Tactical strategy, looking to expand through others' ideas

from Elemental Forums

I am a strange breed here, as I have had this game since release, didn't play it much at the beginning, started playing during the beta leading up to version 1.1, and finally have hit it hard.  What is strange about me is that my strategy has developed very slowly over time, through experience of this game, and really, with almost no influence from the boards here, nor from any outside game.  Not sure why, but neither Civ, nor HoMM, nor any other game works like this one.  I did type up the basics a month or two ago on some post, but it has expanded since then.

Anyway, I am wanting to share this with others, and also read more about how other people have developed their strategies for battle, particularly the development of their heroes and creation of their soldier types, and also how they play out on the battlefield.  I would put this in the strategy section of the forums, but there isn't one :p

Here is what I have developed thus far:

I start early by gathering some heroes and taking them out fighting to get them some levels.   There is a plan, though, even from early on.  Depending on the hero's starting stats, I change their name by adding their role (so I can remember who does what role).  Here is ther general idea of how I develop them:

<Party Caster>  I literally put every point, every level in INT.  They run with my party(s).  their primary function is to be able to cast the highest level spells i have.

<City Caster>  I choose a fair amount of INT, but also slowly raise CHA,, as they stay in the city and defend, but also raise prestige.  one in each city, the city caster.

<City Melee>  I buy and equip all good armor I can get, and split the points between STR, DEX and CON  Now and then I toss in a little CHA.  One in each city, the city melee.

<Party Tank>  This is my pride and joy.  I give this hero a dagger, or something else that raises speed and accuracy.  My points go into DEX and CON only.  The only task of this tank is to soak up enemy's counter attaacks...because after the tank soaks up the counter attacks...

<Naked Sledgehammer>  This poor fool gets nothing but strength.  I periodically choose a Sovereign with Assasin's Strike too.  He weilds the highest damage two-handed weapon available to me.  All he does is lay that fattest damage a melee can do.  He isn't really naked, by the way, he wears armor, but with no added DEX or CON...just STR, he hits HARD, but dies easily.  You defeinitely have to protect him and use him with tactical prowess.

<Party Hybrid>  This is my newest role, and is a strange beast.  It is a general melee role, you can slant it tank, or damage, or even a balanced build.  What sets it apart from the rest is that it is also a caster.  I slowly raise INT to 20ish, which gives a full melee character some basic low level spell casting, including a heal (unless you are playing as empire) and even blink, which is an amazing butt-saver for a melee in jeopardy of being overwhelmed.  For example, let's say I am fighting that ridiculous spider in one of the quest dungeons, and it is hitting me for teens damage.  I bring in the tank to take the hits from the spider, then bring hybrid up and do the damage I can do, soaking up a few counters, taking damage, then with one more action point remaining, I cast blink to get out of there, leaving just the tank to take the hits.

<Archer Caster>  While I appreciate archery and want an archer in game, I have found that taking your offspring and turning them into these seems most efficiant.  You can raise just STR to power that ranged damage mightily, but since they are sovereign-offsporing, they can cast all spells.  Obviously, their damage spells are's great, but who needs them anyway, with your archery damage.  The ability to cast all spells gives them great utiliitatian function.

As far as my customized soldiers go, they actually follow the basic archtypes of melee damage, tank and utility (added vision, regen etc).

 

My typical midgame party is my Sovereign (the <Naked Cannon> with Assasin's Strike, this game), two <Party Casters>, a <Party Hybrid>, a <Party Tank> and 1-2 <Archer Casters>.  Add to that all the typical mix of my soldier types...and I have to say....

I can't wait until the tactical AI is embelished!!  All this time spent developing this, and the AI is so DUMB!  Still, fun stuff.

What other techniques do you all use?

elemental
11,187 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I load up champions with enough INT to cast teleport and blink, and then increase their strength and constitution.

 

I then gather them together in a stomp-stack and kill anything that invades my territory via teleport.

 

If I come up against a company of hammer wielders, I'll send in my sov with high INT and use blink/direct damage spells to nickle-and-dime them.

