Heroes Of Might And Magic 3 Shadow Of Death
Everardo Frost
Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Shadow of Death is the second of two expansion packs for the turn-based strategy game Heroes of Might and Magic III. It was developed by New World Computing for Microsoft Windows and released by The 3DO Company in 2000. Shadow of Death is a standalone expansion pack that includes the original game.
The Shadow of Death includes seven new campaigns with adjustable difficulty settings. The expansion also includes twelve new artifacts, minor balance tweaks and eight new terrain types designed to enhance hero attributes such as morale, luck and magic expertise. Each faction remains fundamentally unaltered. Additionally, the expansion introduces a fifth artifact equipment slot for all heroes, and ten new types of teleporters for use on the Adventure Map. A major addition is the inclusion of "combination artifacts", that is, artifacts pieced together from sets of other related artifacts. The combination artifacts bestow extremely powerful abilities, and feature prominently in the campaigns. The expansion pack also significantly improves the map editor, including new portraits for four of the new campaign heroes - Sandro, Finneas Vilmar, Yog and Gem - and other customization options.
The Shadow of Death can be installed alongside the first Heroes of Might and Magic III expansion pack, Armageddon's Blade. New features included in the Armageddon's Blade expansion (such as the Conflux town) are present in The Shadow of Death, but are designed to remain hidden and inaccessible unless certain files installed by Armageddon's Blade are detected in the game's directory. The game, however, checks only for the presence of these files: it does not verify the file contents. Because of this, several gamers discovered that it was possible to create empty files with the correct file names to unlock the Armageddon's Blade enhancements in The Shadow of Death without having to install the earlier expansion pack.
The Shadow of Death campaigns serve as a prequel to both Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven and Heroes III: The Restoration of Erathia. The storyline revolves around Sandro the Necromancer, who has recently arrived on the continent of Antagarich following the events of Heroes of Might and Magic II. Sandro begins a ten-year plot to reassemble two ancient and powerful necromantic artifacts. He uses illusionary magic to take the form of a living human, which he uses to disguise himself.
Sandro first convinces the sorceress Gem and barbarian Crag Hack to find the pieces of the two artifacts for him, promising rewards in return. Unaware of Sandro's true nature, they agree to aid him in wresting the pieces away from other necromancers. However, once secured by the unwitting heroes, the pieces are spirited away by Sandro without fulfilling his end of the bargain. He reassembles the pieces into two whole artifacts, the Cloak of the Undead King and the Armor of the Damned.
With the Cloak and the Armor in his possession, Sandro battles the vengeful armies of his former warlock master, Ethric, and passes onward into the undead lands of Deyja. There, he vaults a puppet king, Finneas Vilmar, to the throne, attaining full political control of the undead lands. From there, he begins his plan to conquer the rest of the continent.
Some time later, amidst the war against the undead, the heroes Gem, Gelu, Yog and Crag Hack band together to combat the threat. They arrange to meet at the plains of Bragden, but are ambushed by Sandro himself and forced to flee. As they regroup, Yog recalls a task he performed earlier of dispensing the components of the Angelic Alliance, a mighty sword. The team of heroes decide to seek out the pieces of the sword and reassemble it. Succeeding, they push onward into Deyja, eventually cornering Sandro and defeating him. Afterwards, Gelu is chosen to become the Forest Guard's next captain, as referenced in Heroes of Might and Magic III: Armageddon's Blade. The heroes once again disperse the pieces of the necromantic artifacts as they part ways.
A final bonus campaign features Sandro after his defeat. The necromancer plots a second invasion, this time aimed squarely at Erathia. With the help of Lord Haart, he has King Nicolas Gryphonheart poisoned, and forms an alliance between Deyja, the Kreegans and Nighon against the human lands. However, he is tricked and imprisoned by his own puppet king, Finneas Vilmar, who then leads the invasion of Erathia which takes place during Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia.
