Posts from Heroes 5.5 WarGame Edition - Tactical Edition. Auto-translated

I played the mod.
What kind of feedback is appropriate to give? I assume that discussing the classic PvE gameplay and city schemes is not relevant now.
When I leveled up a perk that gives a regeneration spell, nothing appeared. Do I need to run some scripts, or is it just a bug?

For now, playing on a map is not relevant; only the duel mode is working.

I welcome you categorically!
Today I fought some duels against bots. Everything looked very appetizing; I enjoyed it. I generally love battles with small armies, and on top of that, there are interesting roles for the different types of troops. In short, everything is cool. Here are my notes on the mod for the author:
1. In the first match, I played as a Knight against a computer Demon: I started the battle and immediately began reading what each unit—mine and the enemy's—could do, as I always find that interesting) And the first thing that struck me was that it's unclear whether a unit deals a lot of damage or a little =) For example, I have a knight, but I don't understand if it's a striking unit or a tanking one; the abilities seem offensive, but who should I compare it to =) My intuition suggested it was a striking unit, and it seems I was right)))
My point is: playing the original Heroes 5, you also don't understand who is who at first, but there is a document there where comparative characteristics are laid out. Today, I missed such a file. There were images for three races with their stats on the previous page, but in the mod, creature abilities play a much larger role, and beyond their name, it's not immediately clear what they provide, though they might provide a lot. You can check this during battle, but only after placement and only for the units you currently have, whereas I want to see everyone's all at once.
My advice: along with the release, create a small wiki (those same images for each race, followed by an alphabetical list of all ability types with descriptions). Especially considering that the normal mode is unavailable, players might download the mod, be too lazy to figure it out, write that everything is confusing, and delete it. I repeat, I will definitely figure everything out, but I enjoy that process, while many others do not. Some like to put together a ready-made "guide" for the hero's army in their head, but what guide can you have if you only find out what a unit does on the battlefield)))
Again, I have the beta and I've never played the original mod, so point 1 might already be irrelevant; just thinking out loud, moving on:
2. I couldn't check which perks were leveled up for my hero in the duel (like Expert Light Magic or Advanced). Possibly because it's the beta.
3. I didn't like that the number of units in a stack doesn't seem to play a role in the strength of some abilities, as far as I understand. For example, a monk provides a prayer similar to the original game, but 1 monk and 10 monks provide it with equal effectiveness, if I understood correctly. Similarly, a lich reduces the enemy's A and B by -4 just by existing. If this is the case, I think some kind of dependency needs to be devised. Again, for a duel it's fine, but in normal play, it needs testing. Just making a note, maybe I'm wrong.
By the way, the lich had two spells: resurrection and a shield. I don't remember exactly, but they cost, say, 12 and 15 mana. And the unit has 18 mana. That means the unit needs either 15 mana (the price of the most expensive one) or 24 so it can cast the weaker one twice and be left with 0 mana) Well, I'm a dummy—it irritates me when there is guaranteed unused mana =)))
4. Purely decorative: I find the ability of Castle militia to summon their own kind, like the original wolves, to be unaesthetic) From a tactical and balance standpoint, there are no questions) But from a visual standpoint, there are) Like, 40 guys went to beat up some hares, and then BAM, there are 80 of them))) Such an ability would look more intuitive on water elementals or demon nightmares. But of course, the final word is with the author; I'm just noting my observations. By the way, I'll note the cool idea of resurrecting all squad members at the end of the battle. In the original, I think phoenixes only resurrected if everyone died, but here the cherubs (a type of angel) all ressed themselves at the end of the battle. Well, it's logical and correct)
5. And finally, the most sensitive part. I disagree with the damage that heroes deal to creatures with melee attacks:
My battle: I was Undead, the enemy was an Elf (I don't remember the heroes). I remember casting Plague twice; mana runs out faster in the mod. I saw that if I gave Heavenly Shield to my bone dragons, my mana would be gone. So I thought I wouldn't give it, saving it for one good resurrection (it's more expensive here, and there's less mana). And I started looking at the free starting spells, like curse or slowing the turn with wasps. And I realized I didn't need any of that; I needed to kick the enemy Ent with melee—60 damage against its 100 hp(? approximately), I think it was something like that. This is much more effective than anything except expensive spells, of which I'd cast 3-4 throughout the whole battle.
In short, my modest and exclusively personal opinion: hero melee damage needs to be cut further. If I understood Nargott correctly, every single point of attack and defense here is +10 percent, which will quickly create a difference between armies of mage heroes and warrior heroes. And if the most profitable thing is to kick with melee, I will always choose a warrior over a few spells. My opinion: since the warrior boosts the army much more strongly, he should be more useless himself in battle. A mage's army will be weaker, but in return, he has a free lightning bolt (or it cost 1 mana in the mod) and compensates for the army's weakness on his turn. Otherwise, my mage hit with melee and my warrior hit with melee, so why do I need a mage? (Although I'm a noob, maybe that's why the mage hit with melee=) ).

Good afternoon!

I generally love battles with small armies, and this also adds interesting roles for different unit types.

Yes, there is a certain charm to managing small squads:
- each soldier's life is of increased importance
- realism is higher, since the "1 squad = 1 tile" model is only adequate for small numbers; large-scale battles don't look as good
- shooting across the entire field is also only adequate at small unit scales
- the role-playing part plays out more adequately when the hero isn't cutting down tier-7 dragons like paper birds every turn (and there's no need to invent mega bosses of tier 8+ for this)

My advice: alongside the release, make a small wiki (those very pictures for each race, and then an alphabetical list of all ability types with explanations)

That will be done.

2. I couldn't see which perks my own hero had upgraded in the duel (like Expert Light Magic or Advanced).

Strange, that possibility definitely exists; you can see both your own and the enemy hero, including spells (thanks to the built-in "Eagle Eye").

3. I didn't like that the number of units in a stack doesn't seem to affect the strength of some abilities, from what I understood.

The presence of such units is a given, going back to the original. Most auras work at 100%, regardless of the number of units. Retaliation strikes can be removed by singles, singles can block shooters and key movement tiles (especially against large fliers).
Charms (buffs and debuffs) are also, as a rule, effectively applied by small squads. I further enhanced this effect by removing the dependence of unit charms on their spell power. This is necessary so that the effectiveness of casters does not increase with their numbers (since it already increases along with the growth of other squads, compared to chaos).
Some things (Prayer, Banshee's Cry, Inspiration) cannot be tied to spell power at all, even technically.

The Lich, by the way, had 2 spells there: Raise Dead and Shield. And they cost mana, I don't remember exactly, for example 12 and 15. And the unit's mana is 18.

The Lich has 15 mana, Raise Dead costs 12, Shield costs 10.
Currently, unit mana amounts are multiples of 5, just like the hero's (based on Knowledge).
Specifically regarding these Liches - I think they will be given 20, 25, or 30 mana; I just haven't gotten around to calculating the casters yet.

it annoys me when there is guaranteed unusable mana =)))

It annoys you, but to spirits, it's daily bread

4. Purely cosmetic: I find the Castle militia's ability to summon more of their kind like the original's wolves unaesthetic. From a tactical and balance standpoint, no issues. But visually, there are. Like, guys go 40 strong to beat faces, and then, OPA, there's 80 of them))) Such an ability would look more understandable on Water Elementals or Demon Nightmares.

There were actually 80 initially - 40 on the front line and 40 in reserve. At the same time, if the frontline troops get hit hard, part of the reserve will scatter in fear before it's even deployed. I consider this ability logical, although I understand why it might raise questions. But it was used for gameplay reasons (a very cool ability on units that previously weren't interesting in any way).

5. And finally, the most sensitive point. I disagree with the damage heroes deal to creatures with their bare hands

Bare-handed damage ("punch") can be considered a spell that depends neither on Spell Power nor on Knowledge (because it's free). Many free spells also don't depend on Spell Power and are analogues and alternatives to the punch. These spells (Evasion, Blessing, Confusion, Curse, Hornets) are balanced at the same level as the punch, though they are demanding on the skill (while the punch depends on level).

My battle: I'm Undead, enemy is Elf (don't remember heroes). I cast Plague 2 times, mana runs out faster in the mod. I see that if I cast Heavenly Shield on my Bone Dragons, all the mana is gone. So I decide not to cast it, saving it for one good Raise Dead (it's more expensive here, and I have less mana).

Here, all Necromancers have maximum Knowledge (40%), specifically in duels that's 9, or 45 mana. That's quite a lot.
Plague costs 5 mana, Raise Dead costs 12, Shield costs 10. So clearly, besides 2 casts of Plague, something else expensive mana-wise was played.

And I realized I don't need all that, I just need to punch the enemy Ent from hand - 60 damage on its 100 hp (? roughly) I think something like that.

Regarding Ents - they are a tier-6 unit with 160 hp. A punch against tier-6 kills 40% of the unit, i.e., in this case deals 64 damage, which is quite a lot.
Tanky units are especially vulnerable to punches, since punches ignore all their survivability and kill them at the same rate as damage dealers (while tanks should live longer to be equally effective).
This is a game given, and it's a vulnerability of tanks that is accounted for in their balance calculation. Therefore, Ents in WGE, with comparable survivability, deal 2 times more damage than in the original.
On the other hand, it's most beneficial to kill damage dealers first, not tanks, and from this perspective, early punches into Ents aren't the best idea, despite the formally high damage (especially since 40% damage usually doesn't kill anyone instantly).

This is much more effective than everything except expensive spells, which I'll cast 3-4 times the whole battle.

I disagree, because paid spells are usually much stronger than free ones, including punches. But they depend on both skill and Spell Power, while the punch doesn't.
Judging by the kit (Raise Dead and Shield) - we're talking about a Cultist, who has developed skills in both schools (Summoning and Darkness), as well as Spell Power 7, above average.
So it's even stranger to hear that the Cultist's punch is stronger than spells.

Let's examine in detail:

- Raise Dead (12 mana), for 130 hp
- Shield (10 mana), for 150 hp, 75% damage absorption
- Mines (5 mana), 32 damage on 8 mines
- Crystal (1 mana) - 50 damage in a ring
- Hornets (0 mana) - 40% knockback
- Fist (0 mana) - 27 damage

- Death Wave (12 mana), 35 damage to all enemies
- Blindness (6 mana), for 3.5 rounds
- Plague (5 mana), 48 damage over 3 rounds
- Weakness (1 mana), -9 Attack for 6 rounds
- Confusion (0 mana), - 50% for 3 rounds
- Curse (0 mana), for 3 rounds

Of all the listed, all expensive spells tier-3 and above are several times stronger than the punch, even against Ents (for 60 damage).
The remaining spells are either free (like the punch) or cost 1 mana. Meanwhile, the paid Weakness and Crystal clearly don't look weaker than the punch even against Ents, especially since they are much more versatile and don't target just one unit.

In short, my immodest and purely personal opinion: the hero's hand damage needs to be reduced further.

The effectiveness of the punch against different tiers is leveled (currently the strongest punch by damage is not even against Ents for 60, but against tier-2 Orcs for 75).
But the effectiveness of the punch within each tier still heavily depends on the unit itself, its strength, and its health, and these things differ significantly.

For example, a punch at 20% against tier-7 removes 50 damage from Dwarf Dragons (which have 250 hp). While against the same Doom Dragons, it deals only 20 damage (they have 100 hp and are twice as weak and numerous), and half of such attacks are misses (Incorporeal). That is, even against tier-7, the punch removes 5 to 20% of the squad's total HP.

The average punch strength for a level 10 hero is about 25. Where should it be cut further?
After all, we must also consider that there are perks for this very punch - for example, doubling the damage. And they need to be attractive enough to invest in (like Inspiration, for example).

A direct analogue of the punch is Fist (free physical damage), which deals 3*(Spell Power + 0/1/2/3) damage. Specifically in duels, that's 12-36 damage (12 for a Reaper, 36 for a Druid).
The punch deals:
- against tier 1: 40% per hero level (4 creatures in duels)
- against tier 2: 25% per hero level (2.5 creatures)
- against tier 3: 15% per hero level (1.5 creatures)
- against tier 4: 10% per hero level (1 creature)
- against tier 5: 6% per hero level (60% of a creature)
- against tier 6: 4% per hero level (40% of a creature)
- against tier 7: 2% per hero level (20% of a creature)
- against tier 8 (summoned Phoenix): 1% per hero level (10% of a creature)

In current HP, this is:
- against tier 1: 20-60 damage (Fairies have 6 hp for now, but will have 5, Guardians have 15 hp)
- against tier 2: 30-75 damage (Gargoyles have 12 hp, Orcs have 30 hp)
- against tier 3: 15-45 damage (Ghosts have 10 hp, Minotaurs have 30 hp)
- against tier 4: 20-40 damage (Mages have 20 hp, Bears have 40 hp)
- against tier 5: 15-30 damage (Witches have 25 hp, Liches have 50 hp)
- against tier 6: 20-64 damage (Griffins have 50 hp, Ents have 160 hp)
- against tier 7: 14-50 damage (Angels have 70 hp, Northern Dragons have 250 hp)

I generally agree with you that the damage turned out to be generally stronger than Fist and even stronger than the Shoot ability (especially considering that physical damage is better).
This happened because the percentage for the punch was selected first, and only then were the unit hp values specified.
What are your suggestions for the damage, in specific numbers? We can only adjust the kill percentage, depending on level.

Added after 2 hours 1 minute
Update:

I think to weaken the punch as follows:

- against tier 1: from 40% to 20% per hero level (2 creatures in duels = 10-30 damage)
- against tier 2: from 25% to 10% per hero level (1 creature in duels = 12-30 damage)
- against tier 3: from 15% to 8% per hero level (80% of a creature in duels = 8-24 damage)
- against tier 4: from 10% to 6% per hero level (60% of a creature in duels = 12-24 damage)
- against tier 5: from 6% to 5% per hero level (50% of a creature in duels = 12-25 damage)
- against tier 6: from 4% to 3% per hero level (30% of a creature in duels = 15-48 damage)
- against tier 7: unchanged 2% per hero level (20% of a creature in duels = 14-50 damage)
- against tier 8 (summoned Phoenix): unchanged 1% per hero level (10% of a creature in duels = 12 damage)
Against the summoned Phoenix, the hero deals little damage, but it must also be considered that the summoned Phoenix has 50% magic resistance, which also protects it from chaos damage.
The natural Phoenix (tier-7) receives twice the damage but reborns (making its effective health twice as high), whereas the summoned one does not reborn (unfortunately, this cannot be implemented).

