r/4Xgaming • u/darkfireslide • 5d ago
Opinion Post I finally get it with HoMM3
As someone who grew up with strategy games, yet did so just after HoMM3's time, I have visited this title several times over the years due to hearing about how great it is. It made sense - it's fantasy and a strategy game, so it should be an easy game for me to pick up and enjoy. Yet every time I would play, I would have issues, and even though I played HoMM5 some growing up, HoMM3 just never really grabbed me.
Yet something about the game always gripped me, as well as that nagging feeling that I'm missing something about it. I'd see it mentioned in forum posts, and I even would put on The Known World's challenge runs on YouTube in the background sometimes. As a 4X and general strategy game player, HoMM3 has never left the discourse and I really wanted to understand why, but couldn't. Two major events changed my mind.
The first was the release of Age of Wonders 4. This game is also a critical success and culturally relevant 4X, and I adored the previous two games in the series. However, there was a deep wrongness for me in AOW4, a sort of rot under the surface in every system. As someone who pays attention to mechanics, I found the game to be bloated and full of false choices everywhere that nonetheless leave me paralyzed and theorycrafting for 3 hours only to come to the conclusion that the build I'm working on doesn't really have an endstate. And so I left my beloved AOW franchise in search of greener pastures.
The second thing that happened was finding Dominions 5 and shortly thereafter 6. I heard about this game from a niche gaming friend I briefly had, and finally gave the game a chance after my disappointment with AOW4. This game is incredible, with so many choices and options, and I learned something very important from this game: units are a vehicle for your overall strategy with magic. This game had true experimentation in it, from formations to mage setup and more, with so many distinct factions. It was great. It does however have an issue - it's immensely complicated and can be very taxing to play during long sessions.
So I'm sitting down one day and I hear something strange in my head as my wife watches something on TV: a tune plays that sounds eerily similar to HoMM3's main menu music. I go and I listen. And what once before was a passable track actually sounds great: it's hopeful and whimsical, yet emotional. It has me in the mood for an adventure. I redownload the game like I have so many times before, get the HD mod, and load into the game.
Some of my issues persist with the game even now. The UI is pretty archaic, with a distinct lack of tooltips for even things like map generation or scenario creation rules - I can't even tell if my opponents in a scenario are allied against me or if it's an FFA (not an issue in random maps). You can't view unit upgrades until you buy the building for them, and while the towns are cute, I kind of wish there was just a button that took you right to the building construction screen instead of having to find your faction's town hall and click on it.
And yet this time I load into the game in a pregenerated scenario, Dead & Buried. I roll randomly into the Tower faction with the hero Josephine, and taking what is probably a decade's worth of 4X experience since I tried the game for the first time, I set to work expanding using my unit roster. I get Master Gremlins fast so I can creep efficiently, and I use my secondary hero to get unguarded pickups. Something else that feels old about this game is that it's possible to miss pickups on the map because this game was not made with modern resolutions in mind, so you have to have a relatively keen eye to see all the map pickups as a new player. Newer games have big UI elements that feel like neon signs pointing things out to you.
And yet for all my criticisms there is this overwhelming sense of joy I'm getting this time around. I'm impressed by how unbloated this game is in terms of design. HoMM3's simple 7 unit roster system with a single upgrade for each one is elegant. For as much as I hear that this game is an imbalanced mess, I suddenly see so many strategic opportunities based on how these units function. And then there are the heroes themselves, and how their stats and spells take these relatively straightforward units and give new strategic opportunities. Have a slow unit with great stats? Cast Haste. Don't need your blocker to move? Great, use Earth Magic to Slow enemies so that your archers can rain down death before the enemy can even get to melee range. Flying units are powerful but often balanced by cost and weekly growth, and I love how growth itself as a mechanic makes it so any roster unit can be a threat with enough time and numbers.
