by KGB » Sun Jan 09, 2011 8:35 pm
I agree with Pillager. Quests *have* to come from cities other wise the game gets badly unbalanced unless you fill the map with temples.
In DLR, there were 3 kinds of quests you could select: easy, medium, hard. You could always select an easy quest. You could only select medium at a city with L6 walls (+2 bonus) and hard at a city with L8 walls (+3 bonus).What you had to do for the quest was based on what was selected. Easy quests could often be completed that turn or the next. Medium required 2-5 turns and hard required 4+ number of turns.
Easy Quests: Search a ruin (non-hidden), visit a site (temple/port/gold mine/tower), travel to another of your own cities, travel to an enemy (neutral or another player) city (but not capture it, just visit a square next to it), capture a city, kill a specific enemy unit
Easy Quest Rewards: Gold, XP, a single ally (weak like a Wizard/Elemental), reveal a DISTANT hidden ruin, a minor item
Medium Quests: Search a ruin (hidden or non-hidden but further away than an easy quest), capture a city, raze a city, kill X number of enemy units, kill an enemy hero, retrieve an item (ruin/enemy hero), raze a site (temple/port/gold mine/tower).
Medium Quest Rewards: Gold, XP, 2-3 allies (better ones like Demons/Medusa/Devil/Archon), reveal a NEARBY hidden ruin, a medium item, 1 mana crystal.
Hard Quests: Capture a city, Raze a city, kill 2X number of enemy units as a medium quest, kill a high level enemy hero, retrieve an item held by a distant enemy hero.
Hard Quest Rewards: Gold, XP, 4-6 allies (good ones like Dragons/Devil/Archon), a very good item, 2-3 mana crystals.
For example an easy quest might involve capturing a very nearby city THAT ONLY had a few defenders (1-2). A medium quest to capture a city always selected a city further away OR with more defenders (3-4) while a hard one would be a very distant city WITH AT LEAST 5 enemy defenders. Sometimes there were literally *no* medium or hard quests available if there were no enemy heroes/armies/cities/items/ruins etc that met the quest criteria.
Warbarons should strive to emulate this model because it was well balanced.
Now I too understand the thematic urge to get quests at temples. So maybe Warbarons should only have easy/medium quests available at cities and hard would come only from a temple. So that way everyone has access to quests and if you want a hard one you had to travel to get it.
KGB