The hero will no longer snap tier-4 Vampires like seeds one at a time (personally, this bothered me), and the damage against Ents will become much more modest.

Thank you for the feedback, which will lead to an improvement!

Specifically regarding human units, the punches of duel heroes will deal:
1) against Militia - 20 damage (was 40)
2) against Archers - 15 damage (was 37)
3) against Swordsmen - 20 damage (was 30)
4) against Monks - 18 damage (was 30)
5) against Knights - 20 damage (was 24)
6) against Griffins - 15 damage (was 20)
7) against Angels - 14 damage

Added after 3 hours 25 minutes
Hmm, maybe the punch damage should be reduced further for tiers 5-7 as well?

Something like:
Tier 5) 4% per hero level (40% in duels, 10-20 damage)
Tier 6) 2% per hero level (20% in duels, 10-32 damage)
Tier 7) 1% per hero level (10% in duels, 7-25 damage)

Then tier 8 for the summoned Phoenix could be cancelled in favor of tier 7, since the Phoenix will resist blows well enough anyway.

We need to calibrate the finger so that it is roughly equivalent to the free Fist:
12-30 damage with basic Summoning (depending on Spell Power)
15-33 damage with Advanced Summoning
18-36 damage with Expert Summoning

Added after 22 minutes
Actually, I like these numbers even more, so the final could be:

- against tier 1: from 40% to 20% per hero level (2 creatures in duels = 10-30 damage)
- against tier 2: from 25% to 10% per hero level (1 creature in duels = 12-30 damage)
- against tier 3: from 15% to 8% per hero level (80% of a creature in duels = 8-24 damage)
- against tier 4: from 10% to 6% per hero level (60% of a creature in duels = 12-24 damage)
- against tier 5: from 6% to 4% per hero level (40% of a creature in duels = 10-20 damage)
- against tier 6: from 4% to 2% per hero level (20% of a creature in duels = 10-32 damage)
- against tier 7: from 2% to 1% per hero level (10% of a creature in duels = 7-25 damage)

But then we need to weigh the attractiveness of the double damage ability for the hero, to see if it becomes too weak to invest in (since the damage drops by about half, so the bonus damage does too). Similarly, the attractiveness of Oversight, Cursed Mark, Reinforcements, Arrow Rain, and partially Deadly Shot decreases (although its main effect is killing at least 1 creature). But all these issues are irrelevant for duels and can be put off until the next stage (Arena).

Added after 6 hours 40 minutes

Re-uploaded the mod, available at the same link as before. Mostly updated the punch damage.

Hello.
I played a few duels, and the uselessness of the Destruction school became apparent, both in specific cases and on a global scale.
For example, in a match between Ibba (Dwarves) and Dugald (Humans), the only use of Destruction for the Dwarves is to deal 14 damage to an Angel with a spell, while Ice deals 30 damage to the remaining troops from hand, and the damage is greater than with the Destruction spell. If the Dwarves had a Summoning school, the impact would be much more noticeable.
Perhaps it could be given a Lightning spell. Dugald, on the other hand, has 2 useful schools of magic.
The situation is even worse for Hafiz; he also has 3 spells like Ibba, but doesn't even have a single Ice spell.

If we judge on a scale of 3 or more skill increases, Destruction magic is purely a support magic for a hero focused on physical attacks. You take Destruction and its perks at the last levels, and cast debuffs. By level 15-20, any hero will have 4+ skills, and magic doesn't play a significant role in that case.
In cases where you have a high magic skill (15+), Light and Darkness simply become less effective, and that's when inexpensive spells come to the forefront.
Such as mass Haste at 150% or Attack Boost at 22.
Of the expensive spells (15 mana = 3 skills), Resurrection and Restoration justify their cost, and the further you get into the late game, the more control spells become effective.
Spells like Holy Word are generally not worth their cost, unless you manage to repeat the situation from the duels, where you encounter a single stack with an Expert school.
At the same time, there are spells like Teleport and Vampirism that are very strong and worth their cost

I completely agree with the author regarding realism with small armies: personally, I've always been bothered by the hero mechanics where I can take 200 griffons, but if I take 199 griffons and one knight, there isn't enough provisions =) it's understandable that it's game mechanics, but still)
Regarding the independence of the number of units in a stack from the ability, it's generally not an issue if they are roughly between 1 and 16. And as I understand it, these are exactly the army ranges that will be in battles. It's just that I've only played duels with pre-set armies, and it's not yet entirely clear to me what the limits will be in finals on regular maps (Well, if there aren't 80 or more vampires on each side, then my grievance on this point is dropped).
Regarding the lich and the fact that his mana should be a multiple of five, I didn't know; if it's more convenient that way, let's just discard this point.

And separately, let's talk about hero attacks:
The last table seems attractive to me ( where - for tier 7: from 2% down to 1% per hero level (10% of creature in duels = 7-25 damage))

Regarding perks like oversight, it was pointed out absolutely correctly. You could give a reduction in the ATB scale hit or double-triple damage from oversight as a package. This needs testing. If the game were on a map with bots, I would have mapped everything out long ago =) But otherwise, I can't figure out in my head how strong or weak this is)

Personally, I think of it like this: an attack should be equal in effectiveness to free spells in this mod (like weaken or earth spikes), and at the base level of progression! (without basics of darkness or chaos magic respectively). That is, the fact that I invested one of my perks into chaos or summoning magic should give me an advantage even without mana (on the hero's turn I get a magic arrow or wasp swarm (at expert), which are free and deal more damage or provide more utility than an attack). If this condition isn't met, then the advantage of expert magic is questionable. (What if mana runs out and my two berserkers take something down? Why have darkness magic then? I'd rather take a combat hero and pump their expert defense and leadership, oh and mass haste from offense). This was a problem with the original for me =) It will be hard to judge here, as I haven't played a regular map. I just ask you to keep this point in mind.
In general, the trouble with the original Heroes of Might and Magic V for me is the lack of a general standard for starting conditions: some play 1*1 online, others like me more often play FFA on 8 with computers. Accordingly, different conditions and different priorities for perks. Chaos and machines in FFA go straight into the trash: defense and darkness are everything. Consequently, I felt very comfortable playing humans and I simply didn't understand what to do with dark elves in the late game. And I really, really didn't like that. The strength of Castle armies is more or less equal by week, but the strength of heroes varies greatly depending on how many months the game has lasted.
My opinion on this: all races should have equal chances at all stages of the game. In this mod, all races already have separate caster-heroes, half-caster-half-warriors, and warrior-heroes, which helps, but I also personally want to see equally strong mages and fighters in the late game. For example, add some +% damage bonus for a chaos hero.
Roughly like this: the damage of, say, earth shock 120(I made up the number!) + 4*(skill expert)*K (hero spellcasting)*X where X is a percentage of the total HP of the unit stack. Balancing such a thing will be difficult, but chaos will always be relevant with such a formula, not just in the early-mid game.
Make the ballista weaker, but invulnerable. What's with the nonsense in the original where a demon with 12 perks (attack and machines) invests in the ballista, but the enemy centaurs move before it and destroy it on the first turn =))))

I repeat, everything said above and below is purely my opinion; you can ignore it. I'm just reading the author of the article's opinion on balance and, inspired, decided to share mine here!!!

own thoughts. So: combat hero is a guy ready to fight with his army against another such guy. He has little magic and it's very weak. He himself can help very little, but he buffs the army with his attack and defense stats, as well as combat perks like leadership. He rushes mages if he sees them.
Hero who took light magic: buffs their own army with casts so that they are roughly equal in stats to a warrior-hero. The Holy Word spell and especially Divine Vengeance seem completely out of place in this school (my opinion!). Instead, mass variations of buffs. In short, I see buffs, healing, resurrections, and more buffs here. In fact, you get the same power-hitter with their own pluses and minuses.
Hero who took darkness magic: this one is the opposite - makes the combat hero's army as weak as their own))) And specifically that tactic, not: cast mass slow then mass stone skin, since you have it (defense is a must-have), and throw berserkers at them while keeping the army on defense. That is, you actually debuff the enemy army with this school so that they are equal to you in strength and it's profitable to fight them! As for Berserking, as you probably guessed, I just hate this spell =) What kind of nonsense is "hit the nearest", regardless of whether there are 200 people in a stack or 10 hydras =) And if they are standing mixed together, why didn't they all attack at once? =) But Forgetfulness (where Part of your own pack was under the effect of the spell) was perfect, but beyond that it's too much in my opinion. I would change this spell entirely: instead of it, have: 1. transferring defense to attack with an increase in initiative for an allied target, 2. the squad deals slightly reduced damage to itself (most logical), or summoning death knights (like summoning elementals) - most spectacular =).
Hero who took summoning magic: Summoner. Not all spells in this school summon, but it won't be hard to imagine what the spells will do to fit the style. That is, the enemy approaches you, and you already have elementals, a phoenix, hives, walls blocking passages, and mines placed somewhere. It should be very interesting in theory to play like that. Stats are weaker than a warrior's, of course, but free meat tanks; we take them by number in the literal sense. Whoa, I'm on a roll now, and there's no stopping me)))))
Hero who took chaos magic: deals good direct damage. This little guy will be the hardest to balance - because he doesn't depend on his own army: take seven ones and go into battle. Cast what you can and retreat. Hire more and repeat. Perhaps it's worth tying damage somehow to the number of your own troops. Yes, that's difficult, but very interesting to figure out =)
Hero who took sorcery: This deserves a separate discussion:
Look, why do I need two schools of magic? Almost always in the original, I'd rather take darkness, for example, and help it with sorcery and scholarship. On top of that, I'll add defense, class skill, and whatever is left (maybe a second school, maybe logistics, maybe luck). The point is that there is only one hero, and increasing the arsenal of spells doesn't increase the speed of their use. I'll pump darkness and summoning. I'll start casting mass darkness, then I look and think: why do I need these fire warriors, better to cast blindness again or something else.
In general, my opinion here is this: with every new development of a skill (not a perk) of any school, the hero's turn should increase by roughly 0.04 percent on the ATB scale (conditionally). That is, we embed sorcery into all schools at once. And then there's a point in taking two if it gives a larger bonus.
But what will sorcery itself give? I don't know =) but you surely have plenty of ideas) maybe suggest something to me=) magic interference or perks for second heroes like treasury management. I don't know)
Attack, defense, luck, leadership well, this is all clearer - skills of the warrior and half-warrior-half-mage. same as with chaos - plenty of ideas, not one sensible =) Although if armies in the mod are small, it should be easier to balance. As an option, merge shooting and ballistics into one. Like, they broke it, so at least shooters still deal more damage. In short, you need to put some brainpower here and test a lot; what I've written is exclusively my hobby and thoughts aloud.

Anyway, thanks if you read this, "respecting the old man" so to speak. Maybe some ideas will seem sensible even to someone, or same as with chaos - plenty of ideas, not one sensible =) Although if armies in the mod are small, it should be easier to balance. As an option, merge shooting and ballistics into one. Like, they broke it, so at least shooters still deal more damage. In short, you need to put some brainpower here and test a lot; what I've written is exclusively my hobby and thoughts aloud.

Anyway, thanks if you read this, "respecting the old man" so to speak. Maybe some ideas will seem sensible even to someone, or Nargott will take something note for the future. All the best!

Logistics: I wish we could remove it altogether and instead give all heroes speed and pathfinding (built-in). And let logistics itself increase the initiative of units in battle, like attack.

Then we would have commanders who have taken luck, attack, leadership, and logistics, with an army that will move several times in a row before each enemy unit. What's the point of creating another skill branch to increase initiative when leadership already exists?

Knowing different schools of magic already gives you a lot. Spells now have a strength dependency on your level of knowledge of the school itself. So, it's always beneficial to take it. And the fact that you prefer to always use Blind instead of other spells is already your own choice. Darkness won't help you at all against an enemy spellcaster, so its versatility is questionable. You can deal with commanders by maneuvering through the terrain.

With Summoning, and with a favorable arrangement of objects and soldiers on the map, you can block everything you need from large enemy units. So, Summoning does its job perfectly. It's especially convenient for patching up holes when defending fortresses. And if you manage to break through with a catapult, that's even better.
Chaos works great as a counter to enemy formations. One Fireball, and a hero of the Order faction will already start to wonder whether it's worth making a formation or whether it's better to scatter the soldiers. Although, I'm not sure about destroying single targets.

Divine Intervention is a great thing if you have a lot of units. Oh, how awesome it is to use it, being a Demon or Necromancer. You can not only waste a weak tier of units, but also put it in a position where it will be destroyed along with itself by enemy attacks. The mere presence of this ability on a hero forces the opponent to seriously reconsider priorities and possibly postpone finishing off your group of peasants for a couple of rounds. And in that time, you can do a lot with them.

Berserk in its current form is ideal. You cast it on an enemy archer, and you're a genius. The archer runs into a bad position, takes a retaliatory attack, and gets hit hard. It's a great thing. And if you add complex conditions for choosing targets, it will either become too strong due to effectively sacrificing enemy groups on themselves, or it will become completely uncontrollable, and then you will start to think "Is it even necessary?", you disable an enemy squad, and then it finds a good moment and destroys your squad, because it calculated how to inflict the most damage in that turn

Hello
I played some duels and noticed the uselessness of the Destruction school in specific cases and on a global scale
For example, the match Ibba (Dwarves) vs Dugal (Humans) - the Dwarves' only use for Destruction is to punch through an angel not for 14 damage from hand, but with an ice bolt for 30. On other troops, damage from hand is higher than the spell. If the Dwarves had the Summoning school, the impact would be noticeably greater
Maybe give them some lightning spell. Dugal, on the other hand, has two useful magic schools
Hafiz is even worse - same situation with 3 cold spells like Ibba, but doesn't even have a single ice bolt

If we consider the scale of 3 or more growths, then Destruction magic is purely a support magic for a physical hero. You take Destruction and its perks at the last levels and throw debuffs. By level 15-20, any hero will have 4+ Knowledge, and Sorcery doesn't play a role in that case
In a case where you have high Sorcery (15+), Light and Darkness simply annihilate, and this is where cheap spells come to the forefront
like Mass Haste for 150% or Attack boost for 22
Among expensive spells (15 mana = 3 Knowledge), Resurrection and Repair justify their cost, and the further into the late game, the more control spells carry
Spells like Holy Word don't justify their cost at all, unless you manage to replicate the duel situation of meeting a single growth with Expert school
Meanwhile, there are spells like Teleport and Vampirism which are very strong for their cost and in general

After the Finger update, Chaos magic has become much more relevant even with low Sorcery.
Specifically for Humans, Finger damage in duels now doesn't exceed 20, for other factions - less than 30, except for Ents (32).

