[HN Gopher] Heroes of Might and Magic
___________________________________________________________________
Heroes of Might and Magic
Author : jqcoffey
Score : 213 points
Date : 2021-12-26 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.filfre.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.filfre.net)
| tgtweak wrote:
| Surprised not to see a mention of Bauldur's Gate, the dnd-under-
| the-covers formula was and is extremely enjoyable and I think it
| leads to very deep gameplay.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I like the HOMM series a lot, but my favorite game of this genre
| was Lords of Magic from Sierra. It played a lot like HOMM, but it
| had real time combat that you could pause. Amazing graphics for
| the time, and I love the soundtrack! This is a game I really wish
| had a sequel.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Magic
| lubujackson wrote:
| Check out Master of Orion if you haven't already.
|
| I think it came out before LOM, but very similar, made by the
| same team etc. The difference it is sci-fi themed, but
| otherwise they are closely related.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Yes! Master of Orion was one of my favorite games as well!
| jsnell wrote:
| MOO was made by Simtex, and has no connections to Lords of
| Magic as far as I know. You're probably confusing it with
| Master of Magic.
| mysterydip wrote:
| Lots of good memories playing HoMM2, both single player and
| hotseat multiplayer in college. I was a fanatic enough at one
| point that I had almost completed a conversion of the NES Zelda
| game to a map (sadly lost to the bits of time now). At least from
| my perspective, it was a unique blend that scratched the itches
| in my brain.
| belthesar wrote:
| Heroes of Might and Magic is such a great long form gaming
| experience, whether you played solo or with some friends. GOG
| does provide access to new copies if you'd like it, but I have to
| highly recommend if you want to play on modern hardware to grab
| the open source VCMI Project engine for Heroes 3. Heroes 3 is
| often touted as the best of the series, and the cross platform
| engine allows you to play on modern Windows, macOS, Linux, and
| Android.
|
| https://vcmi.eu/
| airstrike wrote:
| Sadly it looks like the macOS effort hasn't seen any updates
| since August 2021
| mourner wrote:
| The original (HoMM3 + expansions + HD mod) does run perfectly
| fine with Porting Kit, including current versions of MacOS.
| robbiep wrote:
| I've also got it in my iPad, it's a pretty Good mobile
| gaming experience (+ fun for travel with friends in hot
| seat)
| nodivbyzero wrote:
| There are few HoMM projects on GitHUB. For example:
| https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I kid you not, I was just setting up HOMM 3 to play with my kids
| now. It used to be a New Years Eve tradition in my family and I
| think my kids are just about old enough to enjoy it with me.
| xenihn wrote:
| This seems like a great thread to ask for game recommendations.
|
| These are my favorite turn-based games of all time:
|
| HOMM 1, 2 & 3
|
| Advance Wars series (including DS and DOR)
|
| Uniwar (a surprisingly excellent mobile game inspired by Advance
| Wars and Starcraft 1)
|
| Civilization 5 + Vox Populi / Community Patch (my favorite
| overall, but I'm getting bored of it because end game takes too
| long, even on quick. at least it's still actively developed,
| which is nice when I get the urge)
|
| Into the Breach (least amount of playtime on my list, but it's
| still very solid. Playing it actually makes me feel kind of sad,
| because it seems like the skeleton for a great successor to
| Advance Wars, but there's no Steam Workshop for it, and no built-
| in versus mode or multiplayer)
|
| Battle of Polytopia (second-least played amount, but also very
| solid. Imagine if someone made a game out of the first ~30 turns
| of a Quick-paced Civ5 game)
|
| Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (when I imagine my perfect turn-based
| game that I would design if I had the money to hire a full team
| of people, it's a mix of HOMM, Advance Wars, Civ5, and DCSS. It's
| the only roguelike I've enjoyed enough to play more than once,
| and I've played it a LOT)
|
| Games that I already tried and didn't like enough to continue
| playing
|
| Total War series
|
| Rest of the HOMM series (HOMM 4+), including mods
|
| Civ 6
|
| Wargroove
|
| Endless Legend
|
| Humankind (sad to not have liked this one, I was so hyped for it)
|
| King's Bounty series
|
| Age of Wonders series (including Planetfall)
|
| Warhammer 40k: Gladius (it's _almost_ worth playing, but falls
| short)
| manmtstream wrote:
| Songs of Conquest looks like a very promising spiritual successor
| and modern take on HoMM, really nails the nostalgia for me.
