HOMM 4: How do I beat my friend online, Life vs Chaos!?

[farbs]

I just got completely raped by kaezin tonight. I just think you have to be extremely extremely lucky and him to be extremely extremely unlucky for me to have any chance against him. I'm not that bad of a player but I'm not on a very high level. I just think that an avg player against an avarage player Chaos will almost always win against Life

[Banedon]

Anyways, I took a quick look at this map.

First of all, if your opponent is a good player; unless you are VERY lucky, you will never beat him life vs chaos. That's because the map is unbelenced. It has no scouting or tactics altars and no combat huts. That means you won't have a pathfinder and your opponent will. Game over.

(you can't raise a native pathfinder, because you will have -5 morale penalty in the endfight (unless you remove him, but there is not enough XP on the map to afford the waste of a level 10+ hero))

To balance the map, simply put a scouting altar next to the 2nd town, and a tactics altar next to the 3rd town. That should be enough.

Instead of blaming the map, you can (and perhaps should) attribute this to Chaos's inherent advantage - they can build Thieves, other races can't. Placing Scouting altars all over evens things, but it also removes this advantage that Chaos should rightfully hold.

Say Kaezin picks up Death Heroes, will my death DD spells from Life magic do damage to his heroes?

Life's DD spells like Holy Word and Holy Shout will not work against heroes.

I just got completely raped by kaezin tonight. I just think you have to be extremely extremely lucky and him to be extremely extremely unlucky for me to have any chance against him. I'm not that bad of a player but I'm not on a very high level. I just think that an avg player against an avarage player Chaos will almost always win against Life

Why did you lose this time? A few questions may help pinpoint the reason. Did you:

Arrive in the final battle significantly disadvantaged?

OR

Arrive in the final battle roughly equal or even advantaged, yet lose?

[csarmi]

>Instead of blaming the map, you can (and perhaps should) attribute this
>to Chaos's inherent advantage - they can build Thieves, other races
>can't. Placing Scouting altars all over evens things, but it also removes
>this advantage that Chaos should rightfully hold.

No, it doesn't work like that. It's an advantage that can't be balanced by anything, but big luck. Every map that wants to call him a fair MP map has to give all players a chance to learn scouting and chaos close to the beginning of the map. It also has to contain some places to learn magic for a barbarian town to be playable.

Imagine playing heroes 3 with no access to logistics for you while your opponent starts with a log specialty hero. It's even harsher than that.

I took a look at your save game and, I'll try to give some advices (I'll try to figure out what happened and such). What I know from first look is:

Guys, you both play terribly slowly. It's weak 2 month 2 day 5! THis map should be over in 4 weeks no matter what.

You have too few heroes and they are badly developed.

Your armies are slow and ineffective (what are medusas, nightmares, pikemen and crusaders doing in the main army?... half the chaos army could easily take on anything on the map and so is the life army - even though it is developed badly)

The main problem with hero-development seems to be the lack of understanding that you should not pick ANY other skills (not even combat) on a hero but his main until it's GM.

Farbs, I really don't want to disappoint you, but it seems to me that noth of you are a level below average.

[Kaezin]

csarmi:

Guys, you both play terribly slowly. It's weak 2 month 2 day 5! THis map should be over in 4 weeks no matter what.

We don't like rushing eachother and forcing a conflict before we can actually do anything on the map. If that means we're bad players, then fine.

You have too few heroes and they are badly developed. The main problem with hero-development seems to be the lack of understanding that you should not pick ANY other skills (not even combat) on a hero but his main until it's GM.

I had advanced seafaring on the last map we played because of the first damn scouting shrine. I had master pathfinding and advanced scouting when I grabbed it. Guess what skill it gave me? Seafaring. Then, of course, that skill got upgraded AGAIN through another random scouting shrine. My point is that bad luck does happen. I never get sorcery on my chaos mage until I have absolutely everything else done. I had master chaos and its secondaries when I got my chaos shrine. Guess what it gave me? Sorcery.

Your armies are slow and ineffective (what are medusas, nightmares, pikemen and crusaders doing in the main army?... half the chaos army could easily take on anything on the map and so is the life army - even though it is developed badly)

That was an older save before we really read the boards. Point taken, though.

Farbs, I really don't want to disappoint you, but it seems to me that noth of you are a level below average.

If you want to say we suck, then just say it instead of sugar coating it. Or better yet, don't say it at all and allow us more than a week or two to learn the game.


Banedon:

Why did you lose this time? A few questions may help pinpoint the reason. Did you:

Arrive in the final battle significantly disadvantaged?

OR

Arrive in the final battle roughly equal or even advantaged, yet lose?

Roughly equal in strength, except I had higher level heroes since I had cleared out the majority of the high level neutral stacks before he got a chance to.