With growths up to double the duel scale, I think Chaos magic will manage; with triple growths, that's already a question.
There is a certain margin by using top-tier tier 4-5 spells with sufficient mana, by leveling Sorcery and Chaos perks.
But fighters also have their boosts (Physique, Meat, Leadership, Luck, Offense), so it's unclear.

In any case, from a certain amount of meat, Chaos stops working. It was like that in the original, and it will be like that here; the question is only the specific numbers.

Personally, my view is this: the punch should be equal in effectiveness to free spells in this mod (like Weakness or Earth Spikes), and at the basic level of development! (without the basics of Darkness or Chaos magic respectively).

And that's exactly how it's balanced now, after the update: the basic Fist deals 12-30 damage, depending on Sorcery, and the Punch is in the same range.
Previously, the Punch was balanced for an advanced school, and for the Arrow, not the Fist (which is illogical - the Arrow hits with magic), and with normal Sorcery, plus it dealt even more damage to low tiers, because HP weren't pre-calculated, but the Finger was.

Regarding Logistics - that's exactly what it will do. But of course, it won't boost initiative like Leadership, but will boost the starting ATB of units by 10-20-30%, which is especially useful for units with low initiative, as they will make their first move much earlier.

Regarding multiple magic schools - the benefit will be in obtaining additional spells. You level 2 schools - get 2 combination spells; level a third school - get 4 more; level a fourth school (aka Archmage) - get 6 more.

Regarding the prospects of Chaos in a drawn-out game - I think the balance mechanism here is the use of hit-and-run tactics, where Chaos has time to process the enemy army several times, reducing the amount of meat and thus equalizing the chances in the final battle.

If we judge on a scale of 3 or more growths, Destruction magic is purely support magic for a physical hero. You take Destruction and its perks at the last levels and throw debuffs. By level 15-20, any hero will have 4+ Knowledge, and Sorcery doesn't play a role in that case
In a case where you have high Sorcery (15+), Light and Darkness simply annihilate, and this is where cheap spells come to the forefront
like Mass Haste for 150% or Attack boost for 22
Among expensive spells (15 mana = 3 Knowledge), Resurrection and Repair justify their cost, and the further into the late game, the more control spells carry
Spells like Holy Word don't justify their cost at all, unless you manage to replicate the duel situation of meeting a single growth with Expert school
Meanwhile, there are spells like Teleport and Vampirism which are very strong for their cost and in general

Strictly speaking, in duels it's not a 1-week growth, but growths equal to 1 dragon per stack. For tier-7 that's one growth, but for lower tiers - more.
I wouldn't even aim for scales larger than 10-15 dragons for the entire army in total (specifically in duels - the scale of 7 dragons). Chaos players have only one tool to even the odds in such drawn-out battles - to have much more meat, regularly using hit-and-run tactics (the longer the term, the more hit-and-runs needed), to reduce the enemy's meat significantly below their own. A Chaos player cannot do it "fairly," because their magic weakens over time with accumulating growths, while buffs/debuffs/controls do not. And it's very strange, under such unequal conditions, to have final battles on equal meat, as if nothing were wrong.

At the same time, purely formally, a Warlock can of course increase Mana and Sorcery to actively use Empowered Disintegration, continuing to one-shot stacks (for example, Empowered Disintegration at 21 Sorcery deals 450 damage, which can kill 3-4 Devils). But the problem is that they have to increase their parameters just to stay at the same level, while a fighter increases their advantage beyond what they already have with Attack, Defense, and even Sorcery (which in WGE converts well into Attack and Defense). Therefore, in a fair fight on equal meat, even a Warlock will have no chance at all.

And I think this is normal - there are perks that work exclusively on small meat (like Deadly Cold), and there are spells that don't work on large meat (all damage spells, including resurrection spells). This means you shouldn't look for a "fair fight," but rather use the advantages of Chaos as profitably as possible, and if the deadlines are tight, you need many hit-and-runs just to even the odds.

About perks like Oversight, that's absolutely right. You could give a reduction via a hit on the ATB bar or from Oversight, double-triple damage right away as a package. This needs testing. If the game were on a map with bots, I'd have written everything down long ago =) But as it is, I can't understand in my mind how strong or weak it is)

Oversight will be taken right after the Heroic Attack (double damage), which will make it more relevant. Plus, unlike the original, in WGE the Punches deal uniform damage across all tiers, which means damage to tier-1 will be no worse than to tier-7, and this also significantly strengthens Oversight. Whether this will be enough - we'll see.
But the concept "Heroic Attack = spell for 0 mana" is absolutely correct; that was the initial intention. It just needed to be oriented towards the zero-basic level of magic at low Sorcery, not average parameters.

If we consider the hero as a shooter, then using expensive spells is powerful, one-time abilities; using cheap spells is regular shooting; and using free spells or Punches is the equivalent of melee combat, in which all shooters without the corresponding perk have a penalty. But if you run out of mana - it's the same as running out of shots, and you are forced to use such weak attacks.

Furthermore, there are sometimes situations where a shooter has no profitable shots (for example, no one at close range, and no vulnerable targets at long range), and in such a case it's profitable to waste a turn, buy time - move to a profitable distance, sometimes finishing someone off along the way. In complete analogy with this, free spells or Punches also work - sometimes it's not the right time to play powerful spells and you can either wait 0.5 turns, or use a weak (but free) Punch or a free level 1 spell, and sometimes there are conditions where such things are very important - for example, a tier-7 unit has 10% HP left, and then finishing it off with a Punch is very profitable, or a key unit is under heavy fire and free 50% Evasion or Distraction can help significantly.

So, roughly speaking: the damage of, say, Earth Shock 120 (I made up the number!) + 4*(Expert skill)*K (hero's Sorcery)*X where X is a percentage of the total HP of a unit stack. Balancing this will be difficult, but Chaos will always be relevant with such a formula, not just in the early-mid game.

Why bother, if there are hit-and-run tactics?
No such mechanics are built into the original, and I don't feel like artificially constructing them with scripts. First, we need to verify that, firstly, the late-game problem is actually relevant, and secondly, that the existing tools (hit-and-runs) don't work.

Specifically in WGE, it is planned to balance maps so that using a single "fist" (stacked army) is not profitable, which already implies splitting troops, so it might be that there won't be any "late game" in terms of a huge amount of meat in battle. How specifically?
1. Many towns of different races (you won't be able to consolidate them into one army). This is a key difference from TE (Tournament Edition), where foreign towns are generally not used as sources of armies.
2. The absence of huge guards that are unbreakable without a powerful army. This is another key difference from TE, where routine breaking of mega-packs of neutrals and abusing the broken AI was made into a cult that takes up 90% of the game.
3. The absence of the ability to use the same army for repeated breakthroughs on the same day (a ban on transferring an army in a chain without losing a turn, plus the cost of a turn for the battles themselves), which means for several battles a day, you need to have several different armies, from which the economic benefit is much greater than from a single "fist." And this is another key difference, not only from TE but also from the original itself.

Make the Ballista weaker, but invulnerable. What's with the jokes in the original, where a Demon invests 12 perks (Attack and Machines) into the Ballista, while enemy Centaurs move before it and destroy it on the first turn =))))

An invulnerable Ballista is not very good. Specifically in duels, there should be a possibility to neutralize it with several attacks.
For example, 12 Hunters with 11 initiative need about 5 volleys at the Ballista to destroy it (and that's with an Orc's developed Engineering = 75% of the Ballista's maximum durability, and low Attack of a Druid hero).
With high Attack, a shooter stack equivalent to 3+ dragons will one-shot the Ballista.
In this regard, the Ballista's durability does not exceed that of an ordinary tier-7 dragon.

On the other hand, there are no absurd firearms that would require additional Offense leveling, and you invest one skill in machines, not two. Machines are always support, a supplement, but by no means the main and only tool. If your Ballista is killed, it means an extra tier-7 dragon (or equivalent) wasn't killed, which compensates significantly. The maximum power of the Ballista is about 2 Titans (in duels, a double-shot Ballista works approximately like a Titan, and a triple-shot one like 1.5 Titans). At the same time, the maximum durability of the Ballista is 400 HP, while a Titan has 150 HP with a significant advantage in Defense (10+).

In other words, the Ballista, like a summoned Phoenix, although they can be boosted more than a tier-7, it's not by much (a tier-7 can also be boosted with good hero Physique - so I wouldn't definitively place the Ballista or Phoenix above a tier-7).

A tier-7 (Dragon, Titan, and others) is the highest combat unit in the game, and even a high-level fighter hero without magic cannot significantly surpass it. At level 20, a hero's Punch will only kill 20% of a dragon; only with the Knight perk for double hero damage - 40% (or with an Elf's Deadly Shot, killing a dragon).

A Cyclops alone, by its very appearance, should command respect, not be just an ordinary stack aka a fat Peasant without a couple of zeros in its numbers.

A hero who takes Light magic: buffs their army with spells so that their stats approximately equal a warrior hero. The Holy Word spell, and especially Divine Wrath, seem completely out of place to me in this school (my opinion!). Instead, mass versions of buffs. In general, I see buffs, healing, resurrection, and more buffs here. In fact, it turns out to be the same as a fighter, with its own pros and cons.

Only it doesn't equalize stats, it surpasses them - otherwise, what would be the point of leveling buffs instead of passive bonuses that work immediately. Powerful casts work on an area, not on everyone, and last for a limited time.
It's very important: Sorcery should have a direct conversion to physical stats (Attack and Defense).
That is, roughly speaking:
There is a fighter 10/10 with a conditional 0 Sorcery (no particular magic).
And there is a Light caster 5/5 with 10 Sorcery, who casts two buffs (Stone Skin and Power) and converts their Sorcery into 17/17 stats (not on everyone, but on key units in an area). And they can also cast a third buff - Haste for double initiative, and simply destroy the fighter if they haven't managed to realize their passive advantage by that time (3 rounds), dealing critical losses to the caster.
If there is no direct conversion of Sorcery into Attack and Defense, then the fighter with high stats will surpass the caster with low physical stats, which is bad. Magic should work to create an advantage, not just be a compensating factor.

Regarding Holy Word. If a caster plays as a caster, that is, takes care of their Sorcery, which then effectively translates into physical stats, then they will be able to effectively use the strike spell, which is also demanding on Sorcery. This is quite an option, why not. Even when playing with buffs, you put a full set of strong buffs (Stone Skin, Power, Haste) for 4 rounds, and then you have time for a fourth cast, which might just be a top-tier spell like Resurrection or Holy Word. Especially since situational Holy Word will no longer clutter the guild, but will only be awarded for the combination of leveled Light and Darkness.

Regarding Divine Wrath. This is a situational spell for the middle to end of battle; it has different timing of use than buffs. At the same time, it is especially effective at punishing rushers who seek to inflict maximum losses on the caster before they can be covered with powerful buffs.

A hero who takes Darkness magic: this one, on the contrary, makes the warrior hero's army as weak as his own))) And it's precisely this tactic, not: throw Mass Slow - then Mass Stone Skin, because you have it, Defense is a must, and then cast Berserk while the army stands on defense. That is, you really debuff the enemy army with this school so that they are equal in strength to you and it's profitable to fight them! Berserk in general, as you've probably understood, I simply hate this spell =) What nonsense is it to hit the nearest, especially if it's 200 people in a stack or 10 Hydras =) And if they are mixed, why didn't they attack everyone at once? =) Forgetfulness (where Part of your own stack came under the spell's effect) was ideal, but anything beyond that is too much, I think. I would generally change this spell: instead of it: 1. transfer Defense to Attack with an increase in initiative of an allied target, 2. the unit deals slightly reduced damage to itself (the most logical), or summon Death Knights (like summon elementals) - the most spectacular =).

Not just as weak, but weaker. Magic requires time and investment and must pay for itself - that is, provide direct superiority.
At the same time, for Darkness, it is often enough just to reduce the enemy's damage so that they cannot effectively attack in principle for a long time, and during this interval they can be destroyed by other spells or the army.
Debuffs in WGE can be very powerful (and in the same way, directly convert Sorcery into physical stats).
Weakness reduces the enemy's Attack proportionally to Sorcery, and Ray reduces Defense proportionally to Sorcery, and can be repeated multiple times. And all this can work on an area on several targets (saving the opponent, because not on everything!).

All these seem like nuances, but they are fundamentally important. An army under buffs or debuffs is not the same as an army under passives. It is an accumulating advantage that is not created immediately and dissipates over time, meaning it must be realized within a certain time frame. At the same time, Darkness has much more time than Light (Weakness is long-lasting, and Ray is permanent), because Darkness doesn't boost damage like Light does. From this perspective, buffs, debuffs, and passive bonuses are fundamentally different from each other, both in effectiveness and in gameplay feel.

A simple head-to-head comparison:

Power = 2 mana, increases Attack by Sorcery +2, for 1-4 rounds (depending on skill)
Weakness = 1 mana, decreases Attack by Sorcery + 2, for 2-8 rounds. Twice as cheap, twice as long. Unfair? That's how the school works. Light is much more dangerous per unit of time than Darkness.

