Heroes 2 vs Heroes 3 - differences? Heroes 2 or 5 next best?

[Freeloader]

I couldn't find a thread on this, and I imagine it is something that the large majority of regular members up here know the answer to. As stated in another thread, I have recently begun playing Heroes 3 and enjoyed it so far.

While I will surely keep playing HoMM 3 for a while here, I was looking to touch on another game from the series at some point here. I've heard Heroes IV was a disaster, though I do not fully understand why. It seems that HoMM 2 or HoMM 5 would be the next best game to play with IV and VI being less popular and polished. I thought the 5th installment was supposed to be very similar to H3, except neutral mobs were too powerful, and an initiative bar. Did it have the same towns and mobs and basically turn Heroes 3 into a 3D game? Is the game's biggest flaw that fans were turned off by IV?

HoMM 2 simply had less features than HoMM 3. It seems that Heroes 1 did not have heroes and HoMM 2 had them, and developed the majority of the gameplay that HoMM 3 uses, with larger more cartoonish looking characters - yes? Did the 2nd game play virtually the same, and have bigger "cuter" looking characters as the main difference? On gog.com, many people seemed to insist it is their favorite entry. Nostalgia, or plays better?

This is a lot of questions, but I figured better to pile them in here rather than make two threads. Any suggestions be great, hope the Heroes 5 talk is ok here.

[Spin]

Heroes 4 is the second best. People either love it or hate it. It's extremely fun to fight on and use the heroes in battle, the major downsides of the game are lack of balance (which is really only needed in multiplayer) and the non-existant enemy hero AI. But honestly, just running around the map killing neutral units and creating super-heroes using different hero builds is extremely fun.

Otherwise, Heroes 2 is quite good as well as some parts of Heroes 5, the only thing you'll want to do in Heroes 5 is use a cheat to unlock all the campaigns, they're meant to be played in an order but the first campaign is so easy it's like a 5 hour tutorial.

[Arret]

H4 was a completely different playstyle than the other games, particularly relating to the combat skill for heroes. You could and usually did steamroll through the campaigns with no units at all after the first couple scenarios of a campaign. In addition look at things like magic guilds (how hard level 5 was to get and how you didn't learn level 1 and 2 spells automatically), castle sieges, creature production rates, and the entire exclusive tier structure (4 instead of 7).

The initiative bar and the complex talent trees are the biggest differences between 3 and 5. AI advances/difficulty scaling would have been expected in any update. There were some other things like the Ballista becoming useful and Cavavans, but it didn't stray too far in many aspects.

Heroes 1 had heroes, but the heroes didn't have skill trees just the main 4 stats.

Play HoMM2 next.

[Star King]

The best thing about Heroes III was the map editor. The community has made map-making into nothing short of an art. Play a map such as Metaxer's Revenge or Xiedu...

[Freeloader]

I'll have to give Heroes II a try then. I wasn't sure between Heroes II and Heroes V which to try next. The lack of balance with Heroes IV sounds unappealing.

[Arret]

2 is a solid game, but you will eventually see some imbalances due to some city max units having 65/75 hp and others having 300, and near infinite dimension door, but the single player is balanced pretty well for a first playthrough. Due to resource constraints this isn't as big an issue in multiplayer.

Do the optional scenarios on the campaigns and don't use the betrayal option when you reach it as you lose every award you have.

[Bones_xa]

H4 is maybe imbalanced, but I actually don't really think it is.
By "imbalanced", I don't really know what people exactly mean or what they are talking about when they say that...
I have played H4 A LOT. I have found that the more you are familiar with the game, the more variety of different strategies to win there are. I've had many discussions with other people that love H4 on the heroes community site, and I think they would agree with me to say that every faction, magic school, hero class, etc., is just as good as another when you know how to use them right.
Personally H4 was my favorite. Heroes 3 to me actually seems more of the same to me every time: its pretty much a strategic race.
I think that anyone who says H4 is "imbalanced" does not actually know the game all that well or did not give it a chance.

[BoardGuest808888]

I'll have to give Heroes II a try then. I wasn't sure between Heroes II and Heroes V which to try next. The lack of balance with Heroes IV sounds unappealing.

