Heroes of Might and Magic Community
visiting hero! Register | Today's Posts | Games | Search! | FAQ/Rules | AvatarList | MemberList | Profile


Age of Heroes Headlines:  
5 Oct 2016: Heroes VII development comes to an end.. - read more
6 Aug 2016: Troubled Heroes VII Expansion Release - read more
26 Apr 2016: Heroes VII XPack - Trial by Fire - Coming out in June! - read more
17 Apr 2016: Global Alternative Creatures MOD for H7 after 1.8 Patch! - read more
7 Mar 2016: Romero launches a Piano Sonata Album Kickstarter! - read more
19 Feb 2016: Heroes 5.5 RC6, Heroes VII patch 1.7 are out! - read more
13 Jan 2016: Horn of the Abyss 1.4 Available for Download! - read more
17 Dec 2015: Heroes 5.5 update, 1.6 out for H7 - read more
23 Nov 2015: H7 1.4 & 1.5 patches Released - read more
31 Oct 2015: First H7 patches are out, End of DoC development - read more
5 Oct 2016: Heroes VII development comes to an end.. - read more
[X] Remove Ads
LOGIN:     Username:     Password:         [ Register ]
HOMM1: info forum | HOMM2: info forum | HOMM3: info mods forum | HOMM4: info CTG forum | HOMM5: info mods forum | MMH6: wiki forum | MMH7: wiki forum
Heroes Community > Heroes 5 - Temple of Ashan > Thread: 8+ Towns
Thread: 8+ Towns
Gidoza
Gidoza


Famous Hero
posted April 06, 2016 05:31 PM

8+ Towns

I'm just trying to understand this, because it isn't clear...

How big of a problem is it if there are more than 8 towns on a map?  Or is it a problem at all?  (Seven Lakes, which comes with the game, has 13)

The Editor complains when there's more than 8 towns, but the game seems to run well anyways?  I'm trying to reproduce a map from H3 that had 23 Towns, and am wondering what, if anything, this will do.


Anyways, part of what I loved about H3 was expansion towns.  I basically never bothered playing a map unless there was at least 16 towns on it, which partially drove me from H5 because very few maps had a decent amount of towns on them.  And now I realize that this is the status quo.

Anyways - thoughts?

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted April 06, 2016 06:08 PM

I think that maps with numerous towns have a high potential for imbalance. If you get a few towns and external dwellings of your own faction and learn battle frenzy/vitality, that shifts the balance in favour of tier 1-2 units. Doesn't automatically mean it's an OP combination but I'd be cautious. In many ways, H5 is an imbalance waiting to happen
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
OhforfSake
OhforfSake


Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
posted April 06, 2016 06:49 PM

I never played the game, but will shout out a word for how much I love the idea of the potential of low tier units becoming the best choice.
____________
Living time backwards

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
Dredknight
Dredknight


Honorable
Supreme Hero
disrupting the moding industry
posted April 06, 2016 07:51 PM
Edited by Dredknight at 19:51, 06 Apr 2016.

There is one artifact that gives +1 damage.  I believe it has to be banned.
Especially when stacked with frenzy things go out of reach especially for factions like necropolis, stronghold and fortress.
There should not be other direct damage modifier besides battle frenzy.
____________
Join our official discord channel | NCF Utility Beta

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
Gidoza
Gidoza


Famous Hero
posted April 06, 2016 08:01 PM

Elvin said:
I think that maps with numerous towns have a high potential for imbalance. If you get a few towns and external dwellings of your own faction and learn battle frenzy/vitality, that shifts the balance in favour of tier 1-2 units. Doesn't automatically mean it's an OP combination but I'd be cautious. In many ways, H5 is an imbalance waiting to happen



Yes thanks for your comments (and the others).  If nothing in the game mechanics prevents the # of towns, then I don't see the problem - removing certain items came to my mind, anyways.  In the H3 version of the game, I had removed Berzerk, Resurrection, and Animate Dead, the result being that most level 1 and 2 creatures were dead most of the time, so even with huge bonuses they'd have nothing to offer.  Removing the item that gives +1 damage to creatures seems like a good call, though.

In any case, 20 of the towns are for 4 factions only (four islands of 5 of the same town), the stuff isn't randomized.  Not that that can't cause imbalance anyways - perfect balance will only be on symmetrical maps.  But even so, I'll aim to be as balanced as possible, and at the very least it'll be dynamic and interesting.

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
Elvin
Elvin


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
posted April 06, 2016 08:11 PM

Dougal and Ingvar must be monstrous on that map
____________
H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
zaio-baio
zaio-baio


Promising
Famous Hero
posted April 06, 2016 09:52 PM bonus applied by kiryu133 on 07 Apr 2016.
Edited by zaio-baio at 23:18, 06 Apr 2016.

