New Mod Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Babies!

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Finally i finished playthrough in this mod (had a lot work past days), and it was great. ! more time thx for great mod Matt.
I managed impossible/no loss and it was hard in some fights ( Raab Soten, Baal . . . pretty much any hero with intellect above 30 was boring to fight because double/triple cast but it was worth it

Great job! You successfully met my challenge! I'm glad that you were able to do it! Now I'm going to make it tougher!

But only a little bit, I've been experimenting with dropping unit morale as a function of combat duration as well as their initiative and speed (they are getting tired after all!). I've been limiting morale drop to everyone except Undead and Golems, but am not sure what to do with the Undead, Golems, and Plants with respect to speed and initiative. On the one hand, Undead, Golems, and Plants probably don't really get tired, but I was thinking that maybe since magic is decreasing the control of your Undead troops would start to wane, which would reduce their initiative and then speed. I was thinking of leaving Plants and Golems alone since they are different. Anyway, just struggling with what to do there...

The way it works now is that when the first long battle message occurs is that all units (except Undead and Golems) decrease 1 morale. Then when the second long battle message occurs, all units continue to decrease 1 morale (Undead and Golems are still not included), and all units (except Plants and Golems) drop 1 initiative. Then on the third long battle message, all troops continue to drop 1 morale (except those previously excluded), and then all troops drop 1 initiative and speed (except Plants and Golems). Lastly, for each successive set of stat decrease rounds (every 5 on impossible), morale, initiatve, and speed all continue to drop as they did before. This simulates your troops becoming more and more tired. This only applies to your troops as the enemy troops have no morale penalties (this is internal to the game apparently) and for initiative and speed I figured that since they are the defenders then that's their "homefield" advantage.

Also, I've added charges to all reloadable attacks so that for long combats every troop will eventually run out of using their special abilities since they are getting tired of fighting. The minimum round at which a troop will run out of an attack if they use it as soon as possible through their normal reload time is round 15. So that is plenty of time to use those abilities and you can always use Gift on them (same with AI).

I'm still experimenting with both of these changes... but I think that these won't have much an effect on combat since by round 15 pretty much everyone is dead anyway, except for maybe a few of the enemy hero battles. Also, you can always use Haste and Battle Cry to give your troops a speed or initiative boost as well as Gift to recharge their attacks in the latter rounds...

You have an interesting use for the word boring!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Found some weird thing in magic hero fights, when they cast some mass spell mana spent is like for 1 target (expl : Haas cast mass defenseless and spend only 8 mana(instead 40) , or mass magic shackles for 10 (instead 50). If enemy heroes got 2/3 spell casts per turn at least they should pend mana same as player hero. I`m not sure is this bug, or error in code but pls check it out. It`s bad enough to have enemy with 50/60 mana regen per turn, without them casting spells on low prices

I think I know what's going on with the enemy hero mana cast. Their spell level is set by the game internally (based on the enemy hero's level), but I overrode it in the LUA scripts. One of the things I couldn't do was give a mana cost bonus to spells because that is also internal as well. It seems like even though I'm overriding the enemy hero's spell level, it is somehow still referring to the spell level that the internal C/C++ code generates.

I thought I worked around it successfully and actually thought the mana was being subtracted correctly, but it looks like I might still be undershot by the internal workings of that part of the game. I'll look into it some more, but I'm probably stuck there!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

And what did you give to Sonya as speciality ( i now remember her, but other enemy heroes also have this) her dryads are 2 lvl unit, but had 12-16 dmg(1-4 basic), so WTF did you put in her inventory for her to have that stats on dryads ? Dark mistycus hero(necromancer in death valley) had necromancers with 250 hp and 20-30 dmg . . . I saw dwarfs with 20-32 dmg (they had bonus fire dmg, but not form hell breath, didnt have buff in their stats screen). Every hero that have some unit speciality that unit have sick stats in battle. It`s not impossible to win this mod, but all i`m saying is that player cant ever get units in his army to that stats so it`s a little frustrating

This is part of my awesome enemy hero skill system! Just think about all the awesome skills you get as a hero! Well, now turnabout is fair play!

I'll lay it out sometime, because I'm going to use a similar system with AP/CW...

Mysticus is awesome! So is Raab Sotten and Baal like they should be! Like I mentioned previously, a hero with a level higher than yours is going to be pretty tough!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

In the end, i can say warrior with rina/feanora/mirabella/diana/neoka/xeona working without problems.

Glad to hear it! By the way what were the final levels of your spirits with the Warrior? Did you get any up to level 40 or so?

