So 6 years have passed as a series of sword and magic is in a rather deplorable situation. The last 2 games subacerias “Heroes of Sword and Magic” failed, as well as sword and magic X: heritage (only now the heritage of what is a mystery for me). So let’s remember what game this series of failures began with. And in my life this part of the sword and magic occupies a separate place!
Thousands of years before the events of the Heroes V in the world of Askhan, the Empire of Shantiri existed, which included all the races of the planet, except for angel -like races: angels (no matter how strange it sounds) and faceless. The former served the Dragon Sveta and Justice, Elrat, the second of his older sister Malasse, Dragon-Tenies and Secret Knowledge. In those days there was a long war between Askhan’s races and demons. And then, after many years of bloody wars, the angels almost managed to destroy all the horned creatures and their creator, the Dragon-Chaos Urgash. But the faceless, believing that the demons had a different purpose, opposed the servants of the light, giving Vladyka Chaos and the last of his children to escape. After this betrayal, the angels without understanding the motivation of the faceless began the conflict, which was called the war of the ancients. The result was the destruction of the Shantiri Empire and most of the Askhan. Then the seventh dragon appeared, Sar-Islam. This mysterious person put the senior races on his knees and forced them to go to a truce, since in case of refusal he would destroy both sides of the conflict (since his cherries was able to tear out a whole piece of land and transfer it to a parallel measurement, which the dragon itself is not able to speak). In addition, both races suffered monstrous losses during the war, and the main supporters of the continuation of the war died, and therefore the angels and faceless agreed to these conditions by signing the Twilight Testament. But there were those who want to go around the covenant and continue the old ranges. About their intrigues will tell the subsequent games of the series.
Plot:
564 the year the seventh dragon. The Holy Empire of the Sokol is experiencing the most dysfunctional times.
The hypocrisy of Emperor Laim Sokol leads to the destruction of most diplomatic relations. Instead of a male doll, the country runs the church, led by angels, who will exceed all the disagreements with the hands of the inquisitors. One of the Dukes of the Emperor, Vyacheslav Griffin is trying to confront lawlessness. Early losing his father at the hands of demon worshipers, the duke was brought up by his aunt by a necromancer of Swedan (there is no mistake in the name). Thanks to her upbringing and the minimum intervention of the imperial, the duke grew up a wonderful diplomat and earned the respect of many Askhan. But all the same, the duke dies at the hands of his own, which triggers a series of mysterious events, which the children of the aristocrat will have to unravel.
The main characters and factions:
After the death of his father, Anton stood between the two lights: the Inquisition suspecting the death of Vyacheslav the Faceless, the servants of the Malassa, and their barons, unable to look at how the servants of the Light relate to the followers of the Dragon-Vorona Ilatra and the orcs who guarded the duchy of the griffin for several tens of years. At the same time, voices returned from childhood, which drive Anton crazy. Will he be able to cope with all the adversities that have rushed to him and figure out where the truth is, and where is the lie?
Anton presents in the game the Order of Order (Haven or as it was called here in Russian localization of the Alliance of Light). The main combat capacity of the heroes of the light of the Guardian Angel, which gives the chosen detachment invulnerability until the end of the course.
16 year old Anastasya, a student of Archangel Uril, from an early age dreamed of devoting her life to Elrat. But after the death of her father from her hands, Anton gave the girl to the Inquisitors in order to find out who controlled her mind and killed their father. After long torture, the girl lost her mind. To save sister from subsequent suffering, Anton pierces the heart of his younger sister. But the story does not end there. Saltan resurrects the girl and teaches her art of necromancy. Quickly knowing the basics of this teaching, Anastasya begins its investigation, which should lead to her father’s killer.
The girl joined the necromancers, who are still just a popular cult in the Academy of Magic. Necromancy completely changed its mechanics. Now you can resurrect units during the battle. On the one hand, this is good, on the other, it is somehow unusual.
