Heroes of Might and Magic

[yuris125]

On peasants, don't they have the same speed problem as the zombies you discussed in the speedrun report? How tricky is it to get them into useful positions? I never was able to do it, although it shoudln't be an indication of anything

[Deceptus]

The Warlock faction is good too but not great I think.  Yes wild shooters inflict the most losses, and gargoyles and griffins stop that.  Against flyers, split the griffins into two stacks and you can box in the centaurs using pocket formation.

You can also split the Gargoyles into 1-1-1-1-powerstack formations and have the 1-gargoyles form individual blockades while removing the shooters one-by-one with the powerstack, as the 1-offs eat the AI's attacks. Against weak shooters, the 1-gargoyles often won't even die, and you can often micro them enough to not lose any gargoyles at all.

But Warlock's problem is attacking castles.  With an auto-garrison running, you don't get time to fling 6 magic arrows.  The one shooter crumples to the garrison, the gargoyles and griffins don't have the damage and HP to stand up to defending heavy hitters like dwarves, wolves, golems; and the minotaurs and hydras take forever to get into the castle without Ballistics skill.

I beg to differ. Warlock expands the fastest by far because every scout is guaranteed to have a Gargoyle, you are more likely to have multiple Warlocks (so more spell spam to kill everywhere), and you're also likely to find many shrines and outside dwellings. That, and compared to Knight and Barbarian, you actually *do* have fliers. If Ballistics is a concern, simply get a Knight. In your write-up you encountered town defenses such as 1 zombie and 1 mummy, or something to that effect - nothing that can't be dealt with Gargoyles, and you'll get to them faster than with slower Knight and Barb armies - Knight, in particular, takes a while to get anywhere because you often work with Slow or Very Slow units. The idea is that you keep expanding, taking chests and flagging dwellings, and keep amassing an army that way. In your writeup, you managed to have Centaurs, Orcs and Halflings when storming the one town with 5 Pikemen - that gives enough targets to finish any job. If a Barbarian can have that in their army, so can Warlock.

But I love the Wizard faction.  It's all about the rocs.  Flying ogres.  It's a tier-four troop, but plays like tier three since it doesn't require the actual tier-three dwelling (you can build it on day 1 if you start with the boar dwelling, and costs 3000 which is barely more than the 2500 griffin nest.)  Rocs do almost as well as gargoyles in blocking enemy shooters (only worse against faster shooters, which aren't common, only grand elves/druids/liches), and hold up much better against strong walkers.  The other half of the wizard faction is the halflings: they outdamage warlock centaurs (particularly with Bless), are cheaper, easier to box in with pocket formation, and come from a map dwelling that shows up everywhere (the centaur cave is only for snow terrain.)

Wizard has even more trouble with knocking down castles if we go by your philosophy, because Halflings are just as paper as Centaurs and die instantly to towers, at which point you're left with an army of walkers and just a group of Rocs. Rocs are great, and I love them in both HoMM2 and HoMM3, and they do have staying power, but it sucks much more to lose them and they're harder to make a powerstack out of. Wizards are also slower speedrunners because they emphasize Knowledge over Spell Power, so whatever blasting spells you manage to obtain are weaker.

You are right that the warlock's gargoyles are the best starting troop of all, and between that and the spell power and the scouting skill, he's the best spellcasting hero class.  But that's no need to use a warlock castle.  Hire one warlock and use his gargoyles to block shooting at your archers or orcs or halflings.

The idea here is that you leverage the potential starting Warlock army and spend a lot of gold in the early game on synergizing Gargoyles. Yes, you can just hire a Warlock (or a Sorceress) and get some token flying blockers for your army that way, but here, the idea is that you maximize the use of the strongest level 2 minion to overwhelm everything else around you. You can keep buying Warlocks and fly around with like 25 gargs, and that's huge in week 1.

Peasants are the most underrated troop in the game.  They come in absurd numbers from Knight starting heroes.  You can get 150 with three heroes plus a castle, which is a stack that dishes out more damage than any other of any castle you can rack up in the first week.  Yes, they are squishy, but the AI always goes for your archers over the peasants so it's not that hard to keep them alive.  I've won many a fight by peasants knocking a nasty stack of wolves off my archers.  Yeah they're a liability against ghosts, but how often does that actually come up, all the map locations where you fight ghosts involve enough that you won't be doing it with a week-one army anyway.

