I think it was also things like bowmen. 2 armor doesn't affect high attack strength units much, but makes a big difference against the weakest attack strength units, which were far too effective against them when treasure hunting.
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Test games played
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September 19th, 2018, 09:03
(This post was last modified: September 19th, 2018, 11:49 by Seravy.)
So, Life Drain in weapons was supposed to be Death's way to keep heroes alive early...but you can't make items with spells without create artifact. Even if the spell charge is a cheap common spell. That's...far from ideal.
I also think I'll swap the starting defense of the Thief and Amazon. While the defense hero having 5 and the offense hero having 4 makes sense, this makes the higher end hero significantly less useful if you somehow manage to have one early. I've already made a +3 defense item for the hero and found another one but it's still not enough to be able to effectively use it against a Life wizard (who has Fire Bolt but no other attack spells, and I do have Heroic Shout. Still the hero takes so much damage from random low tier ranged enemies, it isn't enough.). About werewolves, while they are supposed to be strong (and near unstoppable in 9 stacks) in a certain timeframe, they should get much less effective around the time the AI gets halfway through uncommons. So let's see what various realms have to counter them. Nature : Call Centaurs move 4 and shoot so they should counter stacks with only 1-2 werewolves. Unfortunately due to armor and regeneration they fail to even kill a single unit. Earth to Mud could be decent with ranged armies, but 3 defense wolves simply don't take enough damage from early game ranged units. Eventually Nature gets Cockatrices which annihilate wolves through petrification, in theory. Not sure how that works in practice. While the cockatrices do petrify 4 figures, they might take too much damage and get killed as well,and due to their much higher cost, this trade is not beneficial to he Nature wizard. (In fact due to wolves having 6 resistance, they might not lose the full 4 figures even) Sprites can be surprisingly effective at stopping werewolf invasions : multiples in a stack are hard to kill with Life Drain. Chaos : Gargoyles with flight and high defense should be enough to fight evenly. They don't - with mithril/adamant the wolves have high enough attack power to overcome the defense, and with 3-5 armor they don't take enough damage to overcome the regeneration. Wall of Fire is still effective, fortunately, but it's very easy to bypass with Wraith Form unless the battle involves a large amount of wolves. Overall, Chaos is the weakest against regenerating stacks, but has the destructive power to actually win battles if the player miscalculates, and flying/mystic surge units can stall the wolves and force retreat. Life : Exorcise should be the counter to them, but it's way behind in the AI's research order. The AI needs to learn to research it early against Death wizards. Furthermore, Werwolves likely need to lose at least 1 resistance for this to be truely effective against them. (Losing fewer than 4 figures means they will still regenerate after combat) Sorcery : Has no answer until Banish pretty much, but it is the realm weakest to Death in the early game so that's acceptable. Sorcery is an autowin anyway for a Death wizard due to illusion and poison immunity on all units. Death : Has no answer until Shadow Demons which stop wolves entirely as they cannot be webbed. The AI should likely prioritize researching these over Possession and Reaper Slash against a werewolf player. Overall, I think the most important things to do might be : -Lower resistance of werewolves. -Teach the AI to research the counters in time. -Maybe undo the +2 armor -1 hp change, or just drop 1 armor. Don't remember whether I agreed they need the extra armor against bow units but currently they seem far too effective against them instead.
September 19th, 2018, 16:20
(This post was last modified: September 19th, 2018, 16:21 by Nelphine.)
First: werewolves have 6 figures. This is the main reason they are brutal.
Second: I for some reason thought they only had 2 armor. Third: adamantium is definitely a huge issue. Lairs can't ever get adamamtium, so the human can treasure hunt with ease. Further, the AI can't plan around adamantium, and my guess is the AI has a hard time even targetting adamantium correctly - and it never builds spearmen just to make werewolves. So the AI is well balanced with the extra armor. But humans not only know how to build, and target, adamantium spearmen, they can also plan to play rich myrror, and therefore plan around having adamantium. This makes werewolves much much stronger than a rush uncommon should be, in much the same way that adamantium slingers, or super buffed swordsmen are brutally strong. Adamantium 6 figure units are problematic in all cases. Rushing werewolves also means you avoid the cost for making a city to do it with. I kind of wish adamantium didn't affect armor.
The AI does target the lowest cost unit, and is forbidden from targeting anything over 100 cost.
To my surprise it doesn't seem to prioritize adamantium units. (maybe had no room for that? Or maybe assumed the cities with alchemist guild are no longer producing the low cost units that can be targeted at a reasonable chance to care?) The AI doesn't produce spearmen for using the spell but it's possible to tell them to do that however the spearmen might dilute stacks before getting transfromed and there is no guarantee the number of spearmen and Lycantropy uses will be even similar in quantity. In theory corruption and raise volcano exists to combat adamantium but werewolves come earlier than that. (AI can't curse you until turn 40 unless you attacked them, also no guarantee a Chaos wizard will exist.)
Some more progress in my current game, 1408 :
Already upgraded to Shadow Demons from Werewolves, have 1 full stack and working on a second. 4 Turns to research Dark Rituals which I will probably prioritize casting. I might consider researching Plane Shift early if it shows up to be able to conquer Myrran neutrals/lairs and maybe attack the Myrran wizard. I still have a wizard's pact with red although I'll probably attack them soon. (Chaos/Life, Might be hard for Shadow Demons. Maybe I'll actually try Myrror first...)
October 3rd, 2018, 06:15
(This post was last modified: October 3rd, 2018, 06:59 by coldsteel.)
(September 13th, 2018, 15:00)Sapher Wrote: New 5.43 lunatic walkthrough. part 1 and part 2. I tried this draconian approach with hero rush and it was quite fun. Draconian bowmen can clear a lot of lairs and nodes everywhere on the map very fast. Alas, in my game after clearing everything everywhere by the 1403s... no good items. Axe-throwing and bow hero. No tower seemed beatable at all. So I put all my items on my axe-thrower, sent him into a mediocre city and he got creamed before reaching the gates. Say, I was thinking buying a barracks in front of all those bowmen would be helpful. Thanks Sapher and good luck.
Started the next test game. This time uploading as I progress, probably won't do more than a few hours a day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYADCmJz...e=youtu.be I wonder how much difference the 5.44 changes made for werewolves, we'll find out soon.
So far it hardly seems a test of nomads - you would have done everything the same (but cheaper) with humans, no? Do you expect horsebowmen to matter so late? I don't like nomads myself but if I had any reason to use them, I'd guess that early use of their archery units would be it - surely not their buildings...
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