Balance Between Factions In HoMM 2-4?

[Le_Faucheur]

forgot to mention the most unbalanced faction in heroes 3:the conflux,with 4 phoenix per week!

[DaemianLucifer]

forgot to mention the most unbalanced faction in heroes 3:the conflux,with 4 phoenix per week!

But dont forget how painful it is to reach them.And this is the only town that cannot buy all his creatures with his weekly gold income.

[MrSteamTank]

Heroes of Might & Magic II: Way too unbalanced (which is a good thing for me, it makes the game more interesting). The Warlock has propably the best army in the game (look at the damage ranges and hp) and definitely the best 6th level creature. Even if you play with Green Dragons your opponents don't stand a chance, especially if your spellpower is high (which is always the case if you have a Warlock hero). Second comes the Wizard, the 300 hp Titans are not easy to beat. The next two ranks belong to the Sorceress and the Necromancer though I can't decide which one is best. However, that doesn't mean that Warlocks win all the time. Try to confront a Knight or Barbarian on a very small or small map and you will see what I mean. Knights and Barbarians are ideal for rushing your enemy as they can easily build the 4th dwelling.

Heroes of Might & Magic III: I think it is very well balanced to the point it becomes boring. The only character I think is weaker than the others is the Necromancer. As for the 1st and 2nd place these must be decided between Castle and Tower but, as I said before, differences are not that great (PS: Try the Castle hero with the prayer specialty and the tower hero with the armorer specialty, they are pretty strong).

As for Heroes of Might & Magic IV I think Death is the best, provided it has the time to develop its advantages. Think about it: A large number of vampires (which have attack and defence values equal to those of 4th level creatures!) is virtually unkillable. Vampiric touch gives the vampires' ability to the creature it is cast upon (the bone dragons of course which in advance have an equal to no retaliation ability because of fear). And a very good spell, the hand of death (particularly usefull vs 4th level creatures).

homm2 is imbalanced but it could easily have been balanced with a patch. Some sort of % spell resistance ability and +1 to crusader/cyclops growth rates would balance about 80% of the imbalance in that game. The only other issues I have are vampires being too strong as you mentioned, peasants being too weak, and some of the unupgraded melee(the very slow ones) being too useless to do anything.

[cornellian]

Actually, I believe all games were balanced/unbalanced according to the size of the map. In HoMM II, if you played in a huge map then it is most likely that the winner would be either Dungeon or Tower, but in small maps both factions lost to Druids and Knights; while Necromancers were most strong in a middle map, where battles were decided with lvl3-4 creatures.

HoMM III was easily the most unbalanced of them all, especially with the expansions.. Choosing conflux meant having two great shooters with four phoenix growth/week, and with earth magic spells such as Town Portal as this town almost always had, you could simply build a killer army and leave your town undefended..

HoMM IV would be very balanced, if there wasn't GM necromancy.. Of the about 30+ multiplayer games I played with Necromancers in HoMM IV, I've never lost a single one, not even in medium maps.. All you had to do is get to level12 ASAP and you were usually done. Death wasn't weak in early game when you handled neutrals (raise skeletons helps immensely) and it certainly wasn't weak in late game when you had 50+ vampires and 50 vamps was doable before week 6.. Though if you 'banned' necromancy in your games, then it was balanced imo.

[DaemianLucifer]

Or if you played with equi.It balances the game a lot.

[Bandobras Took]

forgot to mention the most unbalanced faction in heroes 3:the conflux,with 4 phoenix per week!

But dont forget how painful it is to reach them.And this is the only town that cannot buy all his creatures with his weekly gold income.

As if it needed to buy all its creatures. You're right about reaching them, though; resources need to be ready to hand.

[vicheron]

Heroes 2: Sorceress is weak but the rest are pretty balanced. Remember in Heroes 2, attack and defense were much more powerful, having 1 more attack than defense gave a 10% damage bonus and having one more defense than attack gave a 5% damage reduction so Knights and Barbarians are going to be better than the other heroes until their spell power gets really high or until they get some high level spells. In smaller maps, Knights and Barbarians can win pretty easily because of cheap troop and building costs. In larger maps, they can expand faster and capture more neutral towns.

