Other Features
- by Charles Watkins
Behind the
Curtain: Over the Shoulder
by Charles
Watkins
Part 2: Map Design
In this series, I’m taking readers through the process of making a map. In Part 1, I settled on a story that can be played out in Heroes IV, giving players a lot of freedom while maintaining an overall continuity. I want to stage some interesting encounters that can turn out different ways and change the course of the game, and to tell the story through player interactions instead of narrative.
It’s a Large, 2-level, solo-play story map called ‘Lost Crusade’. The story centers on Eleanor of Aquitaine, who goes on a crusade to deliver the Sword of the Gods to Jerusalem, which is under siege by the Turks. Her quest takes her to another land filled with fantastic creatures and powerful magic. As she finds her way back to Earth, she meets old friends and new, arriving in the Holy Land as the warring forces are at the verge of Armageddon.
By looking over my shoulder while I put it together, maybe other mapmakers will see something they are able to use and players can get a better idea of the kind of effort that goes into these things. I’m sure there are mapmakers who just open up the editor and have at it, but I like to work everything out on paper before doing the heavy editing. I save most of the writing for the end, since it’s something I can work on while the map’s out for testing. I’m already starting to feel some urgency since I figure I’ll need to have the map out for testing by the first of December to be able to make the January contest deadline.
In this part, I finish the planning process and create the main elements of the map. This may make more sense if you’ve already read Part 1, where I laid out the storyline and gave a little Crusader history. Speaking of which, I now have some updates.
More on 12th Century
First, let me point out a typo in Part 1, where I said Eleanor married Louis VI. That should have been Louis VII.
Second, after further research, I can now fix the date as 1152. By then Eleanor had returned from the Second Crusade, and Jerusalem is under siege by the Turks. The Pope then was Eugene III, another follower of Bernard, and the Byzantine Emperor was Alexis the Great. The King of Jerusalem at that time was Baldwin III, so I have rearranged some character names to make Baldwin the king, Raymond the ranger, and Godfrey the general.
And third, I have introduced an ‘ultimate’ bad guy behind Hugh’s corruption. This is Hassan i Sabbah, founder of the Assassin cult. He ruled by terrorizing rulers and caused the fall of the Seljuk kingdom by assassinating Malik Shah.
Now that I’ve worked out the storyline, I need to decide on the main locations and characters that will be involved. For this, I’m using various lists, which are shown here. Even if I weren’t writing this article, I’d want to keep the lists since it’s so easy to lose track of things as the map is taking shape. By the time you see the lists, they will have been revised time and again as I strive to tighten up the story and tie up loose end. As I said, for me it’s easier working everything out on paper than having to change the map halfway through.
Basic elements
First I need to identify the various factions and assign them colors and alignments. To make it easy to remember, I’ll use the defaults as much as possible.
Color Assignments
Purple – Crusaders (Eleanor’s party)
Green – Arcadian Allies
Blue – Order
Orange – Chaos
Neutral – Nature, Death
Teal – Christians
Red – Turks
Character Classes
Eleanor, Priest
Hugh, Warlord
Raymond, Ranger
Godfrey, General
Iblis, Demonologist (Evil Druid)
Celeste, Druid (Fairie Queen)
Eldaron, Beast Lord (Elf King)
Omar, Paladin (Eleanor’s love)
Baldwin, Lord (Protector of Jerusalem)
Hassan i Sabbah, Assassin
Malik Shah, Barbarian (Sultan)
Rosencrantz, Archmage (Swordsmith)
All of these are heavily customized heroes with skills appropriate to their classes. To keep up morale, I have contrived to start the Warlord and General as Knights so that they will be Purple, like Eleanor.
Staging area for heroes. Some of these have two tokens, since I want to remove the initial party after they pass through the portal and have the members reappear later. Once the heroes are on the map, they can be referenced in scripts. The same goes for towns and quest locations, so I’ve also put those out.
Some of the people these characters are named after were French nobles, but I think most players would more readily identify with their English names. Thus Godfroi became Godfrey, Baudoiun became Baldwin, and Guilliam became William. Hugh, Raymond, and Louis come across OK. There will also be an assortment of minor heroes used in encounters, but since they are not involved in interactions, they can wait.
Main locations
The upper level is devoted entirely to Arcadia, with Chaos to the East and Order to the West. Eleanor will come in to the South and the corrupted part of Nature will lie to the North. The lower level will have the starting area, the end area, and enclosed locations for the Crypt, Forge, Dungeon, and Dragon Cave. The game will start in the Southwest and end in the Northeast, leaving the other corners for the ‘pocket’ locations. On a Large map, there should be enough real estate to allow a good visual buffer between the areas.
Arcadia towns:
Elise: Nature town, Neutral – I’m going to make Nature into an ally and set it up that when Eleanor takes the town it will change to the ally color. This will provide a place to retreat and I can script the Fairie Queen there. Nearby are two quest locations – Fredonia and Elf King.
Foss: Order town, Blue – This will be a walled city with rigidly squared off streets. Eleanor will be sent out into the countryside to collect taxes. As the new sheriff, she is awarded Order magic, For her second quest, she must investigate a prison break, gaining entry to the Dungeon where she can release the General and gain the Sword of Swiftness.
Chernobyl: Chaos town, Orange – this will be a disorderly collection of buildings and dwellings. The inhabitants will send Eleanor out to fetch the Ranger (Raymond), who has become a local legend and then award Chaos. But first he will get her to retrieve the Flaming Sword from the Megadragon lair.
Earth towns:
Aquitaine – Life town, Purple/Teal – this is the starting point of the quest. Near the town is a Temple complex where Eleanor gets the sword. I’ll have a path that leads to the docks, and along it I’ll have the Sprite ambush. A trail leads to the Portal that goes to Arcadia. Sometime after Eleanor crosses over, Aquitaine will be taken over by Louis, becoming Teal so it vanishes for Eleanor.
Jerusalem – Life town, Teal – this is the end of the quest. It will be a walled city with many splendid buildings, including the Mosque on the Temple mount. Inside, I’ll have the various nobles ready to parlay. Outside, I’ll put Crusaders on one side and Turks on the other, then
I’ll rig the walls so that they’ll come down on command of the sword holder.
Special Locations (not towns):
Crypt: Neutral. Underground, hidden in the depths of the Ghostwood. Chambers for both swords. Warlord (Hugh) is main encounter here.
Forge: Neutral. Part aboveground, part under. Just inside Ghostwood. Windows of the Magi. Oracles to treasures. Portals. Resources Bring swords to Rosencrantz for entry.
Dungeon: Located below Foss with many locked doors and loose monsters. Enter downtown.
Dragon Cave: Enter in the wilderness outside Chernobyl. It contains an assortment of Dragons and some minions.
Garden of Earthly Delights: Outside Jerusalem. HQ for Hassan.
Solomon’s Stables: ‘Underground’ connection between Garden and Jerusalem. Dark Champions and Temple treasures.
Portals/Tunnels
There may be other portals for minor locations, but these are the main connections between main areas:
Earth-Arcadia: Two-way Portal that will blow up after first passage, so there’s no turning back. I make it Two-way so players will be less hesitant to go through. And it’s combined with a Gate to insure that the party is complete when they step through.
Nature-Order and Nature-Chaos: These are simply paths through the forest that the Fairie Queen opens once the player becomes an ally. (More bombs.)
Forge-Earth One-way Portal: A shortcut to Garden from the Forge. Access requires taking Soul Stealer back to Rosencrantz, who will reveal location of the Sword of the Gods and open the portal.
Garden-Stables/Stables-Jerusalem: A pair of Portals allowing access to Stables of Solomon.
Ghostwood-Crypt Evil Tunnel: The graveyard area is walled and at its deepest point is the tunnel down to the Crypt.
Foss Dungeon Tunnel: Inside Foss is a tunnel down to the Dungeon. Eleanor is admitted after completion of tax quest.
Dragon Cave Evil Tunnel: Raymond follows trail to Dragon Cave, another simple tunnel. Raymond needed for entry.
Bestiary and Encounters
This is a list of creatures and encounters to be placed in each area. At first, I was going to use the creatures normally associated with each alignment, but found they didn’t always fit. So I took all the Nordic (Tolkien) types and gave them to Nature, took the Greek/Roman mythology types and gave them to Chaos, and took the Magical and Mechanical types and gave them to Order. On Earth, I’ll mainly use ordinary creatures.
| Creatures | Encounters |
| Wolves | Sword quest |
| Bandits | Sprite ambush |
| Pirates | Portal |
| Peasants | Takeover |
| Monks |
| Creatures | Encounters |
| Sprites | Ambush site – sprite trail + survivor story |
| Elves | Fairie Queen – reveal motive + give Fredonia quest |
| Dwarves | Castle entry – ally + give Elf King quest |
| Halflings | Castle entry – return Elf King + open ways + join Eleanor |
| Orcs | Fredonia quest – crusader armies |
| Goblin Knights | Elf King quest – join Eleanor until return to town |
| Ogre Mages | Evil Druid – first encounter (quest hut) |
| Trolls | |
| Waspworts | |
| Mantises |
| Creatures | Encounters |
| Satyrs | Rumor of Raymond |
| Centaurs | Cave -- Raymond – ally + Megadragon quest |
| Medusas | Contest – join + Chaos |
| Unicorns | Megadragon – Flaming sword |
| Minotaurs | |
| Cyclopes | |
| Hydras | |
| Titans | |
| Phoenixes | |
| Dragons (cave) | |
| Gnashers (cave) | |
| Gargantuans (cave) | |
| Sorcerers/Thieves | |
| Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Eris |
| Creatures | Encounters |
| Peasants | Rumor of Godfrey |
| Bandits | Strontium -- Tax Collector quest |
| Golems | Dungeon – Godfrey + sword + join Eleanor |
| Mages | Technomage—constructs Catapults |
| Efreeti | |
| Genies | |
| Evil Enchantresses | |
| Dragon Golems | |
| Lord Strontium |
| Creatures | Encounters |
| Ghosts | Omar |
| Zombies | Evil Druid – rumor of Hugh |
| Mummies | Entrance to Crypt |
| Skeletons | Entrance to Forge |
| Vampires | |
| Bone Dragons | |
| Nightmares | |
| Imps | |
| Devils | |
| Venom Spawn |
| Creatures | Encounters |
| Elementals | Rosencrantz the Magus: Sword quest |
| Forge: Story of swords | |
| Windows of the Magi | |
| Oracles: Treasures of Solomon | |
| Portal to Garden |
| Creatures | Encounters |
| Skeletons | Hugh + Soul Stealer |
| Zombies | Sword rooms |
| Mummies | Treasure |
| Ghosts | |
| Vampires | |
| Bone Dragons | |
| Lich |
| Creatures | Encounters |
| Dark Champions | Temptation in the Garden |
| Nagas | Library of Lost Lore |
| Mermaids | Hassan I Sabbah + Sword of Gods |
| Thunderbirds | Exit to Battlefield + Obs towers |
| Omar’s entry/exit to Stables |
| Creatures | Encounters |
| Berserkers | Arrival |
| Bandits | Decision |
| Nomads | Armageddon |
| Pirates | |
| Peasants | |
| Squires | |
| Peasants | |
| Crossbows | |
| Pikemen | |
| Crossbows | |
| Crusaders | |
| Champions | |
| Catapults | |
| Ballistae | |
| Griffins? | |
| Behemoths? | |
| Barbarians | |
| Knights |
Before I start placing adventure objects on the map, I want to make sure that my scripts will work correctly. The best way to do this is to lay out the objects needed in a small area of the map for script development and testing. Testing is an iterative process and it helps to work in a small area.
When everything is working—that is, I have checked the main scripts using a test heroes—I can move the objects to their appropriate locations without worrying. While doing this, I start to flesh out the main heroes and configure the main towns. I use short descriptions to help follow branching logic, planning to go back later and replace them with the full story.
The
action starts when Eleanor visits the Monastery.
The Sword of the
Gods is in a room ‘below’, reached by the tunnel.
The
entrance to the Crypt. I’ll fill in Ghostwood later,
after I’ve gotmy
Haunted Forest obstacle brush looking
like it should. Then I’ll use the
Eraser to clear paths.
Launch crusade: Deliver Prelude to introduce Godfrey-1, Raymond-1, Hugh-1, and Eleanor-1 in Timed Event. Set stage and send Eleanor-1 to Monastery. There, she is given Quest and sword. Sword is in a Pandora’s Box for Eleanor-1. If not in Eleanor-1’s possession go to LOSS condition. Initial Victory Condition is to take it to Jerusalem, but this will change.
Sprites attack: A weak party of Sprites will attack Eleanor-1 and make off with the Sword. At this point possession requirement is removed. A trail leads to the portal. I want Eleanor and the 3 leaders together when they are taken to Arcadia. A way to do this is to have them assemble at a Quest Gate. I can use HAS CERTAIN HERO requirements for all four heroes to pass through a Quest Gate. In the gateway is the Portal to Arcadia, which drops the party on an Event that triggers two Custom Events. The first is an attack that will overwhelm the party. Nearby, there is a Neutral copy of Eleanor-2 and the second Custom Event performs a color change to Purple that makes her appear. The effect to the player is that after passing through the gate, the party is attacked and Eleanor manages to escape but is left alone in Arcadia. (There are also Raymond-2, Godfrey-2, and Hugh-2 in Arcadia that Eleanor will encounter later.)
