Is there a fun style of expert play *other than* no-loss?

[Rhygadon]

So. I love both KB:TL and KB:AP, and I've enjoyed every HOMM game since the beginning (and even played the original KB, though the memories are very dim!). The Disciples series too.

One problem with all these games, though, is that if you're playing "seriously" (i.e. on high difficulty, and aiming for stringent goals like high scores or low completion times) they all collapse into a certain very finicky style of play, and in particular they all wind up requiring an emphasis on no- or nearly-no-loss battles.

This problem is particularly severe in KB, since even if you have plenty of money, replacement units may not be available, and even if they're available, traveling back across several continents to replace them is just *tedious*.

No-loss play is certainly fun, and gives that feeling of utter mastery. But it has at least two disadvantages: First, it's quite slow (more reloading, more scouting for unguarded resources, more extra turns spent delaying the end of a battle to dig up chests, kill small stacks with traps, &c.). Second, it narrows the range of fight experiences, since you never wind up fighting truly overwhelming enemies. The question you have to ask yourself before starting a fight is "can I dominate this opponent so completely that I emerge unscathed," rather than "do I have a chance of winning this fight at all?"

I also have this nagging feeling that no-loss play winds up narrowing the game, since many interesting spells/items/units just don't fit that style of play. (Most obvious are the units with powers triggered by loss of half the stack, but there are plenty of others.) Similarly, some choices (Resurrect, Inquisitor, Paladin, Sacrifice) become dominant almost regardless of your hero and army type.

So my question is: has anyone found a style of *interesting*, *challenging* play that doesn't involve such concern about losses? For example, I'm considering starting a game on Normal difficulty, but completely banning reloads and kiting, and using a chess clock or something to make myself play quickly during combat. Has anyone tried something like this?

Basically, I'm looking for a way to play that won't get me mired in the usual slow perfectionism. Any ideas?

[Zechnophobe]

Only use units level 1 to 3. It's a pretty decent challenge, that will also make you use a lot of units you've never touched before.

[bladeking77]

Well, how about this (Both for TL, and AP):

-First condition is that you play on Impossible.
-Second no Retreating, no Loading once you go trough a scenario you don't like (eg. you lose too much army, so you load and play better next time.) and no losing ( you can lose army, but not all of it, so you wouldn't get the Defeat screen. )
-No kiting of course.
-You can use any Spells, Items and units you like.

Remember the second condition, it is most important. That way you get a fair game. Once you're dead, you have to start over. You'll have to choose your opponents wisely.
That's how I played both of them, and it was fun every time.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by Rhygadon

So. I love both KB:TL and KB:AP, and I've enjoyed every HOMM game since the beginning (and even played the original KB, though the memories are very dim!). The Disciples series too.

One problem with all these games, though, is that if you're playing "seriously" (i.e. on high difficulty, and aiming for stringent goals like high scores or low completion times) they all collapse into a certain very finicky style of play, and in particular they all wind up requiring an emphasis on no- or nearly-no-loss battles.

This problem is particularly severe in KB, since even if you have plenty of money, replacement units may not be available, and even if they're available, traveling back across several continents to replace them is just *tedious*.

No-loss play is certainly fun, and gives that feeling of utter mastery. But it has at least two disadvantages: First, it's quite slow (more reloading, more scouting for unguarded resources, more extra turns spent delaying the end of a battle to dig up chests, kill small stacks with traps, &c.). Second, it narrows the range of fight experiences, since you never wind up fighting truly overwhelming enemies. The question you have to ask yourself before starting a fight is "can I dominate this opponent so completely that I emerge unscathed," rather than "do I have a chance of winning this fight at all?"

I also have this nagging feeling that no-loss play winds up narrowing the game, since many interesting spells/items/units just don't fit that style of play. (Most obvious are the units with powers triggered by loss of half the stack, but there are plenty of others.) Similarly, some choices (Resurrect, Inquisitor, Paladin, Sacrifice) become dominant almost regardless of your hero and army type.

So my question is: has anyone found a style of *interesting*, *challenging* play that doesn't involve such concern about losses? For example, I'm considering starting a game on Normal difficulty, but completely banning reloads and kiting, and using a chess clock or something to make myself play quickly during combat. Has anyone tried something like this?

Basically, I'm looking for a way to play that won't get me mired in the usual slow perfectionism. Any ideas?

Hmmm... no-loss is not a requirement, but minimal losses is. Case in point, the final score doesn't even count no-losses, and you only need a certain number of no-loss victories to take advantage of a particular medal.

You did mentioned two disadvantages to no-loss, and I have to disagree with you on both.

