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| Thread: The Adventure Map | |
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Polaris
Promising
Known Hero
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posted September 29, 2004 04:02 AM |
bonus applied. |
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The Adventure Map
I would like to see a much more detailed interaction with the world map in future Heroes games. When the first Heroes games came out, the interactivity with the map was ahead of its time. Unfortunately no significant upgrades have been made to the adventure map since then and I think it's time we go further.
1) Malleable terrain - Everybody's doing it, time for Heroes to join up. Spells could create temporary hills on the map that block LOS (for fog of war purposes), an adventure object could raises or lowers the water level, raging fires scorch the land and burn down trees... much can be added here
2) Regional / Global influence - By this I mean having a flaggable structure (call it a totem) that grants a bonus to all allied units within a certain radius of the totem, or possibly the entire map. Of course there could also be non flaggable ones that add a bonus (or minus) to everybody nearby.
3) Counstruction of adventure objects - Sure we can dig for the grail and place it in a town, but what else? Nothing. What if I want to place the grail at a strategic chokepoint and use it as a refueling station? I think a Hero skill would be a good way to allow you to erect structures, or perhaps all the different skills would allow you to build relevant structures. I'm thinking the structures built would be of a different class (weaker, and in general serving a different function) than the ones you normally find on the map, and there should be a limit to construction. And if you can build em, maybe you should be able to destroy em too.
4) More interaction with neutrals - Not sure how this should change, but creatures stacks just standing there on the map really need to be reworked. And no, the H4 method was not all that different.
5) Change of map state - Could be as simple as changing the season every 3 months (some objects could have season-specific effects). Could be as detailed as continuous fighting in a certain area makes that area known as a battleground and units are frenzied when passing through. Could be more like Disciples where castles steadily spread their influence over the map. Lots of other options here, but not mentioned for brevity.
Some of these might not be good ideas, but I figured it's best to put out as many things as possible when creating a topic for discussion.
Speaking of which...
Discuss.
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Svarog
Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
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posted October 04, 2004 01:12 AM |
bonus applied. |
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Nice ideas, Polaris.
1) Malleable terrain
I’m OK with this, as long as the modifications of the terrain arent too “modifying” so that they change the strategical signigicance of the map being played. I.e. blocking single passes to a town, open a new route between enemy cities or similar. Because of this, some restrictions of such modifications have to be made. For example: temporary effects of the spell, specific location where the effect is applied and connection with an advanture object, widespread availability of overcoming the restrictive effects (e.g. flying, swimming, boats…), or a low availability of the spell itself.
2) Regional / Global influence
Go for it! 
3) Counstruction of adventure objects
Great. For example: a transport portal that takes you directly to your capital, or another different location (either you build that one too, or is where you actually find the portal spell, if i’m clear enough); then also an outpost for fog of war; a small army camp (created by the spell) for wandering weak enemy heroes; a healing/spell ponts well; then a structure that kind of “spreads” native terrain slowly etc.
4) More interaction with neutrals
I don’t know what could be done here. Maybe the old diplomacy skill, or something with stealth, or maybe paying them to let you pass, but that’s all about I can think of.
5) Change of map state
Season change – I don’t think so. I very much prefer the day/night change, as it also offers so many more gameplay options, and looks much better visually.
Also, I would like to see some environmental effects occuring on some days (like rain, earthquakes, volcanoes, meteor impacts) What I’m saying is, the map shouldn’t stay static all the time, but beside the players’ power of modification, the nature should have some saying into it too.
