Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

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Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby cjleeagain » 16 Feb 2022, 16:55

Since I found that the Conquest of the Underworld campaign would take fairly long (8 maps, of which the 5th is XL sized), I thought I'd try my hand at checking out the Heroes 4 Ultimate mod by NimoStar. I'd like to at least complete one campaign using this mod, and post a review or share my experience.

I'm starting to see substantial difference in the mod. This thread will be my running/ ongoing journal of experiences.

I don't really agree with all the changes made by NimoStar. So I thought I'd try to identify some changes that might seriously impact gameplay the way we know it.

Heroes 4 Ultimate largely nerfs genies as spellcasters, reducing the number of their spell points to 12. All their spells are now fixed at costing 4 points each to cast, so each genie is definitely limited to 3 spells in the course of a battle, unless you're playing with a Chaos hero (unlikely) and cast mana flare. Or the enemy is Chaos and casts mana flare (even more unlikely).

If the enemy casts magic leech, you're down to one spell per genie.

In exchange for nerfing their spellcasting abilities, Genies have been given the ability to freeze enemies with a 30% chance in melee combat. But frankly, with their 60 hit points, do you really think anybody in his right mind would use genies in melee combat? So my biggest concern with H4 Ultimate is that it really hurts Academy in their most important creature.

Since Academy/ Order is my favorite faction and I use genies quite a bit, this nerfing is quite annoying to me. I am fairly confident that it would really upset the original Heroes 4 Queen Emilia's The Price of Peace campaign, as well as Bohb's campaign from The Gathering Storm. So I didn't even want to try replaying these campaigns using the H4 ultimate mod. There is one particular mission from The Price of Peace, Map 3 The Servant (Solmyr). You really must use genies there, since you start with genies and have access to genie dwellings and no naga dwellings. I believe this scenario is unwinnable if you play on Impossible using the H4 Ultimate Mod.

I chose to try out Winds of War.
Naturally I started with Mysterio the Magnificent's campaign on Advanced difficulty. I have completed this campaign 3x before on difficulties as high as Impossible. If I can't finish this campaign on Advanced because of mod changes in Heroes 4 Ultimate, it is best that I post my experiences as soon as possible.
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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby cjleeagain » 16 Feb 2022, 16:58

Other big chances that I have noticed (not exhaustive; I'm focusing on a few big changes that could really upset the way some people play):

Nature faction's Archers have been changed to Rangers. Instead of archery, they get pathfinding and scouting.
This could really mess things up. In the past Archers were used as combat heroes. I would put Grandmaster Combat archers in front of my elves to protect them. But now they've been turned into support heroes. Also, Nature is a naturally fast moving faction with many fast flyers. If you have a Grandmaster pathfinder with a bunch of Nature flyers, it is very difficult for slower factions to defend against such mobility.

Behemoth has turned into a Giant Slayer.
Nimostar's reasoning was that this made it much more attractive to hire Behemoths, whereas in the past people would go with the faster and cheaper Thunderbirds.
In the past most people, including me, went for mobility and Thunderbirds. Now it is actually possible to play a defensive barbarian, using Behemoths to defend cyclopses. Unfortunately since Barbarians already have the best ranged attacker, the Cyclops, I think this change might completely upset game balance.

Devils now summon Goblin Knights.
Nimostar's reasoning was that Ice Demons were thematically wrong unless hell freezeth over. He's right here. But Goblin Knights? Even with Nimostar tweaking down the Goblin Knight's mobility, that's still really overpowered. Even worse, Devils (now called Archdevils) now get no retaliation. Does Nimostar really think Death faction was underpowered in the original H4? Is he kidding or trolling the rest of us? Anyone who has played H3 should be familiar with how dangerous Archdevils are with their no retaliation. The only thing saving us from Archdevil destruction in H4, is the lack of a H3 force field type of spell.

Evil Sorceresses changed to Toxic Sorceresses, given more HP.
Nimostar thinks Evil Sorceresses 'lack melee utility'. I'm surprised. Anyone who has played Gathering Storm should know that Evil Sorceresses are best utilized by Monk heroes, Death magic Grandmasters or else hero teams like the Gathering Storm bunch. Their low HP and level 4 attack, defense and damage stats works extremely well with Phantom Image, Vampiric Touch and Resurrection. Evil Sorceresses are flat out my favorite melee units in the entire game. I personally think the change to Toxic Sorceresses just makes them too powerful.

