Replaying Might and Magic VII

Yes, it's time to get nostalgic again. After a lot of discussions around HoMM and similar games, I decided to replay HoMM3 (currently playing through Armageddon's Blade, after completing the original campaign).

Of course, the result was unavoidable: After playing both the original campaign and Armageddon's Blade I want to re-play the part inbetween, which happens to be MM7, one of my all-time favourite RPGs.

However, it's been ages since I last completed it. I remember most things, but I could use a little advice on party creation and so on.

Oh, that reminds me - I read someone talking about "putting casters in the back".. ? Is the 4th position supposed to be in the back, and the 1st position in the front? I've played through MM6-8 a lot of times without ever noticing any difference in terms of who gets hit (of course, dodge + armor will determine a miss, but not who gets targeted). I pretty much always put casters in position 3 and 4, but never because I thought it had anything to do with who got hit the most. Would be great if anyone could confirm this, as I won't believe it untill I see confirmation.

Anyhow, let's get back to the topic at hand: Party creation. Basic rules from what I recall:
- Must have expert disarm trap, perception and repair.
- Master or beyond of all spells (Grand Master is preferable).

Also, I seem to remember something that most FAQs and what not tend to forget: The end of the game is significantly harder than the beginning, so making a party that works well 70 out of 100 hours is a bad idea. Nothing worse than realizing the party is going to struggle the last 30 hours.

Personally, I don't really care how good a party is at killing goblins. I'll always figure out a way to get that done. Dragons, Titans, Behemoths, Droids, you get the picture.

The current party I'm leaning towards is:
- Paladin (repair, spells, decent fighting)
- Ranger (disarm, perception, decent spells/fighting)
- Cleric (merchant, Grand Master Self)
- Sorcerer (Grand Master Elemental)

Not sure if it's strong enough though. Druids are fairly good, and I lack one. Basically, I seem to recall melee being completely useless in the final third of the game (going toe-to-toe.. or well.. head-to-toe with a Titan is suicidal). Maybe my parties were always too weak?

Also, I keep hearing good things about Knights. Why? Their huge amount of hitpoints won't save the party, as there is no way for them to properly tank anything. Basically, if the Cleric dies it's game over, and they tend to die long before the Knight.

All in all, I'm looking for input here from anyone who actually remembers.. anything at all really. I completed MM8 recently, but that is significantly easier and less complex than MM7.

Any tips, advice, etc are more than welcome.

Dte is the expert, but I ALWAYS use an all caster party because tanks suck towards the end. In 6, Druids ruled, but they nerfed them a little in 7. Still, having one druid is a must along with a cleric and mage. The main choice is always Dark or Light. The light spells are nowhere near as powerful as the dark, so you need to consider which way you plan to go early and plan ahead!!

That's true. Also, Dark gets a better castle. I always preferred Celeste over the Pit though. Anyway, I'll always be able to figure that out.

It seems we agree on tanks near the end of the game. I've never been able to make that work. However, if I replace either the Ranger or Paladin with a Druid, I'll be without Repair or Disarm. I guess Ranger, Druid, Cleric, Sorcerer would work, though having to repair in towns could get rather annoying.

Bunch of limp-wristed hocus pocus faeries... By the time you get to titans, if you can't go toe-to-toe with them, you've done a crappy job developing your crew. So there. Only place melee gets a little interesting is in the Pit when you stumble on that room full of archliches. They do serious damage at a distance (throwing that dark magic blades spell), so you get chewed up pretty good before you can close to melee range. You've got to have good range attacks to make it thru.

Rumor has it the outside guys (1st and 4th) are more likely to be targetted if you're hiding around a corner. Beyond that, it's supposed to be pretty even. AFAIK, there is no "front" and "back" to the formation. I normally put my sorc in position 3 so he's not on the end. Don't know that it really makes that much difference over an entire run, though.

Really? You go toe-to-toe with the biggest foes? What about Ancient Behemoths or the biggest Dragons?

If so, what is your setup and how do you prepare for such fights? Sounds to me like a lot of preperations are needed (potions, protective spells etc). Either that, or I've never had the right setup.

Usually, when I defeated such enemies in the past, I either blasted like mad with magic, or I strafed around for quite some time while shooting arrows. The worst example is the dragon for the Paladin promotion quest (it's in Tatalia or Talania or some such thing) - I was circling around the room for several minutes while shooting at the thing. Of course, this was very early on.

