Heroes of Might & Magic 4 Defense Thread

[ERYFKRAD]

So which homm do I start with. Bought them all from 1-5.

Do Heroes actually do anything in a fight?

 

[Lacrymas]

From 1, duh. From 1 to 3 they only cast spells, in 4 they are a major contributor in a fight, in 5 they can cast spells or attack.

 

[Jason Liang]

So which homm do I start with. Bought them all from 1-5.

Do Heroes actually do anything in a fight?

You plan on playing the Barbarian faction right? HoMM3. Stronghold is crazy good, Ancient Behemoths eat the other T7s for lunch.

 

[Lacrymas]

There's a barbarian faction in 1, too, and it's pretty cool.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

You plan on playing the Barbarian faction right?

How did you know?

 

[Jason Liang]

wtf I used to play a competitive HoMM3 Russian clone mmo called Lords of War and Money, Stronghold is clearly a top tier town in HoMM3.

T1: Goblins - only thing that matters for T1 is speed, and Goblins are one of the fastest T1s. Superior to useless slow-ass Halberdiers.
T2: Wolf Raiders - not much needs to be said, they are mini MKs. The best T2 unit, unchallenged.
T3: Orc Chieftains - 2nd best Ranged Unit after Grand Elves. T3 is the ideal tier for a ranged unit - low enough to horde, high enough to deal good damage. Way better than xbowmen or Gremlins who deal shit damage. Human players tend to ignore them until the end of the battle, by which point they've done as much if not more damage than flimsy Grand Elves, and they crush whatever debris is left on the field at the end of a battle. And you don't need to waste units guarding them since they can fend themselves.
T4: Ogre Magi - The meat shield unit for soaking retaliation, every faction needs this. Position in the middle of the battlefield and you'll ruin your opponents' positioning, since they don't want their valuable units to get walloped by them.
T5: Thunderbirds - Pretty much the only "bad" stronghold unit, at least they're fast and they fly. They're still intimidating and they can still be used to base enemy ranged units, you just have to wait for the opponent to overextend first. Still, better a crap T5 flyer than a crap T6 flyer like Scorpicores. At least they're more useful than crap T5s like Monks, Djinns, Pit Fiends and Treefolk. In LoWM they had an additional ability to carry units across the battlefield, which was fairly useful.
T6: Cyclops Kings - flimsy but makes Sieges simple, completely changes Stronghold into one of the Siege towns. Probably too valuable to put in a melee battle though. About average for a T6, which is not so bad considering the number of crap T6 units (Scorpicore, Champion, Efreet, Nagas are all crap)
T7: Ancient Behemoths - Destroys other T6 and T7 units, with amazing speed for how much damage they deal. Not hard to boost their defense either, making them shrug off retaliation strikes.

fight me

 

[Lujo]

The um, this thread came to be because they separted it from a Heroes 7 thread. There's GOT to be a thread where arguing the power level of H3 castles is on topic. Not that this is exclusively a Heroes 4 thread, but like, this is silly even as far as trolling goes.

Start with Heroes 1. I'd advise anyone to give the original Kings Bounty a whirl, too.

 

[index.php]

https://www.celestialheavens.com/news/heroes-of-might-magic-iv-resolution-mod-by-verokster

Heroes of Might & Magic IV - Resolution Mod by Verokster

Posted 22 November 2020

by Pol
Great News for Heroes IV!

This mod allows you to play Heroes of Might & Magic IV on 16:9, 16:10 screens. It is built on HoMM IV GL Wrapper, package is already included.. (If you wish to follow GL Wrappers, you can do that directly in Verokster's GIT)

Supported are: HoMM IV: v3.0, The Gathering Storm v3.0, Winds of War v3.0, Complete (GOG)

Equilibris is not and you will need to wait for EquilibrisHD 3.6, which is still in development by Max.

"Playing in windowed mode on current monitors! "

BTW the GL Wrappers are worthy of check, they do support from H2 to H4. That's good to know, even if we have H3HD mod, which is superior

How to use:
Press F4 to get to windowed mode. In top menu pick up:

"Mod" -> "Resolution Mod" -> "Aspect Ratio"

Restart the game, go to settings menu and select your resolution.





Installation:
Make a copy of your game folder outside of Program Files, extract the mod to the game root, launch the game.

Download, scrool to the end to get it.

