H3SW General Discussion

Let's enter spring with some fresh look at new spell graphics for H3SW! Both Cold Ray, Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning have received sprites matching their H2 appearance, making battles more visually pleasant

omg
That is something very pleasant to see!
I love that cold ray design.

Hello all! All the siege screens are ready and I think that they look pretty enough. This is my last work here, as I am quitting modding for good. I've married last year, started full-time job and awaiting child right now. Still I will be wandering around from time to time Thank you for all these years of support! VEEEEERY big sorry for all those who played "An unexpected visit", by mistake I have added hardcore, impossible version that was meant for my brother ;P I hope that new, bug-free version of the map will see the sunlight together with a next release (whenever it will be ;P ).

That's beautiful! The water must be hot, cause the snow "stops" in straight line.

Congratz on reaching Such achievements in real life
Maybe your children will continue your modding stuff on H3SW, in 20 years.

Great work dear friend!! The siege screens look amazing

I cannot describe all the amazing work you have done for H3SW. Everything from an entirely new and sharp interface, to battle backgrounds and siege screens to fixing the entire map editor and adding sprites for various new creatures. H3SW wouldn't have been at its glorious place today had you not been put in all your hard work. You started on H3SW way back in 2012 I believe, that is longer ago than all other current team member, myself included. Again, thank you for all you put into H3SW, and I would like to say how much I have enjoyed working with you all these years. Luckily, that doesn't mean we won't talk anymore, rather the opposite

Thank you very much for all your involvement in this project. I've got a feeling that, in some way, it developed us as people, and I hope that you feel it too.

I will try to direct my time towards further development despite all current odds in my life so that your work won't be in vain. It's been hell of a ride together.

I wish you happy time with your family and please come visit us from time to time!

Since it's my first post - hello everybody!

I admit that I've quite recently discovered the Succession Wars mod and I'm charmed. My favourite games in the series are (and probably will always be) 2nd and 4th entry. However, as much as I like the general aesthethics of Heroes 2 and many other things, I must admit (eh) that Heroes III has plenty of small improvements and changes, making the game more comfortable to play.

Your mod perfectly fills that gap. I highly appreciate the fact, that SW mod respects in high degree Heroes 2 "source", and not only in terms of aesthethics, but also in terms of concept for sides of conflict. And at the same time - I really, really appreciate adding one new unit per "old" side of conflict (that second shooting unit for Knight is a perfect idea). And those two new sides are also well made. The quality of new units/sides of conflict is so high, that (at least for me) it's 100% comparable with the original content's quality.

Ok, here is one small question - unfortunately, I have no idea how to learn making such great graphic assets ("pixel-art", as it was well named in the "recruiting" post), in fact I'm completely green in making graphics at all. Since I don't have possibility to contribute with my work - do you accept some kind of donations from your fans? If yes - how can those be sent to you? I know, it's not the most sophisticated way of support, but without necessary skills/knowledge, I want at least support you in this way. If you're not accepting donations, of course I will respect it.

Thanks in advance for answer. And good luck with further development!

Hello, I'm here to show a bit of support for this amazing mod you guys are making. It is an amazing way to play the game, since I played too little H2 this is like a completely new game with the H3 engine which I love too much. I knew it a pair of years ago and nowadays I mostly play H3SW. The quality is top notch, you guys and the HotA team are both the official successors of the original creators to all of the fans. I hope you continue the work for years to come.

MartiusR wrote:

Since it's my first post - hello everybody!

Ok, here is one small question - unfortunately, I have no idea how to learn making such great graphic assets ("pixel-art", as it was well named in the "recruiting" post), in fact I'm completely green in making graphics at all. Since I don't have possibility to contribute with my work - do you accept some kind of donations from your fans? If yes - how can those be sent to you? I know, it's not the most sophisticated way of support, but without necessary skills/knowledge, I want at least support you in this way. If you're not accepting donations, of course I will respect it.

Thanks in advance for answer. And good luck with further development!

Hi, sorry for repeating, just wanted to ask if someone from group developing this mod could answer. If you prefer to answer on priv instead on forum, it's totally fine.