Stranded: Next I strand Eleanor by changing her home town and surrounding dwellings to Neutral. I also unleash some Marauders to wipe out any stray armies the player has left behind—a Neutral hero is stuck under an object that is removed. There’s no Tavern in the starting town, so I don’t need to worry about extra heroes. By placing the Event next to a Window of the Magi, I may be able to have Eleanor see this happen.
Sprite encounter: I use a placed event for a single Sprite to ascertain Eleanor’s intentions, while filling the player in on the reasons for the intervention and explaining that her arrival here is unintentional. The Gate was to have closed, but the Sprites that took the sword were ambushed on their return by a legion of Imps. The Imps killed almost all of the Sprites and took the sword. The Sprite tells Eleanor to go to a nearby Quest Hut where she is sent to bring back the other survivors. These are scattered in the area. When Eleanor gets enough Sprites, the Hut opens up a path through the woods to the Fairie castle by parting (blowing up) some trees.
Fairie Queen: Fairie Queen cannot pass Nature Gate to leave the area around the Castle. She sits outside so that she must be encountered before the Castle can be entered. Initially she is Neutral and with her entourage would make a formidable foe. Completion of the Fredonia quest turns her Green (Ally) so that she can be encountered safely. If the Elf King is not in the party, she will send the Party to find him. When they return with him, she will turn Purple but dismiss her armies.
Nature Castle: Like the Fairie Queen, the Nature Castle starts off Neutral and turns Green when she does. When Green, Eleanor can enter and learn Nature spells. When she enters with Elf King, it turns Purple. (This makes Faerie Dragons available to the player.)
Crusader Village. Placed so that it is not accessible until Eleanor reaches Fairie castle, the village of Fredonia is populated by the Crusaders and Pikemen from the original crusade. A Quest hut near the Fairie castle sends Eleanor to investigate (and return with one of the strangers’ objects). When she gets there, the armies will join. (May want to run a short side-quest for the Catapult.) She can also capture dwellings for Peasants, Crossbows, and Squires. Quest hut takes a Squire, a Sword, and Armor to make a Crusader. (Crusader + Unicorn + Spear = Champion?) Also have a War College, Blacksmith, Stables, etc.
Elf King: By now Green (Nature) is an ally of Purple (Life). When Eleanor recovers Elf King, he will become Purple and join the party. When he gets back to Fairie castle, it changes to Purple too, along with its external locations. Fairie Queen will stay home (cannot pass castle gate). Elf King will accompany Eleanor as far as Crypt, then he’s banned by the Death Gate. However, his main value is the equipment he brings, notably the shooter’s delight: the Bow of the Elf King.
Druid Quest: Player is offered quest to find Druid and return with Necklace. Trail leads to Crypt, where Druid waits near entry. On Encounter, Druid tells his story and offers Death magic in exchange for his life. If accepted, the party turns Neutral and joins forces of Evil. Otherwise they fight and party takes the Necklace. Rewards for completion are additional plot details and an Artifact (Tome of Nature?).
Omar Encounter: Omar is Neutral wandering in Dark Forest. When encountered he can be fought or asked to join. If fought and defeated, encounters in the Garden cannot be avoided. If he joins, romance ensues. When Omar receives Life, he becomes a Paladin. After Omar joins, a VARIABLE truelove is initialized to the current day. Then a set of Global Continuous Events are then scheduled for truelove+interval.
Chernobyl (Chaos Town): Starts Orange and changes to Green when Raymond returns, Purple when Megadragon is brought in. On Entry, Eleanor is offered Chaos magic.
Dragonslayer Quest: Rumors of great Dragonslayer lead to Raymond, after several encounters with wandering Black Dragons. On Encounter, Raymond joins and shows path to Megadragon cave and Flaming Sword.
Dragon Quest: The player has the option of slaying the Megadragon or otherwise obtaining the Sword, which is Raymond’s quest object. However, to get reward of Chaos creatures, she will need to return with Megadragon.
Foss (Order Town): Starts Blue and changes to Green when taxes are collected, Purple when Godfrey is freed. On Entry, Eleanor is offered Order magic.
Tax Collection Quest: Eleanor is dispatched to collect taxes by visiting mines. I use a variable to count the mines captured. This is incremented (PLUS) in the Captured Triggered Event. On completion, Eleanor is made Sheriff and given key to Dungeons, where Godfrey is held.
Dungeon Quest: Godfrey reports that the Sword of Swiftness was hidden by another prisoner in the Foss Dungeon. He made a map and scattered its parts throughout the Dungeon.
Forge: Requires Flaming Sword and Sword of Swiftness to enter. Rosencrantz will ally, but not join. Gives relic equipment and tells story. Can destroy Soul Stealer. Reveals Sword of Gods has returned to Earth!
Crypt: Elf King refuses to enter. Many scary encounters—melt walls to reveal monsters. Rooms for Sword of Life and Soul Stealer. Main Encounter with Hugh. If Eleanor takes Soul Stealer, it begins sapping her strength.
Garden: Portal to Jerusalem uses a Two Way portal and Gate to stop return without Eleanor. Party arrives in the Garden of Earthly Delights, held by Dark Champions, and Hassan I Sabbah who has the Sword of Gods. Hassan has been luring Crusaders here and drugging them. In this suggestible state, he brings out their hatred of the enemy and turns them to Dark Champions. Hassan tempts Eleanor. (I could temporarily change her to Neutral.) Exit to Battlefield with roaming Neutrals. Past them is the massive army of Turks, laying siege to Jerusalem in the distance.
Solomon’s Stables: Omar knows a way past the siege armies, through a Portal in the Garden. The Portal leads to Solomon’s Stables, where Josiah hid the treasures of the Temple back at the Roman invasion. From there, another portal leads inside the walls.
Jerusalem: Entry commences final sequences. Inside the walls is the Holy City with an area outside set up for a council between Baldwin and Malik Shah, both starting Neutral to avoid premature battle. Outside their forces are massed on either side of the wall.
Here are the possible endings:
- Eleanor offers sword to Baldwin (refused)
- Eleanor offers sword to Baldwin again (accepts, end sequence 1)
- Eleanor offers sword to Malik Shah (accepts, end sequence 2)
- Eleanor offers sword to Malik
Shah (refused)
- Eleanor offers sword to Malik again (accepts, end sequence 1)
- Eleanor offers sword to Baldwin (accepts, end sequence 2)
I’ll have Eleanor do some soul searching here, get the player to think about the consequences of what might happen, including the possibilities of refusal as well as acceptance of the sword. I’ll try to make some parallels earlier in the game so players will be more likely to catch on to the winning moves.
(I thought about an end sequence where Eleanor keeps the sword and returns to Arcadia, but that would leave the crusade unresolved and her adventures essentially pointless. Would that be a victory or a loss? I really can’t say.)
End sequence 1: Having been impressed by his opponent’s refusal of the sword, the other accepts it and then gives it to his foe. Walls stay up. WIN
End sequence 2: Now believing it is God’s will, the one offered the sword a second time accepts it and uses it to bring the walls down to start the final combat. Eleanor can join this side, but player loses control. Probably LOSS
Next: Layout
- by Charles Watkins
Behind the
Curtain: Over the Shoulder
by Charles
Watkins
Part 1: Getting Started
For this series of articles, I’d like to do something a little different. Instead of talking about mapmaking in general terms, this time I’d like to let readers look over my shoulder as I create a map and get a sense of the thought process that a mapmaker goes through in the course of a project. I’ll be writing the column in-between mapmaking sessions and discussing whatever I’ve done up till then. As I write this I am in the process of checking out the main scripts, which I’ll be reporting on in Part 2. But this time, I’ll take you along as I agonize over things like names and babes.
Motivation
For me, the hardest thing about making a map is getting started. Having been down this path many times before, I know how much time and gumption that it will take. It is not an endeavor to undertake lightly. Even though Heroes IV has been out for a long time, I have not yet published a map and have begun to feel a little guilty about it. But I’ve been distracted by changing jobs and moving, and most of my Heroes time has gone into simply playing the game. I’ve managed to keep up with other fans through the Quill and the Heroes IV forum here at Celestial Heavens, where Anglespit has been so kind as to run this column. But even so, I’m overdue for a Heroes IV map.
I made four maps for Heroes III, so I should have had a couple of Heroes IV maps out by now, but actually managed only a few false starts. With Heroes III, I started with a ‘training’ map just to get some practice with the editor and the result was “Bug Hunt” – a quirky M-size map with a Science Fiction theme. Then along came the AstralWizard ‘guilds’ contest, so I made “Grandmaster,” which turned out to be a winner in its category. Next came “Kid Heretic” for the next AstralWizard contest, which had an ‘urban’ theme. I’m still proud of “Kid Heretic” and would promise anyone who hasn’t played it that if you give it try you will have a good time. Sometimes think I should go back and convert it to WoG.
My fourth map was for the final AstralWizard contest, but it did not turn out as well as the others. After getting a late start, the events of 911 jerked me back into the ‘real’ world and sucked out the energy needed to get the map finished on time. I was still reworking “Sacrifice” when the deadline came, so it went out about two weeks before it should have. Needless to say, this one did not win, but I wanted to support the contest and at least I was able to have an entry.
So now I ask myself, what is it that spurs me to make a map? History says that a contest helps, especially if there’s an interesting theme. Lucky for me MapHaven is having the ‘Gloria’ contest and there is still time to get an entry in. However, the theme calls for a female protagonist, so I’ll have to find a suitable storyline.
Storyline
I’ve done maps with female heroes (Heroines of Might and Magic?) before, but did not dwell on their feminine nature. The best of these was the collaborative Heroes II campaign “Agent of Heaven” where I worked with Corribus, Doriando, and Eric Hutchinson. The main hero there was mainly the creation of Corribus and I spent most of my time working on the supporting cast. This time I’d like to try a female lead whose gender actually matters.
The harder part is how to align such a storyline to the course of a Heroes IV game. I’d like the player to identify with the main character, but not to feel restricted to a linear progression of events. Like any Heroes IV map, there’s got to be a lot of battles as well as quests, treasures, towns, etc. In previous versions of Heroes, this was difficult to reconcile with a story centering on a single hero—even though Heroes III provided hero-specific quests—but with Heroes IV the ability to attach events to specific heroes opens up all sorts of new possibilities. Cast members can have stories of their own and I may be able to script some interactions when they are part of the same army. So I need a storyline where the main characters are established but can be developed as players wish. It also needs to allow heroes to split up and get back together.
Fortunately, I already have just such a storyline in mind. And that’s another part of the motivation—having something to say that can be articulated within the context of the game. Here it is my regret that the alienation of the peoples of Abraham, going back to the time of the Crusades, continues to shape the world today. I’ll get to tell some of the history and rumor about what went on.
This also suggests a protagonist, because one of the outstanding personalities of those times was Eleanor of Aquitaine. At this point, I should give some notes on the Crusades and the real Eleanor’s part in them.
Short history of the crusades
After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, the Jewish inhabitants scattered and left the city abandoned for some 60 years. In 132, Emperor Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem, and decided to construct a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount—leading to yet another Jewish revolt, which also failed. The Jews were banished and the city was renamed Aelia Capitolina. After the collapse of Rome, it fell under Byzantine rule until 638. This time the city was conquered by the Caliph Omar ibn Al-Khattab, who constructed the El-Aqsa Mosque on the site of the old Temple and the Dome of the Rock on Mount Moriah. Omar welcomed both Christians and Jews to come and worship.
The order was maintained until 1077, when the Seljuk Turks invaded Jerusalem. And though their Sultan, Malik Shah was a follower of Islam, he challenged the authority of the Caliphs, who were the successors of Mohammed. The Christian powers, under Pope Urban II, decided to take Jerusalem under their protection and marshalled the First Crusade under Godfroi de Bouillon, Duke of Lorainne. After a bloody campaign, Godfroi captured Jerusalem, but was unable to control his troops, who proceeded to slaughter much of the Moslem population.
Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of history’s most influential women--she was Queen of both France (Louis VI) and England (Henry II). Her grandfather was Guilliam IX the Troubadour and she was a devout follower of St. Bernard.
Eleanor led an army of courtly women in the Second Crusade and had a notorious relationship with her uncle Raymond, magistrate of Antioch. She would have remained there, but Louis insisted she accompany him on to Jerusalem. They returned on separate ships, and Eleanor had the marriage annulled—by then she was all of 19 years old.
Soon after, she married Henry Plantagenet, who became King Henry II of England. Eleanor’s children included Richard ‘Lionheart’ and 4 other sons (Guilliam, Henry, Geoffrey, and John ‘Lackland’) and 3 daughters (Mathilde, Joan, and Eleanor).
In 1187, Jerusalem fell again to Saladin of Egypt, prompting the Third Crusade under the famous Richard ‘Lionheart.’ The Third Crusade failed and Richard was held for ransom. There followed several minor crusades, and Jerusalem was briefly retaken, but in the end, the Moslems prevailed and hatreds had been born that have carried down the ages. For Christendom, defeat meant a new social order rising out of the economic system laid down by the Knights Templar, followers of St. Bernard, who are rumored to have taken fabulous treasures hidden below Temple Mount by the fleeing Jews. Eleanor became fabulously wealthy and was the most influential woman in Europe until she died in 1204.
Premise
How might the world be different if Godfroi had maintained the tolerant rule established by the Caliphs? Could Saladin’s attack have been averted? Could the peoples of Abraham found a way to cohabit the city that is holy to them all? Is it possible that a child could lead them?
