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| Thread: End the slave-like devotion to town symmetry! | |
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted December 06, 2003 09:25 PM |
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End the slave-like devotion to town symmetry!
One thing that always seems to be taken for granted when discussing what the towns should be in HOMMV is that balance means equal numbers of equally powerful creatures in every town. You know "Every town gets 2 level 1s, 2 level 2s, 2 level 3s and 2 level 4s" or variations on that theme. The problem is that leads to a very cookie cutter feel to the different towns with what are quite honestly very minor differences between army types. Everybody has a few hand to hand, a few flyers, a few shooters and a couple special ability spell casters. Whee. This also leads to complaints when favorite creature types get left out because all the slots are filled in the town it should be in. Finally, sometimes there just isn't a creature that would fit in the slot, so they have to make something up that just looks shoehorned in -- how else do you explain the dragon golem or the venom spawn?
I propose dropping the "every town has x number of creatures to choose from" philosophy and build towns based on a theme or style and then worry about balance. If a creature feels like it should be in a town, why leave it out? If there are only a few creatures that fit in a town, why make up crappy ones to fill it up?
What if one town had a whole bunch of low level (say 5 level 1s and 3 level 2s) but nothing in the mid levels and a couple of ultra powerful creatures (Maybe one level 6 and a level 7) while another town had almost exclusively mid level troops (1 level 1, 3 level 3s, 2 level 4s and 2 level 5s). The first would have to play with massive chittering horde tactics while the second would have to be more calculating and deliberate.
Why do all the towns have to have their allotment of melee, missle, flyers and casters? Why not make a might town that doesn't bother with any of this shooting crap and is made up entirely of melee and flyers, but make them REALLY good at hand to hand to make up for that?
When it comes down to it, why do all the towns actually HAVE to be equal? Why not make, say 4 or 5 marquee towns. These would have the full complement of troops and be carefully balanced against one another (although not by making sure they all had the same number of creature types). There would also be a much larger number of more minor towns that produce income and can be built up but don't have enough troop types to be one of the big players. Maybe a dwarf town that can build dwarf warriors, a couple of siege weapons and have forges where your heros can buy weapons and armor. Or a bandit town which has, of course, bandits, but also lets you get thieves' guild like information as well as has a blackmarket which lets you trade resources at cheaper prices than your marketplaces do. Conquering a few minor towns to complement your major towns weaknesses would become an integral part of the strategy.
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Lews_Therin
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted December 06, 2003 10:44 PM |
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Hello Bort,
I think Heroes 2 was relatively close to what you suggest. More diversity and uniqueness of towns would be great, but the more you implement of that, the harder it becomes to make the game more balanced. And the more unbalanced the game is, the less diversity and uniqueness youīll get in consequence, if you intend to play against other humans.
Even in Heroes 3, with all its towns very similarly structured and relatively balanced, the last time I played it was difficult to get a random map random town game going in TOH. The unbalanced Necropolis and Conflux were banned, and as Rampart was considered the third best by most, everyone was playing Rampart versus Rampart. With the unbalancing Kyrre and Ryland banned, by the way. Boring like hell, as you can certainly imagine.
Thatīs why I think that to give the game as much variety as possible, players must feel encouraged to play random town rather than choose town - which is hard to be achieved without making towns very similar.
Thereīs nothing Iīd love more in Heroes than the kind of balance of for example three Pawns versus a Knight, or Rook + Bishop + Pawn versus Queen in chess.
But in chess, if you would change (for example enlargen) the board, piece value would change dramatically. And in Heroes of Might and Magic, you play hundreds of different maps ...
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Draco
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted December 06, 2003 11:11 PM |
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i dont like the idea of having 5 level 1 creatures..
but i do like the idea of some towns having terrible low level units (peasants in h2) and compensating for great high level creatures.
or mid concentration (conflux?) where they concentrate on middle powers
maybe a castle with strong level 1 creatures and weaker level 7's.
the trick is creature growth management.
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted December 07, 2003 07:10 PM |
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Lews,
You are absolutely correct with regard to balance issues. It is difficult to balance when there is not exact symmetry. Chess is, of course, as perfectly balanced as you get (although there still are issues about who has to go first, if you want to get technical) and is infinitely replayable because of this.
