Might and Magic: Heroes VI - anyone waiting

[KaeYoss]

...or playing the Beta (and getting bored with the lack of campaigns and maps)?

Liking the changes? Disliking?

[Midnight-Gamer]

I friend introduced me to Hero's Three, back in the late 90's. Some of my fondest memories in life were just sitting around with my buds, playing random maps.

[Umbral Reaver]

I grew up with the Heroes series. I loved 1, 2 and 3. 4 was radically different and improved a lot of things but lost a lot of the charm somewhere along the line. 5 felt bland and cut-down and the flavour seemed like a cheap clone of Warhammer Fantasy. What's 6 like?

[KaeYoss]

Umbral Reaver wrote:

I grew up with the Heroes series. I loved 1, 2 and 3. 4 was radically different and improved a lot of things but lost a lot of the charm somewhere along the line. 5 felt bland and cut-down and the flavour seemed like a cheap clone of Warhammer Fantasy. What's 6 like?

I haven't played anything before 5, though I heard about how 4 was not very popular.

I did really like Heroes 5, though.

Heroes 6 plays in the same world as 5 (which is a different one from the earlier Heroes games and the RPGs, too, though Dark Messiah was a close tie-in to 5 in terms of story, and in Tribes of the East, you even had a Heroes version of the Dark Messiah Storyline.)

It plays 400 years or so before 5, though, not after it (I guess they were not yet ready to ditch griffins ;-))

The story involves a dynasty - 5 siblings, the children of Duke Slava, each aligned with a different faction. Beyond the 2-mission tutorial campaign/epilogue where you get to play Duke Slava, you have one campaign for each child (I guess with 5-6 missions each, though I don't know for sure, and the Beta only has two of these campaign missions in addition to the tutorial ones). Unlike Heroes 5, you can play them in any order, they happen more or less at once, and have connections (from the beta, I know that one involves looking for and rescuing the main character for another).

One big difference from 5 (and I guess the older titles as well) is the dynasty aspect, since that applies to the player: In addition to play heroes that level, you level as a player, as your dynasty gains power (which translates to points you can spend on dynasty traits and other things). There's also dynasty weapons that level with use (and gain extra abilities).

Some of the biggest changes from Heroes 5 (as I said, I don't know the older games, so I can't say which of these are brand new and which ones are just older stuff returning):

The "Town Screen" as it was known in H5 is gone, and in its place is a town window (no full screen). This actually caused a huge outcry. Personally, I don't mind too much. Sure, the full-screen "sight-seeing flights" through the town as you entered it was nice, but ultimately, it's just eye-candy, and later you just open a city menu, build, get units, and leave. The cities you see on the adventure map are now detailed now, though. You can see at a glance how advanced it is (at least in general terms, such as general "town level" and fortification level).

The more complex initiative system is gone. The system is now closer to what we know from Pathfinder or many other games: Each critter gets to act exactly once in a turn, and after that, the next turn starts (in H5, your initiative bonus determined how fast your turn would come again. In extreme cases, some units could act 4 times before certain other units got to act even once). The initiative value still determines the order in which the critters get to go, and effects can still influence that. If you have good morale, you immediately get another "half-turn" (i.e. only half the speed, and if you attack or use abilities, they activate at only half strength)
The heroes aren't part of the initiative. Instead, you can act (by using an ability or just your heroic strike) just before one of your units.

Units are divided into three categories rather than 7 tears. The categories are core, elite and champion, with the first two having three critters per faction each, and a single champion creature per faction. That's still 7 critters (as before in two version, normal and upgraded) per faction, but the differences between the 3 core critters (or 3 elite units) isn't that big - the different between the three categories is very notable, though.
A lot of abilities are limited to the categories, when they might often have been limited to tiers instead in older games. For example, some abilities only work on core (with version 2 of the ability working on core and elite and version 3 on core, elite and champion)

You can convert towns to your faction now. That means if you're playing Haven and conquer a Necropolis, you can turn it into a haven (it costs resources, depending on how far advanced the city is, but works instantly).
Since most buildings in cities are more or less standardised now, the conversion will work well (the building for hiring the first Haven core unit will just turn into the building for hiring the first Necropolis core creature and so on). Only unique buildings (which each city has two slots for, and in each instant, you can choose between two different kinds of building) will be destroyed.

