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Mages appeared only in the 2nd part. The heroes started with humans, elves, barbarians, and warlocks. Then, in the second part, a mage and a necromancer joined them. Later, in the 3rd part, demons and lizardmen (swamp) appeared, and even later in the 3rd part, Conflux appeared. In the 4th part, there were no new factions – the undead merged with the demons, Conflux, which emerged from the elves, returned to them, and the swamp, one might say, spread out quite a bit.
In the 5th part, we were presented with a different game universe. Few people remember, but there was a time when some journalists (I personally saw an article, but now I can barely remember it) said that in the 5th Heroes, there would be only 3 races – Humans, Demons, and Undead. Then it became known about three more races – Forest and Dark elves, and mages. That's the game we got. Then came the add-ons. We were waiting for orcs and got dwarves. Then we waited for orcs again, and we got them. There was supposed to be a third add-on with nagas, but it didn't happen.