Fight went like this: (one of his priests and angels gets high morale, my necro and mare get high morale)
He casts mass chaos ward. I cast mass cancellation, removing the ward + any PoIs. His angels wait. My mare terrors his angels. My black dragons wipe out the priest that hasn't gone yet. I incinerate his tactician with my chaos mage. I use my wand of haste on my tactician to haste my hydras. My hydras wipe out his druid and his first priest, as well as a decent amount of angels. At this point he pretty much gave up. I death called his angels and used those to kill him just to rub it in.

There are a lot of things he could have done differently (like casting something other than mass chaos ward when he knew I was going to cast mass cancellation). His heroes didn't have a lot of resist either, I think he had just recently GM'd life and tactics and didn't have the time/exp to learn combat or resist yet. I had the advantage of speed on my side thanks to a few arties I found.

If you think we both screwed up majorly somehow and we both suck, then fine, since that's all we seem to be hearing anyway.

[gravyluvr]

You will find the csarmi has more tact-icks than tactics, but he is noted as probably the best MP player around, so while you probably won't go bowling together anytime soon, you should listen to the advice.

Think of it like really bad tasting medicine. No sugar coating, awful to digest, but it will make you better.

As for the creatures, I completely agree. I looked at the map and creature developments and I figured life would have Angels and a slew of heroes. If you could develop the other LVL4 creatures then bring them too, but I found that the Angels and a group of heroes were going to handle this map most efficiently.

Life GM
Life GM
Archer GM (turned Ranger at GM C+Arch+MR)
Druid GM
Tactics GM
Angels

(I also developed a pathfinder but dropped him for endfight - you could also stick in Mantis, Phoenix, or even another combat hero instead)

There are tons of free and/or cheap powerups that get your hero GM before you meet.

I sank some extra cash to develop 3 lords that just followed my main army around and flag mines and got the free powerups to pump up the creature growth and estates a little.

I stuck a "Sea" specialist into the water for all the freebies with a small army.

This map is designed for fast clearing a jump through the middle quickly.

[csarmi]

We don't like rushing eachother and forcing a conflict before we can actually do anything on the map. If that means we're bad players, then fine.

You don't have to rush each other. If you play closed style, that's fine. But still, the one to complete its side faster is able to take the centre, that's all this map is about. And in much less time. I took a look at the map. First I thought it was week2day5, which seemed okay since you did not break into the center yet and had level 10ish heroes. Even a bit fast. Then I wondered how you can have 7 black dragons. Then I wondered again. Then I saw.

I had advanced seafaring on the last map we played because of the first damn scouting shrine. I had master pathfinding and advanced scouting when I grabbed it.

You learned a lesson then. Don't pick up altars, especially not scouting ones. Altars are for starting a hero on a new path. Like building a pathfinder out of an archer hero.

If you want to say we suck, then just say it instead of sugar coating it. Or better yet, don't say it at all and allow us more than a week or two to learn the game.

No, you don't suck, I saw several good points both at the forums and the saves. Just play faster and inspire each other to take that fight... and that one too. Have goals at the beginning of the game and pursue them. Your playstyle seems lazy for me.

Oh, and read around the forums (I mean the old one). You have to be selective, but there's a lot of useful information out there.

You are on the right path - just push more.

One question though. Do you play on equilibris? Cause if not, you shold try it. If you don't - ban mass cancellation. Too strong for a level 3 spell.

Roughly equal in strength, except I had higher level heroes since I had cleared out the majority of the high level neutral stacks before he got a chance to.

BTW, I recommend trying this map. You might find it fun. You can learn how to fight big endfights and what a few heroes can do. Drop me a message on msn or mail (csarmi at freemail.hu) and I might have some time to play you, too. (I am not playing long maps anymore)

http://www.heroesleague.ru/show/1176/Ta ... tHL1.6.zip
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.p ... genumber=2

A few maps I recommend you guys:

(all can be found at www.toheroes.com, use advanced or expert settings)


1) After the Flood - a fun open map where you can buy XP for gold and thus everything is possible: you have to hurt each other though, right from the beginning

2) Fatal Controversy - I guess it's just the type of map you are looking for: closed, but not too long with lots of heroes to buy in the beginning -- in a way it is similar to the one you are playing now

3) Circle of Life - the most popular map of all times: maybe because it is easily patternizable; against players who know it a mistake is fatal

4) Eldorado - one of the first maps I ever played, it's long and hard, but really, everything is balanced here... you have to defeat a not-so-funny stack of all-elementals early, however

[Banedon]

No, it doesn't work like that. It's an advantage that can't be balanced by anything, but big luck. Every map that wants to call him a fair MP map has to give all players a chance to learn scouting and chaos close to the beginning of the map. It also has to contain some places to learn magic for a barbarian town to be playable.

