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Heroes Community > Heroes 7+ Altar of Wishes > Thread: Stacked Stack
Thread: Stacked Stack
panduwana
panduwana


Adventuring Hero
posted December 02, 2009 07:04 PM
Edited by panduwana at 19:13, 02 Dec 2009.

Stacked Stack

Yeah, why not stack halberdiers on top of pikemen?
Here's my idea: let units be mixed with its upgrade in one stack. This way, we can avoid the "problem" of having an army with all nagas are queens or all centaurs are captains.

To enhance strategic choice without making it complex, the gameplay specification would be:
- Only creature and its upgrade can be mixed
- Maximum 2 types of unit in one stack, even if there are more than 1 upgrade choice.
- "Mixing" here means putting stack of, for example, halberdiers on top of pikemen or pikemen on top of halberdiers.

This is where the strategic choice comes, you can choose to:
- put upgrade on top of base creature, or
- put base on top of upgrade
Your choice will modify the stack's stat (attack, defense, speed, etc).

Now, having more choice in game is fun, but ** TOO MUCH CHOICE AND IT WOULD BE TOO COMPLEX ** so, let's limit the rules so when playing, the player just need to remember the following rule of thumb:
- Put upgraded units on top: offensive
- Put upgraded units in the bottom: defensive

Ok, let's start:

Let's imagine what the effect of such choices to stack's attack, defense, etc.
Let's say that putting halberdiers on top of pikemen is akin to placing halberdiers in front of pikemen in real battle, so the translation would be:
- "on top" means "in front"
- "in the bottom" means "in the back"

================
Who die first?
================
=> This is simple, the units in front will die first (of course!)
But wait, upgrade has more hit points so it's no-brainer that we must put upgrade on top! Well, not really, because of the effects of other stats...


====================
Attack and Defense
====================
=> Mixed-stack's attack skill = unit-that-placed-on-top's attack .
=> Mixed-stack's defense skill = unit-that-placed-in-the-bottom's defense.

Let's use halberdiers and pikemen again, let's say that:
- Pikeman attk=2, def=3
- Halberdier attk=4, def=5

- Case: halberdiers on top of pikemen
=> the stack's stat would be: attk=4, def=3
=> after all halberdiers die it would be: attk=2, def=3
 
- Case: halberdiers below pikemen
=> the stack's stat would be: attk=2, def=5  
=> after all pikemen die it would be: attk=4, def=5

See, so, putting halberdiers on top means they will die faster because they use the pikemen's defense, while putting halberdiers in the bottom means the pikemen would be using halberdiers' defense, eg. defensive.

But putting halberdiers in the bottom means they use pikemen's attack skill, while if they are to be put on top it is the pikemen's attack skill that would be increased, eg. offensive.

In offensive choice, the stack starts with higher stat (attk=4) but after all halberdiers die, the stat would be reduced to (attk=2). In defensive choice, the stack starts with (attk=2) but increased to (attk=4) after all pikemen die.
 
Remember that in offensive mode, halberdiers would die faster, while in defensive mode, the pikemen would be harder to kill.


==================
Speed/Initiative
==================
=> If slower unit put in the front: stack's speed/initiative is this slower-unit's
=> If faster unit put in the front: you get additional choice to move using upgraded unit's speed or slower unit's, with consequence.

**(Reminder: "in front" here in the context of mixed stack means "on top of the stack")**

Again we'll use halberdier and pikeman as example.

- Case: pikemen in front
=> The stack's turn and speed would be that of pikemen's, the halberdiers on the back simply get hindered by pikemen in front of them. But halberdiers' speed is used when retaliating, eg. when attacked by slower-than-halberdier stack, we get the chance of immediate-retaliating (ala H4). The chance depends of the difference between attacking-stack's speed and halberdier's speed.

- Case: halberdiers in front
=> Now the halberdiers have the choice to (1) move faster but with the consequence that the pikemen are left behind, or (2) move with pikemen's speed but with the pikemen's companion (and their additional force). The stack would be having halberdier's initiative (eg. get its turn sooner) and the player would need to choose between "move now but only the halberdiers attack, the pikemen just can keep up with halberdiers speed but lose its attack opportunity" or "move later, but everyone attacks".

For example: we use mixed-stack-halberdiers-on-top (offensive) vs. the enemy that use mixed-stack-pikemen-on-top (defensive)
- halberdiers-on-top (we) would get its turn first
- we can choose between: attack now but the pikemen just move, or attack later with pikemen also attacking
- if attack now, damage only done by halberdiers but we attack first and retaliation comes after the attack.
- if attack later, we do full damage but there's a chance that the enemy move first, and even if it turned out that we move first, there's a chance that the retaliation comes at the same time with our attack (remember that in attack-later we are using pikeman's speed while the defensive enemy retaliates using halberdier's speed).

