Warlord's Battlecry = Alot of fun!
Falsadoom
left me very uninterested. I played a couple of missions into the game and
that warmed me up a little but still didn't pull me in. When I played till
after my hero reached 4th level, the real game and what it was all about
grabs ahold of you and get's you excited. Imagine Heroes of Might and Magic
(hero evolution), Warcraft (RTS), and of course Warlords (races and skills
system) rolled into 1 game. The best part is that you never *lose* your
hero. He is always there every game you play, unless you want to play a
different one. If he dies in a battle, the mission/map is over and you
replay without getting any experience for him that map. The Hero experience
system with skills and spells is pretty nice. I chose the path as a healer
(which brings up another issue, why be anything else?). I do see a couple
worrys right off however and I'm hoping someone can answer these issues
(preferably someone from SSG):
1) Why do +magery items not work? I have base 12 magery with +8 to magery in
gear worn. That means I should have 20 magery. My mana regen should be 1
point per 3 seconds, 100 max mana, and a +7 casting bonus. But instead it's
max 30 mana, 1 point per 8 seconds, and certainly still a lousy caster. This
appears to me to be broken. I am certainly not castng 90% success either.
2) Trying to cure disease on my troops just doesn't work (or it isn't
working like group heal at all). The spell goes off, someone near my hero
sparkles, the diseased people still are diseased. Some clarifications would
be nice as this can really stink.
3) Heroes *ARE* charging my base. Sometimes they get agressive and take
mines, but then they rush my base with a couple of units. I know this was
addressed but it's more than just being agressive, they are being foolish.
;-) They also hang out around the last mines taken intead of going back and
building a real army once they are done aquiring resource sites. I know this
is being worked on, just wanted to clarify it and no response is needed to
this point.
4) I am worried that only being a healer will be useful in the game after
perusing the skills. I noticed a few other classes get some healing types
skills/spell, I just hope that every selection has some good abilities to
make up for not having the ability to heal the army.
Thanks.
Falsa
Bane
> system) rolled into 1 game. The best part is that you never *lose* your
> hero. He is always there every game you play, unless you want to play a
> different one. If he dies in a battle, the mission/map is over and you
> replay without getting any experience for him that map. The Hero
experience
Not true - you will still get experience. However, it will be reduced to
75% of what you would normally have received. This is actually something I
did _not_ like too much. However, in the forthcoming patch, several
different hero modes will be supported, such as:
Ironman - Hero is deleted when he dies
Bronzeman - Hero's experienced is resetted to whatever he needed to gain the
current level
Tinman - Hero received 0 xp's for the map
> system with skills and spells is pretty nice. I chose the path as a healer
> (which brings up another issue, why be anything else?). I do see a couple
> worrys right off however and I'm hoping someone can answer these issues
> (preferably someone from SSG):
Most seem to feel that Archmage is the most powerful spellcaster available
at this time. This might change when the patch is released though.
> 1) Why do +magery items not work? I have base 12 magery with +8 to magery
in
> gear worn. That means I should have 20 magery. My mana regen should be 1
> point per 3 seconds, 100 max mana, and a +7 casting bonus. But instead
it's
> max 30 mana, 1 point per 8 seconds, and certainly still a lousy caster.
This
> appears to me to be broken. I am certainly not castng 90% success either.
They work, but they will only affect your chance of getting a spell off. 12
magery would yield a +/- 0 bonus to your Casting skill, while 20 gives you a
bonus of +3. Thus, if your Casting skill is 10, you'd normally have a 60%
chance of success - while wearing your gear this will rise to 69%. Not
fantastic, I guess - I for one wouldn't mind at least a mana regen increase
as well.
> 2) Trying to cure disease on my troops just doesn't work (or it isn't
> working like group heal at all). The spell goes off, someone near my hero
> sparkles, the diseased people still are diseased. Some clarifications
would
> be nice as this can really stink.
I assume you are referring to Cure? You need to be a Spell Master in order
to be able to affect others (within your Command radius) with this spell -
at Normal level, you'll only cure your hero.
> 3) Heroes *ARE* charging my base. Sometimes they get agressive and take
> mines, but then they rush my base with a couple of units. I know this was
> addressed but it's more than just being agressive, they are being foolish.