Can you do me a favor and snap a screenshot (or two) of your hero's stat's and army setup after defeating Haas so I can see what you ended the game with? I'm just curious and it'll help me gauge some things...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Also had couple ideas, so what you ppl think about this ?
Priest have 26 hp, and heal 2x10hpm but cant cast it on undead as dmg.Heal spell can be used as dmg for undead, so why not priest healing ability?
I would lower it to 5 heal (when you lead more then 90 priests you dont have unit that can be healed for that much hp 90priest*10heal), and reload 2 so it wouldn`t be used 2 times in row then gift and imba dmg to undead. Thought`s ? ( i got this idea in just finished game i had 1400 priests, and who need 14000 hp healing ? so i thought to make them a bit more useful in fights against undead).
You did nice thing with healer skill and heal/revive abilities , so i though to add something similar to other units that have active abilities. In necromancy add bonus for necromancer animate dead , in archmage add bonus for druid summon (more bears), for evil beholder hypnotise (higher lds), alchemist potions (more dmg), shaman totems (more hp) and such. I`ll check rest of your modding manual, but i hope to do it without big problems.

You know what's funny? I actually thought I could use Priest's Heal on Undead for damage and just never checked it, I guess!

These are all excellent ideas - I'm pretty sure I have all the bonuses in place and just need to add them to the skill. I'll look into implementing them!

By the way, Erkki found an error in my implementation of the Shaman Dancing Axes skill so I'll have a fix out for that soon...

Have a happy holiday season!

/C\/C\

[Fatt_Shade]

You have an interesting use for the word boring!

Not boring as in gameplay, but for waiting couple rounds to revive all units and using chargers and gloth armor to stop enemy heroes from killing those that i already returned to full stack. Boring part is that i use only 1-2 unit at that time to gather chargers and spirits never get exp in that part of battle.

About enemy hero mana regen, and spell costs, problem i had mostly was with magic shackles and blind. They constantly used it on my inquisitors no matter that i almost never attacked enemy units with them after 5th turn, just reviving, but enemy kept blind/doom on them all time.

This is part of my awesome enemy hero skill system! Just think about all the awesome skills you get as a hero! Well, now turnabout is fair play!
I'll lay it out sometime, because I'm going to use a similar system with AP/CW...

Ok it`s interesting to play against stronger enemy, but my question is if they use player skill buildup, what are skill that give 2nd lvl unit dmg from basic 1-4 to 12-16? I want those skills.

I finished game with :
Zerock 46lvl, Sleem 40 , Lina 36, Death 46. Here`s couple screens :
in hero screen image i showed new upgrade for heroism banner i made. I` not thinking what more items could use upgrading, since there are fewer items here then in AP/CW so at least i can add a bit stronger item of already existing for later in game (thought about upgrading memoirs for bonus exp% to give 15% hero/spirit exp , some other ideas still figuring out how to implement).
. . .cant upload image here`s links for screenshots
http://www.imgplace.com/viewimg819/2...ishingarmy.png
http://www.imgplace.com/viewimg407/9...heroscreen.png
http://www.imgplace.com/viewimg853/2...ndmgdealer.png
http://www.imgplace.com/viewimg155/1...edicalunit.png
http://www.imgplace.com/viewimg36/4049/28spirits.png

[MattCaspermeyer]

Thanks for the screenies!

Okay, a couple of questions (well, okay more than a couple)...

1. Did you use the Horsemen's new Charge Ability a lot? What'd you think of it?
2. You made it to level 31 - how'd you do that? From level 30 to 31, its almost twice as much experience!
3. You had a lot of gold left - did you try to buy any Crystals or Runes from Tibold?
4. Is that Banner of Legends the item in the upper right (I can't see the pointer so I guess it is)?
5. So you ended up with Mirabella, but took the other wives earlier?
6. Did you just get Zerock and Reaper to level 46 at the end of the game or were they there for a while? Also it looks like you focused on Zerock and Reaper - is that true or were Sleem and Lina harder to level? (I've found that since Underground Blades and Black Hole give experience based on the number of units you damage that they give a lot of experience - same with Sleem Fishes, but that one's harder to damage a lot of units unless you start with a lot of rage).
7. Did you use your Ice Orb a lot?
8. Did you use Phoenix a lot?
9. Did you use Sacrifice to get that many Inquisitors? I'm trying to remember, but I don't think I've ever seen that many for sale...
10. What did you think of the Mana / Rage gain reduction throughout combat? Did you find it difficult to recharge your mana / rage later in the combat?
11. What did you think of the overall Leadership Reduction bonuses? Do you still think they may be too high and that you can recruit too many units from the bonuses? I'm thinking of making a minor adjustment that would drop the bonus a couple of percent, not too much, but its behavior is nonlinear.

