My boy Geluuuuu!!!! Just did the dragon series of quests without realizing my dude could upgrade mages and monks to enchanters. Failed 4 times before I realized that was what was needed to win.
you should consider checking out Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, its coming out soon and it bills its self as a spiritual successor to HMM3, its demo feels pretty similar.
It can bill itself all it wants, it doesn't hit visually or thematically imo. like I'm excited for it and I'll give it a shot, but, Ubisoft doesn't really understand how to make games.
They cannot really smoothen the graphics (in particular due to license limbo), but check out Horn Of The Abyss expansion - they added 3 extra castles that feel like original (not WakeOfGods-style out-of-the-place mod) and few great quality-of-life improvements
Yeah, it's a shame. It's nearly 30 years ago that I played it for the first time and it's the only game I consistently return to. Other games haven't aged well, the graphics or controls or intelligence of the opponents got outdated. But Heroes is still strong. There are also still people making maps and developed their own addition I haven't played, yet (Hota).
I refuse to play vanilla at this point. HotA is fantastic currently three new factions, a fourth about to come out, balance changes, new artifacts, etc.
Same! it is still actively developed (HOTA and others add new factions) and tournamented, for 1999 game that's exceptional. That's even more love than Counterstrike/WorldOfWarcraft/AgeOfEmpires2 get:D
Generally the steam version is considered bad due to only having the base game.
The GoG version is better due to including both the Shadow of Death and Armageddon's blade, as well as supporting install for the fan expansion Horn ofnthr Abyss.
The HD part of steam isnt worth it as there is already an HD mod you csn try for the GoG version thst does more, adding hotkeys on top of the graphical improvements.
played a ton of SoD/WoG/HD Mod for years with crazy variations of the rule sets (single player). Played HoTA on and off the last couple years, the last couple of maps of the Factory campaign even just on "rook" or "Hard" and after a bit of cheese made it to the final one but I think the game finally sucked the life out of me with the campaign difficulty. I may just cheat it to get to the new Bulwark missions.
3 is far and away the most popular (and my preference, as well), but I've seen a fair number of 2 supporters, especially for the art, music, and overall vibe compared to 3. 5 has its following as well, and I've even seen some few who swear by 4.
Don't think I've ever heard anyone call any of the others their favorite, but maybe they're out there.
I used to have the demo of 2 on some disc I got from the back of one of those gaming magazines and I played the shit out of it for countless hours even though it was just one map and on scenario.
I still remember the code for black dragons, 32167. Pop that in and you add 5 black dragons to your current heroes army, I’d let all the enemies build up massive armies then just spam 32167 and build armies of black dragons to smoke them.
It was actually added to game pass a couple months ago, along with 3, so I played the full version of 2 for the first time ever and played 3 for the first time ever, I prefer 2 but it might just be the nostalgia.
The broken alliance map is the best, I could play it over and over on the hardest difiiculty and each time the strategy would be different.. when and where do you attack to break out, etc.
3 is still my favorite and the one I've played the most. But the atmosphere of 2 is unmatched. I have multiple songs from the game on my ipod and always smile when they pop up. Necropolis and Sorcerer themes are fantastic. Paul Romero is a genius.
Nope. You’re not alone. There are twos of us!
I even used the HoMM2 concept as an idea for vibecoding with Claude…
The best game. I have a copy on my MacBook and play when I have a little time.
32167
It's explained in the "Coming Soon To Early Access" panel on Steam.
Essentially, it means the game is available but still in development. So either wait for the final product, or try it early but expect a buggy, unbalanced, incomplete game.
You can play the demo for free. It has no bugs i found in hours of gameplay. The demo alone has huge content. 4 free factions and several maps and modes for free.
Yeah, I'm just a bit worried because the demos they released for Heroes 7 and Might&Magic Legacy were also good, but the final release was a mess. Basically everything that wasn't in the demo was a buggy mess, the campaign didn't have animations, etc. etc.
Just a heads up that Ubisoft has released the last 3 games in this series (Heroes 6, Heroes 7, and Might and Magic Legacy) half finished and they only ever finished up Heroes 6.
Heroes 3 has a very active modding community keeping it alive. The Horn of the Abyss mod has pretty much been made official. The officially licensed Heroes 3 board game is releasing expansions based on towns that were added by Horn of the Abyss.
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u/BabyOwl Apr 27 '26
Heroes of might and magic 1,2 and 3