In this adventure, we see how things might go differently. After all, who’s to say what might have happened if there were another place that exists beyond our own? A place where things such as a Sword of the Gods could be forged? If charged by St. Bernard to carry such a sword to the holy land to aid in the defense of Jerusalem, might Eleanor not have diverted from the Second Crusade and found another destiny?
Some other open questions to be considered: Who were the Knights Templar and what was their role in this? What treasure might they have found? Why did Malik Shah move against the Caliphs? Why couldn’t Godfroi control his men? The history books don’t say, so we … speculate.
Map design
For some time, I’ve wanted to make a map where the two levels represent two different worlds and armies move between them. I greatly enjoyed Steven Donaldson’s “Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever” series, Raymond Feist’s “Riftworld” series, and Harry Turtledove’s “Videssos” series. So with these for inspiration, I’ve taken a similar theme for this Heroes IV map that I’ve named “Lost Crusade”. It’s about a party of crusaders who start off carrying a relic sword to the holy land to help rally the forces of Christendom against the Turks. But along the way they are diverted to another land, a world with fantastic inhabitants and locations that are not known on Earth, except in legend. And as they try to regain the sword, the Crusaders are changed by their adventures so that their crusade may not end as expected.
The lower level (Earth) will be rendered using natural geography and flora. Monsters will be limited to those actually found on Earth – Pikemen, Wolves, Nomads, etc. The upper level will be more richly depicted and fantastic creatures will appear. By creating this contrast, I can have the main character react to the strangeness of some things we take for granted as players. At the same time, I want the main character to bring something new to the other world, allowing her to become a pivotal character there before returning to Earth.
I’ll call the other world Arcadia for now, but might come up with something more original later on. On Arcadia, the natural balance is between Order and Chaos, so each will have its own region on opposite sides of the map. In between, I’ll have Nature in a neutral role. Life and Death will be mainly unknown here—as are Chaos and Order on Earth. The main character Eleanor starts as a Priest(ess) and introduces Life magic to Arcadia. When she returns to Earth, she may well be an Archmage with Life, Nature, Order, and Chaos. That leaves room for a Might skill, probably Combat, but I’ll have to get her started in Order and Chaos before the slots fill up. To compensate, I’ll give her supporting characters with Scouting, Nobility, and Tactics. These skills mainly affect the party as a whole so Eleanor will not miss them.
Arcadia also needs a center of evil that I can tie back to Eleanor, who embodies the good, so I’ll have a dark forest with an Evil Druid and a spooky Crypt. This brings in Death, but I’ll make sure to see that the true evil is shown to be the corruption of Death, not Death per se.
Since I want to look at heroism in war and peace, I’ll use the sword as a motif for the map. (In addition to being a weapon, the sword is symbolic of the Cross and of the Crusader’s grave.) There are several interesting swords among the artifacts, so I’ll make the main quest object the Sword of the Gods. I’ll also bring in Soul Stealer, Flaming Sword, and Sword of Swiftness.
Gameplan
When the game starts out, Eleanor carries the sword. She is the youngest girl in a family that will eventually inherit the throne (yes, a princess), and as a daughter of royal blood she is one of few eligible to carry it. I’ll start her out with 3 companions – a General (Combat+Tactics), a Ranger (Combat+Scouting), and a Warlord (Combat+Nobility). To keep them Life aligned, like Eleanor, I need to start them as Knights, so they all get a couple of levels of Tactics. Level 10 seems about right—established heroes, but still able to grow in several directions.
As the Crusade starts out, I’ll have some Sprites come and steal the sword – I’ll set up a battle so that they get it whether they win or lose. When the player’s party follows through the portal that appears, I’ll scatter the members and destroy the portal. That leaves Eleanor alone and ready to set out on her adventure. She’ll follow the ‘trail’ of the Sprites and have some encounters with the forces of Nature, who will be faerie-types who need a couple of quests done before they show Eleanor her way through the woods. I’ll have her go on an investigation and meet up with some others who were with the starting party--and let her start making Peasants, Squires, Crossbows, and Pikemen. Then I’ll send her off to save the Elf King. This makes Nature an Ally.
I’ll give her some hints about magic swords held by Chaos (Flaming) and Order (Swiftness) so she’ll visit both areas to see whether these might be the one she seeks. (She will need to bring both swords to enter the Forge.) Of course, the powers there will have some quests of their own before they will bestow their magic skills on Eleanor. I’ll have the Ranger working as a freelance dragon slayer in the Chaos area and the General will be held as a prisoner by Order. I’ll put in a Dragon cave for Chaos and a Dungeon for Order. This leaves the Warlord to be the one who turns evil and needs killing. I’ll have him seduced by an even greater evil, which has some tie-in with the crusade on Earth. Toward the end I’ll reveal this character was also at the root of the strife on earth and get Eleanor back there in time to stop the bloodshed.
Both Chaos and Order will have relic swords, but not the sword. These will, however, allow Eleanor to meet their maker, Rosencrantz, who also forged the Sword of the Gods– and one more, the Soul Stealer. When Eleanor’s Warlord companion follows the Evil Druid’s trail into the Dark Forest expecting to find Sword of the Gods, he finds Soul Stealer instead and it turns him evil. It has previously corrupted some of the minions of Death and these have ravaged parts of the land. I’ll make a spooky dungeon for the Soul Stealer and drop a few pieces of the Warlord’s armor to set up the confrontation. I’ll try to set it up so that Eleanor needs both the Ranger and General to prevail. By then the Ranger may have picked up enough Chaos to be a Fire Diviner or enough Life to be a Prophet. The General may have leveled up in Order to become an Illusionist or in Life to become a Crusader. All the classes seem to fit the story.
Rosencrantz is the grandmaster artificer, skilled in the craft of metal work. He’s one of the Jewish Magi who fled to Arcadia after the Roman war. He will reveal the origins and powers of the swords and the way to overcome Soul Stealer. I’ll also have him provide a map (via Oracles) to the Temple treasure.
This leaves one more main character, Omar, who is also from Earth but arrives in a different way than Eleanor and her companions and ends up in the Dark Forest. (At first Eleanor might mistake him for the Evil Druid.) I’ll start him as a Barbarian (Might) and have his contact with Eleanor grant him Life magic, leading him to become a Paladin. (In fact, after Eleanor reaches GM Life, I’ll give her the ability to bestow Life magic on other heroes in her party.) Omar will be Eleanor’s love and to further balance things out, I’m making him a dashing Arab. As the two of them come together in Arcadia, they represent the hope of reconciliation of the warring parties on Earth.
Omar is drawn to Arcadia by its Cosmic Balance, as the Arabian counterpart to Eleanor, who is ambiguously European. He’ll be a son of the Caliph and eventually heir to the throne, a worthy match to Eleanor. They should meet after Eleanor finishes the Chaos and Order segments. The Cosmic Balance also accounts for the Swords. The Sword of the Gods was summoned by Bernard and his Monks to aid the forces of Life in the Crusade. But as the Sword of the Gods came to the Earth, on Arcadia the influence of the Soul Stealer grew. This is why the Sprites made their raid—to recover the sword and restore the balance. But they were not expecting that on their return they would be ambushed in turn and the Sword stolen once again. This sets the stage for the main quest. The thief will turn out to be an Evil Druid, who has been seduced by the Soul Stealer. Later Eleanor will meet him and learn the sword has passed on to the Warlord. I’ve noticed that one of the Druids has a close resemblance to one of the Necromancers. I’ll also need two portraits for the Warlord—and fortunately there’s another good similarity between a Knight and a Death Knight.
Note: At first I had planned to allow Eleanor to have children with Omar, but getting her through the pregnancy and raising the children would have required some kind of time distortion. I was going to have her visit the celestial realm, where time passes more slowly to have the babies, and later return to pick them up as adolescents. The boy would turn out to be Richard Lionheart and the girl young Eleanor, who would marry into the royal line out of Egypt. In the end, I decided this was an unnecessary complication and that I would have trouble selling the time distortion. So the babes will appear only in epilogue. Now back to the story…
The Evil Druid dwells in Ghostwood, a dark forest with a population of undead. At the heart of Ghostwood is the Crypt, which is a walled in area with an Evil Tunnel to catacombs below. In one of the rooms, the Warlord waits with the Soul Stealer. To destroy it, she must return it to Rosencrantz, who then reveals the Sword of the Gods has already made it back to Earth – and has already arrived in the Holy Land.
Then it’s back to Earth—portal travel makes for a nice shortcut—in time to catch up to the original crusade. Well almost. There will have already been a bloody battle, and some straggling armies and battle crazed creatures are left to fight. When she arrives at Jerusalem she sees it is surrounded by the Turks and must make her way inside using ancient tunnels leading to the Stables of Solomon. This will be a good place to reward the player with some fabulous treasures and some Templar lore. The final scene will give Eleanor a choice of what to do with the sword, giving players a choice of endings. She can keep the sword and join either side. If she offers the sword to either leader, the first will refuse. If she then offers it to the other, he will accept and present it to the first as a token of peace. If she offers it to either leader a second time after being rejected, that leader will accept and unleash a huge battle that is likely to leave the heroes on both sides dead.
I think I see how to script most of this—many color changes are involved, but that’s something I’ve wanted to use to give the player a chance to build alliances. By using an ‘ally’ color I can have other positions change sides as a result of the player’s actions. The way I see it, since neutrals are so much like computer positions, the main reason to use different colors is to set up conflicts and alliances. At the end, I’ll have the King and Sultan with different colors and change one or both to match Eleanor, depending on her move.
In Part 2, I’ll work out the mechanics of the map. I’ll use the editor to construct the main heroes and locations. I’ll map out the zones and the connections between them. I’ll work out the color assignments and plan the main color changes. I’ll decide which adventure objects wandering monsters to use in each area. Finally, I’ll make a list of the scripts I’ll need and test the more complex ones to save time later.
In Part 3, I’ll layout the main components in a small area and try to do a first walkthrough. Then I’ll put in the other connectors and quests, write script stubs, and see whether everything works. It won’t, so next I’ll start debugging.
In Part 4, I do the decorations. Along with landscaping, I place the monsters, treasures, and secondary adventure objects. Then I write all the text.
In Part 5, I finish up the development work by testing everything, getting some other kind souls to help, and fixing whatever is still broken. While waiting for test results, I put together the readme file and other things that I might want to include in the distribution package.
- by Belenus and Angelspit
Maranthea's Map Making Tips
In talking with Maranthea, she has given us some tips that she uses to make those superb maps that we have all played and thoroughly enjoyed.
Map making, as you probably know is a painstaking process. This is what we do: Create a concept. Come up with a story line, a few ideas as to what you want and don't want on the map. Next: Lay terrain in an interesting way, trying to use color and shape concepts to make them different and interesting.
Once done go through with the little square and take out all of the right angles and squares, making them seem more natural. Next, lay down towns and adventure objects. Our object is to lay down lots of Adventure Objects, this way the player has stuff to do. Keep in mind some things are powerful - Griffin conversevatory, Hill Fort, etc. Other objects, wells, Springs etc. are really necessary to have several of them. So you can place more of them down.
Then I go through and connect all of the objects, trying to create different shapes with trees and mountains, using whatever is available. Also, beautify the map. Plain maps with really open spaces can be pretty boring. Then I place a decent amount of creatures, treasure troves, a few artifacts and other goodies. The best thing to do is to look at each screen of territory and see if it looks empty or full. If it's empty see what's missing and fill it up.
- by Ururam Tururam
The Methodology of Heroes of Might and Magic IV Mapmaking
Written by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., edited by Rachel Butt. Reprinted with permission.
1. INTRODUCTION AND ABOUT THE AUTHOR
At the very beginning let me please introduce myself. You are going to read my article, and I think it will be easier to understand my point of view when the reader knows something about the writer. My nickname is Ururam Tururam and I am an experimenting warlock. Alas in real world one cannot work as a warlock. Thus to earn money I am a physicist (with a Ph.D. degree obtained at a 600 years old university); I am also a project manager in IT software engineering. Of course I am a Heroes of Might and Magic fan. I started playing it when Heroes I was a brand new game. I've played King's Bounty too! But playing is not the most funny aspect of Heroes: I enjoy mapmaking. Up to now I've made 51 maps for the Heroes games, namely 12 maps for Heroes I (5 of them are published), 32 maps for Heroes III and its expansions (12 published) and 5 maps for Heroes IV (3 published). Four scenarios are currently under construction. You have probably noticed that there are no Heroes II maps here. Well, I don't like this part of HoMM. All my published works can be found at my website: http://strony.wp/pl/wp/urtur - I will use a few of my maps as examples here, so you may want to download and check them.
The purpose of this article is to share a bit of my knowledge to novice mapmakers. If you are a veteran map creator, it probably means you have developed your own way of designing scenarios, so my advices may be not applicable to you. Nevertheless you may want to compare your methods to mine. And if you are a beginner you will find here a few guidelines what to do and warnings what you should not do. I assume Heroes IV as the base for all examples in this article unless otherwise noted.
2. BEFORE YOU START
The first thing you should ask yourself about before you start making scenarios is: what for, what is your purpose? Do you want to do it just to get a feel how it works, do you want to create a map for yourself or maybe you want to publish your creations? If your maps are not intended for publishing, then just make maps the way you find fun. That's all. But if you want your maps to be shared through the net, it's quite a different matter. Why one wants to publish maps? For money? Forget it, it's a dream, wishful thinking, pure nonsense. For fame? Yes, perhaps. So if you want to distribute your scenarios you want to be recognized, you want to be famous. Or, well maybe you just wantto do it for yourself? The answer is up to you!