Gidoza said:
perfect balance will only be on symmetrical maps.

I would like to disagree. The fact that the map is symmetrical doesnt mean its balanced for both players. Some factions have better early game and/or cheaper lineup resource and gold wise, while others scale better into lategame but have some troubles early on. So if its a small fast paced map the towns with good early game - academy and necro will dominate. If the map is large and rich and doenst allow for early final fight then haven, sylvan, dwarves will rule. Similar thing applies to gold/resource availability - haven benefits mostly from gold/ore, dwarves from crystals, elves from wood and so on.
Example - Disputed island - its classic map that has been played many many times. It also happens to be a great map where you can own a dwarven player hard. The reason is that the crystal mines for both players are placed after a big stack of phoenixes. Getting the crystal mine there early is not possible, yet getting all other mines (but the gold mine) is. The dwarves need lots of crystals for thanes/magmas and on heroic diff they will not manage to build them until very late in the game. On the other hand all other towns will manage to get their lvl 6 and 7 units way earlier, which will give them a big final fight advantage.
Another example is the map Subteranian treasuries  - it offers 2 native towns for all players, 1 ore and 2 wood mines for each player, no gold mine. It happens to be a terrible map to play haven on. The knights need gold and ore, yet the map is rather poor, the ore mine is far away from the town, yet 1 of the wood mines is right next to it. So building up the haven town there is hard, and the haven army will be way smaller than it would be on a richer map.
Both those maps are pretty much symmertical, yet terrible match ups may happen
The balance (esp might vs magic) also depends on the difficulty. For instance academy is likely to dominate dwarves on hard/heroic, yet on normal diff the dwarves might easily crush the wizards. On hard and heroic the dwarves are likely to have problems during the early stages that might cripple them in the final fight. Academy on the other hand will move faster on the map, get more res/exp/arts and have a nice lvl/army advantage in the final fight. On normal diff the creeping will be easier and academy's early game advantage will be way smaller.
Another thing that matters are the external dwellings. Sylvan benefits the most from lvl 3 external dwellings ( more arcane archers), while haven/orcs/academy get slow walkers that are not nearly as useful as the arcane archers during creeping and in final fight. More lvl 2 dwellings is great news for haven and orcs(more shooters), while academy and inferno get not as useful units.
On maps with 2 lvl 3 dwellings sylvan is scary (2x arcane stack size), on maps with 2 lvl 2 dwellings haven and orcs are scary ( 2x crossbows/centaurs). A lvl 7 dwelling for both players puts necro at disadvantage, due to necro's weaker lvl 7 unit.

Bottom line is that choosing the right town on the right map leads to a better win rate.

Heroes also matter a lot. Some towns have great heroes, while others have average. For instance beating academy on small maps is possible, yet if the academy player plays havez and the difficulty is hard or heroic it might be very very hard. The reason for that is that havez is the only hero in the game that starts with 3 stacks of shooters and warmashines starting skill. He also starts with 4,5 k balista and 750 gold ammo cart - which is the best start in the game. On week 2 maps havez with gremlin saboteurs and:
Exp warmashines + tent + 3x balista
Enlightenment + arcane intuition and
Exp destructive can build archmages, learn the fireball spell from them and have 80%+ chance to win vs any town/hero combination.
On large and rich maps Vittorio ( haven hero that starts with warmashines) can get 3x balista + tent asap, then logistics + warpath and simply roll over the map, accumulating lots of gold/exp/arts in the process and visiting many stat boosters. Havez on the other hand might have better creeping(depends on lvl 2 dwellings), yet he will most likely lack logistics + warpath, because wizards have only 2% chance on lvl up to get offered logistics. As a result Vittorio will be faster overall on the map and will have lategame advantage even without training an absurd amount of paladins. And so on for all remaining towns/heroes.

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
Gidoza
Gidoza


Famous Hero
posted April 07, 2016 05:48 AM

zaio-baio said:
Gidoza said:
perfect balance will only be on symmetrical maps.

