Yea i forgot about permission form tree to get kids with neoka (you cant even sleep with your wife without other`s approval :-) and had 4 fights before kissing her first time, so no big miss there.
I`we always seen orcs as horde, and great in big numbers so no mage/orc build for me. But as for some improvements, hm . . . could you convert orc abilities form CW witout adrenaline : kid that gives bonus to ogre`s give them drain ability, for veteran orcs miss chance . other kid that gives bonus to veterans give them vicious strike (so not to have 2 kids with same bonus). This is big change to orcelyn but i cant think of anything else to help that race except already made changes in AP/CW. Nice idea to strenghten shamans totems/dancing axes, but what about other orc units ? They have almost nothing to boost : goblins nothing, orcs only running , ogre only rage so not much to work with on them since they dont have anything to start with :-( Poor orcs.

Hey Matt Q :
did you on purpose made gift of life to take 2 turns to resurrect plant you need ? I tried some ents with neoka, and first move is to summon some unit, then with that unit you need to summon on some killed unit, and then you can use first summoned unit to resurrect starting ent . . . It takes to much time, and lose 2 whole turns with 2 units. Why not activate gift of life on first unit after summoning in way that `I summoned you, now you sacrifice yourself to revive me`, but lower resurrected % maybe. As it is now, to resurrect 1 plant, we need 2 killed units near for summoning, and 2 turns to actually do it.

I sure did!
 

I sure did! By having them use their Sowing to enable their Gift of Life your resurrection ability is limited by the number of corpses on the battlefield. If there are no corpses then no Gift of Life. Also note that when a Thorn uses its Gift of Life, that there is no corpse generated (it is totally absorbed by the plant it heals). This makes the use of Thorns a lot more strategic for resurrection purposes. There are plenty of Thorn Generators that don't need a corpse to create the Thorns (Ents, Dryads, and Royal Thorns) and so even though it takes more time you should be able to get some Thorns to heal your plants before finishing off the combat.

It can still be exploited somewhat if you keep a non-retaliator stack alive and let it keep killing your generated Thorns for fresh corpses. The only way to prevent this issue would be to change all the Thorn Generating abilities to have charges. I've gone back and forth here experimenting with making them charges and reloadable and because Thorns are mowed down so easily that you need a steady stream of them (numbers!) for them to be effective I decided to keep that capability reloadable. This is an advantage to entice people to play with plants.

/C\/C\

I dont think you understood what i was implying.
Lets say thorn hunters cast summon on some corpse, but if you want to use gift of life to resurrect starting unit you need 1 more corpse to use summon thorn by already summoned. When use summon plant i dont need ability to heal summoned unit, but one i`m taking with me in next battle.
Why not activate gift of life in reverse order, unit that summoned stack can sacrifice it to resurrect itself. This is most problem with thorns, as you said many gift of life using units dont need it but consider this : dryads dont need that ability they summon meat shields, royal thorn also with speed 1(2 at best) summon minions and send them to fight then if need be those units use summon and return to heal royal thorns. For ents there is even less need for res with their tree of life ability. So most vunerable are basic units thorn warriors/hunters and need for to heal 1 stack you need 2 corpses.
I understand that you wanted to make this limited in battle, but it just seem to complicated for simple way of keeping plants alive since they have no active skills/mass aoe dmg or passive like stun/shock. They are useful in large numbers but that`s it. ANd are so vunerable, that`s why i asked about this way of using gitf of life.

Oh - I think I get what you'e saying now...
 

Oh!

I think I understand what you're saying. You're saying you want Thorn-Hunters and Thorn Warriors when they use there Sowing ability to have the created Thorn have its Gift of Life ability enabled since it used a corpse to generate it. All other Thorn generators would stay the way they are.

This is an interesting idea. For the AI, they both would run to the nearest high level plant and use their Gift of Life ability (that's pretty much how I programmed it). For people, you wouldn't sacrifice your starting Thorn because then that'd be a loss in combat that you wouldn't want, but you would probably heal them with the new unit once you got the chance if you needn't it.

Hmmm... I guess this would be okay and it would help the AI more, too. Since it would only apply to Thorn-Hunters and Thorn Warriors I guess it wouldn't be exploited by human players since they couldn't sacrifice their starting Thorns if they wanted to minimize losses and it would be easier (at the beginning of the game) to use Thorns and try to heal them.

I'll think about this some more, but it seems like this idea would be okay to implement...

Thanks for the idea!:-)

O_O Wow, I leave for a few months and look what happens, nice work man!! seems I have allot to read!