Notice that in attack-now choice, the pikemen is able to keep up with the halberdiers movement, only that it is just moving not attacking, eg. the mixed-stack is not splitted even if the player choose attack-now.


=============
Damage Rate
=============
=> In case of unbalanced mixed-stack, the dominant creature's damage will be used.
=> In case of balanced stack, the average will be used.
=> Unbalanced stack is defined as mixed stack that having one type of creature outnumber the other more than 2x, eg: 20 pikemen mixed with 5 halberdiers.
=> Balanced stack has the creature-counts difference less than 2x, eg: 7 pikemen mixed with 5 halberdiers.

Let's say:
Pikeman damage 2-3
Halberdier damage 4-5

Example case would be:
=> Stack of (10 pikes + 10 halberds), damage rate: 3-4 (the average)    
=> Stack of (10 pikes + 90 halberds), damage rate: 4-5 (the halberd's)    
=> Stack of (90 pikes + 10 halberds), damage rate: 2-3 (the pike's)    

So, in the scenario of defensive pikemen-dominant stack:
=> starts with def=upgraded, attk/dmg/speed=base
=> as battle goes on, the pikemen number will be decreased and the stack would turn to defensive-balanced-stack: def=upgraded, dmg=averaged, attk/speed=base
=> later it would become defensive halberdier-dominant: def/dmg=upgraded, attk/speed=base
=> and finally become pure-halberdier stack: def/dmg/attk/speed=upgraded

In the scenario of offensive halberdier-dominant stack:
=> starts with def=base, attk/dmg/speed=upgraded
=> then become def=base, dmg=averaged, attk/speed=upgraded (offensive balanced)
=> later become def/dmg=base, attk/speed=upgraded (offensive pikemen-dominant)
=> and finally def/dmg/attk/speed=base (pure pikemen)


=================
Morale and Luck
=================
=> No difference between stacks, so this would be just the same.


==================
Melee vs. Ranged
==================
In case of mixed-stack that consists of, for example, giants-titans, the player can choose between everybody-attacks-with-melee or titans-shoot-giants-defend. Another example would be stack of skeleton-skeletonarcher.


======================================
Spells and Activated Special Ability
======================================
This is the same like melee-ranged case. So, for example, let's say archangel can resurrect while angel cannot. An angel-archangel stack can choose between everybody-attacks or archangels-resurrect-while-angels-defend.


=================
Passive Ability
=================
Let's say red dragon (not immune to magic) upgraded to black dragon (immune to magic). This means putting black dragon on top makes the whole stack immune to magic while putting red dragon on top means the red dragons still vulnerable to magic (eg. the stack can be fireballed).

==============
Heroes Skill    
==============
Heroes tactics skill effect can be improved like this:
- No tactic skill: can reorder each stack's who-is-on-top only in town.
- Basic: can reorder even when adventuring.
- Advanced: Basic + can reorder in the beginning of battle, but only if the hero is the attacking army.  
- Expert: Advanced + even if he/she is the army being attacked.
- Ultimate: Can reorder in the middle of battle (at the cost of the stack's turn).


Ok, so what do you think?

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Berny-Mac
Berny-Mac


Promising
Legendary Hero
Lord Vader
posted December 02, 2009 07:31 PM

woah...I like the idea, but I dunno if it'll really work out. Possible, though.
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MattII
MattII


Legendary Hero
posted December 02, 2009 08:30 PM
Edited by MattII at 20:38, 02 Dec 2009.

Nice idea (I've had it myself) but the way you've done it is really too complicated, most stats should be just mixed ([no. of base creatures*base creature stat+no. of upgraded creatures*upgraded creature stat]/total number of creatures, with the rounding point at 2/3), and upgraded creature abilities should always work. As for how they die, say you have 10 base and 5 upgraded, it should always go base-base-upgraded-base-base-upgraded, etc. On the speed and initiate front, everything should move at the speed and initiative of the slowest unit, but maybe give the upgraded creatures some sort of damage bonus because they won't be as tired.

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Snatch
Snatch


Promising
Known Hero
Proud Kappa
posted December 07, 2009 05:33 PM

In a German forum I've read a similar idea but it was about stacking melee and ranged units together as a kind of formation.

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Instants
Instants


Adventuring Hero
of adventuring
posted December 16, 2009 06:33 PM

@ snatch
Could you please link to that forum?

Also, sounds like a good idea, but I highly doubt ubi will incorporate it into MM:HVI
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