Heroes of Might & Magic 7

[Archibald]

This is going to be a cop out. I played through both 1 & 2 a very long time ago. I have very strong memories of finding the gameplay in 2 more reductive and simple, but sadly the details are beyond me at this point. Short of playing all the way through #1 again, I can't really offer you anything. Sorry, and you can assume you won the argument or whatever if that pleases you.

I think one of the elements was Disciples 1 having far fewer unit upgrades/branches and less importing through missions, which made each mission much more about that mission than relying on your single super party that you could never let take damage (#2), but I may be wrong on that count too.

Its probably your memory. For example battles in Disciples 1 were as simplistic as it gets - pick a target, attack (or skip a turn, or try to run away). Disciples 2 added defend and wait functions to the battle, while nothing groundbreaking they still did allow for some additional gameplay opportunities. I can't say for sure without extensive replay either but as far as I remember Disciples 2 didn't remove anything that was already in first part (granted, there wasn't much there) and just added various little things here and there.

D2 did have more importing through missions, 5 items vs 3. But I don't see how that makes it more about single super party considering that neither game allowed to import units. More items usually resulted in faster start in earlier maps since most of the items would be imported for selling (at that point your hero is not likely to have enough skills that would allow him to use more than 1-2 items) or in later maps you'd simply have well armed strong hero.

As for not taking damage, thats rather annoying label that Disciples series received. After all there was a reason why at the start of almost every map you'd get couple of healing and ressurection potions, why warrior lord existed in the first place or why first building to be built, usually, was temple. I mean try playing dwarfs, they move slower than everything else (not counting stuff like healers). Unless you are casting spells and drinking buff potions before each battle then you are going to take damage, lots of it. Thou it is one of the flaws of both games - AI is not challenging which results in players being able to play on their own pace and that usually results in only power gamers finding out finer details of the game.

 

[dibens]

Ye men, having to sustain your army between battles if you weren't op human/elf was among the single most annoying things about Disciples 2, especially as a dorf. The design fucking sucked overall. It takes way too much time to level up your units, making game tedious.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Just play a warrior lord and you'll never have problems with healing. Hell, dorfs even have a healing spell available, too. Two even, maybe?

Granted, if you play anything other than warrior lord, the game is kinda unplayable, though...

 

[Archibald]

Problem was that little guys and their big brothers had tons of HP so healing spells, potions and healing at temple was more costly than for other races.

 

[Carceri]

You know you don't actually have be to be precisely at full health with the dwarfs to be ready for fights seeing how much life they actually have...well unless you have OCD or something. It is only a minor annoyance in the early stages though, but this is true for all the races imo. On the other hand being able to take on capitals later on with only your hero(fighter ofc) and no other units it's p. sweet.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The best race for wrecking capitals by far are the undead. Shade + phantom warrior paralyze + death's armour-ignoring fuckhueg poison = bye bye capital guardian, you don't even need the paralyzing artefact. No other race comes even close to undead when it comes to reliability.

 

[A horse of course]

Just play a warrior lord and you'll never have problems with healing. Hell, dorfs even have a healing spell available, too. Two even, maybe?

Granted, if you play anything other than warrior lord, the game is kinda unplayable, though...

Playing as a Mage Lord or Guildmaster had certain benefits when you had to face bosses or particularly difficult cities, though. There were a number of missions where you could scour the entire map as a Warrior Lord but still have serious problems taking the target city or uberboss.

 

[Zeriel]

Just play a warrior lord and you'll never have problems with healing. Hell, dorfs even have a healing spell available, too. Two even, maybe?

Granted, if you play anything other than warrior lord, the game is kinda unplayable, though...

Playing as a Mage Lord or Guildmaster had certain benefits when you had to face bosses or particularly difficult cities, though. There were a number of missions where you could scour the entire map as a Warrior Lord but still have serious problems taking the target city or uberboss.

You could spell spam as any class in a way that would typically beat out NPC healing, it was probably my biggest complaint with the game as far as difficulty goes, boss stacks that didn't immediately attack you out of a scripted appearance were effectively 1 HP.

 

[Archibald]

Just play a warrior lord and you'll never have problems with healing. Hell, dorfs even have a healing spell available, too. Two even, maybe?

Granted, if you play anything other than warrior lord, the game is kinda unplayable, though...

