New Mod Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Babies!

[jorko80]

Your statements are true, but now you may have a use for the Slow Spell and it becomes mass at level 3 and so it is something to consider with respect to strategy. I think you'll end up liking it as you now think about how can you slow the enemy down, and then the Black Dragon's Magic Immunity really comes into play so they get a bit tougher, but not too much.

You make it sound as the slow spell was useless, but that was the first spell I wanted to aquire before ,especially in GM . And now in the beginning it's a bit useless and later we'll see

Plus, I'm not sure if you've noticed the containers (i.e. eggs, sprouts, coffins, etc.), but they are now variable and that provides another way to replenish troops. So for example, Spider Eggs produce all the spider variants (it is random) and the same with Snake Eggs. You can get either Skeletons or Archers from Skeleton Coffins and Vampires or Ancient Vampires from Vampire Coffins. You can get Royal Thorns from Sprouts if you have enough and the same is true with getting Ancient Ents from Ent Seeds if you use enough.

I discovered that yesterday, I like it a lot, finally some use for these things, I like it when all the things in the game are usable and make you think harder what to choose to do with them ,not just sell them.

Sounds interesting, I didn't really know about the Grandmaster that you mentioned, but it sounds like they did a great job from your impression of it.

About that mod, it aims to remove all abusive strategies in the game, not just increasing the meat% . So there are a lot of changes to creatures,abilities and everything. For example the mage can cast double only 3 times at expert level. The balancing is amazing. You are thrown in the game and seeing the armies, you wonder : LOL how the hell can I kill that? . But knowing that the russian guys did it, means that there is a way . The first thing is realizing the truth that you are not ready to fight right away,so you start thinking : can I perform some quests in order to become stronger, what is possible without fighting and etc. Also when you are a bit familiar with KB , the original impossible difficulty really feels as normal, absolutely easy.

I found the error (Shroud) and fixed it in a new update so you can download it.

Thanks

I do have an Excel Spreadsheet with the *.HERO file references and their original statistics as well as my enemy skill design sheet and the new hero designs. I'll snap out the HERO file reference worksheet and post it on here for reference...

Thank you very much for this .

So yesterday, I started your mod again, this time at 170% with a mage hero. Only 2 changes in logic.txt , the money income is 0.4 and so far it is good. And the boss attack and hp is 500% and the turtle was a bit easy,but I guess next time I will make it 1000% as in GM. As I think of it now, your mod makes my creatures even stronger then in the original game and the bosses suck big time, leaving them with no changes makes them something quite ordinary and they shouldn't be. And also the name "impossible" should stand for itself.
So far I managed to clear Darion without the swamp, then cleared the turtle and got to the pirate lands to see if there is something interesting and performing 2-3 not fighting quests to hopefully raise 1 level. Now the feeling and the challenge with the mage is quite better than with the warrior. The spirits are hard to use every battle as it should be with a mage, my shoal does only 250-350 so it's completely normal. So my thoughts about that are that the shoal must be balanced somehow. It's like having a chain lightning that costs 10 mana and does 1000 damage to 5 units in the beginning of the game with a mage for example.
Two questions :
- I've read that the ghosts have 80% might damage resistance, but in my games they have 95% ,is that supposed to be in "impossible" ? Anyway I managed to kill the undead armies, but they are quite a challenge compared to the other armies and the feeling is different. Maybe 90% should be enough. I will see what happens in the late game.
- On level 4 with the mage I was offered 72 leadership and took it. Then on level 6 I was offered 76 leadership , that was a bit shocking, is it normal ? Can you give me the chart by which the mage receives leadership ?

P.S. Just found a really unpleasant bug. The heroes I fight in castles don't appear in battle, it's just the army without any hero bonuses. That applies to Baron Norge, Frogus Bagaba and Enemen. I tried to fight Lucky James and there everything seems normal. The first three I did not find in your xls-description so maybe you didn't changed them ,but something prevents the game from using their original .hero files.

[Fatt_Shade]

You make it sound as the slow spell was useless, but that was the first spell I wanted to acquire before ,especially in GM . And now in the beginning it's a bit useless and later we'll see

Slow is not useless on start, just not strong enough. As i mentioned before, now all spells work as described in original game, but didnt work like that. Now with every 15intellect you get +1 turn for spells that have lasting effect. So for 1 lvl slow and 15 intellect you`ll have -2 speed for enemy units. For 3rd lvl slow and 30 intellect, you`ll have -4 speed to all enemy, which is great. And as Mat said, spells are suposed to be mage`s best weapon, now warriors.

