Ideas for the design of a Heroes IV map

Observations

• The AI is not very good. It needs a leg up to be an interesting opponent.
• The sweet spot for battle difficulty is when victory is assured, but you have to play tactically to avoid losing units.
• Small armies can be just as fun as big ones.
• With a few exceptions, rank 1 units are boring. I mostly don't use them once I get higher-rank units. The exceptions are:
  • sprites, and any ranged unit (halflings, crossbowmen, centaurs, orcs).
  • One-unit stacks are good for taking retaliation
  • Units with a magic ability (leprechauns, imps) can be very useful in certain situations.
  • Units with two attacks (berserkers, wolves) are good for taking down Citadel or Castle gates.
• The people I play with are less familiar with the details of the game than I am, and prefer a casual experience to a challenging one.
• We all get a kick out of exploration.
• Micromanagement is annoying. Optimal caravan play is especially tedious.
• If you're optimizing for fun, the right number of towns to have is about 2. 3 is okay. More than that is too much to keep track of.
• Similarly, the best number of heroes is probably about 3.
• Castles are OP. Probably only Death should be allowed to have one.\
• One of my least favorite features of the game is the "the enemy turns to flee at your approach" dialog.
  • If you choose to fight, it's a boring fight.
  • If you use "quick combat," the stupid AI may lose units or spend more mana than needed.
  • If you let them run, you miss out on XP and any items the mobs were holding.
• A common problem with existing maps is that on low difficulty settings, the late-game fights are too easy, but on high difficulty settings, the early fights are too hard. How to make the army strength curve match the mob strength curve?
  • Mob armies grow over time. I wonder if the growth rate depends on the difficulty setting?
• In a multiplayer game, losing your main hero really sucks. It's basically game over.

Problems to solve

Optimal play not being fun

I don't like it when some decision in a game is obviously optimal but annoying to take. HOMMIV example: it's annoying to caravan creatures from dwellings every day, which you almost always should do because opponents could capture the dwelling at any time.

Another example: the "enemy turns to flee at your approach" dialog.

• If you choose to fight, it's a boring fight.
• If you use "quick combat," the stupid AI might lose units or spend more mana than needed.
• If you let them run, you miss out on XP and any items the mobs were holding.

Some of these issues can be fixed.

• To fix caravan micro: daily event that changes the owner of each dwelling to an AI player who cannot build caravans.
• To fix "the enemy turns to flee," limit army growth (how?), start monsters at a higher strength level, and give each player a couple high-level units at the start of the game. This way, monster growth will keep pace with army growth.
  • Incentivize Charm (Order magic) and Diplomacy (Nobility) somehow so there's at least some reward for attacking outnumbered creatures
• Micromanaging lots of heroes and towns is annoying and makes turns take too long for multiplayer. To fix, limit the number of heroes and towns. End the game if any player holds 4 towns.
• It's annoying to figure out what to do with creatures obtained through Diplomacy or Charm. I often just disband them or use them as scouts. A possible fix: Create lots of ways to level up diplo or charm so they're actually a meaningful part of the game instead of an annoyance. Link the monster types in each area to the player's alignment (this also has the nice side effect of nerfing Death somewhat).

Game imbalances

• Order has overpowered town defense. Maybe block Order towns from building Castles?

Concepts and forces

• Exploration over optimization
• Role-playing over strategy
• A casual experience
• Organic/thematic design over balance
• A game is a series of interesting decisions

Ideas

• Start with a few rank 2 units instead of rank 1s. The early game can be about keeping these units alive.
• Start each player with 2 heroes, but don't allow taverns to be built. Or give each player two adventure-map taverns, 4000 gold, and a one-way portal, so they can choose their heroes.
  • A downside: there's no way to set events on the player's main hero.
• Additional heroes could be obtained from prisons.
• What if heroes are imprisoned?
  • Trigger an event on the player's home town that builds the tavern and gives them a bunch of gold and maybe units. "The people organize to free their hero from prison!"
• Incentivize exploration by scattering free goodies over the map.
• How to prevent players from having too many towns?
  • You win when you capture your fourth town.
• Maybe each player's second town should be from a neighboring alignment? Makes things more interesting. Consider how players could choose which alignment they get (or just let it be random).
• How to prevent armies from growing too large?
  • limit gold income
  • whirlpools
  • kill off units somehow (with difficult battles at chokepoints?)
    • but how to encourage players to go into the fight before their army is big enough to win with no losses?
  • quest hut that buys units, perhaps offering a stackable item (lucky charms or viewing crystal?)
• How to prevent caravan micro?
  • Timed event: each day, all creature dwellings change their owner to a computer player. This computer player is not allowed to build caravans. The only way to recruit from a dwelling is to travel there with a hero.
  • This also nerfs the strategy of having a small army stand next to the creature dwelling and recruit creatures each day.
• How to make "the enemy turns to flee at your approach" less annoying?
  • Incentivize Charm (Order magic) and Diplomacy (Nobility) somehow so there's at least some reward for attacking outnumbered creatures
  • Give mobs items? Could cut both ways.
  • Give mobs heroes? Maybe they won't run then. Doesn't work.
• What if you could keep playing after your hero dies, but with a different goal?

Research questions

• Do neutral armies with a hero ever flee from combat?
  • Yes.
• Can an army without a hero free a hero imprisoned in a town?
  • No.

Inspiration

• Finkellll's video series on Heroes III map design
  • He divides the map into areas, each of which is "high-conflict" or "low-conflict".
    • "low conflict areas should have resource generation, creature generation, stat boosting, questing – all of your pure PvE stuff"
    • "high conflict is where you want your stables, temporary buffs, a good amount of randomness, some high-value mines"
  • High-conflict areas should have tactical opportunities (chokepoints, powerups)
  • "Monster levels are the easiest thing to tweak when you're having balance problems."
  • Order of operations from the "Let's Build Catastrophe" series:
    • land areas
    • boundaries
    • towns
    • resource mines in starting areas
    • transporters (shipyards)
    • creature dwellings in starting areas
    • powerups
    • guards and treasure
    • random resources