[Morgoth]

WinterPhoenix, on 03 May 2016 - 06:37 AM, said:

Morgoth, on 03 May 2016 - 05:59 AM, said:

HoMM3 is one of the best games ever made. I played a lot of it, a lot when I was a kid, and when I went to law school my flat mate and I played HoMM3 every hangover-day. There's a lot of depth to that game, and the graphic, the way they designed it, makes it surprisingly timeless.

Terrible balance though. A battle between Fortress and Castle, for instance, is a forgone conclusion even if the Fortress player is in a superior position.

Was always partial to the Rampart myself. But yeah certain dwellings were simply not good enough compared to others, Fortress and the swamp one chief among them, always hated the Tower as well, every unit was so expensive. There are fan made mods, including a whole expansion that strive to balance out the game a whole lot better than the original.

Isn't fortress the swamp one? Tower had incredible units though, so even though they were expensive you got quality in return. Inferno had cheaper units but they were almost entierly bollocks.

[Mentalist]

Fortress was okay in early tiers- Tier 2 ranged unit and Tier 3 flyer, that'd cast "weak" once upgraded, and packed a decent punch.

higher tiers were garbage though.

In other news: I gritted my teeth and finished the Clocktower in Thief 3. I am REALLY not impressed by what followed. I went down to the Catacombs to grab the Cradle map. That stint took most of my expensive fire arrows. I've also spent most of the water ones dousing torches as I'm trying not to get killed on the streets. This whole chase section is BS.

I'll finish the game, for Cradle's sake, but I don't think I'll ever be revising it. It has some okay levels (Overlook was decent. If it wasn't split into 2, It'd have been on par with earlier Thief games), but gameplay gained nothing from reducing the game to work on playboxes. So far, this actually fills like a bigger failure than DX IW.

[WinterPhoenix]

Oh yeah temporary brain malfunction, was confusing Fortress with Stronghold, no wonder I couldn't think of the swamp one's name lol

Stronghold and inferno were pretty naff as well for sure, Fortess only really had Lizardmen and Serpent Flies going for it like Mentalist says. Though in numbers Mighty Gorgons could be lethal because of their murderous gaze ability. And yeah you are right about the Tower, great units, but the expense always drove me to Castles, Ramparts or Necrpolises if I had a choice in the matter. Necropolis was always the undisputed king on any game that went long enough, suddenly you're facing 30'000 skeletons :/

[Mentalist]

Tower is awesome, b/c it's usually surrounded by workshops. Where you recruit free gremlins. And you can upgrade them for a pittance, and get a TIER 1 RANGED UNIT.

Another Thief 3 update: I've went back and re-did the entire post-clocktower chase sequence. STILL not impressed.

Now I need to get into the Keeper compound w/o a map... ugh.

How much longer till the Cradle?

[Serenity]

I've been playing Galactic Civilizations III, and a bit of Endless Space, but they're mostly just filling a gap until Stellaris arrives next week

[Maark Abbott]

Mentalist, on 04 May 2016 - 02:55 AM, said:

Tower is awesome, b/c it's usually surrounded by workshops. Where you recruit free gremlins. And you can upgrade them for a pittance, and get a TIER 1 RANGED UNIT.

Another Thief 3 update: I've went back and re-did the entire post-clocktower chase sequence. STILL not impressed.

Now I need to get into the Keeper compound w/o a map... ugh.

How much longer till the Cradle?

It's a late-game mission.

[Tapper]

Serenity, on 04 May 2016 - 07:22 AM, said:

I've been playing Galactic Civilizations III, and a bit of Endless Space, but they're mostly just filling a gap until Stellaris arrives next week

Yeah, GalCiv 3 is a good game that can easily soak up time (mostly in the ship designer), but it is seems to still miss components to make it really a great game. Right now, I click Next Turn because there's ten turns to bridge until something will happen. instead of clicking Next Turn because I can't wait to see what will happen.

[Serenity]

Tapper, on 04 May 2016 - 09:17 AM, said:

Serenity, on 04 May 2016 - 07:22 AM, said:

I've been playing Galactic Civilizations III, and a bit of Endless Space, but they're mostly just filling a gap until Stellaris arrives next week

Yeah, GalCiv 3 is a good game that can easily soak up time (mostly in the ship designer), but it is seems to still miss components to make it really a great game. Right now, I click Next Turn because there's ten turns to bridge until something will happen. instead of clicking Next Turn because I can't wait to see what will happen.

