Heroic: ruins

[Groovy]

This topic was spawned from here.

Ruins are adventure map structures that have fallen into disrepair and no longer serve their original function, but can be restored by the player. An example from existing Heroes games is the abandoned mine.

The concept can be extended to give the player some control over what the structure does once it is restored. This can give the structure greater strategic value than it would have had it been finalised at map design time.

For example, if a player’s hero visits town ruins, he can restore them to a basic functioning town. The player can then choose the town’s faction based on the units that accompany the hero. If elves and dwarves accompany the hero, the player can choose to make it either an elf or a dwarf town.

Ruins of external dwellings can work in a similar way.

In both cases, the player can use ruins to give permanent map presence to creatures that were not there originally, but that he acquired through a fortuitous encounter with random wandering monsters or recruited from a mercenary camp.

This mechanic would be of questionable usefulness in a game design that features town and dwelling conversions, but in earlier Heroes designs, it would have given the player a sizeable advantage by enabling him to fix the town’s / dwelling’s faction to his liking, especially if it resides in contested territory. It is even more useful in the Heroic design, where some of the creatures, resources, etc, aren’t compatible with the player’s starting faction, requiring him to incorporate other factions into his kingdom in order to make use of them.

There are other possibilities as well. For example, if a player comes across two portal ruins, he can restore them to connect to each other. This can result in the portals connecting different parts of the map together depending on which player claims them first.

All in all, ruins look to me like a fairly simple way to increase the strategic depth of the game.

[Kristo]

It's always fun when another one of the Heroic threads come out - thanks for doing them, Groovy.

Ruins are one of those things that definitely add to the atmosphere in the game, but turn out to be red herrings in practice. Let me explain what I mean by that.

Ruins are cool. "Here's some ancient structure from a long lost civilization and I get to rebuild it to suit my needs. Awesome." The problem starts when you put ruins in contested areas (e.g., haunted gold mines in H2). There's a huge first-mover disadvantage with these things. Why should I go to all the trouble and expense (in creatures or resources) of restoring this thing to life when I can let someone else do it and just take it from them? I never bothered with haunted mines in H2 for exactly this reason. If no one ever claims them, then it's like they aren't there - no change in the balance of power. There are only two ways I can see to net benefit strategically from ruins. You can take it with overwhelming force and/or resources, or you can take it when nobody's looking. In either case, you're extremely likely to already be winning the game. If you're behind, then the leader has a big incentive to take the restored ruins from you before you can gain much from them. This all adds up to strategic benefits for the leader only, making ruins inherently unfair.

If everyone has access to their own ruins, for example in their starting area, things might be different. But unless they offer some heavy customization, they're effectively just a negative level town. And if everyone gets a negative level town, they might as well just get a normal town. Ruins are cool, but they'd just be more work.

[Dalai]

Ruins are adventure map structures that have fallen into disrepair and no longer serve their original function, but can be restored by the player. An example from existing Heroes games is the abandoned mine.

Concept probably unknown to recent "Heroes of Ubisoft-era" fans. Your post is the only way to make them familiar with it

Actually, I got an idea for a map. I am not a mapmaker, so anyone is welcome to "steal" it. Every player starts a map with some (limited) access to resources and money. Can be piles of random resources, money and chests. All the mines in vicinity are abandoned, so player has to choose very carefully which to restore to gain full speed.

The problem starts when you put ruins in contested areas (e.g., haunted gold mines in H2). There's a huge first-mover disadvantage with these things. Why should I go to all the trouble and expense (in creatures or resources) of restoring this thing to life when I can let someone else do it and just take it from them? I never bothered with haunted mines in H2 for exactly this reason. If no one ever claims them, then it's like they aren't there - no change in the balance of power. There are only two ways I can see to net benefit strategically from ruins. You can take it with overwhelming force and/or resources, or you can take it when nobody's looking. In either case, you're extremely likely to already be winning the game.

The same can be said about anything (but artifacts) in contested area. Any guarded mine, for example.

Don't forget - you may fight for experience too.

