I do not know whether the accident that the "episodic" model of game development became popular soon after the last episode of "Star Wars". However, you can see more interesting trend: igrodely after Lucas became much more daring to violate the natural order of the chapters of his saga. Thus, the expansion pack to Age of Empires III tells us not only the continuation of the main campaign, but also about the events that took place between the second and third of its chapters. Ubisoft is not far behind and with a revived Universe Might and Magic. First they showed us the top stories in Heroes of Might and Magic V, then its end (the end of it?) In Dark Messiah, and now we face a "continuation of the beginning" - the addon "Hammers of Fate." Without going into details of the plot, except to say that "the Lord" took a new record, "Might and Magic" is the same place as the "Clone Wars" in "Star Wars" - the action develops, the tension grows, the heroes are winning some interim victories but felt that the great achievements still to come. The script is not written in a much better than Dark Messiah, and play to find out what happened next - you want.
But even those who proschelkivaet whole talk in the early missions will always suffer the effects occurring in the game world events - at the very beginning of the campaign, for example, from the army of the protagonist will be weekly deserting soldiers, and closer to the middle, we will participate in the battle between the armies of fellow gnomes, the will of fate have become enemies.
 | |  | Mysterious Yeti, whom I met in one of the randomly generated scenarios, the map looks like peasants in a fight - like wolves. | | The troops, known as "apostates" - just repainted the soldiers of the castle of people with modified parameters. |
New Russian Dwarfs Dwarves and orcs - two classic fantasy race, present in all the series "Heroes," except the fifth. Perhaps, Nival and Ubisoft were afraid that they have - as is the case with the dark elves and necromancers - will get the clones miniature desktop Warhammer. Later orcs appeared in Dark Messiah - and in the performance of Arkane Studios went out very different from the creation of Games Workshop. Gnomes in the end still got "Nivalu, but Orlovsky team almost managed to overcome" varhammerovsky syndrome "and create a familiar name quite an unusual race. First of all, eshenskie (ashanskie?) Dwarfs - are not dwarfs or, more precisely, not only dwarfs. Growth of soldiers varies - it is greater the higher their level.
Unusual looks and cavalry Dwarfs - under saddle heroes trumpeting pygmy mammoths ("mountain", as the developers suggest), ordinary riders spur tame bears. Balalaika armed with gnomes as if there, but Knuckles berserkov suspiciously reminiscent of diamonds ...
Interesting not only the look of gnome race, but the game mechanics for it. Themselves dwarves rather weak, and harder on defense than on offense.However, their troops are able to cause indirect harm - so spearmen can cripple enemies, reducing their speed, and the owners of bears have a chance to throw back the enemy, reducing his initiative. In addition, the Dwarves have access to a special magic - Runic. On the imposition of runes mana cost decreased, and resources, but they can be used much more frequently than usual magic. The most simple spell in exchange for a stack of firewood increases the speed of the order within one stroke. It really helps short-legged warriors. Other spells are spending more scarce materials, but also provide considerable benefit: protection against elemental magic, allow the detachment to attack twice per turn or are temporarily become immaterial. Accordingly, with the skills and abilities in particular dwarf heroes - such as the ability to prolong the action of the runes or the possibility of a chance to put the spell, not having spent a resource.
 | Highlights Summary |
Although the interface is still somewhat cumbersome, the addon makes a pleasant and welcome improvement. The descriptions of soldiers finally appeared as details about their features. And in the battle is now possible to attack the enemy by simply clicking on its icon in the line initiatives. Very useful when, for example, you fight several identical units.
But without a "horizontal" and "classic" cameras can be and do. New "Heroes" little suited to such a view.
Was left without additions and multiplayer mode. The developers have tried to make the game on the network even more dynamic, allowing the beginning of the game to make moves at the same time, before the first "conflict" between the players. Duel mode is enriched version of the "3 by 3", where each duelist chooses to fight not one but three characters. During the battle can switch between them, putting on a battlefield one army over another.
Note that although addition and requires the installation of the original Heroes of Might and Magic V, run it as a separate file, and all the innovations will be available only in him.
 | |  | Fortress Dwarfs - glubochennaya hole in the ground, on the bottom - hot lava. One would think that it should pierce both layers of cards thoroughly, but no. | | About the camel in the text, I turned to be witty. In fact, caravans - a horseless carriage. |
He walked one camel ... Alas, a guide to the addon is silent about the new race and the intricacies of runnogo witchcraft, instead talking about the appearance in the game caravans and generators of random maps.
Caravans help organize the shipment of troops in castles from other cities, as well as from captured dwellings. Unfortunately, this innovation suffers from the same ills as the "ghost mode" in the original game - its mechanism are not clear, and periodically give failures. Control the movement of caravans, you can not, they just automatically move from point A to point B, sometimes pausing at the spot on a completely unknown reasons. Perhaps it would be better simply to allow us to control the armies without heroes, as in Heroes of Might and Magic IV.
The random card does not work in the example for this, and it works perfectly playable. The only gripe - to set up in the expansion cards for some reason, which was originally only playable for the dwarves, though later on you can hire a "foreign" characters and to capture castles of other races.However, those who have a claim to the generator, can carve your own scripts in the editor. Guide was written by a much more documentation to the "playable" part and concerns not only the technical side of things, but also design solutions. But it does have shortcomings - in particular, is nowhere stated that the map file can not be given Russian names. Call Latin scripts, or then not be able to download them!
In general, the addition would be just wonderful, if not annoying bugs. But they probably will be fixed already in the next episode saga of Heroes.
| SECRET! |
To access the cheats in the expansion, do the following:
to file autoexec_a1.cfg, lying in a folder Heroes of Might and Magic V \ profiles, enter the line «setvar dev_console_password = schwinge-des-todes» (all the input line without the quotes) in the file input_a1.cfg, lying in the \ My Documents \ My Games \ Heroes of Might and Magic V \ Hammers of Fate \ Profiles \ PMG, where "PMG" - the name of your user profile, add the line «bind show_console'''», to call the console on the button" tilde ".
Now the game open the console and type «ignore_scenario_line 1" to unlock all campaign missions, download a map and type in console «enable_cheats», to enable other cheats. A full listing can be found in the file, Heroes of Might and Magic V \ Editor Documentation \ HOMM5_A1_CheatCodes.pdf.
 | |  | The icons at the top represent the army, which can switch between each player. | | Tana and gnomes the dragons can attack several targets at once to nearby. |
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