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| Thread: Smaller Armies |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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draco
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 26, 2004 10:00 PM |
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Smaller Armies
Just out of curiosity.. how many of you feel army sizes have grown to obnoxious levels?
I would like to see less units (yes that right) maybe 5 per kingdom
and each unit would act like a hero.. with stack sizes limited to unit size. goblins you can have up to 50 where you can only have 1 dragon per stack
units would also have xp and gain levels, each stack can be upgraded up to 3 times, when a unit dies you may revive them (or add new units at 0 xp)
you have 50 goblins with 1000 xp 10 died you can either buy back the 10 goblins and have your stack with 800xp, or revive them at a higher cost and have a stack of 1000xp goblins.
Your castle would still have a limited growth for units, but you would be limited by your amount of heroes to take the armies with you.
this would releave the 1 super hero with DD or fly taking over the world with his 100,000 skeletons at most a army would consiste of like 300 gremlins (6 slots of small units) or 6 titans (large units) I think there would be alot more customization involved in creating your *perfect army* where a stack of 50 level 1 (upgraded to level 4) could possibly take on a stack of level 5 units (no xp)
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The-Filth
Very dead
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posted May 26, 2004 10:16 PM |
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I dont like your idea. i like it the way it is.
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I Think. Therefore I'm Damned
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Asmodean
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Heroine at the weekend.
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posted May 26, 2004 10:22 PM |
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No, I don't think your way woule be a good way to implement it, since 50 goblins usually can't kill a dragon.
Perhaps a different way would be just to have less creature growth per week.
Then of course there would have to be narrower stat bands between the creature levels.
And I'm not sure about the creature xp. I think if you upgrade a creature it should be in the towns screen as per H3.
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To err is human, to arr is pirate.
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gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted May 27, 2004 12:20 AM |
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i guess the problem is that it's so beneficial to put all your troops in one army.
hard-capping stack sizes to 50 or 150 goblins is just one possibility to stimulate using many heroes.
i think i would prefer a soft cap, though. something like
stack damage = creature damage * sqrt(stack size)
or some other function instead the present
stack damage = creaure damage * stack size
also, you could maybe implement some movement penalty to overly large armies.
btw in kings bounty there was leadership that limited the sizes of stacks your hero could command. if the creature stack was too large for the leadership level of the hero, the creature stack would go out of control in battle.
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but i think that the real trouble is that the hero has too much movement points.
lol, maybe something else similar.
i mean, a sufficiently large army can dominate the battle and win with significantly less losses than a smaller army.
your troops are expensive and limited by creature growrh, so the player that can avoid loosing troops is usually far more sucessful.
if you get that mine or treasure two days later, who cares. if you have to sacrifice half of your most precious troops to get the mine or treasure two days earlier, those two days won't pay off.
so, imho the reason is in the very basics of the game. it's about troop costs vs movement vs benefit from a conquered map location.
maybe someone has some thoughts on what the balance of those things should be like to stimulate spliting up armies? or maybe someone has some other ideas about the reason?
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maybe it could also be done with army upkeep cost (no upkeep for garrisoned troops like in kings bounty), so that you wouldn't like to travel too long distances with your army.
to conquer a map location you would want to raise a reasonable army in a local castle rather than bring your main army from the other end of the map.
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Svarog
Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
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posted May 27, 2004 04:35 AM |
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Edited By: Svarog on 27 May 2004
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Armies are too big? Yeah, could be.
The only ideas that I liked however:
"Perhaps a different way would be just to have less creature growth per week.
Then of course there would have to be narrower stat bands between the creature levels."
"also, you could maybe implement some movement penalty to overly large armies."
gerdash, I don't like the idea of upkeep. Reasons are plenty: What else is an army for if not for conquering, and heroes is all about that. It would also make it more difficult for economically weak players to explore, and that's exactly what you need when you have lack of money.
The second idea about damage calculation. No, too many possibilities of combining. And too much maths. And overly excessive benefits if you apply the square root function. But, I can think of other exponential functions that could be more fair. Like if you put, say 0.9 as a power on the number of creatures. However, still don't like it.