On the instructions of the Archangel Uriil, Cyril, twin brother Anastasya, and his teacher, archangel Sarah, go to Shio, AD Askhan universe. Having got into the measurement of nightmares, Sarah sells Cyril Kha-Beleh, lord without a throne, which without patronage, the lord of hell has the most extensive possessions and the most powerful artifacts in this fiery hole. But the Lord did not expect that together with Cyril he would receive the demon Azkala, one of the former generals of the rulers of hell, who once almost destroyed Askhan. Under the clear supervision of Kha Belaha, Cyril, along with the succubus Ksana (character Dark Messiah of Might and Magic), go for Sarah to become a person again.
To catch up with a former mentor, Cyril has to take under his command of demons. The leaders of the army of darkness themselves are able to open the gates of hell, working on the same principle as in 5 parts. You create a new detachment of a certain type at any point in the battlefield, which are several times less than the original. But unlike the fifth part, if you destroy the detachment-orginal, then the new detachment will disappear.
Due to the constant skirmishes by Vyacheslav with a griffin and cruel to the Duke Gerhard, Volk Liam Sokol, orders Griffin to give out the eldest daughter of fame for the wolf. In the first after the wedding, the night Gerhard raped the girl. After that, Irina tried to kill her husband, but was thrown into prison of the summer palace. Her half -brother Sandor saved the girl. After that, she escaped to the empire of the lotus, the land of the nag. There, with the help of her mind and insolence, she received the title of shogun at the local daimyo and defeated several strongholds of the Inquisition. Now the girl is collecting an army in order to take revenge on her "husband". The situation is complicated by the fact that Irina wears his child.
As the basis of the Empire, the producers of the series took Japanese folklore. The servants of the eternal empress
capable of significantly increasing the protection and health of their servants until the end of the move.
The son of the Baroness from the Duchy of https://gamblingdata.net/casinos/pub-casino/ Hounds and Glory, Sandor preferred the company of his sister Irina and military adviser to his father, the Orc Kraal, instead of the numerous teachers of the surrounding children of the Griffin families. After the salvation of her sister from her husband, Bastard decides to sail to the islands of PAO, the homeland of Kraaal. There the young man decided to start a new life away from the empire.
Sandor will have to enlist the support of not only the orcs of the islands of PJSC (whose language he carefully teaches), but also their allies of beasts. Barbarians and shamans of the islands can significantly increase the initiative and damage of their units in battle.
What, as you understood from the description of the Cules and biographies of the heroes, the common story of the Heroes of VI is a huge ball of intrigue, which is being unraveling in the passage of each campaign (although now the main characters reminds me of the Starkov’s house from the game of thrones, only very processed). Only unfortunately, the campaign of Sandor and Irina practically does not affect the general plot and are more an addition for the plot lines of Anton and Anastasya. Inferno was the most interesting story, as most Laura Askhan is expelled in it. But there is a small problem in this ball, the developers did not have time to finish the game because of which some things seem illogical in it. For example, some dialogs do not agree with the moral choice of the hero. But let’s talk more about the moral choice in the gameplay.
Game process:
To better familiarize players with changes and introduce newcomers to a series of heroes, we will divide the gameplay into several parts.
World Map:
For those who have not played the games of the series before, then a slight retreat. Heroes are a step -by -step strategy, in which players are given one at a time to manage their cities and armies. The world map is a variety of lanshafts, on which there are different buildings and creatures with which the player can interact through his heroes.
The first difference that I noticed by launching the 6th part is that most resources were removed, leaving only gold, ore, wood and crystals. This spoiled the sensations a little, since the economy was one of the most important elements of the heroes, we will talk about it a little later. Also on the map of the world appeared zones of influence with the fort as the center. The one who captures the fort will also receive and all the captured mines in his zone. On the one hand, this simplifies your life, since you do not need to monitor each mine, but if you lose the fort, and several mines are located in its zone, especially if there are crystalline ones among them, this can specifically undermine the increase in resources. So I like this innovation, since you have a vulnerability that can cost you a game.
