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Rob Zacny

Episode 295: Heroes of Might and Magic

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Rob, Rowan, and Troy "I have a Gnoll Friend" Goodfellow talk about the Heroes of Might and Magic series in its entirety, from bright, pixely start to Match Three finish. HD remakes, RPG spinoffs, puzzle games -- HoMM has it all.

 

Listen here.

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Oh man, I played the original King's Bounty many times as a kid but always lost.  I will feel nothing but shame when listening to this podcast.

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Amazing episode! I am a big fan of the franchise, but more of the original rpgs titles, anyway just add a few things to reinforce some things you guys saids on the show:

 

- About Combat, Numbers, Magic:

 

Here is how in general, at least till Heroes IV the system used to work: Each type of unit have a individual HP, in this exemple let´s use the Pikeman from Heroes 2, which is 15 HP, the individual HP multiplied by the number of soldiers determines the total HP of the unit, so 10x Pikemen, would have in total 150 HP. everytime they suffer enough damage equal to their individual HP one soldier in the unit dies. Therefore, if this 10 Pikemens, take something like 40 of damage, that mean that two of them will day, while one will still have left 5 HP.

 

Damage was calculated by the individual unit damage range multiplied by the number of soldiers, again Pikemen cause between 3-4 of damage multiplied by their numbers, which would mean 3-4 x 10, the difference between Heroes Attack and Defense would modifiy the damage.

 

That why Rob said that numbers can weight a lot. After a point you units have can have such high numbers, that unless you match them you have no hope at all, because there is no thing in game like a rout or retreat (I mean a way to win without killing everything, unless the other players flees). If the enemy have 300 Knights (3000 HP and damage around 5-10 x 300) and you have nothing near, it over. While this look normal, problem is that in Heroes what you do most is gather more and more troops and in some scenarios which put you against several enemy this can get out of control forcing you to restart the map. Thankfully most maps where very well balanced so this does not happen very often.

 

But also one thing Rob said is about how direct spells don´t cause much damage: That is because spell damage is based against your Spell Power multiplied by the spell damage, so I think Lighting (in Heroes 2) is something like 25x your spell power, problem is that unless (and even if) you play with one the magic based heroes, Spell Power never rised so much to meet the late units HP and numbers, even with 20 of Spell Power (which is really high) you only do 500 of damage, which against 90 Titans (300x90=18000HP and 20-30x90 of damage) don´t help much. But again, like Rob said, the real "magic" lies in all buffs spell which don´t require Spell Power, majority of them where based on Knowledge which only extend their time.

 

That formula still almost the same even in later game, even if some words or calculations change.

 

- What happened to the franchise:

 

At some point after Might and Magic II and King´s Bounty, New World Computing was bought by 3DO. For while things worked fine, until after Heroes III, which NWC start to suffer a lot with 3DO mismanagement, which caused lot of people begin fired, begin forced to produce a lot of games in short time due contract (they also produce two console titles, Crusader of Might and Magic and Warriors of Might and Magic), by time of the production of Heroes VI, most people from NWC, even the founder, Jon von Canegham no longer work there, the game suffered several delays, shortage of funds and other problems but still was released. Later on, 3DO, which by this time had closed NWC still forced what was left to release MIght and Magic IX in what can be hardly even call a "alpha" stage, it was a disaster.

 

Karma soon caught 3DO, which was in dire situation, despite that they still tried to play "smart" and refused some attempts by Ubisoft to sell the franchise, because they expect to get a better offer, but in the end they had to sell it anyway because of backrupcy (I think for even less they imagined).

 

- On the later games:

 

Ok, that is my humble opinion:

 

Heroes IV (3DO): It was a ok game, for the terrible condition it was made. It´s problem begin with the fact they destroyed the original setting of the previous games (which upset a lot of fans) and there was a lot of bugs and balance problems. A fun thing it was that mInotaurs had a ability which allow them a 50% of chance of parry any attack, guess what happened when two minotaurs groups clashed? parry after parry. In this game Heroes became units on the field, begin very weak early one and too strong later.

 

Heroes V (Ubisoft): The initial launch wasn´t good, but after several expansions and patch it was a solid game that also bring colors back to the franchise. Also here, the magic system finally catch up with the damage and HP problem, but maybe got even slight ahead, spell could cause way to much damage.

 

Heroes VI (Ubisoft): I liked, much like Rowan said, the game have that "heroes feeling" but the campaign, which abuses from script which generate a random overpowered armies against you, drive me crazy. Also many maps require you to not play slow like in other titles, but peform rushs  which is annoying.

Edited by Valorian Endymion

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I started playing HoMM3 a few months back. I was surprised at how much it got its hooks into me. I'm terrible at the game, but something about it keeps calling to me. 

