Homm4 - the Good, the Bad, the Ugly

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by chronocrator

I'd like to add a point:

5. Every city can just recruit one of two fourth (the fourth level ist the highest) level creatures. So if the player decides to build the bone dragon dwelling in his necromancer town he cannot build devils there anymore.

yes, very good point.
this is only really an issue when it comes to the third and fourth tier units, since the second tier ones are a bit rubbish anyway, but i like this change because it introduces more strategy into the game. of course, if you own more than one town of a particular alignment you can still produce both the unit types for a specific tier, but at least for your first town it really makes you think. i still can't decide whether picking Crusaders or Monks is better for the Life faction. i'm partial to the monks at the moment 'cos i've always liked ranged units in the heroes games. the elves and crossbowmen aren't as good as they used to be, i had a stack of 500 crossbowmen in my first game and thought they would be awesome, but i soon found out that my stack of 50 monks was a lot better. by the end of the game you should probably only have 3rd and 4th tier units in your army, with a couple of heroes. a stack of 70 billion imps or something is useful as a meat shield against the dumb-ass AI, but that tactic wouldn't work in multiplayer.

at the moment i'm trying to decide whether having two mage heroes and a fighter is worth the trade-off for sacrificing a unit stack, or whether i should stick with my 1 mage/1 fighter tactic. i quite like the possibilities involved in an Order/Death combo of mages, since the Animate Dead and Create Illusion spells can have a HUGE influence on a battle and it would be cool to mix up their styles.

[Leonidas]

For those who own Heroes 3: The Shadow of Death, there is a free downloadable expansion pack that adds a ton of new features to the game, including events, heroes, graphics, etc.

The Wake of Gods can be downloaded here:

http://www.strategyplanet.com/homm/wog/

[Eli]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
partial to the monks at the moment 'cos i've always liked ranged units in the heroes games. the elves and crossbowmen aren't as good as they used to be, i had a stack of 500 crossbowmen in my first game and thought they would be awesome, but i soon found out that my stack of 50 monks was a lot better.

Is there still a castle, a-la the Tower in HoMM3 with lots of range units? They were my favorite.

[chronocrator]

Sure, many ranged units are good but some have certain disadvantages when it comes to traveling. Each unit has now a land movement rate, the slowest unit in each stack will the determine the speed of the hero.
The ballista (seems like quite a good ranged unit from the stats) is very slow and therefor slows the hero down considerably.

[asleepathewheel]

Is this game worth purchasing? (I know its only been out a few days)

I quite enjoyed II but never played III.

did i read correctly above that you can't randomly generate maps?
how many does it come with, that could be quite a drawback. maybe wait til the inevitible expansion pack bundle.

[General Ludd]

Personally, I don't think it's worth it if you have any of the others in the series, it doesn't offer a great deal of new things, and it's actually a bit worse off in some categories.

[Leonidas]

asleepathewheel: grab Heroes III. You can get it and all the expansion packs in a boxed set very cheaply now. Plus there is a ton of user maps/campaigns on the web. You'll have a blast

[asleepathewheel]

yeah, I think that would be a good idea, to wait on IV and maybe get III. That game is probably pretty cheap now, I would think.

[Leonidas]

It should be very cheap. The complete boxed set contains Heroes III, Shadow of Death, and Armaggedon's Blade (for a total of 19 campaigns, 125 scenarios, a random map generator and scenario editor). Not to mention all the user scenarios on the web.

It should be about $14.95 or $19.95. A hell of a deal, considering a single scenario can take hours to finish. I still have them all on my computer and they are great fun.

I love the music, castle screens, battle screen and artwork. And the AI can be very devious. . .

The Heroes III complete set is one of my all time favorite computer games. . .

A true strategy game with quality and charm. . .

If you can find the boxed set grab it. They won't be making games like this any more. . .

The first time I played Heroes III I was up all night, and before I knew it the sun came up. . .

[ixnay]

Gamespot gave it an 8.8:

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/reviews/0,10867,2859752,00.html

[Leonidas]

Here you can read many reviews by people who have played Heroes 4:

http://www.pcgr.com/reviews/strategy/product_1541.asp

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Leonidas
asleepathewheel: grab Heroes III. You can get it and all the expansion packs in a boxed set very cheaply now. Plus there is a ton of user maps/campaigns on the web. You'll have a blast

i agree. if you're desperate for heroes IV then i don't think it'll let you down too much (not as much as civ3 did, anyway ), but the best value-for-money option is definitely Heroes3+expansions. those should keep you entertained for a long while, by which time you should be able to pick up Heroes4+expansion+multiplayer patch.

[Eli]

5 more hours...

[moomin]

Well, back again.

I have to say that something wonderful is happening with HoMM4 - the more I play it, the more I like it. Compare that to the Civ3 process, if you please :-)

I'm now a firm believer. Can you imagine, after close to a week out, people on the HoMM boards are still arguing about which town is best and just starting to find the interesting spell combos. The balance and strategic depth grows on you, let me tell you.

I still hate the combat, but I'm confident they'll fix that. I "fixed" the music by downloading the whole bundle of HoMM4s music off a russian site and playing it in the background with winamp while I play the game. It's beautiful now, although I still think nothing's gonna top HoMM2s music. It certainly beats the bland offerings in HoMM3.

So to anybody out there wondering - yeah, it's HoMM. It's even better.

Best tip right now: Wanna Sacrifice? Why don't you Hypnotise an enemy stack with one spell caster, Scarifice that stack with another and let your phat stack or might hero benefit? Fun for the whole family!

[chronocrator]

I've read that heroes with stealth skill can sneak past creatures on the map (+getting experience for it 1/4th of the experience the hero would get for fightÃng the creatures), so that you can have mines that are still guarded by neutral creatures. AFAIK with basic stealth skill a hero can sneak past level 1 creatures and so on...

I enjoyed part 2 and 3 and I'm going to buy HoMM4, but it won't come out till the 25th here, if Amazon is right.