Heroes of Might and Magic IV - Siege fear

[Heresson]

I just wondered.... In many games I have a much smaller army than my computer enemy, but it is afraid of me and stays in the castle if I am near it, instead of attacking and destroying me, and sometimes it makes me stay in my castle
- until I get strong enough to destroy it. It is so dumb... Can anyone explain it?

[Grumbold]

Its called bad AI.

Personally I think HoMM 2 was the best since the opponents could be reasonably challenging. In 3 and 4 the increased fluff like extra buildings, ponds, fairy rings etc just makes it far more likely that the enemy will do something dumb.

[Heresson]

I know HoMaM 5 and 4 only... I played couple of turns in HoMM 2 I think but it was years ago and I don't remember a thing

[Ben Kenobi]

Personally I think HoMM 2 was the best since the opponents could be reasonably challenging.

In terms of AI challenge, HOMM 1 is also tough. Just try the Jester scenario. It took me almost a week!

HOMM 2 has some good scenarios, just try to beat THUNK or Pyramids.

[DinoDoc]

Check your PMs obiwan.

[Heresson]

I think Heroes of Might and Magic III and IV can be hard at the higher levels.

[Traianvs]

yeah homm3 at the highest difficulty level (impossible) won't hesitate to attack you if he is stronger (and the AI is always stronger because he has huge advantages at the start of the game.. usually you start with nothing, a few puny troops and everything is guarded by monsters... if the monsters are tough it'll take a lot of time before you have a decent army... The AI gets tons of resources, gets more troops and conquers all the resources almost instantly...

it depends on the map; but impossible in homm3 usually is impossible unless you have unguarded resources nearby. Mathematically you just can't beat him with the amount of troops he will have

[Heresson]

Exactly, and that's the problem; You have disadvantage at the start only, which makes it too hard at the start, and pretty easy in the end.
But I hate the maps when there are short-cuts only AI can use... You know, like one-way portals next to your castle.

[Traianvs]

Yes but otherwise there would be no challenge...

You can never build an AI that plays like a human opponent because you can't make algorithms that can get an AI do different stuff depending on the situation.. there are too much possibilities, so basically the AI will always have to cheat

[Grumbold]

It didn't need to cheat so badly in HoMM2 precisely because there was less fluff. Sure it usually started with a 2:1 or 3:1 advantage in cities, but from there on in you knew it would take advantage of any dumb mistakes you made. The final map in the brothers scenario is my favourite of all time, because it seemed that whenever you advanced in one direction it would counterattack in another.

In 3 and 4 I often got the feeling that instead of attacking me when and where I was vulnerable it would be prancing back and forth between stables, water mills, fairy rings etc unless the designers slapped a portal right next to their castle so that occasionally one of their random march decisions would dump them somewhere threatening. Especially when you finally defeat one of their big starting armies and start to see newbie heroes popping through with no troops. They clearly have no clue why they should or should not go through that portal.

[Sirotnikov]

Any new info on HMM V?

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Any new info on HMM V?

Probably nothing until the chapter 11 is settled.
Bids were entered for the pieces of 3DO, including NWC.
I know that Microsoft and Ubi made bids.

[vmxa1]

Re: Heroes of Might and Magic IV - Siege fear

Originally posted by Heresson
I just wondered.... In many games I have a much smaller army than my computer enemy, but it is afraid of me and stays in the castle if I am near it, instead of attacking and destroying me, and sometimes it makes me stay in my castle
- until I get strong enough to destroy it. It is so dumb... Can anyone explain it?

I think you said right there, it is dumb. That does not mean you can't have some fun, it is very inferior to any of the previous versions, in terms of play.

My fav is HommII, but I played the heck out of III as well. Many maps from :

http://www.astralwizard.com/common/splash.htm

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes, astral wizard is an excellent site for HOMM related material. It's a shame that it has not been kept up.