Only 4 resources. Good or bad?

The new Heroes games produced by Ubisoft. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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vicheron
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Unread postby vicheron » 19 Aug 2010, 06:51

LongDarkBlues wrote:
vicheron wrote:How does that sound like increasing competition when that's exactly the way it was in every Heroes game except for 4?
But wait, you said
vicheron wrote:Heroes is not a game where you can have a lot of competition over resources due to the fact that maps are too big.
Which is totally contradictory. Do other Heroes games have resource competition or not? Making the resources equally valuable HAS to create more competition because you need it as much as they do - it's not like how the Haven barely needs sulphur so you only take the mine if it's convenient - with one resource it's become equally essential. Unless the maps are designed by idiots, they will have to take advantage of that.
I said that there can't be a lot of competition, I didn't say that there was no competition.

The problem with the competition over resources in Heroes isn't that the different sides don't need resources, it's that one player cannot easily take away the resources of another player.

Because it takes so long for one player to send their army into another player's territory, any economic competition won't happen until the two sides already have their infrastructure up. By the time when there's a significant conflict, like between the two main heroes/armies, the games is already almost over.

The other problem with competition over resources is that you have no effective way of scouting like in other strategy games. Other strategy games have cheap scouting units you can send into enemy territory to see if how well defended their resources are and make sure that your harassment force don't get intercepted or blown up by defenses. In Heroes, your heroes are the scouts and they are expensive, not to mention the fact that if they get caught by the opponent's main hero, you'll make them more powerful by feeding them experience.
vicheron wrote:The problem is that in Heroes your troops are limited. In other strategy games, if you send in a harassment force to attack your opponent's economy and they get destroyed, you can simply rebuild them. In Heroes, if you lose a harassing force, you have to wait a week before you can replenish your forces.
Right, which makes them more valuable, which makes for harder decision-making in defending resources, which makes for a deeper strategy game.
Except the problem isn't defending your resources, it's attacking your opponent's resource. It's much easier to defend than to attack since you can see attacks coming and you can mobilize a bigger force than the attacker. Plus the attacking force will likely just end up feeding experience to your hero.

Harassment works in other strategy games because having more money means you can produce more units. If you damage your opponent's economy, you can outproduce them and overwhelm them. It doesn't work like that in Heroes since your unit production is limited. Having more resources doesn't automatically allow you to produce more units. You can only recruit new units every week regardless of how much money you have. If you sacrifice your units to hurt the opponent's economy, they'll likely end up having a bigger army than you and they'll be able to just steamroll over your forces while you wait for your dwellings to generate more creatures to spend all that extra money you have. That's not even taking into consideration of the experience your harassment force gives to your opponent's hero.
I cannot fathom why people just want things to always stay the same, or simply close their eyes and ears and refuse to consider the idea that there are other ways of doing something that can be just as excellent. I could be wrong and this could be a huge blunder, but, much more likely, it will work fine and make for different strategies than other Heroes games, which is the entire point of a sequel.
There are different ways of making a turn based strategy but that doesn't mean they should use it. They can easily make Heroes into an RTS, it could even be a great RTS, but that doesn't mean it should be done.

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Unread postby LongDarkBlues » 19 Aug 2010, 07:12

klaymen wrote:It worked for so many years, so why change it now?
Where would we be if everybody thought that way about what they did? Nothing would ever change or improve, everything would be stagnant. Maybe just this once we could all agree to not run around the Internet yelling that the sky is falling and everything is ruined forever. Maybe, just maybe, we should wait and actually play the game ourselves. If your life is going to fall apart because H6 doesn't have Mercury, then thank some merciful god you still have the other games to play. As for me, I have some modicum of faith that the game designers aren't a group of utter idiots and aren't going to purposefully ruin their own game. If they didn't think it would work, they wouldn't do it.