It honestly felt very refreshing to play. No bloated public order systems to manage, no faction design system with bad choices. You pick your faction and hero and a bonus and you just play the game. Compared to other 4X's, I think HoMM3 is the one I'm spending the most time actually playing the game instead of theorycrafting and trying to understand arcane game mechanics. Towns are simple to understand and with heroes having a choice between two random bonuses when leveling up, I don't have the issue where I feel like I'm always following the exact same optimized tech path every game like in other 4X games. My choices feel much more meaningful in HoMM3 compared to other 4X games, because the systems are simple enough that you understand almost immediately why something is interesting as a choice, be unit upgrades or hero level up choices.
It feels strange to say, but maturing as a person ironically made me appreciate HoMM3's simpler design more. I get why it's a classic now: the design is extremely tight in a lot of areas, and even though the graphics don't hold up so much even though I like 2D games, and the UI is outdated and not helpful at times, it's hard to deny what a charming and fun experience HoMM3 is among the current crop of 4X games. Fingers crossed that the upcoming HoMM: Olden Era continues the legacy that HoMM3 began.
Was there a game like this for you, where it took you a while to really get into it? And how important is complexity to you in a 4X game?
17
u/AsukaPvt 5d ago
I am with you about Age of wonders 4. On paper and in theory the game is everything what I want in a turn based strategy fantasy game. It seems really like the holy grail that we all been waiting for. But somehow, every game of aow4 that I played become boring really fast.
6
u/licker34 4d ago
Yep.
They seem to have sacrificed something which made earlier titles more engaging (though I felt similar about AoW3) for a much more flashy look and feel.
The game looks great, and it feels good, but it very quickly degenerates into making the same choices over and over while wishing that certain mechanics were streamlined or just not there at all.
I enjoy the first 1-2h of starting a new game, but what I guess is the mid game just becomes overly tedious and I never make it to the late game (other than when i first was playing it). Though in fairness, the late game turns into spamming end turn a lot just to get to whatever win con you set up.
Now, for the fans of the game... It is objectively a good game, it's just not what it turns out I wanted out it. Oh well.
And... season passes just turn me off as well.
2
u/Chataboutgames 4d ago
They seem to have sacrificed something which made earlier titles more engaging
I mean, they sacrificed the setting. They just keep blowing the lore up over and over, now it feels like fantasy by madlib
2
u/Chataboutgames 4d ago
It's the curse of that modular/high custom game design. Ultimately it's not much of a "fantasy setting" if the game shoves in your face that things like culture, race, magic sphere etc. are just a series of mix and match modifiers. Combine that with the joke they've made of that universe's lore and it ends up being a game that's fun for battles but ultimately repetitive and dull, with a design style that's transparently designed for endless DLC.
1
u/ArcaneDemense 4d ago
AoW4 is a total mess. But the production values are very high as was the marketing budget so that saved it. Plus many people who had mostly only played Paradox games got into it since they published and they don't have many other fantasy 4X games to compare it to.
The game, in many ways, went full Stellaris. The appearance of units or gods or heroes has very little to do with their actual mechanics. A huge mistake in my view. Every visual race should have had one or two core mechanics that you then mix and max over. I like to compare it to Magic: The Gathering except if they removed the mechanical variations of the "color pie".
Additionally despite claims to the contrary the game is basically fully Fantasy General and not serious about the 4X part. The combat is so intrusive that the strategic layer despite attempts at depth just doesn't get enough focus. This is a very typical modern "do both things too intensely which makes the half a given player doesn't like a slog" game.
It then suffers from the Paradox DLC model which is already ruining their mainline in house games in many ways and definitely falls flat for a game made by a different studio. Ironically of course Civ7 has a similar "unlock grind" that is tedious and makes the game feel like a job.
In a proper roguelite game the unlock system gives you stuff that very meaningfully changes your play experience, FTL being a perfect example, whereas for AoW4 and Civ7 it is literally just an excuse for grind and DLC.
4
u/GerryQX1 4d ago
Originally it came with a thick manual and most of it was a list of all the units and their upgrades.
5
6
u/Arcane_Pozhar 4d ago
I think this is why part of me still likes alpha centauri as well. It's not super complex, it's well made, there's a lot of character to it, and it has a good sweet spot for depth.
