H2 creature upgrade costs

[darussiaman]

Umm ok what the hell ... it costs 24000g + 8gems to upgrade 4 giants in H2?? That's more than it costs to buy 4 brand new titans! I also got 30 iron golems to join my army (they were wondering) and it cost me 3000 to upgrade them, even though 1 steel golem only costs 350 each. I know this is fixed in H3, and it costs the exact difference between regular and upgraded units to upgrade something.

But is there no patch to fix this in H2??

[Gaidal Cain]

It's not a bug per se. I belive the high cost for upgrading is intended to prolong the stage oof the game where you're using the non-upgraded versions. Thus, there is no patch for it- unless some fan has made one.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

It isn't a bug at all. IIRC, the heroes 2 manual specifically states that the cost to upgrade a unit is twice the price difference. In the single case of giant (2000+G) to titan (5000+GG), double the difference (2*(3000+G)) *IS* actually more than the cost of a new titan.

I think this was meant to make purchasing troops early vs. waiting until the upgraded dwelling was built a real choice. The fact that in H3 they made upgrade cost=price difference tells me that they thought this wasn't as good an idea as they originally thought.

[Metathron]

The double cost may be frustrating from time to time, but I think it is ultimately effective and a good thing.

[lordskeleton]

Never buy the giants!

[ThunderTitan]

The double cost may be frustrating from time to time, but I think it is ultimately effective and a good thing.

Yeah, it makes you wait to upgrade the building before buying th creatures unless it's really urgent.

[DaemianLucifer]

I wonder why they did that upgrade cost slashing.Hmm...Maybe they wanted to simplify the game to make it more appealing to a bigger crowd.

And I think that the cost of upgrading in external buildings was lower.

[darussiaman]

Well, now that I thought about it, I guess this feature is actually a good thing. It offsets (somewhat) the advantages u can get if u find troops of your own type willing to join your army. Sometimes the advantage u get that way is too great. Like I had my rocs double in number from like 45-ish to 90. I had pretty much all the rocs available in my castle, mind you. That's a huge boost! Even if my enemy had troops that he saved up since the beginning of the game without losing even 1, and then bought them all out, they would still be weaker than my 90 rocs. However, if the wandering troops u pick up happen to be troops that have upgrade versions available, then they will usually be the unupgraded kind, and then u won't get such a huge, sudden advantage as my case with the rocs. At least now u'll have to sacrifice a handsome sum of $$ for those extra troops.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

I wonder why they did that upgrade cost slashing.Hmm...Maybe they wanted to simplify the game to make it more appealing to a bigger crowd.

And I think that the cost of upgrading in external buildings was lower.

In H2. there were specific sties to upgrade SOME creatures. Those sites were free to upgrade. IIRC, the only upgradeable troops were iron golems (to steel golems at a foundry), dwarves (to battle dwarves at a hill fort), ogres (to ogre lords at a hill fort), and cavalry (to champions at a stable). The foundry might also have upgraded pikemen, but I do not recall this off-hand.

[Gaidal Cain]

Pikemen were indeed upgraded at Foundry. Also, I believe Orcs could be upgraded for free at hill forst as well. I can't remember a stable in H2, though I have only played it very little (except for the demo;) ).

[Vlad976]

There are stables in H2. IIRC, you can upgrade Cavaliers and get a movement bonus.

[Kristo]

There are stables in H2. IIRC, you can upgrade Cavaliers and get a movement bonus.

Stables were added in the Price of Loyalty expansion.

[gravyluvr]

I wonder why they did that upgrade cost slashing.Hmm...Maybe they wanted to simplify the game to make it more appealing to a bigger crowd.

That's exactly one of the "features" that made me like HOMM3 less.

I hated the "upgrade everything" aspect of the game. In my mind there really was no reason not to upgrade a unit. And you could do it at anytime so you just had to wait until the money was there.

I think HOMM2 has a much better upgrade system since it involved more thought and more choices. Do I buy the dwarves or wait for battle dwarves? Do I buy a giant or two in order to help me expand the empire even though I lose a Titan every time I do it? Do I ignore the Orcs and Ogres all together and just take wolves, Trolls and Cyclops?

HOMM2 is still (many years later) a far superior game to HOMM3 in many ways.

I do wish someone would create The Forge Township or some other organization of developers to redesign and update HOMM2 to be played on modern operating systems with ease with some added features or updated graphics.

