Heroes difficulty: What am I missing? (Long post, TL;DR@bot)

[Mozared]

Greetings folks!

After a long time of being absent from these forums (I hung around here during H5, now coming back while playing H6), I've returned with the decision to ask my fellow Heroes-players a question: what is up with the difficulty of the Heroes games?

Let me explain where I'm coming from. I've played heroes 3, 4, 5+expansions and now 6. In literally all of the games, I found it impossible to beat even the simplest campaign levels. I'd generally just spend some time leveling, picking up artifacts and goods and capturing the mines near my town. Then, before I could even finish this process, some higher level hero showed up with a larger army and simply kicked my butt. That's not to say I haven't won a scenario or two over all these games, but get this: I've played through Heroes 3, 4 and 5 by using cheats. Now, when I played Heroes 3 and 4 I was still a lot younger, and I guess my failure at beating those games can be blamed mostly on my incompetence at playing them. Since Heroes 5, though, I've really decided to step up my game - I've done research, consulted friends and asked knowledgable people how to play these games.

With the release of Heroes 6, I figured I might finally have a Heroes game I could play through without having to cheat. I don't care if I have to play on the easiest difficulty settings, since I generally play these games for the immersion and storyline. I got through the tutorial without any problems, and also played the first level of the Sanctuary campaign in the closed beta. But now that the game has been released, the same old problems having been popping up again. While I did manage to get through the tutorial, I'm now stuck in level 1 of the Haven campaign, having absolutely NO idea how this map is possibly beatable, all the while playing on the easiest possible difficulty settings.


First, let me explain how I am playing Heroes:
A) I'm trying to be a completionist. Whenever possible, I try to grab all goods, all artifacts and powerups, and beat every single objective I can. I make sure to grab every bonus in order to level my hero up as much as possible to set myself up for an easier time in the levels to come.

B) I'm applying simple 'maths' to the game and attempt to play as optimal as possible through that. I make sure I lose as little units as possible in every battle (in this particular scenario, I lose next to no units up to the point where I get my ass kicked). I make sure that I move as effectively as possible, to not waste movement points. I make sure to get as many dwellings, a fort and a city hall+marketplace in my starting town in the first week, to optimize growth and income. I get a second hero in order to resupply my main and only visit my town just as the week ends in order to upgrade, buy units and immediately continue adventuring.


Now let me explain what happens in this particular scenario, level 1 of the Haven campaign:
Week 1: In my city, I first get myself a City Hall, then get myself all dwellings I can get, and build a Fort. I also get a second hero and use her units on my main hero to have an easier time capturing my Sawmill and Ore Pit. I lose no units in the battles that happen. I also clear out everything along the side of the main road and go into one little 'alcove' in order to visit a building or two, grab the artifacts there and get all the goods. I made sure to visit buildings like Rally Flags whenever I pass by them, but do not go out of my way to visit them.

Week 2: I stop by my town with my main hero on the second day or so, upgrade all of my T1 and T2 units and take off again. I clear the area south of me, gaining more artifacts and goods, plus a dwelling. I then move over to the east, where a bridge is located. By the time I reach this bridge we're on about day 5 of this week. I clear out everything around the area and proceed to move close to a set of stables, so that I can hit that once week 3 starts and continue clearing the surrounding area. So far, so good, no?

Week 3: An enemy hero appears into view just south of the stables. The threat of his army is ranked 'deadly'. I rush back to my town. He attacks me in my town. In order to compare the armies: at this point in the game I'm on about
-80 upgraded T1 units (praetorians)
-70 upgraded T2 units (archers)
-40 non-upgraded T3 units (sisters)

My enemy has:
-120 non-upgraded T1 units (goblin archers)
-15 more upgraded T1 units
-40 non-upgraded T2 units (orc warriors)
-20 non-upgraded T4 units (shamans that pack a punch in melee)
-10 non-upgraded T3 units (harpies)

Both the enemy hero and Anton are level 4. Note that since he's attacking my main town, I've got walls on my side, but no towers. I do have my Fort at rank 2, but that only adds a moat and a keep. Now how does this battle go, you ask me? Terrible. The best result I've gotten was losing after bringing him down to 70 T1 Goblins, 18 T2 warriors and 2 upgraded T1 goblins left.

