For heroes 4 what i would really like to see, that seems to be unsaid by others, is :

MORE STRATEGY, i mean heroes is truly an outstanding game, but when it comes to battle, big is good, giant is better, and many giant ranged fliers is perfect.

i would like to see a 3d type terrain for combat, that is very large, taking into acount terrain modifiers. height, cover - possibly units working jointly against an adversary, flanking, maybe with tactics you could hides some of your units before combat IE in trees and then as your enemy approches they could ambush him for a one round +12 atk - 4 def modifier. also, even the biggest creature couldnt cover the battlefield all at once, maby taking up to 3 or 4 turns to do so.

i dont want to bog the game down, but just radically increase the strategy involved in combat - as it stands now, money, resources, and creature growth are all improtant. but i ask you - what is hard about that - take the mines, build the buildings, get the gold, and you will have an army big enough to win the game. more combat modifiers, tactics, and enhancements are needed to give the game a "beefier" strategy in the "war" department.

Hi, here is my sugestions for heroes 4 :

1: More Men ,more castle's AND MORE HEROES WITH MORE SPELLS!!!

2: I guess that they should put even better graphiques some cheats.

3: Something that would be cool is that you could go into the buildings and actuly look around in the place. expl: when in the tavern you can see drunk peaple speak to em and a choose a heroe in the tavern you could choose anyone in the tavern ...

That's about all i have to say... for now.

For multiplayer purposes, Heroes4 should be part real-time, part turn-based. Days will be real-time while fight would be turn-based.
Example:
-Lv7 or maybe Lv8 monsters... : - ) would required 30 mercury, 10 ore, 10 wood and 2 days to build.

Also, if possible, in multiplayer, players should see their opponent fight while waiting for their turn. The player waiting should see the fight, but monster number would be false. 999 bones dragons againsts 30 pikemen. Should add also, night/day alingments. Some monsters fight better during the day, others during the night, while few are uneffected.

Some else suggestions from Andrey Gavrilov:

In HMM3 hero movement is counted as constant plus movement speed of slowest hero unit (as in HMM2), but difference in combat speeds is much greater. So, necromancer with skeletons have no chances against knight with only archangels. I think, combat speed of unit should play less role in hero movement (may be, hero movement should be completely independent from unit speed). This will make low-level units concurentable with stronger units.

May be tree of castle buildings (you can build, for example, freelancers' guild, or ballista yard, not both), so castles would have different lines of improvment (this may be used with creature dwellings). Also can be useful ability to destroy buildings in castle (in one turn you can build or destroy one building). This will be especially useful with previous feature.

Should be some editable monsters, atifacts, heroes, castle and external buildings for map. For example, each castle type have building, which is unconstructable by default, but can be permitted and setted by map designer. With many options to set, there also can be something like special language to set abilities.

If some (or all) creatures will have two upgades, will be connection with secondary skill levels - from necromancy level depend skeletons upgrade, from element magic skill - upgrade of elementals and so on.

Just a couple of suggestions I haven't seen yet:

A cool new town might be Paleolithic, with Warriors, and Shamans as heroes, and creatures like Saber-toothed tigers, Cave Bears, and Mastadons

Give the Eagle Eye secondary skill some tooth: Beginner 1-2nd level spells, Advanced- 3-4th level spells, Expert 5th level spells, and maybe a higher percentage to learn. Then someone might actually opt to learn the skill.

Fortress town suffers from a combination of abysmal range creatures, a comparatively weak 5th level creature, 3rd level mage guild max, and Witches with magic-weak unique abilities. Its benefits just don't outweigh all that.

Seems that an Expert in Sorcery should get more than an increase of 15% effectiveness on cast spells.

