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| Thread: Scouting, Communication and Logistics Idea | |
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Panda_Tar
Adventuring Hero
CH mascot and right-wing
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posted September 14, 2023 02:38 PM |
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Scouting, Communication and Logistics Idea
Kudos!
Just wondering about an idea that has intruded my mind and won't fade. I'll leave it here for the sake of discussing, if anyone wishes to read and talk about it, suggesting, modifying, perfecting or simply burning one's eyes with vinegar and lye.
In a heroes-like setting, the concept is to remove the player role as an omniscient entity. The player will be considered a collective form of heroes-based knowledge. In short, you'll know what your heroes know. All additional info must be provided by messengers and scouts, based on the infrastructure and logistics of our kingdom. Although it may sound complicated, it would be a seamless mechanic.
Ground messengers of your kingdom would have 40 movements points per day. Their role is to keep your heroes updated of your kingdom overview. When your heroes start to explore further away from your town, the messenger update would kick in automatically. Having 1 messenger, who would have to go on a two-way trip, would take 1 day to update your kingdom at 1 day-distant, but take 2 days for the next. Each time, a new updated view of your kingdom would be available. The larger your town or kingdom is, the more messengers you have, so these gaps between updates decrease accordingly. These updates would always consider the closest hero. Also, if hostiles blocked their path, messengers wouldn't be able to update heroes.
The same if you require reinforcements or training more units. A messenger would be sent to inform others of your needs.
Of course, as new skills evolved, flying messengers would become available, allowing free and straight-line access to heroes and, say, 150 movement points per day.
Assigning a castellan, like in H2, grants the possibility of building a town while the hero is away. Castellan also grants a basic defense (can't be controlled or watched) if any enemy attacks the town without the player's awareness, hiring defenses as he seem fit or affordable, also having varied results depending on kingdom morale, or the connection between hero and town. Whichever way. But castellan doesn't tend outside affairs.
For that, you would have a second layer of protection, the scouting parties. These are limited in numbers and not quite visible on the map by enemies, unless they're proficient at it. These scouting parties would be set by the player on strategic places. When enemies got in range, they would light a fire beacon.
Considering heroes cannot see what's happening elsewhere without messengers' intel, they still can see beacons from afar. That would be their warning that enemies have entered a scouted area. The castellan automatically lights the City's beacon as well, which is easier to spot, so the player can then look for which scouting party has lit their beacon and plan the next steps.
A similar mechanic would revolve around merchant and diplomacy between players, sending envoys or messages. It wouldn't be simply instantaneous.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the kingdom, the folk, wouldn't see with good eyes heroes who quite don't do anything or remain idle most of the time, in the event that one abuses the keeping of a hero stationed at town. Hero needs to be ... heroic. In a way, the dynamic between population and their heroes would take a bit more of a role, where you have a population producing more, with higher morale, more bonuses or even aiding the castellan with all their might during a hero-less siege. But with poor morale, less unit productions, less income and a coward castellan, you would learn how a hopeless population would reward a hopeless and inactive hero. I think there's something like that dynamism in AoW, I'm not quite certain of it. It's been years since I last played that game, and not for long.
Infrastructure and logistics role would be around faster responses of reinforcements, merchants, goods, or even give a boost to messengers, additional protection to scouting parties, well, there's a broad range of things to consider.
This is the premise. I'm not sure if things sound clear, so feel free to ask for clarification at any moment.
Cheers.
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Biology doesn't care about morality.
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Groovy
Hired Hero
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posted September 15, 2023 11:01 AM |
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This looks like a major change to the game. I'm not sure that I caught all the nuances, so I'll list my impressions and you can correct me where I went wrong.
1. Motivation
I don't understand the rationale behind this change. If it's made in the interest of realism, I think it would be much more suitable for a game in a historical setting than a fantasy one (where heroes can use magic to view remote locations and teleport entire armies across the map). If it's made to improve gameplay, I think it would help to lay out how it would achieve that.