Actually, none of the Heroes series was balanced. If u want balance, play chess. It confers different play style, not balance.

Like what said by Arret; H 4 was different play-style. IMO, it still one of the best.

If u want Map Editor, H 3 was perhaps the simplest, which means u can do the most at reasonably least skills involved which might gave u more options. H 4 editor, however, gave better options, but required better skills as well. Thus, H3 editor = quantity, H 4 editor = quality.

If u wanna start with H 3 and see how far the others differ from it, me guess is something like this :
H3 - H5 - H2 - H1 - H4 - King's Bounty (the further it was, the more different the game from H3). I don't include H6 since I haven't played it yet.

Note though difference was only style, not quality.

[Duzeom_]

If I could choose only between H3, H5 and H2, which all of them seem quite similar, I would definitively go for H2. Why? It is the modest of them all and gives the largest amount of joy. With the simplest game structure you get a very interesting game.

H3 and H5 was adding new things to H2, but the game structure is the same. H4 changed it largly adding combat heroes, daily growth etc. and it was changing the initial game paradigm. I played H2 a lot and sometimes it dazzles me that H3 which adds new things isn't more playful than its predecessor.

[Salamandre]

Well, is all about personal opinions, but H3 is still massively played now that H6 is out, while H2 is no more played since H3 came out. There are still H3 tournaments running successfully, and mapmaking for H3 still shines, while I see nothing about H2. Don't get me wrong, I loved H2 but H3 is such better in many ways, only to mention the wait button which allows so many strategy variants.

Then there is WoG-Era/VCMI, which both dig in the game memory and let you do whatever you want in. In some way, you can now customize H3 to look or act like any other game of the series (see for example the succession wars mod)

http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=38439

or others using H4 graphics, etc etc.

[Bersaglio]

Don't get me wrong, I loved H2 but H3 is such better in many ways, only to mention the wait button which allows so many strategy variants.

Quoted from here:

'Wait' option was implemented in HoMM II but then turned off by the developers simple because AI cannot use it. But it can be easily turned on if You know were to look. :-)

And I can confirm that Wait function works in HoMM II and even there is a description of its use in exe file.

[Salamandre]

Interesting, did not know that. But if AI can't use it, is limited to only MP.

[Duzeom_]

So how can you make the hero waiting?

[Salamandre]

I had much fun time playing H2 online for 2 years but when H3 came out, I felt like they understood what to fix to make it live longer.

I mean, H2 was fun but wtf, in every online game the one who had the fastest unit always won, dimension door could be cast as long as you have mana, so you took the whole map in one day, hero could be dismissed then recruited with full movement and FULL army again, genies halved stacks on hit thus they were the best hit and run creatures, and once you had a phoenix the game was yours, you could hit&run endlessly and there were NO strategy available to counter it.

At least in H3, after patches and complaints, the hero can't be hired again with full move, there are shackless, speed artefacts, cursed terrains, it solved a big balance issue or at least partially.

[Bersaglio]

So how can you make the hero waiting?

0. Always beware of GoG crap! We need HoMM II for Windows.
1. You need Heroes of Might and Magic II: Gold for Windows (this version). Alternatively you can use Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars (Windows) with The Price of Loyalty expansion pack for Windows patched to version 2.1.
2. You need to edit HEROES2W.EXE (v2.1) using WinHex or similar program.
Hex address (offset) original byte (hex) --> changed byte (hex)
3BF3E 8D --> C7
3BF3F 45 --> 05
3BF40 C8 --> 98
3BF41 50 --> 4C
3BF42 8D --> 52
3BF43 45 --> 00
3BF44 CC --> 07
3BF45 50 --> 00
3BF46 8B --> 00
3BF47 0D --> 00
3BF48 00 --> EB
3BF49 31 --> 07
3BF4A 52 --> 90
3BF4B 00 --> 90
3BF4C E8 --> 90
3BF4D 3F --> 90
3BF4E 1D --> 90
3BF4F 09 --> 90
3BF50 00 --> 90
3C14D 00 --> 0D
3C15C 0D --> 00

3. To use Wait function press 'W' key during battle.

All credit goes to AlexSpl. Thank You very much, AlexSpl for this discovery!