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Heroes Community > Heroes 7 - Falcon's Last Flight > Thread: What is the optimal battlefield size?
Thread: What is the optimal battlefield size? This thread is 5 pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · NEXT»
alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted August 19, 2014 06:38 PM
Edited by alcibiades at 21:10, 19 Aug 2014.

What is the optimal battlefield size?

So, I'm taking this discussion over here from the Battlefield graphics are awful thread because that one has numerous other topics going also.

So far from the IGN video, we've seen three different battlefields:

Catapult battle: Size 14x13 (length x width)
Fort battle: Size 20x14 with extra partial width 18 on far side (length x width).
Siege battle: Size 25x14 (length x width)

In comparison, H5 standard battlefield was 12x10. H6 was same size I think.

I know most players felt H5 battlefields were too small, but as discussed in the other topic, the new battlefield size makes creature appear extremely small on standard zoom.

So what I would like to know is: What do people think is optimal battlefield size?

Personally, I found H5 battlefields too short but not necessarily too narrow - question is whether reducing the number of tiles in width on battlefield would help make zoom better?
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Storm-Giant
Storm-Giant


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
posted August 19, 2014 06:53 PM

H7 may give the impression of a smaller battlefield because they are too crowded with obstacles.

I think H5 size was ok (it was even smaller in vanilla though, like 10x8). Increasing it's length could be good...but this would feel useless if a significant number of creatures can cross the whole battlefield in one turn.
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Galaad
Galaad

Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
posted August 19, 2014 06:56 PM

I prefer bigger battlefields for tactical reasons, I must say I really like the Fort battle one due to obstacles They better don't give ultra morale boost and/or increase the speed of the units accordingly !

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Minion
Minion


Legendary Hero
posted August 19, 2014 07:03 PM

I would want to keep the Heroes 5 battlefield BUT with slightly lower unit speeds (and no tactics that allow all your units to cross the battlefield in 1 turn). There was nothing interesting about a Sylvan army charging and killing you before you can act. That. Should. Not. Happen. Again.

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Storm-Giant
Storm-Giant


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
posted August 19, 2014 07:04 PM

Minion said:
I would want to keep the Heroes 5 battlefield BUT with slightly lower unit speeds (and no tactics that allow all your units to cross the battlefield in 1 turn). There was nothing interesting about a Sylvan army charging and killing you before you can act. That. Should. Not. Happen. Again.

+1

Creatures speeds are as important as battlefield size.
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esvath
esvath


Known Hero
posted August 19, 2014 07:20 PM

Storm-Giant said:
H7 may give the impression of a smaller battlefield because they are too crowded with obstacles.


This.

Is it possible to remove some of the cosmetics in the outside battlefield border and "stretch" the battlefield so that each square is bigger than now?


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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
posted August 19, 2014 07:43 PM

BF size has direct consequences for maneverability.

HoMM 3 felt good. BF size was 15x11 or 165 hexes. Fortress was the most bulky faction with 4 2x1 creatures, so they would cover 11 hexes or 1/15 of the BF or 6 2/3 %.

HoMM 6 Inferno would cover 19 of the 120 BF squares, which is 15 5/6 %.

Massive difference.

With 2x2 creatures you need a bigger BF, or obstacles are too much of a random factor considering melee walkers.

Secondly - the deployment area!

Think about HoMM 3: Expert Tactics would give you actually 40% of the BF to deploy your troops in!

Now consider what happens with 2x2 creatures: what if you want to build 7 stacks of them for your army? Not possible? Are you kidding?

So that mean, either you need to make the BF at least 14 squares wide (high) - or double the deployment area to 4 square columns instead of 2. This would add 4 columns to the minimum size of 12x10.

Which means, minimum size is 16x10. Bigger would be better still.

Creature size?

Well, ZOOM IN, if ylou want to see the glorious 3d detail!

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Wilfild
Wilfild

Tavern Dweller
posted August 19, 2014 08:02 PM

Different size from different type of battle can be good.

A siege battle request more size vs fort battle, and this give more strategic option.
An open field with a large size will be an interesting option.

Tactic skill can cut the lenght with a smart deploy, and give an advantage to melee heroes.

We have to remember that in HMM VII they reintroduce Ballistas, and with a large battlefields the range will be very important (and obstacle's too).

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Miru
Miru


Supreme Hero
A leaf in the river of time
posted August 19, 2014 08:09 PM
Edited by Miru at 20:11, 19 Aug 2014.

I like the larger battle fields, in terms of looks and fun. Longer battlefields of course are advantageous to shooters, and thus shooter heavy armies (traditionally academy and elves over wizards and orcs). On the one hand I like having a variety of fields to play on, but on the other hand those long narrow obstacle heavy battlefields look like a free win for any decent wizard. I think that standard battle sizes would pretty much be necessary for real balance.
I really liked the look of the long narrow approach sieges, I never liked siege combat in previous games. There is a specific map in SC2:HotS that comes to mind where you are fighting your way up a trench and taking constant heavy losses, that was a good feel for a siege. I like the idea that storming a castle means taking heavy losses, but that favors defense too much. In crusader kings and europa universalis where when you siege a castle you can either beat them by attrition, which takes a long time, or charge and take heavy losses. However in HoMM where you typically only have one or two castles, the block-off-attrition would be really quite op.
Basically, in order to maintain the tactics and balance already in the game I think that battlefields would need to stay under 18ish tiles long, and have some obstacles to make placement interesting, but not so many that you can completely bottleneck the enemy as you choose. Any more variety would make the battle outcome too dependent on the field.
And as much as I like the large battlefeilds with high movement, that means that any unit can just walk around any other and strategic placement becomes less important. The compacted shorter range battles enabled much more strategy.
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Jiriki9
Jiriki9


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Altar Dweller
posted August 19, 2014 08:19 PM

I think the answer is: changing with circumstances. I would much rather see that than a fixed battlefield size (which is more probable though). I would for example like if the army sizes have an influence of battlefield size: a army fought between 2 stacks of each 20 Core units needs less space than one between 2 full scale armies with hundreds of creatures, doesn't it?^^ Also it would allow more interesting placement situations as well, possibly.