I just don't see the purpose in being such glass-half-empty whiners - after the trainwreck that was H4 and the very spotty launch of H5 (which ended up pretty good, eventually) I'm just glad somebody cares enough to even try to make H6 for a gaming climate that has little interest in TBS games. If they care enough to do it at all, I'm assuming they care enough to make it the best they can. Why wouldn't they?

I'm all for discussing the ways a singular rare resource can affect the game, but approaching it from the timid perspective of 'anything different is worse' is unproductive and uniformed, much less assuming that the game plays just like previous iterations - there's countless ways interactions with the resources could work.

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Unread postby LongDarkBlues » 19 Aug 2010, 07:17

vicheron wrote:Because it takes so long for one player to send their army into another player's territory, any economic competition won't happen until the two sides already have their infrastructure up...
All of that is based on the assumption that this game will play just like H3&H5 - there is no reason to assume any of that. How do you know, for example, that Mages won't be able to build teleportation gates in enemy territory, or that there won't be remote ways of affecting your opponents infrastructure?

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Unread postby wimfrits » 19 Aug 2010, 08:26

Good decision in my opinion.

Generally more special resources increases complexity at the start of a map. Unless every resource pile is manually set by the mapmaker and is precisely tuned to the player's faction of choice (which is a near impossible task), more special resources only serve to increase the *luck* factor instead of a strategic factor.
In my opinion, Heroes should be a strategy game.

@Banedon:
Like you say, it all depends on game mechanics. E.g. your 3 points would be obsolete when there are 4 mines of 1 resource instead of 1 mine for each of 4 resources
Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?

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Unread postby OliverFA » 19 Aug 2010, 08:49

LongDarkBlues wrote:I cannot fathom why people just want things to always stay the same, or simply close their eyes and ears and refuse to consider the idea that there are other ways of doing something that can be just as excellent. I could be wrong and this could be a huge blunder, but, much more likely, it will work fine and make for different strategies than other Heroes games, which is the entire point of a sequel.
There is nothing bad with change. But change has to be in a direction that doesn't remove game's essence. Otherwise... Why call it Heroes of Might and Magic VI then? Oh wait! Maybe that's the reason why they renamed it Might and Magic: Heroes VI! :D

Ok... jokes apart. You expect the game to be diferent enough from the previous one (it would be stupid to buy the same game) but you don't expect changes to affect games essence. Change to 4 resources seems to change too much this essence.

As for an example of change that keeps essence, I would mention HOMM4 ;-)
Last edited by OliverFA on 19 Aug 2010, 11:21, edited 1 time in total.

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Unread postby innokenti » 19 Aug 2010, 08:54

I suspect the decision may stem somewhat from Clash of Heroes. Where having just 3 resources (Gold, Ore, Crystal) worked. But it worked because it was a Castle-less puzzle-based game (and an amazingly good one) on a handheld console.

It won't work so much for Heroes. Simplifying quite so much doesn't make sense to me, but I guess they could make it work.

I imagine it would require a reduction in the number of mines per map, and based on the other snippets, these mines look likely to be much more tied to the castles. To get that 'competition' for resources the number of castles and attached mines would need to be large enough...

This is all pure speculation - it might be an interesting new and different dynamic. Whether it's the right evolution? Can't say. Given the downgrading of other elements, I suspect this won't be an evolution but a simplification.

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Unread postby vicheron » 19 Aug 2010, 10:48

LongDarkBlues wrote:
vicheron wrote:Because it takes so long for one player to send their army into another player's territory, any economic competition won't happen until the two sides already have their infrastructure up...
All of that is based on the assumption that this game will play just like H3&H5 - there is no reason to assume any of that. How do you know, for example, that Mages won't be able to build teleportation gates in enemy territory, or that there won't be remote ways of affecting your opponents infrastructure?
Yes, why would I assume that Heroes 6 will play like Heroes 1, Heroes 2, Heroes 3, Heroes 4, and Heroes 5? How silly of me to make that crazy assumption.