 

One little touch that I liked is that you only get a general idea of what the numbers are in an enemy force. I wish more strategy games would build around ideas like that. I especially liked that it didn't give you a number, just a general descriptor of how many. 

 

Is the Winter of Wargaming no more?

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 What happened to the franchise:

 

At some point after Might and Magic II and King´s Bounty, New World Computing was bought by 3DO. For while things worked fine, until after Heroes III, which NWC start to suffer a lot with 3DO mismanagement, which caused lot of people begin fired, begin forced to produce a lot of games in short time due contract (they also produce two console titles, Crusader of Migth and Magic and Warriors of Might and Magic), by time of the production of Heroes VI, most people from NWC, even the founder, Jon von Canegham no longer work there, the game suffered several delays, shortage of funds and other problems but still was released. Later on, 3DO, which by this time had closed NWC still forced what was left to release MIght and Magic X in what can be hardly even call a "alpha" stage, it was a disaster.

 

You've meant Might and Magic IX. M&MX Legacy is a recent title by Ubisoft and it's not great but decent.

 

Also Heroes VI campaign was boring and story was very poorly delievered. 

 

Heroes V look like the most polished title today but it suffers from some visual design problems (many monsters were obviously outsorced for example and map can look too ugly today). It has expandalone Tribes of the East with campaign that doesn't make much sense if you haven't played original but the gameplay itself is on its height. This game is more of updates Heroes 3 but with more diversity and better hero progression system - it's sort of perk based reminding of Fallout or Skyrim with basic boring skills rising and opening way for passive and active perks, some of them quite original (like Knight ressurecting the last fallen troop just before loosing or ballista starting shooting fire). Heroes 6 didn't get quality addons like this and had some questionable design decisions like cheap town converting and point-based hero progression. Oh, it also had always online system and campaign maps had places for online messages a la Dark Souls. Seriously.

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I'm still listening to the podcast but I wanted to make a quick comment, you shouldn't have to move your heroes back to town, you should have other heroes that are basically the supply line heroes, heroes you hire to ferry troops to your front lines. I think it was intended for you to do this. Otherwise it could literally take a full ingame week or two to go around with one heroe and recruit all your troops.

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Rowan's point towards the end of the podcast is why the HoMM series will always be one for which I have particularly fond memories. My younger sister too had no interest in  games except for Heroes of Might and Magic. I think it was the art and music that initially drew her in too. The two of us and my dad would all sit around our one computer for hours playing hotseat games. I don't think we ever actually finished one, but that wasn't really the point anyway. I keep meaning to fire them up again, especially II, but I think you all are right, this series is probably best left as fond memories and a design artifact. I looked up some screenshots while listening to the podcast, and the early games really are striking. I'd go so far as to say they're beautiful, but can see where others would disagree.    

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Yeah, I too know a few people, outside the franchise normal fans, how played and loved Heroes II.

 

You've meant Might and Magic IX. M&MX Legacy is a recent title by Ubisoft and it's not great but decent.

 

Also Heroes VI campaign was boring and story was very poorly delievered. 

 

Heroes V look like the most polished title today but it suffers from some visual design problems (many monsters were obviously outsorced for example and map can look too ugly today). It has expandalone Tribes of the East with campaign that doesn't make much sense if you haven't played original but the gameplay itself is on its height. This game is more of updates Heroes 3 but with more diversity and better hero progression system - it's sort of perk based reminding of Fallout or Skyrim with basic boring skills rising and opening way for passive and active perks, some of them quite original (like Knight ressurecting the last fallen troop just before loosing or ballista starting shooting fire). Heroes 6 didn't get quality addons like this and had some questionable design decisions like cheap town converting and point-based hero progression. Oh, it also had always online system and campaign maps had places for online messages a la Dark Souls. Seriously.

 

Yup, my mistake!

 

To also add a few more things about Heroes VI, the studio behind the original game had closed door and another one take over and made the expansions, I have the first two but didn´t play it much. The campaign story also suffered from the "we a trying to look serious and Game of Thrones like" with all name drops and pseudo realism/intrigue. The only thing that really surprised me was the Faceless, that was quite new, not very good, but new in terms of design, almost anime like. Good call on the message feature, got to agree, that was useless.

 

The next Heroes will be done I think by the same people behind Might & Magic X, which does include some old fans and the game was fine (despite some difficult spikes) so I am curious on what they will show us, but no high hopes. Thankfully between Age of Wonders III and Endless Legend there have been good high fantasy strategy games.

 

About games which we start and then stop at some point: I have to confess that I have this issue with Diablo II, I mean, once I got almost at the end, but I lost the save, later when try I end up giving up by time of act III or II.

