Some else suggestions for HMM IV:

One other variant of 'moving monsters' - wondering heroes. They could have movement radius (or possible movement path), can carry artifacts and have skills.

It can be possible to reserve a list of names for heroes. If hero lose battle, he have chances to die. If it happens, in game can be found new hero with same face, different name and starting skills.

It was a GREAT idea of Aethyr of giving hero choise of 3 skills after attaining new level (one - which hero already have and two new). It will be necessary with big number of skills.

Should be more creatures with offencive spells (for example, mages don't shoot, they cast 'Magic Arrow' with spell power equal to they number).

Huge numbe of creature types may be received by making 2 upgrades for each creature (except, may be for wondering creatures). It dont require many mind working to make new units in this case. For example, in elemental conflux: earth spirit -> earth elemental -> earth force. And so other elementals.

In 'Map Editor' there should be possibility to make some castle the same type, as selected random castle.

Should be more than one type of water teleporters. In teleporter properties should be number field 'Teleporter system number' to make many independant teleporter systems (from teleporter numbered '1', you can travel only to other teleporters numbered '1').

Map can be a set of maps of different sizes, connected by different kins of teleporters. So, you can build not only two-level maps. For example: each player start on his own 'small' territory, which is connected with main 'large' territory.

I want to see more castles in Heroes IV. I loved Heroes III, but I quickly grew bored because I learned all the little intricacies of each castle. I would love to see at least six new castles in Heroes IV, as well as all of the castles from Heroes III, including the Conflux.

Also, I want to see some stranger artifacts, maybe something that gives you three Diamond Golems per week, or something like that.

More spells would be cool too, just more spells, I don't have any suggestions, just MORE SPELLS!

Lastly, I think that in combat, there should be more slots for creatures, and the battle field should be at least twice as big. I have grown bored with battles on Heroes III because it's too easy to form a strategy with such a small battlefield, with only seven creature stacks. To fill up the slots a little better, maybe one more unit per castle. Either put them between level three and four (this seems to have the largest gap between two consecutive units), or make them really strong (like the Azure Dragons from Armageddon's Blade) and make them really expensive level eight creatures.

I myself would love to see a Fallen Angel for the Castle type castle, I just like the name.

Edgecrusher

1. Must be in mediavel-fantasy era

2. Should be in Full 3D (no 3D and 2D sprites mix). But if that takes too much beauty from the game, then use Full 2D.

3. I prefered the HoM&M2 graphics color pallete.

4. More adventure. Let hereoes meet NPC in the map. Let the story progress in the map.

5. Give some kind of "units maker tool" in the internet, so that HoM&M fans can make many different units for you, so that HoM&M 4 can feature hundreds and hundreds different units and heroes...

Angelo

yo i think they should change the way you have battles, i like the turn based but not the way you move and you should be able to control all the battle machines regardless of your skills. that is all ... i will send more when i think of them buh bye

I think that in the battle sequences in heroes four there should be better graphics. For example, when an archer shoots an opponent with an arrow, the arrow should be sticking out of the opponents shoulder. Or when a gargoyle (or behemoth) attacks the enemy they should jump on the opponent, rip and tare the opponent. And when the enemy is attacked, they should show pain by limping and bleeding.
I also think that in each castle there should be a "super creature", that is very expensive, and takes about 2-3 weeks to purchase. For example, Thor, which would probably be available to the Ramparts or Castle.

There should also be more gairison like buildings in the game so that you can setup a perimeter of troops far away from your castle.

That is all I have to say for now, until I think of some more ideas.

Ryan Jordan

Sorry for English! Correct if you can:)

I want in HMM4 more spels, and spels that only can be used indoors or undegraund!
Like Armagedon,Meteor Shooer and some else cannot be used undegraund!

More good editor, when i put random monster i want to have a list, where i can show what monsters can be in that random stak! And better if i can in Random monster shoose will be that monster with upgraid ore not! And if i do 2 random casstle, it will be good that i can do that one casstle
will be same like ather when player shose it. That i can deside whou monster will grows in week, may i want that monster grows on 5 esch week, you undestend what i means i hope!

And i think you must do more Heroes clases like heroes who cannot cast spells but have many skills for good fighting and rezistans!

More netral creatures,not powerfull but with speshial good ore bad abilites!