So I reloaded to a save of start week 2 and asked for advice in the vortex ball placed along the wall. Somebody told me I should cross the bridge and instead of going the route past the stables, head east - apparently it's a lot easier there. After crossing the bridge, I realized that regardless of what would happen, the Orc hero coming from the south would simply take my town, so I figured I needed to rush for capturing the Orc town at the end of the road. Halfway down the road I met an Orc hero of roughly the same strength as me. I beat him, but lost so many units in the process that I was down to about 30 Praetorians, 20 Archers and 5 Sisters. I walked further east to find my path blocked by 120 Wolves I couldn't possibly kill. As I pressed next turn an enemy hero showed up with an army close to the one mentioned up there, killed the wolves and proceeded to kick my ass.


Conclusion / TL;DR
Now let me note again that I'm playing this game on the easiest possible difficulty settings. Also let me note that this is a problem I've been having since Heroes 3. Lastly, let me note that NOBODY seems to be having any problems of the sort - I've looked in various places and people are beating these games on brutal mode left and right. Which leads me to the point of this thread and my question; HOW? I'm getting completely STEAMROLLED on the easiest difficulty settings, whatever I try. Maybe I used to suck at the games, but right now I'm trying to play as optimal as possible and really have no idea what else I can improve. And let me repeat that: I am getting steamrolled on the lowest difficulty settings. It's not even close. It's not as if I might be able to win if I save one or two Praetorians in a different fight, or if I get some more lucky critical hits. I'm fighting battles I'm not even getting close to winning. You'd think that on these difficulty levels I should be the one doing the steamrolling.

So how do you people play these games? What am I doing wrong? I feel like I'm missing something very obvious that makes the game ten times as easy to play, but I have no idea what. After three Heroes games I'm kind of at the end of my rope. If anybody has any kind of help or advice they could share, everything is welcomed.

[mr.hackcrag]

If it makes you feel any better, the AI cheats too; in certain Homm, it cheats like crazy. Plus, campaigns are designed to give huge advantages to the AI because the AI typically sucks and can only pose a resistance with massive creature/resource inflation.

Anyway, your description of your play seems to be a common way people play: turtle and build up (I can't stand that style, but it works). I'll assume that your combat skills are strong, so it's hard to say what kind of problem you're having.

Do you have the same problems on single player maps or against human players? Sometimes, campaign maps are often designed to make you play a different way.

[Mozared]

That's an interesting question, but I guess I've never really played against other players. The only time I've done something like this is when I made a very large 2v2 map and played hotseat together with a pall against 2 PCs.

That said, in regards to combat skills; the only thing I can think off right now are my heroes' perks. I feel like maxing out movement is near-crucial to play through a campaign, and I like being optimal in terms of resources and unit growth, so I've been speccing into stuff like Enlightenment, Architect, Logistics and Leadership. I guess I could put these 4 points into combat abilities instead, but I'm not sure how much that'd help me - I don't exactly feel like 10% more ranged damage would suddenly win me those battles where I'm currently getting steamrolled.

Perhaps if someone who doesn't have these problems could describe his first 2-3 weeks of play in the average map, I could find where I differ? Preferably a Heroes 6 player, I guess.

[Apo]

Hi there, most crucial stuff in the first weeks is securing all 4 rescources. wood, ore, crystals and gold. When i start a new map(campaign) i scout it out first, where is the first enemy city? Where are the rescources/artifacts i need / want? Then decide on a plan in which order to get these, i plan this out carefully, if you mess up the first few days, even just lose some units, or walk in the wrong direction, dont hestitate to start new.

