Three UI tips for TMIT

[Bibor]

With Archery and Artillery units press "B" to attack.
With Aircraft and Ships press "S" to attack.
Also, there's a quite large "Diplomacy Overview" button to check AI cash, GPT etc.

Doing it myself since release!

UI issues fixed now give us some MOAR lets plays on youtube, mister!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

With Archery and Artillery units press "B" to attack.
With Aircraft and Ships press "S" to attack.
Also, there's a quite large "Diplomacy Overview" button to check AI cash, GPT etc.

Doing it myself since release!

UI issues fixed now give us some MOAR lets plays on youtube, mister!

Thanks for the heads up. However, right clicking with archers, arty, ships, and siege will attack, meaning 1 less input action than pressing a key first. A notable hotkey in terms of siege is "s" for "set up", so it can actually attack.

The diplomacy overview I'll have another look at to see if I can make use of it post-patch.

And, I have a running series on youtube, Bismark, where I'm trying to upload an episode about once/day. As I've improved significantly after that game, I'll be doing another full civ V LP shortly after that, along with HOMM III.

 

[Monthar]

However, using right-click might make the ranged/siege unit move if it needs LOS and doesn't have it. If you're using the hotkey you'll get the available targets grid highlighted similar to the City firing arc highlight.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

However, using right-click might make the ranged/siege unit move if it needs LOS and doesn't have it. If you're using the hotkey you'll get the available targets grid highlighted similar to the City firing arc highlight.

I have concrete evidence that the unit will move even if you DO have line of sight, sometimes.

I guess i'll have to suck up another extra command just to bypass the trash interface problems. This reminds me of the garbage in civ IV where you could auto-declare w/o prompt because the game still "thought" you were holding alt, even if you were not.

 

[Bibor]

, I'll be doing another full civ V LP shortly after that, along with HOMM III.

Ha! I was an undefeated champ in that game (good ol' times of Hotseat). Well, I was beaten once by a guy that successfully proved that Archangels are slightly too strong (maybe need a 5% reduction in damage). Great game otherwise. Worn out more than one mouse on it.

 

[alpaca]

That still doesn't mean it's a good UI. Ranged unit bombardment range should be highlighted when you select the unit rather than having to click a button for it. The diplomacy panel should require one click instead of two, I use a hotkey instead. Everything in this game just requires too many clicks and user actions.

 

[Bibor]

Colorblind, deaf, paraplegic? You can still play World of Warcraft!
Blizzard is king. They invent good stuff. Firaxis, please steal the good stuff!

 

[alpaca]

Colorblind, deaf, paraplegic? You can still play World of Warcraft!
Blizzard is king. They invent good stuff. Firaxis, please steal the good stuff!

Not so sure about their inventiveness but they definitely spend a lot of time polishing their games, which shows. Blizzard is in my opinion one of the more conservative studios out there - not necessarily a bad thing, but I haven't seen significant innovations from them in years.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not so sure about their inventiveness but they definitely spend a lot of time polishing their games, which shows. Blizzard is in my opinion one of the more conservative studios out there - not necessarily a bad thing, but I haven't seen significant innovations from them in years.

The only thing I can picture having some innovation is Diablo III, the pressure to innovate hack n slash is very high. We'll see what they do.

Well, I was beaten once by a guy that successfully proved that Archangels are slightly too strong (maybe need a 5% reduction in damage). Great game otherwise. Worn out more than one mouse on it.

It depends so much on map, positioning, magic available, etc. If someone tries getting there too quickly a micro wizard can spank the relatively defenseless opponent. The arbitrary "x creature joins for greater glory" can easily steamroll through anything . If they have berserk and you don't, it's going to be VERY hard (and you might prefer having titans or dragons at that point).

I've read that for cost, Rampart is the best castle as it has a good mix of shooters, fast units, abilities, and powerful damage/hit points vs gold invested in creatures/week. Which sucks, because that means you're using things like pixies, pegasi, and unicorns instead of the cool demon troops or fortress (both of those being pretty subpar, especially fortress outside of swampy terrain).

