HoMM vs AoW vs KB vs Disciples

First of all I think these games should have sub-genre of their own.
Age of wonders, Heroes of might and magic, Kings bounty and Disciples.They are all long running series and consider classics and they are all of those series are still alive.But which one is your favorite and why.

1.Age of wonders-AoW 3 is good game but probably worst game in series.Despite it is best series out of these 4.I always rated HoMM and KB higher but year and half ago I replayed AoW: SM and changed my mind and now consider it best game on the list.

2.Heroes of might and magic - Despite some flops (HoMM IV) and some design decisions I disliked in last game, series maintained quality through the years.

3.Kings bounty- It's game that started it all in 1991 and it's best exaple how you revive series.Unfortunately instead of full sequel dev is constantly giving us more of the same.Once legend and Armored princess came out this was my favorite series but even I as die hard fan got tired of same old, same old to point I didn't even buy last game and I will probably wait for sale.KB would be first on my list if it got sequel instead of ton expansions.

4.Disciples-First 2 games are good but I considered them worse than competition and last game is just bad.

Eidit: I have misspell on poll if moderator could fix that that would be great

I had the most fun with the early HOMM (I, II, & III) and the newer Kings Bounty games (The Legend & Armoured Princess).

Age of Wonders is great, too. Only Disciples is not according to my taste in strategy games.

So I vote for King's Bounty and hope they'll try something new in their next editions without breaking the good old formula of course

(BTW: the 1st Kings Bounty belongs more to HOMM than to the later King Bounty series; it was made by New World Computing.)

In my 35 years of playing CRPG's and strategy games I have to say that I have never been more excited then waiting for HoMM 3 to come out. Still remember the day I got it, March 3, 1999. Used a week of vacation when it came out and it was well worth it. Friends would come over at night and play hotseat games.

Love AoW and King's Bounty but the winner by far for me is JVC's HoMM.

To be fair, I never played any of the Disciples games, and only the first remake of KB and the original. Nor have I played AoW3 (yet).

Out of this list, I would pick HoMM. I spent ages playing HoMM1 and later 2. While I lost my discs to 3, I played it quite a bit as well back in the day (though I honestly prefer the looks of 2 more).

HoMM past 4 became "throw crap at a wall and see what sticks", first at the failing of 3DO and now as standard procedure at Ubisoft. This puts KB and AoW at a higher over-all quality as a series over-all, but HoMM has twice as many games + expansions as both of them combined.

I probably spent as much time tooling around the original King's Bounty as well, but since it's simple and can run without issue on my phone via DOSBox (control-wise, many games simply don't play well on the phone) I still boot it up quite often.

HoMM, followed by AoW. HoMM3 and AoW1-2 still have a high replay value for me. I actually don't replay Shadow Magic that often, because it gets a bit tedious.

Well, HoMM 1,2,3 are the best.

As for newer games KB >>> the rest >> HoMM.

So is this for the new or classic games?

Well, none of them are my favorites in the genre - but of the ones mentioned, I'd have to say HoMM2 and HoMM4 hold a special place in my heart.

I do appreciate the strengths of HoMM3 - but it didn't have the charm of the second game, and it doesn't have enough RPG goodness - which is what HoMM4 expanded upon.

Arguably, HoMM6 is a strong contender as well - but it's got such a different non-NWC atmosphere that I can't really consider it of the same series.

I loved the Disciples 1 and 2. 2 was particularly great. 3 no so much.
I love the gameplay, the dark-gothic look and feel of world/characters/heroes/maps.
It's just sufficiently different from Heroes, but sufficiently similar. I also love the Heroes series. I keep hearing about part 6, but never managed to get into it. My most favorite is definitely part 3, and part 5. Nival did a good job imo. I wonder what happened to Nival. They also did a great job with Evil Islands

HoMM3 beats all of these for me.

I feel like KB lacks a lot of town management stuff unless that's been added in the later versions and at the same time the RP part isn't amazing, so it feels like it is standing in the middle without doing either really well.

The battles in KB are much better than HoMM 3 but like with Blackguards, I can't just play the game for battles.

