Finished Sanctuary campaign (Bugs, impression, and spoilers)

[ywhtptgtfo]

In general, I find the campaign to be slightly better than I thought. Its Asian theme is good, although it could've been a bit more Chinese than Japanese. The conflux feature is pretty cool and a good source of hint and interactions.

Irina's voice-acting sucks while Katsue's and pretty much everyone else's are great. Her character can still use a bit more character development, since things seem pretty rushed for him to transform from a princess to a warlord.

The A.I. in the campaign is retarded (I played on hard mode). Even with massively superior armies, it rarely sends a threatening invasion army (comparing to the troops it stationed in towns).

A.I. also a pathological cheater. In the final map, the demons were camping in their castles with troops growing by 10+% every 3 turns or so. At month four, their main castle had 4k+ succubi even after I took our the breeder boss. Despite its numerical advantage, I was mostly left alone. If this is an intended feature, it'd be nice to add in a comment or two to tell the player that he shouldn't try to capture the demon towns. I haven't checked if this also happens with Haven towns, but they seem to have some pretty massive armies too, despite being repeatedly depleted.

There are still a lot of bugs with the game:
- Main hero cannot be overridden for the Sanctuary campaign (but it works for the Necromancer campaign)
- Week of Festival penalty does not always lift after the week is over. I was stuck with 1/2 income for a while until I realized my crystal income was too low (reloading seems to fix it).
- Flotsam and sea chests don't always disappear
- Acclaimed leader dynasty trait doesn't work (well, unless they count dead reinforced troops as casualty)
- Bronze and silver dynasty levels don't unlock properly (unlock at 11 and 21 instead of 10 and 20)

[Yazman]

I finished it, I thought it was pretty good overall. Changbo turned out to be really useful to have around! Did you keep him or kill him?

I am actually enjoying the campaigns.

[Avonu]

I finished it, I thought it was pretty good overall. Changbo turned out to be really useful to have around! Did you keep him or kill him?

As I choose Blood path before I fought with him, I could only kill him and released Katashi. There was no Tear choise for Changbo.

And I can't obtain Silksword of the Kirin. I tried fix for dynasty weapons and while it works for Blade of Binding in Inferno campaign, it doesn't work for Silksword.

[Yazman]

I finished it, I thought it was pretty good overall. Changbo turned out to be really useful to have around! Did you keep him or kill him?

As I choose Blood path before I fought with him, I could only kill him and released Katashi. There was no Tear choise for Changbo.

And I can't obtain Silksword of the Kirin. I tried fix for dynasty weapons and while it works for Blade of Binding in Inferno campaign, it doesn't work for Silksword.

Ahh ok, I chose the tears path. You actually got a different hero?

[qiox]

I just finished the Sanctuary campaign on hard. I think this was the easiest faction. I did all of them on hard.

In the final map I certainly did not see any huge armies like the OP describes. I finished the mission on month 4 week 2.

I took the town straight north early in the 2nd week. With my summon light elemental spell giving a stack of 40 I could walk through every fight I came across even when rated Deadly.

I took the town to the east of there without any trouble. But, 2 days after, while I was in the town the AI attacked with 2 heroes in a row on the same turn. It turned out the 2nd of the 2 was the demon leader (quest objective). And once I took out those two, I went to the inferno town by the gate down to the breeder boss and there was no hero in the town.

There were quite a few troops with stacks of 200-500 but without a hero it was not that hard a fight.

I killed the breeder boss in 2 turns. That thing needs a buff.

Here's a picture of me defending that 3rd town against the 2nd of two heroes (demon leader). It shows the starting troops (my tiny army.. his much bigger) and an overlay of the victory screen showing my losses. If I had full spell points to start (which I didn't thanks to two attacks in AI turn) I would have had no losses.

[img]http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/3310/countered.jpg[/img]

Mod note: changed to scrolling image. GC

[Avonu]

I just finished the Sanctuary campaign on hard. I think this was the easiest faction. I did all of them on hard.

Agree. I was very easy map. If you don't clean it and don't want to capture all what is possibe (which I did), you can finish this map very quickly.
Demon heroes had big armies but you can easly beat them with nearly no losses and next capture their towns.

I killed the breeder boss in 2 turns. That thing needs a buff.

Mass Haste and she even didn't know what hit her - I killed her before she even could act.

[ywhtptgtfo]

In the final map I certainly did not see any huge armies like the OP describes. I finished the mission on month 4 week 2.

I don't know if my game was glitched or that it was the effect of leaving the Breeder Queen alive for too long, but the Inferno towns were always camped with an outrageous amounts of troops that could not be depleted.

I will post up a screen later today.

[Metathron]

A question about the final scenario.