Heroes 3: Fortress and Inferno were a bit weak. Fortress lacks damage dealing ability and Inferno creatures have the least hit points.

Heroes 4: Necropolis becomes overpowered once you get Vampires and Grandmaster Necromancy. Academy becomes overpowered once they get Genies.

[MrSteamTank]

Heroes 2: Sorceress is weak but the rest are pretty balanced. Remember in Heroes 2, attack and defense were much more powerful, having 1 more attack than defense gave a 10% damage bonus and having one more defense than attack gave a 5% damage reduction so Knights and Barbarians are going to be better than the other heroes until their spell power gets really high or until they get some high level spells. In smaller maps, Knights and Barbarians can win pretty easily because of cheap troop and building costs. In larger maps, they can expand faster and capture more neutral towns.

Heroes 3: Fortress and Inferno were a bit weak. Fortress lacks damage dealing ability and Inferno creatures have the least hit points.

Heroes 4: Necropolis becomes overpowered once you get Vampires and Grandmaster Necromancy. Academy becomes overpowered once they get Genies.

Sorcs in homm2 were quite balanced imo until the heavy hitting spells came in play. The only real things I'd do to make sorcs good is give unicorns the spell resist aura that they had in the other homms and probably up the speed of unupgraded dwarves by 1. That along with adding a spell resist skill(10/20/30% spell power reduction when casting spells against you) given as a learnable skill would make them fine.

[thecheese]

Heroes II

Largely unbalanced, if by no other reason than simple game mechanics. Ranged units only get halved against castle walls. Flyers can reach anywhere. Magic is too powerful, and easy to pick up. Is there any reason why a barbarian should know resurrection? Not really, but he can get it from his own town if he's lucky. Also, the gap between tier 5 and 6 units is big enough that, given enough time, a town's power can be based off of their level 6 troops.

Heroes III

Relatively balanced. I say relatively because almost any faction can become insanely powerful. I'd wager that the barbarians and the swamp town lose out because they are less magic focused, but they have the advantage of cheaper cost and potentially larger numbers. Final tier troops, while still very distinct from the rest of their group, no longer determine a win or a loss.

Heroes IV

Balanced within the realm of reason. Given all the time and experience one could possibly find, a hero can become a force stronger than any army, but it's something so meticulous and so reliant on a certain build that it cannot realistically be acheived in, say, a multiplayer match. Paladins come to mind as being a one-man army. Stock them up with artifacts, regeneration, grandmaster combat, grandmaster melee, and whatever other buffs you want to toss on, not to mention potions he might have, and he's unbeatable. My paladin at 24 killed 20 Black Dragons by himself, and ended the fight at near full health. The only thing that can beat such a hero is an incrediby powerful and relatively lucky offensive spell, being that it has to get through magic resistance and whatnot. But, again, ,that's not something you can realistically achieve. Factions are pretty well-balanced, with each having a separate method required to becoming powerful.

[Metal Wolf]

Heroes II

Also, the gap between tier 5 and 6 units is big enough that, given enough time, a town's power can be based off of their level 6 troops.

.
I disagree. On the one hand - yeah, there was a big gap between tier 5-6 units, but on the other hand there was considerably smaller gap between tiers 2-3, 3-4, 4-5 as in many cases the strongest creature of one tier could match up with the weakest creature from a tier above (for example- dwarf vs. pikeman, golem vs. swordsman, vampire vs. cavalier, etc.). so yeah - in H2, 6th leveled creatures were very important, but the rest of the army was important as well (unlike in H3 were the gap between tiers 6-7 was smaller, but on the whole gaps between "neighbouring" tiers was larger - what made creatures of tiers 1-2 and even 3 useless pretty soon).

homm2 is imbalanced but it could easily have been balanced with a patch. Some sort of % spell resistance ability and +1 to crusader/cyclops growth rates would balance about 80% of the imbalance in that game.

