Etherlords was good, really fun in fact.

Actually, it's the other way around : HoMM added the cities.

Nothing beats the random maps anyway... Juuuust bitching.

Oh. And I know it's been mentioned elsewhere on the HOMM forums. But if you want more from HOMM III, look into the fanmade Wake of Gods expansion.

I haven't followed it for a few years, so I'm not sure if it ever got that vaulted update. But it adds a lot of new things, new monsters, items, and the like. Once you start playing that with all the bug fixes, revamps, and the like it's hard to go back to HOMM III proper.

I so agree with that. The thing is, most people get a headache just looking at the settings. WoG can be scary at the first approach, but if you are patient and methodical (and fanatic enough), you can sift out the best of it and have a good challenging game.

I love Etherlords 2. That game is the only reason I have Impulse.

Having played quite a bit of Magic The Gathering, I always felt that the combats in Etherlords are a bit too limited (max nb of creatures, not that many different spells...). But the Etherlords games are pretty good games in their own right, really worth a try.

No base building though, as far as I remember. It's basically King's Bounty with cards.

HoMM III is a fantasy 4X game. You might want to look for other games of the genre, for example:

- other Heroes of Might & Magic installments - V is very close to III; IV is a little bit different, with more RPG elements; II being a classic and best HoMM to date, IMHO

- Age of Wonders series - as mentioned above, probably a bit closer to Master of Magic, but both MoM and HoMM are fantasy 4X - you can't go wrong with either.

- Disciples series - a bit more story and RPG oriented than the others fantasy 4X series, with units gaining levels and evolving into more powerful creatures. Great setting, well designed.

- Warlords series - namely Warlords III: Reign of Heroes, Warlords III: Darklords Rising and Warlords IV: Heroes of Etheria. All of these are more strategy-focused than HoMM, but still quite playable.

- Fantasy Wars/Elven Legacy games - a relatively recent (2007-2010) and still a bit obscure releases. Never played them, but they appear to be pretty solid fantasy 4X games.

- King's Bounty series - the original game served as an inspiration for HoMM. Recently revived, also seem to be well crafted and interesting games.

I wouldn't compare the Warlords series to HoMM. They're more like Risk with units that have various abilities that can be combined for more effective stacks. No tactical combat. Great games though. Especially Warlords III: Darklords Rising.

I've heard they're more or less a updated version of Fantasy General which isn't very similar to HoMM. Don't like the General games so I haven't tried them but heard good things from others that do enjoy the General games.