Hello, Heroes! In Might & Magic: Heroes Online, you will face many interesting and diverse battles, and today we want to tell you more about them. Battles can be against a small group of enemy creatures or against an army led by a hero. The game also features multi-stage battles and cooperative battles, in which your friends will join you on the battlefield. In Heroes, as before, battles are turn-based and divided into rounds. You will have familiar combat options, such as waiting or defending. As mentioned earlier in previous news, the developers have returned to hexagons as the cells for the battlefield. You can check it out here if you want to learn more about why hexagons were chosen. As you know from previous games in the Might & Magic: Heroes series, you will be able to see the approximate difficulty of the battle (an indicator below the enemy) on the province map. As soon as you attack the enemy, a battle overview window will open. The battle overview window shows the most important information: * How many action points will be required for the battle. * The strength of your army and the enemy's army. * You can choose the difficulty level for the battle. * You can invite a friend as an ally; their army will fight alongside yours against the enemy. * For an additional fee, you can see the exact number of units and creatures that will oppose you in this battle. * You can retreat – give up the battle without losing anything. * You can start the battle! As you progress through the storyline and unlock new provinces, the battles will become more difficult, and you will have to think more carefully about your actions in battles. Poor tactics or one wrong decision can lead to a crushing defeat from an enemy that, at first glance, did not seem dangerous. Along with the increasing difficulty of battles, the battlefields will also increase, and after a while, you will fight with huge enemy armies on a huge battlefield. Your combat tactics and strategy will be challenged, and you may have to change them several times during the game. As in other games in the Might & Magic: Heroes series, your hero will be outside the battlefield and cannot be attacked. He has a standard attack that can damage enemy creatures, and as the hero develops, he will gain more and more new and interesting abilities and spells. Hero abilities depend on the hero's class and the faction to which he belongs. There are general abilities that are available to all classes and factions, but there are also specific abilities that are available only to one hero class. We have already told you a little about how the addition of flanking attacks and back attacks has made combat strategy more diverse. You will deal more damage to the enemy if you attack him from the back or from the flank. The appearance of the battlefield depends on the terrain you are on. For example, while walking through the Necromancer province, you will not encounter dense green forests. The surrounding environment also affects where your troops will be positioned on the battlefield and how the hexagons will be arranged. You might be wondering: "Okay, all this sounds good, but what are the differences in battles?" Let's start with the obvious differences, such as battles against armies led by heroes. You will need to defeat not just a regular group of creatures, but also fight against someone who, like you, can use abilities and spells. Some battles will also be against bosses (NPCs). Battles with these bosses are, for the most part, multi-stage. This means that you will have to fight in two or three battles in a row, and the boss will oppose you in all these battles. However, you will only be able to attack and kill him in the last battle. You will not be able to replenish your ranks between battles with the boss; you will have to carefully plan your actions to save as many of your warriors as possible until the final stage.