.
You know what else? I think that the cyclops should have had an upgrade! look, EVERY creature in the game has an upgrade unless:
- He is a 1st leveled creature
- Its an animal/beast
- He is a neutral unit
(well, there are very few exceptions but there's always some reason for that)

The cyclops answers to none of these creteria... He is a high-tier humanoid like so many other creatures of the game. How is he different from the minotaur? or the troll? It could have been SO cool if there was some deep-blue "ancient cyclops" (or whatever) with a 100 hp and 15-30 dmg...
Well - thats my imagination working, but really - IMO its weird he doesnt have an upgrade.

[wimfrits]

Most has been said already, but my 2 cents :

H2 : greatly imbalanced. 1-2 optimal factions per map.
H3 : imbalanced. 1-3 optimal factions per map.
H4 : a little imbalanced. 1-6 optimal factions per map.
H4 with equi : balanced

Seems a rising line to me

[csarmi]

In heroes 3 necro and conflux are overpowered (a lot)... usually no one can compete with them. The rest are okay.

In heroes 4 (original) death is insanely overpowered. So much overpowered it's not funny. No one can compete with them unless playing on special maps with special rules. They raise vampires on level 9... they have death knights and fast access to pathfinder (thief with GM pathfinding). Plus they have Assasins with Mass Cancellation. Barbarians, on the other hand are usually too weak (lack of magic hurts)

In heroes 4 (equi) the factions are very well-balanced, though barbarians are still a little too weak, but maps are usually made to give them a fair competitions (shrines, altars, etc).

forgot to mention the most unbalanced faction in heroes 3:the conflux,with 4 phoenix per week!

But dont forget how painful it is to reach them.And this is the only town that cannot buy all his creatures with his weekly gold income.

How painful to reach them? You must be joking right?? They are about the easiest level 7 to build (firebirds) and they are cheap. Okay you can't build them as fast as behemoths or Hydras because of the resource equirements but you can build everyday and eventually you get there (and very fast!).

They start with the ultimately powerful pixies (sprites are just too strong, can hit and run anything) and air elementals. Fast scouts, fast troops. You can actually buy earth magic if you don't get it and you have some heroes starting with it... Mass slow plus sprites day 3 and you kill any non-shooting...

Bck to h4 again... some more things I couldn't keep myself from commenting.

First someone said 50 vampires by week 6 and all you need is reach level 12....

Which is not true. First of all, level 8-9 is enough (for GM necro and GM offense and GM pathfinding), you obviously go with 3 heroes by then.

2nd, you should have 50 vampires by week 3... not week 6.

Second:

Heroes II

Largely unbalanced, if by no other reason than simple game mechanics. Ranged units only get halved against castle walls. Flyers can reach anywhere. Magic is too powerful, and easy to pick up. Is there any reason why a barbarian should know resurrection? Not really, but he can get it from his own town if he's lucky. Also, the gap between tier 5 and 6 units is big enough that, given enough time, a town's power can be based off of their level 6 troops.

I think the factions are quite balanced. They just have to be played on different ways. And of course on some maps the factions with less hp can't really compete. But if there are enough castles, kind of open map, etc... Knight and Sorceress are very powerful. Don't forget how strong they are before they start to meet Black Dragons and such and even then they can compete. Sorceress armies led by a Barbarian hero kill half your army before you could even say "neeh". And these two conquer the map very fast in the beginning.

Heroes IV

Balanced within the realm of reason. Given all the time and experience one could possibly find, a hero can become a force stronger than any army, but it's something so meticulous and so reliant on a certain build that it cannot realistically be acheived in, say, a multiplayer match. Paladins come to mind as being a one-man army. Stock them up with artifacts, regeneration, grandmaster combat, grandmaster melee, and whatever other buffs you want to toss on, not to mention potions he might have, and he's unbeatable. My paladin at 24 killed 20 Black Dragons by himself, and ended the fight at near full health. The only thing that can beat such a hero is an incrediby powerful and relatively lucky offensive spell, being that it has to get through magic resistance and whatnot. But, again, ,that's not something you can realistically achieve. Factions are pretty well-balanced, with each having a separate method required to becoming powerful.