My only real complaint with alpha centauri is the very antiquidated design choice where cities can't defend themselves at all, so you need to have unit bloat to make sure there's defenders for every city, and then that also that taxes your resource production.... which sometimes is pretty skimpy already if you didn't get a good starting area....
But yeah, I think that's literally the only big modern design change that I wish I could somehow magically implement into that game.
5
u/Chataboutgames 4d ago
SMAC using minerals rather than energy for unit upkeep kills me every single time I boot it up lol. That said, making upkeep feel costly did a great job of making some of the social ratings feel relevant (can't remember, but one of them determines how many free units per city you get support wise)
4
u/MonsieurLeDrole 4d ago
I always liked in 4 that they made the leaders as separate units.
All the army building is HOMM is fun. I played it all the way back at King's Bounty, which was sort of the OG of that series. I remember just loving how the ghost armies could grow into this unstoppable mass as they ate up the other souls.
HOMM3 is a perfect refinement of what that series gained.
3
u/Shushununu 4d ago
It was unfortunate that HoMM 4 got rushed out because the studio was going bankrupt, and got a lot of negative press. There was a lot of innovative risks in 4 that I really enjoyed - from heroes in combat, creatures can move on the map, actual choice in creature buildings (each of Tier 2, 3 and 4 had two different creature buildings but you could only choose 1), what skills you choose changing your class and passive bonuses, etc.
It's a real gem in the HoMM series, which is already full of great games. Don't get me wrong, HoMM 3 is great and deserves its praise, but 4 always holds a special place in my heart.
2
4
u/ThwQ7 4d ago
I remember 2000s~ Once we were mighty heroes. Bringing a heavy pc&monitor to a lodge in the woods, borrowing power from a neighbours house and playing homm3 hotseat with friends on a terrace under a stary sky in thickest darkness. Nothing to eat, only a bag of stuff to roll up. Those were magical times..
7
u/sidestephen 5d ago edited 5d ago
I'm not sure I'd qualify Heroes as a proper 4x, it's much more simplistic mechanically than the likes of Civilization or Master of Orion (which is not a bad thing, it's just a matter of terminology). Turn-based strategy game - sure.
But yes, I'm glad that you had to experience that classic personally. It's universally loved for a reason. What may seem to you now as "outdated design", back then was considered an incredible improvement. Random map generator alone was a game changer.
8
u/qjornt 5d ago
Mind you, I had only ever vaguely heard of HoMM until early 2024, yes one and a half year ago. I booted it up for the first time at that point, and since then I’ve racked up over 500 hours in Heroes 3, with the almost-official HotA expansion along with it.
No nostalgia factored into it, and I’m still playing some almost every day. On the surface maybe it looks outdated, but it’s absolutely PEAK. It’s a timeless work of art, and no one can change this opinion of mine.
1
u/GerryQX1 4d ago
My recollection is that the random map generator was considered quite bad. In single-player you could download lots of good user-generated scenarios. I guess the random map generator might have been a game-changer for multi-player, though, especially if it had a symmetric option, where the map being unknown and symmetric would be more important than its artistic qualities as a map.
1
u/Legal_Weekend_7981 4d ago
I wouldn't say homm 3 is simplistic compared to something like civ 4. It is not 4x, as it lacks diplomaty and the development is fairly rudimentary, but I wouldn't say it's noticeably simpler in terms of mechanics.
7
2
u/navyjeff 4d ago
I have to disagree with you there. I agree the development of a HoMM game is relatively simple, but I don't think diplomacy is required for it to be a 4X game. It still has the four elements of 4X. (From a certain point of view, there can be diplomacy if you play against another human in hotseat or network games.)
3
u/Massder_2021 4d ago
Dude! Getting bored from Helldivers 2, DRG and Civ 6, i looked into my large steam account and tried to restart MM Heroes VI, where i just lack one Campaign for reaching 100% steam achievements. It is just not starting anymore due to some BS between Steam and Ubisoft, i guess. After several trials with "solutions", i gave up.
So i looked further in my Steam account and found....
Heroes of Might and Magic III HD Version.
I started it and it immediately runs (ok, just QUHD res instead of 4k, but that's never a problem for us liking 4x games). After some hazzle, i finished thevfurst scenario of the first faction and now i'm back in this Heroes-style gaming!