In other words, it makes Chaos imbalanced, the same way Death is in pre-Equi.

You must note that if everyone follows you and places all forms of altars around, every race is equal to everyone else. You can give me Might and you take Nature, but I place Fae Trees, Wolf Dens, Unicorn Glades, Taverns, etc. around my land, we're essentially equal after all.

Roughly equal in strength, except I had higher level heroes since I had cleared out the majority of the high level neutral stacks before he got a chance to.

If this is what happened, then the problem isn't before the battle, it's during it. Judging by your battle narrative, this is indeed what happened. For one, getting the Tactician incinerated early is not a wise thing, and starting with Mass Chaos Ward is a strange idea too (I'd probably wait with the Priest, anticipating a Mass Fervor and first strikes in the next round).

Strange though how your Black Dragons and Hydras could rush across in one move. That should not be possible, even with GM Tactics, even with Haste. Well, maybe you can reach the first line - but not the second, where the Priests should be.

You will find the csarmi has more tact-icks than tactics, but he is noted as probably the best MP player around, so while you probably won't go bowling together anytime soon, you should listen to the advice.

Allow me to rephrase that. He is noted as probably the best MP player around within maps that fit his style of play, so while you probably......listen to the advice.

If you play closed style, that's fine. But still, the one to complete its side faster is able to take the centre, that's all this map is about.

I agree. The guards in the middle aren't too deadly; with 7 Black Dragons and level 10 heroes you should be able to annihilate them.

[Kaezin]

Strange though how your Black Dragons and Hydras could rush across in one move. That should not be possible, even with GM Tactics, even with Haste. Well, maybe you can reach the first line - but not the second, where the Priests should be.

Not sure what to tell you, but I was able to do it. I just reloaded one of the saves from earlier in the game and I can still get them to the second row of units in the first turn.

And as for the center garrisons: I had already taken care of them by the time I had just a few black dragons. I didn't press the attack against farbs though since I wanted to give him more time to build his army (I could have crushed him at that point, but I didn't want it to end like that).

[quote="csarmi]You don't have to rush each other. If you play closed style, that's fine. But still, the one to complete its side faster is able to take the centre, that's all this map is about. And in much less time. I took a look at the map. First I thought it was week2day5, which seemed okay since you did not break into the center yet and had level 10ish heroes. Even a bit fast. Then I wondered how you can have 7 black dragons. Then I wondered again. Then I saw.[/quote]

Once again, that was an older game before we posted on the forums. In the most recent game we played I cleared out my side and the middle before the end of the first month and screwed around a bit before actually attacking.

We use Equilibris; I agree that Mass Cancellation is entirely too strong for a level 3 spell. Even as a level 5 spell it is still a bit ridiculous.[/quote]

[Banedon]

It's not possible! With units obstructing the first line, Black Dragons and hasted Hydras cannot reach across - unless he was using a Tight formation, which is suicide against the breath and mass attacks of Black Dragons and Hydras.

Actually while I was thinking of it, if you had both higher level heroes and better artifacts, the battle wasn't really equal - Chaos has a significant advantage.

[Kaezin]

It's not possible! With units obstructing the first line, Black Dragons and hasted Hydras cannot reach across - unless he was using a Tight formation, which is suicide against the breath and mass attacks of Black Dragons and Hydras.

It wasn't a tight formation, he learned not to do that after our first game

As for the movement issue, I still don't know what to say. I have a few arties that increase movement and speed, so is that it? I don't have a save of the turn before we fought, but I'll try to find it so I can show you.

My memory of the fight must be wrong.

[farbs]

you might have just gotten to the first line...if I remember right...anyhoo my tactics about this game aren't to great, I'm sure if I paid a lot more attention I wouldn't make lousy mistakes that would effect me in the long run. My in battle strategies aren't too great either, as in what to cast first and how to deal with what he is doing. it all takes time to figure out, but i'm getting bored of being spanked every game, I'm probably going to try a new race for a little

[csarmi]

You must note that if everyone follows you and places all forms of altars around, every race is equal to everyone else.

Not at all. Chaos still has a headstart on pathfinding (he actually starts with scouting and reaches it easier -- with the other having combat already, he shall have bad choices often)

The same holds for other type of heroes. Magic guilds are a limiting factor too (and a big one) and so are alliances (and taverns).

BTW, the stack guarding the middle should be easily killed by a bunch of level 8-10 heroes and 1 or 2 angels, for example. Week 2, maybe week 3 fight.

anyways, using both blackies AND hydras don't seem to be a good idea for me
and efreets are better than nightmares, I think... well, most of the time - against life almost surely, you won't be able to use terror a lot

[Banedon]

you might have just gotten to the first line...if I remember right...anyhoo my tactics about this game aren't to great, I'm sure if I paid a lot more attention I wouldn't make lousy mistakes that would effect me in the long run. My in battle strategies aren't too great either, as in what to cast first and how to deal with what he is doing. it all takes time to figure out, but i'm getting bored of being spanked every game, I'm probably going to try a new race for a little

An excellent idea. Try Nature.