It's easy to say - to be famous. It is not easy to do. The things you are going to make should be good enough to be recognized. So you should ask yourself the second question: Are you able to make such a map? To make things easier I will split this question to pieces, and each of them will cover one aspect of mapmaking job:
* Do you have visualization skills and a 3D imagination? Heroes IV maps are 2D, but since they may have 2 layers and the elevation tool is present in the editor you should plan in 3 dimensions. You should be able to convert your vision into (virtual) reality.
* Do you have something like an aesthetic sense with respect to drawing and painting? No, being a painter is not necessary, building an image from preconstructed tiles is much easier than drawing. But you should be able to judge if the design you've made looks cool or awful.
* Do you have storytelling skills? Every Heroes scenario should contain a story. Maybe a very short one, but it should be present.
* Do you know basics of programming and program designing? Unlikely previous versions of HoMM, H4 has a complex scripting system. It is also helpful to treat the flow of the gameplay as a flow of the program, checking and analyzing all possible ways players can act.
* Do you have enough time and enough energy to work all this time? Making a poor map takes a few hours. Making a good one takes from a week (if you are really skilled and the map is one-level and small) up to about a year (if you make a campaign). It's a long time! And remember: if you feel your map is 90% ready you are just in the middle of the process! (Perhaps this is the most important point!)
* Do you want to learn through trial and errors? This is the only way... Articles like this may guide you a bit, but nothing can replace experimenting. A good idea is to view in the editor any map you have just finished playing. You can learn a lot from mistakes and successes of the others! But, again, pure copying of ideas and solutions won't make you a good mapmaker. You should beable to learn from your own mistakes too!
* Are you ready to work alone? I have seen a number of "Let's make a map together" attempts. I have seen NO good map made by more than 1 author. I am even not sure if I've seen any... Of course other mapmakers can help you a bit, but don't believe in making a map in a group. Maybe if you want to make a map together with your brother you have a chance to succeed. But don't try it remotely! You will be unable to keep a consistent version of your work and you are doomed to fail. Strong words, yes. But I'm sure you've noticed them...
* Can you be objective about your work, assessing your map as if it weren't yours? Other people may help you but the final decisions are - and must be- your own.
If your answer for each of the above question is 'yes', congratulations! You have a chance to be a recognized mapmaker. If you answer 'no' to one or more of them, I advise you thinking twice before making any maps for publishing... It may only be wasting of your time. People are not identical, some of them should be carpenters, some of them sportsmen, some of them scientists and some of them mapmakers and such. Trying to do things not fitted well to one's skills leads to unfulfilment and frustration. You have been warned...
Browsing through the net and analyzing Heroes IV maps I've noticed that about 70% of user made scenarios (and about 20% of the ones distributed with the original game) should never be released and are shame for their creators.
Sad but true. Some of them could be improved (they are just published too early) and some of them are total failures. But I've found a number of really good maps and even a few masterpieces too! What is the difference between good and bad ones? Quite intuitive. How to make a good one? Let us follow...
3. GENERAL METHODOLOGY OF MAPMAKING
In this chapter I want to explain a few general guidelines how to proceed from the very idea of the map to the moment when the scenario is ready for betatests. First of all a few basic rules.
* Never force yourself to do anything with your map. Even if you feel like 'I don't want to do it now, but a few hours and it will be ready! I must!'. If you are in such a mood, the things you create won't be very good. Wait until you feel like 'I must work on this map, if I don't I will explode!'; wait for the moment you cannot force yourself not to create!
* Prepare a test map where you can always experiment with new ideas and solutions. Don't do it with the map you want to publish.
* Don't try to make a campaign if you haven't created a few standalone maps before.
* If you know you like it, and you are more experienced try working on a few maps at once. Each of them should be in a different phase of creation. Now if you want to make some scripting, decorate the terrain, shape landmasses, place treasures or monsters, etc., choose the right map. You will progress much faster as long as you keep the maps not influencing each other. And it is really very difficult. The perfect frame for such a methodology is creating a campaign.
3.1. Inventing the map idea
What is the idea in terms of a Heroes of Might and magic scenario? It is something like a general impression: how the map will look like, what the player(s) should do to win and what will be the difference between this map and all the others.
Any of these three aspects could serve as your starting point. You can imagine the overall view of the terrain, cool areas, landscapes that make exploration a pleasure. You can start with the world the map will represent (see below "Setting the story"). You may find a unique way of winning the game and build the whole scenario around it. Or maybe you can start from something totally unusual that is not present on any typical map and use it as the base of yours?
As the example let us take two of my H4 maps. 'Dusk of Technics' is a world-based map. The first idea I had was putting the heroes into a postnuclear world. Another one 'Pirates L.T.D.' has another genesis. I wanted players to feel really like pirates, having no castle but a small base, destroying everything they encounter. Expanding the idea: since normal mines cannot be destroyed and weekly ones can, only weekly mines were allowed.
At all costs avoid making another 'go and kill everything' map. Be sure that such a map will usually be a drop in a sea of others similar to it. Find a way to make it interesting, even a battle map designed for multiplayer can contain a variety of things that make it a good one. Town placement? Meandering rivers? Garrisons? Resource placement? Remember: the better the idea the better the result.
You should also decide what will be the size of your map. If you are not sure, choose M or L. Sizes S and XL should be reserved for special purposes, and handled with care. XL-sized maps tend to be boring while S-sized ones are usually too small to be interesting.
And what about the number of map layers: 1 or 2? And if you plan a 2-layer map, what should they be? Surface and underground? Two distant lands? A two level underground labyrinth or another kind of maze? If you planonly one level, will it be underground or not? If underground: stone or rock? Do you plan to put any water in? If so: lakes, rivers, seas (and archipelagos on them)? How many countries (or regions) do you want to see, and how is this number connected to the number of players (1 player - 1 region, or several players per region, or several regions per player, other)?
3.2. Setting the story
I hate the maps with no story. Most of the players hate them too. Even if the map is just meant for a brutal multiplayer war, you need some kind of introduction what it is all about. And when the war ends the winning player should see a message concluding his victory. Beware of themes like "The old king is dead. His four sons are fighting for the throne" or "Your former friends are not ones any more. With no apparent reasons they started a war against each other and ageist you". I've seen a number of introductions like this and now when I see one I think: 'what an ordinary description, probably the inside is nothing special too'. Don't tell me you have no time/idea for the story - if so, don't make maps, it is pointless (you may disagree...).
You should be careful - the story should match the idea. For example if you want a role-playing like map, the story is crucial and the text messages revealing it should be long and interesting. On the other hand for a battle map noone has enough time to read elaborate messages! A few short messages is enough. They may even introduce a 'story without story' creating a kind of suspense for example: 'You are in black darkness and confusion. You have been captured and carried shouting into a war, and you know nothing about it. You know nothing about the forces that caused it and you are next to nothing. You ought not to be in this war. And you must win this war.' Of course you may want to make a grotesque map where the story does not match the idea, and everything is crazy. But if you do - you must do it really very well! Otherwise you will be known as a poor mapmaker, or rather you will be forgotten.
Another - and complicated - matter is setting the story and basing the map idea on something ready, especially on something well known. For example you can base your story on a book (don't use 'Lord of the Rings', it is much too common!), a movie, or a computer game other than Heroes. It may look simple because the story is ready you are only to make an adaptation. But a few dangers appear. People who know the original work will compare your scenario to it. And if your map is substandard you will receive negative comments and reviews. Hmmm, is infamy better than nothing? I don't think so. Even if your map is really good you should expect comments like: 'It is much too close to the book, I have no chance to modify the plot!', and the same day about the same map: 'It is very far from the book, just a few common points, you should rework it to make it closer to the original'. If the number of 'too close' and 'too far' reviews are equal - the map is perfect. Expect also very strange remarks. My map 'Dusk of Technics' is based on 'Fallout' game series. I was very surprised when I read in a review - 'Terrain is good, but there is too much lava. Fallout terrain was sandy.' Heh.
You may also want to add some thoughts you want to share with players to your story. Remember that players' minds are open for various suggestions that are provided by the game. Your propaganda should be neither too subtle nor too direct. In the first case it will not be noticed. In the second one player can easy detect your intentions and refuse to accept them. Take a look at my 'Emperor's Game'. What is the propaganda? It's quite easy to find: if you want peace prepare for war. (Or - speaking very directly - pacifists are useful guys in the country of your enemy.) Try to embody your own ideas into your scenarios...
3.3. Overall design
Are you ready to turn the editor on? Wait a second. It is a good idea to draw a minimap of your scenario on a piece of paper before you start. Shaping the land is not an easy task within the editor. Drawing this preview you have to decide what gameplay concept you want to use on your map. Here are the possibilities (from the easiest to the hardest to do):
* Uncontrolled chaotic: You put random object at random places. No connections between monsters, shrines, castles etc. Easy but dirty. Don't do it, your map will be substandard if you do.
* Linear: The player will have basically one path to explore such a map. On multiplayer maps there is only one connection point between the opponents. This concept is commonly used, but unless the storyline is very interesting (or forcing this solution) it is not recommended.
* Region-based: The map is divided into several countries with sharp borders (mountains, forests, rivers). Quest gates, garrisons or strong neutral stacks guard the passages between the regions. Each of these countries has often its own terrain type. Inside the region the neutral stacks has more or less the same strength (maybe a few stronger ones guard bigger treasures and crucial locations). There is a danger of falling into linear design if the border troops and quests are not well balanced.
* Open: Players can go and explore freely, but usually the shortest way is the most dangerous one. For example: a difficult quest gate is blocking the first way, a garrison the second, a neutral stack the third, but you may go around all of them using the fourth (and the longest) road. Some strong neutral armies guard treasures, others force player to go around them. If you are not careful designing your map this way you may end with either a linear map (if it is always easy to decide what road to follow) or a uncontrolled chaotic one (if no pattern of exploration can be seen).
* Controlled chaotic: Very difficult. Nothing, yes nothing can suit any other object nearby. Mushrooms must grow on lava, fire must burn on water. Players can never be sure what they encounter if they move a few steps. Of course this design must be based on the story! And believe me - it is really difficult to accomplish. A small mistake and you land in uncontrolled chaotic design. You can see an example of such map by playing or viewing the eight scenario of my Heroes III campaign 'Riders of Apocalypse'.
* Domain-based: Domains are similar to regions, but each of them has its own sub-design. Only L and XL maps are big enough to apply this look on them. Designing a map this way you must balance not only each of the domains (treating them as separate submaps), but you must also arrange the dependencies between them. For experts only.
Allright. Now we are finally ready to start the real mapmaking. Don't be surprised by this amount of planning, an hour of designing saves at least 3 hours of fixing! Turn the editor on, select the size and # of layers of your map, shape the lands, Place the cities. Most of these things will not be changed any more throughout the whole process. But if you feel suddenly they should, don't hesitate to do it. Spend a while setting the map and town properties (more about properties - see chapter 4). Save the map and run it the first time - playing all the available colors. You will see if the map and starting town properties are OK, how the terrain looks like etc. It's a very good moment to catch and fix any terrain-related issues such as too straight lines, proper angles, different terrain connections, elevation, etc.
Done? Well. Now save the map - I mean: put a copy into a safe place. To another directory. To another disk. To a floppy. To a remote system. And do it often. Pardon, but I must say it - shit happens. Files tend to disappear, disks tend to crash. Be prepared. Once upon a time a lightning that stroke a crucial wire deleted 4 copies of my Ph.D. thesis in preparation. I got the fifth one, but I had to repeat 2.5 months of work... Don't forget about assigning version numbers to the copies.
3.4. Implementing the idea
This is by far the most pleasant part of the mapmaking process - putting all the necessary and important things in. Make all major terrain obstacles (mountains, forests...), put in all quests, important mines, dwellings, other crucial locations. If you want to allow players to choose their town type, then when you place the nearby shrines, dwellings, etc, you should probably place shrines of random type and then set the properties so that they come up the same type as the player's starting town.
Remember not to be too predictable: on 90% of maps I've played when I noticed an ore mine or a sawmill I was aware - there is a castle nearby! On the other hand players should have easy access to wood and ore at the beginning of the game (unless the idea is they shouldn't). Try to deal with this problem your own way!
Now the most important thing: work in edit-test cycles. Each time you add something important (especially a quest) test it if it works correctly. Test every path of scripts and every path of terrain as soon as you add them.
Don't add any monsters, artifacts, treasures that are not needed to finish the game. When you are done you should be ready to play all the map (well, a skeleton of one) from the beginning to the end.
3.5 Sugar and spice
The end of fun, the beginning of hard work. If you did everything right up to this point, your map is functional. Now you must make it good looking and interesting. Add new buildings, terrain obstacles, ground tiles such as flowers, mushrooms, structures, animals, dunes, geysers and more. Put the artifacts. Put treasures. And test, test, test! Every and each of these items can block a critical way, unbalance the game or do any other kind of nasty surprises. Try if the look of any of modified regions is better or worse than it was before. It will take a long time. Really, really long. This is the moment the mapmakers often say: "Enough. The map is OK, I will release it.". And that's why so many maps look ugly.
Think of adding some roads. They will speed up the gameplay, they also look nice when made properly. Remember however that when a player finds a road the situation is similar to the one when a sawmill (or an ore pit) is spotted. A castle may be nearby! This is not necessarily bad, but you should just remember it.