1. Capturing heroes

a) New war machine called prison cart for holding defeated heroes

b) Forts/Citadels/Castles have a prison that may hold up to so many heroes (i.e. 2/3/5)

c) Loyalty scores - will your hero try to return to you, once captured? Or will he join the enemy?

d) Heroes captured in combat - A winning hero's army may press an attack against the enemy hero himself. That hero can retaliate. Artifacts in hand may have special effects on the attackers. (One example could be the Hammer of Chaos could knock the attacking stack backward 9-15 hexes and scatter it into 3 stacks)

e) The law of the Land - A magic law prevents the killing of a hero without a fair trial. A fair trial takes 2 weeks - 1 month. Have a special location on the map where the high judge lives. A hero with diplomacy can visit the judge and attempt to change the law. A strong hero can attempt to defeat the judge and gain control of the law. The high judge should be a special hero that doesn't leave the Court. He is controlled by no one and has an army of titans, gold dragons, zealots, champions, and crusaders. He should have a number of random spells, many secondary skills (magic school(s), diplomacy, sorcery, intelligence) and high primary skills.

f) Escape - heroes should have a small chance (1% per level) per day of captivity to escape. This could be done with a small battle between prisoners and their guards. (For example in a Castle, Sandro attempts to escape successfully and is joined by an army of 5 troglodytes, 2 lizard men, and 1 battle dwarf to fight 10 halberdiers, 5 marksman, and 2 crusaders.)

2. Good and evil

a) Different alignments shouldn't mix well.

b) Archangels and Archdevils should never fight on the same side

c) Good heroes in an evil city should have the option of destroying structures rather than building them.

d) Evil heroes in a good city can destroy structures or corrupt the inhabitants. This can be accomplished with diplomacy, time, etc. The corrupted creatures would just use different colors in their uniforms than previously (substituting red for blue, black for silver/gold)

e) this could disrupt the natural flow of the game to be no good

3. War Machines and Boats

a) Boats - make different size and capacities for boats as well as natural arms

4. Necromancer Revamp, life sucks when no one wants to work with you.

a)New spell: Create Zombies- 5th level spell. Earth Magic. This spell targets a defeated humanoid stack (whether originally controlled by the caster or not doesn't matter). The unit is immediately turned into Walking Dead (1/Power) and the rest of the stack remains "Defeated" For example. A Necromancer with a Power of 8 has defeated a stack of 29 minotaur. 'Yeah right', I can hear you say it. After casting this spell on the fallen stack. It rises as 8 walking dead and 21 defeated walking dead. With several applications of the animate dead spell on the stack , the necromancer would now have a stack of 29 walking dead. Possible effects of being trained in the Earth School could be as follows:
a) Basic - Walking dead raised = 1/power
b) Advanced - Walking dead raised = 2/power
c) Expert - Zombies raised = 2/power

b) Second Necropolis type town - With the following creatures

1) Skeletons - same as Necropolis
Upgrd - Skeleton Archers (Range unit) (roughly the same as archers) (expensive)

2) Ghouls (ground unit) (creatures killed by ghouls cannot be resurrected (they eat em))
Upgrd - Savage Ghouls (Ground unit)

3) Spectre - (flying unit)
Upgrd - Twisted Spectre (flying unit) (30% chance to 'berserk' enemies hit)

4) Mummies (ground unit) (20% curse)
Upgrd - Mummy Sorcerer (range unit) (30%curse) (Mummy sorcerer chooses its target (any, not necessarily the enemy standing next to them) on its turn. Nothing happens at this point. Then at the end of the round after the war machines have taken their turn, a giant hand of flame comes out of the ground and engulfs the Mummy sorcerer's original target dealing their damage. This happens regardless of whether the mummies are still standing at this point and does it's damage equal to the number of mummies who originally targeted the opponent. This effect always resolves so if one of the heroes surrenders or flees the hand will come for it's victim before the hero leaves.)

5) Giant Zombie (ground unit) (30% disease)
Upgrd - Titan Zombie (ground unit) (40% disease)

6) Lost Soul (flying unit)
Upgrd - Banshee (flying unit) Attack affects all living creatures within three hexes of the banshee (19 hexes total including the hex that the banshee is in, enemies cannot retaliate)

7) Reapers (flying unit) +10% Necromancy Skill, -2 morale for allied team
Upgrd - Grim Reapers (flying unit) +20% Necromancy Skill, -4 morale for allied team, Death touch (2% chance/Grim Reaper that the entire enemy stack is destroyed, no resurrection possible)

5. Nice touches:

a) The hero on the horse (In the battlefield) to look the same as their picture rather than a generic model for anyone of that class and gender (I hope this doesn't offend anyone).

b) A scorched mark to appear on the adventure map where an Armageddon spell was cast.