A hero who takes Summoning magic: Summoner. Not all spells in the school summon, but it's not hard to imagine what the spells will do in that style. So the enemy approaches you, and you already have Elementals, a Phoenix, Hives, Walls blocking passages as backup, and also Mines placed somewhere. It should be very interesting to play like that in theory. Stats are weaker than a warrior, of course, but free meat tanks; we win by numbers, literally. Ooh, I got carried away, but now it can't be stopped)))))

I would call it differently - Controller. But the essence is roughly the same - magical advantages are created, accumulated, and realized over a long period of time.
For example, you place Mines, which either buy time by restricting the enemy's movement, or quickly resolve, dealing a lot of damage and paying off doubly.
You set up Hives - you tie up a couple of enemy stacks with Hives.
Then you set up control and calmly work with a Phoenix or Elementals, supplementing with your own troops.
You can do it differently, like a pure Summoner first playing the Phoenix or Elementals, but a pure fighter can take down an unprotected Phoenix, and then the question is whether you have enough mana to constantly re-summon the Phoenix.
This is the most interesting and promising school, in my opinion.
And in the original, it had neither the time nor sufficient spell power for a full playstyle (and Summoning was only good for hauling neutrals). On the RTA map (arena format, on balance close to the original), it's still impossible to convince people that Summoning can play as an independent school, rather than an appendage to other magic schools. There, glass Hives fall apart with a half-kick (the hero spent a turn and mana, and some simple unit from one hit or even a 50% range shot just destroyed it - Summoning shouldn't work that poorly). And the Phoenix or Hives start working only when the army is left in tatters (because the speeds allow the enemy to reach you with a single ATB, for the same reason Mines are no longer relevant). Or the Shield, although it formally absorbs a large amount of damage, is very slow and protects one unit only slightly better than simple Stone Skin, which is of course not serious for a top-tier spell.
All this works differently in WGE, much better. Playing Summoning is simply a pleasure. And it is a full-fledged school that cannot be said to be "unable to stop a rush."

Phoenixes and Elementals have time to enter the game (Stone Elementals enter late due to initiative, but they are literally unkillable).
A Hive doesn't fall apart with a half-kick, only from a good attack of one or maybe two full stacks, certainly not from a 50% shot.
More Mines are placed, and they play much more consistently (8 or 10 might seem like a small difference, but in reality 10 is much more pleasant and reliable; they go where needed).
The Shield absorbs up to 100% damage, not a pathetic 50%; it effectively gives a unit complete invulnerability until it is completely penetrated. This is exactly how a top-tier spell should work.
Resurrection raises many troops, without extraneous health penalties, but you can't spam it - it's expensive.
The Sword Wall holds damage well, not falling apart with a half-kick.
Even the basic Wasps, although they don't deal real damage (and shouldn't), work as free control, even when mana runs out. From my experience, at Expert Summoning, this is the strongest free spell (effectively equal to the Encouragement ability, only working in the opposite way).
In short, in this mod, Summoning is objectively implemented more strongly and more impressively than anywhere else.

A hero who takes Chaos magic: Deals good direct damage. In general, this weasel will be the hardest to balance - because he doesn't depend on his own army: take seven tier-1 units and into battle. Cast what you can and retreat. Hire again and repeat. Perhaps it's worth somehow tying the damage to the number of your own troops. Yes, it's difficult, but it would be very interesting to come up with =)

But a Chaos user, unlike a Summoner, is a magical rusher. They should be able to deal a lot of damage as quickly as possible, and then perhaps finish the enemy with troops before they can recover.
You can compare a Chaos user to shooters. While the troops haven't engaged in melee, the shooter should have time to inflict losses on the enemy, preferably critical ones (if their own army is weak).
An important difference from the original is tempo and mana. A Chaos user should never have enough mana to sustain a high tempo for a long time. Otherwise, they would just sit in a deep defense for 5-10 rounds, during which they would simply throw out Shocks and Meteors. That's how it works in the original, but not anymore in WGE. Top-tier spells are too expensive to spam throughout the entire battle. On the other hand, they manage to deal enough damage early enough so as not to sit in deep defense for the whole battle, and start using troops. With a couple of casts, a Chaos user manages to create enough advantage for their troops to start working effectively.

Added after 23 minutes

With Summoning, with a favorable placement of objects and soldiers on the map, you can block everything you need from the enemy's large units. So Summoning does its job perfectly. Especially during castle defense, it's convenient for patching holes. And if you've managed to break the catapult, it's generally brilliant.

Summoning shouldn't work "if" or "under favorable circumstances." Summoning should just work, no worse than other schools. Summoning should make a Barbarian fear it and ban it (yes, in WGE magic dampening skills are removed, but weakening perks are still present).

And in the original, not only is Summoning weak and situational (as people like to say, "demanding on skill"), but it also has a bunch of unfair counter-tools like Banishment skills, Elemental Equilibrium, enhanced Chaos against Summoning, enhanced troop damage against summoned units, and they even invented a special artifact against Summoning - the Ring of Banishment. There are such protective artifacts against Chaos too, but in the case of Chaos, there are at least enhancing artifacts for all elements (while in Summoning, there is only an artifact for Elementals).

My opinion is that Summoning is the most magical and self-sufficient school of magic, and it should be. This is the flavor of true magic - not the ever-rushing, straightforward Chaos; not the supporting or weakening buffs on troops; but real control, which doesn't depend on your own troops and has maximum prospects.

Summoning is personally a fundamental topic for me, because WGE itself is initially built around the concept of control, at the troop level, and Summoning provides exactly that, but at the magic level.

Added after 28 minutes

Chaos shows itself perfectly as a bane of enemy boxes. One Fireball and a Haven hero will think twice about whether to make a box or scatter soldiers in different directions, although I'm not sure about destroying single targets.

That's right. In WGE, all powerful mass buffs are area-based, meaning the enemy is interested in maximum grouping, which area-of-effect Chaos punishes perfectly.
But point-target Chaos is also dangerous for Light. The strongest effect occurs if you put a couple of strong buffs (like double damage and initiative) on one powerful unit, and in that case, powerful point-target Chaos on that unit is a strong counter.

Divine Wrath is a magnificent thing if you have a lot of spam. Oh, how awesome it is to get it as a Demon or Necromancer. You can not just sacrifice a weak tier unit, but put it against the enemy in such a way as to take it down together with them. The mere presence of this thing on a hero forces the enemy to strongly reconsider priorities and perhaps postpone finishing off your peasant stack for a couple of rounds. And in that time, a lot can be done with them.

Divine Wrath here doesn't depend on Sorcery, which on one hand weakens its potential imba-ness (it scales with troop size, unlike Chaos), and on the other hand makes it much more versatile, because it works the same with any Sorcery. A fighter with low Sorcery and weaker magic will be able to use it earlier, while a mage with high Sorcery will use it later, when the Wrath has "heated up" to the level of their top-tier spells that depend on Sorcery.

Berserk in its current form is ideal. You cast it on an enemy shooter and you're a genius. The shooter will move into a bad position, get a retaliatory strike from an ally, and get pummeled. An excellent thing. And if you add complex conditions for choosing targets, it will either become too strong due to effective self-elimination of enemy stacks against each other, or become completely uncontrollable, and then you personally will start thinking "Do I really need this?", well, you disable an enemy unit - and then it finds a lucky moment and destroys your unit, because it calculated how to inflict the most damage this turn.

Berserk should always work for exactly 1 turn; it has too powerful an effect (independent of Sorcery) to work for a long time. The same Control spell significantly penalizes initiative (and in the original, with low Sorcery, it even negates it entirely), while Berserk penalizes nothing and works at full power.
Berserk can last 2 turns if it's applied randomly from an attack (Whip Strike), since in that case there is no choice of target, making it much softer in many cases (I haven't encountered a broken Berserk from an attack yet).
I'll also add that bonus damage on Berserk (like in the original) is absolutely unnecessary; the spell works perfectly without it. Berserk is often cast on the unit with maximum damage anyway, why boost it even more?

For some time, Berserk in WGE reduced damage to 50%. This was done solely because there was no technical capability to weaken Expert Berserk to 1 turn. And, frankly speaking, such a Berserk at a developed level was too weak and situational (it only worked normally against damage-focused Orcs and Demons). For example, a Dwarf doesn't deal much damage anyway, and with 50% damage from Berserk, it was an almost useless effect for such a powerful and expensive spell (which at the time often ate up all your mana).

Added after 20 minutes

That is, you really debuff the enemy army with this school so that they are equal in strength to you and it's profitable to fight them! Berserk in general, as you've probably understood, I simply hate this spell =) What nonsense is it to hit the nearest, especially if it's 200 people in a stack or 10 Hydras =) And if they are mixed, why didn't they attack everyone at once? =) Forgetfulness (where Part of your own stack came under the spell's effect) was ideal, but anything beyond that is too much, I think. I would generally change this spell: instead of it: 1. transfer Defense to Attack with an increase in initiative of an allied target, 2. the unit deals slightly reduced damage to itself (the most logical), or summon Death Knights (like summon elementals) - the most spectacular =).

And again about Berserk.
In the original, it's a relatively cheap spell that can disable an enemy unit for 2 turns, plus with bonus damage, without any requirements for Sorcery or Knowledge. An extremely toxic thing that could break the game and forced you to rush headlong at the enemy to avoid catching Berserk on a key unit far from enemies.
In WGE, it's a fairly expensive spell that disables for only 1 turn without any extraneous bonuses. At minimum, it has a high Knowledge requirement. By original standards, it costs 40 mana.
Furthermore, here you can manage to press Defense, significantly reducing damage from Berserk. And this Defense actually works, unlike in the original (reducing damage by 50%, not a fictitious 10-20%).
Therefore, the toxicity of Berserk is minimized (it could be lower only by reducing damage below 100%, but that makes the spell too situational for its cost).

Similarly, I personally was also annoyed by Control, the most powerful spell in the game, which in the original not only scaled perfectly on any troops, but also scaled doubly with Sorcery, both in duration and initiative. Have 30+ Sorcery - cast Control without any initiative penalties whatsoever, practically for free (a measly ~20 mana is 2 cheap Knowledge). And the developers were perfectly aware of its imba-ness; like the Phoenix, Control is limited to no more than 1 at a time, but this somehow didn't motivate them to make the spell expensive or less dependent on Sorcery.

In WGE, Control is very expensive (by original standards, it's 60 mana), and the effect itself doesn't scale with Sorcery, only its duration. Which is correct and logical - the spell already imposes maximum Knowledge requirements and scales perfectly with troops; there is no reason to create a strong dependence of the effect on Sorcery. For the same reason (expensiveness), you won't be able to spam Control every turn, and this is also correct, as it motivates using many different spells instead of spamming the most powerful one. If Control is long-lasting (and the enemy has no counter), it becomes unprofitable to waste the controlled unit on retaliations, because it's better to preserve its potential for a second or even third attack. After all, there is no extra mana left to cast Control on another important unit.

I usually like to boast that certain things are strengthened, but specifically these two spells are actually weakened (although Control is not so clear-cut - with low Sorcery, it now works better than in the original). And there were objective reasons for that - balance and the overall picture of the battle are more important than just the desire to see things stronger. Sometimes some rare things must be weakened so that all other things strengthen their positions.

Almost all other Darkness, besides Berserk and Control, is strengthened. Except for Distraction (instead of the toxic 100% complete ban on shooting, a moderate 50% effect, but it's free).
Slow halves initiative. Weakness at high Sorcery can simply negate Attack (many times stronger than the original). Similarly with Ray. Plague damage is much higher, actually equal to Meteor damage (if compared to area-of-effect Plague). Vampirism immediately has a high percentage, at any Sorcery (100%). Blindness works much longer, with the same Sorcery. In short, the school turned out to be quite powerful, but thanks to a variety of spells, not just 1-2 top-tier ones.

Added after 1 hour and 18 minutes
Damn, again a lot of text - but that's because there is so much to say about magic. Actually, the improvement of magic is a fundamental improvement of this release compared to the old version, not just the original. Many things were discussed with practicing players of the competitive RTA map, but there the hands are tied by conservative restrictions, while here we can freely implement any requests (restrictions exist, but they are technical). And I can literally talk about each spell, explaining why it was done this way and how it is better than the original (or the previous version of WGE).

In the old version, spells had their own problems and shortcomings; in the new version, all errors are accounted for and fixed. And now the Finger is also brought into full compliance with magic. :)

Added after 16 minutes

In general, my opinion here is: with each new development of a skill (not a perk) of any school, the hero's movement should increase roughly by 0.04 percent on the ATB bar (conditionally). That is, we would embed Sorcery into all schools at once. And then it would make sense to take two schools at once for a greater effect.

Let me add a comment here.
The natural advantage gained by learning an additional magic school is not the raw power of the spells (that exists in the first school too) - but specifically additional spells of levels 3-5. That is, new effective spells.
It is precisely this natural advantage that I am trying to maximize. Instead of 3 new spells for a second school, you get 5 (plus two bonus spells). For the third and fourth - much more.
If this is enough - great, and no extraneous "power" or "speed" bonuses will be needed (for speed bonuses, there is no tool - scripts can set the hero's or unit's position on ATB, but cannot check its current position - meaning it's impossible to shift the ATB position relative to the previous one).

For example, you leveled Advanced or Expert Light - your first school. If you level Darkness to at least Advanced level, you will additionally get Vampirism (in Darkness) and Holy Word (in Light). Each of these spells has an appeal comparable to a perk (if you were to just attach each of them to a perk, they would 100% be in demand). Therefore, I believe the motivation to play with 2 magic schools will be sufficient. Whether it will be sufficient to play with 3 or 4 magic schools - we'll see, but that's already optional fun for Archmages; other classes do not have easy access to 3-4 magic schools at once.

Regarding logistics - that's exactly what it will do. But, of course, it won't boost initiative, like a leadership skill, but rather boost the starting ATB of units by 10-20-30%, which is especially useful for units with low initiative, as they will make their first move much earlier.

That's a great idea! I didn't think of that! Like Wingael's proficiency. Clever. It will help warriors rush while mages are still buffing up. And if they want to counter it, they can level it up themselves. I suggest making it work like mutual tactics in the original game - they exclude each other.

Regarding multiple schools of magic - the benefit will be in gaining additional spells. Level up 2 schools - get 2 spells for the combination, level up a third school - get 4 more, level up a fourth school (like an archmage), get 6 more.

I don't quite understand the idea here: how does the hero get new spells in the mod? If I get the basics of light, will I get 1 random low-level spell in the spellbook, or is there no magic guild? And if I get advanced light, will I get 2 more random spells? I'd like to discuss this in more detail.



