Heroes of Might and Magic 5 Demo is out

[Surlent]

Saw this on RPGdot, Ubisoft has released free gameplay Demo for HoMM5.
Best yet, ubisoft has decided the game will not use starforce protection.

The demo seems good, single player reminds of HoMM3. Will have to test it more.

 

[kingcomrade]

I'd had it for a couple days now, and I asked a question on the Tcancer forums that nobody answered.

Can any of you beat the scenario that comes with the game? Not either of the campaign missions, but there's a custom scenario (skenario for our British readers) and I can't beat it.

 

[JaheiraRocks]

Can any of you beat the scenario that comes with the game? Not either of the campaign missions, but there's a custom scenario (skenario for our British readers) and I can't beat it.

Yes.

I never attacked the enemy hero though... well, I tried, but she had like 2x more units than me. I just went straight for the her base, which just had one stack of some low rank unit defending it. Didn't try to take it back, so I won.

And I'm glad to see that they will drop Starforce. I wasn't going to buy it because of that.

 

[callehe]

it's a great game. the duels are fun but it's unbalanced, sylvan has a huge advantage over all other races.

 

[Lurkar]

I'd had it for a couple days now, and I asked a question on the Tcancer forums that nobody answered.

Can any of you beat the scenario that comes with the game? Not either of the campaign missions, but there's a custom scenario (skenario for our British readers) and I can't beat it.

I beat it. Attacked the enemy hero in their castle, and yeah, 2-4x as many units as me.

I dunno about your games though, but their hero never used a damn spell on me, and that gave me an awesome edge. Use your magic - raise dead is hilariously effective - and pump out as many of your succubuses as fast and as soon as you can. As your hero levels up they'll grow stronger and stronger. In the last battle I just ended up constantly raising my archdevils to act as cannon fodder as my succubuses slaughtered everything else.

 

[Astromarine]

um, since I'm pretty much a noob to the series, can anyone give me a couple pointers on how the gameplay usually flows? I've tried the haven campaign mission several times, but I always end up losing. I can rescue the second hero and take the town, but usually suffer from a huge lack of funds with which to raise my army in any significant way, so I usually lose more ad more from my original army until I end up losing a battle and therefore the game.

 

[Slaughter]

um, since I'm pretty much a noob to the series, can anyone give me a couple pointers on how the gameplay usually flows? I've tried the haven campaign mission several times, but I always end up losing. I can rescue the second hero and take the town, but usually suffer from a huge lack of funds with which to raise my army in any significant way, so I usually lose more ad more from my original army until I end up losing a battle and therefore the game.

Save up to buy the City Hall pretty much at once. It gives you an additional 2000 per day income. Also make sure you capture mines and pick up resources. Don't be too eager in all battles. If a creature can't immediately reach your troops, hold them back and fire with the ranged units while they struggle to get to you.

Besides that, the official Ubisoft forums and CelestialHeavens.com can probably offer many other good suggestions I can't. I didn't play it enough yet.

 

[kingcomrade]

Just maximize your income (get the Town hall upgrades and capture stuff) and remember that your unit supply replenishes at the beginning of each week. I've figured that three heroes is about what you need, and you start with two. I keep the one with the growth bonuses in the city as a defense, and have them just buy troops and such, while the other two heroes go out and about capturing things and getting experience. Also, save your money as much as possible. Don't buy new troops until there's an enemy heading to your gates or you are restocking one of your adventuring heroes. If you run into troops outside and you have enough money to buy them, you can. I had 30k gold at one point and attacked a mine garrisonned by 130 footmen, and they let me buy them. 30k gold, 130 footmen.

I'm finding that the higher level units die way too quickly, even though they have a powerful attack. They just cost too much for what they're worth.

@Lurkar-
Raise dead? I didn't see that spell anywhere. What type of magic specialization do you need?

 

[Lurkar]

Just maximize your income (get the Town hall upgrades and capture stuff) and remember that your unit supply replenishes at the beginning of each week. I've figured that three heroes is about what you need, and you start with two. I keep the one with the growth bonuses in the city as a defense, and have them just buy troops and such, while the other two heroes go out and about capturing things and getting experience. Also, save your money as much as possible. Don't buy new troops until there's an enemy heading to your gates or you are restocking one of your adventuring heroes. If you run into troops outside and you have enough money to buy them, you can. I had 30k gold at one point and attacked a mine garrisonned by 130 footmen, and they let me buy them. 30k gold, 130 footmen.

I'm finding that the higher level units die way too quickly, even though they have a powerful attack. They just cost too much for what they're worth.

@Lurkar-
Raise dead? I didn't see that spell anywhere. What type of magic specialization do you need?

Got it in my mage guild - level 3 spell, I think. I wasn't paying any attention to magic specialization since I had sorcery which, if I remember correctly, lets you use all types of magic on it's level. In the end though, my raised troops were just fodder - it's those fire shooters that won it for me.

I haven't even bothered with the scenarios yet - I wanna play my god damned necromancers!

