H3 - Game Notes - Not so known facts.

[Pol]

I've seen two or more allied CPU Heroes hiring troops in an external creature dwelling belonging to one of them, yes this applies only to CPU players and only when they are allied to one another and the Human player. Otherwise it would not be possible for them to recruite troops from that place by simple flagging the external creature dwelling to their own colour. (can be repeated every week)

Never seen that, but it's true that ai allied players can exchange units among themself and even with humans. Human, as obviously, has no rights to interfere. So be attentive.

I know for a fact that Human players can't touch anything that belongs to an ally. Perhaps this was left alone as a special CPU players only feature?

That was possible in RoE, patches fixed it for a good reasons.

In a related note, the CPU players can use Whirlpools freely without risking losing troops. This is yet another less known fact considering Heroes III

.
Mm, no, they are loosing units like everyone else. Watch them more carefully Sometimes before the AI enter, if it's having free slot, it just sort out one weakest unit to minimalize the overboard tossing.

The true pain are AI autocalculated battles. Most of them between themselves. These are so fake, at least 50% or outcomes can be sorted directly into the realm of sci-fi.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

The true pain are AI autocalculated battles. Most of them between themselves. These are so fake, at least 50% or outcomes can be sorted directly into the realm of sci-fi.

Those autocalculated battles are entirely based on one value per monster : Fight Value found for each creature in the crtraits.txt file.

This is a large part of my own personal balance patch, and something that most other H3 modders completely ignore. That Fight Value was wrong for many units: Marksmen (too low), Grand Elves (too low), Familiars and Pit Lord (too high), etc.

That is largely why I noticed that Castle CPU players performed too poorly and Inferno, too well (considering the weak units they had). My patch largely fixed this.

There is another column next to it called "AI Value" but with much testing I couldn't guess how it is used. It is NOT used to determine autocalc battles, and it doesn't appear to be used by the AI either (I jacked it to a VERY high value for the peasant, gave a hero 5 peasants, and he still didn't attack a nearby town, while he DID so when I jacked Fight Value).

[Pol]

Yes!
(To the 'Fight value')

I think that I had figured out what was doing AI value. But I do not recall what it was.

Here's 'monster's editor' in the WoG and when I first get it I was playing with it a bit and got some guiding results.

Sorry, it's two yrs back at least. Memory hole...

[Yurian Stonebow]

The version of Heroes III you see me referring to is that of Complete. (4.0)

I can testify that in that edition the player can not take artefacts away from allied heroes nor can he upgrade his ally's troops when the AI visits one of the players castles and has troops belonging to that particular faction.
The player in contrast can upgrade his troops in his ally's castles and can give artefacts to his ally.

In addition, at the beginning of a multiplayer map where the human player has a CPU ally, he can arrange his ally's army when the allied CPU player is still at his starting position just at the door of his castle. You can move the allied hero in/out, change creatures places in slots but still you can't do nothing else for him.

When you encounter your CPU ally somewhere on the map, it is quite possible to give him troops and artefacts. But on the other hand I have never seen the CPU giving the player troops or artefacts. (I believe that there was a patch that fixed the abusive tactic of robbing one's ally from his artefacts).

As for the whirpools, I'm pretty sure that the CPU manages to avoid losses as if almost completely but now that I think of it more deep into the subject of the AI's cunningness, I believe that this may very well be just like Pol here said: "they are loosing units like everyone else. Sometimes before the AI enter, if it's having free slot, it just sort out one weakest unit to minimalize the overboard tossing. " The difference here remains, of course, that human players will have to painfully and time consumingly check each and every time that low level units are there one by one ready to be sacrificed whereas the CPU makes such arrengements in no time.

I agree with Pol that battles between CPU players are calculated with a formula that is flawed. It is not that unusual to see three times stronger army being defeated with relatively few losses on the attacker's side.
This may as well have something to do with the selected difficulty and which model of CPU behaviour is used, Builder, Warrior or the third one.





Yurian

[bethrezen]

Psychic/Magic elementals have some additional attack bonuses, which doesn't work only on these with mind (Giants, Titans..)/spell immunity(Black Dragons).

I don't understand...

[Pol]

That is easy. Psychic elementals deal half damage to Giants and Titans (Mind Spell Immunity). Magic elementals deal half damage to Black Dragons (Magic Immunity.)

That should be. Source: csarmi

[Pol]

PS Did you know that you can position Dimension Doors position on the screen border? It's not so easy to place the cursor overhere, it's behaving naughtly but it's possible - of course, AI is never having the same complication.

However even for AI, work same position like for you - just without cursor dance.


This is one way ticket. If you would stay before the border guard, wishing to reach the peninsula with private leprechaun's garden. You would get drowned.

[bethrezen]

You can spy your oponent exactly resources if you have an artifact merchant build(tower or dungeon) and a hero in that castle by accesing artifact merchant during his turn!

You can spy the enemy(not AI) exactly what have in his city(armies, castle-citadel-fort, resource silo and gold income) if you right click on your castle icon (after you enter your castle)during his turn only! Do not do this on second castle if you have 2 and oponent only one, heroes will crash!

[Yurian Stonebow]

"You can spy your oponent exactly resources if you have an artifact merchant build(tower or dungeon) and a hero in that castle by accesing artifact merchant during his turn!

You can spy the enemy(not AI) exactly what have in his city(armies, castle-citadel-fort, resource silo and gold income) if you right click on your castle icon (after you enter your castle)during his turn only! Do not do this on second castle if you have 2 and oponent only one, heroes will crash!"

This is not aimed against you bethrezen, but I believe that what you discovered here is called taking advantage of a known bug. The Heroes III game engine wasn't coded to act this way so I'm left with the impression that using tactics like that is cheating.





