Heroes of Might and Magic® 3: Complete

The best ever strategy game I played...

No quality of life keyboard shortcuts for hiring, etc. Quite sure they already were around in SoD when I first played it.

Heroes III is my memories of childhood, but I can't skip opening animation. It's waste sooooo~ many time If you can make everyone skip opening animation. I will be thanksful and give five star.

Get HD mod and/or HotA, solves most issues other commenters seem to have. I still remember the good old days where I would play this game on my old computer in a closet. Must've played this game for thousands of hours, no exaggeration. Unfortunately, I ruined the game for myself by watching streams/videos. The better I became at the game, the more I began to see its flaws: - RoE/AB campaigns are way too easy. SoD campaigns are mostly just nonsense. Give opponents strong heroes, while artificially extending the gameplay by putting gates everywhere. - The game became way too easy on anything other than Impossible difficulty. Unfortunately, most maps in the game aren't designed for it. You barely have any resources on the map. Random maps also became really boring once I learned how templates work. The magic is gone. - Wait turns design is one of the worst I've ever seen. Every single fight you start with mass wait and continue abusing it throughout the fight. Infinite kiting is also really boring. - Secondary skills are absolute nonsense, with Earth/Air Magic and like 2-3 other skills being viable. The rest are absolutely garbage. Mass Slow/Mass Haste is also problematic, and it ties into the above issue. - I absolutely despise hero chaining mechanic. It's a huge issue in multiplayer and leads to people taking 30 minute turns. The alternative is one-hero gaming, which has its own issues - HotA team is insanely slow with updates. They take like 10 years to add an extra town to the game. The game was really fun before I watched others play it. Don't ruin the game for yourself, and enjoy the magic while you still can. I miss the days where I would play this game as a foolish child and pick Learning every time.

I found this game for one dollar at a thrift shop, and looking at the screen shots on the CD case, figured it must be junk. Wrong. The theme is a bit hokey, and the graphics are a bit crude, but the gameplay is deceptively deep. You really must THINK, hard and long, on each of your moves. The game has all the depth of chess if you give it a chance. Several settings speed up or slow down movement or combat, if watching such things bores you. You can even click a button and watch a replay of your opponent's last move, to get a better idea of what the computer is plotting against you. If you are used to Real Time Strategy games such as "Civilization" or "Empire Earth", you'll find this familiar, but refreshingly different. You'll have plenty of time to plan your moves, and you'll need it after the handful of easy introductory missions. To get some very useful pointers, go to google and find the Walkthrough that's out there, it's awesome.