| https://www.songsofconquest.com/
| stavros wrote:
| Thanks for that! Looks like an instant buy from me when it
| comes out.
| duckmysick wrote:
| There's another indie game called Hero's Hour that's heavily
| inspired by HoMM. It has pixel art and the fights are real-time
| instead of turn-based.
|
| Windows only. There's a free demo with a limited number of
| playable factions.
|
| https://thingonitsown.itch.io/heros-hour
| anonyfox wrote:
| There is an iPad version of HoMM3 in the App Store that works
| wonderfully - until it crashes midgame every single time... don't
| know if this is a memory leak or something like that :-(
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| Looking forward to the article on HOMM2 and then 3!
| SantiagoElf wrote:
| Heroes of Might and Magic 2. I remember the first time I
| encountered the game in some obscure Italian magazine that had a
| disc and on the disc a demo of HoMM 2. I played the demo, and I
| was blown away. Then 1999, I got ahold of Heroes 3, then the
| expansions - Armageddon's Blade, Shadow of Death - so much fun
| and unforgettable memories.
|
| Then in university, I discovered Wake of Gods [1]. This was a
| fan-made extension of the game that fixed some stuff ( like Eagle
| Eye being useful, fishing for artifacts in mana well's, having
| commanders ala heroes 4, having a bank from which you can loan
| money, etc.).
|
| I play heroes 3 complete edition with HD Mod [2] to this day, a
| pretty awesome game, and still has an excellent, thriving
| community.
|
| Honorable mentions besides Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - Heroes
| of Might and Magic 4 (with all expansions) and Heroes of Might
| and Magic 5 (all expansions - Tribes of the east). Heroes 5 is
| the closest to Heroes 3 as mechanics and gameplay, and I enjoyed
| it a lot.
|
| To this day I play roughly 4-5 games: Dota 2, Civilization 5,
| Baldur's Gate 1&2 EE and Heroes 3.
|
| [1] - http://heroes3wog.net/
|
| [2] - https://sites.google.com/site/heroes3hd/
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Ah I still play a lot of BGEE/BG2EE (judging from the time
| spent on Steam it's well into 200+ hours for each game)
| nowadays. I'm also picking up NWNEE as there are a lot of high
| quality modules.
| thedailymail wrote:
| The release of Baldur's Gate 3 caused some controversy due in
| part to its turn-based combat system (distict from the real-
| time system in BG 1 & 2). TBF, it felt like this was more
| about purists disagreeing with an aethetic choice within a
| much-loved franchise than about fundamental hostility to
| turn-based games in general.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| BG2 system was also turn based, it just remembered previous
| command you issued and repeated it, and didn't pause
| automatically after every turn.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| I have never played BG3. Plan to make a purchase when it's
| done. I kinda dislike the early access model.
| SantiagoElf wrote:
| Back in the day - I used to mod the non-EE versions, but now
| I just play the EE ones.
|
| 'Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes!'
|
| NWNEE looks good, I played also Tides of Numenara, which is a
| 'spiritual successor' of Planescape Torment.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| I always felt like Minsc's character was absolutely
| insufferable, in the same way that people who endlessly
| quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail think that "your
| father smelt of elderberry" is the pinnacle of humor.
| Talanes wrote:
| Yeah, both examples where the people quoting it miss that
| the out-of-place context of the thing they're quoting is
| what made it funny, not the words alone.
| 5- wrote:
| to this i'll add horn of the abyss (hota) -- a rather active
| (and fully playable, including competitively) community
| expansion to heroes3 -- bringing a new town, new creatures etc.
| etc. -- generally considered to be at least on par quality- and
| scope-wise with the official add-ons.
|
| https://www.hota.acidcave.net/about_the_project.html
|
| https://h3hota.com/ (the site is geared towards seasoned
| players, but be sure to check out https://h3hota.com/en/gallery
| for some visuals)
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| For some reason, HOMM* games never had any appeal to it, but I've
| sunk hours in an obscure trading/exploration game Merchant Prince
| and similarly obscure Hammer of the Gods.
|
| Only recently I've learned, that these games were direct
| predecessors of HoMM made by the same studio, bridging the gap
| between earlier King's Bounty (which I also played quite a lot).
| rakwoelq wrote:
| Fanstratics is a spiritual successor to Heroes of Might and Magic
| III, it is being developed by the lead game designer of HoMM3.
| There are some interesting newsletters being published about the
| game.
