Just so you're aware, Masters of the Broken World is apparently "just" a 3D remake of Genesis, not a sequel. Kind of like what Mount & Blade: Warband did for Mount & Blade, only more so.

Oh gosh, didn't mean to "bite" you. lol But seriously, if you didn't enjoy it the first time to get very far, I doubt you'll enjoy it any more this time. Don't let my enthusiasm for the game mislead you into something you'll regret.

One thing you might try though is if you've got both, and you tried Genesis the first time, you could try the second one, Masters of the Broken World. Otherwise, you'll just be downloading and searching for notes for game that hasn't changed that didn't keep you the first time so I doubt it would keep you the second time.

But, who knows? I would've bet good money that if someone didn't like HOMM they wouldn't have liked this, and I've already been proven wrong. Good luck either way.

I'm having fun with it and haven't even started the campaign yet... lol. I'm just finding I like the game mechanics and strategy choices. Want to experiment some more on this tutorial and then I'll start the campaign.

No worries there -- Eador: Genesis has no .PDF manual (it doesn't exist), and the only major documentation online that I know of is in Russian (which, since the game is Russian, makes sense). :P

I was excited wen I saw turn-based, but the excitement disappeared when I saw strategy.
I do as well. The way I see it, it combines the worst of action and turn-based gameplay:
* Unlike pure action gameplay, the game does not play smoothly because it keeps pausing all the time.
* Unlike turn-based gameplay, there's no rhythm to the battle. (In turn-based games, there is a nice rhythm as the game switches between command entry and command execution, with (in some games) an enemy turn phase as well, and those changes are predictable.)

I gave up on the "Get it to run on your PC" minigame. Should try again on the new one.

It's not that TBS is too abstract or hard, it's that using 'movement points' and the like requires math and had hoped to leave that behind when I got out of college. :P

I'm still trying to imagine a war movie, both sides charging at each other, all of a sudden both stop:

-What are you doing commander?

-Well we seem to be two three steps away from the enemy, but if I can figure out a way to get us there in two, we'll be able to strike at them one additional time before we stand there defenseless and let them strike at us for a specified number of time.

Here's the thing: I *like* the math elements in games. In fact, that's one of the main reasons I like RPGs.

(If I didn't like math, why would I have a mandelbrot set as my avatar?)

Okay, so as I (and at least one other poster) mention, NO MANUAL, and I'm at my first frustrating point. I have two spell scrolls. I right click on them and they tell me I must go to the library to enter them into my magical slots.

So I go to my library, and..... no go. Either scroll. And no pop up or tutorial page comes up explaining why (not enough gold, not enough gems, not enough popcorn or wtf ever). No explanation, no way to figure it out (that I can see) and so you're just left carrying around two spell scrolls, one of which I would love to have going into my next battle, and NO WAY to figure out IF I can add it to my spells and if so how, or if not, why not.

THIS IS WHY MANUALS ARE MADE.

And this is why for a long time I had no manual, no buy policy.

Looks like I'm going back to that.

For good.

Publishers, if you're reading. Almost 900 titles in my GoG catalog alone. Doesn't count gamersgate, steam, as well as several others. In other words, I'm what's called, "a pretty darn good customer" and NO MANUAL, NO OFG DOLLARS. No. More. Exceptions.

So damned frustrating.

Having a fun time with a game, and then...... done.

LOL. That was a quick about-face. (You know the game was made by pretty much one (Russian) guy, right?)

I don't remember exactly, but I think you have to click and drag the scroll to a slot on your "party" sheet or whatever. But it's been a long time since I played it, and I never even completed the "tutorial", such as it is.

Yeah, I meant that as a general statement for games that have .PDF manuals. For Eador I just took about three full pages of notes but now I'm getting a bit too buzzed to be legible so I quit. I'll start typing it up tomorrow. :-)
It's not that I didn't enjoy it, really; I probably just got distracted by other games. Happens a lot, unfortunately. I get all gung-ho about a certain genre and have the best intentions but then something in my environment will trigger me and I move in another direction.

I loved 'em both. They may not be as pretty as HoMM or Disciples, but Genesis and MotBW are both worthy additions to any TBS RPG/Tactical hybrid collection.
Shoot me a screenshot. It could be one of multiple things.
1. You don't have a level high enough to learn those scrolls.
2. You don't have a free slot in your hero's "spell repertoire."
3. Your hero can't learn spells.

If I remember right, it won't really tell you exactly why.

I have the biggest problem with games that can't decide what they want to be. Like M.A.X. or Fallout Tactics who offer both realtime and turn-based options for combat (and Fallout Tactics also some third option in-between).

Then I have to try to figure out what is the "proper" mode to play the game. In Fallout Tactics walkthroughs I see many saying they use the realtime mode, but I have no idea how that is supposed to work (controlling three or more party members in realtime) because usually I die as soon as an enemy sees me. That is hard enough already with turn-based combat. Also as I understand it, some attributes (agility? or was it perception?) become meaningless in realtime combat as there are no turns to decide who gets to fire first or how much action points each unit has. Everyone fires as soon as they see an enemy and moves constantly.

It is odd though that I like turn-based combat in RPGs, but not that much in strategy/tactical games. Maybe it is the scope, RPG combat is much smaller in scope (not many units, smaller area etc.) so the combat will not take ages due to turn-based combat. Gorky 17 had good turn-based combat, but then its battles were quite small (you had only like three units yourself, and there were only a few enemies on the combat area at a time).

The only "real-time with pause" I know having played are the Infinity engine RPGs (Baldur's Gate 1-2, Icewind Dale...), and at least there I felt it combined the best parts of realtime and "turn-based", as long as I changed the options a bit when it would autopause.

The gameplay flows smootly without wasting your time (as opposed if it was running in turn-based all the time), until something important happens where you need to react. In a pure realtime strategy game (Starcraft, Total Annihilation, Rise of Nations Gold, or what have you), I'd try to achieve the same by slowing down the game speed in important parts so that I have more time to react and try to give commands to several units/groups at the same time. The game actually pausing in such important parts is even better.

So the game and combat flows smoothly through the parts where I don't need to really react myself (ie. give additional commands), but pauses automatically when something important does happen, like:

- A trap detected (well then, tell your scouting thief to disarm it before she or someone else steps on it).

- Enemy sighted (good time to tell wizards and healers start casting both protective and attack spells etc.).

- Enemy killed (time to select another target then).

- Weapon becomes useless (e.g. run out of arrows); time to change weapon or maybe start casting spells, or even run behind the backs of other members).

- Party member in critical health (time to tell healers to concentrate on that member, and/or him maybe drinking a health potion themselves).

- Party member dies (usually meaning time to reload a save game, at least if they were blown to bits (no way to resurrect)).

Etc. It worked very well for me at least in those games, but I don't know what other games use a similar system and how it works in them. As I said though, with default settings the BG/IWD combat didn't work so well for me, it autopaused too rarely and in wrong places, so I needed to modify the settings before starting to play, making sure those things listed above were taken into account.

Oh and of course turn off party AI, I definitely didn't want the party members to try to decide what they do in combat, that didn't work in Ultima 7 either (and I'd say in Fallout 1-2 either, I hated it when my party members would run inside a house to enemies when all I wanted was to stay outside to ambush the enemies one by one).

Hello there! I found this for you! Yeah, Snowbird Games should translate the manual to English! The Wikia section would be likewise awesome in digital age!