OT: HOMM V
 

Happy Friday. Any thoughts on Heroes of Might and Magic 5? I recall the earlier games being pretty fun. I guess HOMM V came out a while back but I might be ready for some lighter fare to supplement my hearty Dom 3 diet.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

I know there's a HOMM browser based game coming out (supposedly) this year. I hope it'll be better than I think it's going to be...

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

If you intend to get HoMM V, either get he Gold Edition which has all the goods, or then just Tribes of the East, as it's a standalone expansion that has most of the problems of the base HoMM V ironed out. Biggest problem is that the base campaigns aren't in that expansion.

I liked the campaign storylines, but playing on Heroic, got stuck on the Warlcok campaign's third scenario, which is utterly ridiculous and requires cheats to get anywhere on the Heroic difficulty.

HoMM V is thematically much closer to HoMM3 than to HoMM4, which was too much of a crossover into AoW mechanics. Pity they did not keep the old HoMM3 world.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

HoMM3 was great all around, and the music was amazing. Even my mother commented on how good it was, and she's about as distant from the average video game as any given African Bushman over the age of 50 or so.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Yes, HOMM3 was an excellent game (HOMM1 and HOMM2 as well for their time), but HOMM4 and HOMM5 were complete disappointments for me.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Hmm, really? I heard that HoMM V sucked, primarily because the AI was terrible and they tried to get around it by flooding the game with hordes of enemies, and also because of lack of creativity in the overall map and campaign design.

I would love to learn I am wrong though, so if so please let me know!

--IndyPendant, old fan of HoMM II and III...

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

DC,

I've owned HOMM 1,2,3,4,5 and all their expansions. Sadly, HOMM5 has abysmal multiplayer support. The magic system and graphics are new and refreshing but... crash crash crash MP. My wife and I still play HOMM3 Shadow of Death occasionally as allies. For SP I'd buy it. Etherlords is another one by the same devs. I enjoyed that ~2.5 of 5 stars.

-SSJ

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Thanks all.

SSJ - I am mostly interested in SP anyway. I find Dom 3 MP so much more enjoyable than Dom SP, that I can barely play the SP – it just pales in comparison and I race through moves without any real deliberation until I get bored in about ~ 20 turns. So I was actually interested in finding some lighter fare for SP. I downloaded the HOMM 5 demo last night so will give it a try. BTW that is pretty cool your wife will play HOMM with you! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

I agree... most females lean towards the usual "I'm too kool for computer games". My wife doesn't play any PC games, but I've been lucky to convince her to play a few Wii games. Maybe after 5 years or 10 years I can convince her to try a PC game.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

I found HOMM V to be amusing enough. Sadly, though, if you have a Mac, it has some performance, stability, and bug issues. I find it basically playable on a 2-yr old MacBook Pro, if you're patient.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

I recently reinstalled HOMM1 and 3 (can't find my 2 CDs at the moment) and have gotten sucked back into it. Man, I used to play those games on a daily basis for years. Anyone remember the Astral Wizard site? That was a great place for scenarios.

I found V pretty good (once patched) and hated HATED IV.

The only problem I've found with the HOMM series has always been it boils down to the killer stack. I wish you could have free form armies without heroes, that may change the way it is played.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Wii may be the gateway platform for wifes. My wife will also play and wails on me in the boxing game.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

DC: I bought and played HOMMV for the same reasons as you. I was getting my fill on Dom3 MP, but I just wanted a little something to play SP when there were no turns around or I wanted a change of pace.

I found the game to be overall reasonably fun and quick to learn. The campaign stories were also pretty good and the characters ok if a little stereotyped. The one problem I had with it tho was that the missions are, for the most part, designed to be longer and bigger rather than more interesting. That said, I did eventually finish the game, even tho I had to put it down for about 6mos at one point for my interest to come back.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

The problem of HOMM 5 is that it's a real joke if it comes to strategy. Almost everything is randomized and makes it pretty much impossible to play a certain strategy.
It could be nice as a "switch brain off and just enjoy the mood" game, however the game not even has the probably worst AI ever designed, it also has the slowest. If an AI needs several minutes to decide that it just does nothing with his one and only hero, that's really, REALLY low.
HOMM3 was kind of nice and had an amazing music score, but HOMM5 was a real sleeping tablet. Not exactly sure what was the difference between 3 and 5, but HOMM5 turned out to be one of the worst fantasy games I've played in a long time.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Maybe it's just that I haven't played HOMMV online, but I found everything about the game good... except the actual gameplay... and I don't really know why. The systems of the heroes, cities, and the creature variety all seem to have integrity and potential.

