Anyone looking forward to it? :) I just checked Celestial Heavens (http://www.celestialheavens.com/) and found a pic of the Collectors' Edition packaging:

http://www.celestialheavens.com/images/potd/big/collectoredition.jpg

Looks awesome, especially the treasure chest! :goodjob:

Now the box shot:

http://www.celestialheavens.com/images/news/h5boxshot.jpg

You can count me in. I have all Homm games, even all Chronicles.

Boxes look pretty. :D

What's good about this series. Also, this comes out pretty near Oblivion...2 epics at once?

I havent played any of the series. How does it stack of compared to Civ3? Since I do not play Civ4 all that much

It's a turn based strategy like Civ, except it's in a fantasy world. It's a very good series and I probably have spent as much time playing it as the Civ series. I started with HoMM2. HoMM3 is the best in the series. HoMM4 is also not bad, but the AI is not good because the company 3DO was having financial troubles and they released it before it's ready. Soon after HoMM4's release, 3DO went bankrupt and UbiSoft acquired the rights to the series.

It would be interesting to see where they are taking the series...

Soon after HoMM4's release, 3DO went bankrupt

Wow 3DO went bankrupt!?!? I didn't know that. Did any of you play there army men games. My favorite was Army Men 2.

Anyways about HOMM, I started playing at HOMM3 and loved it. Then I got one of the chonicles games, I'm not sure which one, and loved it too. After HOMM4 came out i bought it and had fun for a while. I really liked the way heroes could fight in combat, but the rest of the game was too repetitive. HOMM5 does look very promising though.

Boxes look pretty. :D

What's good about this series. Also, this comes out pretty near Oblivion...2 epics at once?

Homm2 was one of the first games of TBS strategy that I played that had RPG like elements in it. I played the campaigns and loved my hero leveling up and getting so powerful.

Being able to find artifacts to boost the heros skills. In fact habing selections for traits on the hero.

In II the hero was on the battlefield, but did not engaged in direct combat. The hero could cast spells though to either help your troops directly or damage theirs.

They also had travel spells such as teleport to a castle. You could upgrade castles and some would allow upgrading your monsters.

In HommIII, you had the same game with improved sounds and graphics. More castle types and hero class and units. With the addons, you got some very powerful artifacts that could be created by having all the pieces.

In HommIV they changed it so the heroes would be able to act as the rest of the piece. They could fight and in fact got so strong they could be sent out alone. This was both good and bad. The real problem was the AI was not working properly.

This was likely a casualty of the finaces in 3DO.

In HommV they are going back to the old way, but adding in 3D. This will probably be like Civ4 has done, but I do not know for sure.

In any event Homm was my favorite series of all for years.

has it gone GOLD yet ?

don't think so... It's coming out in February...

I read that the team behind the project is the team which made `Etherlords`. I didn`t that game. Hope they make this one better.

what! when did i miss number 4!

About 2 or 3 years ago. It had two addons.

what! when did i miss number 4!

LMAO :lol:

Yup... I'm definitely looking forward to HoMM V... Wasn't a big fan of 4, though... Hopefully 5 can fix the problems it had... hopefully... Still play 3, though... Great games.

I just ordered V from Target via Amazon for 19.99.


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000BYQJC8/ref%3Dnosim/fatwalletcom/104-3823136-7706301

I never actually owned the original heroes three. I just played it at my friends house. But i have heroes chronicles master of the elements, and im playing through it again.

I had HOMM4, but i sold it to a second hand game store cuz it got boring fast.

I play Heroes 4, and also have the original, although I can't play it on XP.

I can't say there's enough different about the games to justify buying the next one, but I've been playing a lot more Heroes than Civ lately.

I loved Heroes 1 and 2. Three was allright and i didn't play 4. As Caesar says, they do get a little repetive after a while.

When you say original, do you mean Homm I? I have II/III/IV working, but have not tried I on XP. I would expect it to work, but if not try DosBox.

I have many dos games working on XP, but use DosBox for Ascendancy.

Yep, HOMM I.

I found DosBox to be rather slow, though, and quickly got annoyed with it.

Did you set the config to at least 30000? You can use the hot keys to give more cycles to DosBox and it should run fine. You can also go to full screen mode.

Hm. I'll try that.

Although it's probably a bad idea...I waste enough potential work time here as it is...