 

[Blake00]

Downloaded it from their blog, tested it and it looks great!! I didn't need Equilibris or to mess with any config files or anything, I just extracted the files over the top of a fresh install of Heroes 4 complete and it ran right away. Started in a window so I needed to go into the in-game settings and select 1920x1080 and tick full screen but that was it. When windowed I can see lots of graphical options (similar to the HoMM3 HD patch) to apply various custom renderers/filters and sizes etc too. One of the problems with playing Heroes 4 back i nthe day was that its much larger assets meant everything felt so much more zoomed in compared to previous Heroes games losing a lot of the strategic view. Being able to play HoMM4 in modern resolutions finally allows us to see more of the map and make it feel more like the previous HoMM games.

Here's some shots of HoMM4 in 1080P HD. No doubt would look even more amazing in 4K too.

(Click to expand)

 

[JarlFrank]

So which homm do I start with. Bought them all from 1-5.

Do Heroes actually do anything in a fight?

You plan on playing the Barbarian faction right? HoMM3. Stronghold is crazy good, Ancient Behemoths eat the other T7s for lunch.

Barbarians in 4 have the utterly OP cyclops who can level entire armies when massed.

 

[Darth Roxor]

cyclops?

pfff

what you should actually do is play asylum, get 6 stacks of medusas and obliterate everyone before they get to make cyclopses

 

[Gaznak]

All the four HoMM games made by NWC are priceless.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

I think it's commonly agreed that the problem of HoMM4 was that it lacked some finishing touches(although whether it would get them even if NWC had more resources is questionable) and was somewhat experimental but was pretty good on its own terms.

 

[shywn]

Do other Heroes games do the thing where you equip your heroes with phoenixes only and suddenly they have superb daily map movement?

I also like the feature where you open the puzzle map and it shows the hero's movement arrows. So you can figure out where the grail is just by painting loooong movement arrows across the whole map.

(Sometimes I just can't find the grail even when I have the whole puzzle map revealed... This feature helps so much for those times.)

 

[octavius]

Do other Heroes games do the thing where you equip your heroes with phoenixes only and suddenly they have superb daily map movement?

Yes. Movement is based on the fastest unit in your army at the start of the day. So a good tactic is to put the slow ones on garrison for the night. The trick can even be used with mines and garrisons in HoMM 3. But usually I have a squire following my main army commander, who is like a mobile garrison.

 

[shywn]

Hmm. I'm trying to play Heroes V currently and my cavalier-only armies don't really seem to move as much as I'd like, and the movement bar does not change in size so it's hard to check.

Is it Initiative or combat movement that determines a unit's map speed?

(20 new cavaliers a week, practically for free with Isabel's cost reduction. The training skill is way overpowered with Isabel.)

 

[vota DC]

Choose your units during a scenario Is a thing I don't like much. In RTS too I dislike choose minor God for Age of mythology. In homm4 there Is awful infernopolis too. Alternative upgrade like homm 5 with cheap conversion Is better.

Choose your units during campaign like Age of wonders and emperor Battle for dune Is a good thing.

 

[index.php]

Heroes IV Enhancement Mod update 1.2 overview​

Download Heroes IV Enhancement Mod v1.2

The idea of this mod is to give players new choices, while saving ideas and vibe of the vanilla game. All factions get instruments to build new strategies, but you can still use your favorite from the original game, because this mode ENHANCES the game, not turns it into something completely new.

Mod manager
Mod manager introduced! You can run it with "H4MS_Manager.exe" and choose what modifications should be applied on your game.

H4EM 1.2 comes with some plugins included:

1. TurnOrderMod. Hold Shift or toggle Caps Lock to see order of turns in combat.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. H4EM FixPack. It includes only bugfixes and minor changes, if you want to play original Heroes 4 but improved you should, no, you must use this!
3. H4EMAI. Improves AI and gives it some bonuses. It uses configurable "difficulty profile" system so you always can correct AI if you think it's too strong or too weak.
4. EnhancedAdvObjectPack. It includes new adventure objects added in EM 1.2 as well as objects from Equilibris 3.55 and H4ObjectPack. Turning this plugin on will make your game compatible with most maps made for Equilibris even if you are playing original version of the game!

Advanced Classes​

Lots of advanced classes got buffs and reworks to make them unique and strong. Some of them can change the way you play drastically!

New buildings​

Phylactery Forge (Death town): Grants visiting heroes Immortality.
Requires: Armory.
Cost: 6000 gold, 10 ore, 10 sulfur.

Cave Lair (Chaos town): Allows to recruit Trolls, Evil Eyes and Troglodytes for free (works like weaker creature portal but creatures cost 0 gold). Replaces Thieves Gauntlet building.
Requires: Den of Thieves or Orc Towers.
Cost: gold 4000, ore 8, crystal 2.

Order Library (Order town): Adds 1 extra order spell on every level of magic guild.
Requires: Magic Guild Level 1.
Cost: gold 2500, wood 2, ore 2, gems 4.

