New Mod Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Babies!

[jorko80]

I have some ideas to make the normal battles tougher, but I was saving them for AP / CW and then possibly roll them back into TL.

I like that

You know, when I play TL now, I do as much as possible without even fighting, I think the last game I played I got up to level 5 or 6 before I even fought my first fight.

There are quite a few quests that you can do before you go to the Western Islands without fighting - it sounds like you are also using this strategy.

Yes. I use that. Usually when I get access to a new area, I try to get what I can and then start fighting.

When I first did my TL mod development, I was not nearly as good as I am now. Also, I didn't know how to edit the *.LOC files, etc.

Now that I've gained all this experience with not only modding and playing TL, I've got some even better ideas for making it harder.

So we'll see how it goes as I continue to work on AP / CW and eventually roll what I learn there back into TL..

Sounds good

The problem with the normal battles is that you simply have a huge advantage against them as they have no spell caster to help them.

That's why the creatures should be stronger and bigger in numbers to compensate for your spells and spirits. And the player must think hard what ability or spell to use,not just throwing armies at each other.

I do not currently know how to implement the immobile guards, but this sounds like a good idea. Although I think I'm a bit spoiled as I really enjoy running around everyone to get the goodies (plus it gives me a chance to get Gerda), but you are right about putting garrisons to make the game more challenging.

I'll have to learn how to affect the creatures movement paths as I have no idea on how to do this.

Wow, you know all the shortcut strategies. Immobile guards sounds like a good idea - looks like I've got more to learn!

The immobile guards are a very important part of the game. You should fight your way to the goodies , not just get everything for free, it feels more rewarding. And also make you think : Can I kill those guys now,what will I lose, does it worth it ,what will I gain and so on...
While on the subject - the guards for the book of the Dead in elven lands are also easy to bypass and that opens the way to dragons ,runes and quests too easily. In GM there are 2 guards of each book - 1 in elven lands and 1 in death lands,both immobile, it is way more challenging.
About Gerda - you have no problem with accessing her earlier ,because she is in lower haddar and the immobile guard should be in a narrow area when you enter Taron Mines. So enjoy

Your Charger mileage will probably start to decrease when it becomes more important to do damage than replenish mana / rage. Also, you don't get much experience for Lina if you use them a lot, so I think you'll find that the Chargers strategy will put you at a disadvantage later, with a lower level Lina (which you'll need for her to get some levels otherwise you'll be in big trouble later).

We'll see about that

If you're playing no loss, you really only need a very small amount of money to buy enough troops if you stick with them throughout the game.

Ofcourse I try to play always with zero losses ,but thats not an ultimate goal, I like to make calculations : what if I kill that army now, I will lose something, but probably gain more, do I have enough money to buy my army again, is there enough army in the shops and so on...

I like to trade wives and switch armies a lot so I end up spending a lot more money on troops than normal to take advantage of the wife / kid bonuses...

About the life change : it's a bit annoying when I changed my wife in elven lands and then 40 battles waiting for new kids. The first time it's ok, but now it make my hero much weaker,the battles are harder ,but still it is boring to wait so long. And not knowing what bonuses I'll have makes me reluctant to change the wife. I did it just to see what happens ,but if I play 2nd time I probably will not do it. Feanora did gave me good bonuses. A proposal : make a list of the possible babies that the wife offers, so the player can make at least some estimation,if it's worth it to make the change. And reduce the fights needed from 2nd wife onwards to 5 combats per kid.

Yah, meditation is a toughie to make useful, but the Runes aren't really that much, although I can see not putting much into it until you start using a lot of level 3 spells and find that you're low on mana a lot.

Maybe adding +1 intelligence will help, that goes also to Scouting, it just stays to lvl1 and currently I will not spend more runes on it.

Yah, well you can see that I left all the original items alone. You can actually get that artifact without fighting a single battle at the beginning of the game, so it is still useful early. You just out grow it quickly if you're a mage. It is still useful to Warrior and perhaps Paladin...

That doesn't sound good. If it is too hard to change the arts don't do it, but if it's not, then it's a must, because you leave a part of the game useless. After all balance is the most important part of the game. At least 50% increase to the mana arts is needed.

Well, you'll be cursing it when it's used on you and it lasts that long! Plus, you probably haven't noticed, but a unit's resistance affects spell duration. Cast spells on troops with magic resistance and the spell duration increases if it is a bonus spell or decreases if it is a penalty. Fire resistance affects the duration of burn, etc.

I noticed that right away,no worries and I like it. Still it's too powerful. It was cast on me and that's not much of a problem, the problem is ,that the enemy can't react always to it and the neutrals can't at all, so my opinion is that it is way unbalanced in the moment. Base duration for Sheep should be at least -1.

I didn't change this - but I think I can understand the logic. The cannonball actually might do even more damage if you were in front of it!

I don't think I'd want to stand in front of a cannon!

You are not picturing this in your head clearly , there is no way in real fight that some swordsman army will sit in a row in front of the cannon and wait . All be involved in melee and it will be impossible for the canonners to operate the cannon ,henceforth the melee penalty.

I don't think Bugs Bunny can stick his carrot into the barrel and have it explode in the Cannoneer's face! Ha! That'd be funny!

That's what you think!

Big Pato has a skill tree just like you and he picked his level-ups just like you picked yours! So he decided to pick a couple of Mage School Skills and spent his hard-earned crystals on learning some spells!

So leave poor Big Pato alone!

It is a good fight again. But it is nice for a change to fight raw power and highly boosted units without magic. That's my point.

I really like a lot of the game mechanics that I've added to TL and it has been a great learning experience. The developers have made the expansions a lot more robust with respect to modding in AP / CW (and hopefully WotN, too). For example, if you misspell a template macro in TL and highlight the item, the game just freezes! In AP / CW, the game says #NF so that you can go fix it!

I think that is exactly what the game said when I fought Red Beard. Will recheck it later.

So I'll see what I can do about modding WotN, too, but I've got to be careful not to spread myself too thin, otherwise I'll end up working on this forever and not get anything done!

No rush needed . But WotN needs far more then just the things you've done to TL. The only part thats interesting and balanced are the 4 initial Islands and then when you kill the spider it gets messy,boring,ultimately easy. I hope you will have the patience to change it,I have many ideas. The russian top modders are so disappointed in it ,that don't want to do it and for now it's frozen .

Thanks for your time

P. S. Really like the idea of Fatt Shade about the spell with poison damage boost