If you have a PC, I'd highly recommend getting HOMM3 Complete on GOG as many have said, it's got all the expansions. Also: Heroes Chronicles is available there if you want more.
They're so far from horrible. The PC version wasn't a dream by any stretch of the imagination, this just takes some getting used to. On a side note, can anyone figure out how to delete saved games? I now have a bunch that are all just jumbled messes and there's no button to delete them =\
To be honest I am quite disappointed with this release.. DotEmu is no stranger to ios games.. But the way they did the interface and controls are horrible. There's no consistency at all.. Just like range and melee wtf with this two type of control.... And on the world map.. Sometimes the tap doesn't get registered at all.. There's another homm alike gave called palm Kingdom.. The controls are so much better... And that game was created by a single Dev or something... I really hope the next patch will address some of these quirks...
So with some help from the forums and me pulling out my hair, I finally figured out how to move and attack. I agree that the controls are pretty horrendous and the tutorial does little. Now... can anyone tell me how I recruit more men (archers, swordsmen, etc) for my heroes? I have a bunch sitting at my castle but thats not helping my guys in the field. Any help is appreciated and sorry I'm such a noob at this.
1) From within your castle, you can buy buildings that do different things. Some give you +x minion every week that you can recruit for gold and resources. Ending your turn is 1 day. 2) Some maps have similar buildings spread throughout that you can hire more minions from. These buildings also increase by +x minions every week. 3) If your hero has the diplomacy skill, mobs on the map may offer to join you for x gold each. If you have a dominating army, map mobs may ask to join you. Your hero has to "dock" in your castle or stand near another hero to transfer minions to and fro.
Tips for later game.. Get a smurf hero and carry your armies to the main hero.. Also the screen to recruit is single tap on top panel and single tap on the hero panel..
I've resigned myself to looking at youtube videos... this is pathetic. I should not have to resort to youtube video game tutorials to learn how to play a game.
I don't know if it's because I played the original on PC back in the day or what, but I'm not having any issues with this game. I read the brief tutorial that it forced me to watch (did you guys all read that?), and I've found the rest to be entirely intuitive. I almost got scared away from the game, but not only am I finding the interface completely transparent, the graphics are fine, too. That's how it looked back in the day except much higher resolution. Personally, I never thought the graphics were the best (I hated that pre-rendered look back in the '90s and early '00s--the only thing worse is early real-time 3D), but I never played the game for the graphics. If you enjoyed this game back in the day, you (like me) are the target audience. Buy with confidence, at least in my opinion! Can't speak for anyone else, though.
Okay, you found it to be entirely intuitive? Where does the tutorial teach you to use magic and cast spells? Where does it teach you about upgrading buildings and your units? Oh... Nowhere? That's what I thought. I'm not new to video or computer games, I've been playing them for 25 years, including Intelevision, and when I find myself resorting to youtube videos, there is obviously some tutorial "opportunities" to teach the game to players.
Whoa, easy there, Spike. I didn't mean any offense. I found upgrading buildings and casting spells to be intuitive, but you're right, it wasn't in the very brief tutorial. Like I said, it might be because I played this game when it first came out on PC.
I agree with you if you are new to homm is quite a challenge to play this.. It doesn't explain what you need to do... You will be lost.. Every time you click on end turn you probably thinking did I complete everything on the turn etc...
That is exactly how I feel... but as I mentioned before, the youtube videos I am watching are proving most helpful... I am 29 years old and for the first time in my life I feel like a senior citizen for resorting to youtube to learn how to play a game... This is a dark day in my gaming history.
If you're having trouble with the concepts, I'm sure you can find the original HOMM3 manual somewhere online. I can't speak to the iPad version controls, since I haven't bought it nor plan to until ubisoft pays some code monkey $5 more an hour to recompile the code for the random map gen, but if it makes you feel better, I'm 28, and sometimes, in between studying for the bar exam, I also look up YouTube videos to figure out how to get better at/play video games. Happens. Not as smart as I thought I was, but I somehow manage. I actually think it's an awesome day for gaming when you can carry around a tablet and play games like this that were once only possible on a super high end pc with *gasp* 256MB of ram. It's a complex game, and the lack of an equivalent right click feature on a tablet makes PC ports tricky. Take a breather, and read the manual. It's an excellent game because of how finely tuned the stats are. The only crappy part is that you'll go through some trial and error learning the units, but it should, I assume, let you save before a battle, which I highly recommend if you're new to turn based strategy games, which is what it sounds like (also not a shameful thing lol) , since most modern TBSs are based on the HOMM system. That's why most people find the game intuitive, cause it's the grand-pappy of western TBS. TLDR: unimportant unless you're the guy quoted, BUT, I'm curious, how did they fix the inability to right click on stuff? I'm not paying $10 for no random map gen just cause I loved the game in high school. It's called a pc, most of them today can run armageddon's blade (a complete collection is on sale on gog for 10 bucks too...which is weird cause I was under the impression ubisoft was still looking for the expansion pack source code in between the couch pillows.).
Love this game back when it was released on PC. Between getting the updated PC version or the ios version, I may just go for the updated PC version. Although I rather play on iPad, I have doubts on ubisoft's programming QC.
After completing half of the first campaign. I got to say you need to learn the control mechanics.. In a tight battle if you accidentally moved your melee instead of hitting it could mean a loss on you... Overall I got to say is a good port not perfect but for homm fans is a dream comes true