And the boss attack and hp is 500% and the turtle was a bit easy,but I guess next time I will make it 1000% as in GM.

Since here we have only 3 boss fights (Turtle, Kraken, Spider) and each is a bit easy for time you`re supposed to fight it. When this mod goes to Ap/Cw i expect to have a bit more fun in Droid and Gremilion battles, not to mention Baal and Ktahu end game bosses, with huge summoning stacks and strong AOE attacks.

As for your questions, i`ll try to help as i can :
1) Ghosts resistances - ghost have nominal 80% physical res, but for impossible difficulty they get 25% of that, so it`s 80% + 0,25x80% = 100% but since max resistance for some dmg type is 95% then it`s capped to 95%.
And they have vunerability to magic -100%, and they gain 25% of that for impossible diff settings, so it`s -100% +0.25x100 = -75%. So they gain resistance compared to normal diff lvl.
Same goes for plants and fire vunerability , or some human units and physical dmg.

2) Here all is random, and that includes lvlup rewards. Try to get near lvlup, and go to some are and save game. Fight 1 battle to get lvl and see choices, save after that. Load before battle and change area and fight to gain lvl. You`ll get different reward choice. I`m not sure how this is calculated, but as i figured it out, harder areas give higher rewards. So if you gain lvl 5 in Greenwort you`ll get lower reward then in Marshan swamp, because swamp have harder battles to fight and therefor give higher rewards on lvlup.
SPOILER :
Simple test for this is just on start (begin new game to try it). Right on start after talking to king go to swamp, and take quest to blow up alchemist cauldron, and receive stinky potion form witch but dont go to alchemist. Save game. Open inventory , and use potion (right click on it, and `use`) it should give you some exp points 150 for paladin, 100 for warrior, and 200 for mage class and that should be enough for you to lvlup), and you`ll see what reward you get for 2nd lvl in swamp. Load game, go to Greeworth use potion, and see reward for it, load game go to Arlania/Verlon forest ... I think you get my point. For tactician with enough nerves this can give significant bonuses on start of game. Later 15+ lvl it become difficult to calculate how much battles you need to make this happen , and in areas you cleared there are no enemy stacks for you to lvlup on. For this i always have some high lvl item to suppress.

Hope i helped

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by jorko80

You make it sound as the slow spell was useless, but that was the first spell I wanted to aquire before ,especially in GM . And now in the beginning it's a bit useless and later we'll see

Okay, sounds good - I just wanted to point out that increased speed can be countered...

Originally Posted by jorko80

I discovered that yesterday, I like it a lot, finally some use for these things, I like it when all the things in the game are usable and make you think harder what to choose to do with them ,not just sell them.

Glad you like them!

Originally Posted by jorko80

About that mod, it aims to remove all abusive strategies in the game, not just increasing the meat% . So there are a lot of changes to creatures,abilities and everything. For example the mage can cast double only 3 times at expert level. The balancing is amazing. You are thrown in the game and seeing the armies, you wonder : LOL how the hell can I kill that? . But knowing that the russian guys did it, means that there is a way . The first thing is realizing the truth that you are not ready to fight right away,so you start thinking : can I perform some quests in order to become stronger, what is possible without fighting and etc. Also when you are a bit familiar with KB , the original impossible difficulty really feels as normal, absolutely easy.

I set out to do this a well, but only with the most abusive strategies and I don't like to limit spells except by their power and your mana. For example, Invisibility is limited to level 4 units so you can no longer do the single Emerald Green Dragon strategy, but you're only limited by the number of crystals you get to get it as high of a level as you need and then the mana that you have during combat.

Also the mana_rage_gain_k that reduces and prevents mana and rage regeneration during combat eliminates strategies of going 100 rounds to rebuild your army for no losses. Also, you'll note that your troops become tired during extended combat and they'll begin to lose their effectiveness.

I'm not sure what you mean by the double spell (unless you're referring to Phantom), but these types of strategies are mitigated by the fact that a lot of the enemy heroes have the Dispel spell and so that spell is easily dealt with by enemy heroes (as well as the aforementioned mana_rage_gain_k).

Originally Posted by jorko80

So yesterday, I started your mod again, this time at 170% with a mage hero. Only 2 changes in logic.txt , the money income is 0.4 and so far it is good. And the boss attack and hp is 500% and the turtle was a bit easy,but I guess next time I will make it 1000% as in GM. As I think of it now, your mod makes my creatures even stronger then in the original game and the bosses suck big time, leaving them with no changes makes them something quite ordinary and they shouldn't be. And also the name "impossible" should stand for itself.