My personal feeling on HoMM's failing, either looking only at V or at the whole series, is that the game has an enormous slippery slope problem. The nature of the game is such that one army, one hero, or one city is always so meaningful that to lose just one battle or have one of your cities taken over basically means you've lost the game. Conversely, you can tell how a game will end long before it's actually ended by looking at which side won the first battle. This is because as stacks grow, they become more powerful faster, not slower. Shooters/casters can annihilate almost any neutral army without suffering casualties as long as they have a critical mass, and melee stacks can wipe out any enemy stack without fear of retaliation as long as they have a critical mass.

So basically, and I'm pretty sure I'm making not too bold an assertion here, the only place in HOMM games where a player's skill can determine whether he will win is in his judgment of which neutrals he is powerful enough to attack. If a player gets his army wiped out by neutrals, then he's basically lost the game but if a player can fight the toughest neutrals he can take on, he'll have more gold, items, and experience to fight others with.

HOMMV is boring. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

My 2 cents.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

I've had no crash problems with it. I've had to restart a couple of times due to scripting errors making victory impossible, though.

There's one thing I really don't like about it, though--there's always a final battle involving prior heroes and you don't get to build your forces or anything, you just get what it gives you and you lose all equipment that's not part of a set. These final battles can be insane, especially if you didn't manage to get some key spell you need for victory.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Indeed. She also plays CIV 4 and Supreme Commander (RTS) with me and the boys. It's nice to earn quality time points (AKA spousal capital) and have fun to boot. We always play as allies. Head to head vs the spouse is bad mojo..
-SSJ

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

I input your subject line to stearnest and it output this:

TOME VR OHM

obviously it is trying as best it can to tell us that we should be playing T.O.M.E, as if it were our virtual reality and daily meditation.

So don't waste money on HOMM, play T.O.M.E. its free and its better; and its what the cool kids do.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

I think the same thing, but I think I do know what HOMMV is lacking: map design. Think about it. Which maps really stand out to you as interesting and well-designed, either as a custom game map or as a campaign map? Probably none of them. I think maps make a huge difference in games like this.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Randvek:

Probably because map editor is just a joke http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif They should have made 2d editor with 3d preview.


Overally HOMM5 is huge disappointment. Created by crappy Russian studio with some lame requirements from Ubisoft. They really wasted great chance. But well, series were pretty much destroyed by HOMM4 already.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Here are my musings on HoMMV, I'm somewhat if an HoMM fanboy, so I'm biased, but also should have enough experience to talk with some authority http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Starting with random things people wrote:
1) Game is too random.
Ha!
a) Risk management.
b) It's about as random as Dom3. Maybe even less, since no slinger could ever kill that SC with an uber lucky oe roll.
2) The game is made by damn russians (:P)
Have you played HoMMIII? Did you install WoG? WoG was made by russian fans http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
For people that don't know what I'm talking about, in the Wake of Gods is a fanmade expansion pack for HoMMIII (complete) that adds a lot of content and makes the game a whole lot more fun to play. It is what really makes HoMMIII in my opinion. It is also the reason I still enjoy playing HoMMIII from time to time.
3) Skillz.
I'm not really that great of an HoMM player, because I enjoy playing for fun more than to win, but let me tell you this, the really awesome players play nothing like "we" do, it's definitely not about one hero or one city for them.
At least that applies for HoMMIII where I was somewhat interested in MP, I'm not that familiar with HoMMV MP, but since it was made to be quite similar I can only guess that the same thing applies to HoMMV.
4) Critical Mass.
Applies only to neutrals, and isn't always the best strategy.
And even with critical mass, there will be hard fights (against neutrals), and there will be battles that you just can't win without losses.

