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| Thread: Raize Towns |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Oldtimer
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posted July 15, 2001 12:20 AM |
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Raize Towns
Raize Towns/Destroy town buildings
I would like to be able to burn down an enemy town that I know I cannot hold. If you could send a expiditionary force deep into enemy territory take over lightly defended towns and raize/destroy them or buildings in the town. You could gain advantage over a stronger opponant by forcing them to waste vital resources rebuilding that which should have been defended. I hate having a huge battle for a town and then loose it in a few days when a strong hero comes to take it back and I am far from my capitol.
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Sha_Men
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Jack-Of-No-Trades
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posted July 15, 2001 12:35 AM |
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The problem with total destruction is...
That there would be huge problem with small raiding parties. You wouldn't have courage to leave your capitol in the fear of some small warband that barely takes your city and demolishes it...
I think better solution would be that buildings in towns could be take down in the same speed as they are build (one per turn). This way the problem wouldn't be so big.
Somehow there should be restrictions how the degrading of town and buildings would be possible. There should be balance between the harm done by raiding and the harm that you cannot proceed attacking when you have to defend your cities for raiding parties.
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Oldtimer
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posted July 15, 2001 04:54 AM |
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I like the idea of one building destroyed per turn town occupied. But if it is a war situation I think that taking a torch to the town is feasable, it might even make some of the less useful creatures good town defenders. Also you would have to be more careful about how many big guys to have away.
I also think that if you take over an enemy town you should recieve a percentage of that players resources because they have to be stored at the town so spoils of war should apply.
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Sha_Men
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posted July 15, 2001 03:00 PM |
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Well, yes...
I think because of the new fog of war it would be impossible to defend your town efficiently if you don't have scout and watcher towers all over your territory. Some quick units could raize towns with ease and would cause people to just be standing in their own towns defending them rather than adventuring and trying to conquer others.
I really like idea that you would get portion of opponent resources when you take over the town. This would of course create new idea of moving resources between towns. Each town would have their own warehouse and silo to have the resources and if you would like to build something in town which don't have needed resources you would need to move them from some other town. Transporting would work like the new "vectoring" of units. It would take couple of days to move the resources and troops to another town and if the town is conquered during the move, the new owner would get both the resources and the creatures which were in the move.
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Gravdragon
Known Hero
Barbarian
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posted July 15, 2001 09:30 PM |
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But it becomes terribly unbalanced I think. If I play a game and I scrape to get the money to build level 7 dwelling the first week and buy the three guys in there, and then go away and take over mines. When I am away an enemy hero comes along, takes my town and raises the level 7 dwelling. Now i just lost the game.
If you should be able to destroy buildings you would have to pay for it. It may sound weird to pay for destroying something but maybe the creatures that are doing the work want to get paid or whatever. You get my point!
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Sha_Men
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posted July 15, 2001 09:40 PM |
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Yes, that's the problem...
There should be away prevent this happening. I mean destroying buildings couldn't be done so easily...
I'm not sure should player pay for destroying, that doesn't make sense. How about hero would have to have some amount of creatures of higher level creatures to be able to destroy a building. This would mean that it would be impossible with small army. There would be exact number mentioned how much creatures of current level you need to destroy a building.
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Oldtimer
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posted July 15, 2001 10:10 PM |
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It also gets interesting if you can send a raiding party into enemy territory and get those resources you need to build your next building in one day. This might help balance strong vs weak towns.
If you need alot of resources you become a pirate and attack to build your army.
If your opponant needs alot of resources you attack to deny him resources.
If your town gets burned down you raid to get enough to rebuild.
If you are behind on town development you attack to even the score.
More reasons to attack early and often.
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Sha_Men
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posted July 15, 2001 10:43 PM |
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But if it goes to raiding...
It will become same kind of element as in real time strategies. Players won't need to make strategic decisions, they just build quickly and cheap. Then they make small raiding parties that havoc again and again opponent.
Well, it won't take long when everybody will be using this tactic.
Some of the players maybe won't have the courage to make raids or are just annoyed of it. These players will just sit and defend their towns and leave only now and then to get some resources and then get back.
I think raiding should be more useful if you could get resources from opponents and towns could be partly destroyed and this would create it to be interesting strategy. But it shouldn't be the only strategy out there and if it is done too easy, everybody will use it instead of variety of strategies.
