How does the midgame fail to be fun?

Many Heroes IV maps have interesting openings but fall apart in the midgame. The pace of the game slows and fights become boring. In this essay I explore the possible causes of this problem and the potential cures.

Too many towns

Many maps simply have too many towns. Long after victory has become inevitable, you are still running around the map trying to kill the scattered AI armies and hold all the towns.

One way to deal with this is simply to have fewer towns. You can also add a custom victory script that ends the game earlier (e.g. once one player has captured 4 towns, or reached some other goal other than total conquest).

Caravan micro

The AI might steal creature dwellings from you at any time, so optimal play involves manually caravaning creatures to your towns every turn. This is boring and it's stupid that the game makes you spend time doing it.

Fixes include:

• eliminating creature dwellings from the map
• banning caravans (though that prevents players from getting Nomads or Nightmares in their towns)
• using a timed event to reset the owner of creature dwellings periodically
• using hostile garrisons or border gates to block the path of caravans

Empty areas

Fights all too easy or too hard

Winning every fight the same way

Items you can't use (hero full)

Junk items

Reduced rhythm

Early-game, you're going back to town every week or so to get new spells and troops. As the midgame begins, your hero probably has level 1–4 spells already, so instead you begin to send small armies of troops to join your army.

Hard-to-estimate fights

It seems to me that it's easier to know your strength relative to an enemy army early in the game. I'm not sure why — maybe because heroes are not very powerful, so army strength is a function of creatures. In the midgame, heroes become more of a wildcard, and it's harder to estimate their contribution to army strength.

I find that the uncertainty leads to me playing more conservatively than I might have to, and leaving most or all of my troops out of most fights to avoid losses.

Pointless progression

What the game seems to want you to do is grow forever: more towns, more heroes, more dwellings, more mines, bigger armies.

What actually happens is that growth becomes both tedious and unnecessary.