[Evolution825]

I don't know how many of you have played HoMM, but it's my personal favourite non adventure game...

[daikatana_]

I love homams. But they were all kinda unbalanced. Homam 5 is really good, races are balanced, so you can play with any of them and have some chance
For example in homam 2, when you took the castle with crusaders (now i dont remember the name), you were destined to lose. And homam 1 was even worse.
I really loved all of them and i still do. But i prefer Age of Wonders, its much better.

[Evolution825]

The castle with crusaders you are speaking of, is called Knight Castle. And you have a point, I lost my copy of HommII and I used to play the demo, which still brought me tons of joy, I'm getting homm2 again soon...

[AFGNCAAP]

Yeah, Heroes 3 may well be my favourite non-adventure game, too. Maybe it has nothing brilliantly original in it, but it's second to none in terms of fun and addictiveness. I also liked parts 2 and 4 (number 4, I feel, gets a lot of flak for nothing); haven't played 1 nor 5.

[Evolution825]

I got heroes 1 for a pretty good deal (9.99$ mint, no box, w/o s&h) I'm getting 4 soon...

[Starflux]

The weird thing about HOMM games is that I will occasionally get a great urge to play them. Then I play them for a few hours straight and remember again how kind of repetitive they are. It's really nice to build up armies, but I never really liked the end-game, where it gets tiresome and you have to create all these supply-lines of heroes running around endlessly with troops. It takes the incentive away from the game and makes it less exciting. But it's harder to win without it.

I once tried the single-player campaing, but I got frustrated by it that it wouldn't actually transport my heroes as they were at the end of every level to the next. I'd have carefully managed to upgrade them fully, only to get a standard mediocre version at the beginning of every level.

[daikatana_]

I have the same "problem". I like to build up army and castles, but at the end of the game, im immortal, killing everything on sight, its not fun anymore. And in singleplayer mode, computer is not so smart, so even if you set impossible difficulty, its pretty easy. So i usually (always) play multiplayer.

[lostwolfe]

what? no mention of that ugly duckling king's bounty? forsooth!

i'm not fond of any of them, particularly. they all kill time, however, number five is /very/ beautiful.

[Evolution825]

How could I forget! I love kings bounty...

[lostwolfe]

i recognize that i'm somewhat perverse in this, but i actually /prefer/ "king's bounty" to the heroes games. certainly the heroes system is a little more involved and certainly there's a lot more to do, but.."king's bounty" - as a design - was just so wonderfully executed and simple. you /could/ pick it up and play it without doing very much convoluted at all.

[MadTricks]

Heroes sure is one of my favourite games.
Best is HoMM3, without any thinking.
And worst is HoMM4 which is complete failure and bullshit (excuse me).
First and Second HoMM are playable, introducing and simple...I like those.

Luckily is HoMM5 outstanding and i love it.
Soon there will be expansion, which hopefully makes HoMM5 more interesting.
Because thay are adding this drarves race...and many new maps too.
Good is that with third patch there came map editor, so all those map problems are solved.

HoMM ftw!

[DennisBergkamp]

1. HoMM 5
2. HoMM 2
3. HoMM 3
4. HoMM 1
5. HoMM 4


Awesome games, indeed... Does anyone know if there's an expansion planned for 5 ?

[DennisBergkamp]

Aha! Yes there is: http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/...ate/index.html

[MadTricks]

Originally Posted by MadTricks

Soon there will be expansion, which hopefully makes HoMM5 more interesting.
Because thay are adding this dwarves race...and many new maps too.

Like i said before, there will be.

[insane_cobra]

In my opinion, HOMM2 was the pinnacle of the series. The third one was great, but a bit too busy for my taste. Too much stuff, artifacts and locations on every step, all units upgradeable... A great time waster, but the second one was more elegant and played better, the matches just had better flow.

[Wimli]

I loved these games, they were so addictive! I would probably vote for the third one in the series, though I probably played the second one more. I think the third game had a better balance between the races. In the second one, the warlock, especially once he had obtained some black dragons, was nearly invincible.

I didn't like HoMM4 though. Good to hear the fifth one is better again! I'll probably pick it up once it's released in a bundle with its expansion pack.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by Wimli

In the second one, the warlock, especially once he had obtained some black dragons, was nearly invincible.

