Factions and Storyline | Forums

[Rakarr1985]

Just musing about the continuiation of the Heroes series, as I do from time to time... and I wonder, would people accept a large shift in the town and faction makeup if there was a well-written story behind it?

Creature-wise, the Knight town has always been the 'human' town. Almost all factions have a couple of human heroes at the least, and the barbarians and wizards actually strike me as a human sort of race (if only based on the hero avatars), but the knight/militia town have always been the ones with the trained-and-disciplined human troops. But we all know that humans can stray from their path and not be especially good, especially in times of war. So what if the human-militia-knight town fell from grace, turned from the influence of their righteous leaders and became more of a neutral or even evil faction? What if they became greedy warmongers, and had a slight creature change to represent this? They obviously wouldn't have the assistance of the angels anymore, and maybe for the sake of symbolism they'd lose the gryphons and have some other manner of flying creature instead.

What if the barbarians were driven from their lands or faced a serious threat and were forced to shack up with the nature faction? Or what if we saw a return of the sorceress instead, leading the nature town and phoenixes once more, but with some sort of twist?

I for one think I'd welcome a bit of change if it served to tell an awesome story overall. I like the fact that creature-types change hands from one game to another (the gryphons go from Warlock to Castle to Nature; Centaurs from Warlock to Nature to Barbarian), and things get a little stale if you always have the same creatures in the same town. Of course, there should always be mainstays, such as the cyclops, and most of what you find in the undead town.

So, as an exercise in creativity - if you were in charge of a heroes game and could mix and match your towns and creatures, how would you do it? How would you explain it, as part of the storyline?

And don't forget that you can have heroes cross over, too. Might be interesting to see what you'd do with familiar faces...

[Rakarr1985]

Another interesting note - creatures themselves can change. Centaur went from archers to spearmen, to a mix of both, in which they could hurl javelins and then attack up close. Medusa went from melee, to range-with-useful-melee-abilities, to pure range with a powerful long range killing ability. I wouldn't mind seeing nomads taking up the bow, or having some kind of dragon utilizing its breath to become a long range fireball weapon (think magogs), maybe as some sort of ranged flier (with great care taken to balance them, of course).
By the way, some people seem to think the whole dragon thing is overkill, especially with the additions in Armaggeddon's Blade, but I personally love the Faerie Dragon.A spellcasting dragon is a very awesome idea, I think. Having gold dragons in the first place as part of the nature town was overdoing it a little, though... but perhaps having neutral dragons in addition to the warlock's black and red and green would be nice,
I'm rambling now. I'll try and write up some of my own ideas later. I think it's fun to think about.

[Monteniger]

Well your own fantasy is the limit here.The key is just to see who is the evil and develop the plot around it.
I would make tower evil
Their towers would become horible places of ultimum terror.And all becouse they were seeking for more and more magic.They Mage Master started exploring stars and cosmos and encountered the pure evil that corupted krigans in the firist place.And he summoned it to their land.The creatures will remain the same.They already have gremlins as slaves(I mean they are chained),gargolies & golems as tower guardians(one on the tops of the towers and other as door guardians)who are easly created and since they are mindless creations they will always listen.Mages would learn dark cosmic magic and become twisted.Genies are humble magic slaves thet must listen.And Nagas(in original mithology they were guardians to the underworld)are guardians to more secret chambers(observatories that are giving the power).

In campaign you would lead dark forces against rebels and Titans.And your tasks will be to go to the dragon cave and summon new allies(Azure/Black dragons),to crush dungeon and acquire their dark knowlege and combine it with your own.

Then warlocks would find themselves as refugees in the Tatalia and Erathia.There new aliances will be forged against Brecada.Barbarians since they hate magic won't go into alliance.They thought they could handle the crazy wizards all alone,and they would meet their final doom on the cold battlefields of Brecada.

And Sandro who looked at this as a opportunity joins wizards and raise a mighty army from dead barbarians.

The two fractions clash.

In the meantime Elves who have just achieved they indeoendency from Erathia stay neutral and they recede deep in the forest.But one good Elf leader persuades the Elves to help the world.They are going to find the Gold Dragon Queen to wake it again and ask her for help.Dragon's call weakes all red,green and gold dragons and they are set fore battle.

And of course Kreegans interfere.Volcanoes sudenly start to erupt and meteores fall from the sky and the whole land is at mess.

End conclude on your own.

I doubt thet someone would read this all

[Arzang]

while I do not agree with some of the changes you mentioned; I whole-heartedly agree with the fact that the factions should change.

let the (self-)righteous humans shack up with the elves and let the other humans do whatever the hell they want.

and this is, if you ask me, a kind aplausible change considering the fact that the humans have sided with the undead (crappy story, I know).

It's all up to the expansion pack.

[memetics]

I think it's a great idea, although I have mostly played HMM3, so my creativity in answering here is somewhat limited. Please bear with me.

