How does HoMM 3 compare to this game?

[T1-M4T]

I really enjoyed this game and people tell me that if I like this I would like the HoMM series and apparently the 3rd is the best in the series.

However, I wanted to know what you guys thought ^^ How do you think HoMM 3 holds up to the age of wonders games?

[Cervantes]

HoMM3 is old. Like real old, it will not look as good as AoW3, and it will be a lot harder/clunkier to play due to the old interface and unintuitive mechanics compared to AoW3 which is a recent game developped with modern public in mind.

People praise HoMM because it's a classic high fantasy strategy title, and it holds high nostalgia value for those people. But honestly besides russians I never see anybody still playing those old HoMM and the newer ones are just bad. I bought HoMM7 and it was broken, unplayable multiplayer and no random map generator for solo games, so boring compared to AoW.

[Lars]

HoMM 3 is a really old game that has aged pretty well, imo.

If you want to test it out though I think the classic complete version is the way to go instead of the HD remake on Steam, which only has the base game with none of the expansions.

I would recommend HoMM V, again with the expansions, unfortunately it has severe performance issues on modern operating systems. And by modern I mean anything after Windows Vista. Ew. Its barely playable for me still but framerate can drop into single digits, which obviously isn't very enjoyable. Which is a shame because V is easily my favourite in the HoMM series.

Steer the heck away from Heroes 6, broken buggy game on all levels. Some say Heroes 7 is better, but I haven't really enjoyed it that much, myself. It is at least not quite as buggy and bad as 6. That's not really saying much though.

Also I disagree with above poster that the praise of the series is just because of nostalgia goggles. There aren't all that many games that have done fantasy turn based strategy very well, but III and V does it very well.

Standard boilerplate legaltext: Everything in this post is of course just my personal subjective opinion, keep that in mind if my post ignites a burning desire to tell me how wrong I am.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Lars:

Also I disagree with above poster that the praise of the series is just because of nostalgia goggles. There aren't all that many games that have done fantasy turn based strategy very well, but III and V does it very well.

This is my sentiments as well.

Heroes III and Heroes V are, IMO, the only good ones in the series. The rest, especially the latest ones, are just not that good. Personally, I prefer HoMM 3 over 5 simply because I liked the Lore/Factions/Units in 3 moreso than 5.

That said; Age of Wonders is similar in the sense that you have Towns; you use them to make buildings and Troops ... then you go and capture other people's towns. That's, IMO, where the similarity stops.

Things are vastly different in AoW compared to HoMM. Combat is totally different since the field of battle is huge and you don't stack units in AoW like you do in HoMM. I.e. in AoW a Swordsman counts as 1 unit, if you want 6 of them then your Hero's entire roster will be 6 stacks of 1 Swordsman each. Whereas in HoMM you'd have just 1 stack of 6 Swordsmen. HoMM technically focuses on having armies of 100s of your Factions unique Units, whereas AoW focuses on have squads of unique Units.

Another major difference is the Economy. Unlike HoMM, where you need specific Resources and hold aforementioned Resource structures ... AoW just has Gold and Mana; both of which your Towns can generate and will likely become your major source of income. Granted there are Structures you can hold that give you bonuses, like Gold Mines, Mana Nodes and even special structures that will give bonuses; like a Crystal Tree that gives Mana and makes all your Armored units get extra Armor.

One last major difference is the Domain System. Think of it like Civilization's Culture System ... except it counts for everything. Basically the Domain System acts as your area of influence that is mostly controlled by Towns. For example; You start with a small Town and there is a Gold Mine just outside your Domain. So you go to fight the monsters there to claim like you would in HoMM; however after clearing it you do not "own" the Gold Mine because it is outside your Domain. A few Turns later your Town upgrades to a City and thus the Domain increases ... your Domain now reaches that Gold Mine; making it yours.