Peasants are also Very Slow, and that's why I'm reluctant to bring them into Knight-oriented speedruns because they simply slow down your hero.

This is really an argument that the knight is the most cost-effective troops to get in a conquered castle.  That's quite true, and yes is relevant in your faction choice if you know there is (or can deliberately choose) a nearby knight to conquer.  That wouldn't happen in this speedrun since each target castle was the terminal goal in its direction and I never reached day 8 anyway.

No no, my idea here is that if I pick Knight as my starting faction and the map isn't S or M (or has tough guards that force me to build up for a few more weeks), I'm probably banking on conquering a town with stronger units and combining the two factions, using cheap troops from my original faction while focusing on a town with stronger mid-late game potential. If I get a Barbarian town, then you can sure as hell see me going with Ogre Lords and War Trolls - while still enjoying the Rangers piling at home, being dirt-cheap and letting me outfit many different heroes to scout in many different directions and set up chains here and there. Or I can outfit a random Warlock with a single Champion and abuse the Ultra Fast speed to hit'n'run trivial encounters that my main hero doesn't have time for. That, of course, depends.

On a purely "win in one week" map, I'd put my money on Barbarian and Warlock, and then possibly Sorceress. I think Knight is troubled by overall slow expansion because Peasants cause you to have fewer movement points on the map.

[T-hawk]

On peasants, don't they have the same speed problem as the zombies you discussed in the speedrun report? How tricky is it to get them into useful positions?

The only position that matters for slow walkers is protecting your shooters, either directly in pocket formation or killing flyers or fast walkers that are blocking them.

Zombies and peasants can both do that; the difference is in the numbers and the cost.  Peasants can accumulate as much as 150 damage in the first week for free.  Zombies add up to about 20 damage for free from a few heroes and another 20 bought for $1200 from a castle.  That zombie stack I rejected would have dealt around 50.  That's still good for free, but I knew I had the halfling hole coming which would be a better use of the slot, and the free wasn't really free given the morale penalty and the opportunity cost of experience.

[T-hawk]

Warlock expands the fastest by far because every scout is guaranteed to have a Gargoyle

A wizard castle or hero also has boars for every scout to get very fast speeds.

Wizard has even more trouble with knocking down castles if we go by your philosophy, because Halflings are just as paper as Centaurs and die instantly to towers, at which point you're left with an army of walkers and just a group of Rocs.

I actually forgot to write up the next step of the argument.  The next tier troop, mages, decisively favors castle attacks for the wizard.  They add a lot of damage and take the AI heat off the halflings.  If the warlock's tier-five troop, hydras, makes a difference in a castle fight, it's only because they're the last ones left after everything else got killed.

Wizard castle is better than warlock in week one, because halflings beat centaurs for damage and rocs beat gargoyles/griffins for survivability.  It's better in week two also, since mages are better than hydras in most situations and particularly castles.  Wizard is worse around week three if the warlock gets to the green dragon tower before the wizard gets to the upgraded cloud castle (unupgraded green dragons are fine, giants aren't) and if the warlock built his dungeon to kick in the extra income. By week 4/5 it's black dragon vs titan, and even though the dragons win head-to-head I still think the wizard castle is overall better, since the halflings and mages still dish out lots of damage while the AI ignores them to attack the titans instead.  (But really either castle commanded by a human will beat the other by the AI.)

I agree that warlock heroes are better than wizards with blasting spells.  Although those don't come so readily in speedrunning as you're thinking.  If you want to win in the first week, you don't have time to be building any mage guilds.  And a wizard's starting Stoneskin spell (on the halflings) is better than the warlock's Curse.  (Although I'll take a knight or barb hero over either, of course.)

You can keep buying Warlocks and fly around with like 25 gargs, and that's huge in week 1.

How are you getting that many?  Reload abuse?  Most maps give you a starting hero of your chosen class and one for hire, but then it's only a 1/6 chance for each beyond that, and you need two more to get to that number.