 

Just a few curious things about HOMM and MM:

- I remember playing King´s Bounty when young with my brother and we both start to wonder, why wolves need payment? XD because unlike other titlers the original King´s Bounty you had to pay for the units which could desert you or go out of control if you lack enough Leadership.

- By the way, the whole thing about finding a chest and either give it to the poor or take for yourself started at King´s Bounty, there you either could gain more gold or more leadership.

- In King´s Bounty ghosts where really overpower, they turn killed enemies in even more ghosts (like Vampires in later games, but in ridiculous numbers) which can quickly grow too large or if you had the bad luck of begin the "week of the peasant" all ghosts turn to peasants (don´t ask me).

- Also Demons (and maybe djinns) have the ridiculous ability to "halve" a enemy stack, in other words, with luck they can kill half of the enemy stack no matter what.

- HOMM is the only game, where 12 archers firing  each one firing a arrow (for a total of 12) can kill lots of peasants, as long they their leader is really strong XD

- Kreegans first show up in MM6, but they where more like insects, with a hivemind and even a queen on the next game (HOMM3) they became "demons" and on next (MM7) they return to begin insect like again. There is a lot of holes in the overall plot and lore of the franchise.

- There once was the infamous "Forge Town" which was base for a expansions for Heroes III, the idea was bring back the whole sci-fi part, using as a base the evil ending of MM7, due bad design and maybe fan base getting confused there was a backslash, which caused the whole idea to forgotten.

- Names of the original heroes in Heroes I and II and their portraits are all from the previous MM 3-5 games, but is not certain if they are the same people. King´s Bounty before that, also reused a few names, like Murray the Miser (npc in MM2) but here is very clear it´s not the same people.

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To also add a few more things about Heroes VI, the studio behind the original game had closed door and another one take over and made the expansions, I have the first two but didn´t play it much. The campaign story also suffered from the "we a trying to look serious and Game of Thrones like" with all name drops and pseudo realism/intrigue. 

 

I still don't get what those Faceless guys were. Are they elementals? I've only completed Inferno campaign after the prologue. Perhaps I had to play campaigns in order but the game hadn't told me that. So I had no idea what's happening. Why is the guy suddenly a demon, what's happening with his mother, who are those Faceless... Even the ending was just a lazy text message with couple of phrases not explaining a thing. I've also had technical problems with the game so I didn't bother with other campaigns.

 

Demons still can halve your stack in new King's Bounty (at least Armored Princess). But there you have multiple way to handle the problem with magic and special unit abilities.

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Why are we not doing Warlords podcast? Warlords III Darklords Rising is one of the best strategy games ever made, a pity it doesn't work that well on 64bit. I have replayed large chunks of it recently on my old laptop and too my surprise (i was 12 when i first played this game) it holds up really well and has a surprising amount of strategic depth.

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Why are we not doing Warlords podcast? Warlords III Darklords Rising is one of the best strategy games ever made, a pity it doesn't work that well on 64bit. I have replayed large chunks of it recently on my old laptop and too my surprise (i was 12 when i first played this game) it holds up really well and has a surprising amount of strategic depth.

 

Because Warlords is older than most listeners. And the last game was released 11 years ago. If you count RTS spin-off and don't count Puzzle Quest. And you don't count Puzzle Quest. Warlords are dead and nowadays I'm not sure if they've left any heritage to speak of. There are games like Age of Wonders 3 which can be seen as spiritual successors to Warlords but it's sort of like saying Dark Knight (2008) is a spiritual successor to TV show Batman from 60's.

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Oh man, the music gave me shivers. Some of those town tracks were just great pieces. I loved HOMM2 back in the day. It had so much personality, which was odd, given it's what I call a kitchen-sink game (as in everything but the...). I think very strong faction design let it get away with its incoherent diversity- your army would at least fit thematically with itself. 3 was a better game, I think, but it didn't have quite as much charm. Still great, though.

 

Rob, I thought your point about the game working as a whole experience because no one element dominated was insightful, and kind of fascinating. I don't know how the heck you're supposed to apply that to game design. "Alright team, we need to design tactical combat, but we can't make it too deep and interesting, or it'll distract from the strategy layer. Aim for mundane."

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Because Warlords is older than most listeners. And the last game was released 11 years ago. If you count RTS spin-off and don't count Puzzle Quest. And you don't count Puzzle Quest. Warlords are dead and nowadays I'm not sure if they've left any heritage to speak of. There are games like Age of Wonders 3 which can be seen as spiritual successors to Warlords but it's sort of like saying Dark Knight (2008) is a spiritual successor to TV show Batman from 60's.