|
| https://www.fanstratics.com/fstnewsletter01
| tholman wrote:
| Amazingly the source code for the Heroes of Might and Magic 3
| expansions was lost for years, so they've not often been included
| in the HD ports. Someone has (apparently) dug it up on an old
| hard drive [1] though a few screenshots isn't a true proof.
|
| Knowing that a huge organization has lost such a treasured
| codebase has insured that I backup almost every piece of code I
| ever write... after 10 years of development I dip back in every
| now and then and look at what younger me was working on, always
| brings a smile to my face.
|
| 1. https://twitter.com/diskblitz/status/920801845349466113
| dreen wrote:
| Unfortunately this is very common. The source to most classics
| is lost forever.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| Yup. For Kingdom Hearts 1.5 they recreated the whole game
| from assets off the PS2 disc because they lost it all which
| is nuts.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Diskblitz is reputable, for what it's worth.
| cletus wrote:
| I yearn for the days of turn-based strategy games.
|
| I played HoMM2 and (even moreso) 3 a _ton_. I loved the tactical
| combat and that resource management didn 't get out of hand. I
| played a ton of user-made maps. Loved it.
|
| The other two games of this genre I played a ton were Civ1 and
| Civ4.
|
| I can literally recall waking up at noon, starting up Civ1 and
| then looking out and it was dark. I didn't really play Civ2 and
| Civ3 as much. They just added isometric view and even more micro-
| management (IMHO).
|
| But that all changed with Civ4. It still had the stack of doom
| problem but the solution added in Civ5 (one unit per hex and
| hexes were also new) I found to be just annoying as it forced a
| dance to get units placed. Plus once you got ranged/siege units
| to range 3 I felt like it was game over.
|
| Anyway, the big thing that kept me on Civ4 wasn't the base game
| it was a player mod called Fall From heaven 2 [1]. The depth was
| amazing. I'd really hoped they'd make a standalone game or a new
| version but I believe the creator now works at another game
| company.
|
| So I never liked RTSs. To me it was a different kind of game that
| focused on APS (actions per second). It's just not my scene.
|
| But turn-based games like HoMM and Civ are so rare these days it
| makes me sad.
|
| [1]: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/mod-fall-from-
| heaven-...
| fgonzag wrote:
| Those days never left. There's been a ton of TBS games released
| throughout the years, some of them very very good. It's my most
| played genre by far.
|
| Endless legend, XCom 2, Fallen Enchantress, Age of Wonders 3,
| Age of Wonders: Planetfall, battletech, some tbs rpgs like
| divinity original sin 2, the total war series is a hybrid
| RTS/TBS genre, card games, tower defense games, and auto
| battlers.
| SSLy wrote:
| Endless Legend / Space2 / Humankind too.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| The town tiles growing over time mechanic of Civ 4 was amazing,
| and made war costly even if you didn't lose cities or units.
| Cyphase wrote:
| The Battle for Wesnoth
|
| https://www.wesnoth.org/
|
| > The Battle for Wesnoth is an open source, turn-based strategy
| game with a high fantasy theme. It features both singleplayer
| and online/hotseat multiplayer combat.
|
| > Explore the world of Wesnoth and take part in its many
| adventures! Embark on a desperate quest to reclaim your
| rightful throne... Flee the Lich Lords to a new home across the
| sea... Delve into the darkest depths of the earth to craft a
| jewel of fire itself... Defend your kingdom against the
| ravaging hordes of a foul necromancer... Or lead a straggly
| band of survivors across the blazing sands to confront an
| unseen evil.
|
| > The choice is up to you...
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Wesnoth is too heavily based on RNG for me (and apparently a
| lot of others who have tried it). Different terrain tiles
| changing your chance of getting hit is a cool idea in theory,
| but in practice it makes strategy less important and lucky
| dice rolls more important, especially when some tiles can
| give you a 70% or 80% chance to dodge. Increasing defense
| based on the tile you're on (and maybe a _small_ dodge chance
| boost like +5% or +10%) would make it much more about
| strategy.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Wesnoth is great and nicely balanced.
|
| Complaining about Wesnoth RNG is for losers. Wesnoth gives
| you an estimate of how much damage did you do against the
| expected. In long games, luck always evens out. In short
| games, it evens out across other games. Just accept it as a
| stroke of fate, and to your best with what you get.
| chongli wrote:
| That hasn't been my experience. From what I've dealt
| with, a run of bad luck early will leave your army
| perpetually behind the curve. Since units need to survive
| battles to level up you can be totally destroyed by some
| bad luck. Sure, your dice rolls will even out over the
| long run but the effects of early bad luck will compound
| throughout the game.