> ;-) They also hang out around the last mines taken intead of going back
and
> building a real army once they are done aquiring resource sites. I know
this
> is being worked on, just wanted to clarify it and no response is needed to
> this point.
OK :)
> 4) I am worried that only being a healer will be useful in the game after
> perusing the skills. I noticed a few other classes get some healing types
> skills/spell, I just hope that every selection has some good abilities to
> make up for not having the ability to heal the army.
Well, I certainly feel that's the case. I play Necromancer, Assassin,
Barbarian, Ranger, Thief and Paladin (the latter has got Healing abilities).
Each of these heroes have their pros and cons. The Assassin, for instance,
will eventually have a 20% chance of outright killing an enemy during
hand-to-hand combat. This is a serious threat to any opposing hero,
regardless of whether or not they possess healing abilities :)
I expect that the professions will be more balanced in the patch, though -
mages will no longer be able to play the role of "tanks", for instance,
which does make a lot of sense to me.
Falsadoom
"Bane" <bane_...@unrealized.com> wrote in message
news:B7Qm5.948$QY6....@nntpserver.swip.net...
> [snip]
> > system) rolled into 1 game. The best part is that you never *lose* your
> > hero. He is always there every game you play, unless you want to play a
> > different one. If he dies in a battle, the mission/map is over and you
> > replay without getting any experience for him that map. The Hero
> experience
>
> 75% of what you would normally have received. This is actually something
I
> did _not_ like too much. However, in the forthcoming patch, several
> different hero modes will be supported, such as:
>
> Ironman - Hero is deleted when he dies
> Bronzeman - Hero's experienced is resetted to whatever he needed to gain
the
> current level
> Tinman - Hero received 0 xp's for the map
I have never gotten exp after a battle I die in or lose, atleast it says 0
exp gained on the end screen (but am only playing the scenarios, might be
different in skirmish or multiplay?). Nice new features. Just looked in book
and it says 50% of points if hero is killed in skirmish. This get changed?
> > 1) Why do +magery items not work? I have base 12 magery with +8 to
magery
> in
> > gear worn. That means I should have 20 magery. My mana regen should be 1
> > point per 3 seconds, 100 max mana, and a +7 casting bonus. But instead
> it's
> > max 30 mana, 1 point per 8 seconds, and certainly still a lousy caster.
> This
> > appears to me to be broken. I am certainly not castng 90% success
either.
>
> They work, but they will only affect your chance of getting a spell off.
12
> magery would yield a +/- 0 bonus to your Casting skill, while 20 gives you
a
> bonus of +3. Thus, if your Casting skill is 10, you'd normally have a 60%
> chance of success - while wearing your gear this will rise to 69%. Not
> fantastic, I guess - I for one wouldn't mind at least a mana regen
increase
> as well.
Ok you must have a different list of appendices than I do, maybe on web page
or readme file? In the back of the book it is as I posted above. Where does
it tell you that you will not get mana cap, and regen from it and that it
only affects casting (certainly felt like it wasn't helping at all. And it
that's all magery does from items, that's pretty crappy.)? If that is the
case, I will dump all of those items and look for
morale/leadership/conversion items. Kind of a shame.
> > 2) Trying to cure disease on my troops just doesn't work (or it isn't
> > working like group heal at all). The spell goes off, someone near my
hero
> > sparkles, the diseased people still are diseased. Some clarifications
> would
> > be nice as this can really stink.
>
> I assume you are referring to Cure? You need to be a Spell Master in
order
> to be able to affect others (within your Command radius) with this spell -
> at Normal level, you'll only cure your hero.
Doh! Spell descriptions says cures caster and some units around the caster.
Ah well. Wish I knew this before I made that last level. :-) So how the hell
do I become a spell master?
> > 4) I am worried that only being a healer will be useful in the game
after
> > perusing the skills. I noticed a few other classes get some healing
types
> > skills/spell, I just hope that every selection has some good abilities
to
> > make up for not having the ability to heal the army.
>
> Well, I certainly feel that's the case. I play Necromancer, Assassin,
> Barbarian, Ranger, Thief and Paladin (the latter has got Healing
abilities).