Nagas now occupy less space
YES! Nimostar has gotten it so totally right! Make the Naga and the Dragon Golem smaller so they can move around, and they could actually be a lot more useful!


You can read Nimostar's post here http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=47100 if you want a more thorough list of changes.
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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby cjleeagain » 19 Feb 2022, 17:19

All right, after 6 weeks of in game time, I have made the following observations so far:

-Berserkers are indeed unrecognizable now (changed to warriors)
-Every spell school has seen substantial changes.
-Nature faction now has lots of non-summoning spells, which makes them far more versatile. Definitely worth applauding.


Order has gotten Time Reversal, a mass healing spell, but that is totally useless because if your wizard dies, who can heal everybody?
Order also has frost ring, but it's another pretty useless spell.

correction
Displacement has not been removed. I thought it was, because I had gotten as many as Seven life or order towns with built up mage guilds, and not one had displacement. The eighth town that I conquered, did have Displacement.
Last edited by cjleeagain on 20 Feb 2022, 20:14, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby cjleeagain » 20 Feb 2022, 05:56

The more I play Nimostar's Heroes Ultimate V5, the more I start running into little areas that still need smoothening out or polishing or at least some thought.

Some creatures have 'nonfunctional' in their descriptions.

Right now Nomads have First Strike and No retaliation. What is this supposed to mean? (In practice it seems all to be No Retaliation, which makes the already overpowered Nomads even more overpowered). I feel that if you're going to stack both abilities together, might as well have the No Retaliation apply only to the First Strike, so that creatures that normally attack twice can at least hit back against Nomads.

Dwarves and Archers have Attack Twice. I can see the logic for Dwarves needing Attack Twice, since they really get too few opportunities to fight, but archers see a lot of action every game so Attack Twice seems a bit overpowered.

Thanks to the attack twice ability, I started using my dwarves a lot more. They did get killed aplenty (AI also seems to like targeting dwarves more often now). But at least I really put them to good use now!

The Golem's Rebirth ability doesn't seem to work when it is humans playing the golem. This is because there is no spellbook to cast. I don't like golems having this Rebirth ability, but if you're going to reduce Golems' HP from 50 to 40, I think it is fair to give them this ability. What's unfair is that AI can cast rebirth on its golems (and does so every battle), but as a human player I can't.

At first I thought using icons or models of the same race as the hero was a good idea. That way a Dwarf hero could be represented by a Dwarf onscreen rather than a human on a horse.

But the more I play this, the more I think it looks silly. It turns out that Nimostar decided to also change his human heroes to random human/ Life faction creatures. Now some human heroes are represented by Archers, some by Priestesses, and some - amusingly - by Peasants.

So how does Nimostar decide which model to assign to which hero?

I can still understand if Life faction female magic heroes are represented by Priestesses. But who decided that Marcius should be represented by a peasant? OK, now I know who Nimostar doesn't like!

But seriously, Heroes should look Heroic on the screen. If you want to use a halfling to represent a halfling hero, then that halfling should be riding on a mount of some sort so we know it is a heroic Halfling! Too often I'm seeing halflings and dwarves amble across the screen, only to turn out that they were actually enemy heroes with big armies!
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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby cjleeagain » 20 Feb 2022, 20:46

Nimostar seems to take the view that Evil Eyes are underpowered. He's increased their hp to 25, and given them vampiric powers (Life Drain) as well.
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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby NimoStar » 22 Feb 2022, 03:36

Thanks for trying and enojoying the mod.

That being said, I do have responses.
Heroes 4 Ultimate largely nerfs genies as spellcasters, reducing the number of their spell points to 12. All their spells are now fixed at costing 4 points each to cast, so each genie is definitely limited to 3 spells in the course of a battle, unless you're playing with a Chaos hero (unlikely) and cast mana flare. Or the enemy is Chaos and casts mana flare (even more unlikely).

