| 1 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/HeroesMightAndMagic.jpg]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | ''Heroes of Might and Magic'' is a series of turn-based strategy computer games created by Creator/NewWorldComputing, spinning off from the RPG series ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic''. You play as a faction (based on various HighFantasy archetypes) and control towns which can be built to recruit units for your army among many other benefits, and heroes who can explore TheOverworld and engage in combat with NeutralsCrittersAndCreeps and eventually other players. You win (typically) by being the only player to control towns. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | According to both Website/ThatOtherWiki and the fansite [[http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/ Age of Heroes]], the series was inspired when someone had the idea of combining the walk-around-the-map-trying-to-save-the-world strategy of the earlier NWC game ''VideoGame/KingsBounty'' with the RoleplayingGame aspects of ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic''. There are occasional crossovers between the series: ''Might and Magic VI'' shares a setting (Enroth) with ''Heroes of Might and Magic I'' and ''II'', and runs almost concurrently with ''Heroes III''. ''Might and Magic VII'' shares its setting (Antagarich) with ''Heroes III'', and runs between ''III'' and its expansion pack ''Armageddon's Blade''. Enroth and Antagarich are continents of the same planet (also named Enroth), as is ''Might and Magic VIII'''s setting, Jadame. ''Might and Magic IX'' and ''Heroes IV'' take place on different landmasses of the planet Axeoth, where the survivors fled after Enroth got scorched by the meeting of Armageddon's Blade and the Sword of Frost. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | After ''IV'', 3DO went into hard times and NWC eventually ceased to exist. The rights for the series eventually went to Creator/{{Ubisoft}}, with the new games serving as a ContinuityReboot. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | ''[=HoMM=] V'', by Ubisoft and Creator/{{Nival}}, started out as a remake of ''III'' in 3D and takes place in a new setting called Ashan also used for all subsequent games. Not all of the factions returned while most saw significant changes, such as the addition of a specific skill similar to the undead-only Necromancy. Castle heroes could train their human troops up the tiers for gold, Rampart heroes could pick enemies to deal extra damage against, Academy heroes could outfit their troops with mini-artifacts, and so on. Aside from the general layout and a few lack-lustre references to Sandro and Crag Hack, the new game had no connection with anything in the series so far. |
| 10 | |
| 11 | ''Might & Magic Heroes VI'' was released on September 8, 2011. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | ''Might & Magic Heroes VII'' was announced at [=GamesCom=] 2014, complete with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iT5lgpMayk trailer]]. It was released in September 2015. The plot takes place about 300 years after ''VI'' (i.e. about 100 years before ''V''). |
| 14 | |
| 15 | !!!Games: |
| 16 | * 3DO Enroth/Axeoth era |
| 17 | ** ''Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest'' (1995) |
| 18 | ** ''Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars'' (1996) |
| 19 | *** ''Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty'' (1997) |
| 20 | *** ''Heroes of Might and Magic II Gold'' (1998)[[note]]A CompilationRerelease featuring both campaigns and new maps.[[/note]] |
| 21 | ** ''Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia'' (1998) |
| 22 | *** ''Heroes of Might and Magic III: Armageddon's Blade'' (1999) |
| 23 | *** ''Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Shadow of Death'' (2000) |
| 24 | *** ''Might & Magic: Heroes III HD'' (2015) [[note]]An UpdatedRerelease of ''Restoration of Erathia''. The two expansions are not included.[[/note]] |
| 25 | ** ''Heroes of Might and Magic IV'' (2002) |
| 26 | *** ''Heroes of Might and Magic IV: The Gathering Storm'' (2002) |
| 27 | *** ''Heroes of Might and Magic IV: Winds of War'' (2003) |
| 28 | * Ubisoft Ashan era |
| 29 | ** ''Heroes of Might and Magic V'' (2006) |
| 30 | *** ''Heroes of Might and Magic V: Hammers of Fate'' (2006) |
| 31 | *** ''Heroes of Might and Magic V: Tribes of the East'' (2007) |
| 32 | ** ''Might & Magic: Heroes VI'' (2008) |
| 33 | *** ''Might & Magic: Heroes VI - Pirates of the Savage Sea'' (2012)[[note]]First adventure pack[[/note]] |
| 34 | *** ''Might & Magic: Heroes VI - Danse Macabre'' (2012)[[note]]Second adventure pack[[/note]] |
| 35 | *** ''Might & Magic: Heroes VI - Shades of Darkness'' (2013)[[note]]Standalone expansion pack[[/note]] |
| 36 | ** ''Might & Magic Heroes VII'' (2015) |
| 37 | *** ''Lost Tales of Axeoth'' (2016)[[note]]DLC released to celebrate the series 20th anniversary, released in two parts. Both consist of campaigns that were originally cut from ''IV'': Unity and Every Dog Has His Day.[[/note]] |
| 38 | *** ''Might and Magic Heroes VII: Trial by Fire'' (2016) |
| 39 | * Spin-offs |
| 40 | ** ''Heroes Chronicles'' (2000-2001)[[note]]A series of standalone campaigns made in the same engine as the third game. Meant to fill out the backstory of III and act as a bridge with IV.[[/note]] |
| 41 | ** ''Might & Magic: Heroes Kingdoms'' (2009)[[note]]Web browser MMO based on ''V''. It shut down in September 2014.[[/note]] |
| 42 | ** ''VideoGame/MightAndMagicClashOfHeroes'' (2009)[[note]]A Puzzle RPG hybrid. Set 40 years prior to ''V'', during the War of the Blood Moon.[[/note]] |
| 43 | ** ''VideoGame/DarkMessiahOfMightAndMagic'' (2006) |
| 44 | ** ''Heroes of Might and Magic Online'' (2014)[[note]]Chinese mobile game, though notably it's still made by Ubisoft and is set in the world of ''III''. Closed in 2020.[[/note]] |
| 45 | ** ''Might & Magic Heroes: Era of Chaos'' (2017)[[note]]A mobile game revisiting the storyline of ''III'', with inspiration from ''IV'' and ''V'' as well. Still active and receiving version updates with new units, upgrades, abilities, etc.[[/note]] |
| 46 | ---- |
| 47 | !!The series makes use of the following tropes: |
| 48 | |
| 49 | * AbsurdlyLowLevelCap: Campaigns usually give heroes a level cap in each map except the final. This can be as low as an easily reached Level 8 for the first map in some cases. ''VI'' also generally caps it at Level 30. |
| 50 | * ActuallyFourMooks: |
| 51 | ** This trope is always in effect in gameplay, as creatures in the map and in battles represent larger groups of creatures. The heroes don't actually command 5-7 units, but 5-7 armies of the same unit type. |
| 52 | ** In ''VI'' it crops up in the story as well; The fact that the Celestials are a DyingRace whose actions are highly motivated by their manpower problems is a major plot element in all of the original campaigns, but in game-mechanics terms you're able to recruit them by the hundreds without this ever actually being an issue. |
| 53 | * AfterTheEnd: |
| 54 | ** The first four games' continuity is set on what were formerly colonies of a ''spacefaring race'' according to the ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' games. The first three games' world was literally kicked back to the stone age by, [[TraumaCongaLine in rough order]]: a [[RobotWar robot uprising]], usage of high-yield weapons on a highly-inhabited region, a [[LaResistance general rebellion]], and, as if that wasn't bad enough, an AlienInvasion of the local galactic arm that cut off all interstellar communication and left the PortalNetwork fragmented and inconsistently functional. The games are set just over a millennium after this. |
| 55 | ** The ''Heroes IV'' world, Axeoth, was never quite so detailed, but the portal network thing, at least, applies to them as well. In addition, ''IV'' is set in the aftermath of a much more recent cataclysm, following its survivors as they settle down on a new planet. |
| 56 | * AggressivePlayIncentive: Players who use the [[BarbarianTribe Stronghold faction]] in ''V'' are encouraged to behave aggressively through their unique [[BerserkerRage Blood-Rage]] mechanic. Troops gain blood-rage points for attacking and killing enemies and lose them for taking non-aggressive actions such as "Wait" or "Defend". Blood-rage points provide a small amount of DamageReduction against enemy attacks, and trigger creature-specific buffs if you accumulate enough in a single battle. |
| 57 | * AlienInvasion: The Kreegans' "demonic hordes" in 'III' are actually this, as revealed in ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VI''. |
| 58 | * TheAllSeeingAI: The FogOfWar for the computer players is known to be next to non-existent, as they can tell the locations of neutral mines and your heroes right away. Later games try to rectify this somewhat. |
| 59 | * AlwaysChaoticEvil: Numerous creatures, but the Kreegan Devils are probably the most obvious ones, being a HordeOfAlienLocusts who both look and act like demons from Hell. Interestingly, in ''V'', the Demons are apparently the ''only'' case of this. Even the Dark Elves and Undead have their good points, and all the non-Demon factions team up at the end for an EnemyMine scenario against said Demons. |
| 60 | * AlwaysFemale: All the Sorceress heroes in ''I'' and ''II'' and Witch heroes in ''III'' are female. |
| 61 | * AlwaysMale: Knights and Barbarians in ''I''; Warlocks in ''I'' and ''II''; Beastmasters in ''III''. In ''III'', a woman named Sephinroth became the first woman to successfully join the Warlocks[[note]]and since Sephinroth was claiming to be an illegitimate daughter of King Gryphonheart at the time, allowing her entry was as much political as anything else[[/note]]. |
| 62 | * AmbidextrousSprite: Appears in the first three games. Most humanoid units will swap which is their dominant hand based on the direction they are facing, but the most glaring example is III's Walking Dead, a one-armed zombie which can swap which of its arms has rotted away just by turning around. |
| 63 | * AmplifierArtifact: Many artifacts give a boost to either your primary or secondary skills. |
| 64 | * AnachronicOrder: |
| 65 | ** The original games are weird around their timeline. Specifically in ''Armageddon's Blade'' the secret campaign leads into the first campaign of ''Restoration of Erathia''. For ''Shadow of Death'' (which itself happens between the second game and ''Restoration of Erathia''), Yog's campaign is implied to take place before the first game.[[note]]It is his OriginsEpisode as a barbarian, and the first game is the only time he and Gem might have met in Enroth as she mentions.[[/note]] For ''Heroes Chronicles'', ''Revolt of the Beastmasters'' is explicitly third in the timeline[[note]]It's an OriginsEpisode for the Kingdom of Tatalia[[/note]] despite being released alongside the GrandFinale, while ending of ''Masters of the Elements'' implies ''The World Tree'' and ''The Fiery Moon'' happen shortly after it, despite being released after ''Clash of the Dragons''. |
| 66 | ** Not that Ashan games are much better, with the order being as such is as such: ''VII'' Haven, ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic: Elemental Guardians'' spin-off, ''VII'' Stronghold, ''VII'' Academy, Entirety of original ''VI'', ''VI Dance Macabre/Pirates of the Savage Sea'', ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic: Duel of Champions'' spin-off, ''M&M X: Legacy'', ''VII'' Sylvan, ''VI Shades of Darkness'', ''VII'' Fortress first half, ''Heroes Online'' spin-off, ''VII'' Necropolis, ''VII'' Dungeon, ''VII'' Fortress second half, ''VII'' final campaigns (original, then ''Trial by Fire''), ''Clash of Heroes'' spin-off, Entirety of ''V'', and finally ''VideoGame/DarkMessiahOfMightAndMagic''. And that's not even going into the standalone scenarios, which are all over the timeline. |
| 67 | * AnchoredTeleportation: The Town Portal spell allows your hero to teleport to the garrison of an unoccupied allied town. In some games it can only take you to the nearest town, while others will let you pick which town you want to visit. The FlavorText for the spell in the fourth game explains that making a BlindJump is incredibly dangerous and unpredictable, so casters need to have something familiar to anchor their teleport to. |
| 68 | * AndTheAdventureContinues: Several campaigns in ''IV'' end along these lines, most notably the Might and Chaos ones, which was meant to be setup for the next game. The Might one, in particular, ends with Tarnum delivering this line: |
| 69 | -->'''Tarnum:''' This new world still needs heroes. |
| 70 | * AnimateDead: |
| 71 | ** The Necromancy skill raises a percent of the (non-undead) casualties from each successful battle as skeletons (or, in the case of dragon casualties, ''bone dragons''). |
| 72 | ** There is also a building in the Necropolis that allows you to do this with 100% efficiency using your [[WeHaveReserves own]] [[HumanResources troops]]. |
| 73 | ** In the third game, this is its own spell. It acts as a Resurrection-style spell, at one level lower than normal, though it only affects the undead. One hero, Thant, starts with this ability and ''specializes in it'', making him very good for early game rushes, as his units rarely stay dead. |
| 74 | * AntiMagic: An actual skill of the Stronghold in ''V'', and a traditional ability of the dragon creatures (though not all the dragons in ''V'' have it), which has the drawback that you can't use healing and buffs on them. |
| 75 | * ArabianNightsDays: The Academy faction has this theme in ''V'' and ''VII'', with wizards in Arabian attire riding flying carpets, commanding armies of gargoyles, golems and djinns. Its predecessor in ''III'' the Tower is only different by being set in a snow region. |
| 76 | * ArbitraryWeaponRange: Ranged units are restricted to melee attacks if there's an enemy unit adjacent to them, not only can they not use their main weapon against the adjacent enemy, they can't fire at anyone else either. In most cases, they only attack at half strength, but there are some exceptions to this rule. |
| 77 | * ArcWelding: In the ''Blood'' ending of ''VI'', many secondary characters in the prior storylines (both allies and antagonists) are [[spoiler:revealed to be Faceless spies in disguise.]] |
| 78 | * ArmorPiercingAttack: Behemoths and Ancient Behemoths in ''III'' ignore 40/80% of their targets' defense stats, which is incredibly useful against high-tier units. Because of this, Ancient Behemoths are one of the only two creatures that can beat an Archangel in one-on-one unbuffed combat[[note]]A Titan can also beat an Archangel, but only if they defend against the Archangel's first 4 attacks[[/note]] despite having rather low stats compared to other Level 7 creatures. |
| 79 | * ArtShift: There's been a fairly drastic one pretty much every single game. |
| 80 | * ArtStyleDissonance: The campaign in ''III'' says outright that the Inferno faction represents the Kreegans from ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'', a race of PlanetLooters who look demon-like and are erroneously thought to be demons and devils by the unknowing inhabitants of planets they invade. Besides the story fragments in the campaign, everything else about the art, lore descriptions, hero biographies, unit design, etc. of the Inferno makes it clear that the people on the development team who cared about the plotline of ''Might & Magic'' had absolutely no say in the design of this faction, as the Inferno are a bunch of generic demons and devils from FireAndBrimstoneHell with no resemblance whatsoever to the Kreegans in the RPG games. This was actually a ''good'' thing for the GameMod community and the appeal of ''III'' to a wider audience, but it's pretty jarring when playing through the campaign and standalone missions that involve Kreegans. |
| 81 | * ArtificialStupidity: The AI across the series can be notoriously bad. For example, targeting your weaker units thus not reducing your DPS, exchanging units for weaker units, charging you with no troops when there are available in the town, leaving towns undefended and etc. Later games got patches and even fan-made mods specifically to address this. |
| 82 | * TheAtoner: |
| 83 | ** Tarnum, of ''Heroes Chronicles''. In the first episode, ''Warlords of the Wasteland'', he commits many atrocities (killing one of his two sisters unknowingly, and nearly killing the other as well) in his conquest of the wizard kingdom. He was later killed by Rion Gryphonheart. The Ancestors judged him unworthy to enter paradise and forced him to return as an immortal to redeem himself. He does this through seven later chapters, even rescuing Rion's daughter from the underworld in ''Conquest of the Underworld''. He is completely redeemed and judged worthy to enter paradise during the Might campaign of ''Heroes IV'', but refuses to enter, remaining a protector for his tribe in the new world. |
| 84 | ** Cuthbert in ''III'' used to practice dark magic until he accidentally killed his wife by mistake. |
| 85 | ** Raelag [[spoiler:aka Agrael]] in ''V''. A stand alone scenario in the ''Tribes of the East'' expansion also reveals [[spoiler:Tieru]]'s reasons for leaving Sylvan society to fight demons. [[spoiler:A demon made Tieru the UnwittingPawn in its scheme to drive a wedge in elven society]]. As seen in a different stand alone scenario, this led to [[spoiler:a faction of dark elves turning to demon worship to survive underground]]. |
| 86 | * AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: The Conflux in ''Armageddon's Blade''. They'd been neutral for a bit less than a millennium [[spoiler:thanks to Tarnum]] and only fought rarely as summons or mercenaries, but when the Kreegans figure out how to destroy the world, they show [[TheCavalry just what they're capable of]]. |
| 87 | * AwesomeButImpractical: |
| 88 | ** The Armageddon spell is a rain of fire and doom that deals massive damage to ''all creatures''... including yours (unless they have magic or fire immunity), making it useful as a final "screw you" to a powerful enemy. Armageddon's Blade, however, grants you that spell AND gives all your units ''immunity'' to it. |
| 89 | ** In ''III'', many [[SetBonus combo artifacts]] are this. While they provide some really [[GameBreaker game-breaking]] effects (such as +21 to all your skills when most heroes might only get to 17 in any one area normally, or the famous Cloak of the Undead King), most of them are nearly impossible to assemble in the average game due to how rare the pieces are (if they are spawned at all). Even the ones that can be assembled often takes up a lot of equipment slots, rendering that hero basically only good for one thing (a hero with the Cornucopia will basically never want to see combat ever again). |
