Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia

aka: HOMM 3, Heroes 3, Heroes of Might and Magic III: A Restauração de Erathia, HoMM3:RoE
Moby ID: 1494
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia takes place long after the ending of Heroes of Might and Magic II: Price of Loyalty and partially concurrently with Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven. Receiving news of her father's death, Catherine Ironfist, Queen of Enroth, sails for Erathia to attend her father's funeral. Fearing the worst, she assembles a military fleet as her escort. Arriving on the coast of Erathia, Catherine finds an allied wizard's tower, devastated from battle and abandoned. There she learns Erathia is falling to its enemies. Mustering local armies, Catherine marches to Erathia's capitol, restoring lost land along the way.

The Restoration of Erathia retains the bulk of the gameplay from its predecessors, with significant additions and modifications. It features 8 entirely distinct towns with 7 creature levels each, but this time all creature levels (save for neutral-only ones) can be upgraded. Also new are war machines, a total of 122 artifacts, overhauled spell list, new and edited map locations, an alignment mechanic which affects interaction with some of the map locations and spells, and 7 single-player campaigns with a vast set of single scenarios which can be played against the AI or other human players.

Spellings

  • Герои Меча и Магии III: Возрождение Эрафии - Russian spelling
  • 魔法門英雄無敵3 (主程式) - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 魔法门之英雄无敌III:埃拉西亚的光复 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Linux version)

10 People

Linux Version
  • Loki Entertainment Software
Linux Programming
Linux Q/A, Support
Linux Sales
Loki Honcho

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 87% (based on 39 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 169 ratings with 11 reviews)

A turn-based Strategy game that will fill many of your hours.

The Good
It flows. When playing HoMM3, you don't waste your time on minor things like extensive resource managment or deep experiance calculations, you simply play the game. The interface is clear, straight forward and easy to learn, and I believe it's the most powerful feature of the game.
Other nice additions- Excellent sound in .mp3 mode, so you'll be able to play it even while not playing the game, averge graphic and a good AI, that'll require some time to defeat.

The Bad
The game is almost identical to the other games on the series. The graphics are very similar, and most of the objects weren't changed at all, other than increasing their resolution a bit. Some of the armies are clearly better than the others, and on lower difficulty levels you can easily reach some of their more powerful units on the 1st or 2nd turn.
The campaign is terrible. The story is childish and uninteresting, each of the scenarios is easy and straight forward, and there is no real challange.
The greatest problem of the game is its multiplayer. Since it's a turn based games, you may wait long hours waiting for the other players to play, and for a game which supports up to eight players this can be a long wait... Actually, me and my friends started playing Talisman between our turns.

The Bottom Line
Although the game has many flaws, the single-player (and hotseat for up to three players) is f-u-n, and it's worth buying just for that.

Windows · by El-ad Amir (116) · 2000

The Linux release is a good port of the Windows release, with the exception of network play

The Good
The game is a lot of fun and gives you a lot of different races to play around with. The best part about the game is that it is simple enough to learn in less than an hour, but has enough gameplay depth to play for months. The sounds effects and graphics are top notch.

The Bad
I didn't like the fact that network play is only supported with other Linux players and not with players on the Windows version. This is not really Loki's fault since they would have to reverse-engineer DirectPlay in order to be compatible, but it is a disappointment. Also, while gameplay is generally balanced, some of the factions are quite a bit weaker than the other factions in unit strength, and the cheapness of their units doesn't make up for it.

The Bottom Line
This game is in the top of the class of turn-based strategy games. Only the Warlords series and Civilization series equal or exceed its playability and game design.

Linux · by Droog (460) · 2001

Very, very, VERY addictive.

The Good
It's very addictive. I'm not sure exactly WHY it has such high replay value, but even repeating the same scenarios over and over again is a lot of fun. The graphics are good, in my opinion. A turn-based strategy game doesn't NEED top-of-the-line graphics. The backgrounds and creatures are actually beautifully rendered. The only graphics that probably should have been a little more intricate are spell animations. Compared to Heroes II, the AI seems to be more on a level with what is possible for a human player to do. In the previous game, it seemed as though the AI had access to more resources than I did, and that my creatures could therefore never compare. In Heroes III, the AI is more equally matched, and sometimes your computer opponents will fail to take advantage of blatantly obvious opportunities... it's nice to be given a fighting chance. It's a fun multiplayer game for two or three people, although many more than that and it starts to take huge amounts of time to finish. The map builder is a fun feature too--makes you appreciate how difficult it is to create a challenging but win-able scenario.

The Bad
The campaigns are terrible. Each one gives you three scenarios. Without exception, the first two are so easy that they are not any fun--the sole purpose of the first two scenarios is to build up your heroes for the third one. Kind of akin to walking around purposelessly in an RPG to try to get your characters up to level 99... and I HATE doing that. And then, once you finally trudge through to the third scenerio, it is way too hard. The AI has overwhelmingly superior forces from the start. The scenarios are nice moderate levels of difficulty, it would be so nice if the campaigns had been similarly designed.

The Bottom Line
Very fun, very addictive. I didn't exactly lose any sleep over this game, but it is a great way to run out a dull afternoon.

Windows · by hikari_no_tsubasa (9) · 2002

[ View all 11 player reviews ]

Trivia

Mythology

Heroes of Might and Magic III made a complete major screw-up in Greek Mythology. This refers particularly to: the Gorgon and the Medusa.

In Heroes, the Gorgon is a fire breathing/death staring Bull from the swamps. In Greek mythology, the only creatures that closely fits this description are the Khalkotauroi. The Khalkotauroi were a pair of fire-breathing bulls forged from bronze by the Smith God Hephaistos as a gift for Aeetes, King of Kolkhis. These bulls were later killed by famous Greek hero Jason, in his quest for the Golden Fleece.

Now the Gorgon in Greek Mythology actually refered to a race known in Heroes as the Medusa. Gorgons are a race of vile creatures that had hair of live snakes, necks covered with scales, they have tusks similiar to of a boar, golden hands and bronze wings. Oh, and they're famous trade mark: anyone looking at them would be turned to stone (due to their extreme ugliness).

Initially there are 3 known Gorgons (other sources say there were more): Stheno, Euryale and their most famous sister: Medusa. Medusa was later killed by the Greek hero - Perseus.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MAT.

Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Indra was here, tarmo888, Xoleras, Silverblade, DarkDante, Stratege, Paulus18950, Shu Nin, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added May 27, 2000. Last modified March 28, 2024.