Yes, definitely. It needs an element of unpredictability, I think, because you just know the Drengin are going to cause trouble sooner or later etc etc. I'm really hoping Stellaris will deliver in this respect. I've been watching the Twitch feed Paradox have got going today of a 20+ player Stellaris galaxy and it looks great.

[Gothos]

On the subject of HoMM3 towns:

Fortress has some strong sides to focus on. Serpent/Dragon Flies are great early game, Lizard Warriors pack a very strong punch, and you can get your wyverns on day 4 or some such nonsense... Gorgons just murder tier 7 units. Gnolls are bad, basilisks are ok-ish, and hydras are.... extremely situational.
In the end the worst part about Fortress to me seems to be not getting the two top levels of Mage's Guild. But hey. Low level spells are super strong still cast on expert.

Inferno is completely shit. Imps suck, Magogs suck even more, hounds are good but fragile as hell, demons are completely bland and tasteless... pit lords can give you an edge, efreeti are one of the best tier 6 units, and devils... well. They're decent but not enough.

Tower is... well. I used to think it was great with 3 ranged units, but now.... not so hot. Gremlins only matter early on against tier 1 neutrals, golems are too slow to matter, gargs only work well as 1-stack fodder, mages are very good, genies are mostly buffbots for your other units, nagas are pretty good and titans are worse than they seem. All in all, tower's worst offense is the cost. The goddamn cost.

My fav towns are Dungeon and Stronghold.

@Mentalist - about Thief 3, that's basically my approach to the game. Once finished I never went back.

[Mentalist]

With Tower, you really need Air Magic expert hero. Basically if you can cast Haste, Golems become useful.

But yeah, I also love Stronghold. Thunderbirds FTW.

[Morgoth]

But that's the thing. As you say, the Gorgon for instance can be real nasty towards lvl 7 units. But it's slow, so you simply use other units to deal with it. Same with the Hydra. It is way way too slow. Pretty much every lvl 7 unit, including the Devil, outperforms it. When you play multiplayer the stacks are so big the first hit is the deciding factor. Fortress just never stands a chance.

My favourite team was always Rampart, partially for the speed, but objectively I think that Castle is the best team, though Dungeon is probably pretty close to it if not even. Necropolis is too situational, but can be undefeatable if they get through their poor starting lineup.

[WinterPhoenix]

Expert air magic for mass haste can be a deciding factor all on its own, and is damn useful for any team.

I'd say my fave town is the Rampart same as Morgoth, always loved my hordes of Grand Elves

Castles always felt pretentious to me, can't really explain why though lol My assessment was always that dungeons were the most consistently powerful choice, it probably is fairly close between them and the castle for consistency, but I find that any game that goes on long enough tends to shift the advantage to a Necropolis player, assuming they've not been destroyed early on, late game they are ridiculously OP.

[Morgoth]

Sure, if you didn't get air and earth magic and logistic you were pretty doomed. Town gate at expert earth teleports you to whichever town you want, and air gives you unlimited use of that teleport spell and mass haste.

I want to play this game again.

[Gothos]

Yeah expert earth magic is possibly the most powerful skill you can have in that game, moreso the larger the map. On that front I like how Heroes VI approached recruitment more, made for one less 'mandatory' skill to have.

Has anyone played Heroes VII? I dread to try it as it looks worse than IV.

[Mentalist]

Morgoth, on 05 May 2016 - 07:40 AM, said:

Sure, if you didn't get air and earth magic and logistic you were pretty doomed. Town gate at expert earth teleports you to whichever town you want, and air gives you unlimited use of that teleport spell and mass haste.

I want to play this game again.

GOG has HOMM3 complete, playable , modern systems (not sure about Mac though), for 10 bucks. Wishlist it, it goes on sale fairly frequently. It's also 5th top-seller top-seller of all time on GOG so you're not the only one.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 09 May 2016 - 12:03 PM

[Macros]

Redownloading patrician 3

because I want to waqste my life running skins from riga to lubeck, and beer to norway

[Mentalist]

I reloaded a pre-Clocktower save and cased the Forbidden Library for that Keeper Compound map.

Now I have to go through the Clocktower again. Hopefully, it's less fiddly this time around.

[Serenity]

Started playing Stellaris at 7:30pm yesterday, next thing I knew it was midnight. In for the long haul today.

[Morgoth]

I may have given too many hours to Stellaris. There are some serious options for improvement, but I really like it and I know it will only get better.

[Tapper]

I have a long weekend and I plan to use it for Stellaris, so far I only had the time to open up the game menu and look at the race design options, but I saw today that there is a Workshop mod already with Banks' Culture ship names - which will be installed when I am home.