Heroes of Might and Magic inspired map

[Ghullie]

Hey

Here's what I've been working on for the past weeks during my spare time. I really love the HoMM games and decided to try and make my own version in WC3 Reforged

As you can see on the minimap it's still very early in the development process. I wanted to make sure I could make the turn based combat work first as it was my biggest uncertainty. It's not quite done yet, attacks aren't turn based yet, but I'm pretty sure I have the rest figured out.


General Info

• Turn Based Strategy
• 4vs4 map
• 5-6 races to choose from (I'm making sure it's easy to add more if its desirable
• 6 units per race
• Heroes carry their armies with them (1 for each inventory slot)
  
• Heroes wont be actively involved in combat except for spells (like in Heroes III)
• Hero Skill trees
• Each unit will have upgrades like in the original games
• Town Screens for each race
• Combat Mode

Uncertainties

• AI (Will probably have to create my own to fit the turn based game play)
• How to make a turn based game play less boring for people waiting for their turn / time consuming (Hot seat) in multiplayer
• How to make "Quick combat" so people don't have to manually control every fight
• Custom UI - No idea where to start, but it would be nice.
• Will Reforged maps have the same limitation of being max 4mb for sharing over Bnet as they were in the original games? I would like to add custom music for each race if possible.

Appreciate any feedback or ideas!

 

[noob]

I believe the cap was raised to something like 128 mb but I think a research on google will wield true results.
Patch 1.27b indicates the size limit have been raised from 8 mb to 128 mb but it is possible that the automatic download limit was not raised.
For quick combat either you can assign threat values to units and heroes and sum all that up and decide who is the winner and how many losses there is in function of the threat value ratio or you can make an ai then make both sides use the ai and skip animations(and so possibly use simpler physics since units no longer have to move: only the information of their movement is needed and so on)
Otherwise good luck with your project also I believe some people already made a similar project so I suggest that you find them and possibly contact them.

 

[Feng Shui]

Pretty cool. Couldn't you just make "Attack" into an ability and get rid of the default attack the units can perform? It'd probably also make sense to make the units un-selectable outside of their respective turns and write a handler script/trigger for that instead.

 

[Ghullie]

I believe the cap was raised to something like 128 mb but I think a research on google will wield true results.
Patch 1.27b indicates the size limit have been raised from 8 mb to 128 mb but it is possible that the automatic download limit was not raised.
For quick combat either you can assign threat values to units and heroes and sum all that up and decide who is the winner and how many losses there is in function of the threat value ratio or you can make an ai then make both sides use the ai and skip animations(and so possibly use simpler physics since units no longer have to move: only the information of their movement is needed and so on)
Otherwise good luck with your project also I believe some people already made a similar project so I suggest that you find them and possibly contact them.

Thanks for the info & tip I did a quick search on the other HoMM inspired maps and they weren't quite what I had in mind. Though if anyone who worked on them sees this I wouldn't mind a chat!

Pretty cool. Couldn't you just make "Attack" into an ability and get rid of the default attack the units can perform? It'd probably also make sense to make the units un-selectable outside of their respective turns and write a handler script/trigger for that instead.

Thanks!

A separate attack ability is not really needed because they will lose their turn anyway once a regular attack order has been issued. It wouldn't be any different.

I'm trying to stay true to the Heroes games and in those you can mouse over other units to read their stats. I'm thinking of just putting the inactive ones in a different (computer) player's control. That way you can select them, but not really do anything with them. Currently if you issue an order that's invalid (ie outside of range or "follow" on another unit) the unit is ordered to move to its own position. So effectively nothing happens until a valid order is issued.

 

[Ghullie]

Update vid! Made it fully turnbased now and implemented a ranged attack. Looks like I will have to use custom skills for the regular attacks.

Lots of bugs still, but mostly minor stuff.

 

[Pyrogasm]

Looks nice, the move ui does work. The camera angle feels a little flat, though; I think it would benefit from a slightly sharper angle of attack.

 

[Ghullie]

Looks nice, the move ui does work. The camera angle feels a little flat, though; I think it would benefit from a slightly sharper angle of attack.

Thanks! I've been thinking the same, it can be difficult sometimes to select the furthermost tiles. I do like the cinematic feel of the cam though. Might just adjust it by a few degrees or add more camera angles.

 

[Ghullie]

Another update, combat has finally been added. After I flush out some minor things, like attacking from the same position you are standing in I can move on to creating the rest of the map.