However, as soon as you've decided that the towns aren't going to be exactly the same, you have these issues. I'd argue that if you're going to make the towns different, you should make them REALLY different. Not just the same town with different artwork. I would put up Starcraft and Warhammer (table-top) as proof that you do not need symmetry to have balance. Although everybody has their favorite races in each of those, you can't assume you're going to win if you have, say, zerg while the opponent has protoss or that just because you're playing high elves and he's playing orcs, you're going to win. When you have dice rolling like in Warhammer or HOMM, these imbalances are so small that they dissappear under the randomized imbalances that come from lucky dice rolls.
There wouldn't honestly be a town that has "5 level 4s" because there wouldn't be such a thing as levels anymore. You have a town with a theme, you think of creatures that should be in it, think of how powerful you'd imagine they'd be and then price them accordingly. If a town doesn't have any fodder creatures or doesn't have any super powerful creatures, than so be it.
For instance, let's say you want to make a goblinoid town, you'd put in :
Kobolds (very weak)
Goblins (weak)
Goblins riding wolves(average)
Orcs(average)
Ogres(strong)
Trolls(strong)
Giants(very strong)
Trolls riding mammoths(very strong)
Orcs riding wyverns (very strong)
Now, there's not really a superpowered creature in there, but thematically, it works and the way you'd play them is by trying to overwhelm your opponent with numbers and trying to take over as much of the map as possible while your opponent is still trying to scrape enough money together to hire a mercenary angel.
Your standard medieval town would look like this:
Pikemen(average)
Swordsmen(average)
Archers(average)
Ballista or Catapult (average)
Light cavalry (average)
Heavy cavalry (very strong)
Monks (very strong)
Angel (super strong)
Since each individual unit from this would have lots of weaknesses, you'd have to carefully balance your troops, using your infantry to protect your missle units and your light cavalry to harass the enemy shooters and maybe tie up his big boys while you try to set up a knockout punch with your heavy cavalry and angels.
Another town might be very quick but not very strong so their style would be to avoid direct head to head confrontations and wear down the opponent by harassing him with lightning strikes where he is weakest.
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Lews_Therin
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted December 08, 2003 03:34 PM |
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Hello Bort,
I never played Starcraft, but regarding Warhammer Tabletop, which I played once many years ago (quite pathetically by the way, running with my wooden Elves straight and aggressively towards the opponentīs dwarven army - *urg*), I think the economical aspect of the Heroes games makes quite a difference.
In Warhammer you get a number of points that you "buy" your army with, and if these points are well-adjusted, thereīs no reason not to get a good battle.
To have that kind of balance in Heroes, it would require the weekīs production of the goblinoid town to be exactly as strong as a weekīs production of the mediaval one. If they would succeed in balancing level-free armies like that; I agree that this would make the game more interesting to play. I think Heroes 2 practically was level-free (who would consider Crusaders and Black Dragons to be of the same level?), but failed in this regard. But reason for the failure IMO is not the concept, but the well structure, which added to growth instead of multiplying.
So yes, a Heroes 5 game without levels would be desirable and possible.
Quote:
Now, there's not really a superpowered creature in there, but thematically, it works and the way you'd play them is by trying to overwhelm your opponent with numbers and trying to take over as much of the map as possible while your opponent is still trying to scrape enough money together to hire a mercenary angel.
But this is the thing that IMO would not work very well with Heroes. Time (until players meet) and resources would decide which side gets the advantage, and these factors are different on every new map.
Itīs the typical Rampart versus Castle game on a Heroes 3 random map. If resources are scarce and players meet early, Rampartīs Centaurs, Grand Elves and Unicorns (which quite often have no counterpart, as Castle likes to skip the cavalry in order to get Angels/Archangels more quickly), dominate easily. Once Castle has got its Angels, and started roaming the landīs Griffin Cons, itīs very hard to stay in the game with Rampart. And when Castle suceeds in upgrading his extra-large number of Angels, itīs over.
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Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
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posted December 08, 2003 04:31 PM |
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That is a very interesting idea!
