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Marelt_Ekiran
Promising
Famous Hero
Watcher of All
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posted March 25, 2003 12:34 AM |
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The octagon
With respect to some articles that I posted recently, I made up this new allignment. There have been two new towns created recently, the Spirit Town and the Archaeon Town (insect). This produced a circle of seven, which I did not like. So I added another town to fill up the spot. This town was forced to go between Order and Death. I made it the alchemy town (don't get me wrong, I'm not proposing another forge). I was more thinking of golems, war machines and humans and dwarves with powerful weapons.
In this new system, might is still neutral to all. In the new system, each town will have two allies, three neutrals (barbarians included), two enemies and one archenemy.
For example, Life has Spirit and Nature as it's allies. Archeon and Order are both neutral towards Life. Alchemy and Chaos are enemies and Death is the Archenemy.
For morale, it would go like this:
Only own allignment (base morale): +2
With allies: -1 (netto, +1)
With neutrals: -3 (netto, -1)
With enemies: -6 (netto, -4)
With archenemies: -10 (netto, -8)
I would also like to introduce that all spells of a school directed towards a unit of the archenemy allignment gets a 20% boost in effect.
An explanation for the archenemy allignments.
Life-Death: The most obvious. Both death and life magic have spells that only work on each other. My suggestion would be to make death pure undead again and make an undead devil (= grim reaper) to oppose the angel.
Order-Archaeon: Order is no longer vs. chaos. Still it would be appropriate that the high civilization of order sees the ancient creatures from a world when there was no civilization as a danger. Also, the Archeon Magic system has a shield against order magic and it's creatures are capable of shielding themselves against the spellcast-shoot tactic that is most useful for order.
Nature-Alchemy: Nature and Alchemy will certainly kill each other, because of Alchemy's industry and destroying of nature. Nature will try to throw Alchemy out of their domain.
Spirit-Chaos: They both deal a lot with direct damage, but the spirits have the same desire as order. To make the world a saver and better place by putting a hold to chaos. Not strange that chaos does not like that.
Now having said all of this, I am forced to make an outline for a good alchemy town. And there should be a story incorporating them all. I already have stories for Archaeon and Spirit. I could involve Alchemy as a split in the lands of Order.
EDIT: Uploaded a better visual diagram of the octagon. Thanks a lot, RMS.
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Perception is everything.
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conflagration
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 25, 2003 01:16 AM |
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Great!
Nice idea,I like it.
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Lith-Maethor
Honorable
Legendary Hero
paid in Coin and Cleavage
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posted March 25, 2003 01:41 AM |
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hmmmm...
it is unlikely to ever see this in any HoMM and it could use a little trimming but it has potential... care to elaborate even more?
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You are suffering from delusions of adequacy.
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Marelt_Ekiran
Promising
Famous Hero
Watcher of All
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posted March 25, 2003 02:50 AM |
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Certainly, I already promised to write another article to outline the Alchemy Town.
What part specifically needs more elaboration according to you (or according to anyone)? I'm trying to incorporate as much detail as possible, but the ideas can always be improved.
And yes, I know that these ideas have very little chance of getting used in the actual game. But I keep holding on the idea that we should keep posting new ideas in the hope that someone from NWC will take a look at them and use the best ones to improve the game.
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Perception is everything.
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DonGio
Promising
Famous Hero
of Clear Water Mountain Clan
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posted March 25, 2003 02:35 PM |
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Edited By: DonGio on 25 Mar 2003
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Interesting idea...
and about implementation in HOMM; never say never. They implemented Incubus' Mantis, remember?
But as Lith said, I would also like further elaboration.
Dixi
DonGio
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There are 10 types of people: Those who read binary, and those who don't.
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stargazer
Famous Hero
hero of order and life
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posted March 25, 2003 03:17 PM |
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care to do the creatures? and specails
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When we are young
Wandering the face of the Earth
Wondering what our dreams might be worth
Learning that we're only Mortal for a little while
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Marelt_Ekiran
Promising
Famous Hero
Watcher of All
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posted March 25, 2003 07:16 PM |
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Quote:
care to do the creatures? and specails
The Archaeon and the Spirit town have already been outlined in different threads ("Spirit town" and "Insect town").
I'm planning to post the outline for the alchemy town a bit later today or tomorrow.
UPDATE: Alchemy town has just been posted.
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Perception is everything.
