How is it comparing to HoMM 3?

[Friends with Benedicts]

UPDATE: Bought it. Liked it. It is indeed a different take on HoMM 3. I need to play more to draw more conclusions, but def not going to refund.

Title! Long time HoMM3 Fan, would love to play something similar and modern.

[sandman25dcsss]

I would wait for release to see. Currently both HoMM3 and 5 are better than this IMHO, especially graphics.

[Friends with Benedicts]

I understand it lacks some content compared to HoMM3, but what about new stuff? Are they trying new mechanics, innovative things I wouldnt see in HoMM3? Anything to set it apart and make it interesting?

[sandman25dcsss]

Yes, there are interesting mechanics like building several identical dwellings and magic being tied to units, but currently AI is quite weak so game is more for PvP guys. They are working on AI, that's why I suggested to wait for release.

[Donvermo]

Compared to HoMM3 this game has a much larger focus on wielders(heroes) ability to cast spells. Since troops generate your mana (of various types) your troop composition is not only decided by which troops have the best combat roles but also what spells your prefer to pair them with.

The concept is good but still needs refinement.

[Friends with Benedicts]

Originally posted by Donvermo:

Compared to HoMM3 this game has a much larger focus on wielders(heroes) ability to cast spells. Since troops generate your mana (of various types) your troop composition is not only decided by which troops have the best combat roles but also what spells your prefer to pair them with.

The concept is good but still needs refinement.

That seems pretty interesting. Do you guys have hope it will actually reach that? Or will fall flat?

[sandman25dcsss]

I believe the concept does not work that great as units are still much more important especially since there is just 1 highest tier (3) unit for every race and you can have only units from your own faction. So it is more like "you cannot use other magic" limitation than "let's see which units I need for xxx magic" choice. Tier 2 units are quite different in power so if you choose the weaker units for their magic, you will be much weaker than if you selected the best tier 2 units and then just used whatever magic they generate. Basically every faction is forced to use some specific magic and it is much more limiting than homm 3 or 5 where you could still go unusual way by learning magic from other cities or dragon utopias.

[Allwynd]

The biggest differences IMO:

- Towns don't have town screens, but plots around them on the adventure map and you can only build some things, when an enemy conquers a town, it resets it, all the buildings are lost so if you retake it again, you have to rebuild everything, which I did not like.

- You can't have infinite army numbers (doomstacks) you ca only have a set number of units and you can't stomp though trivial encounters, another thing I don't like.

- Magic system works differently and is based on the types of units in your army, I'm not sure I fully understand it yet with ~10 hours in-game.

- Artifacts aren't unique, instead the system is like an MMORPG item quality system - blue items, green items, white items, purple items, etc. You can loot the same artifact multiple times and fill your inventory with lots of useless copies of artifacts.

That's about all I found to be different. Personally, I still enjoy HoMM3 (vanilla and with mods) more than SOC, even though SOC is not bad, I'm just comparing it too much to HoMM3.

[Biff]

The gameplay and mechanics are better in SoC but lacks the volume of content HoMM3 has.

[Friends with Benedicts]

Originally posted by Biff:

The gameplay and mechanics are better in SoC but lacks the volume of content HoMM3 has.

Oh thats a nice answer. Volume is not always everything. I mean I barely got hours to play on weekdays, and some weekends I also work so...

[Thomasso_Ferrara]

I'm highly recommending. it's a small studio's honest work and they are doing great job.

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by Friends with Benedicts:

Originally posted by Biff:

The gameplay and mechanics are better in SoC but lacks the volume of content HoMM3 has.

Oh thats a nice answer. Volume is not always everything. I mean I barely got hours to play on weekdays, and some weekends I also work so...

Unless it is wrong answer. Gameplay and mechanics are better in HoMM. Like armies not limited to own faction (so you can create fun combos), heroes not limited to specific spells (again you can create fun combos) and scouting the map with heroes instead of waiting to upgrade your starting town first.