How completely interesting.Implementing a dice rolling system into Heroes games.That is something I would be very interested in exploring.The only dice rolling system I have ever seen was in the Baldur's Gate series.It was an excellent concept for the D&D paper fan implemented under a disappointly restrictive infinity engine.Otherwise the randomized calculated result system of Diablo and WarCraft was an invisible equation that was only affected by a specific range of variance.The player could only have a hand in altering the range but not the equation.With technology today I have great confidence that some very enthusiastic programmers could come up with an excellent dice rolling system for the heroes games.Wow to think of such possibilities is invigorating!I can see it now!Spells must be learned with a chance of failure based on intelligence through heroe invested interest in any of a variety of specialized schooling.Spells' effects and damage would have a range based on interest in all schools or specializing to receive a greater effect.Melee damage based on a random calculation like that of the famous blizzard games Diablo and WarCraft.And might I add to the debate the possibility of implementing a feat system like that may be found in the currently released Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition.How happy would it make a Heroes fan if he/she were allowed to customize a Heroe in that fashion?Omg I think this is all too wonderful to imagine.All of that and still remaining loyal to the heroes genre of turn-based strategy gaming!Bah, such is a dream that one could only hope for.I can't help but have a wish-list of the perfect Heroes game.I've seen the released concept art for Heroes5 and now I wonder how the gameplay might present.
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Roses Are Red And So Am I
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Draco
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted December 08, 2003 07:46 PM |
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i dont understand what your saying, but it would make heroes very complecated i think.. i want battles to be simple, the rest can be complecated.
less spells would be nice too
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted December 08, 2003 07:53 PM |
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Damage is a pseudo-random number (analagous to a dice roll) and week of/month of is also random. That's all I meant when I referred to a dice rolling system.
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Gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted December 09, 2003 12:53 AM |
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sounds nice. in homm2&3 there were those creature dwelling prerequisite systems that might imho serve a similar purpose sometimes. the creature growth depended on level, but there were also horde buildings for some creatures.
the homm2 well isn't something inbalancing in the sense that it changes production the way mentioned. it was a cheap building that everyone wnated to build. so the balancing could be done while taking the well effect into account. i guess the +2 to all creature growth was because they wanted to shift the balance more towards higher level units maybe.
i like the castle upgrade associated with creature growth a bit more. imho it would make sense if building the castle would shift the creature growth towards higher levels, though. so balancing would be a problem in that case.
if elves and dwarves would be in same town, it would also make sense to put them on same level and have creature choice there. also, you could e.g. do the same with some creatures like spiders and faerys (spiders would otherwise eat the faeries, i guess), or some serpent based creature and manticore (manticore would eat the serpent). maybe it would be best if creature chouces were given only where necessary.
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what is the safest way to pass your time? heroes community -- your posts won't affect almost anything
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RedSoxFan3
Admirable
Legendary Hero
Fan of Red Sox
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posted December 09, 2003 08:04 AM |
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Example 1:
Child: Hey Dad! What's that?
Father: It's a guy with a laser gun.
Child: Does that guy have a laser gun, too?
Father: Yes, he does.
Child: Who's gonna win?
Father: The one who gets off the lucky shot first.
Example 2:
Child: What's that?
Father: It's about 10 guys with battle axes charging wildly at the guy with the laser gun.
Child: Who's gonna win?
Father: I don't know.
Child: Why?
Father: I don't know if the guy with the laser gun can stay away from the guys with the axes long enough to shoot all of them.
As you can see example 2 is much more interesting. And using chess as a comparison, asymmetrical games are far more interesting and usually do not lead to draws, but rather the better player will win.
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Go Red Sox!
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Gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted December 09, 2003 08:41 AM |
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RedSoxFan3:
let me guess.. it's you and your kid while cheating in aoe.
cheater! and also teaching your kid to cheat by example!
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there are also some special abilities like necromancy and pit lord ability that depend heavily on the map. and often the value of a creature is greater if you can get it soon (e.g. behemoths). to do this kind of balancing, i guess there should be some map standard of creatures, resources and probably number of towns to conquer.
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted December 09, 2003 08:32 PM |
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The main issue I would see between town types that have lots of weak creatures vs. those that have mid-high level creatures is that, while an equal resource value of the two might be evenly balanced if they face eachother head to head(Don't know the numbers exactly, but lets say 1000 goblins vs. 10 angels), if you take 1000 goblins and send them out to capture mines, you expect to lose a bunch of goblins (although you'll capture the mines) whereas if you send out 10 anges to capture mines, you expect to have 10 angels as well as all the mines when you finish, so when your goblin army actually meets the enemy angels, it'll be more like 500 goblins vs. 10 angels and it will be a bloodbath.
The easiest way to deal with this is to have army maintenance costs, say 1/10th of the hiring cost per day. That would reduce the large map advantage of the armies with super units.
