|
| Thread: Approach to Town Building |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
|
TDL
Honorable
Supreme Hero
The weak suffer. I endure.
|
posted July 08, 2015 06:09 PM |
|
|
Poll Question:
Approach to Town Building
Hello. As with most of my ideas for a discussion, all of these stem from private conversations with members of the community, most notably Elvin and in this regard Stevie, so thank you for the inspiration. Just the other day we were discussing (more like, I was describing) what I feel the best approach to town building is. This made me curious to see which approach throughout the latter part of the Heroes series people were most satisfied with. There are some specific reasons that made me want to publicise my thoughts on the matter as I believe some of the implementations affected gameplay beyond the scope of my liking.
First of all, I feel that this part of the game was inherently overlooked. In trying to renovate it for Ashan, at least in my opinion, it made the game feel a lot slower in early game, dictating the pace of town development. While in a way the town level system provides a deeper strategic approach to Heroes games, I feel the restrictions and "forced" gameplay is not what the developers should strive for. Additionally, I feel that a huge part of the charm of the older games was the "build-at-your-own-leisure" mechanics: in H3, certain towns (Stronghold, Fortress) would have access to high-level creature dwellings faster, while in H4, you would be inclined to have a tier 3 creature dwelling by day 3-4, enabling for faster creeping and adventure map movement.
Admittedly, I had a lot of fun with H5 back in its heyday, but the game's forced early game pace via the buildings disallowed me from enjoying it 8 years after its release, making me think about my priorities. Also, Elvin, from a multiplayer expertise standpoint, , reminded me of the trends of town building (most of the planning was done up to the end of week 2, instead of week 1). Therefore, the base topic of my whole idea will be based around the town level system which I feel is too restrictive and how I'd see it changed.
The H5 ( and H7 system for that matter ) approach involves a 3-by-3 level town building system, divided into clusters of 3 levels per each tier. Each subsequent tier allows you to build new buildings, however you are restricted to building certain dwellings and certain structures only after reaching a certain threshold. Given that you buy a building a day, essentially you do not have the luxury of having access to a high-level unit or city hall early on.
The way I envision it would enable to quicken the pace of early game and allow for less restrictive gameplay is to transform the system into a system closer to the original heroes. Several key points of interest in my idea would be:
4-levels-per tier
unique town building trees
collective growth buildings
level-based building upgrades
Essentially, every single town would start its town building process on level 1. Unless otherwise indicated during the map's creation process, every town would have a pre-built fort, village hall, tavern and one or two tier1 dwellings. Currently, the basics are good as they are in H7, much like it was in H5, and I'm all up for such an approach. However, from then on certain differences would arise in the process.
Instead of hard capping at 15, with 5 tiers as is, I'd lower the threshold to 12 and divide the levels into clusters of 4. Essentially, this would place the importance on healthy town development during week 1, without being too invasive. If we divided the first week into levels, you'd reach a new tier by reaching level 4 on either day 3 or day 4, and depending on the implementation reach the 3rd tier on week 1 day 7 or day 1 week 2. Ideally, the buildings would have a 1-by-1 level restriction, but balancing would become a hassle.
The very same system could be applied to the current one, provided the buildings are moved up the chain, so that there are fewer restrictions (much in the same way as I suggested). Based on the current system, the basic town building tree would then be nestled around it:
Town levels 1-3 would allow you to build:
Town Hall, Town Fortifications, Blacksmith, Mage Guild, Marketplace, other basic buildings if they were not pre-built (Tavern, Fort, etc), basic unique town buildings (such as Library in Academy), Tier1 creature dwellings/upgrades and prerequisites for T1/T2 dwellings
Town levels 4-7 would allow you to build:
City Hall, Town Fortification upgrade, Citadel, Resource Silo, more unique buildings, including growth modifiers, T2 dwellings/upgrades
Town levels 8-11 would allow you to build:
Capitol, Town Fortification upgrade, Castle, Champion creature dwelling, More unique buildings, etc.
Town levels 12+ would allow you to build:
Champion Upgrade, more unique growth buildings
As an example, in a random town, by mid of week 1, given you skip out on economy buildings (Town Halls and such), you can hire one or two T2 units. By the end of week 1, you can then definitely hire two T2 units, buy a city hall/capitol (depending on how the tree works), a growth-boost (citadel, for example), or in some cases, a champion dwelling by day 7. The latter option works well especially given the fact we have 2 to choose from.