It's still too early to talk about Chaos, it's an interesting but extremely difficult-to-balance theme. There's a high probability that it will either be the most popular tactic or the most useless. Maybe it's a great tactic for a second hero: level up Chaos and constantly harass the main hero with low-level units. Plus, I read somewhere in the thread of this article that Nargott will make it impossible to immediately recruit from the tavern; a certain number of days must pass. This time frame can be used for balancing. In general, I think Chaos is already better and shouldn't be changed, just left as is, and when people start playing, they will write on the forum in which direction to push it. Practice is needed here, at least for me. In any case, Chaos is in a much better state now than in the original.

Regarding the ballista: I agree. Also, the limits are smaller, and in this mod, it's easier to perceive it as a Tier 7 unit that dies instead of a dragon. So, I think everything is done correctly here.


You correctly pointed out everything about Light (that it buffs powerfully, but only for a limited time and converts to physical stats). Everything is logical; there's nothing to add.

Regarding Holy Word and Divine Might, I just want to say that I don't like them from a visual point of view, not from a mechanical one; there are no questions about the mechanics. They just don't appeal to me. The reason: there are no weak damage spells in Light, so there shouldn't be strong ones either. Since the school buffs, gives strength to its troops, it should do that at all stages. Otherwise, because of 1 spell, you start to fear it like Dimension Door. That is, if it had some kind of spell at the beginning, like Light's Wrath, and a beam of animation fell from the sky like from a monk's attack, and a small amount of damage was dealt, then I would be silent. But it buffs, buffs, and then: a top-tier Dimension Door.
For me, this seems like putting a summon elemental spell into the Chaos magic. It also hits, hits enemies, and then lets you summon. So, either each school is tied to something specific (that is, if roughly 10 spells in a school, then let all 10 do something similar, and not that, for example, Chaos will have 9 damage spells and the tenth - a level 5 vampirism buff with earth element), or let Light buff, Darkness debuff (with a similar story with vampirism), Chaos hit, and summon be control (with an emphasis on summoning, give Light the shield, teleport here)). Or, conversely, mix all the spells in some interesting way (that is, each school has its own summon (Darkness has death knights on level 4, Chaos has elementals on level 3, summon has manticores on level 4 and wolves on level 1, Light has a recolored phoenix, and each school has its own damage spell (you probably understand what I mean))). That is, either one extreme or the other, and not like it was in the original.
While I was writing, I realized that if you swap vampirism and divine might between the schools, everything will fall into place) by the way, both spells were added in the expansion.
I remind you that this is my opinion and my vision; you can ignore it as always, but I am ready to argue for this topic =)

I agree with you about Darkness. Only now, I've been shown that Light and Darkness are not equal, because buffing your own warriors and debuffing enemy warriors is not the same thing. Here is the truth that is born in a dispute =)

Damn, I ended up with a lot of text again - but that's because there's a lot to say about magic. In fact, improving magic is a fundamental improvement of this release compared to the old version, not only compared to the original. Many things were discussed with practicing players of the competitive RTA map, but there the hands are tied by conservative restrictions, and here you can freely implement any requests (there are restrictions, but they are technical). And I can literally talk about each spell, why it was done exactly like this and why it is better than the original (or the previous version of WGE).

In the old version, the spells had their own problems and shortcomings; in the new version, all errors have been taken into account and corrected. And now the finger is also brought into full compliance with magic.

Where can I see the current spells and perks? There are some on the first pages, but I understand from the date that the formulas are no longer valid. The perks for skills are also of separate interest to me. I read about 15 pages ago that you gave the Orc the ability to summon a manticore to help before the battle (is this still актуально?). And what happened to the Barbarian's placeholders? Can they be replaced? I would definitely recommend replacing them. And what about the Gnome runes? The top 3 things I hated in the original:
3rd place: resurrection rune
2nd place: berserk spell
1st place: legion of free gnomes in a built Gnome Castle

Added 16 minutes ago

Here I will add another comment.
The natural advantage gained by learning an additional school of magic is not brute force of spells (it exists in the first school) - but specifically additional spells of levels 3-5. That is, new effective spells.
This is the natural advantage that I am trying to reveal to the maximum. Instead of 3 new spells for the second school, you get 5 (plus two bonus). For the third and fourth - much more.
If this is enough, then great, and no additional "power" or "speed" bonuses will be needed (there is no tool for speed - you can set the position of the hero or unit on the ATB with scripts, but you cannot see its current position - this means that you cannot shift the ATB position relative to the previous one).

For example, you leveled up Developed or Skilled Light - the first school. If you level up Darkness to at least the Developed level, you will get Vampirism (in Darkness) and Holy Word (in Light) additionally. Each of these spells has an appeal comparable to a perk (if you just put each of them on a perk, then they will definitely be in demand). Therefore, I think that the motivation to play 2 schools of magic will be sufficient. Will it be enough to play 3 or 4 schools of magic - we'll see, but this is already an optional indulgence for archmages; other classes do not have easy access to 3-4 schools of magic at once.

Well, I need to understand how getting spells works again. If the only way to get vampirism is to level up Darkness and Light, then this solves my dilemma above: we got the only buff of Darkness because we leveled up the Light school. If the same way you get heavenly shield by leveling up Light and Summon, then it's great!

All the best =)

I didn't quite get the idea here: how does a hero get new spells in the mod? After getting basic Light, will I get 1 random low-level spell in my book, or is there no Mages' Guild as such here, or what? And after getting advanced Light, will I get another 2 random ones? I'd like to discuss this in more detail.

No, the Mages' Guild works just as before. Using Light as an example:
Tier 1 - Evasion or Bless for 0 mana
Tier 2 - Skin or Might for 1 and 2 mana
Tier 3 - Haste or Exorcism for 3 and 5 mana
Tier 4 - Teleport or Antimagic for 6 and 10 mana
Tier 5 - Resurrection for 15 mana

Bonus Light spells are not in the guild (formally these are circle 6 spells):
- Regeneration for 4 mana - granted for the combination (Light + Summoning)
- Vengeance for 8 mana - granted for the combination (Light + Chaos)
- Holy Word for 12 mana - granted for the combination (Light + Darkness)

Combination means that both schools must be leveled up to at least the advanced level. This hasn't been implemented via scripts yet (because I am currently working only with duels), but it will be — and such a system is already built into duels for distributing spells between heroes.

Added after 12 minutes

But because of one spell, you start to fear her like a DD. I mean, if she had some kind of spell at the beginning like Light's Punishment, and an attack animation like a monk's strike fell from the sky and dealt light damage, then I'd be quiet. But as it is, she buffs and buffs, and then at the end: top-tier DD.

Still, the key difference between divine vengeance and chaos is that chaos is applied before the clash begins, reducing the enemy's numbers, while vengeance is applied during or after the main fray.
That is, Chaos is like ranged fire, while vengeance is like melee damage. In this regard, Chaos is fundamentally more dangerous — it can win games under any conditions since it doesn't require preliminary clashes where you might lose more than you gain.
The whole question comes down to numbers: how strong should vengeance be. And here the fundamental point is that I believe vengeance no longer depends on spell power, meaning it performs consistently well but cannot be boosted above average. In the original, vengeance depended on spell power, and that's perceived quite differently.
Furthermore, Vengeance has become expensive (8 mana at the original rate is 32 mana), so you also need to save mana for it, and it's unlikely you can spam it without a significant boost to knowledge.

I agree with Darkness. Only now has it been opened to my eyes that light and darkness are not equivalent, because strengthening your own warriors and weakening the enemy's over time is not the same thing. Truly, truth is born in dispute =)

No worries, I also considered them analogs for a long time, just like attack and defense. The prevalence of mass spells played a role here — after all, mass weakness is indeed similar to mass skin in effect.
But single-target and area-of-effect spells change the emphasis. Balancing very strong buffs and debuffs in WGE showed their fundamental difference. Greatly boosting damage for one stack is not the same as greatly reducing damage for another stack, and not even the same as greatly reducing its survivability. The former is more dangerous per unit of time, as such a pro-buffed squad can deal a lot of damage to several enemy squads, while a debuff only weakens one.

Added after 6 minutes

And where can I see the current spells and perks? They are on the first pages, but from the date I gather the formulas are no longer valid. Perks for skills are of particular interest to me. About 15 pages back, I read that you gave the orc the ability to summon manticores to help before battle (is this still current?). And what happened to the Barbarian placeholders? Can they be replaced? I would definitely suggest replacing them. And what about the dwarven runes? Top 3 things I hated in the original:
3rd place: resurrection rune
2nd place: berserk spell
1st place: a legion of free gays in a fully built dwarf castle

You can see them by scrolling back through the pages sequentially and skipping unrelated topics.
I'm not working on perks right now so that I can tidy them up and update the first page. First, I want to finish the duels.

But in short:
The Barbarian placeholders have been deleted entirely; instead, a new Barbarian skill will be added — Resistance (+10/20/30% unit health). This skill will have 3 perk branches — against light, darkness, and summoning. Each branch is a corruption (doubling the cost) and weakening (halving spell power). That is, now against any school of magic (except Chaos), you can put a maximum of 2 specialized perks, while the base itself (Health) protects well against Chaos.

Added after 7 minutes

And what about the dwarven runes? Top 3 things I hated in the original:
3rd place: resurrection rune
2nd place: berserk spell
1st place: a legion of free gays in a fully built dwarf castle

Dwarven runes remain unchanged for now, as I haven't worked closely with racial ones yet (and they are disabled in duels).
Specifically regarding the resurrection rune — the resurrection percentage is adjustable, allowing you to freely strengthen or weaken the rune if desired. Resource prices are also adjustable.
The idea of limiting the number of runes that can be spent per battle by some limit of resources allocated to that battle seems logical, so players don't hoard resources for the "finale" and create imbalanced situations, while not trembling over every extra resource spent during a push, using runes more actively (for this, I'm thinking of linking it to dwarven racial mining — i.e., resource production depending on hero level).

In another project — MMH5.5, the issue was approached differently, and they simply removed the imbalanced Greatest Rune from the game, which allowed runes to be reapplied at triple cost. But I like this perk, and I believe it's better to create a proper context for it (resource deficit per battle) than to simply cut it. These aren't orc placeholders that do nothing but waste a bunch of levels on simple enemy magic weakening (and if you guess wrong, it's a dud).

Added after 5 hours 56 minutes
Regarding specific bonus spells:

4 Regeneration = Light + Summoning
8 Vengeance = Light + Chaos
12 Holy Word = Light + Darkness

4 Sorrow = Darkness + Chaos
8 Vampirism = Darkness + Light
12 Wave of Death = Darkness + Summoning

4 Earthquake = Summoning + Chaos
8 Hive = Summoning + Light
12 Raising = Summoning + Darkness

4 Fire Wall = Chaos + Summoning
8 Freezing = Chaos + Darkness
12 Armageddon = Chaos + Light

Actually, I wanted to tie Sorrow to Darkness + Summoning and Wave of Death to Darkness + Chaos.
But the issue here is that Darkness + Chaos are the native schools of demons and dark elves, while Wave of Death also hits dark elves, meaning this spell isn't very useful for the latter.
Now, if it were possible to make Word and Wave always hit only enemies (unlike Armageddon), then it would be a different story. But technically that didn't work out.

Shield is a guild spell because summoning spells are already taken (Earthquake, Hive, Raising).
Technically, it could have been granted for Light + Summoning instead of Hive, but Hive fits elves too well, while I would like Shield to be actively used by all races who have access to Summoning, and not just for the elven combination of Summoning + Light.

I greet everyone most cordially! I look forward to the mod's release. I'd like to discuss a couple of topics from this mod, if you have the desire and free time, of course:

1. Orc Mage
Initially, I was thinking it would be cool if Dwarves, like Barbarians, had no magic (one with war cries, the other with runes, but heroes provide magic resistance instead), ala Total War Warhammer 2. So, 6 races with 6 pairs of magic schools and 2 that can't cast (since Orcs are always the unique ones).
But then I decided that was overkill: firstly, Dwarves are the only ones where Light + Chaos fits well; secondly, it's too progressive (conservatives will throw sticks at it).
However, giving Orcs the ability to cast spells (e.g., Chaos + Darkness) doesn't seem so stupid. Their stats are physical, and they don't particularly want to cast, but the possibility will be there, like in Heroes 3. Removing war cries as such (saying one town type benefits from capturing another town for new spells, but Orcs are only interested in another Orc town) seems unbalanced. And is it even theoretically possible, since there's a different spell book? Your opinion?

2. Single Rare Resource
How to make one rare resource from four types, like in Heroes 6. I see this as more balanced. It will never be idle, like Sulfur for Castle. That is, leave only Crystals, for example. Generally, my opinion is that the fewer resource types, the less unnecessary randomness. What do you think?

3. Tier Shuffles
It turns out that the discussion about which tier the Griffin in Castle should be has been going on since 2016, which is nice =) I agree with its current position (Tier 6). What else I would change if asked: Demon from Tier 2 to Tier 4. For me, a Demon is a pumped-up gorilla about 3 meters tall that bench presses at least 200 kg (there was a cool Demon in Disciples 2). And it's clearly stronger than a man in armor. So, swap them with the Hell Hounds and give them 4-hex size. Hell Hounds are like small hyenas the size of a lynx that bite in a pack.
Was the possibility of making creatures analogs also considered? For example, both the Hell Hound and Demon are Tier 4 creatures (alternative upgrades of each other), and at Tier 2, give creatures from other mods. By the way, how hard is it to find a creature from other mods online for Heroes 5? I did this for Warcraft 3 myself; it's very easy to find online for any theme, but I don't know about here.
Also, with the Bear for Dwarves, I would confidently give it Tier 5. Here's a cool video on this topic: [u0]

It would also be cool if fliers walked on foot over short distances (up to 2 hexes for large creatures). A Dragon is a massive creature; it shouldn't take to the air for small needs. Although realistically showing the animation still won't work, since even for takeoff, a Dragon needs a long run-up.

Someone wrote on previous pages of the topic; I wanted to remind them of the cool idea))) suddenly new technologies appeared in 2022 =)

4. About Defense
The Defense skill in the original was a must-have. Everyone needs it: warriors and mages. I suggest making it weaker, so it has less impact (5/10/15 percent).
If you have no such desire or disagree with this change, then please pay attention to the combination of heroes with strong spellcasting and attack. If a hero takes Chaos, they will want their army to survive longer while the hero casts spells, rather than rushing with it. And that hero will still want to seek Defense rather than Offense, even if their stats favor attack. This was a problem for Dark Elves in the original. I don't know how it will be here, but in the original, it was a flaw in the game mechanics and a problem for me.