EDIT: I just noticed I made a stupid mistake. I argued about how to increase the benfeits if more creatures are in a stack, rather then decrease it. So, EDIT...
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The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.
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gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted May 27, 2004 04:35 PM |
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svarog:
i agree that most of the solutions aren't good. uncertain about upkeep, though. you could make a suitable environment that would enable people to play with upkeep. but surely upkeep would be a burden to the player's brain in addition to managing multiple armies, and making things too restricted might not be such a good thing.
actually i considered the balance between hero movement points vs cost of troops vs benefit from conquering a map location the main idea to stimulate splitting up armies.
this would make the game somewhat more uncomfortable to play, because you can't continously move with same hero 
and if hero movement points are reduced (i would prefer this to making maps a lot larger so that you have to scroll like crazy) those movements would be significantly shorter. but i think the game is maybe too simple atm, i would appreciate some more brain challenge sometimes.
and the balance of troop costs vs benefit from map location is maybe even more important. reducing hero movement is just needed to increase time benefit you gain from multiple armies, so that the map location benefits would not have to be so insane.
maybe there should be villages that pay tax. maybe you should also be able to recruit something from those villages, so you could get additional creature growth benefit. it would look like creature generators that pay tax.
maybe mines and lumber mills should also be settlements that pay tax in gold. maybe you should be able to recruit dwarves from mines.
atm the player rather waits until main army travels back and forth rather than looses troops because of fighting with smaller armies because of the limited creature growth, etc. you can't afford loosing troops, you know, because you can't continue exploring without troops. also, if you have troops to be recruited in your town, it will take time to get them to the hero.
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draco
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 27, 2004 07:58 PM |
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perhaps a movement penalty could be good.. problem is balance.
I like the idea of larger armies carry more penalties for movement.
perhaps HP related? a behemoth slows you down more the say 90 goblins.
first 1000 HP cost you nothing then every 100HP afterwards costs you 10% movement (not linear)
so:
100% movement with 1000hp
90% at 1100hp
81% at 1200hp
73% at 1300hp
66% at 1400hp
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35% at 2000hp
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20% at 2500hp
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12% at 3000hp
so was that extra 2 angels woth the 34% movement penalty???
and if you had a EXTREAMLY large army you would have next to no movement.
downside is i think this would feed the chaining problem (from h3)unless of course units required heroes to travel with them. there are more ways to chain your units though,, and i dont know how to solve those problems. also neutral stacks would grow to large unless something was done to the current structure.
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gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted May 28, 2004 12:26 AM |
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why movement penalty based on army size won't do the trick and will do some other unpleasant tricks:
first, two angels slowing you from 100% to 66% movement is somewhat unrealistic imho. well, you could reason that the angels are arrogant and you have to spend half a day explaining to them why it is absolutely necessary to go where you want to go with your army. well, this is just funny and the penalty could be adjusted to be lighter, but second point is more serious.
second, you would split up your main army between several heroes that travel together and rejoin the army when you attack someone. when fighting neutral monsters, this would just cause some micromanagement. but when you attack an enemy army that is split up into small armies and easily defeat the small armies one by one, you are truly revenging for the cheating habits of your opponent (although without cheating you wouldn't have moved fast enough to surprise the opponent).
so, the way the movement penalty is described atm, it would do more harm than good.
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Svarog
Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
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posted June 01, 2004 03:23 AM |
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Edited By: Svarog on 31 May 2004
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Quote:
i agree that most of the solutions aren't good. uncertain about upkeep, though. you could make a suitable environment that would enable people to play with upkeep.
I don't think you can make a suitable environment to play with upkeep. First, because many of the games that have this feature have a strong economic part of the gameplay. I'm not sure if I understood the part where you explain about the taxes, but if that's the involvement of economy I'm talking about, it's a good start. However, a more important problem is that troops sleeping in a town is almost like having no troops at all. It would be unwise to leave their potential unused. Also, there's the thing about the beginning of the game or the difficulties for economically weaker players to recover from crisis. (eg. imagine a scouting hero flag all your upkeep buildings in few days and your army just starts dying. and u cant attack, because u have to stay in town.) And it still doesn't stimulate much having more heores.