One-hero armies are weak. I could kill your level 24 paladin on almost any multiplayer map on week 2 / early week 3 (say we play on advanced, since that's the usual) with ANY faction easily.

You only get on action per turn while I do to you whatever I want.
For example I simply take a level 13 druid (GM nature), a level 13 priest (GM life) a level 13 general (GM offense) a level 11 pathfinder, and a few troops... say 3*1 angels. I won't have losses. And this is a usual mid week 3 army (I could kill you with much less armies as well and low level troops - not that I'll have any losses here)

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

I don't think that you were supposed to combine the heroes of more than one alignment, of course that is going to be unbalancing.


Might is a power multiplier, where might is already strong, they win incredibly decisive victories, where it is weak they are defeated incredibly decisively.

Nature relies on speed and brains to win, there units are very specialised but not very tough. The ability to move rapidly across the battlefield and hit the enemy where they are weak and to summon creatures to increase the total number of distractions is how they play. Nature cannot ever win in a slugging match, unless they have a very great stength advantage in which case they will still take considerable losses.

Order is a defensively orientated army and one that relies greatly on magic to give it an offensive punch (from genies, mages and heroes). Typically the key to order success is the low level spell precision and their ability to knock out enemy missle troops with forgetfulness. Most orders troops are designed to defend missle troops (ie dwarves) or launch attacks on missle weakened foes in the mid-field, ie golems and dragon golems.

Chaos I don't have a great deal of experiance with but I get the impression that chaos relies on high level units and magic to make up for their cannon fodder basic units. They are weak if they are attacked before they can build up an abundance of high-level units and sorcerers.

Life is built around their low level units, crossbowmen are brilliant as are squires and totally mop the floor with their equivilants of any other faction. Pikemen exist for the sole purpose of harming high-level units, thinning their numbers without fear of retaliation, while ballistas exist to support the crossbowmen and provide a second base of fire and increase the missle barrage, which is neccesery against faster armies. Monks are tough but I prefer crusaders, beacause of their ability to strike twice means they can do vast amounts of melee damage to anyone who tries to threaten your missle units, monks are only of use if you face an army with powerful missle units (like order), beacause they don't die as quickly as ballistas and crossbowmen. Their ability to ressurect their troops allows them to win a strategic battle of attrition aswell.

Undead are built around vampires and venom spawn, all other undead units such in relation to other armies equivilants. Skelatons and imps are chopped to pieces by the basic melee units of all other aligments at a great rate, cerberus are only good if your enemy are charging towards you and are worthless for a general onslaught while ghosts are totally out of line with the other units, they can do nothing or they can glide forwards and only function to age units really, which is not that nasty an ability.

Venom spawn are one of the most dangerous missle units in the game and are suited for a defensive strategy while vampires are suited for an offensive strategy. While vampires are well suited for a battle of attrition due to their ability to drink blood, they are only one unit and will usually end up fighting many units and being shot by missles.

Devils exist as hero killers, there ability to teleport means that they can pop up right next to an enemy hero and kill them. The retaliation tends to be fatal to the devils though. Bone dragons exist as a distraction mostly to protect stuff like vampires.


Heroes IV is well balanced in my opinion, each side has it's own strengths and it's own weaknesses and is able to exploit the weaknesses of all the other sides well.

[belneocortex]

Heroes 2

I haven't played Heroes 2 in a long time, but I remember Warlock being amazing and Knight being terrible.