Demons = Logistics + Darkness + Chaos (all classes have very rare Light and Summoning - 1% each)
Dark = Offense + Darkness + Chaos (all classes have very rare Light and Summoning - 1% each, rare Logistics - 2%)

On some page in the topic, I moved it here. Logistics is needed more by Dark Elves, as it increases initiative at the start, which they need. And the Dark Elf has Offense and Chaos, which is what I was writing about.
Perhaps with the new game mechanics, rushing and throwing Chaos spells is beneficial, but most likely not =).
It's great, by the way, that speeds are low here: the Demon will at least have time to open gates; in the original, I found it more beneficial to run and hit than to summon. And what about giving the Demon Darkness + Summoning? He probably has low spell power, and no one will level Chaos.

5. Adding Heroes
Currently, there are nine heroes per race. Is it planned to give each class one more? 12 per race


I just noticed - Inferno and Dungeon have Agrael and Raelag - imho, it's better to avoid this duplication - they are essentially the same character

I wrote that from somewhere in the topic) Don't touch Agrael - his avatar is top-tier =) And who cares that it's the same guy; it's a different world; they are different people ))))

6. About Creature Specializations and "+" to Creatures

I noticed that some heroes buff existing troop types, like Elana strengthens Peasants, and someone gives new creatures per level, like Alaric: + 2 Monks for every 2 levels conditionally (additional creatures). I suggest merging this into one specialty. Like, you both get them per level and give them upgrades A and B. I see it as more logical (if my specialty is + 2 Monks per level, and my level is 24, and I lost my Monks in battle, then to hell with them) I can already create a new army without Monks, and it doesn't matter that my specialty is tied to them. I lost the old ones, I'm unlikely to level up soon; let the Swordsmen be split into 2 stacks; I don't lose anything anymore. That is, the point of a Monk specialty is lost if you accidentally lose them.

7. Grave Cold
That's the one that returns 5 percent of damage. Why was it removed? Doesn't the number change? If it changes, something cool could be chosen

8. For the Future

This is purely a question for myself: is it possible to add a 9th town to the game? Like, I want to add a Naga town. Is it theoretically possible without replacing an old town, i.e., adding a new one? Or is it theoretically impossible due to game mechanics?

9. Holy and Unholy

Well, it's very situational (damages specific races). So, what are the options: Unholy always damages all enemy targets (even if they're Undead), and Holy slightly resurrects all your stacks if your stack isn't completely dead. Or eliminate Holy altogether. Or, as a last resort, make them equal by the number of races that take damage (Humans-Elves-Dwarves-Wizards take damage from Unholy, and Orcs-Demons-Undead-Dark Elves from Holy).

10. Attack and Defense Perks
3) Tactics -> Haste (Orcs get +1 to initiative) and 3) Readiness -> Stone Skin (Orcs get +2 to defense)

Well, I note that it's not very equal: I understand Haste is like in the original when you cast Haste on your troops, and an Orc just gets +1 to initiative, which is unimpressive). Same with Stone Skin. I would remove these 2 perks altogether. If you want to cast Mass Stone Skin, learn Light.

11. CHAOS MAGIC
1) Master of Fire -> Pyrokinesis (additionally +Wall of Fire) / Mana Explosion
2) Master of Ice -> Deadly Cold (additionally +Stopping Cold)
3) Master of Lightning

Why are Lightning spells so neglected =) I definitely wouldn't level them; the great power of Chaos is in the perks. I would give each element 3 strong perks, so a hero could be a specialized master in one of them. Say, Fire's third perk heavily reduces defense, and Lightning's third perk heavily stuns, and you can't take both.

12. Idea
What if we made starting heroes with an expert racial skill and all its perks maxed out? Plus a standard skill and its perk, and a total of 10 stats instead of 5. This would essentially give a development boost of +5 levels from the start. But without accelerating specializations, so by level 13, you could get heroes with a perk set equivalent to standard level 18 heroes.

The decision here is fundamental, because with this approach, it's necessary to return racial perks back to bases, in addition to the 3 standard ones.

Why wasn't the idea supported? ) I would have been for it. What I want to emphasize: in the original, a strong army is considered only the one belonging to the main hero. If I have a weekly growth with the main, even a battered one, and the AI hired a new level 1 with a 2-week army, I would boldly attack him, knowing that my 4 Knights would kill 7 out of 10 Specters on attack, and his retaliation wouldn't kill even one of mine. That is, I am for the starting hero being something from the start. So that an army under his command is weaker, but not completely insignificant. Let's say, not comparing 1 and 25, but already 10 and 25. 25 seems cooler, but 10 is also dangerous, not a useless lonely 1. Especially since, in this mod, it seems advantageous to split troops. Why split them if handing them over to a level 6 hero instead of the main makes them weaklings?

13. Note on Magic
3 Righteous Might (5 mana) = +(Spellpower+4) to Attack for 1/2/3/4 rounds. Mass Righteous Might (10 mana) works in a 4x4 area.
3 Exorcism (6 mana) = removes spells with a 100% chance, but only works on allied targets (i.e., doesn't remove buffs from the enemy). Mass Exorcism (12 mana) works in a 4x4 area.
1 Forgetfulness (1 mana) = only 1/3 of enemy creatures can shoot and retaliate, for 1/2/3/4 rounds. Mass Forgetfulness (2 mana) works on all enemies.
1 Curse (2 mana) = minimum damage, for 1/2/3/4 rounds. Mass Curse (4 mana) works on all enemies.

Forgetfulness and Curse are equivalent spells to me; I'd be happy with either.
But Righteous Might seems significantly stronger than Exorcism in my opinion. And I would consider it bad luck if I didn't get Might. With the new formula, it boosts the damage of a top stack very, very strongly. But dispelling might not be beneficial (or not always beneficial), because dispelling means skipping your turn to protect against the enemy's turn. So I'd rather let my stack get hit under Berserk, but another under Righteous Might deals top damage. In short, I see these two spells as not equivalent (Might is always good, but Exorcism is situational and sometimes useless)

I also noticed that Disrupting Ray removes a lot of defense permanently. Would it be better if it removed even more but for 3-4 turns, like Light? It's just that with Light, you have to give a buff before the burst and fit it in the time, but with Darkness, you have a guaranteed endlessly useful effect. Your opinion?

And I note that for 2 magic schools, new spells are given. They all need to be guaranteed good. So there aren't specific ties like Light and Darkness are cool, there's Vampirism, but Chaos and Light can never be leveled, because Holy Word is relatively useless. And only "certain" combinations will appear.



We are waiting for the project in any form =) Good wishes to all! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiscPK9YeeQ&t=1s

I greet absolutely everyone! I am looking forward to the mod's release. I would like to discuss a couple of topics from this mod, if you have the desire and free time, of course:

1. Orc mage
At first I was thinking it would be cool if dwarves, like barbarians, had no magic (one side has warcries, the other has runes, but their heroes give magic resistance), kind of like Total War: Warhammer 2. Like, 6 races with 6 pairs of magic schools and 2 that cannot cast (why should orcs always be the only ones?).
But then I decided myself that this was overkill: first, dwarves are the only ones for whom Light + Chaos fits well here; second, it is too progressive (the conservatives will beat me with sticks). 
But giving an orc the ability to cast spells (for example Chaos + Dark) does not look that stupid. His stats are physical and he will not really want to cast, but the option would exist, like in Heroes 3. Removing warcries as such (as in, one town type benefits from capturing another town for new spells, while orcs are only interested in another orc town) feels kind of unbalanced. And is this even theoretically possible, since the spellbook is different there? What do you think?

Good afternoon!

A town is needed first of all so you can recruit troops there, and an orc already has excellent compensation in the form of gaining experience instead of spells.
For now I have no desire to radically remove things that work well (warcries).
As for magic, though, I would say that right now in WGE the orc shamanesses look very good in terms of their arsenal.

2 A single rare resource
Make one rare resource out of the four types, like in Heroes 6. This seems more balanced to me. It will never sit unused, like some sulfur in some town. That is, leave only crystals, for example. In general, my opinion here is that the fewer types of resources there are, the less useless randomness there is. What do you think?

Here it is a categorical no, because the game should not be built around one town. There should be many towns, and they should be built up. That means resources will not sit idle; they will compete with each other, and there are far more options when there are many of them than when there is only one.

3 Tier reshuffles
It turns out people have been discussing where the griffin should sit by tier in the Castle in this thread since as far back as 2016, which is nice =) I agree with its current position (tier 6). What else I would change, if asked: move the demon from tier 2 to tier 4. To me a demon is a gorilla pumped up to about 3 meters tall that benches at least 200 kg (Disciples 2 had a cool demon). And he is clearly stronger than a guy in plate armor. So swap them with the dogs and make them 4-cell creatures. And dogs are like little hyenas the size of a lynx, gnawing in packs.

I have already experimented with 4 large creatures per race, and in the end I concluded that the optimal lineup is exactly 3 large creatures, no more and no less.
In general, I agree that the demon looks menacing, which is why he was strengthened compared with the original. But he is still mass infantry, like militia or guards, even if stronger.
For now I am not ready to move demons higher.

As for cerberi, I assume that a cerberus can tear apart a lion or a tiger (that was in the Heroes 6 description, which is not an authority for me, but on cerberi specifically I agree).
Besides, cerberi used to be large and felt even more threatening. Now their small size has returned, but I do not yet want to lower their tier.
Maybe their ideological opposition to griffins is simply still alive, as in Heroes 3 (at tier 3). Griffins have climbed all the way to tier 6, while cerberi at least got upgraded to tier 4.

Was the option of making creatures analogues also considered? For example, both the dog and the demon are tier 4 creatures (alternative upgrades of each other), and tier 2 gets outside creatures from the mod. By the way, how hard is it to find a third-party creature online for a Heroes 5 mod? I did that myself for Warcraft 3; there it is very easy to find something online for any theme, but here I do not know.
I would also boldly give the dwarf bear tier 5.

No, radical reshuffles with various expanded neutrals are not planned, because that is a huge amount of work, and that work has already been done for the current creatures. We are not going to throw them away.
Still, a few exceptions like that were made: mages got efreet as one version of genies, and dwarves got ice dragons as one version of dragons.

The bear, yes, can quite honestly claim tier 5. In fact, the bear is currently equal to the tier-5 priest in practice, and the priest's tier is higher only nominally.

4 About Defense
In the original, the Defense skill was must-have. Everyone needed it: warriors and mages alike. I suggest making it weaker so it does not affect things so much (5/10/15 percent).
If you do not want that or disagree with such a change, then please pay attention to the combination of heroes with strong Spell Power and Attack. If he takes Chaos, the hero will want his army to survive longer while the hero casts, not to rush forward with it. And that hero will still want to look for Defense, not Offense, even if his stats are in Attack. That was the problem of the dark elves in the original. I do not know how it will be here, but in the original, for me, it was a flaw and a problem in the game mechanics.

Defense is not must-have, but it is a very strong skill. It is just that it is far from always important how much damage you take from enemy attacks (for example because the enemy hero is killing with magic).
Cutting Defense to 5/10/15% means lowering it to the same beggarly numbers as Offense in the original.
There are two possible paths here:
1) a small Defense nerf to 5/15/25
2) buff other skills up to Defense's level
I chose the second path, because a strong balanced bonus is better than a weak balanced one. Perks in WGE are stronger than in the original, and because of that Defense will not be such a clear winner.

I disagree about the dark elves. The problem in the original was very weak Offense (5/10/15) and Battle Frenzy being irrelevant for Dungeon troops. That is, they simply did not have good tools for accelerating physical damage. But Attack itself is useful even to a warlock, because it fits perfectly with the strategy of dealing damage as fast as possible before the enemy has time to recover (both with magic and with troops). This is a maximum-tempo game.
In duels specifically, this is already visible now: dark elf troops are rather fragile, but all of them are dangerous, and that wild tempo keeps the opponent under pressure. Hesitate and you will be erased by Chaos; rush forward headlong and you can take a pile of damage from the troops as well.
But this combination of parameters (Attack + Spell Power) works best against enemy mages, because it is precisely what gives a tempo advantage when magic is conditionally equal (Defense does not; it only slows the opponent's tempo if he himself is running into trades).

Also, one of the key problems of the original is excess mana. That means the question is not how much damage your mana will be enough for, but whether you have enough troops to hold out long enough.
In WGE, thanks to its special pricing policy, you can spend mana very quickly, and you do not need to stand on defense for a long time in order to quickly inflict critical damage on the opponent, after which the troops will finish him off just as quickly.
In other words, players now have the option to additionally accelerate magical tempo instead of slowing the opponent's tempo by taking Defense.

Demons = Logistics + Dark + Chaos (all classes have very rare Light and Summoning, 1% each)
Dark = Offense + Dark + Chaos (all classes have very rare Light and Summoning, 1% each, rare Logistics - 2%)

Moved this here from some page in the thread.   Logistics is needed more by Dark, since it increases initiative at the start, and that is exactly what he needs. And the dark one has Offense and Chaos, which is what I was writing about.
Maybe with the new game mechanics it is profitable to rush and throw Chaos around, but most likely not =). 
It is cool, by the way, that speeds here are low: a demon will at least have time to open gates; in the original it was more profitable for me to run and hit than to summon. And what about giving the demon Dark + Summoning? He surely has low Spell Power, and nobody will level Chaos.

That information is outdated. Now it is exactly like that: demons get Offense, dark elves get Logistics.

Summoning for the demon was tried, but it did not work out.
No, it is not a given that the demon has low Spell Power. Each race here has 3 classes, and the only parameter that unites demons is maximum Offense; everything else depends on the class.

5 Adding heroes
Right now each race has nine heroes. Are you planning to add one more of each class? 12 per race?

No, not planned for now. It is better to work out the existing ones as well as possible, especially since there are no new specialties.
Someday, maybe, but it is definitely not the first priority.

