Castles of Annuvin

A 6-player map that removes the tedious parts of the game and presents many PvP and PvE opportunities!

Special features

• Capture 3 of the 6 Castles to win. There's no tedious endgame on this map.
• There are no taverns after you hire your two starting heroes, so choose wisely. However, your starting heroes can be any class, including Barbarian. Later in the game, you can obtain additional heroes by rescuing them from prisons.
• Creature dwellings revert to the red (Might) player every turn, removing the pressure to micromanage your caravans and dwellings. The castle towns, including Red's starting town, can't build caravans.
• There are plenty of hero leveling and multiclassing opportunities. It should be possible to get grandmaster in 2 or 3 skills.
• The map is designed so every class and skill is useful. Stealth and Diplomacy are two of the best skills in the mid-to-late game. Multiclassing your spellcaster to Wizard, Demonologist, Archmage, Enchanter, Heretic, or Dark Priest will pay off.
• Treasures and powerful artifacts abound in the dungeons, mountains, and caves around the map — but do you dare risk your Castles to seek them?

Victory condition

• Capture 3 of the 6 castle towns on the map (6 of the 12 towns start with Castles, 6 have the Castle disabled)

Map sketch

Strategy Notes

The expansions introduce item combos that grant unique buffs. See: http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes4/artifacts_tgs.shtml

• Cloak of Darkness + Ring of Light = automatic Guardian Angel
• Tiger Armor + Tiger Helm + Frost Hammer = regneration + dragon strength
• Harmonic Chainmail + Necklace of Muses + Aiffe's Mandolin = attack casts song of peace
• necklace of balance + ice scales + flame of chaos = magic mirror ability
• archmage's hat + staff of disruption + wayfaring boots + ring of flares + angelfeather cloak = ignore magic resistance

How to make Diplomacy useful:

...Secondly, by the time you develop diplomacy, most of the guards may already be defeated - diplomacy requires a large map with plenty of guards to be useful. Thirdly, if the map has plenty of towns and mines, the bonuses of Nobility, Estates and Mining may provide only a small advantage overall.

I recommend going for Nobility on maps where resources, towns and mines are scarce and guards are plentiful. Tactics and Nobility is a good combination on that kind of map, as it will also turn your hero into a Lord Commander (advanced class) and give a great bonus of +2 morale to all creatures in his/her army.

— http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes4/mightskills.shtml

Stuff that should be in high-conflict areas:

• prisons/heroes
• spell powerups (conservatories and shrines)
• skills (veteran's guild, library, and altars)
• levels (tree of knowledge, arenas)
• buffs (fountains, temples, various blesses)
• dungeons
• stat gems
• items
  • a hero can carry 13 items. Therefore, there should be a prison for each ~13 items on the map.

Computer Player Customizations and Handicaps

The Heroes IV AI is very weak on the adventure map. I have added the following scripts and customizations to give it some help.

• The GiveComputerTown event is handled by the starting towns and hero armies.
• Each computer player starts with 6 heroes in addition to 1 week's worth of level 1 creatures in the town (80 PEONs).
• The AI priority of Castle towns is set to Vital.
• Teal's starting necromancers have Advanced Necromancy. Teal seemed to lag behind in several test games so I gave it a boost.
• Build creature dwellings automatically in AI starting towns. In e.g. Beebee and the Three Pigs, the towns have creature dwellings through level 3 at the start. Currently, this is only implemented for Teal.

Under consideration and not yet implemented:

• Extra gold every day (the AI needs ample gold to be able to surrender when its heroes get cornered — it is bad at avoiding traps)
• Set some of the starting heroes (two?) to Vital priority. Hopefully this will make the AI more eager to keep those heroes alive. As long as it has at least one hero, it can recapture towns and free its other heroes from prison.

Global Policies and Assignments

Timing

• It should be possible to get out of starting area on normal difficulty by the end of week 2.

Army Values

• Starting troops for each player have a value of ~180 PEONS.
• Gates leading out of starting areas are guarded by 444 PEONS
• town guards: 80 PEONS.
• "Random Monster" strength - 222–2222 PEONS

Events

• RevertDwellingOwner: A continuous event calls this triggerable event, which all dwellings should handle by changing their owner to Red if it is not Nobody.

• GiveComputerTown Each player's starting town has a triggerable event GiveComputerTown These events are triggered by a day 1 timed event, Set Up Computer Players. Example script:

  if Orange Player is Computer
  then
    Change Owner to Orange Player
    Delete OrangePrologueExit
  

  This event is needed because the AI can't figure out how to get out of its prologue area.

Bombs

• (PlayerColor)PrologueExit - used to destroy portals and tunnels that connect to prologue areas. The bomb is triggered if the player is an AI. At present this is really just a cosmetic cleanup thing - the AI players get their starting towns for free, so they don't need the prologue area.

Adventure Objects

• Window of the Magi: Red reveals the castle towns.
• Yellow Two-Way Portal goes to Orange's prologue area
• Red Two-Way Portal connects Orange's two (Chaos) towns
• Purple Two-Way Portal goes to Teal's prologue area
• Teal Two-Way Portal connects Teal to a high-conflict area near Blue

Town Names

Life

• Florissant
• Mott's Bailey (Castle)

Order

• el-Manaki
• Zirak-Zigil (Castle)

Death

• Acharna (Castle)
• Durg

Chaos

• Azabes
• Te Brig (Castle)

Nature

• Eillyn (Castle)
• Deer's Leap

Might

• Kallas (Castle)