| 90 | ** ''V'' adds ultimate racial skills to each class, and each one gives you ''very'' nice benefits to their heroes (Rangers always get good luck rolled on their attacks, demon lords get instant gating, wizards learn every spell at expert level, etc.), but, unless a hero is carrying over in a campaign, it's typically impossible to achieve in the span of a single scenario, as each requires a hero to be about level 30, and by that point you're typically about to either win or lose the scenario with or without it. |
| 91 | * AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: During ''Tribes of the East'', Wulfstan is proclaimed as the new king of the dwarves by Arkath, the God-Dragon of Fire, due to being an excellent leader and his willingness to take the fight to the demons. |
| 92 | * BadMoonRising: An eclipse of Ashan's moon means that the seals on [[FireAndBrimstoneHell Sheogh]] are broken and the demons will invade the surface. Usually this is something that can be predicted, giving the world time to prepare. Sometimes it [[MassOhCrap isn't]]. |
| 93 | * BackFromTheDead: The counterpart to AnimateDead for the more good-natured factions. ''Resurrection'' is one of the highest level spells and, just like ''Raise Dead'', allows you to keep the animated troops after the fight. ''Regeneration'' and ''Vampirism'' have similar effects, but work on a smaller scale without the drawback of the stack losing 10/20% of its hitpoints. And then there are the dwarves, which have a ''Rune of Resurrection'' that instantly raises 40% of the fallen troops. In the sixth game, all healing spells and effects have the power to revive units if they can heal enough hit points, without any drawbacks. Most factions also have at least one creature with a healing ability, except for demons, orcs and dark elves. |
| 94 | * BagOfSpilling: |
| 95 | ** Artifacts generally don't carry over between missions (except for ''Tribes of the East'', and even then not all of them). As for expansion packs, recurring characters never get to keep the skills and bonuses you worked so hard to acquire the last time you used them. At least the main characters (i.e. those required to survive the scenario in question) get to keep their skills during all of the campaigns. |
| 96 | ** In ''VI'' only artifacts that are part of a set carry over between each scenario in campaigns. Again, the main characters and their sidekicks get to keep their skills. |
| 97 | * BarredFromTheAfterlife: |
| 98 | ** Dead souls are supposed to be delivered to the goddess Asha for reincarnation, but those who die particularly violent or unjust deaths can find themselves trapped in the mortal world as ghosts. |
| 99 | ** Also [[spoiler:the fate of fallen Angels, deliberately done to defy death and resurrecting them as Celestials, sharing their body with a human]]. |
| 100 | * BastardAngst: |
| 101 | ** Sandor from ''VI'' is the eldest-but-illegitimate son of Duke Slava of the Griffin Duchy, and is overlooked to become the next duke in favor of his younger brother Anton. He decides to leave the politics of the Duchies behind him and find a new life as a BarbarianHero among the [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Orc tribes]] of the Pao Islands. |
| 102 | ** Sephinroth of ''III'', an illegitimate daughter of King Gryphonheart, joined Nighon because King Gryphonheart wouldn't acknowledge her as his child. [[spoiler:Subverted in the fourth game, when she freely admits it was just a con.]] |
| 103 | * BearsAreBadNews: In ''V'', the third-level unit of the dwarves consists of them riding brown bears at first, and black bears or polar bears depending on which upgrade you choose. Both of which are the second-fastest unit of the faction and especially the ''Black Bear Riders'' will almost always steal the turn of their victim and push them back one tile. The ''Polar Bear Riders'' instead instill fear into their victim, causing them to run as far away as possible. Both of which are immune to a number of spells of the school of dark magic, as well. |
| 104 | * BeefGate: In "Claw" scenario in the first game, some griffins guard the only pass leading out of the player's territory. Unusually for this trope, they exist to protect the player until the player is ready to attack the enemy. For this reason, "Claw" is designated as the easiest map in the game. |
| 105 | * BeginWithAFinisher: The [[FantasticNuke Armageddon spell]] is meant to be a RageQuit mechanic that deals massive damage to both your and your enemy's armies in the case of an unwinnable scenario. However, if you [[ExploitedImmunity take along]] a creature that's immune to fire magic (e.g.: Efreets, Fire/Earth Elementals, Phoenixes) or to [[AntiMagic magic in general]] (e.g.: Black/Gold Dragons, Magic Elementals, [[MagikarpPower Battle Dwarves]]), you can nuke your enemy's army at the start of a battle without losing any of your own. |
| 106 | * BigBad: |
| 107 | ** Archibald in the second game. |
| 108 | ** The eponymous campaign in ''II'', "Price of Loyalty" has Viscount Kraeger [[spoiler:until it is revealed towards the end of the campaign he was under mental control from a cabal of necromancers]]. "Voyage Home" starts off with Martine, a pirate leader, but she is [[DiscOneFinalBoss defeated in the penultimate scenario]] and the final scenario veers into a ConflictingLoyalty situation [[spoiler:when you arrive home and find out that your sister, whom you are very close to, has rebelled against your king, who has been nothing but honorable and just with you -- you get to pick which side to join]], "Wizard's Isle" doesn't have anything like a consistent antagonist and "Descendants" takes place over generations, so the closest thing to a BigBad is Herondale, an entire ''country''. |
| 109 | ** [[spoiler:The undead King Gryphonheart]] near the end of the third game. The ''Armageddon's Blade'' expansion has Lucifer Kreegan in the eponymous campaign and [[spoiler:the undead Lord Haart]] in the "Playing with Fire" campaign. [[spoiler:Sandro]] in the ''Shadow of Death'' expansion. |
| 110 | ** The fourth game has a BigBadEnsemble with each campaign having its own main villain but ''The Gathering Storm'' gives us Hexis. |
| 111 | * BigDamnHeroes: |
| 112 | ** In ''V'', the otherwise foppish wizard Zehir almost singlehandedly steals victory from the villains. He frees his own homeland, teams up with the other main heroes, frees the Griffin Empire, and takes part in the final assault on Kha-Beleth. In ''Tribes of the East'', Zehir does it again. His campaign is even called "Flying to the Rescue". ''Hammers of Fate's'' DownerEnding might have been due to Zehir dealing with personal business while Ashan was going to hell. |
| 113 | * BilingualBonus: |
| 114 | ** The name "Mutare" comes from the Latin word meaning "to change" or "to mutate". No bonus points for guessing what Mutare does in her campaign... |
| 115 | ** Deyja means "to die" in Old Norse and Icelandic. Guess [[TheNecrocracy which faction]] rules over the Kingdom of Deyja. |
| 116 | ** Presumably in order to evoke kabbalistic or otherwise mystical connotations, the halos of the archangels in ''V'' are composed of traditional Hebrew calligraphy (but except in a single piece of concept art, where they spell "Shadai/שדי" [[spoiler:one of the names of God]], they don't say anything). |
| 117 | * BittersweetEnding: |
| 118 | ** No matter which side you take in the "Voyage Home" campaign of the second game's ''Price of Loyalty'' expansion, that of Gallivant's [[MyMasterRightOrWrong king]] or [[ThickerThanWater his sister]], he stands by his decision but regrets betraying someone important to him. |
| 119 | ** The end of the main campaign in ''III'' sees all of Erathia's enemies expelled from the nation, the traitor brought to justice and [[spoiler:King Gryphonheart returned to his eternal rest]]. Despite this, not only did Erathia undergo yet another war, but the Gryphonheart lineage is at an end, since Catherine married into the Ironfist family. The political situation remains precarious, and the secret campaign sees the Contested Lands secede in hopes of preventing another war between Erathia and [=AvLee=] ([[StartXToStopX which puts them into conflict with both nations]]), though a later game indicates that while the situation ''is'' precarious, the events of the secret campaign [[CanonDiscontinuity didn't actually happen]] in the end[[note]]''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VII'', set and released between ''The Restoration of Erathia'' and ''Armageddon's Blade'', partly takes place in the Contested Lands, with the town of Welnin that the secret campaign hinges on even visited, and the region is explicitly a part of Erathia at the time, with the most recent attempt at independence an abortive peasant rising decades past. A key arc of the game ''does'' hinge on rising tensions between Erathia and [=AvLee=] over the region to the point of renewed war, though[[/note]]. |
| 120 | ** The Order campaign in the fourth game ends with the heroes saving the world from the WellIntentionedExtremist, but [[spoiler:as he's immortal, he is put into a catatonic state]]. The main character becomes the Queen of Great Arcan, but [[spoiler:is permanently crippled by a sword through her spine]]. And also, the other PlayerCharacter becomes her main advisor [[spoiler:because her old mentor is hypnotized by the BigBad and later killed when he tries to assassinate the main character.]] |
| 121 | ** In ''VI'', either finale ends with the death of several central characters, never mind the ordeals the main characters had to go through and still have to live with. |
| 122 | ** In ''VII'', the order in the empire is finally restored, but only after ten years of civil war. |
| 123 | * BlackAndGreyMorality: In the Ashan universe: every side has their good and bad sides. The Haven town? It has both KnightInShiningArmor as well as KnightTemplar types, in addition to slavery or subjugation of orcs and their brethren (in fact, [[spoiler:some major enemies in ''VI'' are KnightTemplar angels]]). The Sylvan town has a nasty history of division with the dark elves. Mages of Academy town created orcs and other creatures as slaves. Dwarves also have their villains. Necromancers have {{Anti Hero}}es and {{Well Intentioned Extremist}}s in addition to villains, as well as in the Dungeon side. Only demons are AlwaysChaoticEvil, and even [[AntiVillain then]]... |
| 124 | * BlackAndWhiteMorality: The towns in ''III'' are grouped together as Good (Castle, Rampart, Tower), Evil (Inferno, Necropolis, Dungeon) and Neutral (Stronghold, Fortress, Conflux), which affects some adventure map object interactions, as well as the morale in mixed armies. |
| 125 | * BlatantLies: When you trade resources in the marketplace in ''II'' and ''III'', you get this message: "You have received quite a bargain. I expect to make no profit on the deal", despite the amount of resources you are buying being worth several times less than the amount of resources you are selling. |
| 126 | * BloodyMurder: The alternate upgrade for hydra units in the fifth game's expansion ''Tribes of the East'' have acid for blood. |
| 127 | * BookEnds: |
| 128 | ** In a way in the first game - the first mission requires the player to capture a vilage called Gateway, guarded by a single dragon. The last mission requires the player to capture a Dragon City, guarded by twenty of them. |
| 129 | ** Both the first tier and seventh tier units of the Tower nation in ''III'' undergo a sense of MagikarpPower, starting out as cheap, weak units for their tier, but obtaining a ranged attack in their upgraded forms. |
| 130 | * BoringButPractical: |
| 131 | ** The Logistics skill, especially in ''V''. Being able to move further on the map may not be exciting, but damn if it isn't useful. |
| 132 | ** Enlightenment in ''V''. It's a fairly boring stat boost with largely unimpressive perks, but it makes a big difference at higher levels. Amusingly, the barbarian faction in ''V'' get the best perks from Enlightenment. |
| 133 | ** Certain starting specialties in ''III'' that deal with resources. These heroes will, at most, be fetching random resources and bolting at the first sight of the enemy, but their abilities ensure you can actually purchase those expensive buildings and seventh-level creatures within a reasonable amount of time. |
| 134 | ** The Snatch skill in ''VI'' removes the movement cost from adventure map interactions, a decidedly non-flashy effect that really adds up over time. On the combat end there's the basic Reinforcements skill available from level 1 which simply adds temporary "extra" units to a stack. This remains highly useful through entire campaigns, giving a stack extra punch and making it easier to avoid losses by providing a "buffer" of temporary units that get killed first, plus the effect scales very well into the late game as well. |
| 135 | ** Town Portal in any game, as it allows a single hero to quickly defend all of their towns at the mere sight of an enemy. Especially if they have the Logistic skill from above, as it means they can run out and engage enemy heroes before they can get within a day's movement of your towns. It also allows that hero to quickly collect troops from your towns all across the map, which is immensely useful in games without caravans (and even with caravans, a lot quicker). |
| 136 | * BossInMookClothing: |
| 137 | ** {{Fairy dragons}}, rust dragons, crystal dragons, and azure dragons from ''III'', plus megadragons in ''IV''. Can't be recruited in towns, have high costs, low population growth rate. They will still ''kill you dead'' if you meet them on the map without a very powerful army. |
| 138 | ** Any spellcasting creature can also qualify, as they usually cast devastating spells, allowing them to completely outclass any other creature of a similar level. The spellcasters were so horribly powerful in ''IV'' that their casting power was reduced in ''V''. Some of them are still a pain in the ass though. |
| 139 | ** The infamous master gremlins are also this early in the game, as they can hit from very far away when you don't have access to fast troops, usually guards vital locations, and deal relatively high damage. If you don't have any ranged troops of your own (and some towns don't that early) it can be a pain to collect resources guarded by Master Gremlins. |
| 140 | ** Storm Elementals are this for similar reasons; while they are classified as tier 2 units, they have power on par with some tier 3 or even 4 units, while also being rangers. |
| 141 | ** Some heroes can cast Disguise, which can cause you to see false statistics (normally you are given a general estimate of the strength of the army). In ''V'', any hero who uses the Ballista build can also deceive opponents (even computers), due to the fact that their skills and warmachines are not factored into the estimate. |
| 142 | ** Efreeti in ''IV''. Flying, fast, strong, and have the Fire Shield ability. Attacking a large group with a Hero in close combat is suicide. If the counterattack doesn't kill you, the reflected damage almost certainly will. |
| 143 | ** The sixth game introduces proper boss fights, mostly against beefed up versions of the various Champion creatures from each faction, though two of them came before the regular creature was introduced in Shades of Darkness. For a more regular example, Phoenixes are this. Not only are they fairly strong, none of the damage they cause can be healed, making it impossible to avoid losses unless they are severely outmatched. |
| 144 | * BreastPlate: Catherine in ''III'' and Biara in ''V''. Averted with Isabel and Freyda. |
| 145 | * ButtMonkey: All sorts of bad things happen to Christian in the ''Armageddon's Blade'' campaign "Foolhardy Waywardness". Half of them are PlayedForLaughs, and the other half are played for [[NintendoHard insanely difficult]] scenarios. The campaign ends with Queen Catherine rescuing Christian from the pirates on her way to Erathia and Christian [[HopeSpot looking forward to a good vacation]]. If you played the original ''Heroes 3'' campaigns, you know what happens instead. Then there is [[https://i.imgur.com/ICheGYZ.png this]] bottled message in the seventh map of the Archibald campaign in ''II'', if Sir Christian is the same person, makes you wonder how much this guy has suffered or whether this is an unintentional MythologyGag. |
| 146 | * CainAndAbel: |
| 147 | ** Ragnar's father and Morglin's father in the backstory of ''Heroes I''. |
| 148 | ** Archibald and Roland Ironfist in ''II''. Canonically the 'Abel' Roland wins. In the end, ''neither'' proved willing to actually kill the other, and when they last met they semi-reconciled and parted ways on peaceful terms. [[spoiler:This was after the 'Cain' Archibald had helped save his brother from the devils because, in his own words, even he couldn't bear the thought of Roland in their hands.]] |
| 149 | ** Rolf and Wulfstan in ''V: Hammers of Fate'' expansion have this dynamic despite only being half-brothers. Curiously enough, [[spoiler:Wulfstan has no direct part in Rolf's eventual death. Zehir ends up killing him in ''Tribes of the East''.]] |
| 150 | * CameBackWrong: |
| 151 | ** This happens often thanks to necromancy. In ''III'' [[spoiler:King Gryphonheart is revived as a powerful lich that proves to be more than the necromancers of Deyja can handle]]. And in ''V'' [[spoiler:Nicolai]] is brought back as a vampire that can no longer feel love towards [[spoiler:Isabel]], only a thirst for blood. |
| 152 | ** Subverted utterly in ''VI'' with Anastasya, following her death in the intro sequence, she's brought back from the death by her Necromancer aunt, apparently no worse for wear except for occasional complaints about feeling cold. If anything, getting killed has made her a better person, during a later JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind, she realizes that her death was brought on by her own weakness and childishness, and resolves to grow up and take charge of her own destiny. Of course, in ''VI'', the Necromancers are the closest they've ever been to DarkIsNotEvil. Granted, whether she winds up as a better or worse person at the end of it all is [[KarmaMeter somewhat up to the player]], if you take the Path of Dragon's Blood, this former aspiring priestess of light can wind up quite bloodthirsty and cold, and you're free to blame that on your undead nature... |
| 153 | * CanonImmigrant: The Cove faction from the fan-made expansion ''Heroes of Might and Magic III: Horn of the Abyss'', representing the Empire of Regna, was added to the official mobile game ''Might & Magic Heroes: Era of Chaos'' in the November 2020 version update. |
| 154 | * CastFromExperiencePoints: In ''V: Tribes of the East'', Zehir was granted by a Djinn the ability to summon forth a flying town using a spell. It was only when he first summoned said town that he realizes the spell costs experience points to use instead of conventional mana (justifying BagOfSpilling when it comes to his levels). |
| 155 | * ClarkesThirdLaw: |