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neon
Tavern Dweller
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posted March 26, 2003 06:57 PM |
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the real octagon has these on the edges:
sun/gold ray (life) - saturn/black ray (death)
venus/green (abundance) - mars/red ray (agression)
jupiter/blue ray (control and wealth) - mercury/orange (intelect)
moon/silver or purple (insticts) - octarine ray (pure magic)
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so in hmm:
life-gold-haven
death-black-necropolis
nature-green-preserve
chaos-red-asylum
order-blue-academy
alchemy-orange-laboratory (I am sure I will hate mechanic creatures in hmm)
inferno-purple-abyss (I take the negative and dark aspekt of the subcons.)
octarine.....leave to your fantasy
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still I think that this will be a very clumsy system. The 5 schools of magic were fine but this is too much
maybe if you have 5 elements as it was but divide them in 2 parts - i.e. dark and light and combine them to more than 5 towns...
the combination of small number magic elements is tons better than tons of magic schools for each town.
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted March 26, 2003 09:49 PM |
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Quote:
still I think that this will be a very clumsy system. The 5 schools of magic were fine but this is too much
maybe if you have 5 elements as it was but divide them in 2 parts - i.e. dark and light and combine them to more than 5 towns...
The system where one type of magic is connected to one type of town is gone. Christian mentioned this when he posted the screenshots. So towns will no longer be built around a certain type of magic and have two annexes for adjoining schools. Probably we will go back to H3 way odoing things, perhaps something between H3 and H4.
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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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Marelt_Ekiran
Promising
Famous Hero
Watcher of All
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posted March 26, 2003 11:30 PM |
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I also promised to write a story to tie all towns together. You may find that a lot of this is repetition from the partial stories that I wrote for each town, but I keep to the individual stories to make a full one. Anyway, here it is.
The full story:
After establishing an Empire on and around the Gold Sea, the faction of Chaos send out scouts to search for more riches and territory worth conquering. During one of these searches, a scout, named Rinuem found a cave in a large mountain range. This was many miles south of the borders of Great Arcan. Out of pure curiosity, Rinuem, who also possesed some knowledge of the forces of Chaos, started searching the cave. During this search, he found an underground dome, the size of a medium-sized country. This cave was swarming with huge insects of incredible power. In fear of his live, Rinuem fled.
In Great Arcan, a young female mage, named Theria, was accused of the murder of a high member of the government. This accusation was false, but she had many enemies due to her continious preaching that it was not wise to anger the forces of nature. Her power in the magic of Order was stronger than many thought and she was able to disappear from the country before the Guards of Order managed to capture her. She fled to the south and happened to encounter Rinuem. After some talking, they quickly became friends.
Theria managed to convince Rinuem to tell her the location of the cave. Rinuem trusted that her power in Order Magic would be able to control the insects of the deep.
In the cave, Theria used all skill of charm and mind influence that she had to persuade the insects to obey her. Eventually, they trusted her. Theria kept strenghtening the bond and the control. Eventually, she combined the Chaos Magic of Rinuem, her own Order Magic and the skills that she had learned from the insects to form the new Archaeon Magic. Rinuem lost his fear of the insects and he became their leader. The realm of insects attracted also other adventurers and rogue wizards. Theria and Rinuem trained as many as they could to use Archaeon Magic and to lead the insects. In the meantime, the organization they brought had given the number of insects an expotential growth. Soon, they had an army, which was equal or greater than the other armies of Axeoth.
Unfortunately, Theria's hatred towards Great Arcan started to consume her. Rinuem had always seen the Order Mages as enemies and he supported her in this. They both started to equip their armies to counter the powerful magic of Order.
In the meantime, a split started to develop in the countries of Great Arcan and Paleandra. After the accusation of Theria, some started wondering how much was left of the freedom that Emilia and Solymr had fought for. Emilia had not lived long after her near-fatal injury, Solymr had refused to rule and left the country. Lord Reed took over the rule (remember the squire Reed from the Emilia campaign, it's him).
He introduced the Reed doctrine which implied that Great Arcan had possesion of the ultimate knowledge and that nothing should be questioned or attempted to improve. There was no improvement possible, only decay.
Paleandra suffered the same problem. The priests argued that the ways of life had been indicated by the heavenly forces. It was blasphemy to stray from these.
No wonder that in both countries opposition started to rise. Lord Reed and Lysander Jr. (son of the old Lysander) imprisoned many and crushed several protests.
The Empire of the Gold Sea watched this all with enjoyment. Soon, both countries would be weakened enough to conquer with little trouble. The Empire was ruled by both Tawni Balfour and Cyrca, both old, but still capable enough.