Completely agree on what Juas wrote above about this mod and HotA being the real sucessors of the original H2/H3 creators. Fantastic!

I have 3 questions I'd like to ask regarding H3SW 0.81 (couldn't find answers on the forum straight away).

1. Necromancer bug causing crash. I've read about it, but didn't experience it yet. Is this still a thing in 0.81? I'm about to play with friends and don't want to unexpectedly end the scenario because of it. EDIT: Experienced it, glad we have autosaves Still would be awesome if fixed.
2. Campaign. Can I download campaign files somewhere?
3. Is 0.82 possible still? The project seems a bit on hold, but nevertheless the game functions properly and well, amazing to play!

Hi Nigel

3. Yes, project is continuing. Just that devs are talking on another (russian) forum now.

GodRage wrote:

Hi Nigel

3. Yes, project is continuing. Just that devs are talking on another (russian) forum now.

Oh awesome, but my russian is...very limited to say the least, but I do know a little. Could you link me this forum? I played through a couple scenarios and the mod is perfect but with minor bugs / problems / inconveniences.

Like you can't quickly check the opponents army hp because you need to manually close its window by pressing "okay", it would be better if it disappeared right away. I might talk to devs about it.

Nigel wrote:

Could you link me this forum?

I am not 100% sure, but here is what I found:
https://forum.df2.ru/index.php?showforum=156

GodRage wrote:

Nigel wrote:

Could you link me this forum?

I am not 100% sure, but here is what I found:

Oh yes, I also found this forum but it wasn't too active, wasn't sure if it's that one!

Hi guys. Sorry for being absent for some time. I took a break from modding, and not much has been going on unfortunately.

However, I still really(!) would like to release a new version with the shown improvements.

Thank you MartiusR, Juas and Nigel for your appreciation, it makes me happy to hear when people enjoy the mod

Now to answer some questions:

MartiusR wrote:

Since I don't have possibility to contribute with my work - do you accept some kind of donations from your fans? If yes - how can those be sent to you? I know, it's not the most sophisticated way of support, but without necessary skills/knowledge, I want at least support you in this way. If you're not accepting donations, of course I will respect it.

Thanks for your offer, but we don't accept donations. Money isn't keeping us from working on the project, but rather is the actual time and effort needed to progress with the mod. That is the reason why help on assets or programming is the only way to support.

Nigel wrote:

I have 3 questions I'd like to ask regarding H3SW 0.81 (couldn't find answers on the forum straight away).

1. Necromancer bug causing crash. I've read about it, but didn't experience it yet. Is this still a thing in 0.81? I'm about to play with friends and don't want to unexpectedly end the scenario because of it. EDIT: Experienced it, glad we have autosaves Still would be awesome if fixed.
2. Campaign. Can I download campaign files somewhere?
3. Is 0.82 possible still? The project seems a bit on hold, but nevertheless the game functions properly and well, amazing to play!

1. The Necromancer crash bug is actually fixed in v0.8.2 which is (also) one reason I would like to just get it released, so that you don't have to encounter this annoyance anymore.
2. The original campaign is still in the works and we thought to include it as the main new feature in the next update. However, as work is stuck, I would rather release and new version (with a lot of nice updates already) and then work on the campaign for the next update.
3. I guess I answered this above. Currently, there aren't much communication between the two sides of the team (English-speaking here on Forums of Enroth and the DF2/VK Russian-speaking team members). I hope we can figure out something soon.[/quote]

Hi!
I just found out about this awesome project and I'm really impressed!
I see that there is still some things to do to make a project "stable".
Maybe I can help somehow to make it faster?

I know something about programming, but I'm also a musician, so I can compose something in "Heroes" style if there is a need

Thanks for your great work

I just wanted to throw my appreciation out there. I've been playing Homm 2 and 3 for 25 years off and on, and always tended to return to Homm2, not only for the nostalgia but it just always seemed the better game to me.

