Comments - pestilencedecay

I'm pretty sure you won't get the answer you want... you aren't the first to ask this.

I was very displeased when the tower restriction was first introduced, but eventually I realized that it was a great change that made the game more engaging and better.
In the past, a braindead monkey could repel attacks even from high difficulty AI with the proper concentration of towers. (I was beating the AI so easily)

Now if you want to beat higher difficulty AIs you need to make proper use of walls & towers and have a really good hero... you have to be actually GOOD, no more easy mode like in the past.

(I assure you it's doable, I have defeated Emperor AIs myself, multiple times)

Well, I can't say I'm surprised considering the massive amount of changes you add in patches. Sometimes I feel like you kinda revamp the game with each version, not just improve it.
Thank you for the response.

I'm not complaining, I'm just asking - is the patch 0.9 going to be finished this year (there's almost 2 months left only) or with the amount of work left it's uncertain?

Thank you for making those improvements :)

Thanks for the responses, but I didn't actually finish the TWBO campaign, I couldn't bear with such weak enemies after Magee's campaign and Chapters XD

Hopefully, the new Custom Campaign “Battle For Etheria” won't be easy :P

I'm not asking for some extreme challenge, I'm asking for The War of the Broken Oath campaign to be actually hard on "Hard" difficulty, in 0.8.9 the enemy is just weak.

You also start with a level 1 hero in Chapters, try some of them on hard, like "... and the Beast" (minotaur chapter)

For example, in 3rd minotaur chapter mission you're facing just one swarm enemy and it's really tough, maybe too tough.
On the other hand, in The War of the Broken Oath campaign you got a mission where there are 3 allied enemies and you need to to destroy an orb to win.
You don't even need to rush for the orb, because those 3 enemies don't put much pressure on your defences, they're so weak you can go and crush their bases first. (with a low level hero and level 2 base)

In 0.9.0 version, is the AI's rank going to be increased in The War of the Broken Oath campaign on Hard difficulty?
(at the moment I think it's around Duke rank, too easy to beat, while in Magee's campaign and some chapters it's around Demi-God rank, which is great and challenging)

... so the patch will come within 10 months, it's something XD

Assuming it all goes well, can we expect the 0.9.0 patch in the first half of the year or the second half? Or maybe next year only?

As far as I know, they're working on 0.9.0 update.
You can see the changelog so far: Docs.google.com
It's a very very long list of fixes, changes and improvements.

From what I read, some races will even get a few new units, they'll even add a new custom campaign.

The enemy is weak on Hard mode in The War of the Broken Oath campaign (I'm referring to the missions where you can build bases, those with predefined maps at least)

I used a new lvl 1 hero for that campaign and tried some missions, but it was still quite easy on Hard mode.
As far as I remember, the non-random missions in The Fifth Horseman campaign were also rather easy on Hard.

Various beneficial spells will be cast on your hero (like Resist Missile) when you cast a nature spell.

Your hero can get multiple different beneficial effects if he casts different nature spells, casting the same nature spell repeatedly only renews the timer of some beneficial spells.

Those beneficial spells will be cast with higher level if you invest more in Enhancements.

Understood, thanks.

Thank you for the explanation, I was wondering what that penalty before starvation was supposed to do.

It sounds good in theory, but the way I see it, the perk is not really useful because:
- first, a lot of your units need to die just get good benefits from it and second, you need to be close to 100 army cap in a situation where you're losing units fast and you can afford to replace them quickly, but if you got such a powerful economy then you can simply make more unit production buildings... you wouldn't actually need this perk.
(making more unit production buildings is not even that costly anyway)

However, if you're in a more "tactical" situation where you can't afford to lose and produce units at high rates, then this perk is rather trash...

In the Factions.pdf it says Death Rites can give +1 MAL when your troops die and it also says that Orc faction Graww perks gives you +1 MAL when your units destroy non-wall buildings.
However, the Graww faction perk increases my army limit over 100 when my units destroy buildings.
So what's morale army limit (MAL) supposed to do?

I know that Morale can give you army points to reach 100 army limit sooner.
Is the Death Rites perk is only supposed to help you reach 100 army limit sooner then?

Death Rites should give a small chance to increase your army limit whenever one of your unit dies.
The problem is that it won't increase your limit past 100, JoeTheBartender said that it should go over the cap.
(I tried it in 2 battles, I lost many units and there was no increase for me)

Is that changelog final?
I don't see anything about fixing the Swarm Death Rites perk and the bug that makes the hero lose his perks after playing non-hero missions in the campaigns... a creator said they will be fixed...