So here are my disorganized thoughts on HoMMV:
* I haven't bothered with MP, since when the game came out MP was completely unplayable. Some responses here seem to indicate that MP is still broken. I would certainly be surprised if I found it wasn't broken, because when I played it was horribly broken.
* Luckily, the best kind of MP, the Hot-Seat definitely works great http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
* If you buy the game, get the gold edition with both expansions. The Tribes of the East expansion really adds lots of cool stuff.
* The game is really fun in Hot-Seat, just yesterday me and my friend played ~8 hours of almost none-stop Hot-Seat.
* It seems as if Tribes of the East has increased system requirements http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif It definitely works worse than the original version on the same hardware.
* One of the reasons people seem to think that HoMMV sucks without knowing why, is that it runs slowly (both graphically and AI-thinking-ly). I remember not having much fun with HoMMIII when it came out, but changing my mind once I could run it quickly.
Of course, this means that slowness might impair your enjoyment of the game. Do you have a weak PC?
* There's definite tactical thinking involved in this game. Sometimes it's hard to see, but sometimes you'll come up with some brilliant that will put an ear-to-ear smile on your face. (Even if all it "does" is reduce your casualties from "few" to "none" when fighting against neutrals.)
* A lot of people talk about the game building up to one epic battle to decide the game. Like I said previously this isn't all that true for the really great players, but even for "you", those epic battles are seriously awesomely fun, especially when fought against the AI.
* I still say that HoMMII was the awesomest of the bunch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I really liked how it sacrificed balance for making factions more thematic.
* HoMMIV was nice, but too many things were ruined in it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
* HoMMV was designed to recreate the success of HoMMIII, so if you liked III there's a nice chance you'll enjoy V.
* Let me say it again, I really like the Hot-Seat mode (as I did in previous HoMMs) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


I think the best way to get a good impression of the game is to hop on over to a friend who has the game (preferably with both expansion packs and fully patched) and play some co-op Hot-Seat, if you won't enjoy that then you probably won't enjoy the game. If you do enjoy it, then you probably will enjoy the game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

I like Age of Wonders 2: Shadow Magic much more than Homm5 .

Homm1 was revolution.
Homm2 was revolution.
Homm3 was evolution. It was good, but not spectacular for me. Homm2 added and improved much more than Homm3.
Homm4 I have a lot of sympathy for. It has many very interesting features and changes, but it's clearly rushed and unfinished. 3DO was going bankrupt at the time H4 was being made, and it shows. At the release there were UGLY memory leaks and performance issues. Prior to Heroes4, there was a saying that you don't need a strong machine to run a Homm game. H4 broke that rule and H5 continues it. I value H4 a lot because it tried many new things, and many of them were, in my opinion, Good (like changes to combat system, simultaneous retaliation, reliable and consistent magic although it was MTG clone, castle walls, obstacles, unit choices, units that aren't piles of stats...)

I would love H5 if it wa H4 done right - with proper resources and polish. Instead, it's a bland clone of H3 with Warcraft graphics. I considered H3 good, but somewhat uninspired. In some ways, H5 is a regression compared to H3 - for instance stats and hero system, map size, editor, magic, number of spells.

I've found my H4 done right. It's AoW2: SM. Age of Wonders2: Shadow Magic plays like a cross of Homm and Master of Magic. Strong Master of Magic influences include: magic domains, global spells, summonable units with upkeep, castle sieges, and more.
Too bad AoW2: SM is aging and few people play it anymore.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Thanks for the feedback. For me, most old games seem like they were much more fun than newer games. I don't know if that is because older games were truly better, or just newer/innovative at the time, or if I have just become jaded and cranky with 30+ years of age. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But if you go to a website like Gamespot and look at Game rankings, most of the highest ranked games are from the late 90s. I remember playing the first Might and Magic and having a blast, and not that long ago I got one of the Might and Magic RPGs I had missed (I think 7 or 8) and thought it was a lot more enjoyable than Neverwinter Nights, despite the polish and graphics. The older HOMMs seemed better too than my experience with the HOMM5 demo anyway.

I often judge a game by the amount of fan-based activity and content, which was what eventually led me to Dom3 - when I saw the Wiki. Some games just come out and die almost immediately - not even an FAQ on the web to herald their passing. While I had some fun with AoW2:SM, I don't see much of a community around that game, maybe I am just not looking in the right spot.

Also, though not much of a real-time strategy game player (too much stress in real-life; no need to supplement it with frantic clicking and scrolling around) - I did find Warlords Battlecry 2 to be a game that stayed on my hard drive for a long time. It had that touch of old school humor often missing in newer games (the voices for the quasits come to mind)...

