How do you play? (playstyle)

[impy]

zechnophobe, you did not mind cartoonish look of hmm4? That really put me off, i did not "feel" the game - example Phoenix looked like fat chicken, behemoth like silly monkey as far as i remember. Also income from castle was capped at 1000/turn which was bad. I liked original hmm5, expansions were a bit messy, and overcomplicated system of rage etc.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by impy

zechnophobe, you did not mind cartoonish look of hmm4? That really put me off, i did not "feel" the game - example Phoenix looked like fat chicken, behemoth like silly monkey as far as i remember. Also income from castle was capped at 1000/turn which was bad. I liked original hmm5, expansions were a bit messy, and overcomplicated system of rage etc.

Homm 4 didn't use cartoon style art, I'm not sure what gave you that impression. (Cartoon style art generally refers to strong colors with little detail). If anything the art was too detailed as it ended up looking a bit dirty. I really liked the more complicated hero advancement from H4.

I don't remember 1000/turn cap, which means it obviously didn't effect my opinion all that much. The number means little, it is how well balanced it is that is important.

I rather like the two expansions for H5 much better than the base game! The two expansion races were very interesting and powerful. The dwarves had uses for their resources other than to build stuff. The Dark Messiah based orcs played substantially different... and that expansion came with a 50% increase to the unit counts for each other castle. Totally worth it.

The base game (and the skill 'wheel') just didn't feel like they were quite rewarding enough to the player. You leveled up and got one of three really terrible little perks. I did like that your hero could just make a basic 'attack' on his turn though.

Overall H5 had some very slick mechanics. I really liked the time bar that showed the order of things, and that initiative effected how OFTEN something got to act during combat, not just in what order. That said, I still prefer KB, since it throws out the very flawed castle building side of the game. Castle building just gets very thin and boring when you start capturing more than one.

And if you only have one... it isn't really much of a mechanic.

[impy]

I should have been more specific and say I did not like the appeareance of the monsters. Generally, low level monsters may look funny - goblin in KBAP, leprechaun in hmm4, but high level monsters should look powerful and respectable. But my hmm4 examples - behemoth, phoenix did not. I do not remember being too impressed with thunderbird or mechanical dragon, or poison spawn? either, to name a few. That's why I did not "feel" the game.But there's more.
after over a decade of playing mainly turn based strategies (gosh, remember Fantasy General? I never conquered it on highest difficulty. But I was rookie then ) I know what must be present in the game to attract me:
-very few melee attackers may reach the opponent in one turn, otherwise it is a hack'n'slash slaughter with strategic element - buffing, slowing, debuffing etc. reduced. Typical example is haste rune on magma dragons in hmm5 exp. Brutally powerful dragons with magma shield, dragon breath, blind imunity, fire imunity have a weakness - they're slow. With haste rune they are unstoppable. (i hope i got it right )
- element of luck kept at acceptable minimum. Whereas KBAP pirate units have 30% evasion, it is ok, because they are very low level, and 30% is acceptable. But minotaurs in hmm4 had 50%!! evasion against all kinds of attacks. too much.
- non-existence of chance to hit%. This simply silly idea which may ruin your strategies appeared in disciples2. otherwise great game. KBAP is ok, no chance to hit, but chance to do critical damage, lot better.
- non existence of too powerful skills. Examples being hmm4 genies mirror image on titans, sea monster swallow ability to name a few.
I also mentioned very limited income in hmm4 - 1000g/turn/castle. creators must have realised it was not good, so they went back to 4000g/turn as in hmm3