normal vs hard

[HOMMV_N00B]

ok, I’ve just decided to start playing at hard level instead of normal. Normal became a it boring. The only thing that spiced it a little bit was that I didn't leave enough creatures to protect one of my castles. But even then it's always very simple to get them back. So I started playing hard, and it's boring again. Why? Because I continuously get attacked by enemy heroes. How on earth can I win a game, if I can leave my city? I've 4 cities at the moment. And I'm going to loose 2, maybe 3 in the next 4 turns. To much is to much. How come theirs such a big difference between normal and hard?

[tb5841]

You need to split your army up a lot more on Hard, and make sure cities are well defended once your main hero leaves them.

[Angelspit]

Which map are you playing?

[HOMMV_N00B]

Yes, I tried to do something similar, but I have to always bring them back and creatre one army to defeat the attacking heroes. one week isn't enough to defend a town.

edit: something with 7 lakes. Don't know the exact title

[magnomagus]

In my opinion the way nival/ubisoft designed the difficulty levels is ridiculous, on normal the computer is terribly stupid and restricted, it can only cast spells up to level 3, on the battlefield the creatures move like kamikaze and it can only build one time in 2 days, it is extremely coward and doesn't care much about his castle . At the same time on hard it cheats so much that most people cannot beat it on small maps, only on large maps when you have sufficient time to prepare it is more enjoyable.

I created a mod that creates a hard level without cheating here, but i believe I gave you that link earlier in another thread.

[HOMMV_N00B]

What do you mean cheats? How can a machine cheat?

any change you can give that link again?

[magnomagus]

In this case I don't mean cheating in the sense of using cheat codes or playing in god mode. The AI on hard and heroic is programmed by nival to get certain benefits that are not available for the human player. This causes the computerplayer often to have upgraded level 7 creatures, much earlier in the game then a very experienced player can have them.
The AI player also seems able to build up his forces again much faster after a defeat then a human player would be able to do it. The human player should make up for this using his 'superior intelligence'.

The link for the mod was already in my other post (you have to click the word 'here'). But in case that didn't work for you its here written full:

http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=24772

[okrane]

well, cheating is the only way it can give a decent challenge, because if not it sucks..

you just have to stop turtling and attack the ai early on. Don't wait until u have a horde of upgraded lvl 7's to attack...

you'll see it's pretty poor

[magnomagus]

Yes, but then you can only play rush games, on hard it sometimes comes already in week 3 on a small map. So you have to attack in week 2.5?
That's just not the way I like to play the game. Don't understand me wrong. I like the presence of heroic and hard levels in the game. I also maked them slightly more difficult in my mod by allowing the ai to concentrate his power more in a single hero, just like human players do.
I also increased the neutrals to the campaign-values. I mostly play on these levels on large maps and large maps are my favourite. I just think there is a much too large gap between normal and hard. The game designers lacked in providing a good gradual increase in difficulty and so creating an enjoyable game-experience for all sorts of players.

[tb5841]

I play exclusively on Hard, mainly on small maps. I haven't yet noticed cheating of any kind.

The computer builds high-level creature dwellings very early on, and builds lots of upgrade buildings early, instead of building the citadel/castle. I've never seen it come at me with impossible troops, it seems to have the same creature growth as a human player, and it definitely does take losses when killing neutrals.

The first battle is easy to win (if you've actually killed enough neutrals to level up a bit), particularly if you fight it behind citadel/castle walls. Slightly harder with Inferno (make sure you have succubus seducers) and Fortress (make sure you have the guard post). If you win that first battle well, winning any map vs only one opponent isn't hard.

[magnomagus]

The AI will just like human players act slightly different on every map. It is also very difficult to judge the AI on user-build maps because they often contain bugs. There is only one thing I'm almost 100% sure of: There is a 'hard-coded' mechanism on hard and heroic that makes the AI much stronger, this has already been discussed since the original game came out. You can easily notice this when you switch between hard and expert level with my ai-mod installed, the settings that can be modified are exactly the same, but still expert is more challenging. There were also some threads about this on elrath.com, a modding community that unfortunately went down for the second time recently.

[PhoenixReborn]

It is also very difficult to judge the AI on user-build maps because they often contain bugs.

I'm not sure what you mean here? Do you mean like scripting bugs or impassable areas?

[magnomagus]

I don't mean scripting bugs, and probably 'bugs' is not the right word for all things that can happen. Besides impassable area's I can give you a few examples:

-Some maps can have a unusual layout, very large distances between players or very powerful monsterstacks.

-Some maps are not properly optimized with masking.

-Some maps have borderguards, borderguards are sometimes problematic. I haven't played the 'rise to power' map since TOE, but before toe I often saw the AI not opening the borderguards. Causing it not to attack.

Such things can cause the AI to act differently (attacking much to late, destroying itself on a neutral stack, Ai players fighting against each other instead of giving the human player a challenge, staying in his castle for unknown reasons). I think it's a good idea for a mapmaker to test a map with cheat codes to reveal the whole map to see what the AI is doing in his new surroundings.

[HOMMV_N00B]

http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=24772

Thanks for the link. I'll give it a try. I quit playing that game. Maybe it was because I played against to many heroes. I'm curruntly playing a new game with 8 players. (7 bots). It seems to go better this time. I managed to kill 1 player. On of the problems might be the difference in gold. It takes me a long time to get a good gold income.

[danhvo]

In this case I don't mean cheating in the sense of using cheat codes or playing in god mode. The AI on hard and heroic is programmed by nival to get certain benefits that are not available for the human player. This causes the computerplayer often to have upgraded level 7 creatures, much earlier in the game then a very experienced player can have them.
The AI player also seems able to build up his forces again much faster after a defeat then a human player would be able to do it. The human player should make up for this using his 'superior intelligence'.

The link for the mod was already in my other post (you have to click the word 'here'). But in case that didn't work for you its here written full:

http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=24772

Does this "cheating" also include giving AI heroes extra levels? On one map, I used one hero to attack every neutral stack in my area, and attained only level 16. This was a map where each player's area is pretty much the same as the others. When I encountered the AI hero in his area, he was at level 18, and I could clearly see that most of the neutral stacks in his area were untouched. I see this on a lot of maps, actually.

[magnomagus]

The precise info about the cheating is very much unknown, PhoenixReborn told me all prices for the ai are lowered to 66%, but until now he hasn't given me a reference. So that's all I know

[HOMMV_N00B]

ok, I've played 3 more games on 3 different maps and I've lost all of them. One time I came pretty close but there was one here I just couldn't beat. If I posted my replays, could anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

[tb5841]

I could try.

If you haven't won a Hard map before, the easiest way is to play with just 2 players, maybe on a 4 player map. Then you don't have to defend your town while your main hero attacks.

[HOMMV_N00B]

How do I save a whole replay form game? I now you can save a fight, but how do you save a whole game so I can post it?

[asuka]

I haven't heard anyone saving a whole game..

But i have tips that might help.

Scouting. I've just started playing H5 Tote & i have not yet lost to the AI. I think scouting is essential. You need to know if an enemy is approaching & calculate how many days before he reaches your town. With proper scouting you would be able to know what to do with your best hero- continue with attack or retreat to defend.

Minimize your losses. Avoid combats with strong enemy heroes. I only fight them when i have no choice. Losing too much of your army almost means losing the game (especially when ur growth is low like dungeon).

I always played on hard on Tote, (Will start on Heroic when i start to get bored) & Impossible on H3 before.

Hope this helps.