Posts from Epic War Age (EWA) - Adapted Mod Collection

Adding new factions to the game (without replacing the old ones)

How is that possible?

I would like to know the opinion of the forum participants regarding the further development of the mod - our team wants to understand where exactly we should move? In what direction should we develop?

First of all, my dream is to combine EWA with MMH5.5. This is essentially not only about tactics but also points 4 (in 5.5 there is a good selection of heroes), 5 (many different race cutscenes make the game exciting), 7 (many new artifacts and sets, new backpack artifacts). As well as many extras, such as several hero classes, governors, castle rebuilding, etc.

3) Balance is a complex topic. I'm more worried about the balance of NCF creatures. I know that work is already being done on it, but there's a huge amount to do. The mods presented also have some interesting things, but if they are included in the collection, they should be as an optional addition in the launcher (for example, creatures that cost more resources).
6) In terms of NCF, I think all that's needed is balance and filtering.

6) It would be great to extract creatures from the seventh game. I also saw that creatures were extracted from Heroes Online (I don't know if they are already in NCF).

In theory, there's no way to do it other than by expanding the arrays with IDs. To fully add a faction, you need to add IDs for cities, buildings, hero types, units (as in NCF files), and it would also be good to add ability IDs for creatures, at least to create copies of old ones with new stats. IDs for skills and abilities would also be useful, at least to create racial skills for new cities using scripts. I don't know if they're needed, but most likely they are, IDs for adding defense areas for new cities, dwellings, maps of the Tears of Ash, city specializations, maybe I missed something else. But for this, it is necessary to disassemble and edit the .exe file, since no one has released the source code, and it's all complicated there. But if there are skilled people, I am in favor of this development option for the mod.

I would like to know the opinion of forum participants regarding the further development of the mod - our team wants to understand where exactly we should move? In what direction should we develop? Indicate what is most interesting and preferable for you.

Mod improvement options:

1) Improving the graphics and visual component of the game through special mods;
/topic/11909/

2) New music and new musical themes;
(specify which music you would like to hear in the game)
3) Changing the balance by adding such mods as:

/topic/11902/

/topic/10674/

/topic/10898/

/topic/10183/

/topic/7746/

/topic/11789/

/topic/9268/

/topic/4186/

/topic/11956/

/topic/11268/

/topic/10598/

/topic/8830/

4) Adding new heroes to the mod through mods:

/topic/9337/

/topic/12025/

5) Adding new buildings to the game, mod
/topic/9487/

6) Adding new creatures to the game
/topic/7937/
or Option to add creatures from Might and Magic Heroes VII

7) Adding new artifacts to the game
8) Adding new factions to the game (without replacing old ones)
/topic/11301/
/topic/11395/
Option to add factions from Might and Magic Heroes VII

9) Strengthening combat machines
10) Tactical changes through the use of mods from
/topic/7486/

/topic/11565/

11) Adding new campaigns, scenarios, and maps to the mod
/forum/section/159/

12) Indicate your options

For example, in WGE, Nargott used reduced movement speeds to balance the movement and make it more interesting, but as I understand it, he reduced the speeds because he couldn't increase the size of the arena. In 5.5, the arenas have been enlarged (using the sizes of siege arenas), but only in battles for structures.

Simply "reducing speeds" isn't enough to balance movement; it's also important to consider the distribution of speeds (with an emphasis on slower units), the speed difference between flying units, and the presence of a heavy class (to provide defense against hit-and-run attacks). Larger arenas alone won't achieve this; they essentially just fix the issue of units reaching their destination on the first turn, but there are still many units with speeds of 8 that ruin all maneuvers.

I'd also like to note that increasing the size of the arenas increases the number of cells on the battlefield, thereby reducing the tactical importance of each individual cell, including the role of unit sizes. The only reason I'd like to try larger arenas is the possibility of placing more large units, i.e., increasing the size from 10x12 to 12x12 or 14x12.

But if we're just brainstorming, it would be cool to see hexagonal arenas with a reduced number of cells, similar to Heroes 2.