 

I love blinking behind buildings, too.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

haha, guess I am complicating things too much for such a dumb AI?  I will incorporate that though, funny enough

 

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I make every hero into a one-man army.  Early development is to get CON up to 15 or 16. I then get their Intel up to 19 for Teleport (the +3 Intel rings definitely help here).  After that every point goes to STR.  My typical large map game (AI set to Extreme or Ridiculous) takes about 300 seasons to complete and I will have 5-7 heroes about 10-11 levels each maxed out in Legendary armor (except for Master Armlets). Early game each hero gets the Boots of Traveling to explore things.  Late game I switch to the Legendary Greaves for defense.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for posting. Very good ideas that I never have considered.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm a magic freak - I'll get to that in a minute. First off I have my little sorceress marry Janusk (renamed Ar-Farazon) as soon as she levels up - does'nt take long! I start each game with the goal of maxing out gilder production by spamming pioneers to create cities and outposts as close together as possible. This allows me to quickly set up extensive caravan routes to maximize cash flow. I research the adventure tree early to spam food sources and plunk a pioneer on them even if they are close to an existing city - mine or another faction's, so I can build more caravan routes. Meanwhile, I run up the magic tree as quickly as possible. My little sorceress (with teleport,blink, and arcane arrow) is kept busy overseeing the pioneers and caravans since the they are monster spam magnets. My approach to heroes may be a little different from that of most players as I only hire them as castellans - one to each outpost or city as appropriate, merchant hero to guilder city, tech hero to tech city etc, By about turn 200, I have a mountain of cash available to arm her 4 grown up kids with light plate armour and Ythril bows. At this point, the game is won as my sorceress, teleports around dropping bombs like it's the Great War while the kids, with a buffed up earth elemental as guard dog, mow down the irradiated survivors. My goal at this point is to aquire all 4 shard types if I don't already have them and research the Spell of Making.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I generally only imbue a champion OR summon a familiar if by doing so I am still producing at least 1 MP per turn.  This means that at the beginning of the game, I only imbue my spouse.

I haven't really tried specializing champions to the degree described here; I'll have to try it.  I have had success by simply adding a point to dexterity or intelligence to get to the odd-numbered stat that bumps up dexterity or magic resistance by one, then invest everything else in strength or constitution.  No charisma boosts - if I need prestige, I usually get plenty from building an inn.  I typically don't use champions as tanks to absorb attacks; I use what armored military units that I have.

Except for spellcasters - I typically pump all boosts into intelligence to get spell bonuses, except in the case that one point added somewhere might up a stat due to the rounding.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Hmm, such a diverse way of playing by everyone. That is a great thing for a strategy game.  Now if only it felt necessary to win.

I like some of these ideas.  I think I especially need to use a hero to teleport around and protect my caravans.  I ended up just not employing caravans because monsters scrog them too often.  My money seems to come from taxes/population, as well as teching the gold buildings.

I can see the each hero as a one man army working, but I guess I hated to resort to that.  I want to get owned by the AI. 

Maybe that's where my system comes from, by the time I develop those heroes, my AI competitors have scores of 250-400 while I still have a score of 90.  Of course, score doesn't matter with the army of Heroes I have put together. 

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I generally go for the kingdom building part of the game, so I'll start by having my capital grow through huts and studies, and getting tech % increase at each city level.  I like to go Civilization to increase economy and houses and then I go Adventure for more food techs.  I know you're asking about battle techniques, so after all that, I go military (or military earlier depending on how aggressive the AI is).  Priorities are getting groups of 4, sharp weapons (decent swords, or the +9 spear), and armour to light armour.  I should have the economy to built lots of these units to defend my cities.

All the while I go out with my Sovereign and equip him with the best armour and heal, regen, the +20 max health spell, and touch of entropy or whatever it is that does 30 damage per hit... or some AoE spell like firestorm.  I recruit any interesting heroes if I can afford it and go around and try to get Dragons, Shrills and Drath through Adventure teching.  Then I build groups of Shrills and Drath and some Dragons and have fun.

On a side note, I had a notice that some powerful demon was prowling around, but I couldn't find it yet.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I recruit any interesting heroes if I can afford it and go around and try to get Dragons, Shrills and Drath through Adventure teching
End of quote

Think that this is through Diplomacy teching, isn´t it?.

I like heros, so I get all I can afford. In fact I don´t use any other unit, only heros, in 3 formats: The Caster, The Tank and The Archer, though I use the caster also as auxiliaries, armed only with a bow,  because I only raise his INT.

