Work in Progress - Conquests of Might and Magic III

[tom2050]

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

If you need any resources perhaps i can help.

I'll keep it in mind, Thank You for the offer!


I've begun modifying the existing BIQ to add in the Individual Heroes. For beta, all Heroes will use 1 graphic per town (I will do the others after beta release, because it will take some time to complete them all).

So, the way it will work, is there will be a Heroes of Might tech line (7 techs... a tech for Level 1 through 7). A Heroes of Magic tech line also, setup the same way.

AI will either be more likely to research the Might line or the Magic line depending on how they lean. Some will be even favored to research both.

I have decided what each skill counts as (Logistics, Earth magic, etc...). And the bonus' will apply towards the Heroes based on the 2 Skills they start with.


So if a Hero, such as Nymus, starts with Advanced Offense and has the Specialty of increasing the Attack and Defense skills of any Pit Fiends or Lords she commands for each level she attains after the 5th level:

This would give Nymus a starting bonus of +2 Attack, and at Hero Level 5 she would enslave Pit Fiends (not Pit Lords to avoid overpowering).

Now Pit Fiends are Level 5 creatures, so why build another Hero, like Ignatius, which enslaves Level 1 Imps (starting at Lvl 1)? Depends on the scenario. Enslaving lower level creatures that much earlier in the tech line could have much more advantage than having to wait to get to Hero Level 5 in the tech tree.

Now, to make sure AI does not build excessive Heroes instead of units, Hero stats will not be necessarily better than the creatures they can build. Towns can only build up to Level 2 creatures anyways (the others are auto-produced). So after Level 2, Heroes will likely be built instead of creatures by AI. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since by that time, creature buildings in towns will be auto-producing a good amount of units anyways.

Heroes will be expensive (like a Wonder). So if you start building one, expect to put a good investment of time and shields into it. Upgrading them will cost a fair amount also, so excessive amounts of uber-Heroes won't be running around the map.

I'm 20% done with adding them into the BIQ... and then I should be able to get the Civilopedia for them done fairly quickly.

Regular Generic Hero Armies will still be available also, but will be very rare (Just to add more variety).

 

[utahjazz7]

In my personal version of HoMM3, I replaced a few heroes with myself, Snoopy, and a friend. You can see our hero portraits below. Any chance we might make it into your mod?


I like the ideas you have for transposing HoMM3 to Civ3; I'm interested to see how it turns out.

 

[tom2050]

In my personal version of HoMM3, I replaced a few heroes with myself, Snoopy, and a friend. You can see our hero portraits below. Any chance we might make it into your mod?

"There's always a chance" The pic isn't showing for me, though.

I'm interested in what you did for your personal version... and why never released? I think it's been said Heroes M&M VI is almost for sure planned or even in development by the developers. It will be interesting to see where they go with it.

Beta will just be epic game, still alot of work to do for the campaign scenarios.

 

[utahjazz7]

I've reattached the image. You should be able to see it now.

I didn't do much to change HoMM3. All I did was replace a few heroes, as I described above. I created the hero portraits and rewrote the descriptions of the heroes and their special ability—nothing worth releasing anywhere.

 

[nick0515]

Tom, It would be great if I could use a few of your female hero units in my fantasy mod, as I have big gaps in the unit lines and I hope to eventually have a male and female version of each hero type (race and class). Of course this will be well after your mod is released as I am light-years away from ever finishing it.

This is gonna be a super fun mod.

Cheers,

Nick

 

[MariusDarkheart]

This is looking good! I've just reinstalled HoMM3 just to prep myself for this!

 

[tom2050]

@utah

Snoopy could be Alkin:

You could be Sir Christian:

Your friend could be: I have no idea

But I may just use the HoMM3 pics... since I have already added them.

All 1,134 Hero Unit entries have been input (Each Hero and it's 7 Level's of upgradableness). Thank goodness for Steph's editor, with it I will be able to do masses of unit stat changes at a time.

Are all Heroes balanced properly? NO they are not and won't be. They should not be either, each and all of them are different according to the same rules. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Some are okay at everything, some excel at only 1 thing, etc.

The rules I used are directly from HoMM3 and include the:
2 secondary skills the Heroes start with
their Specialty Skill they have
their starting spell
modified starting stats (Knights start off with 2Att,2Def,2SpellPower,2Knowledge e.g.)
and for level-up stats, I used the HoMM3 1-9 level-up chances:

For HoMM3 Knights, they have 35% to level up Attack, 45% chance to level up Defense, 10% chance to level Spell Power, and 10% chance to level Knowledge;

What this means is that a Knight will level up slightly more Defense than Attack, and have very little Spellpower or Knowledge (which are used for Teleport distance, Hitpoints, strength of starting spell, etc).

I used these to make a excel algorithm that gives me the values of each Hero to put into the BIQ. The highest attack or defense any Hero is capable of is around 30. Of course, this means a high attack will result in having low everything else.

Barbarians overall have high attack values, for instance, but low hitpoints and low defense.
Beastmasters overall have high defense, but low hitpoints and low attack.
Death Knights, Battle Mages, and Alchemists have very moderate overall stats.
Wizards and Warlocks have low attack and defense, but lots of hitpoints, are telepads of far range for spells, and can create some very powerful spells.

It's possible Magic Heroes will have Stealth attack also.

100% for sure: I probably won't make 1134 civilopedia entries for all these, but combine all the level-up info into a single civilopedia entry for each Hero. (which is still 162 entries).

To appropriately add Spells in how I want them, an additional 90-150+ unit entries will be needed. But I may just keep it simple to start with, and release (open) Beta; and do all of that later.

 

[Roland Ironfist]

Great work on adding the classic heroes! Here is something that might help out a little:

http://www.mediafire.com/?mmdynzwj1t0

If you need any help with keeping the Civilopedia "canon" or adding tidbits of story, well I still check this thread about twice a day if that's often enough...