The above list largely misses one crucial change I'd incorporate into the building process: dwelling upgrades as distinctive buildings. All in all, this change would mostly affect the extremities of higher tiers, but might include T1 creatures as well. The principle would be that some upgrades are only accessible after a certain level is reached. This could either substitute a building prerequisite or just expand the system.
Let's take Academy's current incarnation. Such a system would allow you to buy T2 mages on day 2, provided you buy a mage guild of course. Upgrading them would be another issue whatsoever - you'd have to wait for day 4/5 for town level increase or until you have bought another mage guild level/library. Alternatively, you could hire genies on day 4 (provided you bought a mage guild and/or library by that time). By day 6, if you skimp out on other units or focus on economy, you could potentially have a rakshassa dwelling. And by day 7, under the same circumstances, provided you fulfil the prerequisities, you can have arcane eagles, BUT that would put you in a position to choose between: rakshassa + t1 creatures/upgrades in week 1, arcane eagles, two t2 creatures (such as genies and mages) and their respective upgrades (if applicable), genies + mages + growth/economy building.
Ideally, by day 4 you'd have access to the better buildings (of course they would be structured with prereqs that make sense) and then on day1 week2, you'd have access to rakshassa (and/or genie) upgrades/titans and most of the other top of the crop structures. Week 2 would then be pretty much about building economy, upgrades, or if you skipped out on units on week1, about building them. Essentially from town level 12 onwards it would allow you to buy everything you want and this would be midweek 2. Given perfect resource quantities, by the end of week 2, you could have the full lineup+economy, a lineup with some upgrades, upgraded champs+broken economy, capitol etc.
This above example necessitates the inclusion of another workaround for the system - unique town building trees. As I said, one of the most fascinating features of HOMM was the access to non-tier-1 creatures in early game, depending on your faction. I would love this feature to be reintroduced. It would enable factions to have unique aspects to them: for example, early access to magic and magical critters in academy, at a steeper price for the buildings; haven would be slow to develop unit-wise, but would allow faster development in terms of economy (buying town halls/city halls/resource silos faster and cheaper); stronghold would have early access to their top creatures, but would be economically crippled etc.
Economy/micromanagement of town building might be subsequently ruined though, if we were to retain unique growth buildings for every unit. In a way, it makes sense, but there should at least be an additional base modifier as it was before in the form of Citadel, Castle. I'd advise bringing back at least a 20-50% collective growth modifier as a economy-heavy choice. For example, for all tier1s or all tier2s.
Hope it made sense as it did in my mind.
Now, fellow members, please discuss what your favorite approach would be, do you like the current H7 approach, would you improve it, how you envision town building should be done?
____________
|
|
PandaTar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Celestial Heavens Mascot
|
posted July 08, 2015 06:54 PM |
|
|
Good post, TDL.
I have my own thoughts and plans on town building development, however, it might be too astray from current layouts, so I'll leave it to another day, when I get the time to write it down. Meanwhile, waiting to see what others have to say.
____________
"Okay. Look. We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GlaDOS – Portal 2
|
|
Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
|
|
posted July 08, 2015 09:38 PM |
|
Edited by Maurice at 21:40, 08 Jul 2015.
|
I have my own ideas about how Towns should develop. I specifically include Forts in that concept and I grab another concept, which has been used in other games: population size of a town.
To start with the latter, any town should have a non-military population, living their lives inside the town as it is. They're not actively present ingame, just a number attached to each town. It grows overtime. This number, however, is important for various aspects:
- Military recruitment numbers. The larger the population of a town, the larger the number of recruits each week. This is in essence the generic creature growth boost that stems from the Fort size in for instance Heroes 3, but works on a sliding scale rather than in absolute values (per x amount of population, creature growth is boosted by a certain percentage, which may differ between tiers);
- Town income. The larger the population, the higher the income from day to day (the various Halls make this process more efficient, providing a bonus to this value);
- Market exchange rates. The larger the population, the more supplies are in demand, generating a stronger economy;
Village populations grow each turn with a certain amount, which may be boosted by certain economic buildings (a grain store means a more steady supply of food, which will boost growth, for instance). A town should not grow indefinately, however, unless it is also expanding. This is represented by upgrading the town's fortifications. Each new level raises the maximum number of people that can be supported by the town.