> Each of these heroes have their pros and cons. The Assassin, for
instance,
> will eventually have a 20% chance of outright killing an enemy during
> hand-to-hand combat. This is a serious threat to any opposing hero,
> regardless of whether or not they possess healing abilities :)
>
> I expect that the professions will be more balanced in the patch, though -
> mages will no longer be able to play the role of "tanks", for instance,
> which does make a lot of sense to me.
Even this game is getting nerfed! *Runs screaming* Thanks for the response
and information. ;-)
Falsa
Thomas Dressen
"Falsadoom" <fals...@home.com> wrote:
> I have tried a couple times to step into the Battlecry game and
the demo
> left me very uninterested. I played a couple of missions into the
game and
> that warmed me up a little but still didn't pull me in. When I played
till
> after my hero reached 4th level, the real game and what it was all
about
> grabs ahold of you and get's you excited.
I had the same experience. Initially it seemed like an inferior ripoff
of AOE, but then the hero development really pulled me in.
Unfortunately, with my level 19 Pyromancer, the game has gotten overly
easy even against 5 Grand Warlords. Hopefully the patch will help.
> 4) I am worried that only being a healer will be useful in the game
after
> perusing the skills. I noticed a few other classes get some healing
types
> skills/spell, I just hope that every selection has some good
abilities to
> make up for not having the ability to heal the army.
Other classes also get healing spells. In fact, IMO the Pyromancer gets
the best one: Cauterize. At Grandmaster level, it heals 200 points to
all armies in the command radius for only 8 mana.
Of the spellcasting classes, the Archmage seems to be best past level
10 or so - partly because most of the useful spells are Level 1 & 2.
The Level 3 & 4 spells are often too mana-inefficient to be useful.
Tom
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Falsadoom
Ick, found another thing that I don't particularly like. I can't use my hero
from the campaign in skirmish.
Falsa
Terry McKelvey
Falsadoom wrote in message ...
>
>Ick, found another thing that I don't particularly like. I can't use my
hero
>from the campaign in skirmish.
When you successfully complete the campaign you are supposed to be able to
export your hero from the campaign into skirmish play. If you could do it
in the middle of the campaign, going back and forth between skirmish and
campaign, obviously you could build your hero to too high of a level so that
the campaign was no longer balanced and challenging.
Terry McKelvey
Falsadoom
"Terry McKelvey" <mcke...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:8nhv49$63$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
That I can live with! :-)
Here's another thing I wish designers would stop doing. The handful of guys
in a sea of enemys who have to squeek by and make it out with 1 hp left.
There is a mission like this where you are in a valley of dark elves,
chapter 4 mission 5-6 or somewhere in there. This equates to an hour of play
if you find the right way, hours of restarting until you get lucky if you
pick the wrong way. Some may find this entertaining, but I find it pretty
annoying. I know the difficulty of keeping missions fresh and different
leaves few options, but these kind of maps really turn off. So far however I
am having alot of fun and in 2 days am almost done with the "good" campaign.
I estimate about 40 hours gameplay for that then 20 for the 2 chapters of
dark. Not bad for scenarios alone.
Falsa
Liang Yin
wrote:
>Here's another thing I wish designers would stop doing. The handful of guys
>in a sea of enemys who have to squeek by and make it out with 1 hp left.
>There is a mission like this where you are in a valley of dark elves,
>chapter 4 mission 5-6 or somewhere in there. This equates to an hour of play
>if you find the right way, hours of restarting until you get lucky if you
>pick the wrong way. Some may find this entertaining, but I find it pretty
>annoying. I know the difficulty of keeping missions fresh and different
>leaves few options, but these kind of maps really turn off.
Is that the one with all the assassins? It was difficult only if you
aren't a spellcaster. A summon sprite spell (the lowest level spell
in nature and summoning) can get you a quick force of flying ranged
units. The only units on the map that can attack sprites are the bats
(which aren't really a problem since 1 shot kills em) and the enemy
hero (not a problem if you keep the sprites over the woods).
>So far however I
>am having alot of fun and in 2 days am almost done with the "good" campaign.