Not at all. Chaos still has a headstart on pathfinding (he actually starts with scouting and reaches it easier -- with the other having combat already, he shall have bad choices often)

So I place a Tavern allowing me to recruit Thieves. We are equal.

The same holds for other type of heroes. Magic guilds are a limiting factor too (and a big one) and so are alliances (and taverns).

So I place multiple Shrines around (or events) that teach every spell I may need. Again, we are equal (if you discount the movement needed to reach those shrines).

and efreets are better than nightmares, I think... well, most of the time - against life almost surely, you won't be able to use terror a lot

There's one thing regarding Nightmares you didn't mention - Terror is a curse, and can be Exorcised. Hence, I agree that Efreets are probably the better choice.

[csarmi]

You can't see the main point. You cannot recruit thieves, because you are not allied with chaos. If you do recruit, that leaves you with two choices for the endfight.

#1 - remove the pathfinder for the endfight: it does not realy work, first, that means all the XP you put into that hero is not used in the endfight; second, there are some painful practical problems with it

#2 - take the pathfinder into the endfight and face -5 morale to all heroes and creatures (and heroes are not affected by leadership): you know what that usually means - sure defeat

[gravyluvr]

But with 2 Life towns, a nature town and a tavern...

Isn't it better to have 2 priests, a druid, an archer and a Knight?

I might still recruit the thief to carry my army around with neutrals and develop the stealth as quickly as I could and just use the pathfinder to grab stuff.

Once the stealth skill developed, I'd drop him when I made the move to the middle and send him into the sea with the lords to go get the material and powerups at sea or maybe just have ferry troops to the front (if he moved that much faster.

[csarmi]

No, you are bette off keeping the pathfinder in your army. Without it, your opponent has the logistical edge and you will pay for it dearly. Plus, he shall have that more XP on his heroes.

And stealth is a bad skill. Unless XP is flowing in the rivers instead of water, you are severely harmed by taking it.

[gravyluvr]

You can't see the main point. You cannot recruit thieves, because you are not allied with chaos.

But you just said that wrong to do...

I'm confused... Just so I get this strait - please correct me

You have a life town.

Life and Nature heroes fine
Life and Order heroes fine
Life, Nature AND order heroes NOT FINE???
Life and Death and/or Chaos heroes Really really bad

Is that right?
What's wrong (penalty) with having 3 different factioned heroes?

[csarmi]

If you have heroes from 3 different alignments, that means that at least (well, exactly) two of them are from an opposite alignment. Those two heroes get -5 morale each (you get -2 morale for barbarians and vica versa).

morale penalties: -1 for allied alignment(s), -2 for might, -5 for opposing alignment(s) and I think -2 for undead if you are not death (unsure of the last one)

all life: everyone has 1
life heroes, nature heroes life/nature creatures: everyone has 0 morale
life heroes, nature heroes, barbarians, life/nature/barbarian creatures: everyone has -2 morale
life hero, nature heroes, chaos hero, nature creatures: the life and chaos hero has -5 morale, everyone else -1 morale
life hero, nature hero, chaos hero, death hero: the chaos and the nature has -6 morale each, the life and death hero gets -10... and yes, you can have lower morale than -10 too

[Banedon]

You can't see the main point. You cannot recruit thieves, because you are not allied with chaos. If you do recruit, that leaves you with two choices for the endfight.

#1 - remove the pathfinder for the endfight: it does not realy work, first, that means all the XP you put into that hero is not used in the endfight; second, there are some painful practical problems with it

#2 - take the pathfinder into the endfight and face -5 morale to all heroes and creatures (and heroes are not affected by leadership): you know what that usually means - sure defeat

I did see your main point, but I didn't phrase my words correctly.

I'm saying that I can make any race essentially equal to Chaos simply by placing a Tavern and Chaos dwellings on the map. Say I'm Nature, but to 'balance the map' I place a Tavern (allowing me to recruit Thieves), Chaos dwellings (giving me essentially the same army) and Shrines (giving me the same spells), we'd be equal. End result is, perhaps you should consider Pathfinding an inherent bonus of Chaos, and though it is very powerful and definitely imbalanced, it's still something that Chaos should enjoy.

Your Heroes 3 analogy has its points, but there most heroes have a decent chance of learning Logistics, and so it is not an advantage inherent to anyone. But Pathfinding is. You see?

[gravyluvr]

While playing hotseat. Take your turn and make him skip his turn a few times. See if he notices the day of the week.