The return is also true: when a Week of the Plague strikes, people die and the population decreases. Also, when a town comes under siege, people die: regardless of whether the siege attack is succesful or not, some of the population perish, reducing the above mentioned aspects correspondingly. The amount of people that die during a siege should depend both on the relative attack power of the one laying the siege as well as the number of turns it takes for the siege battle to conclude. Victory for the attacker will also yield a somewhat higher casualty rate.
Villages should start off without a specific role; the mundane buildings can be built in it, up to a certain level. At some point, the player will have to decide to develop the village and expand it either in an economical direction or a military direction. There is one exception: the capital of the player's kingdom. That one can be built in both directions at the same time.
Villages that develop into Towns have a higher growth rate and can build more advanced economical buildings, like a Great Market and a City Hall. It's home to the highest tier of Mage Guilds of that faction. However, it is offset by the fact that military buildings aren't as advanced as in Forts and may not be built up to the highest tier.
Villages that develop into Forts have stronger fortifications than Towns, can build the highest level military units of that faction and have an overall higher recruitment level of units that can also be recruited in Towns. In an economic sense, however, they aren't as advanced, sticking mostly with the lower tier before it evolved into a Fort. It also can't build a City Hall and the available Mage Guild tier is lower than in Towns. Growth rate and population sizes are (a lot) lower than in Towns, however.
Again, the capital is considered both a Fort and a Town for these purposes, so it can be fully expanded.
Some cross-building requirements should exist. For instance, let's say Haven has Paladins at one of its top Tiers. They can only be recruited at Forts, but they require the presence of a Cathedral somewhere in the kingdom and Cathedrals can only be built in Towns.
Of course, this splitting of functionality has a few consequences. Most notably, the number of buildings available in either Towns or Forts are lower than those available in the capital and lower than currently available in Heroes7 for instance. This freeing up of the building roster, however, can be used to add additional, new buildings to the building roster. I already mentioned the Great Market, for instance. Town/Fort levels aren't as much required when split according to functionality like this. Rather, the building sequence should flow relatively naturally through prerequisites (you need a Blacksmith before you can build Barracks, from which you can recruit Swordsmen) as well as population size within the Town or Fort.
Furthermore, the map design will have to make sure that players have enough villages on the map to both build Towns and Forts - or not, in order to increase strategic value of those present on the map. Some (or all) may already start off as a Town or Fort, or be restricted in being only allowed to evolve into one direction and not the other.
The presence of a single capital in the kingdom also puts up a restriction. When a player captures the capital of another player, he will have to choose whether to keep it in its Town capacity, or in its Fort capacity. Just like the destruction of the Capitol when a player acquires a second one, the enemy capital is reduced to either one of the directions. Given that the destruction is larger than just the Capitol, this shouldn't happen instantly, but over the course of one or a few turns.
When a player has no capital, he should be able to assign any of his Towns or Forts as a capital, allowing him to expand it accordingly.
|
|
alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
|
|
posted July 08, 2015 10:41 PM |
|
|
|
I don't like how a dwelling an upgrade are placed on different levels. It's already controlled enough that you can't decide yourself whether you want to go for an early champion building, don't start controlling when it can be upgraded also.
|
|
TDL
Honorable
Supreme Hero
The weak suffer. I endure.
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 01:29 AM |
|
|
I believe overall this would actually loosen up the trees, because I see this feature as a combination of factors I mentioned. All in all, it could even be realized in a way that you could only realistically buy a dwelling on a day when your level increase is due the next one, and as such, allows you the upgrade. I also believe this would only have a minor effect on the overall scale, but would potentially bring more uniqueness to each town's structure.
@Maurice:
When I look at this, I somehow think of Stronghold, Civilization, Travian and various trading sim games. Alas, I do not feel the HOMM vibe sadly with all the numerical values and semi-realistic approach to town development. Too much realism breaks the foundation of the HOMM series, sadly.
However, I do conform to some of the latter part where I'd like some more interconnectivity in the building trees based on reason in terms of building synergies. However, this is pretty much what was prevalent in heroes series up till now.
____________
|
|
Steyn
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 08:56 AM |
|
|
I dislike the town level system, because it forces a certain pace on town development. No longer it is possible to rush capitol or champion/lvl 7, as you need to build 9-15 other buildings first. This lowers the number of ways you can build up your town, which is a shame.
Differences between factions can of course be introduced by different level requirements, but I rather get rid of the town level system altogether and return to a H3-like system.
____________
Can you make a faction including these units?
Join the Finding Harmony competition 2.0!
|
|
Wellplay
Famous Hero
Poland Stronk
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 11:03 AM |
|
|
|
I prefer H7 system in which you can't rush champions.
