The little things you miss from previous HOMM games

[ThunderTitan]

It really is hard to find a reasonable logic behind Nival's decision to return to 'Heroes of Windmills and Dwellings'.

They never played H4. Or any other HoMM except H3. Damn annoying.

[Anonymous]

Even though they may not have played H-IV is no excuse, they blatantly ignored many suggestions for fans everywhere. They put blinders on and instead of having a slam dunk run away hit, they have settled for a commercial (I hope) success. The situation can be partially salvaged if they put a few of these things back in. They seem to have listened on the editor by adding the campaign feature back in. (I truly believe they were not originally going to include it.)

[Indral]

you can say what you will, but H4 was a disaster.
ok, the graphics was nice (even nicer imho than H5).

but to change the rules in that way was like... i can't explain the foolishness. imagine changing movement rules for peons in chess, a total disaster.

H3 was a true STRATEGY. there were legitimate and efficient TACTICS as well on the adventure map as on the battlefield. yes, you had to run around the dwellings and other goodies, but that is was a part of the game i really liked, and made the most patient and experienced player win.

H4, on the other hand, lost these properties, making it essentially a new game. a game not worth the name of Heroes.

H5 renounced all of H4 "foolishness" and developed on the one good foundation set by HoMM 1, 2 and 3.

[Cunning Death]

It really is hard to find a reasonable logic behind Nival's decision to return to 'Heroes of Windmills and Dwellings'.

They never played H4. Or any other HoMM except H3. Damn annoying.

Someone around this forum already mentioned that it must have been a business decision that they had completely ignored H4. And this wasn't the right decision imho, you can read some arguments if you scroll up, now I'm just referring to jeff's post.

Heroes in H4 didn't have specialties, though, did they? I can't remember them having some.

Thats true, but a strategy game shouldn't be about getting lucky and having the right hero.

hero specialities and the luck factor involved here might be flaw, imho it just increases the replay factor (it's really dull to play with always the same heroes)
giving heroes unique skills like necromancy (I read it somewhere that the developers got the idea from necro skill), and the special abilities found in the 3rd circle of the skill wheel are great improvements

[Gaidal Cain]

and no limits on how many [heroes].

Wrong. I don't know the excat mechanics, but sometimes another hero won't show up in the tavern when you've just hired one.

Indral: You are an odd, odd person. Having heroes running around and collecting troops has very little to do with strategy. H4 was way more strategic than H3, if only because chaining and overpowered movement spells were removed. Apart from that, the adventure map worked in very much the same way in both games.

[Indral]

everyone is odd in their way.

well, let's not argue about "strategicness", because, everyone will come up with a different definition.

i'm just saying that in H3 you knew exactly what you had to do to get the maximum number of HP in your army and XP in your hero, thats called efficency. and the player that did the most mistakes (not paying heed to building order, e.g.) was less efficient in the end and most probably lost.

now that's what i like most.
maybe we should leave it at that. someone else maybe likes a totally different game.

[DaemianLucifer]

The list is very long:windmill flaging,dwelling stacking,caravans,separate creature movement,FoW,LoS,kingdom overview,post game statistics,artifact getting descriptions,etc,etc,etc.

[Akul]

you can say what you will, but H4 was a disaster.
ok, the graphics was nice (even nicer imho than H5).

but to change the rules in that way was like... i can't explain the foolishness. imagine changing movement rules for peons in chess, a total disaster.

H3 was a true STRATEGY. there were legitimate and efficient TACTICS as well on the adventure map as on the battlefield. yes, you had to run around the dwellings and other goodies, but that is was a part of the game i really liked, and made the most patient and experienced player win.

H4, on the other hand, lost these properties, making it essentially a new game. a game not worth the name of Heroes.

H5 renounced all of H4 "foolishness" and developed on the one good foundation set by HoMM 1, 2 and 3.

Don't make me laugh. The only more strategical thing H3 had was that that the attacker creature had a bonus (I'll need to ask Dalai if they can add attack Bounus in H4).

[DaemianLucifer]

i'm just saying that in H3 you knew exactly what you had to do to get the maximum number of HP in your army and XP in your hero, thats called efficency. and the player that did the most mistakes (not paying heed to building order, e.g.) was less efficient in the end and most probably lost.

now that's what i like most.
maybe we should leave it at that. someone else maybe likes a totally different game.

Really?Well somehow I think HIV had that one as well.Lets see:Ill attack his ranged units with spellcasters first,so to avoid retaliation,with my archers Ill weaken his slow movers,Ill wait his fast flyers to get the pounding from my slow movers,......That way you minimize your losses.It just has way more factors than HIII since its a lot harder to get a no loss win with simretal and range retal.And if you dont minimize your losses and maximize your economy,you will loose in the end.

[Orfinn]

The list is very long:windmill flaging,dwelling stacking,caravans,separate creature movement,FoW,LoS,kingdom overview,post game statistics,artifact getting descriptions,etc,etc,etc.

Dont forget the waterwheel falgging!

[DaemianLucifer]

The list is very long:windmill flaging,dwelling stacking,caravans,separate creature movement,FoW,LoS,kingdom overview,post game statistics,artifact getting descriptions,etc,etc,etc.

Dont forget the waterwheel falgging!

