HOMM: Assembling artifacts???

[loinburger]

Last week I bought HOMM Platinum Edition for about ten bucks, which includes HOMM I, II, and III, plus the expansion for HOMM II and both expansions for HOMM III. I've only played HOMM III so far.

So, I'm playing a game on an extra large random map, with two levels (surface and subterranean), because I like long games. My town's a Conflux, I've captured a Necropolis (my first acquisition), a second Conflux (second acquisition), and recently a Dungeon. I've got four stay-at-home heroes and two roaming heroes, a Planeswalker and a Death Knight.

My Planeswalker is an Armageddon Hero, with an army consisting of a few Gold Dragons (found them at a refugee camp), some Black Dragons (from my Dungeon), and several Phoenixes, Magic Elementals, and Energy Elemenals (from my Confluxes). She always attacks first (Phoenixes are, AFAIK, the fastest unit in the game), is an expert in Fire Magic and also has an Orb of Fire (+50% damage to fire attacks), so she'll just cast Armageddon right away and that usually ends the battle. She's great for attacking Dragon Utopias (Armageddon kills the red and green dragons, and the units are able to finish off the black and gold dragons) and getting a big fat load of nice artifacts.

My Death Knight is just your run-of-the-mill Death Knight -- expert in necromancy and air magic (gotta Haste my undead), varying degrees of skill in Offense, Archery, Logistics, Tactics, Wisdom, and Mysticism. Got a big fat stack of skeleton warriors, etc. etc.

So anyhoo, my Armageddon hero has been picking up oodles of artifacts, and since she's got the Town Portal spell she's able to return home and drop them off with my stay-at-home heroes every now and then. This is how I accidentally assembled my first artifact -- the Armageddon hero had been picking up artifacts like Loins of Legion and Arms of Legion, and was dropping them off at the same town (my Capitol conflux) to increase its growth. Eventually I found the Head of Legion and dropped it off at the same town (which already had all of the other pieces), and the game asked me, "Do you want to assemble the Statue of Legion?" I figured "sure, why not, maybe it'll free up some space on my stay-at-home hero," and was sorely disappointed to discover that the Statue of Legion took up just as many slots as all of its parts. What gives? thought I. I click on the Statue, and find: "Statue increases growth of all towns with Castles by 50%." Whaaaaaaaa?

This happened to be the same turn that my Death Knight was making a visit back home -- his Wisdom skill wasn't high enough to learn Town Portal yet, and besides, Death Knights pretty much build their army as they go anyway. However, attrition eventually took its toll, and I wanted to give my Death Knight a fresh batch of Ghost Dragons and Dread Knights and whatever have you, plus there were some nice artifacts I'd been collecting for him. So my Death Knight stops in at my Necropolis, and I give him the Amulet of the Undertaker (+5% Necromancy), Vampire's Cowl (+10% Necromancy), and Dead Man's Boots (+15% Necromancy), and up pops a window: "You have all of the parts needed to construct the Cloak of the Undead King. Do you want to build this artifact?" Well, after my experience with the Statue of Legion, how could I say no? And so I put together the Cloak of the Undead King, which had the properties: "30% of battlefield dead are resurrected as skeletons. If hero has Necromancy skill then these percentages are added, and level of skill determines what is raised: Basic, Walking Dead; Advanced, Wights; Expert, Liches." Holy ****.

So, now my Death Knight has several Ghost Dragons, some Dread Knights, some Vampire Lords, and four stacks each containing over 150 Power Liches. Holy ****.

What other artifacts can be assembled in the game? I could get used this business...

[Malleus]

I never knew you could assemble the artifacts. Very cool Loin....

M

[Andemagne]

in addition of those 2 you have all ready discovered:
Angelic Alliance
Elixir of Life
Armour of the Damned
Power of the Dragon Father
Titan's Thunder
Admirals Hat
Bow of the Sharpshooter
Wizard's Well
Ring of the Magi
Cornucopia
(12 in total.)

and HoMM4 is also worth the try.

[Ben Kenobi]

I've never assembled an artifact like that loinburger.

That cloak is very cool

Andemagne, what do all the combinations do?

[loinburger]

Apparently the Armor of the Damned casts Slow, Curse, Weakness, and Misfortune on all of the enemy's stacks at the beginning of combat, and the Angelic Alliance (in addition to being composed of some of the best artifacts in the game) casts expert Prayer at the beginning of combat. Hot damn.

[SnowFire]

It's way too late now, but if you ever bother to scenario create for Heroes II: Price of Loyalty, beware that random artifacts of the highest level can possibly be equipment of Balduran (IIRC the name). This can create a problem when people find, oh, I don't know, the Ultimate Battle Gear right near their base.

If you don't know, the whole artifact-meld thing was taken from the Heroes II expansion, where one of the campaigns focuses on the hunt for relics of Balduran. The Sword gives +5 Attack, the Helmet +5 Spell Power, and the Armor +5 Defense. Assemble them all and you get all the bonuses, maxed morale and luck, and THE TOWN PORTAL SPELL. Understand that the Town Portal spell is beyond ridiculously rare to get in Heroes II, and I have seen it gotten legitmately only twice (and I played quite a bit of Heroes II). Thankfully, the expansion added in things like spell scrolls and the Ultimate Battle Gear so if a scenario required it, it could be acquired. I'm sure you're already quite familiar with the fact that Town Portal= instant win unless the map is designed around you having it.

