Analysis of King's Bounty

[Zechnophobe]

A Systems Analysis of KBAP

KBAP is a very complex game, that I have spent much time in other threads analyzing, and I'm going to do a quick run through here. Hopefully I can avoid posting too much math.

Ultimately the troops in this game are dominated by those that DO NOT TAKE LOSSES WHEN THEY ATTACK. This can either be because the ability does not allow for retaliation (No retaliation Attacks, ranged, abilities that do not allow for retal) or because the unit can survive retaliation (Most level 5's). Some special cases like dragon breath, and being able to hit two stacks, but retaliated by only one (Effectively halving, or better, the damage they receive) also exist.

This idea of putting together forces that can attack with impunity is the very cornerstone of the combat mechanics, and creates a pool of 'useable' units. Hyena's? Not good, they have no way to avoid damage. Miners? Heck even Demons aren't really beefy enough to fall into this category. There is obviously one other saving grace, and those are units that are easy to resurrect. However, I think most of the time having units you do not NEED to resurrect is massively preferable.

Let's look a little more at the effects that can be applied to your forces.

• Resistance
• Stats
• Critical Hit
• Heal

Once again, 75% of this list is more effective against higher level units. They have higher base resistance, so adding more to it is more effective. They have high stats to begin with, so crits multiplying with the damage bonus those stats provide is optimal. And obviously high hit point amounts, defense, and resistances make healing more efficient. We are further pushed towards using good high level units. Heck, the Mind tree even has a skill that gives a large bonus to the best level units, dragons. 130% crit chance, and 20% better stats, on your flying, no retal ability units that also have great resistance... it just seems too easy. Also, making Time Back a spell castable on every turn makes dragon tanking even more effective, as it allows a high mana character to resurrect level 5 units, something that is rare.

Also, a lot of the basic systems of the game are geared towards high or higher level units. Take Morale for instance. This effect increases the BASE stats of a unit by a percentage. But the value of a stat is determined by its raw value. That means increasing your sprites 3 attack by 100% to 6... still means it only does 10% more damage. Whereas increasing the stats of a 30 ATK unit by 100%, to 60, will cause it to do 100% more damage. Agvares' innate ability is almost useless on units except for Demoness'.

Also, items like the Dragonslayer sword, or other things that give % bonus to attack similarly benefit low level units very little. 2 Morale on a black dragon gives it 14 attack and defense... almost 50% more damage, and 33% less damage. This makes Voice of the Dragon worth more than all the other combat bonuses all skill trees have combined... for dragons.


Not only that, but level 5 units are also immune to almost all crowd control effects. They cannot be blinded, sheeped, misted, shackled, or feared. In return, they lose out on.. berserk and resurrection spell. But most of the time a premeditated, 7 mana, Stone Skin is worth more than an 40 mana resurrection spell only castable after the fact.


Short Version

Game is strongly slanted towards high level units, and at best towards units with no retaliation abilities. Few things effect low level units better than high level ones.

[lauvhk]

1. There are indeed a lot more shops available but I feel pretty underwhelmed when it comes to the shop's content. Racial troop availability is horrible outside of their racial continent and Lizardmen units are almost Reha-Exclusive (don't count the wanderer scroll for the moment). Another rather popular level 4 neutral - Demonologists - is so severely limited that you can play a game or two without actually seeing them available for sale (run KBScanner if you feel unconvinced).

2.

game is strongly slanted towards high level units...

There are a lot of units available in the game but regardless of game objective (no loss or not), most units end up being less favorable than the others. So What gives for having so many shops that actually sell a lot of less favorable units?

3. Many shops sell a combination of units, items and scrolls but they hardly differ from one another. What I mean is that they don't have a mercenary camp that offers a truly wide range of units (not just 4 or 5), a magic academy that houses a huge record of scrolls and can even take order to create one that you need, a blacksmith that can actually forge an item or a black market that sell obscenely overpriced but high level items early on.

Yes the shop structure in AP inherits its predecessor but sadly more doesn't necessarily make it better.

[jake21]

I like some (many) of the addition to the KB-AP but am a bit unhappy with the game flow and map. The game flow issue is balance; the game is easy at start (good); ramps up to be very difficult at lower/mid level (around level 14-20; when you first move to verona) and then becomes incredibly easy ('cept for the final two boss mobs). This makes it rather difficult to adjust game difficulty because of this rather sharp non-linear curve.
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Shops - yes there are more of them but there is a weirdness to what they sell. For instance last game I played (hard mage) there were tons of royal griffons but many mobs (like dermonolgoist (sp)) either did not load or (knights) loaded in very small quantity. This game (hard paladin) I just explored verona shops and there are TONS of (regular griffons) but no assassins or royal griffons. It almost seems like the game select some mob (griffon in this game) and then places it everywhere. (This game is going to be very hard unless something decent loads else where because mob selection up to verona (debir, scarlet, rusty, boa, verona) sucks big time (it makes my mage game look like a gold mine).
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The last thing I dislike is the map layout. In KB-TL there was a bit of backtracking but overall the maps themselves were some what interesting. In KB-AP for the most part the maps are not that interesting at all (many reusing parts from the previous game) and the last few islands are pathetic (I suspect the developer was rushed a bit; not sure but I get the feeling that map making for this game might be non-trivial).
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bugs: there are some weird bugs; for instance several times (2 or 3) I've defeated a stack and then instantly thrown back into combat with the same stack I just defeated.
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I do like the increase in item variety as well as a few other twitches in kb-ap but the flaws are quite annoying on a grand scale.

[Hento]

HOMM5 was totally ruined for me because the skill selection when you level up was random.

[lauvhk]

As jake21 points out, the map layout and the world design are not all too fantastic. With regard to the world design, I believe that the developers try to forge a world that is remarkably different than its immediate predecessor since travelling between islands in AP is predominantly relied on ship. It is in some sense reminiscening the old KB so it is more a matter of taste than something that could be argued. Still the individual map design failing to show distinctiveness and depth is a significant drawback.

Most of the journey in AP happens in the world of Teana. I am not sure if there is enough lore backdrop that actually links both world, but then all racial relationship carries over without a blink. And what about the lore of Teana? I am certainly not a lore seeking/loving person but with the Demon hiding far off the world while the Lizard raiding the Dwarf land, the Dwarves actually hate the Demon more than the Lizard? Not to mention there is a necromancer occupying another Dwarven Castle.

[Smash]

I am sorry but because you do not like cattle managment or strategy aspect of heroes series doesn't mean that they are worst, honestly homm3 is still the king in nearly everything. I didn't really even bother with rest of text wall.

KB is little shallow to me, there are only battles which are not awesome. They really should improve battlefield if they wanted focus only on them...
Troops are not balanced, paladin class is not designed well and plenty of more things.
I had really big expectation over this expansion but well i was disappointment. They didn't improve important thing except failure try on paladin skill tree.

[DGDobrev]

Bold statement, Smash, and it is your prerogative to feel this way. I, on the other hand, think they did it like this to avoid creating another HOMM clone. We have plenty of them already - Disciples 3 being the latest in the long line

Why do you feel this way about the Paladin tree? It has some really great skills: Resurrection, learning, prayer, voice of the dragon, persuasion, even scouting has been buffed up.