Posts from Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era - Обсуждение

I still remember how in the sixth game, they added a funny idle animation for each unit, and I was delighted.
They also added it to the seventh game. I was surprised when I saw it. And no, it's not a port from the sixth game because I saw it for the first time with the Elves. It would have been better if they had added a proper gameplay, interface, and color scheme, but we have what we have.
But it would be cool if they added funny idle animations here too. Creating such unique animations for unit interactions is still a hassle; a funny idle animation is easier.

I stumbled upon this video. The guy caught almost all the units, even assembled the mysterious secret faction and no less mysterious elves. Oh, how I'm going to criticize the designs 🤣 But not now, I'm just too lazy. I didn't even watch the whole video, I just clicked on each unit and didn't listen to the guy's valuable opinion.
In short, there are a few good solutions, but overall there are a lot of questions and a lot of experimentation; the game doesn't feel like Heroes. Experiments and new units are good, but there aren't enough old units that would evoke nostalgia and provide a sense of familiarity. And yes, the models are blurry, gray, and hard to distinguish; the guy even complained a couple of times that he couldn't tell if they were different units or just upgrades of the same one.

I read the comments, and one guy said something good there, finally articulating what my problem is with the designs of the sixth and, God forgive me, seventh games, and why I like the designs of the first five games more.

BUT i have to say: The main difference between old HoMM game art and newer HoMM game art is the theme. The old games have ''old school fantasy'' design with wizards and warlocks in fancy robes, fairytale and myth creatures that look straight out of old fairytale books and all that stuff. The newer games are more ''fancy futuristic armor design and super laser angels fighting some sort of bionicle monsters and stuff''. It's very clear which direction olden era has. It's the laser angel one... And i'm a little bit sad about it to be honest.

Another good comment, which I agree with, essentially repeats my thought that there is not enough classic content and that experiments are not always a good thing.

Needs barbarian and wizard factions, too. The dwarves were also a nice touch. The focus on insects and sea creatures misses the mark for me.

Well, even in the third installment, there were plenty of original designs that didn't quite fit into established mythology. For example, basilisks were inexplicably six-legged, gorgons were bulls instead of humans, and elementals... it's hard to say why they were designed the way they were, humanoid rather than shapeless chunks of their respective element. But the overall style was definitely more grounded, not like Bionicle, and that's a fair observation.

As with insects, this diversity and deviation from established canons aren't inherently bad, but any design should be such that you look at it and immediately understand the monster's concept. But if it's a design that's half-woman, half-beetle, half-wasp, half-centipede, half-echidna, half-Kruzenshtern, half-steamboat, then it's no surprise that it doesn't resonate with players.

The fairytale atmosphere could also be enhanced by a worn-out interface with borders and fonts with flourishes, like in the fifth game. But here, it's esports: the interface, icons, and fonts (you can see an example in the screenshot of the spellbook) are more technical than artistic. Nothing should be distracting.

What about the third game? In my favorite fourth installment, my favorite unit is the giant praying mantis. And dragon golems too, as well as other creatures like sorceresses, gargantuars, and berserk bulls from the expansions. However, there weren't enough of these units to ruin the old-school fantasy atmosphere. But here, we have two original factions where the demons look more like Zergs or Tyranids, and the tentacled monsters resemble tentacled Xenos. And I like Xenos, I like space opera, and I'm even aware that the old Heroes setting is sci-fi. But strategy games have always been pure fantasy, even though Forge never released that game. And it was classic fantasy. But now, here's something stylish, modern, and trendy. And it's not that it's bad, but then don't call the game Heroes, don't exploit the brand, and don't desecrate the corpse of the original series.

Lol, the tongue demon is doing flips to deliver an attack. Such animations and monotonous effects (the same glow for everyone during an attack, just like in the screenshots I selected earlier) are simply embarrassing.

AstralLein, in response to my outrage about the scythe on the crab-like creature, you cited the bearded trio as an example. But why repeat the same silly mistakes now by creating hunchbacks? I don't understand; it's some kind of nonsense and complete tastelessness.

humanoid, not shapeless chunks of their native element

I always liked the first option, but starting with the 4th installment, they began to experiment, and as a result, we got puddles, little breezes, and other nonsense.
The problem with alternative upgrades is that sometimes it's just a different color scheme, and sometimes it's inappropriate highlighting of something and other details that you don't immediately notice. Take the Minotaurs, for example. There's a bare Minotaur, there's a dressed one, and then there's another bare one, but he has something sticking out and glowing.

The video is somehow... meh.
Why turn the Incas into women? Necromancers without zombies and vampires, but with a vampire hero, busty ghosts, and dead hounds?
The Demons really do look like Zerg, and overall, it's not a great idea to choose a design for creatures that resembles many other monsters with a bunch of needles, incomprehensible appendages, and other things. You can't even tell them apart at first glance, and there's not much desire to play as them.
The new faction partially resembles the Demons in idea, only the creatures have more rounded shapes and tentacles. Again, some kind of two flying things that you can't make out. The Elves(?) look better, although I don't remember what they're supposed to look like, except perhaps judging by Jelu, but he's a half-breed.
The Forest faction will probably follow the path of the 5th installment and Warcraft, unfortunately.
It's funny that the Hobbits from the 3rd installment haven't changed much. They could have done the same with some of the creatures from the factions, instead of coming up with all sorts of things. Okay, Humans and Goblins, but for the others, each unit was often distinct and unique, and here many have a similar design, color scheme, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1iYHSaM9Mo

A new, in-depth interview in Russian. It features a rather large segment about the graphics and criticism.

