Godric, the Empire’s Paragon Knight, escorts Isabel from the church while Nicolai fights the monster. It plays a cat-and-mouse game with him before Nicolai finally sends it crashing through a stained-glass window, falling hundreds of feet into the water below. More demons appear as Godric flees with Isabel, warning her that war has come to the Empire, and she is no warrior. She has different plans, however.

And you thought your wedding was stressful.

When Griffins Attack. After you move your troops on the grid, watch the results of your actions play out.

Staying True to the Series

While Heroes of Might and Magic V departs from its predecessors by not only featuring a gorgeous 3D graphics engine but also by presenting a brand-new game world, producer Fabrice Cambounet explains that the development team’s overarching goal was “to create a real Heroes game, true to the series. We had to respect the gameplay fundamentals and recreate them well enough for the fans to feel at home.” As before, it melds strategy and role-playing elements to offer a unique experience.

“That battle system is the heart of the game, and we wanted to keep it. The chess-like feeling of the battle is also the differentiating point of the series.”

- Fabrice Cambounet, producer

The game takes place on a world called Ashan, where six factions vie for supremacy: the humans of the Griffin Empire; the demons from Inferno; the Necromancers who control the undead; the Dark Elves who live in their underground city, The Dungeon; the Academy wizards; and the Wood Elves, also known as Sylvans. They’re not all opposed to each other, however: loose alliances keep some of the factions aligned against the others.

Make Your Move. Map out your strategy on the grid.

Heroes V’s six campaigns, which encompass 30 missions total, take you through the points-of-view of all six factions. “The storyline had to fulfill many different needs, immersing the player in a boiling situation,” Cambounet notes. “It had to revolve around all of the factions, through each of their leaders, and bring them together. It deals with themes of love, betrayal, honor, and manipulation — the bad guys are not always the ones you think.”

A Heady Mix of RPG and Strategy

The five missions in each campaign allow you to control some of the main heroes for that faction, such as Isabel and Godric, the mighty demon lord Agrael, the Neuromancer Markal, the mysterious Dark Elf Raelag, the Academy wizard Zehir, and the Wood Elf Findan. In true RPG (role-playing game) style, those heroes gain experience points as you defeat enemies and accomplish objectives. They don’t travel alone, however: each hero also recruits soldiers for an army that must grow larger as you face more powerful foes.

Vital Stats. Peruse your army’s basic information and make sure you have the right complement of troops.

The strategy element comes into play as each hero gathers resources, including wood, gold, gems, crystals, ore, mercury, and sulfur, all of which you’ll need to improve your soldiers’ abilities, as well as construct new buildings in your towns. Those buildings include magic guilds, a marketplace for exchanging resources, a tavern where you can learn gossip and recruit additional heroes to help you, barracks and other structures where you can recruit more troops, and more. As you improve your towns, they become stronger and increase in levels — leaving garrisons behind to watch over them while you’re away also helps their defenses.

Your heroes become more powerful too, as they accumulate experience points and rise in level. Over 200 different skills provide them, as well as their armies, with various offensive and defensive bonuses.

“[The story] deals with themes of love, betrayal, honor, and manipulation — the bad guys are not always the ones you think.”

- Fabrice Cambounet, producer

Artifacts they find during their adventures grant the same, while the ability to learn magic lets them gain all manner of spells, with 40 to choose from. There are four schools of magic in Heroes V: destructive magic, dark magic, light magic, and summoning magic.

Safe Haven. Take over a city and return to it anytime for additional troops, vital information, and other needs.

Strategy once again enters the scene when you engage in the turn-based combat that’s long been a staple of the Heroes series. “That battle system is the heart of the game, and we wanted to keep it,” explains Cambounet. “The chess-like feeling of the battle is also the differentiating point of the series.” You can play the battles without a time limit, in the custom of the previous Heroes games, or with the new Dynamic Battle System, which gives you several seconds to make each move. You can also automate the combat, if you’d rather have the computer make your decisions.

Player vs. Player

Of course, no strategy game is complete without a multi-player option, and Heroes V fulfills that need by letting you take on other gamers over a LAN (local area network) or the Internet. You can also set up multi-player slugfests on the same computer with the Hot Seat feature.

At the Bottom of the World. Controlling the demons during one of the additional single-player scenarios.

In addition, Nival decided to up the multi-player ante by bringing in a new Duel Mode, which pits a pair of heroes and their armies against each other for a battle royale. “The multi-player mode in Heroes requires a very long time to complete a game, even with a couple of players,” says Cambounet. “The Duel Mode plays quickly and at the same time lets you try the different factions and units, as well as explore new tactics on the battlefield.”

Isabel Strikes. The Queen takes a swipe at an enemy.

Ghosts, another addition to multi-player mode, let you scout your opponents’ positions and cause problems for their soldiers and resources. Cambounet says they come in handy because “you need to know not only who your enemy is, but also what he is doing. Don’t leave him without surveillance for too long, or he could come at you when you are unprepared.”

We’ll see you on an Ashan battlefield.

If you liked this game, check out:

• Age of Empires III
• Civilization IV: Warlords
• Legion Arena: Cult of Mithras