| 156 | ** It's never explicitly stated, but since the first four games take place in the same continuity as the ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' games, it stands to reason that most of the ancient "magical" artifacts encountered are, like in ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' itself, actually just incredibly advanced technology left over from the [[{{Precursors}} Ancients]]. |
| 157 | ** The tentative decision to introduce the Forge town, an explicitly futuristic faction, was a nod to this and to the ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' continuity. But the fans' reaction [[WhatCouldHaveBeen prevented this]]. [[invoked]] |
| 158 | * ClassAndLevelSystem: All the games in the series have used a system where the skills a hero was likely to learn, as well as his attribute growth was determined by his or her class. The fourth game, as part of a ReTool allowed you to change your heroes' classes. |
| 159 | * ClassicalCyclops: Cyclopes have been units used by the [[BarbarianTribe Stronghold Faction]] in every game since the first, and are always [[EliteMooks one of the higher tier units]] available to the faction. Their appearance and fighting style varies from game to game. Enrothian cyclopses from the first four games are more humanoid, and fight using EyeBeams in the first two games and by hurling boulders in the third and fourth. Ashanian cyclopes from the fifth game onwards are the product of failed experiments that involved using demon blood to induce mutations in humans, and have a much more monstrous appearance. They fight with giant clubs, but some also have EyeBeams and/or the ability to [[FastballSpecial pick up and hurl friendly goblins]] [[AbnormalAmmo as live ammo]]. |
| 160 | * ACommanderIsYou: The entire premise, as you control one or more heroes to conquer the map, while each hero leads a quad of units. |
| 161 | * TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: |
| 162 | ** In the first and second games, it's quite likely that the population growth in towns owned by computer players is greater than in towns owned by you. For example, if you take over an enemy Knight castle on day 1 of any given week, you will likely find 12 Archers available to recruit, even though the weekly growth rate for Archers is 10. |
| 163 | ** At least in ''II'', heroes resting up in castles get their spell points back at the beginning of their turn, for players anyway; for the computer? Well, the computer gets spell points back at the ''end'' of its turn. They attack you in a castle, no spell points back. You attack them in a castle, they've got them all back. |
| 164 | ** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in ''III'', as Easy and Normal give the ''player'' a resource advantage and makes the AI play poorer, Hard and on has the AI play as well as it can and the only difference is in the amount of initial resources the player gets. |
| 165 | ** The 4th game was particularly JustForFun/{{Egregious}} in this aspect. Several of the campaign levels featured one-way teleporters right into your territory. Coupled with the AI being [[TheAllSeeingAI unaffected by fog of war]] (and perhaps even shroud), you're going to get a lot of invasions as soon as you leave your towns at the least bit disadvantaged. |
| 166 | ** In the 5th game, the AI gets building cost reduction, unit cost reduction, revealed maps and instead of actually battling wild monsters, it runs a loss estimate, which is usually favorable for them, among other things. The cost reduction starts at normal level and goes as far as ''70%'' off on the highest level. All just because the [[ArtificialStupidity AI is really stupid]], doing things like ''not picking up treasure lying around'' and ''fleeing at the start of the battle, effectively giving up their entire army they had on that hero''. |
| 167 | * ContinueYourMissionDammit: In the Necropolis campaign in ''VI'', at one point you're supposed to rescue your mentor from captivity and get sidetracked into fighting invading Orcs and Demons. Said mentor's [[BondCreatures Bond Creature]] makes regular, plaintive reminders about your main mission. [[spoiler:The map is set up such that you have absolutely no hope of winning the main quest unless you finish all the side quests first, so TakeYourTime.]] |
| 168 | * ContinuityCameo: All over the place in the first games with early ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' characters, and again in ''V'' and ''VI'', despite taking place in a separate universe. |
| 169 | * ContinuityNod: ''V'' had a couple of offhanded references to Sandro and Crag Hack but otherwise no other mentions of anyone from the original universe. ''VI'' greatly expanded on this by exploring reimagined versions of those two characters at length. It also contained reimagined versions of a large number of the generic heroes from the original continuity, such as Lord Haart, Jeddite, Shiva, Atlas, Moander and Kastore. |
| 170 | * ContinuityPorn: |
| 171 | ** The stand-alone scenarios in ''VI'' are essentially love letters to previous games in the VideoGame/MightAndMagic universe. "A Princess of VARN" takes place on VARN, the setting of the first ''Might and Magic'' game. "The Succession Wars" re-tells the battle between Roland and Archibald Ironfist in ''Heroes of Might and Magic II''. "A Tale of Two Guardians" does the same with the final battle between Corak the Mysterious and Sheltem the Dark on the world of XEEN in ''Might and Magic V''. |
| 172 | ** There are also new overworld themes in ''Shades of Darkness'' which are remixes from the themes in 'III', along with the returning Dungeon faction unit lineup being rather inspired by the Dungeon in 'III'. |
| 173 | * ContinuityReboot: ''Heroes V'' takes place in a completely different universe from its predecessors, with the main factions superficially imitating ones from the third installment (though ''Might & Magic X'' implies Ashan might actually be in the original ''universe'' after all, just on a world with no known connections to any of the previously seen ones). |
| 174 | * TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch: The intro to ''II'' features a series of scenes where the successive Royal Seers of Enroth keep getting killed off, with the descriptions of the deaths and the visuals being off-kilter (except for the dragon attack. Of course, dragon attacks can be random or orchestrated), with the descriptions calling them accidents and the visuals pointing to someone causing them (for instance, the 'boating accident' was caused by a mage calling down a lightning bolt on the boat). This seems to have been a bit too much to believe for the royal court, since the next move by the prince implied to have been responsible for the deaths (Archibald) is to accuse his brother of murdering the Seers. |
| 175 | * CowardlyMooks: |
| 176 | ** PreExistingEncounters that have absolutely no chance of defeating your army will typically run away rather than face you. You may choose to let them leave peacefully or [[VideogameCrueltyPotential hunt them down for extra XP]]. |
| 177 | ** Goblins in the fifth game have the 'cowardly' trait, meaning they will almost always run away when hit with a melee attack, even ''switching sides'' if they receive sufficient damage, rather than {{Counter Attack}}ing, unless they are backed into a corner, surrounded or otherwise unable to escape. |
| 178 | * {{Crossover}}: The original ''Heroes of Might and Magic'' was this for the first five ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' games, as its cast consisted of premade characters and [=NPCs=] from the ''Might and Magic'' games fighting for towns that share names with the ''Might and Magic'' towns. Starting with the sixth ''Might and Magic'' game, the ''Heroes'' franchise was integrated back into the RPG franchise, though some {{retcon}}ning had to be done in order to do so. |
| 179 | * CruelMercy: No matter which brother you side with in the main campaign of ''Heroes II'', the winning side does this to the losing side: |
| 180 | --> '''Archibald:''' "Well, Roland, it seems I've won our little contest. But don't worry. Not only have I decided to spare your life, but I am appointing you monarch of the Western Tower. You will be the ruler of a mighty empire, one whose every crack and crevice you will know... in ten minutes. Perhaps I will come and visit your splendid court, when you are not entertaining important rats and spiders." |
| 181 | --> '''Roland:''' "Brother Archibald, for your crimes against the kingdom and myself, I give you a mercy [[DramaticIrony you surely would not have shown me]]: I sentence you to be turned to stone and locked in the west tower until future generations should take pity upon you and restore you to life. If they ever do. In any case, you may rest assured you will never lay eyes upon the crown again." |
| 182 | * CrystalDragonJesus: The depiction of angels are not so subtly inspired by Christianity and demons visually border on HollywoodSatanism. |
| 183 | * CursedItem: |
| 184 | ** In the first game, the Fizbin of Misfortune [[note]]A likely ShoutOut to the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' ep. "A Piece of the Action", a bogus card game that Kirk invented on the spur of the moment[[/note]] is the only magic item with a negative trait, bestowing a -2 morale penalty on the hero unfortunate enough to be carrying it. |
| 185 | ** In the second game, the Fizbin of Misfortune is joined by the Tax Lien, which reduces your daily income, and the Hideous Mask, which prevents wandering units from joining the hero. |
| 186 | ** In the third game, some of the most powerful stat-boosting artifacts downplay this trope. The Titan's Gladius, for example, gives a small penalty to Defense as well as a powerful bonus to Attack. |
| 187 | * CutsceneIncompetence: The undead in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzmhb4RqKF0 intro movie]] for ''VI''; in-game, skeletons are ranged units armed with javelins, and fate-spinners are shape-shifters who have one form for ranged attacks and another that specialises in melee. In the cutscene, they all charge into melee against Anton's forces (the fate-spinner doesn't shift into her melee form) and are mowed down by Anton and his men. |
| 188 | * CuttingOffTheBranches: The endings of the first two games. Only one ending out of four and two, respectively, is canonical. Lord Ironfist won the war, and his son Roland was victorious in the resulting SuccessionCrisis. |
| 189 | * DarkReprise: In ''V'', the Necropolis town theme is a "corrupted" version of Haven town theme. Fitting, as during the Necropolis campaign, the Griffin Empire is being slowly corrupted by [[MagnificentBastard Markal]]. |
| 190 | * DeathlyDiesIrae: |
| 191 | ** ''III'''s Necropolis theme is built on the hymn's motif. |
| 192 | ** First lines of ''Dies Irae'' are used in the title theme of ''V''. The title screen features human and demon fighting in a battlefield full of corpses. |
| 193 | * DeathSeeker: Gundula, after realizing Duke Boragus is not her true father, goes off to join the military to die an honorable death in battle, but stays alive long enough to become a feared commander. |
| 194 | * DecoyProtagonist: [[spoiler:King Nicolai]] in ''V''. The intro cutscene focuses on [[spoiler:Nicolai as he fights and beats a devil in single combat]]. [[spoiler:Agrael kills him in a cutscene at the end of the first campaign. Then, he gets turned into a vampire. Then, he gets KilledOffForReal]]. |
| 195 | ** To a lesser extent, the entire ''Heroes V'' saga revolves around Isabel as well. The Haven campaign puts her at the front, and the end of ''Tribes of the East'' she kills the BigBad, Biara, but it's her loyal knight Godric who fights the final battle for the humans. |
| 196 | ** Ornella in ''Tribes of the East'' Necropolis campaign. Slightly subverted thanks to an easily overlooked InterfaceSpoiler in the campaign selection menu telling that Arantir is the main character. |
| 197 | ** Hathor, Haegeir and Aslaug in ''VII'' expansion's Fortress campaign - they are controlled for the first three missions, then [[spoiler:Haegeir is killed]], more than 100 year TimeSkip happens, and you play the remaning missions with the [[spoiler:narrator, Vilma]]. [[spoiler:Aslaug]] even becomes the FinalBoss of the final campaign. |
| 198 | * DeusExMachina: ''IV'' begins with a rather blatant instance of this trope. The old world of Enroth is destroyed by the clash of Armageddon's Blade and the Sword of Frost, but portals leading to another world, Axeoth, open right afterwards. Background material indicates it was Corak from the main ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' series who opened the portals. |
| 199 | * DevelopersForesight: |
| 200 | ** Some scenarios in the third game require you to build a Grail structure in a specific town. If you bring the Grail to another town, you'll be told that it can't build the structure. |
| 201 | ** In "A Season For Harvest", from the third game, the player must recruit 2500 skeletons. In order to prevent the player from [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable sabotaging their own chances of victory]], it's impossible to upgrade the Cursed Temple to make skeleton warriors. |
| 202 | * DiagonalSpeedBoost: One of the most notable aversions. Diagonal movement always costs extra in all parts as a way to mitingate the geometrical "shortcut". It might even end up taking ''longer'' thanks to rounding. |
| 203 | * DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Wow! Godric, Raelag, Findan, and Zehir: did you guys really kick [[BigBad Kha-Beleth's]] ass at the end of ''V''? [[spoiler:No, he let you rescue [[FakeKing "Isabel"]] to distract you from his [[ThePlan real plans]].]] |
| 204 | * DifficultButAwesome: |
| 205 | ** [[TruthInTelevision Much like in real life]], setting up proper logistical routes to get creatures and artifacts to your frontline heroes as efficiently as possible. These techniques, usually called "hero chains", take advantage of the fact that heroes have a limited amount of movement per turn, but their armies ''do not'', so you can move armies much further than you would in one turn if you just had one hero hauling them to the front lines. |
| 206 | *** Thwarted in IV where individual unit stacks have their own movement points, which can be exhausted by using the above mechanic. Had the unfortunate effect of breaking the AI, whose main force would rarely move anywhere after a secondary hero fed their main with new troops each day (and unlike the other games in the series towns would indeed generate new troops each day, vs. at the start of each week). |
| 207 | ** Playing as the Fortress in ''III'', even after its improvement in ''Shadow of Death''. They have the third lowest max speed among all towns (13), and can't even compensate with sheer firepower like the Tower or brute force like the Stronghold. Their T7 unit is ''the'' slowest in the game, and to top it all, their heroes have a hard time learning the extremely important Earth Magic skill. They aren't even cheap (like the Rampart), and they only distinguish themselves with their high defense. However, with proper strategy and hero building, you can have yourself an [[StoneWall incredibly durable army]] who will cripple its opponents left and right, when it is not a pack of Gorgons flat-out ''exterminating'' opposite T7 units. |
| 208 | * DisciplinesOfMagic: |
| 209 | ** The third game splits magic into disciplines based on the four classical elements - earth, air, water and fire. |
| 210 | ** The fourth game splits magic into five types and makes each type associated with one of the factions (except the [[BarbarianTribe Stronghold]], who are an AntiMagicalFaction) - Life Magic for the Haven, Nature Magic for the Preserve, Chaos Magic for the Asylum, Death Magic for the Necropolis, and Order Magic for the Academy. Each faction has two other factions it sees as allies and two it sees as enemies, not unlike ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering''. |
| 211 | ** The fifth game splits magic into Light (buffs, healing and {{Holy Hand Grenade}}s), Dark (curses and "evil" buffs like "lifesteal"), Summoning (creating things to help your army), and Destruction (using the four classical elements to kill your enemies). |
| 212 | ** The sixth game splits magic into seven elements based on the [[DragonsAreDivine dragon-gods]] that act as caretakers of the world - Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light, Dark and Arcane. |
| 213 | * DivineInfernalFamily: The oldest of the [[DragonsAreDivine Dragon Gods]], Asha (the goddess of Creation, [[GodOfOrder Order]], Life and Death) and Urgash (SatanicArchetype, GodOfChaos and father of [[OurDemonsAreDifferent the demons]]), are sister and brother. |
| 214 | * DoubleEdgedBuff: The Frenzy spell reduces a target creature's defense to 0, but also increases its attack by the amount of defense lost (or up to double the amount if cast at Expert level). It's great for turning StoneWall creatures into powerful attackers or lowering an enemy's defenses while you pick them off from range. |
| 215 | * DownerEnding: |
| 216 | ** ''Heroes Chronicles: Sword of Frost'', where Tarnum fails to get the Sword of Frost before Kilgore's wife does. Tarnum had a chance to kill her, but imprisoned her instead. Well, she escaped. Tarnum states in the end, "Please don't let my compassion destroy the world!". Well it does, Tarnum... |
| 217 | ** In ''V: Hammers of Fate'' TheBadGuyWins. The heroic main characters ultimately accomplish absolutely ''nothing'' to stop BigBad [[spoiler:Biara]]. They end up playing right into the villains' hands [[spoiler:well, Talon's]] in the final scenario when [[spoiler:they kill the Dwarven King Tolghar]]. ''Tribes of the East'' consists mostly of damage control, but this time the heroes [[spoiler:except Arantir]] [[EarnYourHappyEnding earn their happy ending]]. |
| 218 | ** The main game of ''V'' to an extent. Everything seems fine until you see [[FakeKing Isabel's]] [[RedEyesTakeWarning eyes]]... |
| 219 | * DragonsAreDivine: Dragons are a major part of the religion of Ashan. All of the gods in ''V'' are dragons. All of the dragon units in the game (except for the undead dragons) are the children of the dragon gods. So technically speaking, ''every dragon in the game'' is a literal CrystalDragonJesus. The dragon Asha is worshipped as the Goddess of Order creator of the world, while her brother, Urgash the [[DragonsAreDemonic dragon of Chaos]], is despised as a SatanicArchetype. When the two fought one another during the Mythic Age, Asha was seriously wounded, so she spawned six more dragons (representing the six elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light and Darkness) to protect the world if Urgash should reappear, and now slumbers within one of the planet's moons, regaining her strength. |
| 220 | * TheDreaded: [[ImpliedTrope Implied]] with [[{{Dracolich}} Bone]] and [[UndeadAbomination Ghost Dragons]] in ''III'', who give a -1 morale penalty to the opposite army with their simple presence. Azure Dragons from ''Armaggedon Blade'' have a separate "Fear" check on enemy units that's separate from regular morale checks - armies with max morale can still lose their turn from pure terror when facing Azure Dragons. |
