You knew it was coming... favorite Heroes game

[asandir]

I understand the HIII love in the room, cause it's one hell of a game, it has great factions, great numbers of spells and artifacts, great replayability, decent AI, superb features .... it's excellent, but it still doesn't resound for many players as the best in the series .... HII does, it just has that special something that HIII lacks, maybe it's that the factions are so varied, a feature rather than a problem in my mind, I have won many games with sorceress early, and some late, but certainly the warlock and wizard towns fair better towards the end of the game .... it's about strategy - if you're sorceress, you have to be as fast as possible

but the game is just so much fun, every time I come back to it, I just enjoy it so, the colour, the sprites, the towns, it's just a great artwork, the music is awesome - it's a real package deal

[ByteBandit]

I'm torn between H3 and H2. The only reason I sided with H3, is for the diversity. (More stuff to do and more artifacts). Both are great. I have never tried H4. Can't get H4 Complete in the U.S. stores. And my laptop will not take H5. I played H1 alot! Loved it. But H2 and H3 are my faves. WoG stretched H3 more than any of the other Heroes games - diversity keeps the attention span at bay!

[PhoenixReborn]

And i'd have like the chance to find that out for myself.

Do you believe everything you read on the net?

[ThunderTitan]

Do you believe everything you read on the net?

Huh? Methinks thou has mistook the meaning of what i uttered.

[SoRHunter]

I'm impressed: another seven people voted for Heroes IV!

First things first: being in the Heroes I-IV forum, there are little to none Heroes V worshippers in here, so this is a flawed poll.

OK, that was enough ranting. Let's get downs to business: I love Heroes IV! Although I played Heroes I a lot (and it is my second pick, mostly for the nostalgia feeling), and tried Heroes II before my love came along, never had I felt this much mania over a game (besides Diablo). The main reason is the closeness to a RPG game that HIV has which is bigger than either the previous or the latest.

It was hard, a first, to get attached to the new visual and feel of the game, but it was a matter of a couple of days until I got the "one more turn" symptom. I enjoy not to upgrade anything (but my heroes), love the 'heroes fight with the creatures' feature, like all factions (but prefer Order) and really adore the heroes continuing with their stats and spells on the next scenario of the campaign (becoming almost-godly 'beasts' ). I do know it comes from HIII, but there several campaigns where composed only by three scenarios and had switching factions.

All in all, it is the best for me.

[BrennusWhiskey]

Heroes IV Forever!!!

[Corribus]

@UndeadHalfOrc

I loved H3, no doubt. And I'll admit that I chose H2 for partly nostalgic reasons. But while agree that H3 beats H2 from a gameplay perspective, I give the "Best" nod to H2 because of its style, charm, artwork, atmosphere, color palette, and other intangible elements that I feel were superior to H3. In fact, I think H5 is also superior to H3 in some of that department, but I'd still give H3 the "close #2" award because it has a functional map editor. H4 gets a distant 4th in my book because it was just broken and unfinished. Too bad, because it had a lot of potential. I don't really include H1 because I didn't play it that long, except that I remember the campaigns were very challenging.

[ThunderTitan]

H2 has crap balance

Which only matters for MP.

H3 factions and upgrades are NOT all boring and pointless.

They're boring coz everyone gets them, no matter if they're good or not. But i've always disliked upgrades anyway.


But yes, H3 had better features (something one should expect of a sequel... i'm looking at you H5), but lost a lot of soul to standardization.

[Mirez]

I only played heroes 3 and heroes 5

though the 3d stuff looks nice, I kinda disagree with the looks of most creatures, and I can't play it without either lag or sucky resolution
besides heroes 3 music ftw!

[Darmani]

But yes, H3 had better features

I'm not so certain. Really, the only thing I can think of H3 had that I'd have trouble finding a good argument as to why it's not necessarily a better feature than in HII is the Wait button. Even for the AI, I can truthfully argue about the strategy and tactics it requires in order to maximally exploit its predictable behavior, which must be done since the AI gets lots of free resources.

Oh, waitaminute, the Wait button reduces the need to plan future turns ahead of time and shift around your troop order before the battle, thus reducing strategy in favor of tactics. I take that back.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

I don't really include H1 because I didn't play it that long, except that I remember the campaigns were very challenging.

Only if you play as Knight or Barbarian.

If you played as Warlock, not only did you get the best creatures (ie dragons) every map, but you didn't have to do the most challenging map in the campaign (against, surprise, Warlock). A total breeze.

