This is a game that sticks with you. Me and my mates, over countless past summers, enthralled by the strategic opportunities. A map editor that won't quit. Complex and gratifying mechanics. An ever deepening possibility space. Robust campaign options. Hectic and awesome battles, modifiable to your pleasure, based on a gratuitous matrix of odds. Weird and wacky mods the world over. Endless possibilities. Here we are, ten years later, still savoring and loving this game, or, these games, because there are so many preposterous permutations and not nearly enough time.
First, the Campaign. Wet your feet, then dive in. Easily done. But, then the flavor text, the manifold scenarios and countless expository tidbits. Heroes Chronicles, a later series done with the same engine, emanates post-Howardian Sword And Sorcery. Restoration of Erathia is replete with the echoes of tolkenian high fantasy.
The mechanics are crunchy, and those with bright minds can navigate quickly. For unlike Starcraft, this game is meticulous. Unlike Starcraft, it does not sprint with all the wiry implications of a well-dissected fighting game. This is strategy. This is pure, untapped tactics. This is Chess with feeling! And maybe, like chess, it would have done better with less numbers and more action, less statistics and more probability, less calculated clicking numerals and more mind games. But as it stands, Heroes does the TBS endless amounts of good. Maybe not the level of good established by the monumental, dauntless, eternal Civilization 4. But it was a proud start.