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Not boring as in gameplay, but for waiting couple rounds to revive all units and using chargers and gloth armor to stop enemy heroes from killing those that i already returned to full stack. Boring part is that i use only 1-2 unit at that time to gather chargers and spirits never get exp in that part of battle.

Okay - I guess there's not much I can do there. Everyone plays that way!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

About enemy hero mana regen, and spell costs, problem i had mostly was with magic shackles and blind. They constantly used it on my inquisitors no matter that i almost never attacked enemy units with them after 5th turn, just reviving, but enemy kept blind/doom on them all time.

Okay, interesting...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Ok it`s interesting to play against stronger enemy, but my question is if they use player skill buildup, what are skill that give 2nd lvl unit dmg from basic 1-4 to 12-16? I want those skills.

Hah! I bet you do! Well, not one skill does it, but I think it ends up being a combination of things. Enemy hero's get bonuses to their units and then they get skill bonuses. The bonuses to their units mimic items and then the skill bonuses mimic your skill tree. Everything is not quite 1-to-1, but they have a point system based on their level. I think the 1-4 to 12-16 is based on a number of bonuses - I think the +resistance damage that they get is applied first and then the difficulty level is applied last. Depending on class, they get +resistance damage based on a certain level. I'll go into this in more detail when I post the system. What I love about it is that it creates incredibly powerful heroes with incredibly powerful units. I think you can see that it took a lot of effort on your part to beat them, but the player's intellect is superior to the AI, so I think I've compensated fairly well.

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

I finished game with :
Zerock 46lvl, Sleem 40 , Lina 36, Death 46. Here`s couple screens :
in hero screen image i showed new upgrade for heroism banner i made. I` not thinking what more items could use upgrading, since there are fewer items here then in AP/CW so at least i can add a bit stronger item of already existing for later in game (thought about upgrading memoirs for bonus exp% to give 15% hero/spirit exp , some other ideas still figuring out how to implement).

Do you think your items are overpowered at all? Do you think you could have done no loss without them? Just curious - I kind of like your item upgrades - what did you do to come up with the upgrade stack sizes?

Lastly, what would your change list be for my mod? Every time I play the game, I create a change list and either make things tougher or try to improve aspects of the game. So let me know what you'd change and I'll start thinking about how to improve it some more...

Well, thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

/C\/C\

[MattCaspermeyer]

Ok, I've implemented the Catapult's Boiling Oil attack as well as changed the Furious Goblin such that it has one Throw Axe charge and is furious.

Screenies provided below...

Anyway, I plan on enterring the beta phase soon since there doesn't appear to be any show-stopping game crashes that prevent the player from reloading and continuing...

/C\/C\

[Fatt_Shade]

1) Yea charge is great, with rush skill, it makes horseman awsome in first round. I didnt use it allot since my griffins were always first in enemy lines, and after them i charge in with horseman and make interesting dmg and block enemy rangers. Later when i got marshal baton and had +3 moral for humans i stopped using it since crit is better them special ability any time. But great idea for it any way, it`s useful ability

2) It more then twice exp from 30 to 31 550000 30th vl, for 31 1150000exp, but you added on learning +30% exp , and +50% vs undead/demon for holy knight so it`s possible and i didnt even had 1 kid for sp_addexp_battle bonus In my calculation i finished with about 1250000 exp roughly, but counter stops at reaching 31st lvl so it`s not important any way after that.

3) I didnt show mind skill tree, but there i took only 1 lvl for greed because in this game i never had problems with gold just there is no thing so expencive to spend huge amounts of it. Only time i save up is on start if some item for +10 runes is available in starting locations so i go around with cheap army waiting to buy it Also runes i took all skills i needed (all might tree max lvl , in mind only left trade and greed on 1 lvl , magic also took what i needed so runes werent problem also)

4)Yes that was my testing of upgrading items. I dded upgrade for heroism banner so it gives 600lds +1 initiative for 1-4 lvl units. I made it so upgrading takes same battles as officer baton(500lds)-general baton(750lds) battle.

