Deity please!

[stopstopp]

^^
That's not first time I hear these days people come back to HoMM III. What happened? Is it like 10 years old? Or do I miss something?

It's a good game, I started playing after seeing TMIT play and I can't blame anyone for playing that a lot.

 

[GKey]

Lol, same thing has happened to me, it's TMIT's fault! Was watching one of TMIT's Civ 4 vids and I saw that he was doing playthroughs HOMM III. I got nostalgic, remembering how awesome the game was ...

That happened to me too! I mean exactly same thing. Was watching TMIT's LP's and saw HOMM III video. And I felt nostalgic etc.

I got the original back in 1999, it really is a fun game for old-schoolers
Snaaty mentioned the game a few weeks back and I felt like playing it again.

Fantastic game, no doubt, but to me HoMM III is one of the games I lose interest after beating it on hard dificulty. It's just not Civilization IV.

I bet some here still play The Settlers II as well

I am playing the first Master of Orion pretty often!

Sorry for spamming the thread. I hope it goes nicely

Oh, I would not call this spam.

I'll try the map if I feel like asking the AIs to hand me my... pride over.

I hope very much you will!

Sorry for sidetracking your thread, I'll try to stay on track now.

It's all good. I hope for input from deity players on the map itself too.

It's a good game, I started playing after seeing TMIT play and I can't blame anyone for playing that a lot.

Oh so that happened to you too! Jees TMIT, I hope more people will not get nostalgic and run away to old good stuff thanks to you!

 

[Mylene]

Fantastic game, no doubt, but to me HoMM III is one of the games I lose interest after beating it on hard dificulty. It's just not Civilization IV.

Homm3 is one of the games you should play vs. other humans, the AI is so bad it makes the Civ4 AIs look like pure genius.
On topic, hope i find the time to play on tomorrow.

 

[GKey]

Did not mean to hurt anyone's feelings
Enjoyed HoMM III very much then. Haven't try multiplayer though, may be I should.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

I played HOMM3 to death so I'm still sick of it. There is nothing new for me in that game anymore.

Used to play multiplayer in a tournament called TOH ( used to be called Simyar way back when ). I was one of the better players but it got old waiting 3-5 minutes ( sometimes longer ) for the other player to make a move. In fact I'd forget half of what I planned to do by the time it was my turn

And playing against the AI offered no challenge whatsoever, unlike Civ 4.

 

[GKey]

^^ That express my feelings too, except I did not try multiplayer.

Back to our CIV business.
Things are going well for me:

Spoiler :

Ups, wrong save


What I like about this map - capability to play in different ways.
Here is mine:

Spoiler :

Successfully blocked Sitting Bull and Boudica. Rexed to 6 cities while chopping Mids (in 775 BC, lucky one I guess) and have room for 3 more.

Run scientists both in cap

and Memphis:

AI manage some wars between them:

Which is good by itself, but I have been asked to join and refused, which is bad. Hard to pick side right now. Haven't pick religion yet for same reason.

Not sure how to proceed from now on.
Should I backstub SB? He seems to be weakest and pleasing Toku will not hurt. Or should I keep rexing peacefully while building wonders for failure gold. Or may be beeline construction and try elepult Boudica which going to be too strong soon. Yes and I am a bit short on workers right now. Going to fix that ASAP.

Any input will be welcome.

 

[GKey]

Finally finished mine turnset and can take a look at spoilers.

@ABigCivFan

Spoiler :

How long did it take her from becoming WHEOOHRN to declaring? I ask cuz I am highly vulnerable in my game.

@Mylene

Spoiler :

A bit concerned regarding your "Next city" location. Don't you want block Boudica? I would certainly go NW so you can take Arian for yourself when you ready.

Nice progress.

I was thinking about farming my cap too, but have been forced to cottage it. Maintenance costs on deity are ridiculous.

@shyuhe

Spoiler :

All good but without save it's hard to see much.

 

[Mylene]

@Gkey

Spoiler :

I was thinking that blocking Boudi might get me into trouble, once i saw her borders so close to the west i basically gave up any land to the west as well. It looks like a possible blocker city would have to be between the spices and horses, hmm...i'll send the warrior there to have a look.
HQ could whip out another settler fast.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Oh so that happened to you too! Jees TMIT, I hope more people will not get nostalgic and run away to old good stuff thanks to you!

Not to be too contrarian or anything, but civ IV is also getting to the point of "old good stuff", as it is well over 5 years old . HOMM III is a great game that unlike many here I never mastered. The vanilla campaigns are fairly easy (though not to a lay person); later on you have to play a lot better to win in AB and SoD expansions.

Homm3 is one of the games you should play vs. other humans, the AI is so bad it makes the Civ4 AIs look like pure genius.