I would like to disagree. The fact that the map is symmetrical doesnt mean its balanced for both players. Some factions have better early game and/or cheaper lineup resource and gold wise, while others scale better into lategame but have some troubles early on. So if its a small fast paced map the towns with good early game - academy and necro will dominate. If the map is large and rich and doenst allow for early final fight then haven, sylvan, dwarves will rule. Similar thing applies to gold/resource availability - haven benefits mostly from gold/ore, dwarves from crystals, elves from wood and so on.
Example - Disputed island - its classic map that has been played many many times. It also happens to be a great map where you can own a dwarven player hard. The reason is that the crystal mines for both players are placed after a big stack of phoenixes. Getting the crystal mine there early is not possible, yet getting all other mines (but the gold mine) is. The dwarves need lots of crystals for thanes/magmas and on heroic diff they will not manage to build them until very late in the game. On the other hand all other towns will manage to get their lvl 6 and 7 units way earlier, which will give them a big final fight advantage.
Another example is the map Subteranian treasuries  - it offers 2 native towns for all players, 1 ore and 2 wood mines for each player, no gold mine. It happens to be a terrible map to play haven on. The knights need gold and ore, yet the map is rather poor, the ore mine is far away from the town, yet 1 of the wood mines is right next to it. So building up the haven town there is hard, and the haven army will be way smaller than it would be on a richer map.
Both those maps are pretty much symmertical, yet terrible match ups may happen
The balance (esp might vs magic) also depends on the difficulty. For instance academy is likely to dominate dwarves on hard/heroic, yet on normal diff the dwarves might easily crush the wizards. On hard and heroic the dwarves are likely to have problems during the early stages that might cripple them in the final fight. Academy on the other hand will move faster on the map, get more res/exp/arts and have a nice lvl/army advantage in the final fight. On normal diff the creeping will be easier and academy's early game advantage will be way smaller.
Another thing that matters are the external dwellings. Sylvan benefits the most from lvl 3 external dwellings ( more arcane archers), while haven/orcs/academy get slow walkers that are not nearly as useful as the arcane archers during creeping and in final fight. More lvl 2 dwellings is great news for haven and orcs(more shooters), while academy and inferno get not as useful units.
On maps with 2 lvl 3 dwellings sylvan is scary (2x arcane stack size), on maps with 2 lvl 2 dwellings haven and orcs are scary ( 2x crossbows/centaurs). A lvl 7 dwelling for both players puts necro at disadvantage, due to necro's weaker lvl 7 unit.

Bottom line is that choosing the right town on the right map leads to a better win rate.

Heroes also matter a lot. Some towns have great heroes, while others have average. For instance beating academy on small maps is possible, yet if the academy player plays havez and the difficulty is hard or heroic it might be very very hard. The reason for that is that havez is the only hero in the game that starts with 3 stacks of shooters and warmashines starting skill. He also starts with 4,5 k balista and 750 gold ammo cart - which is the best start in the game. On week 2 maps havez with gremlin saboteurs and:
Exp warmashines + tent + 3x balista
Enlightenment + arcane intuition and
Exp destructive can build archmages, learn the fireball spell from them and have 80%+ chance to win vs any town/hero combination.
On large and rich maps Vittorio ( haven hero that starts with warmashines) can get 3x balista + tent asap, then logistics + warpath and simply roll over the map, accumulating lots of gold/exp/arts in the process and visiting many stat boosters. Havez on the other hand might have better creeping(depends on lvl 2 dwellings), yet he will most likely lack logistics + warpath, because wizards have only 2% chance on lvl up to get offered logistics. As a result Vittorio will be faster overall on the map and will have lategame advantage even without training an absurd amount of paladins. And so on for all remaining towns/heroes.




Point taken, although I wasn't exactly excluding any of this from my comment (obviously a symmetrical map where one town needs a crystal mine and another doesn't, and neither have one, isn't going to be balanced).  I'm thinking of "symmetrical" in terms of dodging this kind of problem.

However, you've pointed out rightly that alot of factors go into balance and that your initial pick is as important as anything else.

For what it's worth, thanks for the (I think?) confidence boost in making a non-symmetrical map.     I'll make an effort to pay attention to balance to make sure it's as fair as it can be.  And there's no randomization for dwellings or towns here, so if I do things right, most things should be okay.

Cheers.  

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
dredknight
dredknight


Honorable
Supreme Hero
disrupting the moding industry
posted April 07, 2016 08:55 AM

The points Zaio Baio did are fair but they relate mostly to standard ToTe. In H55 you can make a decent counter most of the time.
____________
Join our official discord channel | NCF Utility Beta

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
magnomagus
magnomagus


Admirable
Legendary Hero
modding wizard
posted April 07, 2016 09:49 AM

In TOE,QAI and H55 that message can be ignored, 24 towns is verified to work.
____________
MMH5.5 Downloads | MMH5.5 Translations | MMH5.5 FAQ

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
Gidoza
Gidoza


Famous Hero
posted April 07, 2016 03:06 PM

Ah OK great.  I plan to use H5.5 for this without Town Improvement.  I think it'll be good.  

 Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link
Jump To: « Prev Thread . . . Next Thread »
Post New Poll    Post New Topic    Post New Reply

Page compiled in 0.0731 seconds