At the end add all the monsters that should be present, guarding more or less important locations or wandering aimlessly. Test again. And again. If everything seems OK, think about the balance of your map. Does every player has equal chance to win it? If not: is it intended? If not: how to correct it? Think about player positions that could be taken by human or AI players. The computer usually plays poorly, so perhaps you should aid all the AI players by adding some resources, giving more creatures, flagging dwellings and mines, even converting some neutrals to armies of this very player? You could even make some fine tuning based on the fact if the nearest neighbors of any certain player are human or AI ones.
Equip the towns and heroes you've put in with names. Write short (2-3 sentences) biographies of the heroes. (It is silly when playing a wizard called Merlin one discovers he has the unchanged biography of Fafner.) Some towns and heroes have names from the beginning - the ones that are crucial for the story. But customizing the rest is a sign of quality.
Place your signature inside. It may be a roadsign or an endgame message connecting your (nick)name and e-mail, perhaps the address of your webpage. You want to be recognized don't you? But avoid doing it more then once, well twice! It would look a little silly.
So finally your map is ready for betatests! But before I will reveal a few hints for the beta phase (in chapter 5) let us take a closer look at some of the editor features - what they are and how to use them.
4. EFFECTIVE USAGE OF THE MAP EDITOR
The Heroes IV editor has got really a lot of features. Most of them are not used by an average mapmaker. I strongly advise you to explore the editor, trying (on your test map) every new functionality you encounter. What happens if...? What this option in scripts is for? What properties this location has got etc. This chapter is not a complete manual of the editor. It is only intended to spot the most interesting features.
4.1. General map properties
Values set in the general map properties window affect the whole map (nothing strange). Thus setting them properly is crucial. Some of them are obvious, some of them are not. Let us look:
* Map name, description and difficulty level: Choose a good name for your map. Make it attract potential players. Don't forget about a good description. Outline the story plot and the basics of the idea there. Don't rely on additional text files, your maps will often be distributed without them! Of course good map sites will not do that. But you cannotpredict the way your map will be distributed...
* Choose the difficulty level carefully. Don't choose 'easy' (who wants to play easy maps). Don't choose 'champion' (the risks are: 'yes, another champion map, that has nothing inside', and 'champion - probably unbeatable',both causing your map not being downloaded). Make sure your difficulty is correct, though. Ask your beta-testers if they agree.
* Victory / Loss conditions: Even if you provide a nonstandard way of winning for human and/or computer players be sure to leave 'enable standard victory condition' checked here! You can change it later in scripts, but don't disallow this standard condition for computer players. It would confuse the AI, and it is stupid enough without it.
* Player settings: just note that different players can have different experience limits. Note also the AI importance switch. Setting it to high for a human player will cause the computer attack this player more frequently. Setting it to critical means that the AI players will attack this player barely touching the others. Setting a computer player to a critical level will force AI to play the most defensive way it can.
* Oracles: Many mapmakers use no oracles at all. I don't know why... They add new tasks to the scenario. In Heroes IV you can customize the content of the buried loot and you have 12 kinds of oracles! You can also make things go more rapidly by placing, let us say, ten silver oracles on the map, but set the number of oracles required to reveal the puzzle map to four or six.
* Available heroes / skills / spells / artifacts: Consider customizing all of these! For heroes don't underestimate the power of the schwartz: a player saying 'Wow, I can recruit Gavin Magnus!' is yours. For artifacts block all the artifacts that have any special purpose in the game. You are to decide how to give them to the player, not the random number generator. Also block all the junk artifacts (there is no need for a sextant in a scenario with no water). You may also unblock some or all of the ones that are unavailable by default. For spells and skills: some of them may spoil the fun, break the gameplay or sometimesjust don't fit well the main theme. Do not hesitate to disallow them. Pay attention to necromancy, navigation and stealth.
4.2 Town properties
About 80% of the towns on user made maps are not customized. About 80% of them should be (regardless of setting names). Take a look into each town you have on your map and check if it needs customizing.
* Available and pre-built buildings: A good way to give a human player a handicap is putting him/her to a starting town with no structures, while AI players have lots of then built. Don't forget to test all towns after buildings customization. Commonly disallowing certain structures switches off other ones. If you desperately want for example a castle with no level 3 creature dwellings inside but with level 4 ones, do it through a quest hut put near the castle. Completing the quest (e.g. bringing money and other resources) would trigger an event in town which forces the desired structured to be constructed.
* AI importance: setting some towns to the high status makes the AI players to rush on them. Setting them to critical makes the AI players attack them at all costs and defend them at all costs if they own them.
* Garrison: remember that even if you set a garrison in a neutral town to be empty, it soon will not be empty, especially if there are any dwellings in this town.
* Spells: this option allows you to do two things. First: setting or disabling the spells you find too strong or too weak in starting castles (if you want to do it in all towns use general map properties). Second: you may want a set of castles to cover as many spells as possible (or maybe having the same spells in their guilds). Using this option wisely changes the map a lot in a way that is hardly ever noticed by an average player ('Gosh, Armageddon the third time...').
4.3 Hero properties
First of all: be sure to set the hero properties in the hero window, not in the window of its army! It is a very common mistake (fortunately some of the properties cannot be set this - wrong - way).
* Name, look and biography: if you change the name don't forget to change the biography too!
* Skills and level: Setting them is a good way to make starting heroes and the Big Evil Boss. Note that you can set levels up to 40. If you want to create more powerful hero, you must use events. The maximum value a hero level can reach is 70.
* Spells: if you set starting spells for a hero make sure he/she has appropriate magic skill, otherwise the spell will not be added to the hero's book. Note also that each hero obtains one random first level spell at each schools of magic he/she knows.
* Bonuses: the best use of them is to boost AI heroes.
* Events: use them to enrich the hero. Remember that 'Encountered' event fires at the beginning of the battle, and 'Defeated' when the battle is lost - in any case: including retreating and surrendering.
4.4 Properties of other objects
Lots of other objects (armies, mines, dwellings and many more) may have their properties set. You can use triggered events to manipulate them. If you want one trigger to fire a number of events, use the same name for them. Experiment, what are you able to do! Do you know you can name teleporters?
You can change the owner of certain objects. For mines, castles etc. you can change the owner from any or none to any or none. For armies the only way is from none to flagged.
Resource piles that can be converted to mines (by paying some gold and sometimes other resources too) are very special. The AI players never use them. And human players may use (build and flag!) them with an army without any heroes. Consider taking advantage of this fact in your maps.
Some objects can be removed from the board using bombs. Just make a script with 'remove adventure object', in set the bomb name, and place a bomb with this name over the object you want to blow. Note that objects that can hold troops (castles, mines, garrisons) cannot be bombed.
Don't forget quest huts/gates/posts! Properly used they make every scenario better. Always assign them their names and descriptions. If you forget - the game may crash when the object is right-clicked. This is a very common bug. I've spotted it several times playing the original NWC made scenarios from Heroes CD!
4.5 Script engine
The Heroes IV game has got a built-in script engine. The language of these scripts is linear with the 'if' command to add a touch of control statements. You program scripts by selecting predefined commands and parameters from appropriate subwindows. It is not my intention to teach you how to make good scripts. You can find a few tutorials on the net. And the best way of learning is taking a map and analyzing all the scripts used there. You can try my 'Pirates L.T.D.', it has about 200 scripts, but you should use v1.0 of the editor to open this map. Later versions will not work.
When you write scripts remember two basic rules: Use 'sequence' even if you want to place a single command. If you are to add something later it will be much easier. And at the end of every script you want to be executed only once place 'remove script'. This is very important especially for placed events.
Don't overuse continuous events. They slow down the game and make the map file much bigger. In fact don't overuse the scripts at all. Too many dependant scripts (like in my 'Pirates') may cause the game to be unstable. In fact the Heroes4 environment is unstable, so don't overload the engine. For an average map 30 scripts is more or less enough dependingon map story, its size etc.
Giving artifacts and giving/taking resources to a player (or hero) can be placed in subactions under displaying a message. If they are set this way appropriate pictures will be shown below the message.
Double check all the triggers especially all the placed event triggers. I got stuck in one genuine NWC map because my army marched through a grid with an empty trigger. All nearby triggers were set ok, it was my lack of luck to step on the wrong one.
4.6 Terrain tiles and obstacles
While terrain obstacles often play a very important role in every scenario, it is possible to make one without any single passable terrain tile. But such maps look bald and ugly. Proper use of these tiles and selecting obstacles fitting the main theme of the map (and the themes of particular areas they're placed in) can turn the map into a work of art. Nice look encourages players to explore, while ugly one discourages.
Placing various beautifying objects you must balance between placing similar objects close to each other (looks boring) and placing different objects close to each other (looks inconsistent). This is not an easy tasks and usually takes a lot of time. Don't stop until it is done. Maps with some areas finished and some other bald look peculiar. You probably don't want it. If you want - sorry, ok.
Some terrain obstacles (mostly trees) hide a few terrain grids that are passable. There are a few ways of dealing with it. First: do nothing. Second: you may want to block these grids by rocks. The rocks would not be visible so the look would not change at all. Third: You can make 'solid' forests with a few nearly invisible paths. If you do, check each of them if they are really passable. Fourth: you can hide artifacts and resources behind trees. It is quite a useful way of aiding AI players... and clever players.
5. BETATESTS AND RELEASE
If you have really tested all the possible events and paths on your map during the creation process, betatesting will be easy and pleasant. If not - it's all your fault, I wash my hands! You're going to get a lot of bugreports back! Your beta testers won't be very happy with you either.
The first step of betatests should be playing the map yourself (playing as all the players, even AI ones). Then play the map again but this time switch the AI only players to AI and play only human ones. Then give the map to your betatesters.
Betatesters, huh? Do you have any? You should have a few. No less then 2, no more then 5. At least one of them must be an expert player. At least one of them must not be an expert player. Give them your map, listen to their opinions. Modify your map according to them. Let them play again. In fact the ideal situation is when they are members of your family or your close friends. Remote tests are possible, but the interaction is slower and not as rich unless the testers are very skilled.
Keep testing and improving until you feel ready for the release. Should your map be perfect? No! If you want it perfect you will probably never achieve your goal. Beyond a certain point improving costs you a lot of time and the results are hardly visible. This point is often called 'the good enough point'. If you (and your testers) think it is reached, prepare for the final decision: release the scenario or not. Remember releasing a poor map may spoil your reputation. This is why I've published less than 40% of maps I've made.
Assuming you decide to publish your map there are one more task to do: write a text file describing your map. Name it xxxx.txt where xxxx is the filename of the mapfile (xxxx.h4c). Never use names like readme.txt! They will probably be overwritten on players' machines soon. To increase portability and minimize the chance of overwriting at the same time, the filenames should have up to 8 characters with no blanks and they should be unique. For example: my map 'Dusk of Technics' has the filename 'DuskTech.h4c', and the map 'Emperor's Game' has 'EmpGame.h4c'. Got it? Right. Now pack both the map and the text file into a file named xxxx.zip - and publish it! Put it on your webpage. Send it to Celestial Heavens. Send it to another sites. Write about it at appropriate newsgroups, maillists and forums. Let people know about it. That's all.
Do you understand me? That's all! Don't try to improve your map after it is published! Forget it. Neverever think of v1.1, v2.0 or v3.241c. It is wasting your effort. Your map lives its own life now and publishing next version will only confuse players. The only exception is making expanded versions of the map when an expansion of the game is released. However I really doubt it is reasonable. If you still want to create, start a new map, perhaps using new features included in the expansions. Learn from the mistakes you've committed before, and from players' feedback about your published maps (don't expect too much, players write to creators very rarely). And be prepared that your second map will be worse than the first one, but the third will be better!
6 FINAL REMARKS
Well, have you really read all I had written? Do you want to apply my suggestions? If so, (and if not) you may post me a feedback, my e-mail can be found at the bottom of this article. Now I want to answer a few questions you may want to ask me. Just treat this chapter as a very short FAQ.
Yes, I know I was somewhat brutal. Encouraging you to make Heroes maps was not my intention. I prefer quality over quantity, so I intended to show you how to create a good map and to help you decide whether you should try or not. Of course it is possible to make a good map using another methodology, why not? Just I don't know any other good one.
Do I use these methods? Yes. Most of them. Not all for every map. And I always experiment. Sometimes making and publishing an experimental map is more important for me than making a solid, robust, and 100% error-free one. You should also know which rules must be obeyed and which ones can be broken. But remember breaking the rules is risky. A few of my maps were not published due to too much experimenting. But - as a result - next ones were better.
When (at the end of chapter 2) I was writing about masterpiece maps, I asked myself: is any of my 51 maps a masterpiece? Comparing my maps to other ones I decided that 4 of them are close to be ones. They are: 'Promiseland' (a Heroes1 map, lacking some look); two episodes - 7 and 11 - of my Heroes3 campaign 'Riders of Apocalypse' (episode 7 lacks some dynamics, while episode 11 is a bit too easy); and 'Pirates L.T.D.' (Heroes4 - the map is unstable perhaps because of too many scripts inside). And well, one of my map is a masterpiece: the 12th episode of 'Riders of Apocalypse'. All the 5 mentioned maps are less than 10% of my work. Mapmaking is not an easy task.
Do I know more about mapmaking methodology? Yes. I just pointed out the most important guidelines. So can you ask me more questions about mapmaking? Yes. Sure. Just write. I'll try to answer.
Good luck in mapmaking and anything else.
7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DISCLAIMER
I'd like to thank Dragon Sister for all the valuable comments that helped meto improve this article. But don't blame her for all the headspins, heart attacks, nuclear explosions and all the other natural and unnatural disastersthat may be caused by reading this text. I am the only one responsible for allof these events.
