On Wednesday, March 24, 1999 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-5, Dean Christopher Farmer wrote:
> HI HOMM3 Fans,
> Firstly I'd like to point out that I love this game, and am completely
> addicted. Congratulations on yet another winner NWC. Many late nights
> ahead....
> However, here are some points I would like to mention.
> Point1.
> I know this has been discussed before, but it really does seem to me that
> the Heroes 3 AI, even on the normal level is cheating. Someone mentioned
> in an earlier post that the AI is now very good at buying all of its
> creatures up to and including seventh level each week, well to me it seems
> a little *too* good to me.
> Unless I have missed something, It is not possible for a fully upgraded
> castle to be self-sustainable, other than maybe a capital. Even if you
> factor in all of the sites on the map that give extra gold each week,
> 2000 per day cannot buy all the creatures for a particular 7th level castle
> particularly in the case of Tower/Castle and all the $5000 troops.
> My example is the scenario Titan's Winter. Quickly in this scenario I found
> myself in the position of owning an entire continent, whilst another CP
> owned another continent. I had 3 fully upgraded Tower Castles on my
> continent and owned 4-5 of each mine. Even with all of the town income,
> map-site income and constant marketplace resource-to-gold income I was
> struggling to buy every single creature at all 3 castles each week.
> However, as I quickly learned when I moved onto his continent and fought
> him, the computer player had no trouble in buying EVERY single creature
> each week, including 12 Archangels (1 flagged POG and 4 castles.)
> From browsing his continent, he had 4 castles (4K+2K+2K+2K = 10K Income)
> and 2 Gold Mines. Thats 12K per day which is 84K per week. 12 Archangels
> alone cost 60K. Factor in the Champions and you're up to76K. Factor in
> the Druids and you're already over 84K. Yet he managed to purchase the
> Crusaders/Griffons/Halberdiers/Marksman (all of them) from all 4 castles
> each week. Not sure exactly how much more cash that is, but its a
> lot extra.
> Ok, am I missing something obvious here when I play this game, or is the
> AI cheating?
> Point 2:
> Anyone else noticed how the formula for quick combat when the
> computer is fighting stuff seems to be:
> If A tougher than B
> B dies
> A remains unchanged
> else
> A dies
> B remains unchanged
> To me, this has become very evident from playing some games, and explains
> why the AI cruises through many wandering stacks and reaches your base
> with a decent army fairly quickly. It also ensures that an AI which is
> doing well does not lose valuable armies eliminating other AI opponents.
> I've seen AI superheroes defeat other AI superheroes then come for me
> literally without a scratch..
> Point 3:
> How on earth does the wandering monsters joining algorithm work?
> Picture this. You've built up a superhero, you've fought for several
> hours to take control of most of the map. My hero:
> 17 Titans
> 50 ArchMages
> 58 Genies
> 43 Naga Queens
> 300 Gremlin Masters
> some large amount of gargoyles
> 80 iron golems
> I have one more enemy 'superhero' to defeat. I am after him and quite
> confident of victory. Our stats are about the same and he has:
> 16 Anicent Behemoths
> 26 Cyclops
> 40 Thunderbirds
> 47 Ogres
> similear large numbers of lower level units.
> Then he walks into a stack of wandering Behemoths (not ancient) that
> SHOULD have kicked his butt. I am very surprised to right click and see
> that a HORDE of Behemoths just joined his tough hero.
> Now I fight this hero, and face 55 Behemoths. Now my hero is tough, but
> not THAT tough, and I lose quite badly.
> How is it fair that a wandering army more powerful than the rest of his
> entire stack (or close to it) should be able to join him. We both spent
> the entire game building up our stacks, going into battle, building up
> more, etc and then in one instant he grabs something which is equal to
> everything I have. Now, I would not have a problem with this if he
> already had 3xHP of the wandering stack, or similar, but clearly in this
> case he didn't. In fact I think I worked out his stack had LESS HP than
> the 55 Behemoths. I lost the game (4 hour game) because of this so
> naturally now I am a little ticked. Maybe I will calm down and change
> my mind on this one ... comments?
> Any agreement/disagreement on the above?
> Deano
>
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Dean Farmer.
> 5th Year Comms Eng/Comp. Science
> RMIT University. Melbourne Australia.
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Dean Farmer.
> 5th Year Comms Eng/Comp. Science
> RMIT University. Melbourne Australia.

To your 3rd point. once you have expert Diplomacy and a strong army, most wondering creatures will be willing to join you.