fheroes2: A recreation of Heroes of Might and Magic II game engine

Posted by tosh 4 hours ago

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Comments

Comment by vunderba 8 minutes ago

I know it'll sadly never happen under Ubisoft's watch, but I would absolutely kill for a new HoMM game that combined HoMM2's graphical aesthetic with the game mechanics from HoMM3.

Comment by skolos 2 hours ago

Interesting that this is on front page. I thought HOMM is quite niche right now. I'm still spending some time on HOMM3 and recently created mcp for Claude Code (with opus 5.5) to play it - you can look at short playthrough here: https://www.youtube.com/live/uU-vvTOZFQY

It is not good at it! And very slow! I tried to improve, teach strategies, write some analysis scripts, etc. Did not help much.

Comment by skolos 3 minutes ago

I just started live streaming another game - now played by Muse Spark 1.3 (much cheaper than Opus 5.5):

https://www.youtube.com/live/jRi9cdo95As

Comment by suboto 3 minutes ago

HOMM was niche when it came out. The genre was always petite and a few studios here and there is all that the market could ever support. This is why a well-executed game like HOMM 3 for example has such a high stickiness factor. The brand loyalty is almost built in given the type of audience it attracts.

Comment by sgt 2 hours ago

I see a lot of people doing recreations of games (or simply new ones) but I've noticed that there's just some ick-factor (hard to explain), in addition to performance issues, and just plain old bugs.

It's amazing what can be built using vibe-coding, but it still feels far away from actually being able to create proper games with soul.

Or am I wrong?

Comment by iugtmkbdfil834 27 minutes ago

Adding 2c, because I am building stuff with near zero previous game building experience.

I don't think you are that far off. It did get remarkably easy to get to a working prototype and get ideas you carried all those years in your head, but then you get to see how well they fare in reality. Worse, some combinations of those ideas don't mesh well with others.

Example, among other things, I am building a.. protest simulator based on Chicago riots ( not plopped anywhere.. it is still not balanced based on AI vs AI results so far). The basic location, sprites, system is in place, but the overall .. dunno.. there is something missing ( edit: though atm, violence is minimal by design and I wonder if that needs to be present even if it is rare ).

I guess what I am saying is: AI can you get pretty far with the initial build, but your guiding hand is still what counts for making it good.

If anything, things are harder now.

Comment by f6v 19 minutes ago

> Or am I wrong?

I don't know what kind of answer you're looking for. There's no soul and games don't have them.

You have some kind of subjective feeling of nostalgia (or something else) and want to pin it on AI-assisted development. That's real for you, but not objective.

Comment by falsaberN1 37 minutes ago

In general terms, the machine can do the coding, you have to provide the soul. It's no different from the tons of human-made shovelware with no clear direction.

Comment by futune 2 hours ago

I'm not sure if meant to ask if this project is an ai-recreation. I just wanted to say that the fheroes2 project is much older than that. I was playing with it during covid (if I remember right).

I suppose it's possible that they have changed development practices recently, but I think you can probably enjoy it without guilt if that worries you!

Comment by trollbridge 2 hours ago

fheroes2 predates the era of vibed AI recreations which get abandoned in a week or two.

Comment by falsaberN1 1 hour ago

May be niche but I actually bought HoMM2 last week on GOG to replace my aged CD, what a coincidence.

Heroes 2 in particular and Might and Magic 2 (Gates to Another World, the RPG blobber) are some of my favorite games of all time. I also discovered there was a Mega Drive (Genesis for you Americans) port of King's Bounty, the predecessor to HOMM.

I may want to try what you did too, I managed to have a local Qwen 3.8 instance play M&M2 fairly successfully using dosbox-x and MCP, so I may be able to have it play HOMM2 too. Thanks for the idea!

Comment by ttoinou 1 hour ago

I have tons of friends who know HoMM III, it’s the game of our youth

I think it’s also popular in eastern Europe

Comment by txdv 2 hours ago

I think HOMM2/3 is pretty well known to mid thirties.

Comment by nylonstrung 1 hour ago

They had a reveal for the remake on Gamescom Opening Night Live and it was pretty prominently marketed there as well

Comment by nicce 2 hours ago

The best games when you were around 10-12 years old.

Comment by Waterluvian 2 hours ago

There’s not one but two major HOMM games in late development right now.

Comment by pwm 1 hour ago

Here is a great HoMM3 channel I've been enjoying, roughly one game per week with great commentary:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeEpTaU26pQgpMOAJZ-Eq...

Comment by cyrusmg 2 hours ago

Oh, I loved HOMAM 3 - and this made me google a bit and there is also an engine for it for Linux: https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi

Comment by Kuxe 2 hours ago

VCMI is also available for Android. Mod support. New factions. Not that the depth or homm3 leaves anything to be desired, but it's really fun nonetheless to try new stuff :)

Comment by quibono 2 hours ago

For HOMAM3 there’s also the amazing HotA: https://h3hota.com/en/documentation

Comment by aidanhs 2 hours ago

I also loved 3, "Songs of Conquest" has been an enjoyable spiritual successor for me recently even if the base game is quite limited on factions and a number of mechanics differ. I'm also keeping an eye on "Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era" when it eventually releases.

Comment by quibono 2 hours ago

Not quite HOMAM2 but.

I have such fond memories of HOMAM3 and playing it in hot seat mode as a kid.

Interestingly the game is still massively popular in ex-Warsaw Pact countries. Although I think it’s having a resurgence in the US too.

Comment by tholman 1 hour ago

It's fun reading about the differences they've made regarding the AI computer players, giving them a more modern/better tactics vs the also interesting way it was implemented before (computer players being always able to see the full map and have extra creature growth)

Comment by smolder 15 minutes ago

Cheating AI players used to be the standard. Now they need to be hobbled.

Comment by loglog 2 hours ago

The added features look like a comprehensive back port of Heroes 3.

Comment by imeanwhatdoikno 3 hours ago

Thank you (edit: and/or devs) for doing this! HOMM2 was amazing

Comment by nylonstrung 1 hour ago

It would be helpful to know how this is different than the other OSS rebuilds

Comment by gum_wobble 1 hour ago

I don’t think you develop this kind of things to be useful and solve problems. It’s more of a fun hobby project/homage kind of things. Maybe not everything has to have a purpose yk

Comment by RivieraKid 2 hours ago

I wish someone would create new faction.

Comment by thriftwy 1 hour ago

There is this HoMM3: The Succession War total conversion mod for HoMM3 in the style of Heroes 2 which happens to have new factions for what looks like Heroes of M&M II.

Comment by vrganj 1 hour ago

There's also VCMI [0] for Heroes 3!

[0] https://vcmi.eu/

Comment by Kalanos 2 hours ago

how can i play multiplayer online?

Comment by dualarte 50 seconds ago

https://heroes2online.com/heroes2/play

Comment by AlekVectis 1 hour ago

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Comment by mossimage 1 hour ago

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