I always liked the first version, but starting with the 4th installment, they began to experiment, and as a result, we got puddles, little breezes, and other nonsense.

But in the 5th installment, they refined it; the water creatures, for example, look like a real, powerful stream of water, not some strange fish 😎

Necromancers without zombies and vampires, but with a vampire hero, bulky ghosts, and dead hounds?

The female ghosts look moderately creepy, and the gravediggers are original; it's a decent roster. They threw all the zombies into a skeleton converter for uniformity 💀
I'm not sure I agree with the bone dragons: it's cool that a tree grows through its skull, but they seem like sloppy Necromancers. Couldn't they have properly cleaned their (expensive) pet from the debris? And I doubt they would aesthetically like trees, so why leave them there?
Overall, I like the Necromancers much more than the confusing sea and swarm factions; I can't really find fault with them.
And

Why turn the Incas into women?

The fauns of the nature faction are also normal, in my opinion; they're just women. The real Incas also had women; somehow, they survived that terrible crisis.
The male druids (like some other Sylvan creatures) don't look very good; they look like they crawled out of Lenin memes. Too complex, inconsistent designs in the style of the swarm factions.

The elves(?) look a little better.

Yes, if they really made thieves, the idea sounds cool, although the artistic implementation doesn't inspire much optimism.

and there's not much desire to play as them.

And this, in my opinion, is a very accurate observation. You can, of course, fantasize about a lot of things within the game, but people clearly regularly make a mistake by empathizing with what they have come up with. Practice shows that even ordinary demons are played less willingly, possibly partly because of the design, and partly because it's not very interesting to identify with such uncompromising villains.

If you create something completely incomprehensible, viciously chaotic, and disgusting, then no one will bother to figure it out and play as it, just as people don't decorate their own homes with all sorts of rotting rags that are fished out of the sea; it's the same thing.

Generally, it seems like the seventh unit for Necropolis is vampires, which are carefully hidden. And the bone dragon is a separate unit. But this is not certain. It's based on hints. And no, there are no thieves in the game; this is a definite fact. And there shouldn't be any, as they don't originate from Jadama. The identity of the sixth faction is unknown. As are the "forest elves," because there are no elves there. The only elves in the game are dark elves. Although the developers created some confusion with the foresters, which led to the belief that the Sylvan faction in Olden Era are supposedly forest elves.

Among the top five in the natural faction, there was exactly one elf, and half of the heroes were dwarves and humans, while in the top three, it was practically a horse parade with centaurs, pegasi, and unicorns. But in reality, this faction equals elves. So, let's relax and enjoy 🤣

And this, in my opinion, is a very apt observation. You can, of course, fantasize a lot within the framework of the game, but people clearly regularly make the mistake of empathy towards what they have imagined. Practice shows that even ordinary demons are played less willingly, possibly partly due to design, partly because associating yourself with such uncompromising villains isn't particularly interesting.

If you create something completely incomprehensible, evil-chaotic-disgusting, then no one will bother to understand it or play as it, just as people don't decorate their own homes with all sorts of half-rotten rags dredged up from the sea — it's the same thing.

A lover of evil-chaotic abominations bursts into the thread to explain how it looks from my couch, and why, despite all my love for evil-chaotic abominations, demons, and insectoids, I tend to agree with Arz — I don't want to play as these "demons."

First, I'll tell you why I love evil-chaotic abominations.
As a child, I was a very timid kid. Mentioning Barmaley or a Chupa Chups commercial could scare me brickless, not to mention illustrations of various fairy-tale monsters, even relatively harmless ones. And to this day, I haven't fully overcome this fear; I'm repelled by various physical injuries/surgical procedures and some examples of body horror mixed with the uncanny valley (one of which will be below). So when I see something dreadful, scary, and repulsive, but I'm not afraid of it — I feel good. I feel very brave and cool. And if it's not just plain blood-and-guts, but a well-designed and tasteful monster — it's pure delight.

Allow me to give a few examples.

Legions of the Damned — Disciples 2

This was the first time I stopped being afraid of scary monsters, so there's a whole spectrum of childhood emotions here. I'll just say that I adore the Disciples Legions, ready to fight and shed blood for their honor. An excellent example of great design and a magnificent atmosphere. But besides the design, the Legions hook you with their story. One of the few examples I can recall where demons are presented not as pure evil just because, well, they're such evil, villainous, wicked beasties because they can. Betresen, the most beautiful of angels, a powerful demiurge, was slandered out of envy, his creation (the world where the game takes place) was twisted and defiled, he wasn't given a chance to justify himself and was imprisoned in the abyss for something he didn't do. You know, after that, I'd also start churning out horrible monsters and ruining everyone's life. 100% understanding, Betresen. 0% condemnation. The same goes for Mortis, who sacrificed literally everything to resurrect her beloved, and he rejected her. And I also love Disciples' undead, and they are also creepy and nasty, just one "Sushiy" alone is worth it. But the aesthetic of fire and brimstone, horns and spikes, is somehow closer and more pleasant to me than rot and decay — a matter of taste here.

