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TOPIC: my brief review of WL4
my brief review of WL4 12 years, 7 months ago #539
Having played the game for a month or so, here's my catch on the game.
WL4 is a nice game but I think it WL4 incurs on the same error of the previous WL games: overpowered heroes. Some of the mobility issues that plagued WL2 and WL3 were fixed (teleporting, excessive speed items) but the fact remains that a strong fighter hero or hero stack can render useless just about all other enemy stacks except the corresponding hero stack. What happens in practice is that the play becomes a 2 stack cat-and-mouse game where one side tries to trick the other side into a hero stack clash in favourable conditions. The good thing of this is that games never stalemate and, given the plethora of straight kills possibilities (assassin/gaze/slayer), you're not guaranteed to win the hero clash even if you've got the edge. So there's always some randomness in it. The bad thing is that old strategic concepts like production, logistics, unit placement and management etc. sort of get thrown out of the window because all that is useless opposite a big hero stack. I haven't done multi player (though I played like 500 online games of WL3), but I think the hero issue would be less problematic without retinues. There'd still be problems if you lose a hero because it takes considerable time to grow another one to +5 leadership/fear. Another annoyance is that you can't be sure to always be able to combine leadership/fear. If you get unlucky with heros, the opponent's main stack might have a huge +5 combat difference to you. This isn't skill or strategy. It's luck. But anyway, it sure is a fun game to play and I definitely enjoy it. whereagles |
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Re: my brief review of WL4 12 years, 7 months ago #540
Whereagles,
Out of curiosity, what Warlord level (not retinue level) did you reach/play your games with. The game and the game play changes drastically once the Warlord level passes 20 or so. Other than completing the campaign, I never used Warlords under L20 and typically most of my several hundred games (including a few hundred online games) used L25-L45 range Warlords. One reason the game changes is that the Warlord skills become more powerful and valuable and reduce the value of the retinue simply because you can over power retinue stacks with higher level Warlord skills/spells/high level units so production, movement etc becomes more important. Plus at higher levels the Warlord abilities are different enough that playing a different Warlord means an entirely different playing style/game (check out my in game Help comments on Warlord skills) and that in turn helps some of the races become a lot more interesting/different to play. As for the retinue, that's really for solo gaming. That's why I created the Uber Retinue option to challenge players in solo games because the Uber Retinue can legitimately kill any player retinue as you noted. In online play no one ever used retinues (if you disband the retinue it's not removed from the Warlord when you win/lose a game) simply because of the reasons you describe. Once the editor became available, retinues were always an agreed upon limited set at start time to things like 3 L1 heroes or 1 L5 hero, 2 L3 units of your race type thing with no items or very limited items (a couple of minor items). As far as combining Leadership/Fear goes, you always get 1 of them from your race. So the challenge is locating the one you don't get. You have 3 ways to do that. A spell, a hero offer or a ruin reward. You can maximize your chances accordingly by taking a Warlord with the right spells or one that increases hero offers or items/spells that let you see the ruin rewards to know where the heroes are. So there isn't near as much luck there as you think. Plus again, higher level Warlords mean you can win battles even if you don't have a +5/+5 Leadership/Fear combo thanks to spells/powerful units/warlord skills like Defender/Crusader etc. If you don't have the Warlord editor, you should download it to check out higher level Warlords of different skill sets to see how different the game plays. KGB |
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Re: my brief review of WL4 12 years, 7 months ago #545
I played a warlord from scratch up to like lev 50. Retinue heroes became titans as they reached like level 25. Bringing such retinues online would be quite the annoyance, as it would all boil down to a clash of the titans, with lady assassination luck reigning supreme LOL.
I think in mid-game it might be hard to level up a hero, especially since quests are not open permanently. Personally I would cap leadership/fear at 3, not 5. But I'm ok with it as it is. What I do disagree with is leadership/fear not having that much to do with luck. Some warlords don't summon heroes and seeing into ruins is neither easy vs a human nor does it guarantee anything. I would have it possible to produce opposite heroes in cities. Make it 10 turns or so, but please let me build one when I want You certainly remember those early DLR days where people had wiz/wiz/summoner/alchemist hero setups for the sole purpose of guaranteeing a teleporter turn 1. That sucked |
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Re: my brief review of WL4 12 years, 7 months ago #546
Whereagles,
Wow, L50. That's a LOT of battles. I didn't even know you could reach L50 just by the campaign. I remember reaching L25ish with about 80% of the campaign provinces conquered. What Warlord skill combo are you using? As I said about the retinue, they weren't used online at all. Players who brought L25 retinue units often found the game was over before they arrived (arrival time is Level/2 + time to build unit so a L25 hero would be 13+4=17 turns). You can often win games before turn 18 if you have a lower level retinue that arrives earlier (say turn 10ish) loaded with artifacts and you just rush the enemy capitol with your own retinue. Obviously you believe you need a fear+leadership hero to win. So based on that need I'd suggest you take a Warlord with a Divine minor (bonus hero chance). I've used a Rune/Divine combo before for the gobs of money for heroes. At L30 with +10 Rune, +5 Merchant, +10 Glory + 7 buildings of choice. By turn 15 or 16 I often have 12-13 heroes thanks to gobs of money and the 50% chance per turn of a hero offer. That should get you plenty of fear/leadership heroes. Also, the offers are based on your race and the distance to the race of the hero who offers himself. So playing the Knights for example gives fewer fear heroes because they are farther away on the race wheel. Personally I've won many many games without a double combo hero. My playing style doesn't require lots of heroes nor heroes with +5/+5 in both skills. So I don't care if I don't end up with both. If you are playing with retinue you should NEVER EVER leave home without the Orb Of Etheria and the hero that has it should be low level (say L10 or less) so he comes into the game early so you can scout ruins. Or play a Nature Warlord and cast the Eagle Eye spell. Warlords IV is no where near as hero centric as DLR was at higher Warlord levels so you don't need the best heroes to win. If you have a good Altar (Battle, Fire, Night) or powerful high level units Weaponmaster/Morale) it more than compensates for the opponent having a couple of stacks with +5/+5 heroes. KGB |
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Re: my brief review of WL4 12 years, 7 months ago #552
Lev 50 is not really a lot. I only play large random maps. Each battle I get like 2-3 warlord levels, so I must have played like 20-25 games. Of course, in a campaign setting it might take longer. My warlord was a nature/nature combo. My daughter has a combat/combat, but he's still only level 2 (She turned to an online disney penguin game or something.. lol.)
