[reiner]

Ok so I finally picked this up (late, but I just got a gift card at best buy and had to use it on SOMETHING). If you don't know, HoMM is probably my favorite franchise of all time. I've literally played since the HoMM1 demo came out, all shiny in those newfangled CDs! HoMM5 really sucked me back in, after being apalled at HoMM4 and wasting a couple years of my life playing HoMM3.

So anyway, latest expansion pack, seems sweet so far. I'm cracking into the campaign mode. The orc abilities seem to really encourage me to be less of a defense whore and really go all out. The slayers ability to attack twice (Cleave) seems pretty valuable. The centaurs Maneuver is handy. The goblins seem pretty... well weak. Saccing creatures for XP is nice (isn't that a throwback though?).

I'm literally minutes into playing this, so I'm jazzed to chat it up if there are any HoMM fans out there. Lemme hear some opinions.

[SimeSublime]

I didn't get 5 myself, being one of those people who thought 4 was better then 3 and was disappointed they went back to the old style. So I'm not the best person to be speaking about it. But my friends (who mostly disagree with me on the 3/4 split) all unanimously didn't like 5 at all.

But hey, if you're enjoying it, all the best to you.

[reiner]

wow that's really surprising. I thought Ubi really picked the series back up with 5. The hero mechanics made it much more interesting, as the different hero types have some distinct abilities. But yeah, it's cool either way. I could understand if some don't like it. Especially with the new continuity.

EDIT: I should also mention that cyclops units can restore health by eating allied goblins. Fun!

This post has been edited by reiner: 30 December 2007 - 10:39 AM

[David-kyo]

I liked the fact they re-simplified the game, with the new abilities, what I didn't like was that the graphics were kitch, and navigation on the map was really difficult. I mean, you had to roll the map around like an idiot to find your way around things, and missing some pickups was very easy as well. The constant and unnecessary animations during dialogues when warriors brandish their swords and magicians shoot bolts of lightning out of their staves while having an everyday conversation were also kind of stupid.

[reiner]

I liked the fact they re-simplified the game, with the new abilities, what I didn't like was that the graphics were kitch, and navigation on the map was really difficult. I mean, you had to roll the map around like an idiot to find your way around things, and missing some pickups was very easy as well. The constant and unnecessary animations during dialogues when warriors brandish their swords and magicians shoot bolts of lightning out of their staves while having an everyday conversation were also kind of stupid.

Agreed on this point. When I upgraded my PC over teh past year and I was able to turn up settings (and teh patches) alot of teh graphical issues resolved. Plus, the expansion packs reduce the needless animations in their cutscenes. I think the scenes are much improved in HoF and TotE, using animations that make sense, and a better use of angle and models.

[Madam Corvax]

Here is what I wrote some time ago concerning HOMM5 and it still stands.. Haven't played it since, and I don't think I ever will... (I replayed HOMMIV with extension packs gathering Storms and WInds of war, NOTHING beats a couple of well developed heroes - order mage and nature mage...)

1. Representation of the terrain and possiblity to zoon and change angle. Sure, it allowed me to admire lovely 3D structures, but if I zoomed too close and more "horizontally" I had no idea where I was on the map. On the other hand, if I zoomed out and chose top view, the buildings and artefact were hard to recognise.
2. Where are the caravans? If I captures some building producing troops, I had to make trips to get them!
3. What exactly does it take to promote troops?
4. How to you develop your hero? It was all so simple in HOMM IV. Here I have skills and abilities, and it does not say clearly what exactly are you able to achieve by it and what comes next. Once I did not select "training" skill, I could not get it on any other occasion. I played whole Haven campaig, and I still have no idea how to properly train your hero
5. Battles actually look downgraded from version IV
6. I canot have more than one hero to an army, I cannot have armies without heroes. For HOMMIV, if I had a Chaos mage, a priest, a druid and Order mage, and some 4th grade creatures, I was invincible. Here, with one mage, there is actually very little by way of magic you can do
7. Sure, the movies and dialogues are cute. But the heroes are actually uglier than in HOMMIV! Creatures too!

[reiner]

Here is what I wrote some time ago concerning HOMM5 and it still stands.. Haven't played it since, and I don't think I ever will... (I replayed HOMMIV with extension packs gathering Storms and WInds of war, NOTHING beats a couple of well developed heroes - order mage and nature mage...)

