Hannibal Rex wrote:

How did you manage to retrieve it from the Wayback Engine? Using the yuku link in that site I can only get like one page worth of topics in General

Kind of a very old bump, but I just noticed that most army set discussion is on no-Tele games - what would a Teleport allowed Army and Hero set look like?

Ooh, thanks for the assistance

KGB wrote:

Are these guys especially good in Mercs for a specific reason

So to my memory, these are all the units I believe seen competitive use and are thus probably cream of the crop. I got to apologize if I get some of them wrong but maybe someone else can jump in and correct me if I'm wrong.
I'll add commentary on the units but I feel like some of them are fairly self-explantory - if a unit is here and it provides a Bonus/Malus then you can probably assume it basically has the best practical stat loadout.

1T

So before I begin, I want to say deciding on your 1T units in your army set is honestly one of the more interesting parts of army building - it certainly feels a bit more richly nuanced compared to certain slots like Ally 3 and 4 for sure.

I think 1T units can roughly be divided into a handful of categories - Scouting (high move / view), Archery, Banding (for cheap stacks) and utility. Sometimes they intersect.

Archery
Archers
Halfing
Elven Archers

These guys are arranged in order to cost and they don't quite scale linearly in terms of how much of an improvement you get over how much gold you have to pay for the better quality ones - Archers are stupidly cost effective at 40 gold while Elven Archers cost a whooping 350 gold. It really does depends a lot on playstyle.

Banding
Peasant
Gnome
Goblins

The dynamic between banding units is that the more banding a particular unit has, the more potential in bigger stacks but consequentially that also means they take more turns to "ramp up" and are also very heavily influenced by unlucky losses.

Peasants are notable because they're hilariously dirt cheap. Gnome and Goblins double as scout due to their Move Bonus and high view range. I prefer the former because they have 3 Hits (as opposed to 2).

Giant Rat*

Special mention to the Giant Rat - it's not a unit you use in Regs, but it makes pretty much the perfect Mercs1 since they're dirt cheap and can just infuse your army periodically with a threatening stack once you drop an Elven Cav on the

Scout
Rover***
Vampire Bat

If I'm not wrong I believe the Rover is considered pretty darn OP and a lot of the meta at one point just consisted of Rovers bushwacking each other. It doesn't have enough Missiles to be considered a dedicated Archery unit for taking out fliers so it can't replicate that role but it's honestly surprising how often that +1 Missile just sucker punch things that are significantly higher value than it.

Vampire Bats, introduced in SH, is kinda a bastard child of Giant Bats and Gnolls and kind of supercedes them both IMO. I don't think they were super common but they did see some use.

Utility
Banshees

Curse a bit of a niche ability but these guys are surprisingly bang for their buck.

Dwarven Runners
Kinda solely because of their 4 Hits on a 1T unit to soak Archery.

Straw Golem*

I actually can't quite remember if this one actually showed up more than I'm remembering.

2T

From here on I won't really categorize them any more because I think building your set is a bit more of a overall thing.

Giant Bees

These guys are like the defacto units for poison strategies I believe, you get a stack of them and send them at your enemies to really annoy the hell out of them.

Elven Cavalry

These guys might be one of the best bonus units in the game due to their cost efficiency. Morale +2 is a good bonus, they're fast so they can reinforce stacks real easy and a whole bunch neutral army sets seem to have these guys in them meaning you get a lot of free ones from capturing neutrals.

Pegacentaur
This is a really solid combat unit if you're going for an air-heavy army composition, though I think mostly in the Ally slot.

Gladiators
Very solid Assassin unit in both regular combat and cheap assassination, kinda supercedes Gnoll crossbows IMO

Basilisk / Cockatrice
Basilisk is basically a balance fix for Cockatrice. They're the defacto Para units

Marksmen

Dark Pegasi
Malus unit, like Pegacentaur, really good for air-heavy army comps

3T
Battering Ram / Siege Engine

These are the De Facto Siege units for the game... outside of Thieves I guess. You never need more than +4 Siege which is why Siege Engines used to be the default pre-SH, but SH adds Battering Rams who are great for armies that need to be a bit faster.