I haven't read anything about Heroes 5 yet. I'll wait rather than seek it out.

There are several qualities about Heroes 4 which seem clearly superior to earlier versions of the game to me, but difficulty isn't one of them.

The computer generated competition seemed tougher in 2 and 3 than it does in 4.

It's great on the one hand being able to train some radically powerful heroes, but what a crying shame that far before I feel like unleashing them, there is already nothing on the board that can match their power.

Heroes 2 and 3 are still games I play. I only played Heroes 1 for a brief period after I got it in my head temporarily that I was playing to much and folded creased and mutilated all the other game CD's I possessed.

Has there have been a Heroes III mod for Civ III? I've been looking all over for it.

About 2 or 3 years ago. It had two addons.

Ow. Ive been playing HOMM3 for 2 years after the sequel was released.

HoMM V is released in Hongkong. Got it :D

Game looks good, runs smooth, and plays like HoMM (with many improvements), but the manual is bad. I can't even find information about the town types, classes and skills.

Well I have always bought all Homm games on day one, but for 59 bucks, I will wait.

Hey Thunderfall ... would it be hopeless if we prayed for a contest with lots of HoMM5 prizes like the one with Galactic Civilizations 2 some months ago ?

I don't think UbiSoft people visit here. But if they are interested in doing one, then sure. :)

How's the game, kcwong? Is the AI good on the map?

I've been reading the reviews of this game and as a fan Heroes of Might and Magic fan, (Mostly number II) I'll be surely buying it. It seems that it's been already released in Finland. :)

Reviews are out already? Where?

Reviews are out already? Where?

The ones I've read are all in Finnish, I haven't been able to find any in English other then some previews.

The ones I've read are all in Finnish, I haven't been able to find any in English other then some previews.

The Almighty Father sent you to CFC to give us Americans reviews. Now translate. Chop chop. j/k ;)

I'm getting this one, but I don't know when. I have already played the demo, and I like it. The only thing I don't like are the names of certain units.

GoGamer.com is selling Heroes V for only $39.90... all other places I've checked sell it at $49.99:

http://www.gogamer.com

They also have Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion currently in its 48 Hour Madness feature, for $34.90. Also a very good deal. The deal is set to expire in 9 hours. I bought both games there last night.

GameSpot rated Heroes V 8.2 / 10. Not bad:

http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/927207.asp

I loved HOMM 2. I played 3, but I didn't like it as much. 2 was extremely good.

I don't think UbiSoft people visit here. But if they are interested in doing one, then sure. :)

How's the game, kcwong? Is the AI good on the map?

I haven't started the campaigns yet... I play the single scenario maps to get familiar with the new skill system and creatures.

From the single scenario maps I've played, the AI seems average... though they will surprise you with a whooping big army if you don't know what you're doing (like in my first game).

I find out they can see waaaaaay beyond their black shroud (map not yet visited) though. On a map I have two towns... the first one is near the lower-left corner of the map, the second one is near the middle of the left side. There is a subterrain entrance near the second town, and a bit further a one-way portal leading back near the first town.

My second town's defense is not yet completed - and there the first big army of AI emerges from the subterrain entrance. I steer my main force to the second town - I should be just ahead of the AI army.

But no, the AI army moves away from my second town... right into the one-way portal. I know why... my first town just sent some reinforcement out, so it's much weakened.

I move my main army back to chase it, but I would be one turn late.

So I buy all creatures and move the garrison of the first town out - hopefully the AI will take the now empty town, and my main army can destroy the AI army.

But no again... the AI foresee my moves. It moved away to get a crystal and gold mine nearby. That way is an alcove... a deadend. And there the AI army is defeated.

So the AI is not good - but we all know the AI in HoMM is never very good. In all versions we can see the AI armies doing stupid things.


In the Celestial Heavens and Heroes Community forums, they said the AIs are cheating - they said they can see it gain resources from thin air.

Though I doubt such reports, especially on Celestial Heavens (many HoMM4 haters there, some of them extend the hate to 5 without ever playing the game)... without cheats/external programs to read the data, and with the map editor not yet released, how could they figure out the AI is getting a lot of gold and resources? They said they use the Thieves guild, but the thieves guild (now an adventure object) does't give exact numbers.

I got my copy last Friday and started playing the first campaign. The first campaign is kinda boring, as it's mostly tutorial. The fifth map from the campaign was one of the two maps in the demo released a while back.

