Heroic: town borders

[Groovy]

This topic was spawned from here.

The idea dates back to Civilization 3, where a city’s cultural output was illustrated with city borders, which were also used to resolve territorial disputes between neighbouring cities. I think that the idea can be productively adapted to HoMM. Here is how I suggest we make use of it.

Every town exerts influence over the neighbouring countryside. The amount of influence that it exerts is determined by the structures that are built inside the town – each structure contributes a certain predefined number of influence points to the town. These points determine how far away from the town, expressed as the number of adventure map blocks, its influence spreads.

Influence affects the town’s economy in the following ways:
• All flagged resource-generating adventure map structures within the town’s sphere of influence automatically contribute their resources to the town
• All flagged external dwellings within the town’s sphere of influence automatically make their units available for recruitment in the town
• All flagged hero-enhancing adventure map structures within the town’s sphere of influence automatically make those enhancements available in the town. The purpose of all these enhancements is to ensure that heroes don’t have to repeatedly visit the same adventure map structures in order to tap their benefits

Influence affects the town’s defence in the following ways:
• Fog of war is lifted within the town’s sphere of influence for the player and his allies. This is partly to increase realism and partly to help anticipate enemy invasion
• All flagged adventure map structures within the town’s sphere of influence are automatically garrisoned by units whose dwellings have been built in the town. This is to prevent pathetic enemy heroes from capturing them. The garrisons won’t be strong enough to resist full-blown sieges
• All flagged adventure map structures within the town’s sphere of influence (or perhaps only within the inner circle) are automatically connected with roads; once built, the roads remain, even if the structures are captured by the enemy. This is partly to increase realism and partly to speed up movement over well trodden terrain that is no longer that exciting to traverse
• Defensive battles within the town’s sphere of influence are joined by some local militia on every day after the first. This is to add realism to homeland defence

Influence affects ambience in the following ways:
• All the terrain within the town’s sphere of influence will gradually change to the town’s native terrain. For example, the terrain surrounding an Inferno will become lava-like, even if it was lush and green beforehand. This means that the game must be implemented so that each feature of the terrain has faction-specific appearance that can change during the course of the game

I’m hoping that, in addition to economy and defence benefits that town sphere of influence can bring, it also makes the player feel like he’s running a kingdom instead of isolated towns strewn across the countryside.

[Panda Tar]

Influence affects the town’s economy in the following ways:
• All flagged resource-generating adventure map structures within the town’s sphere of influence automatically contribute their resources to the town
• All flagged external dwellings within the town’s sphere of influence automatically make their units available for recruitment in the town

What happens when an enemy comes and flags one of those buildings/mines within that sphere of influence? Less production for them, or a tax-charging production (a portion still goes for you), or would you propose (the dreadful ) automatic flagging as in H6?

• All flagged hero-enhancing adventure map structures within the town’s sphere of influence automatically make those enhancements available in the town. The purpose of all these enhancements is to ensure that heroes don’t have to repeatedly visit the same adventure map structures in order to tap their benefits

Yes, time consuming when you had to go back every week, specially when you really depended on that, but couldn't afford losing special turns for really important stuff.

Influence affects the town’s defence in the following ways:
• Fog of war is lifted within the town’s sphere of influence for the player and his allies. This is partly to increase realism and partly to help anticipate enemy invasion
• All flagged adventure map structures within the town’s sphere of influence are automatically garrisoned by units whose dwellings have been built in the town. This is to prevent pathetic enemy heroes from capturing them. The garrisons won’t be strong enough to resist full-blown sieges.

I miss fog of war...and the second topic is so true. The worst is seeing a whole town being conquered by a hero WITHOUT an army. The hero should take down the primary defenses to earn the dignity of entering the castle. A town shouldn't be given so easily to any moron passing by the neighbouring land.

• All flagged adventure map structures within the town’s sphere of influence (or perhaps only within the inner circle) are automatically connected with roads; once built, the roads remain, even if the structures are captured by the enemy. This is partly to increase realism and partly to speed up movement over well trodden terrain that is no longer that exciting to traverse

Also a good and logical improvement. And not only limiting to this condition. There could be scripting over paths that are mostly used by heroes (not a specific pixel-by-pixel remark, but an area of usage) creating rough terrain, decreasing penalties regarding bad terrain. In this way, if you're new to a certain part of the map, you'll know if that route you're taking is safe or not. Of course, you could also have the PATHFINDING ability that would make your goings untrackable, so even when you use a path often, your ability through pathfinding is so good that the terrain remains natural.