As a random comment, the campaigns for Heroes III are far too easy. Only Evil Scenario I is interesting, and you probably have a patched version, where they toned down the difficulty. Really. Not to spoil things for you, but the last scenario of Heroes II has 3 of your castles versus 10 enemy castles in the beginning, with 3 neutral castles. The last scenario of Heroes III (well, excluding the dumb bonus campaign) has 3 of your castles versus... 2 enemy castles. It's really quite pathetic.
Now Heroes II, now that's a great challenge, especially since they keep track of the number of days you take. Even once you're good at the game, going faster and faster is still pretty tough. The expansion is also has some neat stuff.

[Andemagne]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Andemagne, what do all the combinations do?

that list so d@mn long, that I don't have time to write it now, but maybe later this week.

Ionburger got that Armour of the Damned right, but Angelic Alliance, in addition to that bless spell thingy, negates all morale penalties coming from having troops from different cities in one army. so you now can have all those dragons, titans and Angels in one army.

[loinburger]

Hmm, I double-checked, and it only negates morale penalties for having troops from different Good and Neutral cities in one army. You still get morale penalties for having units from Inferno, Necropolis (double-whammy, since the undead penalty also applies), and Dungeon.

It's still a pretty damn nice piece of equipment, though. Gives about +20 to all primary skills.

[Traianvs]

lol, i've played LOTS of homm3 and i've never assembled an artifact!!! pretty amazing stuff here...

I've never used town portal in my life cos I don't need it, when casting town portal you have to go all the way back, and during that period the enemy has flagged all resource mines you just captured, I prefer my heroes to patrol an area (in fact I usually take a hero and make one long run into enemy territory, I hardly ever return to my home country for reinforcements!)


btw i thought the admirals hat was "one" artifact?

[Traianvs]

Btw setting the difficulty at the hardest level in homm3, the game was pretty hard, as all your castles needed upgrades, and enemy cities were usually already upgraded!! Furthermore, lots of cities could only produce a certain amount of troops, most were restricted (such as not being able to build angels etc..) of several units

I had lots of difficulties for example in the first neutral campaign, 3r mission, for some reason the enemy always had hydras and cyclopses and stuff like that from the beginning...!

[asleepathewheel]

I have HoMM2 but haven't played 3 or 4. I've heard that 4 was a bit of a disappointment initially, but how is it now? Which one is the more enjoyable game, more detailed, more entertaining?

[thinkingamer]

Originally posted by SnowFire

Understand that the Town Portal spell is beyond ridiculously rare to get in Heroes II, and I have seen it gotten legitmately only twice (and I played quite a bit of Heroes II).

Man, this is SOOOO true!
after playing 4 years of HoMMII i managed to get town portal ONE time....... i was like: What!?? this spell did exist in Heores 2??? i think the chance of appearing this spell is like 1% (along with all other 5th level spells) and actually i like it since its the ultimate HoMM spell.

[loinburger]

Yeah, they changed it to 4th level in HOMM III, but even so, 5th level spells are still pretty easy to get (although Implosion is really the only one that's worthwhile, but hoo baby, is it ever worth it...)

I have noticed that the computer likes to attack my worthless summoned elementals, even preferring to attack my earth elementals over my Liches or Sharpshooters or Zealots or whateverthehell my shooter(s) is/are, so those particular 5th level spells are still useful in single-player or when attacking neutral towns in multiplayer, but I'd never waste my spell points on a summon spell when playing a human opponent.

[thinkingamer]

Originally posted by SnowFire
As a random comment, the campaigns for Heroes III are far too easy. Only Evil Scenario I is interesting, and you probably have a patched version, where they toned down the difficulty. Really. Not to spoil things for you, but the last scenario of Heroes II has 3 of your castles versus 10 enemy castles in the beginning, with 3 neutral castles. The last scenario of Heroes III (well, excluding the dumb bonus campaign) has 3 of your castles versus... 2 enemy castles. It's really quite pathetic.
Now Heroes II, now that's a great challenge, especially since they keep track of the number of days you take. Even once you're good at the game, going faster and faster is still pretty tough. The expansion is also has some neat stuff.

Im finishing Amarggedon's blade in HoMM3, and i have to say that its as much challenging as HoMM2 campaign (i finished the original heroes2 campaigns and one of its the expasions campains). Yes, HoMM3 campaigns were plain bad just because they were toooo easy.

[thinkingamer]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel
I have HoMM2 but haven't played 3 or 4. I've heard that 4 was a bit of a disappointment initially, but how is it now? Which one is the more enjoyable game, more detailed, more entertaining?

HoMM3:

The first time i moved from Heroes 2 to Heroes 3 i felt: dude, this game lost some of "fairly tale magical, enchanting mood" in terms of overall feel, graphics, and music.
But then it had all what Heroes 2 had before and more, a LOT more. Another plus is the map editor: because of its exellent and easy map editor, making MP maps were became easier than ever; HoMM3 became of the best tbs MP game ever (IMHO).

HoMM4:

Around 3 month ago this is what i wrote about this game:

At first i hated it, because it was so different compared to previous HoMM series, but after 5 games (about 12-15 hours of HoMM4 gaming) this game has become very interesting.

My major complains about this game:
1. creatures that can cast damage spells: say, a genie can cast magic arrows that does *20 damage then 50 single stack of genies can cast a magic arrow that does 1000 damage!!!!= instant hero death (heroes fights in combat).

2. the battles have no hexagons; this makes the game feel a bit less "classic turn based".

3. BAAAD AI

But otherwise this game has many cool interesting new concepts (not always executed properly), and overall i'd say that this game is slitly inferior to HoMM3, but better than what Civ3 did over Civ2(and SMAC).