6 About creature specialties and "+" to creatures
I noticed that some heroes buff an existing troop type, like Ellaine strengthens peasants, while someone gives themselves new creatures per level, like Alaric:  + 2 monks for every 2 levels, conditionally (additional creatures). I suggest merging this into one specialty. Like, you get them per level and also give them upgrades A and B. That seems more logical to me (if my specialty is +2 monks per level, and I am level 24, and I lose my monks in battle, then to hell with them all) I will create a new army without monks and who cares that my specialty is tied to them. I lost the old ones, I am unlikely to gain a new level, so let the footmen be split into 2 stacks instead; I am no longer losing anything. That is, the meaning of the monk specialty is lost if you accidentally lose them.

There is no way to create new specialties. And the +monks specialty is scripts; their capabilities are limited.
As for standard creature specialists, they are already very strong because in practice they doubled their bonuses when the role of parameters was increased from 5 to 10%.

7 Chilling Bones 
The one that returns 5 percent of damage. Why did you throw it out? Does the number not change? If it changes, you could pick something interesting.

I threw it out because the number is inadequately weak and does not change. Only recently did I find out that people have learned to change it by editing the executable after all, but not arbitrarily, only to specific values. For now there is only 10%, and I am not sure that is enough. We will wait for stronger bonuses. As such, in essence, the perk is interesting (with good numbers).

8 For the future

This is purely a question for myself: is adding a 9th town to the game possible? Say I wanted to add nagas. In theory, is that possible without replacing an old town, namely adding a new one? Or is it not even theoretically possible because of the game mechanics?

At the moment the answer is no, and it is the very last priority. 8 races, a huge number of creatures, classes, and much more - all of that should first be brought into shape, and only then should new content be taken on.

9 Holy and unholy

Well, it is very situational (damages specific races). So what are the options: unholy always damages all enemy targets (even if they are undead), while holy resurrects all your own stacks a little, if that stack is not fully dead. Or remove holy entirely. Or, at worst, make them equal in the number of races that take damage (humans-elves-dwarves-mages from unholy, and orcs-demons-undead-darks from holy).

It cannot be done that way. Since they are situational, they have been moved out as bonus spells for school combinations, meaning the player usually goes for them deliberately, and they no longer clutter mage guilds.

10 Attack and Defense perks
3) Tactics -> Haste (orcs +1 initiative) and 3) Preparation -> Stoneskin (orcs +2 defense)

I will note here that this is not very equivalent: as I understand it, Haste is like in the original, you cast Haste on your troops, and for an orc just +1 initiative is not impressive. Same with Stoneskin. I would remove these 2 perks entirely. If you want to cast mass Stoneskin, learn Light.

Maybe. I am not ready to give an answer here yet, since I am not working with skills and abilities right now. When I return to them, we will see then.

11 CHAOS MAGIC 
1) Master of Fire -> Pyrokinesis (additional +Fire Wall) / Mana Burst
2) Master of Ice -> Deadly Cold (additional +Freezing Cold)
3) Master of Lightning

Why are lightning spells so deprived =) I would definitely not level them; a lot of Chaos's strength is in the perks. I would give each element 3 strong perks, so the hero would be a specialized master in one of them. Like, fire as the third perk strongly eats defense, while lightning as the third strongly stuns, and you cannot take both.

There is no way to create new perks, so the tastiest existing ones are used and distributed, and lightning has only one perk.

12 Idea
What if starting heroes were made with Expert racial and all its perks leveled? Plus a standard skill and a perk from it, and also with 10 total stats instead of 5. In effect this gives +5 levels of development from the start. But without boosting specialties, so already at level 13 you could get heroes analogous in perk set to standard level-18 heroes.

The decision here is fundamental, because with this approach racial perks have to be returned to the base pools, in addition to the 3 standard ones.

Why was the idea not supported? ) I would be in favor. What I just want to emphasize: in the original, only the army of the main hero is considered strong. That is, if my main has one week's growth, even battered, and the computer hires a new level-1 hero with two weeks' army, I would confidently run at him because I knew my 4 knights would kill 7 out of 10 death heralds on attack, and his retaliation would not kill even one. So I am in favor of the starting hero already being something in himself. So that the army under his command is weaker, but not completely insignificant. Say, compare not day 1 and day 25, but already day 10 and day 25. 25 is still cooler, but 10 is already dangerous too, not a miserable useless one. Especially since in this mod it seems profitable to split troops. And why split them if giving them to a support hero instead of the main makes them weaklings?

We will see how it turns out in the end.
Maybe specialists at levels in the 20s are not that scary, and there will be no need to artificially accelerate starting heroes. Such accelerations are not "free"; they reduce variability.

13 Note on magic
3 Righteous Might (5 mana) = +(Spell Power+4) to attack for 1/2/3/4 rounds. Mass Might (10 mana) affects a 4x4 area.
3 Exorcism (6 mana) = removes spells with 100% probability, but works only on allied targets (that is, it does not remove buffs from the enemy). Mass Exorcism (12 mana) affects a 4x4 area.
 and here 1 Weakness of Mind (1 mana) = only 1/3 of enemy creatures can shoot and retaliate, for 1/2/3/4 rounds. Mass Weakness of Mind (2 mana) affects everyone.
1 Curse (2 mana) = minimum damage for 1/2/3/4 rounds. Mass Curse (4 mana) affects everyone.

Weakness of Mind and Curse are equivalent spells to me; I will be happy with either one.
But Righteous Might is much stronger than Exorcism in my opinion. And I will consider that if I did not roll Might, I was unlucky. Under the new formula it boosts damage very, very strongly on a top stack. But dispelling is not necessarily profitable (or not always profitable), because dispelling means spending your turn to protect yourself from an enemy one. So I would rather let my stack hit my own under berserk, while another under Righteous Might deals top damage. In general these 2 spells seem unequal to me (Might is always good, while Exorcism is situational and sometimes useless).

I also noticed that Vulnerability eats a lot of defense and forever. Maybe it would be better if it ate even more, but for 3-4 turns, like Light? It turns out that with Light you must cast a buff before the rush and fit into the duration, while with Dark you get a guaranteed infinitely useful effect. What do you think?

And I will note that 2 magic schools give new spells. They need to all be guaranteed good. So there are no specific bindings like Light and Dark are great because they have Vampirism, while Chaos and Light can never be leveled because Holy Word is useless by comparison. Otherwise only "specific" combinations will appear.

The spell information is outdated.

Might is level 2, costs 2 mana, and gives a Spell Power + 2 attack bonus.
Exorcism is level 3 and costs 5 mana.

Weakness of Mind is level 1, costs 0 mana, and affects 50%.
Curse is level 1 and costs 0 mana.

Might is an excellent spell, and it scales both with Spell Power and with the skill (it demands both factors).
Exorcism, however, does not scale with anything; it is simply stable and demands only mana. That is its advantage.
You can build a hero almost without magic and Spell Power, and still cancel the enemy's high-level Dark up to 15 mana (Puppet Master), while that enemy invested in both Dark and Spell Power.
Exorcism is also a counter to level 1-3 Dark debuffs, which may be cheaper, but the opponent may still have invested in the skill and in Spell Power there. Or simply placed a double debuff, and Exorcism will remove all of it.
Also, Exorcism is a level-3 spell, not level 2, precisely so that such an effective and universal cancellation tool is not available to everyone indiscriminately, and you need at least to level the school (or Wisdom) for it.

There is a similar example with Anti-Magic. Not long ago it seemed that the price was inadequately high (10 mana is like 40 in the original!), and Teleport for 6 mana was far more useful. In practice, however, Anti-Magic turned out to be the most unpleasant thing for anyone relying on Light, because it can cancel any powerful buff at arbitrarily high Spell Power, and can also cancel double or triple buffs, neutralizing several with one simple action. At the same time, unlike the original, buffs here scale with Spell Power and can be extremely harsh, up to doubling initiative, damage, or survivability.
For example, an elf with huge Spell Power cast Skin + Might on some stack, doubling its strength, and then a simple spell effectively halves the stack back down, with no Spell Power requirements at all.

All this is true in duels, of course, against enemy heroes. Against neutrals, neither Exorcism nor Anti-Magic is usually especially needed.

Added after 8 hours 59 minutes

In general these 2 spells seem unequal to me (Might is always good, while Exorcism is situational and sometimes useless).

I also noticed that Vulnerability eats a lot of defense and forever. Maybe it would be better if it ate even more, but for 3-4 turns, like Light? It turns out that with Light you must cast a buff before the rush and fit into the duration, while with Dark you get a guaranteed infinitely useful effect. What do you think?

And I will note that 2 magic schools give new spells. They need to all be guaranteed good. So there are no specific bindings like Light and Dark are great because they have Vampirism, while Chaos and Light can never be leveled because Holy Word is useless by comparison. Otherwise only "specific" combinations will appear.

I will add that Might is not "always good". For example, at Spell Power 3 it is only +5 Attack (like +10 in the original). And with the basic skill the duration is only 2 rounds. You cannot really call that a strong cast.
At maximum skill and high Spell Power, yes.

Dark's debuffs, apart from Curse and Weakness of Mind, are weaker, so they are stretched over more time. Light's are powerful, but short.
For example, +10 Attack from Might increases damage by +100%, while -10 Attack from Weakness reduces damage by about 50%, per unit of time. With equal round counts, the buff is much stronger in terms of damage difference.

Holy Word is given in addition to Vampirism for Light + Dark precisely for that reason. Two spells increase the chance that at least one of them will be useful.
Besides, Holy Word is not that limited: it is useful against 35% of troops (demons, undead, orcs without wyverns).

Added after 29 minutes
Updates on abilities:

Power Channel: reduces the hero's spell costs by 20% (instead of 25%).
The correction became possible thanks to executable modification.
In WGE, spell cost is fundamentally important because mana is not infinite (there is no excess). In addition, this ability is no longer on mages, whose Knowledge is already maximum, but on druids, who have less mana.
A 20% cost reduction is still very strong, and gives prettier prices than 25% (for example, 15 mana drops to 12, not 11).

Entangling Roots: in addition to infinite retaliation, doubles the defensive bonus from +50% to +100% defense.
This ability has become even stronger than in the original. Real damage to rooted treants drops by 2-4 times.

Consume Mana, Mana Steal, Mana Drain: 1 mana for every 10 imps.
Formally this is a weakening of the ability, but in reality each unit of mana is worth 4 times more than in the original.

Vorpal Sword: deals 5 damage for each enemy creature (only 2 in the original). That is, it is truly deadly for tier 1, and fairies or goblins can all fall from one hit.
The ability has been brought in line in strength with Cleave, which has also become several times more dangerous because troop counts are low, including tier 7.

Searing Aura: deals 200% no-retaliation damage (only 150% in the original).
The ability of red dragons, as well as fire elementals, which thanks to it effectively shoot at point-blank range (without penalties or retaliation).

Explosion: deals 30 damage for each point of demon Spell Power (150 damage from a full stack in duels).
Bomb: deals 5 damage for each demon after death (in duels this is 120 damage).
The numbers on both abilities are very respectable given the troop scale.
Explosion is not trash like in the original, but a powerful ability comparable in strength to 200% damage, and in an area besides.
Bomb is so strong that it is often profitable simply to sacrifice the stack for it.

Liquid Flame: deals 20 damage per dragon, applies over the full 2x2 area on each tile (i.e. a large creature that stays there will take 80 damage), duration - 10 rounds (eternal fire).
Dragon fire looks too beautiful to extinguish early.

Sabotage: steals 1 shot for every 10 gremlins, radius speed + 4 (i.e. 8). Makes the mini-artifact for +2 speed to gremlins useful. This radius is also enough to counter enemy shooters by running out (and sometimes even with Tactics).

Traps, Magic Blight: chances increase by 5% for every 10 goblins.
For convenience, technical growth values are generally fixed as follows:
- tier 1 = 10 creatures
- tier 2 = 8 creatures
- tier 3 = 6 creatures
- tier 4 = 4 creatures
- tier 5 = 3 creatures
- tier 6 = 2 creatures
- tier 7 = 1 creature
Except for casting unit types, whose technical growth is always equivalent to 1 dragon (i.e. in duels the starting Spell Power of all casters is the same = 5).
Magnetism: redirects 100% of damage if there is at least 1 golem growth (in duels at least 50% of the stack - 6 out of 12).
By the way, Magnetism remains only on Gold Golems and is removed from earth elementals, which will instead get Stun, much more suitable for them.

In general, Magic Blight is balanced so that against a high-level hero it is very difficult to raise the chance of a complete spell ban above 5%.
Mostly this ability should work against caster units, while against the hero it should usually just penalize mana (40%); a full ban on hero spells is too harsh, while banning unit spells is already acceptable.

Technical growth values will not affect real growth on the map in the future, because all real growth is implemented by scripts (and still is not displayed in the town interface). But they remain a convenient tool for balancing the strength of abilities and Spell Power.

Added after 26 minutes
For spells, the most current information at the moment:

Compared with the original formulas, the scales are as follows:
Damage or Health 1:8 (in WGE troops have 8 times less HP because of low numbers, so the weight of 1 point of damage or health is 8 times higher).
Attack, defense, Spell Power, Knowledge 1:2 (parameters in WGE matter twice as much: Attack and Defense have a 10% coefficient instead of 5).
Mana 1:4 (because 1 Knowledge in WGE gives 5 mana, but is valued like 2 Knowledge in the original, which gave 20 mana).

Pokes:

tier 1) 20% per hero level (2 creatures in duels)
tier 2) 10% per hero level (1 creature)
tier 3) 8% per hero level (80%)
tier 4) 6% per hero level (60%)
tier 5) 4% per hero level (40%)
tier 6) 2% per hero level (20%)
tier 7) 1% per hero level (10%)

Considering the new scale, pokes roughly correspond to hits against tier 5-6 in the original, are noticeably stronger against lower tiers, and noticeably weaker against tier 7. The hero (without upgraded Deadeye Shot) is no longer the scourge of titans and dragons, but must rely on magic, because physically he is no match for a dragon.
Pokes are also balanced so that in most cases they do not exceed the strength of a free Magic Fist or free Magic Arrow, so that these low-level spells have meaning and can be used effectively.