Influence affects ambience in the following ways:
• All the terrain within the town’s sphere of influence will gradually change to the town’s native terrain. For example, the terrain surrounding an Inferno will become lava-like, even if it was lush and green beforehand. This means that the game must be implemented so that each feature of the terrain has faction-specific appearance that can change during the course of the game

Quite cool this feature. It's logical specially with destructive behaviour factions, like inferno, necropolis, stronghold. However (:D), for a faction such as Academy or a Dwarven town, there are some strangeness - if you consider Academy as being a desert faction, Dwarf-city as being an underground. Perhaps some specific terrains could be considered OVERALL for all factions upon the GOOD alignment, and another terrains would be OVERALL for all factions upon EVIL alignment - in addition to these terrains that would succumb over the influence of a new faction. Just a suggestion.

...it also makes the player feel like he’s running a kingdom instead of isolated towns strewn across the countryside.

Any improvement upon the example below is for the best. In Heroes 6 it feels like we own a tavern, not a castle/town. Look at this silly human...what's this? A tiny-micro-village-shack-thing. The dwellings are fruits of our imagination, because we can simply hire units out of the thin air. But the worst thought over this is that I'm so damn sure that this window nightmare is not going to disappear upon release.

[MattII]

• Make the garrisons upgradeable for a cost.
• Allow a town to have, as well as a hero, several lieutenants (mini-heroes, who can't get as many/as high level skills) who can lead troops out against raiding enemy heroes. Lieutenants would come with no creatures, and no skills beyond the racial, but would cost a lot less than normal heroes.
• Allow resource generators and dwellings to be upgraded for a cost.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

Several of these ideas seem to be directly from Disciples.
Cases in point:
Terraforming area that is controlled / towns ranges of influence: this has been a staple of the disciples games. Every turn that you own a town or control point, its influence spreads. Higher level towns spread faster. If your influence covers a mine, you gain control of it. Another player can wrest control, but often at a significant cost (hiring a special hero to plant rods in D1/2; conquering a control point in D3)

Auto-garrisons: In D3, when you grab a control point, you place a guardian there. Every turn you own the control point, the guardian gains experience. If the guardian is attacked (and wins, of course) it earns normal combat experience. Eventually it levels up. These guardians are relatively strong creatures, and level ups gain them special abilities.

Both ideas are nice, but I'm not certain about the Heroes feel with them.

[Groovy]

What happens when an enemy comes and flags one of those buildings/mines within that sphere of influence? Less production for them, or a tax-charging production (a portion still goes for you), or would you propose (the dreadful ) automatic flagging as in H6?

I’ll go with production for the enemy, but how much, I’m not sure. I’m still working out the details of the resource model.

Also a good and logical improvement. And not only limiting to this condition. There could be scripting over paths that are mostly used by heroes (not a specific pixel-by-pixel remark, but an area of usage) creating rough terrain, decreasing penalties regarding bad terrain. In this way, if you're new to a certain part of the map, you'll know if that route you're taking is safe or not. Of course, you could also have the PATHFINDING ability that would make your goings untrackable, so even when you use a path often, your ability through pathfinding is so good that the terrain remains natural.

Hmm... That opens up some interesting game play possibilities...

Perhaps some specific terrains could be considered OVERALL for all factions upon the GOOD alignment, and another terrains would be OVERALL for all factions upon EVIL alignment - in addition to these terrains that would succumb over the influence of a new faction. Just a suggestion.

Shared terrain features make sense, but I’m not sure whether they should be split along the good/evil lines rather than yellowish/greenish terrain or surface/underground.

In Heroes 6 it feels like we own a tavern, not a castle/town. Look at this silly human...what's this? A tiny-micro-village-shack-thing. The dwellings are fruits of our imagination, because we can simply hire units out of the thin air. But the worst thought over this is that I'm so damn sure that this window nightmare is not going to disappear upon release.

I feel your pain. I haven’t played the demo or the beta, but some of what I’ve read about the game sounds concerning or just downright sad...

[Groovy]

Make the garrisons upgradeable for a cost.
...
Allow resource generators and dwellings to be upgraded for a cost.

What would be the effects of the upgrades?

Allow a town to have, as well as a hero, several lieutenants (mini-heroes, who can't get as many/as high level skills) who can lead troops out against raiding enemy heroes. Lieutenants would come with no creatures, and no skills beyond the racial, but would cost a lot less than normal heroes.