You can buy all available units from almost anywhere. That means if you have 3 cities, each producing, say, 10 archers per week, you can visit one of them and buy all 30 archers.
The city you do that just needs the necessary building(s) to buy the critters in the first place (so if you haven't built the griffin building, you can't buy any griffins, and if you only built the basic building, you can't buy advanced griffins there). Note that upgrading the buildings for the advanced unit types will also increase creature growth for that type, so it pays to upgrade all buildings in all cities

Rare resources have been consolidated into a single type (blood crystals or simply crystals). I personally like this, since it was often a pain getting mercury, sulfur, gems AND crystals and making sure you had enough of each.

Character advancement is no longer random. Instead of being presented with up to 4 more or less random choices when you gain a level, you can just advance whatever you want. Though some complain that this will lead to "cookie cutter" characters since everyone will always take the most efficient abilities, It's welcome change from the frustrations in H5, when you often had to abandon your hope of getting what you wanted because at one point you had to choose something that precludes you from getting the stuff you wanted (this goes double for those instances when you were chasing the ultimate abilities)

Note that each spell is its own skill now. No more hunting for specific spells.

Speaking of characters: In each faction, you get to choose between "might" and "magic" heroes. So not every haven hero has to be a knight when you rather want to play a monk. The main difference is that you only get to take the "tier 3" abilities of your chosen affinity. (Tier 1 abilities are available right away, tier 2 becomes available at level 5 and 3 at 15.), it also determines whether your might power/defence or your magic power/defence advance faster. Finally, some magic items only work for you if you have the right affinity.

So far, the might skills and skill categories are the same for each faction. They're things like "Realm" (things where you can learn to sabotage mines or simply become better at trading, building, and training), Warcries (all active abilities that you can use once every 3 turns or so to improve the performance of your troops) as well as other stuff that includes a simple improve of your might power or a damage bonus to all ranged attacks your troops make.

Magic skills, however, are different for the factions in that you only get a selection out of schools. The schools are fire, water, earth, wind, light, dark and prime. You usually get 5 of them, usually thematically appropriate to your faction (no light magic for Inferno or Necropolis, for example). They all have a mix of different abilities, both offensive and defensive (as well as neutral).

More on characters: There is an alignment system of sorts. It's the reputation system, and there is the path of blood and the path of tears. Blood is for the offensive, for acting before you think, for mercilessness and brutality, while tears is more defensive, for thinking things through, acting with mercy and diplomacy. You gain reputation points for things like activating active abilities of either path (like offensive magic for blood but protective magic for tears) for how you act when neutral creatures want to flee from your army, and sometimes depending on what path you go in quests or dialogues (will you show mercy on the enemy leader or will you execute her?)

If you reach a certain limit on either path, you can transform your character. More or less a "class change" (the name of your class will change). You gain a specific special ability at this point. Later, when you reach the second limit, you can undergo another transformation (these also influence how your character looks) and gain another special ability.

The abilities depend on your faction and whether you're might or magic.

[KaeYoss]

Takes deep breath.

Those are the most obvious changes compared to H5. I must say I like most of it. There are some things that are less than optimal, but I'll see whether they won't fix them until the final version of the game. One thing I hear is that "simultaneous turns" will not make it to the initial release version, which is a shame. That option was very useful - as long as human players couldn't possibly influence each other, they could make their turns all at once. Only when they could clash and it became important to do things one after the other would it switch.

One more thing I remembered is town portals: It's no longer a spell you research. Instead, town portals are buildings now. The basic town portal lets you teleport from the current town to another town of yours, while an advanced town portal lets you teleport to the nearest advanced town portal from everwhere on the map (as usual, these actions cost movement points - enough to make sure you can only do one teleport per day - though you could always teleport to the nearest advanced town portal, transfer your army to the resident hero, and have him teleport to the city in need of defence).