c) Have a picture of the highest level creature with your hero appear in the text boxes and have the wording be such that it is a report from this creature. Even nicer would be if a wave file of each creature could be made so that the creature could tell you along with the writing. I won't go into animating their faces so that it look like they are talking to you as well. (most likely, a programming nightmare)

d) Have bad luck be a little more of a possibility for all heroes

6. Artifact ideas

a) Spiked Collar - +3attack for all wolf riders, wolf raiders, hell hounds, cerebus, and boars controlled by the owner

b) Horseshoe of the Pegasus - +2 speed for centaurs, centaur captains, pegasus, silver pegasus, unicorns, war unicorns, nomads, boars, cavalry, champions, black knights, dread knights, minotaur, or minotaur kings, controlled by the owner, +1 luck

c) Hammers of Chaos - +4 Attack, berserk spells, cast by owner, have an increased duration of one turn.

d) Skull of the ages - animates 1-10 defeated skeletons in combat every round

7. Location Ideas

a) Sorcerer hut- lose any secondary skill of your choice for 500 gold

b) Black Market- Thieves Guild Master will get you anything you want for a price. You can buy anything (creatures, war machines, artifacts, spells, secondary skills) at 10-20x its original cost or some other outrageous price, to be delivered to a castle of your choice in 7 days.

I´d be satisfied for a new patch for AB. The text, that is supposed to scroll up in the video-screen, doesn´t work! Or do I miss a certain mark, that gives command: "GO!" ???

Anyways, I liked the "Trap-Invention" and the idea of another
"Underground-city". New city-types would mean more creatures! More creatures is always a good thing! Besides I want the unholy artefacts back! Like artefacts, that lower your range of riding (steps per heroe´s round), an artefact that furies all enemies and keeps them from joining you, an artefact, that decreases morale, luck, creatures (leaving you).

The thing with the bigger maps could work if the guys at 3DO would just put in more undergrounds (2, or 3 or even more...) But the problem could be, you play games for weeks! (I got a job, damn!) (This aspect would need different gates of underworld - some lead up, some down, easy as that!)

So, just give us more cities, more artefacts, more heros (types) and more ground to play!

Thanks!

I'm writing to submit my Heroes 4 ideas.

First, a lot of people say to have lots of castle types. I think there should be more creatures per castle type, like 10 or more base creatures (perhaps even 15+!). Also, in Heroes of Might and Magic 2, the green dragons upgraded to red ones and then black ones. I think there should be more 3-stage upgrades.

Places where you buy nuetral creatures outside of castles should be upgraded by the player. It will not appear upgraded to players who have not upgraded it, only to those who have. Plus, more wild creatures!

There should be one screen with all the creatures to purchase, rather than going into each seperate part to purchase more creatures.

About underwater cities: I don't know how water creatures could go on land, but they should be able to. Maybe similar to how land ones could go underwater: Some special artifact or transport, like an air bubble. Below I have my idea for an underwater city.

Level 1: Piranah
Probably couldn't go on land at all. Good attack, but quite weak on defence. Should get extra attacks when in high numbers (Say, 50 piranahs attack twice, 100 piranahs attack three times, ect.)
Upgrade: Blood Piranah
Same to piranah, but a little stronger.

Level 2: Mermaid
Could paralyze enemy instead of attacking, or to damage as normal.
Upgrade: Water Queen
Pretty much the same.

Level 3: Merman
Attacks with a trident.
Upgrade: Triton
Trident shoots energy out. Ignores defence value.

Level 4: Eel
Quite fast, hard to hit (50% chance of enemie's not hitting) can't go on land.
Upgrade: Electric Eel
Electricity damages all enemies around it. No attack back.

Level 5: Sea Serpent
2 spaces. Can't go on land, but counts as flying underwater.
Upgrade: Sea Drake
3 spaces long! Can go on land, flying.

Level 6: Tiger Shark
2 spaces. Very strong. Can't go on land.
Upgrade: Great White Shark
2 spaces. Almost as strong as a Kraken. Still no land movement.

Level 7: Giant Octopus
Can crab enemy in it's tentacles, stopping it from moving or attacking.
Always attacks back.
Upgrade: Kraken
A very strong creature that attacks all sides. Any creature that attacks it, the Kraken will attack back, using its tentacles to stop enemies from moving.

