Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest
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| Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest | |
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| Developer(s) | New World Computing |
| Publisher(s) | New World Computing |
| Designer(s) | Jon Van Caneghem |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS, Windows, Mac OS |
| Release date | August 31, 1995 (MS-DOS) February 1996 (Windows) |
| Genre(s) | Turn-based strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player, single-system multiplayer, or network play |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: K-A |
| Media | 1 CD-ROM |
| System requirements | Intel 80486, 8 MB RAM, 2X CD-ROM drive |
| Input methods | Keyboard and mouse |
Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest is a turn-based strategy game developed and published by New World Computing in 1995 for MS-DOS. A spin-off of New World Computing's Might and Magic series of computer role-playing games, the success of Heroes of Might and Magic led to a number of sequels.
In 1996, NWC released an updated version of the game, ported to Windows 95. This new version included a map editor, random map generator, CD audio, and new scenarios. As a bonus, King's Bounty was also included on the CD.[1]
In 2000 it was remade for the Game Boy Color handheld game console by KnowWonder.
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[edit] Story
The game portrays the story of the world through four sets of eight campaigns, one for each faction.
Heroes of Might and Magic tells the story of Lord Morglin Ironfist, who is forced to flee his homeland through a magical portal, because his cousin, Ragnar, had usurped the throne after his uncle, Ragnar's father, killed Ironfist's father, the legitimate owner of the throne.
He finds himself along with his few followers in a strange and uncharted land, called Enroth. The land is unruled but contested by Ironfist and three other warlords: the barbarian Lord Slayer, the sorceress Queen Lamanda, and the warlock Lord Alamar.
Lord Ironfist defeats his three opponents and founds a new kingdom in Enroth. (In the campaigns, the player can also lead the other lords to victory, but the ending seeing Ironfist victorious is the only one that fits with the storyline of the rest of the Heroes series.)
[edit] Gameplay
Heroes of Might and Magic takes place in a medieval fantasy world, filled with creatures frequently associated with myth and legend. These creatures make up the military forces (troops) with which the player attempts to conquer opponents. The player leads generals through the game world at the head of armies of troops. These generals, called "heroes," provide a means to explore, attack, defeat, and acquire, the four basic principles in the game.
There are seven basic resource types available in the game: gold, wood, ore, crystal, mercury, sulfur, and gems. Mines provide these resources which are needed to purchase castle structures and troops. Normally basic resources needed for structures like wood camps and ore mines are easy to find and lightly defended (if at all) with creatures. Crystal, mercury, sulfur, and gems, are needed for a variety of things, and each castle requires a specific one of the resources to be able to recruit their strongest troop. These mines are normally defended by a more powerful group of creatures. Gold mines normally are guarded by high level creatures, like dragons and phoenixes.
Players acquire troops by purchasing them from their respective dwellings, which are constructed within castles. In addition, some basic dwellings can be found on the map itself. Castles are the hub of gameplay, as they are the primary source of military units, magic spells, income, and fortification against enemy attacks. They increase in power throughout in the game based on much gold and other resources you can acquire with your heroes to build more structures and recruit more troops from those structures. The number of castles in the world remains constant throughout the game: new castles cannot be created or destroyed by heroes, although frequently there are undeveloped towns on the map that may be upgraded to castles.
The ultimate goal of the game is usually to capture all enemy castles and defeat all enemy heroes. However, the game comes with many different play scenarios, and some of these scenarios have unique victory conditions, such as accumulating a certain amount of gold, or finding a particular artifact.
[edit] Combat
Heroes can engage in battle against enemy heroes, enemy castles, or native creatures. In combat mode, creatures are lined up on the side of the hero under whose lead they are fighting. Players take turns moving their units on a hex-grid in an order determined by the speed of each unit. A round of combat is complete when every unit has moved once. Heroes themselves can cast one spell from their repeitoire per round in combat; other than this, they play no direct role in combat.