Will the new faction RSBS be unusable if your hero's faction is different than the faction you're playing with?

The faction Archanon perk gives assassination to dragons (except Night Dragon), I'm mentioning this in case it's not intended. Dragons assassinating with splash attacks may be a little bit OP.

Thief's Double Dealer skill seems kinda OP, even with just 20 points invested I'm getting huge amount of resources when facing multiple enemies or demigod AIs (not right away), I often reach the resource cap of 9999. (I don't even bother filling the mines or capture those outside my base)
I'm continuously producing troops from multiple buildings and slowly overwhelm the enemy, I can afford extreme losses (in some battles I lost over 1000 troops and it was no problem for my economy)
It feels like I'm playing with an unlimited resources cheat O_O

As race, I consider undead the best choice for the Death Knight, your hero will be immune to psych effect (like terror which normally makes heroes unable to attack), unaffected by poison & diseases, but most importantly you can get vampirism starting with level 20 (this skill can greatly help keeping your hero HP high, I recommend spending at least 10 point in it)

As faction, I prefer the Licheguard of Zhur perk, it gives an edge to your hero, while the other 2 faction perks won't be useful later on anymore.
The Legion of Mortuus undead lair perk gives you mostly skeletons at regular intervals (it rarely gives Dread Knights and Shadows), they can be useful at first to defend your base when your hero is weak, but later on (before even level 30) your hero will be so good he will destroy even demigod AI armies alone (especially thanks to Thirst for Power perk), the lair won't really be useful anymore.
The Gharedlun, Garden of the Dead perk doesn't make as many zombies as you might think, the enemies need to be affected by a weak Bloodcurse aura first and many can resist it before dying. It's really no so useful, zombies aren't that strong anyway.

Later, thanks to necromancy and leech the hero will be able to summon plenty of troops if needed, you won't really need the limited troops you get from the perks of those 2 factions.
(keep in mind that Empowering Souls generated by Thirst for Power perk will increase spell casting chances, so you can invest 3-4 points into Raise Skeleton, then after you made many kills cast Black Portal and raise skeletons with 60-80 experience and make them into Doom Knights or Liches)

With decent items and good points investment, at level 30 or even lower, your Death Knight hero can destroy enemy bases and armies pretty much on his own, you won't really need an army.
It would be great if you manage to get the Mace of Magic, my hero can easily kill Titans with that. (I managed to kill a melee titan at lvl 27 without the mace, but it was very hard and had to do a lot of healing)
If you get an item with +3 Chaos Magic then you can spam Arcana Curse spell to mass kill units.

I use various factions and races, I'm not sure what you're asking about... what faction did I use for what? Best for what exactly?

Hilarious bug, sometimes Death Knight's Lord of the Dead perk can make zombies that shoot lightning (like the guardian skulls)
The stats of such zombies vary, one of them had 500 HP and 35 electrical damage (I can't remember what unit I killed when I got that strong zombie, however there were only reapers, quasits and nightmares on that map)
I took that zombie as retinue, but he eventually became a regular zombie when I got him past level 20.

The AI won't target the Empowering Souls that result from the Thirst for Power perk, so I imagine they are not meant to be destroyed, however they'll get easily destroyed when the AI uses splash attacks like spells.

I noticed the Lord of the Dead perk can only make zombies from weak units like spiders and bats, however sometimes I've seen it make Doom Knights from regular goblins, I'm guessing that's unintended.

I remember reading somewhere (the patch notes I think) that wall building was disabled for the AI, yet I still see Demigod AI build several walls sometimes. (so far the AI did it with Dwarves, Knight and Wood Elves, but not always)

I can exploit the AI attacks by surrounding my towers with walls leaving only one square wide opening, this way only one melee unit can hit the tower, the rest just wait in line. (in most situations they won't attack the walls, they'll just wait to reach the tower and and get killed one by one)

The minotaur faction perk Call of Sartek seems to only makes weak units go frenzy for a very short time. I faced multiple times enemies that had this perk and it was just a small nuisance, I don't see how this perk is worth 6 points, it's very underwhelming compared to the other level 15 faction perks.

I got the Hammer of Morannin with my own Death Knight hero in the Conquest Campaign from a lvl 50 hero, that's why I as so alarmed by it, sorry. I didn't realize it was a special item, not meant to be available like this.

