Why HIV is better or equal to HIII

[Artas1984]

Many have said that Heroes IV is a way worse than Heroes III. I recently saw a Youtube video about Heroes games, and this argument was brought up few times. That H4 was a bad game and that's why the NWC went bankrupt. But isn't it a mantra which everyone just repeat and don't really think about? Maybe all players are so accustomed to H3 that they didn't even want to try H4? Or maybe after a very good game which was H3, H4 was deemed to be mocked.

For me the the worst of Heroes 4 comes from it's ugly jelly-fish like animations. Most units simply look disgusting and way too cartoonish. Heroes 3 had the most realistic graphics in all of Heroes games even up to this point, while the latter games (from Heroes 5) started adopting this new BS like Japanese style animation where the colors are overused, and there are no logical symmetry or proportion in the model bodies, weapons, objects.

Other than the ugliness of units and the fact, that Heroes 4 adopted independent Hero "RPG" actions (which many people disliked instantly), the game is not bad.

Personally i disliked:

1) cartoonish animations
2) the 2,5 D battlefield
3) edited hitpoints of some units did not make sense.
4) Hero rpg abilities

These are major facts, the are also minor, but i am not in the mood to discuss this over again.

[Pol]

My view is that H3 is better than H4 because of AI. That's really the only major complaint.

[Karmakeld]

I don't understand why the independant heroes is so bad compared to the way heroes interact in the other games. Personally I think that the RPG element opens up alot of possibilities for new map objectives thus giving the Player a more varied gameplay.

[GreatEmerald]

Yea, some of the animations I'm not a big fan of either (Lich's head spinning uncontrollably, really now). Though the spell animations are pretty good; at first I thought they weren't flashy enough, compared to HoMM3, but I recently realised that they represent the spell effects way better. After years of playing we know by heart that a big spinning circle thing is precision, but you don't need any experience at all to know that a bow being drawn is precision. (And I do find the Cowardice spell effect, a realistic chicken, quite hilarious )

But the RPG elements are awesome, it's something NWC should have had from the very beginning. I recently tried a game where I would purchase a lot of heroes and see how that works out; generally one can't take on huge armies of enemies just with heroes (melee heroes are just too fragile), but four heroes and three regular troops work out quite nicely. Two spellcasters, with different school specialisations, means the enemy is at a huge spell disadvantage quickly. And the might heroes can shoot enemies from afar, which is especially useful with the special artifacts that cause bind, stun, etc. all while being able to help out a bit with spellcasting too.

[Steven Aus]

I have just got into HOMM 4 Complete again after buying it on GOG a while ago, and I am using the Equilibris mod. I was swayed by the general point of view at the time of H4's release. But I play it now and really enjoy it.

What I have done the last couple of times is play the XL map on Champion difficulty and start with Death spellcaster, and make sure that early enemies are ranged so they do less damage to my skeletons. I really like how much you can develop your heroes, and I am currently running around with 6 heroes and a huge stack of vampires that I have gained from GM Necromancy. I found Venom Spawns to be quite useful for my L3 town pick when I could generate Vampires from GM Necromancy (and before the time I had a big stack of Vampires).

Shooters are very useful in this game and by getting the Venom Spawns from the town you have the benefit of a strong shooter so you can go lots of battles without losing many troops which is very important when neutral stacks are so large (sometimes Vampires can take significant losses before you can start doing damage, whereas with a large strong shooter stack you are pretty much guaranteed useful damage).

Also, large spell-casting enemy stacks are almost impossible for a lot of armies until you get the artifacts that increase magic resistance for all targets. Then a large Vampire stack can take on big stacks of Genies, Mages, Water Elementals and to a certain extent Faerie (or is it Faery?) Dragons.

What I like most about H4 is that you can have a lot of fun with a big map that you play until you've cleared the whole map. Based on the opportunities of skills and spells that appear in map locations, you can really customize your heroes and level them up for a long time so you haven't even finished by the time you've completed a XL map. So the XL map in H4, to me it seems like a campaign and it is fun to use the various locations and multi-hero stacks with lots of artifacts to really get those RPG juices a'flowing.

I've been enjoying Lords of Xulima recently, but I would have to say that the Zenfas XL map in H4 Equilibris is more fun to play and your heroes can level through the entire map - REGARDLESS of how the AI plays. A big H4 Sandbox map is RPG fun on its own, and that's where I think H4 really shines. I am thinking of perhaps making a map or campaign myself, and it's good that there are still people who would be able to enjoy it. =)

[Taro]

Steven, play some hard, fanmade maps - then you will see the beauty of this game

[Steven Aus]

Which ones would you recommend? I looked at the H4 Campaigns and they didn't seem to indicate their difficulty.

[Kalah]

Check out PB's picks.

[Romanov77]

Now, if only there was a true HD mod or remake of H4...

[Taro]

Steven - on this list are some of my maps. Take Broken Heart and Challenge for haters:

https://www.celestialheavens.com/search ... mit=Search

And my polish maps:

Here:
http://mapy.heroes.net.pl/mapa/433

Here:
http://mapy.heroes.net.pl/mapa/572

And here:
http://mapy.heroes.net.pl/mapa/438

First polish scenario is a remake of "Conquest of four lakes" from vanilla game, so storyline is not important at all. There are just some improvements for AI and I assure you, you can be beaten

[jeff]

Wind of thorns is a very good campaign and Robin Hood as well.

[Karmakeld]

I enjoyed Planeswalker for the design. Also Megom Chronicles Are interesting.
PB's is quite Good, although it doesn't contain any newer maps

[johnnycage]

I have heroes 1-6. 3 & 4 are my favorites and wog rules them all.That being said,H4 would have been my favorite if it had a random map generator. I really loved the campaigns and I absolutely loved the heroes as a unit on the battlefield. I thought it was innovated and i get no greater pleasure than taking 7 heroes and annihilating hundreds black dragons with legions of Medusa's,orcs, hundreds bone dragons,hundreds of crusaders ,hundreds of death nights and hundreds of iffrets all at he same time and suffering no casualties. It reminds me of dungeons & dragons, 7 dudes on a adventure.Things i didn't like was no random map generator,ugly heroes and the fact u couldn't choose your starting hero

[Karmakeld]

How often could you choose your starting hero in H3?

[johnnycage]

How often could you choose your starting hero in H3?

Every time I play heroes 3 and wog I get 2 choose my starting hero. with the exception of the campaigns.

[BrennusWhiskey]

Let's talk about how HIV is better than Heroes 3.

In all and every aspect of it.

It's a short talk, really.

The best ever answer I found here

[Yurian Stonebow]

"Why HIV is better or equal to HIII"

Because the AI is so brilliant?


-Yurian

[BrennusWhiskey]

"Why HIV is better or equal to HIII"

Because the AI is so brilliant?


-Yurian

I would rather say because the players online are so great that first games you even won't believe that some things are possible