Oh sir, you are wrong. My barbarian could humiliate any warlock, perhaps only with black dragons instead of cyclops, but that's why you seize a warlock city early in the game.

[Wimli]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

Oh sir, you are wrong. My barbarian could humiliate any warlock, perhaps only with black dragons instead of cyclops, but that's why you seize a warlock city early in the game.

Ah yes, but then you would again be using Warlock creatures! Plus, a warlock city wasn't always available unless you started as one yourself. Apart from the black dragons, the other creatures were pretty good as well. Plus, there was the early advantage in the game that you could start first in combat as gargoyles speed was one of the fastest around (the other races had creatures who were as fast, but they were more expensive/upgraded ones. Took some time for them to appear). Add the Warlocks spells and spell power to it, and a good chain lightning before I send in the black dragons mostly did enough damage to win almost every fight. Must say though that I liked most of the other races as well, the knight being the only one I almost never picked to start with. Ah, great games.

[insane_cobra]

Well, not necessarily black dragons, any other top creatures would do as cyclopes were probably the most useless top units in the game.

I didn't like barbarians much at first, but after some time I realized they had absolutely amazing units. Goblins were cheap, plentiful, and swift. Upgraded orcs and wolves were good enough and upgraded ogres packed some serious punch (basic ogres sucked, though). Upgraded trolls were probably my favorite HOMM2 units (actually, I liked one other creature type better, but I'll get back to that in a moment). They're archers, incredibly tough-skinned and their attacks deal stupendous ammounts of splash damage. In large groups they can decimate most armies almost all on their own. Warlock's troops? Ha, no biggie.

As I said before, there's one unit type I liked even more than trolls and that's ghosts. Remember those guys (actually, I think they were depicted as girls)? As a neutral unit, ghosts could only be bought, but they were worth every gold piece. I remember decimating all my multiplayer opposition with a single hero equipped with nothing but a bunch of ghosts.

It was so sad seeing how they degraded them in HOMM3.

[Wimli]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

Well, not necessarily black dragons, any other top creatures would do as cyclopes were probably the most useless top units in the game.

I didn't like barbarians much at first, but after some time I realized they had absolutely amazing units. Goblins were cheap, plentiful, and swift. Upgraded orcs and wolves were good enough and upgraded ogres packed some serious punch (basic ogres sucked, though). Upgraded trolls were probably my favorite HOMM2 units (actually, I liked one other creature type better, but I'll get back to that in a moment). They're archers, incredibly tough-skinned and their attacks deal stupendous ammounts of splash damage. In large groups they can decimate most armies almost all on their own. Warlock's troops? Ha, no biggie.

Lol, then you played against some unorganized warlock armies my friend. I would use my gargoyles and griffins to attack the ranged units, so they couldn't shoot anymore, only defend in hand to hand combat in which they were much weaker. The minotaur kings were very fast units as well, and would cross the battlefield quickly to do some serious slashing damage. Then, with a haste spell, I would send the hydras into battle. They were slow units, but once they were in place, there was nothing like them, attacking in multiple directions and having an awesome defence level/high number of hit points. Especially in the long battles, the hydras would last through everything. And then of course, the dragons reign supreme. The only weak unit was the centaur, which didn't do much damage at all. They were however useful to take on all the ranged attacks from AI units (somehow the computer always targetted the ranged units first, no matter how strong or weak they were), so my other troops could get into battle positions without getting any damage. Of course that didn't work when I played against another player.

As I said before, there's one unit type I liked even more than trolls and that's ghosts. Remember those guys (actually, I think they were depicted as girls)? As a neutral unit, ghosts could only be bought, but they were worth every gold piece. I remember decimating all my multiplayer opposition with a single hero equipped with nothing but a bunch of ghosts.

Ah yes, loved the random units. The genie and the medusa could be great additions to any army as well.

My favourite troop of the entire game would probably be the vampire lords, especially when you had a pack of them. It didn't matter how many would get killed during the first phase of a battle, they would always regenerate when you handled the rest of the battle smartly. Plus, enemies didn't retaliate when attacked by vampires. Too bad the rest of the undead army was so awful. The zombies and mummies were pretty useless compared to other level 2 and 3 creatures and the liches were too expensive for what they were worth. Bone dragons weren't too impressive either. I also loved the wizard's titan units. Expensive, but sooo worth it. Whenever I could, I added those to my warlock troops.