Why HIV is better or equal to HIII

[jeff]

Salamandre

It is obvious that you and I are not going to agree and we have been polite to this point and really another 3v4 debate. I am too old to waste any more of my life on it. Let's just part with the understanding that neither will be convinced by the other.

As far as this thread is concerned I am done; other than as a moderator. As a moderator I must applaud the participants; for a topic that has often become incendiary this one has been very civil and appropriate; keep it up.

[Namerutan]

As a moderator I must applaud the participants; for a topic that has often become incendiary this one has been very civil and appropriate; keep it up.

Yes, until now this is the best thread about that subject. However, I'm still afraid nobody yet started a thread like "Why Heroes3 is almost as good as Heroes4" (I think so).

[Maciek]

What Salamandre says about commanders/creatures acting as heroes is not just a theoretical possibility, it's a technique he and Jim Vogan actually use in some of their maps. Some (most?) of Jim's maps actually feel more like H4 than H3.

I view H4 campaign editor as a good compromise between power (ERM, H5) and simplicity (H3 map editor). There are limits, but you can do quite a lot quite easily.

Also, some H4 features are alien to H3 and as such, trying to implement them using ERM may be somewhat impractical. I'm talking about such features as:
- Stealth,
- multiple hero-heavy armies,
- possible artifacts on each hero,
- adjusting AI to cope with the heroes,
- Caravans,
- frequent splitting and joining of armies.

What I don't like about H4 is the foot grid on the battlefield instead of a yard grid.
Some limitations in scripts are occasionally annoying, too. Such as 'take creatures' script accepting only constants, but not variables.

[iLiVeInAbOx05]

Some limitations in scripts are occasionally annoying, too. Such as 'take creatures' script accepting only constants, but not variables.

You can actually get around this using a little recursion in your scripts.

Let's say you have an army with elves and you want to take half of them away. Count the number of elves, divide it by 2, and store it in a variable halfElves. Then you have a triggered script takeHalfElves as follows:
if (elves in army > halfElves)
{
take 1 elf
trigger custom event takeHalfElves
}

You can specify whatever number you want for halfElves and the script will bring the level of the creatures to that number.

It also works for adding killed creatures back to an army (when in "training" battles where creatures shouldn't die).

Recursion usually isn't ideal, but I've tested it quite a bit and there is no noticeable lag in what I've used it for when the scripts run.

If this example doesn't exactly fit what you were thinking, let me know

[Taro]

Salamandre, fine, I believe your words. It seems erm is more powerful if you can do such things. I just didn't saw them.

But (this is another aspect, not argument about "power") erm is hard to understand. And as Maciek said, H4 is good compromise. Scripts seems to be difficult to make but they are logic as hell, and if you can understand some with a guide, then you will notice you can do more complicated by yourslef.

Well, this topic is pretty nice. In our polish forum there were wars and curses about the subject.

[Karmakeld]

Count the number of elves, divide it by 2, and store it in a variable halfElves. Then you have a triggered script takeHalfElves as follows:
if (elves in army > halfElves)
{
take 1 elf
trigger custom event takeHalfElves
}

Awsome and yet simple. I found a similar (a special thanks goes to Maciek for letting me know how often I had misspelled this word) script in Tawny's campaign where you continue to increase a hero's level untill the desired level is reached. I could have definitely used your script in one of my maps, but perhaps it could still come in handy.

[wimfrits]

I admire the way WoG succeeds in continuously renewing H3 and keeping fans interested. At the same time, the succes of WoG makes me consider H3 a dead-end street from a series perspective. Much like GTA2 is in the GTA series. Anyone who has played GTA2 multiplayer knows what I'm talking about

However, the comparison here is not between H3 plus thousands of hours of additional programming over decades .. and H4. It is between H3 and H4.