Playing as a Mage Lord or Guildmaster had certain benefits when you had to face bosses or particularly difficult cities, though. There were a number of missions where you could scour the entire map as a Warrior Lord but still have serious problems taking the target city or uberboss.

I think he was saying that game was "unplayable" if you played dwarfs without warrior lord which, while not really true, makes some sense. For every other race mage lord was usually superior choice.

You could spell spam as any class in a way that would typically beat out NPC healing, it was probably my biggest complaint with the game as far as difficulty goes, boss stacks that didn't immediately attack you out of a scripted appearance were effectively 1 HP.

Its kinda difficult to talk about balance or difficulty of Disciples since there wasn't much of it, but generally speaking mage was much more efficient at spell spamming.

 

[Zeriel]

Just play a warrior lord and you'll never have problems with healing. Hell, dorfs even have a healing spell available, too. Two even, maybe?

Granted, if you play anything other than warrior lord, the game is kinda unplayable, though...

Playing as a Mage Lord or Guildmaster had certain benefits when you had to face bosses or particularly difficult cities, though. There were a number of missions where you could scour the entire map as a Warrior Lord but still have serious problems taking the target city or uberboss.

I think he was saying that game was "unplayable" if you played dwarfs without warrior lord which, while not really true, makes some sense. For every other race mage lord was usually superior choice.

You could spell spam as any class in a way that would typically beat out NPC healing, it was probably my biggest complaint with the game as far as difficulty goes, boss stacks that didn't immediately attack you out of a scripted appearance were effectively 1 HP.

Its kinda difficult to talk about balance or difficulty of Disciples since there wasn't much of it, but generally speaking mage was much more efficient at spell spamming.

Yeah, mage could certainly do more of it, but by the time you had access to level 2-4 spells the amount of damage you could fit into a turn with just 1 of every spell was already ludicrously high, the restricting factor was more often mana resources than spell casts/turn, which at least for myself led to saving all mana for the boss stacks and never using spells otherwise.

 

[A horse of course]

The best race for wrecking capitals by far are the undead. Shade + phantom warrior paralyze + death's armour-ignoring fuckhueg poison = bye bye capital guardian, you don't even need the paralyzing artefact. No other race comes even close to undead when it comes to reliability.

Well, a Prophetess could be levelled high enough to basically outheal insane damage since her healing scaled, but you had to be ludicrously high level. A balanced undead party were a cooler combo.

 

[cvv]

I liked the way they changed capitals in D3. In D2 it was one of the most annoying things - having to constantly chase trash heroes and rod planters the AI shovelwared out every two turns. Because busting a capital wasn't really an option outside of a very few late game maps (at least in the Campaigns).

In D3 the guardians are still powerful but they are beatable with some thought and preparation in almost every scenario. One of the few improvements of the sequel.

 

[Carceri]

busting a capital wasn't really an option outside of a very few late game maps

By 'a very few late game maps' you mean on every map after the third-fourth one in every campaign. I wouldn't call that exactly late game, but I see your point. You had to let a secondary hero party around a bottlneck or something to catch every AI trash party. While not an extreme case of tediousness on its own, it certainly didn't felt right either.

How exactly did they changed capital raiding in D3? I haven't played it.

 

[Archibald]

1) Put secondary hero near bottleneck
2) Secondary hero gets XP and levels up additional troops
3) Your main hero levels up and gets additional unit slot
4) Swap leveled up unit from secondary hero to main hero for instant profit

If not for capitals being very hard to destroy then Disciples would feel even more like a dungeon crawler with you obliderating everything in the way.

 

[cvv]

busting a capital wasn't really an option outside of a very few late game maps

By 'a very few late game maps' you mean on every map after the third-fourth one in every campaign. I wouldn't call that exactly late game, but I see your point. You had to let a secondary hero party around a bottlneck or something to catch every AI trash party. While not an extreme case of tediousness on its own, it certainly didn't felt right either.

How exactly did they changed capital raiding in D3? I haven't played it.

Far as I remember I'd never figured out a reliable way to bust a capital without a shade constantly paralyzing the guardian. So I bothered only in the undead campaign.

The change in D3 is the guardians don't have the insane resistances anymore. I think they have like 20 or 30 percent, not 90. And even though some of them strike twice in a turn, due to the new D3 initiative system, they're still much more manageable.