If the enemy casts magic leech, you're down to one spell per genie.

In exchange for nerfing their spellcasting abilities, Genies have been given the ability to freeze enemies with a 30% chance in melee combat. But frankly, with their 60 hit points, do you really think anybody in his right mind would use genies in melee combat? So my biggest concern with H4 Ultimate is that it really hurts Academy in their most important creature.

Since Academy/ Order is my favorite faction and I use genies quite a bit, this nerfing is quite annoying to me. I am fairly confident that it would really upset the original Heroes 4 Queen Emilia's The Price of Peace campaign, as well as Bohb's campaign from The Gathering Storm. So I didn't even want to try replaying these campaigns using the H4 ultimate mod. There is one particular mission from The Price of Peace, Map 3 The Servant (Solmyr). You really must use genies there, since you start with genies and have access to genie dwellings and no naga dwellings. I believe this scenario is unwinnable if you play on Impossible using the H4 Ultimate Mod.
Complaining about genies being nerfed while admitting they are the strongest unit is paradoxical. Of course they needed to be nerfed if the whole faction relied in them! On the other hand, other creatures of Order have been buffed, *all* of them. Specially dwarves and nagas.
And I did play Emilia campaign and the genies were no problem.

Even in Impossible winning is quite possible.

Genies are still one of the strongest creatures in the game. Song of peace and illusion are invaluable spells. Not to mention their spell power has actually increased, which affects both illusion and ice bolt.
The Golem's Rebirth ability doesn't seem to work when it is humans playing the golem. This is because there is no spellbook to cast. I don't like golems having this Rebirth ability, but if you're going to reduce Golems' HP from 50 to 40, I think it is fair to give them this ability. What's unfair is that AI can cast rebirth on its golems (and does so every battle), but as a human player I can't.
The Golem works the same for AI and Human. This is factually wrong.

You just need to wait for the stack to die, same as AI.

Golems regain 30 HP per individual, rebirthing at 75% strenght. This is actually 70 HP per golem if you fight to the end.
and some - amusingly - by Peasants.

So how does Nimostar decide which model to assign to which hero?

I can still understand if Life faction female magic heroes are represented by Priestesses. But who decided that Marcius should be represented by a peasant? OK, now I know who Nimostar doesn't like!
If you read the Marcius bio, you will find he *is* a peasant:

War dragged Marcius out of his mundane life as a farmer and into the exciting career of a soldier. Later, he was knighted and spent many years fighting in Queen Catherine's army, never complaining. What's a little hard work when you get to participate in some of the most exciting battles of recent history?

Mystery solved?
Right now Nomads have First Strike and No retaliation. What is this supposed to mean?
First Strike is still significant. It means Nomads defend first. No Retaliation has no effect when defending, but First Strike does. In this case First Strike doesn't change anything while attacking, it's true, but it's still an important ability for defense of the Nomads. Since they are fragile but powerful (glass cannons), defending first actually means they take less losses because they destroy a portion of the enemy before they have the chance to attack.
Nimostar seems to take the view that Evil Eyes are underpowered. He's increased their hp to 25, and given them vampiric powers (Life Drain) as well.
Actually the opposite is true. Again in the changelog, but you can open both versions and compare. Their HP has actually diminished (used to be 30), as well as their overall stats. The vampirism ability in melee is significant and symbolized in the edited attack graphics.

***

Hope my answers have been informative.

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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby cjleeagain » 23 Feb 2022, 07:32

Nimostar, I didn't say genies were overpowered. I said they were my favorite Academy unit and a mainstay whenever I play Order faction.

If I really thought genies were overpowered, I would be afraid to fight against genies all the time. I am not.

Genies are what they are because of their role as the most versatile creature spellcaster in the game. (I would consider Faerie Dragons as the most powerful creature spellcaster, but Faerie Dragons are not as versatile.)


Academy is a spellcasting faction. Whoever plays Academy should normally prefer Mage heroes and of course genies would be the main choice. Going with genies all the time is a choice determined by playstyle, not because they are so overpowered that you can't play Nagas.

If I am playing a Might academy hero (eg Warlord) it would still not make sense to go to battle with Nagas. Since Genies would be a great supporting spellcaster. (Remember that Warlords don't increase creature stats on the battlefield.)