It's all personal preference, but the areas I value most are:

• Absence of bugs (H3 >> H4)
  Innovation (H3 << H4)
  Tactical depth (H3 <x1000< H4)
  Balance (H3 < H4)
  Atmosphere (H3 > H4)
  Map editor (H3 << H4)

If H4 had been a polished game upon release, I would say H4 is a much better game. But the reality is that the game needs competent mapmakers to work around the game's shortcomings.

[Salamandre]

But (this is another aspect, not argument about "power") erm is hard to understand.

How you know is hard to understand? I am a total noob in programming, I know nothing about C+ or any computer languages, yet I read the erm manual and I can use any of its parameters.

You want unique features, must work on. My answer was mainly to jeff who stated that H4 can do things H3 can only dream about. Which is totally not true, we have erm in H3 so somehow no limitations. You won't learn it in a few days, but with motivation a few months should be enough. There is an exceptional manual to learn it, every aspect is detailed and tested. For next Era release we also plan to much improve the manual by adding more receivers about pandora boxes and seer huts, the only objects which were missing.

However, the comparison here is not between H3 plus thousands of hours of additional programming over decades .. and H4. It is between H3 and H4..

Often, when I talk to H4 fans and point to obvious bugs or missing features, they quickly counter and add "Equilibris fixed this". But when I bring wog, nah nah, this is not Heroes III, is programming over decades. Funny.

[Maciek]

@iLiVeInAbOx05: A more efficient way is:

calculate the number of elves you want to take
if(elves_to_take >= 4096)
{
shouldn't happen; some script to handle an overflow error
}
else
{
if(elves_to_take >= 2048)
{
take 2048 elves
elves_to_take = elves_to_take - 2048
}
if(elves_to_take >= 1024)
{
take 1024 elves
elves_to_take = elves_to_take - 1024
}
repeat that for 512, 256, 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1
}

The number 4096 was chosen arbitrarily. Could just as well be 1 billion.
Now, imagine it's not elves you want to take, but every creature type the hero might've acquired. That's where it gets annoying.
And not half, but a percentage based on the hero's Diplomacy skill (though that doesn't complicate things too much).
Recursion would probably be good enough for the number of creatures, but you still need the script for every possible creature.
This example comes from map 5 of Karmakeld's campaign.

Btw, recursion should work if the scripts are on a hero, but not in placed events (nowhere to put the custom event).

[wimfrits]

Often, when I talk to H4 fans and point to obvious bugs or missing features, they quickly counter and add "Equilibris fixed this". But when I bring wog, nah nah, this is not Heroes III, is programming over decades. Funny.

I agree. Either compare H3 to H4 or a mod to a mod.

When comparing WoG to Equi, take the difference in purpose, programming time and time span into consideration. Which is why it's pretty much impossible to compare mods.

[Karmakeld]

I too can only agree it's most fair to compare either the original game or mods, but who was it that first mentioned this

H3 even got a new expansion recently -Horn of the Abyss, 15 years after release: a new town, several campaigns and so on

oh well better leave it.

Iliveinabox You script could have made some things easier for me in my 4th map, luckily for me, Maciek did the hard work in my 5th map as he described, but I can only agree that when it comes to cases where you wanna check for multiple options, like take an amount of any creature type, or check skill level of any skill type, you're forced to do heavy amount of scripting.
Some copy function would have been useful.

[Salamandre]

No, what is fair is comparing the evolution two games had but I feel like some are embarrassed to take that way and I can understand why. When you speak of the original game then jeff speaks about story telling scripts -like having two heroes together-, I could also say "nah nah, the map you talk about is not on the CD". The scripts you use aren't in the original game.

The fact is: a custom map is a mod. You use the editor as a tool to materialize your personal vision into a given game. Editor is a tool. Wog is a tool too, those saying is a mod are just ignorants or never tried to read the manual. People made a lot of mods using H4 editor, others using wog platform; some even did a new town in H3 using the original code then hacking it with hex editing, that is: they use a tool to give life to a a personal vision. And the game gets renewed, for a short time it breathes fresh air, and all this for the joy of its fans.

