Fortress vs Sylvan

[parcaleste]

I just want the Gorgons back...

[Avonu]

Here you have one:

[mr.hackcrag]

If sylvan wins and dungeon ends up being "dark" elves, I will not be pleased with the amount of elves in this game.

[Bloax]

If the second town ends up being a choice between dark elves (and judging by this being Ashan, it will) then I'd say that Inferno would be the more interesting and with more freedom in terms of how to bring mayhem. (Since they are, after all - god damn demons.)
I wonder how demons would play out as one of the "resource-hungry but powerful" factions.

[Campaigner]

Sylvan. I like the Elven/Eldar way of striking HARD and FAST instead of advancing slowly and having a friggin brawl.


Hi again =)

[Dwarfurious]

@Thundertitan Wouldnt it be better if every faction didnt follow that rule ? Fortress and Haven are Empires of a race and thus field their own army, so composing the army of their own race demonstrates their races power. On the other side, Academy has only a single wizard, and the rest are constructs and creatures, fits their lore of avoiding direct battle.
Dungeon are a shattered race, they need to fill their ranks with slaves.
Stronghold "orc" is very broad and includes many species.
Better than every faction being composed of one race or being composed of nothing but grab bags of assorted fantasy critters. Little of both.

As long as the actual units are diverse it will be good.
That being said, Dwarves should have many different units than they had in #5 (cant say same for elves) including Engineers/Sappers/Siege weapons/Valkyrie/crossbowmen and if i have my way, a Basilisk as a Champion unit.

@Konfuzius What would the other be ? Stronghold ? Necro? I hear Necro is a major turtle. Dwarves will be masters of Siege, this may only apply to castle defense/offense but they could manipulate battlefield cover too. Its interesting to have units who are defensive, but backed by destructive Fire magic.
Unfortunately, they should of been polled against Inferno, since they are both fire users, and dungeon/sylvan since they're both fast moving hard hitting elves.

i'm Dwarfurious, im here to fight for Fortress, my clansmen.

[Mirez]

So far I'm reading things like no town conversion, a Skillwheel and the revealed units don't make me hyped either...

I think town conversions are kinda lame, at least in the way it was implemented in heroes 6. A dark, sinister necropolis gets turned into a peaceful haven town in a woosh of light... It's a little too convenient and it doesn't really make any sense. Besides it deteriorates the gameplay, on a big map in H3 and H5 you'd have tier 6/7 units from several factions which would make for some interesting battles.

Edit: Come to think of it, H5 didn't really invite mixing factions together either because of the racial abilities.

As for the skill wheel, I really liked the H5 skillwheel. Heroes 6 lets you pick the best skills/spells after which every game becomes more or less the same. (the only variation being might/magic and tear/blood)

[Rapier]

Personally I really wish they'd given indications about what the other alternatives are going to be.

I mean just from heroes 5 and 6 (so ignore all non-ashan games).

We have Inferno, Sanctuary, Dungeon, Sylvan, Fortress.

Legacy games we might also want to add

Preserve and Asylum (heroes 4 - we probably won't have these though, they rely quite heavily on the law/chaos type thing that 4 had going).

Fortress (lizardman) and Conflux (elementals), Rampart (Which is elves and dwarfs ). I doubt rampart will make it in because it doesn't fit the new aesthetic but the other two would.

Given the conceit of the game is that every campaign is a story told by an adviser to Ivan I would predict that Sanctuary vs Dungeon would be the other vote, because Inferno doesn't fit - and I don't think they'll use anything older.

I do however think you could easily add expansion campaigns (DLC, expansions) because I expect that the epilogue will be done in a similar way to in 6. That is - regardless of how you play the other campaigns the ending will be set.

So retroactively adding the other advisers in won't necessarily break the narrative - since the final campaign or mission will almost certainly just be based on the results of the others rather than flowing from it, in fact the final campaigns and missions will presumably be playing as Ivan and so set in a different period of time from all the "legends" which the other campaigns represent

I voted for Sylvan, they had a much more interesting story and design in 5. (I feel that Sylvan + Sanctuary make the most sense personally).

[Rapier]

I just saw that in the sticky post for this Forum it says, "Dungeon/Inferno" And "Sylvan/Fortress"

This makes me really sad, because I don't want Sylvan and Dungeon but I don't want Inferno at all.

It also makes me think we'll get Sylvan and Inferno.

[mr.hackcrag]

Relax Rapier, Dungeon will smash Inferno the way Sylvan is doing to those smelly dwarves.

[Kalah]

Sylvan and Dungeon, though ... do we need that many elves?

