On Wednesday, March 24, 1999 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-5, Dean Christopher Farmer wrote:
HI HOMM3 Fans,
Firstly I'd like to point out that I love this game, and am completely addicted. Congratulations on yet another winner NWC. Many late nights ahead....
However, here are some points I would like to mention.
Point1.
I know this has been discussed before, but it really does seem to me that
the Heroes 3 AI, even on the normal level is cheating. Someone mentioned
in an earlier post that the AI is now very good at buying all of its creatures up to and including seventh level each week, well to me it seems
a little *too* good to me.
Unless I have missed something, It is not possible for a fully upgraded castle to be self-sustainable, other than maybe a capital. Even if you
factor in all of the sites on the map that give extra gold each week,
2000 per day cannot buy all the creatures for a particular 7th level castle particularly in the case of Tower/Castle and all the $5000 troops.
My example is the scenario Titan's Winter. Quickly in this scenario I found myself in the position of owning an entire continent, whilst another CP
owned another continent. I had 3 fully upgraded Tower Castles on my
continent and owned 4-5 of each mine. Even with all of the town income, map-site income and constant marketplace resource-to-gold income I was struggling to buy every single creature at all 3 castles each week.
However, as I quickly learned when I moved onto his continent and fought
him, the computer player had no trouble in buying EVERY single creature
each week, including 12 Archangels (1 flagged POG and 4 castles.)
From browsing his continent, he had 4 castles (4K+2K+2K+2K = 10K Income)
and 2 Gold Mines. Thats 12K per day which is 84K per week. 12 Archangels alone cost 60K. Factor in the Champions and you're up to76K. Factor in
the Druids and you're already over 84K. Yet he managed to purchase the Crusaders/Griffons/Halberdiers/Marksman (all of them) from all 4 castles
each week. Not sure exactly how much more cash that is, but its a
lot extra.
Ok, am I missing something obvious here when I play this game, or is the
AI cheating?
Point 2:
Anyone else noticed how the formula for quick combat when the
computer is fighting stuff seems to be:
If A tougher than B
B dies
A remains unchanged
else
A dies
B remains unchanged
To me, this has become very evident from playing some games, and explains
why the AI cruises through many wandering stacks and reaches your base
with a decent army fairly quickly. It also ensures that an AI which is
doing well does not lose valuable armies eliminating other AI opponents.
I've seen AI superheroes defeat other AI superheroes then come for me literally without a scratch..
Point 3:
How on earth does the wandering monsters joining algorithm work?
Picture this. You've built up a superhero, you've fought for several
hours to take control of most of the map. My hero:
17 Titans
50 ArchMages
58 Genies
43 Naga Queens
300 Gremlin Masters
some large amount of gargoyles
80 iron golems
I have one more enemy 'superhero' to defeat. I am after him and quite confident of victory. Our stats are about the same and he has:
16 Anicent Behemoths
26 Cyclops
40 Thunderbirds
47 Ogres
similear large numbers of lower level units.
Then he walks into a stack of wandering Behemoths (not ancient) that
SHOULD have kicked his butt. I am very surprised to right click and see
that a HORDE of Behemoths just joined his tough hero.
Now I fight this hero, and face 55 Behemoths. Now my hero is tough, but
not THAT tough, and I lose quite badly.
How is it fair that a wandering army more powerful than the rest of his entire stack (or close to it) should be able to join him. We both spent
the entire game building up our stacks, going into battle, building up
more, etc and then in one instant he grabs something which is equal to everything I have. Now, I would not have a problem with this if he
already had 3xHP of the wandering stack, or similar, but clearly in this
case he didn't. In fact I think I worked out his stack had LESS HP than
the 55 Behemoths. I lost the game (4 hour game) because of this so
naturally now I am a little ticked. Maybe I will calm down and change
my mind on this one ... comments?
Any agreement/disagreement on the above?
Deano
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Dean Farmer.
5th Year Comms Eng/Comp. Science
RMIT University. Melbourne Australia.
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Dean Farmer.
5th Year Comms Eng/Comp. Science
RMIT University. Melbourne Australia.
To your 3rd point. once you have expert Diplomacy and a strong army, most wondering creatures will be willing to join you.
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