Also, I already mentioned how they could remedy the situation:
vicheron wrote:If they want to increase competition over resources, they would need to either make maps smaller or increase hero movement. They would also need to bring back persistent fog of war. The only other option is to have a contested area in each map that's full of resources and equal distance from each player and victory would depend on controlling the area.
The problem is that many of these changes would change the nature of the game. They're trying to make Heroes more like Command and Conquer or Starcraft. In every Heroes game, you win by building up a super powerful hero and games essentially ended with an epic final battle between your main hero and your opponent's main hero with massive armies clashing and powerful spells being cast. The changes they're making would require you to invest in more heroes and split your forces. That means the outcome of the game are going to determined more by small scale skirmishes between low level heroes. More games will be won by small battles between level 5 or 6 heroes commanding armies of level 4 or 5 creatures instead of big battles with level 20+ heroes and lots of high level creatures.

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Unread postby Corelanis » 19 Aug 2010, 11:41

vicheron wrote:The problem is that many of these changes would change the nature of the game.
Depending on the change that's not such a bad thing I know I could go for a few less dragons unless its a fairy dragon.
vicheron wrote:They're trying to make Heroes more like Command and Conquer or Starcraft.
Darth Vader wrote:I have altered the deal pray I do not alter it any further.
vicheron wrote:In every Heroes game, you win by building up a super powerful hero and games essentially ended with an epic final battle between your main hero and your opponent's main hero with massive armies clashing and powerful spells being cast. The changes they're making would require you to invest in more heroes and split your forces. That means the outcome of the game are going to determined more by small scale skirmishes between low level heroes. More games will be won by small battles between level 5 or 6 heroes commanding armies of level 4 or 5 creatures instead of big battles with level 20+ heroes and lots of high level creatures.
You mean you have a problem with them making it like real life where the main army often send smaller groups to take high value targets to create strategic weaknesses allowing the main army to actually win the war. Sarcasm Alert[\b] No you're right they should make heroes so you only have 1 hero and you can call his troops cohorts maybe minions and you travel all over the world map chasing you enemy taking mines that he cant take back of course and finding items of great power all leading up to a final climatic battle of hero vs hero. :?

For me the resource aspect of any strategy game lies entirely on the maps they are played on. It doesn't matter if there are 4 or 14 any resource you have is a resource your opponents don't. As for building your town since its a resource replacing 4 resources I expect to have the cost reflect that. For example instead of a building costing 5 wood 5 ore 2 crystal 4 gems 1 sulfur 2 mercury and 2000 gold it could cost 5 wood 5 ore 9 whatever resource it is and 2000 gold. Don't get me wrong I like having multiple resources I have a great love of many needlessly complex random number games, but I really don't see where this will greatly change the nature of the game I think it might slow down the pace of the game again depending on the map but that's about it.

p.s. I am really sick of the little red "you did it wrong line" under half my words when writing these posts. That is all. Edit mark II this part is a joke
Edit spelling quote wrong really confuses things doesn't it.
Last edited by Corelanis on 19 Aug 2010, 13:43, edited 1 time in total.
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Unread postby vicheron » 19 Aug 2010, 12:37

Corelanis wrote:
vicheron wrote:In every Heroes game, you win by building up a super powerful hero and games essentially ended with an epic final battle between your main hero and your opponent's main hero with massive armies clashing and powerful spells being cast. The changes they're making would require you to invest in more heroes and split your forces. That means the outcome of the game are going to determined more by small scale skirmishes between low level heroes. More games will be won by small battles between level 5 or 6 heroes commanding armies of level 4 or 5 creatures instead of big battles with level 20+ heroes and lots of high level creatures.
You mean you have a problem with them making it like real life where the main army often send smaller groups to take high value targets to create strategic weaknesses allowing the main army to actually win the war. Sarcasm Alert[\b] No you're right they should make heroes so you only have 1 hero and you can call his troops cohorts maybe minions and you travel all over the world map chasing you enemy taking mines that he cant take back of course and finding items of great power all leading up to a final climatic battle of hero vs hero. :?