>I estimate about 40 hours gameplay for that then 20 for the 2 chapters of
>dark. Not bad for scenarios alone.
It's quite fun. I've beaten the campaign and have played a bunch of
coop multiplayer. The multiplayer is a bit unstable, and when things
get really busy, another human player can get dropped.
BTW, the key to a kick ass hero is to create an archmage. Pump up the
training skill by 5, then use stats (str+int) to pump up training even
more. Training is very very important for advancement, you get more
xp per mission (meaning faster level up) and more ability points when
you do level (a whopping +16 at training 30). Don't really learn too
many spells (the most useful IMO are group healing, entangle, call
lightning). Avoid the abilities, except to get spell mastery. Avoid
increasing casting skill, a high magery will be enough most of the
time. Always try to get items (I have a few that are +4/+3).
Most of the campaign mission are waay too easy. You can usually rush
one or two enemies with your starting troops. The skirmish AI (on
grand warlord) is really challenging tho. I used the editor to make a
map with 2 humans (coop) on a center plateau castle beseiged by 4
AIs.. really challenging to defend..
- Liang Yin
David Long
Thomas Dressen <td...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8nguho$ujr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
> I had the same experience. Initially it seemed like an inferior ripoff
> of AOE, but then the hero development really pulled me in.
> Unfortunately, with my level 19 Pyromancer, the game has gotten overly
> easy even against 5 Grand Warlords. Hopefully the patch will help.
<snip>
One thing that might help make it more difficult for you with a high level
hero is to set the level of the opposing heroes much higher than your
current level. If you right click on the AI heroes in skirmish set up, you
can make them any race, type or level. 5 GW AIs at level 25 or more ought to
give you more of a fight than 5 randomly chosen ones. You also might put
yourself at a disadvantage by playing say Dwarves against Orcs or some other
similarly difficult matchup. The races are fairly well balanced, but some
build faster than others which makes a slow builder human against a fast
builder AI extra challenging.
You could also create some maps of your own with difficult to attack
positions for yourself against some AIs. Create full-blown bases of
operation as a starting point for the AI race and start yourself from
nothing. Unfortunately, this kind of thing requires time and commitment you
might not have, but it is one way to continue to create challenging games.
--
Dave Long
David Long
Falsadoom <fals...@home.com> wrote in message
news:UoQm5.83187$6y5.56...@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com...
> I have never gotten exp after a battle I die in or lose, atleast it says 0
> exp gained on the end screen (but am only playing the scenarios, might be
> different in skirmish or multiplay?). Nice new features. Just looked in
book
> and it says 50% of points if hero is killed in skirmish. This get changed?
>
You only get experience for defeats in skirmish and multiplayer games. It's
an incentive to play a lower level hero against a higher level one because
you still could come away with the win but also receive something if you
lose. There's quite a lot of errata in the readme.txt Apparently their last
build came long after the manual was printed. Here's the part for Hero XP
calculation.
We have changed some elements of the Hero XP calculation
a) Map Size: +0 for Small, +1 for Medium, +2 for Large, +3 for X-Large
b) Result: +8 for Total Victory, +6 for Allied Victory, +4 for Defeat
c) Kills: +1 for each enemy Hero killed, +0 to +10 depending on the
number of armies you killed
d) Hero Death: You only receive 75% of XP if your hero died in the battle
e) Training: -50% to +50% bonus depending on your Training skill
f) Enemies: +1 for each side who was defeated when you left the game
Perform the following calculation only if you WON
Add 2 for each AI:Lord you fought against
Add 3 for each AI:Warlord or Human you fought against
Add 4 for each AI:Grand Warlord
Let's call this total A
Start with 1
Add 1 for each Lord or Knight allied with you
Add 2 for each Warlord or Human allied with you
Add 3 for Grand Warlord allied with you
Let's call this total B
+(A divided by B) ... round down
g) If the game was very short, all calculations are ignored and only 0 or 1
xp is given
h) Level 1 heroes cannot obtain more than 12 xp
i) Level 2 heroes cannot obtain more than 12 xp
j) Level 3 heroes cannot obtain more than 24 xp
k) These calculations are not used at ALL in the Campaign. Each scenario
has a set amount of XP that it is worth if you win... or zero xp if you
fail. This amount is STILL modified by Training Skill though.