I personally play Nagas only if I have a General (Life or Death Knight) hero. Then it would make sense. Nagas get a lot faster and stronger with a tactics hero. So I often have 1 Lord whose job is just to make money and increase creature production, 1 General hired from Life faction whose job is to pick up the Order creatures that fight with might such as Halflings, Golems, Nagas, and 1 Magic hero who teams up with Genies to fight.


Someone once described Order faction as a 'bunch of weenies who get pummelled without magic'. And that's Emilia's campaign. To protect the Weenies. I really love this description, especially since her campaign starts with Halflings and Dwarves with Emelia towering over them on the battlefield, and you can't even build level 2 dwelling for a while if you are playing on Impossible.


H4's designers had a vision in mind when they created each faction, and their forces tie in well together and fit nicely into certain specific strategies.

I've always grumbled at the Naga and the Dragon Golem's size. But the game designers are not fools. Big size means Nagas and Dragon Golems do a very good job of blocking enemies from access to halflings, mages and genies.

My personal preference has always been for Nagas to have this 'Snake' ability. This means that they are big and take up many squares when standing, but can become small and nimble when moving. So Nagas will have the mobility and agility of snakes, but can still protect the weaker units.

What you have done for Order faction has its advantages, but also change the nature of this faction. (I can't criticize, since it's just personal preference.)
Dwarves can get a lot more aggressive now with their double attack.
Mages have such a big capability improvement.
Copper Golems now make far better shields than ever.

But at the same time, the 'glass cannon' nature seems not to have changed. In fact they got accentuated.

Genies are basically useless after 3 turns when their spell points are used up.

At the same time, when your forces are fighting against Genie neutrals, it becomes a lot harder. Because they can lash you harder with Ice Bolt in the crucial first three turns. Hero with not enough magic resistance can't expect to survive with regeneration or casting heals.

Mages remain the same old low-hp weaklings. Just that they now have additional ranged abilities. Your changes make Mages even more dangerous than they are already (with poison), but it won't make me want to field more mages because they'll still drop like flies once the enemy gets a lucky hit in. I'm sure everyone who fields mages has experienced that unfortunate moment when some previously underestimated level 1 enemy stack gets near enough and destroys 10 weeks' worth of mages in one blow.

Then there is the problem created by your Berserker Titans.

Might faction's Berserkers are unpopular among the vast majority of H4 players. We loathe the fact that playing with them is like playing with an AI ally interfering with your battlefield control.

Moreover, you do understand how frustrating Berserkers are. That's why you changed them to warriors in your mod, and made them controllable!

The Frenzied Gnasher is probably the least-used level 4 creature in the game. Human players expect control. It is not worth buying such expensive creatures that run all over the battlefield uncontrolled.

Almost all H4 players use the Titan as a kind of super archer for precision fights. If I can't control a Titan on the battlefield, what is the point of hiring Titans?

I'll finish the Mysterio the Magnificent campaign as planned. You definitely have many interesting new spells, especially the mass version of lower level spells. These open up new playing possibilities. But I very much doubt your changes to the Titan are welcome among the vast majority of H4 gamers.

lastly: I stand corrected on the Evil Eyes. I forgot that H4 Evil Eyes do not have 22hp like H3 Evil Eyes!
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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby NimoStar » 23 Feb 2022, 19:17

I think your perception of the academyphilosophy does not closely elign with facts.

Golems, Dwarves, Nagas, and Dragon Golems aren't "Glass Cannon" units and never were in base H4. These are all melee units, some of them with high HP, others with powerful defensive abilities:
- Dwarf magic resistance
- Golem 75% magic resist
- Nagas no retaliation (it's defensive to them)
- Dragon Golem first strike (also defense, permits to lose less Dragon Golems due to attacking first)

If anything, the Ultimate mod has made Order more glass cannon.

And Nagas occupying a lot of space didn't make sense according to being a snake and their model. Their mobility was severely limited due to their square occupation.

The three-pronged attack ability I introduced (same as Equilibris) actually makes Nagas a better defender of choke points.

