OT: HOMM V

[Agrajag]

Now in H4, you had actual choices to make. There were some imbalances, but for most part both choices were viable. There were basically 3 kinds of units in H4 - shooters, melee, and flyers. For each creature level except the first you had a choice of (flyer|shooter), (flyer|melee), or (melee|shooter).

Gah, that was one of the more annoying mechanics. I'd much rather go back to the days of HoMM2 where instead of choosing which creatures you can get you chose which creatures you will use (because there just wasn't room for all of them in one hero).
And besides, that's not much choice considering that shooter>flyer>melee (though from time to time melee>flyer), and most choices were completely obvious once you knew both units.
The only thought that was put into deciding which to choose was between the cerebri and the ghosts, since the ghosts were much better, but you had to settle for the cerebri if you wanted your vampires/venom spawn quickly.

why do the planets have little squares and I have to choose were I place buildings?

A lot of the time it doesn't matter, you just choose to build something and it automatically switches to the next tile anyway. In other cases you might want to build the right building in that special tile that boosts specific buildings. (or intentionally not build the appropriate building in some cases )

[Agema]

Both HOMM and AOW were interesting in the sense the races were poorly balanced and this was rarely dealt with.

Going back to HOMM2, the nations with the lower HP creatures, particular at higher tiers, nearly always ended up significantly weaker. Whilst you could generally recruit more, it didn't make up for the fact their attrition rate was much higher. The game really revolved around fights between the huge creatures, Titans and Black Dragons. This was improved in later HOMMs... but not that much.

In AOW, there were clearly feeble nations like the hobbits and goblins, who were inferior to the likes of the dwarves and elves, and at the top of the tree probably the orcs, who had that stupid Warlord at L3 who could outmatch many L4s of other nations and be produced far faster. Again, this trend was continued in later games. The Shadow race in AOW:SM seemed to me far better than most of the others.

[B0rsuk]

Agema said:
Both HOMM and AOW were interesting in the sense the races were poorly balanced and this was rarely dealt with.

Going back to HOMM2, the nations with the lower HP creatures, particular at higher tiers, nearly always ended up significantly weaker. Whilst you could generally recruit more, it didn't make up for the fact their attrition rate was much higher. The game really revolved around fights between the huge creatures, Titans and Black Dragons. This was improved in later HOMMs... but not that much.

Careful here. While it's true that creature balance was bad, factions like Knight or Barbarian were actually ... better in the long run, especially in multiplayer. I know because I played many hotseat games. Particularly hopeless matchup was Sorceress against Knight. Sorceress (the hero) gets knowledge, knowledge, knowledge and some spell power. What she doesn't get is Attack Skill and Defence Skill. Well, it happens that 1 point of attack skill above other creature's defence adds +10% damage. Back in Homm5, surplus Defence skill gave -5% damage reduction. So a knight who has 10 more attack and 10 more defence (fairly common occurence) gets +100% damage given -50% damage taken. This is HUGE. You don't even need Paladins to kill enemy Phoenixes. A late game scenario could be 20 attack 20 defence knight: 3x damage given, half damage taken.
A knight can still use low-level but extremely powerful spell Blind without any investment into magic skills.
Spellcaster heroes, particularly Warlock with his spellpower, have the edge with low armies (early game), but later on attack/defence is KING. Forget about direct damage spells, your hope is Berserk, Blind, Mass Bless, Mass Curse and other army buffs. Also Dimension Door, Town Gate etc. If you're lucky, the enemy Might hero might give you the time...

In AOW, there were clearly feeble nations like the hobbits and goblins, who were inferior to the likes of the dwarves and elves,

True, but one would expect goblins and halflings to be weaker. They were weaker, but not hopeless. Halflings have great resistance stat all across the board, access to early swimming concealed scouting units, and some other tricks. As for goblins, I really like Butchers. I think they're the only level2 Polearm units - and with drain life ! Stupidly effective against cavalry and flyers. Suicide bombers - pure fun ! And their level4 is BRUTAL. Trolls are good all-around units, too.
In short, goblins and halflings appeal to players who like underdogs. This includes me :-).

and at the top of the tree probably the orcs, who had that stupid Warlord at L3 who could outmatch many L4s of other nations and be produced far faster. Again, this trend was continued in later games. The Shadow race in AOW:SM seemed to me far better than most of the others.

Warlords are good, but I don't mind. In most games orcs are just stupid, and not really powerful.Still, 8 resistance on such an expensive and slow unit is pitiful. It may work against AI, but multiplayer ?
By the way: Shadow Magic introduced limited unit retaliations. So you can actually swarm warlords with inferior units, if you play your cards right.
The shadow race ? Which one ? Syrons have awesome giants and good force ship, but what else ? As for Shadow Demons... Hmm. Bombard, Spirit, Brain, Lord. The rest ? Meh. The demons are okay, but I wouldn't call them far better. And playing against Chain Lightning is not fun with their weakness.

[sansanjuan]

Fun thread. Probably more action on HOMM here than in the HOMM specific forums.

For what it's worth...

The wife and I win ~85% of our HOMM3 games with the setting on impossible (whatever they call highest). We do play with reloads though. If we didn't the odds would go down to ~50% I'd guess. Most losses occurred when a teleporter is too close to one of our starter castles and too weakly defended. We typically play against two pairs of allied computer opponents. We generally strive for the 5th level spells with dimension door being the pinnicle (town portal ranked second). As others have said.. then it is killer stacks and ambush tactics. Armageddon with fire immune troops makes for fast battles.

When we played HOMM4 the end game just took too long without those transportation spells.

-SSJ