So I have played quite a bit of Heroes games, all of them, but I have never beat any of the campaigns, just multiplayer with friends and standard maps.

Now I have a bit of an extra free time and I thought I would beat the campaigns of 2-7 (i tried the heroes 1 campaign but that just seems random maps thrown together without actual story or interesting map design).

Right now I am about to finish the Price of Loyalty and I am wondering which should I play next: Heroes Chronicles or Heroes 3? I know Chronicles was released after H3, but I hear people saying its like a tutorial to H3.

If I play H3 first won't Chronicles feel too easy and boring afterwards?

Thank you!

Unfortunately it will feel too easy.

However for story purposes HoMM 3 should be played first.

Nothing major, storywise if you play Chronicles first, but it just won't feel same if you play HoMM3 after finishing chronicles (and Chronicles story will feel different - better- if you play it after finishing 3; even though chronologically the first Chronicles events take place before HoMM 3).

I see, thank you!
And what would you say is the best order for the expansions? Armageddon's Blade first and Shadow of Death after, or the other way around?

AB first.

Okay, thank you! :D

Also, for AB story to make complete sense, you have to finish Might and Magic 6 and 7.

Ah, I see, then I am going to start MM VI next.

The HoMM1 campaign was basically a war between 4 leaders for control of the realm. The early maps are you taking control of particular areas for your lord, then subjugation of each of the rival lords, and (I think) finally subjugating the dragons. Not a very in depth story, but it is sort of there in the background. Chronicles is significantly easier than HoMM3. There isn't even a comparison there.

If you've been pretty successful in HoMM2, then you should have no real difficulty making the jump to HoMM3. Just play the tutorial to get a feel for several of the differences. You probably won't have much difficulty blowing through Chronicles whether or not you play HoMM3 first. If you need challenge to stay interested, then Chronicles might simply not be for you. It works well as an intro if you've never played a HoMM before. Some of the campaign sequences (like the Wizard campaign) are kind of interesting thematically, but NWC went through a fair bit of trouble to make sure that newbies weren't going to get stomped on.

Chronicles does have a lot more mid-map story pop-ups, though. The HoMM3 campaigns tend more heavily toward "Here's your mission objectives and the story excuse for them. Get to work and good luck".


Edit: 6 ninja posts while I was typing. Whee! :)

Yeah. Chronicles is going to be too easy no matter when you play it. Whether after HoMM3 or before it. Unless you're completely new to turn based strategies (and not even then probably) Chronicles is just not going to provide any challenge.

Also, one reason to play Chronicles is that its story gets referenced in HoMM4, if you want to play that later.

Hmm, maybe I should give H1 another try... However it kinda bothers me that all 4 factions have the same missions but only one of them are canon. H2 at least has some different missions. Also playing the same town through the whole campaign gets boring fast.

I will play Chronicles for the story no matter what, I actually love story based games even if they have little to no actual gameplay, I just thought maybe I should play the games in order of difficulty instead of order of release, to keep it more interesting and have that ramping up challenge. Yeah, I want to play through them all, even 7 (I heard that's really bad but I wanna do it nevertheless)

You are taking the role of a commander for one of four competing rulers. As I understand it, you'll play the same maps regardless of your choice of sovereign (with one exception) because all four sovereigns are competing for the same territory. Only your starting location will be different (except maybe in the maps where you conquer each ruler). For example, the sovereign you chose to follow determines where you start in the first two maps, but the map itself isn't fundamentally different.

There are a series of four maps where you conquer each sovereign in turn. In a given run of the campaign, you won't play the map featuring the conquest of whichever ruler you chose (so if you chose to follow Ironfist, you won't play the "Conquer Ironfist" map).

Sadly, the story bits in Chronicles dribble out a little too slowly for my liking. A lot of them show up at the beginning of a specific turn number, so there are story segments that you might not see if you are too fast. The story is still coherent from map to map, just be aware that you don't need to rush.

Storywise, you can mostly play Chronicles whenever, but generally play them in order since some of the later ones reference some events from earlier ones. For HoMM3, make sure to play Restoration of Erathia (base campaigns) before Armageddon's Blade (first expansion).

The connections between MM 6/7 and HoMM3/4 are much more tenuous. The two game series are very different genres, so NWC made sure the story generally made sense without having to dip into the other series. The references are a nice bonus for those who've played both series, but you will still be able to follow the action even if you don't hit Might and Magic 6/7 before moving on to HoMM 3/Chronicles.

I assume you mean HoMM7, as opposed to MM7? Because MM7 is great.

Yes, I meant HOMM7. :)
For the MM series, I prolly only gonna play them from 6 since the times before Enroth do not interest me that much.

6 and 7 get referenced in HoMM.

6 should be played right after or right before the Restoration of Erathia campaign.
7 should be played before Armageddon's Blade. Otherwise you won't get many references in AB

MM8 doesn't get referenced much in HoMM, but it's same universe.

MM9 technically takes place in the next universe (the one in which HoMM4 takes place), but is completely separate. It also suffers from some technical issues.

Note that if you plan to play HoMM5, then another game that you might want to try (after finishing 5) is Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.

Noted, thank you! :)