My tactic is to make groups of heros, from these 3 as a minimum thru 11, that seems to be the max, though in this case often there are heros that don´t fight and are grouped only for the experience. Later, when they become useful, I take out them from the main group and then make a new group. This tactic makes me use a lot of teleport when my empire grows, in order to keep safe the cities from monsters. 

Talking about experience, I think that is not good for the game that all the units of the same group get all the experience after a battle, regardless they haven´t any hit. Yes, it is possible to learn something only watching, but it wouldn´t must be the same that the experience obtained by fighting. I hope that Stardock review this system because it would be very easy to assign exp according to the hits, that are already being counted. It would make the tactical battles more interesting because you would must risk a bit more in order to raise your heros skills.

 

 

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

I like to focus on Gilder production, farming and military might early on.  I try to get my economy up with 3-4 cities in close range and make sure I have caravans moving about.  I get groups early on to have a number advantage in combat over the AI.  Who tends to like to Get guys with big hammers early.  

 

I hire Heroes as I can and marry early.  My heroes are used to buff my cities if they have the skill or to handle quest duties.  Using my Soveriegn as primary general I get Spell blast early on and can have him take out larger forces with a mixture of this spell and summons.  Though since the latest version I  have run into scenarios where the AI is able to put together very large defensive forces - which is nice.  Once my kids are old enough I give them the best armor and they become generals in their own forces - usually fighting in the fronts and defending my territory- attacking and taking new land when it makes sense to do so.

 

For my most part I will not attack other factions - I generally wait for them to show aggression and then I commence to steam rolling.  If a city is large and appears vital to their efforts sometime I  capture and Raze them in quick succession.  I like for the AI to ask for a truce once they realize they are in trouble.

 

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting ArcElement2002, reply 8
I generally go for the kingdom building part of the game, so I'll start by having my capital grow through huts and studies, and getting tech % increase at each city level.  I like to go Civilization to increase economy and houses and then I go Adventure for more food techs.  I know you're asking about battle techniques, so after all that, I go military (or military earlier depending on how aggressive the AI is).  Priorities are getting groups of 4, sharp weapons (decent swords, or the +9 spear), and armour to light armour.  I should have the economy to built lots of these units to defend my cities.

All the while I go out with my Sovereign and equip him with the best armour and heal, regen, the +20 max health spell, and touch of entropy or whatever it is that does 30 damage per hit... or some AoE spell like firestorm.  I recruit any interesting heroes if I can afford it and go around and try to get Dragons, Shrills and Drath through Adventure teching.  Then I build groups of Shrills and Drath and some Dragons and have fun.

On a side note, I had a notice that some powerful demon was prowling around, but I couldn't find it yet.
End of ArcElement2002's quote

 

Actually this is good stuff too, because they are quite tied together, battle and kingdom.  Interesting supa' man hero build.  I assume you put most points into INT so your firestorm does more than 5 dmg?  interesting about touch of entropy.  Don't need any INT to get the 30 dmg if you are the Sovereign.  Wild. 

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Takeitsy, reply 9


Talking about experience, I think that is not good for the game that all the units of the same group get all the experience after a battle, regardless they haven´t any hit. Yes, it is possible to learn something only watching, but it wouldn´t must be the same that the experience obtained by fighting. I hope that Stardock review this system because it would be very easy to assign exp according to the hits, that are already being counted. It would make the tactical battles more interesting because you would must risk a bit more in order to raise your heros skills.
 
End of Takeitsy's quote

Interesting point.  I spend a lot of time leveling up my heroes as well, and changnig the exp would make it that much tougher, but maybe that isn't a bad thing, as it would encourage either more tactical decision to level up certain heroes, as you say, or even encourage fewer heroes and attempt to force people to use the city building/economy to make sodiers part of the game. 

Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Takeitsy, reply 9

Talking about experience, I think that is not good for the game that all the units of the same group get all the experience after a battle, regardless they haven´t any hit. Yes, it is possible to learn something only watching, but it wouldn´t must be the same that the experience obtained by fighting. I hope that Stardock review this system because it would be very easy to assign exp according to the hits, that are already being counted. It would make the tactical battles more interesting because you would must risk a bit more in order to raise your heros skills.
End of Takeitsy's quote

This is a great point. I find it very odd a unit that has been standing around nowhere near the frontline gets experience from the battle. My hero is unlikely to get better at combat by cowering in the back row hoping the those nasty spiders don't come near... Maybe he should get a "wuss" or "cowardice" upgrade instead.