And another thing: Maps are now divided into control areas. In order to control such an area, you have to conquer its town - or, if it doesn't have a town, its fort. If you do that, all mines and creature dwellings (which boost growth of all core, elite or champion creatures of one faction - and, as forts and cities, they can be converted) that have been claimed before revert to your control. You can claim buildings in an area that is neutral, and you can "squat" in a mine that belongs to an enemy, but as soon as you leave, it will fall back to him - though there's abilities you can learn that allow you to sabotage or pillage a mine. The first makes the mine stop producing for X days or until the enemy sends a hero to re-activate it, while pillaging will immediately net you its production for the next 3 days and makes it stop producing for those 3 days.

[Steven Tindall]

OK now I have to get a new laptop.
I still play heroes 3 religiously I have played 4 but just didn't care for it.
I have heroes 5 but my pc couldn't run it and from what KayYoss describes heroes 6 being I actually want to play it.

Do they still have a "wizards" town and is Solmyr still around as a hero? Chain lightning at 1st level saved quite a few gremlin lives.

[KaeYoss]

As for the factions:

Academy, sadly, is out.

H6 has 5 factions (though I'm sure there will be one or more expansions with more factions):

Returning from Heroes 5 are Haven (i.e. imperial, nightly humans), Necropolis (the undead), and Inferno (demons), plus Stronghold (orcs) from Tribes of the East, and the brand new (as far as I know) Sanctuary, which are Japanese-flavoured nagas (the half human/half snake kind like Rokugan nagas, not what we know as nagas from PF/D&D). I personally hope that Sylvan will return with an expansion. Or maybe they'll turn new factions (plus a normal-length campaign) into DLCs, I don't know. Note, though, that even "repeat customers" have changed - faction-specific abilities work differently now, and many units have either been replaced or at least modified in their abilities (though I think the coolest units from those factions are still around)

The heroes will be all new, since the game takes place 400 years before Heroes 5 (which was, as far as I know, the first game in that world).

I don't think you can get chain lightning as a starting ability. One thing to note, though, is that if you play a free game (Custom Game or Multiplayer), you get to make your own primary hero. You get to choose whether he is might or magic, what his portrait will be and what special ability he'll have.

Faction special abilities: These all now work somewhat similarly: You have a special gauge for them, which will be filled when certain things occur (which is different for each faction), and when it's full enough, you can use it. At first level, you only have the ability at level 1, so you can go and use it as soon as the gauge fills to level 1 (I think a quarter full). On level 5, you gain level 2, level 3 at 15 and 4 at 25. To actually use these, you'll have to let the gauge fill sufficiently (half/three quarters/full respectively).

You can use them just before one of your stacks gets to act (just like your hero's action and yes, you can use both the faction ability and your hero's action at once).

The factions and interesting stuff about them:

Haven: Mostly the same old: The humans of the Empire (I'm not sure whether it's the Griffin Empire already, I think Duke Slava is from the Griffin Duchy, which might be a spoiler as to how the whole thing ends....), which seem to recently have changed their worship to Elrath, Dragon of Light. The faction ability allows you to make a stack invulnerable to all harm for one turn and I think it loads when your troops are attacked or have good morale. Level 1 is core stacks only, 2 for elite, 3 for champion, 4 will also heal/resurrect creatures.

Peasants are gone, Sentinels (more or less the old footmen, though now that they get to act once per turn like everyone else, they'll see more action) and Crossbowmen are two of the three core creature. The other is the Sister(/Vestal) - though mêlée, they can heal twice per combat (as the heal spell, which lets you resurrect creatures now, as long as the stack isn't completely eradicated).

Griffins are back as elite (and their dive attack now finds its mark even if it moves), accompanied by the spirits of radiance (which can do strike-and-return, without fearing retaliation, as teleport - they move at the speed of light) and sun riders (close to the old paladins).

Champions are Celestials, much like the old angels.

Necropolis: The undead. One big change is that you don't get to raise dead enemies as new troops - though there is a building that lets you raise troops destroyed in combat when you act fast enough. It's expensive, though it gets cheaper if you have multiple such buildings. Necromancy is their racial ability, charging whenever creatures are hurt (though faster if it's your own creatures). It will "heal" your undead (the levels are core/elite/champion/split among everything in a 4x4 area).