Tyranids — Warhammer

I think everything I say about Tyranids can also be applied to Zerg from StarCraft. It's just that in StarCraft, I know absolutely nothing; I only know the names of the factions and what Sarah Kerrigan looks like, while in Warhammer I know a little bit. Magnus did nothing wrong (but he probably should have), Erebus is a bad person, Hydra Dominatus, Imp is a corpse on the throne, blood for the blood god, 40000 is not a year but the number of books.
So, Tyranids are as beautiful as a fire or a flood. The merciless chthonic power of the elements, before which any means are powerless. A colossal, unimaginable armada devouring everything in its path. These aren't Space Marines clearing the galaxy for humanity. Not Chaos Gods reveling in chaos, emotions, and mortal suffering. Not Necrons going "Rise, we've dropped everything." Not even Orks with their desire for a good scrap. They're just bugs that want to eat. And you can't negotiate with them, you can't stop them. There are a lot of them, they keep coming and coming, destroying entire galaxies in their path. It's terrible, it's delightful, it's dizzying in scale and mesmerizing.
And the designs are good too. In some model kits, I see something demonic — leathery wings, fiery red colors, deadly spiked limbs like scythes. They aren't overburdened, they're concise, units are easily distinguishable, for each unit it's clear where the head is and where the tail is. And according to lore, the Tyranids create cults and corrupt other races into hybrids. Heh, they make for more successful insectoid demons than that abomination in the Elden Era.

The Works of H.P. Lovecraft

Well, we simply cannot do without the founding father and the "Be-all and End-all" of the cosmic horror world, without whom modern mass culture is unimaginable. Take everything I said about Tyranids, season it with a wall of epithets, and multiply it hundreds of thousands of times. Lovecraft's forte is otherness. His monsters, aliens, ancient civilizations, and forgotten gods are not evil, not cruel, and not cunning. They are simply different. They think in different categories, live different lives, different laws of the universe apply to them, and humanity is nothing more than bugs, an annoying hindrance, or a trifle to be ignored. We are simply unable to comprehend, realize, or imagine even a small fraction of what the creatures of his bestiary truly are. People in his works go insane in droves because the human mind was not designed to withstand the full scale of the universe. And that's why Lovecraft's works are steeped in mysteries, understatement, and many questions without answers. He only slightly lifts the veil of mystery over a much larger world than we can imagine, understand, or conceive, but we cannot go beyond the threshold because it is an alien world. I don't know about you, but I love mysteries and love traveling to unexplored worlds. The spirit of an explorer awakens in me. And it's no longer scary, but terrifyingly interesting.

Fallout 3 — Centaurs (warning, that very example of nasty body horror)

When I first saw THIS on the Nukapedia, I suddenly felt very sick and my hand reached for the "Uninstall Game" button. But I told myself — Kosh, enough, you're a grown woman, thirty years old, come on, are you really going to be scared of a bunch of polygons? What, even with tgm you'd be scared? They're more afraid of you than you are of them, so don't be a wuss, plasma rifle in your teeth and go forward, show them who's boss in the Capital Wasteland.
And somehow, you know, I didn't even need tgm; I managed without it. Yes, I went through Vault 87 with brightness maxed out and explored every location ten times over via tfc. Yes, I got into a couple of unpleasant situations where monsters respawned after loading a save and I found myself in the middle of a crowd of centaurs. And then, somehow, I got used to it. When I stumbled upon a location with centaurs in New Vegas, I was already happily running towards them shouting "Oh, my darlings, come here, I've missed you so much" (not forgetting to treat them to volleys from a plasma pistol). I even wanted to install a mod that adds them to Fallout 4. I classify centaurs as "They scare me, but I'm not scared; I'm cool." And they look great, you must agree. Yes, terrifyingly awesome, horrendously ugly. But they are memorable, the wretches. So memorable that you sleep with the lights on for a week afterwards 🤣

Unfortunately, I haven't played Dark Souls and its ilk — I'm sure my list would have grown by several entries. But I've already gotten carried away 😅

In short, I like various freaks because of their designs, aesthetics, and atmosphere, because of the emotional component and my personal quirks, because of the ideas they embody. Since I have a duckling syndrome and it all started with Disciples 2, by inertia I continue to love demons pretty much everywhere — and by the way, in Heroes 5, the demons had several cool design solutions, such as the succubi, archdevils, or nightmares (which themselves aren't great, but I've loved them since the fourth part). And I'm terribly upset that in 95% of cases, demons are just evil evil because they are such evil evil; cases in the spirit of Betresen's tragic story are not that many, and I rejoice when they appear. But you can play with the other extreme — incomprehensible alien beings that are not evil because they are evil; they simply don't care about us, they are at a different level of development and existence, thinking on different scales and categories. Especially since according to lore the Kreegans are xenos, which means the lore allows for some creativity and doing something out of the ordinary. If presented well, it will be mesmerizing and attractive. I understand this isn't for everyone, but it appeals to a significant enough portion of the audience to count on it.
But I highly doubt that in the Elden Era one should count on anything mesmerizing. Because the local demons already fail to inspire with their design. You don't feel anything global or incomprehensibly alien behind them. It's just a bunch of maximally generic red insectoid monsters. I would even have made peace if the demons were again portrayed as boogeyman-style evil, twirling their mustaches and tying heroes to train tracks, if they had made normal classic demons with a normal classic design. But no-oo-oo, mom, I want Tyranids, son, we have Tyranids at home. I adore demons, I adore monsters, and I'm most furious about this faction, about how poorly they made it.

However, they have a chance to redeem themselves if they make this guy the faction champion:

Since I mentioned Fallout.