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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 October 07, 2004 05:44 PM |
bonus applied. |
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as far as i understand, homm games happen in the timespan of a few months and sometimes a few weeks. i would like the game to reflect it more directly, so that people wouldn't have so many questions about why they cannot build roads and mines and sawmills and tunnels through mountains and bridges and shiyards and new towns and whatever. most of the map is wilderness without infrastructure to build all those things in such a short time.
the most disturbing thing is building creature dwellings in towns. this hints that you not only build a sometimes quite impressive building but also create a population of the corresponding creature overnight.
a probably not extremely good solution that i have thought of might be castle governing a population that is located in vilages around the castle. the villages are invisible because of the level of abstraction of the adventure map. so there could be a population associated with the castle. and the population would determine how many and how high level creatures you can recruit in that castle. maybe there could be neutral stacks that you can defeat that would increase the population associated with the castle. the neutral stacks (maybe all of them) would be like army of some neutral settlement.
the basic idea is that there should be at least x peasants per baron (which corresponds to some lower level creature) and at least x barons per duke (which corresponds to some higher level creature). and to increase population you have to conquer the surrounding neutral settlements.
that was a somewhat long introduction, but it should make clear from what point of view my opinions about the suggestions come from.
1) Malleable terrain
spells that create an illusion of a mountain that can be dispelled or just disappear when you walk close enough -- agreed as soon as it doesn't result in tedious walking along sides of all mountain ridges to find out if they are illusions or not.
removing a mountain -- as long as it is done by a powerful spell not by shovels and as long as it is difficult and not possible in neither beginning nor mid-game. i.e. 'open a new route between enemy cities or similar' is ok in late game imho. my opinion is that in late game the obstacles usually don't add to the fun any more.
freezing some water -- agreed.
armageddon spell should change terrain in an adventure map square, burning forests might also be ok, but those kinds of events of this scope should imho not be taken lightly. you know, you could possibly burn down a whole section of forest terrain with everything associated.
2) Regional / Global influence
totem with regional influence -- maybe.
3) Counstruction of adventure objects
hero with construction skill erecting structures in wilderness -- no, you don't have labour force, infrastructure nor time.
i think even construction of a castle fortification might take at least a week, depending on how much population is associated to the castle.
destroying structures -- no. way too much dishonorable for the hero.
placing a grail in wilderness -- what grail would you place in wilderness? for most of the grails that i have seen in homm so far placing them in towns seems to be the only common sense decision.
creating magical portals -- yes. could be that you find a relic level artifact scroll and can erect a portal. you need at least two ends of a portal, so i guess you would need at least two scrolls.
small outposts -- agreed as long as it doesn't result in tedious micromanagement (which is likely to happen with those kinds of things).
4) More interaction with neutrals
the current recruitment with diplomacy could work with same alignment neutral stacks no matter if you have diplomacy skill or not. diplomacy skill might give you the option even if the stack is not exactly the same alignment but is not of enemy alignment.
some neutrals could let you pass for money.
if neutrals are close tou your own alignment, they would fight less furiously, e.g. they might flee sooner.
you could trade for resources with stacks guarding mines.
when you defeated a neutral stack that guarded a mine, maybe you could make the surrendering pact more favorable to you if the creatures are more suitably aligned.
maybe in battle the neutral creatures would offer you conditions that you might accept or not. e.g. if you are fighting creatures that guard an ore mine and accept the proposed conditions, the fighting is over and the creatures that guarded the mine will offer you 1 ore per day. or you could decline and continue fighting until you are given a better offer, maybe it could be '2 ore per day and can recruit dwarves'. again, if you have diplomacy skill, you could bargain for more as soon as you are given an offer.
and, if you can approach them with diplomacy, neutrals could give you quests that you might fulfill and then gain their friendship. the problem with quest hut quests having to be scripted by humans is usually the lack of alternatives. if a neutral stack demands angel wings for surrendering, you might as well just fight them. so, imho the neutral stack might sometimes give you a random message of demanding a random artifact in the game instead of the ordinary bribe. if the artifact is guarded by 1000 dragons, it's just bad luck. the only problem i see is if 1000 dragons that guard angel wings demanded a minor artifact that is guarded by one imp.
