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| Thread: Another Heroes 3 Mod 2.0 |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT» |
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BTB
Famous Hero
Moist & Creamy
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posted April 22, 2025 09:41 AM |
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Edited by BTB at 15:11, 01 Jul 2025.
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Another Heroes 3 Mod 2.0e (Updated: July 01, 2025)
Hey there, everyone. I am at long last happy to announce the official release of version 2.0 of Another Heroes 3 Mod.
http://ngplus.net/index.php?/files/file/56-another-heroes-3-mod-ah3m/
(UPDATE: We're up to 2.0o now)
There are some screenshots in the above link along with the download that convey a lot of the general changes, but there's a lot more mechanical stuff that you can really only see with the included documentation or by playing.
That said, I have aimed to provide a good summary of AH3M in the following paragraph:
Quote:
To address my other potential audience, this mod is best compared to the one with which you are already very likely familiar: Horn of the Abyss. HotA is a mod that, while liberal with the addition of newer content, is very conservative with making changes to the base game. AH3M represents the inverse of that design philosophy; whereas HotA adds the Cove and Factory factions, AH3M focuses on making the existing Conflux faction feel more like it actually belongs. Another example is that HotA does not cut any spells or skills while AH3M is more than willing to dump lost causes such as Eagle Eye and Disguise rather than attempt to salvage them. So far as quality of life/objective improvements are concerned, like being able to reject an unwanted skill from a map location, AH3M and HotA both do the same things to my knowledge.
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted April 23, 2025 04:13 AM |
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Wow you haven't been resting on your laurels!
I'm curious, what's the design philosophy in general? Like are you thinking more "this really needs that" or is it more "This needs to be stronger or weaker" or even "I wonder if I could do X"?
____________
What are Homm Songs based on?
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BTB
Famous Hero
Moist & Creamy
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posted April 23, 2025 04:36 AM |
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Edited by BTB at 04:42, 23 Apr 2025.
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LordCameron said:
Wow you haven't been resting on your laurels!
I'm curious, what's the design philosophy in general? Like are you thinking more "this really needs that" or is it more "This needs to be stronger or weaker" or even "I wonder if I could do X"?
I never do things purely because I can or just for the sake of change, it's always the result of thinking the game would be better if "X" thing were different. I guess you could say that this comes in two flavors: balance and quality of life.
For the latter, it's mostly a matter of paying attention to anything in a game that annoys the player and asking if what is annoying them adds to the game or needs to be addressed. I kept getting annoyed because I could never remember if external dwellings had any units, so I made them show population on right click if you own them.
For balance, it's about making sure that everything in the game has a use and a purpose. If something isn't being used at all because there's a better option, then that's a problem. A really good example here is what I've done with Wisdom since a big issue with Heroes 3 is that a lot of the spells go unused, even in AH3M as it was before. I thought long and hard about how to best approach it, because it had to be in a way that encouraged the use of less popular spells without precluding the use of the more popular ones. And that's when I eventually landed on Wisdom allowing multiple spellcasts per round, but each spell has to be of a different element.
This ties in with elemental skills gating high-level spells instead of Wisdom, because you'll quickly hit a point of diminishing returns. More importantly, it actually adds validity to having spells outside of your wheelhouse. Before, a Cleric had basically zero use for a spell like Curse on the rare chance it got rolled because they're extremely unlikely to take Fire Magic to begin with. Here, it's an added bonus to a Cleric's spellbook because using it doesn't mean not using one of their more common spells.
Honestly, I think the Wisdom/magic changes are by far the biggest shakeups in this new release since it really changes up how magic works. I think it's really important that the big new map is a magic-focused one, since it helps put those changes front and center.
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted April 23, 2025 05:14 AM |
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I was going to say, the Wisdom change seems really really cool. I'm going to have to try it out.
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RerryR
Promising
Supreme Hero
Researching Magic
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posted April 24, 2025 07:29 AM |
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Edited by RerryR at 07:30, 24 Apr 2025.
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Impressive changelog with many interesting tweaks. Well done!
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BTB
Famous Hero
Moist & Creamy
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posted April 24, 2025 11:34 AM |
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RerryR said:
Impressive changelog with many interesting tweaks. Well done!
Thank you! I still recall you being the first person here to ever respond to me, back when I was new and had absolutely no idea what the hell I was doing. In fact, I remember pitching an idea to you about Sorcery sometimes allowing an additional spellcast... something I ended up actually doing with Wisdom. Feels like I've come weirdly full circle.
Anyway, I have updated the beta link since the new map (one of them, anyway) is now 100% complete along with a few more things that have since been completed, namely Wizard eye showing treasure chests and Ammo Carts now being active units.
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purerogue3
Known Hero
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posted April 25, 2025 05:07 PM |
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I don't agree with multiple spellcasts as mass spells are totally OP anyway
Feel the same way about magic school gatekeeping the old wisdom
But I know BTB already had a problem with (or was it Phoenix or somebody else) wisdom as gatekeeping
However it would be very interesting to get a design collab between Lord Cameron and BTB, no doubt two very distinct and big leaders
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted April 25, 2025 05:49 PM |
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I'm always amazed by everything BTB is able to do just on a technical level. I'm very curious about the active Ammo cart idea he has in mind.