P.S. I want to write in detail my Very Valuable Opinion on the faction lineups and the contents of the video, but that would again take me several hours to write a post and it's not a fact that I'll drop it today. I've already gotten carried away explaining about horrors.

Well then, as promised, I will state my valuable opinion about units and faction lineups, and also share my own lineup variants. Disclaimer: I have not dug deep into the lore and have not studied it much. I know fragments, some moments and ideas. So in some places I will randomly nitpick the lore side, and in others I will miss something. I will be guided by the lineups of the first four games and by my own taste; I will not go deeply into mechanics and synergies. This is how I would fix the current factions, not the ultimate truth; I simply felt like fantasizing on the topic.
The main arguments for why I changed the lineups this way and not otherwise, I will dump right away:
1. Because I can.
2. I am an artist, this is how I see it.
3. What are you going to do to me, I am in another city.

Purely for the memes, I took the faction names from the god-tier-in-its-awfulness translation of the fifth game. I played it when the dwarf add-on came out. After three minutes of play I switched the language to English, because that was easier to understand. And this was back when I was still in school and my English was made of pain and sorrow.

Basement

Current lineup: troglodyte, assassin, chakram thrower, minotaur, medusa, hydra, dragon.

I have already spoken about the Dungeon designs... I think. Though maybe that was whining about the designs in general. In short, not impressive: the troglodytes are kind of flabby and falling apart, the monsters are more or less passable, the humanoids are dull.
And now I will say one more thing - the presence of languid elves. You are moving the game into the old world, but your dark elves are completely Ashan-style. Do not do that. Either take off the cross or put on the pants. I do not remember whether I said this or not, but it is not very cool.

So, my first fix is to kick out the languid elves. If we are returning to the classics, give us a classic Dungeon monster zoo.
Then - remove hydras and medusas. You will understand why later. For now, we just remove them. These are good units that fit well in Dungeon, but we remove them.
We are left with troglodytes, minotaurs, and black dragons. Excellent guys, all in the right place. We need four more units, and there is room for the imagination to run wild.
First, let us add a beholder. Something similar was briefly shown, and a good shooter will not hurt now that we have kicked out the medusa. A completely classic Dungeon unit.
Second, everyone loves kitties, and I want to see manticores. A wonderful monster to replace the hydra, with paralysis from the medusa. I love manticores too much not to drag them into Dungeon; they are one of my favorite mythical monsters, if not the favorite. I said I would build lineups according to my taste, so here I am building them. I am a girl, I do not want to decide anything, I want a kitty.
Third... We should shamelessly take advantage of the absence of wizards in the game and restore historical justice. Have you noticed that after NWC closed, when creating factions, developers mostly oriented themselves around Heroes III? That is why griffins sit with the humans, the elf mega-unit is a dragon instead of a phoenix, and gargoyles hang out with wizards. But... In the first two games, gargoyles belonged to the Warlock. As, incidentally, did centaurs and griffins. Why not return at least the gargoyles to their historical homeland? Three flyers, like in Heroes III, by the way. A useful little beast, needed around the household.
So, we have one empty slot. And since we are stealing units from wizards, we may as well go all the way. In the Heroes IV DLC there were these cute girls:



The neutral unit technically belonged to the “good” Order faction, but the unit name says it in plain English - Evil Sorceress. And since they are so evil, the best place for them is in an “evil” faction, especially since the fifth game set a precedent - remember the witches with whips? Let us just make them human women. Let them resemble the Chaos sorceress heroines from that same fourth game, since those are sorceresses too. So we get a pretty girl, a second shooter, and an unambiguous spellcaster, not like the dude in the video guessing whether she is casting or idling.



Only here she is clearly not T6, because manticores and minotaurs want to be higher. I really disliked that in the fifth game minotaurs were made T3; I am glad they corrected that in the sixth and seventh. So by the events of the fifth game, minotaurs had degraded 🤣

My lineup in ascending order of strength: troglodyte, gargoyle, beholder, sorceress, minotaur, manticore, dragon.

Shelter

Current lineup: swordsman, crossbowman, priestess-mage, griffin, battle priestess with a banhammer, cavalryman, giant humanoid combat robot archer, angel.

Whew, where do I even start... Why do we need two priestesses? Thanks for making them visually distinct so confusing them is... Well, not exactly impossible, given the general problem with the designs and graphics. But why. Do. We. Need. Two. Freaking. Priestesses.
Then I will nitpick the giant humanoid combat robot. This is just bad. This unit looks as if it should belong to a wizard faction in a Korean MMORPG, but absolutely not to humans in Heroes. Yes, here we remember that 1. old Heroes is sci-fi 2. angels are robots 3. in the sixth game the humans had light elementals in their army, but there have to be limits. The design looks as if it was taken from some, God forgive me, Genshin, or, even funnier, some mecha thing. It is alien, out of place, unnecessary. I pray that it turns out to be neutral, and even then - no, it is not needed, it does not fit the atmosphere, it really does not fit.
I already praised the crossbowmen for the birds.
Swordsmen and cavalrymen - well, generics, what can you say about them.
Angels... Here again is the same damn mistake. These are Ashan angels, damn it! Make up your mind already: are you bringing everything back, or are you calming down and hanging out in Ashan? You cannot simply sit on two chairs at once. Every such decision convinces me more and more that the developers do not know what they are doing and simply want to cozy up to the brand. Do not do that.
Someone offscreen explained to me about griffins that they are uncharacteristic for humans, and in Heroes III there were lore reasons for their appearance, while in all other non-Ashan parts they hung out either with Dungeon or with elves. I have no complaints about the design itself, but that pushed me toward certain thoughts.

