Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Succession Wars is a fan-made total conversion modification of Heroes of Might and Magic III, which aims to recreate the unique atmosphere of its prequel, Heroes of Might and Magic II, and to provide qualitatively new gaming impressions to the fans of both games.

OFFICIAL TRAILER

v0.8 promo screenshots:

Screenshot 1: Adventure Map
Screenshot 2: Battle
Screenshot 3: Hero Inventory
Screenshot 4: Single Player Menu
Screenshot 5: Knight Castle

The further development of the project intends lore integration with the Might&Magic series by New World Computing with attention to earlier games of the series.

This thread will contain official announcements. General information will be provided in the top post.

Our links:
VK: https://vk.com/thesuccessionwarsmod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesuccessionwarsmod
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSuccessionWarsMod
Official Forums: http://heroes2.forumactif.com
Mod Database: http://www.moddb.com/mods/h3sw

This is a very interesting and fun idea, but the name of the mod and the direction it's going don't seem to be completely in synch. I expected a straight port of the HOMM2 graphics to HOMM3, with some obvious new graphics additions for creatures that didn't exist in HOMM2 (e.g., gnolls / gnoll marauders). Furthermore, naming it "Succession Wars," implies that the HOMM2 campaign might also be recreated for HOMM3, perhaps with the new factions worked in somehow.

Although this mod does introduce a fair number of HOMM2 graphics, it doesn't seem to keep the same creature trees as HOMM3 or even HOMM2. It even introduces a totally different faction that doesn't exist in any of the games.

As such, it doesn't really look like a HOMM2->HOMM3 port. It looks more like a mod for HOMM3 that uses HOMM2 graphics but has its own idea of creatures and factions. A sort of de-res'd WOG, if you will.

There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it could turn out to be very fun and interesting. But the name is fairly misleading, imho.

I understand what you are talking about. The mod exists for more than 4 years for now, and it has been subject to numerous changes, and even the team leader now is the different person.

You should know that the mod is ERA-based, and thus is very flexible in terms of available options. Don't want to see new castles? Just start a scenario without them. Don't want WoG scripts and innovations? Just disable them in the menu.

I myself am a very big fan of HMMII, and I love it more than the third sequel. And I'm gonna say the mod really feels like it is a rebirth of HMMII. I hope I will be able to recreate HMMII campaigns by myself to add them in the game, at least in Custom Campaigns list.

Of course, some points are different, like 7 levels of creatures in each castle, all upgradeable, which option is the only one when playing. But it is a mod, which should be acknowledged as "you like it - you play it". Paladins and Cyclopses are stronger now. Peasants are not just useless retards now, no more a Necromancer's easy harvest, and can be even upgraded, which is also cool.

The name is just the name. The Succession Wars Mod just sounds the best, in comparison to The Price of Loyalty Mod or even Steve's Super Duper Best HMMIII Mod of All Time. It's stylish. There are objects from PoL, and some new ones. You can just consider it as a marketing trick, whatever, to draw everyone's attention. Roland and Archibald are there, and I suspect they will clench their fists against each other again, just from a bit of other point of view.

I also met a big lot of comments like "what is the sense of just porting HMMII to HMMIII engine, go away dudes". Just a matter of personal preference. There are not so many projects with similar concept in the Internets, because it is REALLY effort-taking.

I still hope the big amount of people will be able to enjoy the mod, so pax :)

I have the impression that the HoMM games are more popular in Russia than in any other country?

That is true. I don't know the reason, but Russian fan community is very, very strong.
Personally I spent all my childhood playing the first 4 chapters, and MM6-7-8 as well.

Probably that's because of the wide spreading of pirate versions of HMM games, piracy in Russia was kind of normal back then. We just did not have the originals in access, so we bought pirate disks and thought that was okay... but now we cannot pay to the NWC, for it does not exist anymore. Pity. The only option for us is to buy official Russian localisations for now, or buy digital versions of the game.


Still, VK (some kind of Russan Facebook) has lots of big HMM-related communities, unlike in Facebook.

Thanks for your perspective. I wasn't meaning to put down your mod. It looks very interesting.

How close do you think you are to a 1.0-style release? Or are you way past that?

Currently the mod most recent beta (half-closed) is actively tested by the testers team, we are seeking for programmer (while I am learning ERM). A lot of work needs to be done, but the mod beta already provides a nice look on the mod features.
When all the bugs will be squashed, the second official release will be created, with many new graphical improvements. I don't know yet when, though, maybe it won't appear in 2013 at all.

Thank you for your attention, also feel free visit our YouTube channel once in future (currently in development) to check out what the mod is like without wasting much time.

Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Succession Wars v0.8 Official Trailer has just been released!

YouTube video

Top post updated.

Yeah !
Really glad to hear that this project continue :D
Thanks for the info, and it's awesome work ;)

https://www.moddb.com/mods/h3sw/downloads/h3sw-v080-beta

There's a working beta for this now. There are still some bugs, but overall it's very playable.

This is awesome, thank you so much for your work. I too much prefer the art style of number 2.

feel like it needs a sticky, probably lots of people who have no idea this exists.

Avast Antivirus says that the file H3SW_v0.8.1_Installer.exe contains Win32:HackTool-EM[PUP]. According to www.solvusoft.com/en/malware/potentially-unwanted-application/win32-hacktool-em it gathers information and provides advertising.

That version was released in februari. It doesn't seem like such problems are corrected quickly. Maybe I will try version 0.8.0 in stead.

Is there an updated version or which version would you recommend to download? : )

Download the latest one: https://www.moddb.com/mods/h3sw/downloads/h3sw-v081-beta
Be warned, though, that 0.8.1 might give harmless error at startup. Just skip it.
And save your game often. Sometimes mod crashes for real as well. Not too often but happens.

And don't listen to not very bright people, who believe in Avast. AVG, McAfee and Windows Defender— those no longer are proper antiviral software solutions. It not sure, better scan suspicious files with virustotal.

It's not the "most fresh" news, but just wanted to mention about one issue, which I've encountered long time ago, when the newest version (0.82) was released at the 31st December 2022 (can be downloaded here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/h3sw/downloads/h3sw-v082-installer)

Basically, I could not run the game properly and it was crashing at the start. In my case it helped to download and install HD mod for heroes 3. But I've also noticed, that it's sufficient to copy the file patcher_x86.dll (from HD mod files) to the folder with "vanilla" game and it also run normally.

Of course I wholeheartly recommend this mod - especially for those like me, who really like Heroes 2, but at the same time appreciate various improvements from Heroes 3. And with this mod we can have both in one, which is great. Especially with re-balancing some units and factions (including unfortunate Knight, who is quite often considered as weakest in original Heroes 2). I genuinly like every single element of this mod, and two new factions are incredibly well made.