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Maybe you'd enjoy Warlords: Battlecry 3 then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
I had a lot of fun with both 2 and 3, but ultimately I'm just not an RTS guy, so I stopped having fun with them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

B0rsuk - I agree with you about HOMM4. there were some really nice ideas in there. But I think 3DO was dieing at the time and there was hardly an AI at all. In single player skirmish while HOMM3 AIs would at least expand and fight the HOMM4 AI was completely passive. I haven't got in to HOMM5 but it seems similar to HOMM3 but far more demanding systemwise. My pc struggles to play it at any sort of pace.

I really liked M&M 6 & 7 and still play them occasionally. I agree that they are much more fun than NWN despite the graphics. But I think for me that is because I like the party system. I liked the Balders Gate games, especially the first.

Age of Wonders iteslf was a great game. I stopped playing pbem mp a few years ago, but it had a decent community going many years after it was released. AoW2 just never really grabbed me at all. Even when both were 'out' AoW seemed to have more dedicated fans.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Hoplosternum:

In HOMM5 AI just gets money and resources. It isn't playing the same game as you are at all. You get into enemy territory and see monsters killed but treasure left. It simply does not need it.

They also decided to make that kitchy approach: good elves, dark elves, humans, dwarves. Good thing they couldn't invent whole castle of hobbits.

For most series fans HOMM3 Wake of Gods was the best version of the game ever [though you could argue that some things in WoG went too far]. What all hoped for was that game in 3d settings. And instead they created an abomination that couldn't run smoothly on new computers.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

No you can't (:)) because pretty much everything can be turned off http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

HoMM4 became a good game once they got both expansions out and patched it to version 3.0, but at release it was an unplayable piece of crap that tried and failed spectacularly to steal a lot of features from Age of Wonders 1. Get the H3 & H4 Complete DVD. The experience with the new HoMM4 is light years removed from the first release crapware. I can vouch for that from experience.

HoMM5 has the biggest problem with the AI being slow and the graphics engine being slow. The AI is probably because the damn thing sees the entire map and evaluates everything on it before making moves, whether it can reach stuff or not. Load up an impossible sized Tribes of the East map and you can't play them with AI on, because turn resolution takes 20+ minutes.

The skill system in HoMM5 is pretty revolutionary compared to the old ones in the series, with much more choices. The problem with the original release was that you only had certain limited must-have choices and you only had one or two viable heroes for most factions. Tribes of the East revamped the skill system and enriched it a lot.

H5 does still have the same old killer stack and critical mass problems of earlier Heroes games, but they're not necessarily as bad anymore. A well designed hero, especially with the right spells if a caster, can wreak absolute havoc on even a large enemy army. I've gotten wiped out several times against the AI that way when I had the edge numerically and ran into something that had just the right things stacked on it.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

HoMMIV was a bit of a disaster if you ask me. The new creation of heroes being in the battle was gruesomely misimplemented. It led to all sorts of problems.

HoMMV got rid of it, more of a rollback to HoMMIII. However, it still had several problems. Firstly, there are missions which send you all the way across the map, then you get a new mission which sends to back to another side of the map, and, well, let's just say spending turns doing nothing but traipsing an army from one side of them to another is frustrating.

The AI is crummy. It chucks a lot of units at you by way of compensation, but it's just slightly disappointing. Also, the game tends to devolve into going backwards and forwards until one massive battle between your biggest army and the enemy's decides the whole thing. Usually, considering the slightly cheaty AI, this means chucking small armies to grab castles whilst dodging his massive monlithic army(-ies). Eventually, you'll cause enough disruption to his troop building that you can build a huge army bigger than his. But to a large extent this means you've done nothing but spend hours - literally hours - running around not doing very much. All in all, the various level design weaknesses and gameplay problems make finishing every level seem like a chore that must be endured to get onto the next tedious task, rather than a satisfying attempt to fulfil an objective.

HoMM's problem is that ever since 2 they've been obsolete; the gameplay ancient, the AI effectively nonexistent. This can also be said of Age of Wonders, but AoW had a much better system - it's hard to justify HoMM4/5 in the light of what AoW achieved.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

No disagreement there, but turn-based fantasy strategy is such a niche game market that often you take what you can get. As I said, H4 sucked out of the box. The Complete version is a good game, but still not as good as the original AoW in my opinion, especially considering how late it was done. But as with all of these, your mileage may vary depending on what you're looking for and your playstyle.