The triple attack sequence I gave to Dragon Golems actually makes them a better Glass Cannon since they are better on ofense than defense.

Dwarves having double attack makes them more "cannon-like" than just being there to block.

***

Genies not having high endurance is more "glass cannon" than a lot of spell points. You need to gain advantage the first three rounds. Three rounds is actually a lot in H4 terms and the battle will probably be decided then.

Furthermore new genie Melee is anything but "Useless". 30% chance of freezing may not seem like much but if you divide genies in lots of stacks (as you would for spellcasting anyways), this is very significant. Freezing is better than blinding because you can attack frozen units with impunity and they can't even retaliate.

Furthermore, Genies are now immune to blind, which is rather important.

Genies are still upgraded by generals. Extra initiative, movement and defense increases their capabilities and survivability even if you aren't using the melee attack.

If you fight neutral genies, you can nearly always protect your hero in a wall of creatures. There are a variety of them with magic defense and mirror. You can also summon, raise, etc. Even if you don't have any, a peasant 1 stack will soak the ice bolt. Definitively there are chances.

***

I respecto your opinion about Titans. This is surely a controversial change, but my philosophy was to just have Berserk in ranged units, this way they can't really suicide by their choice of attack. Being a level 4 ranged creature is already strong enough. Flavorwise this also was the closest to "mind spell immunity" that Titans had in H3, since it makes them immune to fear. There is a trade-off in control, but Order already can have basically all ranged...

(Halflings+Mages+Genies+Titans)

There had to be some disadvantage to this.
Order was considered probably the best town in the game along with Death and the mod arguably has mantained Order a top-tier town, since their specials alone like Treasury and University make them very strong at a base level. Two versatile spellcaster creatures gives them even more power.

***

Someone already reported they won the regular H4 campaigns in Impossible with the mod :yes:

But anyways, feel free to have any feedback.

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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby Pyroxene » 02 Mar 2022, 12:31

My main gripe is the colouring of life spells to now be some kind of sickly yellow! What's up with that? :-D

I played all the Gathering Storm campaigns on the mod. My main issue is that a number of ranged units are now berserkers - Centaurs, Cyclopes and Titans, while Berserkers... are not (re-invented as Warriors). Having ranged units be berserk means they do really dumb stuff during a castle siege when they cannot shoot anyone, and usually end up taking huge losses stupidly.

For spells, Time Reversal seems crazily strong - like 10x stronger than Heal, while also curing poison or plague. Holy Word and Shout now also deal obscene amounts of damage to Death units. And speaking of Heal, why is it no longer castable on the adventure map?

PS my favourite new spell is Experimental Shock. Lightning zaps galore! :tsup:

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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby NimoStar » 02 Mar 2022, 21:36

Having ranged units be berserk means they do really dumb stuff during a castle siege when they cannot shoot anyone, and usually end up taking huge losses stupidly.
That doesn't happen if you position them to be in the tower at combat start, which you should be doing anyhow.
For spells, Time Reversal seems crazily strong - like 10x stronger than Heal, while also curing poison or plague.
Time reversal is single target, a single target can't normally have that much HP so most of the healing is wasted anyways. Basically "heal a single creature or hero". Also it's much higher level than heal.
And speaking of Heal, why is it no longer castable on the adventure map?
Balance reasons. Life has other map castable heal spells.
PS my favourite new spell is Experimental Shock. Lightning zaps galore! :tsup:
Well, since the AI didn't know how to use it and suicided I had to disable it for V6. But there are like 5 new spells.

TRY THE NEW FEATURES IN V6:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/heroes-iv-ul ... ltimate-v6

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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby cjleeagain » 05 Mar 2022, 16:14

A bit of misunderstanding here, Nimostar. I didn't say Order is a glass cannon faction. I only meant that for Genies and Mages. Protecting these weaklings should be part of any Order player's priorities. The problem comes in Heroes Ultimate 5 when after 3 turns, Genies run out of mana. And what next? Genies are fragile, so they become fairly useless on the battlefield.

I think your play style is definitely different from mine. When I play Order-Genies, battles don't end in 3 turns. 3 turns is just the beginning, when my genies and main hero summon illusions.

