Knight Faction Lineup

Hello,

While searching through the forums, I have bumped into this particular topic. It concerns the upgrades for the existing factions:

https://heroes2.forumactif.com/t142-h3sw-upgrade-system

In discussion connected with the Knight, there are posts voicing the possibility of introducing Monk and Angels (flyer problem) as base units representing the Castle.

While I understand that you don't want to overflow the game with robe-wearing creatures and get that Druids already exist, there's also another line of argumentation that I cannot grasp.

Orzie argues that the 'religious theme' doesn't quite work with the faction as it is based on the fantasy of Anglo-Saxons or German medievalism. I would dispute that this is exactly why it should work. Religion (namely Catholicism) was a strong, prevalent force back then. Both Anglo-Saxons and Germans were Catholics up to the point of the reformation.

Don't take it as a form of criticism; this is just my reflection based on what I've read in the topic that I linked above.

PS. I haven't played any Heroes game for literally years and H3:SW brought me back to the series and the glorious days of the one and only H2. Thank you. :-)

Quote :

Religion (namely Catholicism) was a strong, prevalent force back then. Both Anglo-Saxons and Germans were Catholics up to the point of the reformation.

So that is why the Temple map object has a typical Greek shape.

You should take a look on the very image of Heroes 2 Knight. In this particular game, this faction is portrayed as a typical feudal lord, and this is even somehow described in the campaigns. This reason is already enough to discard Angels because Angels cannot serve a typical feudal lord. But I will also add the fact that the imagery of Angels was not added to the game deliberately. If you look at the Cathedral, it has a cross, but it does not even have an Angel depiction on a stained glass window, having a horse there instead. For real Middle Ages, this would be at least atypical. This hints that NWC probably did not even consider adding any divine creatures to a faction which was composed of mere humans, as opposed to mere beasts of spellcaster factions and to bipedal nomadic creatures of the Barbarian.

If we address to Heroes 3 Castle, this is a completely different story. There, the Castle faction is an image of the whole nation: the country of Erathia, which is depicted in the game as the "bastion of good" and modeled over Renaissance concepts. The Angels/Archangels there are depicted as the ace card of the army, and not servants of anyone, but the defenders of humanity instead. Their exterior is modeled over Renaissance statues  with lots of detail and them curly hairs. With the presence of the whole Inferno faction composed of devils, all of this seems to be logical enough.

So, what is important is the whole image of a faction in the game, and not some particular historical moments like some guys try to point at. NWC were not making a game of historical precision, they were making a fantasy game. We are making the game more or less in the framework of NWC's concept. The exceptions were described in the designer's notes.

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The Monks were once discussed, but like I said earlier, the H2 Druids are an absolute duplicate of them, and obviously this was intentional not to transfer them to H3 as a creature. In Might and Magic VI, the game which was released between Heroes 2 and Heroes 3, the Monks already had the exact same design as Erathian Monks, but the Druids had a completely different design more similar to Heroes 3 Druid characters.



In short, NWC wanted to add Monks in their next games, but they also had to redesign the Druids to make that possible. A hypothetical extension of Heroes 2 did not have place for Monks since the Druids are intact, and they do not solve our problems, so that is that. Angels at least would solve some, but we are limited in concept and will be forced to find another way around.

Could the druids be a creature with 2 alignments? Sorceress AND Knight, being recruited in Sorceress castle and Knight castle?

About flyable creatures for Knight... I can think only of weak Crows, or maybe Eagles/Royal Eagles.
In french medieval-city "Carcassonne", there were some domesticated eagles: https://youtu.be/wjtWR3PQo-E?t=1971
But it would looklikes a little like the Rock of the Wizard?

Dear Orzie,

Thank you very much for your clarification. You seem to be way more knowledgable about the NWC original concept than me.

It is also clear that you are really determined to keep their original vision intact. I like that. :-)

It's not that we actually can keep the original concept of NWC intact. Like I said before in designer's notes, Heroes 2 did not need new factions, and did not need so many new creature concepts. We are simply forced to do that in order to fill the niches. We cannot remove them even if we want to. Even the single Heretic faction was a lot of headache to remove from the game, and we still experience troubles with it.

But, indeed there is a certain vision on how to keep the Heroes 2 atmosphere in check, and do not make H3SW a game which is too much different, like WoG was different from vanilla Heroes 3.

Orzie wrote:

Even the single Heretic faction was a lot of headache to remove from the game, and we still experience troubles with it.

Will heretic make a comeback?

Also are there any tutorials how to create a new faction?

The new faction (I don't know if it will be called Heretic) is supposed to appear in far future. However, there are no tutorials on how to make your own faction. You should study game design and study Heroes 2-Heroes 3 game design to understand which creatures would more or less fit, and which would not.

Regarding the modding aspects, there are tutorials here and there on WoG forum or Heroes Community about the replacement of existing factions. There are no known instruments in open access which can add a new 10th faction to the game.