Thanks for making the Swarm worth leading XD

I said in a previous comment the agent perk Political Manipulation has less than 25% chances, but I recently noticed that all agents disappear from buildings when
when you load game, I think that's the actual problem, not the 25% rate.

When the hero has maximum mana, it immediately decreases when I open the inventory (I think it drops to the default/starting value)

The Dark Elf skills Death Rune and Arcane Rune don't increase the HP of the elven mages and assassins you get via army points or hero retinue.

The Chaos spell Morph doesn't seem to be working, I don't see the stats of the units changing.

When I equip items that increase or decrease spell casting chances in battle, there is no change in the casting chances when I check the spell book. (of course, the chances change if I equip them before the battle)

Death Knight's skill Lord of the Dead ignores army and dragon limits, for example in a battle I had 139 army and 4 dragonliches. (I totally wouldn't mind if this was intended, hehe)
Some items, like Aranea's Call ring, also ignore the army limit.

Sometimes when you start the battle, some hero retinue units got their stats almost doubled. The stats even stack sometimes for consecutive battles.
For example, my lvl 50 skeleton ended up with in a battle with 204 combat, 2025 HP, 50 speed etc.

I recently got an item called Hammer of Morannin, it gives 40+ ranged damage, 23 combat, ignores all armor and resistance, gives 16 armor, 16 resistance and 600 HP....
Are you freaking kidding me?! ... why is there such a ridiculous item?!?! ... what the heck?!

Thanks for the answer.

Please consider balancing or tweaking the Platinum Mode, for example an offensive caster like the Pyromancer is at a big disadvantage since his useful damage spells: Ring of Fire and Sunfall will fail (Armageddon works but it's too costly and unreliable), while a Healer has no disadvantage, none of his spells will have problems, not even
his offensive spell Purify.
Factions like Licheguard of Zhur are rendered trash.

The Agent ability adds a -2 resource production and 20% higher upgrade costs & unit production costs to the buildings where they are installed.
The buildings with agents will have a small round icon on the left side.

And yes, that ability works, you'll see when the enemy does it to you XD

I now see frequent "Spell Resisted" when attacking enemy units with Sunfall, Call Lightning, Frost Ring and other spells, they won't cause damage. Even a lowly thrall can resist.
Spells like Glaciate, Purify and some projectile spells such Doomstones and Spray Poison seem to work fine, they are not resisted.
(I get all those spells randomly cast via Arcana Curse spell of Chaos magic)

Why is this happening?
It seems very unfair... this makes offensive caster units and caster factions (like Licheguard of Zhur and Yrm) very inferior.

I remember a creator said the game is balanced for lvl 30 heroes and a platinum mode activates beyond lvl 30 to balance armies with heroes, but I froze my hero's level when he reached 30.
Or maybe that platinum mode activates because the enemy AI heroes are higher than 30? (I even see lvl 50 enemy heroes on Campaign on hard)

A creator, WBCKharn said: "There's no race-specific AI but instead just 1 universal and generic AI that's very flexible", so no Swarm specific AI.

I played lots with the Swarm and it doesn't seem over the top to me, I do find them very effective, especially the Devourers.

Higher difficulty AI has lots of resources, so it's easier to maintain pressure and overwhelm the enemy thanks to Swarms fast production and good mobility of their troops, furthermore the Swarm doesn't need to be so tactical like some races.

It's one of the great things about the Protectors, a race that was rather awful with plenty of weaknesses is now very efficient and competitive.
I didn't even like them in WBC3, but in Protectors they're one of my favorite races.

I made another skeleton at level 42 and it didn't have such high stats this time, I guess that skeleton with 70+ combat was bugged and his stats were fixed when it leveled up at 45.

I said in a previous comment that my hero got ruined by the Methodologist/Experimentalist perks because they got bugged somehow, but I was wrong and those perks work perfectly fine. Sorry.
Initially, I thought Methodologist reduces spell casting chances and mana costs, I made another hero of the same class and realized that I confused Methodologist with Experimentalist. My previous hero's spell chances dropped so much because he went from 5 Methodologist to 3 Experimentalist, not because Methodologist went beyond 5 like I thought.
The Methodologist perk is actually very helpful.

An issue: the unit stats seem to drop when they reach or get past level 45 (maybe lower)
I had a skeleton with more than 70 combat at level 42 or so (I can't remember the other stats, I think the hp was 700+), and then later when he went 45 or higher his stats dropped, now at level 50 he only has 57 combat and 555 hp.