| 221 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: |
| 222 | ** The first game lacked the series staple of hero skills, leveling up ''only'' meant an increase in a randomly chosen statistic, and there were no choices to be made or specializations, that only came in with ''II''. Instead, each type of hero had some advantage, like Sorceresses being better at sailing. One result of this is that since there is no "Wisdom" skill that caps the level of magic a hero can learn, any hero with a spellbook can learn any spell, including the incredibly broken [[TeleportSpam Dimension Door]]. |
| 223 | ** The first game also lacked pretty much any story in the game itself, the four campaigns were the ''same'' except for different starting towns and each lacking the map about attacking the lord you picked, the map descriptions were bare bones and there was no new story events in the maps, far from the voiced briefings and in-map events of ''II'' onward. |
| 224 | ** The battlefield in the first game is much smaller than in other games. While units range from flying units that can zip across the battlefield to MightyGlacier types like Ogres and Hydras, the battlefield is generally somewhat more densely packed than in later games. |
| 225 | ** Unit stacks could not be split in the first game, so tactics familiar to veterans of later games (such as splitting off stacks consisting of a singular "[[HumanShield fodder]]" unit) are impossible. |
| 226 | ** The first game did not allow players to upgrade units. The second game, which introduced the feature, only allowed some units to be upgraded. In a rare exception, the Dragons, the ultimate unit of the Warlock town in the second game, could be upgraded ''twice''. In the third game, each unit that was associated with a town could be upgraded, once, which was followed by all the subsequent games except the fourth, which had no upgrades. The first expansion to the fifth game added a mutually exclusive alternate upgrade for each unit. |
| 227 | ** The first and second games had each town offer six different types of units, but heroes only had five slots in their army, meaning that they'd have to forgo at least one type of their town's units. Starting in ''III'', it was possible to include one of each type of a town's units into a hero's army. |
| 228 | ** In the first game, scenarios randomly selected your town type and in some cases, your starting location. Players could also set the intelligence level for the computer players in addition to choosing the difficulty. |
| 229 | * EasilyForgiven: In ''II'', after completing scenario 4 of Archibald's Campaign, the King of the Dwarves "forevermore" names you "Dwarfbane." In fact, all you have to do to lose that title is betray Archibald to Roland in the very next scenario. If you do, Roland himself doesn't bear you any particular ill will for your part in breaking up his alliance with the King of the Dwarves either. |
| 230 | * ElementalEmbodiment: |
| 231 | ** They first appear in ''II'' as neutral creatures with the traditional affinities of Air/Earth/Fire/Water. In ''Armageddon's Blade'', they are part of the new Conflux town, and Psychic was added as a new element. Their upgraded forms are Storm, Magma, Energy, Ice, and Magic. |
| 232 | ** They become the subject of ''Heroes Chronicles: Master of the Elements'', where Tarnum has to face the four elemental lords. |
| 233 | * ElementalPowers: |
| 234 | ** The third game uses the traditional Air/Earth/Fire/Water as spell schools. Other games use different schools, but the traditional four elements are still present. |
| 235 | ** The Dungeon racial also focuses on them, allowing "elemental chains" that [[ElementalRockPaperScissors deal extra damage when the right elements connect]], either via spells or Dungeon creatures attacking. |
| 236 | * ElementalTiers: In ''III'', the elementals have a hierarchy of power: Air elementals are the weakest (Tier 2), then Water elementals (Tier 3), then Fire elementals (Tier 4), and the strongest are the Earth elementals (Tier 5). This is only after the ''Armageddon's Blade'' expansion makes them units of the new Conflux town, however. In the base game, they were all very strong, and of roughly equal power. |
| 237 | * ElvesVersusDwarves: |
| 238 | ** Averted in the first three games, where dwarf and elf units are part of the same town, then played straight from the fourth game on, where elves and dwarves always inhabit separate town types. |
| 239 | ** It was probably ''V'' that took it furthest, with the Ultimate Skills being opposite of each other: Elves' Ultimate Luck causes every attack performed by your creatures to became lucky, while Dwarves' Ultimate Protection causes normal attacks performed by the opponent's creatures to become unlucky, and lucky ones normal. In the unlikely scenario that two heroes with these abilities meet, [[UnstoppableForceMeetsImmovableObject they cancel eachother out completely]]. |
| 240 | * TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: |
| 241 | ** The planet Enroth where the first three games took place was destroyed when two swords, each with enough power to destroy the world, collided. |
| 242 | ** The world of Ashan, the setting of ''V'' and ''VI'', has also faced its share of world-ending threats, but so far survived. The Demon Sovereign wants to unleash his legions of Hell to burn Ashan to ashes. And he still pales in comparison to Sandro, a lich who considers the entire universe to be a prison created by the gods and wishes to use the PowerOfTheVoid to unmake reality itself and reshape it in his image. |
| 243 | * EnemyExchangeProgram: |
| 244 | ** No matter how many angels you've got in your army, nobody ever seems to object when you march right into a conquered Necropolis or outpost of Hell and, instead of razing it to the ground, violate nature by recruiting unnatural horrors to do your presumably virtuous bidding. Though it should be noted that having creatures from different castles serving under a single hero tends to decrease their morale, and undead specifically double said penalty. |
| 245 | ** Becomes a plot point in ''The Shadow of Death'' when the [[spoiler:barbarian and ranger heroes]] fail in their initial attack against Sandro because their troops can't get along with each other. |
| 246 | ** Also occurs as a gameplay obstacle in ''V'', when Demonlord Agrael has to field elves... that promptly begin to desert his ranks every day. |
| 247 | ** This comes up again in ''Tribes of the East'', where you burn down conquered towns as orcs instead of being able to use them. Granted, you pillage a lot of resources this way. |
| 248 | ** The sixth game also gives you the option of converting buildings and towns to your faction. Which generally none objects to either, but it does come up in a few scenarios. |
| 249 | * EnemyMine: |
| 250 | ** The third game's campaign "Song For The Father" features a team-up between [[spoiler:the necromancers of Deyja and Queen Catherine]] when the former discover that [[spoiler:the recently undeadified King Gryphonheart]] is [[EvilerThanThou Eviler Than Them]]. |
| 251 | ** The third game's secret campaign "Seeds of Discontent" reveals that Erathia and [=AvLee=] had been at war for centuries, and the Restoration War was the first time in history that they had ever allied against a common enemy. NiceJobFixingItVillain indeed. |
| 252 | ** Also, the dark elves in ''V'' and its first expansion, then the alliance between wizards and orcs in ''Tribes of the East''. |
| 253 | * EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Xeron, the functional BigBad of the ''Armageddon's Blade'' campaign (nominally, he's TheDragon to Lucifer Kreegan, but the latter never appears in person) learns that his mother, a [[SuccubiAndIncubi succubus]], was killed by Gelu. He does not take it very well. |
| 254 | * EvenEvilHasStandards |
| 255 | ** Charna from ''IV'' is described as being capable of evil that 'even the demons balk at'. |
| 256 | ** In ''III'', if you steal an artifact from a crypt, your troops will be appalled and suffer a penalty to morale, even if they're evil. |
| 257 | ** The same goes for Inferno and Dungeon troops losing morale when working with the undead. |
| 258 | * EvilPlan: The entire plot of ''V'' is BigBad Kha-beleth's big gambit. [[spoiler:Impregnating Isabel, splitting her soul so Biara could impersonate her and wreck havoc in the Griffin Empire (thus distracting all of the heroes); all to ensure that his son the Demon Messiah would have a chance to one day free Kha-beleth for good]]. Whether or not his gambit actually ''succeeds'' depends on the player's choices at the end of a different game, namely ''VideoGame/DarkMessiahOfMightAndMagic''. |
| 259 | ** Not to mention Markal, who exploits Isabel's depression to [[spoiler:crush his ancient enemies into the dirt, rise to power as leader of the necromancers, raise the King of the Empire as a bloodthirsty vampire that almost destroys the Elves, take over the Empire and protect his mortality with three relics, such that the good guys ultimately require three armies to kill him]]. He got to rule half the factions in the world all without actually lying to Isabel about why he needed to do it, meaning every single step of his plan was ''also one of his goals''. That's efficiency. Oh, and he also [[spoiler:came BackFromTheDead and tried to kill the man that killed him by pretending to be his dead father]] in a side scenario in ''Hammers of Fate'', but that didn't go quite as well. |
| 260 | * EvilSorcerer: At one point in his campaign, Gauldoth Half-Dead of ''Heroes IV'' lampshades the tendency for necromancers to become the evil TakeOverTheWorld overreaching villains. That said, it's not ''that'' [[DarkIsNotEvil common an affliction]]: over the course of the six games taking place on Enroth, a grand total of ''one'' character (Sandro) fitting this description shows up, and even he survives the ordeal and aims for more modest goals after that. |
| 261 | * ExcusePlot: |
| 262 | ** ''[=HOMM1=]'''s [[AllThereInTheManual manual]] gives Lord Ironfist a relatively elaborate backstory, but this has no effect on the actual game, where the campaign is simply Ironfist and three other warlords fighting for domination. Which is still more than [[NoPlotNoProblem some if not most of the standalone scenarios]]. |
| 263 | ** In the Dragon Slayer campaign featured in the ''Armageddon's Blade'' expansion for the third game, the entire plot is basically "[[MeaningfulName Dracon]] wants to kill some very powerful dragons to test his mettle". |
| 264 | * ExploitedImmunity: The Armageddon spell is one of the most damaging spells available, but inflicts heavy damage on ally and enemy alike. There are a few ways to negate this; some monsters (such as the fire-immune efreet and the magic-immune black dragons) will be unharmed by the spell, and the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Armageddon's Blade]] renders your entire army immune as one of the perks of wielding it. |
| 265 | * FaceHeelTurn: |
| 266 | ** In ''The Succession Wars'' campaign in the second game, the player (who takes on the role of a tactician) is offered a chance to defect by the other side, regardless of if the player is playing on the side of the heroes or [[HeelFaceTurn the side of the villains]]. However, you lose all the alliances you acquired on the side you were on. |
| 267 | ** The bios of several Necromancers of Deyja noted how they were originally prodigies when they were studying in Bracada, but later decided to turn to Necromancy after either JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope or to save a loved one, only to be shunned by their peers for their taboo. |
| 268 | ** Gavin Magnus, the BigBad of the Order campaign in ''IV'', was previously the BigGood in ''Might & Magic VII''. Witnessing the destruction of your planet will do that. |
| 269 | ** Lord Haart in the third game, who goes from a holy knight to a Death Knight; though there are hints that he wasn't always that noble. |
| 270 | * FairyDragons: ''III'' has Faerie Dragons, small creatures with antennae and dragonfly wings, which can be recruited from the Magic Forest. Unlike most instances of the trope, Faerie Dragons are massively powerful, easily outclassing everything in the game except the other neutral dragons. |
| 271 | * FairyRing: Faerie Rings are adventure map objects that can be visited to grant +1 Luck until the end of the next battle. |
| 272 | * FallenAngel: The Necromancers of Ashan were founded by Belketh, a rogue angel who unearthed the secrets of death magic after parting ways with his kin. Sarah is a more archetypical example, since she gets corrupted by Sheogh and winds up as a Demon Lord with a distinctively angelic appearance. [[spoiler:Most of the Angels in the Holy Empire during the main ''VI'' plot are arguably this trope on some level, since they hacked together a means to cheat their own god's plan for their souls to instead keep reincarnating themselves in the mortal world.]] |
| 273 | * {{Fanservice}}: Some games in the series aren't shy about the eye candy. |
| 274 | ** In Heroes III there's the [[InhumanlyBeautifulRace elven]] Pegasus Riders for Rampart and the [[FairySexy Pixies and Sprites]] for the Conflux. The female in-combat hero models feature a {{Stripperiffic}} Barbarian and the better-clothed-but-still-shapely cleric and alchemist. Campaign heroes like Catherine (especially in Restoration of Erathia), Mutare and Adrienne have very generous figures and, if they aren't showing skin, usually wear something skin-tight. Lastly, [[GorgeousGorgon Medusas]], [[SnakesAreSexy Nagas]], Water/Ice Elementals, and Harpy Hags all sport noticeable busts, even if what's [[ButterFace above]] or below those busts [[FanDisservice may not always be as appealing]]. |
| 275 | ** Heroes V ramps things up even further with the Dark Elves, whose warriors, heroes, and even buildings feature tons of [[ChainmailBikini scantily-clad]]--if not [[BarbieDollAnatomy nude]]--ladies. Let's also not forget the [[SuccubiAndIncubi Succubi line]] from the Inferno. |
| 276 | * FantasticNuke: The Armageddon spell/blade. It ''did'' [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroy the world]] in ''III'', thus the new settings in ''IV''. |
| 277 | * FantasticRaceWeaponAffinity: In ''VI'', Dark Elves favor the chakram as their ranged weapon of choice, as the bows used by their surface-dwelling cousins are impractical in the caverns where they dwell. |
| 278 | * FantasticRacism: |
| 279 | ** Ubiquitous, with even the game mechanics reflecting this. Mixing troops from different factions will lower your entire army's morale. |
| 280 | ** In ''III'', there are pairs of creatures that hate each other, which means that they will deal bonus damage to the creatures they hate. |
| 281 | ** One of the campaigns in ''Chronicles'' centers around Tarnum leading the Fortress people (consisting of lizardmen, hyena-men, and swamp monsters) to fight their Castle oppressors ([[LightIsNotGood humans allied with angels]]). |
| 282 | ** In ''VI'' the Angels hate the Faceless. The Angels honestly seem to consider the Faceless to be worse than the ''[[AlwaysChaoticEvil demons]]''. By contrast the Faceless are a lot more willing to leave the war between them in the past. [[spoiler:They did interfere when the Angels were about to wipe out the Demons, but only because that would've messed up the natural order ]] |
| 283 | * FantasyCounterpartCulture: The fifth and sixth have elements of it. Haven corresponds to [[TheMiddleAges Europe]] [[note]]More precisely, Falcon Duchy is Rome, Griffin is Western Europe/Russia, Bull is Italy/Spain, Greyhound is France, Unicorn is England, Stag is Ireland, Raven is Scandinavia and Wolf is Germany.[[/note]], Academy to the [[ArabianNightsDays Middle-East]]. Sylvan (Elves) has a soft [[MagicalNativeAmerican Native American]] style in ''V'', Necropolis a Babylonian/[[AncientEgypt Egyptian]] one in ''VI''. Sanctuary (Nagas) in ''VI'' are Japanese right down to [[GratuitousJapanese creature names]], despite mythological Nagas being Indian. Strangely, the Stronghold (Orcs) has changed between ''V'' and ''VI'' from Mongols to ''[[{{Mayincatec}} Aztecs]]''. |
| 284 | * FantasyKitchenSink: From the very beginning, this series has featured such diverse fantastic elements as elves, dwarves, genies, centaurs and minotaurs. In the early games, the Sorceress leaned towards [[Myth/CelticMythology Celtic]] and Myth/NorseMythology, while the Warlock leaned towards Myth/ClassicalMythology; Barbarians featured a fairly diverse mix of the above as long as the creatures were savage types, with Trolls fighting alongside Cyclopes, and Knights were largely mundane. |
| 285 | * FireKeepsItDead: In ''V'', [[spoiler:the necromancer Markal]] is cremated after his death because the heroes are worried he might try to restore himself to life as a lich. It didn't work, as Markal has already bound his soul to Ring of the Unrepentant. He tries to come back in a standalone scenario in Hammers of Fate, where Zehir finally deals with him permanently. |
| 286 | * FirewoodResources: Maybe. Wood resources could be interpreted as full logs since [[UnitsNotToScale scale is questionable]]. |
| 287 | ** The backstory behind the Endless Bundle of Lumber artifact, which provides the owner with one extra wood each day, says it's a small bundle which the person who found it first mistakes for firewood. |
| 288 | ** An expansion of the fourth game has you command an army of militant elves who are categorically opposed to cutting down trees and even launch an anti-human genocide because of it. Lumber is gained via a scripted event, that gives the player a small amount of wood every week... Along with the explanation that the player character spent his free time collecting fallen twigs. That's right. Twigs. |
| 289 | * FisherKing: A couple of examples in the first three games. |
| 290 | ** In the campaign of ''Heroes of Might and Magic I'', the starting castles of the Knight and the Sorceress are generally located in grassy areas, whereas the Barbarian and Warlock generally start in dirty areas (and surrounded by swamps, volcanic wastelands, and deserts to boot). In the scenario where you fight each of the rival Lords one-on-one, Castles Ironfist and Lamanda are located in a grassy valley and a forest, respectively, whereas Castle Slayer is in the GrimUpNorth and Castle Alamar is in {{Mordor}}. |
| 291 | ** In the final mission of Roland's campaign in ''The Succession Wars'', the lands immediately surrounding Castle Ironfist under King Archibald's rule are basically {{Mordor}} with a splash of GrimUpNorth, whereas under Morglin (in ''Heroes of Might and Magic I'', as described above) and Nikolai (in ''Might and Magic VI'') they are much more verdant. This was implied to be a gradual process, as the first mission of Archibald's campaign (also dealing with territories near Castle Ironfist) also shows green grasslands. |