1. Representation of the terrain and possiblity to zoon and change angle. Sure, it allowed me to admire lovely 3D structures, but if I zoomed too close and more "horizontally" I had no idea where I was on the map. On the other hand, if I zoomed out and chose top view, the buildings and artefact were hard to recognise.
2. Where are the caravans? If I captures some building producing troops, I had to make trips to get them!
3. What exactly does it take to promote troops?
4. How to you develop your hero? It was all so simple in HOMM IV. Here I have skills and abilities, and it does not say clearly what exactly are you able to achieve by it and what comes next. Once I did not select "training" skill, I could not get it on any other occasion. I played whole Haven campaig, and I still have no idea how to properly train your hero
5. Battles actually look downgraded from version IV
6. I canot have more than one hero to an army, I cannot have armies without heroes. For HOMMIV, if I had a Chaos mage, a priest, a druid and Order mage, and some 4th grade creatures, I was invincible. Here, with one mage, there is actually very little by way of magic you can do
7. Sure, the movies and dialogues are cute. But the heroes are actually uglier than in HOMMIV! Creatures too!

1. Nothing to say here. It takes some getting used to and using the mini map to get your bearings.

2. Caravans are there. There are production building and other castle tabs in the creature buy screen.

3. The promote button at castles? Or a hill fort on the map. I dunno. It's there. Just costs the difference between base and upgrade cost. In TotE, you can sidegrade now that there are two upgrade options for each unit.

4. Tooltips help with this. You can right click to see what the ability offers. The abilities you can choose from are a random pool of applicable skills. plus you have a limit on how many base abilities you can train (Like Luck, Leadership, Logistics, Necromancy, etc). Then you can train up to three subabilities of that, plus a possible specialty depending on what sub skills you purchase. There are also hero type specific abilities as well. Each hero has a specialty that they come with as well. Unfortunately, the tiering on prereqs can be a little confusing. There is a pretty nice guide out on the Ubisoft forums for everything up through HoF at least. Also, check Celestial Heaven's website. http://www.celestialheavens.com/

5. Didn't play enough of 4 to compare, really. I do like how the heroes themselves encourage different playstyles. With Barabarians, I have to be continuously offensive. With Infernal, I get to abuse gating. Even hero to hero, their specialties encourage different tactics (I love vampire specialty<3) I don't think the battles themselves need to be much more complicated.

6. Throwback to HoMM3. It doesn't bother me. Some of the spell type skill specialties can be very useful. I like the ones that give you Mass Haste and Mass Slow.

7. Helps a lot with all graphics turned up, if you don't have them up already. But agreed, some of teh models really suck. The HoF and TotE models are all pretty quality though. The cutscenes are 100x better as well.

[Madam Corvax]

Problem with me is, that if I cannot master the controls and logic of a game within first 20 minutes, I get bored and frustrated. It happened with HOMMV, so I gave up. With HOMMIV I was at home with a broken ankle so without tips and manuals I mastered the game because I loved the music and graphics. But here, if I have to read a lot of manuals, I jsut give it a pass.

[reiner]

Agreed with the 20 minute control thing. I really dived into HoMMV though. I didn't know about the caravans for a good while though, because I missed the tabs on the side. It felt like a 'dur' moment for me.

[Ninja Duck]

I loved this series. I remember playing the HoMM1 when I was too young to know what to do. Instead of hiring creatures, I would hire new heroes and use them until their armies were exhausted... Not a strategy I recommend. When the 4th installment came out I didn't get it because my computer didn't meet the specifications. I did get it much later when it was on the bargain shelf at Best Buy, along with other classics such as Chessmaster and that Pogo game with the cactus. But I never got around to playing it much. It didn't capture my interest. I don't think I could bear to pick up HoMM5 now, because the spark is gone.

This post has been edited by Ninja Duck: 12 January 2008 - 02:24 AM

[Madam Corvax]

Actually, for HOMMIV hiring heroes and training them properly is the best strategy, IMHO. You need a good order mage, with "Forgetfulness" spell to disarm any ranged attacks. Then, you should have a good Nature mage, so if you have any creatures who walk for a melee atack, you just draw a few lines of quicksand and then summon some 4th grade creatures like mantisas or water elementals for good ranged attack and finish off everyone..A good chaos mage gives you mana flare, so your heroes lose virtually no mana for spells, plus, chaos mages are really good at offensive spells like disintegrate. And order mages really rule, because once you get "hypnotise" you own everyone except black dragns who are totally immune to magic. So with those three, order, nature and chaos properly trained you are practically invincible.

That is why, having get used to this strategy, I find battles in HOMMV much less enjoyable, because with only one hero it all boils down to the strenght of your troops, whereas in HOMMIV with tree mages I could easily defeat quite huge armies.

[SimeSublime]

I prefered life and order mages. The life mage had so many good buffs, you could make your troops near untouchable. Add to that the resurrection ability (best power in the game, IMHO) which would recoup a bit over half your losses at the end of the fight meant that you could keep steam rolling over the map longer.

[SimeSublime]

In spite of what I've said above, I picked up HoMMV on special the other day. It's allright so far, only doing the starting missions atm. I'm missing the ability to move monsters around without a hero, but I guess I'll get used to it.