Yurian

[L0wn]

I adapted a nice little trick. Probably dozens of other users already did it but hey, here goes:

I'm sure everyone knows that with Expert Earth Magic, the Animate Dead spell works in a way that all resurrected creatures stay in the hero's army, instead of disappearing after the fight in the case of less than Expert Earth Magic (this works the same way for the Resurrection spell, right?). Now all you have to do is to make sure you have lots of spell points and the blind spell. Then, if you've come to the point that your enemy has only one creature left, blind the guy and start Animating/Resurrecting your creatures until everyone got to their initial level. Finally, finish off the last enemy's creature.

Here, a nice example. Look at the enemy's army and then at my casualties

[Pol]

Yes I use that trick, that's easiest thing to do (and very boring). - I remember how one of my mates was surprised when I pinned him down like that. Yeah, school years.

* Animate Dead works on every level with permanent effect, in spite Ressurection needs your proficiency at least on Advanced. *

An often misues of Blind, followed by incapability of AI to shake it off, lead me to increase its cost twice time. (part of fh mod, plus strenghten the effect of hyponotize)

[arturchix]

I'm sure everyone knows that with Expert Earth Magic, the Animate Dead spell works in a way that all resurrected creatures stay in the hero's army, instead of disappearing after the fight in the case of less than Expert Earth Magic (this works the same way for the Resurrection spell, right?). Now all you have to do is to make sure you have lots of spell points and the blind spell. Then, if you've come to the point that your enemy has only one creature left, blind the guy and start Animating/Resurrecting your creatures until everyone got to their initial level. Finally, finish off the last enemy's creature.

Mmm, that's what I always do, I didn't realize it was a trick! Sometimes it can be annoying when I don't notice that the spell effect has ended and the enemy hero flees.

I'm sure all of you already know the simple trick how to defeat heroes with a lesser army who love to flee with all their precious artifacts - let his troops move first, cast mass haste and have two full turns for massacre. There are some things that AI will never understand.

[L0wn]

Animate Dead works on every level with permanent effect, in spite Ressurection needs your proficiency at least on Advanced.

Ah, I was already doubting whether it was Resurrection and Animate Dead which need Expert Earth Magic, thanks for making that clear.

But I should have known that everyone on this board is familiar with this trick. I figured it out just recently

Geez.. Earth Magic combined with Resurrection, Town Portal and Implosion. Deadly as hell

[Yurian Stonebow]

The CPU players seem to bend rules in Heroes III.

I noticed last night, when I had yet another test game of "Tolkien's Middle-earth", that the CPU can in fact attack wandering monsters that are on the water! How strange is that? It happaned thus: a group of Water Elementals are guarding a small treasure consisting of floating wood and some sea chests. Enter the CPU player. It comes using the spell "Water Walk", defeats the Water Elementals and returns to the dry land. All this in one turn and no boats were used. It couldn't pick up the treasure floating on the sea and realizing that, it returned quite happily back to the shore. And note this: it returned back to the place where it come from, excatly the same place!

Can someone explain to me what happaned? I had disabled the Flying spell in the editor and denied access to the Boots of Levitation. And yet all this happaned! Could it be that this is somehow related to the bug which enables the CPu to fly over mountains using the spell "Water Walk"??
Some small mountains were nearby but it attempted to get that stack of monsters eliminated and not to travel over water/mountains...

The game version is Heroes III Complete. (4.0)




Yurian

[Pol]

The Earth Magic is slow. If you will met with expert Air Magic he will chop you into pieces.

It's also said that most true warriors have only Water Magic (for Expert Dispel and Remove Obstacle), as opposite to magic classes where better use of magic skills is to be expected.

Hey, not only Air, which is counter element but also Fire Mage will stack you down. Relying only on Curse, Bersekr and perhaps Sacrifice.

PS As to the mod I was talking about, that can be get here.

@Yurian

Could it be that this is somehow related to the bug which enables the CPu to fly over mountains using the spell "Water Walk"??

I would say yes. CPU is alotted to entertain us with many strange things.

[L0wn]

Well good thing I joined this forum.. I thought I knew pretty much about Heroes but I was wrong. I never choose Fire Magic and at very few times I choose Water Magic (although Mass Bless and Mass Prayer is pretty neat). I've never used Remove Obstacle, and I never use Curse or Berserk.

Maybe I should start some campaigns.. all I play is XL maps and often the same type of levels. In campaign I get to see all sides of Heroes I guess..

Has there ever been a topic in which users could express their 8 favorite secondary skills on a certain hero? I would like to see what other people consider the best skills.

[arturchix]

Could it be that this is somehow related to the bug which enables the CPu to fly over mountains using the spell "Water Walk"??

I would say yes. CPU is alotted to entertain us with many strange things.

Maybe the AI can cast Remove Obstacle also on the adventure map? At least temporarily.

[Muszka]

I also had some strange experience with fly/water walk and water. I'll dug up a picture for tomorrow, when a hero is left over water during turn change.

[Pol]

So, it's that true or wrong?

You cannot cast Mirth when wearing Badge of Courage.
Side effect of covertly provided mind spell immunity.

[Muszka]

So, it's that true or wrong?

You cannot cast Mirth when wearing Badge of Courage.
Side effect of covertly provided mind spell immunity.

True.

Here is the image what I've had talked about, two days ago:

Since it's my turn, and I'm not tan, this is clear evidence, how can AI stay over water during turn change.

Oh, and I guess I asked for this some time ago, but received no answer. I asked for details about the AI allies and resources/money given by them to the player. I mean does it matter if I give them the requested resources, or not, concerning future gifts?