| 292 | ** The Restoration of Erathia has some {{Nostalgia Level}}s that show the effect of evil rule on the land of Erathia. "Steadwick's Fall" shows barren soil in the eastern third of the map, where the Dungeon and the Inferno are, but the valley of Steadwick and its immediate surroundings are lush and green. "Steadwick's Liberation" shows the same map after the fall of Steadwick, the valley is now a barren wasteland, and the patch of barren dirt has expanded to cover about half of the map. "A Gryphon's Heart" takes place on the border of Deyja, the Deyja side is Dirt, and the Erathia side is Grass. "For King and Country" takes place in the same area, some time after Deyja has invaded. Most of the region is now barren wasteland, and King Gryphonheart's former resting place is now a mighty necropolis. |
| 293 | * FlavorText: ''II'', ''III'' and ''IV'' have a small text describing the acquisition of a new artifact, and games from ''IV'' on also have a description of every unit in the game. Heroes also get a small bio when you recruit them. |
| 294 | * FusionDance: In the sixth game, the Seraphim and Celestials are Angelic souls fused with human souls and bodies. Various bloodlines, like the Griffins, were cultivated by the Angels for the sole purpose of providing fresh bodies and souls to create more Celestials. [[spoiler:Archangel Michael returned from death by fusing with Pavel Griffin, Duke Slava's father and Sveltana's brother. Uriel's reason for romancing Anastasya was to make her a suitable vessel for the soul of his mother Aurora.]] |
| 295 | * GameBreakingBug: The Gameboy games would occasionally give your enemy an army of ''a thousand'' of any unit. Including Dragons. |
| 296 | * GameMod: |
| 297 | ** For ''Heroes III'' there's the [[https://www.celestialheavens.com/tags-overview/wog ''Wake of Gods'']], which adds a bit and a lot of everything to the game. It even has its own [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSt65cakZ8Q trailer]]. |
| 298 | ** The VideoGame/HornOfTheAbyss mod started as a branch from ''Wake of Gods'', then completely overshadowed it. It adds a tenth town (although new towns have been made before, they have all been ''replacers'' for a town already in the game) called the Cove (a pirate/naval-themed town, representing the recurring pirates of Regna), three full-length campaigns (although currently without voice-overs or campaign-maps) plus some thematically appropriate extras. Design-wise it is supposed to be like another expansion pack. |
| 299 | ** ''[[http://heroes3mod.webs.com/ Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Succession Wars Mod]]'' is a nearly-total conversion of ''Heroes III'' into ''Heroes II''. It uses the graphical style with some minor variations and single-type hero town setup of ''II'', but with the creature line-up expanded to seven levels, individual Hero descriptions, and eventually ''II''-style versions of Inferno and ''III'''s Fortress, plus a desert 'Dervish' town to fill up the Conflux town slot. |
| 300 | ** ''Heroes IV'' has the ''[[http://equilibris.celestialheavens.com/eng/news.html Equilibris Mod]]'', dedicated to correcting the balance issues and to add a few things such as dwellings for creatures that you can't normally recruit, such as the Sea Monster. |
| 301 | ** With ''[[http://www.bonddisc.com/ref/h5/ Heroes 5.5: Eternal Essence]]'', ''Heroes V'' has one as well. It's still in development, but it got rid of nearly all cheats of the AI, greatly shortened the length of turns and made the AI much more intelligent in general. |
| 302 | * GameplayAndStorySegregation: |
| 303 | ** No matter whether your settlement lies between active volcanoes, in underground tunnels or the Elemental Plane of Death, you'll always find an ore mine and a sawmill nearby. |
| 304 | ** Up until ''IV'', picking up an item would trigger a small story snippet about how your Hero finds or earns it. Depending on the Hero and setting in question, these may make no sense at all. |
| 305 | ** Some of the descriptions given to upgraded creatures in ''VI'' don't match the recruiting mechanics in-game; for example, {{Praetorian Guard}}s are only supposed to be promoted on one day of the year, and jaguar warriors can only be promoted to panther warriors after killing an extremely rare and dangerous predator native to the Pao islands. |
| 306 | ** It's even worse during the campaigns, where you're sometimes cast as a squeaky-clean hero whom you can order to [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential run around killing neutral creatures and looting the crap out of various map locations]]. Cue the next segment of in-story text talking about how "merciful" the hero is and how he never kills if there's an alternative... This can get especially silly in ''IV'', where the heroes personally participate in the battles. Half the campaigns star heroes that outright let their foes live, according to the in-story text. When the final battle rolls around, however, you generally have to kill everything on your opponent's side of the field... ''including'' whatever hero is the BigBad right now. Sure, you can HandWave the opposing hero's death animation to say that he's just been KO'ed, but only to an extent (a fire breath attack from twenty black dragons only knocked him out? Riiiight...) |
| 307 | * GenderBender: Heroes will often appear as the opposite gender in their field/battle sprite or model, which is determined by their class instead of the particular hero. This is most bizarre in ''III'''s barbarians, who always appear as human females in battle, despite the majority of them being male orcs, goblins, and ogres. |
| 308 | * GeoEffects: Mostly affects movement, but ''III'' added each race or alignment having a terrain they feel comfortable fighting on, as well as some terrains that affect magic, such as cursed grounds, magic fields, and elemental planes. ''V'' does this as well, with every faction having no penalty on their homelands. Grasslands are good for everyone, but Dwarves, e.g., have snow as their home terrain, whereas every other faction suffers great penalties while marching over it. |
| 309 | * GlassCannon: |
| 310 | ** To an extent any monster stack with defense proportionally low compared to their offense. Wolf Raiders in ''[=HoMM3=]'' take the cake, high offensive power, double attack, and 10 health per wolf raider. If they get hit they're not getting back up. And the AI likes to pick on them. |
| 311 | ** The blood maiden/fury can travel to 3/4 of the battlefield, hurt a lot and then come back where she starts (and in the case of the blood fury, without being struck back). However, she has low health and defense and is the favorite target of CPU-controlled creatures, which makes her lifespan quite short. |
| 312 | ** In the late game, large creature stacks turn into this, regardless of the individual statistics of the creature itself. This is because when you've reached the hundreds, so has your opponent. From here on each hit will no longer be taking out a percentage of your health, but rather how many troops there are in the stack. This means that unlike early game, where you can avoid significant casualties due to damage not being anywhere near high enough to actually kill people, now you're afraid of the stiffest breeze. Most battles at this level generally lead to [[PyrrhicVictory Pyrrhic Victories]] or complete [[CurbStompBattle curbstomps]], because unless it's the final battle for the map you WILL need to have the majority of your troops survive. |
| 313 | * GlobalAirship: |
| 314 | ** Zehir gets one in ''Tribes of the East'', in the form of a flying ''city''. Though he usually has to pay experience to move it. |
| 315 | ** The [[SceneryPorn Townscreen]] of Academy is this in general, as all their cities are flying in the skies above Ashan. |
| 316 | * GoMadFromTheRevelation: [[spoiler:Alaric goes batshit insane, when it is revealed that the Isabel he served turns out to be the succubus Biara.]] |
| 317 | * GodOfOrder: Asha is the [[DragonsAreDivine Dragon Goddess of Order]] and creator of the world of Ashan, as well as mother to the [[ElementalEmbodiment 6 elemental dragons]] that serve as her world's caretakers. |
| 318 | * GoodIsDumb: Isabel all over. Godric also counts in the sense that his loyalty prevents him from opposing Markal until it's too late. Freyda faces the same problem in her campaign in ''Hammers of Fate'', then gets tricked, along with every other protagonist in the game, to kill the Dwarven King Tolghar for the false Queen. Raelag also acts far too naive when Shadya comes from nowhere to help him. |
| 319 | * GoodIsNotNice: Roland in ''Heroes II'' may be "good, kindly, and honorable," but he isn't above using force of arms to subjugate the nobility near his castle (albeit reluctantly) or [[TakenForGranite turn Archibald to stone]]. |
| 320 | * GoodWingsEvilWings: |
| 321 | ** Angels in III and V have the traditional feathery wings, indicating they're good. Subverted with the bloodstained wings of V's Fallen Angels. |
| 322 | ** The green and gold dragons of III have bat-like "evil" wings but are good-aligned. |
| 323 | ** Faerie Dragons in III have dragonfly wings, showing they are neutral-aligned and primarily fight with magic, not physical strength. |
| 324 | ** The Succubi and Pit Fiends of Heroes V have upside-down bat wings (skeletal for the Fiends), which [[WingsDoNothing don't help them fly]] but ''do'' look quite cool and [[SymbolicWings convey they are demons]]. |
| 325 | * GratuitousGerman: Before ''The Price of Loyalty'' (which changed the town themes), it was alignment-coded, the good towns had random quotes from a German translation of the Literature/TheBible, while the evil towns had random quotes from ''Also sprach Zarathustra'' of Creator/FriedrichNietzsche in the original German. |
| 326 | * GreatOffscreenWar: The world in ''VI'' is covered in the healed-over damage of the Elder Wars that took place centuries earlier, and a few older, functionally immortal characters even remember them. [[spoiler:The ultimate goal of the heroes of ''VI'' is to stop the Elder Wars from starting back up again.]] |
| 327 | * GuideDangIt: |
| 328 | ** Obtaining the ultimate skills for each of the heroes in the fifth game. A specific set of skills needs to be acquired beforehand, and there is no way to find out which skills are needed in-game aside from trial and error. Due to the starting skills of some heroes, obtaining the ultimate skill might not even be ''possible''. Not to mention that obtaining the ultimate skills usually means losing out on other potentially more useful abilities. |
| 329 | ** ''Tribes of the East'' made them easier to obtain, and the game includes the Skill Wheel to know which skills to choose. |
| 330 | ** Quite a few gameplay changes were not documented ingame. For instance, Wasp Swarm slows the enemy if cast with any expertise. The spell tooltip doesn't mention it. This extends to the town names, which incidentally ''does'' affect gameplay now in ''V''. However, it's not mentioned in-game at all. |
| 331 | ** Unlike ''I-III'' and ''V'', the campaigns in ''VI'' take place simultaneously instead of following one another; however, the relative chronological order of individual missions is confusing and not obvious, and in no way indicated in-game. You have to consult a fan guide if you want to play through the entire story in chronological order. |
| 332 | * HeWhoFightsMonsters: Tarnum in ''Warlords of the Wasteland'' ultimately becomes every bit as cruel as the wizards he fights against. |
| 333 | * HellHasNewManagement: Kiril in ''VI'', being dumped in Sheogh with an archdevil clawing at his soul only pisses him off, and he proceeds to conquer half of Sheogh before leading a horde of demons back to the surface in [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge pursuit of the one who betrayed him]]. |
| 334 | * HoistByHisOwnPetard: How Anastasya kills [[spoiler:Uriel in ''VI'', she mind controls him using the same hairpin Uriel used to make Anastasya kill her father, and prevents him from fighting back against the horde of demons he was fighting.]] |
| 335 | * HolyWater: ''IV'' has Holy Water as an item. It can be used either to buff the hero drinking it with the spells "Bless" and "Death Ward" or to injure TheUndead. Humorously, [[GameplayAndStorySegregation an Undead Hero can drink it and get the bonuses with no ill effects]]. At one point in Gauldoth Half-Dead's campaign, Gauldoth, a {{Necromancer}}, threatens to punish a ghost by making it swim through holy water after the ghost makes disobedient remarks about Gauldoth's master Kalibarr. |
| 336 | * HorseOfADifferentColor: |
| 337 | ** Goblin wolf cavalry in the third game and neutral Goblin ''boar'' cavalry with ''Armageddon's Blade''. |
| 338 | ** As well as ordinary horses, animals used as steeds in the fifth game include zombie horses (necromancers), unicorns (elven rangers), elephants (wizards), giant lizards (warlocks, and dark elf cavalry), mammoths (dwarven runemages), bears (dwarven cavalry), and oxen (orc barbarians). |
| 339 | * HotForTeacher: Kiril and Anastasya Griffin were steered from a young age into having the beautiful archangels Sarah and Uriel (respectively) as "mentors". In both cases it's made clear that there was much more going on than mere teaching. [[spoiler:And in both cases the angels only did it to manipulate their human partners into taking the fall for their schemes.]] |
| 340 | * HulkSpeak: The Orcs of the Stronghold faction in ''IV'' and beyond talk like this. |
| 341 | * HybridsAreACrapshoot: The wizards of the Silver Cities have conducted various experiments into artificially creating Half Human Hybrids and Mix-and-Match Critters, with varying degrees of success. One of the most notable failed experiments are the Lamasu, sphinx-like hybrids of human and manticore, who have no immunity to the manticore venom in their own bodies - as a result, their bodies are highly unstable and only a small number are able to survive more than a few hours after being born. Thus the lammasu units in the game are all undead raised by the necromancers. |
| 342 | * IceMagicIsWater: In ''III'' the ''Ice Bolt'' and ''Frost Ring'' spells belong to the ''Water magic'' school. ''Water Elementals'' are immune to these spells, and can be upgraded into ''Ice Elementals''. |
| 343 | * IdiotBall: |
| 344 | ** Sandro deceives Crag Hack and Gem ''way'' too easily. Crag Hack at least is usually portrayed as a typical brutish barbarian. Gem has no such excuse. |
| 345 | ** Isabel in the fifth game just won't let go of the damn thing during Markal's campaign, something Markal gleefully uses for his own ends. |
| 346 | ** And Winston Boragus, the ruler of Krewlod, dribbles it when he comes up with Yog's test to become a barbarian. He has Yog split apart and scatter the pieces of the Angelic Alliance, ''one of the most powerful weapons in the game''. If you've got an InfinityPlusOneSword, why the ''hell'' would you want to get rid of it? [[spoiler:If Boragus had kept it, maybe Kilgor wouldn't have been able to kill him during ''Armageddon's Blade'']]. |
| 347 | * IdleAnimation: |
| 348 | ** Every creature in the third game has an idle animation that plays occasionally on the adventure map or when moused-over in combat. Most are just them moving a little, cheering/roaring, or fiddling with their weapon, but there are a few funny ones: Pit Fiends scratch their asses, Golems do a little dance, [[JokeCharacter Peasants]] will FacePalm, and Faerie Dragons turn to the camera and flutter their eyelashes. |
| 349 | ** In the fourth game, these are often quite funny, for instance, a spellcaster with flaming red hair will be seen [[Literature/TheWitches removing her wig]]. Also, flying units usually avert StationaryWings. |
| 350 | ** The devils in ''III'' and ''IV'' have one where they make a [[Film/TheMatrix Morpheus]]-esque "bring it" gesture towards the enemy. |
| 351 | ** The Spearmen and Vampires in ''VI'' will start riverdancing and using their swords as guitars, respectively. |
| 352 | ** Azkaal, also from ''VI'', starts playing ''baseball'' if left to idle. |
| 353 | * IllegalReligion: In ''VI'', Duke Anton issues an edict that all citizens of his Duchy must convert to the worship of Elrath, sparking a rebellion. |
| 354 | * ImmortalBreaker: In ''IV'', Emilia Nighthaven seeks out the Blade of the Gods, a sword that can kill immortal beings, in order to put an end to the inexplicably immortal Gavin Magnus. [[spoiler:It turns out that even ''the god-killing weapon'' [[SubvertedTrope can't kill Magnus]], since he gets right back up seconds after being skewered with it. He's only stopped when Emilia shatters his Crystal Pendulum, rendering him brain dead.]] |
| 355 | * ImmortalityThroughMemory: One of the loading screen quotes of ''Heroes VI'' alludes to this trope. |
| 356 | -->''"A thing lives only as long as the last thing that remembers it".'' |
| 357 | * InfinityPlusOneSword: |
| 358 | ** The third game (and the ''Heroes Chronicles'' spinoff campaigns) introduce three powerful swords that are treated as such in the story. The ''Armageddon's Blade'' expansion has the [[TitleDrop titular]] Armageddon's Blade, which in game gives nice boost to most of the wielder's stats and allows them cast Armageddon at expert level even if they couldn't use it normally, and it doesn't affect your own troops like it does normally, meaning you just use Armageddon on the enemy without hurting your own army. ''The Shadow of Death'' has the Angelic Alliance, a combination of several other artifacts which combined give +21 to attack, defense, power, and knowledge, more than any other combo, allows for mixing of standard troops with neutrals without morale penalties, and casts prayer at the start of each battle. The last ''Heroes Chronicles'' campaign revolves around the Sword of Frost. The Armageddon's Blade and the Sword of Frost were so powerful that they ''destroyed the world'' when they struck each other. |
| 359 | ** In ''V'' the Unicorn Bow is the Infinity Plus One Bow, especially with the matching quiver. |
| 360 | ** The Infinity Plus One Set would be the Power of Dragons. If completed, it grants you a total of +10 to attack and defense, +11 to spellpower and wisdom, increases the initiative of your entire army by at least 10%, adds 20 extra HP as well as +5 to attack and defense of your tier-7 units and adds one additional unit of your tier-7 creatures to your army. Every. Single. Day. Oh, and its parts are fairly common items in the stores of the artifact merchants, which makes it surprisingly easy to get if one has enough gold to pay for the individual artifacts. |
| 361 | ** ''VI'' adds legacy weapons, which have their own experience bars and will level up across any campaigns or scenarios you use them in. Initially the stats or abilities these weapons grant are rather mediocre, but [[MagikarpPower as they increase in power]] they approach Infinity Plus One status. You will also always have access to them, so there's nothing stopping you from simply taking a max-level weapon and using them at the beginning of another campaign. |