[Panda Tar]

Never fancied much that Dark Elf lore in this game. I think that's when I started to feel different about Heroes in a certain sense. Liked the H3 race approach, when elves were nothing related to that faction.

[mr.hackcrag]

Sylvan and Dungeon, though ... do we need that many elves?

I've mentioned elsewhere, NO MORE ELVES PLEASE! If the devs had more courage and creativity, they would make dungeon into something special - but HoMM is just a Tolkien copycat now and has lost its soul.

Maybe that's one reason panda feels like this:

Never fancied much that Dark Elf lore in this game. I think that's when I started to feel different about Heroes in a certain sense. Liked the H3 race approach, when elves were nothing related to that faction.

With this direction affecting more factions, beginning with H5 until now, I think that's when a lot of us started feeling "different about Heroes."

[Wizard of Soz]

I don't know. I don't really mind two different types of Elves that much.

I think my issue with Elves and dwarf is they have been done to death in fiction since Tolkien immemorial! I suppose so have the other factions too. I personally like it when they jazz things up a little, but that's just me.

[Kalah]

Well, Dungeon could end up containing more than just dark elves, of course. I also see dark elves not so much a part of Tolkien lore as the Forgotten Realms.

[Wizard of Soz]

Well, Dungeon could end up containing more than just dark elves, of course. I also see dark elves not so much a part of Tolkien lore as the Forgotten Realms.

D&D is an equally big influence. I think with all fantasy it comes to giving people something they can recognise (like dragons). However there is usually a twist or an evolution from the source material. So in Ashan we have the Necromancers being an order obsessed religions body rather than world conquering megalomaniacs. We have Demons that seek freedom alongside their usually destructive tendencies. We have a deeply flawed human empire, etc. Now these things are not entirely new but are less common in fiction.

My bone with the Elves and Dwarf factions (though I do still like these factions) is that they are too similar to their source material (Tolkien, though I appreciate Tolkien got the idea from ancient legends himself so the term 'source material' is not quite accurate), compared to other factions. That said it might be they just have not had a chance to be fleshed out more as they have not been used in many of the games.

[Kalah]

(Tolkien, though I appreciate Tolkien got the idea from ancient legends himself so the term 'source material' is not quite accurate)

Actually, when it comes to the elves, Tolkien's material is pretty original. He builds on lore from several sources, yes, but the Elven culture and history he builds up is all JRR. Later writers, when they write about elves, base their work on Tolkien. Elves before Tolkien were closer to fairies.

[Wizard of Soz]

Ok we have only a few days to really decide. Regardless of the where the Polls are placed more people seem to be going for Sylvan by quite a wide margin. Not sure what the main reasons are but I am pretty sure its a combination of nostalgia for the Rampart faction and the fact Sylvan have been unused for a longer period of time (unless you include Clash of Heroes and MMX).

So my own take is this

Story
Well I am a lore guy so I put this first. So far Fortress has been fleshed out a bit more I feel. Between H6 and H7 we know they were having a brutal war with Dark Elves for over 100 years which would seem quite interesting to explore. I mean, this seems to be the longest war in the historic age so far. Hathor Orlandsson seems like an interesting character as well as a total jerk. The other thing is the dynamic with the stag duchy. They where allies in Heroes 5, it would be interesting to see them enemies in Heroes 7.

Sylvan on the other hand has lots of already known characters, like Alaron and Tireu who are alive at this point and, theoretically others from MMX and H5 as Elves have a long life span. Though it seems not a lot happens with them during the last 300 years, perhaps this is an opportunity to go even further back in time and see truly ancient events. And of course they have their war with the dark elves.

Overall I think though the connections between the Dwarfs and the Stag Duchy would be too interesting to miss, so 1 point of Fortress.

Gameplay

I think this is Fast, but less damage vs slow but devastating, but I am sure there is more to it than that. We already have a lot of factions that seem to use devastating force like the Orcs with their rage and Academy and their Titans. We already have Haven which is good at defense. I think Sylvan will fill an interesting niche so it gets 2 points (given gameplay is most important).

Design/Feel/Coolness
Hippies vs Armored dudes. I go with the Armored dudes. 1 point for Fortress.


Damn, still tied. Have I missed out any category or should I put more or less weight on existing ones?

[BB Shockwave]

I vote for ORIGINAL Fortress.

Down with boring all-dwarf town, bring back gnolls, lizardmen and their assorted beasties!

[BB Shockwave]

When I first saw this, I thought it was Lizard Fortress. Now that I know what it really is, it just makes me sad.

Forget about it...too hard to cram pointless nerd pleasing female nudity in Fortress, so it goes against standard Ubi policy

Tiva would have something to say about that...

(warning, NSFW link!)

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Tiva-175427341