Of Necropolis and "unbeatableness"

[csarmi]

I played Galthran and I did not play through at all. Abandoned after a few days. No spectacular amount of skeletons by then. But I got a second necro city plus vampire crowl. And an all-messed-up chain of heroes

About Necro vs Conflux on a big map: that's not 80 skeletons a week, rather 800. Okie, that's an exaggerration, but mine is closer to the reality.

And on the 2nd-3rd week i would build the wight dwelling. Zombie dwelling is prebuilt (and needed for vampires).

I never play without level 2 dwelling prebuilt (so I restarted until I got it).

[Bandobras Took]

I never play without level 2 dwelling prebuilt (so I restarted until I got it).

Wimp. (I'm joking! Please, nobody take offense!)

[csarmi]

No, but I think that if one player gets level 2 prebuilt and the other doesn't, that's almost a game-breaking advantage. I hate randomness at starting heroes troops too. Yes I have already started with Bron without basilisks.

[Derek]

I never play without level 2 dwelling prebuilt (so I restarted until I got it).

This lack of level 2 dwelling really slows down the race for liches/vamps. Every time I did the map I did not start with it though... Probably should have restarted, but who knows...

Banedon,
That's quite an impressive army, I shall admit that. However, what difficulty were you playing on?

[Banedon]

I played Galthran and I did not play through at all. Abandoned after a few days. No spectacular amount of skeletons by then. But I got a second necro city plus vampire crowl. And an all-messed-up chain of heroes smile

Me too But I could not take the second Necropolis after a few days; the distance is too great unless I knew exactly which way to walk in.

About Necro vs Conflux on a big map: that's not 80 skeletons a week, rather 800. Okie, that's an exaggerration, but mine is closer to the reality.

Just how many Skeletons do you think you can raise? If you're raising 800 a week, you need to engage and defeat throngs of something every turn with a 100% conversion rate before you can do anything.

I never play without level 2 dwelling prebuilt (so I restarted until I got it).

I restarted until Ivor started with 10 Elves, but I never did anything as...shall I say, fanatical?...as you did. Next time I simply edit the map to optimize the starting conditions

Banedon,
That's quite an impressive army, I shall admit that. However, what difficulty were you playing on?

Thank you. I was playing on Hard. You?

[Nucleon]

I can't help but wonder what Nucleon would think after reading this post Would he still call you a coward, or would he accuse you of exaggeration?

Neither. Merely, maybe, of being confused. You talk about "All for One". Nucleon suspects csarmi played "And One for All" (althought described as "One for All") which is an entirely different, smaller, easier map.

I would be very interested though if Nucleon replicated this test Nucleon, can you do it? It would be a fine way to test our skills against each other without playing a game.

What? To see how much squels He can harvest? Sure; Please state map, rules and difficulties.

[csarmi]

I did not optimize. I just made sure level 2 was built. Unbuilt is fine too (if it's unbuilt for anybody), but if it's built everywhere that's more balanced.

And you simply can't go wrong finding the necro town. One more thing: if you play a fixed map, you are supposed to use the knowledge of it. That's why it's usually better to play random.

[SmokingBarrel]

What Banedon said is true, though. Getting 800 skeletons a week? Thats going to be very difficult unless you are up against throngs of lvel 1 units. Usually I only manage, um, like 100 skeletons a week. Doesn't make Necropolis unbeatable, does it?

[Banedon]

Frankly I'm a little doubtful about seizing the Necropolis town before the week is out. From Blue's land, one would have to contend with two stacks of Fire Elementals before even nearing the Necropolis - to defeat them would be almost impossible with week 1 units. csarmi elaborate please?

Nucleon: Simple. Play Blue, play Hard difficulty and reload as many times as you want. How powerful an army can you amass by the start of week 3? You may not move on that turn.

[Derek]

Played on expert...

*Sigh*...seems as though I shall give it another go so that I might be able to give a more fair evaluation.

All else aside, Blue is not going to get the Necroplois in two weeks. A stack of cyclops guards one path, or you would have to go through the fire elementals. Although these battles can be beaten, the units lost would be too great to warrant trying for it so quickly. Therefore, Csarmi...if you have done so I'd like to see it. I don't think it is impossible to be so, but it seeems the blue necro would not be able to do it so easily.

[Banedon]

2 weeks is more than enough to get to the Necropolis - I did it myself, with quite a few days to spare. The road I took isn't through the Cyclops Kings (you can though if you're willing to take damage). With Rampart, I could blow my way through the Fire Elementals with minimal casualties (maybe 1 Centaur per battle; maybe even less). I went through Fortress, then Stronghold, then finally to Necropolis. There was enough time. I would upload the savegame, were it not for the fact that I don't know how.