TLDR: Heh, I wanted to just highlight brief things but got longwinded. Basically Age of Wonders is very different from HoMM mechanically but has very similar gameplay. The Domain System will take some time to get used to and you may hate it at first since you are accustomed to HoMM's "flag claim" system. However the plus side is that no one can "claim" your stuff in your Domain unless they take your Town.(No more chasing down D-bag AI trash Heroes that just run between your Sulfur Pits and Crystal Caves to screw your income!) IMO, you should watch some Let's Play videos to make sure the gameplay is something that looks good/similar to you.

[AttilaWalker]

As a big fan of Heroes series, (still play HoMM5 from time to time) I can say it's good. As above posters said 3 and 5 are probably the best.
But I struggle to find smth which HoMM does better than AoW3. Only the ability to make pre-battle deployment of your troops comes to mind (especially HoMM5). But when actual battle starts AoW is miles ahead. It was fine going from HoMM to AoW, but I think I won't be able to enjoy pretty shallow battle mechanics of Heroes if AoW was my first title.
I also seem to like single unit system of AoW more than Stack system of Heroes.

Aside from combat: there's no diplomacy, almost no strategic spells, no city founding/razing, standart AI is braindead both on stategic map and in battle.

[MrNo]

Originally posted by AttilaWalker:

Aside from combat: there's no diplomacy, almost no strategic spells, no city founding/razing, standart AI is braindead both on stategic map and in battle.

I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that HOMM or AoW has no city founding/razing, and no strategic spells? I've never played any of the HOMM games myself, but if you're talking about AoW I'd have to outright disagree with you on those two points (and a bit on the fourth as well).

[AttilaWalker]

I just listed things that are in AoW and aren't in HoMM. Sorry for confusing you.

[MrNo]

Ah, cool. Carry on then.

Edit: Yeah, on rereading, it's rather apparent. It really wasn't that confusing.

[Lars]

Those points apply to the HoMM games, I'm quite sure. Its all correct, too.

There's no diplomatic action with the other players, no peace treaties or trading.

Spells are mostly battle focused. And powerful as all heck, when cast from heroes with the right skills for it, arguably more so than in AoW III. There are adventure map spells as well but it is typically teleportation and such, there are no sustained 'enchantments' that buff your entire empire like in AoW III.

There's generally fewer cities to control than in an AoW III map, can't be founded, they're all placed the the maps are loaded/generated, and cannot be razed (but you can in some of the games convert them to your own faction).

Annd.. yeah, kinda. Its seems for every iteration of the HoMM series, the AI opponents play worse than the game before it. The AI in IV and VI especially are infamous for not even having the slightest understanding on how the game works, relying instead on scripted events and cheating by adding huge armies each week to send at the player. In III and V the AI at least does something, it will move around and flag mines and level up, before attacking you. In VI it doesn't even collect unguarded treasure and resources inside its own domain, its completely lobotomized. VII AI seems half capable, though.

[Dunadd]

Age Of Wonders III is just better. Battles rely more on tactics, less on numbers. Battlefields are bigger allowing more manouvre. And more units can be involved in a battle - but none of them can be a stack of 500 or 1000 troops that insta-kills smaller stacks the way they can in Heroes III. Units get significantly stronger as they gain experience. There is more variety of unitsand abilities - and abilities for heroes. Heroes can fight in battles. There are strategic level spells that can affect cities, armies or some or all of your units.

Add in being able to found new cities, and, with the expansions on random maps, get special city upgrades that can improve some unit types recruited in that city from clearing certain locations in a cities' domain. Cities' domain (zone of getting resources from) expand as they grow. Different races benefit or lose out from having different terrain types in their domain. And units can get morale penalties or bonuses from the terrain they're fighting in, strategic spells, skills of heroes leading them , skills of units etc.

