Using more than one hero

[Jolly Joker]

I'm playing the ffa maps most of the time, and the changed movement spells and some other things seem to favor an approach going with more than one main hero.
For example, I played the Underground Treasures map in Heroic and ended up with three main heroes (for different factions) with one of them even conquering the last town.
The reason is, as soon as you have conquerend an opposing town you can defend both towns AND at the same time attack further only, if you attack along a line keeping the same distance between your hero and both of the town AND you must be level 20 and have TP at that. So that means, as soon as you have conquered something it pays to train a hero of the conquered towns alignment to have a good hero that may take advantage of the local troops while the main hero marches on. Of course this means, that you need a second hero from your initial town as well later on.
Basically it looks like all the bigger maps with 4 players and up would need more than one main (battle) hero, an interesting development, imo.
Do you have the same impression?

[soupnazii]

nope. i havent played much H5 yet, but in H3 (which is close enough strategy-wise) i dont think i ever once used more tham one hero (well, im exagerating...). well no, i actually get more than one hero quite often in case i fing a thieves guild, but them i strip him of all creatures and just set him there so i can check it whenever i want... i usually take a more defensive game. i take much, much longer to finish maps than anybody else i know (i once finished a map in 3 months that my friend finished after one and a half months. i dont go rushing off, i dont go exploring in dangerous areas. i stay near my begining castle, going only as far as my territory is. i defeat stray enemy heroes, but dont go looking for their towns. considering i have the resources, i would stay around my town for like a month muilding up an army and fortifications. then i leave the town unguarded, and go out looking for weaker enemies (and this only after i have a considerable amount of level 7s). at first, i dont go very far from the castle, staying just close enough to come back in case i see an enemy hero on the horizon. then, after the town got a week or two of creatures, i go out and kill everything. this strategy seem to work quite well for me at least in the rampart town. it works well in general because, since enemies split their armies between many heroes, i rarely meet a stronger army and thus am victorious with few casualties most of the time.

[Jolly Joker]

Well, that's all very well, but this post is about the perceived fact that there IS a big difference in strategy between Homm 3 and Homm 5 because the movement spells are limited and your main hero cannot be everywhere at the same time.

[soupnazii]

well, to each his own, i guess...

[DaemianLucifer]

Having a defender hero doesnt mean that he can parry the main hero.I always have one assault and few supporting heroes.Those supporters migh be very well developed if their role is to defend a town,but I still dont use them for the final attack.Although,in the case of two major battles in the end I might consider using two assault heroes if units from two towns are present.

[soupnazii]

the way i see it, it is better (or i like it better) to give one single hero all the battles and experience and sat bonuses and troops and then at the end of the game have one level 30 hero, than to split it up and at the end have one level 10 hero and 4 other level 5s...

[Jolly Joker]

That's not the way I play it. It starts with one hero getting most of the exp while all others are visiting everything worth visiting.
If everything works fine your main hero will beat one opponent. You conquer a new town with new (and alien) creatures and from that point on you have a logistic problem because even with TP your main hero cannot be anywhere on the map as was the case in H 3. What pays now, is hiring a hero from the race of the newly conquered town, train him as good as possible, hire him SOME troops and let him kill some monsters in the territory of the nely conquered town (the AI will have left some). As soon as that has been done the main hero can leave for a new conquest. You have a decent defense left (same thing at home) that will be in a good position to beat everything except a full assault of an opposing main hero that hadn't had notable losses.
Whis is a WAY different method to do things than in H 3, at least for me.

[PhoenixReborn]

After a certain amount of time enemy heroes that are in high single digit or low teen levels start showing up in the tavern at the beginning of the week.

I try to match castles and often end up developing a big second army under that hero. It helps chase down scouts and defend lesser castles. I'm glad about the nerfs to town portal.

I fired up Heroes III for the first time, found my self with expert magic (earth?) and could town portal to any town which instantly drained fun from the game.

[stijn]

1 level 30 hero requires 785826 experience
3 level 26 heroes require 732087 experience

but level 30 isn't realistic anyhow cause the game is already decided by then. and i prefer 2 level 20 heroes (163922) over 1 level 24 hero (167782)

at the start of the game i usually hire another hero of the same town. most of the time i already know at that point how i'm going to divide the units later. (like give one guy the shooters and slow units, and the other the faster ones)

later on i usually hire 2/3 fodder heroes to visit the waterwheels / creature dwellings and such each week. or to bring units from one town to the town nearest to one of my 2 'main' heroes.

[soupnazii]

when i get new towns, if they are of same allignment as first one, i build it up and get creatures from it. if they are alien and i have money troubles, i build up city hall and resource silo and leave it at that (i dont mind leaving them unprotected. if an enemy hero captures one, i just take it back the next time i pass by and its even good because he would have most likely built it up a bit for me). after having a few such towns, i get much more money than i spend and become pretty rich. then i start building the creature dwellings. after all dwellings are done and upgraded, i buy one weeks creatures and then only buy creatures from those alien towns every few weeks (unless a powerful enemy hero is aproaching, in which case i buy all i can). by this point, i have so much gold (one time i got to 2 million) that it really doesnt matter how much i buy (at that same map buying a few weeks worth of all upgraded creatures from each of my like 10 towns only cost about 1 mil, and by the next time i bought i would have gotten back 1.5 mil). i find that even though this strategy takes much longer and much more patience than other stragtegies, by the end i have so many units and such a huge arny and such a powerfull hero that the rest is piece of cake. it really all matters where your starting position is though, cause it has to be sheltered and in a place where you can see anybody aproching. this strategy only works on extra-large and large maps, though.