We see eight units, but let us assume the faction will have seven, all according to the classics. So we boldly throw out the priestess-mage, the griffin, the damn giant robot archer, and... the Angel. There. Did I say I would be indulging my own taste? I like the humans from the first two games. One low-level shooter, zero flyers, cheap, angry, the most grounded race possible, carried only by humans, without all your magic-shmagic and monster-shmonster nonsense. I threw out the priestess-mage also because I added the same thing to Dungeon, and why do we need two identical units?
We are left with the swordsman, crossbowman, cavalryman, and nun with a banhammer. The nuns are also my personal taste - I love battle women, and the Justicars from the seventh game disappointed me, just dull battle women with swords who barely differed in principle from their male colleagues. Here at least there is a cool consecrated flail and a book. I will not even nitpick the design; it is relatively decent, that pinch of originality we need. She looks like a good spiritual heir to crusaders and loladins. No, I am not proposing her for T7, but this unit is clearly high-level. She could be given a couple of damage spells to compensate for having only one low-level shooter. And buffs too, as the dude suggested in the video.
So, three vacant spots. Whom do we add?
Let us put at T1 our beloved, dear, wonderful top-1 creatures in the Necropolis army - future skeletons, aka peasants! Yes, yes, the most meme-worthy and awful unit in the game is back in business, because why not. But I think it should not be awful and meme-worthy. In the fourth game and I think the fifth, they had an ability that brought in money. In King’s Bounty, peasants dealt increased damage to plants. Perhaps the local peasants, even if they are not a top T1 unit, could surprise with a couple of pleasant strategic or tactical abilities, or at worst serve as middling infantry for the start of the game. On upgrade, with a flick of the wrist, pitchforks turn into spears while preserving all attack animations, and we get two classic units for the price of one. Roughly like in the fifth game.
Raise your hands, those who remember that in the fourth game the ballista and catapult were not a separate category of war machines, but independent units. But Kosha, here ballistae and catapults can be classic war machines, why do we need a second ballista, only as a unit!
Who said I was proposing them?



And what are you going to do to me, I am in another city. In the end, cyclopes should not be the only ones smashing city walls, especially since cyclopes, in fact, have not been brought in.
The battering ram seems to me like a slow pest, absolutely useless against low-level units... But how beautifully it wrecks high-level monsters and fortress walls! Why not. The town needs to compensate somehow for the lack of flyers.
Speaking of flyers, at first I wanted to add something like a roc to the lineup, even wrote the text, but changed my mind. Still, you know, we need a nimble low-level unit. Let us arrange an exchange of experience with colleagues in turn-basedness and strategy-ness.



Yep, these guys. No, well, why not? They were kicked out of Dungeon, so they went to the humans. The abilities can be kept; you can even add the classic strike and return - in Disciples they have exactly that attack animation, and mechanically this unit counts as an archer and upgrades from an archer. And in King’s Bounty there were assassins who, although technically neutrals, hung out mostly in human locations, and they had a cool one-use ability - a strike in the dog back, teleporting behind an enemy unit in exactly the same way and dealing unretaliated damage, only properly on a hex field rather than as a fashionable animation.
I will say even more: if you really want the faction to have two female units, let us make the assassin the second girl. I hope he will not be offended. The crossbowman could be made a girl, especially since there was precedent in Heroes II - the model clearly has size-four breasts and painted lips. But I do not want a man with a short knife and a man with a long knife walking one after another. A woman with a short knife and a man with a long knife is already more varied, agree.
The faction champion will be, well, the Champion, the cavalryman. Like in the fourth game. Weaker than other T7s, but cheaper and with higher growth. Perhaps in strength roughly on the level of the battering ram, but making a slow lump with specific use the faction champion is not the best idea. And cavalrymen are traditionally a very fast unit; in Heroes II they were the only ones who could compete with phoenixes in speed.

My lineup in ascending order of strength: peasant/pikeman, crossbowman, female assassin, swordsman, battle nun, battering ram, cavalryman.

Necropolis

Current lineup: skeleton, death hound, ghost, gravedigger, lich, death knight, bone dragon, vampire (?).

I will praise the liches - okay, normal, will do, not the worst that could have happened. I want to nitpick, but there is not much to pick at. Skeletons are also okay, normal, will do.
I will nitpick the ghosts. They are good, a cool silhouette, a cool lantern accessory. But... Sorry, why the bald hell do they need that kind of cleavage?! Are you serious? Like, are you freaking serious?! This is not even sexualization of a unit, this is some circus with horses and clowns. Cover the cleavage and it will be fine.
Gravediggers are vague as a unit overall. The idea of a summoner is good, but it can be put on the lich. As it is - well, me-e-e-eh.
Death Knights... Well, again they are ripping designs from the awful games, what is this, and after all that talk 🤣 No, guys, bring it back to how it was in the third and fourth games. I like the scythe, cloak, and ghost horse, I even like the Death Knight design from the seventh game (drive me out, mock me), so this is not the hill I will die on, but let us better have a sword and helmet, okay?
I really like the dead dragon’s design, but I really dislike that with this design it has taken up residence in Necropolis. It fits a faction of some dark forest, corrupted elves and forest monsters more. Necropolis is about death that is truly death, full stop. Here I see a union of life and death.
As for vampires, I simply hope they will be no worse than the Heroes III ones, although my favorite vampires live in the fourth game.
As for the hounds - I understand why they introduced them, this is Cerberus at home. But I cannot help showing cool death hounds, which hint that we should make Todd Howard happy and buy one game...



