I have heard all the good things about HOMM3 from the TBS fans. As a fan of TBS also, I have bought both HOMM3 and Heroes Chronicles here in GOG. I tried HOMM3 first, but some how still couldn't get myself on hold / understand the game even after the tutorials. I give up for few years, and this year some how I pick up Heroes Chronicles. In my surprise, I finally get myself on hold of the game. This game let me understand the system way much better than HOMM3. Now I finished 6/8 campaigns of Ch.1, and I indeed like the game. I think I can play back HOMM3 after finishing all the chapters. Recommend people to play this before HOMM3 even this game is released after HOMM3.
This is the first city building game that I played and actually completed all missions! I do not like open game which I always find myself lost of what I should do. This game provide clear goal for each mission and nice Greek mythology touches (++bonus for me as I like Greek mythology a lot). Plan your road and building well, leave room for beauty enhancement, look at your allies and colony and make good use of trading to earn money. Oh...I want to play this game again. I bought Caesar 3 here in GOG and cannot find that playable because I played this game first ...
I bought this and start playing this about two years ago. And then I still haven't finished this and still in mission 12. But bear in mind that I am not really a gamer, I play game may be even less than one time a week. But when I play it, I can put quite some time on it each time. Some games when you stop playing for some time, I will lost interest of it and stop playing it forever. But this game doesn't, I will continue the game may be two weeks or months later. Some claim the game is slow, but there is F8 to speed up the game speed. On my side, I didn't use it because I find that I often don't have time to build or control my army. However, I do agree that the AI such that each troop after eating won't fall back to their original formation and direction is really annoying (even the cutie machine troop). And when the fisherman caught all fishes in the pond, they will still go on fishing without generating any food, and the fact that you can't kill your people means at the end those fisherman are just burden that eating up your food only. But overall, I very admire and enjoy the game, as there is no other game makes food so important and you can really execute a real starving strategy. It is also a beauty to see how all the economic chain goes, lumberman not only cut the trees, but also plant the trees. Each person NEED to eat. You need serf to deliver food to your army. The enemy will attach you from time to time, so you have to prepare your army for defense while you are building your city. And missions are also challenging which makes me must make saves frequently with roll back and play in order to finish missions.