- by Kristo
Kristo's School of Quality Mapmaking
This space used to be empty ("Terra Firma")Step Five: The Other Stuff
The next step is the placement of all the little objects, such as creature generators, Monoliths, and Redwood Observatories, just to name a few. This is where you really start to fill up the map with stuff. The large empty spaces you had earlier are now smaller empty spaces, and you want to condense them even more. Don't overfill the map, but just fill up any place currently so bare that it's ugly. Also in this step is defending everything you place on the map (this ties in with the previous step). My rule of thumb is to defend stuff based on how important it is.
One thing I've noticed in many of the downloaded maps is the tendency to defend locations that are already defended. For example, a Dragon Utopia is already heavily defended with Dragons when you enter it so there's no need to place a huge stack of monsters in front of the entrance. The final part of this step is to place wandering armies to section off each player's starting area, if applicable. However, this is not always possible. If the map is designed in such a way that no one has a definitive piece of real estate, then the goal is to place the monsters so that players will be slowed down by being forced to fight them.
A Castle's beautification program ("Utopia of Greed")Step Six: Finishing Touches
We're almost done; this is the final step in the map design process. In this step you do all the little things to make your map look pretty. Add flowers, rocks, and other natural features that makes the map look more real. This is when you add all the little piles of resources and stuff in and around the players' starting areas. Be sure not to overdo it. Also, take care of all the map description and properties at this time. By now you have a good idea of how the map is supposed to play, so you can set up all that stuff accordingly.
But wait, there's more. You now have to playtest your map. Be sure to use the correct map cheat for your version of the game:
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Restoration of Erathia (nwcgeneraldirection)
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Armageddon's Blade (nwcrevealourselves)
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Shadow of Death (nwcwhatisthematrix).
I've put together a collection of map files as an example of how all this works. An explanatory text file is included. Download it here.
- by Kristo
Kristo's School of Quality Mapmaking
Step Three: Mountains and Trees
This is the biggest, longest, and most boring step in the entire map design process. Now you must place all the mountains and trees that break up the map and make it look real. ALL wide open spaces need to be eliminated at this point. There are few things worse than having a large section of a map with nothing in it. When choosing your objects, you literally want to pick them at random. Under no circumstances should you repeat the same object over and over again. I cannot stress this enough. Monotone forests and mountain ranges look really ugly.
An example of a not-so-boring forest ("Utopia of Greed")You should also be thinking ahead to the placement on mines and such on the map.
For example, the Lumber Mill has trees in it so groves of trees around it look nice. I've found that Sulfur Dunes are the toughest to make look natural; they stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. I usually go with the Abandoned Mine and set it to Sulfur only (bonus: it's inherently guarded).
When your foliage etc. starts to look real, and there aren't any wide open spaces left, you're done. With the addition of the random object tool in the Shadow of Death map editor, this becomes a lot easier. I like to use it to rough in natural features and then tweak it later.
Two mines that look like they're part of their surroundings ("Utopia of Greed")Step Four: Mines and Defenses
At this point it makes sense to add in all the mines to the map. No doubt thereare logical pockets for these to fit in the trees and mountains, but if by chance there aren't, make some. One thing I need to mention: Every town needs unrestricted access to wood and ore. That doesn't mean little piles of it here and there, it means unguarded mines. Your map can be played on impossible, and you cannot survive without these mines. Rare resource and gold mines can be guarded, and I recommend a stepladder approach to defending them. Think about how important each mine will be to the overall success of the player its placed nearest to, and then defend it accordingly. For instance, an Alchemist Lab near a Castle shouldn't be too heavily defended because a Castle doesn't require tons of mercury.
Gold mines, on the other hand, should be adaquately defended at all times, as they are the most important. Another thing to look at when placing the mines is how long it would take a player to reach them. Lumber Mills and Ore Pits need not be more than one turn's movement away from a home town. Rare resource producers can be anywhere though. Part of the challenge of the game is being short on certain resources and having to find and control those mines.
I've put together a collection of map files as an example of how all this works. An explanatory text file is included. Download it here.
- by Kristo
Kristo's School of Quality Mapmaking
I originally wrote this school for use on my Heroes II page, and some very good maps came out of it. Unfortunately, the quality of some Heroes III maps has been lacking in my eyes, so I think it's necessary to adapt it for Heroes III. Please feel free to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you have any questions. All the pictures used here were taken from various maps that I've made.
Utopia of GreedMapmaking, in my opinion, is as much art as it is designing a challenging and fun scenario. Personally, I spend way too much time on the art part and thus my maps take forever to finish. (which would explain why I've only made two maps!) If you look at the maps that came with the game, you'll notice that each of them looks as though the land could actually exist. This is the biggest key to a high quality map, unless you're going for one of those wacky-looking "maps of impossibility", in which case the weirder it looks, the better.
Terra FirmaStep One: Draw the map
The very first step in any map design is drawing the landmass itself. Anything square looks too "man-made" so be sure to make any islands/continents have jagged and irregular edges. Do this even in divisions between two types of terrain. The more random it looks, the better, as it looks more natural. If you're planning on a two level map, do the subterranean section now too. Don't skimp here.I've seen some maps with an excellent looking top half, and then the underground section is a couple of big squares.
Follow the same rules here as you would for the topside. I advocate limiting yourself to the underground terrain type and water for the subterranean half of the map, although it's not absolutely necessary. And, if you have Armageddon's Blade or Shadow of Death you can use the random map generator for this. This is probably the easiest way to create a landmass. Let the computer generate one for you, erase all the objects, and edit the land to your own tastes.
Unfinished Map: Step TwoStep Two: Place towns
After drawing the map, you need to place most of the towns, owned and unowned. It's not necessary to get all of them placed before moving on; just place enough to have a general idea. You'll probably go back and change a few anyway. Try to fit each town to its native terrain, or at least to "user-friendly" terrain.It's usually necessary that all players have an equal opportunity to get started, so placing someone in a harsh terrain would be a great detrement to their survival. Fit the towns to the land, not vice versa. Some town types look better when placed in a small pocket of trees or mountains, but this is purely aesthetics and isn't vital that you do it.
I've put together a collection of map files as an example of how all this works. An explanatory text file is included. Download it here.
- by Jenn
The Map Maker's Checklist
by Jenn
First of all, why are you writing a map? Get this clear in your head and it will help. No use to write it for yourself, by the time you have finished with it, you will be sick of the sight of it. I wrote mine because I felt there weren't enough maps for the average player. Most maps are written for the expert player. I'm not an expert player, and there are a lot of us out there.
What is the category of the map? They fall into 2 general categories: story & strategy. However, any good map contains some of each. A strategy map gets quickly boring if there is no story. For the best example I know of a great combination of both see Time of Testing by Cattleman & The Fiery Phoenix.
Higher level notes on story construction: do you know what your style is going to be? Some approaches are Historical, Humor, Grim Humor, Pathos, Self-discovery, and Irony. Keep the story going. It isn't enough to give a low down at the beginning. You should have some new information for the player at least every two weeks, preferably more often. This doesn't have to be critical information. You will, in most cases, need to impart that within the first week or two. It can be insights as to what heroes are feeling, or their background, or history of how the situation the map is based on came to be. Rumors are always fun, but don't rely on them to impart necessary information. You can not control what the Tavern says each week. (At least not that I know about. If I'm wrong about this please let me know.) The game may be ending when the Tavern decides to display information that would have helped at the beginning. One thing you can put into rumors that is often overlooked is how the town people view what is going on.
Who is your audience? Who are you writing for? Do you want it to be a challenge for the very best players, or do you want it to be one most players will be able to enjoy and finish? I'll bet you never dreamed how much head work was involved in this.
How large does this map really need to be? Too many maps are overly large and waste player's time. Remember most people do have other things they do with their lives. (Well, some do, don't they?)
Decorate, decorate, decorate. Large grass spaces are useless in most cases and boring! Tips on decorating: layer-several layers are often needed to achieve the look you want. Guys, don't be afraid of flowers, they are not gender issues. Even though the Editor separates landscapes into nice neat categories, it doesn't mean you have to do so. Mix those types! Now for the next steps, you will just have to figure out for yourself.
Ok, so now you think your map is finished? NOT! First validate in the editor to make sure you haven't accidentally blocked something, or mismatched your portals. Next export your text and open with a text editor. Check your spelling and grammar. No need to look stupid if you can avoid it. If English is not your primary language, that is another story, but you still need to edit it. However, you must be careful not to insert anything other than spelling changes/grammar corrections. This includes not creating any new carriage returns, otherwise you won't be able to import the corrected version. Now save, as text only file, and re-open map, then import and save map. While you have the text in the editor where you can see it all, check it for consistency and accuracy.
You've only just begun. Now you play the map, and play the map, and play the map, until you can't stand to play it anymore. Go everywhere on the map. Things that don't show up as blocked can still be inaccessible. Play all sides, even those which would normally be AI. Next, cheat. Use the cheat code to display the map and watch closely all the moves each side makes. They may not be behaving as you would predict they would. Don't trust AI, if threatened with defeat it will cheat like mad! It will also do other strange and unpredictable things you never dreamed of, and probably 3DO didn't either.
Another thing you are watching for while you test is balance. If all sides are to be of equal strength, are they really? Does the action hold up at the beginning, mid-game, and end? Some maps have very slow starts, which can lead to boredom and frustration. Some maps have good mid-game, but then, ho hum. This doesn't mean your major battles can't be before the end though. Some times you will want to fight the good fight then get the easy reward. The Faerie Dragon Scenario is a good example of this. The end, if you know the trick is truly easy, while getting there is a b*. Just make sure the story and action doesn't lag. One way to make sure the action doesn't lag at the end is to not draw it out with long travel that accomplishes nothing.
Next, if you can whine, bribe or otherwise get your friends to test the map, do so. Ask them to be honest and be prepared for negative feedback, just in case. Don't lose a friend over it. Now, finally, if you so desire, your map is ready to submit to places like Celestial Heavens, and H3Trio. Well, I know there is more that need to be said, but I'm worn out and simply can't remember anymore at the moment. If you remember all this, you will be exceptional anyway.
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- by Celestial Heavens
The interviews that appear in this section are Celestial Heavens exclusives, or are reprinted here with permission from the original publisher. We wish to thank our special guests for agreeing to speak with us.
We started our YouTube Channel, you can find more interviews here.
2020
Youtube interviews:
Part 1, 2 - Tim Lang about M&M and his upcoming game Aeolwyn's Legacy
Part 1,2 - Michael Wolf - Famous Heroes 3 Level Designer
Carl Toftfelt - Warrior Designer of Heroes like game Song of Contest - featuring not only beautiful pixel art..
2018
Videointerview with Tim Lang by Super Goober
This interview focus on Might and Magic 6, with your fan questions answered in the last part.
Interview with Greg Fulton by XEL II from Tavern of Might and Magic
I have been able to talk to Gregory Fulton, the lead designer of HoMM3. I did so on behalf of a Russian fan community called Tavern of Might and Magic that I am a part of. Conversing with Greg was a great pleasure and an interesting, nostalgic experience. I asked him numerous questions regarding his work at New World Computing, particularly about the lore of the Might and Magic universe.
2017
Creature Quest Q&A - Round 2
All what you wanted to know and dared to ask, and more interesting tidbits from the CQ development. Answering here is Jon Van Canegham, Heather Poon - CQ Art Director & Tracy Iwata CQ VFX Artist.
Creature Quest Q&A - Round 1
Questions to the game, answered by Jon Van Caneghem about future plans and directions. What to expect and what not.
Jon Van Caneghem
The gaming legend who created the Might and Magic series, now working with his new company VC Mobile Entertainment in creating the Creature Quest mobile game. Jon speaks both about his current job and answers a couple of questions about the Might & Magic franchise.
Tracy Iwata
Visual effects designer formerly with New World Computing, now working on Creature Quest with VC Mobile Entertainment.
Bryan Farina
Former NWC writer, designer and producer, now working on Creature Quest with VC Mobile Entertainment.
Rob King
Rob King, music producer responsible for much of the music in the Might & Magic franchise.
2015
Karin Mushegain
Karin Mushegain, mezzo-soprano opera singer, featuring on several Heroes games, including the upcoming Heroes VII.
Heroes VII Q&A 2
A small Q&A with the dev team behind the upcoming Heroes VII game.
2014
Heroes VII Q&A 1
A Q&A with Stephan Winter (Limbic CEO), Xavier Penin (Lead Designer) and Gary Paulini (Producer) about the recently announced Might & Magic: Heroes VII game.
2013
MMX developers
A Q&A with Stephan Winter (Limbic CEO), Julien Pirou (Writer & Designer) and Gary Paulini (Producer) about the upcoming Might & Magic X: Legacy game.
Limbic
A Q&A with the dev team behind the upcoming Might & Magic X: Legacy game.
Blue Byte
A quick Q&A with the dev team behind the Heroes Online.
2012
Ubisoft Dev Team 3
The Dev team answer questions about the Heroes VI expansion "Shades of Darkness".
Julien 'Marzhin' Pirou, Ubisoft
Julien Pirou, known to us fellow fans as "Marzhin", answers questions about how it's been like to work on the game this past year.
Ubisoft Dev Team 2
Znork went to Paris for a fan day, and brought with him questions for the dev team.
Ubisoft Dev Team 1
The Might & Magic community developer, along with the team of game developers, answer 11 confrontational questions from Celestial Heavens. Their response to such harsh criticism is surprisingly forthcoming.