Note: Bows, throwing axes, ect. would not work underwater. Attacks like an Archmage's magic staff still would.

That's all from now.

How about traps or something coming out of some of the treasure chests in order to get gold or experience.
Allowing certain characters to have special skills. Ex: Clerics a healing ability.

In Heroes Of Might and Magic 4, I think that there should be a bigger selection of creatures to chose from. Not just one kind of creature and its upgraded version, but different kinds of that creature that are just as equal. For example, a might centaur, and and magic centaur. One that has more pysical and hand to hand combat skills, and one that has more psychic and magical skills.

On the battlefield there should be more advantages that makes it easier for the team that is native for that land. An example of this would be mines of quicksand that only the team that is native to that land can see. You should be able to buy different types of moats for your castle that vary in price and effectiveness. For example, you should be given the choice of buying a moat made of mines, made of water, or made of lava. Each moat would be more effective against a certain enemy. For example, the water moat would take 50 health from the inferno team. The lava moat would take 25 health from any team. The mine moat would take 40 health from any team.

You should bring back some of the spells from Heroes 2. Such as being able to lay elementals to protect your mines. Or you should be able to lay any type of creature that you have a dwelling of anywhere.

Ryan Jordan

From Andrey Gavrilov once again.

I think, in game should be common pictures for artifacts - sword, shield, boots etc. On map you see artifacts only like that. You could see artifact's true nature only after identifying, but for each artifact type one artifact is cursed.

Some artifacts may have limited number of uses (art., giving spell - number of spells, giving primary skills - number of battles, giving movement - number of days etc.). They can be repaired in, for example, blacksmiths for money.

May be external creature dwellings should give not +1 to castle dwellings, but +1 to attack and defence of such creatures? It will protect from too much units, count geopolitical aspect and increase role of low-level units on later game periods.

Some skills should be available only if you already have some prerequisite skill.

May be skill 'Spellcraft', which gives chances to research spells, which hero doesn't know previousely.

Skill 'Eagle Eye' may work in such way: hero with this skill can cast enemy's spells, and if he do it, he have chances to learn casted spell. This will increase this skill range of use.

Computer allied heroes should trade for artifacts for a cost lower, than on black market.

Heroes can have race abilities: Human - +1 max morale, Dwarves - +5% to resistance, Elementals - increase their type of magic and so on.

Shcolars should ask 'Do you accept?' and don't disappear if not.

War Machines should can be skipped, even if you don't have skill to control them.

May be squires on battlefield should be less and creatures - bigger difference in sizes: goblin - 1 squire, cavalry - 2 squires, titan - 2x2 squires, roc - 2x3s., dragon - 2x4 s. and so on. Some dragons can have more than 2 squires breath.

'Religion' skill. Then hero posess it, he must choose cult. For some heroes some cults are restricted. Religion gives specific spells (for example, Death Ripple and Animate Dead can be unique spells of Death cult). May be some cult's holy places and artifacts (+1 to Spell Power, +3 for priests of sun, for example). May be chances for 'Divine Intervention'. May be cult restrictions - don't surrender, don't use some spells or creatures. If hero breaks it, he temporary loose religion power. It is very rich source for game expansion.

There are many suggestions about underwater. I see it like this:
You can't explore underwater from land, as you can't explore land from underwater. If you already seen underwater you see explored plases as throught water layer. 'Air Baloon' should be war machine, not artifact. It can be used for 7 days and need for repair. Underwater castle produces creatures, which die on land surface, but can be used underwater. Hero in underwater castle (and special underwater places) don't require air baloon.

And some crazy jokes, which was born during thinking about HMM IV:
- female heroes have critical days, in which they temporary loose movement and primary skills. Special artifacts ('Tampax', 'O.B.', etc.) can protect from it.
- artifact 'Helm of Paranoic'. Then you wear it, on opponents turn you see a lot of enemy heroes, moving, killing strong monsters etc. But then your turn begins, you see, that they are only your fears...
- I don't know, that do such artifact, but name is very good - 'Socks of the Legion'.

I would Like to see many more enemy units, up to 12 people to play on the same map and bigger and more upgradeable villages and castles. If possible more spells (lots) and BIIGGGG MAPPPS with many lower and lower caves and stuff.
Thanx: Randy (game Tester).