Groups may gain luck and morale bonuses from artifacts, recent events, or standard bonuses. For example, your hero may come to a statue of a famous war hero, and this will increase your morale for the next battle. Having all your creatures from the same castle type also will increase your morale. Morale allows units to move/attack again in combat after moving in the round, and luck increases the damage the unit will do. Both occur randomly, but their probability can be increased with multiple bonuses.
Combat ends with the retreat, surrender, or defeat of one hero. For the player, retreat allows you to re-recruit your hero (for a nominal fee) at a nearby castle, but all other retreating units are lost. Surrender allows you to escape battle by paying a lump sum of gold. The surviving creatures at that point remain in that hero's service. Defeat means that the hero is permanently lost.
[edit] Hero skills
Heroes gain experience by finding treasures and emerging victorious from battle. With this experience, they gain skill points in any of four primary skills: attack, defense, knowledge, and spell power. In addition to experience, heroes may find artifacts, which can increase their primary skills further or provide some other benefit, such as increased movement, morale, or luck.
- Attack – Put roughly, the more skill points a hero has in this skill, the more damage their troops will inflict in combat. However, on a more technical level, the increase in damage is only proportional to the difference between the player's hero's attack skill and the enemy hero's defense skill. That is, if a player’s hero had an attack skill of 10 and an enemy hero had a defense skill of 4, then the player's troops would do more damage than they would otherwise (unless the player’s attack were even greater). The reverse of this is also true; see the details on the defense skill bellow.
- Defense – This is essentially the reverse of attack skill. In order to reduce damage taken by enemy troops, a hero must have a greater defense skill than the enemy hero's attack skill. In short, whether damage done by troops is reduced or amplified is determined by the relative attack and defense skill of each hero. To be more precise, the attack and defense skill of the hero is added to the innate attack or defense skill of their troops. When inflicting or receiving damage in combat, whether or not the damage dealt is reduced or increased depends on the relative attack and defense skill of the creatures involved, and in this way, the attack and defense of the hero implicitly affects the troops.
- Spell Power – This determines how much damage offensive spells cast by a hero in battle inflict upon enemy troops. It can also affect the duration of effect based spells and increase effectiveness of defense spells.
- Knowledge – The number of skill points a hero has in this skill is equal to the number of times a hero can cast any particular spell before "forgetting" it and needing to re-learn it from a shrine or mage guild. More knowledge does not allow the hero to learn more spells, it only allows the hero to learn more 'uses' for the spell.
[edit] Alignments
There are four different classes of heroes and castles, each with their own units and strengths/weaknesses.
- Knight – This alignment is one of two "might" alignments. "Might" aligned heroes gain skill points in attack or defense more often than in spell power or knowledge as they gain experience. Their troops, listed in ascending order of strength are as follows: Peasants, Archers, Pikemen, Swordsmen, Cavalry, and Paladins.
- Barbarian – This is the second “might” alignment. Barbarian troops in ascending order of strength are as follows: Goblins, Orcs, Wolves, Ogres, Trolls, and Cyclopes.
- Sorceress – This is one of the two "magic" alignments. "Magic" aligned heroes gain skill points in spell power or knowledge more often than in attack or defense as they gain experience. Sorceress troops, listed in ascending order of strength are as follows: Sprites, Dwarves, Elves, Druids, Unicorns, and Phoenix.
- Warlock – This is the second "magic" alignment. Warlock units are as follows in ascending order of strength: Centaurs, Gargoyles, Griffins, Minotaurs, Hydras, and Dragons.
[edit] Game Boy Color remake
| Heroes of Might and Magic | |
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 Game Boy Color box cover |
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| Developer(s) | KnowWonder |
| Publisher(s) | The 3DO Company |
| Platform(s) | Game Boy Color |
| Release date | June 20, 2000 |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Everyone |
The game was remade for the Game Boy Color in 2000. The remake was developed by KnowWonder. Critical reception was poor, receiving a 4.6 from GameSpot.[2]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Age of Heroes
- Heroes of Might and Magic at MobyGames - Game credits
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