If this paragraph describes the motivation:
Panda_Tar said:
Another thing to keep in mind is that the kingdom, the folk, wouldn't see with good eyes heroes who quite don't do anything or remain idle most of the time, in the event that one abuses the keeping of a hero stationed at town. Hero needs to be ... heroic. In a way, the dynamic between population and their heroes would take a bit more of a role, where you have a population producing more, with higher morale, more bonuses or even aiding the castellan with all their might during a hero-less siege. But with poor morale, less unit productions, less income and a coward castellan, you would learn how a hopeless population would reward a hopeless and inactive hero. I think there's something like that dynamism in AoW, I'm not quite certain of it. It's been years since I last played that game, and not for long.
Wouldn't this change have the opposite effect, by discouraging heroes from exploring far away from their towns (as described below)?
2. Impact on gameplay
If the player loses access to a town due to an enemy moving to occupy a bottleneck between the town and the player's heroes, this could be used to effectively end the game. For example, imagine that a neutral stack does this during a random creature month. If the player has a hero out with a small army that's not able to defeat the neutral stack, and he's not able to hire another hero with a new army from the town due to it being cut off, then it's effectively game over. The same would happen if another player moved to occupy a bottleneck with a larger army and just left it there.
This would encourage players to recruit as much as possible, to minimise how many of their troops get cut off in inaccessible towns. Or they would have to prioritise hero chaining over exploration, to ensure that lines of communication remain open.
Panda_Tar said:
Assigning a castellan, like in H2, grants the possibility of building a town while the hero is away. Castellan also grants a basic defense (can't be controlled or watched) if any enemy attacks the town without the player's awareness, hiring defenses as he seem fit or affordable, also having varied results depending on kingdom morale, or the connection between hero and town. Whichever way. But castellan doesn't tend outside affairs.
Isn't building a town and hiring defences necessarily an outside affair, since the resources are taken from a global resource pool?
3. Implementation complexity
Implementation complexity seems significant. Every turn, the game would have to work out the shortest path from every flagged building (town, dwelling, mine, etc) to every hero, to determine the shortest communication distance. It would also have to track multiple versions of each of those buildings, and then choose which one to display to the player. It would further have to keep track of the history of communication changes for the same purpose (if communication was lost on the last turn, then the building view should freeze to the version that was available on that turn.)
It also raises some questions:
- Does the out-of-date view of flagged buildings translate to the player's view of global resources they generate - such as gold - also being out of date?
- If so, what happens when a player tries to spend the resources he doesn't have, but that the game tells him that he does?
- Is a player's town management similarly subject to delays? For example, will it take several turns to hire a new hero (I don't see how this could be automated with a castellan)?
- What happens when a player tries to hire a hero from a town he no longer controls, but thinks he does?
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted September 15, 2023 11:44 AM |
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Edited by MattII at 11:54, 15 Sep 2023.
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It's certainly an interesting premise, but I suspect that even if it could be pulled off (it would be difficult to do so I think), I doubt it would be popular. In addition, it would be difficult to make it fair in a fight against the computer, since it would require a much larger ability for the AI to 'cheat'.
Now if you want to add complexity, you could introduce an RTS style 'fog of war', with terrain now not being merely 'unexplored' and 'explored', but 'unexplored', explored but unobserved' and 'observed'. You could also introduce logistical constraints with having resource convoys from mines that can only move a given number of tiles per turn, and which can be captured by the enemy.
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Panda_Tar
Adventuring Hero
CH mascot and right-wing
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posted September 15, 2023 06:04 PM |
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Panda_Tar said:
Groovy said:
1. Motivation
I don't understand the rationale behind this change. If it's made in the interest of realism, I think it would be much more suitable for a game in a historical setting than a fantasy one (where heroes can use magic to view remote locations and teleport entire armies across the map). If it's made to improve gameplay, I think it would help to lay out how it would achieve that.
Wouldn't this change have the opposite effect, by discouraging heroes from exploring far away from their towns (as described below)?