Rescources on the side, chests, artifacts etc. are fine, IF you dont lose anything for it! Only take risks if you really need that ore/wood/money/crystal to complete this super important building.

The first stuff i build is always the townhalls for money + market. I realize i lose the first patch of units that way, but i feel like the advantage to have money and upgrade the units i get in the 2nd week is worth it.

The T3(heal) units are super important in VI, often iam able to not lose a single unit with those guys and your heroes healing ability. (The campaigns i played could always use stuff like that, i hope all heroes can learn it, but iam not sure..) <-- Split them up so you can heal more often - but only if your stack is great enough. If they are not able the resurrect a few units of yours they are not enough. But when they can only heal 2 targets, for 100 units, and you need 5 units back on every of your stacks... well you know..! :D

DONT USE QUICK COMBAT!!! Not only the enemy AI is dumb, but also yours. :) Iam sure you dont do that, but for others that may wonder why they suck <- dont trust the AI! ;)

Enlightment(the 2nd perk) is useful to teach your other heroes, but most of the time i need all my units in one army. Lvling up a single hero may suck a little but those low level guys can just use enlightment stones etc. those guys always are "builders" for me, cheaper buildings, artifacts that gain money etc.

Tactics is very useful, healing spells, crowd control spells, some warcrys like "Rush" with the right unit. If there is only enemy melee units (and maybe no hero), you can hide your units behind obstacles (rocks etc) and use your long ranged units and spells to wear approaching enemys down. Water magic is very good for this.


When in doubt, just zerg the sh*it out of it... Always works in HoMM :)
Sorry for my bad english its not my mother language.

[Metathron]

DONT USE QUICK COMBAT!!! Not only the enemy AI is dumb, but also yours. Iam sure you dont do that, but for others that may wonder why they suck <- dont trust the AI!

I disagree with this somewhat. With a strong army, my hero kept getting zero losses and I was thankful for quick combat then, because at that point I was tired of fighting every battle. It's true that most of the time quick combat does a worse job than the player himself, but the player doesn't have to accept these losses and can just hit the replay button, so there's no harm in enabling quick combat.

[Spin]

I actually must say quick combat is fantastic in Heroes VI. Most of the time i do slightly better than the Quick Combat AI, but it's not so bad like in Heroes 3 and 4 where you must fight everything or else lose tonnes of troops. Very Rarely does the Quick Combat in Heroes VI do better than you, but it always puts up an even fight with usually acceptable losses. Then the function to 'redo' the battle after youve seen the quick combat results makes the game the best of both worlds. I know there's some people who will fight every single battle on an XL map then there's others who will do 90% quick combat (after the first few weeks) and only fight the tough battles, the System in Heroes VI caters to both types of people.

[Metathron]

but it's not so bad like in Heroes 3 and 4

Quick combat bad in Heroes 3?? In Heroes 4 it was horrendous indeed, but 3 I thought had the most elaborate quick combat system with the fewest losses. The downside to this, if I can call it that, was that a player (like myself) would keep using it and so completely miss out on using the spells, creatures, etc.

From what I've seen of the quick combat in 6, I'd put it about on par with the QC from Heroes 5 - which is to say it's quite solid.

[Apo]

Yes if you just zerg down some enemys and have numbers on your side quick combat becomes an option. But at the start of the round, where you have not many troops quick combat always loses 1-5 units.

Now i see how in the later game you dont want to fight every battle yourself (time is an issue here ;D) but to get a good start you should do it yourself.

[Kristo]

I haven't played H6 yet so I'm not sure how applicable this advice is, but...

