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This series has long been a staple for my friends and I, and for anyone who loves strategy games and RPG games, it’s not hard to see why. I believe the very first one I played was actually the second installment of this series, but this one has a far longer history with me than almost any, save perhaps the fourth one (a fairly controversial installment which changed the hero formula; more on this later). I first began playing this shortly after it came out in late 1999, with a close friend of mine, and I remember wondering if it would hold up to the second installment in the series.
I was not disappointed, and would spend many hours and months, no years, playing this solo and with friends in hotseat mode. In fact, it’s one of the few games in which hotseat play actually works well. This game stayed with me even with the release of HoMM IV in 2002, though it took a bit of a backseat for quite a while after that.
While seemingly a very traditional fantasy game (not something I mind, as I’m a huge fantasy fanatic), the level of depth and strategy goes far beyond its simplistic appearance. And what’s more, instead of one campaign trail that diverged at times, this one has multiple campaigns that all take part in the same story. I mentioned that it held up well to the second installment. In fact, the basics of the gameplay is much the same: choose a faction in the choices given for a scenario, or the one selected for the campaign you’re playing, building your town and gather resources, and conquer the map via one of a number of requirements. Sounds simple enough, yes? Only at first glance. Once you immerse yourself, you’ll find yourself unable to step away, as the depth of strategy begins to unfold.
Plot:
I’ll keep the plot for this game relatively brief, as a part of the fun, especially for the campaigns, is watching the plot unfold. In brief, the land is in chaos. With the death of King Gryphonheart, and the kidnapping of King Roland Ironfirst, Erathia and Enroth are overrun by outside kingdoms, and it’s up to you as Queen Catherine, King Ironfist’s wife, to rally the loyal factions and reclaim the kingdoms. There are many twists and turns, and for those who are at all familiar with the Might and Magic RPG that follows the same storyline, this will all be familiar to you (btw, the Might and Magic rpg series is another favorite of mine, and I’d highly recommend it; it’s next on my list of series to review). As I mentioned, there are several campaigns that explore this plot, including a bonus one that you only unlock after you’ve beaten all the others. The scenarios do not necessarily follow this plot, however, but mostly have their own self-contained plots.
Gameplay:
The Basics
While the actual starting positions and resources change from map to map, the gameplay revolves around a simple formula: build up a starting town (sometimes you have to claim an unoccupied town at the start) to unlock more powerful creatures. Each week you receive a new “crop” of creatures, based upon the level of the town castle. To build, you require resources beyond the gold your town generates. These are secured by a hero and army that you use to explore the map with, encountering random creatures to fight, resource mines to claim, random piles of resources or treasure chests to find, and town (both unoccupied and occupied) to claim. As your army and resources grow, you will likely have multiple armies. You will also encounter rivers and lakes to cross, by means of ships (these require all of your movement to board and disembark from, adding to your strategy overland).
Now, there are from 1 to as many as seven other computer opponents who will be exploring the map doing the same things. The AI on higher settings is actually difficult, and can easily kick your behind, although part of the challenge is also accomplished by the starting gold and resource allotment. On harder settings, you have less (gold, resources, lower level town structures) and the AI has more. I never quite liked this as the means of increasing difficulty as it’s often a short lived disadvantage, but it seems to work well enough. To win, you complete whatever map requirements there are. These can range from conquering all the enemy towns to locating a specific artifact, finding a specific location, taking a specific town or defeating a specific hero, etc.
Alignments
Each map will possess at least one of the eight (or nine, if you also have the expansion installed) available for play. Each town has its strengths and weakness, in terms of number of ranged vs melee units, speed of creatures, defensive vs offensive creatures, etc. The eight original towns are: castle, the human faction, rampart, the elven faction, tower, the wizard faction (my personal favorite), inferno, the demon faction, necropolis, the undead faction, dungeon, the underground faction (cave dwelling creatures, including the mighty black dragon), stronghold, the barbarian faction, and fortress, the swamp creature faction. A ninth was added later in an expansion, known as the Conflux, the elemental faction. Each faction has its own appearance and theme, as well as specializing in either magic based approaches (more spells available, spell abilities of creatures, etc.) or might. My own favorite faction, the wizard town, specializes in magic (obviously) and possesses the widest range of ranged units (including the best in the game) available.
Battling
Fighting itself takes place on a grid, turn-based map. Each player begins on opposite sides of the grid, and each creature moves a certain distance based on their speed stat. Creatures have a number of stats reflecting their power (health, attack, defense) and are either large or small (taking up one or more hexes). Each creature has its own unique abilities, from first strike to spell casting abilities. This makes for a large number of possible strategies, as you must know your own creatures' uses, while also anticipating the enemy creatures’ abilities and moves.
Heroes do not actually fight in combat as creatures do (this would change in Heroes of Might and Magic IV, a large source of that games controversy). However, the heroes’ own Attack and Defense stats are added to the creatures, to provide boosts to their toughness. In addition, heroes have a power and knowledge stat which affects their spell casting ability, which all heroes have to some degree. Some towns are geared more towards spell casting and have a wider range and higher level spells available, as you upgrade the magic towers in that particular town. Spells in and of themselves can be quite powerful and can turn the tide of a battle. But add to all this the unique skills that heroes learn as they level up, and those spells can become devastating. As your hero levels up, you’ll have the chance to choose from a randomly generated group of skills (such as Air magic, Resistance (magic), ballistae, etc). These skills will provide advantages to you in various ways, from allowing you to travel farther over the map each turn to boosting your attack and defense stats and increasing the power and effectiveness of your spells. So, the choices you make in developing your hero also have a major effect on your army’s effectiveness in battle.
Add to this the town sieges, which introduce archer towers, walls that need to be destroyed by your catapults, and mines and moats that slow your attack, and the battles can become quite intense. Unlike the newer renditions created by a different company, the AI does not run away 90 percent of the time (thus losing its army as well). If you flee, you lose your entire army or whatever remains of it, and your hero has to be repurchased in town (although your enemy can also purchase the hero, making losing him/her possibly quite costly).
Multi-player
There has been some complaint about the online multiplayer (at least when the online platform was still available. I’m not certain it still is; it is unlikely, as the company has long been gone. In any case, I never played online and had no desire to). The complaint seemed to be long delays in online turns, though I cannot confirm this. It also had the option to play via LAN connection or hotseat (one computer with each person taking their turns in succession). My friends and I played hotseat mode A LOT. Whereas the Civilization games hotseat can often become unplayable because of the sheer number of things to do per turn, in this game, hotseat remains viable and enjoyable because turns remain relatively short in duration, even in games that have been going on a long time. This makes it one of the few games you can gather your friends together with to play together at one location. I never much was into the online MMO type play, but I enjoy playing with friends in person, in much the same vein as so many of us has in gathering around gaming console. This is one of the few PC games that permit that same kind of experience. This, for me, increases the replayability exponentially.
Conclusion
Overall, I would highly recommend this game. I would list here all of the things I love about this game, but I believe I already have given a good measure of that above. This game is still available, including an updated version playable on newer systems courtesy of Ubisoft. I enjoyed some of Heroes V (Ubisoft’s first offering in the series), but have not played the newest version, Heroes VI, which has horrible reviews and issues, not the least of which is the Steam requirement.
10/10
