Talk:Development/@comment-14486206-20130907195639/@comment-5395153-20130912141310

Not sure what I2 would say to be honest. I'd hope they'd support the Unofficial Patches and the work involved in them :). At the moment though, I'm just crossing fingers that I'll be able to get access to the source code soon :3. It's probably going to take a long time to research and understand the code but if a problem does occur I can get help fairly easily from another programmer I know.

I haven't put my thoughts for WBC4 up on the Infinite Interactive forums - I've mostly stayed away from the 'If we were making Warlords Battlecry 4' thread, a lot of the stuff in there can be highly criticized to the extent where flame wars actually occur o_O. Back in 1.03, one of the game's problems imo was the ability to spam generals (the Minotaur Kings and Moonguards were particularly bad). The win conditions for nearly all of those games tended to be 'spam generals to win', but that's only one of the problems with the ability to spam generals. The second problem, and one which the AI abused incessantly, was that the entire map could be converted with just 1 general standing next to each mine - no tactics were required. Each general was easily replaceable, and the resource bonuses gained from a unit (from successfully capturing mines) which only cost something like 100 Metal and 150 Stone (Giant) was bordering on crazy. Entire armies had to be set aside just to stop the enemy from converting all of the player's mines, particularly so when a Minotaur King was involved. There was never any setback for losing a general, so these sort of tactics tended to win the game very easily.

I've planned to change the conversion system a while ago at the start of the 1.03.25 patch project but back then I never got any chance to do so. At the moment I at least have a chance of getting the code, even if it takes a long time to get access to it :S. Currently, without access to the source code all I can do is try to limit the accessibility of all the Generals by altering costs, build times and by putting them at level 5 HQ buildings (which some players dislike).

Once I get the source code, I will try to see if hero resurrection can be done. I think this will tackle a multitude of the game's problems in one stroke - it will negate the need for the conversion ability for generals (and in so doing they can be brought back into the regular unit rosters again once they're rebalanced. So for example, the Minotaur King will no longer be a Minotaur General, but Minotaur Elite Infantry etc), it will stop players outright losing games from hero deaths, it will enforce the use of tactics when converting (instead of spamming generals everywhere), it will empower mine thief styled hero classes (such as the Thief) and it will help the AI out quite a lot (they seem to be rather prone to getting themselves killed on towers at the moment ;) ). All in all, I think resurrectable heroes is a win-win situation, not to mention I can imagine many players enjoying the new feature :D.