Heroes 6 - Discussion

A few comments regarding the recent news.

Units are no longer divided into levels based on strength; they are now divided into 3 categories:<...>

In general, this is a kind of generalization of what was already observed in Heroes 5. There, creatures within the same level also differed significantly in their characteristics (the base increase varied from 7 to 25), and the difference between creatures of adjacent levels was not very significant. If you look at the League of Shadows, for example. The Minotaur has an increase of 1 higher than the Fury. Their combat and defensive characteristics are similar, except that the Minotaurs are tough and slow, while the Furies are vulnerable and fast, with high initiative. So, most likely, there will be a similar pattern within one new level. There will be both "tanks" and fast, strong but frail units. Increases will definitely differ noticeably even within the same level. Overall, I think it's quite an interesting solution, somewhat reminiscent of Kingdom Builder.

- In battle, some variation of the "line of sight" system will be used (an attack damaging all creatures standing in a line, like mages in H5).

The translation is debatable. But I still don't understand what they meant by this :)

- Rebuilding cities will be a very expensive undertaking and will take several turns (exactly how many is not specified). The player can stop the city conversion process by attacking the city and stopping the process (it is not stated whether this will happen automatically or if something needs to be clicked on).

- During city conversion, buildings common to all cities will not be destroyed (market, tavern, town hall).

Apparently, converting a city will turn out to be an endeavor that you won't always decide to undertake. At the same time, after the conversion, creature dwellings also seem to disappear, and sometimes it will be more profitable to buy those that are available in a non-native city than to bother with its conversion.

A couple more thoughts about the fifth faction. It seems to me that this race will settle in the jungle, and it looks like they will be Nagas. First, the faction is really new for Heroes (although, as they say, the League of Shadows was also called a completely new faction before the release of 5, but it turned out to be a creative reinterpretation of the Dungeon from 3). Secondly, such a race actually exists in Ashan, and Ubisoft definitely has some developments related to it; see here, which could have been implemented back in 5. Thirdly, there are a couple of interesting details in this screenshot that speak in favor of this, albeit indirectly. The first detail is the stone head in the upper left corner of the screenshot. It appears that similar elements are a feature of Naga architecture, at least judging by the model of one of the unreleased races' buildings found in the game resources. The picture is here. The second detail is the characteristically designed gate in front of which the hero stands. On the columns, you can easily recognize snakes, which, again, connects them with Naga culture. And finally, this is the only boss mentioned in the game: a giant water snake or something like that.