5) When i managed to kill Kraken on 11 lvl with no problems i took mirabella and saved game, then i rushed to dwarf lands and try to free gerda and did it also with little problem so i returned to sunset islands to see her kids (i had bunch of enemy left there since i only killed kraken and lucky james), but seeing gerda`s kids are so slow and low on initiative i decided to try diana from gerda savegame point (freeing dwarf prince was interesting on 15th lvl but i managed) and rushed off to finish frozen spring quest and take diana. Then things got interesting Got allot thorns on disposal, took dryads in elven lands and some ents and returned to sunset islands and had fun with diana, but when fragile units started dying it got frustrating to spend 4-5 turns at end of each battle to revive them with gizmo/gloth armor combo). Then i load diana save and tried neoka just to see her kids wasnt impresed, and i returned to my old mirabella save and got again from 14th lvl On 24 lvl i did xeona and try her out but again returned on mirabella at that 24 lvl save and played her till end ( had interesting kid combo Rion-great for tanking, Edric-sick griffins, Ingham-you saw my 650 inqisitors , and Cutberth i could do without but what can i do when little bastard popped out of my darling wife ) Funny thing is i got Cutberth with my mage also. This is why i took me 2 weeks to finish game, all this returning to previous wife
You made some weird kid bonuses : some give rage% and spell% bonus both. Why mixing them up, and no rage% + rage inflow%, and spell dmg%+mana% or int% or mana per turn . . .

6) I used Sleem almost always in first round for fishes, but after that only for gloth armor since poison spit and cloud are useless comparing to other spirits. Zerock is great since blades and falling rocks doesnt effect your army and wall is great for blocking when only small force of enemy heroes stay alive. Death is used as often as possible, his all skills are great but soul steal is to expensive on max lvl it cost 100 rage for 70% kill, it`s to much even for warrior. Lina i mostly for gizmo and chargers, orb i used only when borred and wanted to spend rage for no reaosn, since my army did most of work, there was no need for orb. but i regret i didnt lvlup shards. Here`s advice for other players take shards ppl and use it against enemy heroes that cast evli book(all undead heroes)/demon portal(Baal), because with shards you block battle arena and they cant cast summons. It was hard beating Baal with him summoning 2x8 archdemons/2x70 demons every turn.

Didnt use phoenix at all, come on Matt warrior dont need some pansy spells to win a battle I mostly used gift, mass slow/haste, mass initiative. Didint fine blind in all game that`s why i had to drop diana and her fragile army, they are great to play, but hard to keep alive at end of battle with no enemy disabling spells (fear/blind/target...).

9) Inquisitors i made from priests, as i said i used all runes that i need and then just collected them till end of game and. I took inquisitor ksill in mind tree when i decided to go humans till end with mirabella, imagine my surprise when ingham decided to show up

10) With warrior rage is never problem, but mana got problematic couple of times for gift on my medical unit With 650 inquisitors i revived some 7k hp for 15mana gift spell and it was easier to cast chargers then gizmo and hope little alien spaceship didnt go to kill only remaining enemy troop across all map, instead to heal my unit standing right in front of it
Only problematic battles were raab soten, baal, xeona maybe 1/2 more. Surprisingly karador got raped fairly easy with human army (then i still used priests, didnt have knights at all) and priest/inquisitors on undead are great counter, crystal of darkness fall in 2nd turn, rest time i used to control karador army and keep mine alive, finished him in 12 turn.

11) I dont think any reduction in lds part is needed. Enemy all have 25 more stats then you, enemy heroes have 2/3 cast per turn with sick mana regen, +bonus like you from skills. You made reduction in mana/rage inflow during battle and planing to do same to moral/initiative in later turns. So no i dont think any more obstacles are needed You mod is great fun to play, and think about moves you make. I did no loss just to see i i can , but other ppl wont play it that way, and some more lds reductions would turn them off this mod. Also lds reduction from kids arent sure thing, you can get 4 kids with unit specials or all 4 with some non army related bonuses so as you said before it`s all about probability and chance

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

Do you think your items are overpowered at all? Do you think you could have done no loss without them? Just curious - I kind of like your item upgrades - what did you do to come up with the upgrade stack sizes?

Lastly, what would your change list be for my mod? Every time I play the game, I create a change list and either make things tougher or try to improve aspects of the game. So let me know what you'd change and I'll start thinking about how to improve it some more...

Only item i changed in my inventory is banner and just to see will in work, all other items are normal as in original settings. If knew how to add moral to items i would so it can lose moral and make you lead less units then max so you have to suppress items without visiting some castle to leave troops in reserve(this goes for +lds/-lds% items, because i used dwarf hammer throughout all taron and suppressed it at least 10 times thx for 23k exp As for upgrading items i used already existing with most similar stats, as i said above for this banner most similar is officer to general upgrading fight so i used it.