There are very few non-campaign maps available, which is disappointing. In previous Heroes games, there are usually dozens of maps included. Also, there is no editor included in HoMM (they said they will release it in a few months in a patch). My guess is the editor they have is hard to use, otherwise they would have included more maps.

The first campaign is easy, you have time to build largely and severly kick demonic butts.
But the secodn campaign is a lot harder.
You have to be very fast, and the 3 missions is very hard. I think I've found a trick, but I'm not sure it will work to the end.

Hmmmm. No one plays HoMM V? :(

I've just finished the first two campaigns... the haven one is very easy, the inferno one very exciting - always racing against time.

The necropolis one has interesting lose conditions... I need to figure this map out.

I got stuck on inferno Scenario 3, I've given up for the time being. I'll come back to it after another patch has been released.

I've been disgusted by a big bug in Inferno 3...
I beat Gilraen before capturing the city in the South. When I took the city, it trigger the victory condition "Defeat Gilraen"
But as he is no longer around...

I didn't have trouble there, but I have noticed some bugs and such. I bet it was due to an impatient fanbase on the game's release (Isn't that always the cause).

I'm hoping future patches can take care of these things later on. A map editor would be nice, too.

I am at campaign 3's 4th scenario (The Regicide). The last time I played it was like a week or two ago. I have been playing mostly Oblivion recently.

HoMM5 is not a bad game, but it's not great either. The AI on some maps appeared to be scripted for the particular map. Also, there is a significant lack of artifacts to play with.

A hint for Inferno map 3: Don't take the first Sylvan city. As you already know, that triggers the druidic rituals, causing a lot of random stacks on the map as well as boosting green army's unit growth.

So instead, take the nearby mines, and develop your Inferno city.

The sulphur and gold mines are well guarded for your starting army, but are doable with minimal loss with Phantom Forces. I hope you have taken it as your reward in map 2, because it will help *a lot*. AI just love to elminate your mirrored stacks, so it would keep your real units safe while the enemy hero, archers and casters are attracted to your mirrored stacks. Not to mention mirrored stacks can gate as well.

After some time the green heroes (especially Gilraen) will start to move. Gilraen seems to come from the city in the NW corner of the map. The AI will likely split his army into another hero, making Gilraen much weaker. Go near the city and lure Gilraen. Lure him back to the first city... then take the city, trigger the event, and defeat Gilraen (I beat him outside the city, in the same turn).

After that you could play it as any standard maps... though you will want to switch to Sylvan troops. Your Inferno city can't keep up.


I've read people can play the map as intended by the developers... and take that stack of 5 Phoenix in the first month with the starting army. They said you take the city in the first three days, build it and start heading NW in the second week. They said with heavy uses of Phantom Forces the Phoenix can be beat, but I tried and failed miserably. Then they beat the druids and the green army won't be too large to handle.

I did beat the Phoenix easily, then took the city to the NW, then beat Gilraen when he counter attached, then took the city to the NE, and then the one in the S, using mainly Sylvans, almost no inferno...
But Gilraen doesn't come back later :(

Well, like I said, you should take the city in the south before attacking Gilraen.

I did not attack him!
He did!

Well... I said I lured him back to the first city ;)

Alright, well, is this game worth buying? I mean, is it something that is going to addict me the way that Oblivion did?

I agree the graphics are kind of lame except for the fighting scenes, lack of artifacts, i think III and chronicles wher the best? Gameplay is not so good either, i gave up on it after an hour, just not interested enough to keep me interested in playing. So i go with ole reliable CIV IV.

I played HOMM V with my cousin last weekend. The hotseat mode still is as much fun as in the earlier games. Was it not for uni/school next day, we could have played all night. :D
We couldn't find a multiplayer team map however, which was quite disappointing.
Aside from the graphics i didn't notice too much change to earlier games.
The racial traits (training, artifact creating, ...) looked interesting, but we didn't use them at all with the exception of necromacy, which seems strong as ever.

RameNoodle:
If you already have a HOMM game, i would wait until HOMM V hits the budget bin. If you don't, then you probably won't regrett buying this one. Heroes of Might and Magic is a good series, especially in hotseat mode.

I think HoMMV took the safe route... and learnt the lessons from previous installments well.