[Voyager]

I own this on GOG and I must say this game is a big disappointment. I rather play HOMM 3 or even 1,2 or 4 any time of day.

This game is a classic example of overthinking something that was figured out already. They should just go for HOMM clone and it would be much better. If chess rules are working, you don't change chess rules and call it " better " just becouse it's 2023 and it's time to design something fresh.

Also, pixelated graphics is not for everyone and I dont see any redeeming factor of having this type of graphic design. It's like this weird forced retro-fetish that feels like someone is trying to be edgy for no good reason. Animations are also weirdly sped up - mobile game style.

Big giant MEH.

[Quillithe]

There are quite a few things that I consider better (or at least less broken)

More town customization, being able to double up on units or get resources from towns.

Stack caps! Honestly not sure why they dropped this from King's Bounty to HoMM 1 but it helps fight doomstacking.

Magic system - the question of splitting stacks for more mana is interesting, and it's nice not having every fight start with the best spells. This also makes having the first unit in the first turn less important by quite a bit. There isn't a 'power' stat though so spells don't get nearly as absurd late game, for better or worse. Utility spells let you do some cool things though, summoning tile blockers or moving units around can be really really good, and trying to combo spells with units by making sure you get the mana you need is rather complex.

Restricted wait command - because wait wait wait wait got a bit tiresome.

Ranged system with different ranges per unit is pretty nice. Kinda wish they'd had some more wild variations though, like units with a 2 tile deadly range or something.



The bad:

Less quantity of content. Pretty uninspired AI. Wish the campaigns were less like tutorials. Less neutral units (almost none). Damage magic doesn't scale. The research system is kinda awkward, imo.

Less of a king's bounty huge single player map exploring kinda feel to it overall.



Absolutely suggest it though.

[Biff]

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

Originally posted by Friends with Benedicts:

Oh thats a nice answer. Volume is not always everything. I mean I barely got hours to play on weekdays, and some weekends I also work so...

Unless it is wrong answer. Gameplay and mechanics are better in HoMM. Like armies not limited to own faction (so you can create fun combos), heroes not limited to specific spells (again you can create fun combos) and scouting the map with heroes instead of waiting to upgrade your starting town first.

Well I guess we disagree. However I don't want this game to be a clone of HoMM3. We already have that. I appreciate that you specialize in and upgrade specific towns as it keeps things streamlined and less convoluted. I can't possibly be the only one who dislikes late game HoMM3 games and the annoyance of managing different town types and their units. Also it leads to balance issues if one player finds multiple of the same town which leads to doomstacks. This game relies on actual strategy rather than RNG.

Also you're really going to act like Homm3 has spell combos comparable to this game? In heroes you can only cast 1 per round. Here not only do the spells have way more utility but you can cast multiple on the same turn.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Biff:

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

Unless it is wrong answer. Gameplay and mechanics are better in HoMM. Like armies not limited to own faction (so you can create fun combos), heroes not limited to specific spells (again you can create fun combos) and scouting the map with heroes instead of waiting to upgrade your starting town first.

Well I guess we disagree. However I don't want this game to be a clone of HoMM3. We already have that. I appreciate that you specialize in and upgrade specific towns as it keeps things streamlined and less convoluted. I can't possibly be the only one who dislikes late game HoMM3 games and the annoyance of managing different town types and their units. Also it leads to balance issues if one player finds multiple of the same town which leads to doomstacks. This game relies on actual strategy rather than RNG.

Also you're really going to act like Homm3 has spell combos comparable to this game? In heroes you can only cast 1 per round. Here not only do the spells have way more utility but you can cast multiple on the same turn.

I do kinda wish you could mix unit types or pick up independent units.

It's not really true that heroes are limited to specific spells though, they just have specialty spells and harder to spam spells. You can easily get any magic type by learning the spell skill (or all at once potentially).