EDIT: I forgot to add the significant slowing of the pace of the game, because of the time you'd need to go back to town and take your army for some of the crucial battles.
Draco, the percentages you suggest are way too harsh. But, nonetheless, i believe good balance is possible.
And gerdash, you are right about the splitting of armies and how that can help fight neutral creatures. But, this kind of "cheating" has it's weak points and you named it - the encountering of enemy heroes. And I don't think it's worth the risk, having in mind that later in the game you have no troubles defeating neutral monsters with even a third of your main army. And don't forget the speed of expansion it would take if you have few seperate armies, which is crucial for vistory. Then the balance would be: encounter smaller oponent armies and destroy them with a massive but sluggish army - explore and conquer new areas before your opponent. And i think it's a healthy brain-requiring process without obvious problems. Don't you?
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The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.
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TheRealDeal
Promising
Supreme Hero
Foobum* of Justice!
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posted June 06, 2004 11:39 PM |
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Guys. Seriously. I've played HoMM since number 1, and that tax or whatever for having units is.. well absurd. When you're playing against experienced players, and you're creeping alot so you're hero will get better, you slowly get very large armies(which is nice, dont get me wrong) and putting a tax on 40 black dragons(talking HoMM4 here) is going to ruin you. If not the tax will be so little overall it would be a major waste of time to have in the game. So Guys, drop that part.
The movement speed thing is an idea i've thought about myself. But it simply can't be done. I've thought about this alot of times, but it is impossible. Like with the gold thing, it would be so little percentages it would be ridicule to even mention. I most admit if it could be balanced in, it would be praise and glory, but sadly, it's impossible. :/
But, there is a thing i think would be very nice, and it would be able to be done, in refference to movement speed. This is the only way i think this can be done, so don't flame if this is dumt as hell. Lets say you have.. 20 dwarfs. Then the movement penalty will be 100 / 20 * 100.(which will be more then the 100 %) but, heres the tricky part. under a 100 units, its normal speed, but when u go over the 100, it becomes 100 / 101 * 100, which is less then a hundred. The percentages will be low, but there will be one. But, if u have, lets just say 99 Black dragons, there is no penalty, and 99 black dragons can cream a very large deal of dwarfs.
Comments?
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*We all know the that Foobum is the class of all that is Cake.
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Svarog
Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
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posted June 07, 2004 01:41 AM |
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Quote:
Like with the gold thing, it would be so little percentages it would be ridicule to even mention. I most admit if it could be balanced in, it would be praise and glory, but sadly, it's impossible. :/
Hm, your opinion ranging from ridicule to praise and glory about the same issue, I can tell you're a very diplomatic man. 
I don't think that balance is ever impossible. You just need the right people and loads of testing personel.
I can't quite understand your maths there, so if you could explain it more acccurately?
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The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.
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TheRealDeal
Promising
Supreme Hero
Foobum* of Justice!
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posted June 07, 2004 02:13 PM |
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well it was late at night, and i was kind of tired there. Well, lets say you have 1 unit. That speed is 100 %(lets say it can walk 100 steps) But when u go over the hundred units, lets just say 101, just to have a number. You're maximum speed is 100 %, but u divide your 100 percent, with 101, Which is 0,99 and so on. But that is 1 point, and u need 2 have ur whole stash of "speed". So its kinda 0,99 * 100. Which is 99,00 % and so on. I'm doing my best at explaining this -.- .. and if u have 200 units, it would be 100 / 200 * 100 = 50 %, But heres the catch. Why should 99 dragons be able to walk faster than 101 other dragons? .. its just 2 dragons in difference.. (and u'll likely have more than 200 of your weakest unit, so it needs very much balancing) .. But to be honest, i like the movement as it is, u can only walk as fast as your slowest unit(ofcourse boots and that kinda stuff makes u able 2 walk more) .. Well thats my 2 cents
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*We all know the that Foobum is the class of all that is Cake.