The concept in my mind feels similar to that of Age of Wonders 3 Happiness (dunno if the other games have that also, because I have only played this one). The motivation and choice as to what to do with the hero rests upon the fact that the population gets inspired and hopeful by an active hero, rather than a passive one. So, staying put is not a good thing, unless you have reached such high level of praise that it won't affect their trust anymore (let's suppose there's a cap that grants permanent level of trust between population and hero). To increase that trust, the hero needs to show what one's capable of, that being bringing riches, artifacts, defeating enemies, flagging buildings, building the town, improving infrastructure around the map, improvements. Population responds with higher production, income, morale, bonus troops or some other perks. Defending a town from enemy might also boost the relationship between people and hero, perhaps the most influential of all actions. When population is happy, if the city is attacked without a hero to protect, the castellan will have boosts too, because people will not simply let that happen easily.
This is what I had in mind. On the other hand, a passive, non productive hero would start to raise doubts if they're actually fit or a 'hero' to begin with, and their trust and motivation will drop. Also, a hero who gets defeated frequently might even be banished from the town.
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2. Impact on gameplay
If the player loses access to a town due to an enemy moving to occupy a bottleneck between the town and the player's heroes, this could be used to effectively end the game. For example, imagine that a neutral stack does this during a random creature month. If the player has a hero out with a small army that's not able to defeat the neutral stack, and he's not able to hire another hero with a new army from the town due to it being cut off, then it's effectively game over. The same would happen if another player moved to occupy a bottleneck with a larger army and just left it there.
This would encourage players to recruit as much as possible, to minimize how many of their troops get cut off in inaccessible towns. Or they would have to prioritize hero chaining over exploration, to ensure that lines of communication remain open.
Good point there. This would be one way to circumvent that possibility. We could tweak the circumstances of the mechanics a bit to bring more possibilities to strategize.
Say that blocking the path would make it take a bit longer to have reinforcements delivered (if this concept of caravans exists) or limit numbers of units, and updated kingdom status, and not block completely. Or have messengers a concept of using ravens or some bird to deliver, so they wouldn't be hindered by armies on the adventure map and would move in a straight line to the hero's position.
Also, keep in mind that you are watching your kingdom with beacons too. If you let an enemy enter your grounds because you have not noticed your beacons lit, then it's simply a punishment having your path blocked by them, because you have not paid attention. This is a similar situation as in Heroes games when you choose not to see what the AI is doing.
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Isn't building a town and hiring defenses necessarily an outside affair, since the resources are taken from a global resource pool?
Maybe here it could be considered locally or simplify for this reason only, so castellan could make use of the treasury.
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3. Implementation complexity
Implementation complexity seems significant. Every turn, the game would have to work out the shortest path from every flagged building (town, dwelling, mine, etc) to every hero, to determine the shortest communication distance. It would also have to track multiple versions of each of those buildings, and then choose which one to display to the player. It would further have to keep track of the history of communication changes for the same purpose (if communication was lost on the last turn, then the building view should freeze to the version that was available on that turn.)
I see what you mean. What about make flagged buildings fixed to one day and focus their feedback to towns, in a centered manner? Whenever you get an update from your town, you get updates from your flagged buildings together.
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It also raises some questions:
- Does the out-of-date view of flagged buildings translate to the player's view of global resources they generate - such as gold - also being out of date?
- If so, what happens when a player tries to spend the resources he doesn't have, but that the game tells him that he does?
Wouldn't that be the opposite? Since your resources are seemingly increasing, then you wouldn't waste more than your current reserves. After the update, you would see what you have beyond what you would spend. Of course, if you city is attacked, there could have another sort of beacon lit on your castle. Say, yellow for alert, enemies are nearby. Red, enemies attacked town. Castellan would use resources to protect it. So you would know that having a red beacon means that your resources have been used. To limit the castellan's power over your reserves, there could have an option, simple thing stating something like: do not spend resources, use XX% of available resources, buy everything available.