Changes, hm . . . i asked in last post on 10th page about making something similar as healer skill bonus for priest/inquisitor in other skills for other units.
Expl : in glory since it lets you lead more troops adding bonus for summoning troop (dryad, ent, ancient ent, druid i say all elf units since they get least bonuses from other skills, and i think paladin mind tree can get a bit improvement).
Necromancy to add higher magic shackles lds for necromancer, more dmg for cursed ghost scream, maybe more dmg for dragon poison ability.
Archmage stronger totems (5/10/15% maybe) and 2/5/10% more magic dmg to units listed. And add beholders here instead dark commander, both beholders are magic unit they belong here (also giving more lds in hypnosis for evil would be great).
There is no skill to help dragons, my idea is to kick hyena,wolf and rest of small potatoes from dark commander and add dragons there.
How about adding fear (like wolf howl) to archdemons?) Here they dont have half talent, so at least they could be used for crowd controlling . . . even as i write this i see my next battle with Baal if this gets in game That would be interesting fight with his summons.

And in the end great work with catapult/furious new abilities
What do you mean beta phase ? Like sharing mod on tread, or start selling it on steam

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

1) Yea charge is great, with rush skill, it makes horseman awsome in first round. I didnt use it allot since my griffins were always first in enemy lines, and after them i charge in with horseman and make interesting dmg and block enemy rangers. Later when i got marshal baton and had +3 moral for humans i stopped using it since crit is better them special ability any time. But great idea for it any way, it`s useful ability

Great to hear! I'm actually surprised that they didn't add it in AP/CW, but rather gave the ability to the Cerberi and Brontors.

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

2) It more then twice exp from 30 to 31 550000 30th vl, for 31 1150000exp, but you added on learning +30% exp , and +50% vs undead/demon for holy knight so it`s possible and i didnt even had 1 kid for sp_addexp_battle bonus In my calculation i finished with about 1250000 exp roughly, but counter stops at reaching 31st lvl so it`s not important any way after that.

550,000 * 1.8 = 990,000 (and for +50% to undead/demon it will be less than that since there are not that many of them!), but okay I think maybe you got more experience from suppressing items multiple times, so I think I'll bump it to 2,000,000! That way you can't quite get there, but your experience will keep tallying!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

3) I didnt show mind skill tree, but there i took only 1 lvl for greed because in this game i never had problems with gold just there is no thing so expencive to spend huge amounts of it. Only time i save up is on start if some item for +10 runes is available in starting locations so i go around with cheap army waiting to buy it Also runes i took all skills i needed (all might tree max lvl , in mind only left trade and greed on 1 lvl , magic also took what i needed so runes werent problem also)

Okay sounds great! I was wondering if you bought crystals for spells, but it looks like you had enough and you didn't need the runes so okay (I finish with that much gold, too, usually, although this time I'm hoping to buy more crystals for spells!).

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

4)Yes that was my testing of upgrading items. I dded upgrade for heroism banner so it gives 600lds +1 initiative for 1-4 lvl units. I made it so upgrading takes same battles as officer baton(500lds)-general baton(750lds) battle.

5) When i managed to kill Kraken on 11 lvl with no problems i took mirabella and saved game, then i rushed to dwarf lands and try to free gerda and did it also with little problem so i returned to sunset islands to see her kids (i had bunch of enemy left there since i only killed kraken and lucky james), but seeing gerda`s kids are so slow and low on initiative i decided to try diana from gerda savegame point (freeing dwarf prince was interesting on 15th lvl but i managed) and rushed off to finish frozen spring quest and take diana. Then things got interesting Got allot thorns on disposal, took dryads in elven lands and some ents and returned to sunset islands and had fun with diana, but when fragile units started dying it got frustrating to spend 4-5 turns at end of each battle to revive them with gizmo/gloth armor combo). Then i load diana save and tried neoka just to see her kids wasnt impresed, and i returned to my old mirabella save and got again from 14th lvl On 24 lvl i did xeona and try her out but again returned on mirabella at that 24 lvl save and played her till end ( had interesting kid combo Rion-great for tanking, Edric-sick griffins, Ingham-you saw my 650 inqisitors , and Cutberth i could do without but what can i do when little bastard popped out of my darling wife ) Funny thing is i got Cutberth with my mage also. This is why i took me 2 weeks to finish game, all this returning to previous wife
You made some weird kid bonuses : some give rage% and spell% bonus both. Why mixing them up, and no rage% + rage inflow%, and spell dmg%+mana% or int% or mana per turn . . .

Good job with Mirabella and her babies!