First, while it may look that you have a slower game, you are actually saving time by not running around trying to replenish you troops. Sure, you could keep changing your lineup to what's available in the continent that you are in, but that means you can't build your items/skills to any specific army type, weakening your army and making battles harder/slower.

Second, no-loss doesn't mean kiting/collecting drops first/fighting the enemies from weakest to strongest. I have a no-loss impossible warrior game that I finished in 7 days; running around kiting/collecting drops first/fighting the enemies from weakest to strongest was not an option.

As for impossible/no-loss/high score games being confined to a particular playing style and troop type, this is partially correct only. The reason why players who play such games seem to use the same tactics/troops/play style is because some tactics/troops/play styles are simply superior/better over others. What makes them superior/better is that using them makes for an easier and faster game. For example, if I played with an army of level 1 movement 2 troops as a warrior and didn't use Resurrection/Sacrifice/Time Back at all, even if I didn't care about massive losses my game would be slow going indeed.

But no one here is restricted in how one wants to play the game; to each his/her own joy. I honestly believe everyone here ("serious" players included) plays KBAP to have fun; it's just that each one has one's own definition of "fun".

[MaroonMaurader]

I've never actually found a fight which I could win, but not win no-loss. If you restrict yourself to avoiding any infinite-mana loops, then I've had several fights like that. And I agree that those can be some of the most interesting.

As far alternative play-styles, have you considered playing with an all-shooter army? Some of the boss-fights will be near-impossible to do no-loss (I might not even bother trying), but overall your game will be significantly faster, and it would provide a very different style of play.

[Razorflame]

you can do all battles without loss with a single stack of any unit

best unit to use for this is EGD

invisiblty + spells from the mage = gg on enemy ^^

[ckdamascus]

I read about an all shooter army thread on here once. I could not get it to go without some losses.

I then added Paladins, and was able to almost achieve no-loss. I only slipped up against Baal and was too lazy to try again since I considered it a successful enough run.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=14286

My mage version of it seemed a bit more tedious so I stopped that. But the mage build allows you to get a little bit more sloppy thanks to Higher Magic (dual cast).

That said, if you don't mind losing a few units, this build is sick. You might want to replace the royal garbage, er griffons with Black Dragons to improve effective initiative even more for the other shooters since you don't care about losses.

The real power of the units was achieving 100% critical rates.

[copcod]

Hi, I am new to the game but my idea is probably good.

The dfferent types of troops available may be well playetested and balanced but abilities that allow resurrection of troops and summoning of additional troops stand out as more powerful than others.

Using a point system to limit the kinds of troops that you can deploy on the battlefield can make the game more challenging and might make players even use some units they haven't chosen before.

If the expert players on the forum could put their heads together and come out with a list of all the units with a point value, It could create alot of fun competition over winning the game with different point caps.

for example, you could have a point cap of 9 points while employing several different squads of 8.75, 8.9, 8,5 point value under rev. 1.0 of the troop rating list.

being able to combine troops only in certain ways would add some depth to the game as well.

It would be nice to have an interface mod to go along with this to speed things up when changing your squad makeup.

[ckdamascus]

Not necessarily true. It depends on how your character is developed and how you use your troops.

Archdemons have no resurrection, yet due to their fast initiative, with a Mage-Amelie you can cast invisibility and spell-nuke everything. But if you were a Warrior-Amelie, you wouldn't have enough mana to do this.

Black Dragons are great to help avoid enemy heroes from nuking you, yet again, more useful with the Mage-Amelie. Again, no resurrection or summon.

Trolls with peacefulness and stoneskin and at night might be one of the most deadly tanks out there. No resurrection or summon here either.

Range Style play requires the most damage output (basically, destroy the enemy so fast, they can't retaliate anyway). Too many summon units would hurt that sort of build. I only used paladins to help restore the ranged units en-mass. Another guy on here relied on skeleton archers (which cannot be resurrected by paladins), and royal griffins (which never work well for me).

So you can't assign a universal weight since I can make bowmen into the most powerful unit for my type of game play, yet they will be total junk in your game. Or someone will make black dragons incredibly strong in their game too.

About the only unit in the game with infinite resurrection is the double droid stack build. While you can set artificial limits on that, taking eons to kill the enemy alone is punishment enough in my book.

That's why I went with the ultra fast damage range team. Took out Ktahu in 12 rounds, impossible-mode, no losses.

But that is part of the allure of this game. Being able to maximize a unit's abilities to suit your particular game style. I think we need to simply introduce more viable gamestyles rather than artificially limit ourselves.

[Zechnophobe]

Actually, archers do about the worst damage in the game. The only advantage they have is of course that opponents have no way to retaliate against them.

Also, Turn back Time is a great ressurrection tool for level 5 units (Still no black dragons though). And you can rezz trolls and archdemons with inquisitors.