 

[Bibor]

Yup, Rampart is my favourite castle, Ivor is my favourite hero. Or was. Played HoMM3 like 10 years ago.

Castle's Archangels proved to be too strong even when everything has taken into account.
We had over 200 hotseat matches, some tournaments even (HoMM3 was very popular on my uni hehe). It basically breaks down to good management of gems resource.

 

[bhzz]

However, using right-click might make the ranged/siege unit move if it needs LOS and doesn't have it. If you're using the hotkey you'll get the available targets grid highlighted similar to the City firing arc highlight.

If you hold the right-click button it tells you how many turns it will take for the unit to get there. Only problem with that? When a unit is blocking the LOS the graphic will tell you that the unit takes 2 turns (go around), but in reality it can just shoot over.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yup, Rampart is my favourite castle, Ivor is my favourite hero. Or was. Played HoMM3 like 10 years ago.

Castle's Archangels proved to be too strong even when everything has taken into account.
We had over 200 hotseat matches, some tournaments even (HoMM3 was very popular on my uni hehe). It basically breaks down to good management of gems resource.

I'm having a hard time picturing how they were too strong in practice. Were gems too common? Archangels hit very hard but they cost heaps and are vulnerable to a LOT of powerful (and even minor) spells. The only thing I can picture them doing better than most other top-tier troops is resurrection abuse; however a lot of heroes are capable of that by the time archangels are around in any #.

Castle is still right up there with Rampart though; 2 shooters, very strong walkers (one of which is very fast) and yes, a strong if expensive top tier unit. Tower and dungeon have pretty good units too but very expensive.

On my youtube channel people told me not to abuse necromancy, and didn't mention angels at all. You cite a lot of experience though; what quantifiable evidence did you have that archangels were too strong in those MP games?

 

[Monthar]

If you hold the right-click button it tells you how many turns it will take for the unit to get there. Only problem with that? When a unit is blocking the LOS the graphic will tell you that the unit takes 2 turns (go around), but in reality it can just shoot over.

When trying to shoot with your ranged units, not move them, it does not matter how many turns it takes them to move. That gives no indication what-so-ever if the unit will fire or try to move when you right-click. This is why it's better to use the ranged attack hot-key.

 

[Bibor]

On my youtube channel people told me not to abuse necromancy, and didn't mention angels at all. You cite a lot of experience though; what quantifiable evidence did you have that archangels were too strong in those MP games?

Uh, it was a long time ago. 10 years. What I can remember... it isn't OP against AI, but against human players. If you have humans clearing the map they usually do it without or with minimal losses (clearing the mobs, mines etc.), following a strict build order and generally avoiding figthing against enemy heroes, except if you catch the "noob resource gatherer heroes" or the "secondary hero".

If it's free-for-all (as it usually was, 1v1v1 or 1v1v1v1 or 1v1v1v1v1 or even more), diplomacy was either "dogpile one", but usually two or more camps arose. The first clashes of two strongest human heroes are always devastating, usually resulting in loss of many weeks of units. The defenders obviously had the benefit of having a weekful of units more, except if you grab your weekly units fast and rush the enemy.

As you point out, Archangels at this points are not really a factor. But it also doesn't matter, because the Castle guy doesn't even employ them yet. He just tries to kill as many units as he can, surrenders, then immediately buys back his hero, picks up his few Archangels, splits them into two stacks and starts clearing your territory. No matter what you throw at him at that point, your lands are empty and ripe for picking.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly, Archangels are always first on initiative, they are also fliers and have a huge (if not max) range for flight, so your archers get locked down immediately, while your "initial clash" surviving forces are usually the "lower attack, stronger defense" units, which is easy win for a twin Archangel stack resurrection abuse.

As soon as the Human Castle player gets a hold on merely one other player's land, gems and gold stop being a problem.

***

The difference between Human Castle and other castles is that the human castle can do well without it's Angels. While at the same time, for comparison, Rampart cannot do battle properly without Dragons. Castle has everything it needs to control a human-controlled army - fast Cavaliers to rush enemy archers, strong Paladins and some ranged support in archery units.