> Ok you must have a different list of appendices than I do, maybe on web
page
> or readme file? In the back of the book it is as I posted above. Where
does
> it tell you that you will not get mana cap, and regen from it and that it
> only affects casting (certainly felt like it wasn't helping at all. And it
> that's all magery does from items, that's pretty crappy.)? If that is the
> case, I will dump all of those items and look for
> morale/leadership/conversion items. Kind of a shame.
Check the readme for info on all the above. Also, there are new Army and
Spell help files on SSG's website that accurately list the information on
each side and spell. http://www.ssg.com.au in the downloads area.
> Even this game is getting nerfed! *Runs screaming* Thanks for the response
> and information. ;-)
>
Heh heh... I think "nerfing" is now a part of every game on the planet.
Seems like players are always screaming about something after a game comes
out. It's kind of funny because on the one hand there's Age of Empires II
which has gotten no patching to nerf units or buildings which has allowed
certain tactics to become overused and people are complaining about that,
but on the other hand, when someone like SSG does go back and rework the
balance a bit, they also get tons of complaints. Not sure which one is a
better choice if any?
--
Dave Long
o...@gamestats.com
Falsadoom
"Liang Yin" <l....@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:fdvrpsovt2obo6dto...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 18 Aug 2000 07:41:10 GMT, "Falsadoom" <fals...@home.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Here's another thing I wish designers would stop doing. The handful of
guys
> >in a sea of enemys who have to squeek by and make it out with 1 hp left.
> >There is a mission like this where you are in a valley of dark elves,
> >chapter 4 mission 5-6 or somewhere in there. This equates to an hour of
play
> >if you find the right way, hours of restarting until you get lucky if you
> >pick the wrong way. Some may find this entertaining, but I find it pretty
> >annoying. I know the difficulty of keeping missions fresh and different
> >leaves few options, but these kind of maps really turn off.
>
> Is that the one with all the assassins? It was difficult only if you
> aren't a spellcaster. A summon sprite spell (the lowest level spell
> in nature and summoning) can get you a quick force of flying ranged
> units. The only units on the map that can attack sprites are the bats
> (which aren't really a problem since 1 shot kills em) and the enemy
> hero (not a problem if you keep the sprites over the woods).
Yes. I am a healer so it was slow going. Meditate time even in an RTS (cry).
:-)
> >So far however I
> >am having alot of fun and in 2 days am almost done with the "good"
campaign.
> >I estimate about 40 hours gameplay for that then 20 for the 2 chapters of
> >dark. Not bad for scenarios alone.
>
> It's quite fun. I've beaten the campaign and have played a bunch of
> coop multiplayer. The multiplayer is a bit unstable, and when things
> get really busy, another human player can get dropped.
I just finished the scenarios. I found the dark path to be alot harder and
good fun. That battle with the orc island, and the last one with 3 AI teamed
against you were pretty tough at first, but alot of fun.
> BTW, the key to a kick ass hero is to create an archmage. Pump up the
> training skill by 5, then use stats (str+int) to pump up training even
> more. Training is very very important for advancement, you get more
> xp per mission (meaning faster level up) and more ability points when
> you do level (a whopping +16 at training 30). Don't really learn too
> many spells (the most useful IMO are group healing, entangle, call
> lightning). Avoid the abilities, except to get spell mastery. Avoid
> increasing casting skill, a high magery will be enough most of the
> time. Always try to get items (I have a few that are +4/+3).
Well I was a healer first time through. I was a mana monster with mostly
just group heal. I did casting some early becuase I hate waiting for mana
after a failed cast. I also goofed and put points into skills instead of
stats early. Should have realized it was alot like AC in character building.
> Most of the campaign mission are waay too easy. You can usually rush
> one or two enemies with your starting troops. The skirmish AI (on
> grand warlord) is really challenging tho. I used the editor to make a
> map with 2 humans (coop) on a center plateau castle beseiged by 4
> AIs.. really challenging to defend..
>
>
> - Liang Yin
I am going to make a new character for skirmish now. Nice to see my scenario
character finally in skirmish too.
Falsa