My gut reaction is that your army is really low level for the 3rd week of the game. Can you make us a list of everything you've built in your home castle prior to getting pwned by the AI? My guess is you need to focus more on building up your army. The AI cheats in Heroes games, but as you said, you're playing on Easy. It shouldn't be this unfair. In H3 on Easy, one could have the T7 structure built by the end of the first week - and you're only up to T3. Now, I don't know the H6 build orders so that might be normal for this game, but it seems to me like you're falling way behind. A list of what you've built would help us figure that out.

[Pol]

Now i see how in the later game you dont want to fight every battle yourself (time is an issue here ;D) but to get a good start you should do it yourself.

I second that, in some cases even small losses could kill you. For some campaigns, especially without life drain & regeneration and without town, you're dead right now.

[Mozared]

First off, thanks for the replies everyone. I'll try and go over things people have named and respond.

Hi there, most crucial stuff in the first weeks is securing all 4 rescources. wood, ore, crystals and gold. When i start a new map(campaign) i scout it out first, where is the first enemy city? Where are the rescources/artifacts i need / want? Then decide on a plan in which order to get these, i plan this out carefully, if you mess up the first few days, even just lose some units, or walk in the wrong direction, dont hestitate to start new.

Rescources on the side, chests, artifacts etc. are fine, IF you dont lose anything for it! Only take risks if you really need that ore/wood/money/crystal to complete this super important building.

Alright, check. I guess I can plan out my movement more carefully. While I do make sure I never move 'aimlessly' and make sure every step I make is one towards a target, I never really plan out an exact order of things to get. I guess I could put some more focus on this. I do always focus on getting all mines (in this level's case: only 2 of them) as soon as possible.

The first stuff i build is always the townhalls for money + market. I realize i lose the first patch of units that way, but i feel like the advantage to have money and upgrade the units i get in the 2nd week is worth it.

I actually get both whenever possible, which it is in this level. I start off with a rank 1 Town Hall which I upgrade once, bringing it to the maximum upgradable rank for this particular level (or at least this particular point in this level, not sure if I get more upgrades lateron in the map). After that is the Marketplace. With two buildings down, I have 5 left - I tend to use these days to build my T2 dwelling, T3 dwelling, Fort, Fort (Rank 2) and tavern, respectively. Not much I can change here, I guess.

The T3(heal) units are super important in VI, often iam able to not lose a single unit with those guys and your heroes healing ability. (The campaigns i played could always use stuff like that, i hope all heroes can learn it, but iam not sure..) <-- Split them up so you can heal more often - but only if your stack is great enough. If they are not able the resurrect a few units of yours they are not enough. But when they can only heal 2 targets, for 100 units, and you need 5 units back on every of your stacks... well you know..!

Good point, I'll use the Sister-splitting advice. On the other hand, especially in that ass-whooping end battle, I do use my ressurrection to it's fullest potential. I hold off ressurrecting until I can get maximum mileage out of my heals, and this easily happens when using just one stack of Sisters. I'll get back to you on the perk down below.

DONT USE QUICK COMBAT!!! Not only the enemy AI is dumb, but also yours. Iam sure you dont do that, but for others that may wonder why they suck <- dont trust the AI!

So far I've not used any form of quick combat. I'm one of the few people that I guess don't mind playing every battle in a map. Like I did say, I manage to come out of pretty much all my battles without losses - I think from the starting day 'till the point where I get my ass whooped I've lost at most ~4 T1 units and maybe 1 or 2 T2 units to neutral mobs. Not an amount that would make a difference, that is for sure.

Enlightment(the 2nd perk) is useful to teach your other heroes, but most of the time i need all my units in one army. Lvling up a single hero may suck a little but those low level guys can just use enlightment stones etc. those guys always are "builders" for me, cheaper buildings, artifacts that gain money etc.

I might be using the wrong name, but Enlightenment, at least the one I pick, gives you a +25% experience gain from all sources. It's not the Mentor thingie where you train your other heroes. I tend to grab it quickly in order to level my hero as much as possible. I also tend to keep my complete army with my main hero, with the logical thought behind it that splitting my army makes it harder for me to win (neutral) battles without losses.