| 362 | * {{Irony}}: A couple of instances of situational irony in the third game: |
| 363 | ** The Overlord of Nighon sent his Kreegan allies to kill the Gold Dragon Queen so that the elves of [=AvLee=] would not be able to support Erathia against Nighon and Eeofol. The thing is, [=AvLee=] had been an enemy of Erathia for centuries, and the death of the Gold Dragon Queen at Nighon's and Eeofol's hands was perhaps the one thing that could have convinced [=AvLee=] to [[EnemyMine ally with Erathia against Nighon and Eeofol]]. |
| 364 | ** King Gryphonheart had an insubordinate Death Knight killed to make an example so that other Necromancers and Death Knights wouldn't rebel against him. This only spurred the Necromancers to make an EnemyMine alliance with Queen Catherine. |
| 365 | * KarmaMeter: The Blood/Tears mechanic introduced in ''VI''. |
| 366 | * KilledOffForReal: Most of the major storyline characters from the first three games were killed in the cataclysm that lead to the fourth game, and quite a few characters major and minor are killed in the fifth game and its expansions: [[spoiler:Nicolai, Tieru the Dragon Knight, the Sylvan king Alaron, Zehir's father Cyrus, Markal, Godric, Soulscar clan leader Thralsai, Dwarven king Tolghar, Giovanni, Ornella, War-chief Quroq, Alaric, Wulfstan's half-brother Rolf, and Biara]] all end up dead for good by the end. Furthermore, in the backstory of the fifth game, [[spoiler:Markal's mentor the lich Sandro was KilledOffForReal by wizards led by Cyrus]]. Oddly enough, Freyda escaped her fate at the hands of Markal, even though the game ''strongly'' suggested otherwise. This inconsistency is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in ''Tribes of the East''. |
| 367 | -->'''Zehir:''' ''Freyda? I thought Markal had killed her. As tough as her old man I suppose.'' |
| 368 | * LavaPotVolcano: |
| 369 | ** Depending on the game, the [[LethalLavaLand Volcanic]] terrain type is typically decorated with entire mountain ranges of volcanoes, many of which are filled with lava (or constantly mid-eruption). |
| 370 | ** In ''V'', both the [[TheLegionsOfHell Inferno]] and [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Fortress]] factions have their towns built on the interior of a volcano with a lake of lava at the bottom. Inferno is built on a tube of rock emerging from the volcano's center, while Fortress is built descending the walls of the mountain. It fits in with that game's larger-than-life town screen designs. |
| 371 | * LeaningOnTheFourthWall: One of the things the narrator says near the beginning of ''IV'''s intro cinematic is "We are no more than a character in a story". |
| 372 | * LeftStuckAfterAttack In the opening cutscene of ''IV'', Kilgore swings the Sword of Frost at Gelu, but misses and strikes the ground instead, and the frost magic within the sword causes it to fuse with the earth. Kilgore lets go of the sword and shoulder-charges Gelu away before retrieving the sword. |
| 373 | * LensFlare: Seen in some 3D town flythroughs in ''V'', most noteably in the Sylvan town, where a certain camera angle will flare the entire screen. |
| 374 | * LightIsNotGood: The Empire of Bracaduun in ''Heroes Chronicles''. The Red Haven in ''Hammer of Fate''. [[spoiler:ArchangelUriel, ArchangelMichael and the Angels in general in ''VI'']]. |
| 375 | * LightningBruiser: Most tier 7 creatures in ''III'' are a huge step above whatever your town's tier 6 creature is, being hard-hitters, hard to kill and moving more tiles in the battlefield per turn. As a tradition, dragons are always this. |
| 376 | * LightningFireJuxtaposition: [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwarves]] in ''V'' generally feel a great affinity towards fire, borne from their connection with the dragon-god Arkath, but there are some exceptions; the rune-mage Svea is regarded as an oddity because she developed a talent for lightning magic while acting as an ambassador to the [[ArabianNightsDays Silver Cities]], and the Thanes can use either fire or lightning to enhance their combat abilities (Flame Thanes can generate shockwaves and burn their enemies, while Thunder Thanes use ChainLightning to attack multiple foes at once). |
| 377 | * LooksLikeOrlok: Vampires in ''III'' have a repulsive, bestial appearance. |
| 378 | * LordOfTheOcean: The most prominent gods are the Six Dragons who each represent one of the magical elements, with Shalassa claiming dominion over water and, by extension, Ashan's oceans and all who inhabit them. She is the wisest and most graceful of the gods and values diplomacy, versatility and adaptability, but also encourages swift and indomitable action when it is necessary. |
| 379 | * LuckManipulationMechanic: ''V'' has an ability that adds an extra roll for all luck-based abilities. |
| 380 | * MagikarpPower: |
| 381 | ** The Gremlins in ''III''. Basic gremlins are cheap, usually numerous when a Tower hero is hired with them, and generally weak on an individual basis. The ''Master'' Gremlin, however, uses a ranged attack, whose attack power scales greatly with their numbers. The Giants from the same country also count, being by far the cheapest and weakest tier 7 unit, but gains a ranged attack upon becoming Titans. |
| 382 | ** The Arcane Omniscience skill for wizards in ''V''. A wizard who wants to learn this will be forced to rely on their army and low level spells until their level is in the mid 20's. After it's learned, they can cast every spell in the game with maximum mastery. |
| 383 | * MaritalRapeLicense: Backfires ''epically'' on [[spoiler:Duke Gerhard of Wolf when he impregnates Irina Griffin this way.]] When she comes back at the head of a foreign army and kills him, the rest of the Empire has no choice but to accept her claim on his duchy via KlingonPromotion since she was still technically his wife and is pregnant with his only plausible heir. |
| 384 | * MauveShirt: Hadrin, a minor character in Gauldoth's campaign in ''IV'', goes from "just another disposable zombie" to "Gauldoth's personal bodyguard" over the course of the fourth mission. |
| 385 | * MeaningfulName: Most members of the Griffin family in ''VI'' have names that exist in RealLife, mostly Slavic, and one Hungarian: |
| 386 | ** Slava: ''glory'' |
| 387 | ** Sveltana: mangling of Svetlana, ''light'' (an ironic name for a necromancer, indeed) |
| 388 | ** Irina: ''peace'' |
| 389 | ** Kiril: ''lord'' |
| 390 | ** Anastasya: ''resurrection'' |
| 391 | ** Sandor: variation of Alexander, ''defender of men'' |
| 392 | * MechanicallyUnusualClass: The Necromancer in the second and third games, as well as the Death Knight in the third game, are the only Heroes to naturally start with and/or learn Necromancy, which returns a certain number of the enemy units killed in battle as skeletons. Undead units are not affected by morale (making the Leadership skill useless for the associated heroes) and living units fighting alongside them will suffer a morale penalty in addition to the one for mixing alignment types. |
| 393 | * MentalShutdown: This is the ultimate fate of [[spoiler:Gavin Magnus]] at the end of the "Price of Peace" campaign in the fourth game. With no way to kill him, Emilia shatters the Crystal Pendulum he was using to [[AssimilationPlot remove free will from all living creatures]], destroying his mind in the process. He's still alive, but unable to do anything except the most basic functions. |
| 394 | * MentorOccupationalHazard: |
| 395 | ** One campaign in the fourth game sets this up as a moral dilemma, do you attack the warlord who's captured your mentor, or the one who's working slaves to death by the thousands? Chose to fight the latter, and [[spoiler:you will be given a rather graphic description of the mentor's execution. Fortunately, they NeverFoundTheBody...]] |
| 396 | ** And in the fifth game, one of Markal's goals in his campaign is to kill the leader of the wizards, Cyrus, for the dual purposes of claiming an artifact he needs for his schemes and [[spoiler:to avenge his master Sandro's death at the hands of Cyrus]]. |
| 397 | * MightyWhitey: ''Heroes VI'' has the campaigns revolve around the offspring of the Griffin Duchy that become scattered and join the other factions after the tutorial is over. All of them integrate into their newfound homes of orcs, naga, undead and demons without much trouble and soon grow into positions of leadership (although for the last two this is hardly unheard of). |
| 398 | * MissingMom: The mother of all of Slava Griffin's children disappeared shortly after the youngest was born, and despite his not having always been faithful to her Slava considers her TheLostLenore. [[spoiler:She's alive as a Dragon Knight and reappears in her children's adult lives as a TricksterMentor.]] |
| 399 | * MistakenForCheating: An example where finding out the truth isn't any better than actual cheating: In her campaign in ''VI'', Anastasya Griffin learns that [[spoiler:her supposed lover, the Archangel Uriel, had been using their alleged relationship as a premise to allow a fellow angel named Aurora (whom he speaks of in glowing terms) to pull a GrandTheftMe on Anastasya's body. Naturally she assumes that Aurora must be Uriel's lover. When she learns that Uriel had set her up to be possessed by his ''mother'', she is beyond furious.]] |
| 400 | * MookCommander: Angels have this effect. If a player has angels or archangels on the field, ''all'' of the other units controlled by that player get an automatic boost to their morale stat, which gives them a chance to attack twice in one turn. |
| 401 | * MoraleMechanic: |
| 402 | ** The games include a morale modifier. High morale gives a unit a chance to attack a second time, against the normal rules of TurnBasedCombat, while low morale makes them flinch and miss a turn. Morale bonuses are activated randomly, based on how high morale is: GeoEffects, artifacts, single-race armies, spells, angels and taverns all raise morale, while skeletons, dark dragons and ransacking empty tombs all lower it. |
| 403 | ** Slightly different in ''Heroes V'' due to the different turn-based system, good morale cuts the time until the units next turn in half, whereas bad morale forces them to skip the turn, but also brings the next turn twice as quickly. ''Heroes VI'' returned to the traditional system, but kept the essentially halved effect idea for good morale, meaning the second turn only allows half the movement range and attack power (and doesn't allow the use of special abilities). |
| 404 | * MurderTheHypotenuse: The BigBad of the "Elwin and Shara" campaign in the fourth game tries to pull this on Elwin. Since Elwin is the player character, he fails. In the fifth game, this is the main reason [[spoiler:Agrael kills Nicolai at the end of Isabel's campaign]]. He seems aware that, while this act removed one obstacle from his desires, it also introduced an even bigger one [[spoiler:since Isabel ''knows'' he killed Nicolai and ends up swearing revenge]]. |
| 405 | -->'''Agrael:''' Well, things just got simpler. And a ''lot'' more complicated. |
| 406 | * MutuallyExclusiveMagic: In some of the games certain heroes are barred from learning certain schools of magic, meaning those skills will never appear among the skill choices offered during a level increase. They can't even learn those skills at map buildings. This is a minor plot point in Adrienne's campaign in ''Armageddon's Blade''. Unlike the other witches of Tatalia (which is essentially an entire nation built on a swamp) who focus on earth and water magic, Adrienne... well, she's called the [[PlayingWithFire Fire]] Witch for a reason. In her backstory she was actually ''exiled'' as a result. She only comes back when her nation is under attack from the [[spoiler:undead Lord Haart]]. |
| 407 | ** Although Adrienne's campaign touches on the fact that fire magic isn't actually mutually exclusive to earth or water magic, it's just that the Tatalian witch tradition prefers water/earth and dislikes fire (as ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' VI-VIII make clear, they're actually unusual in that, since the elemental schools ''aren't'' mutually exclusive in any way and in fact the ability to learn one of them comes together with the ability to learn all of them). |
| 408 | * NeutralsCrittersAndCreeps: |
| 409 | ** Neutral units in the series mostly belong, appriopriately, to the neutral category. They will not make any moves to attack any of the players, but when approached they will start a battle and do their best to finish it, unless the player's army is [[CowardlyMooks vastly superior]] or the commanding hero gets lucky with their diplomacy skill. Neutral units in the fourth installment are the exception, as they will actually move to attack the players given enough time. |
| 410 | ** Prior to the first expansion of ''III'', elementals were neutral, not available to any faction unless temporarily summoned with magic or purchased from randomly-generated dwellings. The ''Armageddon's Blade'' expansion added the Conflux town, which pads out the ranks of the formerly neutral elementals into a fully fleshed-out faction. |
| 411 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: This trope is why the fourth game takes place on a different world from the past three games. [[spoiler:Gelu, a hero from the ''Armageddon's Blade'' expansion of the third game wielded the titular Blade against the barbarian Kilgor, who wielded the Sword of Frost. Gelu was trying to stop Kilgor's mad campaign of world conquest. Unfortunately, when the two Blades struck each other, the ''[[EarthShatteringKaboom entire world blew up]]'']]. |
| 412 | ** Agrael in ''V''. If he didn't kill Nicolai before Isabel was crowned, she wouldn't have had to deal with rebels, and Markal wouldn't have had an opening to manipulate her. Not to mention how many elves he killed in his Irollan raid, destabilizing the kingdom enough for [[spoiler:vampire lord Nicolai]] to almost conquer it. [[spoiler:For someone who is supposed to be looking for redemption, Agrael/Raelag is actually a very evil person.]] |
| 413 | ** Godric, who, instead of immediately taking action against Markel, helps both him and Isabel. Well, he does take action, but too late. It's even more foolish when he reveals that it was him and Nicolai who banished Markel. |
| 414 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Some heroes in the less wholesome factions have this. |
| 415 | ** In ''III'', one of the Necropolis's heroes is a Vampire Necromancer called Thant, a name that's just a few letters away from the name Thanatos, the Greek God of Death. |
| 416 | * NeverForgottenSkill: Lampshaded in ''Heroes VI'', where after a Sandor and his orc friend, Kraal, hijack a boat, they talk about sailing it. |
| 417 | --> '''Kraal''': Kraal is island Orc. Will be okay. Sailing is like riding a horse. |
| 418 | --> '''Sandor''': Because once you know how, you never forget? |
| 419 | --> '''Kraal''': No. Because you fall off a lot. Heh heh heh. |
| 420 | * NeverTrustATrailer: The epic showdown between Anton and Anastasya in the ''VI'' intro movie never actually happens. |
| 421 | * NintendoHard: |
| 422 | ** The campaigns in the ''Armageddon's Blade'' expansion for ''III''. The difficulty settings for each campaign are set from "hard" to "impossible" and the scenarios themselves are just brutal. The last mission of one of these campaigns gives your hero a six month time limit to get past a gauntlet of incredibly powerful creature stacks to fight ''one hundred [[LightningBruiser azure dragons]]''. Said campaign also heavily relies on [[LuckBasedMission luck]] and other forms of FakeDifficulty. ''And it isn't even the hardest campaign''. |
| 423 | ** The very first quest in the Chaos Campaign in ''IV''. It starts with a mad dash to capture a castle within 7 days. And that's the only Chaos Town you get. You're immediately in a war with a Might player that can control up to 5 towns, you ''need'' to take a couple of them before the AI has time to build up its army. The AI also has a gate right next to your town, meaning you can't leave it undefended. Hopefully for your sake the computer chooses to attack you with mid strength armies instead of combining into one super strong one. If you beat the Might player, you ''then'' have to defeat a Nature player who's been locked out of the battle behind a colored gate, and doing nothing but hording resources and armies while you battled with Might. At least here you can rely on Might's superior creature generation to give you an edge, but it's a brutal slog no matter what. The Chaos Campaign itself is by far the toughest in the game, but the other quests in it are a step down from the first one. |
| 424 | ** ''V'' isn't shy of some brutal scenarios. For example, ''The Cultists'', where your two main heroes fight against a bunch of powerful heroes with no less than seven towns. You start with none, though you can capture the first two towns fairly quickly. For extra fun, there are also demon heroes that spawn on a regular basis to harass you. Or ''The Emerald Ones'', where you are at a 1:3 disadvantage for quite some time and also have no access to your tier 7 unit. |
| 425 | ** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''Heroes V'''s Heroic difficulty tip, where it says something along the lines of "if you beat this difficulty, let us know. We didn't think it was possible". |
| 426 | * NoCampaignForTheWicked: Completely averted. Every game has at least one campaign where you play as the villains. Played straight in ''VII'', however, where the Inferno faction doesn't exist in the game. |
| 427 | * NoCanonForTheWicked: Zigzagged in ''I'' (where the Knight wins, but the manual shows that he isn't a particularly good guy) and played straight in ''II'' (where Roland wins); ''III'' starts averting this, with all of its campaigns (for the good and the wicked alike) being equally canonical. |
| 428 | * NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Try spotting all the celebrities used as model for the heroes' portraits in ''VI''. Starting with an easy one: Creator/CillianMurphy as [[https://mightandmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Anton_(Ashan)?file=HeroAntonVI.jpg Anton]]. |
| 429 | * NonStandardGameOver: In ''IV'', if Waerjak attacks the Boar's Hoof tribe, his tribe will deem his philosophy of community to be a lie and betray him, triggering one of these. |
| 430 | * NotWorthKilling: When CowardlyMooks is in effect, "The (enemy troops), awed by the power of your forces, begin to scatter. Do you wish to pursue and engage them?". The implication is that no, unless you really need the experience from fighting them, they're not worth it. |
| 431 | * NostalgiaLevel: Some scenarios in ''Heroes II'' make some Call Backs to ''Heroes I''. For example: |