5) Change of map state
season change -- would be great from the point of view of giving some periodic bonuses and penalties. e.g. the undead could have more map movement in winter because the nights are longer. on some maps all terrains might be covered in snow during winter, etc. the problem is that the seasons would last too long compared to the timespan pf the game. maybe we should have weeks instead of days, then months and then years instead of the old months. building structures like castle defenses in a month might also sound much more reasonable than building them in a week.
continuous fighting in a certain area makes that area known as a battleground -- great idea.
meteors and earthquakes -- maybe some eartquakes if it's a really actively volcanic terrain where you are just not meant to build a castle. but i don't like the meteor idea. first, the probability of a meteor falling into a province in timespan of a few months is too much absurdly low. it could be in scenario introduction at best, somethhing like: 'gods seem to have dropped a burning coal from the sky. it fell on enemy fortress and destroyed it. now we seem to have an opportunity to blah-blah', which imho doesn't sound like an extremely bright introduction. second, what do you think would happen if a meteor dropped somewhere? could it ruin someone's game?
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Polaris
Promising
Known Hero
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posted October 08, 2004 06:57 AM |
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Well, I meant for my suggestions to be a springboard for further ideas, not for everyone to comment on whether they liked the examples or not. But I'll go with what you post.
A question for Svarog: Would Day/Night cycles double the length of a week? Or would you do one turn in the day and tomorrow play the night? I think it's quite awkward to have day/night in Heroes since the time step of a turn is 1 day.
For Gerdash: I think its a VERY bad idea to give racial advantages associated with something like seasons that last a long time. I was thinking more along the lines of Summer: morale bonuses from all adventure objects doubles, autumn: resource mines produce bonus resources, winter: regenerate mana much faster, spring: all units get +1 luck until spring ends (of course these modifiers are just examples and there can be (should be) more than 1 per season, not all modifiers have to be positive). Weather is a good option, but it would be better if there was a way to predict it. Seasons are predictable.
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gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted October 09, 2004 10:07 AM |
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Quote:
Well, I meant for my suggestions to be a springboard for further ideas, not for everyone to comment on whether they liked the examples or not.
oh, well, how long do you think my post would have been? btw i did try to add creature interactions 
Quote:
For Gerdash: I think its a VERY bad idea to give racial advantages associated with something like seasons that last a long time.
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Weather is a good option, but it would be better if there was a way to predict it. Seasons are predictable.
btw i was thinking of more or less the same things. btw do you think 12 turns is a really long time? depends on how long a game is, i guess (remembering those 2 week homm3 games).
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Svarog
Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
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posted October 10, 2004 02:08 AM |
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Quote:
A question for Svarog: Would Day/Night cycles double the length of a week? Or would you do one turn in the day and tomorrow play the night? I think it's quite awkward to have day/night in Heroes since the time step of a turn is 1 day.
Neither of those actually. I'm hoping for an option where you can choose whether to play by day or night before the beginning of the game. SO the week remains to be 7 turns long. Only the setting changes, depending on which alignment you play with.
My complete reasoning for this can be found here:
http://www.heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=7625&pagenumber=2
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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 October 10, 2004 05:59 PM |
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Quote:
I'm hoping for an option where you can choose whether to play by day or night before the beginning of the game. SO the week remains to be 7 turns long. Only the setting changes, depending on which alignment you play with.
My complete reasoning for this can be found here:
http://www.heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=7625&pagenumber=2
i would, of course, go to extremes and say that this way we could force the undead to end their turns where they can find shelter from direct sunlight (towns, mines, dense forest, caves, ships, maybe even creature dwellings) or create local darkness with a spell (which could maybe be dispelled). pain in the butt from competitive gameplay point of view, but might have great roleplay feeling potential in scenarios.
so, if you are neutral and you have both day-preferring and night-preferring army, they both must move either by day or by night.
hmm.. nice thread imho, maybe it should be revived..
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted May 07, 2005 03:21 PM |
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Applied some bonuses to this thread.
Cleaning up some old topics in the Altar I noticed a number of good posts from both Gerdash and Svarog certainly enough for making up a bonus when taken together, and I think Polaris's ideas in this thread is good enough for a bonus on its own.
Moderator's note:This topic has been closed, as it refers to an older version of the game. To discuss Heroes 3, please go to Library Of Enlightenment, to discuss Heroes 4, please go to War Room Of Axeoth, to discuss Heroes 5, go to Temple Of Ashan.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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