More artifacts, but interesting artifacts like incrisses hero movement,
but descrises armies hit points ore something like this! And it will be better if hero artifacts have wight and hero go slow with hard armor!
And to put one artifact you will need one turn!

Do a bridge in editor! Do more quest options, like may be kill 100 peasents evrywhere you want on map, not one one plase.

And many many more, but it is hard to say in my English:( Of corse better computer AI!

May be do to some skills like Wizard ear:) and scouting to be like one skill!

And wizard ... forget:( to lern magik if you lose and run too!

That is not all, but all i can remember at 03.53 of night Moscow time

And you gays on 3DO you mast do lover prise on HMM4 for Russia we are so poor you now:)

Thats all for now

Game should be more flexible - there should be ability to disable some spells, heroes, artifacts, creatures not only in map editor, but before running map. There also should be ability to disable hero's surrender (artifacts, which reduce cost of surrender must work as 'increase diplomacy percentage').

It is illogical, what necromancers make skeletons from everything. I think, weakest Necromancer's creature must be some kind of souls. They would be not very weak, but can't be animated or resurrected (because they are non-corporal).

There also should be hero types, who didn't related to any castle type.

Offencive magic can be sorted by damage types (for example, death and impact damage in earth magic; lighting and holy - in air; fire and energy - in fire; cold and psychic - in water). Some creatures can be immune to some kinds of damage, some artifacts can bring such imunity and so on.

It is good to make some new skills - skill to use some types of artifacts (it's not my idea); skill, which increases combat speed; skill to control castle towers (and, may be, to make walls harder to destroy); skill, with which hero brings random resource (mercury, sulfur, crystal or gem) 1 per 2 days on basic, 1 per day on advanced, 2 per day on expert; skill, which gives some resistance from magic school or damage type.
It will be good to make more skill space in hero (12, I think, will be optimum).

War machines should have more hit points and have more effect, if controlled by skill. So it will make war machines control skills more useful.

There should be hero specializations, which work into castle (increase creature level X producton, brings new spells to mage guild, if in castle, and so on).

External creatures upgrade (such as Hill Fort) must be more expensive, than normal upgrade.

Hero must be able to cast or retreat, even if his creature is blinded, stoned, or paralized (looks like creature is selected, when it's turn, but can't move, shoot, or attack).

Hero also should be able to move without any army. Such hero can't attack anything, and if he is attacked, he become automatically defeated.

There should be more summoning spells - to summon not only elementals, but other magical creatures.

Also good spell is to make creature flying (approximatly level 2). Berserk spell shoul work with creatures' hit points, as Hypnotize in HMM 3, but number of HP affected should be increased, to make Berserk a III level spell, and Hypnotize - a IV level spell. A V level offencive spell should be not very destructive, but inflict damage, after which you can't resurect or animate it anyhow (good name is 'Desintegrate'). One other good spell is 'Create Undead', which makes lowest level undead from part of dead stack (if not whole stack is affected by this spell, other dead creatures still can be resurected or animated). There also could be weak spells 'Mass Resurrection' and 'Mass Animate Dead' against 'Armageddon' spell.
Another good spell is 'Freeze' (Water), which works as stoning.
During combat, there must be special buttons to shoot and cast by creature (in HMM 3 you cannot attack if you could shoot and, for example, you can't move Pit Lord or Arch Angel to the place, where your dead army is, because they try to resurect it).

Spells by damage type (approximatly):

Fire (Fire):
FireBall, FireBlast (Inferno), FireStorm.

Energy (Fire):
Magic Arrow, Armageddon (no more than 25-30 HP per spell power!).

Death (Earth):
Death Ripple, Death Wave, may be Death Cloud or Death Ray.

Impact (Earth):
Meteor Shower, Implosion (or Disintegrate).

Holy (Air):
Holy Word, Holy Shout (or Destroy Undead).

Lighting (Air):
Lighting Bolt, Chain Lighting.

Cold (Water):
Cold Ray (Ice Bolt), Cold Ring (Frost Ring).

Psychic (Water):
Psionic Blast, Ego Whip, something like that.

Please, keep the good points of HOMM : It's a medieval fantasy turn based strategy game, which doesn't need a supra computer to run.
So :
No real time,
No 3D which requieres 3D accelerator card,
And no SF/Fantasy mixture (I heard about a village which SF creatures like tanks and cyborgs. If you must do that do it in a specific game, where everything is SF and call it Heroes of Streets and Networks).
No tertiary skill, but new secondary skills.