Most of the starting units were left untouched so it is possible that it is due to other changes.

I'd probably be more apt to make the Turtle's powers stronger rather than just give it more health. But you have to remember that this is a gate to other areas of the game and making it too hard would just turn people off. So perhaps with you changing its health it's then a personal choice for you to make it harder. I think you can see that there are probably enough knobs in my mod to make it really challenging for you, but since I didn't touch this area of the game I'll think about possible changes here. For the Kraken and the Spider there's really nothing I can do there as no matter how hard I make it you can just skip them and do them at the end of the game (well, I guess if you want to marry Mirabella then maybe you have incentive to fight the Kraken earlier).

Originally Posted by jorko80

So far I managed to clear Darion without the swamp, then cleared the turtle and got to the pirate lands to see if there is something interesting and performing 2-3 not fighting quests to hopefully raise 1 level. Now the feeling and the challenge with the mage is quite better than with the warrior. The spirits are hard to use every battle as it should be with a mage, my shoal does only 250-350 so it's completely normal. So my thoughts about that are that the shoal must be balanced somehow. It's like having a chain lightning that costs 10 mana and does 1000 damage to 5 units in the beginning of the game with a mage for example.

You'll note that there are greater differences between the hero classes now and so you saw how good the Warrior was with Rage Spirits early and conversely you're finding out how much less effective they are with the Mage.

I did make some slight level changes in the latest update to Evil Shoal requiring a higher Sleem level to get to the damages you were seeing so maybe it is enough, but it doesn't really affect the game in the latter part if you can maximize that spirit ability, which you haven't seen yet.

I think for the most part when it comes to the spirit abilities is that all of them are useful if you decide to put points into them, but due to the spirit level-up mechanics you'll want to maximize your mass damage abilities since they garner the most experience per use. So you'll find that the utility of the single or no damage abilities becomes second to leveling your spirits.

Originally Posted by jorko80

Two questions :
- I've read that the ghosts have 80% might damage resistance, but in my games they have 95% ,is that supposed to be in "impossible" ? Anyway I managed to kill the undead armies, but they are quite a challenge compared to the other armies and the feeling is different. Maybe 90% should be enough. I will see what happens in the late game.

Fatt_Shade is 100% correct on this assessment - don't forget that all enemy unit statistics are modified by the difficulty level scaler plus the map location divisor.

Originally Posted by jorko80

- On level 4 with the mage I was offered 72 leadership and took it. Then on level 6 I was offered 76 leadership , that was a bit shocking, is it normal ? Can you give me the chart by which the mage receives leadership ?

The game used to use the leadtable in HERO.TXT, but it was changed I'm guessing in patch 1.6 or 1.7. Now the leadership increase is the range specified in the hero's level-up section times their level. For mage, that is 10 to 20 times their level. So you can see that you were pretty close to the max at level 4 (20 * 4 = 80) whereas level 6 you were a bit below average (15 * 6 = 90). Curse that random number generator at level 6, but praise it at level 4!

Originally Posted by jorko80

P.S. Just found a really unpleasant bug. The heroes I fight in castles don't appear in battle, it's just the army without any hero bonuses. That applies to Baron Norge, Frogus Bagaba and Enemen. I tried to fight Lucky James and there everything seems normal. The first three I did not find in your xls-description so maybe you didn't changed them ,but something prevents the game from using their original .hero files.

You know, I thought the same thing as you - didn't they partake in the combat? But then I looked for their *.HERO file and they didn't have one. I also went and looked up what was supposed to take place with this combat (I can't quite remember it was either in the *.QST or *.LOC files (or maybe both!)) and noticed that there was no hero listed so I thought I was simply mistaken and that these battles were always without their heroes.

Am I mistaken here? I can't find where I changed this and I don't find any reference to these heroes partaking so I think it was just that my memory (and perhaps yours) were wrong here and those heroes never partook in the combat.

Like you said Lucky James is there and you can see his *.HERO file in my list (you even see some heroes that are not in the game that I found in the *.HERO files) so this is how these battles go, I guess.

Well, thanks again for the comments. I can see that your level of play is pretty high and so it will be interesting to see how you do when you play the game further than you have and whether you run into any trouble...

Matt

/C\/C\

[Nevar]

This mod is amazing. I've played the game for yet another 40 hours ever since I installed the mod. Absolutely brilliant.