Anyway, I'm glad to know that one can win without 5/5 hero combinations. That definitely makes my complain less pressing. I really hate hero-centering, eheh... Perhaps I'm just biased towards retinue heroes, with which the gameplay does change dramatically. I think I'll give it a go with another warlord and this time I won't take heroes into the retinue, just some random units. I'll try and see if I can still win in uber-retinue mode, even without super-heroes of my own. Now, if only I could get the Illuria map to work |
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Last Edit: 12 years, 7 months ago by whereagles.
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Re: my brief review of WL4 12 years, 7 months ago #553
Whereagles,
Ah, if you are playing large random games against 7 AI's and taking 30+ turns then yeah you can level up fast. The Campaign features a lot of smaller maps typically with only 1-3 enemies and some allied sides so you level slower. A Nature/Nature warlord is meant for a defensive style of play. That's because of the Defender skill which only works when defending in cities. It's meant for players who like a turtle style (capture a city, fortify it heavily with men, move to the next city and capture it and fill it with men. Rinse and repeat and let the enemy come die on your walls). With the weakest Altar spell by far you lack consistent killing power on offense and have to rely on the fact you have the best battle spells. Since these can only be used infrequently due to mana cost it further re-enforces the turtle style of play. Since you are going to try another Warlord, what combo are you thinking of trying. Or maybe I should ask what style of play you'd prefer and I'll recommend the Warlord tailored for that style. As far as the Uber-Retinue goes, they are always a minimum of L10 and matched to your own Level above 10 and outfitted with items equivalent to yours. So you can freely level your own retinue to that high without worrying about making the Uber-Retinue any stronger. However they don't get items unless your retinue has heroes with items. Since you plan to use units the Uber-Retinue will simply be 3 L10 heroes with no items. That isn't that hard to kill as you will quickly find out. You still can't get Illuria to work? You interested in tracking down the exact problem? If you are, I need a list of all the files and their sizes in the Scenario folder so I can compare with mine. KGB |
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Last Edit: 12 years, 7 months ago by KGB.
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Re: my brief review of WL4 12 years, 6 months ago #565
Hi again,
I tried nature/nature just because I had never played that combo. Now I'm trying a rune/rune warlord for the same reason. I'm enjoying the nice combat spells. And dispel, of course... the altar of fire is an annoying spell to fight against eheh. I don't really have a defined playing style. I just look at the map, identify choke points and rapidly head up to those, estabilish stronghold, spread chaos from there on, razing stuff. This "strategy" works well with random maps because there not really that random and tend to develop those key points. I'm not taking heroes into the retinue now. I bring some units that give stack bonuses. It's much funnier to try and take the ubers with normal units lol. I'm on my 4th game with the runemaster and on the 2nd one a bloodlusted minotaur took a full uber retinue single-handedly lol. It got lusted to 25 combat by first fights and then proceed to zip all in sight. Unfortunately, it got ambushed next game... ooops. I realized such a mino can be a force to behold. And his side skill of dragonslayer is quite useful, as dragonish units are the only normal units that can put him at risk (well, ok aside from a gaze). In my current game I managed to get rid of the uber-retinue of my closest opponent by taking his capitol. Not sure if I'll be able to repeat that trickery at higher warlord levels I'll have a look at the maps as soon as possible. I really like Illuria. If I get that to work, I'll probably just play that map lol. Thx for helping me there. |
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Last Edit: 12 years, 6 months ago by whereagles.
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Re: my brief review of WL4 12 years, 6 months ago #566
Whereagles,
Yeah Altar of Fire is not fun once it gets going. Neither is Altar of Battle or Altar of Night. Especially once your Warlord gets to L25+ so that those spells are in the game sooner rather than later. Minotaurs with their Bloodlust are indeed great. Getting the +9 from BloodlustX3 is always sweet. At 25 strength you are almost unkillable other than Assassination/Deathgaze if you have Heal in the stack. I'm a big fan of the Ogre race. Of course the Uber Retinue isn't really Uber when it doesn't have any items. It's just basically 3 slightly above average heroes so I don't expect you to ever have much trouble killing them. Let me know about the scenario maps. KGB |
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Last Edit: 12 years, 6 months ago by KGB.
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Re: my brief review of WL4 12 years, 6 months ago #568
Well, if the uber-retinue is higher than level 20 or so, it's quite hard to beat for normal units, regardless of the items it has. I once tried to dispatch a level 30 ubers stack with army regulars and it took like 15(!!) combined bonuses stacks to do it.
But yeah at level 10 with no items it's no biggie. Still haven't had time to look at the scenario maps. What info do you need? Just the file length? |
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Re: my brief review of WL4 12 years, 6 months ago #569
Whereagles,
A list of all the files and their lengths should be sufficient as a starting point. KGB |
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