Adventurer's Guild (Nature town): Allows to hire Order and Death heroes in the tavern.
Requires Tavern.
Cost: gold 1000, wood 15.

War Institute (Might town): University with Tactics, Combat, Scouting and Nobility skills.
Requires: Fort.
Cost: gold 4500, wood 5, ore 5, crystal 1, sulfur 1, mercury 1, gems 1.

Town Conversion​

Heroes with Grandmaster Nobility now can convert towns to their faction.
More info about town conversion here: Moddb.com

New abilities for creatures​

Positive Morale (Minotaurs): This creature's morale can't get lower than +2. It is also immune to Sorrow and Despair spells.
Corruption (Venom Spawns): This creature's attack reduces target HP by 25% and applied healing or resurrecting effects by 75%.
Tactical retreat (Nomads): This creature can retreat from battlefield together with your heroes or on their own.
Gate Destroyer (Behemoths): This creature deals full damage to the castle gates.
Terrain walk (Dragon Golems): Creature ignores terrain penalties in combat (including quicksand).
Strikes and shoots twice (Gargantuans).
Invulnerable (Zombies): Creature resurrects loses at the start of its turn (power of resurrection = 10% of current stack HP).

Changed adventure map movement formula​

Creatures with low movement were useless not only in combat, but also on adventure map because they slow down your army. Fast creatures on the contrary make your army significantly faster, so after playing Heroes 4 for a while you start ignoring creatures like trolls, earth elementals etc.
Enhancement Mod changes adventure movement formula to reduce difference between slow and fast creatures: maximum movement limit remains the same of 30, but minimum increased from 12 up to 20!

New adventure objects​

Diamond of Purity: Allows to redistribute all skill points of hero who picks this gem.
Onyx of Change: Allows to redistribute all skill points of hero who picks this gem, but hero retains basic levels of primary skills.
Phylactery Forge: Grants visiting heroes Immortality.
Fountain of Venom: Grants visiting heroes Poison Attack for one battle.
Fountain of Bless: Grants visiting heroes Bless for one battle.
Sparkling Fountain: Reduces cost of visiting heroes spells by 2 for one battle.
EM 1.2 also supports objects from H4 Object Package by Karmakeld and Equilibris 3.55 (including artifacts). It's more than 200 new objects!

Fixes​

Lots of bug fixes and QOL improvements to make Heroes 4 even better.

 

[Cross]

H4EM 1.2 comes with some plugins included:

1. TurnOrderMod. Hold Shift or toggle Caps Lock to see order of turns in combat.
2. H4EM FixPack. It includes only bugfixes and minor changes, if you want to play original Heroes 4 but improved you should, no, you must use this!
3. H4EMAI. Improves AI and gives it some bonuses. It uses configurable "difficulty profile" system so you always can correct AI if you think it's too strong or too weak.

I'll have to replay H4 with this mod. Mechanically, it's the best Heroes game, but it's let down by the braindead adventure map AI and a few other problems.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Started playing this game a bit again, starting with the easiest of the expansion's scenarios. (since I only had the base game before) Is it just me, or is the difficulty on these...higher than they should be? I'm playing Demonary of Doom and the first time around I got completely trounced, this time I'm surviving, but the AI's towns gets to build much better units than I do and you really need to exploit the spell system to survive the early game.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

A mod that improves the town screens to be jaw dropping would be a huge improvement. Some artistic person could take that upon himself.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Apparently there's been some drama with the Ultimate mod, anyone here play it before this little crapfest started? The TL;DR is that the mod used stuff from other mods without permission, the mod team disintegrated after the other mods copyright claimed the Ultimate mod, and now the lead of the project is calling people terrorists.

 

[Lacrymas]

Started playing this game a bit again, starting with the easiest of the expansion's scenarios. (since I only had the base game before) Is it just me, or is the difficulty on these...higher than they should be? I'm playing Demonary of Doom and the first time around I got completely trounced, this time I'm surviving, but the AI's towns gets to build much better units than I do and you really need to exploit the spell system to survive the early game.

HoMM4 campaign maps tend to be more puzzle-y than most, especially on higher difficulties and when your heroes are low level. But essentially, rushing > everything else.

 

[Blake00]

Apparently there's been some drama with the Ultimate mod, anyone here play it before this little crapfest started? The TL;DR is that the mod used stuff from other mods without permission, the mod team disintegrated after the other mods copyright claimed the Ultimate mod, and now the lead of the project is calling people terrorists.

urgh.. oh dear.. of course it's Nimo.. he's a bit of a character that one.. looks like it's all caught up with him now and he's not going out quietly.. shame as that was a cool project..