[stijn]

you play like that on heroic?

[soupnazii]

no, normal and hard. heroic i dont play much, and dont have any real strategy for. i just do what makes the most sense.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

when i get new towns, if they are of same allignment as first one, i build it up and get creatures from it. if they are alien and i have money troubles, i build up city hall and resource silo and leave it at that (i dont mind leaving them unprotected. if an enemy hero captures one, i just take it back the next time i pass by and its even good because he would have most likely built it up a bit for me). after having a few such towns, i get much more money than i spend and become pretty rich. then i start building the creature dwellings. after all dwellings are done and upgraded, i buy one weeks creatures and then only buy creatures from those alien towns every few weeks (unless a powerful enemy hero is aproaching, in which case i buy all i can). by this point, i have so much gold (one time i got to 2 million

How long do you play (game-time wise, not real time)?
Each town is at best 2500/day (+2000 for capitol) If you had 10 towns and 10 gold mines, you are looking at about 37,000/week. To get to 2 million takes over 3 months game time without spending anything! (It isn't like in H3 where a few dwarven trasuries would build cash rediculously fast!). I don't think I have even earned 2 million in a single map of H5, let alone saved that much.

To the topic at and, however, I also find that although a main super-hero still gets developed, secondary heroes tend to be a lot more important than just resource-gatherers in H5 (as opposed to H3). This is more due to the fact that spells like town portal aren't available until level 20, than due to the limited effectiveness (compared to H3) of the spell.

[DaemianLucifer]

Indeed.I never managed to buy all my creatures.

[asandir]

Damn, money is actually more scarce to me in this incarnation of heroes, only towards end game mop ups do I have heaps of cash on hand

[cornellian]

but level 30 isn't realistic anyhow cause the game is already decided by then. and i prefer 2 level 20 heroes (163922) over 1 level 24 hero (167782)

These numbers should pretty much sum up everything.. Unless you're going for the ultimate, or your hero setup requires many tier3 skills, then you're better off with multiple, preferably two or three heroes; and I'm not counting the logistics heroes of course, the ones you use for army transportation and flagging mines. You should have as many as you need of them.

My playing style had to change with H5, with the -sorely missed- DD and TP spells and strategies based on them going down the sink.. In previous Heroes you could have one superhero that could TP or DD to anywhere and was almost practically unstoppable. However I believe H5 definately requires to have multiple good heroes, especially in FFAs where you are sure to have trouble and a huge army at your doorstep when you least expect it...

I use my main hero for neutral stack cleaning and conquest much like anyone else, however I also employ a secondary hero to defend the newly conquered towns and clear the light armies (creature of the weeks or tier 1-2 slow monsters) that are in the immediate area.. This usually keeps him/her about 5 levels lower than the main one, but levels aren't important, skills are: with few levels (lvl 6-7) and boosters you can have a very defence oriented hero that would be hard to crack in a siege..

I also use a third hero to clear the way for the logistics heroes and in case someone shows up at the back door of my kingdom. He usually stays under lvl 10 for most the game and is rarely needed, but you get the extra comfort in knowing that your capitol isn't guarded by a wimpy lvl 1 hero.

Needless to say, I also check taverns every week to see if any defeated heroes made their way there.. If you can get even just one (and you should, in a 4+ MP game), then this setup becomes much easier and your main hero can claim more experience for himself.

[asandir]

I like to run a couple of major heroes, if for no other reason than it allows me to experiement with the excellent skill/ability system

[MrSteamTank]

I usually only get 2 heroes simply because I'm too impatient to have 3-4 resource heroes.

Please tell me nival WHY are there no caravans when the number one goal was to speed up gameplay. It seems like you took like 10 little step forwards with a bunch of cool elements and 2 GIGANTIC steps back(no caravans and choosing to not implement simultaneous turns).

Anyways enough of my ranting. I generally have 1 battle hero and 1 defense/troop ferrying hero per town I own. This way every hero will at least have a little hero defense should they get attacked.

[omegaweix]

Damn, money is actually more scarce to me in this incarnation of heroes....

Hmm, though economics are are little bit more challenging in Heros5 compared to Heroes 4 (where i rarely needed goldmines at all) I silently remind of Heroes 2, where fund gathering was pretty hard..... for example, a wizards town plus a gold mine didn't mean anything then!


edit:

To get more on topic:
Recently i found out why i sucked so bad in Heroes5 sometimes.... in the prequels i rarely built up decent secondary heroes, ONE Über hero definitely doesn't work out that good anymore.... but it's hard to change this habit because pushing ANOTHER hero (beside the main hero, the city defenders and the aprox. 256001 ressource, dwellings and windmill gatherers) around makes me feel...... urrrgh, micromanagmentoverkill!!!

[PhoenixReborn]

I silently remind of Heroes 2, where fund gathering was pretty hard..... for example, a wizards town plus a gold mine didn't mean anything then!

Maybe if you are playing on hard. Otherwise it's ludicrous. It is very easy to have more gold and resources than you can use in H II.

To get more on topic:
ONE Über hero definitely doesn't work out that good anymore.... but it's hard to change this habit because pushing ANOTHER hero (beside the main hero, the city defenders and the aprox. 256001 ressource, dwellings and windmill gatherers) around makes me feel...... urrrgh, micromanagmentoverkill!!!

Here I must disagree again. I also dislike the micromanagement so I rarely do it. And I've been fine with an uber hero perhaps supplemented by an enemy hero bought in the late game, in all but the largest maps.