Posted September 09, 2011
That thing is genious! It's a solid improvement over Heroes 5 which was IMO quite a good game itself (and I AM HoMaM fan since H2)...
Anyway, for starters, here's the stuff I was afraid of:
- Simplified resource management - Basically, all rare resources in H6 were removed and replaced by one - crystal. While an interesting decision, it turned out well, IMO. Multiplayer map balancing is not hell anymore, hoping for grace of mapdesigner that he put the particular mine you're going to need for your particular castle close enough. I admit it does remove some charm thou.
- No actual town screens - In all previous Heroes installments, when you double clicked your town, a full-screen depiction of it with everything you built has displayed. This is gone in H6, all you get is a window with the town as you see it on map. And that is IMO the worse decision of them all - however, it turned out that town on map is quite fucking detailed. Every change shows, except for monster buildings, tavern and marketplace. However, towns in previous installments were still superior - it's just not nearly as bad as I expected and it has one big advantage - building, recruiting and shopping became way faster and you'll usually only remain on your town screen for just a few seconds, which makes the game generally more dynamic in MP.
- No ballistae/first aid tent/ammo cart - In all previous heroes games, you could buy ballista which caused direct ranged damage to enemy, first aid tent which healed wounded troops and an ammo card which doubled shots for your shooter units - well all that is gone. That is really, REALLY fucking stupid. You still get a catapult for sieges, it looks different for every race which is neat and all, but ... I liked my ballista :-(
All right, now when that is out of the way, here are the good things:
- Hero skill tree!!! - in previous games, a few random skills were selected and you could pick from those. I hated that thing with passion. While Heroes 5 and it's skill wheel sort of kind of improved upon the system, it was still far too much random based for my liking. Well not any longer! For every level including the fist, your hero gets a skill point that he can distribute in any skill he has access to. Their efficiency depends on focus of the hero (either might or magic - might hero can get magic skills, but they are less effective and vice versa), and new skills are opened at levels 5 and 15, with some of them having prerequisities (you need to have weaker version of the skill to get the stronger one). No randomeness crap anymore, yay! And the skill tree is quite interesting and varied too.
- Morality system - Based on decisions in campaign or on your actions in MP (pursuing monsters means evil and letting them go means good, basically) pushes your heroe's morality meter towards good or evil, which changes his appearance and adds some unique skills depending on how good or evil you are, and it changes efficiency of good and evil skills from your skill tree. This is an AMAZING idea. I mean, seriously. It makes you care for the hero so much more for some reason...
- Unique town buildings - When you upgrade your town center to 2nd level you get access to one and when you uprade it it 3rd you get access to another. Catch is, there are 2 buildings for every level and they are mutually exclusive, so you have to choose which effect you are going to need more - I won't go into details here, since there are 5 towns and that makes 20 different unique effects.
- Town control area - Every town you own has a control area around it, within which effects of unique buildings apply (usually battle bonuses), and when you capture a mine, it remains yours until enemy hero captures the town controlling it. No annoying hit and run crap! However, it is not that simple.Heroes can get a skill to plunder mine that gives them 3 days worth of production and shuts the mine down for that long, or they can shut the mine down for one week completely. Neat!
- Outpusts - outpusts are basically small towns with their own control area scattered around the map. They have fortification, you can hire monsters there and you can't really build anything in them. Interesting choice, a middle ground between town and unprotectedf mines.
And that's pretty much it, graphics are closer to heroes 3 than those of 5 with pretty effects, due to skill tree that gives you appropriate spells there is no mage guild and I'm pretty neutral about that, battles last ages for whatever reason so speed them up and otherwise ... The games is an immense ammount of fun. It probably contains the biggest changes since H4 and most of them seem to be for the better - game is fun, rewarding, and still has a great tactical depth. One of those I'm going to buy when I have money to spare.
Anyway, for starters, here's the stuff I was afraid of:
- Simplified resource management - Basically, all rare resources in H6 were removed and replaced by one - crystal. While an interesting decision, it turned out well, IMO. Multiplayer map balancing is not hell anymore, hoping for grace of mapdesigner that he put the particular mine you're going to need for your particular castle close enough. I admit it does remove some charm thou.
- No actual town screens - In all previous Heroes installments, when you double clicked your town, a full-screen depiction of it with everything you built has displayed. This is gone in H6, all you get is a window with the town as you see it on map. And that is IMO the worse decision of them all - however, it turned out that town on map is quite fucking detailed. Every change shows, except for monster buildings, tavern and marketplace. However, towns in previous installments were still superior - it's just not nearly as bad as I expected and it has one big advantage - building, recruiting and shopping became way faster and you'll usually only remain on your town screen for just a few seconds, which makes the game generally more dynamic in MP.
- No ballistae/first aid tent/ammo cart - In all previous heroes games, you could buy ballista which caused direct ranged damage to enemy, first aid tent which healed wounded troops and an ammo card which doubled shots for your shooter units - well all that is gone. That is really, REALLY fucking stupid. You still get a catapult for sieges, it looks different for every race which is neat and all, but ... I liked my ballista :-(
All right, now when that is out of the way, here are the good things:
- Hero skill tree!!! - in previous games, a few random skills were selected and you could pick from those. I hated that thing with passion. While Heroes 5 and it's skill wheel sort of kind of improved upon the system, it was still far too much random based for my liking. Well not any longer! For every level including the fist, your hero gets a skill point that he can distribute in any skill he has access to. Their efficiency depends on focus of the hero (either might or magic - might hero can get magic skills, but they are less effective and vice versa), and new skills are opened at levels 5 and 15, with some of them having prerequisities (you need to have weaker version of the skill to get the stronger one). No randomeness crap anymore, yay! And the skill tree is quite interesting and varied too.
- Morality system - Based on decisions in campaign or on your actions in MP (pursuing monsters means evil and letting them go means good, basically) pushes your heroe's morality meter towards good or evil, which changes his appearance and adds some unique skills depending on how good or evil you are, and it changes efficiency of good and evil skills from your skill tree. This is an AMAZING idea. I mean, seriously. It makes you care for the hero so much more for some reason...
- Unique town buildings - When you upgrade your town center to 2nd level you get access to one and when you uprade it it 3rd you get access to another. Catch is, there are 2 buildings for every level and they are mutually exclusive, so you have to choose which effect you are going to need more - I won't go into details here, since there are 5 towns and that makes 20 different unique effects.
- Town control area - Every town you own has a control area around it, within which effects of unique buildings apply (usually battle bonuses), and when you capture a mine, it remains yours until enemy hero captures the town controlling it. No annoying hit and run crap! However, it is not that simple.Heroes can get a skill to plunder mine that gives them 3 days worth of production and shuts the mine down for that long, or they can shut the mine down for one week completely. Neat!
- Outpusts - outpusts are basically small towns with their own control area scattered around the map. They have fortification, you can hire monsters there and you can't really build anything in them. Interesting choice, a middle ground between town and unprotectedf mines.
And that's pretty much it, graphics are closer to heroes 3 than those of 5 with pretty effects, due to skill tree that gives you appropriate spells there is no mage guild and I'm pretty neutral about that, battles last ages for whatever reason so speed them up and otherwise ... The games is an immense ammount of fun. It probably contains the biggest changes since H4 and most of them seem to be for the better - game is fun, rewarding, and still has a great tactical depth. One of those I'm going to buy when I have money to spare.