Tactics is very useful, healing spells, crowd control spells, some warcrys like "Rush" with the right unit. If there is only enemy melee units (and maybe no hero), you can hide your units behind obstacles (rocks etc) and use your long ranged units and spells to wear approaching enemys down. Water magic is very good for this.

Do note that at this point I'm only level 4, meaning I don't have a huge spectrum of learnable abilities. I suppose I could try making my main hero Anton a magic-based hero instead of a might-hero, but so far I do feel like Logistics and Enlightenment are pretty crucial to get all your mines and dwellings ASAP. I suppose I could swap the other two slots for Water Bolt and Tactics here (I don't think a heal is available at level 4?), but would this really make a difference? The units I do lose in neutral battles I lose due to ranged enemies which I cannot prevent from getting one or two hits on me. I think some of these are even guarding mines, so skipping them isn't really an option.

I haven't played H6 yet so I'm not sure how applicable this advice is, but...

My gut reaction is that your army is really low level for the 3rd week of the game. Can you make us a list of everything you've built in your home castle prior to getting pwned by the AI? My guess is you need to focus more on building up your army. The AI cheats in Heroes games, but as you said, you're playing on Easy. It shouldn't be this unfair. In H3 on Easy, one could have the T7 structure built by the end of the first week - and you're only up to T3. Now, I don't know the H6 build orders so that might be normal for this game, but it seems to me like you're falling way behind. A list of what you've built would help us figure that out.

Well, let me start off by stating that I'm limited to building T1 through T3 units + their upgrades. I've heard the idea of rushing to T7 units (it's one of the things I brushed up on after sucking at Heroes 3), but I simply cannot build them yet as this is the first campaign level. That said, you can find my buildings for week 1 up above, let me continue down here with week 2.

Day 1: Upgrade T2 building (upgraded Archers, figured these were kind of mandatory).
Day 2: Upgrade T1 building.
Day 3: Special building. In H6 every town can build something that I can only describe as a minor version of the 'Tear of Asha' building in the other Heroes. In my specific case, I get to choose between building a building that ups my racial stats or one that allows me to reveal an area of the map once a week. I went for the latter.

As for Day 4 through 7, I build nothing - at this point the only buildings I *can* build cost 5 crystals, and I only have 4 with no mine in sight. The only real change I suppose I could make here is not building my 'special building' and upgrading my T3 units with the crystals I save by doing that. Other options are A) an upgraded market, which adds no additional income but gives me an item vendor, B) a town portal, that allows me to teleport from my main town to any other town I control, and C) an upgraded town portal, that allows me to teleport back to my main town from other towns. Since I don't really have any other towns at this point though, that seems kind of pointless.

As a little edit; while pulling up my savegame I've now noticed that I *can* actually build a level 3 townhall, and am limited there instead of at level 2. With that said though, not building this level 3 townhall like I have been doing shouldn't really make a difference - I've had enough gold to buy and upgrade all possible creatures at any given point anyway, and the new townhall doesn't give me more defensive capabilities to survive that battle-'o-doom.

As a bit of conclusion to this last portion of text; I think the only thing I could really change in my build order is getting my T3 units upgraded by not building my 'special building' that allows me to reveal land - or by trading in some ore at the Marketplace. I should probably also get my level 3 town hall instead of where I currently get my Tavern, just to ensure a steady gold stream.

[ywhtptgtfo]

>Enlightenment, Architect, Logistics and Leadership.

Your skill choice is bad.

- Architect is a skill meant for secondary heroes
- The bonus from leadership is too small to make a difference
- Logistic is good
- Enlightenment is not a must for low levels and can be saved until level 10 or so when leveling becomes harder

Two skills you absolutely need:

Reinforcement - This gives you free troops as fodder. It's useful at all levels. At level 1, it gives maybe 1 or 2 extra units, but at high levels it gives ~25% extra troops

Regeneration and/or Heal - These are nice spells to have to reduce casualties. Mana problem is often an issue at low levels. Only pick both when your maximum mana is 40 or above (which is not always the case especially for Barbarians). Life drain can be an alternative, but it's usually too weak in comparison to these two at early game.

