One of the biggest problems with the entire Heroes of Might & Magic series is its game mechanics, which reduce strategic depth in the early and late game.
The game is essentially about building armies and strategically conquering a map. This entails securing an ever-expanding empire and conquering enemy territories with targeted attacks.
The speed at which armies can move around the map within a game turn determines how much an attacker or defender must divide their armies among different heroes.
Unfortunately, past versions of the game often made the fundamental mistake of incorporating options that allow armies to move quickly across large parts of the map with almost unlimited speed, e.g., using mechanics such as:
1. City portal spells that allow targeted teleportation to any of your own cities and allow subsequent movement.
2. Multiple teleportations within a game turn, which have a total range of several screens.
3. Flying spells and artifacts that allow unhindered movement over natural obstacles.
4. Chaining: Passing units from hero to hero within a round to add the movement rates of multiple heroes and thus massively increase the overall range or speed of the army.
The combination of these possibilities results in a situation where a skilled player only needs a single army for both defending their own realm and attacking enemy territories. Chaining also allows for disproportionately rapid development in the early stages of the game without splitting up the army.
Due to the combat mechanics, an army becomes disproportionately stronger the larger it becomes. Therefore, an army with twice as many units is not simply twice as strong in direct comparison, but rather four times as strong (or even more), since not only is the damage output doubled due to the increased number of units, but the resilience to enemy attacks also increases. Additionally, the mechanic that only the survivors can fight back against an attacked unit means that a moderately strong army can often win a battle against a similarly inferior army with virtually no losses. This means that splitting armies often represents strategic suicide, as the split armies can be picked off individually and defeated with virtually no losses.
This forces players to build a single, largest army possible as a strategy, as split-up strategies are fundamentally inferior.
The result is strategic impoverishment both in the early and late stages of the game, as each player essentially only has a single army that performs all important tasks. In addition, no troops are needed for pure reconnaissance or gathering actions, which further encourages the concentration of armies at a single point.
A lost battle with the "main army" usually inevitably leads to the defeat of one's own faction, as there is no meaningful recovery from the loss of the single large army.
This vicious cycle of strategic impoverishment can only be resolved by adapting the game mechanics to encourage players to split their armies more widely and by allowing splitting them to achieve strategic advantages.
One of the key adjustments should therefore be to limit means that allow one's own armies to move too quickly around the map. Only then will players be encouraged to build multiple armies to effectively defend the various fronts, and if multiple armies are present, a defeat no longer automatically leads to a total defeat.
Therefore, I recommend incorporating the following adjustments to the game rules, at least optionally:
1. Restrict or remove spells and artifacts that allow arbitrary teleportation to one's own cities. Only then will it be necessary to establish defensive armies.
2. Restrict or remove spells and artifacts that allow teleportation around the map. Only then can one react quickly enough to attacks or conduct strategic retreats.
3. Restrict or remove spells and artifacts that allow bypassing or flying over natural obstacles. Only then is guarding strategically important locations (chokepoints, crossings, etc.) on the map possible for border security.
4. Restricting or removing game mechanics that allow armies to be passed between heroes for the sole purpose of granting them additional speed across the map. This is called "chaining," where armies are passed from hero to hero to hero in a single turn in order to transfer units to a distant location/hero within a single turn. I personally view this tactic as an exploit, i.e., a deliberate use of a poorly defined game mechanic, since the heroes all have their own independent movement points.
This could be achieved with a relatively simple game rule: Whenever two heroes meet on the map and exchange units and/or artifacts, the remaining movement points of both heroes are compared after the meeting and set to the lower value. While exchanging units is in principle possible without restrictions, it cannot be used to move armies further than a single hero can move.
As a side effect, removing chaining tactics could make flanking or infiltration tactics with appropriately specialized armies much more effective.
I'm sure that by adapting the rules in this direction, most players will have significantly more fun playing. Since there are, of course, experienced veteran players who have designed their game around intensive chaining and find it particularly enjoyable, it should be possible to optionally specify whether chaining is allowed or not.
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