I enjoyed Disciples 2, but I thought Disciples 3 was quite cumbersome.

HoMM4 was alright, but I didn't like 5. I didn't play 6.

Is it much better than 5 ?

Is it much better than 5 ?

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It depends on your preferences. I tend to lean towards RPG elements in these games - and that's also why HoMM4 is dearer to my heart than HoMM3, which is otherwise the superior game.

HoMM6 is definitely the most RPGish of the HoMMs when it comes to developing your character. There's a LOT of choice involved, and I love that.

Also, it has a very nice selection of unique powers for the various troops - and I don't remember any of the recent versions being on that level when it comes to variety and clearly distinct powers.

It's also better in terms of the size of the maps and such.

But, again, it has the same lack of fairy tale charm that HoMM5 has. The first two games had it in spades, HoMM3 was a big step back - and HoMM4 was a small step forward.

I know a lot of people probably don't care about the style and atmosphere in games like this, but - to me - HoMM had an undeniable charm that's part of the whole thing.

I might try it out if I see it on sale then at some point.

Always found the games fun and I must have 'lost' hundreds (or maybe thousands) of hours playing HoMM3 and 4.

I think it would be good if they improved multilayer on these games.

Pladio said:

I might try it out if I see it on sale then at some point.

Always found the games fun and I must have 'lost' hundreds (or maybe thousands) of hours playing HoMM3 and 4.

I think it would be good if they improved multilayer on these games.

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Yes, that's definitely one of my bigger issues with the series. It's fine in Hotseat - but it's terrible in LAN or Online sessions.

HoMM6 tried something with an expansion, where it was simultaneous turns until you encountered another player. That's nice and all, but it doesn't help much after that point.

They have to design the game with simultanous turns in mind, and that's not easy to do without changing too much and pissing off the fans, most of which are likely singleplayer only gamers.

danutz_plusplus said:

I loved the Disciples 1 and 2. 2 was particularly great. 3 no so much.
I love the gameplay, the dark-gothic look and feel of world/characters/heroes/maps.
It's just sufficiently different from Heroes, but sufficiently similar. I also love the Heroes series. I keep hearing about part 6, but never managed to get into it. My most favorite is definitely part 3, and part 5. Nival did a good job imo. I wonder what happened to Nival. They also did a great job with Evil Islands

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My afro-american! Evil Islands was the shit back in the day. I don't think I've seen any tactical realtime fantasy game ever since.

If you were disappointed by Disciples 3 you should try the Resurrection release, it fixes the worst part of previous releases and contains all content. It might still not be as good as the first two but at least it's playable and quite fun.

I still consider AoW 1 to be the best game in this sub-genre. I loved the character development, which offers more choices than the other games listed above (though sadly it was quite easy to create a monster character who would make the game very easy), and it just had a certain charm to it. AoW 2 & Shadow Magic never really appealed to me that much. They were not bad, but they missed that special "something" that I thought made AoW 1 so good. AoW 3 feels like a return to form though, and while not quite as good as AoW 1, I still really like it.

The HoMM series are games that I consider to be really good, but none of them has managed to top AoW 1. They also suffer from becoming a bit repetitive after a while.

As for Disciples, I love their graphics style (at least 2 & 3, 1 was alright), but in the end, I never fund much depth to them, so I got bored with them after a while. Disciples is in my opinion the weakest of the lot.

And King's bounty. I never played the original, but I have played the recent ones. They are good, but I've found them to be too lengthy. Repetition sets in after about 10h, and that's just one 5th of the game. They could use more variety. Thus I consider them to be better than Disciples, but worse than the other two.

Haven't played the Disciples or King's Bounty games yet, so for me the choice is between AoW and HoMM.
Of the individual game AoW-SM and HoMM 3 are my favourites.

AoW: SM has the best gameplay and best tactical combat, but has weak AI.
HoMM 3 has a much better AI.
Both have excellent user made maps. With the right map the weak AI is not that much of an issue, so in the end AoW-SM is my favourite individual game, but as a series I rate HoMM higher. The whole Might&Magic franchise from MM1 to Dark Messiah has been mostly excellent.