Well, you know, if the HOMM3 heroes had skills like that, then the bonuses fell that way!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

6) I used Sleem almost always in first round for fishes, but after that only for gloth armor since poison spit and cloud are useless comparing to other spirits. Zerock is great since blades and falling rocks doesnt effect your army and wall is great for blocking when only small force of enemy heroes stay alive. Death is used as often as possible, his all skills are great but soul steal is to expensive on max lvl it cost 100 rage for 70% kill, it`s to much even for warrior. Lina i mostly for gizmo and chargers, orb i used only when borred and wanted to spend rage for no reaosn, since my army did most of work, there was no need for orb. but i regret i didnt lvlup shards. Here`s advice for other players take shards ppl and use it against enemy heroes that cast evli book(all undead heroes)/demon portal(Baal), because with shards you block battle arena and they cant cast summons. It was hard beating Baal with him summoning 2x8 archdemons/2x70 demons every turn.

That's a good one on Shards - I find that I always cast it and it gets in my way! So why not let it get in the enemy's way?!

You know, I didn't consider spamming it in the rage cost and rest, so I might have to revisit that ability's mana cost and rest. Hmmm...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Didnt use phoenix at all, come on Matt warrior dont need some pansy spells to win a battle I mostly used gift, mass slow/haste, mass initiative. Didint fine blind in all game that`s why i had to drop diana and her fragile army, they are great to play, but hard to keep alive at end of battle with no enemy disabling spells (fear/blind/target...).

That's cool - good to see you using mass slow / haste and mass initiative. I usually don't use those since I'm mostly finishing up with Demons and my Demonesses get the big boosts from Anga's Ruby!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

9) Inquisitors i made from priests, as i said i used all runes that i need and then just collected them till end of game and. I took inquisitor ksill in mind tree when i decided to go humans till end with mirabella, imagine my surprise when ingham decided to show up

Duh! Of course! I totally forgot about that!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

10) With warrior rage is never problem, but mana got problematic couple of times for gift on my medical unit With 650 inquisitors i revived some 7k hp for 15mana gift spell and it was easier to cast chargers then gizmo and hope little alien spaceship didnt go to kill only remaining enemy troop across all map, instead to heal my unit standing right in front of it

Yah, you have to be a little careful with Gizmo! It will still attack the enemy army if it considers them to be a bigger threat. Gizmo is great for res'ing higher level units, but not so good for a couple of level 1 or 2 units (because you can do that!).

Good to hear that you're using Chargers - they give good mana and rage until the first 50% drop so you have to use them early in the battle! At least, though, they store the mana / rage boost when they're cast so that you can save them for later if you can protect them from being used.

For Gift, at least you have to have it at Level 2, and you probably noticed you can't use it on Level 5 units.

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Only problematic battles were raab soten, baal, xeona maybe 1/2 more. Surprisingly karador got raped fairly easy with human army (then i still used priests, didnt have knights at all) and priest/inquisitors on undead are great counter, crystal of darkness fall in 2nd turn, rest time i used to control karador army and keep mine alive, finished him in 12 turn.

Yah - I learned my lesson with Raab Sotten last game, where I released him too early and had to fight him when I was level 23, I think! That one was tough!

Karador was kind of a let down - I think I'm going to do something with that crystal! I was expecting a better battle from him last playthrough so when I get to him this time, I'm going to make the crystal do better stuff! Mass sheep anyone? Okay, just kidding!

But I'll think of something!

I'm also thinking of giving Haas a unique spell or two. Can you say summon dragons!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

11) I dont think any reduction in lds part is needed. Enemy all have 25 more stats then you, enemy heroes have 2/3 cast per turn with sick mana regen, +bonus like you from skills. You made reduction in mana/rage inflow during battle and planing to do same to moral/initiative in later turns. So no i dont think any more obstacles are needed You mod is great fun to play, and think about moves you make. I did no loss just to see i i can , but other ppl wont play it that way, and some more lds reductions would turn them off this mod. Also lds reduction from kids arent sure thing, you can get 4 kids with unit specials or all 4 with some non army related bonuses so as you said before it`s all about probability and chance

Good - I really wasn't looking forward to changing it.

It's really kind of cool how as you're playing you start to realize you need all those guys for the end!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Only item i changed in my inventory is banner and just to see will in work, all other items are normal as in original settings. If knew how to add moral to items i would so it can lose moral and make you lead less units then max so you have to suppress items without visiting some castle to leave troops in reserve(this goes for +lds/-lds% items, because i used dwarf hammer throughout all taron and suppressed it at least 10 times thx for 23k exp As for upgrading items i used already existing with most similar stats, as i said above for this banner most similar is officer to general upgrading fight so i used it.

Good idea for adding morale to it - I'll see if I can figure out how to do that so you won't get away with using it without consequence!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Changes, hm . . . i asked in last post on 10th page about making something similar as healer skill bonus for priest/inquisitor in other skills for other units.