Only one week ago I found out about this mod, and im absolutely enthralled. This is the perfect mix between Homm2 and 3, and I cant believe how much love and work must have been invested in this mod.

From my limited play experience so far the balance seems absolutely perfect - it still retains Homm2 characteristics, but is way better balanced, without getting as bland as Homm3 balance-wise.

summerloud wrote:

I just wanted to throw my appreciation out there. I've been playing Homm 2 and 3 for 25 years off and on, and always tended to return to Homm2, not only for the nostalgia but it just always seemed the better game to me.

Only one week ago I found out about this mod, and im absolutely enthralled. This is the perfect mix between Homm2 and 3, and I cant believe how much love and work must have been invested in this mod.

From my limited play experience so far the balance seems absolutely perfect - it still retains Homm2 characteristics, but is way better balanced, without getting as bland as Homm3 balance-wise.

I couldn't agree more. Game is way more balanced, nice units added and the UI and quality of life improvements form Homm3 make it perfect. We just need more maps, maybe campaigns, I hope the project continues to live. It's great.

i could provide some maps i guess - what would be the preferred thing to add? remakes of homm2/homm3 maps, the homm2 campaign, or just freestyle?

I liked the classic maps, I think many of them are already recreated and added. Campaigns would be perfect but that is a lot of work, there is currently only the HoMM1 campaign added as a series of maps 1- name, 2- name 3-name etc. afaik.

Hi summerloud and Nigel

Thanks for your nice comments! It makes me especially happy to hear you find the balance good, as I mostly was responsible for that

About map making, and the mod in general. I am thinking about starting it up again as not much has been done the last two years. I need to get in contact with Orzie and sort things out first. I would like to got for a release (0.8.2) within the near future with mostly the improvements which has already been made (for instance the classic H2 siege screens by Uhm).

If you would like to help convert a map or two, please let me know and we can find out

some of my homm2 favourites that are not yet converted are vikings, revolution and pyramid.

i could create those for h3sw - do you guys have any rules on how to recreate maps (ie how accurate of a representation does it have to be? does it need to be exactly like the homm2 counterpart or can i take creative liberties?)

Pyramid is already converted and should be avalible in both the v0.8 and v0.8.1 versions of the mod, so you should be able to play it already
"Vikings" is still missing, if you would like to give it a try.

I can send you the terrain, which we already got converted to the .h3m format, all object, text etc. is missing though.

About the conversion process, we should keep it as accurate to the H2 version as possible.
That means same numbers, same creatures, towns, artifacts, adventure map objects and so on.
Sometimes we don't have a exact match which may be where the creativity comes into play.
For instance, if a town is fully built from the start of the game in H2, does that mean all building should be built in H3SW as well or only those found in the original H2? That may be up to you and what fits the maps best.

Other than that conversion of random monster levels is a bit different as H2 only operates with 4 levels of random monsters opposed to the (logical) 7 levels in H3. Here there are usually two choices which must be decided between based on the treasure guarded by the monster. The first level are the H2 ones and the levels after the arrow is what it should be change to in H3SW:
1st level monster -> 1st or 2nd level monster
2nd level monster -> 3rd or 4th level monster
3rd level monster -> 5th or 6th level monster
4th level monster -> 7nd level monster (maybe 6th if 7th is considered too strong in the given case)

A similar thing must be done with artifacts as there are only 3 levels in H2 and 4 in H3. I usually just place the same level artifacts as in H2 and only use the 4th level (Relics) when the artifacts seems special or is guarded by a level 7 creature.

If you would like to give conversion a try, then please let me know and I will send you the map with the terrain

OK, I overlooked Pyramid .

Both the maps I played so far in H3SW (Death Gate and Brave New World) had small bugs (unreachable locations) - is stuff like this already fixed for the next version? Can I find the codebase for v0.82 somewhere?

And yes, please send me the terrain and I ll get to work.

Please tell me where the unreachable locations are on these maps, so I can see if they have been fixed already.

I cannot provide you with the codebase of 0.8.2, but there isn't many differences between it and the current public 0.8.1 version of H3SW.

Great, I will send you the terrain in a PM