1/3 chance of freezing is definitely too low a chance for me to risk losing precious genies.


I finished the Winds of War Order/ Academy campaign, featuring Mysterio the Magnificent. No game breaking situations encountered with HU5 mod. I only hired one Titan, after which I found it a liability in battle thanks to the Berserker status. I did not get to use the best Order spells or experience level 5 spells cast against my side, so am unable to comment. (This is not Nimostar's fault; it's just the way the campaign was designed. By the time I can actually build a level 5 Mage Guild the campaign is almost over).
The AI definitely can use Nimostar's new lower level spells, especially the mass-versions, to great effect!


The Heroes Ultimate changes have made Order/ Academy a far more melee-based faction. Dwarves, Nagas and Mechanical Dragons (Dragon Golems) are all capable of double attacks or attacking multiple units now. Copper Golems are much more lasting, if you take their 'rebirth' ability into consideration. So instead of just standing in front of mages and genies to protect them, it now makes sense to throw them into battle - and make sure they die once because otherwise the Rebirth won't trigger.

For those who like to play Warlords I think Nimostar's changes are going to be popular.
For those who prefer ranged or spellcasting, not so much.


I haven't finished the Winds of War Chaos/ Asylum campaign, featuring Spazz Maticus. The third and last map in the campaign is a very boring trek so I got tired of it.
Nimostar has done much to offer more variety of spells for Chaos. However some of his changes seem potentially problematic and this will probably show up after you've put in enough hours playing the game. Chaos spells are overwhelmingly fire-based, and Nimostar has removed Lightning, giving it to Nature/ Preserve faction. Which means that if you're playing a Fireguard like what Spazz Maticus is, there are only two direct damage spells you can use against Efreet - Chain Lightning and Disintegrate. (The same applies to anything immune to fire of course, and there's a lot of units now considered immune to fire in the Heroes Ultimate mod.)
Overall I find that the Fireguard has become a more versatile, but also weaker spellcaster. I'm not sure if I like that change. Chaos faction was always heavily dependent on pure power.

The Hydra is now far more powerful and versatile. The minotaur is definitely great in melee, even better than it used to be.
But for people used to the original H4 Chaos faction, there are two main strategies.
By default, most Chaos players will go for spells and dragons. This is normal. The choice of Efreet or Nightmare tends to depend on whether you're going for an early fight or later. Nightmares are better long term because of their spellcasting, while Efreet being fire-immune with shields, are like mini-dragons for spellcasters but too fragile to stand up to level 4 enemies.

The Hydra doesn't fit very well in Chaos' lineup, whether Original H4 or H4 Ultimate. If I send the Hydra into the middle of the enemy ranks and cast fireball, inferno, cloud of confusion, chain lightning or armageddon, the Hydra will still suffer. But a black dragon would fare very differently. So if you prefer spellcasting like me, there can never be any doubt that I have to go Medusa-Nightmare-Black Dragon. Nimostar's making Minotaurs so much stronger and Nightmares weaker, won't change my creature choice. I will still stick with Medusas. (It has helped that Nimostar's Medusas now can cast fear on enemies, so non-mind spell immune enemies that attack Medusas in melee will be scared off by the retaliation and run away, allowing Medusas to use their ranged attack again!)

Also I notice that Travelers seem to have difficulty getting offered the Pathfinding skill. This is just my impression when playing Spazz Maticus and trying to get a secondary pathfinder hero to speed up his movements. However Nimostar has just said that Travellers are being changed, so it has become a moot point.


I have started the first map of the Winds of War/ Death faction campaign featuring Baron von Tarkin.

Heroes IV Ultimate made ghosts (now poltergeists) vampiric, which makes them more dangerous in the hands of a good player. Ghosts are not randomly fragile creatures now. They can attack most living creatures (probably except the living creatures immune to mind spells such as the Megadragon) with no retaliation, and they can suck health from living creatures when they come attack.