AoW2 and AoW:SM I never liked due to certain key features being removed that were present in the first one.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

I enjoyed AOW for a while, but never got into AOW:SM. Every now and then I re-install it, fiddle around, then delete it. I also have been doing the same with GalCiv2 - seems some games just have a hump you need to get over. I did the same with Dom 2 -- it wasn't until Dom 3 with its improved tutorial and manual that I was able to overcome that inertia of trying to learn the game.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

HoMM4 was the first game I ever purchased that had fairly significant parts of the manual that said something to the effect of this doesn't work right now, but this is how it'll work once we add it in a patch. Boy was that an eye-opener.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

The people who make GalCiv2, Stardock, are currently making a turn-based fantasy game. They tried to get the rights to Master of Magic, but could not, but I suspect the end product will be similar in scope.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

I loved MoO 1&2, but couldn't bring myself to love GalCiv. Something about it just ain't right; its close but it ain't quite there. It has polish, but it also has these superfluities and inconsistencies that I don't understand (not like X3's superfluities, but superfluities none-the-less). It also just lacks a certain appeal for me; I'm not sure what it is. I just can't quite make it work for me. The fact that on the open ship design system, none of the parts had the hardpoints perfectly centered (for example: if you placed, say, a bunch of a long straight piece together, by even the second one there is noticeable skewness) is kind of a metaphor for why this game doesn't work for me. It has a lot of great stuff, but they didn't take time to "center" it. I guess that's kind of the zen of it.

For that matter, I havn't found ANY software under stardock's label I can like. I tried really hard to, and even bought the membership for like 70 bucks, and bought four or five of their higher rated games (not including GalCiv, which I bought separately). All of them tried hard to be good, but just lack a certain something. In the end I've spent over 100 bucks at stardock, and don't like any of it. It all looks good and shiny, but none of it just works for me. In the end I'd rather have used that 100 bucks to buy several months of subscription to an MMORPG or something; at least I'd enjoy that for a little while before I got sick of it.

I loved MoM too. I know GalCiv was the spiritual successor to MoO, but I hope that whatever they come up with as their successor to MoM is better than GalCiv was for me.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Omniziron,

My experience with Stardock was almost exactly like yours. For all of Dom3's lack of graphical shininess, I think it's a much more complex (and fun, for me) game than GalCiv (I also spent lots of money and never really played the games I bought). I like the idea of a MoM sequel and I hope they do a good job, but I doubt I'll prefer it to Dom3.

-Max

Edit: Note to Shrapnel. I'd be glad to spend more money on Dominions stuff if there was anything to buy. Like scenarios, for instance. (Dawn of Dominions is a great one.) As is, I've bought two copies of Dominions 3 but that's it.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

heh...

perhaps that's why stardock doesn't work for me; Dom3 is too good. Thanks Illwinter, you just busted my gaming life; I'll never be satisfied with anything else now. Ignorance would have been bliss.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Yeah, H4 truly sucked out of the box. I seem to recall the was no multiplayer for about 2 months after release (!!), and once they implemented it... there was a bug which allowed you to drag&drop units between castles (!!!). Basically unplayable.
Vampires (level3) having stats on par with level4 units. On most maps, on normal difficulty, you could build Mansion on day2, and wipe most of the mines, treasures etc. with those 2 vampires. And don't get me started about Grandmaster Necromancy (hint: it produced vampires). No wonder Necropolis was usually banned in multiplayer.

Still, the game has many great features. I liked predictable and consistent magic. H4 had magic you could build a strategy around, because certain magic paths worked in certain ways. H3 system was extremely random and hit or miss. H5 spells were much more diverse, and also balanced. No more level5 (or was it 4 in H3 ?) Hypnosis, which was unbelievably crippled by hp/spellpower restriction. No more level2 Blind vs level3 Protection from Ice (ok, you could argue prot.fire could work with Armageddon).