Do not forget Grayface patch for MM7, currently at version 1.4
http://www.celestialheavens.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10078

Also there is a very good mod called MM7Rev4modR1

http://www.celestialheavens.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8194

Weaken with ranged weapons, and by the time they reach you or you reach them, hit fast and hard. Dead critter. I generally keep all available buffs running all the time and I'm careful not to draw too many enemies at once.

I'll have to dig out some notes when I get home to refresh my memory on my buildout. I don't remember anything terribly special about it, though. I do remember that it was always the locks-n-traps aspect that limited my party build choices.

I'm going to have to buy this game, aren't I?

Yep. A true classic. The graphics won't impress, but they won't scar your eyes either. They were merely adequate 10 years ago when the game came out, but it's not about pretty pictures. This is epic spreadsheet RPG at its best.

Actually had a discussion on that very topic today with a friend of mine - dating of graphics. HoMM and M&M are great examples: Where HoMM (the whole series really) has aged really well, and looks fine even today, M&M and other 3D games look.. well, they're not too impressive.

More or less every 3D game released around the same time as Baldur's Gate or HoMM3 will look rubbish today compared to BG or HoMM. Quite a triumph for 2D games.

Am I going to need to jump through any hoops to get it to run on a modern computer, dte? Also, I don't suppose it natively runs at insane resolutions like Wizardry 8 did?

Runs fine in Windows XP, don't remember the resolutions though…

Here's the workaround page for all the M&M's over at Celestial Heavens. Looks like for VII all you need to do is some tweaking of the sound in dxdiag:
http://www.celestialheavens.com/viewpage.php?id=383
I had no trouble running it in XP(except that Arcomage crashes, but it crashed orginally, too. Just save before you enter the Inn), but I'm pretty sure I used the above page, since I always check there. (I don't think you need to worry with the Windows compatability toolkit thingie for VII)

Definitely a classic. It's a bit jerky on a modern fast system, but it's perfectly playable. "Smooth turns" or whatever should be enabled if you don't want to get seasick.

I like an all-caster party with one tank—I usually go straight Knight and have him pick up all the miscellaneous skills like repair, etc. Knight Cleric Druid Sorc is my usual.

It runs perfect in WinXP, though there was some settings I had to tweak due to the speed. Or was that MM6? Resolutions are low for a modern system, but fine for my laptop (which isn't exactly modern). Maybe Corwin can say whether it runs at all in Vista or 7. It did not run in Wine last I checked, but that's been some time.

I need to build a thing that slows time down, so I can have time to play all these games. Between new ones coming out and wanting to play old ones, I don't have time for it anymore.

Slightly off topic - sorry if I derail.

Is 7 better than 6? I have 6 sitting on my shelf (unplayed, if course), because from what I have read 4,5, and 6 are the best of the series... So I have World of Xeen, too.

But now 7?

I'll be snagging this when I'm done with finals in may and stuff. So the resolutions are low - are we talking like unmodded Fallout 2 low, or like 1024x768 low?

Just want to know if I'm going to need to run this in windowed mode rather than risk the ugly that is old resolutions on a large widescreen monitor.

I like 6 & 7 best. I haven't played the earlier ones, and didn't care for 8 & 9. I'd say 7 has a little more to it, more bells and whistles, choices, extra levels of skills and a good/evil path choice, but I'd recommend playing 6 first just to get the feel of it all. They're both excellent games.

@Rith--I want to say 800 x600 style ugliness, but I could be (and hope I am)wrong.

IMO, 7 is better than 6. But you should give 6 a try, since you have it. It's pretty good in it's own right, and also works in XP from my experience.

I don't remember the resolutions off hand, but you might want to see if it can run windowed if you have a big monitor. It's no issue for me, since I have a small laptop screen. I played through 7 last year, but I don't remember what all my settings were.

7 was a tweaked up version of 6 where they made it more challenging. Both had great stories, etc, but there were a lot of small, though significant improvements in 7. Arcomage is worth the price of the game on its own. The MAJOR difference though was in 7 you have to choose between the Dark and Light path. In 6 you could use both lines.

Good stuff to know. Thankee!

Do you guys think World of Xeen is better or worse than VII?