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Heroes Community > Heroes 3.5 - WoG and Beyond > Thread: Which version of Homm3 do you prefer?
Thread: Which version of Homm3 do you prefer? This thread is 3 pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT»
bloodshade21
bloodshade21

Tavern Dweller
posted February 04, 2021 05:21 PM

Which version of Homm3 do you prefer?

Hello everyone,

I haven't been posting much on this forum, but have been regularly checking it out for some time now. I've been introduced to this game when I was a child, and I absolutely love that it's still very much alive and that there are so many people who are still working on it, without gaining any profit from their work.

I've seen there was a heated debate in the Hota topic about Hota vs. other mods (primarily ERA). I must say that the whole multiplayer thing is not really for me, but I can certainly appreciate the overall quality of Hota expansion. It's undoubtebly the best quality mod for H3, but I find the Advanced class mod + Third upgrade mod so enjoyable, and much more balanced in terms of skills and spells (at least balanced in a way that all the skills are now useful, still not sure about the overall balance though...) I love the TUM because creatures are really well done, they feel like proper upgrades, and I can play with the creatures' abilities and balance them in any way I'd like. ACM just seems so well done, almost every skill has a use, and every hero seems special. Also spells seem much more balanced, along with the whole Might vs Magic system. Issues with these mods are that there are often lots of bugs, which can be a bit frustrating, but the creators are very cool and approachable so they resolve the problems as quickly as they can.

So, I was wondering, which version of the game do you prefer? Also, if you are playing ERA, which scripts, map templates and mods are you using? I'd post the extendable vote list but I don't really know how...

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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted February 04, 2021 05:44 PM

Personally I can't play a game without a constant critical approach, so the possibility to leave my prints at the core thus solve the aspects I don't like is priceless. I particularly enjoy games coming with powerful editors and some coding language implemented, that way I am never disappointed then I enjoy cooking mods.

I look at Hota with respect but has zero interest for me - no time for multiplayer (which has been enormously optimized by the lucky HD/Hota tandem), I don't play random maps neither, then the 9 towns were sufficient in my view, while there were hundreds of annoying weaknesses as useless skills, useless creatures with useless abilities, useless heroes, simplistic map adventure quests system, not enough role playing possibilities and so.  

So there is no mystery, WoG/Era is what I prefer and use. From time to time, having a good meal at a good restaurant is fun, but a well equipped and functional kitchen you can use every day and make your own recipes, there is no match.

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blob2
blob2


Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
posted February 04, 2021 06:50 PM

Salamandre said:
So there is no mystery, WoG/Era is what I prefer and use. From time to time, having a good meal at a good restaurant is fun, but a well equipped and functional kitchen you can use every day and make your own recipes, there is no match.



That's actually deep

HotA all the way. I'm a purist, I like my games as original and mod-less as possible. HotA is a different story cus it's a content pack, like a real expansion.

I played a lot of Heroes 3 back in the day, so actual content is the real hook for me to go back to it.

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Hourglass
Hourglass


Famous Hero
posted February 04, 2021 06:50 PM
Edited by Hourglass at 18:50, 04 Feb 2021.

Hota + HD mod all the way here.

For me, Hota offers a perfect continuation for an already good game. I know I'm in minority, but I dislike Wog because of it's core reason of existence, the ability of being able to change basically all you can wish for. While it may be appealing to some, I just don't see it as a good foundation for a gaming community.

Recently, I've been really interested about the MP community in Twitch, and I found myself watching Hota streams on almost daily basis.

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RerryR
RerryR


Promising
Supreme Hero
Researching Magic
posted February 04, 2021 07:35 PM

bloodshade21 said:
Which version of Homm3 do you prefer?


Started with Heroes 2 many years ago. Bought H3 as soon as it was released. A few years later bought Armageddon's Blade Expansion, never regretted it. Then I discovered WoG, it was around version 3.52 or something like that. WoG was THE EXPANSION for me, had everything I needed, played a lot. Then I made a couple of years break and returned to H3 WoG. We started to play hot-seat only. After we had played so many matchups, we could tell who would win just by the faction and the main hero the opponent picked, but we still kept playing.
Knowing the game by heart, it was time for me to change the balance of the game. Especially the magic heroes were in need of some serious late-game scaling. I opened up the first WoG scripts and was surprised by how easy it is to modify the game. Since that day I started to cook my own heroes 3 version. In that version, I put in all my experience that I had gathered in hundreds of hot-seat matchups.

