The wait order moves a creature back in the initiative bar, for the turn.

The defend action in Heroes VII has a significant effect on a creatureвЂ™s defense, making it not only a default action when you canвЂ™t do better but a real boost for a defensive tactics. Heroes need to be sure that their creatures do not suicide themselves when rushing on weak but devastating enemy units. All creatures will be able to retaliate after the first melee attack they receive in the turn. Heroes VII will also feature Retaliation system. Placing your shooters in cover during tactics phases could improve your chances to rule the fight. WeвЂ™re working on a system to provide a clear preview of which enemies will have reduced damage when shooting at your creature, when youвЂ™re about to place said creature behind an obstacle to take cover. Flanking is to be used as the main tool of the most mobile units like fliers and teleporters, but should only remain a вЂњbonusвЂќ for most creatures.Д¬over feature existed in Heroes VI but we tried to make it more obvious and efficient in Heroes VII. We had originally designed it as more powerful but our first tests have proven it wrong. Flanking grants damage bonuses to creatures attacking the flank or rear of an opponent. We know the timing of the Hero action in the turn is a critical element of a battle, and that relying on his creatureвЂ™s initiative is debatable, but having the Hero in the initiative bar with its own initiative value proved to be impractical during our prototyping phase.ДЇlanking in Heroes VII is an experiment which goal is to promote movement during battles and counter natural tendencies to turtling, even if more tools have been developed with that in mind, like more area of effect abilities and spells. We decided to go for the latter, while trying to improve it. Some prefer a dynamic initiative like in Heroes V, some prefer the classic вЂњcreature initiative-basedвЂќ system. This is one endless topic of discussion, and we had a hard time getting a majorityвЂ™s opinion from out studies in the community. This will challenge your ability to adapt to a tactical situation that is out of the ordinary, while staying in the normal rules of the game. That means instead of one 4x4 creature with more health than a thousand champion units, you will fight a regular army, but in a map with specific shape and encumbrance, and with unique positioning of enemies. In Heroes VII, we donвЂ™t plan at the moment on having bosses because we want to stay in a paradigm of army vs army, so we are focusing on efforts in making unique battle maps using the tools we have developed. It means the вЂњambushвЂќ formations seen in Heroes III are possible, as well as other exotic formation. In Heroes VII, we developed a system to have more flexibility when creating battle maps, which include the possibility to have custom deployment formations for CPU controller armies.

The battle of heroes