Work in Progress - Conquests of Might and Magic III

[tom2050]

Okay, all units are complete... I think the Devil needs to be recolored still, but that's about it. I will start working on completing the civilopedia; add in leaderhead images (placeholders will come with beta, until I can make real ones), and tweak some other things with the epic mod.

Hopefully I can post beta (for Epic only, no scenarios) soon. Scenarios will come later.

 

[nick0515]

Yah! I'm gonna beta test the crap outta this Mod!

Cheers,

Nick

 

[vmxa]

Sharpening my knives, going to cut some wandering monsters.

 

[DFBATTLER]

Yah! I'm gonna beta test the crap outta this Mod!

Cheers,

Nick

^ This

Sharpening my knives, going to cut some wandering monsters.

^ and this.

Shall we?

 

[DFBATTLER]

Pooooooost the betaaaaaaaa plz

 

[tom2050]

I have the units done... and finished the last Inferno tower graphic... completely forgot about the rest of the Hero graphics though, so I will be finishing those now. Updating the Metropolis graphics for the cities by placing their appropriate Moat types around the towns. Still need to do some BIQ tweaks to the Epic and then finish up the pedia, and it should be ready to go. Can't release it unfinished though.

The total files will be all graphics needed for most everything (although Epic doesn't use all of them), but I don't want to go trying to find what is used for what, and what is not. The scenario's will use alot of those files, but scenario graphics are all not complete, so once the Final v 1.0 is done with scenario's included, the large file will need to be downloaded again.

I'm trying to get everything squared away, so a little more patience.

 

[tom2050]

I'm steadily getting the Heroes finished:

Here is Crag Hack e.g.

The rest is mostly complete... (beta-complete that is) Heroes will take a short while to get done, but for the leaderheads, I may go ahead and just use 3ds Max to create them with. I have enough stuff in 3ds to do it with... and I know how to manipulate meshes and textures in it now to get close enough to what I want for each leaderhead. I only need 9 or 10 so it shouldn't take too long to complete.

 

[DFBATTLER]

Nice Crag Hack

 

[JSnider]

Very nice ... looking fwd to this.

 

[Hellfiredoom]

Tom, any chance you can post the image for Vidomina, Isra or Septienna? Necro heroes are the best!

 

[tom2050]

Well, I've put some thought into how Heroes would be represented in the mod.

If they are made to be generic Heroes and used as Armies (as they are now), than only 1 or 2 different graphics could be used (as is now, 1 for Might, 1 for Magic for each town type). This means that not every Hero would be represented. In fact Civ 3 can have names for Leaders, but not for Armies, so names of the Armies (Heroes) would not even be available. They would just be Castle Hero of Might, Dungeon Hero of Magic, etc.... In this case they would just be represented as something that somewhat coincides with the basis of the town type in appearance.

-----------------------

It is possible, if Heroes are not made as Armies, but made as just a unit themselves, to where each Hero could be implemented with a graphic representing them with their name. If they are just units, they could not hold other units as Armies do. They could have a greater variety of individual and differing abilities in this case, but the particular stats to give them (Attack, Defense and Hitpoints) would be <unknown>; and I would have to rely on their HoMM3 starting abilities to help determine this.

If they are made to be units instead, they could have nice upgrade paths. So, for example:
Each Secondary Skill would be given base stat increases for each Hero (if they are a unit).
E.G. Pathfinding = +Ignore land move penalties
Armorer = +Defense
Archery = +Range
Ballistics = +Bombard
Offense = +Attack
Scouting = +Radar,+See Invisible
Logistics = +speed
Resistance = +Magic Defense; etc...
-Something along these lines.

This way you can build the Heroes yourself in town. Problem is if they are too powerful, AI will only build Heroes and no units. There are not enough buildings available to make all Heroes auto-produced (only 256 buildings allowed in game). So auto-production cannot be used.