2011
Julien 'Marzhin' Pirou, Ubisoft
The lead level designer of Heroes VI and die-hard M&M fan answers questions from the fans and talks about upcoming game. The interview also includes a bit of personal insight.
2009
Kris Piotrowski, co-founder and creative director of Capybara Games, answer questions about Clash of Heroes.
2006
Jeff Spock and Richard Dansky, Ubisoft
The writers of the new Might and Magic games talk about their inspiration, the references to Sandro and Crag Hack and the limitations of strategy and action games when developing a storyline. The article includes some clarifications about the events that took place in Heroes V and Dark Messiah, and a small scoop about a new project.
Fabrice Cambounet 5
Kalah and Fabrice talk about the reception of Heroes V, the demands of the community, the support and the future games.
Raphael Colantonio, Arkane Studios
The CEO of Arkane Studios, Raphael Colantonio, tells arturchix his inspiration for Dark Messiah, the final stages of the development and the fun things that can happen during a game.
Alastair Halsby and Richard Underhill, Kuju Entertainment
The developers of the multiplayer component of Dark Messiah talk about balance, learning curves, multiplayer modes and additional content.
Fabrice Cambounet 4
Fabrice and Corribus discuss the late stages of the Heroes of Might and Magic V development, and the events that will follow the release of the game.
2005
Fabrice Cambounet 3
At the E3, Fabrice Cambounet took the time to answers questions submitted by Celestial Heavens readers. Admittedly, this was not the ideal setting for a discussion about gameplay, but the article remains an interesting experiment.
Fabrice Cambounet 2
Now that Heroes of Might and Magic V has finally been announced, its producer Fabrice Cambounet is ready to talk again! Read what Fabrice has to say about Nival, the game's system requirements, the towns and creatures, the upcoming beta tests, and more!
Christian Vanover
Christian Vanover, now at Microsoft, discusses the old days at New World Computing, and his work on Heroes of Might and Magic IV.
2004
Tim Lang
Electronic Arts' Tim Lang talks about the death of New World Computing, the problems with Might and Magic IX, his contribution to the M&M Tribute project, and Ubisoft owning the rights to the Heroes franchise.
2003
Fabrice Cambounet I
A short Q&A about Ubisoft's plans for the Heroes/Might and Magic series, and some tidbits about the early development of Heroes V.
Jon Van Caneghem
The gaming legend who created the Might and Magic series. Jon looks back at the release of Heroes of Might and Magic IV, discusses the upcoming Heroes V and lists some of the new features in the works. Sound clips are included.
Maeglin, 3DO Marketing
A discussion about the new situation of New World Computing, the plans for the release of Heroes of Might and Magic V and 3DO's upcoming action game, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Maeglin also explains for the first time the decision to move the New World offices to Solvang, CA.
Gus Smedstad
An interview with the Heroes of Might and Magic IV designer and lead programmer. Gus talks about his move to Tilted Mill last year, the fate of the strategy game genre and the problems the computer player has on the Heroes IV adventure map.
Joe McGuffin
Recently Joe was the Art Director for Heroes of Might and Magic IV, as well as some of the earlier games. We discuss the art design and the inner workings of the creative process in conceptualizing and rendering the art images in the game.
David Botan
The man behind several maps of Heroes of Might and Magic IV. David Botan discusses the mapmaking process at New World Computing.
2002
Chris Jacobson
Rogue speaks with Chris Jacobson of Contraband Entertainment about the Macintosh port of Heroes IV.
Rob King
Rob King was the sound procucer at New World Computing. He discusses the music in Heroes IV and the equipment used for mixing.
2001 and earlier
Gus Smedstad
A technical discussion about programming the AI in Heroes IV with New World Computing's former lead programmer, Gus Smedstad.
Jennifer Bullard
The changes that have been implemented in Heroes IV, as described by New World Computing's Jennifer "Maranthea" Bullard.
April Lee
The first interview to appear on this site. April Lee is a veteran of the art department at New World Computing. She tells us about the creation process involved in the making of a computer game.
- by Charles Watkins
Behind the
Curtain:Epic Heroes
by Charles Watkins
Large and Extra-Large maps lend themselves to scenarios of epic scope, where players have the opportunity to develop several heroes to their full potential. Smaller maps always seem to end just when the heroes are coming into their own, and that’s why I prefer the larger ones. I find that after about 2 months of game time, the lead heroes are maxing out in their starting classes and may have begun to accumulate some side skills. By the 4th month, dual class heroes may have maxed out in both areas -- and that’s about when most larger maps are getting fun.
Today I’d like to put forth my general strategy for developing a cadre of heroes for larger maps in a way I’ve found to be both effective and fun to play. It may not work for you, since it reflects my own style of play, but even so it might give you some ideas for enhancing your own games.
Larger solo games have some distinctive qualities that shape the strategy I’m discussing. In addition to lasting longer, they also tend to give players more elbow room, which leads to more time to develop heroes before hitting the major competition. Rush strategies are seldom productive since a fast win is not a prospect. The amount of territory to be conquered means a single massive army may not be optimal – as the large force moves away, captured territory becomes vulnerable to attack. On many larger maps, the growth of neutrals poses a greater challenge than the computer players. All this means that to do well on larger maps, the player needs to develop a cadre of heroes, rather than just the main one given at the start.
There’s no serious chance that a computer player will be able to score a conventional win on a larger map. They simply lack the persistence to take out all of the competition. What can happen, however, is that the human player falls far enough ‘behind the curve’ that normal creature growth makes the game unwinnable without protracted periods of inactivity to build up to competitive strength. The point is that on larger maps, there is less urgency to engage the enemy and more time to build a force that will consistently overcome the opposition.
How many heroes?
In early stages of the game, I like to use one Main Force and a few scouts. The scouts explore the map and pick up any ‘freebies’ they may come across, but they leave most of the fighting to what I’m calling the Main Force. As the Main Force ventures farther and farther from the home town, it becomes necessary to develop a Second Force to defend the territory already conquered. Given that a town yields 5 types of armies, in each force there is room for at least 2 heroes, and usually 3 since both level one armies aren’t often needed. For this exercise, then, let’s say that 5 or 6 main heroes will be needed.
In addition to these main heroes, there will be several others acting as scouts and castle sitters. Lone heroes make excellent scouts because if they get into a jam, they can bail out with no losses. Naturally, Thieves are the best Scouts because their Stealth gets them past some unobservant guards. However, these scouts are not intended to get into fights, so there’s no need to invest in leveling them up. An exception here is the Fire Diviner or Seer, one of my main heroes who begins her career as the Thief specialist -- and usually ends up as the top hero for scoring purposes. Castle sitters are usually Lords, because of their bonuses to creature growth, but sometimes I use Druids instead to crank out masses of Sprites or Leprechauns.
Optimizing overall development means diversifying. Ideally the cadre should be able to take advantage of any kind of power-up, so all 9 ability classes should be included. If there are only 5 heroes, that means each gets two main classes with only one overlap. If there is a 6th hero, then there can be 3 overlaps. If one of the heroes is an Archmage, who has three magic classes, it adds another 1 to the total. The question is what combinations result in the most effective cadre overall. Side issues are how to balance Might and Magic, which classes to develop first, and the assignment of heroes to the main and secondary forces.
Since most of the heroes will be dual-classed advanced classes, the question is how to combine the classes in a way that provides access to as many game features as possible, while still putting together an effective cadre.
It might be fun to work out your own ‘Dream Team’ before you read further. If you post your solution at the Heroes IV forum we can compare notes. My own choices are given below. . .
There may be other winning combinations, but after hundreds of games, this is what I’ve found works well for me:
Main Force
Illusionist (Order+Tactics)
Cardinal
(Life+Nobility)
Demonologist (Death+Nature)
Second Force
Fire Diviner (Scout+Chaos) or Seer
(Scout+Order)
Assassin (Combat+Death)
Archmage (varies)
As I said, this combination is not so much aimed at optimal effectiveness as at opening up all facets of the game. Here we have an assortment of interesting special classes. Some may take a while to develop, but they also offer more as they come into their own – and on a larger map, there’s time to see that to happen and then to enjoy the result. We also have spellcasters from all 5 schools, plus a Might character – exactly the same division as for the game’s 6 alignments. And we have the foundation of two solid fighting forces, a Main Force to spearhead the attack and a Second Force to keep what’s been won.
Now, some players may prefer more Combat combinations, but I don’t see a great advantage in having Combat as a first or second class. The game relentlessly pushes Combat skills, no matter what the hero’s class, so Combat can become the ideal third class. The skill progression allows a hero to get GM Combat and Magic Resistance without having to take unneeded Combat skills, so it is not hard to build sturdy spellcasters as well as good fighters.
This principle also applies to Charm and Necromancy, which can increase without a large investment in other skills. Thus the cadre includes two Death and two Order heroes. The Demonologist concentrates on the main Death tree, while the Assassin concentrates on Combat while taking Necromancy as it becomes available. The Illusionist starts by concentrating on Charm, while the Seer or future-Archmage stays on the main path to get access to higher level spells as soon as possible. This may seem odd, but Charm is most valuable in the early part of the game and Main Force heroes develop fast enough to still allow the Illusionist to get the good spells fairly soon.
Why no Combat types in the Main Force? Partly because they are not as much
fun to play as Magic heroes and partly because the Main Force will include 3 or
4 creatures in primarily combat roles. Also there is more upside to a Magic
Hero. A hero with GM Melee or GM Archery is not going to be dealing 1000s of hit
points in damage, and that’s what’s required toward the end of a larger game.
For example, who has a better chance of killing a stack of Megadragons—a Might
hero with the Sword of the Gods or a Necromancer with a Hand of Death spell? Of
course if you really enjoy playing Might heroes, by all means include them. But
consider using them as replacements for the monsters on the force rather than
the other heroes. And be aware that the Combat heroes are going to top out
sooner than the others and that experience they gain after that is essentially
wasted. Such is the nature of the larger map.
My Main Force usually
starts with a Priest or Mage. In the initial weeks devoted to scouting, it
really doesn’t matter what type of hero is used. Their main job is to absorb
blows that might kill low level creatures and to take advantage of the free
retreats. They aren’t going to pick up chests for experience, but they will take
free EPs. After a week or so there will be enough creatures in town to start the
Main Force proper and by this time the Tavern will have spawned another
hero.
The sequence of development varies according to the starting town and hero. Here’s a summary (which will make more sense when we look at them individually).
| Priest | Main sequence |
| Knight | Add Order to become Illusionist |
| Mage | Main sequence |
| Lord | Add Life to become Cardinal |
| Sorcerer | Add Order and Nature to become Archmage |
| Thief | Main sequence |
| Necromancer | Add Nature to become Demonologist |
| Dark Knight | Add Order to become Illusionist |
| Druid | Add Death to become Demonologist |
| Archer | Add Death to become Assassin |
| Barbarian | Add Death to become Assassin |
The example heroes shown here are from an Expert game of Water Wyrd, played solo. It is the start of Month 5 and the Main Force is about to get its ass kicked in the underworld.
Illusionist
The Illusionist aims to advance rapidly in Order, while adding Tactics somewhere along the way. I find Order Magic to be so useful that I always want it and my starting Mage usually stays with the Main Force throughout the game. All the level 1 spells are great to have, especially the shooter’s best friend, Precision. And high-end Order Magic includes some of the best spells in the game, including Hypnotism, which is plain not fair.
Tactics makes a good complement to Order. Since the hero wants to take advantage of both Might and Magic leveling opportunities, it makes sense to combine Order with a Might class. An Order hero will cast spells throughout combat, so it also makes sense to combine Order with a class that has good passive skills. With the Might class you can get Combat for the Hit Points and Magic Resistance, which can be useful, but Melee and Archery are basically wasted on a spell caster. Instead of going the Warlord route, which again gives a wasted melee bonus, I prefer to add a few levels of Combat and Magic Resistance as the opportunities come along.
Nobility is another candidate, offering four passive skills, but the Wizard King’s bad luck power is again wasted on a hero that serves mainly as a spell caster. And with Order comes Charm, so Diplomacy may prove redundant. Tactics provides four useful passive skills that boost the whole force and the resulting Illusionist class benefits from a +20% bonus on Illusion spells.
Minasli is a level 14 Illusionist who has picked up a couple of nice items. With Expert Order, she is already a major contributor to the cause. She will probably hand off the sword to the Assassin and continue to concentrate on Order. The Sextant will come in handy when the Main Force goes to sea.
Cardinal
Life Magic provides a lot of options for combat tacticians. Even if Priests do not deal damage in combat, they can effectively neutralize an equivalent part of the opponent’s force. The main drawback is that the middle spell levels are filled with various cures and wards before you get to the big two—Guardian Angel and Sanctuary—at level 5.
The passive Resurrection skill supports a low-loss strategy that enables the Main force to stay in the field for protracted periods. As with the Illusionist, I looked for a Might class to combine with Life, and that brought me to the Cardinal’s +5% Resurrection bonus. (With the Ankh of Life and St. Ranan’s Staff, a GM Resurrection is raising something like 70% of losses, and once the hero progresses to Cardinal the Resurrection percentage goes up another 5%.) Consider that the Main force may be in 100 battles during the course of the game and even at 5% you can see how the savings add up. Toward the end there will be some battles where losses are inevitable and it is great consolation to get the majority of them back.
