Necropolis: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:44, 31 January 2015

	Castle
	Towns
	Rampart
	Tower
	Inferno
	Necropolis
	Dungeon
	Stronghold
	Fortress
	Conflux
	Cove
	Factory

Necropolis is an evil alignment town type, that is overrun and ruled by undead creatures. They are the natural bases for the Necromancer and Death Knight hero types. Necropolis armies have many units with abilities to weaken their opponents. This may give them an advantage over an equal or even a stronger opponent.

Native terrain for Necropolis's troops is dirt.

Overview

Structures

Resource	Basic	Upgrades	All
	33400	25500	96400
	45	25	135
	65	25	135
	5	12	45
	5	12	45
	5	27	60
	15	7	40
Troop cost/week:		26920 2

Incomplete Necropolis town seen from inside

Template:StandardBuildings

Necropolis Specific Buildings

Cover of Darkness (unique Necropolis town building, like cover of darkness, creates 20 tiles of shroud around the city)
Necromancy Amplifier (unique Necropolis building, works like Vampire's Cowl, stacks with each city)
Skeleton Transformer (unique Necropolis building, enhance values of Peasants to Skeletons (+4 attack, +3 defense, +5 hp, +0-2 damage +1 speed) or life span of other non undead creatures to those of Skeletons, or, in case of Dragons and Hydras Bone Dragons)
Shipyard (like Shipyard on the adventure map, a boat can be bought for 1000 gold, 10 wood, works like Summon Boat but more reliable when not on expert Water Magic, expert Water magic would with Summon Boat get a free ship but still cost adventure map movement points when boarding/deboarding boats instead of using Water Walk or Fly if those spells are available)
Soul Prison (Grail building, +20 Necromancy for allied heroes, the usual 5000 gold each day and +50% creature growth in the Grail town)
Unearthed Graves (+6 Skeletons per week horde building)

Creature Dwellings

Cursed Temple (12x Skeleton, Skeleton Warrior)
Graveyard (8x Walking Dead, Zombie)
Tomb of Souls (7x Wight, Wraith)
Estate (4x Vampire, Vampire Lord)
Mausoleum (3x Lich, Power Lich)
Hall of Darkness (2x Black Knight, Dread Knight)
Dragon Vault (1x Bone Dragon, Ghost Dragon)

Heroes

Necropolis

Death Knights

Straker

Vokial

Moandor

Charna

Tamika

Isra

Clavius

Ranloo

Lord Haart

Aislinn

Sandro

Nimbus

Thant

Xsi

Vidomina

Nagash

Towns

Template:Herotable Template:Herotablerow Necropolis |} List of all heroes

Creatures

Necropolis creatures

Level 1

Skeleton

Skeleton Warrior

Level 2

Walking Dead

Zombie

Level 3

Wight

Wraith

Level 4

Vampire

Vampire Lord

Level 5

Lich

Power Lich

Level 6

Black Knight

Dread Knight

Level 7

Bone Dragon

Ghost Dragon

Towns

All Necropolis' creatres are undead, which means that they are unaffected by morale. They are also immune to all mind spells as well as Curse, Bless, Resurrection and Death Ripple.

Template:Creaturetable Template:Creaturetablerow Necropolis |}

Discussion

Introduction

Necropolis is one of the most powerful towns in Heroes of Might and Magic III. It has very strong 4th, 5th and 6th level creatures. Vampire Lords and Dread Knights are among the strongest in their respective levels, and while having Power Liches in an army consisting of living creatures may have problematic because of the death cloud attack, in the army of undead it is an advantage. As if this was not enough, Necropolis' heroes have Necromancy secondary skill, which enables them to harvest Skeletons (or Skeleton Warriors) from enemy armies as well as allied creatures. It is possible for a hero with Necromancy to pull through from a battle with more troops than he went into it.

Necropolis has also excellent magic capabilities. It can build level 5th Mage Guild and has few special spells like Animate Dead and Death Ripple to support the armies. Also, undead hordes are immune to mind spells, which greatest advantage is that they cannot be blinded or "berserked". In addition, undead do not suffer from negative morale (nor do they benefit from positive).

Perhaps the only true weakness in Necropolis' creatures is Bone and Ghost Dragons, which are among the weakest 7th level creature.

Strategy

An advantageous tactics with Necropolis is "harvesting" skeletons with the Necromancy secondary skill. At expert level Necromancy allows 30% of the creatures killed in combat to be brought back from the dead as skeletons. The percentage points can be increased with two structures: Necromancy Amplifier(s) and Soul Prison. Amplifiers can typicallly be constructed in necropolis towns, while Soul Prison is the grail building of Necropolis. Each amplifier increases the percentage points by +10%.

There are also artifacts that can increase the skill: Amulet of the Undertaker increases the percentage points by +5%, Vampire's Cowl by +10% and Dead Man's Boots by +15%. With these increase, Necromancy secondary skill may rise up to 70%. Additionally, two heroes specialize in Necromancy, Isra and Vidomina. Combining either of them with the amplifier and artifacts, it is possible to reach 100% skill level in necromancy, which means that possibly all the creatures killed in combat will be brought back as skeletons.

Harvesting leads to a situation, where it is profitable for heroes with Necromancy (mainly Death Knights and Necromancers) to carry through combats with wandering creatures instead of letting them flee if they are substantially less creatures and want to quit the battlefield. So, special months (see growth) where some creature types population doubles is actually a boon for Necropolis skeleton harvesters. Random units blocking pathways on the map thus become a motivational boost because those wandering creatures mean additional Skeletons.