Chaos Magic:

0 Arrow = 3 x (SP + 0/2/4/6)
0 Spikes = 2 x (SP + 0/3/6/9)

1 Fireball = 3 x (SP + 0/2/4/6)
2 Boulder = 6 x (SP + 0/2/4/6)

3 Ring = 4 x (SP + 0/2/4/6)
5 Lightning = 10 x (SP + 0/1/2/3)

6 Meteor = 3 x (SP + 0/3/6/9)
10 Chain Lightning = 10 x (SP + 0/1/2/3)

15 Disintegration = 10 x (SP + 0/3/6/9)

4 Fire Wall (from Summoning) = 6 x SP, 1/2/3/4 rounds
8 Freezing (from Dark) = 6/8/10/12 x SP, +100% physical damage for 1 round
12 Armageddon (from Light) = 6 x (SP + 0/2/4/6)

Summoning Magic:

0 Magic Fist = 3 x (SP + 0/1/2/3)
0 Wasps = knockback 20/30/40/50%, damage = 1 (symbolic)

1 Crystal = 3/4/5/6 x (SP + 3)
2 Blade Wall = durability 50 x SP, for 2/4/6/8 rounds, returns 10% melee damage back

3 Phantom = clone up to tier 4/5/6/7
5 Mines = 2 x (SP + 9), 4/6/8/10 mines

6 Elementals = SP + 0/2/4/6 elementals
10 Celestial Shield = absorbs 25/50/75/100% damage, up to 15 x (SP + 3)

15 Phoenix: Speed = 7, Initiative = 15, Damage = 20-40, Health = 120, Attack/Defense = 20 + SP

4 Earthquake (from Chaos): damage (1 - 2) x 50 x SP
8 Hive (from Light): init = 15, health = 6/9/12/15 x SP, Defense = 20
12 Raise Dead (from Dark) = 10 x (SP + 0/3/6/9), without bogus health penalties

Light Magic:

0 Deflect Missile = 50% protection from ranged attacks for 2/4/6/8 rounds (mass - on everyone)
0 Bless = max. damage for 2/4/6/8 rounds (mass - on everyone)

1 Stoneskin = +(SP + 2) to defense for 1/2/3/4 rounds (area - 4x4)
2 Righteous Might = +(SP + 2) to attack for 1/2/3/4 rounds (area - 4x4)

3 Haste = +(SP + 1) x 10% initiative for 1/2/3/4 rounds (area - 4x4)
5 Exorcism = 100% removal of negative effects from your own stack (area - 4x4)

6 Teleport
10 Anti-Magic = Removal of all magical effects from any stack + Magic Immunity for 1/2/3/4 rounds

15 Resurrection = 15 x (SP + 0/2/4/6), without bogus health penalties

4 Regeneration (from Summoning) = +(SP + 1) x 10%, duration 1/2/3/4 rounds
8 Divine Vengeance (from Chaos) = 15/20/25/30 x Kills
12 Holy Word (from Dark) = 1/2/3/4 x (SP + 6) 

Dark Magic:

0 Confusion = 50% of creatures shoot and retaliate for 1/2/3/4 rounds (mass - on everyone)
0 Curse = min. damage for 1/2/3/4 rounds (mass - on everyone)

1 Weakness = -(SP + 2) to attack for 2/4/6/8 rounds (area - 4x4)
2 Vulnerability = -(SP + 1) to defense, stacks (area - 4x4)

3 Slow = -50% initiative for 2/4/6/8 rounds (area - 4x4)
5 Plague = 3 x (SP + 9) damage for 1/2/3/4 rounds (area - 4x4)

6 Blind = 0.3/0.4/0.5/0.6 x SP rounds, on Expert the enemy does not retaliate against attacks
10 Berserk = attack nearest target with 100% damage (always for 1 turn)

15 Puppet Master = 50% initiative + control for 0.15/0.2/0.25/0.3 x SP rounds, on Expert can target tier 7 creatures

4 Sorrow (from Chaos) = -3/4/5/6 to luck and morale for SP rounds
8 Vampirism (from Light) = 100% vampirism and undead for 2/4/6/8 rounds
12 Death Wave (from Dark) = 3/4/5/6 x SP, damages enemies only

Added after 31 minutes

The most current information on skills (already published several pages ago):
This will all be implemented at the next stage, after the release of duel mode.

Note: Battle Frenzy will now work like Forest Rage, giving +1 only to maximum damage.
As we can see, Swift Mind and Stone Toughness are no longer in the corresponding skills. All skills are standardized and work the same way.
Leadership is useless to necromancers, so their chance for it is 0%, just as orcs have 0% chances for Enlightenment and magic.

ATTACK (10/20/30%)
1) Battle Frenzy -> Cold Steel
2) Archery (30%) -> Attacking Style (+3 Attack to each hero on the battlefield)
3) Tactics -> Attacking Hird

DEFENSE (10/20/30%)
1) Vitality -> Endurance (+10% health)
2) Evasion (30%) -> Defensive Style (+3 Defense to each hero on the battlefield)
3) Stand Your Ground (x2) -> Defensive Hird

LEADERSHIP (1/2/3), unavailable to undead
1) Recruitment (50%) -> Retribution
2) Rally Troops -> Last Stand
3) Diplomacy -> Empathy

Rally Troops: for every 4 hero levels (including levels already gained), level 1-3 creatures join the hero (+3/+2/+1).
Diplomacy: before battle, creatures from a stack already present in the hero's army, but of a different upgrade, join the hero until the end of combat, for a value of no more than 500 gold per hero level.

LUCK (1/2/3, 50% luck bonus)
1) Soldier's Luck -> Critical Luck (100% luck bonus)
2) Luck on the Road -> Warlock's Luck (when luck triggers, the hero spends no mana)
3) Magic Resistance -> Double Resistance (Dwarven Luck)

Soldier's Luck: additionally +1 to luck.
Luck on the Road: for every 4 levels (including already gained), the hero receives a random minor artifact.

LOGISTICS (10/20/30% bonus to hero movement on the map and to unit movement at the start of battle)
1) Warpath (+1 initiative) -> Aura of Swiftness
2) Scouting (additional penalty to enemy hero -1 initiative) -> Fog Veil (-30% init)
3) Spoils of War (additional penalty to enemy hero -1 speed) -> Storm Wind

ENGINEERING (+100/200/300% machine health and +1/2/3 attack to shooters for the ammo cart).
1) Ballistics -> Rapid Fire
2) First Aid -> Plague Tent
3) Artillery -> Elite Machines (Rune Machines)

Ballista damage and tent healing do not depend on the Engineering skill.
Ballistics, First Aid, and Artillery do not double the health of the corresponding machines.
Artillery (catapult): additionally, before battle in open field, kills 10% of the opponent's creatures (killed count rounded down).

ENLIGHTENMENT (+2/4/6 random parameters), unavailable to orcs
1) Counterspell -> Distraction (30%)
2) Intelligence (+40% maximum mana) -> Scholarly Style (+3 Knowledge to each hero on the battlefield)
3) Scholar -> Wisdom

Scholar: additionally, the hero learns 1 random level 1-2 spell for every 2 levels, including levels already gained.
Wisdom: additionally, the hero learns 1 random level 3 spell for every 4 levels, including levels already gained.
When Knowledge changes, the hero's mana always scales: NewMana = OldMana * (NewKnowledge / OldKnowledge).

RESISTANCE (+10/20/30% to creature health), available only to orcs
1) Weaken Light (-50%) -> Corrupt Light (+100%)
2) Weaken Dark (-50%) -> Corrupt Dark (+100%)
3) Weaken Summoning (-50%) -> Corrupt Summoning (+100%)

SORCERY (10/20/30%), unavailable to orcs
1) Arcane Training -> Elite Casters (Secrets of Light)
2) Mysticism -> Mana Burst
3) Arcane Intuition (30%) -> Spellcasting Style (+3 Spell Power to each hero on the battlefield)

Mysticism: each hero turn in battle restores 2 mana, but this bonus burns off after battle.

WARCRIES (10/20/30%), available only to orcs
1) Arcane Training -> Elite Casters
2) Mysticism -> Mana Burst
3) Rage Cry -> Mighty Shout

LIGHT MAGIC (3/4/5), unavailable to orcs
1) Master of Wrath -> Sudden Attack
2) Master of Blessings -> Eternal Light
3) Master of Abjuration -> Seal of Light

DARK MAGIC (3/4/5), unavailable to orcs
3) Master of Mind -> Dark Renewal
2) Master of Curses -> Weakness of Darkness
3) Master of Pain -> Seal of Darkness

CHAOS MAGIC (3/4/5), unavailable to orcs
1) Master of Fire -> Pyrokinesis
2) Master of Ice (40%) -> Deadly Cold
3) Master of Lightning (60%) -> Magic Exhaustion

SUMMONING MAGIC (3/4/5), unavailable to orcs
1) Master of Earth -> Cursed Ground
2) Master of Life -> Shield of Immortality
3) Master of Elements -> Elemental Balance

COUNTERSTRIKE (+50/100/150%), available only to humans
1) Double Strike -> Supervision
2) Prayer -> Guardian Angel
3) Preparation (does not work against no-retaliation attacks)

Double Strike: double damage from hero attacks.

OCCULTISM (additionally +1/2/3 mana at the start of battle for each hero level; after battle this bonus burns off), available only to dark elves
1) Mark of the Damned -> Weakening Strike
2) Fallen
3) Arcane Wave -> Elemental Vision (warlock only) or Arcane Luck (assassin and witch only)

DEMONOLOGY (50% for levels 1-2/4/6), available only to demons
1) Quick Gating -> Wide Gating
2) Hellfire -> Withering Flame
3) Corpse Eater

RUNES (exactly 6 of each resource are additionally issued for battle), available only to dwarves
1) Refreshed Rune
2) Greater Rune (200%) -> Runic Harmony
3) Fine Rune (discount does not work on Greater Rune) -> Rune Rollback

Now resources for using runes in each battle are fixed and effectively do not depend on the map (you can freely use the racial in creeping, and it will not be overpowered in the final battle).

AVENGER (double damage chance 50%, favored enemies are tied to the whole tier - default 1/2/3), available only to elves
1) Imbue Arrow -> Imbue Ballista
2) Forest Leader (during battle the hero level is considered +5 higher)
3) Deadeye Shot -> Rain of Arrows

BLOOD RAGE (30% damage absorption), available only to orcs
1) Memory of Blood -> Battle Elation
2) Fire of Rage
3) Reinforcements -> Stun (50%)

NECROMANCY (10/15/20%), available only to undead
1) Banshee Howl -> Deadly Misfortune (-2)
2) Lord of Death (1 Death Knight joins the hero for every 2 levels, including levels already gained)
3) Spiritual Link -> Chilling Bones (20%)

CRAFT (additionally grants 1/2/3 random resources for every 2 hero levels; wood and ore bonus is doubled), available only to mages
1) Wizard's Mark
2) Consume Artifact -> Machine Devotion (additionally +1 morale)
3) Magic Mirror -> Uncover Secret

Added after 3 hours 27 minutes
In general, some skills will need to be rethought anew.
For example, magic schools will no longer grant spells through perks (they will be granted as bonuses for school combinations), and therefore some perks lose attractiveness.
But I have not gotten around to that yet, so the current version is what it is.

Hello, I have Heroes 5.5 WarGame Edition - Tactical Edition mod, and MHH5.5. Is MHH5.5 and MHH5.5 WGE the same game, or is WGE built on the regular version? How is such a name related to the regular version, or is it just a coincidence?

 

The question is a bit off-topic, but still. MHH5.5 is still being updated (RC 15 beta 2 and so on), what is the difference between these two modifications?

 

Is EWA dead? And here's another question, what are the most global and good mods left for Heroes of Might and Magic: Tribes of the East? MHH5.5 and MHH5.5 WGE? I'm just using MCCS and I don't quite understand why there aren't a lot of neutral creatures for variety, for example, NCF special (all mods can be provided, this NCF weighs about a gigabyte)? The same goes for heroes with a bunch of new arenas for variety, like with one playthrough=).

 

Is MHH5.5 WGE being updated? And is it possible to optimize some mods for it? (artifacts, or unlocked new structures in world generation, if I understand correctly, the RMG Advanced mod)?

And a request, could you please provide a mod for all campaigns from previous parts, but only in Russian, please? I can't find it anywhere. I don't know much about modifications and can't say which ones are good and which ones aren't.

 

I'm using this build, I put it together myself. I don't know, we're new and it seems like there are a lot of new artifacts, heroes, and textures, everything seems balanced, I'm not insisting, but it would be great to have those modifications too, and the campaigns are a bit strange, there are video inserts in English, so if it's not difficult, please provide the file. Thank you very much for all the answers and for the mod.

Hello!
No, MMH5.5 and WGE are fundamentally different things (but both involve using a modified executable file).

In short:
- MMH5.5 is a foreign mod aimed at very long gameplay on a map.
- WGE is a mod aimed at dynamic Multiplayer, currently focusing only on duel mode, which will be released soon. In the future, it will be expanded to other formats, starting with an arena with hero progression and a final battle, and then a standard format.
- EWA is a collection of mods, about which I cannot say anything.
- TE is a tournament mod that focuses on overcoming huge hordes of neutral creatures, but unlike MMH5.5, it does so in a shorter timeframe.
- PTA is also a Multiplayer tactical arena (fast progression + final battle). Currently, there are two versions, one more conservative by Mostovik-Zub, and the other more progressive by Redhaven-Messor, but both maps are based on the original balance, although both use a modified executable.

After the duel mode is released, I will consider updating the name, removing the number 5.5 to avoid confusing people.
Perhaps something like 5.1 will be used.

The release of the duels is postponed for a couple of weeks. All melee fighter abilities have been calculated; ranged units and casters remain. Also, magic will be rebalanced: tests have shown that buffs and debuffs are lagging behind direct damage spells and will be increased by 25% (and will be as strong as in the early version from several years ago). For now, here's a rough outline: Evasion, Distraction, and Slow: damage/initiative reduction reduced from 50% to 40%. Bless and Curse: damage ranges will be increased (the average buff/debuff will be increased from 25% to 30%). Hide, Might, and Weakness: increased by +2 (up to SP+4). Bow: increased by +3 (up to SP+4). Haste: increased by +3 (up to SP+4) x10%. Grief: increased from -3/4/5/6 to -4/6/8/10.

[censored] there is nowhere to download.