Tower and Dungeon can pull this (initial clash without top tier unit) off as well, to some extent, but their inital expansion is slower (no good archers early game). Solmyr (Tower Wizard) or Alamar (Dungeon) can help help, but it still doesn't beat the initial expansion of Castle with Orrin (to be secondary hero) or Rampart.

 

[Guardian_PL]

Wooow, are people actually discussing HoMMIII here? That's simply amazing, I can't wait. Personally after a while me and my friends have made a decision to never go after Diplomacy, since it was silly to make 55 Archangels join you, not to mention the necromachine - one guy just raping every enemy in front of him, and the mobs that will join him due to Expert Diplomacy are given to the guy behind and soon after taken to the city to be Transformed into more Skeletons. Seriously, if you've got like three piles of 15k Skeletons each in your army then nothing can stop you.

...

So yeah, no Diplomacy and also no main hero with Logistics specialty. And to me also Rampant was the best.

Later on I got toally addicted to WakeOfGods, but that's another story...

Sorry for the offtopic, but HoMMIII is such a great game, it's exciting to see other people enjoying it

 

[Monthar]

Now ya'll have me wanted to install HoMM3 on my new computer so I can play it again.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Mighty Gorgons will wipe out Archangels any day of the week.

Bibor: Archangels were patched to also require Gems as well as higher-than-average-gold to purchase. Were you playing with Archangels before or after this?

 

[Bibor]

Mighty Gorgons will wipe out Archangels any day of the week.

Bibor: Archangels were patched to also require Gems as well as higher-than-average-gold to purchase. Were you playing with Archangels before or after this?

They indeed required gems so yes. By the way Archangels got nerfed in Armageddon's blade by 2 or 3 damage from 50 (if I remember correctly) so yes, they were a bit overpowered.

You're right, SoD (or AB) introduced 3 gems as requirement, I'm not sure if we played it or vanilla HoMM. But I kinda remember the gems, so it could've been AB.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly, Archangels are always first on initiative, they are also fliers and have a huge (if not max) range for flight, so your archers get locked down immediately, while your "initial clash" surviving forces are usually the "lower attack, stronger defense" units, which is easy win for a twin Archangel stack resurrection abuse.

There's a couple problems with this theory:

1. The initial battle, especially if the attacker/defender used his 7th level troop well, could well have over-devastated the castle player if he plays that battle w/o archangels, causing SERIOUS problems in his lands too or if the attack is timed properly, threatening to yank his creatures for a week...maybe forever.
2. I'm pretty sure phoenix from the relatively late and otherwise weak conflux towns is the fastest unit.
3. Archangel res abuse only works outside of the constraints of magic. Any kind of mass slow/haste, blind, berserk, etc will quickly and soundly break that chain one way or another. Might heroes with enough stats might be able to drop smaller groupings in a hurry. Certainly high-damage magic heroes can dent them or simply put them under a status of choice.
4. If you're talking FFA, convincing people to attack people other than you is a MUCH larger factor than any unit possible. You could be dragging CRYSTAL DRAGONS around and you're gonna lose if you get piled.

And yes, after recording the first batch of episodes (I'll start releasing them after the conclusion of the genghis khan LP), I agree that the diplo skill is RIDICULOUS. If you milk the factors properly you get anything from 40-60% (depending on whether you have the creature in question or predominantly the creature in question) join chance with some chance to buy them AFTER that...! Necro machines I didn't use a lot but I can imagine the problem; they also have some annoying immunities as undead.

 

[alpaca]

Most off-topic thread ever

I liked Necropolis. The units aren't great but anything you find can be transformed into its own types, which is very, very useful. Vampires were sublime. I'm not sure if that was also in HoMM3 but doesn't raise dead permanently restore undead units?

If we're talking add-ons the elemental city (forgot the name) was quite great. Especially if you go for an Armageddon caster because they have 3 fire immune units (psychos, fire and phoenix).