Well then, the hounds are the ones we throw out into the cold; we will not need them in Necropolis. And the gravediggers. The dragons, fine, we will keep, but on one condition - let them uproot their tree and become classic dead dragons. They do not have to grow wings - look, in Disciples II dead dragons live perfectly well without wings. Look at these cuties.





And we have only one low-level slot left to fill. A classic zombie asks to go there, but let us freshen it up a little. I was talking about body horror here...



Th-i-i-i-i-is guy, the benchmark nightmare fuel. He is disgusting, I adore him. In Disciples this is a high-level unit, but since ours will be T2-3, he will have to be cut down. I see him as a classic sturdy zombie, only quicker and with a couple of cool abilities (maybe on upgrades?). Not a top unit, but not useless cannon fodder either.
And you know what else? Let us reshuffle the units a little. I considered getting rid of dragons and putting Death Knights at T7, but that would mirror the humans, whose T7 is also a dude on a horse. That is boring. More than that, I am inclined to lower them, and raise to T6... Liches. No, well, why not. Liches are, after all, insanely powerful dead spellcasters, the driving force of the undead.

My lineup in ascending order of strength: skeleton, ghost, thing, vampire, death knight, lich, dead dragon.

Wet

Current lineup: real-life jellyfish, flying ray, slug rider, tentacle witch, cryomancer, flying tentacle monster, lord of the seas.

Oof, this is really very bad. And I do not mean the designs. The designs are okay, normal, will do; I liked the tentacle witch (not super original, but cool), and the flying monster gives off Lovecraftian xeno vibes. But the faction as a whole... People complained about the nagas in the sixth game too, saying the lineup was a bit strange, but the core consisted of creatures from Asian mythology (kappas, yuki-onna, kirins, the nagas themselves), and we knew some units from previous games - the same nagas, water elementals, medusas. Something similar can be said about the swamp in Heroes III - even though 95% of the units were newcomers to the series, hydras dropped by, providing a point of recognition, and the rest of the guys were mostly relatively well-known monsters - the interesting ones being only dragon flies and gorgons, which are actually catoblepasses. Here the guys clearly went overboard with originality. Not a single unit you can recognize, latch onto, that gives off classical mythology and fairy-tale fantasy vibes (and I will remind you that classic Heroes, while not being fantasy, looks like fantasy and did not break that illusion over four games). As a spherical fantasy faction in a vacuum, this could work. As a fan town for Heroes III - sure, go ahead. As a faction in a game meant to revive the Heroes series - absolutely not.

Therefore we mercilessly kick absolutely everyone out into the cold and assemble the faction anew.
Somewhere around here you may start vaguely guessing why I threw hydras and medusas out of Dungeon, and you will be absolutely right. They will fit into the tentacle-water faction like natives, becoming the very core that provides recognition and “Heroes-ness.” We will push the hydra to T6, put the medusa somewhere in the middle, let her shoot and cast.
Whom else have we forgotten? This guy.



In the fourth game this was a high-level bastard who ruined a lot of my nerve cells, because heroes eaten by it were not resurrected by Immortality, and once I got wiped in Dogwoggle’s or Waerjak’s campaign (I remember it was the barbarian one; as a mage it would have been easier), out of habit poking a hero with no army at these friends. But I think we will lower him, especially since King’s Bounty created a precedent.
Oof... How awful this webp format is, impossible to embed anywhere. So not a slide from the original game, but a fan creation, though close enough to the original.



Arthur Curry would like to take the floor and propose a new unit.



This seems more interesting and thematically fitting to me than some slugs. And it works better for fairy-tale fantasy. What could be more fairy-tale than riding a seahorse? But we will let Arthur himself go, or Warner will start complaining 🤣
Seahorse riders can very well be flyers, by the way. Draw on some wing-like fins, and beautiful.
Whew, three more units. Let us turn for help to... other fans of the classic games.

Here is your T1-2 with flight/teleportation.
I still have not added a mermaid to the lineup, because I think she would be very similar to the medusa, and we already have two sea girls; a third would be too much. But then it dawned on me. What if the mermaid is a boy? There is your melee fighter.



And now we need to settle the question of the faction champion. I thought for a very long time. Because a kraken and sea serpent would overlap strongly with the hydra, and filling all high tiers with slow fatties is just not okay at all. I did not want a dragon, because that is boring; I did not want a whale or crab, because that would also go into the slow fatty category. I had to google and use my head, and I found this guy.

They appear and disappear in the oceans, often at night, and it is thought that they would suddenly appear on what was previously a calm sea surface as a giant's black bōzu head and destroy ships. They are often a few meters (yards) to a few tens of meters (yards) in length,^[1] so they are seen as quite large, but there are also tales about relatively small ones.

He is big, he teleports, he sinks ships, he remains a classic mythical monster, but allows room to fantasize over the design; you can distance him from Japanese mythology and simply call him a “sea giant.” I think this is good, especially since we have already filled the quota for Heroes-like and fantasy units. You could even take some design pieces from the current lord of the seas, but I see this unit as more titan-like.

A couple of words about the overall design - reduce the degree of tentacles and alienness. You can keep the style, but comb it into more classic fantasy images.

