Homm

[coanda]

Are the 3 campaigns easier than 2? Because 2 was brutal, I eventually gave up. Most of the missions were winnable but would take me over a week just to do one. It got dull and repetitive chasing all the AI heroes around the map. I hope 3 has a difficulty setting.

Edit: Just downloaded the homm3 hd patch/wrapper and it is amazing. The game looks really good. 1920-1080 made everything a little to small so I got a very close to 16:9 ratio at 1360-768 and it looks great. Sharp but not too small. So far I have only launched the tutorial but I'm excited to dive in tonight. Again I just hope the campagins are toned down from homm2. Just a tad too hard imo.

The early campaigns in 3 are pretty easy, even on the highest difficulty. The later campaigns... not so much. They can all be done, but they'll require a reasonably good understanding of the game, and sometimes also require two tries so you can learn the map on the first try. On the plus side, there are difficulty settings for the missions so you can always knock the difficulty down if you get stuck.

I can't compare with heroes 2 campaigns because I have not played that game since something like 1997 or 1998... my memory is just too fuzzy.

 

[sherbz]

Are the 3 campaigns easier than 2? Because 2 was brutal, I eventually gave up. Most of the missions were winnable but would take me over a week just to do one. It got dull and repetitive chasing all the AI heroes around the map. I hope 3 has a difficulty setting.

Edit: Just downloaded the homm3 hd patch/wrapper and it is amazing. The game looks really good. 1920-1080 made everything a little to small so I got a very close to 16:9 ratio at 1360-768 and it looks great. Sharp but not too small. So far I have only launched the tutorial but I'm excited to dive in tonight. Again I just hope the campagins are toned down from homm2. Just a tad too hard imo.

I think you should find all the first campaigns easy apart from capturing steadwick, which can be seriously brutal unless you play a certain way (on my first play through it was tough - only just managed it. On subsequent play throughs i found it a lot easier).

Armageddons blade is more difficult, but still doable. Shadows of death is hard, and as Coanda points out, requires a greater depth of knowledge. Difficulty is scaleable though and you also have access to a wider variety of spells like fly, dimension door and town portal which stop missions becoming a repetitive bug hunt.

 

[vktj]

As a long-time fan of HOMM (Heroes of Might and Magic), my thoughts:

• HOMM is the other big turn-based strategy franchise out there. It has a very different feel from Civ; as pointed out, it’s impossible to build new towns or mines (or make any other changes to the terrain) in HOMM; one simply captures towns and mines already on the map.
• In Civ, one develops technology and units to become more powerful. In Heroes, one develops heroes (who, in role-playing style, level up and get better stats) and builds up towns (which then make units) to become more powerful. It’s a very different feel.
• The terrain is a lot richer than in Civ; Civ has a world where the only “treasures” are the huts one seeks in the opening phase of the game. In the HOMM franchise, the maps are full of cool treasures and bonuses which make your hero more powerful or your kingdom richer; one usually has to fight monsters to get at the treasures.
• All movement on the map is done with up to eight heroes. This greatly reduces the amount of micromanagement one does in the game; the only annoying micromanagement is carting monsters from one’s castles to one’s most powerful hero using secondary heroes in the midgame. For the endgame, there’s a spell called “town portal” in HOMM3 which eliminates the need to do that bit of micromanagement.
• As others have pointed out, the third one (HOMM3) is, for most players, the best game in the series. Be sure to get the version with both expansions—while HOMM3 does have a random map generator, it is only available in the expansions.
• For HOMM3 fans, not only is there the fan-made Wake of Gods expansion, there is also Heroes3HD: https://sites.google.com/site/heroes3hd/ This is a patch to Heroes 3 that allows the game to be played on modern versions of Windows without running as administrator, and allows the game to be played on a higher resolution than 800x600
• Playing multiplayer networked HOMM3 is not possible on anything more recent than Windows XP. The workaround we use is playing in Windows 2000 virtual machines with a copy of Heroes3 HD installed
• One can buy a copy of HOMM3 without the CD check (or any other DRM) from http://gog.com
• HOMM3 passes the netbook test: It runs beautifully on a netbook with a 1024x600 screen
• For people who like playing Civ at marathon speed with the largest map possible, the HOMM3 analog is to use the patched version which allows for XXXXL (252x252 — three times larger than HOMM3’s stock limit of 144x144) maps http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=32264
• HOMM5 is probably the second best version of HOMM. It has more modern 3d graphics, a random map generator in one of the expansions, and makes a reasonable attempt to capture HOMM3’s game play.
• HOMM2 is a good game but HOMM3 is considered the peak of the franchise. HOMM2 only has a random map generator in the map editor.
• HOMM4’s issue is that NWC, the company that developed it (as well as HOMM3) suffered from the dot-com crash and ran out of money before having a really compelling game. In particular, a random map generator was never made for HOMM4. (There was, at one time, a German-language fan made map generator at http://www.drachenwald.net/goodies/files/h4util34.zip but that website is offline, and there is not a mirror of that file anywhere)
• “HOMM6” (it’s official title is “Might and Magic: Heroes 6&#8221, the most recent game in the franchise, has far less replay value: It has no random map generator; the impression I get looking at reviews is that the game is finished fairly rapidly. It has the “you must be on the Internet to play” anti-piracy DRM that newer games have (thanks, pirates, for forcing game companies to put onerous DRM in their games) An expansion, Shades of Darkness has just been released.

HOMM takes place in a fantasy (medieval level technology but magic works) world. Indeed, when NWC tried adding science fiction elements to one of HOMM3’s expansions, players revolted. NWC relented and ended up just adding more elements with HOMM’s fantasy theme.

 

[Ailedhoo]

HOMM takes place in a fantasy (medieval level technology but magic works) world. Indeed, when NWC tried adding science fiction elements to one of HOMM3’s expansions, players revolted. NWC relented and ended up just adding more elements with HOMM’s fantasy theme.

The occurrence was a few death threats from only a minority of "fans" (death threats? Death threats?!) The science fiction elements was plans for a new town that was set in links to the franchise that HoM&M Is based off: the Might and Magic series, a series of RPGs, 1-5 taking in different worlds that the HoM&M series (6 notably taking place between HoM&M 2 and 3).

Basically...

Spoiler :

The demons in HoM&M 3 appear in 6 and 7... only they are space aliens. You get to raid a place and get access to blasters. 7 also has a crashed ship with the characters from one of the older games being the pilots. O and you needed for the good ending in 6 a void spell from the villain in Heroes of Might and Magic 2 (you basically have to free him) or the fashion reactor that you have to cast the void spell on would take out the world in a meltdown.

Also the manual of the first Heroes of Might and Magic game does make bizarre reference to robot rebellions...

The RPG was in the end less known as the TBS spin off. Hence the controversy of the Forge, which was replaced by the elementals... who happen were planned originally for the Shadow of Death expansion.

 

[sherbz]

The occurrence was a few death threats from only a minority of "fans" (death threats? Death threats?!) The science fiction elements was plans for a new town that was set in links to the franchise that HoM&M Is based off: the Might and Magic series, a series of RPGs, 1-5 taking in different worlds that the HoM&M series (6 notably taking place between HoM&M 2 and 3).

Basically...

Spoiler :

The demons in HoM&M 3 appear in 6 and 7... only they are space aliens. You get to raid a place and get access to blasters. 7 also has a crashed ship with the characters from one of the older games being the pilots. O and you needed for the good ending in 6 a void spell from the villain in Heroes of Might and Magic 2 (you basically have to free him) or the fashion reactor that you have to cast the void spell on would take out the world in a meltdown.

Also the manual of the first Heroes of Might and Magic game does make bizarre reference to robot rebellions...

The RPG was in the end less known as the TBS spin off. Hence the controversy of the Forge, which was replaced by the elementals... who happen were planned originally for the Shadow of Death expansion.

Sounds a bit like Scientology

 

[Pfeffersack]

For anyone playing H5 in SP and having the feeling the AI could do better, this project is worth a look:

http://forum.eternal-essence.com/index.php

Not yet complete, but the available beta version is already a huge step forward (also in terms of AI turns times, which are reduced significantly...so you can finally play those XXL maps)

 

[Lanstro]

Has anyone tried the new H6 expansion yet? Is the game remotely playable yet?

 

[BSPollux]

HOMM3 is one of the games i spend the most hours on!
My friends and I played it a real lot, and I designed a ton of maps for us. These maps were realy huge battles in the end. There are hardcoded maxlimits for each type of thing on the map, like citys, monsters, artifacts and dwellings. On one map it was a real headache

The AI played it very well too. One time it even beat us. Well we could have won, but it would have taken forever so we gave up. The AI player attacked us with 17000 archdevils. We managed to take down 4000 in the first battle. Would have taken a long time to get that one down.

Well if anyone is intrested in some custom maps, made for realy long games, let me know, I still got them.

 

[Yeekim]

The AI player attacked us with 17000 archdevils.

...does.not.compute...


