The Heroes Round Table

I'm yet to be convinced that the AI does cheat in TotE. I've never seen creatures appear from nowhere, and even though I play on Hard, I find they are rarely far ahead of me on experience when I first meet them. The AI ignores free resources/artifacts with its main hero to save time, and picks them ...

I always assumed, rightly or wrongly, that they stacked. So you would have had 35% Magic Resistance (armour + Magic Resistance skill), and hence a 35% chance to resist any spell completely. Protection + Luck of the Barbarian, by my assumptions, would then reduce damage dealt by enemy spells by 55%. ...

Even in large maps, the first few weeks make a lot of difference. If you pick a hero who excels early on, you can take enemy towns fairly quickly even in the largest maps, giving you far more income/resources for later. Academy, though possibly the most powerful town, become gradually less powerful ...

I went for Destructive. In theory, Summoning/Destructive would become useless when stack sizes become huge, but I've never found this even in large 8-player maps (except against Stronghold). The main problem Warlocks have is that your opponent has a good idea of your skills and battle strategy, and ...

Decay, Frenzy, Blind, Puppet Master, Vampirism and Curse of the Netherworld all benefit lots from it. It doesn't really help much with the others, though if you pick Summoning magic it benefits more from high spellpower.

There are no other differences as far as I know

I've played as Academy lots, and this is my experience of what the library seems to do. Each mage guild level will contain one light magic spell and one summoning magic spell, always. Mage guild levels 1-3 will each contain one extra spell, these are always dark or destructive spells. The library th...

Lots of maps made for HoF or the original release don't allow the TotE spells. You can download customisable forms of these maps from http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes5/original_maps.shtml I never play a map now without checking spell options in the editor. Though when you change a map, it...

With Academy I always choose xp from chests in the first few weeks, because building up magic skills is so crucial. Summon Pheonix in week 2 is far more useful than a few more troops would be. But with might-dependent towns gold is far more useful, since the gains to attack/defence your xp gives you...

I agree - a second hero gathering resources is essential to free up your main hero to do other things early on. Different towns have very different priorities early on. I usually play as Academy on Hard, and aim to have Magi and about mage guild level 3 by the end of week one. By the end of week two...

Pages 315/316 of the fan manual give a guide to triggering chances. Torpor is not specifically mentioned here, but neither are any other TotE-only creature abilities so I assumed they would follow the same pattern.

Area of Effect spells (e.g. Fireball, Circle of Winter, Fire Trap and others) work with Mark of the Wizard now, whereas before TotE they did not. So you can cast Circle of Winter or Fireball twice at once, making them far more useful than they were previously.

Sadly their own aura does affect them, making them a poor choice against Warlocks. It also works on other units you own, meaning that Magnetic Golems near them are healed even more by destructive spells. Destructive Magic was a poor choice for Academy before TotE, but the new units and the changes t...

1) Archers early on when they're doing most of the killing, Warriors later on 2) Rot zombies - not an upgrade priority 3) Unsure 4) I was unsure before reading this thread, but now I think I'll go for Vampire Lords early and Vampire Princes later on 5) Lich Masters are much better in battles against...

1) Archers early on when they're doing most of the killing, Warriors later on 2) Rot zombies - not an upgrade priority 3) Unsure 4) I was unsure before reading this thread, but now I think I'll go for Vampire Lords early and Vampire Princes later on 5) Lich Masters are much better in battles against...

I could try.

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

Forgoing Gargoyle upgrades is a big mistake, they are by far the most useful Academy unit.

This is the team I probably use least, so am unsure about some of them. 1) Conscript. They're much more useable now that they keep their taxpayer ability, and now that peasant -> archer is no longer the best training option. 2) Crossbowman. Still think they should have made an upgrade that has Scatt...

My favourite town :) 1) Saboteurs early on, Masters later 2) Elemental gargoyles every time (unless using Armageddon). I always get destructive magic with Academy now, which makes these my most useful units, their ability inflics so much damage! And they are still hard to kill. Aura of Elemental Vul...

I play exclusively on Hard, mainly on small maps. I haven't yet noticed cheating of any kind. The computer builds high-level creature dwellings very early on, and builds lots of upgrade buildings early, instead of building the citadel/castle. I've never seen it come at me with impossible troops, it ...