The game received favorable reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings.[3] It was praised for its map editor improvements and the fact that it did not require the base game to be installed, but it was criticised for its lack of new content outside of the single-player game.[citation needed]
Since then 3DO have spun off a whole horde of different games set in the same universe (with varying degrees of success) - "Crusaders of Might & Magic", "Warriors of Might & Magic", and "Legends of Might & Magic" are the most recent attempts. Perhaps the most popular though is the turn-based strategy series known as "Heroes of Might & Magic", which now boasts three games and a whole host of official add-on packs and gold editions.
And so we come to "Heroes of Might & Magic III : The Shadow Of Death" which, apart from being a strong contender for the longest game title of the year, is also the latest release in the Heroes series, featuring the original "Heroes of Might & Magic III" game as well as a collection of new campaigns, missions, artifacts and units.
The result is a package of truly awe-inspiring scope - 14 campaigns, 86 solo missions, 16 character classes, 145 different units, 138 magical artifacts, 8 city types... The full list makes "War And Peace" look like light reading.
It's all a bit overwhelming really, and it's something of a relief that the developers have thought to include a tutorial campaign for newcomers to the series, although disappointingly the accompanying text only appears in an Adobe Acrobat file on the CD-Rom which you will have to print out yourself - why couldn't this have been included in the manual, or done using in-game messages?
The basic gameplay is simple enough once you get the hang of it, although the sheer wealth of options can be frightening at times. You control one or more characters known as heroes, each of which is accompanied by an army. Most of the game is spent moving these heroes around the map, seeking out resources (which come in several different varieties), magical artifacts, cities, and special structures.
Lumberyards and various kinds of mine can be captured to provide you with more resources, which can then be used to construct more buildings in your cities, Civilization style. Your basic town hall can be upgraded to produce more revenue each week, marketplaces allow you to trade goods, and a tavern can be built to allow you to hire additional heroes. Mage guilds sell your heroes spell books, and can be upgraded to provide more powerful magic.
Meanwhile a whole variety of different buildings each allow construction of a different type of unit. Each of the eight types of town in the game has its own unique selection of eight units, ranging from basic cannon fodder like pikemen, troglodytes and skeletons, to powerful creatures such as dragons, devils and angels. Additionally, each barracks building can be upgraded to produce a more powerful version of the basic unit.
The result is an almost bewildering choice of buildings to construct, units to buy, and things to do. Getting to grips with the basics is easy enough, but mastering the game is something that takes weeks to accomplish...
Combat takes place in seperate chess-like battlefields, with the two armies lining up at opposite ends and units taking it in turns to move, with the fastest moving first and the rest following in order. Sadly the battlefields are rather cramped though, and don't allow much scope for clever tactics.
One thing that you will soon learn is that your heroes are far more important than the units they lead. As they win battles they gain experience and their stats will increase, as well as allowing them to learn new skills. Special structures such as universities, mercenary camps, witch's huts and standing stones can also increase your skills and stats, and maps are often liberally strewn with these.
The game's many artifacts can also temporarily improve your characters' abilities, although frustratingly these are not carried from one mission to the next in campaigns. Which is perhaps lucky, as the developers seem to have scattered them around the maps in vast quantities, sometimes leaving you with more artifacts than your characters are able to use simultaneously!
The result is that by the end of a long campaign your character will be a lethal killing machine, with spells that can obliterate entire units, from basic lightning bolts and magic arrows to area effect attacks like fireballs and meteor storms. The Implosion spell is particularly spectacular, capable of killing half a dozen or more dragons with a single attack in the hands of a powerful spellcaster.
And as your attack and defence skills are added to those of your troops, armies with a powerful hero leading them can effortlessly destroy a larger force with a less capable leader. It certainly encourages you to nurse your heroes, although it does make something of a mockery of the careful balancing of the various units, which is otherwise very good.
Another area where the game's balance breaks down is in the difficulty of the campaigns - there's a steep learning cliff from relatively straightforward to virtually impossible missions. In the end I had to resort to reducing the difficulty setting at the start of every mission.
Playing on the default difficult settings (which actually rise as the missions themselves get more difficult) was a struggle, and as some of the missions can take a day or two to complete, losing is a very frustrating experience. All too often I would play for three or four hours without even seeing the enemy, only for them to emerge from the wilderness with a totally overwhelming army that I had no chance of defeating. Time to reload .. again.
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