For me the resource aspect of any strategy game lies entirely on the maps they are played on. It doesn't matter if there are 4 or 14 any resource you have is a resource your opponents don't. As for building your town since its a resource replacing 4 resources I expect to have the cost reflect that. For example instead of a building costing 5 wood 5 ore 2 crystal 4 gems 1 sulfur 2 mercury and 2000 gold it could cost 5 wood 5 ore 9 whatever resource it is and 2000 gold. Don't get me wrong I like having multiple resources I have a great love of many needlessly complex random number games, but I really don't see where this will greatly change the nature of the game I think it might slow down the pace of the game again depending on the map but that's about it.

p.s. I am really sick of the little red "you did it wrong line" under half my words when writing these posts. That is all.
Edit spelling quote wrong really confuses things doesn't it.


So you want a game set in a fantasy world filled with dragons, magic and wizards, where mines can produce an infinite amount of resources and never run out without you having to put any workers in, where all the resources you gather are just magically warped to your bank without you having to set up any caravans or trade routes to transport it back to your castle, where a single hero can command an army of 100,000 as effectively as he or she can command an army of 100, where every building takes only one day to build regardless of how much they cost or how hard they are to build. where a stack of 10,000 peasants take up the same amount of space as 10 peasants, where a hero leading an army composed only of Dragons can't just fly over everything, to be more realistic?

Also, the strategy you describe isn't possible since you need a hero to lead your army. Your main army can't send smaller forces to take high value targets without another hero around. And if you split your army to attack the enemy, you're also splitting another valuable resource, experience. Think about it, would you rather have 2 level 10 heroes or 1 level 15 hero? Unless it's like Heroes 4 where the 2 level 10 heroes can fight the level 15 hero together, the level 15 hero will just crush the two weaker heroes one after the other.

And where did I say that I only wanted one hero? I said that in all previous games, the main focus of the game was to build up one all powerful hero.

The resource aspect does depend on each map but there are limits to the types of maps in a game. In Starcraft for example, there are no maps where your base is 10 feet away from the enemy base and there are no maps where the players are 10 minutes away from each other. Similarly in Heroes, there are not that many maps where you can reach your opponent's castle within the first week and there are almost no maps where the travel distance between your castle and your opponent's castle is less than 3 or 4 turns. Given those limitations, as well as limits in troop production and the lack of persistent fog of war, economic harassment strategies are not very effective.

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Unread postby Corelanis » 19 Aug 2010, 13:30

vicheron wrote:So you want a game set in a fantasy world filled with dragons, magic and wizards, where mines can produce an infinite amount of resources and never run out without you having to put any workers in, where all the resources you gather are just magically warped to your bank without you having to set up any caravans or trade routes to transport it back to your castle, where a single hero can command an army of 100,000 as effectively as he or she can command an army of 100, where every building takes only one day to build regardless of how much they cost or how hard they are to build. where a stack of 10,000 peasants take up the same amount of space as 10 peasants, where a hero leading an army composed only of Dragons can't just fly over everything, to be more realistic?