I do seem to have run into an issue, though. I married Orcerlyn for her weapon slots (she has two of them), and everything was going fine for a while. I'm a mage but my archer army now does about as much damage as my spells. Nothing beats the Rage Spirits, though. I love what you did with them. Ice Orb is crazy now.

Unfortunately, I seem to have run into an issue. After my next fight, Orcelyn will ask my character to get her pregnant, and while I've seen how awesome the new kids are in this mod (Rina had 4 children before she was divorced), I'd rather not get kids since I don't actually use orcs.

The thing, though, is that I can't seem to say no to Orcelyn. The only dialogue options aren't actually dialogue. They seemed liked placeholders. And whichever I choose, she gets pregnant, with the first option making her expect it in 10 battles and the second in 5 battles.

Any help would be appreciated. I'd rather not wait until Xeona to get 2 weapon slots. Thank you!

[Sir Whiskers]

Originally Posted by Nevar

Unfortunately, I seem to have run into an issue. After my next fight, Orcelyn will ask my character to get her pregnant, and while I've seen how awesome the new kids are in this mod (Rina had 4 children before she was divorced), I'd rather not get kids since I don't actually use orcs.

The thing, though, is that I can't seem to say no to Orcelyn. The only dialogue options aren't actually dialogue. They seemed liked placeholders. And whichever I choose, she gets pregnant, with the first option making her expect it in 10 battles and the second in 5 battles.

Any help would be appreciated. I'd rather not wait until Xeona to get 2 weapon slots. Thank you!

Try talking to her prior to your next fight, and selecting the last option - something like "No, I don't need anything". My understanding is that you have to talk to your wife every so often (every 10-15 battles?), or she'll start nagging you about having kids. This should reset that counter, so she doesn't ask you to get her pregnant.

I know this works to keep Feona from turning into a frog, but I believe it also keeps her from asking about kids, which is why I think it will work with Orcelyn. Hope this helps.

And yes, this is an outstanding mod.

[Nevar]

Originally Posted by Sir Whiskers

Try talking to her prior to your next fight, and selecting the last option - something like "No, I don't need anything". My understanding is that you have to talk to your wife every so often (every 10-15 battles?), or she'll start nagging you about having kids. This should reset that counter, so she doesn't ask you to get her pregnant.

I know this works to keep Feona from turning into a frog, but I believe it also keeps her from asking about kids, which is why I think it will work with Orcelyn. Hope this helps.

And yes, this is an outstanding mod.

Thank you. I will try this. I actually ditched her for the River Fairy. I have been dominating Demonis with an army of fairies.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Nevar

This mod is amazing. I've played the game for yet another 40 hours ever since I installed the mod. Absolutely brilliant.

Thanks! It has been a lot of hard work!

Originally Posted by Nevar

I do seem to have run into an issue, though. I married Orcerlyn for her weapon slots (she has two of them), and everything was going fine for a while. I'm a mage but my archer army now does about as much damage as my spells. Nothing beats the Rage Spirits, though. I love what you did with them. Ice Orb is crazy now.

Ice Orb is awesome now, until you start fighting lots of armies with fire damage - so look out in Demonis and when fighting dragons!

Originally Posted by Nevar

Unfortunately, I seem to have run into an issue. After my next fight, Orcelyn will ask my character to get her pregnant, and while I've seen how awesome the new kids are in this mod (Rina had 4 children before she was divorced), I'd rather not get kids since I don't actually use orcs.

Don't forget that Orcelyn has plenty of children that apply bonuses to units other than just Orcs: Crag Hack, Kilgor, Erdamon, Dessa, Gundula, Saurug, Zubin, Aikin, Drakon, Merist, Rosic, Tiva, and Young Yog = 13. Her Orc bonus babies are: Gretchen, Gurnisson, Jabarkas, Krellion, Tyraxor, Vey, and Boragus = 7. So more than half her children (13 out of 20) don't provide direct Orc bonuses.

It's pretty much like this for all the wives - they have children with bonuses to the units of the wife's race and then other children with more generic bonuses in case you don't want to use units of the wife's race. Of course it is all random, but on average you have 1-2 (really 1.5 or so) babies with bonuses to units of the wife's race and 2-3 (really 2.5 or so) babies with bonuses to all units. Some wives are a little more biased than the others as it depends on the number of units there are in a race.

For example with Gerda, there are only 5 Dwarven units and I lumped Miners and Dwarves together and Alchemists and Cannoneers together plus 1 Giant bonus child for 3 babies with Dwarven unit bonuses, plus 1 more with an all Dwarf unit bonus for a total of 4 out 19 kids (so only ~1/5) with Dwarf only unit bonuses.

