New town proposal- Hive

[groovyash]

Hi everyone, just woke up today with an idea for a possible new expansion town, The Hive. Now before anyone gets overexcited, I'll admit much of this is inspired by Starship Troopers/Aliens/Eight-Legged Freaks etc, in the fine tradition of "fantasy borrowing." Any numbers put here are merely placeholders, left as an exercise to the community/devs to balance, so without further ado, here's the meat of the proposal:



The Hive -Might Based insectoid race

Racial Ability -Antimagic (10/20/30/40 % reduction in magical damage taken/ duration of adverse spells)

Units:

Tier 1: Hive Worker/Hive Drone
Ability:Swarm Defender- Once per combat, may designate one unit to defend in combat. 25/40% of damage dealt that unit goes to worker/drone instead for duration of combat.

Tier 2: Acid slug/Corrosive slug
Ranged attack (side effect, slightly lowers defense)
Ability:Acid blood- any melee attack on slug results in damage plus defense lowering of the attacking unit.

Tier 3: Flying terror/Flying horror
Flying ability (of course!)
Ability: (Not activated) This nasty creature deposits eggs into the unlucky victim. If the stack is killed by the terror/horror, a small number of drones arise from the corpses in their place.

Tier 4: Creepy arachnid/trapdoor arachnid
Fast land unit/ may climb over walls
Ability: Once per combat, trapdoor arachnid can burrow up under an enemy unit and drag it back to his starting location (effectively, teleports a unit next to the td aracnid.

Tier 5: Hopping hunter/Hopping hunger
Ability: Any unit attacked by the hopper's deadly sting attack has its initiate lowered by the numbing poison.

Tier 6: Bombardier/ ?
Ranged unit, attack lowers attack/def
Ability: May cause blind (1-3 uses) with acid spray

Tier 7: Queen/Hive Queen
Flying
Ability: Undecided, perhaps boosts other hive units.


Anyway, there it is, well thought out or not, I'm outta time, post / change/ do what you will with this.

Stay Groovy.

[vhilhu]

all units so similar-the same problem i think with werewolf castle idea.

[omegaweix]

Sounds very zerg-ish to me!
Therefore, in a Heroes game?
No, thanks, not for me.

[Kalah]

The name alone screams "borrowed from Alpha Centauri". Also I agree on the thing about the creatures being a bit too similar. There should be a decent degree of variation within each town.

[vhilhu]

thats why fortress - the swamp castle must come back!

[Odolwa]

The idea with a insectoid race is good.
But I don't like the names on the units, they need to be improved.

[theLuckyDragon]

Insectoids, hmm... I don't see them fitting in Ashan, but that's just my opinion right now at 1:15 AM...

My, my, with all this talk of new towns around, I might consider revealing my grand idea with the L-- oops, wouldn't want to spoil the surprise.

[Kalah]

Well, we do have the H4 Mantis...

[theLuckyDragon]

And the Waspwort (not quite insectoid, but a neat idea nonetheless IMO). But wasn't H4 undesirable?

[vhilhu]

maybe combine fortress and mantis?

[Mytical]

all units so similar-the same problem i think with werewolf castle idea.

Ok, I want to go on record to say that this is not an attempt to start any problems. Yes, the 'werewolf castle' was mine. I am a firm believer that people can believe as they wish, and that most opinons have merit. And this is true with what Vhilhu wrote. That is one way to look at things. At the end of this I will put the positives of both Vhilhu's and my view (I don't do negatives )

Anybody can slap together a bunch of 'creatures' and call it a Heroes town. Why would those creatures work together; though, what binds them? Lets look at some of the current towns.
Haven-Besides the griffen all the creatures are 1)Male and 2) humanoid. The thing that binds them together is their nobility and faith.
Necropolipse-Obviously being undead helps here. Again, not terribly different besides the dragons. Yes there are differences, but none too drastic.
Inferno-all are demons. Yes there is a bit of variety here (more so then some others, but not as drastic as Academy).
Now I admit, some such as Academy has a wide variety. And a variety of reasons they are there (controlled, built, ect). Still there is reason, and at least somewhat logical.

Now I could have done werewolf differnt. Cobbled together things like Firehawks, Shades, and other various creatures, and hastily came up with a lame excuse as to why they were working together. Is my group perfect? of course not. I like the insect idea myself. It would be hard to explain how they came to the area, or grew, or whatever. Thus it would be a challenge

Now the some of the pluses of both sides. (just a few)

Variety-Variety is always a good thing..and tends to be more interesting. Easier to get peoples attention and can be challenging to come up with reasons why.

Themes-(such as insect/werewolf). The reason they work together is obvious, no real explination needed. Easier to impliment graphically (if they were to be implimented mind). More of a challenge to get peoples attention.

Again, this is just another view point. Not an attempt to 'flame' or browbeat anybody.
Also, wasn't going to put this down, but I am going to include my elemental town on my other topic thread. Didn't do this before because 1)Elementals have been done by HoMM before. 2) Somebody else on these threads beat me too it. Now mine are different and I believe that it is a example of 'Variety' town. Some may disagree though (which is fine with me )

[Braxen]

thats why fortress - the swamp castle must come back!

I couldn´t agree more!

It was my favourite in Homm3

Nothing slaughters black dragons as a bunch of gorgons

[asandir]

i actually like the interaction between the units, sure the names could be improved and the units themselves changed a little, but i like the linkages

[Blaspheme]

Stefan guy your S*ck!

First you spoil my entire expansion topic without giving ANY comment to my proposal and than you give this (Unthinkable proposal) your thoughts and blessings!

Sorry but it's just that... Are you religious?

[DaemianLucifer]

Uhhh,temper!I dont think such language is appropriate no matter how much you disagree with someone or whatever you think about them.If you want to call names,use pm.

[Orfinn]

Stefan guy your S*ck!

First you spoil my entire expansion topic without giving ANY comment to my proposal and than you give this (Unthinkable proposal) your thoughts and blessings!

Sorry but it's just that... Are you religious?

C'mon, why meld in by asking him if hes religious or not? And why be so picky about such small things? Instead of being so harsh, suck it up, deal with it in silence and let the rage build up, then hit a punch bag freeing some picky aggressions.

[Qurqirish Dragon]

I like the insect idea myself. It would be hard to explain how they came to the area, or grew, or whatever. Thus it would be a challenge

Actually, you could have something along the lines of the 17-year cicadas: The insectoid race tends to go dormant for long periods of time.
Perhaps the mian hatchery was located near where the demons came to Ashan originally, and so it took many birth/growth/hibernation cycles for their numbers to grow large again. In the intervening time, all the demon / eclipse problems let the race fade into obscurity as the other races had more important worries that a supposedly dead race. Now, they have finally regrown enough in numbers to take back their place in the world. Whether this is as a force for good, evil, or simply just desiring to exist would depend completely on how you want the race design.
Unintentional conflicts could come from a hatchery being too close to a city of any given faction- just as the original destruction may have only been an unfortunate coincidence of where the demon gate formed.

As for more details on the in-game race:
I do think that some sort of "hive mind" ability would also fit in- perhaps as an ability under the leadership group, or under the main skill, leading to combination/coordinated action type skills.
Given the racial ability of resistance, there should be specialized resistance abilities under the magic schools and sorcery.
Going with the swarming concept, an ability under summoning ( similar to gating (but not as strong as inferno, obviously) would work, as would teleport assault under logistics.