Also, the strategy you describe isn't possible since you need a hero to lead your army. Your main army can't send smaller forces to take high value targets without another hero around.
Actually I was talking about have a second hero follow your main when going into enemy turf and taking mines and such I figured it was implied in what I said my bad. And only realistic in a strategic way. Now that you mention it I do have issues with some of that but that can wait for later.
vicheron wrote:And if you split your army to attack the enemy, you're also splitting another valuable resource, experience. Think about it, would you rather have 2 level 10 heroes or 1 level 15 hero? Unless it's like Heroes 4 where the 2 level 10 heroes can fight the level 15 hero together, the level 15 hero will just crush the two weaker heroes one after the other.
True but 1 all powerful hero can simply be avoided but multiple heroes taking towns and slowly working him down with hit and run attacks and such.
vicheron wrote:And where did I say that I only wanted one hero? I said that in all previous games, the main focus of the game was to build up one all powerful hero.
You didn't I made a very large jump there and I'm sorry.
vicheron wrote:The resource aspect does depend on each map but there are limits to the types of maps in a game. In Starcraft for example, there are no maps where your base is 10 feet away from the enemy base and there are no maps where the players are 10 minutes away from each other. Similarly in Heroes, there are not that many maps where you can reach your opponent's castle within the first week and there are almost no maps where the travel distance between your castle and your opponent's castle is less than 3 or 4 turns. Given those limitations, as well as limits in troop production and the lack of persistent fog of war, economic harassment strategies are not very effective.
Ill be honest I'm not entirely sure where some of this is going so forgive any conclusions I jump to. Economic harassment is entirely effective unless your opponent have either a very very large lead in resources or is cheating. For example lets say that both sides main heroes are off doing whatever leaving a small area where 2 towns with surrounding mines are 5 days apart the main heroes are 14 days away at best they both have enough resources with their mines to buy their troops and slowly upgrade new towns but on just enough not really any to spare, if one side where to use low level heroes to grab those mines one side would be set back the other enhanced. So one side does send heroes say 2 of them during their turn heading to the mines with a small number of troops but you don't know exactly how many or the heroes level, you can see the type and general range of troop numbers. The other side sees this and they have a choice lose the mines, buy a hero using valuable resources to send to defend taking some of that towns weekly troops with it leaving the town lesser defended, send a low level hero with only 1 troop to take the mines back risking the hero and the resources, or lastly have the main hero take the long trek back down. So you can see where this is going I'm sure. In this case and others like it the loss of mines even in the short term can and often does have long lasting effects in close games often deciding the outcome.


Edit I just read this
Andrews wrote:New Infos:



- You can customize castles after you've counquered them;

- Mines and dwellings are now a part of the castle(s). You cannot have them unless you get the castle which controls them (or something like that). I'm guessing you won't be able to steal another player's adjacent ore mine unless you conquer his nearby castle first;
If this is true it renders the debate on economic harassment rather moot. Since taking the opponents town is always good.
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Unread postby Qurqirish Dragon » 19 Aug 2010, 14:26

Although it is an RTS, and so doesn't compare well, I think I'd compare the economics to Spellforce.
In that game there are 5 construction resources- wood, ore, iron, and 2 specials. (Gold is not used in construction). All factions need wood and ore, many (not all) need iron, and each faction needs one of the specials (but, as far as I played, not both- though I never finished the game)

Creature recruitment needed some of the basic resources, while advanced/magical units needed the specials. It seemed to work well- particularly when the resource mines were far from town construction areas.

I don't think fewer resources changes things too much (in the absence of other changes), but it may make things different.

I think that you CAN have too few resources- for example only wood and gold would be dull- but that doesn't in and of itself help/hurt the game. And according to other things I've heard, mines will be directly controlled by towns, so capturing just a mine may not be enough to gain its benefit- you need to control the region it is in. (actually, that sounds similar to Disciples- for better of for worse. I assume that D3 continues this aspect of control)
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Unread postby LongDarkBlues » 19 Aug 2010, 15:17

Perhaps if capturing the mine just stops its production to the connected town? I wonder. Hmm - that's certainly an interesting change to consider.

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Unread postby vicheron » 19 Aug 2010, 19:56

Corelanis wrote:
vicheron wrote:So you want a game set in a fantasy world filled with dragons, magic and wizards, where mines can produce an infinite amount of resources and never run out without you having to put any workers in, where all the resources you gather are just magically warped to your bank without you having to set up any caravans or trade routes to transport it back to your castle, where a single hero can command an army of 100,000 as effectively as he or she can command an army of 100, where every building takes only one day to build regardless of how much they cost or how hard they are to build. where a stack of 10,000 peasants take up the same amount of space as 10 peasants, where a hero leading an army composed only of Dragons can't just fly over everything, to be more realistic?