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Oldtimer
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posted July 16, 2001 12:12 AM |
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Stategic Questions with Raiding and Raizing:
1.Do I try to destroy opponants ability to fight by raiding resources?
2. Do I destroy my own town so that it cannot be used against me when I see an overwhelming force coming?
3.What is my balance of defence vs offence heroes?
4. Can my pirates/raiders be cost effective?
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Sha_Men
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posted July 16, 2001 12:53 PM |
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Good points...
You're right oldtimer there are strategic choices concerning raiding/raizing...
But I say that it should be a strategic way not bad habit.
If everybody uses because it's so easy: Hire hero, give some creatures and go attack. The main hero would stay town waiting for better troops and waiting for other players to attack, just sitting there. Of course you can do this already now, but it's not so big danger because if opponent happens to get your town you can get it back, but with raizing your town would be in ashes in time you get back...
I'm strongly against strategy game where raiding especially pirate attacks from boats would make the difference who's winning who's not. I'm already so fed up with maps where there is lot of water and you send your better hero to explore and conquer, but it's almost impossible when people are sending small armies with boats time after time to your coast. Of course, you can have second hero there guarding your area but it's only matter of luck if opponents little bit better hero finds a way to your island and takes your town. During the time you're hurrying to take your town back, opponent has havoced your town to level zero. Then you would really think is there any reason to leave your island at all...
Then you're happen to realize that you can win with the same tactic: Leave main hero behind and send some creatures to havoc opponent. Then just wait and see what happens...
However I can't understand why there shouldn't be away destroying opponents building if you happen to conquer it, but it should have it own rules and wouldn't be so easy to do...
I hate many of the real time strategies this why. There's no really any tactic in it, if it's only quick building and quick havoc...
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Oldtimer
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posted July 16, 2001 06:39 PM |
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Raiding and Raizing would put a different spin on some strategy. If you left main hero in town to defend, I would clean up map and win by attrition. If you made your main hero a raider, I might win by destroying your base of operations.
If you leave a town undefended I believe that you get whats coming to you if it is destroyed and plundered.
I believe that forcing you to consider defence more strategically by increasing the penalties for light defence might stop some of the superhero strategy. I also think that a balaancing factor should be how easy it is to defend a castle. In laying seige to a castle the attacker usually needed a 10 to 1 advantage in numbers to win. If this fact could be integrated(not necessarily 10to1 but more difficult)with the ability to raize and take resources you would not end up with people playing like a turtle in a shell. Also if they do play that way they probably would loose adventually.
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Sha_Men
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posted July 16, 2001 07:35 PM |
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So it all comes to...
How the devensive buildings could be improved...
It makes lot of sense that harder it's to attack it would raise the cost effectiveness of raiding and raizing so it wouldn't come as leading strategy choice. This would mean that people would have consider variety of strategies as they know that if they raid they have to have lot's of troops with them, but at the same time they should consider leave forces to defend too.
I think the balance between defence and offence would be the key choice. I think if we look as heroes stands now I believe raiding would be too powerful. But if the defence would be more concentrated into the fact that towns have good defences (moats, arrow towes and stuff) ,which however would cost pretty much, player would have to decide what to defend and at the same time raiding/raizing would come more interesting as you would know that some cities don't have so good defences as the opponents main town. I'm mostly concerned that raiding would be done to the capitol where most important buildings are and one lucky attacker could get it by just trying to raid it enough again and again.
I wrote about "real capitol" in some thread called "beyond castles" this would be a building or something like that which can be build after everything or at least most of the town is fully build. This "building" would add greatly defences of town and makes this as "the capitol". This would mean raiding/raizing this town would be pretty hard. Other towns wouldn't have so massive defences and could be conquered more easily. This also creates strategic choice of which of the towns would be your main town with best defensies. Of course one could say that you can do this already by placing enough creatures to main town, but usually this mean also placing your best hero that town because cost of that opponent gets your main town and can raize it freely is too big.
I'm totally against gameplay where you have to be scared of leaving your main town in the fear of raiding. I personally feel that there should be more choices how to edit the towns defences and this would bring also depth to design and construct of towns as you should think what towns are so important to you that you may need to upgrade their defences. Now every city can have castle so it's basically the same does opponent take your border town or your main town. However there's the fact that we don't know how the new system of "transporting" troops called vectoring works...
This is all to be seen, but surely there should be a way to make raiding/raizing as available strategic option. I have personally tired to superhero strategy which in fact doesn't need real making of strategic choices at all...