However, they made the mistake to move too fast. Paleandra and Great Arcan united to stop the clash and many great battles were fought, where the Empire seemed to prevail, but with heavy losses.
The opposition in Paleandra and Great Arcan did not want both countries to fall to the Empire, but refused to help them either. They simply left the countries and united. This union was led by Lady Vemirin. Lady Vemirin tried first to establish a base close to the borders of Paleandra, but this in the terretory of the Elves. Since their towns had high costs in resources, they threatened to destroy many of the forest. The elves attacked with hit and run attacks and summoned their powerful forest creatures to drive the alchemists (as the metal focussed magi were called).
The alchemists fled both the elves and the battles between Paleandra, Great Arcan and the Empire of the Gold Sea. After a long journey, they arrived at a large mountainous land, which was not claimed by anyone, but on the borders of Nekross. The necromancers were quitely waiting for the end of the war to use their necromantic powers on the battlefields.
They welcomed the alchemists as friends and allies. Nekross was longing for a real ally and the alchemists needed a save haven. Both factions had many benefits from this alliance. The alchemists now started to build up their own country and forces. Many war machines were made to aid them in battle, but the bulk of the forces were humans, dwarves and drows, who were equiped with powerful weapons.
The drows are natives of Axeoth, who were driven out of their natural habitats by the elves from AvLee and Vori, who had fled for the Reckoning. They had hated the elves for it, but were not strong enough to do anything. After seeing the alchemists emerge as a powerful enemy of nature, they offered their service and protection. The alchemists accepted the alliance and many drows obtained ranks both in might and magic. Many of them were equiped with springsteel bows or enchanted blades.
The alchemists started to develop their own magic. They based it on their old magic from Life and Order, but they also took a lot of influence from the necromancers, who taught them how to use magic to hurt and weaken your enemy. The alchemists combined all of this in their ability to control the material world, creating a fearful kind of magic.
Lady Vemirin remained the alchemic leader, even though she was not an alchemist herself. Instead, she became skilled in using enchanted blades to fight and in the art to lead armies, like the knights of Paleandra did.
Meanwhile, the forces of Paleandra managed to hold on to their territory, thanks to the mountain ranges that surrounded their lands. Great Arcan, on the other hand, took severe blows and their people were driven back to the snowy mountains (Order should have more focus on cold and snowy mountains). There, they managed to build more strongholds and hold of the forces of the Empire. The Empire was actually severly limited itself and was hardly any stronger than the others.
Far, far away, on the plane of spirits, everyone saw what was happening. People started to search and create more powerful weapons, more powerful spells were used and larger armies were raised. According a the most powerful Talurin, named Plixum, this could lead to another Reckoning. He started preaching that the spirits had a responsibility to lead the material worlds to prevent these things from happening. Many spirits agreed and Plixum opened a gate to the lands of Axeoth. They quickly build up a number of strongholds (void towns), but those were located partially on neutral territory, partially on territory of the Empire, partially on the former territory of Great Arcan.
The spirits were quickly forced to choose sides, but they also realized that there strenght was no more than equal to the other factions. On ideological bases, they chose the side of Great Arcan. For a small time, the forces of the Empire were forced to withdraw.
The Archaeon followers of Theria saw the new spirit town as a following of the Magi of Order to supress the free people. They started to support the Empire openly and because they were one of the largest forces now, they equalized the balance again.
Nekross did not want to fight, but was dragged into this war by the scruff of its neck. Lysander Jr. of Paleandra had convinced the elves that Nekross was a direct threat to the freedom of the people. Gauldoth first ordered his undead to hold them away from the borders, but his army was small and was swept away. Fortunately for them, the alchemists kept true to their alliance and drove the elves away with their now sizable force.
Gauldoth and the alchemists renewed their alliance, which brought the alchemists absolute damnation from the priests of Paleandra. The alchemists would defend both borders while a large group of necromancers would take the risky mission to travel to the battlefields and raise the army of undead which they would need for a full defense and attack. The alchemists agreed, under the promise of a fair share of the total conquered land.
The necromancers lost some of their people during this mission, but raised a huge army of undead. The demons feared to be outnumbered in this way, but they were all brutally slaughtered before they could do anything and ressurected as undead (turning the necropolis undead again).
When both armies were large enough, the alliance of the necromancers and alchemists attacked, but their march was slowed by sniper attacks from the elves and barbarian raiding parties, who feared that their lands were threatened by the presence of the large Death-Alchemy army.