Drawbacks of HOMM3 (standard and Armaggedon's Blade)

- Game is slow when entering a mage guild.

- In Multiplayer LAN game, it's too long to wait for other to finish their turn. At least we could plan what we wanna build and buy next turn. But please don't make a simultaneous move, no real time aspect should NOT appear in HOMM series. At the beginning of each turn you can validate, or cancel any planification (with a okforall button of course).

- Still hard to buy creatures in a castle : make one screen to buy all creates in a castle, with a BuyAll button.

- Make it easier to upgrade creatures of a hero : put a screen like the one of the hill fort in the castle to upgrade hero creatures.

- When a new game is run, you can select your hero in the advanced options screen. There you can only see the speciality of the hero and his face, but not his primary skills and worse, you don't know the secondary skills !

- When selecting a scenario, you can see the number of player and the size of the map, but you have no idea about the style of scenario. Do you start with lots of creatures castles and heroes, or will it be a race for the first castle ? I dont like too much to play overmighty scenarii where your first hero start with 20 titans and such, and thus I would like to be able to detect such scenarii without running it. Often the comment associated with the scenario is too short.

- Seas are so boring. Some spoke about having a sea castle. I am not sure how it will work, to keep a good game balance. Note that it should be still possible to place any castle anywhere, and moreover at any place where a castle can be put. I mean, that what happen if the sea castle is on land ? And even worse what happen for a land castle placed on sea ? Nevertheless, I think sea is boring and need lot of improvement, rating from quest buildings, treasures... to wandering creatures (Pirates, Mermaids, Octopus, Leviathans, Sharks...)

- What about having underwater ? if you enter some passageway from water you go to the underground level but you are underwater, you need specific artifact to travel there and such. (Just an idea)

- Up to now the ultimate tactic is stockpile all your creatures on your best hero, with good move and movement spells, then run, kill, come back to save your castle,... Wouldn't it be better if you really have to think and share your creatures ? But I have to admit I didn't really think about how to acheive it.

- Except for spellpoints, a hero (and moreover a warrior hero) can fight any number of fights a day. Creatures are healed at end of combat. Why not healing them at start of next day ? What about loosing extra hero move when doing a fight ? Or reduce creature speed for next fights of the turn ? An opponent hero could jump 'fresh' out of his castle and run onto you when you are weak and tired.

- There are artifacts which totally crumbles the game balance like : no spell can be cast in combat. Hard day for mage heroes. Such artifact is like a : 'cancel attack and defense stats of heroes in combat' --> dead warriors.

- Some secondary skills are totally crap, or let's say that a lot of them are much more interesting than some like : Eagle Eye, Scouting, Ballistic.
With eagle eye you have to suffer the spell, and then if you are nice and lucky perhaps you'll learn it. I personnaly prefer to raze my ennemy cities !

- Same for spells. There are some but finally we uses always the same. The others are too expensive, or unusable. Disrupting Ray... -3 defense. So +15% damage received. I am not sure it is worth 7 points even if you can cast it more than once. Usually we hope that a creature don't last long enough to need 2 or 3 spells. Such spell is useful if you fight one heap of 500 golems... Spells like Sacrifice, protection from xxx, magic mirror, hypnotise, are well crap. In the fifth guild level it's a lotery ! How many times I had to build 5 5th guilds to find Dim Door or fly, and how many times I cursed my computer to give me Summon Elemental xx ! Would be nice to balance the spells, and make them all useful.

- There are 4 schools of magic. But If I had to rank them I would say : Earth and Wind, then Water, then Fire. In fire there are only Blind and Berserk (perhaps Bloodlust if I have nothing else). In water magic high level spells are missing. Earth and Air are very strong due to resurrect, implosion, dimensional doors, and town portal. Fire and Water and no good move spell.

- Waterwalk is nearly useless as very restrictive : you can't stop on water, you can't make a curve to 'jump over a mountain' using the sea, you can't go to unexplorer lands.

- As luck and morale are limited to +3, as they have their corresponding secondary skill, and as there are some easy to find artifacts to boost them, spells like fortune and ??? are pretty useless. Sometimes if my hero already found one +1 luck artifact, I dont even get luck skill. Leadership is still interesting 'cause of the artifacts that only leadership's guys can collect.