From IV: Heroes on battlefield is cool, but balancing it is nightmare.
Solution: Take heroes out of the battlefield (like III), but give them a more active role in the combat rather than just boosting Attack/Defense and using MP. Heroes now can perform normal attacks, and have a wide range of abilities to use in the battlefield.

From III: The heroes end up in a few templates - some skills are essential to survive. They are all the same, except for the hero specialties. Some skills are quite useless.
From IV: Heroes still end up in a few templates. And you need to go for the extremes - spreading out your skills are no good.
Solution: The skill tree is now much more developed, and balanced. Heroes has skills (3 levels: basic, advanced, expert) which lead to abilities, and certain combinations unlock special abilities. Heroes also got their hero-specific specialties back. And the abilities really allow you to do something new, not just boosting certain parameters. For example, from being high level in destruction magic you can get the special ability "Master of Ice" which will allow your ice spells to have a freezing effect.

From III & IV: Players like more creatures and more varieties.
Response: Creature upgrade is back. Instead of limiting you to choose one creature from two (like in IV), you can get them all and upgrade them. To avoid people getting too powerful too early with lucky resource pickups (e.g. vampire in 3 days in IV, then you pwns almost all neutral stacks), a prerequisite + town points system is introduced. Each town type also has a race speicific building to enhance heroes of the same race.

A bad rule in V is from III: The once-per-week creature generation. I prefer it like the way in IV.

People complained about bad AI and the non-perfect game balance (which mostly refer to the duel-mode, a special MP game in which you only fight a battle with selected heroes and armies)... but please remember from HoMM1 to 4 the AI and balance are also not perfect. AI has never been a strong point - they always use cheats to catch up.

I think some people (esp. those on Celestial Heavens forums... see how many hate threads/posts are there everyday from the same few guys) saw something they don't like - and got fixated on it. Then they keep bashing it again and again, everyday, and become blind to the good sides of the game.

e.g.

They see when you hire hero, you no longer has the chose between Might and Magic heroes.

They complained: Where are the wide range of heroes? Is this HoMight and Magic anymore?

They failed to catch up on the change. The races in HoMMV are divided into opposing forces, with each having two attributes (primary, secondary):

Haven [defense, attack] vs. Inferno [attack, knowledge]
Academy [magic, knowledge] vs. Necropolis [spellpower, defense]
Sylvan [defense, knowledge] vs. Dungeon [spellpower, attack]

Their heroes are called:
Haven - Knight
Inferno - Demon Lord
Academy - Wizard
Necropolis - Necromancer
Sylvan - Ranger
Dungeon - Warlock

So the Might and Magic are still there, but not in each and every race. Now the races are divided into Might and Magic ones.

The change also affects the creatures. The troops in Inferno are geared for strong offense - they are rather fast and all have high potential damage. The troops in Haven are geared for defense - they are quite sturdy and many have good defensive skills, e.g. the archer has the scatter shot ability, shooting arrows over a large area. The Squire has the Shield Allies ability, which reduces non-magical ranged damage on nearby friendly units. Is it possible to use Haven troops for offense? Yes, of course. Imperial Griffin, Inquisitor, Paladin and Archangel are forces to be reckon with. It all depends on how you use them - but always remember, good defense is a nature of haven. Use it to your advantage.

IMO HoMMV is a big improvement over the old ones.

On HoMM sites I would recommend HeroesCommunity besides Celestial Heavens for a more balanced view.

Detailed information in Heroes of Might and Magic fan site: http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes5/heroesofmightandmagic5v.shtml

Alright, well, is this game worth buying? I mean, is it something that is going to addict me the way that Oblivion did?
GoGamer sells Heroes V for just $29.90. That's probably as cheap as it gets for a new game.

http://www.gogamer.com

For that price it's certainly worth it.

I heard UbiSoft is working on a second patch so I am waiting for it before continueing with the campaigns.

I heard UbiSoft is working on a second patch so I am waiting for it before continueing with the campaigns.

Ditto. I've heard that some of the post-2part3 missions are too tricky aswell, so I'm hoping the next patch will nerf them a little.

It says it is out of stock on GoGamer, darn.

There is a new patch coming out today... guess that means I will start playing the game again. :) I haven't touched it in the last few weeks.

I'm still at the 2nd map of Inferno... maxing the two heroes before going to the 3rd map.

