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| Thread: Multi-battles?? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 20, 2004 12:49 PM |
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Please realise !
Hey !
Please realise that there is almost no (and won't be) point in splitting armies in Heroes. This is because:
a) losing a battle means losing whole army, end of story, no viable retreating except H4 Town Portal
b) statwise, 2 stacks of 50 ogres aren't any better than single 100 ogres stack. Prove me wrong.
Yes, I know you can blind (an eight lying on a side) monsters with one spell if they're in one stack. But it's beside the point.
Surrounding is pretty much pointless, unless the surrounding army has some ranged units (moving them is basically losing their turn)
Not only surrounding effectively (preventing movement) is unlikely because you'd have to occupy all adjacent hexes...Units have typically 5+ movement points, so even if there's one hex free around an unit, it can easily escape and won't be slowed much wherever is it meant to go.
Two-hex units can sometimes be blocked reliably, but it's not something you can count on.
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My opinion:
in homm battles it's not very important tactically from which side you attack. What is really important is to make sure each of your units attacks its preffered target. (and defend shooters if you got some)
Positioning hardly matters ! Numbers, quality, choosing right targets and spells - this matters.
Stack-based combat system has its limitations.
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gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted September 20, 2004 02:00 PM |
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multi-battles: could it work that way?
1) continuous world in battle screen, basically a zoomed adventure map.
2) army that particicipates can only see part of the world, center of which is the commander.
2.1) if a commander is retreating, he just moves all his troops that are in his area of vision outside enemy commander's area of vision.
2.2) if you move your commander so that some stack of yours is outside your commander's are of vision, the behaviour of the stack could be somewhat arguable.
2.2.1) a stack of yours is outside your commander's area of vision but is in enemy commander's area of vision. the stack could be controlled by ai or flee. maybe you could order the stack to fight in order to cover your escape, and if the stack has high enough morele, it might do so (controlled by ai).
2.2.2) a stack is in no commander's area of vison. the stack might try to follow the army, it might just stand there for a day or two so that you can pick it up again, or the creatures might just go home.
1.1) the locations of the armies after battle depends on where they moved during battle (if one army retreated and the other army chased they could be several adventure map hexes away from the point where the battle started).
1.2) the maximum number of rounds of battle should be limited and should somehow correspond to adventure map movement. all this might lead to something like simultaneous adventure map movement.
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the basic idea is that the commander can only give commands within his area of vision, i.e. the stack he commands and the attack or movement target have to be in the commander's area of vision.
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Daddy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
and why not.
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posted September 20, 2004 02:14 PM |
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sounds good, complicated but not bad 
besides, why not have a more complex combat system^^
reg
Daddy
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted September 21, 2004 02:58 PM |
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Retreating
I have a simpler idea about retreating.
To retreat, you have to place all (preferably) your units on edge of a battlefield, (at beginning of a battle you would NOT start at the edge) and hold for a few turns there.
During this time you would be unable to attack, cast spells, have like -25% to attack and defense skill, and perhaps reduced magic resistance. After given amount of turns, all units outside of "drop zone" and/or immobilized ones are lost. (limited casualties if immobilizing spell has short duration like one turn only)
Quite natural, I think, and makes sense I hope. If you were retreating from a small army, you'd get little to no casualties, and vice versa.
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gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted September 21, 2004 04:00 PM |
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Quote:
sounds good, complicated but not bad
besides, why not have a more complex combat system^^
i think i just said it in a complicated way.
if i had said:
'commander can move around on the map and command creatures within his area of vision'
or:
'commander can move around on the map and battle screen is an area around the commander'
would you still say that it's complicated?
imho that way it is natural that if commanders don't have creatures within enemy commander's battle screen then there is no battle.
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basically the same as borsuk just said, but if we are talking about 10 commanders participating in the battle between 10 enemy armies then.. what is the edge you should retreat to?
and, as i understood, if you are moving your creatures to the edge, the enemy creatures cannot follow you there? works like some sort of 'sanctuary zone', doesn't it?
also, it seems like that way we couldn't have battles where an army can be attacked from multiple sides?
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Polaris
Promising
Known Hero
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posted September 29, 2004 02:49 AM |
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At first I thought the idea had some appeal because it works so well in AOW. But after thinking about it I now believe it is pointless to add this to Heroes.
Consider why AOW has battles that allow multiple armies on the field in the first place? It arises from the need to be able to overwhelm your opponent.
Since AOW units don't stack (unlike in Heroes) you would not be able to attack with a larger force using the Heroes combat model. Military superiority would have no way of being leveraged; only experience would matter. This is not the case in Heroes.
Since creatures can stack in Heroes, you can already leverage superior military forces against a foe, so I think "multi battles" as they are being called serve no purpose. Obviously its safer to travel in clumps so strategically speaking armies should travel as one solid unit in either model (as is indeed the case in both AOW and Heroes). The only difference is the starting locations on the combat screen, which not only has alternative solutions (as evidenced by the tactics skill of H3) but it is also minor enough that it's not worth the overhead of complicating the combat model.
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gerdash
Responsible
Famous Hero
from the Animated Peace
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posted September 29, 2004 05:41 AM |
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good point, polaris.
main reason why the topic interesting for me is the '1 sprite against 100 zombies' battles that take hell of a long time and 1 sprite finally wins.
a solution could be that the combat rounds correspond to map movement or time or whatever you want to call it. i.e. in one day you can only have a limited number of combat rounds.
and this is where multi-battles may be something to talk about, as both sides can move their other armies while the battle is not over yet.
hmm.. another solution could be removing the 'wait' from battles, which is imho a product of very questionable logic.
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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