But, Heroes would have to be made expensive; and initially they would be very weak units (like a lvl 1 units). Then as you research the appropriate techs, they can upgrade and get the appropriate bonus.
If you research Armorer, then your Hero could upgrade and get + Defense from that. Research Archery and the Hero can bombard. Research Logistics and the Hero can move a bit faster.

One thing to keep in mind here is that the tech tree is seperated into 3 distinct areas: Might (Combat), Magic and 'Other' (just as in HoMM3). So the upgrade path would have to follow this and be linear. There are still problems with this though (limitations of Civ 3).

If you upgraded to several Might upgrades, then upgrade to a Magic upgrade, you would lose all the Might stats (possibly). Just the way upgrades work, they must be done in a linear fashion.

Depends on if this way is better than single unit Army Heroes. AI still doesn't use single unit Army Heroes as well as a player does. Often it still does not load the best unit it has into them.

 

[DFBATTLER]

Tom, any chance you can post the image for Vidomina, Isra or Septienna? Necro heroes are the best!

They're p creepy

<long post>

The upgrade paths is a great idea; does it tie in with the 'levels'?

 

[tom2050]

They're p creepy The upgrade paths is a great idea; does it tie in with the 'levels'?

The only way I could make it tie in with levels is to have Hero Development be on it's own tech tree. This way all Heroes would start at level 1, and could work their way up. This would be a more dynamic way of dealing with Heroes IMO... would be more versatile than having Armies (since AI is Handicapped in using them; since Armies can only have 1 unit in them to avoid AI shortcomings, can't properly unload Armies even with the method that is available).

Although HoMM3 did not use Individual Heroes to fight battles, I honestly think this may be a more interesting way to do things for the mod.

For Hero Attack/Defense, I believe something could be worked out based on the average strengths of creatures depending on creature levels. Hero levels would have to be limited though, due to lack of room on the tech era screen.

Of course, the downside would be that you could make multiple Heroes of the same name. Would have to give it some thought.

 

[Grandraem]

I'm steadily getting the Heroes finished:

Here is Crag Hack e.g.

The rest is mostly complete... (beta-complete that is)

Getting excited!!! And the Crag Hack looks great! Not just saying this to be funny, but at first glance of that post and the one below, it looked to me like you said, "Here is a Crack Hag" and DFBATTLER said, "Nice Crack Hag". I had to double take on the unit!

 

[tom2050]

Getting excited!!! And the Crag Hack looks great! Not just saying this to be funny, but at first glance of that post and the one below, it looked to me like you said, "Here is a Crack Hag" and DFBATTLER said, "Nice Crack Hag". I had to double take on the unit!

A Crack Hag... Well, you never know what Crag Hack does behind closed doors.


I think I will go ahead and do away with Armies (almost)... and either make it so successful battles can create Leaders (to make a generic Hero army or rush build), or make it so successful battles create a single Army Hero (and not Leaders). The game is pretty fast paced, and rush building is available, so Leaders may not be needed anyways.

I'll tell this much, some of the scenarios will have some very large battles take place even on small maps if playing the harder difficulties.

This way Heroes can be unique and actually use their abilities that they were given in HoMM3. Obviously it would take quite a while to get all the Hero graphics done, so I will not wait to finish them all to release beta, but in that case, generic graphics will be used in the meantime.

I will redo the needed portions of the mod to accomodate this as quickly as I can, and go from there.

Here is the Crag Hack in action:

Here is Mirlanda (Witch Class of Hero; she kind of looks crazy) of the Fortress:


Who ever thought Mirlanda of the Fortress really looked like this?

Spoiler :

 

[nick0515]

A Crack Hag... Well, you never know what Crag Hack does behind closed doors.


I think I will go ahead and do away with Armies (almost)... and either make it so successful battles can create Leaders (to make a generic Hero army or rush build), or make it so successful battles create a single Army Hero (and not Leaders). The game is pretty fast paced, and rush building is available, so Leaders may not be needed anyways.

I'll tell this much, some of the scenarios will have some very large battles take place even on small maps if playing the harder difficulties.

