This is a great game. Really, it is. Even if you didn’t like Heroes in its previous incarnations, you might like this new one. They’ve made massive changes to everything. This is not your father’s Heroes of Might and Magic.
The basic concept is still the same. You start off with a hero and a castle, the objective being to build up both (hunt, kill, get exp, level up, etc). Joe Hero also commands an army, nine times out of ten, although this isn’t a requirement (and, vice versa, armies don’t need heroes, unlike the previous versions of the game).
Each game turn is a day, and every day (assuming you’ve got the basic resources) you can build something new in each of your towns (until you run out of things to build) and get new resources from your mines (which have to be captured). Additionally, you can find them lying around on the map. Nothing different there from previous versions.
Every day, you gain more troops in your castles from your troops dwellings, and occasionally certain creature types get extra boosts. You still have to buy these things though, so don’t count on them putting up a fight when the enemy attack the town unless you’ve payed them (and, unless you’re opponent’s in a financial rut, don’t count on them still being there when you recapture it).
One thing that might disappoint Heroes III players is the fact that you can no longer upgrade your troops dwellings (and hence troops can’t be upgraded at all). They’ve mostly toned down the weediness of the appearance of the troops, though, and each unit gets its own CG representation when you fight.
When two armies fight (which can happen when you move close, not just when you purposefully march up to them), the screen switches to a new, combat board. In this edition of the game, it’s gone all 3d, and combat proceeds from top right to bottom left these days. Each unit is represented by one creature of its type, with a number to show how many of tem are there. Troops move, fight, and retaliate as units rather than individuals, in a turn-based system.
Here’s the biggest change from Heroes III – while before, your hero stood (well, sat on a horse) at the back of the combat, never influencing the fight more than with a few skills and the occasional spell, nowadays they can wade into the fight and cleave opponents by the dozen. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the time my monk heroine teleported into an enemy castle with a spell, then proceeded to kill 61 dwarves single handed without retaliation.
At the end of each fight, your heroes (you can have more than one in an army in this edition) get experience and level up if they have enough. Each character has a character class (most get a special ability from this too), although this can change depending on the skills you choose (specialising in Stealth and Nobility makes you a Guildmaster, for example).
There’s a campaign for each town type (I’m on the second to last level of the order campaign, I think) and they’re pretty well designed. There’s also a lot of stand-alone maps. However, there’s only one Extra Large map, and there’s no map editor or random map generator like there were in Heroes III (if you bought the expansion packs).
This game is a great buy. It’s got a *lot* of replayability value. Plus, the campaigns have a lot more RPG elements, which is sure to please players of Warcraft III.
I love this game. Go out and buy it, and you will too.
-Chris
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