With these games, I almost feel like mood and art direction is as important as the gameplay itself.

Disciples 2 had me at hello. The dark gothic art style, the quiet, ominous music tracks, the whispery sound effects, the graphics. I've never found a game that could compare with the silent, secretive ambiance Disciples 2 brought into the room.

AoW: SM was the high point of the series, I felt, but there was still something it was lacking that the first had. The first game not only had this 80's fantasy movie vibe with its music and graphics, but the mechanics made sure the game never got old. Even after all this time, I'm sure many will agree that this game is still fun, no matter how many times you've played it.

As for HoMM….this might not win me any points, but I always found the series to be…flat…and a little dishwatery somehow. I always got bored playing HoMM, and I've never been able to put my finger on just what it was about the series that felt so generic. But the formula isn't bad - it's survived to influence tons of other games of the same sort. It's something in the execution itself…

Don't forget the Elven Legacy series and the King Arthur series. But most importantly, Master of Magic, which is my favorite by far above all the others. I sure sunk a ton of time into HoMM V and its expansions though...

Aubrielle said:

With these games, I almost feel like mood and art direction is as important as the gameplay itself.

Disciples 2 had me at hello. The dark gothic art style, the quiet, ominous music tracks, the whispery sound effects, the graphics. I've never found a game that could compare with the silent, secretive ambiance Disciples 2 brought into the room.

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Have you tried Arx Fatalis ? - It's not a strategy game though.

As for HoMM….this might not win me any points, but I always found the series to be…flat…and a little dishwatery somehow. I always got bored playing HoMM, and I've never been able to put my finger on just what it was about the series that felt so generic. But the formula isn't bad - it's survived to influence tons of other games of the same sort. It's something in the execution itself…

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You've lost my points

Just kidding.

HoMM 3 for me has always been amazing. It's an amazing game with friends too.

I once spent more than 8 hours on the game with a couple of friends with nothing but snack and toilet breaks

Pladio said:

HoMM 3 for me has always been amazing. It's an amazing game with friends too.

I once spent more than 8 hours on the game with a couple of friends with nothing but snack and toilet breaks

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I am not sure I ever completed campaigns in HoMM 3 or 4 because it was so much more fun to play it in hotseat with 3 other friends.Once I even played Free for all(no alliances) game with 8 players in hotseat, first time I seen turn based game get chaotic.Good times.

Disciples got my vote, mostly on number 2 - It was a fantastic game with a quite distinctive art style, great campaign, awesome music, really good combat (or at least that's what I though back when I was young and impressionable) and, well, everything. I was like smitten for days back when I first played it. Things got ever slightly so worse when they milked it with endless expansions and rereleases that still got them out of bisiness, and then came 3 but yeah, I must say that of all the games in these series, Disciples 2 left the biggest impression on me.

King's Bounty The Legend is great and all, but by the time Crossroads came out, they were already milking it for all it's worth, and then the online thingie got me off. I'll still play the last 2, but they should do something with a new engine and soon. I don't want them to announce one more with the current state of things, nomatter what twist they introduce next time, and tarnish what good memories I have of the first of these.

Heroes 3 is the pinnacle of the series, flat down. It's an amazing game I've spend countless hours on, in both single and multiplayer, and I don't do multiplayer very often. Back in the day, it was a real joy to gather some friends and play hotseat. 1 and 2 were quite good, but they hit the sweet spot in 3 - previous ones had a bit of charming, but a tad kookie cartoonish art style, where as 3 had a more, can I say somewhat realistic fantasy style? And then came the milking, the disaster that was 4 - it's not as bad as everyone says, and while it had it's charm, it somehow didn't feel like Heroes. Since the Ubisoft takeover, the only good thing that came out was Clash of Hereos, which was a charming puzzle game. I dunno about MMX, I can't say I like that style of RPG for some reason.

Technically, Age of Wonders are great games, and I should like them - and I actually do, but for some reason none of 1, 2 and Shadow Magic hit any sweet spots. I should try the new eventually, but not sure I'll do it either.