I kind of wanted to restart the whole thing... since the patch changed something in them. Eh, but no, I guess I'll just finish it first and come back at a higher difficulty.

I'm at the 4th missions of the Dungeon campaign now :)

I'm at the 4th Dungeon map too... just replayed the whole dungeon campaign today. I do that to get some specific skills: Logistics, Summoning, Destruction, Sorcery, Defense.

Perhaps I'll go back though... I only use Raelag in the 3rd map (all except the first wave of inferno), and he's not maxed yet. And the S-something-girl (can't recall her name) is just level 20.

I only played the first map in the dungeon campaign. Very interesting map! :)

Bright day
Yes the gameplay is solid.

But why is nobody complaining that it is not Might&Magic game? :mad: I am not asking for Enroth, but all the lore they made for it makes it impossible fit to rest of games. fricking Dragons. Give me my Ancients and Kreegans!!!

Bright day
Yes the gameplay is solid.

But why is nobody complaining that it is not Might&Magic game? :mad: I am not asking for Enroth, but all the lore they made for it makes it impossible fit to rest of games. fricking Dragons. Give me my Ancients and Kreegans!!!

They wanted to start off fresh, because you can only do Ancients and Kreegans so many times. I'm not saying I agree, but I see their point.

They wanted to start off fresh, because you can only do Ancients and Kreegans so many times. I'm not saying I agree, but I see their point.

But you don't have to use them in-game, just in lore otherwise how is it Might&Magic. You have new Duke Nukem, it is FPS, you play Russian scientist trying to escape from base full experiments gone wrong... even if you have jatpack, hologram and one experiment was to crossbreed pig and man... it is not Duke. Nor is that Nival thing Might&Magic.

You use might and magic to achieve your goals, while your enemies do the same to stop you. You command an army, rather than a party (regular MM). That sounds like HoMM to me.


Final Fantasy uses alot of different storylines, but it is always FF.

You use might and magic to achieve your goals, while your enemies do the same to stop you. You command an army, rather than a party That sounds like Disciples\AoW to me.

Nothing Nival made required Might and Magic license.

And there is nothing binding FFs together? Maybe even name of one attack?

And there is nothing binding FFs together? Maybe even name of one attack?
... and chocobos. :)

Sandro is mentioned in a hero bio (the vampire's bio), and they use alot of the same creatures. You really can't say it isn't Might and Magic. Alot of it is there, just not the same legend/ origin.

Sandro is mentioned in a hero bio (the vampire's bio), and they use alot of the same creatures. You really can't say it isn't Might and Magic. Alot of it is there, just not the same legend/ origin.

Bah I can name my dog Sandro. That is even more patheic because it is sad attempt, but is clearly not Sandro of Deyja (of Enroth- planet settled by Ancients)

There's another Sandro reference...
The Necro campaign mentions Sandro as a great necromancer... and the master of the protagonist. The protagonist said Sandro was permanently killed though.

And there's one for Crag Hack...
In the Haven Campaign.

There's another Sandro reference...
The Necro campaign mentions Sandro as a great necromancer... and the master of the protagonist. The protagonist said Sandro was permanently killed though.

And there's one for Crag Hack...
In the Haven Campaign.

Yes he to fight mages for revenge.

Yes, Isabel "Like Crag hack was on our heels"

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

But you don't have to use them in-game, just in lore otherwise how is it Might&Magic. You have new Duke Nukem, it is FPS, you play Russian scientist trying to escape from base full experiments gone wrong... even if you have jatpack, hologram and one experiment was to crossbreed pig and man... it is not Duke. Nor is that Nival thing Might&Magic.
It never occured to me that HoMM has lore of its own. I just noted with grief the departure of the Babarian tribe/civ. :(

Yes he to fight mages for revenge.

Yes, Isabel "Like Crag hack was on our heels"

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I'm just pointing those out, not that I think they're good. ;)

At least in those references the names are indeed referring to the heroes, not used to name pets.

Hi,

Do you know a "Civfanatics" equivalent for HoMM5?

Age of Heroes is a nice site, here's the link (http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes5/heroesofmightandmagic5v.shtml) to their homepage, forums are at the bottom.
Enjoy.

It never occured to me that HoMM has lore of its own. I just noted with grief the departure of the Babarian tribe/civ. :(

The Barbarians are back with a vengeance in Tribes of the East :cool: