Best Heroes of Might & Magic game

[Casual Hero]

My main issue with the shift to fully 3D in Heroes 5 is that it is just a lot harder to see what is going on at a glance. Heroes 2/3 were very crisp and easy to read, but I think the freely moving camera and all the trees obstructing things in H5 make it a lot harder for me to really understand what's going on in the map.
Of course, I could just get used to it over time, but I still probably prefer a fixed view for this kind of game where careful plotting of your movement is pretty key to the strategy.
I will say that I love the 3D fly-by town screens, and I wish the series would have explored that further.

I've moved all my chips over to Fanstratics to carry on the legacy.

 

[ValeVelKal]

Well I actually loved HoMM4. For single player it was the best due to the number of ways you can approach scenarios.

HoMM3 is the superior choice for multiplayer. Everyone complains about Conflux being better than the other faction but that has not been the experience in my group of friends ; Inferno was clearly weaker but that’s only one faction. People say the Swamp faction was badbut it was my favorite except in very high ressource games.

All factions have units level 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Conflux instead have units level 1 3 3.5 3.5 4 6 7. Once you compare this eay, and think of the impact in unit maintenance and whatnot I find that Conflux is way more accepted.

 

[Citizen]

All factions have units level 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Conflux instead have units level 1 3 3.5 3.5 4 6 7. Once you compare this eay, and think of the impact in unit maintenance and whatnot I find that Conflux is way more accepted.

more like 1 3 3 3 4 5 8. Psychic elemental or whatever they are called are trash because they only deal 50% damage to necropolis units IIRC, and firebirds are stupidly OP because of their enormous growth. But in hotseat multiplayer sessions people don't tryhard much from my experience so it all doesn't matter honestly, I've been running rampart, inferno and fortress 90% of the time and successfully steamrolled conflux/necro playing friends many times. I'm not even good at heroes

 

[ValeVelKal]

All factions have units level 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Conflux instead have units level 1 3 3.5 3.5 4 6 7. Once you compare this eay, and think of the impact in unit maintenance and whatnot I find that Conflux is way more accepted.

more like 1 3 3 3 4 5 8. Psychic elemental or whatever they are called are trash because they only deal 50% damage to necropolis units IIRC, and firebirds are stupidly OP because of their enormous growth. But in hotseat multiplayer sessions people don't tryhard much from my experience so it all doesn't matter honestly, I've been running rampart, inferno and fortress 90% of the time and successfully steamrolled conflux/necro playing friends many times. I'm not even good at heroes

I put Magic Elemental at 6 not because of their stay but because size 1 + multiattack + their speed + immune to magic can really throw a spammer into your opponent tactic.

 

[octavius]

I don't recall EVER using auto-combat in Heroes 1-3. Why would you even do that?

Heroes Chronicles is so piss easy even on Impossible, that the only way to get some challenge and enjoyment out of it is to give myself as much handicap as possible. So I play with auto-combat and a gimped hero (no magic skills or Logistics, but always choosing the worst skill).

Sword of Frost and Warlords of the Wasteland were actually quite fun playing this way, but Conquest of the Underworld is an absolute disgrace and must be the single worst HoMM game ever. Not only have several of the maps AI players assigned to wrong team (the player's), but look at this dungeon-wall-to-dungeon-wall of unguarded resources.

You know it's messed up when you can build a Portal of Glory and Castle as well as have 8 heroes in Week 1 on Impossible...

 

[Naraya]

I've moved all my chips over to Fanstratics to carry on the legacy.

That is bold considering all we know about this game is that it will be the spiritual successor to HoM&M 3. No artwork or sound, not to mention any gameplay/features. What can possibly go wrong, right?

 

[octavius]

All factions have units level 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Conflux instead have units level 1 3 3.5 3.5 4 6 7. Once you compare this eay, and think of the impact in unit maintenance and whatnot I find that Conflux is way more accepted.

Conflux is balanced by being so very, very boring.
The only unit I like is the Phoenix: almost guaranteed first strik, fire proof and unlike the elementals it can be Resurrected.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Conflux is a broken trash fire across the board, at least they had a good conscience to set the arma chance to 0 in their guild.

 

[pakoito]

Fall from Heaven 2 with a modmod of your choice.

Otherwise 5.5

 

[The_Mask]

Just gonna chime in with 2 things:

1. HoMM III is one of the best videogames ever made.

2. HoMM IV campaign is like a bell curve. First and last campaign are shit. 2 and 4 are meh. And Gauldoth's campaign is the bomb.

 

[Casual Hero]

I was just playing some Heroes 1 for fun. I had never played it when I was younger, so it is interesting to go back to after playing 2-4 so much. It is definitely a simple game, but it has a lot of charm.
I especially love the art style. The battles feel like you're playing in a medieval tapestry. Also, there are animated creatures in the town around their dwellings, which I think is a great idea, and wish stuck around. Maybe not in the same cheesy way as Heroes 1, but if I could get the town flybys of Heroes 5 + creatures and townspeople walking around as you build...

 

[Blake00]

Nice to see some people here talking about how they still love HoMM1's graphics. I too still love it's look and style to this day even after all these years. Especially the animating castle screens and battle backgrounds. I still remember the first time I tried the demo of it off a PC Gamer CD in like 95/96ish, was like nothing I'd seen before and just blew me away.

Like most HoMM3 is my favourite in the series, I know HoMM2 is a lot of peoples no 1 (at least in the hardcore HoMM community) as they feel HoMM3 is just an over hyped HoMM2 with a fresh coat of paint but for me HoMM2 just feels like a stepping stone between 1 and 3 so hey I still loved it but it's not at the top of my list with 1&3. I'm one of those weird people who really loved HoMM4 lol, something about those isometric 2.5D era games I've always loved (Civ2-3, C&C2, RA2 etc). HoMM5 was a great return to the series and I loved how it felt like HoMM3 but had a bit of HoMM4 in it too all, yes some its warhammer/warcrafty graphics put me off sometimes (eg giant shoulder devils and half naked elves with whips lol) but overall I liked it's graphics (especially those gorgeous 3D flying castle views). Only played a bit HoMM6 as it doesn't run properly on my machine, I liked its graphics and more gothic styles but didn't like the shared unit production and all that online conflux stuff! I own but haven't tried HoMM7 yet as I haven't seen many good things about it and figure I should finish HoMM6 first anyway, glad to hear HoMM7 is getting patched by fans though. If only fans could patch HoMM6 up but all that bloody online stuff probably prevents it!

 

[Caim]

I know that VI an VII are apparently dogshit, but just how terrible are they aside from their crippling technical issues?

 

[Blake00]

I know that VI an VII are apparently dogshit, but just how terrible are they aside from their crippling technical issues?

I'll let someone more knowledgeable in the last Heroes 2 games answer that as like I said above I've only played a bit of Heroes 6 before bugs got in my way and haven't touched Heroes 7.

Forgot to say above that the Succession Wars mod team putting Heroes 2 content into the Heroes 3 engine (combined with the H3 HD mod) did a April fools joke a year or 2 back where they announced a Heroes 1 version of their mod. Such a tease for people like me who love those old Heroes 1 graphics. They look so nice in high resolution!

https://www.facebook.com/thesuccessionwarsmod/photos/2113801751993334

For those who don't know about the Succession Wars mod here's a regular (NON-April fools joke) shot of their work haha.

Oh and I also forgot to say that proof that I do still love Heroes 2 (even if I put some of the others above it in my previous post lol) is that I've been working with someone else on a Civilization 2 - Heroes of Might & Magic 2 mod (20 years too late but f*** it, we're having fun lol). If anyone is interested I'm posting dev diaries over in the Civilization 2 thread here at RPG Codex.

We were heavily inspired to make ours after we saw another guy on CivFinatics called Tom release an amazing Heroes 3 mod for Civilization 3.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Lol, those civ mods screenies are a much better take on isometric HoMM than actual HoMM4.

 

[Blake00]

Lol, those civ mods screenies are a much better take on isometric HoMM than actual HoMM4.

haha yeah.. it's easy to think of HoMM1-3 as simple 2D top down games but thankfully they actually have a very angled side on perspective on everything which means they convert into 2.5D isomeric game engines surprisingly well. Mountains, hills & forest were a bit sh*tty to sort out though.

 

[luj1]

Heroes III by a landmileeeee

 

[tindrli]

i wonder how many codexers played HOMM 5.5 multiplayer and is there anything that can be done with , lets say, general game responsiveness. is there a way, some option or tweak to make game response faster to mouse clicks and to prevent LAG wile playing online.
The graphics are worst on the planet but fuck it i can live with it. what bothers me is that no matter what i do in options turns are slow compared with HOMM 3

 

[Olinser]

i wonder how many codexers played HOMM 5.5 multiplayer and is there anything that can be done with , lets say, general game responsiveness. is there a way, some option or tweak to make game response faster to mouse clicks and to prevent LAG wile playing online.
The graphics are worst on the planet but fuck it i can live with it. what bothers me is that no matter what i do in options turns are slow compared with HOMM 3

You play HOMM 5.5 multiplayer by hitting the 'uninstall' button and clicking on HOMM 3.

 

[Aemar]

Enjoying a lot playing random generated HotA maps. Best unofficial add-on for Heroes 3, by a mile.

 

[tindrli]

i wonder how many codexers played HOMM 5.5 multiplayer and is there anything that can be done with , lets say, general game responsiveness. is there a way, some option or tweak to make game response faster to mouse clicks and to prevent LAG wile playing online.
The graphics are worst on the planet but fuck it i can live with it. what bothers me is that no matter what i do in options turns are slow compared with HOMM 3

You play HOMM 5.5 multiplayer by hitting the 'uninstall' button and clicking on HOMM 3.

we are playing HOMM3 for an eternity. and yes its best its unique it is a game to play but sometimes we juts get burned and want to play another heroes game. we couldnt managed to run 4th and few years back we heard about 5.5 and gameplay depth and shit is awesome. everything else is like stone age compared to 3. and dont want to talk about 6th or 7th part coz to be honest they are not HOMM that we grew with and for me its not a same game.
and we tried to play 5.5. it plays well. graphic are painful but we manage. what bothers me is the TIME that pass between you click to hero starts to move and also the unexplained periodic lagging while moving no matter what speed i use i tried turning off everything in settings with no luck. in the beginning its no big deal but after a 2 hours ingame it starts to pissing us god level coz we are constantly comparing it with time that you need to play in HOMM3. we dont use AI coz its not working in multiplayer and games are more interesting without it anyway
so thats why i was asking if any fellow codexer had a similar or same issue. did anyone managed to make it more fluently and shit..

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Wrong thread maybe but to what extent does Heroes of Might and Magic 1 and 2 share graphical assets? From screenshots it looks like a lot of the graphics are the same.

 

[Lacrymas]

Wrong thread maybe but to what extent does Heroes of Might and Magic 1 and 2 share graphical assets? From screenshots it looks like a lot of the graphics are the same.

They are different art styles entirely with some exceptions on the strategic map.

 

[Aemar]

I think they share the UI and the game map and its elements. Most of the portraits have been re-worked and re-used in part 2 as well.

 

[Blake00]

Wrong thread maybe but to what extent does Heroes of Might and Magic 1 and 2 share graphical assets? From screenshots it looks like a lot of the graphics are the same.

There's some recycling of art eg maybe some forest tress and stuff.. but almost everything is replaced with a new art style.. although the assets appear to be the same size on the main map.

However there's considerable size differences in the battle screen assets as all the creatures were much bigger in HoMM1 but because they wanted a bigger & more tactical battlefield in HoMM2 and still keep the game at the same 640x480 resolutions they shrunk down all the creature sizes (eg look at the golden crusader in each shot).