But even if you do get that many... 25 gargoyles don't do anything that you can't also do with one warlock's 4 gargoyles plus wizard halflings and rocs and boars.

Peasants are also Very Slow, and that's why I'm reluctant to bring them into Knight-oriented speedruns because they simply slow down your hero. ... I think Knight is troubled by overall slow expansion because Peasants cause you to have fewer movement points on the map.

Have you actually done this speedrunning?  That slowness doesn't matter because a week 1 army has to put up with slow troops anyway.  You will have archers plus whatever orcs and halflings and dwarves get picked up from map dwellings and other starting heroes.

The Knight expands slower because there are extra requirements on the troop dwellings, which I'd forgotten and so would anyone else who hasn't done this recently.  The pikeman blacksmith requires the well and the swordsman armory requires the tavern.  The soonest possible ranger upgrade is day five, while the barbarian can get to trolls on day three instead.  That's a significant difference on many more maps than not.  (We're agreeing anyway on the barbarian probably being best.)

A wildcard for week 1 army strength is the Necromancer.  With enough of the right resources, it can get all the way to a bone dragon on day 3!

[Deceptus]

I actually forgot to write up the next step of the argument.  The next tier troop, mages, decisively favors castle attacks for the wizard.  They add a lot of damage and take the AI heat off the halflings.  If the warlock's tier-five troop, hydras, makes a difference in a castle fight, it's only because they're the last ones left after everything else got killed.

In the particular situation you described, with speedrunning, there were absolutely no encounters that couldn't have been dismantled with a Warlock army. You hit 5 Pikemen and a Zombie and a Mummy behind town walls. Early game AI defenses aren't robust enough to justify this sort of worry, and, again, you are more than likely to have plenty of troops from external dwellings and similar to alleviate these worries. If we're talking about gameplay beyond the first week, Warlocks will also have much better dividends from spells like Frost Ray and Lightning Bolt, because they will scale better.

Wizard castle is better than warlock in week one, because halflings beat centaurs for damage and rocs beat gargoyles/griffins for survivability.

Rocs might beat Gargoyles and Griffins for survivability, but since you are more likely to get external Gargoyle dwellings and keep hiring more Warlock heroes than you are to do so with Rocs, I think Warlock still has the initiative. There are simply fewer Rocs.

It's better in week two also, since mages are better than hydras in most situations and particularly castles

There's one thing that Hydras do extremely well in terms of early game creeping, which is taking on slow stacks of walkers. Robust, high HP unit with no retaliation and really good stats that has multi-attack is really good, especially if you can slap any sort of defensives on it. It's a common Fortress strategy in HoMM3, as well, you can take Dragon Utopias for almost no cost with just a handful of Hydras and Dragon Flies.

Wizard is worse around week three if the warlock gets to the green dragon tower before the wizard gets to the upgraded cloud castle (unupgraded green dragons are fine, giants aren't) and if the warlock built his dungeon to kick in the extra income. By week 4/5 it's black dragon vs titan, and even though the dragons win head-to-head I still think the wizard castle is overall better, since the halflings and mages still dish out lots of damage while the AI ignores them to attack the titans instead.  (But really either castle commanded by a human will beat the other by the AI.)

The cost of Upgraded Cloud Castle is ridiculously steep and unfit for most purposes as a fast run. Dragon utility and better accessibility cannot be underestimated. You can outfit each of your scouts with a Dragon and they'll have a much better, self-reliant time doing various errands than an equal hero with Giants. Warlock continues to expand fast.

I agree that warlock heroes are better than wizards with blasting spells.  Although those don't come so readily in speedrunning as you're thinking.

Shrines and enemy mage guilds are often ripe for the picking, though.

How are you getting that many?  Reload abuse?  Most maps give you a starting hero of your chosen class and one for hire, but then it's only a 1/6 chance for each beyond that, and you need two more to get to that number.

But even if you do get that many... 25 gargoyles don't do anything that you can't also do with one warlock's 4 gargoyles plus wizard halflings and rocs and boars.

Granted, that was a fairly generous estimate, but aren't you forgetting the Gargoyles you can usually build from the pre-built Gargoyle dwelling? That generally puts me around 20 gargoyles. And those 20 gargoyles are a pretty formidable powerstack to finish off AI stacks.