I liked H4 skill system more than H5. H5 skill system was a lot like H3 one, but there was more variety in skills. Scouting was useful because it was merged with Pathfinding/Logistics. And for the first time in the serries non-combat heroes became viable. And I don't remember what they exactly did to Eagle Eye, but it worked to make it useful. My only real complaint here is that skill level cap (5) was too high, and encouraged putting too many levels into a single skill. 3 would've been enough.
H5 skill system is not that bad. It's interesting that they're not so much skills as perks - that is, skills from one branch are often unrelated to others from the same branch. In terms of mechanics, at least. But what I dislike about H5 system is that it's about combos and chain skills - that is, to have a bigger skill, you have to take several predefined skills in specific order. And you will want many better skills. Which means that your build order will tend towards few specific paths. H3 and H4 offered more freedom. H5 is like railroading. And yes - to qualify for a Good skill you often have to take mediocre skills which aren't very useful on their own. They just serve as arbitrary requirements.

I also dislike the upgrade system. While executed somewhat better than in H3, it's still a no-brainer. You just build the upgrades as soon as possible, the only difference being that they're somewhat more expensive.
Now in H4, you had actual choices to make. There were some imbalances, but for most part both choices were viable. There were basically 3 kinds of units in H4 - shooters, melee, and flyers. For each creature level except the first you had a choice of (flyer|shooter), (flyer|melee), or (melee|shooter).

What I really liked about AoW:SM is that few of the buildings are no-brainers. There are much fewer dwellings to build (most of them provide 2 creature types) and you can focus on interesting building choices. Homm had dwellings, income, and few misc buildings. AoW:SM has few dwellings, few income (no gold, just mana and research), and LOTS of misc buildings. But in Homm games, it was always like this:

First week:
income, dwelling, dwelling, dwelling, dwelling, dwelling, population bonus (Well / Fort / Castle etc)
Second week:
Remaining dwellings

Ad nauseum.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Well, I don't mean to hijack this thread, but you might want to have another look at GalCiv2; the second expansion just came out and it adds a lot of toys, notably unique tech trees, techs, and buildings for each race. This adds a lot of variety to the experience.

Not sure what you mean about their other games. As far as I know, GalCiv2 and its predecessor are the only ones they've made. Do you mean other games on the Total Gaming site or whatever? Most of those are not made by GalCiv2, though I agree most of them are kind of crap.

I've been enjoying Dom3 in the short time I've been playing. Might enjoy it a bit more if my only MP game hadn't crashed.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

ghost,

galciv looks like a great game, but it just misses these little things, and has these little superfluities, and little inconsistencies, and they all add up to make the game experience not enjoyable at all.

I already mentioned the ship design hardpoints are kind of just slapped on there, not even symmetrical.

also, why do the planets have little squares and I have to choose were I place buildings? it is completely irrelevant where I place them; I'd be better if they just had a skyline or something that built up as I built more stuff. It'd be a lot better looking.

and the "tech discovery" screen is complete crap. on Alpha Centauri you got a pretty well done and witty little cut scene. A lot of AC was pretty good, with good humor, for that matter. On GalCiv you get a robot that looks evil for evil races, good for good races, and neutral for neutral races, some crappy background music, and about the gayest quip imaginable on the technology. Monkeys on typewriters could have done better.

GalCiv nailed the elephants, but got ate by ants. They just didn't hit it right, i'm guessing the only reason it is successful is because the number of titles in outer-space 4X is countable on one hand (at least for # of titles in the last decade).

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Matter of opinion, I guess. I'm sure lots of people would be quick to condemn Dom3 because of its graphics -- or Nethack, for that matter, heh -- but they'd be missing out on a great game.

Superficial. I don't even use the ship jewelry, to be honest... I design ships for function, not appearance. That said, some of the ships people have submitted have been quite impressive. There are also the various Star Trek mods, etc. I just wish I could use a Klingon bird of prey without triggering the metaverse cheat tags, but whatever.

It's an abstract game. Chess might be more realistic if it were taken off the 8X8 grid, too, eh? :-)

Superficial. Don't even notice it, to be honest.

You seem hung up on the appearance, which is kind of odd given your love for Dom3. I mean, I like Dom3 too, but pretty it ain't. I'm really more interested in what's under the hood.

Dunno about that... it's a pretty popular game, and gets great reviews all around. It does have its flaws, though, granted, and some of them go beyond the superficial. I won't go into them here, however, since, as I said, I don't want to hijack this thread.

