Seeking input on an exclusively Undead army

[Jamers]

Thanks for reading.

So I'm about to finish the game with a Paladin, and I'm considering next time through playing as a Mage and using a fully undead army as soon as I get the chance. I'm relying pretty hard on Resurrection in my current game, but I figure if I can load up on Cursed Ghosts and Ancient Vampires and Sacrifice them, it'll make up for it and I'll even be able to replenish troops that died in previous battles--impossible with Resurrection.

My concern is that with the games randomization system, I may not be able to find the troops I need, or they may be very limited. In this current game (my first), I only found Ancient Vampires at the Dwarven Necromancer in Kordar and Necromancers didn't show up until Demonis (!).

Anyway, the idea is I would be able to dual-cast each turn, and I could hypnotize / sacrifice or just blast away or whatever. I'd have the zombie wife for the bonus speed and initiative which would come in handy for the entire game.

So the problems I'm foreseeing are a limited availability of the [I]good[I] undead units and the fact that a fully undead army would limit me to pretty low level units, given that Bone Dragons just suck. *I posted a question earlier about the mechanics of Necromancy and Necro Call, as I'm not sure exactly how these work. If someone could help me out here or on that post, I'd really appreciate it and it may change my whole position on this idea.

Anyway, just wanted some input on what people thought, if anyone had tried this before, etc.

Thanks a lot for reading this whole rant!

[Daedalus]

curious if the Necromancers' raise dead ability is permanent or if the raised troops vanish after the battle.

[Fargol]

Originally Posted by Jamers

Thanks for reading.

So I'm about to finish the game with a Paladin, and I'm considering next time through playing as a Mage and using a fully undead army as soon as I get the chance. I'm relying pretty hard on Resurrection in my current game, but I figure if I can load up on Cursed Ghosts and Ancient Vampires and Sacrifice them, it'll make up for it and I'll even be able to replenish troops that died in previous battles--impossible with Resurrection.

My concern is that with the games randomization system, I may not be able to find the troops I need, or they may be very limited. In this current game (my first), I only found Ancient Vampires at the Dwarven Necromancer in Kordar and Necromancers didn't show up until Demonis (!).

Anyway, the idea is I would be able to dual-cast each turn, and I could hypnotize / sacrifice or just blast away or whatever. I'd have the zombie wife for the bonus speed and initiative which would come in handy for the entire game.

So the problems I'm foreseeing are a limited availability of the [I]good[I] undead units and the fact that a fully undead army would limit me to pretty low level units, given that Bone Dragons just suck. *I posted a question earlier about the mechanics of Necromancy and Necro Call, as I'm not sure exactly how these work. If someone could help me out here or on that post, I'd really appreciate it and it may change my whole position on this idea.

Anyway, just wanted some input on what people thought, if anyone had tried this before, etc.

Thanks a lot for reading this whole rant!

I tried it, and gave up fairly quickly (around level 10 or so).

Availability of undead troops is kinda limited, but worse, variety is as well.

They're just ... boring to use. Now you can put animals in your army and their morale won't suffer, so for a while I was using Royal Snakes, Ghosts, Skeletal Archers (gads are these guys brittle), and Vampires off and on. Throw in Ancient Bears when I could find them, and it's a decent army I suppose. Get that skill (can't remember name) that gives nice bonuses to undead, and I suppose it could be effective.

But the lack of variety and availability convinced me early on to give up the ghost, so to speak.

[Daedalus]

sadly i haven't encountered Cursed Ghosts, otherwise i'd give them a try...

The normal ones are kinda unimpressive.

[Quikpik]

I've been keeping track of all the different vendors in my games. Thus far, between Darion, Kordar, and Isles, there are a total of 8 places where you can buy undead creatures. None of them had any vampires or necros for sale, just your basic units. So I would say getting an undead only army would be tough. Too bad though because the undead in HOMM were brutal.

[player1]

Well, it depends from game to game, since recruit roster is random in every game.

