Summon Creatures vs. Caravan

[DaemianLucifer]

The only change I'd want is that creatures transported to a town captured by enemy forces are automatically lost on arrival. At least the 2 medusa, 3 zombies, 4 imps etc the AI caravans in every day. Larger forces might survive.

It would be better to reroute them,or that only heroes in caravans can appear,and single creatures are lost.

[Gaidal Cain]

Well, since we don't have heroless armies anymore, I think that the problem will be somehwat less. I have nothing against the way most human players would use it (let creatures accumulate over time and then sned them), but the Ai's way is just damn annoying.

[GrowlingDog]

SC is way better. Caravans were too slow but also it would be very annoying when you were trying to transport a huge army to yor hero only to have it blocked by a neutral army. Please, NO CARAVANS!

[DaemianLucifer]

SC is way better. Caravans were too slow but also it would be very annoying when you were trying to transport a huge army to yor hero only to have it blocked by a neutral army. Please, NO CARAVANS!

Yes,way better indeed.So instead of having to use a single low level hero(or just a heroeless army)just a few days every month in order to clear out some of the blocked dwellings and then sending your caravans freely around,you have to use loads of heroes every single day to chain all your troops from your dwellings and other towns to the one closest to the front in order to SC them to the main hero.

And of course caravans are slower than SC.But that comes from the fact that every creature has a separate movement and cannot be chained over the whole XL map in a single day.Which is very,very good,logical,and involves more strategy.But who needs strategy,right?Its a fantasy game.

[GrowlingDog]

I think your hero gets "Town portal" at lvl 20, maybe they could incorporate a similar thing for collecting troops/resources. I mean at mid/late game, it's just annoying having to spend so much time on micro managing your kingdom. Surely with such an empire, you would have someone else manage it for you.

[LindaG]

I think your hero gets "Town portal" at lvl 20, maybe they could incorporate a similar thing for collecting troops/resources. I mean at mid/late game, it's just annoying having to spend so much time on micro managing your kingdom. Surely with such an empire, you would have someone else manage it for you.

lol. Exactly. SC could be improved upon by letting you pick the town you wanted the creatures from. And then given the guidelines of the game, you could only summon a certain number based on level and proficiency.

[Gaidal Cain]

The good thing about summon creatures and Town poartl as they work now is that they do get worse with a larger empire. You're getting all these other bonuses, so I can't see why there shouldn't be some things that's less effective as well.

I mean at mid/late game, it's just annoying having to spend so much time on micro managing your kingdom.

Excatly why there should be caravans. No more time spent walking heroes from a dwelling to the next, or from one town to another.

[LindaG]

Excatly why there should be caravans. No more time spent walking heroes from a dwelling to the next, or from one town to another.

Well, I do miss the caravans, yes. Even with their shortcomings. Having both would be nice, but there are other things more important.

Like a map editor.
And more maps for those of us who prefer single player maps. lol.

[NAG]

*misses the caravan option as well*

[Paulus1]

It seems a lot of people are missing caravans, but some doesn't say why.

Is it because of:
1. The transfer of troops from one town to another
2. The transfer of troops from external dwelling to a town
3. Creatures (and not just heroes) have movement points and thus can't be chained.

Just started thinking about a possible change to Summon Creature that would be more logical than the current way. What if, by invoking the spell, you can "summon" the creatures from any of your towns - but that getting them to your hero, would take a number of days depending on your heroes distance from the given town at the time of casting Summon Creature?

That would mean two significant changes from the current ways:
1. Summoning wouldn't be instant. Troops would have to make the actual travel like caravans in HIV.
2. You can summon from any of your towns, not only the closest.

In comparison to Heroes IV the major differences to Caravan would be:
1. A hero is the target, not a town.
2. No summoning from external dwellings since it involves only creatures already hired.

[ThunderTitan]

Is it because of:
1. The transfer of troops from one town to another
2. The transfer of troops from external dwelling to a town
3. Creatures (and not just heroes) have movement points and thus can't be chained.

I like all 3.

[DaemianLucifer]

As a spell I dont like it.But if it was instand,but the cost differed by distance,it would be nice.Maybe 1 spell point for every 10 squares(direct path,over all obstacles)for each creature tier.

[LindaG]

Well, it would be good to have them go to the hero, so that would be good, yeah.

And yes, I like Caravans to take creatures from external dwellings to my town.

[cornellian]

But with heroes moving around, how would the game calculate the distance and the mana involving the summoning? Besides it is a spell, a spell of summoning, which by logic should be instant (in a day's time at least): it is like a teleport spell of sorts, you can't be expected to waste time 'teleporting'; that is the whole idea, the point of the spell in the first place...

Caravans should return back, and the problems would be pretty much solved.. Oh, that and lower tiers shouldn't cost the same amount of mana to summon as higher tiers: a peasant should be easier to summon than an angel.. Tier 1 and 2 creatures become a serious drain in mana reserves and are usually not summoned at all or summoned with a cost of 50+ mana, and the risk of leaving your hero vulnerable at least in the first two days of the week...

[LindaG]

Caravans should return back, and the problems would be pretty much solved.. Oh, that and lower tiers shouldn't cost the same amount of mana to summon as higher tiers: a peasant should be easier to summon than an angel.. Tier 1 and 2 creatures become a serious drain in mana reserves and are usually not summoned at all or summoned with a cost of 50+ mana, and the risk of leaving your hero vulnerable at least in the first two days of the week...

I'd have to agree with that. That is sort of what I was trying to say before. A level one or two should be easier than the other levels. With more chance of success. depending on the level of the hero.

[Mightor Magic]

I've never played Heroes 4 so I can't judge the pros and cons of Caravans but I can talk about Summon Creatures versus Heroes 2 method of "Hero Chaining" {Chaining in 3? That's funny.}

1 level map: Main Hero can effectively summon creatures from any castle from the center of the map, all of them in one turn. I love exploiting this when I use knowledge heavy wizards. Less knowledge means I just summon 5, 6 and 7 and I have a lower Hero {just one} bring up the reinforcements if necessary. Creature weeks and a rising gold costs has really lowered the effectiveness of multiple Hero placement, especially late in the game.

2 Level Maps: A smaller defined area for creature summoning means I usually conquer one level then I move to the next, starting with whichever one is closest closest to my main castle. After that I usually don't need more units.

Why would I use Caravans which may have a delay of days when I can plan on using SC on the day the units are available? Hiring a defeated level 10 hero just to help in CS works too. Look, this is fine. A really unbalanced feature would be allowing the Hero to garrison and ungarrison his army to his closest castle.

[LindaG]

Why would I use Caravans which may have a delay of days when I can plan on using SC on the day the units are available? Hiring a defeated level 10 hero just to help in CS works too. Look, this is fine. A really unbalanced feature would be allowing the Hero to garrison and ungarrison his army to his closest castle.

If you could pick the castle you get your reinforcements from, that would be fine. But as it is now, they only come from the closest castle and that is not always best.

I suppose they designed it that way on purpose, but I don't like it.

[Omega_Destroyer]

I agree, especially when the troops are incompatible with existing troops.

[DaemianLucifer]

Am I the only one that hates chaining?It is so dumb and gamebraking.Whats the strategy here?If you hate micromanaging,you loose?Hey,look at me,Im a mighty player because I play my every turn for an hour in order to chain my armies from all the corners of the map to my single superhero

[stijn]

an anti chaining solution could be to make heroes more expensive when you already got a few, so you can't hire 10 heroes for chaining, cause the 10th costs you 25 000 for example