 

[Carceri]

Far as I remember I'd never figured out a reliable way to bust a capital without a shade constantly paralyzing the guardian. So I bothered only in the undead campaign.

The change in D3 is the guardians don't have the insane resistances anymore. I think they have like 20 or 30 percent, not 90. And even though some of them strike twice in a turn, due to the new D3 initiative system, they're still much more manageable.

I see, they made it easier. Meh.

The 'reliable way' to destroy capitals is collecting enough armor potions. That's the main prerequisite regardless of what faction you're playing. From there you just abuse the different perks/traits of the units belonging to whatever faction you are using. With the undead you basically need enough armor to withstand the initial attack of the guardian, he'll be paralyzed for the rest of the fight. The main technique, yes? But undead are not the only ones that have access to the paralyzing effect. With humans you only need enough armor so the guardian can't dish out more damage that you can heal with your healers, this of course applies only if you want to bust up a capital before you acquire the paralyzing artifact. The demons have the incubus and a multiheaded dick creature(one of those that takes 2 slots, it's blue/puprle iirc, I can't remember it's name, but you have access to it before the incubus) for paralyzing, same strategy as undead. With dwarfs you take advantage of the obscene amount of hp the units have, Son of Ymir's frostbite and the Heal spell on top of heal potions. You retreat mid fight, heal up, then haste if you ran out of movement points, and attack again on the same turn. Later on you also get a poisoning artifact that will speed up the fight a bit.
I remember that in the early missions I was selecting armor potions to carry over the next mission instead of the first crappy artifacts to be able to bust up capitals as soon as possible. Everything in this game is achievable by gulping enough potions.

Edit:

If not for capitals being very hard to destroy then Disciples would feel even more like a dungeon crawler with you obliderating everything in the way.

Perhaps. Dunno, but it always felt awkward to see the impotent bottled up AI relentlessly vomiting useless parties as soon as it gathered the gold for them.

 

[Archibald]

Well AI being retarded is separate problem entirely

 

[cvv]

Well AI being retarded is separate problem entirely

Sure, and if you thought the AI is retarded in D2 you should've played D3 because there literally is none. But in this particular case - what it's supposed to do? It's got two options - to try to harass you with shovelware parties or just give up and sit uselessly in the castle until you gather enough resources to bust it up. That's why I like the castle guardians in D3 more. They still put up a fight but there isn't the annoying lag between beating AI's main hero and assaulting the capital.

 

[Archibald]

I played first version of D3 for 10 or so hours, I remember AI getting heroes spawned onto map every couple of turns and rushing towards resource guardians and getting assraped.

 

[cvv]

I played first version of D3 for 10 or so hours, I remember AI getting heroes spawned onto map every couple of turns and rushing towards resource guardians and getting assraped.

For real? I've played only the remastered version where the AI is absolutely passive, not doing anything and letting you clean the whole map. Only sometimes, when you come too close to its capital, it awakens and starts to play too. Which was positively weird and probably my main reason I can't really recommend Reincarnation, even though it's otherwise solid.

 

[Archibald]

Well those were some kinda scripted events in few campaign maps that I played. Every few turns near the boarder of the map new enemy hero would appear, he would move towards my territory and attempt to destroy guardian of resources (don't remember how it was called exactly), first few times I nuked him a bit but after that due to guardian getting stronger each turn it became like suicide runs. "Main" AI heroes who were bought from capital didn't seam very active.

 

[phtmyr]

Stronghold town screen:

Spoiler

Pre-order is now available:

Spoiler

Don't forget to get deluxe edition to play as Solmyr!

Spoiler

Other updates:

• Air magic
• Destiny
• Warcries
• Stronghold might and magic heroes.

Edit - Yes there's a boxed collector's edition:

Spoiler

 

[zerotol]

is there going to be a boxed CE. Not interested in these stupid CE digital editions.

 

[Zeriel]

There's a pretty crazy Might & Magic bundle for you plebeians who like actually buying games. Get most Might & Magic games released for 15 buckaronis.

https://mmh7.ubi.com/en/blog/post/view/humble-might-magic-bundle-time-is-running-out

 

[m_s0]

You're exactly right. Buying copies of M&M and HoMM that activate on Uplay is pretty crazy.