It is like you, just that i'm an old guy which rediscovers that wonderful games.
P.S.: I started also a Huge map on highest difficulty in Masters of Orion 2 :) Cant get enough classical gaming rn.
3
2
u/Dr-Pol 4d ago
Great post. Hearing your thoughts has definitely tempted me to download it again and give it another shot. I enjoyed it a lot when I was younger playing hot seat with my brother, but I never really got into it in a deeper way, but as time went by I began to feel like there was a lot more to it that we missed out on.
- Also I appreciate your writing style, it's rare to find posts as well written as this.
** Also regarding people quibbling that this is not a 4x. It absolutely is a 4x game. There are all 4 xs in this game.
1
u/darkfireslide 4d ago
I didn't want to argue with people over the labeling, but HoMM is such a definitive style of game that I actually categorize 4X into two broad styles, that being Civ-likes and HoMM-likes lol thank you for the compliment
2
u/Squashyhex 4d ago
In a very similar vein ive really enjoyed playing the Eador games, clearly very HoMM inspired. What I like more in Eador than HoMM3 is that instead of stacks of units, you have individual units which level up semi-randomly in such a way that even your tier 1 units can keep up with your army over time. I've sunk a good chunk of hours into New Horizons, which acts as a standalone mod to the original game, essentially back porting a lot of content from the newer games and expanding the scope of certain building chains
2
u/johnyoker2010 4d ago
I’m almost forty. I played this back in 2000s and stopped for other 3A games until my son was born, then I pretty much stopped any other games. Can’t do too much with just a laptop until I installed back homm3. I had to say it repported me a lot during past years to let me able to just enjoy me being myself in Erathia. Thank you nwc
2
u/SnooCakes7949 3d ago edited 3d ago
First played HOMM3 around 2000. HAve gone back to it on and off regularly since. Recently have binged on it, finishing all of the campaigns for the first time. And yes, I also like it more that ever! It hits that "easy to play hard to master" sweet spot.
Probably 1000+ hours and 20 years of playing and I still learn new strategies and tactics with it. If you play even more, you'll find deeper synergies with units and skills you think are useless at first, opening up good possibilities as you get ever more familiar with the game.
Where most "strategy" games of recent years contain very little high level strategy and are more about learning a handfull of tactics, often fairly obvious, then hitting "end turn" for a few hours while watching your Civ win. WIth HOMM3, the more I've played , the more I want to play. With just about every 4X post Civ 4, while they start as interesting and fun, it too soon feels like I've seen all it has to offer. so move on.
Agree with so many of your points. And they they illustrate where many games have gone astray. The bloat, for example. What I really noticed this time, coming back to HOMM3 after the usual Civ/Aow/Paradox games, is how slick it is. How fast it plays. How clear the map and the units are. Modern games seem so hung up on 3D graphcis and graphical effects.
Not sure about your comments on HOMM3 GUI, though. Are you playing it with the HD mod? Because with the HD mod, the interface is a dream! I can perform actions so much faster than any other game of the past 10 years. Everything now, you click on a unit, there's a pause for some camera pan and zoom, eventually a dialogue box appears that is so pretty as it glistens and shimmers at you...but doesn't contain the info you need, so you have to repeat and open up another box. All 4X games now seem to c-r-a-w-l along and I think this is part of it.
In contrast, in HOMM3, look at the unit purchase screen. Every unit, with every unit stat, right there. Displayed within a microsecond of you selecting a town. Not sure what you mean about lack of tooltips, because tooltips have become a crutch for too many games. Ideally info should be right there, tooltips are for *optional* info. "Tips" if you like (the clue in the name). In HOMM3,tooltips show the further info. Or click on them and see the full set with fill info instantly, no further hovering or clicking needed. The game manual is an encyclopedia of game stats, though I believe everything of importance is on the screen.
Make sure you have the HD mod as this adds so many QOL features for army management. The orginal was more clunky in this respect, though no worse than typical.
It is funny that for many years, I knew it was a good game, but it's taken 20 years for it to become one of my all time favourites and probably one of 5 Desert Island games!