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TheRealDeal
Promising
Supreme Hero
Foobum* of Justice!
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posted June 18, 2004 07:16 PM |
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Svarog plz reply to the idea ffs =)
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*We all know the that Foobum is the class of all that is Cake.
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Duckie
Tavern Dweller
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posted June 22, 2004 11:01 PM |
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seriouslly, this is just wrong.
the growth is goos as it is, as it has been since the start of the games.
don't go putting in taxes, movement or growth caps, it would only mess up the game.
what's wrong with how the growth is now?
what's the problem?
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TheRealDeal
Promising
Supreme Hero
Foobum* of Justice!
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posted June 22, 2004 11:10 PM |
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To many monsters, whats whats up.
And you must admit, 200 haflings shouldn't be able to move as fast as 1 halfling?
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*We all know the that Foobum is the class of all that is Cake.
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Duckie
Tavern Dweller
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posted June 23, 2004 12:27 AM |
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yeah yeah, but then you go into details again.
details is what made homm 4 suck so much.
i mean in homm 2 for example, there wasn't really any logic in that sense at all but it still was fun as hell ^^
if you start thinking about what ir realistic then how big fukkin chance is it that you can build a city from scratch and start breeding medusas, harpies and dragons in a week?
it's not supposed to be a logic and realistic game, it's supposed to be a FUN game. and if you start making stuff like that would just slow the game down and make it boring.
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Svarog
Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
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posted June 23, 2004 04:01 AM |
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Quote:
Svarog plz reply to the idea ffs =)
OK, you asked for it.
I'm sorry I didn't reply earlier.
First what your formula would look like is basically (100/(number of crits))*100, which is basically this: 10000/(number of crits)%.
That would mean a stack of hundred would have a normal movement, while a stack of 1 would have a hundred times bigger movement than the stack of one. Totally doesn't make sense. 100 times! imagine!
You need to apply more complicated functions than that.
And second, the way to penalize movement based on number of creatures is not good. Because it is very natural for an army that low level and top level creatures vary in size considerably and that way the lowest level creature would only slow down the entire army. Instead, a Hit Points based system should be implemented if any.
Cheers.
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The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.
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Duckie
Tavern Dweller
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posted June 23, 2004 01:00 PM |
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but how could that work?
i mean, take the peasant for example, if using that idea would mean that the peasant would by many times faster then an angel, that otherwise would be considered one of the fastest in the game...
it wouldn't make sense (granted, I just talked about how the game shouldn't make sense since it would be a game etc... lol)
But you know what I mean(atleast that's what I'm hoping), if you are to try and change the movements so that it would make more sense you can't input another way that makes even less sense...
there isn't anything wrong with having alott of creatures, it's supposed to be an ARMY. not just a small group of creatures...
if the movement is so important to ya then I guess the movement cap they used in homm IV is the only one that'll work, atleast it had some point to it, though i must admit I didn't like it either ^_^
well that's how I see it
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TheRealDeal
Promising
Supreme Hero
Foobum* of Justice!
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posted June 23, 2004 01:36 PM |
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I've you took the time to read all of my post's in here, i said that it would only take action when the numbers are past the first 100.(starting 101), which would make sense. And Level 4 creaters have more strenght, so they can clearly walk longer? .. or fly for that matter.
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*We all know the that Foobum is the class of all that is Cake.
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Duckie
Tavern Dweller
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posted June 23, 2004 02:08 PM |
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ok your right sorry, I only took that as an way so simplify the thing, though my last post was to Svarog.
but the thing remains that an cap like that wouldn't be prectical in the long run, and still, I don't see any reasons why there should be one in the first place.
only way to have a somewhat working movement cap is to have as they did in the last game to count in the each individual creatures movement and by that decide how far you could go.
but I still think it should be better for it to be depending on te heroes movement as in the old games. it's the hero who leads the army and keep them in track, so it's up to the hero how far they can go anyway,
it's the same thing as in that he gives bonus in strength and defense in battle, he should be able to make them walk further aswell 
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