The humans certainly could be scattered more... I mean, in the Rampart, you don't see five different elves (elven pikemen, elven archers, elven swordselves...). I like the idea of a catastrophic event convincing the angels to leave and instigating a diaspora of sorts... you could find humans (of different stripes) in most other towns, and the Castle town could have more of a variety of creatures, maybe barbarians, wizards, giants, human-friendly elves, kindly dragons with the voice of Sean Connery... in fact, maybe it should be something other than a Castle. ...

Come to think of it, why can't two different town types share a creature type? Two towns that both generate elven archers? That might be a balance issue, I guess, but what if *every* town had a "human" creature type, maybe with different types of upgrade in each? Wouldn't that be interesting?

Maybe not.

[rasdel]

I would add alot more variaty. First, Return with the Sorceress, excepto leading mainly elves and mystic creatures like unicorns and such. Then, Dwarves would go their own way having a faction of their own and living in the mountains. Of course the Wizard will still me masters of the Arcane and live in towers and creatures like owls and rocs will come to their aid. Knights will stay the same, but not as holy, angels will flee and paladins would come back to power. Undead could be neutral (Like in LOTR), they would be acces by magic, dark one of course, and not recruited. Warlock will be more deadly, no griffons, nor centaurs...but Wyverns and Dragons (more reptilian looking creatures). Barbarians would be mainly orcs and goblins, and then maybe some underground factions like the Drow (they start in the caves intead of the surface), as a counterpart for the sorceress. And neutral units should be divided, surface and underground. In the surfaces thing like centaurs and Gnolls, but in the underground things like Troglodytes, in that way it would give the impresion that each creature has it's own realm, and not that they are spread in every place, therefore giving more life and realism to the HOMM world. Making some creatures living in the darkness would really make you feel you are entering a new domain, a different and darker place.

By the way, doesn't anyone think that the idea of making humans allies with Undead is a total LOTR rip off??? i mean, it is just like the RETURN OF THE KING!! I hope they justify that alliance in a good way...

[Gab87]

Originally posted by Monteniger:
Well your own fantasy is the limit here.The key is just to see who is the evil and develop the plot around it.
I would make tower evil
Their towers would become horible places of ultimum terror.And all becouse they were seeking for more and more magic.They Mage Master started exploring stars and cosmos and encountered the pure evil that corupted krigans in the firist place.And he summoned it to their land.The creatures will remain the same.They already have gremlins as slaves(I mean they are chained),gargolies & golems as tower guardians(one on the tops of the towers and other as door guardians)who are easly created and since they are mindless creations they will always listen.Mages would learn dark cosmic magic and become twisted.Genies are humble magic slaves thet must listen.And Nagas(in original mithology they were guardians to the underworld)are guardians to more secret chambers(observatories that are giving the power).

In campaign you would lead dark forces against rebels and Titans.And your tasks will be to go to the dragon cave and summon new allies(Azure/Black dragons),to crush dungeon and acquire their dark knowlege and combine it with your own.

Then warlocks would find themselves as refugees in the Tatalia and Erathia.There new aliances will be forged against Brecada.Barbarians since they hate magic won't go into alliance.They thought they could handle the crazy wizards all alone,and they would meet their final doom on the cold battlefields of Brecada.

And Sandro who looked at this as a opportunity joins wizards and raise a mighty army from dead barbarians.

The two fractions clash.

In the meantime Elves who have just achieved they indeoendency from Erathia stay neutral and they recede deep in the forest.But one good Elf leader persuades the Elves to help the world.They are going to find the Gold Dragon Queen to wake it again and ask her for help.Dragon's call weakes all red,green and gold dragons and they are set fore battle.

And of course Kreegans interfere.Volcanoes sudenly start to erupt and meteores fall from the sky and the whole land is at mess.

End conclude on your own.

I doubt thet someone would read this all

i did

[Monteniger]

Originally posted by Gab87:

i did

Well ... good
I would like to hear your opinion
And some of your ideas if you want to share with us

And mesmetics I like your idea but for creatures not races: griffins in castle would be upgreaded in royal and in rampart in wild.
Or Red dragons could become black in dungeon and gold in rampart...But races shold have each a separate towns.

Rasdel I agree on variety but I don't want to see H5 as a copy of Tolkien/Warcraft world.
And I dont like makeing only male or female heroes for one fraction.Variety is in the mix.

[memetics]

Originally posted by Monteniger:
And mesmetics I like your idea but for creatures not races: griffins in castle would be upgreaded in royal and in rampart in wild.
Or Red dragons could become black in dungeon and gold in rampart...But races shold have each a separate towns.

Yes; that's a good idea for the upgrades. I don't like the idea of dragons changing color, though. Maybe it's my D&D beginnings, but I don't think red dragons should become black dragons. Both should be equally cool. A "normal" black dragon should become an "Elder" or "Ancient" Black Dragon, with more skill, power, etc. due to age / experience. Why the color shift?

Rasdel, what's your opinion on color shifts? Shouldn't there be a different way to upgrade dragons?

Granted, it's just an aesthetic issue, but heck, it just doesn't seem *right* to me. Black dragons breathe acid; red, fire. They're different species, for goodness' sake. (I'm showing my age, I guess.)