Generally I would always have liked bigger battlefields than HoMM gave them to us. Compare them, for example, to AoW. Larger battlefields are more versatile, allow more versatile battle courses. They allow more obstacles (because I think many of them are interesting, and certainly not a bad thing!).

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Galaad
Galaad

Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
posted August 19, 2014 08:29 PM
Edited by Galaad at 20:29, 19 Aug 2014.

Quote:
There was nothing interesting about a Sylvan army charging and killing you before you can act. That. Should. Not. Happen. Again.

Ahaha this was pretty messed up indeed !
Quote:

Creatures speeds are as important as battlefield size.

No doubt here

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted August 19, 2014 08:31 PM

JollyJoker said:
Now consider what happens with 2x2 creatures: what if you want to build 7 stacks of them for your army? Not possible? Are you kidding?

Limiting the number of 2x2 stacks you could bring into battlefield at same time is not necessarily something I would see as a big problem. A battlefield that 12 tiles wide would still allow six 2x2 creatures, I could live with that. Assuming each faction only has three 2x2 creatures, I guess we'd rarely see armies comprised solely of 2x2 creatures anyway.

Minion said:
I would want to keep the Heroes 5 battlefield BUT with slightly lower unit speeds ...

A flat reduction of unit speed is not necessarily such a simple matter. Since increment in movement has to be in steps of 1, things just don't scale down to lower movement without having huge impact on gameplay. Consider this:

Case 1: Creatures A, B and C has movement 4, 5 and 6 respectively. This means that creature C moves 50% faster than creature A, B moves 25% faster.

Case 2: Creatures A, B and C has movement 1, 2 and 3 respectively. This means that creatures C moves 200% faster than creature A, B moves 100% faster.

I think in H5, minimum creature movement was 3(?), so there is just not a lot of room for scaling down. For that reason, I do think making the battlefield longer is the correct solution. But if H7 standard battlefield is 20x14, I might instead have opted for something like 17x12 or 18x12 or even 20x12 although that might cause problems due to different aspect ratio in interface.
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kayna
kayna


Supreme Hero
posted August 19, 2014 09:05 PM

I would like something like H6 but bigger with archers doing a little less damage to compensate.

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted August 19, 2014 09:09 PM

kayna said:
I would like something like H6 but bigger with archers doing a little less damage to compensate.

Sorry, but what exactly do you mean when you say "something like H6 but bigger"? Do you mean it should be same size as H6 (12x10) or bigger (which is not same size as H6)?
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kayna
kayna


Supreme Hero
posted August 19, 2014 09:45 PM

Just a bit bigger than H6 so armies don't collide in the first round right away, well, unless both march foward like blood crazed madmen.

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MattII
MattII


Legendary Hero
posted August 19, 2014 10:35 PM

I'd say 20x14 seems about right, although the number of obstacles ought to be reduced a bit.

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AlexSpl
AlexSpl


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted August 19, 2014 10:39 PM

15x11 for hexagonal grid, 19x14 for squares. Believe me.

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Fauch
Fauch


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
posted August 19, 2014 11:14 PM

heroes 4 had bigger battlefields, but you could use obstacles or hide behind other units so that casters and shooters wouldn't see you, or would deal reduced damage.

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WhiteRider
WhiteRider


Known Hero
death walks with me
posted August 20, 2014 02:54 AM

alcibiades said:

Case 1: Creatures A, B and C has movement 4, 5 and 6 respectively. This means that creature C moves 50% faster than creature A, B moves 25% faster.

Case 2: Creatures A, B and C has movement 1, 2 and 3 respectively. This means that creatures C moves 200% faster than creature A, B moves 100% faster.


Units don't move in %% but in squares. Units with 4 and 6 steps converted in 1 and 3 is the same. First unit will be still 2 squares back from the second one. It only benefits the BF size and how many turns you need to reach the other end of it.

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JollyJoker
JollyJoker


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
posted August 20, 2014 07:17 AM

No, that's wrong as well.
It's simply that the smaller the BF and unit speed is, the more effect has the smallest reduction or increase in movement.

Alci said:

Quote:
Limiting the number of 2x2 stacks you could bring into battlefield at same time is not necessarily something I would see as a big problem. A battlefield that 12 tiles wide would still allow six 2x2 creatures, I could live with that. Assuming each faction only has three 2x2 creatures, I guess we'd rarely see armies comprised solely of 2x2 creatures anyway.


Don't forget the obstacles. Also: don't forget, the smaller the battlefield is in relation to the squares the units already block at start, the more important and even decisive the obstacles become.

Then there is unit speed; as mentioned above, even the slowest unit must have a minimum speed, otherwise movement decreasing effects will either have no effect at all or bring them to a standstill. Having the units near to each other doesn't allow maneuvering.
And think of immediate AoE spells, if you are forced to a cramped deployment, just because you field a full army.

On the other hand, if they are too far apart, there's too much abuse possible with fast versus slow units in creeping.

All that points to an optimal size somewhere above 12x10 surely, but certainly not above 19 or 20x14.

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