Eador: Masters of the Broken World Interview
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The combat model based off the E3 demo reminded me a lot of Heroes of Might and Magic and King's Bounty. What makes Eador's combat mechanic special? When readers see the screenshots they think, (Oh a HoMM clone.) Can you explain some of the differences between the two?
Yeah, it's true the tactical screen is the most '˜classic' of them all. Well, the difference lies in the details. Our battleground isn't just a field with a grid it represents the real location with different types of terrain and obstacles. It matters a lot, because terrain affects the performance of your troops providing various bonuses and penalties. Unlike HoMM, our units don't stack, so you couldn't (cheat) by amassing a huge army of dragons on a single hex and eradicating all resistance. Finally, each unit has dynamically changing attributes like morale and stamina, which makes this combat system closer to the tabletop games with miniatures than to HoMM or King's Bounty.
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What are some of the role-playing mechanics at work in Eador? I seem to recall something about hero quests during the E3 demo? Can you give me some examples of how that works?
Yeah, as I've said before not just your heroes, but all units in the game level-up and get some new perks and abilities. For instance, your knights can acquire the passive ability to deal more damage to evil units starting from level 8, while your ogres may learn how to stun the enemy troops on level 3.
Speaking of quests, each hero can be assigned with an exploration task instead of a military one. It means our hero could spend his time in an allied province, wandering around and looking for places of interest. Each province has a number of dungeons, crypts, caves, magic shops etc., and our hero could visit all these beautiful places in order to gain some experience fighting the guardians and to plunder their treasures. Even if our hero was unable to find anything unusual during his search, exploration is a great way to increase tax income of that province (we can imagine that our hero is actually looking for more taxpayers to rip off, rather than for the monsters to slay?)
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How does diplomacy work? What can be accomplished by talking to your opponents and not just stabbing them?
The diplomacy system is working on two levels astral and strategic.
On the astral level, we can learn more about our competitors the other Masters by speaking to them. There is a strong chance that we'd want to ally ourselves with a fellow Master who shares our views and beliefs. These '˜astral' alliances lead to different story paths, eventually providing us with different endings.
There is also a strategic level diplomacy, which takes place during the war over some particular shard. It is possible that some other Masters also chose this shard as their target during their turn, and in this case, diplomacy becomes a powerful tool of survival. Instead of fighting the war on two or more fronts, we can negotiate with some of our adversaries and convince them to leave this shard for good. We can also sign a trade agreement with other Masters and sell or buy resources.