Now specific disadvantages. As you know in heroes every game week, a certain event takes place: the growth of some creatures increases, all unreliable creatures in cities die, the increase in resources is doubled. So, in the weeks of growth of creatures, the developers could not realize, as well as the appearance of new units on the map, which is why fights with neutral mobs can end during the first few months of the game. Also, a wide variety of different buildings on the map do not wait. Several additional objects were added in the addon, but still there are few of them.
Heroes and system of the dynasty:
The most important minus of the game is that if you want to try everything in the game, then you need to connect to the network. Rather, it was a problem in 2011. Now the game servers are almost empty and you can calmly play without fear that you will be thrown away at any time. But let’s go in order.
Instead of the usual attack, protection, magic, knowledge, in the game they were replaced with magical and physical strength and protection, just strength and manu. The last 2 characteristics are obtained from the addition of values 4 of the previous ones (force from the addition of physical characteristics, without taking into account bonuses, mana from the addition of magical characteristics and multiplying this amount by 10). Additional characteristics, such as morale and luck were left without change (in terms of the fact that both characteristics give the same bonuses as in past games).
Each faction has 6 classes: 3 magic and 3 warlike (one neutral in each direction). The difference between them is not only in characteristics, but also available skills. The warrior will not be able to learn the most powerful spells, and the magician will not be able to study the most effective combat clichies. Any match the player starts with a neutral class hero. Pumping the hero a player, through the selected skills leads him along 2 paths, tears and blood. Tears are mainly skills in protecting treatment, but blood is more ability aimed at aggressive tactics of playing the game. When the hero gains a certain number of points of one or another path, he will be able to change the class. Each of them has its own advantages, and therefore is advised to think carefully how much you will go in your game.
Artifacts in the game also work, as in previous games, in addition, there are several sets of prefabricated artifacts sharpened under a specific faction. But instead of a weapon slot, a dynastic weapon can be given to the hero. These are artifacts that are registered on your account Uplay. Artifacts are pumped with the hero in the match and give good bonuses that can make the player’s life much easier.
Dynasty system:
The dynasty was supposed to become something like a platform for a multiplayer, where the players had to create their own heroes and fight with each other over the network. This system was supposed to allow players to buy new abilities, portraits and other bonuses for their dynasty. But for technical reasons, this idea was unfinished and eventually buried alive.
That everything is very ambiguous here. In previous games, the heroes when increasing the level made it possible to choose one of 4 random passive skills. In 4 parts, each such skill was given 3 percations for pumping. In 5 parts of the Perka did not pump, but there were many of them and for the correct combination it was possible to get an imbalance perk that would greatly spoil life to your enemies. For example, you play for the elves and collected the right combination, now your units are always attacking with success and your enemies will not be able to do anything about it. But you may not be lucky and you will not collect the combination because you have chosen the wrong skill or perk. Heroes 6 abandoned this system and allowed the players to choose skills for themselves. So they are all divided into magic and power. If there are no complaints about power, then spells act here as magical skills. Yes, here the heroes learn from the guild of magicians and spells.
In this aspect, more and less standard. As innovations, the appearance of special objects on the battlefield can be called, which give bonuses to the hero and detachment, which occupied them (for example, an increase in good luck or replenishment of mana), as well as shelter from arrows. But in terms of spells, everything is ambiguous again. The developers introduced a kuldown, because of which you will not succeed in spinning the same curse 100 times. We will have to wait a couple of moves before you can use it again.
Also in the section "Heroes and factions" I mentioned some abilities of the heroes. To use them, you need to comply with different conditions. An example to use the Necromancy skill, you need to attack the enemy detachment with the hero, and then, using his units, apply him as much damage as possible. Or for people it is enough to have a high morale to have your detachments
Received additional moves.