The other Life/Might combos—Prophet, Paladin, and Crusader—confer powers that only affect the hero and only help in physical combat. (Now if a Crusader hero would get the double attack that Crusader armies do, this would be another story.) Also like with the Illusionist, I like to add a few levels of Combat to toughen up the hero, so I don’t always choose Nobility over Combat when Might levels are awarded. Of the Nobility side-skills, I’ve found Diplomacy to be far more useful than Mining or Estates. With the Illusionist’s Charm and the Cardinal’s Diplomacy I get a lot of enemies coming over to my side. Often I manage to come out of encounters with a better force than I went in with.
Demonologist
The Demonologist may not be the most powerful advanced class, but it is the only one to offer special spells, so I like to include one when I can. This hero can start as either a Druid or Necromancer, concentrating on main line skills needed to advance simultaneously in Nature and Demonology. It takes some time to fully develop the Demonologist, but the result makes it all worthwhile. The Nature side can provide Pathfinding, Quicksand, and Wasp Swarm at low levels, and the Death side can provide Poison, Mire, and Fatigue – to name a few favorites. The point is that Demonologists can carry their weight in battle, even without higher level spells. Later in the game, Demonologists truly come into their own. It’s quite a jump from Summon Cerberus to Summon Ice Demon. Summon Demon has its uses, but has to be weighed against other level 5 Nature and Death spells.
The Demonologist is an exception to the Might/Magic plan with all the discretionary levels being split between two classes on the Magic side. This means that any Might levels available can go into Combat, which toughens up the character for front line duty. To push ahead in Nature and Demonology, the hero must forego Summoning and Necromancy at first. However, other heroes can make up for this – Assassins and Archmages can concentrate their Death skills in Necromancy, while Druid castle sitters can do the Summoning. (To boost Summoning, it’s better to hire another Druid than to add a level at the cost of 2000 gold.)
Lamentia is a Level 22 Demonologist and able to cast Summon Ice Demon. She has some Combat and her 435 hit points allow her to fight from the front row, which helps get her Ice Demons into the fray. However, she’s been ignoring Necromancy and Summoning in order to progress in the main sequences for Death and Nature.
Fire Diviner/Seer
For most of the game the Fire Diviner or Seer is simply a Thief, picking up Chaos or Order skills along the way when given the opportunity. In many games, these heroes will change class several times, taking whatever levels become available. By cultivating a Thief early in the game, even when playing Life or Order, I get a premier Scout who can evade guards while piling up experience. GM Stealth is like highway robbery.
This means I recruit a Thief as soon as possible and invest every possible resource in leveling her up. (I say ‘her’ because I’ve become quite attached to Erica Fade. I say ‘invest’ because she repays me many times over with resources, mines, and artifacts.) In the early weeks, she travels with the Main Force, occasionally striking out on scouting missions. This lets her ‘double dip’ by getting experience points first by Stealth and then by combat against the same monster. When she gets up to Expert Stealth, she goes out on her own to explore, loot, and rack up more experience.
I like Chaos to go with Scouting because sometimes this hero comes across a lightly defended town and some offensive capability will allow her to capture it by herself. Many maps have armies of high-level guards positioned outside neutral towns. Using Stealth, this hero can beat the wimpy (uncustomized) garrison army without disturbing the gate guards, who can then be used to ward off the competition. Archery can also provide some offensive pop, but not as much at lower levels as the Chaos direct damage spells. And since discretionary Might levels are going into Scouting, Magic levels can go to Chaos. By becoming a Fire Diviner, the hero gains a +20% bonus on fire spells. Combat levels might just as well go into advancing the Combat and Magic Resistance skills.
Alternatively, combining Scouting with Order makes the hero a Seer, which gives a +2 bonus to the scouting radius. Order magic provides some direct damage spells (Magic Fist and Ice Bolt) on a par with Chaos at the lower levels, but can’t match the higher level Chaos spells for dealing damage. Over time the Seer can develop Expert Order magic, which allows the hero to learn Town Gate, another useful spell for a scout. Whether to go Fire Diviner or Seer may depend on what magic skills the Archmage takes. So far, none of the heroes has taken Chaos, so the question becomes whether to have the Archmage develop Chaos or whether to make the Thief into a Fire Diviner. A second Order Magic caster is also a welcome addition later in the game, but that also applies in the other parts, so it may be best to have the Archmage develop it too. More on that hero later.
I also like to get my Thief a level of Life so she can learn Summon Boat. This increases movement options and helps avoid backtracking. But I don’t take a second level until the hero is established as a Fire Diviner or Seer so at future levels, she will be offered advancement in Chaos or Order skills instead of Life. The same goes for Nature. One level may be useful for learning the Pathfinding spell, which takes care of movement penalties until the Thief reaches Expert in the Pathfinding skill. (It strikes me that the Pathfinding spell is one of the great bargains in the game – a level 1 spell that duplicates a level 3 skill!) However, a second level of Nature may leave the Thief with the Summoning skill. It’s damned inconvenient to start each turn with a few Sprites or Leprechauns along, risking revealing the hero’s position to nearby opponents.
Eventually, the Thief will have explored the whole map and can rejoin either the Main or Second Force. Usually this will be the Second Force unless the Main Force is greatly in need of a movement booster. This is where developing Chaos or Order magic pays off. At very least, the Thief will be casting Confusion or Forgetfulness to negate an opponent. More realistically, the evolved Thief will come back maxed in Scouting and pretty far along in Combat with an unpredictable assortment of side-classes, some surprisingly well developed and some little more than place takers.
Kharrd the Fire Diviner has just wrapped up his career as a Scout and is ready to join the fray, most likely as the leader of the Second Force. His travels have raised him up to level 29 with practically no fighting since he split off from the Main Force early in the game. He’s maxed out in Scouting and is working on Combat and Chaos. He studied Life Magic so he could cast Summon Boat and somewhere along the line picked up some levels in Death. He was careful not to take Nature.
Assassin
The Assassin is the most nimble of fighters, thanks to the +3 speed and +3 movement bonuses. Combat and Death fit well together, not just as a Might/Magic combination, but also because Combat compensates for the lack of good direct damage Death spells at lower levels and Death offers the hero battle options at times when direct Combat might meet retaliation. With slower opponents, the hero can start a battle with a Death spell and then go to Melee.
Because Combat is the preferred class, this hero can rapidly develop all four skills and use Melee or Ranged attacks as tactics dictate. I tend use this hero on the front line, and there are a lot of nice Melee artifacts, so this hero may lead the charge. And because this hero tends to use most combat turns for Melee or Ranged attacks, she is not in such a hurry to get the higher-level Death spells. Instead, she can concentrate her Death levels in Necromancy and get to the Master and Grandmaster levels fairly quickly, bypassing Occultism and Demonology. Not only does this hero slaughter the enemy, she also raises them back to join her side!
Early in the game, the Assassin leads the Second Force on local missions such as policing the territory, eliminating enemy scouts, opening caravan routes, clearing ‘month of’ monsters, and cleaning out respawned creature banks. There won’t be a lot of experience points to be had in such assignments, but since there will only be 2 heroes in the force at that point, the Assassin should advance fairly quickly with minimal risk. By the time this hero gets going, some leveling locations will have already been located and cleared by the Main Force, and this helps too. Once the Assassin tops out in Combat, I have her start on Tactics.
At some point the Assassin may bid for a spot on the first team, either by displacing a third level melee fighter or by replacing the Demonologist. But the Second Force is more about attacking than exploring, and the Assassin will want a second roster spot for raised undead, so this hero spends most of the time with the second string.
Archilus became a level 20 Assassin after starting off as a Necromancer. He was recruited out of an Academy and it was easier to get some Combat levels for a Necromancer than to find Necromancy for an Archer or Barbarian. He is taking his chances by developing Melee and Archery instead of Magic Resistance, but he got some nice Archery gear and decided to make the most of it. Somewhere along the way, he picked up a few levels of Tactics and Nature.
Archmage
This is a general-purpose, all-around spellcaster with specialties chosen to mesh with the others in the Second Force – the Assassin and eventually the Fire Diviner or Seer. The Archmage is well suited for the Second Force, which generally does light duty protecting the captured territory. Since the other members of the Second Force are light on magic, it is up to the Archmage to provide the various boosters and enablers that the party needs.
This hero often gets a jumpstart by making a round of all the captured sites that offer magic skills and by visiting the Magic Guilds in captured towns. With a late start, there should be plenty of gold to pay the tuition. For an Academy, this starts with a visit to the University. At a Haven, it means a visit to the Seminary. By taking inventory of available leveling opportunities, I can figure out the best starting class for the Archmage.
Because Archmages need to progress in three schools of Magic, they may not get high level spells in any of them until late in the game, so the schools should be chosen based on their lower level spells. Order magic is almost essential, since at level 3 it lets the Archmage learn Town Gate, which is invaluable for a defending army that needs to get back to town in a hurry. Order also gets Forgetfulness and Teleport at level 3, and that’s another reason to get there as soon as possible. Most of the time, a hero can get to Expert Order with only 6 levels – a budding Archmage starting as a Mage with two levels of Order could get there in 4.
This leaves Life, Death, Nature, and Chaos for the other 2 classes. If the fighter is an Assassin, then Death will be covered. But if the Thief follows the path of Order and becomes a Seer, then the Archmage may want to go with Death in addition to Order. I don’t mind having two Order casters in the party, since one can concentrate on Charm and the other on the main skill progression. The Order/Death combination makes the hero a Shadow Mage, one of the best advanced classes with a +50% bonus to Ranged defense.
Order/Chaos is another good combination, making the hero a Wizard who gets 2 points off the cost of spells. While starting out, this savings allows the hero to get off a lot of spells before recharging. Also, Chaos provides some direct damage spells that complement the Magic Missile and Ice Bolt from Order.
Order/Nature makes the hero a Summoner, but the +20 EPs of summoned creature is one of the weaker advanced powers. The main reason to go with Nature is to get the useful Pathfinding, Quicksand, and Wasp Swarm spells. At level 3 the elemental summoning spells become available.
Finally, Order/Life makes the hero a Monk, whose Chaos Ward will be helpful in fighting against that alignment. Life has some very good spells at level 1 – Bind Wound, Bless, Exorcism, Spiritual Armor, Holy Word, and Summon Boat – with Heal, Martyr, and Song of Peace coming at level 2. These may be the only healing spells available to the Second Force, so Life is usually a priority. However, it is relative easy to get one level of Life and thereby access to the level 1 spells. Song of Peace may not be so attractive when the Archmage with Nature can cast Wasp Swarm instead.
If the circumstances are right, I prefer to start my Archmage with Life and Order, adding Death, Chaos, or Nature as the opportunities arise. If I’m stating with a Sorceror, then I add Order and Nature. Once established as a Monk or Wizard, I try to pick up that one level of Life. Developing 4 magic classes is within the realm of possibility, but I don’t take all 5 types of magic, since I want to save a slot for a few levels of Combat.
Maureen is an Archmage, having started as a Monk (Life+Order) and added Chaos as a third specialty. She has a large repertoire of spells and enough Combat to stand on the front row of the Second Force, shielding a low-level shooter that was no longer needed in the Main Force. Her most important spell is Town Gate, which allows the Second Force to secure the area that has already been captured by gating to towns threatened by interlopers.
Epic Adventuring
Of course game conditions may make all this planning irrelevant, but for typical larger maps, it works pretty well:
- Starting with Life or Order, I am able to deploy a Priest and Mage from the very start. The main priority from this start is capturing a town or Tavern that will let me recruit a Thief.
- From Death or Nature, I can start the Demonologist and either a Priest or Mage. These have access to Chaos heroes, so getting the Thief is no problem.
- From Chaos I can’t get the Priest or Mage right away, so again finding a Tavern becomes a priority.
- With Might, I start with a Thief and Barbarian and hope I can find a way to learn some Magic. I want to see a way to get two levels right away so the advanced class bonus will kick in and so that the hero will be offered Magic skills when leveling up.
In the long run, it really doesn’t matter much which heroes are started first, since it is rather easy to help backward Second Force heroes catch up by rotating them into the Main Force for a few battles. (I’ve even been known to have the more advanced heroes launch suicide attacks so as to channel all the EPs to ones needing to catch up. Or just letting low level heroes take the Main Force out for a short campaign while the big boys go back to town for upgrades.)
Wouldn’t it be better to concentrate on just one or two main heroes? I think the answer is ‘yes’ in the short run, but ‘no’ in the long run. This is where larger maps and smaller maps differ. Smaller maps are often finished before a hero reaches Grandmaster in one class, much less two. I know some players who have never even seen a GM Demonologist. But on larger maps, heroes start to max out in one class toward the end of the second month and in a second class somewhere in the fourth. After that, additional levels are less valuable, so little is lost in stretching out development a bit. Bear in mind that lower levels require fewer EPs than higher levels. Also note that this strategy is set up with little duplication among members of each force, so that heroes are not usually competing for levels.
With a cadre of heroes to choose from, it becomes possible to assemble Special Forces designed for particular battles. There may be times when a fourth hero is preferable to a fourth army of monsters. Or times when you want multiple Order Magic heroes to thwart enemy shooters. Or a hundred other tactical deployments that would not be available with a set lineup.
And that is the point of the cadre approach. I cannot say that it will be the most successful deployment any more than I can say my own style of play is best for everyone. But I can say that it works well enough for me. What I like is that it gives me access to all facets of the game while affording me an enjoyable variety of hero play – and isn’t that why we play this game?
Do you have your own system? Want to talk about this some more? See you in the forum.
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