Skeletons are now always ranged units - they throw spears which slow you down. Ghouls replace zombies as a straightforward attack unit. Ghosts are back, too. One of the best changes: Their spirit form (which is a lot more common in H6) will not give you a 50% miss chance (probably the most hated feature in H5), instead, all might-based attacks simply deal half damage (I guess the developers play Pathfinder ;-)). They can also heal undead creatures twice. if that undead creature happens to be surrounded by the living, the living will be damaged (and their damage turned into more healing for the healed)

Elite is liches (no area damage), undead lammasus and vampires (pretty much like they used to be)

Champions are no longer bone dragons, but fatespinners. These large undead spider ladies are interesting in that they can transform from their humanoid aspect into what looks a lot like a drider. Doing so forces them to wait (so they get to use at the end of the turn). The drider form is a ranged attack unit, and the two forms have different abilities beyond mêlée/ranged (for example, attacking the humanoid form will hurt like hell)

Inferno: Basic flavour remains the same, most changes are in the units. Inferno still gets to use gating, as their faction ability (core/elite/champion again, though I forget what the 4 level will do)

Their changed alot, with I think most old units gone. Core is hellhounds (mostly like before, including the arc attack, though they can now be retaliated against. They are large now, and have two heads in both forms I think), maniacs (straightforward damage dealers I think, though they might be those who decrease the target's damage output) and succubi (they no longer have the ranged retaliation or multi-target attacks, but hitting them in mêlée will now throw 10% of the damage back at the attacker, and the advanced form can seduce an unit)

Elite is ravagers (which look a lot like the maniacs, which is a bit weird. Mostly straight damage, though they can make a sort of whirlwind attack when they start next to many enemies. It will deal 25% or so of their regular damage and can't be retaliated against), juggernauts (large critters, can make a special sort of charge where every enemy they charge past is damaged, and if you start too close to them, you have to attack them or nothing at all) and breeders (ranged units, very disgusting, they basically shoot with their young. The advanced form grows by something like 10% in stack size before the fight begins. Excess units aren't kept, but if you lose no more than the excess units, you basically have no losses).

Champions are pit fiends, which were tier 6 before. They have a special attack that allows them to damage all enemy units.

Stronghold: Orcs from Tribes of the East, though a lot of stuff works differently now: Their racial ability (blood rage) no longer soaks up damage (which was among the most powerful of things in H5, so that's probably not too bad), instead it provides bonuses to the whole army. First a mere bonus to init, then a bonus to damage, and then I think an extra retaliation (though I might be confusing things here) and finally stunning blows.

They have demon blood, which behaves funny when you use light magic on them: If allies cast light magic to heal them, it heals them (like Haven or Sanctuary), but if the enemy does it, it hurts them (like Inferno and Necropolis).

Core is goblins (ranged units now, and their traps now work well - they do average damage and reduce the victim's movement by 5, which is enough to make most enemies stop in their tracks. This always works!), maulers (standard orcs, straight damage dealers), and the new harpies (flying, strike-and-return, the advanced form - furies - won't be retaliated against.

Elite is centaurs (which are very nice now: First enemy who comes over the "midline" is immediately attacked by the centaurs, centaurs get to run away before retaliating, so if they can flee they can shoot back, and the advanced version can move and then attack or vice versa, so it's hard to prevent them from shooting), shamans (no longer the cute sky/earth daughters, but a different unit that either attacks or uses its earth/sky ability - used on one of your own stacks, it makes them faster, used on the enemy, it will damage them a bit and make them slower) and panther warriors (large critters, Though I'm not sure what else they can do).

Champion is the Cyclops. Hits you with a big club (though I think no longer attacks everything in an arc). Advanced version can shoot "laser rays" from its eyes (a ranged attack this time - for some reason, they no longer use goblins as ammo). I read they're supposed to keep standing until the end of the turn (so they won't suffer the losses until later), though that might not work yet (or it just never came up in my games)

Sanctuary: The new kids. Nagas with a strong Japanese flavouring, these guys are devout followers of the Water Dragon Shalassa. To the point that they get less damage from water magic (but more from air) and if your whole army is composed of sanctuary critters, you can ride on water without the need of a boat. Their faction ability works on everyone at once. It is charged whenever you attack an enemy that has not been attacked yet this round. It starts with a defence bonus against both might and magic, later adds some extra HP for the turn and grants you extra retaliations.