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- Is a player's town management similarly subject to delays? For example, will it take several turns to hire a new hero (I don't see how this could be automated with a castellan)?
Considering that the player are the heroes, so this function would be free for the player to decide. The availability of heroes to hire could be limited to week, or maybe considering population's mood. The more impressed and inspired they are, more heroes and aspiring heroes will become available. This is one way to fight off invading forces too, which would resemble a way we play H3, hiring weak heroes as a primary defense. And you would get instantly updated to boot.
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- What happens when a player tries to hire a hero from a town he no longer controls, but thinks he does?
Imagining the red beacon mechanic in action, you wouldn't get any more updates and you wouldn't be able to access your town anymore. You would conclude that you lost your town.
However, I don't think we should mess with the hoardings, as if the treasure is kept in town, or the player would lose everything if one lost all towns. It would enable some unbalances, like one player taking most of the towns from one enemy, then another player taking the last town of that enemy and getting all resources, when the other did most of the work. So, hoarded resources can't be touched.
MattII said:
It's certainly an interesting premise, but I suspect that even if it could be pulled off (it would be difficult to do so I think), I doubt it would be popular. In addition, it would be difficult to make it fair in a fight against the computer, since it would require a much larger ability for the AI to 'cheat'.
I think that for the AI to cheat, you could perhaps make it able to ignore update mechanics, improve their reinforcement responses, and divine the player's location. I'm not really an expert on how AI works, so my solutions are quite limited on that front.
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Now if you want to add complexity, you could introduce an RTS style 'fog of war', with terrain now not being merely 'unexplored' and 'explored', but 'unexplored', explored but unobserved' and 'observed'. You could also introduce logistical constraints with having resource convoys from mines that can only move a given number of tiles per turn, and which can be captured by the enemy.
I think fog of war already exists, no, I don't remember? Fog of war usually doesn't hide flagged mines, but it does hide updates on treasures taken and creatures that get cleaned out. It would just extend to areas where there's no hero. However, your buildings wouldn't even send updates in general, and you would be even more vulnerable.
On the logistical point, infrastructure perk or skill could take care of things that would speed production, influence population's morale, speed of reinforcements, safety of roads (maybe allow building roads, also as in AoW game).
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Panda_Tar
Adventuring Hero
CH mascot and right-wing
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posted September 15, 2023 07:21 PM |
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Ah, yes, and I forgot to elaborate a bit more about Scouting.
Scouting would have some purposes:
1). Reveal invisible or stealth units (if any is considered to exist).
2). Hero can send an scout to a position ahead = hero's movement points. Hero can send a scout to one direction and head to another direction. Scouts will always take 2 turns to report their findings. Leveling Scouting might improve their range of vision, perhaps the number of scouts at Grandmaster level, just a thought.
3). See some details about enemy armies, but little regarding the enemy hero. Guarantee a pre-tactical arrangement on the battlefield (let's say it's a pre-Tactics effect). Increases the effectiveness of the Tactics Skill, say just tweak %, or another line of positioning, or grant Initiative to all troops, or add another trait like 'Set Traps'. This is nullified if enemy hero has the same level of Scouting skill.
4). Nullify an enemy hero scouting party. If two heroes have their scouts overlayered on the same range of view, they cancel each other. Or, they will report that an enemy scout has been detected on that area.
I think that's that.
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted September 15, 2023 08:28 PM |
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I'm just going to say it, placing limitations on communication and still having a 'god mode' view of what you own are pretty much mutually exclusive concepts, at least to my mind.
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted September 15, 2023 08:41 PM |
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Edited by NimoStar at 20:45, 15 Sep 2023.
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Make it a virtual office where you call your towns with a crystal ball and you need to speculate about what happened if there is no response 
PS: I think actually this concept goes well with the (completely unimplemented) H3 opening cinematic where the lady of Erathia goes like "I wonder what happened here" and needs to guess what went on in the battle. It would be cool if battles amongst enemies or with enemies and neutrals left "body and wreckage" for a hero with Scouting to examine.