Pray tell, how many cities did you have on that map?

 

[coanda]

the ai player attacked us with 17000 archdevils.

17000 archdevils

17000 archdevils

17000 archdevils

AAAAAAAH! Run for your lives!

 

[BSPollux]

...does.not.compute...


Pray tell, how many cities did you have on that map?

Quite some, maybe like 40? But thats not the source of the realy big stacks: You gain them by picking up monsters from the map. The stacks on the map grow quicker the bigger they allready are. So, lets say you get 'month of whatever' early on, and they are standing everywhere, some will be beaten cause they block important pathways, but quite a lot will stand there and grow. For a long time on these huge maps So you can have dozents of stacks with hundreds of that particular unit in it. That way you can get thousands of them, if youre mighty enough so they want to join you.

Edit: Oh I should add that this particular map was ment to be two sides of a huge island, connected by only one tunnel below a chain of mountains, 4 players east, 4 players west. Basicaly subterran and surface both were surface, surrounded by some water. The subterran entrance and exit resembled the entry and exit of the tunnel and whirlpools did the same at sea worked well and allowed me to make a huge map without a boring net of tunnels

 

[civvver]

I'm back into homm3. I played through 1 and 2 but took my time getting to 3. Dunno why, it just didn't appeal to me as much. I think it's the graphical style. 2 has a throw back 16 bit style that's rather cartoony so while it's obviously an old game it doesn't appear too dated. 3 tries harder and even though the models are still 2d sprites they try to be higher res and just look worse imo. The map is also more viewable area and everything is so zoomed out so it's hard to see.

Gameplay wise though, wow it's an unbelievable game. 3 doesn't really improve the mechanics of 2 in any way like 2 did a pretty big overhaul of 1. Instead it basically adds a ton more depth and complexity introducing 10 more hero types (I think 10, there's 16 and I think 2 had 6), more town types, more units, more spells, more everything basically. I have yet to determine whether magic vs might is better yet. In the previous 2 might was almost always better, since the end game units (titans and dragons) were magic immune.

The other thing I'm looking forward to is more balanced maps. 2 had some really hard missions and not in any sort of ascending order either. A random mission in the middle of the campaign could be nearly impossible if you didn't do a certain trick or something. So I'll see if 3 is a bit easier or more consistent at least.

 

[coanda]

I have yet to determine whether magic vs might is better yet. In the previous 2 might was almost always better, since the end game units (titans and dragons) were magic immune.

For the campaign and matches vs. AI, no question that magic is better. For matchups against humans... the debate rages to this day.

 

[sherbz]

For the campaign and matches vs. AI, no question that magic is better. For matchups against humans... the debate rages to this day.

Might is better

 

[civvver]

So level up those elemental specialties? It is pretty interesting how the spells are revamped so there's no mass haste/mass bless etc instead it's based on your specialty skill level.

 

[Kyriakos]

I have never played the HoMM games, instead i had spent some time on Age of Wonders I and II. AoW seems to have more refined graphics in its non-full-3d titles than HoMM.

However many people consider the first AoW to be the superior of the two. It had better music by far, and AoW II had a limited scenario collection iirc, but more races available.

 

[Jarrema]

Might is better

Heresy!


Actualy, the best one is a might hero, with a little magic thrown in...
I always want my main hero to have wisdom and earth magic (and preferably water magic too). Rest of skills goes for general ones (logistic!!!) and combat.

 

[Yeekim]

What Jarrema said.
Best spells do not require terribly high spellpower but rather appropriate secondary skills (as far as HOMM 3 goes).
High spellpower, unlike attack/defense has diminishing returns: you do not need that mass slow/haste/bless or blind to last 15 turns and if your main combat hero has to rely on damage-based spells you are just playing the game wrong.

 

[coanda]

You want water magic to neutralize enemy casters - mass cure and mass dispel. Eventually, mass prayer can be really nice too. Earth magic can be absurdly broken - Town Portal and Slow in particular, although View Earth and Resurrection are also much nicer if you have some skill in it. Fire magic is good for blind and mass berzerk against AIs if you're playing a town that tends to get those spells (e.g., Inferno), and to a lesser extent Frenzy and Slayer. Air magic is really only for campaign or huge maps - mass haste is really the only reason you'd want that school other than the level-5 spells of Fly and Dimension Door, which is really late-game.

 

[civvver]

Everyone says 4 is not as good as 3. What mechanically changed between the two?

It's going to take me a while to get through 3 (I actually went back to replay some campaigns in 2) so I won't discover for myself for a while.