The barbarians were still under command of an aging Waerjak. They usually did not bother with other peoples, but the elves send envoys to their leaders, warning them about the dangers of the large army of undead and alchemic troops. The barbarians were never really friendly to the necromancers and agreed with the elves that they were a thread. Their forces managed to take down a number of their forces, but the alchemists retaliated with the destruction of the food supply by poison and flames.
The barbarians were now forced to take over other lands, just for the food. Under protest of the elves, they decided to raid the borders of the northern Great Arcan. This alienated both the barbarians and the elves from the Paleandra-Arcan-Spirit block.
This is where the story starts. All sides are more or less equal and all at war with each other or neutral. This is no longer a war between good and evil, but a battle for survival of the fittest.
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Perception is everything.
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jondifool
Promising
Adventuring Hero
extinct but alive!
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posted March 26, 2003 11:53 PM |
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greatings
to djive :
Actual the statement from christian does puzzle me a little!
Towns are going to be really different from each others, right. How could this really happend without magic be really different? Its possible offcause, but I have at the moment difficulties imagining it! If magic and armies (creatures are still organized in compareble lvls ) are being somewhat alike! What is it then that makes Towns REALLY different! Special buildings, hero development? What kind? just wondering!
to Marelt_Ekiran
about the octave its looking really cool!
But what if organising them in a 4x4 grid! opening op for 16 differnt types of towns! Or is that to much
I am puzzling with a 4x4x4 idea! Not necaserry working for heroeas though!
( its working a little like ad&d's aligntment system.)
The Idea is instead off choosing a town when game starts choose 1 atribute from Death/Life/Light/Darkness. (princip)
Another from Chaos/Order/Good/Evil. (virtue)
And a third from Fire/Water/Earth/Air. (elements)
(other possibilitys comes if using or adding races and terrain)
And then the game comes up with a town representing the choisse. Creatures, Heroes and magic to be influenced by the choise!
Princip, virtue, and element each gives some basic creatures , spells and hero skills. But when combined gives some other and more advanced addons !
the combination of virtue and princip could make for some different might heroes,
the elements and princips together! Interesting spells /spell casters
Virtue and element to be used for high lvl creatures
well maybe its a little to much to put into a hero game, but I am hypnotize by the posibilitys for the moment.
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The Oxe is slow, but earth have patience
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Marelt_Ekiran
Promising
Famous Hero
Watcher of All
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posted March 27, 2003 12:13 AM |
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Zutus_evil_p...
Hired Hero
Flaming bird
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posted March 29, 2003 01:03 PM |
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I've been thinking about a combination of homm3 and 4 for the towns. Maybe it should be like three good, three evil, three neutral towns again. Every town has it's own set of spells, or in case of a might town, other skills.
Every town will have the choice to build apart from it's mage guild, two libraries or war arenas (or whatever they are planning for might). You choose whichever you want. But, there should be penalties. When a player has a haven (good) and decides to build the necropolis library, he will have to pay triple the cost of what he would have to pay when building the nature library.
good town - good library : normal cost
good town - evil library : tripled cost
good town - neutral library: doubled cost
the same for evil towns
neutral town - neutral library: doubled cost
neutral town - good library: doubled cost
neutral town - evil library: doubled cost
I think that each alignment should have one might town and two magic towns. In might towns there wouldn't be a mage guild, but the possibility to build libraries remains. So there will still be less magic in these towns. In return, they will get to build five levels of might-arenas, that would give new combat based skills. ex. One ranged stack of choice gains an extra attack, or every creature +2 speed, etc...
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Lordskeleton
Adventuring Hero
The really REALLY bad guy
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posted March 29, 2003 10:56 PM |
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What's the difference between a library and a mage guild in your sence?
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Vad gagnar det en människa om han vinner hela världen men förlorar sin själ?
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Marelt_Ekiran
Promising
Famous Hero
Watcher of All
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posted March 29, 2003 11:00 PM |
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Mage guild is a larger tower with your own spells. The library is smaller and contains the spells of another school of magic.
Besides, Christian at NWC said that they would not feature towns that were focussed around some type of magic. But he also said that towns would be more unique. Try to make some sense of that.
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Perception is everything.
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Lordskeleton
Adventuring Hero
The really REALLY bad guy
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posted March 29, 2003 11:10 PM |
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So you could learn some of the other factions spells though you wouldn't have any magic school of your own.
Interesting. Well, if they leave the town-magic I won't cry a flood. The more differances the better.
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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Vad gagnar det en människa om han vinner hela världen men förlorar sin själ?
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