My lineup in ascending order of strength: angler, nymph, triton, medusa, seahorse, hydra, sea giant.

Hell

Current lineup: winged fly-demon, tonguey demon, four-legged stinging demon, dragon fly, spider-demon, worm-demon, swarm queen.

Oof. O-o-o-of... In essence, the complaint is the same as with the faction above - the guys went too hard into originality. Only here they also screwed up 99.9% of the designs. Someone offscreen told me this is 146% not the Kreegans, so they are other demon-xenos. The dude in the video suggested that they corrupted local insectoids, rather than being insectoids themselves. Either way, his complaints of “I do not understand, is this one unit or different ones” are very telling. The units differ little; it is just a bunch of red near-insectoids, often rather tasteless and similar to one another.
It is actually funny that at the release of the sixth game I defended the Breeder Mothers, and here I am scolding an entire faction for roughly the same thing, lol.
And here I am stumped. I do not know what to do. On the one hand I want to throw them all to hell and make classic devils from scratch. On the other, I do love insectoids, and according to canon demons are aliens after all, and I am wavering and cannot bring myself to mercilessly uproot all insectoidness. So I want to compromise. To me, demons are classic devils, but their horns and claws give Tyranid-Zerg vibes. Some can keep segmented limbs or chitin armor, someone can be decorated with a stinger. I would like to draw what I mean, but I am too lazy, and I am not a top concept artist of the game industry either. So, when I talk about the lineup, imagine the units as if a Genestealer cult had opened somewhere nearby (and I am saying that Tyranids would make good insectoid demons...).

We throw everyone out into the cold except the dragon fly and the queen. We mercilessly redesign the queen toward more humanoidness and fewer unnecessary details. Cut the crown of horns, the stinger, and I would replace the legs with something more hoof-like, as in the fifth game. We will keep the dragon fly as a tribute to Heroes III. And since things have gone this far, let it be a cazador at home, why not 🤣
We return imps and cerberi to their native halls. The doggies can be partly copied from the fifth game and even the sixth; they had cool armor there. But I would still prefer the dog in the cerberi not be buried too deep and remain clearly recognizable, because we are reviving the series and returning the spirit of old-school fantasy.
We also bring back Gogs gogs. We need a good shooter. You can also make him a spellcaster, though I see the queen as the main spellcaster.
For T6 I propose taking the Juggernaut from the sixth game or some huge devil from Disciples II. Just a big overpumped scary humanoid demon with cannon arms. I like those.
Finally, let us again remember my beloved fourth game and my beloved (not) slugs.



I think these series veterans should be given a second chance, because in their only game they lost outright to vampires.

My lineup in ascending order of strength: imp, cerberus, gog, dragon fly, slug, juggernaut, queen.

Wooded

Current lineup: winged serpent, gold dragon, little faerie dragon, phoenix, bumble-fairy, satyress, mushroom druid, rock monster, kirin, forest swordsman, flower-fairy.

Obviously some of these guys will go neutral, but I threw them all in with the Sylvans just to pile them together.
The winged serpent is not exactly needed, but not exactly completely unnecessary either. Still, better leave it among neutrals. Same with the dragon, which is also kind of whatever, but not awful enough to make me burn.
Both little fairies are cool, but the same problem as with the sea and fire guys - the design is too elaborate for a return to the roots. I like it, but it needs to be remade. The kirin goes there too.
Satyresses, druids, and rock dudes are okay, normal, swordsmen are boring as boredom itself.
I am inclined to praise the little faerie dragons. I had long thought Heroes could get a low-level little dragon. And they look moderately similar to the Heroes III ones, moderately different.
The phoenix is also decent. I would arrange the four wings differently if I were making it for myself, and would remove them altogether if I were making it for Heroes, but it is not the most awful unit in the game.

Whew, a lot of work. We throw everyone out into the cold except faerie dragons, phoenixes, and satyresses. We clip the phoenixes’ wings and leave two. We give satyresses a bow in all grades. Because in a freaking forest faction there must be a freaking archer with double shot, no exceptions. And if here “these are not elves, this is different,” then let that different thing take the rap for the elves. Especially since there was already precedent for a female shooter in a forest faction in the fourth game; even allowing for the wonderful quality of the models and perfect anatomy, you can see that the Nature archer there definitely has boobs.
Here is a slide for inspiration from the unreleased Heroes 5 by the original developer.



Pay attention to the elf with animal legs (why I approved satyresses as archers), the furry, the sphinx, and the fact that they wanted to shove in a kirin instead of a unicorn. And I have nothing against kirins, but I think that can be left for the next game. Since we are reviving the faction, there is nothing better than classic unicorns.
And classic faeries too, while we are at it; her little dress here is quite pretty. You can add a few elements from the fifth game, like entangling vines. Or little antennae on the forehead, as in the first game.
For the remaining two units I propose taking this furry and an ent. The furry can be remade into a gnoll, or not remade; I do not know what is up with the lore there. The ent can replace the mushroom druid and even borrow some design elements. I see him as a caster with powerful buffs. In the God-forgive-me seventh game, the ent was a shooter; at first I was stunned, and then I got into it.

My lineup in ascending order of strength: faerie, furry/gnoll, satyress, little dragon, druid-ent, unicorn, phoenix.

