Hello.

Fun to see there's still a will to improve W4.

Do you guys have Spotify?

It all depends on what race I'm playing but some favourites include...

The Gladiator soundtrack:
open.spotify.com/user/anacagunar/playlis...bj1e6rMyhbbBOSP9P5za

The Transformers soundtrack:
http://open.spotify.com/album/2bTtOvLX0HONkxoQx3ir7U

And Dead Can Dance in general:
http://open.spotify.com/artist/6sq7prp0tj9Abn89khmfja

Oooh, that's pretty cool!

Please, please, PLEASE update the front page on the main Warlorders site. It's quite frankly depressing to see 16 months old bad news whenever you come to the site and it will do traffic more harm than good. It sure does harm to my traffic...

News about e.g. Infinite Interactive going independent again would be appropriate.

That's good news! ...I guess.

You have your first Like.

I think so too, although I'm slightly worried it would just turn into a DLR page.

If you create a Warlorders page I'll point people on the W4 page to it and then remove it, as it's fairly pointless anyway.

Nothing lasts forever. Don't mope.

Oh God, I think my geek-o-meter just broke. ^^

But the geek in me thought it was beautiful.

You don't want a hero that is good only for fighting Uber Retinue but for other situations too (killing enemy heroes whatever they might be), hence the Mithril Mail.

Evil cannot be blessed or cursed.

I'd advise you to continue this disuccsion in THIS thread instead. I've replied there.

whereagles wrote:

Everything but Assassin, Death Gaze, Bless, Curse...and Negate (see my sig).

whereagles wrote:

Yep, good anti-über, but add Mithril Mail, and Boots of Dancing or Ring of Trolls. It should probably also be an Evil hero.

It's not a group, it's a page. Just click "Like".

whereagles wrote:

On lower Warlord levels yes, but on higher levels these heroes kind of give away a little. And they are still vulnerable to Assassin/Death Gaze/Crushing Blow. Personally, I think heroes should not be allowed to have the Negate skill.

whereagles wrote:

One would argue that the Dark Elves race is powerful enough as it is. And don't forget Dragons' slower production times.

Thank you for your reply, KGB. It was, as always, very insightful. The tests I conducted are described below.

I'm not 100% sure about every detail as it was some time ago, but both warlords were definitely at Level 0 & race Orcs. Warlord abilities for both were most likely Combat/Nature. My retinue was at Lvl 14 and the "Uber Retinue" at 17. The battles were taking place at Plains to give no additional bonuses.

I conducted 40 battles in 3v3 and 40 battles in 8v8, with my retinues attacking in 20 and Uber Retinue attacking in 20. In the 8v8 battles the other 5 units were all (lvl 1-2) Wyverns. I put the Uber Retinue on Auto-battle.

The reason I set things up like this is, naturally, because I wanted the "all other things being equal" scenario. I didn't want any other factors to blur the results. Aaaand....the results came out approximately as something like this (if I remember it correctly):

* In the 3v3 battles my retinue won in approximately 2/3 of the battles, both when attacking and defending.

* In the 8v8 battles the Uber Retinue group was clearly stronger, and there was one single reason for that: The Boots of Dancing. If the Deathdealer came into play before my offensive hero the battle was, in most cases, lost. After a while I learned approximately after how many Wyverns to put the offensive hero into play to have the best chance of winning and all of this might have distorted results because I actually won less fights attacking (approx 25%) than defending (a little below 50% I think).

So I'd say it's fairly efficient against the Uber Retinue, and it's very efficient in SP games in general. I'm sure it would be very different in a MP game and I'd love to try it out in those...but nobody wants to play with me. At least not anyone in my own timezone.

(Besides, few MP games are played with retinues anyway, right?)



You make valid points about other skills and spells, but are you taking Bless/Curse into account now? Since there are two Bless +5 heroes standing in the background, and the offensive hero is a neutral, the chance of her becoming blessed is 84% (or something like that). That means the opponent's abilities are cut in half and then the Wand of Negation takes care of the rest (correct me if I'm wrong). Plus, good/neutral opponents stand an equally high chance of being Cursed because of 2xCurse +5. Which is why I mentioned this retinue is more efficient agains good/neutrals.

I'm not sure about how Bless & Curse interact with spell-boosted skills though. Naturally, a +5 Fire unit backed by Altar of Fire is extremely deadly...but how common are those situations - really? I'm asking simply because I don't know, since I've never played an MP game.



As for 30+ warlord lvl games you've mentioned the most dangerous retinue unit is the Orc. I'm thinking a summoned Mandrake Treand (with Death Gaze) backed by blessing/cursing/healing heroes would be another cool option. Any spontaneous thoughts about that?

Dan,

If you're serious about improving W4 I suggest you take a look at the following threads in the W4 sub forum:

Suggestions so far:
http://www.warlorders.com/forum?func=view&catid=9&id=36

New items:
http://www.warlorders.com/forum?func=vie...p;catid=9&id=179

And I think it's time for me to dig up the other 1.06 threads from the warlorders grave, I'll add them as soon as I get the chance.