TODO

• Create starting areas for Green and Purple.
• Red lags behind the army strength curve, and has the most vulnerable town. Maybe give them one of:
  • stronger hero at the start, but no troops. This would work well with the storyline.
  • more dwellings
  • free Breeding Pens
  • a second town?
  • Remember, Red already has the advantage of owning all creature dwellings on the map — but this gets nerfed the more AIs are in play.
• Remove free mines for blue and orange (bottom right underground)
• rename Azabes
  • maybe to Malaga or Jerez?
• Make buildings consistent in starting towns
• Add storyline event: explain why dwellings revert owner to Red
• Scatter tips around the map in signs and bottles
• Add alternative scoring option (4 castles needed instead of 3, for a two-player game)

Playtest notes

Play 1 (Red)

• I want a bow!
• random item generates potions
• want more treasure chests. At least 2 per monster
• items, treasure, powerups
• 2nd level monsters exhausted by day 3 wk 2 (turn 10)
• On turn 10, I had 2 lvl 6 barbarians, 50 centaurs, 12 harpies, and 4 cyclopes
• = 545 peons (not counting heroes)

Play 2 (Red)

• cleared red starting area by turn 18
• 2 lvl 10 barbarians, 47 centaurs, 6 harpies, 7 cyclopes by day 4 of week 3 (turn 18)
• grandmaster archery by turn 18
• a good monster distribution for progression and challenge seems to be: 7-8 monster 1s, 7-8 monster 2s, some 3s

Play 3 (Red)

• treasure by veteran's hall can be stolen
• the guard radius is only 2, not 3!
• want more multiclassing opportunities (scouting, nobility, tactics, life magic)

Play 4 (Red)

• Nomad tents start as owned by red!
• 370 PEONS for gate guard is too easy.
  • Attacked with: lvl 10 barbarian with expert combat, expert melee, GM archery, and basic magic resistance, plate mail, gambler's deck, crossbow, 13 harpies, 4 cyclopes, and 49 centaurs.

Play 5 (Teal)

• Need to add an event that sets your gold to 4000
• add MOAR GOLD to the map to balance this
• necromancer needs shrines of magic early (no town). Conservatory might be good too.
• need sanctuary (what if hero dies?)
• hero out of mana after fighting too many imps.

Play 6 (Teal)

• Need free gold

Play 7 (Teal)

• Captured Acharna on day 6, with:
  • 21 cerberi
  • 7 ghosts
  • 29 skeletons
  • level 3 death knight with plate mail, crest of valor, warlord's ring
  • level 3 necromancer
  • 4110 gold
  • could probably do with a few less gold piles at the start (I added 6 since the last play) and sub one of the wood piles for gold
• OH NOES the Mansion is disabled (because the tavern is)
• BUG: barrow mound doesn't reset owner
• Gold is too slow after capturing the town. I need money to spend on buildings!
  • Possible solution: city hall should already be built (saves 5000 gold)

Play 8 (Teal)

• Got Acharna by day 3
• Exited starting area with 2 level 7 heroes, including GM necromancy
• Wants as I'm in the southern third of the starting area:
  • levels
  • artifacts
  • maybe gold?
• got out of starting area by day 3 of week 3 (turn 17)

Play 9 (Orange)

• Need to block the portal to the eastern town so the player doesn't accidentally go that way.
• Need more spells

Play 10 (Orange)

• Bug: Orc towers don't revert
• Still need to block the portal to the eastern town so the player doesn't accidentally go that way.
• Bug: Garrison is not occupied
• Didn't get to town until day 7. Add troughs?

Play 11 (Orange)

• level 3 monster in middle of starting area blocks southward travel between shrines
• Sparks should be banned. It's useless (Magic Arrow does more damage and costs the same, and you really don't want your sorcerer getting close to enemies)

Play 12 (Orange)

• Bug: altars are always magic, not scouting
• Outta spell points!
• Probably need an alchemist's lab, and more ore
• can't get through gap between altars and eastern tower

Play 13 (Orange)

• Bug: No red eye of magi on Zirak Zigil
• Bug: Tavern not disabled in secondary town. No castle in secondary town
• Weird: adding heroes to a neutral town garrison appears to automatically buy some of the dwelling population.

Play 14 (Red)

• Teal's heroes gets stuck outside town. Might be related to town priority?
• Red doesn't have a window of the magi

Play 15 (Red)

• Bug: AI seems to get confused by RevertDwellingOwner. It just hangs out by the dwelling trying to re-flag it. Don't run the event if the dwelling owner is a computer player. It does seem to get unconfused eventually
  • This fix seems to work.
• Bug: build the dang bridge between order and east chaos

Play 16 (Orange)

• Bug: the 6-hero army moved?
• Need more mines and trading posts in neutral areas
• Bug: ban tavern, castle in Durg

Play 17 (Red)

• Put conservatories in neutral areas - magic heroes in prisons have no spells
• Blue needs eye of the magi

Play 18 (Red)

• For some reason, Orange starts with dozens of medusas, and Teal starts with no level 2s. Why??
  • there was an extra timed event on the Orange town that gave it medusas if Orange was a CPU.

Play 19 (Red)

• Why does the Blue AI get level 3s, but Orange and Teal don't?
• Orange apparently built the spawning pit after capturing Durg. Teal couldn't seem to figure it out. Why?
• OMG Teal gets venom spawn in week 2 of month 3
• Bug: eye of magi is no longer pointed at Eillyn

Play 20 (Green)

• Bug: taverns not deleted when hero gate opened - FIXED
• I have ZERO gold at the start. - FIXED
• No sanctuary! Both my heroes died - FIXED
• Bug: I can build the tavern in Deer's Leap - FIXED
• Where are all the magic shrines and altars? - FIXED
• Bug: No city hall in Deer's Leap - FIXED
• Need more gold and resources early - FIXED
• Lake is 1 tile too wide to cross in 1 day