I respect your opinion and I must admit that you drive some very strong points here and you have most certainly put a lot of thought into that.

I agree about the score balancing. However, being a hardcore player, I cannot dismiss the people who like to play the game casually or make any disparaging remarks concerning them because of that. However, look at the score sheet in the game. If there were no heroes in it, that would be fine. But what if a player who tries really hard to beat the game in normal simply doesn't get in the chart because of the reload penalty? How will that person feel in the end of a game that challenged him a lot - just to find he did it for nothing and can't even show what he/she did?

I would personally feel fine if there is the option to select my army alignment in the first few areas. That will let me try out various army setups and tactics without me having to complete like 33%, 66% or 99% of the game for the same result. That would be a serious loss of real time. Even now, with the present state of affairs, it takes a couple of hours to do the kiting properly.

Well, I am positive that there will always be such arguments because people feel different. I also felt different for a while while I was playing the russian version, but I simply adapted :) Since nothing has changed in 6 months, keeping in mind we got a few patches for that time, I would not presume that a major change will happen at all.

Let us not forget that the game is pretty much open source and there will be mods to make it harder or easier, then everyone can play it the way he/she feels that it fulfills his/her needs as much as possible.

In the score formula rebalancing, the heroes' scores would simply be made lower to account for most everyone's overall lower score. Don't think this would be difficult to do at all. HOMM did it easily with having heroes down at the bottom as well as the top so you always earned a place.

Yes, perhaps being able to pick your starting area with unique creatures would be pretty cool - maybe in KB 2! Would still like the ability to branch out fairly early, just as we are doing with the kiting now because that is the spice of this game, we all agree.

Mods are great, but I'm not sure if it is even possible without changing the code to keep track of re-loads or re-battles and adjust heroes' scores as well as change the overall formula... perhaps I will ask in the Mod forum! :)

Well, there should be a switch somewhere in the game files that says if the map guards are moveable. In the early russian versions, the map guards acted pretty much like any other map creature and you could easily move them around at will. So you can be certain that that was fixed once before :)

So here's my thoughts. I realized that AP has a big flaw, the same that TL has: You almost always end up using the same units. Partially this is because only certain units are good, and partially because you always progress through the game in the same ethnic order.

We have two game balances that are currently at odds:

1) The fact that islands have different difficulty levels that effects the value of the 'pickups' and oftenly the troops.

2) The fact that you can 'kite' maps to get to the higher difficulty areas.

This means that getting to new islands is very beneficial to the player, due to the freebies of the area, as well as something that you can do via a specific, sorta cheesy strategy.

What I would *really* like to see a mod that shakes up this system in one of the following ways:

1) Removes the requirement for navigational charts entirely. This will be 'easy mode' because you can get free pickups from each island without having to kite. However, since this is already doable it isn't that easy.

2) RANDOMIZES the difficulty of each island, as well as the order of maps. What I'm suggesting is that instead of always going to scarlet wind, then Bola, then Rusty Anchor, then Verona... You would start on Debir, and the maps you would find there could go to any island, and that the order and difficulty would ramp up as normal. That is, if you go straight from Debir to Nameless island, then nameless island would be the same difficulty as scarlet wind.

Ideally this second option would also tone done the loot you would find there. An island covered in black dragon eggs is probably a bit broken. Quests would also have to have their xp tempered by island difficulty. So this is likely just a dream scenario. But wouldn't it be cool if you didn't always play through the game in the same order?

to be honest its order only on beggining once you clear most of stacks on verona you cna choose whatever you want .. maybe not reha yet .. but montero dersu tekron umkas uzala elon .. there is much choice ..

Very nice points Blueshrike, I fully agree and I could not have said it better.
At first I really liked the kiting but now I really dont anymore. Although I should've just started on normal to play through the game at least once.
For me personally the kiting does not make the game any better but hopefully I will change my mind at some point just like DG did because I doubt they will patch this if it hasnt ben changed in 6 months.
And indeed DG, it will be intresting to see what mods will be made for this game to keep it fun even longer. :grin:

Well, All that I can say is - start a mage on impossible and try your hand at the game. Well see if you can get out of the starting few islands without map guards kiting. With a warrior, you can do it - I did it. With a paladin, you can do it as well. With a mage, you have twice as less leadership than the warrior, no double casts nor lots of rage whatsoever to use the dragon to push enemies back 2 steps all the time.

I can go so far as to say that a mage can't even get to rusty anchor without map kiting on impossible, unless you luck out with several + leadership items - and still it is doubtful whether you will be able to afford them at all.

Yes, I suppose we would just have to take the player's word that they hadn't reloaded. A mod would be good though. I think it would be too hard on Impossible as you would run out of money, but maybe Hard would be doable.

Thinking more on Ironman; I think a Warrior would be too easy while a Paladin may be difficult on either hard or impossible at the start, once you get Res 3 however, it would become quite easy. Maybe a Mage on hard would be a sufficient challenge. I'd like to see if it could be done on impossible though! :grin:

Perhaps a mod could be done so that you can't exit a battle once it's started and the game itself will only save on exit from the adventure map?

Hey DG, you may have to eat your words there. My impossible mage has wiped Debir, Scarlett, and Bolo clean, has a couple of fights left on Rusty, and hasn't touched Verona much yet. No kiting, no losses, and not a single +leadership item so far (didn't pick up Glory either.) With good battle tactics and strategy, a mage doesn't really need all that much leadership to be effective. If you need proof of some sort, just tell me what to take a screenie of!

Edit: Just checked my gal again. I do have a Commander's Helmet for leadership. My bad.