Heroes vs KB

[monkeydog]

I find the KB series very enjoyable, but there is one aspect that I miss that Heroes had and this doesn't. Competition from the AI for territory, resources, and castles. Anyone else miss this aspect? Also, I miss the slightly larger battlefields with 7 stacks instead of 5. H2 had 5 stacks, but H3 had 7.

[Totoro]

I'd like to have defensive battles.

[bletkurvanx]

i still don't get why people compare KB with heroes. completely different games. and it doesn't matter that it uses similar mechanics for fights.

KB is single player rpg - heroes are TBS. if you want AI opponents go play TBS game. but to say that KB lacks AI opponents is like saying that Duke Nukem 3d lacks castle building

[sdshadow]

I miss the buidling of the castle (especially if there is a choice which building you choose), but i don´t miss the fight after ressources (or neutral fights) before the KI player gets them.

No turn-based combat game should have something to make the game stressful. This is in my opinion one of the big disadvantage of heroes and the biggest advantage from KB.

The next problem of heroes is the gathering of the troops. You can wait and wait till you have a really big army and then you can crush everything without thinking. Heroes 6 was on the right side (the neutral monsters grow bigger with every week), but the KI was stupid as always, loosing heavy amount of troops at meaningless fights.

Next problem of heroes, you have always the same troops with one race and you have infinitely troops. That is really boring. You can play KB the same, but it is really good to change the troops after many fights to make the game more fun. The defending from important troops (because you can´t buy them in high numbers) is a good game mechanic from KB. If you find a shop which sell this unit (or a shop that sells a new unit) makes me really happy everytime.

KB is also more "new Play" friendly, because everything is random at the start of the game. And there are so many units that you can play the game more then 20 times before you have no new units to check/finding new strategies.

I played heroes (1-6) thousands of hours, but KB is the better turn-based-strategie game.

[Totoro]

It would be cool to be able to build things up in KB

[fld88]

I don't miss the competition for territory because while I really liked playing HOMM over the years, it was impossible to prgoram a challlenging AI that could manage gathering and builiding that HOMM requried. Whereas the AI in KB only needs to be programmed for the battles.

[fld88]

Originally Posted by bletkurvanx

i still don't get why people compare KB with heroes. completely different games. and it doesn't matter that it uses similar mechanics for fights.

KB is single player rpg - heroes are TBS. if you want AI opponents go play TBS game. but to say that KB lacks AI opponents is like saying that Duke Nukem 3d lacks castle building

Of course there are important differences but I find them to be quite similar games. KB blurs the line between RPG and TBS and fighting which is by far the most important aspect of the game is purely TBS. The riding around on horses gathering resources and buffing stats; the spell mechanics are all very similar and castles are quite reminiscent but without the building of them ,etc. I think KB improved on HOMM but it is the closest game to HOMM that I know of.

[fld88]

There is another thing I miss about HOMM--its scenarios. It would be fantastic to have KB scenario maps instead of just one big campaign.

[bletkurvanx]

Originally Posted by fld88

Of course there are important differences but I find them to be quite similar games. KB blurs the line between RPG and TBS and fighting which is by far the most important aspect of the game is purely TBS. The riding around on horses gathering resources and buffing stats; the spell mechanics are all very similar and castles are quite reminiscent but without the building of them ,etc. I think KB improved on HOMM but it is the closest game to HOMM that I know of.

i don't agree with this. they might look similar (lore, single hero with army, etc.), but HOMM and KB give very different gaming expierences.

you can play party RPG games with turn based system and those games are closer to KB than KB to HOMM.

the games are so vastly different that people who love HOMM can hate KB and vice versa.

i can go into detail on these crucial differences. for example, how army in KB is like another RPG hero stat (no matter how much depth that stat has). but i think anyone with any brain can figure those differences out.

but in the end of the day when you call a game TBS or RTS - the strategy you defining with those names are nowhere to be found in KB. KB got the RPG strategic elements. fighting system makes 0 difference for this distinction.

calling KB a TBS - would mean that any rpg or any other type of game that uses turn based elements is a TBS game, cause pretty much any game got some sort of strategy (in the broad strategy definition).

the "S" part in TBS or RTS don't define the strategic elements you find in KB at all.

it's incredibly misleading to say that KB is similar to HOMM. i hope that in future people will start to refer to KB as RPG more than they do now.

[Fatt_Shade]

Yes KB and HoMM are similar , but only in one part : BATTLES. That`s it. Both games have turn based battles, 90% of games are different.
HoMM you have building, resources, conquering map ... strategic part of game. There you can have hero lvl 40 with sick stats and he`ll/she`ll be useless if you dont have gold and rest of resources to buy army, or you can have mountains of gold and rest of trinkets for huge army and hero lvl 1 with no skills items, and you`ll have big losses no matter how stronger you are then enemy army. No tactics in game at all.
KB on other hand have only 1 resource = gold, and you get gold by playing (while in HoMM you can get some castles and mines and you get rich just by `end turn...` buy army and go around) in KB you have to earn every gold coin, even if you find it on ground, you still have to clear path to that place. You want gold for army/items fight battles/finish quests. You want stronger hero = fight battles for lvlup and runes , you want stronger rage skills fight ...
Only thing you need to concentrate in KB are battles, and finish them in optimal way (i`m not saying no loss playstyle, just to preserve army form total annihilation to save gold, or units you cant buy anymore).

Thing i still cant believe is that for KB-WotN developers didnt take some ideas from Red sands mod for CW and lvling up units. It was great addition for this kind of game tactical turn based battle/role playing outside of battle game. In KB-the Legend was skill in mind tree to upgrade priests to inquisitors(only one unit able to upgrade in whole game) but it was there. Then in Ap nothing. CW gave us battle academy and trophy collecting way of upgrading, it was nice also. And in Red sands whole upgrading system for all units. It was great job, done with simple add on of maybe 10 txt files.
And in latest game WotN nothing again. WTF ???
I seriously think that developers for WotN had nothing to do with previous games considering fu.kup they did with whole release of this bug infested game.

Why not make some option for using certain unit and after enough battle experience you can chose to upgrade it to new stronger version, but have to pick out of 2 way upgrading as to make player choose his strategy based on previous choices with army (you get some thorns use them, and after some time chose to get them into range version-thorn hunter or stronger melee-thorn warrior, then if you choose range later you get second upgrade into royal thorns or monstera(new plant unit from red sands mod ...). This would make great addition for current `no resources/no castle` way of playing , but still give you some choices of building army, not just get enough gold and buy all you need. And with unit upgrading from CW and red sands i`m sure it`s not just possible, but very easy to make.