

Care to show me how it is well argumented saying beastmasters can't get air? And even if they couldn't, which is wrong, how conclude on the future leveling of an hero without taking in consideration witch huts, scholars, magic academies, universities, pandora boxes and magic terrains? A Heroes game is not Hack vs Tazar on an empty map, like the one JJ used for testing.

You do not have to understand things literally, Salamandre. What he means is that you won't get these skills most of the time.

Of course in the game everything could happen, but in order to give some guidelines JJ had to simplify things.

-Getting fire magic is VERY unlikely for a Beastmaster - only if he finds a Witch Hut or a scholar (he can't learn it in the University or a Conflux).
-The probability of getting air magic is very low as well. If there are no Confluxes it is unlikely that you will get one.