You know very well that by "windmill flaging" i mean flaging of all extra resource buildings:Windmils,waterwheels and leprechaun gardens.Are you trying to spam with that post?

[Gus]

Are you trying to spam with that post?

oh, the irony

[jeff]

and no limits on how many [heroes].

Wrong. I don't know the excat mechanics, but sometimes another hero won't show up in the tavern when you've just hired one.

Actually I do not remember limits but frequently the defeated heroes would reappear in the tavern without their starting troops and diminished movement points. I usually rehired them at a different tavern to have a new hero appear. Usually I only needed 3 or 4 heroes to cut down the enemy.

Back to the topic I want a reload option after a defeat or evn better a load savegame during a combat. Man is that annoying to get into a no win fight and to save time run away, just to find I have to go through the scenario restart (yeah you can skip the cut scene big whoop) wait for that to load and now I can reload my savegame. Are they going out of their way to make this game annoying?

UPDATE:
I just read in another thread viewtopic.php?t=2200&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 that theGryphon has completed a mod giving us a load savegame function during combat. Let's hope UBI takes note and makes that part of one of their patches. Once again a fan comes to the rescue.

[OliverFA]

It really is hard to find a reasonable logic behind When RTS games cut micromanagement as much as they can, when even shooters slowly revolutionized themselves to have <15 hours of campaigns, this simply is a wrong step backwards.

Not only RTS games. Heores 4 was not a RTS game, and Civ IV isn't either.

I agree with all of you that all those little details in Heroes 4 which were not changing the gameplay but just improving interface and usability (like the one thousand times mentioned caravans and flaged windmills) should not have been removed. That was a... how to say? not very good choice. And contributes to make Heroes V a not so good game as it could be.

Three "little missing things" added to my list.

- One word: "Blah!"

- One hero: Adelaide

- Two words: "Asymetric balance". Heroes 2 is by far the game with the best town creature alignment desing. Some creatures were upgradable, some weren't, some could be upgraded two times. Combine it with H4 system and H5 would had been even better!

- From WoG: Creature Experience

[OliverFA]

Even though they may not have played H-IV is no excuse, they blatantly ignored many suggestions for fans everywhere.

That's very strange to me. They have demonstrated that they care about fans and the community, and that makes even more difficult to understand why they systematically ignored all fans pleas regarding that subject.

[OliverFA]

you can say what you will, but H4 was a disaster.
H3 was a true STRATEGY. there were legitimate and efficient TACTICS as well on the adventure map as on the battlefield. yes, you had to run around the dwellings and other goodies, but that is was a part of the game i really liked, and made the most patient and experienced player win.

As much as I love HoMM, I have to admin it is not a true strategy game. It has a high degree of strategy among its components, but cannot be considered "true" or "pure" strategy. Where are the upkeep costs? The supply lines? why a just conquered inferno castle troops join willingly the ranks of a knight? Those three points (and some more) show that it is not a true strategy game.

One of the first things that a general would do is to assign some troops/officials to gather all those resources. He would not issue orders every day to the assigned official saying "remember to visit that windmill". That's plainly non-strategy. And even if it was, it would be advisable to remove it in favour of playability.

We can disucss about Heroes IV changes in gameplay as much as you want, but its improvements in playability and interface are undeniable, and they shouldn't have been axed in H5.

[omegaweix]

Well remembered and never forgotten:

Caravans and flagable locations
Caravans and flagable locations
Caravans and flagable locations

Would it really destroy the entire blancing when these two would be reintegrated (maybe even in a patch and not until Heroes 6000) ?

Oh bl***y hell, i miss those two!

Every time i spot a water wheel or a distant creature dwelling i do not think: "Oh great, some ressources/troops" but only "oh no, get another Hero and start grazing" !
Great strategical choice by the way: the annoying (but rewarding) way or the easy (but penalising) one... what a sophisticated way of motivating the player to go for the rewarding way !

[Kristo]

As much as I love HoMM, I have to admin it is not a true strategy game. It has a high degree of strategy among its components, but cannot be considered "true" or "pure" strategy. Where are the upkeep costs? The supply lines? why a just conquered inferno castle troops join willingly the ranks of a knight? Those three points (and some more) show that it is not a true strategy game.

I would consider chess a pure strategy game, and it has none of those features.

One of the first things that a general would do is to assign some troops/officials to gather all those resources. He would not issue orders every day to the assigned official saying "remember to visit that windmill". That's plainly non-strategy. And even if it was, it would be advisable to remove it in favour of playability.

I was really surprised they left that feature out. Fabrice drilled into our heads that the goal was to speed up gameplay. Senseless micromanagement such as that does the exact opposite.

[DaemianLucifer]

That's very strange to me. They have demonstrated that they care about fans and the community, and that makes even more difficult to understand why they systematically ignored all fans pleas regarding that subject.

Really?How?

[erased. over. out]

I've skimmed through all the posts on this thread, and I noticed that no one mentioned simultaneous vs retaliation strikes. I thought the Heroes IV fight system was pretty well done. I also loved the idea of "first strike" as well as how you could protect your archers by having units in the way of enemy fire. Personally, I prefer the old battle system but it'd be interesting to see how H-5 would change if the battle system had been the same as H-IV.