A few ideas for Heroes 4:
A New Town Type: Underworld
Level:
1. Dark goblin (Ground Unit)
(disappears when moving and reappears in new location)
Upgrd: Goblin Assassin (Range Unit)
(limited range (half), 20% chance of poison)
2. Giant spider (Ground Unit)
(climbs over walls and other obstacles (not water) + repairs web)
Upgrd: Demon spider (Ground Unit)
(30% paralyze, climbs walls, and repairs web)
3. Dark elves (Range Unit)
(Uses javelins)
Upgrd: Night elves (Range Unit)
(uses magic scepter that fires energy shots)
4. Underworld Knight (Ground Unit)
Upgrd: Underworld Champion (Ground Unit)
5. Shadow (Ground Unit)
Upgrd: Shadowmage (Ground Unit)
(casts darkness* or weakness on enemy)
6. Twilight Angel (Flying Unit)
Upgrd: Angel of Death (Flying Unit)
(Invisible to all creatures (not either hero) until attacking, 30% chance
target gets -3 morale for 3 rounds)
7. Great Worm (Ground unit)
(Burrows to enter combat range(similar to the devil effect (pop out, pop in effect), immune to blind))
Upgrd: Worm of the Underworld (Ground Unit)
(Same as for Great Worm except, any creature stack totally killed/destroyed by the Worm of the Underworld is swallowed whole (no chance for ressurection) Great Worm gains the hitpoints swallowed.)

The underworld castle:
Has a web covering the towers/walls. All non energy missle weapons fired through the web get caught doing no damage. All flier less than 5th level get caught in the web and are effectively immobilized until the web is destroyed (and suffer -3 defense). All other missle weapons and fliers pass through the web leaving a hole. Holes in the web can be flown through or shot through as normal. The giant spiders/demon spiders have an option of repairing the web (not build). A firespell or gog/magog shot will start the web on fire. It will burn to nothingness in 3 rounds. Giant spiders/Demon spiders cannot repair a flaming web. The fire can be extinguished with a well placed ice bolt/frost ring.

Darkness- new spell idea
Every race either has night vision or not. Those with nightvision are unaffected by the spell. Those in the dark range have their attack scores reduced. On basic level the darkness spell would affect 7 hexes. On advanced it would affect 19 hexes. On expert it would cover the entire battle field. Archangels would have a halo of light that would dispel all darkness within 7-19hexes. A moving Archangel would dispel all darkness in the area covered. Fire spells should dissipate the darkness. It could be an earth spell or a air spell. Hard to choose.

I must admit, some people say please don't add a Sci/Fi cast to the game. In response to that i say... absolutaly right, Heroes is fantasy through and through, NO SCI/FI for Heroes IV. That is all... just don't let 'em do, alright.

Mark Horn (again)

Anyway - it is a tough one to inprove such a great game - though after 4 releases it should be what people desire, anyway:

* No money overflow - I once had about 20.000.000 goldpieces in H3 - and then sudddenly minus 31.000.000 gp, admitted a big money bag but remember how many places there are to make money in this game!

* Something with the abillity inside the editor to create artifacts, heroes, mosters etc.

* Even more castletypes with even more monsters/garnisons - there is plenty of mythologies to get inspiration from still.

Kind regards

In heroes four, I think there should be an above ground level or a below water level. This above ground level should be more heaven-like, for example on the clouds. And in the water level there should be underwater creatures, such as sharks or squids and of course there should be good luck creatures like mermaids or dolphins. But to get to these levels you should need special artifacts, such as angel wings fish tails.

I also think that in the battle sequences, when an opponent dies he bleeds and twitches. There should also be hidden mines, traps, and cursed spaces on the battle field that could only be seen by creatures that are from that type of land. The heroes should also be able to fight either creatures or other heroes.

There should be wandering creatures that either attack of join your forces. I think that each hero should have a kind of "creature reserve". Where when your forces are full and you travel to a foreign creatures dwelling that are willing to join you, you can put them in your reserve to take back to your castle or another hero to either upgrade or just leave non-upgraded.

There should be different types of Grails that once found increase more specific objects in your castle or castles. You should also be able to have more than one capital.

Ryan Jordan