- Disguise is not very effective as if you see a hero with 5 times dragons you know he is under disguise. Would be better if you can choose the effect : you could want to look undefended so enemies attacks you and die, or you want to look reasonable so your opponent think your transport or scouting hero is your main hero and avoid him. And it's hard to pay such a spellcost every turn.

- I dont play with sounds or music. First because when you start combat or such you have to wait for the end of the sound before you can actually move your guilds. Second, in multiplay games, because your opponents (in the same room for hotseat, or some LAN) can hear the sounds and find out where you are, which mine you find, etc. So please, make combat start sound become background, and put option to prevent noises in multiplayer games.

- Cursed lands and enchanted lands both boosts warriors. Even enchanted lands, as warriors can cast area spells without having the skills, and mages suddenly have useless skills :(. And I dont like if something is totally prevented. What about making that curse lands gives +20% magic resistance, increase spell cost, or multiply spellpower of spells by 0.5, and enchanted lands reduce magic resistance, decrease spellcost, and increase spellpower by 50%. Same for luck and morale, instead of anihilating them, reduce or increase them (should be able to go over +3 btw).

- Special buildings of castles should be unique. I am against have two castle with shipyards, or artifact merchants.

- Sometimes creatures of a castle don't fit the theme of the castle. Why Nagas (water creature) and Djinn (Desert, Arabian Nights critters) are in Wizard castle (castle of 'enchanted' creatures). Why sprites in Conflux instead of with elves and unicorns ?

- Same way, sometimes I am confused about the tactic dedicated to a castle. Why a hero of Stronghold has Tactics skill ? why Stronghold has 2 shooters while elves has only one ?

- Often creatures capacity are not listed (like mind immunity of golems, noresurrect of gargoyles, spellcasting of elementals...). Also there should be hint on what exactly some power do and how it works like jousting, disease, rebirth, poison, ...

- Why can you put creatures which hate eachother in the same group (you can put angels and demons on the same hero, like djiin and efrit). Shouldn't the hero suffer morale penalty, or one of the two creature will go on strike, or one creature suddenly become uncontrollable and attack the hatred friendly one ?

- If efrits are fire immuned, why fire ball effect of maggog affects them ? It should do like Lichs do to undeads. They affect them only if directly targeted. Thus would be nice to block creatures with your efrit and then fire the creature with your maggogs leaving your efrits alive.

- About 7th level creatures, I have the feeling that we can rate them by power. Archangels, titans, dragons, ... Archangels are everywhere (or about) better than titan which are better than.... wouldn't it be better if they are all about the same but with small weaknesses. Like Fly but less hits, Slow but very good ability, ... and not just Very good but expensive, loosy but cheap. At some point in the game money becomes nothing hard to find.... In summary : better balance of high level mobs.

- Remove Refugee Camp. it's just a lotery : if you draw the black dragon in first week you win !

Other ideas :
Develop DIPLOMATY and TRADE :
- possibility to open and close alliance during game. To have a kind of non aggression pact.
- Instead of making gifts of resources, instead of moving to your ally town to place creatures in, open a kind of free market, when players can make propositions of what they offer, and what they need. Could be resources, gold, artifacts and creatures, or even cities (If the opponent get your main castle, and your nice ally get it back.. you lose, because there is no way to get your main castle back). The system should remain simple, and if advanced options are done, make them optional.

Develop the THIEVERY aspect of the game.
- enhance the thief guild :
-- send spy to cities,
-- send assassins to kill creatures from the dwellings (which are not yet bought)
-- it leaves open door to new skills and buildings (protection against spies and murderers, lower thief guild prices and such)
- sneaking heroes(which you can't see except if you move some squares next to them, countered by scouting) (beware of game balance) It should not become deadly, spells should still find them, cities should still find them (making the lookup tower more interesting ?)
- the ability to set traps of dwellings, mines and other flagable huts. traps will do damage to creatures.
- Ambush, the ability of hero to hide themselves and automatically attack a coming hero, or invisibily guard mines or dwellings)

MOVEMENTS :
- The possibility to record a path for a hero and that the hero automatically do the path every begining of week (the user would skill need to click on the hero and use 'move' button, not to auto-run out when opponent hero is around)
- Patrol possibility, the hero stops and center when opponent hero in sight.
- Possibility to give a hero as target of another hero movement to make easier meeting of friendly heroes, and tracking of opponents as long as opponent is still in sight.
- About waterwalk, perhaps the hero could stop on water, but if left on water, receive damage, loose creature and can't move until spell re-casted on him.