Heroes 3

I'm not sure why people seem to think Conflux is overpowered. Sprites and Storm Elementals are good for taking out neutral walkers early on, but the Sprites get absolutely murdered by anything if they get hit, and die in droves later on. Ice Elementals are a joke for ranged strikes; Storm have better damage. Fire and Earth are decent. Magic Elementals are pretty nice. Phoenixes are good, but the reason you get 4 per week instead of two is because they are about half as good as other level 7s. Thats why they cost about half as much per unit. They aren't really level 7 units, they are about 6.5.

Castle is amazing. All of its units are good. It has fantastic balance: Melee on 1, 4, 6, Ranged on 2, 5, Flying on 3, 7.Its only weakness is not being able to make a 5th level mage guild, but most Knights don't high spellpower to make use of Implosion.

Tower and Dungeon are tied for 2nd place I'd say. They both have excellent magic potential and their troops are reasonably good and well balanced.

Stronghold and Necropolis are next. The lack of high level mage guilds isn't a big deal for Stronghold usually, as Barbarians tend to cast spells like Blind, Slow, Haste, etc. Stronghold has a nice balance of units, but Wolf Riders are basically glass Crusaders; they are a weak point. Necropolis can't avoid losses early on, because Vampires and Liches are its no loss units. Vampire Lords are absolutely amazing though. Here too, there is a worthless unit: zombies. I always just turn them into skeletons.

Inferno, Rampart, and Conflux come next. Conflux has been discussed. Rampart has an odd mix of very fast and very slow units. Pegusai and Unicorns are just too fragile and will be dead before the Dendroids or Dwarves see any action. Inferno is terrible early. Inferno is basically troops levels 3-7; its probably better to try to create some demons out of killed off Imps and Gogs.

And last of course is Fortress. Its like Inferno, except it doesn't have tier 4 or 5 Mage Guilds, and its units on 3-7 aren't very good. Serpent Flies and Wyverns are good at kamakaze while the Gnolls, Basilisks, Gorgons, and Hydras can guard the worthless Lizardmen.

I would definately say Heroes 3 has some balance issues. I know they tried to improve Fortress and make Castle's Archangels more costly, but it wasn't enough.

Heroes 4

I didn't play Heroes 4 much, but I remember Death being difficult early, and I can see the potential for Vampire ridiculousness with GM Necromancy.

[Meandor]

but the Sprites get absolutely murdered by anything if they get hit

The problem is that most of the time they don`t get hit.

[belneocortex]

but the Sprites get absolutely murdered by anything if they get hit

The problem is that most of the time they don`t get hit.

Anything that shoots or moves quickly hits the Sprites first, which is why they are good only in the beginning against walkers.

[Supa_Dogy_Dragon]

Like Tower has strongest 1lvl units , rampart 6th and etc.
Its even better and more interesting balance than in II. There is too much visible balance.
III part has balance but it is not so easy to see it.


DaemianLucifer wrote:
Le_Faucheur wrote:
forgot to mention the most unbalanced faction in heroes 3:the conflux,with 4 phoenix per week!


But dont forget how painful it is to reach them.And this is the only town that cannot buy all his creatures with his weekly gold income.

Dogy dragon writes:
There are a lot of castles where you cant by all creatures in one turn!
Like Castle

[Elwin]

I never played Heroes II before. As for heroes III, Tower seems to be a very slow but good offensive unit. Golems have a very high magic resistance but low movement. Rampart, seems to have very fragile units but Centaur Captains are very good. Castle is one of the better alignments, with some decent creatures but Champions and Archangels are way too overpowering in huge numbers. Inferno, castle's main enemy, are the worst units. Imps....too useless to say. Same for Magogs-Cerberi aren't very good either unless you have 150+ of them. Horned Demons, however, have a lot of Hp.....but their attack isn't much to say. Pit Lords have the raise demon ability, and that is the only thing they are good for. Efreeti's Fire Shield is pretty decent...while Devils suck.