"6 days ago, Xxx nagas and xx titans fought here against XXx Black Dragons. They were defeated."
Further levels of scouting could give you better info, such as more precise timing instead of "week 2", and more exact quantities instead of "an horde of troglodytes"
____________
Never changing = never improving
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted September 16, 2023 11:52 AM |
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NimoStar said:
Make it a virtual office where you call your towns with a crystal ball and you need to speculate about what happened if there is no response
PS: I think actually this concept goes well with the (completely unimplemented) H3 opening cinematic where the lady of Erathia goes like "I wonder what happened here" and needs to guess what went on in the battle. It would be cool if battles amongst enemies or with enemies and neutrals left "body and wreckage" for a hero with Scouting to examine.
"6 days ago, Xxx nagas and xx titans fought here against XXx Black Dragons. They were defeated."
Further levels of scouting could give you better info, such as more precise timing instead of "week 2", and more exact quantities instead of "an horde of troglodytes"
Well a 'king with limited knowledge' managerial game could certainly be interesting, it wouldn't be Heroes, but another type of game, even if it was in the same franchise. I'm not sure how much of a market a FPP (First Person Perspective) managerial game would have, even one set in a fantastical world like those of the Might and Magic series.
It could be interesting to play a FPP game as a hero. You'd have to bargain for troops, for resources, and for control over where you're sent. But it would also involve managing the battles.
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Groovy
Hired Hero
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posted September 16, 2023 08:11 PM |
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Panda_Tar said:
The concept in my mind feels similar to that of [url=https://age-of-wonders-3.fandom.com/wiki/Cities#Happiness]Age of Wonders 3 Happiness[/url] (dunno if the other games have that also, because I have only played this one). The motivation and choice as to what to do with the hero rests upon the fact that the population gets inspired and hopeful by an active hero, rather than a passive one. So, staying put is not a good thing, unless you have reached such high level of praise that it won't affect their trust anymore (let's suppose there's a cap that grants permanent level of trust between population and hero). To increase that trust, the hero needs to show what one's capable of, that being bringing riches, artifacts, defeating enemies, flagging buildings, building the town, improving infrastructure around the map, improvements. Population responds with higher production, income, morale, bonus troops or some other perks. Defending a town from enemy might also boost the relationship between people and hero, perhaps the most influential of all actions. When population is happy, if the city is attacked without a hero to protect, the castellan will have boosts too, because people will not simply let that happen easily.
This makes sense to me, but I don't see what it has to do with the communication mechanic. To me, happiness and communication look like two unrelated mechanics.
I would also add that "bringing riches, artifacts, defeating enemies, flagging buildings, building the town" is something that the game already encourages - it's the core gameplay, and it's fun to do. The only exception I can think of is the superhero problem, but that's a separate discussion.
Panda_Tar said:
Also, keep in mind that you are watching your kingdom with beacons too. If you let an enemy enter your grounds because you have not noticed your beacons lit, then it's simply a punishment having your path blocked by them, because you have not paid attention. This is a similar situation as in Heroes games when you choose not to see what the AI is doing.
There's a subtle difference that I think is important.
In Heroes, if you ignore what the AI is doing, it will end up capturing your town.
With the communication mechanic, you might ignore the lit beacons and have your town captured or cut off, but you might also ignore the beacon mechanic and not send out scouting parties at all. In the latter case, you'll not only lose access to the town, you also won't know that you've lost it. In other words, if you play badly, the UI will withhold information from you that you need in order to play better. This might not be an issue for a seasoned player, but I would expect it to be a serious issue for a newbie.
Red beacons to signal town under siege, and reduced communication delays would definitely help here.
Panda_Tar said:
Wouldn't that be the opposite? Since your resources are seemingly increasing, then you wouldn't waste more than your current reserves. After the update, you would see what you have beyond what you would spend.