[sezerp]

During beta, some people reported that 'easy' was in fact harder than 'normal'. I wonder if it can still be the case....

If for example AI in campaing was given fixed size army then it would have easier time defeating all the mobs on 'easy' because they are smaller.

[mr.hackcrag]

I get the feeling that it is still the case...

[Mozared]

>Enlightenment, Architect, Logistics and Leadership.

Your skill choice is bad.

- Architect is a skill meant for secondary heroes
- The bonus from leadership is too small to make a difference
- Logistic is good
- Enlightenment is not a must for low levels and can be saved until level 10 or so when leveling becomes harder

Two skills you absolutely need:

Reinforcement - This gives you free troops as fodder. It's useful at all levels. At level 1, it gives maybe 1 or 2 extra units, but at high levels it gives ~25% extra troops

Regeneration and/or Heal - These are nice spells to have to reduce casualties. Mana problem is often an issue at low levels. Only pick both when your maximum mana is 40 or above (which is not always the case especially for Barbarians). Life drain can be an alternative, but it's usually too weak in comparison to these two at early game.

I've taken another look at the skills.

Architect being a skill for secondary heroes makes sense, but in this case, if it may give me just as much extra units as Reinforcement, seeing as how I can't level the latter above level 1 yet? If I'm reading it correctly, Architect should give me 1 spawn of each tier extra, giving me a total of 3 additional units per week over 2 weeks = 6 units. Does reinforcements give you that amount as well?

Enlightenment I grabbed because it seemed logical. You need a fixed amount of XP to get to level 30, right? Which means the quicker I have 25% additional XP gain, the quicker I'll get higher overall. I could pick it up at 10 'when leveling gets slow' as you're pointing out, but I think you're forgetting that I will reach level 10 a lot quicker if I pick it up earlier. I guess in this particular case it doesn't help me a lot, though.

As for Heal - there is no Heal I can grab at level 4. I do guess I could grab Regeneration, though I'm not sure how good that is on a might-based hero with relatively low spellpower. Should I go for a magic hero?

I'll try and make all the suggested changes and will replay the level, to see if that gets me any further.

[Metathron]

Heal is a first tier spell, so it's not a matter of level but of having access to the light magic school.

[Sikon]

Regeneration and Heal are both available at level 1, in Earth and Light magic respectively. They greatly help at avoiding losses.

[Mozared]

I see now. I figured Heal would be in Light magic, but I simply couldn't access Light magic - that was because I was looking at the wrong hero to check my talents, though

Gonna give it a go now.

[Kristo]

Buried in an H6 rant is something that might be useful to you. Do your Praetorians have a special ability that will defend your Archers, keeping them alive long enough to win your unwinnable battles?

[Mozared]

They have a passive ability that gives additional defense to every friendly unit they stand next to, I think. It also allows them to attack whenever an adjacent friendly unit is attacked by an adjacent enemy unit (so this attack goes alongside the attacked unit's retaliation). The tactic of boxing them in with Praetorians is something that's not going to work for me, due to the fact that you kind of need to upgrade your archers for damage - and once they're upgraded, they gain that blast-through bolt passive where they hit every unit in a line; this means that they'd be shooting your Praetorians as well everytime they fire.

I'm currently retrying - I managed to get my town hall up to max level alongside a marketplace, and I've got a rank 2 fort alongside upgraded T1, T2 and T3 units. The enemy hero just showed up and engage me in battle on equal ground - I simply reloaded after I started to lose pretty badly. Half my units are still unupgraded, however, so now I'm going to see if I can win this battle if he attacks me in my castle and I upgrade all my stuff.