Make game more interesting by VARIETY :
- more atifacts even if nearly like existing ones, but where is the shield +1 att/+1 def, what about boots of luck and speed, crystal of spellpower and morale ?
- Skills artifact : e.g. give path finding basic (minor), advanced (major) or expert (relic).
- More heroes. A lot of people proposed that you can customize or edit faces and stats. I don't like customizing stats, because of game balance but I was thinking there could be two sets of heroes : fixed heroes (associate face, name, and skills/stats/specialpower), and a set of customable heroes (only skills/stats/specpower) which face you take from a list of faces files. This list could be incremented by internet downloads and selfmade, like baldur's gate protraits.
- What about having more mobs which are not affiliate to castles ? like in HOMM2 and HOMMAB. like trolls, halfings, werewolfs, Overmighty Dragon of The Death Which Really Kill... as well as wilderness predators like wolves, lions and sabertooth tigers.
- More spells, but make that all of them can be used. Perhaps you'll need to make some look quite the same, but having to cast always lightning bolt is.. well boring. Try spells like Storm/EarthBind which remove flying ability from a critter, and of course new adventure spells like charm (increase probability of wandering mobs joining you), invisibility (to consider with care, due to game balance), Speed (to increase move for the turn), ... But I think 4 spell colors and 5 level is enough.
- Casts which can be cast on heroes could last more than one turn, same you could cast spells on your own towns like prosperity (increase the town gold income by 5% for X turns)... Could be that the spell needs a hero permanently inside to maintain it, but would be funnier.
- What about having some spells aviable only at specific castles, or forbidden at specific castles ? Animate Dead only at Undeads Castles, some flame strike at infernos, a spell equivalent to TreeFolk root ability (prevent movement) for forest castle...
- And add castles. of course its hard to tune, but it's fun :)

QUESTS :
- Mini quests from the huts are all about the same. Make new ones, and make the goal different like : flag 3 gold mines, kill 8 dragons, ...
- Some Grail buildings are better than others. Sorry but as Luck is limited to +3 I prefer to have +20 to attack defending my castle !!
- You can access the quest list from each hero. You should choose it the quest are player related and thus in the menu where world map, and puzzle maps are, or if they are hero related. The questlist screen has no close button, you have to press enter... but you have to know that, else you panic a bit !!

AI :
- Enhance computer AI.

MISC :
- Give the choice among 3 skills instead of 2 for each levels : better fine tune your heros to match your strategy.
- Each castle should have a preferred magic color, and guilds in that castle will give out more spells of those color than others.
- Perhaps there should be true wandering mobs, which really moves and attack heroes ?
- Toy : the possibility to rename non-campaign castles (or castles for which the map said no-rename).
- Building, upgrade of 'Castle', which improve garnisons, make you able to control them (or leave that to artillery only).
- I liked the cursed items, but you shouldn't be able to trade them, and they should be auto equiped, replacing any other artifact if needed. Well, they should look armless (i.e. like another existing artifact, or a random artifact) and change when you touch them (having a new icon in inventory). Some 'll reduce luck, morale, prevent mob joining, consume one of your creatures a day, prevent one heap of creature from battling (randomly?), reduce movement, form cover of darkness against you at the end of each turn and such...
- Why to limit underground to one level only ? What about some specific map where you have 8 levels including hell ? So the number of levels should be set by the map builder. The 'size' of the map which appear in the scenario list should take the number of levels in account. 8 players on a large map without underground is harder than on a medium with underground.
- What about the possibility to destroy one's own buildings and kill one's own non yet recruited critters, for cheaper price than having to buy and dismiss them. 'I won't leave a piece of that castle to my ennemes !!' (max destroyable building per turn is one of course). How many times I won because the computer running out of money had 25 titans to buy in the castle I just stole !

That's all about.

A much more interesting battle should be, if EVERY creature of the game has, a number of theatrical attack(or defend) moves, during the Luck & Morale strikes.

1.For example, imagine a crusader that swings his sword around his head and land it on the opponent with crushing effects.

2.Or the behemoth in a strike of luck, to jump and crush with hatred an enemy unit.

If every creature has a number of 3 to 5 special moves, the quick combat option will be uncheck for a longer time to every one of us.

Hi!

May be there could also be an Underwater-World with special towns and creatures?