| einpoklum wrote:
| If you know exactly, in advance, with certainty, how a
| battle between two units is going to end up, that means
| your strategy is much shallower. You are much less likely
| to need backup plans for anything.
|
| But it's even more than that. Some units cause the same
| amount of _mean_ damage, but one may do so in fewer shots.
| And on the defense side, two units may take the same mean
| damage on a hex, but one unit has a higher dodge
| percentage, while the other has damage resistance.
|
| That makes for a much richer variety of units: Reliable
| hitters vs opportunistic shot-takers; tanks which will are
| sure to survive an attack, and pestering nuisances which,
| once swatted, will go away for good. You can't have that
| without the randomness.
| Cyphase wrote:
| Both exist; see this for more details:
| https://wiki.wesnoth.org/Defense_and_resistance
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Master of Magic, Master of Orion II? XCOM?
| dccoolgai wrote:
| Orion 2 might still be the GOAT.
| cletus wrote:
| I wanted to like 4X space games but I honestly never found
| one I particularly liked. Too quickly they descended into
| tedium. That includes MOO/MOO2. YMMV.
|
| I did play Master of Magic and really enjoyed it. Adamantium
| halfling slingers anyone?
|
| I also played the original XCOM and enjoyed it although it
| became simple once you had the right tech (blaster bombs?).
| They allowed you to breach spaceships at any point you want,
| which was way easier.
| vitabenes wrote:
| Love that game. Might play it again today after years and years.
| Glad I saw this post.
| bsaul wrote:
| Is there a way to play this game on an iphone ?
| unnouinceput wrote:
| Probably you'll find a DOS emulator in App store. Install it
| inside and enjoy
| olliej wrote:
| My favorite was HOMM3, which higher higher resolution art, and
| was the last before they threw out the nice art and switch to
| functionally lower resolution 3d models :-/
| fouadf wrote:
| HoMM3 was soo interesting to me when I first saw it, I thought it
| was like chess (dumbed down) and a boardgame. The mythology was
| also like a reference to me. I played it for so many hours when I
| was a teenager. I played HoMM4 and HoMM5 also. HoMM4 felt like an
| incomplete game but very nice to play. HoMM4 has an amazing
| soundtrack, I occasionally still play it while working.
|
| I think recently there was an imitation of the game on mobile,
| and we all know how bad that would probably be given the horrible
| game mechanics of mobile gaming (ads, play to win, waiting to
| build)
| lexx wrote:
| HoMM3 is a magical game. And the music, especially in HoMM4. It's
| one of my favorite soundtracks ever. I can instantly go back 20
| years and feel the warmth in my heart, playing this game
| countless hours as a teenager.
| stavros wrote:
| HoMM2/3 are still two of my favorite games, I play them often. 3
| especially has withstood the passage of time.
| p2detar wrote:
| HoMM2 is one of my all time favorite games. I've spent countless
| hours exploring all the corners of every single map in the game.
| Sometimes, I would deliberately not defeat the last enemy, just
| so I can reveal all the places, monsters and castles on the map.
|
| With its amazing soundtrack, there never was another game for me
| that would immerse me so deeply in a world of fantasy. HoMM3 was
| great, but the artwork was not quite to my taste.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| In games like these it was cool to diff save states after
| spending resources, and then increase those bytes for fun and
| profit.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Played a TON of HOMM3 back in university with some friends. We
| played coop on the same box that is we take turns to play the
| game. It was so much fun. That said, I never completed the
| campaigns (the expansion packs are considerably more difficult).
| I still have a copy of HOMM3 from GOG so might click it open
| tonight!
| bombcar wrote:
| HOMM3 had some pretty extensive custom maps and mods available
| - lots of time playing those.
|
| Never really got into the sequels as much, HOMM3 always felt
| like a local maximum.
|
| Fun fact: one of the modded scripts for HOMM3 was written by
| the developer of Dominion:
| https://opinionatedgamers.com/2012/05/11/the-art-of-design-i...
| and https://youtu.be/i6Uc1-AR4rM
| SXX wrote:
| Shameless plug: if you're still into H3 there is almost
| complete open source implementation with mods support written
| from scratch in C++. Also there is built-in mods support.
|
| Unfortunately I'm no longer actively participate, but project
| is still going strong.
