Wandering creature
| Text | Range |
|---|---|
| Few | 1–4 |
| Several | 5–9 |
| Pack | 10–19 |
| Lots | 20–49 |
| Horde | 50–99 |
| Throng | 100–249 |
| Swarm | 250–499 |
| Zounds | 500–999 |
| Legion | ≥1000 |
| Relative strength (%) | Stacks |
|---|---|
| < 50 % | 6–7 |
| 50...< 67 % | 5–7 |
| 67...< 100 % | 4–6 |
| 100...< 150 % | 3–5 |
| 150...< 200 % | 2–4 |
| 200 % or more | 1–3 |
Wandering creatures (or sometimes monsters or neutral armies/stacks) is a term for the creatures standing on the Adventure Map. The type of the creatures can be totally random, restricted by creature level or be specifically defined by the map-maker. The creatures are not truly wandering, they always stay at the same place and mostly serve as a guard of a passage or an object. Unlike enemy heroes, your hero initiates a fight whenever they move at the square next to the creature. In case of multiple creatures at the nearby squares, only one combat occurs. The priority is counterclockwise, starting at top left.
Spawning of wandering creatures
The number of creatures in a wandering creature encounter can be set between 1–4000. If an exact number is not defined, the amount is randomly generated between 1–99 (or in other word, between few and horde) depending on the level of the creatures. The number of creatures in wandering creatures grows by 10% on the first day of every week, but cannot exceed the limit of 4000 creatures. The maximum time to reach 4000 creatures will be 87 weeks with 1 starting creature and the minimum time will be 1 week with 3636 starting creatures and up all the way to 4000. To find an exact number of weeks needed to reach 4000 for any number of creatures plug it into the formula log1.1(4000/x), where x is your starting number of creatures.
The wandering creatures are mostly fixed during the map generation. New ones can spawn only during the new month of only specific creatures.
Combat with wandering creatures
The number of creature stacks on the battlefield, is basically dependent on the ratio between the attacking hero's army strength and the strength of the wandering creatures. The rule of thumb is, that the stronger the hero's army is, the less stacks there are on the battlefield. However, every tile on the map influences the number of stacks (towards the higher or lower bound) in a fixed way.
Since they only contain one type of creatures, they always have +1 morale unless they are undead, elementals, or other creatures unaffected by morale.
If the creature is non-upgraded, there can be also upgraded creatures included in the battle, but not the other way round. Such upgrade occurs only after the fight is accepted and therefore has no bearing on the AI value of the stack on the map. Only one stack can be upgraded, therefore using smaller army can be advantageous, as it will cause only less creatures to be upgraded. Similar feature is also present at Creature Banks.
Join, Negotiate or Flee
When a hero attacks a wandering creature, the creature may attempt to join, negotiate or flee to try to avoid combat. The attacking hero can reject the attempt and force a combat if they so desire. If the attacking hero turns down a wandering creature's attempt to join or negotiate, they creature will either fight or attempt to flee based on map settings.
- Join: A stack of creatures are willing to become a part of hero's army for free.
- Negotiate: A stack of creatures are willing to become a part of hero's army in exchange fore gold.
- Flee: A stack of creatures are willing to disappear without fighting the combat.
Calculation and factors
| Mood values (M) | |
|---|---|
| A value that is set by the map creator for each wandering monster. • Default level is 'Aggressive'. • If the M-value is a range, a random number is picked at the beginning of the battle. | |
| M | Aggression level |
| -4 | Compliant |
| 1–7 | Friendly |
| 1–10 | Aggressive |
| 4–10 | Hostile |
| 10 | Savage |
| Sympathy values (Sy) | |
| How many of the hero's creatures are from the same creature type as the wandering creature (upgraded does not matter)? • Exception: Water/Ice, Fire/Energy and Earth/Magma Elemental upgrades count as different types. | |
| Sy | Sympathy description |
| 0 | Zero |
| 1 | At least one |
| 2 | Over 50% of the hero's creatures |
| Strength values (St) | |
|---|---|
| A value based on the relative strength of the 2 armies (See equation for 'k' to left). • '*' means rounded down | |
| St | k |
| 11 | k ≥ 7 |
| 2 × (k-1)* | 1 ≤ k < 7 |
| -1 | 0.5 ≤ k < 1 |
| -2 | 0.333 ≤ k < 0.5 |
| -3 | k < 0.333 |
| Diplomacy values (D) | |
| The level of the Diplomacy skill. • Add +1 if playing on Easy difficulty and not having Expert Diplomacy | |
| D | Diplomacy level |
| 1 | No Diplomacy skill |
| 2 | Basic level Diplomacy |
| 3 | Advanced level Diplomacy |
| 4 | Expert level Diplomacy |
Possible Creature Actions
C < M → Creatures will fight
- C is the Charisma value (see equation below)
- M is the Mood value (see chart on right)
C ≥ M → 3 possible outcomes
- Stack will join if Sy + D ≥ M
- Stack will negotiate if Sy + D + 2 ≥ M
- Stack will flee if Sy + D + 2 < M
Supporting Equations
C = St + D + Sy
- St is is strength value (see table to right)
- D is Diplomacy value (see table to right)
- Sy is Sympathy value (see table to right)
k = H × Hero army Strength / AI army Strength
- H is hero strength value (see equation below)
- NOTE: The army strength is the sum of AI creature values.
H = √(1 + 0.05 × A) × (1 + 0.05 × D)
- A is the hero's attack skill value
- D is the hero's defense skill value