Pros

A variety of good heroes to choose from
A variety of strategies available
Unaffected by negative Morale
Unaffected by Mind spells
Necromancy is a powerful secondary skill that only Necropolis heroes can utilize effectively
Vampire Lords are by far the most cost-efficient level 4 unit (and arguably the most cost-efficient unit in the game), as they can beat armies of much greater size as long as they are not (like Undeads or Constructs) immune to the Vampire Lords' Life drain ability and as long as the Vampire Lords are used properly (with Blind on extra enemy stacks for example or Counterstrike amidst low number/low hp stacks on the Vampire Lords, also using Animate Dead to help out if the Life Drain to damage inbound ratio is proving destructive to the Vampire Lord stack - perhaps also using Haste and the Flying feature of the Vampire Lords to switch opponent melee stacks or to seek a safe point for replenishing via Animate Dead, Cure or First Aid should Life Drain prove to be effectively ineffective due to outrageous enemy aggression without rhyme and reason).
The level 3 spell Animate Dead (which the necromancer hero Thant has built in) can resurrect units in combat, and they stay resurrected after combat (the 4th level Earth Spell Resurrection can resurrect units, but so treated units are removed after combat quite like Summon Air Elemental created creature stacks).
So given a good balance of Thants undead and repairable units compared to the opponent, enough mana for the resurrects and having Shackles of War for unlimited turns (a smaller version would be using Blind on all remaining enemy units and killing one blinded stack each turn, keeping the enemy locked until the hero is lost to the opponent and the artefacts if any are transferred) he would not lose any units in combat but also often get additional Necromancy created skeletons (which would hamper movement on the adventure map a little, as Skeletons are slow creatures (and even with Town Portal and Dimension Door there's an adventure map movement penalty to consider)).
There are number of artifacts that are only useful to Necropolis (artifacts enhancing the created creature number of the unique secondary skill Necromancy like Cloak of the Undead King, but also Pendant of Death which counters the mini, undead-only version of Armageddon, damaging all undead on the battlefield, even those recruited in no Necropolis but on the adventure map).
Both Necropolis hero types begin with a spell book

Cons

Walking Dead and Zombies slow armies down
Only one ranged attacker Lich/Power Lich
Unaffected by positive Morale (creatures of other towns might still have less morale when doing combat with creatures of other towns, and the Skeleton Transformer mostly creates skeletons and not Necropolis type creatures of the same level (except for perhaps transmuting hydras and dragons to bone dragons)) - Spirit of Oppression is a nice thing to have for any Necropolis hero with no non Necropolis units.
Difficulties in the early game, where your slow level 1 and level 2 creatures are not the best to conquer mines and explore the map (and in the endgame a host of in-combat ressurectable skeletons might hamper adventure map transfers (to reflag buildings for instance))
Bone and Ghost Dragons are near the bottom of the Level 7's in strength and usefulness

WARNING! This town is often considered too strong and thus is banned in many multiplayer games/tournaments.

@@ Line 96: / Line 96: @@
 *Unaffected by [[Mind spells]]
 *[[Necromancy]] is a powerful secondary skill that only Necropolis heroes can utilize effectively
-*[[Vampire Lord]]s are by far the most cost-efficient level 4 unit (and arguably the most cost-efficient unit in the game), as they can beat armies of much greater size as long as they are not (like Undeads or Constructs) immune to the Vampire Lords' [[Life drain]] ability and as long as the Vampire Lords are used properly (with [[Blind]] on extra enemy stacks for example or [[Counterstrike]] amidst low number/low hp stacks on the [[Vampire Lord]]s, also using [[Animate Dead]] to help out if the [[Life Drain]] to damage inbound ratio is proving destructive to the [[Vampire Lord]] stack).
+*[[Vampire Lord]]s are by far the most cost-efficient level 4 unit (and arguably the most cost-efficient unit in the game), as they can beat armies of much greater size as long as they are not (like Undeads or Constructs) immune to the Vampire Lords' [[Life drain]] ability and as long as the Vampire Lords are used properly (with [[Blind]] on extra enemy stacks for example or [[Counterstrike]] amidst low number/low hp stacks on the [[Vampire Lord]]s, also using [[Animate Dead]] to help out if the [[Life Drain]] to damage inbound ratio is proving destructive to the [[Vampire Lord]] stack - perhaps also using [[Haste]] and the [[Flying]] feature of the [[Vampire Lord]]s to switch opponent melee stacks or to seek a safe point for replenishing via [[Animate Dead]], [[Cure]] or [[First Aid]] should [[Life Drain]] prove to be effectively ineffective due to outrageous enemy aggression without rhyme and reason).
 * The level 3 spell [[Animate Dead]] (which the necromancer hero [[Thant]] has built in) can resurrect units in combat, and they '''stay''' resurrected after combat (the 4th level Earth Spell [[Resurrection]] can resurrect units, but so treated units are removed after combat quite like [[Summon Air Elemental]] created creature stacks).<br />So given a good balance of [[Thant]]s undead and repairable units compared to the opponent, enough mana for the resurrects and having [[Shackles of War]] for unlimited turns (a smaller version would be using [[Blind]] on all remaining enemy units and killing one [[blind]]ed stack each turn, keeping the enemy locked until  the hero is lost to the opponent and the artefacts if any are transferred) he would not lose any units in combat but also often get additional [[Necromancy]] created skeletons (which would hamper movement on the adventure map a little, as [[Skeleton]]s are slow creatures (and even with [[Town Portal]] and [[Dimension Door]] there's an [[adventure map]] movement penalty to consider)).
 *There are number of artifacts that are only useful to Necropolis (artifacts enhancing the created creature number of the unique secondary skill [[Necromancy]] like [[Cloak of the Undead King]], but also [[Pendant of Death]] which counters the mini, undead-only version of [[Armageddon]], damaging all undead on the battlefield, even those recruited in no Necropolis but on the adventure map).