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Decided against the regular scenarios, even the ones from the expansion, and started with the campaigns.

The True Blade
Very clearly the easiest of the campaigns. You get two story heroes in the first map, then later get two more, in addition to two you build up yourself. Very generous. In addition, you only ever deal with Havens, so every victory you have just causes a snowball effect. By the end scenario you basically don't even need an army, you can just march through the map with your heroes. The story is bog-standard, though in retrospect I see the beginning of what seems to be a writer on the team who would much rather be writing about attractive ladies with beautiful orbs then succession crisises in a new world.
I'm not really sure that the might hero starting with tactics is that much of a help in the beginning, since early boosts don't seem that noticeable to me. Obviously it's useful later, but early on combat is the most vital skill in the game. Life magic feels oddly self-centered, sure there's the requisite defensive, healing and bless spells, but most are either defensive for life or offensive against death, with no in-between.
Creature-wise this is the most balanced town. You get a good balance between ranged and melee units, with even the tier 1 melee units being somewhat useful thanks to their stun ability. Ranged units are more powerful early on thanks to having no ranged penalties. I think ultimately between the champion and the angel the champion is the better choice, even if angels feel more powerful.

Glory of Days Past
Now things are no longer a cakewalk. You only get one hero for a while, then another of your choice. Surprised this Tarnum guy never shows up, it's not like they really give a pretense about proper balance when it comes to heroes, they're just appropriate levels for the campaign. Never realized he had a whole set of games to him either, we did not hear about Heroes Chronicles in these parts. I didn't realize he was responsible for the plot twist this game had.
That said, the campaign's power curve is just enough that assuming you don't screw up the first few turns you can breeze through it. There might be some pushback, but again, all might towns, so a snowball effect. Because you have a might hero to start with he's probably invincible on the battlefield in the early game after the first scenario.
Barbarian heroes are technically OP in that they get 3 skills instead of the 2 everyone else does, and how very useful combat is at the start of the game. But magic is a very important skill in this game and I think you can only ever get nature magic unless you really go out of your way to make your secondary hero an order mage or something. It wouldn't be very helpful considering you only ever fight at barbarian towns and never ever see a town that would get you more order spells.
There are three creatures in barbarian towns which are top tier. The tier 1 units, oddly enough, even if they get some crippling issues to compensate. Sure, you can't choose who the berserkers attack, but they're so powerful it doesn't matter. Sure, the centaurs need to be practically right up against an enemy to deal full ranged damage, but they hit just as hard in melee and if you have order magic or one particular artifact they're deadly. The tier 3 cyclops are a wrecking crew, even in their present state they should have been tier 4. To compensate for this, tier 2 units feel like fodder. Yeah, they get the ability to attack the enemy first or with no repercussions, but man they're weak and they die like that.

The Price of Peace
This wasn't exactly hard, but the game was throwing some annoying aspects at the player. A lot of missions involving enemies who get one way teleports into your territory, which forces you to divide your forces so they don't overrun your towns while you're away. Further, it's no longer a matter of just steamrolling the enemy, enemy towns are varied.
This one kind of has an interesting story to it. The first two were all about someone becoming the king of said faction, and while this one continues that, it has some twists and turns in it. The writer is getting a bit horny in places.
In the last scenario, they put you on a team with an AI player, and unlike enemy AIs who constantly dart in and out of my territory stealing my mines, friendly AI is off in the corner jerking off wondering if he should go into blue's territory or not. This guy has four armies just silently staring at any given time and none of them are any good.
Might heroes are technically useless in combat starting out, but as order towns get a skill gifting place, they can probably get something that makes them useful soon. Magic heroes are OP. Order magic is OP. Some damaging spells, very useful boon spells like precision, but all the mind control spells and teleport. In a siege? Teleport the enemies out one by one, the AI will never do anything about it if you kill the unit in one turn. Berserk and hypnotize allow you to use the enemies forces against him. No need to worry about retaliation when the enemy is the one to suffer for it.
Order units are a mixed bag. Tier 1 and Tier 2 are basically fodder, mostly just useful because they're in front of the real stars of the show. The Genies. Get about 30 of them together and they get a no retaliation ranged attack. Of course, against magic resistant enemies or ice demons, useless, but those are rare in this campaign. Magi have potential too, but the enemy just loves taking these guys out, gold golems serve the fodder/defense role better.
I do note that because of the treasury, you're really given a reason to hold onto your gold as much as possible, which may or may not be a bad thing.

In the middle of the nature campaign now. I fucking hate the nature campaign.