Great job!!

Hello ppl :-)
Matt i checked your last update, and i like upgraded orcs but it`s still not changed type of playing them like in cw. Thx for effort man, i`m not complaining just saying units need more then higher resistances to be interesting to play. Modified dancing axes great job, it reports error every time i use it but `ignore` and it works resurrecting orc troops :-)

I just now noticed something on matter i played this game for almost 1 whole year. With warrior anger skill you get more rage from inquisitor holy rage ability, basic is 5-10 but with 3rd lvl anger it goes up to 10-20 :-) Why didnt they copy this to AP/CW hero skill? There anger is available to all hero classes.

As for mod it self, i played 2 whole games mage (rina, feanora,diana,neoka) and warrior tried (rina, feanora, mirabella, orcalyn, gerda, neoka, xeona . . . yea i know, divorces alone costed me leg and a half :-) And it works great, late game hero fights are really tough and interesting. I still think enemy hero -resistance% are to high, but no1 is forcing me to play impossible no loss in first place :-)
Great job man, keep it up.
On side note, are you planing to make something similar for AP/CW or will you w8 for WotN and just make mod when new game come out ?

I implented the Holy Anger -> Inquisitor's change!
 

Well, maybe it's just a start! Think of some ideas! I keep going back to the totems, but that is focusing too much on Shamans.

Here's an idea, by the way (I don't know how to implement this, but its a thought):

When an Orc troop gets a critical hit, all Orc troops get some kind of bonus - kind of like "inspiring hit" or something like that.

I'll look into the Dancing Axes problem - I did play test it and that error occurs if EN(G)_BATTLE.LNG is not updated. Maybe I forgot to include it in the update? I'll look into it...

I decided to implement it that way!:cool:

Also, note that they are also affected by combat duration so you can't exploit it...

Exactly - Impossible is meant to be Impossible... or at least really hard!:grin:

Wow! You play fast! Of course I'd go faster if I wasn't constantly evaluating and trying to implement things to make it better!:-)

Have you seen the Bone Dragons use their new ability, yet? I actually noticed a situation where it will look for a label that doesn't exist (I've only seen it once so far) when they Sheep a unit. I've got a fix for that one I'll send out soon...

I sure will - the Tomes of HOMM3 mod. Basically all the babies will become items that are books or tomes that are either artifacts or regalia or something like that.

I'll also implement all the other changes if they are merited, but I'll need to review all the changes between the games as well and then transfer the content over.

I'm hoping most of it will transfer fairly readily since, from what I can tell, is that almost all the new AP/CW content are in addon_*.LUA files, etc.

I'll probably focus on CW, but I'm hoping that the CW changes will also work in AP.

I'll also have to review all the skills since they are markedly different and determine if any changes are needed there. I thought that the AP and CW skill trees were better than the TL ones.

The enemy hero evaluation and update with a new system will take a while to implement because there are so many of them. It took me a month to slog through all the enemy heroes and update them with my new enemy hero system. I'll create a new system based on the skill trees in AP/CW so that they mirror your skill tree once again. What's nice about that, though, is I'll make it a separate mini mod like I've done here so that you can play with just updated heroes if you so desire.

In the meantime, I need to stay focused on this mod until it is ready for the beta phase - I'm almost there - just need to get my first Xe baby (although you already have so it's probably okay) and then I think we can transition this mod to the beta phase where people can download it and start playing it!

Thanks for all the awesome comments - when you play in a vacuum you get a little used to the way things are and it is great to get outside people to play and get you to think about things differently!

By the way, which level were you when you fought Xe and with what troop lineup?

I just made it to level 20 and unfortunately, I use Neoka with Elves, which Xe burns with alacrity! Fortunately I was able to find some Ancient Ents to stave off being defeated. My first lineup had Girlie Power (Sprites, Lake Faries, and Dryads), Ents, and Hunters and I got dusted. I experimented with replacing Hunters with Elves or Uni's, but she kept kicking my tail! So I figured I'd look around Demonis and see if I could find some Ancient Ents and got lucky! I was also just level 19, but found an experience shrine to get the next level and get a good 1000 point boost to Leadership and the capability to hire more units. Girlie Power, Elves, and Ancient Ents I survived, but everyone got killed except my Ancient Ents - whew! She is tough if you're low-level and fighting her with flammable troops!:)

What I really like is that you can pretty much gauge how well you're going to do just by comparing your level to the enemy hero. If your quite a few levels below them then you best get ready for a knock-down, drag-out fight and be prepared to get handed!