 

[Lurkar]

I'm finding that the higher level units die way too quickly, even though they have a powerful attack. They just cost too much for what they're worth.

Forgot to comment on this - your hero's abilities majorly come into play here. Having things like Offense and such improves your big guys by a lot, whereas having things like bloodlust improves your little guys.

Percentage based improvements = big guys. Set number based = little guys.

So, you could have a hero that has incredibly archdevils of amazing power. That same hero can have five billion imps, and they'd all be worthless.

 

[RK47]

Not a big fan of their campaigns but overall satisfied with the faction designs and general gameplay.

I would probably spend more time on Single Scenario instead of trying to solve puzzle maps in campaign. More fun IMO

 

[kingcomrade]

The first campaign mission is a lot more fun...the scenario basically just has you going around killing creeps, then puts you up against an army 2x your size. The only way to win is to make a very specialized hero with a specific set of skills (which I haven't been able to accomplish), or take advantage of the AI and sneak around and fight the smaller army at their base.

 

[RK47]

Yeah no big deal on those...I always hated to fight 'developers idea' missions. Preferring to go 1 v 1 with factions over a good map instead.

Still gonna get it from my buddy who's a diehard fan. He bought all the heroes series so far ^^

 

[kingcomrade]

What do you mean? A skirmish mode? The demo doesn't have it, I don't think.

 

[Jason]

The final game does have a skirmish mode, but it's greyed out in the demo (the Hot Seat option under Multiplayer). You can select the maps, factions, heroes, bonuses, and other stuff. You play against another human or the AI.

 

[kingcomrade]

I wish they'd included that instead of the lame scenario. That would've been cool and a better indicator of how the game would play for the most part. I usually play the campaign through once in strategy games and then stick to skirmish mode for the rest. In the case of TA, I never even played the campaign as it sucks so much, while skirmish mode is awesome.

 

[Atrokkus]

Apparently, we return to the issue discussed somewhere in the AI thread, about the fact that mediocre AI's are substituted or enhanced with primitive resource advantages. Like, in Starcraft, insane AI is just your oridnary "normal" AI with one little catch - he's got double resource income.
Kinda gets the job done, in the end, but is it really fun to play against such a "spoiled" AI?

I may be wrong, of course, but I still doubt that the AI is any better than it was in the previous installments of the series. And that's considering that TBS AI are generally easier to script than those of RTS, for instance (though that's arguable).

 

[Lurkar]

I have hopes it's specifically for the demo, and that the regular version, the AI actually uses its abilities. I panicked when I first entered battle at how outnumbered I was, but soon found it to be excruciatingly easy.

 

[Falcore19]

Seems like it will be a fun game. The creatures look cool. The game goes back to it's roots.

However there's a little issue. I'm happy to see they brought back "initiative", so now you can have units that move far but are slow to react. That's even better than HOMM3. But they seem to have taken off the "wait" option... so what's the point? Close combat units with high initiative will play first and waste their turn at the beginning of combat.

Did anyone look into this? ( Don't bother to answer if you havent played HOMM2 or 3)

 

[Hamster]

4. Controls and Hotkeys
========================
...
COMBAT

wait 'W'

(c)readme.txt
:wink:

 

[RK47]

yeah i kinda surprised they put it on W...but i still get pissed when my First Aid tent can't do a shit at start of the round. Kinda beats the purpose don't u think?

 

[Falcore19]

Thanks Hamster

 

[kingcomrade]

yeah i kinda surprised they put it on W...but i still get pissed when my First Aid tent can't do a shit at start of the round. Kinda beats the purpose don't u think?

...? If your people aren't hurt, there's not a lot to do, is there?

I panicked when I first entered battle at how outnumbered I was, but soon found it to be excruciatingly easy.

What are you guys playing? The enemy uses spells on me all the time. I still haven't been able to win that battle.

 

[Falcore19]

Just finished the single scenerio. I really beat the shit out of the last guy, he wasnt very strong.

The gameplay is a lot like HOMM3, with some flaws fixed. Will be fun.

 

[Surlent]

The haven campaign part was hard first. I didn't have a clue how to get that tear of asha, i think the devs could have put more advice there. Had my troops running underground searching all those obelisks in vain, then after little head scratching with the partially solved puzzle map one of my heroes digs the tear up just in front of my base, sheesh.
Scenario map was pretty easy, the enemy hero stayed mostly in defense all the time.

btw the game has gone gold but will be released not until mid of next month ? Damn that's long time to wait.

Like, in Starcraft, insane AI is just your oridnary "normal" AI with one little catch - he's got double resource income.
Kinda gets the job done, in the end, but is it really fun to play against such a "spoiled" AI?

Yeah, a lot of times the computer wins just by managing resources better or having them more already available so it gets more troops and beats you with numbers instead of tactics. In HoMM5 i noticed the enemy heroes and troops tend to use their abilities well enough if they had them in the first place. Haven't upped the difficulty slider yet tho.