Have you actually done this speedrunning?  That slowness doesn't matter because a week 1 army has to put up with slow troops anyway.

Not for certain factions. Warlock Centaurs start off Average. Sorceress Dwarves shouldn't really be in the army.

[T-hawk]

There's one thing that Hydras do extremely well in terms of early game creeping, which is taking on slow stacks of walkers.

Which is a thing you don't need.  Mages or any decent shooters beat slow walkers too.  So do the blasty spells you keep talking about.

Granted, that was a fairly generous estimate, but aren't you forgetting the Gargoyles you can usually build from the pre-built Gargoyle dwelling? That generally puts me around 20 gargoyles. And those 20 gargoyles are a pretty formidable powerstack to finish off AI stacks.

I counted that.  8 from the castle plus an average of 4 per hero gets to 24 with four warlock heroes.  But that's nothing about gargoyles, that works the same for any tier-two troop.  Beyond one hero's worth of gargoyles to block shooters, the next 20 gargoyles don't do anything that 20 orcs or archers or boars can't.  And so I'd rather back up those 20 whatevers with halflings and rocs than centaurs and griffins.

Yes, in this speed run, I got lucky that the AI stacks were fragmented when I got there and any faction would have been more than enough.  That's often true but not always.  On the infrequent occasions that those thin margins do matter, I can squeeze out more from a wizard castle than warlock.  The damage of the halflings (particularly augmented by a halfling hole which appear on so many maps, or with Bless) and robustness of the rocs really does make a difference.

you are more likely to get external Gargoyle dwellings

There is no external gargoyle dwelling structure on HOMM 2 maps.

Not for certain factions. Warlock Centaurs start off Average. Sorceress Dwarves shouldn't really be in the army.

Do you remember what we were talking about?  It was peasants, meaning a Knight castle.

[Deceptus]

Which is a thing you don't need.  Mages or any decent shooters beat slow walkers too.  So do the blasty spells you keep talking about.

Having a bonus, sturdy unit you can slap on a scout and then forget about it as it eats up walker stacks is very useful. Hydras deal very well with fast fliers (just get surrounded by fliers and rip them all apart, potentially while healing or Stone Skinning the hydra). Point is, you can send Hydras solo against the map. You can't really do so with mages - they need other units to form the formation.

I counted that.  8 from the castle plus an average of 4 per hero gets to 24 with four warlock heroes.  But that's nothing about gargoyles, that works the same for any tier-two troop.  Beyond one hero's worth of gargoyles to block shooters, the next 20 gargoyles don't do anything that 20 orcs or archers or boars can't.

But buying all those heroes also increases your Centaur stack. I think having Day 1 access to some of the best level 1-2 units is not a bad deal.  And you also do get Centaur Caves. Fliers are also much easier to micromanage and kite with.

There is no external gargoyle dwelling structure on HOMM 2 maps.

You are right here - and I apologise. I extrapolated the fact that there are Dwarf Huts and Archer's Houses, but not Crypts on the map. That, and HoMM3's dwellings spoiled me. So that's me being dumb. I still do believe that the Warlock early game is exceptional.

Do you remember what we were talking about?  It was peasants, meaning a Knight castle.

Of course I do - and that's why I maintain that Knight is not the most optimal speedrunner's choice. Other factions don't have to be slowed down.

[T-hawk]

And you also do get Centaur Caves. ... That, and HoMM3's dwellings spoiled me. ... Other factions don't have to be slowed down.

The big point I think you're still not grasping is how speedrunning in HOMM 2 is so greatly driven by the map dwellings.  In this report, my troops from the map dwellings constituted almost as many hit points and more damage output than my own castle's hired troops.  Of course that's not true on every map, and Beltway is somewhat above average, but by and large it really is about the freebies.

Map dwellings support the wizard castle significantly better than the warlock.  Halflings directly add to the wizard stack.  Orcs and archers get attacked instead of the halflings, which matters, but doesn't for centaurs since they're about the same HP/damage output.  Orcs, archers, dwarves, peasants aren't a speed concern when the halflings and perhaps golems are already going slow.  There also exists a free-upgrade location for golems.