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 11:07 AM |
|
|
I don't see the issue with that, if anything it gives some factions character. I enjoy warlike factions being able to access elites and champions faster than others.
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
|
|
Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 11:33 AM |
|
|
Elvin said:
I enjoy warlike factions being able to access elites and champions faster than others.
Hear, hear!
____________
|
|
alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 11:47 AM |
|
|
Elvin said:
I don't see the issue with that, if anything it gives some factions character. I enjoy warlike factions being able to access elites and champions faster than others.
Week 1 Behemoths was definitely something that made Stronghold have a very unique character in Heroes 3. I think generally Heroes 5 was better than Heroes 3 when it comes to making the factions play differently, but in this particular instance, Heroes 3 successfully made Stronghold separate itself from the other factions (I don't recall any other factions that reliably could aim for week 1 champions).
|
|
LizardWarrior
Honorable
Legendary Hero
the reckoning is at hand
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 11:52 AM |
|
|
|
Fortress and Inferno could get lvl 6 dwellings pretty fast, in day 2-3 to be precise.
|
|
PROJ
Known Hero
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 02:43 PM |
|
|
|
the real question is how much strategy is actually added by messing with the town system? Most of the time the town system is simply a balance mechanic with the optimal build order being fairly straightforward. You can still contrive a week 1 champion dwelling for certain factions in the current system, it just has to be designed that way
|
|
Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 02:49 PM |
|
|
PROJ said:
You can still contrive a week 1 champion dwelling for certain factions in the current system, it just has to be designed that way
You're absolutely wrong on this one. Main reason being the town leveling system.
As for your other point on how much strategy can be added, the answer is a decent amount.
____________
Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
|
|
Steyn
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 02:54 PM |
|
|
Why would PROJ be absolutely wrong? You don't necessarily have to put the champion tier building(s) in the highest town level.
____________
Can you make a faction including these units?
Join the Finding Harmony competition 2.0!
|
|
Macron1
Supreme Hero
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 02:58 PM |
|
|
Maurice said:
To start with the latter, any town should have a non-military population, living their lives inside the town as it is.
Add Peasants units to each faction.
So they can produce some resources when bought and in army. Or they can be put in mines/farms like in garrizons, increasing production of resource. And they will be additional army to defend mines
|
|
Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 03:38 PM |
|
|
Steyn said:
Why would PROJ be absolutely wrong? You don't necessarily have to put the champion tier building(s) in the highest town level.
You cannot make it available under the 8th level trench either, and that's the only way you can get it to be constructed in the first week (excluding Architect).
____________
Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
|
|
Maurice
Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
|
|
posted July 09, 2015 05:40 PM |
|
|
Macron1 said:
Maurice said:
To start with the latter, any town should have a non-military population, living their lives inside the town as it is.
Add Peasants units to each faction.
So they can produce some resources when bought and in army. Or they can be put in mines/farms like in garrizons, increasing production of resource. And they will be additional army to defend mines
Hmm, add sliders to all mines that fall within the Town's AoC. The more you put to work in the mines, the higher the income from them, but they're drawn out of the available population in the town  .
|
|
kiryu133
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
|
|
posted July 10, 2015 10:24 PM |
|
Edited by kiryu133 at 23:25, 10 Jul 2015.
|
well, what do we want in a building system? I'd say depth and diversity and to get to these we need to know what they are and what they do.
Diversity is simple enough: every faction needs to feel and play differently.
Depth is in a lack of better description, the highest possible amount of outcomes with the lowest amount of tools. The more ways something can come out with a limited amount of mechanics/systems/things, the deeper it is.
How does this relate to town development in heroes then? Let's start with diversity. How does one diversify towns? Why, make them develop differently. sounds easy enough, but it hasn't really been done very well since h3. In h4, the modular nature of the towns themselves forced every town to develop similarly with just the specific required buildings changing to get the highest tier creature. H5 had an extremely limiting town-level mechanic that that forced a set amount of buildings and few very pre-requisites to get the highest level dwelling or any dwellings at all. H6 simply had too few buildings that were also modular combined with a useless town-level mechanic. This is why these games failed in diversifying town building (even if faction gameplay was very diversified otherwise).
