Maybe you need a break from games for a spell? I did that and it was wonderful.
Tempted, although I hope it is more than rewarmed HOMM.
Well lost a few hours to this last night felt like a few minutes but was several hours. Ai kicked my butt a bunch of time but I am not a great homm player. I like some of the changes here ZoC’s (zone of control) and elevation bonus for archers. Thought those were neat additions. Love the art style. Only real complaint I have is that I hope they add tons of maps. Yes I see you can download user maps but also would love to see a huge selection. So far so good seems very polished.
I have a few initial concerns about battles after only 3 or 4 hours of play that I hope become unwarranted after more time in the game.
First is that the wielders (heroes) seem pretty weak because the spells are (so far) underwhelming. This may be because my heroes are only level 5 or so but so far a lot of battles seem to get resolved before my wielder can do more than cast a shield spell (if that). Heroes seem very passive and non-involved to me. Maybe they should have had heroes take part in battles as in HoMM4.
Second, I don’t like the way they do the initial army placement in battle. You end up scattered so that it’s hard to set up a good defensive formation when fighting again superior odds (which is often). I’d like to have more options there. Maybe there’s a tactical skill you get later that takes care of that.
Third, I wish units that do not attack on a turn had a defend command at the end of the turn rather than just standing there. I wonder why they left that out. Finally, I wish they had a wait command that kicked the troop down the initiative order but not as far as end turn would.
I can’t speak about your other points, but I read somewhere that this one was intentional. It seems some units do have a defend ability they can use.
I agree, but I’ve only played as Melee (might) heroes, and their buff spells have still been worth casting. You seem to not be able to “bank” Essence (mana) for following battles, so if you can afford to drop a Raly and give a +10 to your units stats and bonus to their initiative, do it. There are some combat attack spells that have been useful, mostly debuffs, and I suspect it’s because I don’t have a spell caster to be offered up skills that compliment spell casting. Are you playing with a dedicated spellcaster and still finding this the case? I’ve still only done the campaign (I’m on the 4th mission of Campaign 1).
I don’t really like this either, I wish I could keep my troops together, but that said I often find it rarely matters with movement bringing the enemy right up to and even attacking even the back row, perhaps this is fine the way it is - certainly it makes things a lot more interesting than HoMM has usually been in this regard. I also think it’s neat that there is an actual zone of control/attack of opportunity mechanic here, it really punishes someone trying to run past your melee tanks.
Some units have abilities they can activate, like @rhamorim mentioned Footman have a little shield icon that gives them a 25% bonus if they don’t have an attack to make, or are tanking. I do wish for a Wait command, but on the other hand if it existed the AI would just use it and make YOU charge into THEM. No thanks.
With seemingly no wait command i don’t know how to progress in battle when my xbow men go into reload.
I have to use up their movement (whether i want them to actuality move or not) to progress to next unit.
I must be missing something obvious.
Green check mark in the lower right ends that units turn. Just end their turn to move on.
Same checkmark/button that ends your turn in the adventure map.
No, I’m playing the ‘Conquest’ skirmish map and they only give you the ability to play as Arleon. I’d much rather play as the undead Loth faction to get a handle on dedicated spellcaster wielders but it only allows playing as the one faction. I need to check out the other skirmish maps I guess to see if I can play as something else and see.
That makes sense. If playing as a full spell caster you still feel the same, that’s worth bringing up for sure. I’d like to dabble in the other spells in the book but they seem to require essence I don’t have access to, or enough access to generate enough to get to the end of the spell trees. I do think the system is a good one, depending on what sorts of spell-casting skills/options exist for caster classes.
Would it be possible to add “EARLY ACCESS” to the thread title until this game is out of Early Access? The OP clearly states the game is in Early Access, which is good, but I’d really like to see us move to a convention of clearly labelling threads Early Access during Early Access (the thread title can be changed once the game is out of Early Access, or a new thread started for the official release.)
I feel this balances the interests of those who want to discuss or read about Early Access games with those who do not.
Thank you for your consideration.
Don’t see why not. :)
Thank you for that and I hope we all use that as a convention.
Also, we should all strive to clearly label individual games in multi-game threads.
I’m on a mission!
The ‘four corners’ skirmish map allows you to pick your faction so I started a game as Loth with a destruction wielder. It has an ice bolt spell and a fireball spell and that looks like about it for offensive direct damage destruction spells. They are also really expensive. The fireball spell costs 14 essence. Other essence types have other damage spells like poison and I guess you need the appropriate troop types to generate those.
I have to say that the spells so far look to be pretty few in number and very bland. I’m hoping there’s more to it I just haven’t discovered yet. To me, the ‘magic’ part of the homm games and those like it (aow) are all about the cool spells and abilities. That’s what made it so fun for me. This seems very bland so far in comparison. I hope that changes.
For those who have played it, would you say it leans more Age of Wonders 3 or HOMM?
Unabashedly a HoMM spiritual successor. Like HoMM, has some AoW elements, but it’s Heroes through and through.
I suspect a lot of it comes down to skills/powers. Were you just a few levels in when you tested or did you hit 8, for example, to get your first “power”? I’m curious what kind of powers Spellcasters are offered. Don’t forget that this is a quite new magic system, so there will be some adjustment to learn - for instance, the idea that you can split up your troops to generate essence faster makes expensive spells something you can do frequently - in fact, Rally, the top end of the Order spell tree, I was casting every round at the end of the campaign maps so far. Also, I’m not sure but I think you can cast multiple spells per turn - it seemed like I was able to, if I wanted, at least.
I’m not saying you are wrong, though if this is actual critiscm you want to level at the game I’d urge you to post your thoughts on the discord or Steam forums where it has a chance to get seen and acted upon (or at the least a Dev can address your notes directly). But I am keeping an open mind, since I haven’t really dug into it very much, being all Might wielders in the campaign so far.
Does it have opera music?
I don’t really know from opera music. The music to me sounds like something a bard would play in The Witcher or similar.
I don’t know if they get much more exciting, but your wielders can get skills that increase the level of spells in individual schools. For example, the level 2 version of the spell that summons obstacles lets you summon 2 at once. That took that spell from something I’d never touch to actually fairly useful for blocking off my ranged units. I’m on level 3 of the campaign so still haven’t seen any dedicated spellcaster type classes.
My short term concern is number of maps. I don’t want to “use up” the maps if things are going to change significantly during EA. (I really do not like playing maps repeatedly.)