 

[noob]

So what is really different from Tournament of might and magic?
(you mentioned your quick search not finding similar maps)

 

[Ghullie]

So what is really different from Tournament of might and magic?
(you mentioned your quick search not finding similar maps)

From what I could tell, that map has only the combat part of HOMM, I'd like to include the rest.

 

[tough_zai]

I believe the cap was raised to something like 128 mb but I think a research on google will wield true results.
Patch 1.27b indicates the size limit have been raised from 8 mb to 128 mb but it is possible that the automatic download limit was not raised.
For quick combat either you can assign threat values to units and heroes and sum all that up and decide who is the winner and how many losses there is in function of the threat value ratio or you can make an ai then make both sides use the ai and skip animations(and so possibly use simpler physics since units no longer have to move: only the information of their movement is needed and so on)
Otherwise good luck with your project also I believe some people already made a similar project so I suggest that you find them and possibly contact them.

i played might and magic before,,seems nice...but how about 1.31 they said its new patch...

 

[biridius]

Cool, now I can redirect anyone asking for these features like multiplayer to you

> How to make a turn based game play less boring for people waiting for their turn / time consuming (Hot seat) in multiplayer
I used to play a homm-inspired online game, it had real-time global map, but everyone only had one hero at a time, and instead of towns there were just shared barracks for hiring troops, plus quest givers like in normal RPGs. PvP was limited to special zones, and the rest of the map was strictly PvE.

May be you could make the global map real-time but still have town sieges, if the player could switch between multiple ongoing combats (when their hero is fighting in one place but the town gets attacked).

Or make the game go in rounds, with everyone having a number of action points each round, and acting semi-simultaneously on the map. So each round each player can move X squares (boosted by logistics etc) and fight one battle (or multiple battles, costing action points?).
Then when everyone is done next round begins and refills their action points. If someone is stuck in combat for too long, they may choose for it to take multiple rounds instead of making everyone wait for it to end, or just retreat "because troops need rest" or whatever.

 

[tough_zai]

Cool, now I can redirect anyone asking for these features like multiplayer to you

i think for online games in this genre,, like now auto chess and other games are turn based...with a time limits..
if you cannot move in the time given you will automatically skipped..

but turn based games fro me is best played offline,,,

like might and magic is not purely turn based game,,

you have to gather your troops in towns,, other places and stack them.

grow your army..but i dont know how this map will simulate the game here on Warcraft.. and how he can manage to make it more interesting...

May be you could make the global map real-time but still have town sieges, if the player could switch between multiple ongoing combats (when their hero is fighting in one place but the town gets attacked).

and maybe trigger only the turn based battle when opposing player will met at any point in the world map.... so that any player who want to grind first can avoid any fight..

and how can you used terrain as your advantage and dis - advantage...
i played might and magic with sharp shooters and angels with me..while flying to enemy troops and protecting my sharpshooters...

 

[biridius]

I don't think a time limit alone is enough, because people would still end up having to wait until everyone else makes a turn.
It's fine in a 2-player map, but anything more would require some sort of semi-simultaneous movement.
At the same time, there have to be restrictions so that people don't run all over the place while you are stuck killing some boss.

Turn based combat with 30 seconds limit for a turn is ok, but if the global map is turn based and there are 8 players, each taking at least a few minutes to make a turn, it would be annoying.

 

[tough_zai]

No its killing me... You will wait for 7 players turn before you do...

I suggest make the world map as free going.. As i said erlier that only make triggers the pvp if they are in range of something 250 or depends on you...

So that low lvl player can grind and avoid early figth..

 

[noob]

There is a way to reduce turn per turn waiting problems: simultaneous turns.
As long as the players are not close enough to each other they can play their turns at the same time(their turns ends at the same time) and when one player have a hero close enough for reaching something controlled by another player then those two players now alternate turns (propagate groups when more than two players have each other in hero range) and the other players plays their turns during the turns of those players in the "meeting each other" group(and you could in theory manage multiple such groups if they have no connection and have turns in parallel between those groups but not between players in the same group)
Each castle is considered as having a hero with maximum recruitment movement speed(the speed a hero have when recruited which depends on its slowest unit and of its skills) in order to not have broken turn per turn.
Of course heroes of might and magic is more often played with lower player counts such as 2, 3 or 4.
The extra complexity for the simultaneous turns until players have heroes close enough system can make such a thing not worth it if you do not save a lot of turns due to low player count.

 

[Ghullie]

Moved this to here since it's no longer just an idea!

Heroes of Azeroth - A Heroes of Might and Magic inspired map