Where is this done right and why then? sadly i have yet to play h1-2 but from what I've gathered at least H2 does a great job in diversifying town building with such simple ideas as changing what and how many resources are required by each faction (haven needing lots of wood and little else) and how quickly some factions can get their highest tier dwelling. This carried over to H3 as well, though resources appears to have been toned down a bit with every faction needing plenty of all just for the mage guild, however some factions can easily rush certain buildings while other can not. For example, Stronghold only needs 2-3 buildings and relatively little resources to get their top tier dwelling (though getting the rest is not as cheap) while Tower needs plenty of buildings and tons of resources to theirs. these two towns are fundamentally different just in getting certain dwellings is absolutely key in giving the game diversity. Everything is different, from building tree to resources needed and even what unique and special buildings give.
Depth is a lot harder to nail down since there is a lot of things that adds to it, but the most important one is a lack of limits. Nothing removes depth quite like an arbitrary limit you can not move past. Examples include the H5 town level, forcing you to build a certain amount of buildings until you can get others, and clear choices, where some options are clearly better in most situations, like capitol in H3, 5-6. You could say prerequisites but i would argue those are important to make death instead, since it forces you to invest time and resources turns before your ultimate payoff and as such it's not an unnecessary limit. It's preferable over Town-levels since going for one path of buildings does not automatically help with another.
So how do we implement these? simple answer: see how the pre-H4 games did it and tweak it from there. They managed to get both rather well. Firstly, don't have an arbitrary minimum buildings-count and don't hide buildings behind small, easily built halls but rather have "paths" for a player to follow to get to certain buildings. Sometimes several paths interconnect, sometimes they're long, sometimes they're just 1 or 2 buildings short, sometimes there are two separate paths to get all dwellings that are built independently of each other and some paths are shared by all factions. It's important to get a lot of these since this is one of the ways you distinguish the factions and build depth. Secondly, make resource requirements different for every faction. Everyone should have a use for every faction, but don't make every resource a must to get all dwellings for every faction. This is one of the reasons H6 4 resources was such a huge failure: it destroyed town diversity (i might add that changing the names of the 7 resources in H7 is completely unnecessary and just makes the game dumber but that's irrelevant).
Certainly sounds simple enough, but i doubt H7 will succeed from what i've seen.
For some extra points, I've noticed people are thinking of extra mechanics to spice things up, like a "population resource" of sorts. I must strongly object to these ideas since they add a lot of extra tools and mechanics, but not necessarily depth and just makes the game harder to understand. The current mechanics of simply building one building a day has enough potential of depth as it is without complicating things further: keep it simple.
____________
It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that the cis are at it again.
|
|
Gryphs
Supreme Hero
The Clever Title
|
|
posted July 10, 2015 10:45 PM |
|
|
kiryu133 said:
well, what do we want in a building system? I'd say depth and diversity and to get to these we need to know what they are and what they do.
Diversity is simple enough: every faction needs to feel and play differently.
Depth is in a lack of better description, the highest possible amount of outcomes with the lowest amount of tools. The more ways something can come out with a limited amount of mechanics/systems/things, the deeper it is.
Both of these have never existed in heroes town building and never will for the very purpose of town building in general. You build to get units so you can get resources to get better units so you can defeat your enemy. Preferentially you will do this faster than your opponent. As JollyJoker shows in his wonderful H3 faction guides is that town building is a tool that will be "minmaxed" to peak efficiency and then be used in the same pattern over and over again because if it is not broken don't fix it. There will never be anything greatly interesting about town building because of what people want from it. Now there maybe different ways of reaching the peak efficient status based on what faction you are playing and if you find that deep and diverse than I am happy for you. For me though town building is a linear path and I am not sure I see a way of making anything other than that.
____________
"Don't resist the force. Redirect it. Water over rock."-blizzardboy
|
|
kiryu133
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Highly illogical
|
|
posted July 10, 2015 11:04 PM |
|
|
Gryphs said:
Now there maybe different ways of reaching the peak efficient status based on what faction you are playing
That's pretty much it. One can't really get rid of minmaxing and optimal paths in a game like heroes. That doesn't mean it's not deep since there are still several viable options: economy, military or something else (which is why i also propose buildings focused on exploration). In the example of H3 stronghold there are even two paths for military: cyclopses or Behemoths. It's not about what is the best choice but that there are two viable ones depending on situation. That is several outcomes from a small pool of tools, or depth.
these optimal paths can also change with different "metas" going in and out of fashion, changing things up: what worked then does not necessarily work now due to a build countering that one etc. That's is however probably really hard to implement without the use of patches or updates.
____________
It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that the cis are at it again.
|
| |
|
|