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Gandalf196
Gandalf196


Disgraceful
Supreme Hero
posted February 04, 2021 07:59 PM

blob2 said:
Salamandre said:
So there is no mystery, WoG/Era is what I prefer and use. From time to time, having a good meal at a good restaurant is fun, but a well equipped and functional kitchen you can use every day and make your own recipes, there is no match.



That's actually deep

HotA all the way. I'm a purist, I like my games as original and mod-less as possible. HotA is a different story cus it's a content pack, like a real expansion.

I played a lot of Heroes 3 back in the day, so actual content is the real hook for me to go back to it.


So much this
____________

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Treth
Treth

Tavern Dweller
posted February 04, 2021 08:38 PM

So uh... vcmi?
____________

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Strigo
Strigo


Hired Hero
posted February 04, 2021 08:46 PM

SoD

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FirePaladin
FirePaladin


Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
posted February 04, 2021 11:09 PM
Edited by FirePaladin at 23:14, 04 Feb 2021.

The the diddily the the ding dong deroo were that this that that a this this that that a this this that that a this this that world once, riddly-rise originate breathing for fantasy by 2 archangels, that world where @everyone was this barbar, of world weberino falling weight onto hands for diddily ding dong da wrong peeps!  
                                                    the
diddily ding dong da noodly-niuw world were then successful, it eclipsed old individual, and everyone ages was joining on, years afteroo its making.  
                                                              the the
the the howevere, years lateroo once lateroo than le silence, le svaken diddily ding dong decide to creation warpcrack based in sacred creck scrolls and put it onto world web, and trine ta changed warld of betteroo for diddily ding dong dem and diddily ding dong deroo allys.  It were wanderful, every shaeping le ownership cornars onto it.  


                                                              the
prevent diddily ding dong det diddily ding dong don't giveth thull potera overoo la world, to noodly-none be abrue to continuah archangels' worked.  prevent noodly-nobody exceedingly cared
the the
more ages passed, and authorinoity is this that riddly-rise giving everyone wel-diddly-ell safe livesies and managing to continuity archangels' worked by taking warpcrack and using an encased world core.  People was exists and thee piceiful.  Everybody ignorinoe le copy for diddily ding dong da ol world of it were flowoed, orkz barely endured it.  
                                                              the the
prevent underoo authorinoity this several peeps on noodly-needed for to be abrue to changed world firtheroo again to on ol aiges.  Those was diddily ding dong denied.  
                                                              the the
the the archangels was this that speak to, and individual praised worked, while otheroo wel-diddly-elcome that group for adversand give dim blooprints and gydance for world creatio0ona, then those may finally fished to as to as to as to what were start.  the the adventurrers was this poggers and set to studied and followed holy ancient blueprints


the the
highly those understood, then those call outward to heaven again and those was answeroo by creatorino oof world vyb, blesing them.

THE DAY OF RECKONING IS AT HAND, REPENT! (fur doin' werpcreck or rool!)
                                                              the
and sucharoo those forjd diddily ding dong deir path of years, giving shape to arhanghel lasted diddily ding dong dreams of that world.  The the that brilliant gem to eclipse authorinoity and burn werpcreck sacred scrolls, allowing of peeps to changed diddily ding dong da wrold endlessly.  The the however, the adventureres also fulffiled world lasted plans, bringing creative for highest quality onto world,establishing quality control to dandy.  Diddily ding dong da world were finally stabrue to EXPand of everyone.  The the diddily ding dong don't longeroo riddly-lwed bi Supreme(tm) authorinoity either, wold thleeved and everyi experienced craftsmen dooking abrue te finally creation their wiallst dryms, unsahpped pi unstabrue werpcreck or prats


____________
"Goblins use pistols because a shotgun recoil would kick them off the ground flying."
The Reckoning.... it's drawing near....

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The_Green_Drag
The_Green_Drag


Supreme Hero
posted February 04, 2021 11:21 PM

I like the Heroes 3 HD Edition by Ubisoft

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blob2
blob2


Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
posted February 05, 2021 08:11 AM
Edited by blob2 at 08:13, 05 Feb 2021.

Double: whaaa?

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sirironfist
sirironfist


Known Hero
King of the ogres
posted February 05, 2021 10:09 AM
Edited by sirironfist at 10:11, 05 Feb 2021.

What I always liked the most was getting lost in large maps with plenty of time to explore and build up. WoG was really good for that because you could make neutral monsters harder and the adventure map more interesting, so there could also be a challenge to it. With the right settings you could make a game last much longer. Creature experience was a good way to make the AI harder to beat, because it always got the exp much faster.

