No idea why, but I was unable to post here, had to run around in control panel until somehow this reply button appeared. Been away for a while so maybe some changes happened?
Really looking forward to this game. Seems to be taking all that was good in HOMMIII including the graphics and combat, and just adding a few new things!
Mind you it is a bit of a risk they hired a company who only ever developed one game before, but then again, we seen what more established studios (some of whom went bankrupt after Ubi dealt with them, like Capybara and the hungarians who made MM:H VI) fared little better. Their earlier game was more of that Darkest Dungeons survival game type, but it did have turn based combat, so they have experience there.
I have not seen people post it here yet, but we have seen the sixth town, in various gamer site images, as well as their units.
To me it seems like they will be the Tower faction, but infected by some sort of eldritch lovecraftian undersea entity. There is a female spellcaster with tentacle hair, a wizard on a throne of tentacles, a Jellyfish, a flurry of tentacles with a humanoid head, and some sort of rider that rides a Giant Leech-like creature. They certainly have a blue color theme going on.
I am annoyed to find we still have Dark Elves in Dungeon. Can we just go back to have it be Warlocks, Minotaurs, Medusae and Troglodytes? I never liked the D&D style underground Drow in Heroes, the games managed fine with their own identity before that.
And having the Hydra here means likely we won't have a proper swampy Fortress. Though I'd like to be proven wrong, but the lack of Dwarves in Sylvan probably means Ubisoft wants that boring Dwarven Fortress to come back.
I do like that same as in HOMMIV Fairie Dragons seem to be back in Sylvan.
While I never liked HOMMV much, the alternative upgrade routes were one of the few good ideas in that game so I am glad to see that back. Some names are questionable though, like... Scylla and Charybdis? Neither creature ever resembled a Hydra in myth, but then again, not the first time this happens, Age of Mythology also had the Scylla just be a swimming Hydra. Albino Dragon is a weird update to the Black Dragon, I assume the base form is still Red Dragon.
One image also shows a Gold Dragon, so hopefully we have that back on the Sylvan front!
I actually do like the Hive - it is a new and weird faction, but the Inferno similarities are quite noticeable. I assume the Demons somehow infected these creatures and control them. That is not so hard to imagine with the Kreegan scientific knowledge. Anyhow, the whole "Demons are aliens" thing never really worked well IMHO, in Armageddon's Blade for example they were behaving and being treated more like they are from Hell.
The overland map is gorgeous, and I recognized a ton of classic buildings - windmill, watchtower, witches huts, Dragon Utopia, Spell shrines, Learning Stone, various mines, and even artifacts I recognize.
One thing I found odd - I could see all the classic resources - wood, ore, gold, crystal, gems, mercury - except one, sulphur. It seems to be gone?
, also AI for multiplayer can be customized
).