Also, the strategy you describe isn't possible since you need a hero to lead your army. Your main army can't send smaller forces to take high value targets without another hero around.
Actually I was talking about have a second hero follow your main when going into enemy turf and taking mines and such I figured it was implied in what I said my bad. And only realistic in a strategic way. Now that you mention it I do have issues with some of that but that can wait for later.
You already have secondary heroes follow you around. The changes to the game they're making would mean that you have to send heroes in just to flag your opponent's mines, forcing you to split your army among several heroes rather than concentrating mainly on one hero.
vicheron wrote:And if you split your army to attack the enemy, you're also splitting another valuable resource, experience. Think about it, would you rather have 2 level 10 heroes or 1 level 15 hero? Unless it's like Heroes 4 where the 2 level 10 heroes can fight the level 15 hero together, the level 15 hero will just crush the two weaker heroes one after the other.
True but 1 all powerful hero can simply be avoided but multiple heroes taking towns and slowly working him down with hit and run attacks and such.
Except there's no way for multiple heroes to work down one all powerful hero since you give the all powerful hero experience when you attack him/her, making them even more powerful. The only way that it could work is if you have a really powerful spell caster with a really fast creature so you cast a spell as soon as combat begins and then flee but that only works with certain factions.

And how could you avoid the all powerful hero if they're going after your towns? You can't exactly move your towns and in smaller maps, you only have 1 or 2 towns.
vicheron wrote:The resource aspect does depend on each map but there are limits to the types of maps in a game. In Starcraft for example, there are no maps where your base is 10 feet away from the enemy base and there are no maps where the players are 10 minutes away from each other. Similarly in Heroes, there are not that many maps where you can reach your opponent's castle within the first week and there are almost no maps where the travel distance between your castle and your opponent's castle is less than 3 or 4 turns. Given those limitations, as well as limits in troop production and the lack of persistent fog of war, economic harassment strategies are not very effective.
Ill be honest I'm not entirely sure where some of this is going so forgive any conclusions I jump to. Economic harassment is entirely effective unless your opponent have either a very very large lead in resources or is cheating. For example lets say that both sides main heroes are off doing whatever leaving a small area where 2 towns with surrounding mines are 5 days apart the main heroes are 14 days away at best they both have enough resources with their mines to buy their troops and slowly upgrade new towns but on just enough not really any to spare, if one side where to use low level heroes to grab those mines one side would be set back the other enhanced. So one side does send heroes say 2 of them during their turn heading to the mines with a small number of troops but you don't know exactly how many or the heroes level, you can see the type and general range of troop numbers. The other side sees this and they have a choice lose the mines, buy a hero using valuable resources to send to defend taking some of that towns weekly troops with it leaving the town lesser defended, send a low level hero with only 1 troop to take the mines back risking the hero and the resources, or lastly have the main hero take the long trek back down. So you can see where this is going I'm sure. In this case and others like it the loss of mines even in the short term can and often does have long lasting effects in close games often deciding the outcome.
But the player who sent the 2 heroes to harass just spent $4000 plus the cost of extra troops they hired. They have to inflict at lest $4000 worth of economy damage just to earn back the investment and if they get killed, they give experience to the opponent's hero.

The defender can easily see the armies of the two heroes by garrisoning one level 1 in each mine. Once he sees what armies the two heroes have, he can build an army of his own and go hunt them down and kill them. His mines are obviously closer to his castle than the enemy castle, so his hero would need to travel less distance to reflag them and hunt down the two harassing heroes.

As for forcing a player to leave their town less defended, the harassing player is leaving their town even less defended since they'll have less money to spend on defenses if the other player decides to make a push.

