In my experience VCMI already feels like a proper Heroes 3 game, even if it doesn't fully support HotA mods, etc. It's certainly the easiest way to play Heroes 3 casually e.g. on an M1 Mac, and it has no wine-related crashes, and doesn't require a virtual machine with Windows's x86 emulation workarounds (like having to limit the game to a single CPU as otherwise units wouldn't do any damage in combat :))
I love homm2 and have been playing fheroes2 for a bit now. homm2 is truly a masterpiece. To me it's the peak of the heroes series. The art and music are both great and still hold up to this day. The game play is basically perfect for what it is - subsequent games in the series, to me, just are adding more and more piece types to a chess board.
Very cool project. An interesting note is that this makes HoMM III available to play on Android. That being said the game has had such a community revival surrounding the excellent Horn of the Abyss (HotA) mod that I can't really see myself playing VCMI (outside of Android) unless they fully worked together. Nevertheless, I am always stoked to see these community projects because they illustrate the pure passion people have for these games.
Very cool! I have one non-technical friend who occasionally wants to play HOMM, and she often has issues getting it working (specifically non-hd, non-hota on intel mac). This could be a remedy.
Did HoMM series ever get popular outside Eastern Europe? I am yet to meet a person born and raised in the US who have heard about it, but maybe i am just unlucky or targeting a wrong demographic.
I played Might and Magic as a child but I never knew about this series nor have I ever played it. I also don't know anyone who has either now that you mention it.
They're still not too bright, which is kind of faithful to the original game. However at least the android client allows you to pick alternate algos and further AI mods that at least claim to make it more challenging are available for download.
In the Wake of Gods mod (aka HoMM 3.5) had ERM scripting and it was hella exciting for a kid! You could make your own artifacts, automate things on a map, make a dynamic story that reacts to your actions.
0 - https://ihhub.github.io/fheroes2
I wish it worked with HotA but it is nice to play natively; though even run through emulators HIII is fast enough.
While I played and wholeheartedly commend the developers' effort in making VCMI I still prefer the original + HD/HOTA.
If the original game had these features, it would likely have gotten me into programming at an even earlier age!