Yep - noted!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Expl : in glory since it lets you lead more troops adding bonus for summoning troop (dryad, ent, ancient ent, druid i say all elf units since they get least bonuses from other skills, and i think paladin mind tree can get a bit improvement).

That's a good idea with Glory! I think I'll have it apply to all units that summon backup units.

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Necromancy to add higher magic shackles lds for necromancer, more dmg for cursed ghost scream, maybe more dmg for dragon poison ability.

I didn't think there's a leadership requirement for magic shackles, but maybe you mean Animate Dead? Those are all good ideas - I'll have Necromancy give bonuses to Undead unit abilities.

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Archmage stronger totems (5/10/15% maybe) and 2/5/10% more magic dmg to units listed. And add beholders here instead dark commander, both beholders are magic unit they belong here (also giving more lds in hypnosis for evil would be great).

Ah - you're reading my mind! You don't know how close I've been to adding Beholders to the Archmage list! I figured people, would say they're not mages! But they are! Okay, done! I'll keep them in Dark Commander, too, though, so they'll get both bonuses!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

There is no skill to help dragons, my idea is to kick hyena,wolf and rest of small potatoes from dark commander and add dragons there.

I did consider adding Dragons to Dark Commander, but thought they didn't need any help and the Emerald ones kind of prevented me from doing it. Why not add them, though? I'll leave the hyena and wolf since they need all the help they can get, but I'll add all the dragons!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

How about adding fear (like wolf howl) to archdemons?) Here they dont have half talent, so at least they could be used for crowd controlling . . . even as i write this i see my next battle with Baal if this gets in game That would be interesting fight with his summons.

I've been thinking about what to add to Archdemons - Fear has always been a good choice, but I'm thinking of giving them the Sheep ability. I think I'd make it have just 1 charge, but that would be potentially interesting. I think I'd have their Fear also work like the Devilfish's where it is applied post-hit otherwise it is the same as wolf-cry, but maybe that's okay? Or give them mass sheep! Ha! Ha! 1 charge and non-chargeable too since Gift only works on level 1-4 units! Hmmm...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

And in the end great work with catapult/furious new abilities

Thanks! It took my a while to make that spinning axe icon and the color might still be a little off, but it's okay for now.

I think I might have an idea for Ogres - Shrunken Head! It basically would work similar to Pygmy, but also with a chance to confuse the unit or something like that possibly... Too bad I can't make it just shrink the unit's head! That'd be cool!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

What do you mean beta phase ? Like sharing mod on tread, or start selling it on steam

Well, I was thinking of sharing the mod on the thread soon...

It'd be nice to be able to sell it! But unfortunately, the HOMM3 pictures are copyrighted so I couldn't do that without removing them.

Thinking of the future for modders, though, I don't think it would be unrealistic to ask $0.99 just like an iTunes song! Money doesn't grow on trees after all!

Well, thanks for all the great comments - I've got a lot of work to do implementing your ideas!

But it's Christmas so I'm going to try to relax... just a little bit!

/C\/C\

[Fatt_Shade]

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

550,000 * 1.8 = 990,000 (and for +50% to undead/demon it will be less than that since there are not that many of them!), but okay I think maybe you got more experience from suppressing items multiple times, so I think I'll bump it to 2,000,000

But consider this : you fight in order game is planed Darion-Taron-Elenia (all battles here will get you to some 300-350k exp)-Undead lands-Demonis-Orc lands (this last 3 locations have 600-650k exp, double more then first half of game), so later locations have maybe lees battles but in demonis-undead lands every battle gave me around 6000exp with normal creatures, not heroes. And i calculated all quest rewards get to about 200k exp.All item suppressing i did is less then 40k (23k from dwarf hammer, some 5k elven crown and maybe 15k for all others, marshal baton doesnt lose moral, my legendary banner only 1300 exp worth, suppressing blackthorn crown 300 exp worth only nuisance later in game)so it was only so i can use item ,not as source of more exp.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

Okay sounds great! I was wondering if you bought crystals for spells, but it looks like you had enough and you didn't need the runes so okay (I finish with that much gold, too, usually, although this time I'm hoping to buy more crystals for spells!).

For warrior crystals arent much needed, army is my main source of costs since no much use from sacrifice. First time i played this game i got excited when i ran on dragons in shop and spend all gold on them with no idea how actually to use them (12 black dragons, 15 red 15 green . . . that allot of gold) now i bought 200 knights/horseman 500k gold all of them, 650 inquisitors 200k gold so all together my whole army didnt cost more then 1-1,2 mil.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

That's a good one on Shards - I find that I always cast it and it gets in my way! So why not let it get in the enemy's way?!
You know, I didn't consider spamming it in the rage cost and rest, so I might have to revisit that ability's mana cost and rest. Hmmm...