IMO this gives civ IV AI too much credit . When you think about it, civ IV would be painfully easy to experienced players unless the AI was given its outrageous bonuses. HOMM III tried to up the difficulty by messing with starting resources, but except on maps where the AI started with more towns + external creature structures (common in campaigns, rare on normal maps) that advantage is hard to milk for long. Now imagine if every HOMM III AI got what a deity civ IV AI gets! You'd see things like "every town gets 2x the #creatures/turn" and "creature cost less than half of normal costs" and "every town starts far better developed" and "AI starts with enough troops to clear almost every encounter on the map".

HOMM does some of those, but never all at once (it never messes with creature costs or production rates). IMO the AI is actually BETTER at warfare in HOMM than civ IV, because the AI does not understand collateral initiative well in civ IV and thus can throw away 5-10 times the human losses in troops routinely...in heroes they WILL inflict casualties or kill you with much smaller advantages unless your magic is specifically built up and you're packing one of those uberheroes.

That said, expert earth magic + town portal/res/slow/implosion IS pretty sick . Town portal is so frequently gamebreaking and the other earth school options so solid that it's really hard to get away from ASAP pursuing earth as the magic school of choice. Need to recruit tons of guys and reinforce quickly? Earth. Need to mass slow so your shooters get extra rounds? Earth. Need to interrupt their move priority for spells/running away? Avoid otherwise impossible-to-avoid losses like the garrison attacking your shooters? Blast everything but black dragons/psychic elementals to smithereens week 1? Earth magic .

 

[Mylene]

to turn 64

Spoiler :

Things got a bit ugly, i built a road for trade routes to Boudi. After only a few turns they depoped again, milady found better with other neighbours
Took Gkey's suggestion and built a city NW at horses/spices. It can work one of the Diamonds later i guess. Barb City taken with 8 WCs, no surprise that i lost all 4 30% battles and 7 would have been not enough

Writing next turn, i had no choice with the economy in struggle and being creative.
The barb money helps a bit, iam thinking maybe hunting next for the Jumbo hapiness, i def. need to hire some scientists.
I got 2 Jumbos and hope Boudi wants to press one out which she will get ofc. Iam also crossing my fingers that she decides to spread me Hindu, right now she could most likely just run over me
Sitting Bull blocks away Toku and the rest of the maniacs hopefully, i hope they never get open borders

 

[AbsoluteZero]

HOMM3 the AI is better in battle mode where it makes pretty efficient moves, almost like good chess AI.

It's on the board that the HOMM3 AI is so crappy. It takes forever to go on the offensive, on the other hand CIV IV AI goes on the offensive a lot and takes land quite fast. Overall CIV IV AI on the hardest mode is a real challenge, unlike HOMM3 where even on the hardest mode the AI is no threat at all ( talking about standard and random maps here, not some cooked up map with a beefed up AI on your doorstep ).

And if IRC HOMM3 AI on the hardest mode is indeed given bonuses ( resource bonuses I think ). It's been a looong time since I played but that's what I remember.

 

[Mylene]

forgot the files...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

HOMM3 the AI is better in battle mode where it makes pretty efficient moves, almost like good chess AI.

It's on the board that the HOMM3 AI is so crappy. It takes forever to go on the offensive, on the other hand CIV IV AI goes on the offensive a lot and takes land quite fast. Overall CIV IV AI on the hardest mode is a real challenge, unlike HOMM3 where even on the hardest mode the AI is no threat at all ( talking about standard and random maps here, not some cooked up map with a beefed up AI on your doorstep ).

And if IRC HOMM3 AI on the hardest mode is indeed given bonuses ( resource bonuses I think ). It's been a looong time since I played but that's what I remember.

They start with lots of gold/resources, but the big problem with the "impossible" difficulty is that the player begins without resources. The actual challenge from such settings is very map dependent.

Civ IV deity AI gets across-the-board bonuses; not only do they start with an additional settler and tons of military, they also get:

1. Huge bonus to production
2. Huge bonus to tech
3. Functionally 0 war weariness
4. Extremely reduced maintenance costs
5. A quasi map-hack
6. Espionage power (and other) detection regardless of relative espionage
7. Snowball-down-hill era bonuses
8. Imbalanced spawns favoring a runaway with permanent alliance vassals

HOMM III could have been that hard too, if they just forked out the same trollolololol bonuses. Think along the lines of opponents getting double the bonus of a grail from turn 0 and you have something like civ IV's deity AI. THAT's the kind of bonuses civ IV needs to roll with to compete with a human. If HOMM turned up those kinds of bonuses a lot of maps would become impossible without tremendous luck manipulation.

 

[Dirk1302]

I played Homm5 and i liked. Lots of bugs in that game unfortunately. Is Homm3 better than Homm5, if so in what way?

 

[AbsoluteZero]

They start with lots of gold/resources, but the big problem with the "impossible" difficulty is that the player begins without resources. The actual challenge from such settings is very map dependent.