Core critters is shark warriors (mostly straight brutes, though their attack leaves nasty wounds that bleed and inconvenience enemies), kappas (frog spirits. They can make a leap attack once every 2 rounds, they get to jump twice as fast as normal, get a small damage bonus, and won't provoke a retaliation) and pearl priestesses (naga ladies who shoot lightning bolts or cast a special form of regeneration that also throws some mêlée damage back at attackers)

Elite are spring spirits (mostly damage dealers, they also have a "pain mirror" and can establish a spirit link with another stack - the target also gets the spirit mirror, and when one stack gets a positive effect, both get it. Frost maidens are ranged units, the advanced versions also get to use a 4x4 blizzard, which is basically a minefield - each square you move through will damage you. Finally you have the kensai/kenshi, large nagas with two katanas. They get to challenge the first enemy they hit (which will deal significantly less damage against everyone but the kensai). The advanced versions also have a nice ability where they get one cumulative extra attack against a target they attacked the last round (up to 4 attacks)

Champions are ki-rin, Japanese-style dragons. They can fly (obviously) and leave a trail of lightning that does something bad to those who walk on it (I forget what).

As I said, I miss Sylvan (and maybe Dungeon), but even so, there's plenty of fun and innovation with the existing factions.

[Midnight-Gamer]

Heroes 5 is a good game in it's own right, but it's missing some things that made part 3 so special to a lot of gamers.
Homm3 had a very robust random map feature that was not outdone by the offering in Homm5. I would suggest that any fan of the later entries revisit Heroes three, especially with it's excellent expansions.
I sincerely hope #6 can outdo it!

[KaeYoss]

Midnight-Gamer wrote:

Heroes 5 is a good game in it's own right, but it's missing some things that made part 3 so special to a lot of gamers.

Homm3 had a very robust random map feature that was not outdone by the offering in Homm5. I would suggest that any fan of the later entries revisit Heroes three, especially with it's excellent expansions.
I sincerely hope #6 can outdo it!

I have this rare disease that prevents me from playing games that are too old. ;-)

Except it's 8 or 16 bit. But then, I played those games when I was a kid, so it's active nostalgia.

Other than that, graphics that are too old tend to scare me off, not to mention trying to get ancient games to run on current machines. (Though I haven't done that for a while, I hear it's gotten easier).

Anyway, random map sounds nice, having a feature like that that really works well would be nice for a current Heroes game. Beyond that, a large selection of maps will work, too.

But I did like Heroes 5. Granted, I haven't played Heroes 3, but I liked what it offered and didn't think the campaigns bad, either. They definitely had their moments. Especially if Zehir was around. And "Griffin Eternal" is one kick-ass battlecry.

[Power Word Unzip]

I'll second the recommendation for HoMM3 to anyone who has played later installments and likes the franchise. I have 3 and 5 still installed on my desktop, and while HoMM5 is a beautiful and immersive game, it doesn't have the pick-up-and-play appeal of HoMM3. Like some other posters, I also spent a lot of time between 1999 and 2003 playing HoMM3 campaigns both as a solo player and with friends. (One of these days I may pick up HoMM4 just to see what made everyone so mad when it came out! I heard a lot about caravans changing the play style pretty drastically, but never had a chance to play it and see what was so awful.)

From what you've described about HoMM6, KaeYoss, it sounds like I'll be passing on this installment just because there seem to be a lot of changes to play and I don't have much time to devote to mastering a new PC game (and what time I do have will soon be frittered away on The Old Republic MMO).

My other concern with HoMM6 that's keeping me from shelling out the dough for it is the fear that UbiSoft will do with 6 what they did with 5 - release a nearly unplayable game that has to be patched with megs upon megs of downloadable code and requires a lot of hardware tweaks to get running properly. (Several patches for HoMM5 also severely nerfed the necros, which is a big no-no in my book - ah gots to haves mah undead armies y'all!)