Best strategy is to plan what to use based on what is available in your current game, instead of planning before you ever start playing.

[Quikpik]

Originally Posted by player1

Well, it depends from game to game, since recruit roster is random in every game.

Best strategy is to plan what to use based on what is available in your current game, instead of planning before you ever start playing.

The undead recruiting is not that random. Sure you may get Cursed Ghosts from one vendor rather than regular Ghosts. But the point I was trying to make is that they just aren't very many places to buy undead troops. If I were to start a third game, I was thinking about going all undead just to be different. But looking at the available troop vendors, I don't think it will be possible.

[JGary321]

Bone Dragons - They don't suck, they are just different than the other Dragons. The skill that the Bone Dragons have is still an excellent skill. Poison damage to all surrounding cells i great. I agree they are not quite as good the others, but they are still decent units.

As far as Vampires go - in the Marshan Swamp you can pick up the casket's. Don't they spawn vampires? Can't remember which variety though. Probably not the ancient ones.

[sector24]

Originally Posted by Jamers

So I'm about to finish the game with a Paladin, and I'm considering next time through playing as a Mage and using a fully undead army as soon as I get the chance....

If you are lucky and get sacrifice very early in the game, you could have an army of:

Ghosts
Cursed Ghosts
Vampires
Ancient Vampires
Skeleton Archers

by the time you are ready to go to Freedom Isles. There are two shipwrecks, one in Greenwort and one in Arlania. Hopefully that will grant you at least Cursed Ghosts, but better if you get both. Vampires and Ancient Vampires can be obtained in small numbers in the graveyard via coffins lying on the map (already mentioned earlier). You would have to use sacrifice to bolster their numbers. Skeleton Archers should be available via shipwreck or one of the vendors in the graveyard. You also have a very high chance of getting a small stack of friendlies from a sarcophagus. Personally I would stay away from skeletons and zombies because they're not my style, but you'll get small stacks of friendlies in the graveyard and in the Freedom Isles graveyard on the Western Islands.

Originally Posted by Jamers

Anyway, the idea is I would be able to dual-cast each turn, and I could hypnotize / sacrifice or just blast away or whatever. I'd have the zombie wife for the bonus speed and initiative which would come in handy for the entire game.

I think this would work, using hypnotize/sacrifice plus the soul draining ability of your ghost stacks to top off your vampire and skeleton archer stacks. Also, vampires life steal up to their original number plus they have the no retaliation ability, so they are fairly durable. Skeleton Archers would die in droves, but they'd be easy to replace. With a mage's intelligence, you could restore 100+ skeleton archers per casting of sacrifice.

Now, the problem is that your only upgrades from that initial army are Bone Dragons and Necromancers. You can get a Bone Dragon egg in the Gremlin Castle, but Necromancers are not available until late in the game.

Originally Posted by Jamers

I posted a question earlier about the mechanics of Necromancy and Necro Call, as I'm not sure exactly how these work. If someone could help me out here or on that post, I'd really appreciate it and it may change my whole position on this idea.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I don't think Necromancy gives you extra units. It just minimizes your losses by giving you back a % of dead units at the end of battle. Necro Call gives you extra undead in combat, but they only last for the duration of that combat, so that's not terribly useful either. But again, I haven't used either of these skills extensively so don't quote me on it.

Honestly, I agree with the other posters that it would probably get boring playing with the same army for most of the game. But the only way to know for sure is to go for it.

[DavekeC]

Why keep the same army ?

You can always just switch some of the units into dragons ...
As far as i know "neutral animals" do not get negative morale from undead.
At least the black dragons didn't so you can replace whatever u want ( probably the lesser ghosts & vampires by black and red dragons) Zombies are also very durable and you can get their speed up with a mass haste
(since movement is problem for all undead) Still getting your army back after the battle to full should be the undeads primary force.

This would allow a pure warrior to be balanced vs mages / paladins concerning expenditures on troops imo ... Thats the whole idea of undead no ?