Homm 5

[Cort Haus]

Anyone played this?

I just got it (I like cheap, older games) and it looks OK, barring a few drawbacks (no item or creature info in the manual).

It seems they abandoned the mistakes of HOMM4 and got back to the original game.

[Standup]

Played the original and there's a thread a couple of months back mainly of me asking if anyone has played it!

I think I'd describe it as ok. HOMM3 with some very pretty 3D graphics. A few additions to combat that work nicely but in terms of gameplay not a huge step forward. The AI is pretty poor and the maps all feel a bit small. I found myself going back to Homm3 for a better challenge and also because the graphics can be a bit frustrating at times especially underground.

Toyed with the idea of getting the expansions once they come down in price.

Oh and make sure you patch to 1.06 although if you do you'll have to start any scenario again as saves don't seem to be compatible.

[Cort Haus]

I couldn't find your thread, Standup, but thanks for your comments. The patches on my CD go up to 1.5 - were you referring to a 1.6, rather than a 1.06?

It certainly looks pretty, but then HOMM2 and HOMM3 did too in their simple way. I thought HOMM3 maps were a bit cluttered, and the music in HOMM2 was a bit better, but 3 did 'fix' a few things that needed changing.

Unfortunately I have issues with the sound on 5, which might be something to do with the two soundcards in my system which confuses some games - I wish they'd just use the default device in the windows sound settings.

I won't be able to judge the new skills and magic systems without playing it a bit, but so far the town buildings tree is not as clear as before, and it seems that you don't have a nice at-a-glance graphic view. The lack of 'empire-wide' stats like mines seems to be an omission. The Celestial Heavens info manual looks to be quite important, as there is no in-game data available.

[Cort Haus]

OK - I found the 1.6 patch.

[Standup]

Yep, sorry, meant 1.6. This adds a kingdom overview although I haven't played enough to know how useful it is. I generally didn't miss it too much as you only have 1 or 2 cities on a lot of the maps.

The Celestial Heavens fan manual is essential as there's quite a lot missing from the game manual.

The skills tree apparently builds towards a couple of super skills which I've never seen as you have to make the correct picks all the way through. There's also more detail on what the different weeks do and the special attacks for all the creatures. I'd played ages before I used the archers special. Some of the cities have special abilities as well.

[Sandman]

The special abilities of the towns are pretty nice. Though the Dungeon's elemental chaining leaves a lot to be desired.

[Standup]

Ah yes Elemental chaining - made even harder (and less useful) by there being no mention whatsoever in the manual I got.

[Cort Haus]

In my first shot at the 'Haven' Campaign my Knight has a ton of Knowledge and Power, but no 3rd level or upward spells to make it worthwhile, not having selected any magic skills.

In fact, the best option is usually to use the zero-manna Divine Guidance perk/ability to promote the hefty archer stack up the initiative order to get an early pop at an enemy missile stack. Also, in previous versions the Hero would get to cast several spells in a combat. This initiative system (unless it's just this particular Knight) leaves spell-casting quite infrequent compared to before.

[Cort Haus]

Another thing - ISTR reading that there would be more scenario maps, and even a random map generator in one of the patches. This seems not to be the case - is there a site with good user-created maps?

[DarkCloud]

How is HoMM's map creation facility? Is it as good as in Homm3?

[Cort Haus]

The map editor is reportedly much more difficult to use than in HoMM3.

[DarkCloud]

Hmm... Is it as powerful and interesting as in Homm3 though? I can deal with it if it's a bit more difficult to use, but if I can expect to see good and interesting maps- which was the best part of H3, then I'd still be more interested in the game.

I hate 3D, but Homm 5 otherwise looks to be a good successor to H3. I have high hopes!

[Standup]

I haven't seen that many maps for HOMM5 but I don'tknow if that's because the editor is poor or it was released so far after the original game and everyone had moved on.

I'm not a that keen on maps but the HOMM3 map editor was something that you could pick up straight away. I didn't get that with 5.

[DarkCloud]

Thanks for the headsup. I actually started using the Homm3 editor before I even played the game. It was just that amazing! ...