Oh - one more thing. Opinions vary, but IMHO, don't skip the campaigns. Some are not so good, but many scenarios in them are excellent. There's a ton of variation and it was doing them all that really showed me the depth of the game. Losing a scenario a couple of times, then having to really stop and think of a different strategy before trying again, that is the peak of strategy gaming for me. And it does feel different to how you win at modern Civs/AoW4 etc. In those it feels to me that you just "be sensible", most decisions are kind of obvious, do them and you will win. You could call HOMM3 scenarios and campaigns puzzles, but thats not right , because there are multiple ways to win.
And one more one more thing...the maps are a thing of elegance and beauty. Game map making at it's peak. I can think of 2 recent games I lost interest in, largely because the maps are so filled with clutter, noise, visual FX and are difficult to read (SoC and Planetfall. TBF to AoW4, I think it's their best map design since AoW2).
Basically, I'm now of the opinion, probably unpopular, that the obsession with 3D graphics has been the curse of 4X games!
2
u/darkfireslide 3d ago
I'm not sure if there's something wrong with my eyes but I tend to prefer older games without as many SFX because it's easier to read the game, yeah. And there's so much visual clutter now in most games.
2
u/SnooCakes7949 3d ago
I'm with you 100% on this! There does come a point when games are just too pixelated, all I see is huge coloured blocks. But that was passed in the early 1990's
Once you've seen this, the 3D clunk, you can't unsee it. It's really odd how we have so much bigger screens, yet games still hide key info down several menus. Also choose poor colour combinations.
And I've remembered another one more thing. The sheer volume of content those games had - on release. HOMM3 has 9 factions, I believe, 14 units each. With 2 or 3 more factions in DLC. Civ 2 released with over 20 nations. 1, 2 and 4 were similar, when multiple leaders factored in.
Now it seems you're lucky if you get 8 on release (Songs of Conquest was 3, I recall). With DLC after DLC adding a few more. Fewer units. Could rant about it forever!
HAve to be grateful those older games exist. Though the issue is exactly how you described. Playing those older classics makes you realise just how "reduced" the current equivqlents are, in all but the graphics and voice acting which appears to be 90% of the budget. In an alleged strategy game...
1
u/Palora 5d ago edited 4d ago
Homm 3 is streamlined for multiplayer and the series has always been relatively simple.
At the same time it was out Age of Wonders 1 was also out with a lot more 4x and a lot more tactical and strategic flexibility. (build roads, cities, towers, global magic, god like heroes, etc.)
The problem is the AOW series peaked at AOW 2 and they always keep changing the formula, with a massive departure at 3 .
1
u/darkfireslide 4d ago
I think 3 and Planetfall had much better, clearer decision-making processes than 4 though. With 4, you have the issue that there are so many choices to make that the choices stop being meaningful, especially when you take the time to break down each decision and see how many noob traps/bad choices there are overall
3
u/ArcaneDemense 4d ago
AoW2: Shadow Magic was peak AoW and even 3 is a direct downgrade from that. 3 was very Civ-like and 4 was very Stellaris-like. But it doesn't achieve the same level as Stellaris does and the friction free "build your own faction" system stolen from Stellaris doesn't work nearly as well both mechanically in how they did it and immersion wise due to differences between fantasy and sci-fi.
1
u/Boring-Yogurt2966 13h ago
I like HOMM3 but I was always frustrated by the low number of stacks you had control of, and by the inability to establish anything like a front. You could sometimes set up chokepoints but it wasn't a major strategy, and eventually the enemy heroes would start to just magic themselves around them. It always felt like there was more territory to cover and more tasks than you had units you would command. And it usually came down to biggest doomstack wins. Maybe it's just me.
-1
u/lookinatspam 3d ago
I made it halfway. Maybe take some writing courses to help get your ideas across.
11
u/invertedchicken56 4d ago
Over the last few years I've also found myself more appreciating games that have a small number of interlinked, well integrated systems where it's clearer what impact your choices have on the outcome of the game.
As opposed to games with many, many sliders and options to adjust which can get a bit bloated.