[DaemianLucifer]

In H2. there were specific sties to upgrade SOME creatures. Those sites were free to upgrade. IIRC, the only upgradeable troops were iron golems (to steel golems at a foundry), dwarves (to battle dwarves at a hill fort), ogres (to ogre lords at a hill fort), and cavalry (to champions at a stable). The foundry might also have upgraded pikemen, but I do not recall this off-hand.

And instead of all those marvelous buildings we got just one that could upgrade every unit.I always wondered how that building looked from inside.It must have had some cans of paint(to repaint dragons),lots of glue and horns and eyes and armor,and who knows what else.A true marvel of ingenering!

[Black Ghost]

As Qurqirish Dragon wrote, upg. cost is 2x[diffrence betwen the units]

I agree with Metathron that's quite intresting and good solution. It's some kind of balance between upg.-able and unupg.-able units. Moreover it's nice to fight at the beginning with average troops and than wathing your army getting stronger, faster, better:)

For low levels upgrading is not so difficult, and for many units mentioned before there are free adv. map upgrading structures.
The problem 6th lev. Gold and recources consuming dwelling upg, and units upg is painful, but consider Warlock or Wizard, with the best troops in early/mid game
It's balancing the towns: weaker but quicker to build armies of Barb., Sorc. or Knight have chance to deafeat W-heroes before they get their top-units.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

As Qurqirish Dragon wrote, upg. cost is 2x[diffrence betwen the units]

For low levels upgrading is not so difficult, and for many units mentioned before there are free adv. map upgrading structures.
The problem 6th lev. Gold and recources consuming dwelling upg, and units upg is painful, but consider Warlock or Wizard, with the best troops in early/mid game

Actually, the upgrade system was much better for the warlock than the wizard. To upgrade a green dragon to red only cost 1000 gold. To further upgrade the red to a black cost 1000+2 sulfur. The full cost of a black dragon that started as green and was upgraded was 5000+3 sulfur, as opposed to a giant to a titan, which cost 7000+3 gems total. And although the black dragon vs. titan debate was always fierce, I don't think anyone though a giant was better than a green or red dragon (fewer HP, lower stats, and no range-strike. The only advantage of a giant was that it cost 1000 or 1500 less than the green / red dragon- but then the upgrade cost really kills the wallet)

The best thing ecouraging upgrade choice (upgrade vs. don't upgrade) was the low income of the towns. Even a fully-built warlock castle in H2 only made 12,250 gold per week. other towns only made 8750. No town could afford all of its own troops without extra support. Thus, the hiring of non-upgraded troops allowed you to by more forces. Even if the cost to upgrade were not doubled, people would have had non-upgraded troops.

Of course, the fact that you could only take 5 of your 6 town troops in your army also encouraged multiple heroes, or leaving garrisons. H2 was a very different game in many respects

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Interesting topic. To this day I still don't know what system I liked better ( I bought H2 the day it came out; same with H3)

[Kristo]

Wow, how did you even find this topic? It's nearly 1.5 years old!

Generally, there's little use for non-upgraded units. Heroes 2 at least makes you think twice before buying one. In Heroes 3, upgrades are free[1] since you pay the cost you would've paid anyway to get the upgraded unit. Thus, my vote goes to Heroes 2 for making you think.

However, my favorite build system is Heroes 4. I like choosing which dwellings I want over the hassle of upgrades. It's also a lot easier for an AI player to deal with. The increased dwelling costs (relative to H1-3) at the higher tiers roughly equates to the cost in time and trouble to purchase two buildings (and maybe pay upgrade costs) to get useable troops.

1. You still pay the opportunity cost of getting your troops home to be upgraded, but that's present in any game.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

I'm still undecided; I like having a game with one system and one game with another.

But when playing Heroes 2, I'm STRONGLY encouraged to NOT buy any basic troops until I get the upg. structure.

I think between H2 and H3 the developers realized that most people just accumulated their basic creatures, never buying them, never seeing playtime, so maybe the developers reasoned that making upgrading "free", you would at least be encouraged to use them in combat until you can afford the upgrade.

[grobblewobble]

I slightly prefer the H2 system, because I think it's more interesting.

But when playing Heroes 2, I'm STRONGLY encouraged to NOT buy any basic troops until I get the upg. structure.

For me it strongly depends on the creature. For example, with cavalry it's not so bad at all to buy the unupgraded version IMO. Upgrading to champions is not the highest priority anyway, you will likely need the wood for the (upgr) cathedral first. And even if you do need to upgrade later, it isn't that expensive.
Or druids, for example. Upgrading them right away is a pain because it can mean delay for the phoenix building. But not buying the druids until you have the phoenixes is not really an option.
For giants I agree, of course. Don't buy unless the situation is desperate.