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Unread postby Corelanis » 19 Aug 2010, 20:28

vicheron wrote:You already have secondary heroes follow you around.
Which is my point.
vicheron wrote:The changes to the game they're making would mean that you have to send heroes in just to flag your opponent's mines, forcing you to split your army among several heroes rather than concentrating mainly on one hero.
We've always had to have heroes flag mines and you don,t need a huge army to do it one stack of one tier one would do it in most cases, unless your saying they have innate guards all the time now.
vicheron wrote:Except there's no way for multiple heroes to work down one all powerful hero since you give the all powerful hero experience when you attack him/her, making them even more powerful. The only way that it could work is if you have a really powerful spell caster with a really fast creature so you cast a spell as soon as combat begins and then flee but that only works with certain factions.

And how could you avoid the all powerful hero if they're going after your towns? You can't exactly move your towns and in smaller maps, you only have 1 or 2 towns.
Unless of course your taking his towns, which with an all powerful hero for the first 2 weeks of his attack wouldn't be heavily defended most of the time. In small maps if he has a high level hero the game is over anyway.
vicheron wrote:But the player who sent the 2 heroes to harass just spent $4000 plus the cost of extra troops they hired. They have to inflict at lest $4000 worth of economy damage just to earn back the investment and if they get killed, they give experience to the opponent's hero.

The defender can easily see the armies of the two heroes by garrisoning one level 1 in each mine. Once he sees what armies the two heroes have, he can build an army of his own and go hunt them down and kill them. His mines are obviously closer to his castle than the enemy castle, so his hero would need to travel less distance to reflag them and hunt down the two harassing heroes.

As for forcing a player to leave their town less defended, the harassing player is leaving their town even less defended since they'll have less money to spend on defenses if the other player decides to make a push.
It's not certain to work nothing is. It's simple risk verses gain you don't get to close to his town if he goes at you you retreat with the 2 heroes you've harassed him slightly hopefully enough to slow him down which is the point. Any offensive push lessens the ability to defend it's a risk you have to take into account before you start attacking.
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Unread postby vicheron » 19 Aug 2010, 22:30

Corelanis wrote:
vicheron wrote:The changes to the game they're making would mean that you have to send heroes in just to flag your opponent's mines, forcing you to split your army among several heroes rather than concentrating mainly on one hero.
We've always had to have heroes flag mines and you don,t need a huge army to do it one stack of one tier one would do it in most cases, unless your saying they have innate guards all the time now.
I'm saying that the new gameplay mechanic would encourage people to send in heroes alone to flag enemy mines instead of just having secondary heroes follow a main hero and flag mines along the way. That doesn't work because it's too easy to defend your mines.
vicheron wrote:Except there's no way for multiple heroes to work down one all powerful hero since you give the all powerful hero experience when you attack him/her, making them even more powerful. The only way that it could work is if you have a really powerful spell caster with a really fast creature so you cast a spell as soon as combat begins and then flee but that only works with certain factions.

And how could you avoid the all powerful hero if they're going after your towns? You can't exactly move your towns and in smaller maps, you only have 1 or 2 towns.
Unless of course your taking his towns, which with an all powerful hero for the first 2 weeks of his attack wouldn't be heavily defended most of the time. In small maps if he has a high level hero the game is over anyway.
But the trade isn't worth it, you'll be able to take their small towns while their powerful hero will be able to take your big towns. Would you be willing to trade your capitol for three towns with only town halls and level 3 or 4 creature dwellings?
vicheron wrote:But the player who sent the 2 heroes to harass just spent $4000 plus the cost of extra troops they hired. They have to inflict at lest $4000 worth of economy damage just to earn back the investment and if they get killed, they give experience to the opponent's hero.

The defender can easily see the armies of the two heroes by garrisoning one level 1 in each mine. Once he sees what armies the two heroes have, he can build an army of his own and go hunt them down and kill them. His mines are obviously closer to his castle than the enemy castle, so his hero would need to travel less distance to reflag them and hunt down the two harassing heroes.

