I do not give up with academy!

[Mytical]

Well thanks for proving my point . Mighty nice of you. Nuff said, you just said it all.

[asandir]

adicto, i think the aggression is a bit misplaced, as is your information, but if I can just provide you with a little lesson

And your hero is a wizard with easy access to Enlightenment, not a acorn pig like knights, so your hero have usually better stats than might heroes (anyway you can recruit knights or rangers in you tavern! after all you can´t afford mini-artifacts, right? hehe).

this is just super for the wizard, cause he really, really needs the extra mana points, doesn't he?? and maybe a coupla bonus spell power .... umm, hang on, that's right, he needs some att and def - and that is what mytical was talking about, and you missed the point a bit there

anyway, it doesn't really matter, cause I am not gonna change your mind, nor anyone else's, and neither are you

it's a moot point

[Mytical]

Well hmm guess my post about how easy I could get arround the other towns problems were ignored. After all I am "one of those people who know everything about the game, but do not play more then 1 type. Oh and I dont have the patience. Yeah can't forget that."
And the fact that I said I had tried 100 different ways to play academy must have been overlooked because "I have never even thought of that".
Ok, debate we shall.

Yes other towns have issues with building buildings. But lets go down the list shall we.

Necromancers..well necromancy doesn't cost a thing. Sure there is a building that increases it, but it is not crippling expensive.

Sylvan - yep one whole building to use there skill too..ow that gotta hurt. Even if you buy the upgrade of that building really doesn't come near to the resources you need for mini artifacts.

Dungeon - IM doesn't have a building..interesting..oh yes they have to build the elemental thing. Bet that got to hurt the resources real bad, again even counting the upgrade, not really that much.

Training -well there is a building and it does cost, but I dont think anybody will say gold is as hard to come by as most resources.

Gating - nope zilch nada, nothing.

dont get into special buildings, every town has those. This skill requires a lot more resources then any other skill..period. Can't really debate that point. Its facts. Now, I know I am going to get blasted about this post, blast on I am a big girl I can take it. *sighs* please forgive me, just really tired. Ignore this and go about your daily routine. Move along, nothing to see in this post.

[asandir]

I saw plenty ....

[Jolly Joker]

Let's face some facts here:
Disregarding the Artificer special, Academy has a medium difficult job of building the town. If you cry now no,no - yes, yes. Take into consideration needed town levels and needed resources and you will see that Academy does not nearly have the Sylvan and Necro resource problems. Dungeon has it's problems only later, at a time when they have taken everything anyway, so Dungeon isn't that difficult. I'd say Academy is on par with Inferno, but a lot easier than Necro and Sylvans.
Additionally, Sylvans have to invest their most rare resource into the racial dwelling and go back into town all the time, if they want to use it.
Ideally, they kill (of they are lucky) a pack of Vampires, go back, put Vampire Lords on the shit list and then attack the Lots of Vampire Lords guarding the 2 piles of Wood and one of Gold lying somewhere.

Back to Academy. You should be able to make a building plan at any time of the week, for, let's say the next 4 days. You can see what resources you need for building; you can plan in what you will get in those 4 days additionally, by conquest or by already owned mines. That means, all not-used resources are available for artifact-constructing - no one said anything about mini-artifacts being permanent constructs (the same as a favored target doesn't have to be on the shit list for all the time).

So, in order to get more resources faster you can construct temporary artifacts to help conquer things you couldn't or would have too heavy losses with without those artifacts.

It's called a strategy game because strategy is needed, right? There is a reason for Academy being last town in the campaigns - the designers said so themselves, you can read it somehwhere on the official board: Academy is supposed to be the most difficult town to master in play (the easiest is Haven, you can just go with the order of campaign towns).

To put it in plain words: The trick with using the racial is, having a maximum of resources in use without hurting your building capacity to maximize the resource gain. Again, resources for mini-artifacts are only lent. It will be necessary to construct and break down regularly.

[Mytical]

Ok but I am not talking only about neutrals. I am talking about other heroes as well. You have to consider them in your calculations. And again it is simple, you don't build the buildings and it's going to be very very difficult (at best). If you don't have the artifacts then again you are hurting badly. Since it is near impossible to do both (build the buildings and have the artifacts), the enemy heroes will have a huge advantage either way. Either by higher level creatures or by stronger/faster/ect. And lets take those sylvan you talked about. Since they knew they were going to be facing you, acadmey creatures are on there ***** list. If they have rain or arrows, you can kiss most of your good troops goodbye in a few turns. This is not counting any other skills they may have (like light, ect). Now like I have said (countlessly and redundantly) academy is not hopeless. It can be done, but again there should be a wider selection of HOW it can be done. Not just a narrow this way or else field. Oh and JJ if you have artifacts on your creatures and need that building, what are you going to do, march them into town to get back the resources, then march them back when they are free again? Sounds like a lot of trips to me .

Ok honest, giving it a rest, no more. JJ is fun and entertaining (most of the time) to debate with. Couldn't resist this one (good job JJ) and the other did manage to get under my skin (that was nice work too). Kudos to both of you. And stefan, thanks for the backup.