 

[DFBATTLER]

Great work on adding the classic heroes! Here is something that might help out a little:

http://www.mediafire.com/?mmdynzwj1t0

If you need any help with keeping the Civilopedia "canon" or adding tidbits of story, well I still check this thread about twice a day if that's often enough...

Roland is a HOMM3 Fanboy

This reminds me, Zydar looks like S@tan. :S

 

[tom2050]

I have been thinking as well, to instead of making individual Poser portraits of Heroes to use, I may just make for the Diplomacy screen, an animated pic of the town (Castle, Dungeon, etc). This would be easier, but would make it so it doesn't require creating individual portraits of a wide variety of Heroes to use in epic and scenario games.

There should be no issues with doing this, as I should be able to properly align these FLC's to fit the diplomacy screen (with a large view of the whole town), and align the same FLC's to show also when choosing what town to play as in the setup of the game.

Making individual Hero portraits will probably go ahead anyways, but will have to be down the road when I can re-familiaze myself with Poser and get all the props I need, as well as take the time to create and modify various Poser models to look like the Heroes themselves.

Great work on adding the classic heroes! Here is something that might help out a little:

http://www.mediafire.com/?mmdynzwj1t0

These look like custom expanded pics of the Heroes... they are larger than anything Heroes3 game itself provides. it's amazing how difficult it seems to find things like this! The links you provide have been invaluable.

Roland is a HOMM3 Fanboy

This reminds me, Zydar looks like S@tan. :S

Roland and Zydar are both complete. (No Graphics yet, they will have to come later for most Heroes)

The Hero entries are in, along with PediaIcons, etc... Hero values are 50% complete and entered. And I am making an Excel file to auto-grab and create the Civilopedia entries so I can just copy and paste everything in with a single blow. This way the 1300+ Civilopedia Hero entries won't take forever and a year to complete.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I don't know if I've mentioned this before here, but I personally can't wait to give this a try!

 

[tom2050]

Just an update:

All 1312 Hero units and additional Hero-specific spells have been added to the BIQ, in which 95% of them are complete with their values added. Only a few left to get done. I will have to do a run-through to complete the civilopedia, although I have set it up so it won't be time-consuming to do.

I will use Excel formula to mass produce the civilopedia entries according to the correct values. I will then need to convert a few more unit graphics for the needed Heroes (I'm only using a generic Hero graphic per town, as it will take some time to get them all done; I will scour the database and use existing graphics if possible, since 130 Heroes are alot of graphics to render myself). Civilopedia will probably take several days to do all 1312 units; the remainder of it is already done.

After that, I have a few loose ends to tie up in the BIQ before beta.

 

[DFBATTLER]

Awesome :O Still biting fingernails in anxiety

 

[tom2050]

Additional unit entries are complete in the BIQ. Just tying up some loose ends; completing the civilopedia, and some of the terrain graphics. Getting the rest of the unit graphix for Heroes completed.

For workers and settlers, I don't have specific graphics for all the towns, so I will probably have to include those at a later date; so some towns will use the generic worker and settler.

I am tempted to complete the Enroth map I started and release it also. It was almost finished anyways, so it shouldn't take too long to get done.

 

[nick0515]

Can't wait!

 

[DFBATTLER]

:O Tom's been working on COMM3 for almost a year... Tommeh, if there's no beta out by the end of July I will call you a bad name. =D

Also, "Can't wait!"

 

[tom2050]

Should be out by end of June actually I won't have time to do any thorough beta testing, but can do that later. I had some rather strange random crashing problems that I finally got fixed. I have made some tweaks to gameplay to speed it up a bit.

In general, by turn 150 to 200, players should have a pretty strong empire. Playing on anything at or above Monarch is tough. It is literally not easy to 'steamroll' anyone is this mod (except for the Conflux, whom is weak in the beginning of the game, but is pretty tough is middle/late game).

* Increased speed of expansion in early game. AI gets no settler bonus' on tougher difficulties, only a few units (AI has a scout building problem, probably because units don't start with 1.1.1 stats).
* Increased town growth speed. Towns can gain citizens slightly faster than normal.
* Luxury Resources generally are not a problem to obtain enough of to keep citizens happy. On Huge Maps, most Strategic Resources should be able to be obtained by a player. Smaller maps may be tougher in this regard. Definitely something to go to war over, having appropriate resources is vital to survival. (I won't have time to complete Resource Pedia entries in the next 10 days!)
* War against several opponents is sometimes a death wish. It is usually the only way to gain advantage over your adversaries also. Researching the appropriate tech to let you use MPP and alliances can be one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal (especially if your neighbors don't know these yet).
* Hero units appear in the middle-late stages of the game. This was done so AI won't solely build Hero units. Army Heroes are available in earlier game.
* Most all units are fleshed out and working properly (with AI also). Unit count is 1700+. (Later Scenario unit counts will likely be somewhere is 2300+ range !)
* Made several variations of Boats so that maps can be played without problem on island / continent maps as well. Basic Boat requires no resources to build and can be made from the start (is weak though). Stronger Boats require resources and tech.
* I have been working on completing Antagarich Scenario Map, it may be beta-finished in time.

There are no game crashing pedia bugs that I have encountered... I look for them with a ferocity of seek and destroy!

I will working around the clock for the next 10 days!

 

[KingArthur]

Sounds like you're on top of things Tom. I'm really looking forward to seeing this. I must admit that the idea of 1700+ units makes me feel a bit queasy from a scenario creators point of view that is.

 

[Grandraem]

Keep up the good work, Tom. I'll be looking forward to trying this when it's ready!

 

[Hellfiredoom]

Should be out by end of June actually

I can't wait!