And purerogue I'm flattered haha. If you want a great read BTB's readme for AH3M is amazing. It's basically a design document.
Old one is here: http://ngplus.net/index.php?%2Ffiles%2Ffile%2F56-another-heroes-3-mod-ah3m%2F=
In the rar when you download it. Don't know if the new one has one because my internet is on the fritz.
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purerogue3
Known Hero
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posted April 25, 2025 06:00 PM |
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Well LC i'm flattered that you're flattered
Not to hijack but I suppose I do not have any design philosophy -I'm more an 'improvement' guy .. so I like to mod other ppl's stuff
But back to BTB he's very advanced on alot of things.. Hota steals his ideas 
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BTB
Famous Hero
Moist & Creamy
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posted April 26, 2025 02:30 AM |
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Edited by BTB at 02:31, 26 Apr 2025.
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The beta download link has the new/updated Readme, LC. And I already have the ammo cart working... I thought it was going to be a massive pain in the ass and it turned out to be one of those changes where I just remove, like, two jumps and suddenly everything behaves the way I want it to. It basically acts just like the First Aid Tent except it heals ammo instead of health.
And I understand the hesitation to the idea of multiple spellcasts; I have run it past many people and taken it through many revisions. It should also be said that these changes don't exist in a vacuum: everything affects something else, so especially with a major change like this one, many other things need to be balanced around it in order for it to work.
purerogue3 said:
Hota steals his ideas
Thanks, man, I needed a good laugh 
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purerogue3
Known Hero
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posted April 29, 2025 06:58 PM |
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BTB said:
And I understand the hesitation to the idea of multiple spellcasts; I have run it past many people and taken it through many revisions. It should also be said that these changes don't exist in a vacuum: everything affects something else, so especially with a major change like this one, many other things need to be balanced around it in order for it to work.)
I can see how it could work in an adventuring party setup.. nothing is set in stone
yeah alot of us only play one genre and it shows
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BTB
Famous Hero
Moist & Creamy
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posted May 04, 2025 11:17 PM |
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Well, I've just finished up the second of the two new maps, so there is very little left to do at this point and nearly all of it is minor/bugfix stuff.
Feeling pretty confident about the lack of bugs, as well, since I just had someone play a whole game and not report anything.
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted May 06, 2025 04:17 AM |
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Your beta link no longer seems to work
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BTB
Famous Hero
Moist & Creamy
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posted May 06, 2025 04:18 AM |
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Edited by BTB at 14:32, 07 May 2025.
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LordCameron said:
Your beta link no longer seems to work
EDIT: snow it, I just uploaded the beta to my site. Link should work now.
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted May 11, 2025 01:08 AM |
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Got a crash that happens every time the AI casts Flamestrike (looks like frenzy but redder) on a stack of Storm Avatars. Playing on Realm of Chaos, so that probably causes problems of its own.
Edit: Resolved so edited to not take up so much space.
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BTB
Famous Hero
Moist & Creamy
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posted May 11, 2025 03:41 AM |
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Edited by BTB at 04:23, 11 May 2025.
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That would be Flamestrike. Looks like it's happening in the code for magic damage reduction, specifically the part for Dragonlord Armor. Offhand, it looks like it's trying to check for an enemy hero and there is none - is this being cast by an enemy hero or Ogre Magi?
Also, if you have a save file, that will make testing it a lot easier. You can just drop it in the Discord server if you see this; I can get to it tomorrow during the day.
EDIT: nevermind, the problem is very clearly that I made this hook in a place where I was assuming we already had a hero loaded into ECX when we don't, so I've just added the check for one. New beta is up.
As for playing on Realm of Chaos, I don't think there's anything on there that will really BREAK the mod, but at the same time AH3M changes so much that the balance of vanilla maps will really be thrown off.
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LordCameron
Famous Hero
Veteran of the Succession Wars
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posted May 11, 2025 07:50 PM |
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BTB
Famous Hero
Moist & Creamy
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posted May 11, 2025 08:01 PM |
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Edited by BTB at 06:21, 19 May 2025.
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EDIT: we're up to a release candidate now. My to-do list at this point consists entirely of minor snow that has zero bearing on anything and I might end up punting. The focus over the next week is to play this hard and root out any rogue crashes. If anyone wants to play a quick game of this some time in the next week and let me know if it crashes on you at any point, you'd be doing me a solid.
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Andarch1
Tavern Dweller
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posted May 23, 2025 10:14 PM |
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That's good BTB. Impressive work. Just curious, will you be sharing any new modding tips after releasing your mod? Maybe you have discovered more cool things during your time development time that we don't know about yet 
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BTB
Famous Hero
Moist & Creamy
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posted May 24, 2025 05:49 AM |
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Andarch1 said:
That's good BTB. Impressive work. Just curious, will you be sharing any new modding tips after releasing your mod? Maybe you have discovered more cool things during your time development time that we don't know about yet
Since I'm pretty worn out from going so hard at this, my plan was just to make my source code public once 2.0 releases. Even that may take a little bit, though, since keeping the code sorted has taken a backseat to actually getting everything done.
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