Fortress? Basilisks and Gorgons are their ONLY GOOD POINT. Nothing else comes close to them in the Fortress. As for Necropolis, Vampires, Liches, and Dark Knights are their best offensives. Other units are so bad that they are pretty much worthless unless you have legions of them. Stronghold has no main-magic heroes, Goblins look and act stupid (if you played the Chrisitian campaign), plus even Hobgoblins aren't a match for Skeletons. Wolf Raiders perish too easily but they can attack two times. Orcs and Cyclops can shoot, their only good point, Ogre Magi can cast Bloodlust plus they have very good stats. Thunderbirds fly far and has the Thunder Strike ability. Behemoths have surprisingly low attack but their skill makes up for it, otherwise they have very high hp. I've never played much of Dungeon, but I know that Troglodytes are useless but Harpies are actually very good castle attackers.

Evil Eyes and Medusas are only good if you have a ton of them. Minotaurs, however, are the best level five creatures there is. Scorpicores are the worst level six creatures..........don't even bother with them. Finally, there are Black Dragons, and we all know THEM, right? Last but not least, we have Conflux. They are a weird unit all rightm=, as the Air Elementals have more maximum damage than water or fire elementals. Sprites are good at the beginning with fifty growth per week, but they perish in a snap against high level creatures. Earth Elementals are the weaker kind of level five creatures, but magic elementals make up for it. So do those Phoenixes, who you should never underestimate. Too high growth is their advantage.

As for Heroes IV, there is a big difference in balance. Everything is about the same since we actually get to choose which creatures we want to get. Might has no magic (obviously) but having a lot of creatures (since they are very strong physically) makes it up. Thunder birds and breeding pens help, but you need tons of resources for them. Behemoths are very cheap...and they are also insanely strong physically. Nature is one of the best units. Get a druid and a priest, and we have someone who can summon and also a healer, too. Creature Portals: Mantis + plus Faerie Dragons equals K.O. Chaos is my least favourite, the characters (especially Mered) are so ugly I can't bare look at them, offensive magic and Black Dragons, however, make good one man/woman games.

Death, with Necromancy, are unbeatable. Its first and second level troops are useless by the quadruple.....third level creatures however, are the best there is. You have Venom Spawns, excellent Archers with really high Hp and stats while vampires are just unbeatable with their no retaliation and life sucking ability. I once got 450+ Vampires in three months, and my army was supreme. Devils and Bone Dragons start failing in power again...just too bad. As for order, we have Halflings, good shooters. Then we have Magi, who can cast a useful poison spell and magic fist....too bad they get targetted very often and die too easily. Exactly the opposite, however, are Gold Golems. Genies are way better thatn Nagas, with Ice Bolt capable of doin over a thousand damage soon enough...I once got 3100+ Genies and Ice Bolt did over 90,000+ damage! Same with Create Illusion. Titans are just a tiny bit better than Dragon Golems....with Normal Melee, Chaos Ward and ranged attack, but the Titans in Heroes III were way better.

Life....these guys are all about ranged. Crossbowmen can add up the damage real quick, so can the overpowering Ballistas. Monks can shoot, has high growth, but Crusaders are really good damage dealers. Finally, Angels. They can fly FAR, and they have very high attack. Champions have high growth and that's about it.

Well.....that's about it for my conclusion.

[asandir]

despite some of the cries to the contrary, the addition of conflux to H3 inbalanced the group of reasonably balanced factions, 2 is fairly well balanced and 4 struggles a bit

in reality your perception of balance is affected by the way you play, so it becomes a subjective call, but conflux always rules the day!!

[Lunar]

Heroes 2 was imbalanced at all. Always i needed to get Warlock castle to win on imposible. If I had other crappy town as barbarian or knight so I was searching to warlock town to counquer it and now I f****d up other castles, cause warlock is more important. Black Dragon + Armageddon and its all to win. (same situation in heroes 1)

In Heroes III dungeons were some balanced and they had rival - green and gold dragons and game was placed for bigger armies (not alone best units)

H4 - haha Gennie + any hero with hipno = owning at all