Here is a complete failure. So for the development of the city, in fact, you only need to improve the main building and more essentially nothing. To afford the elite, you need to improve the town hall to the prefector in order to allow champions to improve the prefector to the municipality, the capitol is needed to maximize the income. If you recall the previous games of the series, then to build some buildings it was necessary to develop your city. It was not enough to build a town hall, it was still necessary to finish something additionally, for example, to have a certain level of the magician of magicians or forge to allow some new recruits.
In addition, the growth in the castle is very low and all recruits can be hired in one castle. How to understand it? In one city, you can buy all creatures from all cities at once. Not if the city would be connected by portals that help to quickly move between them, then it would be more logical. But for some reason they did it. In addition, the cities can convert. That is, you play for undead and your hero has captured orch fortress, then you can convert it to the city of your type, but the cost of this procedure depends on the number of built buildings in the occupied town.
All creatures in the game were divided into 3 classes: the basis, elite and champions. The basis is the weakest creatures in the city, but they take in number, and some of them may turn out to be a good first -aid kit in large numbers. The elite is already more narrowly focused units. Usually there are 3 types of creatures in it: tank, killer and magician. The tank withstands high damage, but causes little damage, the killer causes more physical damage, and the magician magical. The champions are essentially the most powerful creatures of the faction, they are fat, they have a high indicator of damage and protection, and they definitely have some kind of superpower that can ruin life.
Grail, or Askhi’s tear is a special artifact that allows you to build a building in the city, which gives 5,000 gold per day and increases the increase in the army by 2 times. In previous games, to find this artifact, it was necessary to visit special obelisks that opened partially the presence of this artifact. Alas, there is nothing like that here. There are 2 ways to collect a tear (it depends on the map. First, just find it on the map (usually it is in the center). Second, collect 4 different slices of Chantiri disk! Yes, boring, but what to do.
As always, Paul Romero and Rob King worked on music to the heroes. And about 80% of all the music they wrote, these are arranging of melodies from previous games (Heroes VI positioned themselves as an anniversary game in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Sword and Magic series). But there are also new compositions in the game, only most of them were responsible for Jason Graves, composer DMC (2013), Dead Space, Farcry Primal, The Order: 1886 and other games, and he would like to praise him. All his melodies turned out to be epic and memorable. I especially want to note Danse Macabre and Dragon Knight. Also, a couple of compositions were taken from Dark Messiah: Might and Magic.
Bosses:
So there are bosses in the game and the question arises: “What a hell?". But I hasten to calm only in the campaign and a couple of cards in a rickel. The boss is a kind of puzzle that the player must decide. Everyone needs their own approach, their own tactics and at the same time take into account the features of their fraction.
Additions:
So 2 additional mini-campaigns and 1 full-fledged addon, in which the dungeon was added, came out to the game. But I will talk about them next time.
Results:
Heroes VI were a fairly promising project. The unconditional advantages of the game are a strong plot, charismatic actors in campaigns, the study of Laura and the stories of Askhan, a large number of references to previous games of the series, visual style of the game, class system, soundtrack (despite the secondary) and a good picture. But unfortunately, this is all 100% of the pluses of the game. Otherwise, the game turned out to be quite controversial. There are relative pros and cons of. The main disadvantages of the game: the technical side of the project, which at the time of the release was disgusting, the lack of balance between the parties to the conflict, the absence of some favorite fractions, a small number of cards for the game, the lack of GSK (although this is more minus for fans of another part of the series), the requirement to connect the network.
There is such an interesting version that in the middle of the Ubisoft development process, the project financing sharply cut and demanded to remake part of the existing developments. Because of what the creators did not have time to finish another fraction, the Academy of Magic, the developments of which were shown in the book Might and Magic: Ashan Compeedium. Fans, even on the basis of these developments, managed to recreate the approximate composition of the fraction. But these are theories. Also during the development of Heroes VII, the authors shared several more details about the game. The final CGI videos that were supposed to play after the passage of the campaigns were also not completed.
But one way or another, the game failed. And this failure became one of the reasons why the series is now in a dead state. Next time we will talk about additions and what games in the series were canceled, and we will also discuss another work on the series.