As for forcing a player to leave their town less defended, the harassing player is leaving their town even less defended since they'll have less money to spend on defenses if the other player decides to make a push.
It's not certain to work nothing is. It's simple risk verses gain you don't get to close to his town if he goes at you you retreat with the 2 heroes you've harassed him slightly hopefully enough to slow him down which is the point. Any offensive push lessens the ability to defend it's a risk you have to take into account before you start attacking.
But the risk is prohibitively high.

Offensive pushes do not lessen the ability to defend since there's no persistent fog of war and no quick alternate routes between castles. If I make a push and you try to take my castle, I can see you coming 5 turns in advance and unless you have me surrounded, there's only one route from your castle to mine.

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Corelanis
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Unread postby Corelanis » 20 Aug 2010, 10:20

vicheron wrote:I'm saying that the new gameplay mechanic would encourage people to send in heroes alone to flag enemy mines instead of just having secondary heroes follow a main hero and flag mines along the way. That doesn't work because it's too easy to defend your mines.
My understanding of the new system encourages taking the town then getting the mines if I understand it right which I probably don't.
vicheron wrote:But the trade isn't worth it, you'll be able to take their small towns while their powerful hero will be able to take your big towns. Would you be willing to trade your capitol for three towns with only town halls and level 3 or 4 creature dwellings?
Would I make the trade no I'm not saying it's a choice if all you have are lower heroes to his high level one you do what you have to in order to win or at least try to.
vicheron wrote:But the risk is prohibitively high.

Offensive pushes do not lessen the ability to defend since there's no persistent fog of war and no quick alternate routes between castles. If I make a push and you try to take my castle, I can see you coming 5 turns in advance and unless you have me surrounded, there's only one route from your castle to mine.
My inability to make a decent example doesn't make the strategy bad. We just need to find someone better at explaining it than me. The key to it is any resource I have is a resource my opponent doesn't. Why would their only be on way between them that sounds boring I would hope for at least 2 hopefully more to keep you on your toes. Picture this hit and run tactics with a runner hero preferably with logistics against mines I always have 1 or 2 of these things running around grabbing resources at the start of game I just put them to use after that annoying the enemy. I really should have started with that. You're right the new mechanics relating to mines blows that right out of the water.
Corelanis used baton pass The Heroes Round Table sent out [the poster below me]

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Bishop AlMighty
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Unread postby Bishop AlMighty » 20 Aug 2010, 12:31

Way Bad...I would also like to see 8-th resourse (for example: mithril) like in WoG.
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Metal Wolf
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Unread postby Metal Wolf » 20 Aug 2010, 14:05

Maybe cutting the resources down to 3 (excluding gold) isn't a bad idea after all.

Take a look back at Heroes 2: In that game, towns generated much less gold then the towns in H3-4-5 (there were no town halls, city halls, capitals etc. - only a statue that increases the income by 250 gold in addition to the standard 1000 gold generated by the most basic town (castle)).

As a result, conquering a gold mine was not a nice bonus as in later Heroes titles - but a crucial component to ones victory.It was a huge boost which could turn things all around in that specific game if used properly, and therefore added greatly to strategic gameplay.

I think that having only one "rare" resource in H6 may have a similar effect.

MattII
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Unread postby MattII » 20 Aug 2010, 19:12

Uh-oh, not only are we losing 3 resources, we're losing the ability to flag mines as well, at least, according to http://gamescom.gamespot.com/story/6273 ... pressions/.

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ThunderTitan
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Unread postby ThunderTitan » 20 Aug 2010, 19:40

@Metal Wolf

And they couls easily do that for gold again... cutting out the other resources only helps with the size of maps, and maybe makes for a faster game... maybe Heroes 7 will match the Blizzard standard and we'll get 20 min matches as the normal MP length. :disagree:


@MattII

Yeah, i think people already posted that town will act like Disciples' rods and grant you nearby mines of so... bloody annoying.
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