I play custom maps in singleplayer 99,9% of the time. I don't like random maps, because they are predictable and of course computer generated and therefore not exactly pleasant to look at. I usually find good custom maps to look a lot nicer than even the original vanilla set of maps.

I don't like how the game turns out to be played in multiplayer, with so much focus on creature banks. I find it dull how almost every game is decided by the same few types of monsters that you get from banks. To me this has very little to do with a Heroes game. There's more to it than angels, wyverns and cyclopes.

These days I usually play Hota, because of the really nice things they added to the base game (adventure map objects, mechanics like bad luck, new town and monsters). But the main reason why I play Hota over WoG is the fact that there are much larger maps.

Great potential would lie in a compatibility of Hota with Era, but that seems to be a taboo topic here, which I find is a great pity.

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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted February 05, 2021 10:59 AM

Hota creates maps larger than 244x244?

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sirironfist
sirironfist


Known Hero
King of the ogres
posted February 05, 2021 11:37 AM

Salamandre said:
Hota creates maps larger than 244x244?


Max for Hota maps is 252x252. I know there is this mod for Era that allows for larger maps than XL. But that doesn't strike me as quite as accesible as the XL+ maps for Hota. Or at least the amount of maps that size will be much smaller than in the case of Hota (on maps4heroes there's 84 maps with max size already). Or am I wrong and there's more than a handful of XL+ maps for Era?

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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted February 05, 2021 03:51 PM

The first ever 252x252 map (Tew4) was designed for Wog, 2 years before Hota was completed. Since then, I didn't see anyone making more XXL maps for wog, unfortunately.

So there is one

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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted February 05, 2021 04:17 PM
Edited by artu at 18:17, 05 Feb 2021.

I liked to use Era + HD Mod together, choosing specific templates of random maps and arranging every tiny detail just to my liking, this way things were endlessly surprising but not unpleasantly so. But both Era and HD mod constantly getting remakes,sometimes giving up on content just wore me out. I simply cant keep track of things. For instance, at some point HD mod had a feature, casting town portal, you could see the portrait of the town you were going to teleport to. And this was great especially in very large maps with so many towns, But then, at some point, it was gone with an update. (Maybe it is fixed now, haven't been playing a while, people say old mods got really buggy after the switch from Era 2 to Era 3 anyway.) I used to be able to turn "plague" on or off and at some point that was also gone.

Now, every once in a while, I lay back in bed and open a classic Restoration of Erathia game on my iPad from the HD Edition. It is primitive but it is stable. And you can load custom maps too (given they are RoE maps).
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost

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Macron1
Macron1


Supreme Hero
posted February 05, 2021 04:38 PM

VCMI

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FirePaladin
FirePaladin


Legendary Hero
DoR Modder
posted February 05, 2021 04:46 PM
Edited by FirePaladin at 16:47, 05 Feb 2021.

blob2 said:
Double: whaaa?


I fully answered the op's question. Can't do much about it if one can't understand it.
____________
"Goblins use pistols because a shotgun recoil would kick them off the ground flying."
The Reckoning.... it's drawing near....

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Tupaz
Tupaz


Adventuring Hero
posted February 05, 2021 07:58 PM

Hota is a very refined mod indeed but I prefer WoG/ERA since I can customize almost every single aspect of the game to my liking.

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Undeadgamer62
Undeadgamer62


Known Hero
posted February 05, 2021 08:42 PM

Since I don't play multiplayer, for me there are two issues: comparative freedom from bugs, and flexibility.

I like the new VCMI towns and would doubtless play it sometimes if I could get it to work decently. Every time I've tried, I've run into a problem that was theoretically already corrected. I get through a few rounds, and then the AI becomes so slow that the game is unplayable. As far as I can tell, at least one of the AI players keeps hiring heroes (since there is no cap at 8), and as a result bogs down the game. Also, the lack of a map editor is close to being a deal breaker. I'm a player of random maps mostly, but sometimes with a little customization, so the lack of the ability to easily generate and edit them is something of a deal breaker for me.

HOTA is the least buggy of the alternatives and shows a high level of craftsmanship. I have played it and liked it. However, the relatively few customizations sometimes get on my nerves.

For that reason, ERA/WOG is still my favorite. You have a lot of choice about how you want to play, even with just the basic installation, and there are some good mods that further broaden the scope of what you can do. Usually, bugs get fixed relatively rapidly.

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