Did anyone go against the secondary objective that tells you not to capture any wolf city except Isengrim? I thought that the (by this point puny) experience you get as a reward was not worth the bonus of having extra towns, so I attacked the first demon town west of Ashwick. However, there's a strong hero standing nearby who attacked me the next turn (for invading the wolf cities, I guess) and it looked far too dangerous for me to tackle, so I reloaded and ran back towards Eastwick. To my relief, said hero did not follow me. This makes me wonder about their behaviour - will they invade my lands, and what would happen should I pass by them; will they attack or ignore me provided I don't touch any of their castles?

[qiox]

I went against it by accident. The fishing village gives you a quest asking you to clear the demons from the island with the lighthouse. When you complete the quest that village becomes a town, and it's automatically given to you. And it fails the other quest.

I continued from there but didn't bother attacking the other Wolf towns. Their heroes ran away as I walked by on the way to the final fight. This was month 4 week 2.

[Metathron]

I have just accepted the fishing village quest. Hopefully that won't unleash the wrath of the wolf duchy heroes on me.

I am certainly more of a cautious, retiring player who takes time to clear the starting area first and doesn't rush towards objectives, but I must be playing really badly/slowly if you had such an easy time fending off two heroes on hard whereas they look way out of my league on easy.

[qiox]

I find the most significant factor in determining how the game will go is your hero build. Clearing things out and progressing slow is not bad in of itself.

I've been looking at the maps in the editor and the AI does not build up like it does in previous versions of heroes.

They are given huge amounts of gold (500k+) and troops to buy (1500 of each) on day 1.

But, they are then given min and max army sizes to maintain in the heroes and the town garrisons.

Then, when you own a certain number of towns, 3 in some maps, the AI is told to boost the min and max. And again when you get a 4th town.

That's why when you kill a hero it seems like the AI just spits out another the same. It's because it has so many troops and so much gold in the bank and instructions to pull out so much as needed.


With the right combo of might skills and spells you can take out AI heroes rated as Deadly.

I plan on putting a playthrough up on Youtube of the Inferno campaign, since that's the one I see lots of people saying is too hard, over on the official forums.

I'll post a link to it here also once it's done.

[Metathron]

Thanks for the insight on how the AI works.

In my game, the inferno heroes have taken the inferno town from the wolf army. I suspect they will move against me next, so I'll gather my forces and attack. I reckon it's "safe" to take the inferno town now, since it doesn't belong to the wolves.

I went against it by accident. The fishing village gives you a quest asking you to clear the demons from the island with the lighthouse. When you complete the quest that village becomes a town, and it's automatically given to you. And it fails the other quest.

I now own the fishing village/town and it hasn't failed the "We come in peace" quest. I guess it doesn't count as a wolf city.

[ywhtptgtfo]

I find the most significant factor in determining how the game will go is your hero build. Clearing things out and progressing slow is not bad in of itself.

I've been looking at the maps in the editor and the AI does not build up like it does in previous versions of heroes.

They are given huge amounts of gold (500k+) and troops to buy (1500 of each) on day 1.

But, they are then given min and max army sizes to maintain in the heroes and the town garrisons.

Then, when you own a certain number of towns, 3 in some maps, the AI is told to boost the min and max. And again when you get a 4th town.

That's why when you kill a hero it seems like the AI just spits out another the same. It's because it has so many troops and so much gold in the bank and instructions to pull out so much as needed.


With the right combo of might skills and spells you can take out AI heroes rated as Deadly.

I plan on putting a playthrough up on Youtube of the Inferno campaign, since that's the one I see lots of people saying is too hard, over on the official forums.

I'll post a link to it here also once it's done.

Whoa... that's some epic cheating that goes way beyond anything I've seen in the Heroes series... Is it really that difficult to program an A.I. for a TBS game?

I mean, without the benefit of a big boost in troop count, the Heroes 2 and Heroes 3 A.I.'s still posed a decent challenge to the players (okay, maybe not to the extreme pros). But in Heroes 6, the A.I. basically sits there and camps the player to death by getting lots and lots of free troops. It seems almost pointless (in maps like Haven II and Sanctuary IV) to try to strike a crippling blow to the A.I. by whittling away its troops bit by bit when it can just regen all the lost troops quickly.

But then again, it appears the cheating is map-dependent because I don't see ridiculous amounts of troops in certain maps (i.e. Necro III and Inferno III where you can just steamroll everything).

[architect2000]

i am playing tear/might for irina, and i notice that in the final map, irina's graphical character model was changed from that of a shogun to the default (i.e. as might, she doesn't have any "flags" on her back)

is this a bug? do you experience this with a magic hero?

also, i have already unlocked the 2nd level of tear, so for example i can't change back to blood. does the character model change depending on how you played the map? (i.e. succeeding/failing in "we come in peace").