On the other hand with Rina / Zombie Rina there are 14 Undead units and 8 kids with Undead unit bonuses out of 19 kids (so almost half).

Originally Posted by Nevar

The thing, though, is that I can't seem to say no to Orcelyn. The only dialogue options aren't actually dialogue. They seemed liked placeholders. And whichever I choose, she gets pregnant, with the first option making her expect it in 10 battles and the second in 5 battles.

Yah I probably need to work on her dialogue a bit more. I forget which wife I patterned Orcelyn after, but like Sir Whiskers says they all pester you after a certain period of time to have kids. There should be a "no" path in the dialog that allows you to keep deferring the decision to have kids, but I'll double check it...

Originally Posted by Nevar

Any help would be appreciated. I'd rather not wait until Xeona to get 2 weapon slots. Thank you!

I think you'll love finishing the game up with Xeona and demons! She is my favorite wife and I love playing the demon units!

Thanks again to you and Sir Whiskers for your kind words about my mod!

Matt

/C\/C\

[Nevar]

Afraid I'll have to confirm the "you can't say no" bug for both Diana and Orcelyn. In the part of the dialogue where you would normally say yes or no, the first option will always act like you said yes normally, with the kiss your wife dialogue at the end and making your wife expect a child in ten turns.

The second option closes the dialogue but makes her expect it in FIVE turns O_O

Express pregnancy.

I suppose I could just try reloading until she gets a child I like. (Does that even work? I'd assume what kind of child you'll get first is set in stone, like how reloading and using spider eggs will always give you the same spiders).

Also, talking to her before the battle doesn't seem to reset anything. Nice try, though.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Nevar

Afraid I'll have to confirm the "you can't say no" bug for both Diana and Orcelyn. In the part of the dialogue where you would normally say yes or no, the first option will always act like you said yes normally, with the kiss your wife dialogue at the end and making your wife expect a child in ten turns.

The second option closes the dialogue but makes her expect it in FIVE turns O_O

Express pregnancy.

Wow, okay I'll have to fix this - thanks for reporting it!

***EDIT***

Hmmm... I can't repeat this problem - are you using V2013-05-18?

Dialogue for Orcelyn goes like this:

You're such a handsome man! What would like to discuss?

1. Have you ever thought about being a mother?
2. I'm sorry but I think it is time for us to split up.
3. Oh, nothing... nevermind...

Select choice 3 - exit, look at Orcelyn and it shows that she's not having any kids after x victories.

Select choice 1:

Yes, but I never thought that it would come so soon! I admit, I'm a bit scared, but I trust you my love.

1. Don't worry, I think you'll make a great mother!
2. You know, I'm a bit scared as well - let's wait...

Select choice 2: exit conversation look at Orcelyn's picture and it shows that she's not having any kids after x victories.

Select choice 1:

Okay, now what do we do again?

1. Oh don't worry, it starts like this... (Kiss your wife.)

You have to select choice 1 at this point and then the message box now says to await miracle. If you check Orcelyn's picture it shows that she'll have a kid after 10 victories.

So this is how it is supposed to work. Does it have a child anyway if you select the no option above and just not show it on Orcelyn's picture info? I haven't checked that out...

I tried the same thing with Diana and I don't see any problems there, either.

Hmmm... not sure what the problem is here, but it seems to work okay as far as I can tell. The only thing I can suggest is to ensure that you have the latest version...

***END EDIT***

Originally Posted by Nevar

I suppose I could just try reloading until she gets a child I like. (Does that even work? I'd assume what kind of child you'll get first is set in stone, like how reloading and using spider eggs will always give you the same spiders).

Also, talking to her before the battle doesn't seem to reset anything. Nice try, though.

Children are set in stone from game start. So you can't change who you're going to get (well unless you just don't marry that wife). So that is the random part of it, otherwise, everyone would just reload until they got the best kids.

Matt

/C\/C\

[Nevar]

I double checked. I do have that version.

Thanks for working so hard. I think there was a misunderstanding about when the bug happens. It doesn't happen when you talk to either of them manually to have a baby. It occurs during the event after a battle where they ask if you want to have one (without you initiating the conversation).

Reason I started talking about talking to her manually was because Sir Whiskers suggested that might reset the count before she asks me for a baby again. Doesn't work, unfortunately.

I imagine that makes it a little harder to reproduce.

Cheers and thank you.