[Kristo]

You're right, you could say the same about a lot of things, provided they're sufficiently well guarded. I'm talking about a level much higher than normal creeping, where the experience payoff isn't nearly high enough to make up for losses in army strength. For people who haven't played H2, haunted gold mines were guarded by Ghosts. All creatures killed by Ghosts, regardless of hit points, became Ghosts. Although fairly wimpy in small numbers, they could do serious damage to an army not equipped to handle them. And usually when I first encountered these mines, my armies weren't.

Heavily defended neutral towns are the same way. In theory they can at least defend themselves, but not without significant investment in time and resources. A ruins town would take even more of both.

[Groovy]

It's always fun when another one of the Heroic threads come out - thanks for doing them, Groovy.

You welcome!

For my part, I’m glad that you are critical of so many of my suggestions as it gives me an opportunity to improve them.

The idea of ruins that I had in mind is more elaborate than haunted mines from H2. I will lay out the scenarios where I consider them worthwhile, and you can tell me if you can spot any holes in my logic. Please bear in mind that these scenarios draw heavily on the Heroic economy model that I described in this topic.

Scenario 1:
A player’s hero stumbles upon town ruins in a non-contested area within the player’s territory. This gives him an opportunity to decide the town’s faction based on the creatures that are available to him. The obvious choice is to make the town of the same faction as what he started with (Human, say) as that enables him to combine the troops from the two towns. However, in his home town, he has Horses and Elephants, which enables him to train powerful Champion and War Elephant units. He hasn’t found any more of these animals on the map, so he won’t be able to train these units in the new town, only the basic Human units (Swordsmen and Archers). On the other hand, he has encountered Bears and Wolves on the map, which he can’t use in a Human town. A Stronghold town can use them, and he has Orcs with him with which to found one. He now has a choice between restoring the ruins into a Human town where he can combine low-level Human units with his existing army, and a Stronghold town where he can produce both low and high-level Orc units. The latter option makes his military stronger, but the troops cannot be combined into a single army.

Scenario 2:
As scenario 1, but town ruins are now situated in a contested area between the Human player and another player of Inferno faction. Because the area is contested, the player shouldn’t focus on maximising the military output of the restored town (lest it falls into enemy hands), but on maximising the compatibility between it and his Human town, as well as minimising the compatibility between it and the opponent’s Inferno town. This gives him good reason to restore the ruins into a Human town. This will give him an advantage because he will be able to make better use of it than his Inferno opponent, so it’s worth the risk of losing it temporarily.

Scenario 3:
A player’s hero stumbles upon ruins of a dwelling in a non-contested area within the player’s territory. This gives him an opportunity to decide what creatures will be living there. He has recently acquired Angels from a mercenary camp, which are compatible with the Human faction. He lets them settle there, and then concludes an alliance with them so that he can have a steady supply of Angel units in his town.

Scenario 4:
As scenario 3, but the powerful units that the player has recruited from the mercenary camp are Devils rather than Angels. Devils are not compatible with the Human faction, so he won’t gain anything from establishing their dwelling on the adventure map. He can let a weaker race establish a dwelling there and so derive some benefit, or wait to see if he can find town ruins in the unexplored part of his territory that he can then restore into an Inferno town, which will be able to make good use of the Devil dwelling.

Scenario 5:
As scenario 2, but ruins are of a dwelling rather than a town. The same reasoning applies, prompting the player to restore the ruins into a Human dwelling that he can use to bolster the Human creature growth in his town, which his Inferno opponent won’t be able to do should he capture the dwelling.

Hopefully these scenarios are sufficiently illustrative of what I’m after. We can postpone the scenarios that involve other types of ruins till later...

[Kristo]

See, this is why game design is a holistic process. I had forgotten about how your economic model worked. These scenarios fall squarely in the "heavy customization" clause in my original arguments. As you now describe them, Ruins actually have a critical first-mover advantage because you're able to shape the game world in a way that benefits you and hinders your opponents. Somebody could take the Ruins from you after you've done all the hard work, but they won't be able to derive much (if any) benefit from them. However, in games against the same or compatible factions, I would still avoid them for the reasons outlined earlier.

Your extra detail makes this proposal a lot better. I've basically done a 180-degree turn on it. Ruins were always cool, and now they have a strategic purpose too. Good work.

[Groovy]

Thanks, Kristo. I realise that it is difficult to keep track of different elements of someone else’s design, so I really appreciate your efforts.