[Kilop]

JJ, I have yet again to disagrea with you here. Of course academy is the most dificult faction to play, but that is not the point. The point is their relative weakness in MP on medium to large maps.
Devs have lowered the stats of academies units to help the fact that they l get some strong artefacts ( yes + 5 life to MG is srong , +7 easily ataignable without hero artefacts ... ) . But the creatures artefacts are too hard to get by, and by the time you have them the enemy army is already dominating, or you wasn t able to conqueer some other town for example...
So i do think there is a problem in MP, not in the cost of the building, or even in the cost of artefacts, but in the weakness of academy s units ( wich have to hald alone without racial for too long ).

Just like Dungeon has a special that can physically hurt your creatures

... no please, not again !!!

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Oh and JJ if you have artifacts on your creatures and need that building, what are you going to do, march them into town to get back the resources, then march them back when they are free again? Sounds like a lot of trips to me .

Yep. Mucho plenty wasted movement points. Nice thought, but it is not practical to do. There is no way you can be compteitive having to make lots of trips back to town. Not to mention the wizard has to return to town to learn spells when he is finally able to build up his mage guilds. And he can't "lend" resources for his mages guild either.

There is no such thing as "lending" your resources to make artifacts as a practical, effective, or fair way of doing things. Creature dwellings and the mages guild have to be built. The wizard has to have spells. His knowledge and little spell power does not help his creatures one little tiny weeny bit. He has to cast spells to help his creatures.

If you only want the wizard to play a golem rush strategy delete all other wizard heroes and rename the class "golemmancer." Heck, turn it into a forge town with all constructs. The golemmancer will be a might hero. No more knowledge and spell power as attributes. Change that to attack and defence.

Just like Dungeon has a special that can physically hurt your creatures

Only if you cast your meteor showers, fireballs, ect on your own units. Cast your meteor showers on the opponent's units instead and you'll be ok.


GOW

[Jolly Joker]

I think, that this is a time problem more than everything else.
Even if playing without time limit you are in trouble playing Academy, because it takes time to play them well, and you tend to hasten things in MP; you have to check lots of things, compute resource needs, identify priorities and act accordingly, build chains to transfer artifacts back, if the resources are needed for town building, time town visits with building of new mage guild level and so on and so forth.
Clearly, very clearly, Academy is suffering a lot as soon as there is a strict time limit in MP playing - depending on map and difficulty level, of course.
I expect. most of the time, for simplicity's sake, people won't even build the arcane Forge. They will risk dangerous attacks without artifact support or generally too early, losing too much, hurting their ability to attack further.You could for example, easily build a Luck artifact immediately for the Gremlins without hurting your building capacity for a long time to come.

[Adicto]

Well, JJ said it all.

The last things:

he needs some att and def - and that is what mytical was talking about, and you missed the point a bit there

Do you think that all the extra points go to knowledge or spellpower? attack and defense get boosted too with enlightenment, but obviously might heroes will have better AT or DF than your wizard, otherwise it wouldn´t be fair. Oh, and more knowledge --> better mini-arts --> better creatures.

Now, I know I am going to get blasted about this post, blast on I am a big girl I can take it. *sighs* please forgive me, just really tired. Ignore this and go about your daily routine. Move along, nothing to see in this post.

So, you are a girl? I can´t believe it... no woman make so weak arguments. Damn... all my myths are falling.

You shouldn´t take this discussions so personally, phrases like my previous one are just "evil jokes" without any disturbing intention . My frightful english should disturb you more!

Yep. Mucho plenty wasted movement points

¿Eres español o hispanoamericano? Ese mucho es sospechoso

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Yep. Mucho plenty wasted movement points

¿Eres español o hispanoamericano? Ese mucho es sospechoso

It is hard indeed to know one you can see and much harder to know one you cannot. I live in Texas. I speak Texican.

he needs some att and def - and that is what mytical was talking about, and you missed the point a bit there

Do you think that all the extra points go to knowledge or spellpower? attack and defense get boosted too with enlightenment, but obviously might heroes will have better AT or DF than your wizard, otherwise it wouldn´t be fair. Oh, and more knowledge --> better mini-arts --> better creatures.

Errrrr. I believe what he was saying is might heroes directly benefit their troop with their attack/defense stat, whereas the wizard will have little to no attack/defense with which to benefit his troops. The wizard's knowledge and little spellpower will not directly benefit his troops.

For a wizard to benefit his troops he must have the resources to :
1) build his mages guild and have good spells to cast
2) make creature artifacts.

Now it is hardly fair if the wizard does not have enough resources to do these things, is it?

Edit: Plus the might heroe can also cast spells to benefit his troops!

GOW

[Kashrlyyk]

Do you think that all the extra points go to knowledge or spellpower? attack and defense get boosted too with enlightenment, ...

No, they won´t. The description says, that Enlightment only increases the primary attributes. So no bonus to defense or attack from that source for academy.

On maps with low resources "Spoils of War" is a must for wizards, or not?