And about neutrals. They could at least have changed the hobbit’s clothing color. I laughed at him for a very long time: we are reshaping all factions, smoking up some tentacles and insectoids, some giant robot archers and other nonsense, moving Ashan into the old world, but here we take and copy the design from Heroes III pixel by pixel. At this point I lost all respect for the developers. They have no creative vision, no taste, no system, they do not know what they are doing, and they are crawling to the official publisher to cozy up to the brand. Even the awful Polish towns for Heroes III are made many times better. And there are fewer complaints about them, because those are fans making things for fans on a voluntary basis, while these, God forgive me, developers want to sell their, God forgive me, product using a famous brand. Stop violating the corpse, you filthy necrophiles.
And the cutesy fluffy thing simply finished me off. Why? Damn it, why, how, what for? What even is this? Where do you put it?! This is already open whimsy. It is cute, I insanely like its colors, I do love cute little beasties in general, I endlessly melt over the pet dragon in King’s Bounty, I adore MLP, I even have a Twilight Sparkle figurine, and on VK I bought a chat sticker pack with a character of a similar design, a winged turquoise-and-white kitty, because she is cute (and I also got another one with her for free).



But why the hell did they shove this unit into freaking Heroes?! What were they thinking?! Were they bitten by Disney, which slaps conditionally-cutesy crap into every one of its droppings to sell more toys? Or, I do not know, some Genshin, where everything is just dumped into one pile so there is content, gacha, exclusivity, and pay-to-win? But why here?! If the hobbit was rock bottom, then someone knocked from below. This is just bad; throw it into MLP (I still feel sorry sending it out into the cold), and take a griffin instead, just the one kicked out of the humans.

In general, there are successful finds, but it would be easier to make the game anew. The approach to designs hints that they may approach mechanics, buildings, magic, and everything else in roughly the same way: dump everything into one heap without sorting, stamp out Original Finds, and in the end what comes out will not be a revival of the series, but God knows what with a bow stuck on the side.

Make the battlefield larger (11-12-13x11) and the creatures bigger (4 hexes), and I'd forgive everything else, lol.

Tactics that could be used, like in Heroes 5

Four small and three large creatures. Or five small and two large creatures. 134 hexes


1) A small creature is protected from a large creature with a 1-hex attack range by another small creature.


2) A small creature is protected from a large creature with a 2-hex attack range by two small creatures.


3) A small creature is protected from a large creature with a 1-hex attack range by a large creature.


4) A small creature is protected from a large creature with a 2-hex attack range by a large creature.


5) A large creature is protected from a large creature with a 1-hex attack range by three small creatures.


6) A large creature is protected from a large creature with a 2-hex attack range by three small creatures.


7) A small creature in the corner can only fight one large melee creature (it can "tank" by retaliating with attacks). On hexes, it depends on luck.


8) With a combined army of neutral creatures, there's a chance that a small enemy creature will attack diagonally, thus preventing a large melee creature from attacking you.


9) A small creature with high initiative and speed can run behind obstacles to avoid a large creature while the hero attacks (if the small creature has a retaliatory attack and the ability to attack and run away, it will also attack).

P.S. With these edges, 1 and 8 won't work on hexes.
Probably, this isn't everything that can be done with large and small creatures. Landscape obstacles will be much more important than when all creatures occupy one hex.

The neutral unit technically belonged to the "good" Order faction, but the unit's name clearly states - Evil Sorceress. And since they are so evil, they should be in the "evil" faction, especially since there was a precedent in the fifth part - remember the witches with whips? Let's just make them human.

I think these sorceresses could also be part of the Undead faction, but the developers need to study the Undead designs from Jadama and make them properly, not as a copy of the Ashan dungeon. Even a redesign of the tier 3 dungeon, with its buildings made of brown stone (sandstone?), would look more appropriate and closer to the screenshots that can be found.

The ram seems to me to be a slow plague, completely useless against low-level units... But how well it destroys high-level monsters and fortress walls! And what? The city needs to compensate for the lack of flying units.

I think it would be very difficult to use the ram as a combat unit; if we are going to make machines and not ballistas, then it should rather be a simple scorpion.


If you apply a little imagination (scorpions are operated by cool mage-priests, they feed on faith and shoot with righteous light, for the ref - to the enchanted ballista of the tier 5 elves), then they are quite suitable even for high-level units.

My lineup in ascending order of strength: imp, cerberus, golem, dragon fly, slime, juggernaut, queen.

Here I would say that there are too many things that look like tier 3 Kriggan units. But, as the same source said, not all Kriggan units were actually Kriggans, and the same ifrits can be returned to Inferno according to the classics, especially since it was traditionally a cool unit, fast and with a fun fire shield mechanic (and on the new engine, they could even be casters). Juggernauts would go instead.
And instead of imps, you can try to make something very weak and very numerous, so that even the model is small and unimpressive. Flies, larvae, mosquitoes... But, as you rightly said, without extra limbs and growths, with a concise design. Make them have the largest number among the first-tier unit, cheap stats (1-2 hp, for example) and let them swarm. Various skills that give +1 hp to the unit and the like will be super effective, and with a certain upgrade, this tier will be a force.

Well, as promised, I will express my valuable opinion about the units, the lineups of the factions, and also share my own versions of the lineups.

In general, these are amazing ideas; I really want the developers to read them, throw out a bunch of useless developments, and do exactly that. I subscribe to these fantasies; it's exactly what I want to see. I was especially pleased with the ideas of sea giants, hydras in the sea faction, and liches on tier 7 (liches are traditionally the highest and most powerful undead, which in many settings are also difficult to kill due to phylacteries; it is rightly noted that in Heroes they are not given absolute power).