Posts from Heroes of Might and Magic III: Shades of Darkness, Armageddon's Blade, and Conflux.

I've had this question for a long time regarding the release order of Heroes. Basically, the Blade of Armageddon expansion came out and it included the Conflux; there are tons of discs with that game. Then SoD was released, and on all the discs I have from that era and later, SoD doesn't have a map generator—although it is in the editor, but not in the game itself—and there is no Conflux. Now, everything from Blade of Armageddon is in SoD; there are discs from Buka (too bad I don't have a disc drive), and they don't have the Conflux. The Conflux with the SoD Campaigns was only available in the Complete Edition.
The question is, why is it called SoD instead of Blade of Armageddon?

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_of_Might_and_Magic_III

10. Game Release
10.1 Expansions and Editions
3DO released two expansions for Heroes of Might and Magic III. The first expansion, Armageddon’s Blade, was released in the same year, 1999, and, in addition to new campaigns and scenarios, included many new gameplay elements, the most important of which was a new, 9th type of town – the Conflux. The second expansion, The Shadow of Death, followed in 2000, bringing new artifacts and objects to the map...
In 2000, the Heroes of Might and Magic III Complete collection was released, which combined all three versions of the game – the original and the expansions...

In SoD, the Conflux was disabled, and there was no random map generator. Both are present in the Complete Collection, and in SoD, they can be unlocked by installing the simple ABinSoD patch. If you need it, let me know, and I'll give you the link (although it's probably already somewhere on the forum, but I need to look for it).
Playing now, especially online, makes sense only in "The Shadow of Death" (with that patch) or "Complete Collection". But not in "Armageddon’s Blade" or "The Restoration of Erathia" (original or HD remake). And it's almost essential to use the HD mod.