I've experimented some with an alternative retinue which I've found matches the Uber Retinue in terms of deadliness. It looks as follows:

DRAGONLORD HERO w Leadership & Heal
Helm of Sartek (Curse +5)
Sword of Etheria (Bless +5)
WizIce's Robe (Magic Immunity +5)
Orb of Etheria (Scouting +5)

ORKISH HERO w Fear & Curse
Crown of Etheria (Heal +5)
Sword of Etheria (Bless +5)
Mithril Mail (Armour +5)
Boots of Dancing (Taunt +4)

EMPIRE HERO w Leadership & Assassin (No points in Leadership, you put them into Combat instead)
Meduza Helm (Death Gaze +3)
Wand of Negation (Negate +3)
Armour of Etheria (Warding +5)
Ring of Trolls (Regenerate +2)

Swapping Armour of Etheria & Mithril Mail, and Boots of Dancing & Ring of Trolls, depending on the situation.

It principially differs from the Uber Retinue in that instead of having 2 offensive and 1 defensive unit it has 1 offensive and 2 defensive unit. It's more of a slow killer, that builds on Healing and Regeneration while Blessing (84% chance with 2 Swords) and Cursing, rather than inflicting heavy damage.

The major problem about it, as I see it, is that the offensive unit will level up like crazy since it'll do most of the fighting, so playing with Empire will make things easier by providing a steady supply of Empire heroes.

KGB thinks this retinue is one-dimensional (it's just made for matching the Uber Retinue) and that the Ring of Trolls doesn't belong there. Naturally, I don't agree. But he suggested substituting the Crown of KGB for Helm of Sartek and he might have a point with that.

Because of the Bless/Curse thing this Retinue will be more efficient against good/neutral units, but so far the results have been very convincing.

The Emperor + Retinue option comes with AI retinues that represent the deadliest offensive combo, specialised at killing other retinues (and units in general). The AI Uber Retinue looks approximately as follows:

BATTLEMASTER
Dragonlord Hero w Leadership & Heal
Helmet: Helm of Sartek (Curse +5)
Weapon: Sword of Etheria (Bless +5) OR Bow of Brianna (Archery +5)
Armour: Mithril Mail (Armour +5)
Accessory: Albion's Shield (Warding +3)

DEATHDEALER
Dark Elven Hero w Fear & Negate
Helmet: Scorpion Helm (Poison +4)
Weapon: Flail of Madness (Multi-Attack +3)
Armour: Mithril Mail (Armour +5)
Accessory: Boots of Dancing (Taunt +4)

CHAMPION SLAYER
Dark Elven Hero w Fear & Negate
Helmet: Meduza Helm (Death Gaze +3)
Weapon: Axe of Slaying (Assassin +3)
Armour: Mithril Mail (Armour +5)
Accessory: Albion's Shield (Warding +3)

With the level of all 3 Retinue units scaling up so it's always the level of your highest Retinue unit + 3 (which means they come into play one or two rounds after your last retinue unit). The number of items they carry increase with the items your Retinue carries.

Like I mentioned above this Retinue is specialised at killing, and as a human player you'd want some other advantages than just that, which primarily means you should aim for getting other items. Plus different items will be good for different warlord types. And of course, if you don't build your Retinue with the Editor you'll just have to do with what you can get.

Itemwise one of the prime things to do is to let the unit corresponding to the Battlemaster carry WizIce's Robe (Magic Immunity +5) and Orb of Etheria (Scouting +5) instead of Mithril Mail and Albion's Shield. This will make your group completely immune to magic attacks, and you'll be able to see into all cities and ruins plus you get a one square Fog of War viewing bonus.

Whether the Battlemaster carries the Sword of Etheria or the Bow of Brianna should be governed by what race you're playing. With good/neutral races the sword is probably a little better, but with Evil Races the bow is better (since evil units can't be blessed).

The Flail of Madness is, overall, by far the most dangerous weapon in the game, but it's weakness is that it doesn't do any extra damage to the unit you're facing. It's still the best weapon but as an alternative you could go for Melkor's Staff (Fire +5) or Titan's Maul (Crushing Blow +5).

Then there are alternative units. As for Battlemaster you can also use a Knight Hero or an Elven Hero with Heal as long as you have Magic Immunity. Or, in fact, any other combination of hero+items that will give you Heal+Curse+Bless/Archery. But in the end you want a Dragonlord hero since he has more Life.

Then there are interesting options for the offensive units. One I like is to swap the Dark Elven Heroes for Undead Heroes with Vampirism (for Death Dealer) and Assassin (for Champion Slayer), both with the Wand of Negation (Negate +3) instead of Flail of Madness and Axe of Slaying, respectively. The Vampirism Hero will be a little weaker than the Deathdealer in a Retinue vs Uber Retinue battle, but on the other hand he's a one man army... And the Assassin Hero is in fact just slightly more deadly than the ordinary Champion Slayer (since Negate doesn't negate Assassin).

And of course there are other, even more different, possibilities... More about that at some other occasion.

Why not?

Dear d00ds, we seriously need some good news on the front page. The page is in dire need of an update.