[Umbral Reaver]

From memory, HoMM 4 did the following controversial things:

1. Altered almost all the factions, including merging necropolis and inferno into one.

2. Had no unit upgrading (which I think improved the game drastically).

3. Let you keep the benefits of locations you had claimed instead of having to revisit them all weekly. This included creature lairs letting you purchase them and have them show up at your towns (the caravans mentioned).

4. Altered the magic system. It came to resemble that of Magic: The Gathering quite strongly. It worked well. It was just different.

5. Let heroes fight on the battlefield (which was dangerously awkward and kinda broken), and have multiple heroes able to fight in the same army.

6. Did away with the hexgrid and had a more free-moving system, which was more wonky than not.

7. Had kinda awful art.

8. Some other stuff I forget.

All up, it was playable, if a bit screwy. I don't think it was as good as 3, but taken on its own it was an enjoyable game.

Of the series, I think I have played HoMM 2 the most, followed by 3 then 4, with 1 and 5 seeing little play (as 1 had little to offer over 2 and was more or less identical otherwise, and 5 was a dumbed-down 3 with a worse skill system and Warhammer Fantasy clones).

[KaeYoss]

Umbral Reaver wrote:

From memory, HoMM 4 did the following controversial things:

From a Heroes VI (note that even the name has changed. It's no longer Heroes of Might and Magic VI, it's Might and Magic: Heroes VI.) point of view

Umbral Reaver wrote:

1. Altered almost all the factions, including merging necropolis and inferno into one.

H6 doesn't quite do this. However, only 4 of the 8 H5 factions made it, and there's Sanctuary, which is new.

I hope some of the other factions will make it via DLC/expansions.

Within the factions, monsters got replaced or changed, but I think the spirit of each faction was kept despite the changes in unit roster or how faction abilities work.

Inferno and Necropolis are certainly two very different factions in H6.

Umbral Reaver wrote:

2. Had no unit upgrading (which I think improved the game drastically).

I like upgrades. They're still there, too.

Umbral Reaver wrote:

3. Let you keep the benefits of locations you had claimed instead of having to revisit them all weekly. This included creature lairs letting you purchase them and have them show up at your towns (the caravans mentioned).

Well, H5 had caravans, at least in the expansion, and in H6 you can buy all creatures (from all cities and lairs) anywhere you can buy the unit.

And I like it. The "fetch quests" from before were a bit tedious.

In both H5 and H6, most things remain yours once you have claimed them: Mines (and the like, i.e. those buildings that grant you resources) will be yours until someone takes them away.

The dwellings were sorta hybrid in H5 - they increased creature growth for that kind of critter in the whole realm (i.e. for each city where you had those critters), but also had a contingent of critters you could buy there (or later get via caravan) - though they were always standard versions, so you had to take them to a proper town to upgrade them.

In H6, they just provide creature growth - since you can access all your realm's critters from any city, caravans aren't necessary.

H5 had mills, waterwheels and the like, and you could them visit once per week to get some resources (they were never yours).

I haven't seen them yet in H6, but they might still be around.

H5 also had external stables - visit them once per week to increase your movement rate. Other types of building could be visited once before each combat to give you some type of bonus.

H6 still has these one-time deal buildings (with a few new ones) and also has a significantly larger number of buildings you can visit once per week to give you a bonus for the rest of the week. Many of them are tied to the factions and grant you typical bonuses for a week .

Umbral Reaver wrote:

4. Altered the magic system. It came to resemble that of Magic: The Gathering quite strongly. It worked well. It was just different.

The magic system got changed in H6, too:

There are no more spellbooks, where you learn Basic/Advanced/Expert Summoning/Light/Whatever magic, and then have to go hunt actual spells from shrines or magic guilds (which was the way it was in H5 - again, I don't know how other titles did this).

Instead, each spell is its own skill. The magic side of skills is split into elements as its categories. In the fire category, you'll find "fireball" as well as "fire shield" and "summon fire elemental", and if you take the Fire Magic traits (grant you magic power just for fire) they help with each. Similar goes for the other elements.