This way Heroes can be unique and actually use their abilities that they were given in HoMM3. Obviously it would take quite a while to get all the Hero graphics done, so I will not wait to finish them all to release beta, but in that case, generic graphics will be used in the meantime.

I will redo the needed portions of the mod to accomodate this as quickly as I can, and go from there.

Here is the Crag Hack in action:

Here is Mirlanda (Witch Class of Hero; she kind of looks crazy) of the Fortress:
View attachment 251390

Who ever thought Mirlanda of the Fortress really looked like this?

Spoiler :

Yes, in the second picture she definitely looks breast, I mean best.

I think the individual hero units would be way more fun than armies, but it will be somewhat annoying to see more than one of the same hero wandering around.

Can the upgrades really work as you say? Won't upgrading to any base stat erase all others? Or will they be built up in a linear fashion (eg + 1 defense -> + 1 defense and + 1 attack etc) in which case the player will have to know the exact upgrade path to avoid researching hero upgrades that are inferior to what they already have. Man, I get so confused when trying to think about this. I tried to think of good ways to do it for my own mod but gave up and decided that heroes would just get all base states increased at each new level.

Cheers,

Nick

 

[tom2050]

I think the individual hero units would be way more fun than armies, but it will be somewhat annoying to see more than one of the same hero wandering around.

Can the upgrades really work as you say? Won't upgrading to any base stat erase all others? Or will they be built up in a linear fashion (eg + 1 defense -> + 1 defense and + 1 attack etc) in which case the player will have to know the exact upgrade path to avoid researching hero upgrades that are inferior to what they already have. Man, I get so confused when trying to think about this. I tried to think of good ways to do it for my own mod but gave up and decided that heroes would just get all base states increased at each new level.

Cheers,

Nick

This is the only way I can think of so far to do it that works w/o erasing other stats, and to keep it unconfusing. You are correct, trees that branch out cause the problems of erasing other stats. So I am going linear. I had to rethink it again.

I was thinking along the lines of having different Heroes becoming available with certain techs in the normal tech tree (Might, Magic, Other) depending on their HoMM3 Skill Set/Specialty.



For instance, Styg's specialty is 5% bonus to Sorcery, so Styg would become available to the Fortress after Sorcery tech is researched. And then Styg could upgrade via the Hero linear tech line (located in era 1) and Styg's stats would increase according to Styg's skills and specialties.

If all 7 levels are researched though, a new Hero can immediately become uber (will cost a wee bit though). This is also unavoidable. AI will be doing the same thing here, so no big balance issue here.

Now it could be made so all Heroes are all in one massive upgrade path (but then 1 Hero could upgrade to another). So I think it's best each Hero is it's own upgrade linear upgrade path.

The only thing about this whole mess is that it would require a huge amount of unit entries to be placed (72+ Heroes * #(7) of levels = (504 unit entries Minimum) Whew!). Steph's editor should make doing this pretty quick though.

It's because of the mass of unit entries having to be entered, that I decided against a massive Hero tech tree, and instead on a simple linear Level path. Otherwise the numbers would reach into the tens of thousands (72 Heroes * 7 levels * (28) Skills = 14,112 unit entries).

So, Hero 7 level tech tree will be placed somewhere in a pre-existing era. Heroes will become available all over the place in actual techs (in the Might, Magic, Other techs), and then each can upgrade along it's path depending on if the player researches the Hero tech tree.

Even doing it this way will probably require an additional several hundred units to make Magic Heroes spells increase in power with level.

The annoyance of multiple Heroes that have the same name is unavoidable, up to the AI and the player I suppose.

 

[bigdog5994]

Here is the Crag Hack in action:

can you make a green skinned version!

 

[tom2050]

can you make a green skinned version!

Don't worry, there are several green skinned versions already planned. I will eventually conjure up a full 16 Heroes for the Stronghold, and although not all are Orcs, some will be green variations of the above unit.

Here are some of the others as I am getting them done.

Mirlanda:

Dace:

Jenova:

 

[Kyriakos]

Great work It is impressive that you are making an entire scenario by your own.

If you need any resources perhaps i can help.