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Oldtimer
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posted July 17, 2001 12:25 AM |
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If you can have a creature caravan to ship creatures, why not a resource caravan to ship goods. If you think that your town will be raided maybe you could move goods around to different castles that are not in danger. But would you be able to raid the caravans?
I know this is all speculation but I think the Raize possiblity has been done before in Age of Wonders(a heroes rip off that is a little tedious to play). But I think raiding and raizing puts in a lot of strategic questions beyond which secondary skill to choose or should I upgrade my giants yet.
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Sha_Men
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posted July 17, 2001 12:37 AM |
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I would like there would be caravans...
But there would be caravans going all over the map. Maybe some of the mines should be associated with closest town and the resources should be shipped there in way or another. I'm not sure should caravans be really visible in the map or moving units like heroes, maybe it would so only the routes of the caravans and you could put raiding party over it and if troops or resources are shipped over the route it could be raided (or attacked) with some chance of percentage. This could be a new skill called raiding or something like that.
I agree that raiding really adds strategic depth if it's designed and programmed properly into the game...
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Oldtimer
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posted July 17, 2001 04:17 AM |
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Now we have the ability to put guards on mines why not have the visible caravans with guards. This would enable us to use creatures that we normally leave in the stables.
How about setting up ambush sites that have the creatures set to ambush when the caravan or hero passes that particular point. This would make an easy victory for the hero if he continually sweeps the roads but the caravans would loose resources to these highwaymen.
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Sha_Men
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Supreme Hero
Jack-Of-No-Trades
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posted July 17, 2001 05:56 PM |
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That's other way to make the caravans...
Yes...
I can see it in my mind...
But there's one problem I can see also...
Would it make too complicated?
I mean 3do has kept the game pretty simple and easy to play for most but would it make it too hard?
I wouldn't mind of course because more choices you have that really affect gameplay more strategic thinking it needs.
Would it also make the game too much based into the protection and attacking of caravans. It could make game more "catch the caravan" type of game than heroes game.
Also it wouldn't take along as all would be wanting to have their heroes associated with caravans. This could be end up being really mess as everybody would concentrate into some caravans.
I think caravans could be there but they wouldn't play so big role or it wouldn't take so long time to control your caravans. However visible caravans would also add the nice idea of protecting resources and troops that are send to your allie. It wouldn't be so easy as someone could but guards to important passes.
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Oldtimer
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posted July 17, 2001 07:56 PM |
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You could also follow the caravans to the home base of opponant.
You would probably have to rely on those fortified gates more. Personally I hardly ever guard those gates but if you had to worry about small bands attacking caravans in your territory having a strong defense outpost would make more sence.
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angelspit
Famous Hero
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posted July 17, 2001 08:10 PM |
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Having the new Caravans help with resource gathering makes sense. I always wondered how these resources managed to get to the various castles anyway.
On the other hand, it would definitely makes the game more complicated, even a micro-management nightmare. Who would be interested in making sure resources are distributed equally between every castle?
Anyway, this new caravan is one of the most intriguing new feature of Heroes IV (even if it does not deal with resource management).
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Oldtimer
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posted July 18, 2001 12:42 AM |
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Resources would automatically go to closest castle but if you are in danger of loosing a castle with many resources then you would choose to use a resource caravan to move your stuff, with a specific movement or movement of slowest guarding unit.
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Sha_Men
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posted July 18, 2001 12:53 AM |
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This would create also...
the new meaning of "mining town". As some castles would gain resources from close mines, it would be vital to take that castle to get hands into those resources. And if the mining town would be far away you would have to transport those resources to the towns you want to build.
Of course, there's chance that game comes too micro-management. I enjoy micromanagement in some games like I did with Colonization but I think it wouldn't be right choice for heroes series.
Maybe you could transport smaller amount of resources pretty easily but if you are danger in losing some town and it's important resources you would have to send with caravan to other town. There would be also pirating as you would have to transport some resources overseas.
I would be totally interesting about the way resources are divided between towns as I'm interested about the way how creatures and as mentioned before how defensive buildings are build to different towns because this add tremendous strategic depth. The game would totally change, of course and there should be lot of talk how to balance the idea of Hero progressing and let him to get experience in favor of town and resource management.
Also the whole resource management could be put mostly put "off" in some maps so you would have easier access to resources and you wouldn't have to shuffle them too much between towns. This would make sense especially in those maps concentrating of roleplaying element of heroes...
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