[ThunderTitan]

You know, my love for Titans comes from the first H2 game i ever won... I played Wizard against Warlock...

[BoardGuest808888]

Vote Heroes II

Might have played Heroes III longer than any other games, but Heroes II still had certain impression that irreplaceable even with better gameplay, graphics, sound, etc. Might because of its simplicity instead.

[Old_Man]

I have to say Heroes of Might and Magic 2, because that was the first one that I played, and that, in my opinion, is the one that attracts me the most.

It has wonderful graphics, it has a nice A.I, it has nice monsters.

Basically, everything about it is wonderful.

Sure, the towns might be unbalanced, but that does not matter to me.

They are all good and bad in their own little ways, and that is why I like it.

[grobblewobble]

Voted HoMM II.

Considering game balance, I think II and III are about equally (un)balanced. The greatest improvement in III IMO was replacing the well with the fort/castle system. Now lower level creatures actually matter in the endgame.. that's cool.

At the other hand, I don't like the changes to secondary skills at all. IMO it's a total chaos with so many secondary skills in HoMM III, with a few must-have ones, but a lot of skills with next to no use.

And the worst game imbalance was not fixed at all.. might vs magic heroes. Yes, the damage formula was adjusted, but might heroes were largely compensated because creatures got more hitpoints*, while spells did not do more damage - and the best spells in the game (mass anything) require elemental skills, not insane knowledge/spellpower, or even wisdom.

What's worse, the necromancy skill was way overboosted:

- larger and more neutral stacks to turn into skellies to begin with
- heroes with special bonuses
- many artifacts with more bonuses
- vial of life blood
- skeleton converter
- necromancy amplifier

Ouch..

But in the end, the decisive factor is the warm feeling and attractive style of H2.

* EDIT: I mean total HP, from higher numbers & actual HP combined

[UndeadHalfOrc]

The greatest improvement in III IMO was replacing the well with the fort/castle system. Now lower level creatures actually matter in the endgame.. that's cool.

Yes, very good point.

At the other hand, I don't like the changes to secondary skills at all. IMO it's a total chaos with so many secondary skills in HoMM III, with a few must-have ones, but a lot of skills with next to no use.

True, and I changed the useless skills probability to appear to almost 0 in my custom H3 patch. And in the same patch, Earth Magic is no longer a "must have" skill.
However you have to concede that in H2, there were 8 slots but so few skills that most high Heroes looked exactly the same: Wisdom, Logistics, Ballistics, Pathfinding or Navigation, Diplomacy, Archery, Luck, and finally Leadership or Necromancy. No variation.

And the worst game imbalance was not fixed at all.. might vs magic heroes. Yes, the damage formula was adjusted, but might heroes were largely compensated because creatures got more hitpoints*, while spells did not do more damage - and the best spells in the game (mass anything) require elemental skills, not insane knowledge/spellpower, or even wisdom.

True. I raised the MP cost of mass spells in my patch to slightly offset for this.

What's worse, the necromancy skill was way overboosted:

- larger and more neutral stacks to turn into skellies to begin with
- heroes with special bonuses
- many artifacts with more bonuses
- vial of life blood
- skeleton converter
- necromancy amplifier

Here I have to strongly disagree. It's unlikely that all of these factors will come in play at once. And don't forget that they changed the formula after a few official H3 patches; it was based on the absolute number of monsters killed, in H3 it's HP based. More balanced, IMHO.

For instance, in H2 if your necro% was 30%, you would raise 300 skeletons from 1000 peasants.

In H3, since skellies have 6 times the HP of peasants, you would raise only 50 skeletons from those 1000 peasants if you had a necro% of 30%!! To raise the same 300 skeletons, you would have to kill 1000 gnolls (same HP as skeletons).

[grobblewobble]

Uhm.. I guess my version of HoMM 3 is still unpatched.

[Yurian Stonebow]

Heroes III is THE game for me. This is the first and last time I ever used capital letters in the middle of a sentence here on the CH forums -I Promise- That's how much I love the game. Like I have stated elsewhere I'm a Heroes III veteran (and a fanatic) with my gaming experience now past 8 years. And counting.

"Erathian banner should always be respected, never disgraced"






Yurian

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Yurian, have you ever tried modding/balancing H3 yourself?

If not, you might be interested in my custom H3 balance patch. 6 years in the making!

[Metathron]

HoMM II and IV for me, but I gave my vote to IV because I've been playing it much more in the last couple of years and I had a feeling it would have fewer votes.