[csarmi]

I am playing the version that can be found on the ToH map page. There are no Cyclopes on my way, only skeleton warriors. And it's reachable week 1.

Maybe you guys are playing the original version coming with the game.

You should have learnt by then that the original maps (h3, h4) all suck. I started this install by deleting them all and creating my own map directories from user-made maps and fixed classic maps.

I downloaded it from the most appropriate place so it should be the best version available. Seems like one of the version fixes was to correct the accidental blocking of the necro castle by fire elementals/cyclopes. That's a bug.

BTW, if you have enough vampire lords, the cyclop king fight is doable with minor losses. They get to shoot for one round, that's what you should plane for. Here's where you use your lizardmen (and in the garrison fight).

About skeletons, in week 2-3 you usually fight 4-7 battles per day. All the fights you find.

[Banedon]

You cheated Maybe the map that came with the game sucks, but it was the map we agreed to test on. The Necro castle in the map I played was not blocked by Cyclops or Fire Elementals; it's the route to it that includes these units as guards.

About skeletons, in week 2-3 you usually fight 4-7 battles per day. All the fights you find.

I strongly believe you're exaggerating. I moved at extreme pace (albeit without Logistics), never doing anything except moving from one battle to another, and you cannot fight 4 battles a day. Not in this map. Not in very many maps.

[csarmi]

On this map you can't cause it's very small and you run out of stacks to fight against in like two weeks. But on most maps (larger ones) you can. And with necro, you certainly will. You fight with 3-4 heroes.

[Banedon]

That is the point! Necropolis is not overpowered because there are insufficient neutral stacks to fight!

[Nucleon]

Nucleon likes to play'em random. So He took the map at Expert difficulty (what's the use of playing Hard? The AI is so dumb) He took blue, and got Forteress and Mirlanda -lucky in a way.

From there it was going downhill; Scholar were polluting His main heroes with "Fire Magic" (with Forteress, yeah, you bet) and "Intelligence". Then Red got the "Boots of Levitation" from the western part of the outer ring. Nucleon stopped the game there.

Then he edited the map; No more Conflux, no "Dimension Door" nor "Fly" nor "Town Portal", no more "Angel wings" artefacts and the such.

Then He wondered "What's the use?"

Then He took the csarmi way, and got the map finished in two weeks.

[Banedon]

You won the map in two weeks? Are you sure? Because I built up an unstoppable advantage in two weeks - but did not win.

[Nucleon]

You won the map in two weeks? Are you sure?

No. Nucleon was being sarcastic.

Because I built up an unstoppable advantage in two weeks - but did not win.

Frankly, with all the advantages you took on your own, Nucleon would be surprised if you didn't. You don't sound so bad a player yourself neither, thought.

Try it on "Expert", with a random town and hero. Playing Ivor with Rampart at "Hard" is not quite like playing "Expert" with Tiva and Forteress. You tell Nucleon that you achieved that with Tiva, well now He would be impressed.

The game's measure itself is good; Its score is determined by a variety of factors, including difficulty and time taken; It is Nucleon's opinion that you cannot compare the success on a given map until it is done.

Ivor... Ivor and Rampart are a sure shot almost everytime.

[Banedon]

There's a reason why I played Rampart. It's because I'm used to having powerful Ranged stacks right from the start. Besides Rampart, the only other race that can do that is Castle. Without those same Ranged stacks, I require fast and strong melee units - to these, Stronghold and Inferno fit the bill.

Oh, I'm not saying I can't play the other 4 races - just that I'm not so good at them, and if I did play them I would not achieve such results. I believe playing on Expert difficulty won't adversely affect my results too much; the less resources can be amply compensated for by better play (which I know I did not achieve).

Anyway I'm unable to test anything right now, since my computer is currently being serviced (I'm using another computer).

[Derek]

Ivor and Rampart is a great advantage, that much is for sure, but it is moot to the discussion at hand. Although Tiva as a Fortress starting hero does tickle me quite a bit. What a worthless, worthless hero...

Banedon,
I am starting to think that this whole experiment is fundamentally flawed. The strength of the Necro is not in an early game rush, although they can do that, their strength lies in their ability to mass great numbers of troops throughout the course of a map while not suffering many losses(Thant fits this bill nicely). Although it was nice to see how many skels I could get in such a short amount of time, it is even more impressive how many skels you can get over an extended period of time. I am not proposing that we both try some sort of large map and see who can get the largest army, that would be absurd. I am not exactly sure how we can test the Necro's ability to field a huge army in the late game. Because, in all seriousness, VLs are never going to die until the final battle, and I will easily have alegion of skels by then.