I'm thinking of this scenario:
- Your information about your town is not current, but a day old
- The happiness of your town's population decreases, which reduces the town's resource production
- The town produces fewer resources than it did the previous turn
- Because your information about the town is out of date, you expect it to produce more resources than it actually did
- If the UI shows you the out-of-date resource information, you will think that you have more resources available than you actually do
- If you try to spend all of the resources that the UI tells you that you have, you will end up spending resources that you don't have, or will be unable to spend them without understanding why
MattII said:
I'm just going to say it, placing limitations on communication and still having a 'god mode' view of what you own are pretty much mutually exclusive concepts, at least to my mind.
Panda_Tar said:
Maybe here it could be considered locally or simplify for this reason only, so castellan could make use of the treasury.
Panda_Tar said:
What about make flagged buildings fixed to one day and focus their feedback to towns, in a centered manner? Whenever you get an update from your town, you get updates from your flagged buildings together.
I agree with these sentiments. If we are going to add a mechanic that restricts access to information, then we have to go all the way and change other game mechanics to fit - make resources local, show on the map how old the intel on each of the buildings is, distinguish between definitely and provisionally owned towns on the town list, and so on.
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Panda_Tar
Adventuring Hero
CH mascot and right-wing
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posted September 16, 2023 11:57 PM |
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MattII said:
It could be interesting to play a FPP game as a hero. You'd have to bargain for troops, for resources, and for control over where you're sent. But it would also involve managing the battles.
Back then, when I was proposing all those stuff for a Heroes game years ago, there was this idea of merging some Might & Magic elements to Heroes. You would have some dungeons on the adventure map that your hero would explore alone, as in the RPG fashion. It would require your hero to have statistics and perks for such iteration.
In this setting you're describing, it could be the opposite. Say that you get to Erathia, and there's some trouble brewing somewhere that needs fighting an army. You can go to the Queen, she may hire you and provide you with some troops (you can add troops by spending some of your resources, you would use banks too). When you decided to use those troops, the game could shuffle to Heroes style and you would go to the designated area and have a battle. After that, you'd report back to the Queen, like a normal quest.
Groovy said:
This makes sense to me, but I don't see what it has to do with the communication mechanic. To me, happiness and communication look like two unrelated mechanics.
Happiness concept came only after I wrote the title, so I didn't update it, hohoho, I forgot. But yes, they're different.
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I would also add that "bringing riches, artifacts, defeating enemies, flagging buildings, building the town" is something that the game already encourages - it's the core gameplay, and it's fun to do. The only exception I can think of is the superhero problem, but that's a separate discussion.
What would be the superhero problem? I quite didn't grasp.
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With the communication mechanic, you might ignore the lit beacons and have your town captured or cut off, but you might also ignore the beacon mechanic and not send out scouting parties at all. In the latter case, you'll not only lose access to the town, you also won't know that you've lost it. In other words, if you play badly, the UI will withhold information from you that you need in order to play better. This might not be an issue for a seasoned player, but I would expect it to be a serious issue for a newbie.
Hm, indeed. It wouldn't do much good relying only on a Tutorial. Not everyone likes to play tutorials. I don't see an easy solution to solve this issue, unless the castellan has a hero-rated vision of your town surroundings and resource management. But the castellan would have to be present since the start. If not, it can still be problematic for the newbie until a castellan is designated. This way, only other flagged buildings would be in the dark. Castellan's action don't intervene with population's happiness, but few buildings might change something.
Also, I think castellan could be responsible for Infrastructure perks. As heroes explore some areas, sites could be highlighted as potential to build something. An Engineer Skill, if added, could make the hero able to identify more sites and propose improvements, which would become available at town. I know this is another kind of mechanics, so, if you want to discuss in another tread, we can create to talk about the possibilities of Infrastructure mechanics.