Roc Rider
These is a niche Siege unit for air-heavy army comps.

Moonguard
Big Archery units.

Black Rider
Malus unit that's surprisingly combat competent on Fields - essentially the most common terrain type

Hobgoblin
Used for its 4 Hits, not really a Malus unit, though that Chaos+1 is a nice icing on the cake.

Gnoll Cavalry
Basically the best all-rounder Assassination unit in the game - Fast, competent at regular combat so enemies can't just chaff their way through them and Assassin + 4 is just a minor stepdown from the more specialized Assassin

Cyclops
These guys are pretty competitive with Elephants as a Trample unit I think, with a lot less raw power but coming in at 3T (instead of 4) and 4 Hits to soak Archery.

4T
Lamia****

IIRC, due to statistics, this is a completely OP Ally 3. Unless you want to be a cool rebel, you put a Lamia in Ally 3 slot.

Balrog
Chimera
A smaller Black Dragon and Blue Dragon respectively

Elephants
Used to be the De Facto trample meat unit. Just really nice combat stats all around

Archons*
These guys usually only show up summoned by a Priest rather than an actual army slot, though sometimes being put in Ally4 just so you can adjust its combat order

5T
Red / Green Drags
The Malus Dragons, I believe Green tends to be more common. Usually the Ally 7 slot.

Black Drags
De Facto Ally 4 slot, best Combat dragon (IIRC Acid is better than Lightning mathematically I think, unless your opponent runs around with a lot of 1 Hit units)

TC if you're still around maybe I can discuss about what I believe are the units that are considered good

Thanks for bringing this to my attention but it does seem to be rather buggy in its implementation - for example the map screen doesn't seem to correspond to what is actually on my screen

Well, time to finish up the rest of the heroes

T4
Bard - I guess this must be one of those times where the whole "overestimated positive bonus for 1 AP" heroes comes into play since he has almost no changes made to him for the K4 version despite being T4

One thing that stands out is that he has two major +Mov spells (major as in adding >+4 Mov where minor would be like the Priest's Move that adds only 2) but you're paying a lot more mana and AP compared to just getting speed.

Anyway, I guess the concept of having multiple buff/debuffs spells as your main gimmick just isn't viable competitively? Like because it's too hard to maintain over a long time compared to just dropping 20 for a Demonic Horde. Some of his spells have combinations that make sense "logically" but is questionable in terms of gameplay I suppose like Song of Stone's Fortify/Engineering.

Maybe it might help if he had a faster XP chart? Bards are usually one of the fastest leveling classes in most games.

General - The Bard but with no magic. At least he's been changed to have one of the lowest XP charts in the game but I guess there's no angle to boost this guy if he can't get Speed, has no Summons or utility spells to get a level 6 spike.

Kinda interesting how those two are rather similar in my eyes - I guess the best "design" for a primary non-magic focused hero would still be to have a single very good spell like Thief's Venom Blade because it just adds so much to a class.

Vampire - One thing that strikes me is that this guy has a very high starting strength and is the only hero with 1 AP Fear. I guess that isn't worth that much when most people use G. Drags but this could be a chicken and egg thing where people use that unit instead of Red Drags because the sources of the other maluses are just much stronger.

I honestly don't know how to judge his spells. Would he be too OP if his useless Manslayer was changed to 2AP Speed? I think he would probably jump to T1 just for having 2 AP Speed and it would make 1 Speed hero each focused on each of the 3 Malus though the important thing is not becoming more awesome than the Thief/Barb.

Paladin - He's built around the Questing ability gimmick but it's fundamentally flawed because it's useless when you don't want him to be the 1st hero as there's no Speed/Tele and it's kind of an annoying "AP tax" because he has the highest XP chart otherwise so it feels super forced.