Response to Pyroxene:

Time Reversal is probably not well calibrated. Even at fairly low levels (I was able to cast it at level 8 using a scroll), Time Reversal already heals more damage than a hero or level 4 creature can take.
At level 28, my Mysterio the Magnificent could heal over 1000hp.
As Nimostar said above, most of its power is wasted as Time Reversal does not revive dead creatures. So I find it a very wasteful spell. I normally make use of the Academy faction's access to the University to get some Life magic anyway. Also as any spellcasting hero is sure to know, having additional skills like Occultism and Healing will add to your overall spell points, so you really should buy these skills. As a result my mages almost always have healing and poison spells also.

Experimental Shock may look fun, but it is in Heroes Ultimate 5 one of the least usable spells in battle. None of Order faction's creatures are fully immune to spells, so your side will still take severe damage. You can't go against Chaos faction with this spell unless their black dragon is not around.
As Nimostar said, he had to disable Experimental Shock thanks to AI incompetence.
Nimostar, I think you can make this like 'Frost Ring'. Then it takes out enemies when they surround your Nagas or Mages or Halflings. AI will probably cast that more correctly.


Big Problem, Nimostar.
How do I get rid of Heroes Ultimate 5? I don't see an uninstaller anywhere. I need to completely get rid of it so that I can install HU6.

Smaller problem but worth thinking about:
The AI can use Castle turrets effectively. It often grabs these and fights you from the turrets, which is the correct thing to do.
In your newly created Citadel Turret, I get the impression the AI doesn't know it exists. AI hardly uses the citadel turret.
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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby cjleeagain » 07 Mar 2022, 16:38

OK, found what might be a game breaking bug. I'm playing map 2 of the Winds of War campaign, Death (Baron von Tarkin) faction. I've played this campaign several times before, and like it because of its many battles. But now I can't finish the map. I'm supposed to defeat all enemies, but I notice I can't kill Green despite searching all over. All structures including gates and creature generators have been flagged. Then I remember that Nimostar has a few new creatures that are now invisible on the map to those without scouting, I just can't remember which creatures.

edit: finally found the offending enemy. It is a stack of elves, which is now invisible to those without level 2 scouting or level 2 creatures.
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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby NimoStar » 10 Mar 2022, 23:25

That's hardly a "game breaking bug". Just scout with a level 3+ creature or use a hero with Scouting.

***

About the rest, there's a lot to answer, but I'll stick to the important:

* There is no uninstaller because none is needed, you can still play regular unmodded H4 or Equilibris in the same installation while the mod is installed.

* To upgrade from V5 to V6 it is enough to extract and override, of course use the new v6 .exe

Cheers.

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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby cjleeagain » 12 Mar 2022, 16:09

OK, got Heroes Ultimate v6.

due to lack of time, I cheated my way through the WOW campaigns after getting tired at how long it was taking. So now I have 5 heroes of every non-Life faction at levels 27-28. They are at their best, with many spells. Although with such strong heroes it is likely that I won't get much experience playing off creatures against each other. (That was also true of my previous playthroughs for WOW campaigns).

I have found something that could be considered game breaking.
Nimostar changed the Megadragon and gave it the Sea Monster's Devour ability. That allows the megadragon a chance of completely killing any hero, no matter how powerful.
Furthermore the Megadragon has retained its breath arc attack.

Devour applies to anyone in the very broad breath arc, including your own heroes and fire resistant heroes. My Spazz Maticus was a fireguard (and 100% magic immune anyway). But his own Megadragon devoured him while attacking other enemies. Spazz couldn't do anything, since the Megadragon now also has Berserk and cannot be controlled in battle.

When playing Erutan Revol, my enemy's Megadragon also devoured Erutan despite Erutan being 100% magic immune.

I think giving Devour to a creature with a broad arc attack, which cannot be mind controlled and which is half spell resistant anyway, is really making things overpowered and unbalanced.

I do have to commend Nimostar for his invention of Forest Wardens.

I'm sure more than one has commented about how Nature faction is lacking in ranged attackers. Apart from the elves, there aren't any ranged attackers. You could (in the original H4) use the portal to hire Fire Elementals, but why would you hire Fire Elementals when you could have a very powerful spellcaster the Water Elemental, or stronger creatures like the Mantis?
And who would ever hire Waspworts? These are ultra slow creatures that will bring your army to a grinding halt, and they suffer from ranged penalties anyway.