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I'm thinking of this scenario:
- Your information about your town is not current, but a day old
- The happiness of your town's population decreases, which reduces the town's resource production
- The town produces fewer resources than it did the previous turn
- Because your information about the town is out of date, you expect it to produce more resources than it actually did
- If the UI shows you the out-of-date resource information, you will think that you have more resources available than you actually do
- If you try to spend all of the resources that the UI tells you that you have, you will end up spending resources that you don't have, or will be unable to spend them without understanding why
Yes, it's a normal situation when you don't have telepathic powers. I also don't have an easy solution around that. These points you wrote made me automatically think of the concept of "reliable gold" in Dota 2. Reliable gold is the gold you won't lose, if you get killed.
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I agree with these sentiments. If we are going to add a mechanic that restricts access to information, then we have to go all the way and change other game mechanics to fit - make resources local, show on the map how old the intel on each of the buildings is, distinguish between definitely and provisionally owned towns on the town list, and so on.
Yes, it's not something that can be inserted without adapting others. Probably few other mechanics might be necessary to bind things together too.
Another topic regarding Communication and Diplomacy is map drawing and selling/trading. You could trade maps with your allies, instead of simply sharing vision as if they owned your kingdom. Maps of areas you have explored, only showing terrain. Maybe player could add markers, like points of interest or dangers.
NimoStar said:
I think actually this concept goes well with the (completely unimplemented) H3 opening cinematic where the lady of Erathia goes like "I wonder what happened here" and needs to guess what went on in the battle. It would be cool if battles amongst enemies or with enemies and neutrals left "body and wreckage" for a hero with Scouting to examine.
"6 days ago, Xxx nagas and xx titans fought here against XXx Black Dragons. They were defeated."
Further levels of scouting could give you better info, such as more precise timing instead of "week 2", and more exact quantities instead of "an horde of troglodytes"
That would make more sense to me, if you had a purpose to it. Why examine things? To find hidden loot or something?
____________
Biology doesn't care about morality.
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NimoStar
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Modding the Unmoddable
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posted September 17, 2023 12:51 AM |
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Edited by NimoStar at 00:51, 17 Sep 2023.
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That would make more sense to me, if you had a purpose to it. Why examine things? To find hidden loot or something?
There would be no additional cost to do it. Just passing over you could check the information of the fight. This would give you info about enemy power as of that day and their army composition.
Anyways, I suppose that it is also possible if one would like to gain 1/2/3% of the total gold cost of creatures killed in that combat by looting the bodies, or something. (which would cost as digging for the day)
____________
Never changing = never improving
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Groovy
Hired Hero
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posted September 17, 2023 10:02 AM |
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Panda_Tar said:
What would be the superhero problem? I quite didn't grasp.
The superhero problem is that only one hero typically engages in heroic tasks, while the others collect resources and ferry troops. This can be accomplished either by adventure map spells like Town Portal and Dimension Door, or through hero chaining (except for H4). It can be overcome with map design, but I've only played a few maps that effectively counter the superhero strategy.
Panda_Tar said:
I don't see an easy solution to solve this issue, unless the castellan has a hero-rated vision of your town surroundings and resource management...
Panda_Tar said:
Yes, it's a normal situation when you don't have telepathic powers. I also don't have an easy solution around that...
What I think it would take is to treat communication as a core mechanic, and design the game around it. It might be more suitable for the design you describe here than for HoMM:
Panda_Tar said:
Say that you get to Erathia, and there's some trouble brewing somewhere that needs fighting an army. You can go to the Queen, she may hire you and provide you with some troops (you can add troops by spending some of your resources, you would use banks too). When you decided to use those troops, the game could shuffle to Heroes style and you would go to the designated area and have a battle. After that, you'd report back to the Queen, like a normal quest.
Panda_Tar said:
Also, I think castellan could be responsible for Infrastructure perks. As heroes explore some areas, sites could be highlighted as potential to build something. An Engineer Skill, if added, could make the hero able to identify more sites and propose improvements, which would become available at town. I know this is another kind of mechanics, so, if you want to discuss in another tread, we can create to talk about the possibilities of Infrastructure mechanics.
I'd love to discuss that.
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