“Heroes of War: Orcs vs. Knights” didn’t really grab me, but it tried some things.
It finally convinced me that 2 different sides doesn’t work. It’s nice they could make buildings just for orcs — the elixir harvesters are terrifically grimy T-shaped oil pumps. But they pretty much copy the clash of clans troops. With only 1 side, they might have had time to be more creative. And it’s not like Orcs against Humans is something everyone always wanted to see.
Pressing the LiveStream button lets you spectate on a match. That’s new. It seems to be the highest level players only, but maybe that was the only battle going on just then.
I think they tried to fix the Next-ing system; the thing where you spend 20 minutes looking for an easy person to attack. In this you can go to a world map and see your neighbors, but you can’t use it for anything. Clicking Attack presents you with 4 possible opponents. But if you don’t like any you can get 4 more. The end result is the same as the old system. I don’t know if they had a plan and lost focus, or what.
This game tries to fix the “raid” problem. The gold you steal is multiplied by the percent of their base you destroyed. If a quick raid destroys 10% of a base and grabs 30K gold, the penalty drops the actual take to 3K. So clearly going for a serious attack on someone weaker is better, maybe. You might get 60% destruction and 60% of their gold, which is, ummm, 36%? While playing I never got comfortable with that math, and always get much less than I thought I would. I think I prefer the rule where you don’t keep gold unless you get at least a 1-star win.
The defensive barracks pop out special defensive-only troops. That seems like it would be pretty cool, but they’re not that much different than normal troops, and you have to upgrade them separately. After using that system, I’m convinced it’s better and more fun to re-use normal troops for defense.
Finally, heroes in this game are a perfect example of what not to do. You use only 1, with a limited selection. The special ability is making them attack a particular building. Pretty mild. Later you notice they can have equipment. One piece is about a 10% upgrade, which seems fine. You can have 4 pieces. Still not too bad. But with grinding you can craft level 2 equipment. That’s a big boost. All 4 pieces can go up to level 4, which is a massive boost. The really dangerous attacks are people who spent gems on hero equipment.