 

Yeah, specially since only the RTS ones are avaliable on GoG (I could swear that they had the originals I don´t know why).  Also, know what? I never ever imagined that Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords was in the same universe, my jaw fell to the floor when I check out, I thought it was a japanese title because of some images.

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Yeah, specially since only the RTS ones are avaliable on GoG (I could swear that they had the originals I don´t know why).  Also, know what? I never ever imagined that Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords was in the same universe, my jaw fell to the floor when I check out, I thought it was a japanese title because of some images.

 

The Warlords:Battlecry RTS games are outstanding games in and of themselves.  The whole Warlords franchise has many things to say to developers nowadays: 1) the player needed to make high level strategic decisions as well as tactical decisions on the map.  2) The AI is superb, and frankly, I dont know of an AI in any game that can touch it - and it never cheated. 3) it had a great sense of humor.  I remember playing the RTS where one of the stats of your hero units was the ability to fear enemy units, and the fear animation enemy minions was hilarious....4) bug-free.  I frankly dont remember any bugs in any SSG game I played.  Their QA was rock solid. 

 

The games are unplayable given our modern aesthetics, however.  So one gripe with the games I have is presentation. It was functional back in the day, but it doesnt work now. 

 

I did like the podcast, but I do agree with a comment above about shuttling troops to the front.  One of the fundamentals strategic choices you make in HOMM is which hero (and how many) to use as a mule. You are able to project force over distance, but you have to plan for it. Also, HOMM V to me was superior to all previous versions of the game.  Yes, the campaigns were bad.  But the gameplay was fabulous - especially when I discovered that skills could be levelled up in a way that gives you a super-defining skill for your class -  see the Skill Wheel at http://www.celestialheavens.com/viewpage.php?id=520

 

And HOMM VI could have been good/great, but apparently Ubisoft laid off some QA and they presented their customers with a buggy turd of a game. And wtf is up with Ubi's front end client.  oy....

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Yeah, specially since only the RTS ones are avaliable on GoG (I could swear that they had the originals I don´t know why).  Also, know what? I never ever imagined that Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords was in the same universe, my jaw fell to the floor when I check out, I thought it was a japanese title because of some images.

 

There is the ipad version of the original:

 

https://itunes.apple.com/app/warlords/id532024361

 

The controls are slightly clunky, but it does seem to be the original Warlords, more or less.

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Defenitely one of weaker episodes.To give you analogy, imagine guy, who played through Brood War Terran Campaign and several scirmishes against AI by turtling every mission behind wall of bunkers and siege tanks, and dropped game complaining it was boring and devoid of strategic depth. He maybe understands game basics, but he completely clueless how its actually played, meta, size of multiplayer community etc etc. Same here, whole show Rob and Troy were talking about series of nice little fantasy strategy games with okeish strategical part and passable tactical combat which gone into obscurity in mid-00`s, while its actually closest anologue of Starcraft in TBS. I mean, only  game in this genre which comes close in the terms of size and activity of multiplayer community is Civilization. 2014 alone had like 15 tournaments, right now, as i writing this,  more than 1000 viewers watch tournament semi-finals on twitch.  

Hope it doesnt sound too harsh, love your podcast!

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Defenitely one of weaker episodes.To give you analogy, imagine guy, who played through Brood War Terran Campaign and several scirmishes against AI by turtling every mission behind wall of bunkers and siege tanks, and dropped game complaining it was boring and devoid of strategic depth. He maybe understands game basics, but he completely clueless how its actually played, meta, size of multiplayer community etc etc. Same here, whole show Rob and Troy were talking about series of nice little fantasy strategy games with okeish strategical part and passable tactical combat which gone into obscurity in mid-00`s, while its actually closest anologue of Starcraft in TBS. I mean, only  game in this genre which comes close in the terms of size and activity of multiplayer community is Civilization. 2014 alone had like 15 tournaments, right now, as i writing this,  more than 1000 viewers watch tournament semi-finals on twitch.  

Hope it doesnt sound too harsh, love your podcast!

 

Yeah, I've heard of this strategic depth. How does it go - you aren't allowed to start as Necromancers or Conflux, you aren't allowed to conciously choose Necromancy skill but if you get it from witch hut you just don't advance it unless other skill choice is Diplomacy, which is even more forbidden. You can't capture Conflux town. Oh yes, and half of heroes special abilities are considered too powerful so you're not allowed to use them. So begin the game, pray so that you get Earth Magic early and get ready to create chains of heroes transporting troops. Man, what a strategy.

 

Come on, guys have nailed it and explained why the game is popular. This game was ruined for me once I've watched some VODs - people desperately trying to shape something strategic from chaotic mess of content developers poured in the game. Attractive mess, of course, with great sound, visuals and map design, but gameplay itself is nowhere close to Starcraft's polish and balance.

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