If we just remove Questing and drop his XP chart to the 300 level, I wonder if he would turn out a lot more solid? It does make me wonder if Questing would be workable on a hero that does come with Speed (but it would't fit the Paladin feel so not him).

Alchemist - I guess it's already discussed earlier. If Wizard has utility and Summoner has sheer summoning power then I guess the Alchemist looks kinda bad because he's awkwardly somewhat middling in those areas after the obligatory first Teleport learned. I wonder if it would be OK if he had 21/22 Mov (since he doesn't have any Grp Mov spells), a lower (350) XP chart or if the Golems were 1 AP.

[quote="KGB" post=3677]Not sure if you know but there are 8 neutral sets on random map games (one of which is randomly selected). 3 of them are strong and have a lot of money.[\quote]
I sort of vaguely recall it - it's tied to the "Sides" choice that determine the 8 default factions of a game right? Or is it completely random? How do you tell which ones are the strong ones?


Interesting - guess I'll keep that in mind when I look at the last band of T4 heroes


Hmm, just as a mental exercise - if the Speed / Teleport heroes were still usable but learning Speed / Teleport were banned, would their position on the tier list change significantly?

KGB wrote:

Do you ever summon Archons before 6? Even just once to get a Morale unit ASAP? Good point about the Dig, it makes me feel kinda silly that I never thought about just flipping it on when I need it and then off.


Wow, that's crazy. I honestly had never thought of using hero solos before now because they always get placed in the back due to how the game works. I was wondering if you unstack the dragon just against the off-chance that it might accidentally die depriving you of flight if your luck doesn't hold out but then again - I assume if the dragon dies that means your Monk would have died as well and better your Dragon than the Hero.

Moving on to T3 - this is supposed to be the tier that's "outclassed by heroes above them" so I'm going to try to guess which ones they're supposed to be.

T3
Ranger - The competition would be Thief/Barb as the other Speed heroes, I guess. That 3 AP Speed really slows him down too much I guess but I got to say - let's assume that he got 2 AP Speed (or everyone's Speed is 3 AP) - the rest of his kit doesn't really seem that impressive still? Like he doesn't have any Bonus / Malus for 1, Group Warding is supposed to be his niche but it's a terrible one and his spells are all the low impact ones.

I'm looking at him and like the best thing I can come up with is hoping to get him 2nd/3rd, getting 8 stray (non-quest) EXP, getting like Missiles + 8 and throwing him in another Hero stack to get him to be 2nd last on the list and act as a bodyguard meat.

Incidentally it strikes me that the XP charts are just kinda bonkers with seemingly no real logic behind their design - like from D&D I generally expect non-Magic users to be the least EXP and vice versa but here you have Wizards having one of the lowest EXP charts while Paladins and Rangers are sky-high, crazy. True that W3 and D&D are different games with their own design ideas but I do wonder whether there's any reasoning behind how the XP/AP charts are formed.

Warrior - this is interesting. I'm really not sure who the Warrior is outclassed by since I believe he is the Renown niche hero and that's the only reason you would ever pick a Warrior. After that he kinda just camps in a city generating mercs until someone comes to end his life which I guess is what Missiles+5 and Fortify+2 is for if you somehow have spare AP left over since with no Speed or Move boosts in any form questing is a pain in the ass for him.

Unless it's a very loose "from a lateral thinking point of view, he's outclassed in unit generation by the Summoner" thing.

I wonder if there's anything that could possibly be done with his design to solve his one-dimensionality - super awesome starting stats?

Necromancer - Now this guy, I am definitely sure Summoner is supposed to be his replacement counterpart. No teleport is a bummer, Ghostly Chariot is kinda like a Phantom Steed variant. Lifesbane is his Demonic Horde counterpart that's cheaper but also weaker. I guess he does have Evil Eye over the Summoner... hmm, come to think of it, he's like a hybrid of the two (Ghostly Chariot + EE + Lifebane)

I wonder if Necromancy is worth anything because it is in theory manaless free unit generation - you do need a bunch of easy neutrals to farm though and it's kinda bad at lower numbers. If the XP chart were dropped to Shaman level, I wonder how much of a push upwards it would be.