I do, however, want to give HOMMV another try... with the expansions this time.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Gah, that was one of the more annoying mechanics. I'd much rather go back to the days of HoMM2 where instead of choosing which creatures you can get you chose which creatures you will use (because there just wasn't room for all of them in one hero).
And besides, that's not much choice considering that shooter>flyer>melee (though from time to time melee>flyer), and most choices were completely obvious once you knew both units.
The only thought that was put into deciding which to choose was between the cerebri and the ghosts, since the ghosts were much better, but you had to settle for the cerebri if you wanted your vampires/venom spawn quickly.
A lot of the time it doesn't matter, you just choose to build something and it automatically switches to the next tile anyway. In other cases you might want to build the right building in that special tile that boosts specific buildings. (or intentionally not build the appropriate building in some cases http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif)

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Both HOMM and AOW were interesting in the sense the races were poorly balanced and this was rarely dealt with.

Going back to HOMM2, the nations with the lower HP creatures, particular at higher tiers, nearly always ended up significantly weaker. Whilst you could generally recruit more, it didn't make up for the fact their attrition rate was much higher. The game really revolved around fights between the huge creatures, Titans and Black Dragons. This was improved in later HOMMs... but not that much.

In AOW, there were clearly feeble nations like the hobbits and goblins, who were inferior to the likes of the dwarves and elves, and at the top of the tree probably the orcs, who had that stupid Warlord at L3 who could outmatch many L4s of other nations and be produced far faster. Again, this trend was continued in later games. The Shadow race in AOW:SM seemed to me far better than most of the others.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Careful here. While it's true that creature balance was bad, factions like Knight or Barbarian were actually ... better in the long run, especially in multiplayer. I know because I played many hotseat games. Particularly hopeless matchup was Sorceress against Knight. Sorceress (the hero) gets knowledge, knowledge, knowledge and some spell power. What she doesn't get is Attack Skill and Defence Skill. Well, it happens that 1 point of attack skill above other creature's defence adds +10% damage. Back in Homm5, surplus Defence skill gave -5% damage reduction. So a knight who has 10 more attack and 10 more defence (fairly common occurence) gets +100% damage given -50% damage taken. This is HUGE. You don't even need Paladins to kill enemy Phoenixes. A late game scenario could be 20 attack 20 defence knight: 3x damage given, half damage taken.
A knight can still use low-level but extremely powerful spell Blind without any investment into magic skills.
Spellcaster heroes, particularly Warlock with his spellpower, have the edge with low armies (early game), but later on attack/defence is KING. Forget about direct damage spells, your hope is Berserk, Blind, Mass Bless, Mass Curse and other army buffs. Also Dimension Door, Town Gate etc. If you're lucky, the enemy Might hero might give you the time...

True, but one would expect goblins and halflings to be weaker. They were weaker, but not hopeless. Halflings have great resistance stat all across the board, access to early swimming concealed scouting units, and some other tricks. As for goblins, I really like Butchers. I think they're the only level2 Polearm units - and with drain life ! Stupidly effective against cavalry and flyers. Suicide bombers - pure fun ! And their level4 is BRUTAL. Trolls are good all-around units, too.
In short, goblins and halflings appeal to players who like underdogs. This includes me :-).

Warlords are good, but I don't mind. In most games orcs are just stupid, and not really powerful.Still, 8 resistance on such an expensive and slow unit is pitiful. It may work against AI, but multiplayer ?
By the way: Shadow Magic introduced limited unit retaliations. So you can actually swarm warlords with inferior units, if you play your cards right.
The shadow race ? Which one ? Syrons have awesome giants and good force ship, but what else ? As for Shadow Demons... Hmm. Bombard, Spirit, Brain, Lord. The rest ? Meh. The demons are okay, but I wouldn't call them far better. And playing against Chain Lightning is not fun with their weakness.

Re: OT: HOMM V
 

Fun thread. Probably more action on HOMM here than in the HOMM specific forums.

For what it's worth...

The wife and I win ~85% of our HOMM3 games with the setting on impossible (whatever they call highest). We do play with reloads though. If we didn't the odds would go down to ~50% I'd guess. Most losses occurred when a teleporter is too close to one of our starter castles and too weakly defended. We typically play against two pairs of allied computer opponents. We generally strive for the 5th level spells with dimension door being the pinnicle (town portal ranked second). As others have said.. then it is killer stacks and ambush tactics. Armageddon with fire immune troops makes for fast battles.

When we played HOMM4 the end game just took too long without those transportation spells.

-SSJ