Centaur caves nearly don't exist.  It only exists for snow terrain graphically, which is a minority of areas on a minority of maps.  Halfling holes come in grass and dirt versions that occur everywhere.

In a vacuum, I agree the advantage of the wizard castle is slight, and likely falls behind the warlock by week three.  But on real maps for real speedruns, I've done both plenty and the wizard can manage less losses thanks to the damage of the halflings and meat of the rocs.

[Deceptus]

The big point I think you're still not grasping is how speedrunning in HOMM 2 is so greatly driven by the map dwellings.  In this report, my troops from the map dwellings constituted almost as many hit points and more damage output than my own castle's hired troops.  Of course that's not true on every map, and Beltway is somewhat above average, but by and large it really is about the freebies.

But I did take note of that. While also noting that your point about Warlock's weaknesses regarding castle sieging was hardly applicable to this particular instance, because we could both see that the AI armies were still weak, underdeveloped, and poorly spread. What I'm saying is that with Warlock, I feel like you can really maximize the effective HP of your starting armies - solely through the mass of Centaurs and Gargoyles - use that to conquer the map fast and steady, and have multiple useful ways of outfitting scouts, since you're likely to have at least 2 Warlocks with some sort of an useful spell, especially if you got a Mage Guild on Day 1 - many maps faciliate this approach because, as you said, you want to live off the land, and getting all your scouts a few spells can be of tremendous use. With such robust expansion potential, you should be able to pick up all the freebies in the world very fast.

Map dwellings support the wizard castle significantly better than the warlock.  Halflings directly add to the wizard stack.  Orcs and archers get attacked instead of the halflings, which matters, but doesn't for centaurs since they're about the same HP/damage output.  Orcs, archers, dwarves, peasants aren't a speed concern when the halflings and perhaps golems are already going slow.

There are multiple maps, however, where the right strat is to rush down a town before it can possibly field defense. There are plenty of maps, whether in the campaign or Standard - particularly those where you start with a prebuilt army - where it's most prudent to leave your slowest units at home. Sometimes a good idea is to have a patsy closely follow the hero and take away his slowest units until the beginning of the next turn, at which point the patsy gives the slow units back and the main character is capable of fighting with them. While I do acknowledge that the more meat you have, the merrier, I feel like there are situations where you can take a critical spot a turn earlier if you relinquish some units, like non-essential walkers that won't see play in a siege anyway.

In a vacuum, I agree the advantage of the wizard castle is slight, and likely falls behind the warlock by week three.  But on real maps for real speedruns, I've done both plenty and the wizard can manage less losses thanks to the damage of the halflings and meat of the rocs.

I will have to reinstall HoMM2 and run some tests myself, because I'm a Warlock-lover from both the "speedy" perspectives (I spent a lot of time on working out the kinks in the Archibald campaign back in the day, and overall had a lot of success with Alamar's lackeys on other maps) and the rare PvP perspective, where the mass Gargoyles approach would often prove decisive in skirmishes. Especially since I'm fairly prone to misremembering certain things at this point, and I certainly wouldn't want to cause any more confusion. The above are my thoughts - and I will have to challenge them soon, perhaps this weekend. Regardless of anything, I did come into this conversation knowing very well that the speedrun report and the gameplay within was top notch, so hopefully you didn't take it as me being antagonistic. ^^

[T-hawk]

What I'm saying is that with Warlock, I feel like you can really maximize the effective HP of your starting armies - solely through the mass of Centaurs and Gargoyles - use that to conquer the map fast and steady

And a Wizard castle does better, with more shooter damage, boars for equally fast scouts and equal fighting against anything other than fast shooters, and one hired warlock for a few gargoyles to block shooters. Then the wizard gets better with rocs over griffins and mages over hydras. The warlock only catches up in power with minotaur kings and dragons, which is past the effective timeframe to speedrun most standard maps. Sure, the warlock does fine in Archibald's campaign, but you're not getting choices there between warlock and wizard.

Regardless of anything, I did come into this conversation knowing very well that the speedrun report and the gameplay within was top notch, so hopefully you didn't take it as me being antagonistic. ^^

Yeah, it has sounded a bit antagonistic, but reconciliation accepted.