I haven’t played HoMM 1 or 2, so I haven’t had exposure to lesser hero types that I’ve heard mentioned in connection with them. So I’m curious – what would be the reason to hire one instead of a fully fledged hero? Is it merely a question of affordability, or are there other advantages?

[Panda Tar]

In Heroes 2 there's the Captain's Quarters. Each castle has a captain. It's like a hero in the castle, that doesn't get experience, so the primary attributes are always the same, but gives small boost to defending troops. Captains from magical-alignments (warlock, wizard, necromancer) have spell book, so they can cast spells as if having Basic Wisdom. For Necromancers it's even better due the unique structure that boosts Spell Power + 2, so a Captain's spell will do increased damage.

[Groovy]

Several of these ideas seem to be directly from Disciples.
Cases in point:
Terraforming area that is controlled / towns ranges of influence: this has been a staple of the disciples games. Every turn that you own a town or control point, its influence spreads. Higher level towns spread faster. If your influence covers a mine, you gain control of it. Another player can wrest control, but often at a significant cost (hiring a special hero to plant rods in D1/2; conquering a control point in D3)

Auto-garrisons: In D3, when you grab a control point, you place a guardian there. Every turn you own the control point, the guardian gains experience. If the guardian is attacked (and wins, of course) it earns normal combat experience. Eventually it levels up. These guardians are relatively strong creatures, and level ups gain them special abilities.

Both ideas are nice, but I'm not certain about the Heroes feel with them.

Oh bugger! I guess I should have played Disciples more.

I’m not suggesting changes as radical as this, though. Under my scheme, a mine still needs to be flagged the traditional way for the player to gain control of it. It doesn’t have a control point, but has to be captured directly for another player to wrestle control over it. Both of these are traditional game play elements from previous HoMM games.

[Groovy]

In Heroes 2 there's the Captain's Quarters. Each castle has a captain. It's like a hero in the castle, that doesn't get experience, so the primary attributes are always the same, but gives small boost to defending troops. Captains from magical-alignments (warlock, wizard, necromancer) have spell book, so they can cast spells as if having Basic Wisdom. For Necromancers it's even better due the unique structure that boosts Spell Power + 2, so a Captain's spell will do increased damage.

Can captains leave the town?

[MattII]

What would be the effects of the upgrades?

More resources/creatures.

I haven’t played HoMM 1 or 2, so I haven’t had exposure to lesser hero types that I’ve heard mentioned in connection with them. So I’m curious – what would be the reason to hire one instead of a fully fledged hero? Is it merely a question of affordability, or are there other advantages?

This isn't a H1/2 idea, this is new. Affordability would be part of it since these "mini-heroes" would cost a lot less (balanced out by the fact that they'd start out a bit weaker, and have limited level-up possibilities), but mainly the point would be to allow you to track down and smash those '10 level 1 creatures' raiding heroes without having to move your main hero away from the town.

[Panda Tar]

Can captains leave the town?

No. They don't. That's mainly why they don't evolve, or you can have a garrisoned Hero (because in Heroes 2, you could only host 1 hero per town).

[Groovy]

More resources/creatures.

And I thought you were gunning for recruiting upgraded creatures from the adventure map.

This isn't a H1/2 idea, this is new. Affordability would be part of it since these "mini-heroes" would cost a lot less (balanced out by the fact that they'd start out a bit weaker, and have limited level-up possibilities), but mainly the point would be to allow you to track down and smash those '10 level 1 creatures' raiding heroes without having to move your main hero away from the town.

Sorry for being so presumptuous.

I’m still a bit confused about the trade off between lieutenants and ordinary heroes hired to perform secondary roles. It looks like a hero can do everything that a lieutenant can do and more, so the only reason that I can see for hiring a lieutenant would be the inability to hire a hero (no hero to hire or excessive cost). Does your design feature expensive heroes or restrictions on when they can be hired?

[MattII]

And I thought you were gunning for recruiting upgraded creatures from the adventure map.

Nah, have that tied to the town, or at least give it a different resource cost.

I’m still a bit confused about the trade off between lieutenants and ordinary heroes hired to perform secondary roles. It looks like a hero can do everything that a lieutenant can do and more, so the only reason that I can see for hiring a lieutenant would be the inability to hire a hero (no hero to hire or excessive cost). Does your design feature expensive heroes or restrictions on when they can be hired?

A town would be able to contain multiple lieutenants, but only a single major hero. Lieutenants would also not count towards the hero limit, since they'd be attached directly to the town.