Rage for warrior isnt problem with 200 rage pool my regular course was piranha(45 rage)-black hole(60rage)-blades/falling rocks(40/45rage)-maybe rage draining/gizmo(15/70 rage) and then chargers/gloth armor. All this with anger and inquisitors as rage generators isnt problem. Mage on other side i had completely different spirits usage but that`s way it supposed to be.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

For Gift, at least you have to have it at Level 2, and you probably noticed you can't use it on Level 5 units.

I didnt used any 5th lvls, but if i did what 5th lvl unit have some skill that need gift for it ? No rune mages for revive, or ogres with drain in tL

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

I'm also thinking of giving Haas a unique spell or two. Can you say summon dragons!

No need for unique spell, just make him use illusion. If demon heroes can summon archdemons why not him use illusion on his 5th lvl army. Here you cant use dispel on summoned units, so it will make his battle a bit harder. As it is now many enemy heroes use mass shackles or doom which isnt big problem, but those that cast sheep/blind often are pain in ass.
Also did you changed hypnosis from original settings ? Now it give`s control of % of players lds so for mage it`s absolutely useless, and i dont think any self aware warrior would use hypnosis on enemy so how about buffing hypnosis a bit.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

I did consider adding Dragons to Dark Commander, but thought they didn't need any help and the Emerald ones kind of prevented me from doing it. Why not add them, though? I'll leave the hyena and wolf since they need all the help they can get, but I'll add all the dragons!

I didnt think kick small units off, but be honest how many games you play using hyena/wolf/even spiders, snakes are interesting but rest of animal kingdom arent much interesting to use (just my opinion). Dragons on other hand are great for crowd controlling with fear and esier to keep alive with gizmo.

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

I've been thinking about what to add to Archdemons - Fear has always been a good choice, but I'm thinking of giving them the Sheep ability. I think I'd make it have just 1 charge, but that would be potentially interesting. I think I'd have their Fear also work like the Devilfish's where it is applied post-hit otherwise it is the same as wolf-cry, but maybe that's okay? Or give them mass sheep! Ha! Ha! 1 charge and non-chargeable too since Gift only works on level 1-4 units! Hmmm...

Try finding in AP/CW files how does demon/executioner post hit fear works, and just copy it here. Wolf howl on them would be bad now that i think about it, but sheep with reload 4 would be better (1 charge not even useful) and this way if you play with them you can use them for controling enemy later in battle for saving your army. Or playing against them makes you focus archdemons to stop them from perma wool your army If they use their 1 charge you no need to fear them any more, but if you knew next turn it will be recharged ...well you get my hint. This would make 5x1 archdemon army interesting to fight against

Great work so far Matt, enjoy holidays and get rest before going with this on AP/CW field

[ShuiMienLung]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Sleem ... cloud are useless comparing to other spirits.

Probably my most frequent use of Cloud is once it gets up in the 13+ count of attacks: that's good for *two* turns of casting Magic Spring on the unit I've got sitting under it. (Possibly while Invisible. And most likely a Vampire of some sort.)

Or when you've got a last no-retaliation enemy unit surrounded by thousands of Thorns, you put a Magic Spring on one at the end of one turn, on another at the beginning of the next turn (I'm assuming that either you are not a Mage, or you are and have already used up all of your Higher Magic capabilities), and then park the cloud over it to generate +10 per pulse several times.

I don't really CARE about the damage the cloud inflicts, even to enemies. All I care about about is that it's a fairly minimal (survivable) amount being inflicted on ME, to trigger the Spring.

[Fatt_Shade]

@ShuiMienLung
It`s nice idea, but not really possible in this mod. Matt changed mana/rage inflow here so at round 20 all mana/rage is 0 no matter how much mana spring you use it just wont give you anything in return when enemy hit that unit, or making any amount of dmg wont give you new rage after 20th turn. So what you accumulated up until then, has to be enough. It makes sense, the longer battle is your/enemy troops are more tired and less angry (rage) so it`s great feature of this mod.
Also some rage spirit skills are changed, poison cloud among them so now it makes higher area dmg then before, but 2000-4000 dmg, 1/2/3 attacks at max lvl for 70 rage. Even in original game setings i dont remember how many time i cast poison cloud just to see if flying around arena dmging my own troops and never even touching enemy army
Give it a try ShuiMienLung , ask Matt to send you mod files and have fun. He said he`ll start working on changing mod for armored princess soon. I guess just when he finishes if, new KB-WotN game will get out so he can start on adaptation for it also (there are going to be valkyris so marrying them and having kids will be same as here)