| 432 | ** The final scenario of Roland's campaign, in which Roland lays siege to Castle Ironfist to depose Archibald, bears some resemblance to the scenario in ''Heroes I'' in which Slayer, Lamanda, or Alamar lays siege to Castle Ironfist. The castle is surrounded on three sides by mountains, and the only access is by sailing a boat up the river that borders the castle on its fourth side. |
| 433 | ** The second scenario of Archibald's campaign takes place in the Frozen Wastes in northern Enroth, which were the domain of Lord Slayer in ''Heroes I''. There is also a desert or wasteland south of the Frozen Wastes in both scenarios. |
| 434 | * ObfuscatingStupidity: The Nighon Overlord Mutare in ''III'' sets her sights on conquering the lands of Ordwald, a weakling neighbor who inherited his lands instead of [[KlingonPromotion taking them]] the Nighon way. Only partway through this invasion does she realize that Ordwald is actually a ''very'' dangerous Warlock who only looked weak because he was spending most of his resources digging in the deepest dungeons for an artifact of world-changing power. |
| 435 | * OddNameOut: Most members of the Griffin family in ''VI'' have real, if misspelled, Slavic names... except Sandor. Which makes sense in context, considering he's a bastard. |
| 436 | * OminousLatinChanting: |
| 437 | ** ''II'' started the whole chanting, and when it wasn't around in ''III'' aside from a couple of bars in the Necropolis music, some fans complained. |
| 438 | ** ''IV'' also got this for some of the town themes, particularly the Haven and Preserve towns. |
| 439 | ** ''V'' got generous amounts of this, especially for the menus and Haven faction. |
| 440 | * OrderVersusChaos: |
| 441 | ** The fourth game has this ''and'' BlackAndWhiteMorality. It was actually set up like a wheel with Order, Life, Nature, Chaos, Death, and back to Order, with Might in the center. Each of the non-Might factions has two rival factions based on which ones aren't adjacent to it on the wheel (Order hates Nature and Chaos, Life hates Chaos and Death, Nature hates Death and Order.) |
| 442 | ** ''V'' and ''VI'' also have this. Urgash, the Dragon of Chaos, is the entity worshipped by the demons. Everyone else, even the necromancers, worship Asha, the Dragon of Order (the other "good" dragon gods are her children). The necromancers have a somewhat dark take on Asha and refer to her as the Spider-Goddess. |
| 443 | * OurAngelsAreDifferent: |
| 444 | ** WordOfGod for the old setting was that there was something very weird about the angels there (likely in a science-fictional manner, from the context of the quote). ''Much'' later, exactly what was revealed in another WordOfGod: [[spoiler:they are essentially Ancient-designed [[ClarkesThirdLaw anti-Kreegan hunter-killer drones]], hence why their activity surges in ''Heroes 3'', a few years after the Kreegans arrive on the planet.]][[invoked]] |
| 445 | ** Seraphs in ''V'' are angels with ''blood-stained wings'' and ''vampire abilities''. |
| 446 | ** Archangel Sarah in ''VI'', after [[spoiler:she finds the demonic weapon. She seems to become half-angel, half-demon]]. |
| 447 | * OurDragonsAreDifferent: |
| 448 | ** ''Armageddon's Blade'' introduces crystal dragons, self-propelled crystalline golems in the shape of a dragon |
| 449 | ** The fourth game has ''dragon golems'', mechanical dragons piloted by dwarves. |
| 450 | ** In the fifth game, the gods of the setting ''are'' dragons; all the dragon units in the game (except for the undead ones, which are assembled from the remains of the others) are the "children" of the gods. They vary in appearance depending on which god they serve; one faction's dragons are made of ''fire'', ''lava'' and ''magma''. |
| 451 | ** There's also a wizard who became one, Dragon-Knights and Dragon's blood as a resource in ''VI''. Though ironically, ''VI'' toned down the prevalence of dragons to the point where only one ever crosses your path. ''Shades of Darkness'' brought back Black Dragons and Spectral Dragons along with the classic Dragon Utopia structure. |
| 452 | * OurElvesAreDifferent: In H5, there are the Sylvan wood elves and the Dungeon dark elves. Both hate each other [[spoiler:thanks to a demon's EvilPlan]]. The old setting had at least three races of elves, though only one of them properly showed up in the ''Heroes'' games (the High/Wood/Light elves. The Vori Snow Elf had a ''half-elf'' and ended up represented by the High/Wood/Light-elven Rampart town for ''Heroes Chronicles''). |
| 453 | * OurHydrasAreDifferent: Hydras are large, powerful monsters available to certain factions as high-tier units, and can usually attack multiple foes at once. They're explicitly many-headed snakes in the earlier games, but later installments depict them as quadrupedal creatures with elephantine gaits instead. ''IV'' has its hydras drag themselves along on only two sprawled limbs. The basic hydra in ''V'' has only three heads, but can be upgraded to a six-headed deep hydra or foul hydra. |
| 454 | * OurImpsAreDifferent: Imps are usually the tier 1 creature for the Inferno faction. Their stats are awful, usually second-worst only to [[JokeCharacter Peasants]]. They make up for it with their special ability, which is some form of ManaBurn or ManaDrain depending on the game. Plus, they can be used as CannonFodder to sacrifice and summon more powerful demons. |
| 455 | * OurLichesAreDifferent: Pretty standard "undead magi" in ''II'', ''III'' and ''V'', who are stated to have become this to study more magic. A Necromancer in ''VI'' can prolong their life by venom injections, and when all blood gets replaced with venom, he [[ItMakesSenseInContext becomes]] a [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]]. |
| 456 | * OurMermaidsAreDifferent: Portrayed as actual, fighting creatures in ''IV'' and ''VI'', though several other games have them as an interactive map location (which typically boosts the morale/luck of armies at sea). No matter what their state, they don't ever seem to be aligned with any larger faction, preferring to stick to the sea. In ''IV'', mermaids are summed up by the pirate Eight-Fingers Oba thus: |
| 457 | -->"They may be more beautiful than any woman you have seen, but they are as vicious as a blood-hungry shark!" |
| 458 | * OurOrcsAreDifferent: The orcs of the ''Tribes of the East'' ExpansionPack fit the Blizzard Orcs type. [[spoiler:But they act more like Tolkienian orcs in ''VideoGame/DarkMessiahOfMightAndMagic'']]. |
| 459 | * PatchworkMap: Different environments can be all over the place and nearby. The map editor in ''III'' at least will add a 1-tile border of dirt or sand so the lava doesn't merge with grass. |
| 460 | * PleaseSelectNewCityName: Averted in actual gameplay, but in the backstory the name of the Haven faction's Empire has changed over time based on which of the eight Ducal bloodlines the current Emperor comes from. Thus it's the Holy Falcon Empire during ''VI'', has become the Holy Griffin Empire by the time of ''VII'' and early ''V'', and rebrands itself again as the Holy Unicorn Empire at the end of ''V''. |
| 461 | * PlotDevice: In addition to their ''very'' useful properties in actual gameplay, in plot terms ''all sorts'' of epic reality-bending magic rites require a Tear of Asha to be consumed as a material component. Do you need to dispel a massive illusion from an entire kingdom? Reseal the barriers keeping the world from being invaded from AnotherDimension? Retrieve a legendary {{Arcology}} from the depths of FireAndBrimstoneHell? In this setting, it almost goes without saying that you'll need a Tear for that. |
| 462 | * PlotHole: GameplayAndStorySegregation generates one of these in the transition between the third and fourth game. The fourth game opens with the destruction of the world when Armageddon's Blade wielded by Gelu clashed with the Sword of Frost wielded by Kilgor, who acquired it at the end of ''Chronicles''. Actually playing ''Chronicles'' reveals that the sequence of events that led to Kilgor getting the Sword of Frost is only possible if Tarnum first defeated Gelu and confiscated Armageddon's Blade from him. The final mission of ''Chronicles'' is set up in a way that strongly encourages you to do this, and it's extremely difficult to finish the mission otherwise, which leaves one wondering how the battle at the start of the fourth game even happened. At least it's easily explained by the [[DependingOnTheWriter different writers]] of the two games. |
| 463 | * PlotlineDeath: Given the sheer number of commonplace powers in ''VI'' that are capable of casually resurrecting people killed in messy battlefield situations, it's quite impressive that Slava Griffin stayed dead when assassinated. |
| 464 | * PowerCopying: Some games have the Eagle Eye skill, allowing heroes to learn new spells by watching them being cast in battle. And it's considered one of the most useless skills in the game, as the usual requirements still apply, it'll usually only work on lower level spells, which are easy to find anyway. |
| 465 | * PowerUpLetdown: One of the worst things that could happen to you in ''III'' was to visit a hut to obtain a new skill and get Eagle Eye, or getting Navigation in a map with no water. |
| 466 | * PrequelInTheLostAge: ''VI'' is set in a time before the Necropolis got kicked out of the Academy (Wizard) faction and thus are still politically considered to be a part of it. Since the Academy wasn't actually set up as a playable faction in ''VI'' and the Necropolis was, this means that any time the plot calls for Wizards to appear or do anything, the Wizards in question happen to be Necromancers. |
| 467 | * PrestigeClass: Used in ''IV'', with the advanced hero classes that study two or more skills, and ''VI'', as a reward for earning enough [[CharacterAlignment blood or tears points]]. |
| 468 | * PrimaryColorChampion / SecondaryColorNemesis: The "Slugfest" map from ''II'' plays both these tropes perfectly straight: the yellow, blue and red players on the left-hand side of the map start with good-aligned Wizard, Knight and Sorceress towns, while the orange, green and purple players on the right-hand side start with evil-aligned Warlock, Barbarian and Necromancer towns. |
| 469 | * PublicDomainArtifact: |
| 470 | ** The artifact needed for a special, powerful structure (often a InstantWinCondition) was called the [[HolyGrail Grail]] in ''Heroes III'' and ''VI''. ''V'' got a bit more creative by calling it the "Tear of Asha", but there are still instances where the building is called the "[[ArtifactName Grail structure]]". |
| 471 | ** The Grail in ''III'' and Tear of Asha in ''V'' are especially notable for bearing no small resemblance to [[Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk a certain ark]]. |
| 472 | * PutOnABus: |
| 473 | ** Findan and Raelag from V don't appear at all in ''Tribes of the East'' [[spoiler:unless you count the one stand-alone scenario which shows how Agrael/Raelag ended up [[StalkerWithACrush watching over Isabel as she grew up]].]] They both have excuses though, Findan's busy rebuilding his country after civil war broke out in ''Hammers of Fate'', and Raelag [[spoiler:left to deal with the threat of the Demon Messiah]]. |
| 474 | ** Arantir also immediately disappears after his campaign, a first for any leading protagonist. He is the antagonist in ''VideoGame/DarkMessiahOfMightAndMagic'' however. |
| 475 | * PuzzleBoss: A special case for this genre is present in the ''Armageddon's Blade''. In the mission to slay Faerie Dragons, it is necessary to defeat ''several thousand'' Nagas in a single battle, an enemy number that's impossible to match with troops or magic by the six month time limit. The solution? [[note]]Repeatedly cast Berserk on the Nagas to make them kill each other, whittling down their numbers until you can handle the winner yourself. This is merely the most popular solution; at least one alternative has been proposed, namely, keeping the nagas at bay with a Force Field or three while whittling them down with ranged units.[[/note]] |
| 476 | * RashPromise: After being trapped in a bottle for millennia, [[GenieInABottle Solmyr]] was so overjoyed that he swore to serve the man who freed him for as long as he walked this earth. Unfortunately, that man turned out to be an immortal and NighInvulnerable wizard, essentially forcing Solmyr into servitude for all eternity. He's finally freed of his vow in the fourth game thanks to a bit of LoopholeAbuse - both of them happen to end up [[ExactWords on another planet]]. |
| 477 | * RealIsBrown: |
| 478 | ** Generally avoided, but the third game got the closest. Freed from the 256-color constraints of the first two games, it favored a "realistic" art style with a subdued palette, as opposed to the vibrant colors found in the rest of the series. |
| 479 | ** ''VII'' also seems to have veered in this direction, with subdued colors for the 3D overland map and combat screen (but not the 2D town screens, oddly), in contrast to the quite colorful V and especially VI. |
| 480 | * RecurringLocation: ''VI'' had gorgeous maps and terrain, but due to a combination of map complexity and forbiddingly opaque mapmaking tools, making even one map took an enormous amount of time and attention for developers (or fan mapmakers) relative to prior games in the series. This shows throughout the campaign, where the action regularly revisits locations from earlier in the story. This makes for a handy ContinuityNod, but the real reason for it is pretty obvious to anyone who tried to get results out of the mapmaking tools. |
| 481 | * TheRedMage: The Battle Mage and the Witch in the third game are somewhat well-rounded overall for the caster hero type of their respective towns (the Fortress and the Stronghold), emphasizing how said towns are less magic-oriented than the other. |
| 482 | * RidiculouslyFastConstruction: |
| 483 | ** Regardless of how big (or small) the project is, you're limited to one construction a day, and it's built immediately. |
| 484 | ** In ''VI'', Might Heroes can get a skill that lets you build a second structure in a town that's already built something that turn. |
| 485 | * RocBirds: Rocs are a Stronghold army creature, upgradeable to {{Thunderbird}}. |
| 486 | * RockMonster: Earth Elementals, neutral, bulky and sturdy creatures made of rock, with some immunities. |
| 487 | * RoleReversalBoss: The series generally puts the player in control of a hero leading an army, leading the army into battle against other heroes' armies and the occasional boss. However, in the first mission of Kiril's campaign in the 6th game, Kiril succumbs to DemonicPossession by the demon Azkaal, and the player takes on the role of Azkaal as he [[OneManArmy single-handedly]] slaughters an army led by Kiril's ally Xana. |
| 488 | * RPGElements: You use heroes as generals leading armies, walking around the map killing stuff and [[CharacterLevel gaining levels]], finding artifacts, and learning spells. The fourth game took this even further by making the heroes actual battlefield units, culminating in several campaign scenarios where you only have access to heroes. |
| 489 | * SadlyMythtaken: The same unit based on mythology creatures can change their appearance between games, all thanks to DependingOnTheArtist. |
| 490 | * SavingTheWorld: Used along TakeOverTheWorld, depending on whether you're playing as the good guys or the bad guys at the time. |
| 491 | * SavageWolves: Wolves have been in every game since ''I'', and in the first four games they hit twice when attacking (but only once when retaliating). There are even wolf raiders (ridden by goblins) in ''III''. Then there are the neutral wolves of ''V'', which can easily multiply their number and all of the surrounding stacks attack the target during every action one of them has, making them nasty opponents even for decent-sized armies. And finally there are the white and dire wolves from ''VI''. In ''VII'', the Haven can recruit them as a form of war beast. |
| 492 | * SavedByCanon: |
| 493 | ** Since it's a prequel and he appears (however briefly) in the original, any veteran player who plays through ''The Shadow of Death'' can probably guess that [[spoiler:the heroes don't have a chance of actually ''killing'' [[BigBad Sandro]].]] The "secret" epilogue campaign confirms this. |
| 494 | ** Since ''VI'' takes place four centuries before ''V'' and Angels are still around and plentiful as the Haven's most powerful troops in ''V'', veteran players picking up ''VI'' already know that Uriel's fears about the survival of his species turn out not to come true. |
| 495 | * ScaledUp: Mutare in ''Armageddon's Blade''. |
| 496 | * SceneryPorn: Practically every town is breathtakenly detailed, most notably in ''III'' and ''V''. |
| 497 | * ScienceFantasy: |
| 498 | ** Averted. In ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'', it's established that Enroth is one of many Ancient spaceship-colonies, but the HOMM games kept Ancient technology entirely off-screen[[note]]there are a few flavour texts here and there that look a bit suspicious in the context of ''Might & Magic'', but nothing that would stand out without the context[[/note]]. Then there's [[ClarkesThirdLaw a few explanations for magic]] that could be easily ignored. |
| 499 | ** There was going to be a Forge town at one point in the development of ''HOMM III'' with a more technological feel, but fan backlash got it scrapped. |
| 500 | ** "Ghost Planet" is a fan-made map included in ''Heroes of Might and Magic II Gold'' that was blatantly science fantasy, featuring things like centaurs being created through genetic recombination and elves being thawed out from cryosleep. |
| 501 | * SdrawkcabName: Erutan Revol, the hero of the elven campaign in ''IV: Winds of War'' ("Nature Lover" backwards). |
| 502 | * SequentialBoss: |
| 503 | ** The Demon Sovereign and Biara in the finale of ''V''. First, the four main heroes have to defeat Biara in seperate battles, then destroy the barrier surrounding the Demon Sovereign in separate battles, and finally defeat him for real in seperate battles. And thats not counting the garrisons they have to conquer first. The last mission is essentially 12 battles in one day, though some of them can be pretty short. |
| 504 | ** In the second mission of Inferno campaign, Agrael has to fight the knight Stephan, and then fight Veyer immediately afterwards. Thankfully [[AntiFrustrationFeatures it's not necessary to win against Veyer]]. |
| 505 | ** Godric counts as a minor example in Markal's campaign. Once his army (consisting of Academy units) is defeated, his Haven troops take the field immediately. |
| 506 | ** Markal himself also counts in the final campaign, as you have to fight him three times in quick sucsession. |
| 507 | * SignificantAnagram: [[spoiler:Agrael/Raelag]] in ''Heroes V''. |
| 508 | * SimultaneousArcs: |
| 509 | ** In ''Hammers of Fate'', second and third campaigns (and part of the first) all span roughly the same period of time. |
| 510 | ** The base campaigns in ''VI'', with several cutscenes where two storylines cross paths. The two final missions (one for blood, one for tears-aligned heroes) also seem to take place at the same time, with the same opening and final cutscene. |