|
| https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi
|
| https://vcmi.eu/
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Thanks! Surprised to see this. Looks like a good chance to
| read some 2D game source code :)
| SXX wrote:
| To be honest it's mixed bunch because project started
| more than 10 years ago and there is both: some decent
| code as well as terrible one.
|
| Good sides: it's fully client-server, AI implemented via
| pluggable libraries while all saving / networking
| implemented using serialization based off
| Boost.Serialization.
| jandrese wrote:
| I played it a bit, but got turned off a bit by the random
| events. In particular there was an event where huge numbers of
| one type of critter would appear randomly on the map. If you
| could talk those critters into joining your armies you were
| guaranteed a win. If not you lose. The entire game at that
| point became a race to collect as many of those critters as
| possible and form a giant doomstack that nothing could hope to
| stop and crush the opposing castle.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Yeah that's the week of X event. I only play the campaign so
| it's kinda OK for me. What I really hate is the week of
| plague...
| moreira wrote:
| The game is actually still going strong - there's a mod that
| adds a modern multiplayer lobby, with ranked competitive games,
| lots of new random map generators, and there are some big
| Twitch streamers for it; Lexiav is the biggest for English
| language I think, he streams full-time and gets close to 1K
| viewers most of the time. HOMM3 is in an amazing place right
| now, definitely click it open and have fun again!
| kzrdude wrote:
| Heh, when I saw it on twitch it was very popular in russia
| and every stream was in russian :)
| [deleted]
| stavros wrote:
| What's the mod called? It sounds great!
| moreira wrote:
| HOTA (horn of the abyss). Adds a new town as well. Look it
| up. The HOTA mod plus the HD mod both combine to give you a
| modern experience for bigger resolutions (lots of UI
| improvements and stuff, without affecting gameplay).
| stavros wrote:
| Ahh, thank you, I did install HotA but I must have missed
| all the multi-player stuff you mention. Thanks, it really
| is great!
| grayrest wrote:
| HoMM3 was also my main experience with the series. I tend to
| pick it up once every few years with the last time in early
| 2020. My problem with the game is that I know the AI exploits
| so it's never THAT much of a challenge.
|
| If you're picking it up again, the HD plus mod lets you play on
| higher resolution screens and adds keyboard shortcuts for
| things like splitting a creature stack in half. Highly
| recommended.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Thanks! I probably can still have a lot of fun because I
| don't really remember any of the exploits! I know I should
| split the soldiers into N piles of 1 soldier and 1 pile of
| larger group but other than that I know nothing! Probably the
| reason I couldn't beat the campaign back then.
| hangonhn wrote:
| I love HoMM3. Someone has even ported to Android -- in case you
| ever feel nostalgic. I replay it every now and then. Despite
| the outdated graphics, the game itself has aged really well. I
| still enjoy it immensely.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Yep, the graphics, the writings, everything is perfect. With
| the HD mod it's very up to today's standard.
| didip wrote:
| I dare say, this blog is as dangerous as tvtropes.
|
| I keep going down the memory lane with Master of Orion, Master of
| Magic, etc. and I couldn't stop!
| traspler wrote:
| It's not a traditional Might & Magic game (maybe it just carries
| the name for brand recognition) but I love ,,Might & Magic: Clash
| of Heroes" it's very simple the extremely fun. I would love the
| have a browser version with online multiplayer for that. The
| mainline titles were always too tedious for me.
| b0rsuk wrote:
| malermeister wrote:
| There's an open source engine for Heroes 3, with high res and mod
| support: https://vcmi.eu/
| mathfailure wrote:
| I think this project is worth being mentioned here:
| https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2
| tshaddox wrote:
| I played countless hours of HOMM in "hot seat" mode with my
| brother. The castle songs for each civilization are still fresh
| in my mind.
| zinxq wrote:
| I played HOMM3 for 5 hours straight when I first encountered it.
| I know that sounds like nothing, but unbeknownst to me,
| installing it had reset my graphics drivers to set my monitor's
| refresh to 50Hz.
|
| 50Hz is one of those things you can see if you look at it in your
| peripheral vision, but not so much straight on.
|
| After 5 hours I was screaming in pain my eyes hurt so bad. I
| couldn't figure out why they hurt and I couldn't stop playing
| either.
| aix1 wrote:
| In terms of eye strain, is that any different to watching PAL
| TV for five hours straight (25 frames/s or 50 fields/s)?
| pavlov wrote:
| The viewing distance makes the difference.
|
| A CRT TV is larger and you sit further away. A computer
| monitor is in front of your face.
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(page generated 2021-12-26 23:00 UTC)