I'll look into the error message with the missing label (I probably just forgot to include the new EN(G)_BATTLE.LNG) and also think some more about Orcs.

I'm glad the Shaman Dancing Axes isn't too powerful - did you use it much when you played Orcelyn to heal your Orc troops? About the only way I can see it being exploited is if you keep a troop generator alive (pretty much just Royal Thorns, Dryads, Druids, and Ents / Ancient Ents) and keep killing the generated troops to resurrect all your Orcs. I don't have a solution to that right now...

Allright let me get back to fixing those errors and keep providing comments - that's the only way to make this mod better!:grin:

What makes playing this is different type of units, and many possible builds/tactics . . . so `inspiring hit` for orcs meh :-( Their adrenaline was great idea in CW and no matter what ppl say, it changed AP much and was worth new playthrough. What did you plan for inspiring hit ? higer stats, or . . . what would be bonus for other orcs after 1 unit crit?
Inquisitor was nice touch :-) I didnt even noticed it till late game since with warrior rage isn`t big issue, i just used it once when i had no rage and got 18 with WTF is this face :-)
I think we need more difficulty lvl`s with messages to players on game start, keep easy as it is (`go play minesweeper`) , normal (`this is really just tutorial`) , hard (`veteran KB players easy mod`) , impossible (`veteran KB players normal mod`) , no loss impossible (`tasting mod for army generals etc`) , truly impossible (`bend over and say A mod for masochist`here in first location before you can move to next stage will be placed stack of 100 black dragons) :-D
Haven`t seen new bone dragon ability since i already cleared undead lands when i upgraded mod with your latest addon.
I got to Xeona but didnt beat her with no loss (i think it`s really impossible to do it), i did it on 24th lvl (25k lds), with diana +ancient ent/thorn hunter/girl power team , i had blackthorn crown (i changed it to give 20% dmg to ents, 50% to thorns and 1 initiative to all plants) poison dagger , great for huge stacks of low lvl units, and really buffed up rage spirits.
I didnt check this but does enemy hero mana regen also stop on 20 battle turn? Because 20% mana regen/turn is sick. I didnt defeat her without loss, i just did it to pick her and see how she works :-( It`s f...ed up battle, but i did it on pure power and rage spirits with warrior, i dont know your hero class, but i think with mage it might be doable without loss, but for paladin i`m not so sure.
As for shamans dancing axes change it so it works only on living enemy so it`s not overpowered (as you said leaving small enemy troop to resurrect army on summons will be first thing many old players will think off :-) Or at least make it so not usable on undead (plants are some kind of living things, but zombies not so much :-D

I got save that allowed me to pick all wives, so i try some different combinations just for fun and found weird info. Lds for wives is wrong : rina give bonus for only 4 units and have lowest -6% lds, feanora is right behind her. Shouldnt this be other way around ? Mirabella give -8lds% for all humans including robbers 1&2 and griffins, and gerda only 5 dwarf units for same bonus ( i thought to add cyclops for gerda unit bonus and change it to 9%) , same thing for neoka/diana both give bonus to 11/12 units and -9/-10%lds, higher then other wives. That`s why i thought to change that stats : for gerda add cyclops and set it to -10% lds , rina add pirates -11%lds , xeona add red and black dragons for -5%lds, emerald dragon for neoka/diana (remove dragonflies form her, never use them anyway) -5%lds. Tis will mean for every 20 dragons you get to lead 1 more, not much but it would be useful when missing small amount lds between 1 and 2 dragons.
Also fire spiders are demon in this mod, i`m not sure did you changed it or was it like that in original but you miss them in xeona -lds% list.

And towers in suppressing items battles are seriously overpowered. Couple examples : suppressing royal hammer 5att/-10% dwarf lds i had sprites with 14 initiative and tower still play first, how high is initiative for those things ??? And my mage have 44 int casting hell breath on some unit it get 65% fire dmg bonus, when tower cast same spell enemy unit get 150% fire dmg !!! a bit much i think. Upgrading archmage/druid staff to 3rd lvl same thing
1 more miss : warrior have bonus for fighting units iron fist skill, quick draw for archers, dark commander for all demon,orc,undead and you added bunch neutral units here (missed griffins) , mage have bonus for undead in necromancy and archmage for all mage type units. Question ? Why elves/dwarves missing for any kind of bonuses... i tried gerda and no matter what kids items i have, my initiative is crap, enemy heroes always play first with all army before i get turn. So how about adding elf/dwarf race bonuses to mind tree in place of diplomacy skill ?