Civ IV deity AI gets across-the-board bonuses; not only do they start with an additional settler and tons of military, they also get:

1. Huge bonus to production
2. Huge bonus to tech
3. Functionally 0 war weariness
4. Extremely reduced maintenance costs
5. A quasi map-hack
6. Espionage power (and other) detection regardless of relative espionage
7. Snowball-down-hill era bonuses
8. Imbalanced spawns favoring a runaway with permanent alliance vassals

HOMM III could have been that hard too, if they just forked out the same trollolololol bonuses. Think along the lines of opponents getting double the bonus of a grail from turn 0 and you have something like civ IV's deity AI. THAT's the kind of bonuses civ IV needs to roll with to compete with a human. If HOMM turned up those kinds of bonuses a lot of maps would become impossible without tremendous luck manipulation.

The map play of HOMM3 is terrible in comparison to CIV 4. I'm not saying CIV4 AI is genius, but HOMM3 AI literally does nothing to try and win the game. The Civ 4 AI will indeed kick your but if you let it, while in HOMM3 you would have to wait a long time before the AI actually invaded you even on the hardest difficulty.

 

[Mylene]

Actually the homm3 combat AI is terrible, a good part of outplaying online opponents was to figure out what you can fight with a small army, using mechanics like walking stacks around the field with a single & fast unit, while the rest of your army kills the stacks 1by1

 

[GKey]

I think we try to compare incomparable. In short, old good HoMM III, despite the fun and joy, is much MUCH easier then CIV. That's why we are here, aren't we?

More brave souls for a nice deity map?

 

[lymond]

Looking for advice from the experts on this one - @450BC

Spoiler :

I don't think my position is too bad here, but I want to make sure I make the right decisions as this point.

First off, after debating SIP and settling on jumbos, I decided to settle 1E for the river and more flood plains. In hindsight, SIP would have been ideal since we'd likely have iron. At least I've had some decent commerce going though.

I initially assumed Boudi would be my intial target. She's been doing a pretty good job of spreading Bud which she founded and now several of us are Buddhists. She was actually in WHEEORN and immediately went out of it when she finally reached Please and I begged 60 gold. So I know it was me.

Now I'm think that SB might make a better target. Regardless I need to get Currency for some Peace treaties while amassing some Cats/Phants.

Scouting: Intentionally delayed to get my small empire up and get WCs up to the nice Barb city to take it from under the AIs grasp. I have a scout out now.

Tech is not too bad. HBR and Construction seemed like a logical path here. However, I don't have much on the Monarchy line and that tech would be nice to have, although I have 3 good happy resources now. Further, I expect the AIs to start getting in Feud here real soon. Unfortunately, although tech trading netted me some decent techs like Maths/Alpha, the AIs were not offering up things like Med and Priesthood. Gifted Alpha to Toku for insta-pleased/open borders - he was the only one without it anyway.

So, any advice would be appreciated. Although I'd rather have at least 6 cities by now I think I have enough to work with here if I play it right. I'm just concerned about the best target. Boudi's shrine might be juicy and her cap is close. I might run into a Protective LB wall against SB, but enough cats may still do the trick.

thanks...good ole Hatty

By the way, Mylene, I looked at your thumbnails (which should be spoilered) after my round. Really impressed with your fast expansion. SB grabbed up spots pretty quickly.


Land:

Spoiler :

Tech

Spoiler :

 

[Mylene]

a few more turns, this was interesting...

Spoiler :

My chariot spotted a Boudi-settler moving towards my coast, with Gergovia and the hills around this could only mean she wants to settle 3 tiles from my Capitol, lol.
Would have probably been very bad, close border diplo malus and i saw it after she got Iron working done, which makes me think there could be Iron somewhere around my settler.
So HQ had to stunt out a settler, interesting situation as i also wanted to use scientists and the cottage. Workers on 2 forests, whipped at 1 population cost, and i beat her by 1 or 2 moves thanks to the forests and hills. Ready at the spot now and i just need to decide where to place it.
Whew, intense..

Besides that, teched hunting for the Jumbos, now getting ready for mathematics, i think i need to pick a tech that noone else seems to have so far to get some trades.
I gifted her a Jumbo one turn before i could have gotten 3 gold/turn, she oracled currency
Oh well, i gave her the pig now for free too, at +2 diplo iam hoping i can get to pleased somehow, more important.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Actually the homm3 combat AI is terrible, a good part of outplaying online opponents was to figure out what you can fight with a small army, using mechanics like walking stacks around the field with a single & fast unit, while the rest of your army kills the stacks 1by1

Just be careful not to run out of mana/shots .

I played Homm5 and i liked. Lots of bugs in that game unfortunately. Is Homm3 better than Homm5, if so in what way?

Well, for one it isn't buggy (though HOMM V is probably better post patch, will check it out again soonish). It's similar although the balance between towns is likely pretty different.

I think we try to compare incomparable. In short, old good HoMM III, despite the fun and joy, is much MUCH easier then CIV. That's why we are here, aren't we?

More brave souls for a nice deity map

Unfortunately much of civ's added difficulty is fake difficulty. They decided to throw EVEN MORE fake difficulty into civ V.

That said, I'll probably give this map a whirl despite disliking the effort deity takes usually.