Changed the A1 Warlock for Cyclops, which still doesn't fly and takes up a lot of points (but less than WL) but does seem to work better. Funny that. A2 is back to Manticore but I don't think it's a very good unit.

I want to change gears a bit now and examine all the heroes in the game to understand what makes them tick and ponder if things could be changed for better balance from my limited knowledge. There's a lot of them so I'll start with the top 2 tiers first and come back later for the rest.

T1
Barb - 2 AP Speed. 1 AP Chaos. Makes me wonder if all you need to be a top tier hero is 2 AP Speed and a 1 point Bonus/Malus.

According to the K4 heroes statistics page this is the only hero that didn't get any changes at all so that's interesting.

I feel like any extra AP after that is a bit of a "meh" thing, probably Leadership unless you happen to be facing down a Summoner where you might pick up Demonslayer? Hmm. I wonder if the weird 5 AP Renown3 is actually picked at all.

Thief - 2 AP Speed. 1 AP Siege. If you get an extra point at 6 then Venom Blade adds a lot of punch. I kinda like this guy better than the Barb now that I think of it because Siege units tend to be slow where the Thief isn't.

I noticed the 2 AP speed is actually a change from the original having 3 AP speed so that might have been an oopsie change there - I wonder if he's less bonkers with that.

Wizard - Hmm, I realize Teleport heroes are considered better than non-Teleports which is why we have noTeleport as a gamerule, but clearly it's not something that would instantly propel someone to top tier solely given the position of the Alchemist. So I do wonder exactly which of the Wizard's spells makes him superior over his competitors - I want to say Phantom Steed and Fortify?

Summoner - Teleport hero combined with crazy powerful Summons means you can zap half across the map and bamf an entire army in the blink of an eye. 1 Pt Chaos as icing on the cake. That being said I'm not sure about what the proper spell learning order is - Teleport -> Minor Demon -> Demonic Horde?

T2

Shaman - Berserker is his main niche but Jihad and Evil Eye are pretty good and Fortify from the spell is nice since it's not a common bonus. Also a hero where the spell learning order is difficult to me.

Priest - Grp Hits from Mighty feast is probably his main draw, Archon summon is solid, lovely utility spells like Bless and then a couple of the minor buffs (Fortify / Bravery) to round things up if you have leftover mana. Kinda the all-rounder of Heroes

Monk - Mind Control is pretty cost efficient buff/debuff. If I'm not wrong KHeroes version adds Bless making him share that niche with the Priest. I wonder if Wrath of Kali or the Critical Hit/Body Control self-buffs is a better route past that.

KGB wrote:

If I change my Manticore into a Sasquatch and then drop my max mana to 11, I can fit in a Silver in Slot 8, but isn't it still kinda redundant since it's also a Morale unit?



I'm also experimenting with this version with Mercs enabled but I imagine it's not very effective with only like 75 points to spend in that department.

KGB wrote:

I tried to shop around for something I thought would be nice to replace the Archon with but couldn't quite find anything that fit into the 52 extra points that setting max mana to 12 and dropping starting mana/gold to 0 would give me. I guess I could try again but I don't like not putting at least some kind of powerful flyer in Slot 8 because it feels bad when you hit that 20% chance at gamestart with a free Slot 8 instead of Slot 7

On the ElfCav/Archon redundancy, hmm, I guess in order to not be redundant the unit here would have to be either of Fear / Curse / Poison / Disease / Lightning / Acid - I wonder if there's any good mid-range unit for that last two.

Current set. There's probably some redundancy issues like having both Elf Cav / Archons on the set and Giants being the only source of Chaos is probably worrying.