So Nimostar's Forest Wardens are a great contribution to the Nature faction. Definitely praiseworthy.

Now that I'm playing against Life faction (since this is the final campaign in WOW), I am somewhat concerned about Nimostar's changes.

Several of his Life units are effectively no-retaliation. The squire hits without retaliation. The pikeman has a long weapon and avoids most retaliation. Ditto for champions. And Angels can blind the enemies they strike. When playing against AI this is not a serious problem. But I can imagine when going against human players it would be a lot more dangerous.

Also, when one of my heroes went up against Mysterioso the Magnificent, he got hypnotized repeatedly. I was very surprised at that, since my hero (it was Erutan Revol) was 100% spell immune. In the hands of AI this was still winnable because Mysterioso's teeny weeny army hardly did me any damage and Mysterioso ran out of mana soon, but I can imagine that a human player would definitely have wiped me out.
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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby cjleeagain » 14 Mar 2022, 11:49

Nimostar, I also saw your notes that said you decided to stop the Succubi from scratching their head since it was annoying.
Can I ask you how many people actually said that?

I found that remove-wig and scratch bald head animation very amusing. It's part of the charm of Heroes IV.

Dungeon/ Asylum is supposed to be a faction of dark, nasty, mean, brute-force types. Instinctively most of us must have felt that Mutare (from the Dragon's Blood campaign in H3 Armageddon's Blade) was an ambitious person who would do whatever it took to get more powerful. Even before she actually turned into a dragon, we already felt she would sacrifice her humanity if it made her stronger.

So I really liked seeing that Sorceress animation. Underneath that flashy crop of red hair, it turns out we have a bald punk!

I think it fits the succubi so well. As your description says, they are 'wicked gynomorphic monsters'. Succubi aren't real sexy women. They are false imitations of women. So it is natural for them to wear wigs and use thick makeup to hide their actual ugliness.

OK, some issues to bring up:
Succubi are now given the icon (or whatever you call it) of Asylum heroes on the adventure screen. That's really adding to the confusion. Already we have heroes who have icons for creatures due to their racial origins, now we have creatures who have icons for heroes.

According to v6 notes I read, Titans are supposed to have Berserker taken away from them. But they are still berserkers. Furthermore I was once able to cast Forgetfulness on enemy titans, so I'm not sure how that works. (Berserker status on Megadragon prevents mind spells, although of course I've never tried to cast forgetfulness on Megadragons.)

I notice that Megadragons are now immune to Hand of Death (now renamed Hand of the Reaper). Not sure how many creatures are immune to Hand of Reaper (other than catapults and other mechanical creatures). But I think 50% spell immunity should remain 50%, not become 100% at times and 50% at other times.
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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby cjleeagain » 22 Mar 2022, 17:04

OK, having played more of V6, here are a few more observations:

-now there are so many new spells, I think Nimostar really needs to give us documentation. Otherwise I'll forget what spells there are, due to lack of familiarity.

-Berserker given to Centaurs is not a good idea. The AI cannot handle it well, resulting in ridiculous do-nothing turns where they go up and down the turrets.

-Stronghold/ Barbarians used to have the Ogre Mage as a very limited spellcaster to help a side that otherwise normally can't cast spell. But now their only spell is Raise Zombie, which is really a terrible spell. This means really nobody will want to get Ogre Mage now.

-Changing Mass Slow to Mass Ageing makes a huge difference since Mass Ageing doesn't affect mechanical or elemental creatures. Order faction is at a huge disadvantage versus Nature now.

-I do miss the Equilibris option where you can chose which creatures to get with Summoning, and which creatures to raise with Necromancy.

-Dragon Golems / Mechanical Dragons are still often stuck between your ranks. I had a few times when I tried to Phantom Image my Mechanical Dragons, and the imaged dragons were stuck behind my real dragons. Come on, purpose of Phantom Image is so that I can throw fake units into the fray, not so that fake units follow my real units into the fray where my real units get killed!
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Re: Heroes 4 Ultimate v5 by Nimostar - Review and ongoing play journal by CJLee

Unread postby rb111 » 15 Dec 2022, 17:27

I found discord link on reddit: https://discord.gg/RKXU23p6bb


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