Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirlancelot
1. Every time the player approachs OR, if you prefer, every time the maps are loaded (every time you arrive wherever for the first time) , potentially (% of) increase the speed of every enemy unit on the area for a random value.
Also, every time the player approachs, the enemy gets a chance to make an unexpected sprint to catch him/her.
2. From time to time, potentially (% of) increase or decrease for a random value the number of some of the enemy units on the area. Sometimes this would lead to reduce or raise the difficulty of the affected area and as such, encourage the player to adopt different strategies depending on his/her game style.
3. From random time to time, as soon as the player enters an area, potentially (% of) add or remove/empty some rewards/appealing spots to/from it. This would encourage players to go after interesting things right after they see them. In addition, would make already visited and plunged areas intriguing to replay.
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My first reaction is that these changes would reduce, not increase, the strategic depth of the game. Areas would need to be revamped, since currently all areas have stacks with a mix of strength. If it's more difficult - or worse, completely random - to avoid the powerful stacks, players will have to avoid entire areas until they are strong enough to fight the toughest opponents, which means most fights in the area would be just a boring walkover.
Likewise, your third change punishes players for scouting ahead. A player who checks out a new area runs a very real risk of either being killed with no chance to win the fight, or losing rewards simply for seeing them.
All in all, I don't believe these changes would be an overall improvement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sirlancelot
No more "no casualties" runs, but actually the opposite: a real chance to lose, a real chance to be forced to play against truly superior armies from time to time, a real chance to obligate you to think twice before doing a movement, a real chance to need to take care about money and other resources.
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I don't understand the objections to no-casualty runs. I personally don't play that style - it's not worth reloading whole fights because I lost a single troop, or using very specific tactics that I find rather boring. I like to experiment, but if others want to challenge themselves with no-loss, go for it. I don't believe an explicit design goal should be making no-loss impossible, though if making the game more fun and challenging has that effect, that's okay.
I do agree that attrition can be a problem in the game. I believe no-loss goals developed in part because it's a pain to have to constantly replenish troop losses, or fight in specific ways to resurrect them before a fight ends (which often causes fights to drag out many extra rounds). It's much faster and easier to clear an area with a few dragons vs. thousands of dragonflies. KB:TL had an "army" mod where a player could pay double to recruit addtional troops without going back to town, but I don't believe it was ever updated to KB:CW. Something like that would encourage me to use more varied troops, IMO.
As Fatt Shade mentioned, the KB:TL mod (HOMM Babies) dramatically changes the difficulty, but in ways that add strategic depth rather than simply adding randomness or punishing players for using good strategy. In fact, that mod forced me to adapt my strategies, and it clearly rewarded good play. It also gave me good reasons to use troops I wouldn't normally use, depending on which wife/babies my hero had. I highly recommend giving it a try. I'm really looking forward to the KB:CW version.