I wouldn't say the AI in Age of wonders III was any better than in Heroes III. But overall it's just a better game

[Aglet Green]

Age of Wonders doesn't compare to Heroes of might & magic 3, but it does compare pretty accurately to another game from 20 years ago called "Master of Magic." In many ways, AOW3 feels like a continuation of MoM the ways Heroes feels like a continuation of a game from 25 years ago called "Kings Bounty." (No relation to the games on Steam whatsoever beyond the basic concept of having a tactical map and stacks of soldiers) It also compares favorably to a game from 30 years ago called "Warlords."

[Fay]

Originally posted by Setzway:

Heroes III and Heroes V are, IMO, the only good ones in the series. The rest, especially the latest ones, are just not that good. Personally, I prefer HoMM 3 over 5 simply because I liked the Lore/Factions/Units in 3 moreso than 5.

Eh, I liked HoMM2 too. Sure, HoMM3 is more or less a better but similar game so no need for a new player to try HoMM2 but HoMM2 is still good imo.

[Cervantes]

Originally posted by Lars:

Also I disagree with above poster that the praise of the series is just because of nostalgia goggles. There aren't all that many games that have done fantasy turn based strategy very well, but III and V does it very well.

No I mean Heroes III and V were very good back in the day, but the OP asks if he would enjoy Heroes III after enjoying AoW3, to which I say that nowadays, Heroes III is not played much because of how old it is, and AoW3 is much better in pretty much every aspect.

It's like saying "hey I really liked that new Doom game, will I enjoy that old Wolfenstein fps that was made 1500 years ago ?". Huh maybe, but if you liked the awesome graphics and three dimensionnal smooth gameplay and dynamic executions and cool soundtrack in Doom 4, you won't find any of those in the old Wolfenstein. You will however get to kill mecha-Hitler :^)

[Dunadd]

Originally posted by Dragon Priest:

Originally posted by Setzway:

Heroes III and Heroes V are, IMO, the only good ones in the series. The rest, especially the latest ones, are just not that good. Personally, I prefer HoMM 3 over 5 simply because I liked the Lore/Factions/Units in 3 moreso than 5.

Eh, I liked HoMM2 too. Sure, HoMM3 is more or less a better but similar game so no need for a new player to try HoMM2 but HoMM2 is still good imo.

The campaigns in HOMM2 were the best campaigns ever imo - and best atmosphere. AI was really good too. HOMM VI was pretty awsome too imo - cut out all the having to send out endless troops of reinforcements to your heroes - or going on repeated grand tours of all your cities to pick them up, and the long marrches from one end of the map to the other and back.

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Dragon Priest:

Originally posted by Setzway:

Heroes III and Heroes V are, IMO, the only good ones in the series. The rest, especially the latest ones, are just not that good. Personally, I prefer HoMM 3 over 5 simply because I liked the Lore/Factions/Units in 3 moreso than 5.

Eh, I liked HoMM2 too. Sure, HoMM3 is more or less a better but similar game so no need for a new player to try HoMM2 but HoMM2 is still good imo.

I was referring moreso to actual Gameplay and Mechanics rather than everything as a whole. Don't get me wrong, I loved all the HoMMs until 4(since it "ended" the world but 5 was a good re-imagining) because I was playing Might & Magic at the same time. HoMM's campaign/lore synced really well with the respective M&M so even though you were playing different games; it felt like the same game.

That's probably why I feel HoMM 3 is the best because M&M 3-6 were favs; I just loved the setting, monsters, characters and lore. 'Course I'm a sucker for Science Fantasy stuff.

Age of Wonders on the other hand has been pure awesome to me since Day 1 lol. Really love the whole "Humans are dangerous because they do what Humans do and grow more powerful despite being woefully overpowered and outlived!". So that and Wizard Kings acting as Gods reminds me of my old D&D sessions with High Level Wizards heh.

[sheep from hell]

if you want to play something different, try age of wonders 2 shadow magic.for me it aged and is much better than homm3 and different enough from aow3 and it aged much better, it has some really cool mechanics like spells that slowly flood everything on the map, additional there are some very big mods that enhance the game in a very good way