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Gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted December 09, 2003 11:14 PM |
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Quote:
The easiest way to deal with this is to have army maintenance costs, say 1/10th of the hiring cost per day. That would reduce the large map advantage of the armies with super units.
and it would also elliminate 1000 archangel armies as an additional benefit.
it would also make you save money for a large-scale conquest, and would make you consider the towns you own from the point of view of how large army they can support. i start to feel that the fashionable statement 'bring a new dimension to the game' might be appropriate to use here. maintenance costs would bring a lot more tension to the game, maybe it is good, maybe it would be overdoing the strategy part. the money saving might cause strategies like some population pumping strategies in civ, maybe. at least one of the goals that homm4 was aiming for (at least in adverizing context) was battle for strategical positions which could imho be translated into owning and defending strategically positioned towns, which might not necessarily be a bad idea.
sorry for getting a little off-topic, just couldn't help myself.
if it is possible to consider implementing army upkeep, your solution for balancing might be good and feel natural imho.
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edit:
it might also be a good idea to give multiple upgrade choices for some creatures. just another possibility that i havn't seen mentioned yet
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what is the safest way to pass your time? heroes community -- your posts won't affect almost anything
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RedSoxFan3
Admirable
Legendary Hero
Fan of Red Sox
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posted December 11, 2003 07:33 AM |
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Quote:
edit:
it might also be a good idea to give multiple upgrade choices for some creatures. just another possibility that i havn't seen mentioned yet
The problem with giving multiple upgrades to certain creatures is that is already requires a day to build anything. Having 3 upgrades to one dwelling would be take too many days to build, however something like this would have to be implemented with having a system of building points.
But that's a whole nuther topic...
Gerdash, you are right. Heroes 5 needs to bring another dimension to the game. We don't just want an improved Homm4 or an improved Homm3. We really want Homm5 to have the good parts of the previous Homm games and have another dimension such as having a severely, asymmetrical town structure, or building points, or upkeep cost for armies.
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Go Red Sox!
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Gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted December 11, 2003 08:43 AM |
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btw i didn't mean multiple upgrades, i meant multiple choices for the way to upgrade once.
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2 upgrades were very nice as a unique feature of homm2 dragon.
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Thunder
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted December 11, 2003 12:50 PM |
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Bort, you are right. Of course, but what the heck is the problem you are having with Dragon Golems and Venom Spawns?!
Don't we all just love how the Dragon Golems cross the battlefield *chunka chunka chunk* and how Venom Spawns constantly let out the splurting sounds to satisfy our more intimidate desires?
Why should it be the same old circle of orcs-elves-humans-undead? Is it the oldies-are-the goldies effect?
"Geez those molocks were cool in the Battle of Amnestia! Quest for the Memories of Old had molocks too. That was a cool game! Piece of Crap VI: Full of Molocks was a cool too, those molocks just were art! Henceforth, every game that doesn't have molocks won't be found in my shelf. For the glory of molocks!"
Clear as Mud as usual.
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Blue_Camel
Famous Hero
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posted December 11, 2003 09:10 PM |
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ah yes
i have been preaching this for quite a while now without seemingly getting much notice, it is good that this is finally hitting the limelight !
assymetrical balance --> more interesting game, with more strengths and weaknesses for each town, thus more strategical possibilities. not to mention it's just plain boring when every town has the exact same amount of everything. needless to say, i liked h2 better than h3.
also, i think i have the only assymetrical map on TOH right now.. i would encourage mapmakers (if any still exist  ) to make them, it gives the map longer life and is more fun to the players, because they will (if the map is balanced, that is) debate "well i think red is better because of xyz.." "no i think green is better because of abc". and with mirror maps, once you play one side you may say "ho hum, i know how this map plays." because each side plays the same. but with assymetrical maps each color is a different game.
why do you think historians find past wars so interesting? because each side was the same? I'm likely preaching to the choir here, but i just wanted to reinforce your statement and say that many feel this is the way to go.
here is a link to a thread which i explain some of my ideas.. http://www.heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?FID=11&TID=10747 i hope we are on the same page? 
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Blue_Camel
Famous Hero
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posted December 11, 2003 09:15 PM |
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also, i might point out, people in h4 toh always play random vs. random, and almost never pick towns, although death was often banned. now that the mod is out, death usually doesnt have to be banned. of course h4 is fairly symmetrical, but i just wanted to mention that because lews earlier was talking about how people in h3 always pick towns.
Moderator's note:This topic has been closed, as it refers to an older version of the game. To discuss Heroes 3, please go to Library Of Enlightenment, to discuss Heroes 4, please go to War Room Of Axeoth, to discuss Heroes 5, go to Temple Of Ashan.
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