[iLiVeInAbOx05]

Awsome and yet simple. I found a similar (a special thanks goes to Maciek for letting me know how often I had misspelled this word) script in Tawny's campaign where you continue to increase a hero's level untill the desired level is reached. I could have definitely used your script in one of my maps, but perhaps it could still come in handy.

I actually use a script just like that to increase hero levels in the first map of my Reckoning campaign I couldn't figure out how to set a heroe's level past 40, so I used a recursive script to increase to the desired level for 2 heroes. The interesting part was one of them is player controlled, so I had to have the hero be a different color, increase the level, and then change him back.

@iLiVeInAbOx05The number 4096 was chosen arbitrarily. Could just as well be 1 billion.
Now, imagine it's not elves you want to take, but every creature type the hero might've acquired. That's where it gets annoying.
And not half, but a percentage based on the hero's Diplomacy skill (though that doesn't complicate things too much).
Recursion would probably be good enough for the number of creatures, but you still need the script for every possible creature.
This example comes from map 5 of Karmakeld's campaign.

Btw, recursion should work if the scripts are on a hero, but not in placed events (nowhere to put the custom event).

Well, I'd rather script my 4ish lines for each one instead of that big string of ifs It's much easier to just script those few lines for each type of creature, but I agree, it's still annoying to have to do so. It would have been great if we could explicitly construct methods with parameters for scripts.

As far as the recursive method working on creature only armies, I thought I was onto something using a quest gate, but it only has one triggered script >.< I was also thinking of using a garrison, but it looks like you can only affect the creatures in the garrison with the triggered scripts

Iliveinabox You script could have made some things easier for me in my 4th map, luckily for me, Maciek did the hard work in my 5th map as he described, but I can only agree that when it comes to cases where you wanna check for multiple options, like take an amount of any creature type, or check skill level of any skill type, you're forced to do heavy amount of scripting.
Some copy function would have been useful.

Definitely agree with needing the ability to write functions which take parameters. You can kind of do this a little bit, but not enough for it to really be powerful and enable reuse of code

[wimfrits]

The fact is: a custom map is a mod.

A custom map is created within the boundaries that the game provides.
A mod is a change to the game itself.
There's a fundamental difference.

The H4 editor does not allow changes to the game's mechanics, whereas WoG allows you to change virtually everything.

[Karmakeld]

I must agree with Wimfrits.
Either that or my understanding of the meaning of the term Mod is completely wrong.
The editor has been modded in both Equilibris and WOG giving you more options than the original released editors offered. Be it new objects or new scripting possibilities.
Fans making maps with more complex scripting than any of the original released maps is a matter of creative thinking. Developers could have done the same if they only had the ideas.

[ThunderTitan]

A custom map is created within the boundaries that the game provides.
A mod is a change to the game itself.
There's a fundamental difference.

A small note: a custom map is what can be done with an editor included for use by players...

Custom maps made for games that don't have such an editor are considered mods.

And of course some custom maps use certain things that the editor doesn't allow, and are also considered mods because of that (see DotA).

And then again, if the editor is powerful enough to allow for the creation of a new type of game play, it can also be considered a mod (again, see DotA).

....

Basically, a mod requires there be some sort of modification to the game, and not just making more complex scenarios by putting more work into the scripts the game already has to make more interesting scenarios. (hope i'm using those terms right)

[Karmakeld]

Saying that a mod is a modification (of something already existing) sounds just about right to me.

[Karmakeld]

...end of discussion!..... or...
(in which case I will have gotten the final word..)

[GreatEmerald]

...end of discussion!..... or...
(in which case I will have gotten the final word..)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGYUfPiKZMI
"Well, whaddaya know, I finally got the last word!"

[Karmakeld]

Just looking a Salamandre's mod's for Heroes 3: viewtopic.php?t=15138.. (your current rank of Archmage is very fitting it seems)

Oh, just to have some of those ideas implemented in H4..
(now where's that drooling smiley when you want one)..