[ThunderTitan]

¿Eres español o hispanoamericano? Ese mucho es sospechoso

It is hard indeed to know one you can see and much harder to know one you cannot. I live in Texas. I speak Texican.
[/quote]

My fellow Texicans... - Nixon's head!

And i find wizards themselves suspicious. Go sorcerers. Tengo el gato en los pantalones.

@Kashrlyyk

I belive them primary attributes refers to the 4 main ones, Atk and Def included. But i belive someone said they're raise according to your normal %, so they get less anyway.

[Kashrlyyk]

@Kashrlyyk

I belive them primary attributes refers to the 4 main ones, Atk and Def included. But i belive someone said they're raise according to your normal %, so they get less anyway.

Then I misunderstood the following: "As previously mentioned, each hero class has a particular tendency towards two attributes - called "primary" and "secondary" attributes." Found on page 184 in the fan manual. There followes a table, which lists two attributes for every class, which I assumed were the "primary" attributes.

[ThunderTitan]

Yeah, clearness isn't one of their strenghts.

So, anyone know exactly how Enlighment works? I know someone did, i'm just too lazy to look it up.

[okrane]

Just had an idea about how Academy's racial could be strenghtened. I was thinking about making the Artificier skill also increase the profieciency of spellcasting. I mean if you have Basic Artificier all spells your hero knows will be cast ar Basic Eficiency. For Expert Artificier it would be Expert Eficiency.

This way I believe that the hero will regain the caracteristics of his name(Wizard) i.e. he will cast spells better than the rest.

Note that this way taking magics as secondary skills won't become useless at all, because the wizard can't learn any spells through this skill, and so he will still need to be expert in light magic to learn resurection for example. But after a spell is learned, if the hero has Expert Artificier. he will cast it as if he were expert in that school of magic.

I believe that this would solve lots of the problems a wizard has in the begining because now he will get the maximum use of his spells.

What do you think?

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

And i find wizards themselves suspicious. Go sorcerers.

And it is well that you do. We cloak ourselves in multiple layers of illusion so you are never quite sure....is it live or is it wizardex.

GOW

[Mytical]

So, you are a girl? I can´t believe it... no woman make so weak arguments. Well I am tomboyish, so hope that makes you feel better. And weak arguments? Yeah probably, I mean logic is hard for most guys to understand so it would be weak to them . (if you take most of the above seriously..I worry about you..I really do). (*whistle blows, flags fly* Penalty Mytical for hitting below the belt, loss of posting privilages for this topic for 1 week!)

Back to the topic at hand, I like Okranes idea, but I don't think it needs be that drastic of a change. Honestly, cutting down resources by even a few resources for the artifacts would make a huge difference. Maybe like -5 ore/wood (when used) -1 of all the other (that is used) after figuring up ALL the associated cost would be a huge help. Yeah there is master artificer but that only comes about rarely. I am not saying all resources should be stripped from mini-artifacts, just a few. This would at least put Academy on par with most of the other towns. If I wanted to micromanage every last detail I would play something else. Sure I can micromanage, but this game should be more about the game then micromanagement. Since this requires you have to do so I have some ideas that would force other towns to deal with this as well.

Necromancers - get rid of raise skeleton, and the transformer. That way they have to go back to town every time they get skeletons to upgrade them, and if they get any other stacks joining them they have to either take the skill herald of death, or use them some other way.

Demon Lords - the creatures can only gate once per week unless you stop by an inferno town to 'recharge' them. Oh and each time they gate the hero has to pay 'x' in resources.

Sylvan - You have to fight the exact stack you want to have on your avenger, fighting vampire lords doesn't automatically give you vampires also now. Oh and for each time you use your bow, you loose 15% of your current mana, no more mana, you can't use it anymore. This is on top of any mana lost do to imbued arrow attacks.

Warlocks - in order for your IM to work you have to have at least one stack of your units in the area of effect. Also your units now take 1 of a certain resource for every stack of its kind for every month it is in the field or in a garrison.

Haven - training now cost resources on top of your gold, and every time your AA's resurrect you loose 5crystals..no crystals your aa's can not ressurect.

Now look at how silly these sound...(yes I know they sound very silly)...but hey now they all micromange just like Academy, sounds sweet huh .

[Jolly Joker]

Mytical, the Ranger HAS to go back to town to change the units on the list. That IS micromanagement - the same amount that is expected from a Wizard. In fact, it's the same amount expected if you want to learn the spells in your guild: go back to town. And you CAN make a fuss with Necro, never take the Archers skill, get more Skeletons this way - a whopping 25% more - and grade them up (for additional gold cost) in town.
However, I had no problem with reducing the amount of necessary resources to 3/3 6/6 9/9 or something. They could furthermore change some resource combinations. There are 15 different possible which means we shouldn't have the same combination twice.

[okrane]

However, I had no problem with reducing the amount of necessary resources to 3/3 6/6 9/9 or something. They could furthermore change some resource combinations. There are 15 different possible which means we shouldn't have the same combination twice.

That's the most resonable thing you've ever said jolly...