So far in the open games I played, when I played magic heroes, I usually stuck to one of the "regular" elements (fire, earth, air, water as well as light and dark - note that each of these have elementals to summon and encounter, including light and dark) at first and then I branched out into prime (when it was available. I think only Stronghold doesn't get prime, which is a shame, but then again, Stronghold isn't really known for their magic prowess).

You can have characters with "fire affinity" (or similar affinities for other elements) or special affinities for specific spells (which are added as a bonus skill). While the campaign heroes are more or less pre-defined, you get to create your own custom main heroes for open games. That means you can decide whether they're might or magic and also choose from hero specialities.

Umbral Reaver wrote:

5. Let heroes fight on the battlefield (which was dangerously awkward and kinda broken), and have multiple heroes able to fight in the same army.

H5 did away with that again, and H6 kept them on the sidelines. Heroes stay off the battlefield (except for when they ride through for might-based heroic strikes). Now they also are outside the initiative order (you get to choose when they act, as long as one of your creatures can act right now. Adds some tactical manoeuvring - do you use something offensive right away or wait for the enemy to strike so you can patch your units up again?)

Umbral Reaver wrote:

6. Did away with the hexgrid and had a more free-moving system, which was more wonky than not.

Well, H5 used a square grid, and H6 does the same. Probably better for large critters - and apparently H6 has huge ones, too, probably for the boss fights.

The squares are big enough that they're easily discernible. Small (i.e. normal-sized) critters are 1 square and large ones 2x2. I don't know about the huge ones (they're not in the beta), so they might be 3x3 or 4x4.

Umbral Reaver wrote:

7. Had kinda awful art.

Always a matter of taste, but I think I like the art and graphics in H6.

Though implosion doesn't look quite as impressive as it did in H5. That spell looked hella awesome in H5.

Umbral Reaver wrote:

All up, it was playable, if a bit screwy. I don't think it was as good as 3, but taken on its own it was an enjoyable game.

Other things I heard/red about were:

Retaliation occurs simultaneously with the attack itself (so the good old "eradicate the stack before they can strike back" trick doesn't work any more).

H6 has a high-level skill that sort of allows this (actually, it lets you retaliate even before the attack, but it only works in the first two turns of the fight)

There are no longer 7 tiers of critters, but only 4. Each level had two types of units per faction, but you could only build one of the two buildings.

H6 has only three levels (core, elite, champion), with core and elite having 3 critters each (and champion 1), but they can co-exist, and are really just a rearrangement of the 7 tears to put tiers 1-3 as well as 4-6 closer to each other.

Creatures are produced daily instead of weekly.

In H6, new creatures are available at the beginning of the week, just like in H5.

[KaeYoss]

To go into magic a bit more:

Most magic known from older games (well, especially H5) has been turned into skills. You don't have a basic/advanced/expert destructive magic skill (tree). You get fireball as a skill, and fire shield as a separate skill.

Note again that you get to choose your skills freely, no random selection.

Unlike might skills, every faction is missing one or two categories (read, elements) in the magic skills. Haven, for example, can't use dark or water magic.

Some spells from before are missing from those lists, but there are still around, albeit as specific reputation powers (so they're only available for certain factions now, and only if you follow the right path. Word of Light is a blood path ability for Haven, for example, I think for their magic heroes, but if you go the path of tears, you get resurrection instead, which lets you not only bring back dead members of a stack, like the heal spell, but also get back stacks that have been eradicated altogether.)

Similarly, some of the stuff that used to be a faction skill is more generally available now: haven used to have counterstrike, which increased retaliation damage, and that's a might skill available to all now. And the "pressing attack" war cry lets the hero attack a friendly stack's target before the stack itself attacks, just like what Stronghold used to be able to do.

[Xabulba]

After the stinking ball of turd that was M&M heroes 5 I'm going to wait until it's proven not to suck before I even think of getting it.

[Githzilla]

Hehe, nice to check out this topic and see what I was going to say as well. HoMM3 was fantastic. Perhaps I'll have to fire it up on the computer just to remember how great it was and probably still is.

[KaeYoss]

One bad thing to say about this game (well, two, if you count the ridiculous bugs): I miss "Griffin Eternal!"