In a search for an Ally1 that isn't cookie cutter after testing Giant Scorps - my main issue with them is that if they're fronting then there's a bit of a slow attrition issue where the Scorps dying makes the future ones significantly less effective. Only issue is that I'm paying out the butt in terms of point cost for them which rules out putting in decent Mercs which I tried to have a go at.

Got to say but I wonder what the designers were thinking making Halflings cost like 5 times as much as standard Archers because I can't quite see the power leap there.

KGB wrote:

Gotta right-click -> open in new window to see the full thing.

I put Max Mana at 9 which I guess is a mistake so I have to ask but if you're not using a teleport hero how do you determine how much Max Mana you should have for yourset?

Though now I have to ask is "Sell Items" worth unticking?



Hmm. Any unit suggestions?


Oops.

Though one thing I'm concerned about is that since Ally 4 is very rare as you have to complete a Hard Quest to even get a chance of getting one (IIRC) that if I don't duplicate then I might end up never having any source of fear. I guess I could swap the Blacks to A4 and put the Drags in Reg though.


I usually do Random Map - so I guess I should drop that down?


Huh, I guess the Fear/Chaos dragons are much cheaper. I guess that's preferred?

KGB wrote:

Huh, that bad? I'm guessing they have some serious structural design issues that even the modified K versions can't pull them up to speed?


What about Active neutrals setting?

Anyway I attached my current Army Set - it could definitely probably be optimized better but like I said I'm trying not to be too cookie cutter which explains the wackiness of Ally 1-3.

KGB wrote:

Aww man, I was hoping not to be cookie cutter but I'm definitely noticing a serious power drop in the early game with those guys. (Who's the last worse guy anyway - General?)

So I guess the hero list will be like (all K versions)

1) Barb
2) Thief
3) Alc
4) ???

Anyway again another unrelated question but what settings do people usually play on? I assume Fog of War / Dark Map / can't examine stacks is on because otherwise the view stat of units and scouting would be pointless but I'm not sure about stuff like Weaker/Stronger Neutrals and City Damage.

KGB wrote:

What abilities would be prioritized with your AP when leveling him up? Also, would it be worth it to put Stone Golems in your army set for Fight Order? I figured you probably want them in front anyway so not doing it would allow you to pack a different unit for more flexibility.


Would this revised list be OK

1) Ranger
2) Vampire
3) Alchemist
4) Bard

Some other misc questions

1) Is there an excel sheet or alternate places with a units chart (including the Stormheim ones if possible) so I can use features like sort by specific attribute e.g Sort by Production Turns, Hits (to find all the 4 Hits unit for Missile immunity) etc

2) Is there any use for the big Missile 1 units (Titan / Manticore) or the fatter + longer production Poison Disease etc / Assassin units? (Hydra / Wyvern / Succubi)? It seems like those abilities are the ones where you would rather have more units to stack their ability rather than fewer even with the improved stats.

KGB wrote:

The KHeroes version of course (+Stormheim Units) - any specific tips / army set-up / early game questing strats (I noticed he's kinda a tortoise) for him?

Also, what improvements did the Alchemist get going from normal to K version?

On a non-Alchemist specific note - for the Ally Slots, other than Ally 4 being a Dragon or Archon, what's the general thumb for what to put in Ally 1 / 2 / 3? Ally 1 is probably cheap Meat while Ally 3 is usually the more expensive one which kinda feels Ally 2 in an awkward slot.

Long time no see.

With the release of the GoG version I'm getting back into the game. I'm thinking of building an Alchemist focused army set but it's been a long time and I don't really remember that much about army building outside of needing a mix of bonus/penalties and some of the more favoured units like Elven Cavs.

What do I need to look out for if I want to focus on using the Alchemist as one of my heroes? Any suggested army lists?

Wow, is there anywhere "hidden" information like that can be found online? I want to know stuff like how army set scores are calculated and why Dragons have such inflated costs and stuff.

Okay then, so, I assume a set which doesn't use Warrior/Barb/General for Reknown just uses the mercs slot to fill in gaps by getting them from quest rewards and turns off the Mercenaries option?