| 511 | * The first three campaigns in ''III'', ''Long Live the Queen'', ''Dungeons & Devils'' and ''Spoils of War'' take place roughly concurrently with one another. ''Long Live the Queen'' and ''Dungeons & Devils'' both feature actions done in reaction to events in the other campaign, while ''Spoils of War'' ends a couple of months before the penultimate mission of the fourth campaign. ''Restoration of Erathia'' as a whole takes place simultaneously with ''Might and Magic VI''. |
| 512 | * ShadesOfConflict: |
| 513 | ** Though the original game [[ExcusePlot doesn't even have too much of a plot]], what we ''do'' have is surprisingly [[GreyAndGrayMorality grey and gray]], if not [[BlackAndGrayMorality black and gray]]. At least the protagonist, Lord Morglin Ironfist, is by no means a classic good guy, and we don't know much of the personalities of other faction leaders. |
| 514 | ** ''Heroes II: The Succession Wars'', on the other hand, is fairly [[BlackAndWhiteMorality black and white]], with Roland as the good guy and Archibald as the bad guy. |
| 515 | ** ''The Price of Loyalty'' again seems to have some shades of gray. "The Voyage Home" features the protagonist's sister rebelling against their king, forcing him to choose sides. Neither side is presented as a clear-cut hero or villain, and regardless of who wins, the protagonist is not fully happy with the outcome. |
| 516 | ** And ''Heroes III: The Restoration of Erathia'' again seems to be mostly black and white, with Erathia and its allies, Bracada and [=AvLee=], as the good guys. Though the game does seem to have "neutral" factions, "Fortress" (Tatalia) and "Stronghold" (Krewlod), the role they play in the campaign, as opportunistic rival nations seeking to expand their territory, makes them just another bunch of bad guys, with an EvilVersusEvil conflict between them in the last mission of "Spoils of War". |
| 517 | ** The "secret" campaign Seeds of Discontent puts an independence-seeking rebel group (represented by Rampart) tired of the constant fighting over the region between militias loyal to Erathia (Castle) and [=AvLee=] (also Rampart), but the campaign is not ''exactly'' canonical[[note]]The background is accurate, but the protagonists of the campaign must have failed by the second scenario at the latest for certain plot elements in later games to make sense[[/note]]. |
| 518 | ** The ''Armageddon's Blade'' expansion's primary campaign has similar black and white morality, the demons want to use the titular sword to destroy the world, though sadly, not all of the good factions seem to grasp this. |
| 519 | ** ''Heroes Chronicles'' starts grey, goes black and white, then grey again, and keeps alternating. For example, Tarnum, before he became the Immortal Hero, was just a shepherd who wanted freedom for his people. In achieving this, he committed numerous atrocities. When he's sent back after death to atone for his crimes by the gods, his first task is unambiguously good (help the newborn kingdom of Erathia save a good man's soul from the underworld, where it doesn't belong), but a later one has him become a Dungeon Overlord, albeit in attempt to save the world. [[spoiler:Which fails.]] |
| 520 | ** In ''Heroes IV'', the Life, Might, and Nature campaigns are mostly black and white, with you playing as the good guy. The Order campaign is more complicated, though Emilia is unambiguously TheHero of the campaign, and the [[FallenHero former good guy]] Gavin Magnus is the BigBad, the way he becomes said villain is rather interesting, and of course there is Solymr ibn Wali Barad, a well-meaning genie who is bound by loyalty to Gavin Magnus and hence is forced to fight Emilia. The Death campaign casts you as a rather dark AntiHero who is forced to fight the supposed "good guys" just to survive, and [[spoiler:then saves the world from his former mentor]]. The Chaos campaign seems to be a case of EvilVersusEvil. |
| 521 | * ShadowDiscretionShot: In the opening cinematic for the campaign mode in the second game, the assassination by poison of the third Royal Seer is shown through shadows on the wall, and an empty cup rolling across the table after his shadow collapses. |
| 522 | * SheduAndLammasu: ''VI'' features Lamasus that are [[InNameOnly drastically different]] from either the mythical or fantasy versions, being corrupted attempts by the Academy faction to fuse humans and manticores to create stronger beastmen. The resulting creatures were [[HybridsAreACrapshoot badly-made and short-lived]], but the Necropolis mages stole the bodies and raised them as undead. The resulting horrors resemble cadaverous lions with bladed tails, draconic wings, and human heads, and spread rot and disease wherever they go. |
| 523 | * ShootTheMessenger: An enormous number of campaign missions or stand-alone scenarios feature stories in which the villain announces their evil intent by brutally murdering the protagonist's messengers or diplomats. Total disregard for diplomatic immunity is such a universal trait of Heroes villains that Tarnum in ''Chronicles'' announces right in the first mission of his first campaign that he isn't going to trade envoys with anyone. |
| 524 | * ShoutOut: |
| 525 | ** The cheat codes in ''Heroes III'' and its expansions reference different movies: the original does ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'', Armageddon's Blade references ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'', and Shadow of Death follows ''Film/TheMatrix''. |
| 526 | ** With names like Malekith, Nagash, and Bretonnia, it looks like someone on the ''Heroes III'' team was a big fan of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}''. |
| 527 | ** Ogre Magi casting the spell Bloodlust is a deliberate shout out to ''VideoGame/WarcraftII'', according to lead designer Greg Fulton in an interview. |
| 528 | ** The bonus campaign in ''Armageddon's Blade'' has a ''lot'' of pop culture references, starting but not finishing with ''Literature/TheWonderfulWizardOfOz''. |
| 529 | ** The Gremlin creatures in ''Heroes V'' look exactly like the ones from the [[Film/{{Gremlins}} movie]]. |
| 530 | ** In ''Might and Magic V: Tribes of the East'': |
| 531 | --->'''Gotai:''' [[WesternAnimation/SouthPark You killed Khengi. You bastard!]] |
| 532 | ** The icon for the taunt skill in ''Heroes VI'' shows the [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail taunting frenchman]]. And, though it may be a coincidence, there is a Cleric hero described as [[Literature/TheNameOfTheRose a bookworm, open-minded, with great deductive skills]]. He's named [[Creator/UmbertoEco Umberto]]. |
| 533 | ** There is a city in one of the campaigns that is named Music/{{Hammerfall}}. |
| 534 | ** The ''Heroes VI'' missions are part {{Literary Allusion Title}}s, part TitledAfterTheSong, and part film homages: |
| 535 | *** Necropolis missions are named after songs by the appropriately-named Music/DeadCanDance; |
| 536 | *** Haven missions are named after lines from the works of Creator/WilliamShakespeare; |
| 537 | *** Sanctuary missions are named after lines from the works of Creator/WilliamButlerYeats; |
| 538 | *** Inferno missions are named after lines from the works of Creator/WilliamBlake (''The Tyger'' and ''The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell''); |
| 539 | *** Stronghold missions are named after various Westerns; |
| 540 | *** The finale missions are taken from Creator/JohnMilton's ''Literature/ParadiseLost''; |
| 541 | *** And the missions from ''Shadow of Darkness'' are derived from Creator/HPLovecraft's Franchise/CthulhuMythos. |
| 542 | * SonsOfSlaves: |
| 543 | ** During the demon invasion of 330YSD, the [[OurOrcsAreDifferent orcs]] were born from a series of experiments conducted by the wizards of the Silver Cities, infusing demon blood into criminals and slaves. They were first used as shock troops and demon-slayers by human armies, and later as indentured mine-workers by the Falcon Empire. In 467YSD, the orcs started a rebellion against their human masters which lasted until they won their freedom in 504YSD. |
| 544 | ** A second series of experiments in 512YSD created the [[BeastMan Beastmen]] (including [[OurMinotaursAreDifferent Minotaurs]], [[OurCentaursAreDifferent Centaurs]], [[HarpingOnAboutHarpies Harpies]], and [[SharkMan Wanizame]]); they were intended to replace the orcs as slaves, [[HistoryRepeats and many of them ended up rebelling like the orcs before them]]. |
| 545 | * TheSmurfettePrinciple: Sephinroth is described as the only female Warlock in ''III''. |
| 546 | * SquareRaceRoundClass: Yog, a half-genie who prefers the barbarian life of the tribes of Krewlod to the stuffy wizard academies of Bracada. |
| 547 | * StandardFantasySetting: Yes and no for the original verse. The ''setting'' isn't quite standard (as evidenced by the fact that ClarkesThirdLaw has an entry on this page), but you wouldn't know that from just playing the ''Heroes'' games. Played straight for the Ashan continuity. |
| 548 | * StandardSnippet: ''II'' and ''III'' feature commonly used jingles from EW Scoring Tools music library, composed by Lisa Bloom-Cohen. |
| 549 | * StartOfDarkness: |
| 550 | ** [[spoiler:Arantir]]'s campaign in ''Tribes of the East'' explains why he becomes the [[spoiler:WellIntentionedExtremist BigBad of ''VideoGame/DarkMessiahOfMightAndMagic'']]. |
| 551 | ** ''The Shadow of Death'' acts as [[spoiler:Sandro]]'s ProtagonistJourneyToVillain, though he wasn't a good person to begin with, the campaign tells the tale of his rise to power and how he basically [[spoiler:started the Restoration Wars]]. It also explains why [[spoiler:Sandro can be found in a prison during the necromancer campaign of the third game]]. |
| 552 | * StoneWall: |
| 553 | ** The Ogres in the first and second game, in contrast to the otherwise offensively-oriented barbarian units. They move slowly and have moderately strong attacks, but have good defense and take a lot of damage. |
| 554 | ** The Fortress's speciality in the third game. Most of its units are slow but have high defense, and the Beastmaster has high defense growths. |
| 555 | * SuddenSequelHeelSyndrome: [[spoiler:Lord Haart]], who'd been a Knight hero since the first game, turns out to be a member of a Necromantic cult (as hinted in his bio) in the third game, and is ultimately a traitor who gets killed off at the end of the game. |
| 556 | * SymmetricEffect: In '''III''': |
| 557 | ** The spell Armageddon deals massive damage to all creatures on the battlefield. Although it has the highest damage for an AreaOfEffect spell, the cost is usually not worth it. However, you can break the symmetry using units that are immune to fire magic or immune to magic in general, letting you cast the spell with no downside. |
| 558 | ** The artifact Shackles of War prevents both players from surrendering or retreating from a fight. This can be hugely advantageous if you're certain to win the fight since you'll be able to steal the enemy's artifacts, but it's horrible if you get ambushed by a larger army. |
| 559 | ** Spirit of Oppression and Hourglass of the Evil Hour remove all positive morale or luck modifiers in combat respectively. The former is especially good for [[FearlessUndead Necropolis]] and [[ElementalEmbodiment Conflux]] since their troops don't have morale to begin with. |
| 560 | * TacticalSuperweaponUnit: ''III'' has the Azure Dragon, a juggernaut of a creature that has 1000 health, flight, a piercing breath attack, a passive fear aura that causes all enemies to suffer bad morale, and magic resistance. It's no surprise that the manual describes them as Tier 10 creatures [[OffTheChart when the highest tier otherwise is 7]]. They can only be acquired from the Adventure map once per week for the high price of 30,000 Gold and 20 Mercury per dragon, and you need to fight three of them in order to claim their dwelling. |
| 561 | * TacticalRockPaperScissors: |
| 562 | ** ''[[MagikarpPower Elitist Factions]]'': The Dungeon. Low weekly growths and high unit/building costs, but its units are very powerful, especially its dragons which are typically the strongest creatures in the game. Castle in ''III'' and Haven in ''VII'' are this as well, while their ranged units are relatively fragile and don't do much later on, out of seven units in town, ''four of them'' can be considered the best on their level. |
| 563 | ** ''[[ZergRush Spammer Factions]]'': The Necropolis. Its individual units are quite weak compared to others, but it tends to have high weekly growth, and necromancers can raise overwhelming amounts of creatures with their necromancy skill. Necropolis' role as Spammer in ''III'' is further exaggerated by the relatively easy-to-get [[SetBonus combination artifact]] Cloak of the Undead King, that only works for full effect for Necropolis heroes. It is quite a superweapon that causes dead enemies to be resurrected as fairly powerful liches (shooters with AreaOfEffect attack) instead of measly skeletons. It is not uncommon to raise armies of thousands of liches with the Cloak. In a quite an interesting twist, Necropolis in ''VI'' became a mixup of ''Technical Faction'' and ''Elitist Faction'' due to the rework of Necromancy (which allows to raise your fallen troops in battle instead of tons of skeletons). And in VII, one ability allows you to raise ghosts from necromancy, giving you all that much more power. The original game's Knight town was this, the Conflux in ''III'', and the Inferno of ''V'' and ''VI'' thanks to their Gating-skill count as well, with low-tier units being rather weak, but coming in high growth rates. |
| 564 | ** ''[[DumbMuscle Brute Force Factions]]'': The Stronghold. In early games they were the tanks. In ''IV'' they can't use magic at all, and in ''V'' they can only use a special set of spell-like abilities designed specifically for them. In ''III'', Stronghold can use magic but their Mage Guild only goes up to level 3 instead of 5 (though seizing a non-Stronghold town takes care of that problem). The units also tend to be disposed towards "[[AttackAttackAttack attack before attacked]]" strategies due to the fact that most of them are {{Glass Cannon}}s. In ''V'' and ''VII'' they have the Bloodrage ability, which boosts offensive capabilities but you lose some of it if you wait or defend. |
| 565 | ** ''[[LongRangeFighter Ranger Factions]]'': The [[OurElvesAreDifferent Sylvan]] in ''V'', natch. Interestingly, Haven (humans) in ''IV'', they have an access to arguably the best ranged units (and Monks) in the game and outmatched only by the likes of Cyclops or Catapult (Crossbowmen who disregard the distance factor and Ballistas who do the same ''and'' disregard the obstacle penalty respectively), while their counterparts (Squires, Pikemen and Crusaders in that order) are fairly average in their own rights. |
| 566 | ** ''[[MasterOfNone Balanced Factions]]'': Sylvan in ''VII''. The Racial skill isn't really heavily specialized, and most of the units are average. |
| 567 | ** ''[[TheSmartGuy Technical Factions]]'': The Academy specializes heavily in magic, and in ''V'' can even develop equipment for creatures to improve their statistics. For the Fortress in III, sans first two tiers, every unit has some special ability (Dragonflies dispel buffs and put a debuff on their own, Gorgons have an ability to one-shot everything, depending on certain stats; Hydras attack everyone around and stop retaliations.) [[DifficultButAwesome It's hard to put them to a good use, but if you do...]] Also Fortress (with Dwarves) in ''V'' and ''VII'', with their Rune Magic Mechanic, which provides buffs to your units independently of magic. |
| 568 | ** ''[[StealthExpert Guerilla Factions]]'': Dungeon in ''VI'' and ''VII''. Their racial skills revolve around stealth, invisibility, and mobility. |
| 569 | * TacticalTurnBased: All battles play out like this on a hex grid and unit positioning matters. ''IV'' and on use a square grid instead. |
| 570 | * TakeYourTime: ''VI'' contains quite possibly the ultimate example of this trope. [[spoiler:Irina Griffin starts her campaign pregnant from Gerhard's [[MaritalRapeLicense abuse]]]] but you're free to play through the relevant campaign for far more than [[spoiler:nine months]] of in-game time without it ever mattering. |
| 571 | * TatteredFlag: Found in the ruins in the intro of ''Heroes III''. |
| 572 | * {{Thunderbird}}: ''III'' and ''IV'' have Thunderbirds as flying units for the Stronghold faction, upgraded from the {{Roc|Birds}}. Whenever they attack an enemy unit, there is a chance that the unit will be struck by a lightning bolt, dealing extra damage. |
| 573 | * TokenHeroicOrc: ''Heroes I'' and ''II'' feature Maximus, an Orcish knight, as the hero of the Knight Town. Orcs feature only as Barbarian/Stronghold units and neutral creeps otherwise. |
| 574 | * TrialAndErrorGameplay: All over the place. |
| 575 | ** It can be benificial in campaigns to lose on purpose just to see what the AI is doing before coming for you, then there's an issue of defeating them with limited resources. |
| 576 | ** Some campaigns give you little time to prepare before an enemy attack, so hope that you've build the right buildings to have good enough army. |
| 577 | ** [[GuideDangIt Not getting the right skills/spells combination]]? Restarting the entire campaign for you! |
| 578 | * TwoLinesNoWaiting: In the Academy campaign in ''IV'', the eight different maps are built up like this. The first two maps feature [[TheHero Emilia]], while the next two let you control a hero from the other side of the conflict, [[TheDragon Solymr]]. At the fifth map, you're back to Emilia again, and at the sixth map, Solymr undergoes a HeelFaceTurn. At the seventh map, you control Emilia and her player party at the surface of the map, and Solymr under the earth, both on different quests. Lastly, at the eight map, you get to control both in the final confrontation with the BigBad. |
| 579 | * UndefeatableLittleVillage: In the first Good campaign in ''III'', you join in the defense of Fair Feather, an otherwise unremarkable town that has held out against the invasion of all the lands around it because it is watched over by Angels for their own inscrutable purposes. If you explore the map enough, in the third Good campaign you can find ''another'' little town that has also held out for the exact same reason. |
| 580 | * TheUndead: Recurring villains throughout most of the series save for the ExpansionPack to the fifth game, where they become enemies of the demons, like the other races. |
| 581 | * UnholyNuke: |
| 582 | ** Death Ripple damages all non-undead units on the battlefield. |
| 583 | ** Unholy Word from ''V'' does the same, but also excludes demons. |
| 584 | ** Curse of the Netherworld, the ultimate ability of the Blood-aligned Reaper class for Necromancers in ''VI'', does considerable damage to all living stacks and heals all undead stacks at the same time. |
| 585 | * UnitsNotToScale: It's a stylised turn-based strategy game, after all, so in the overworld the mooks can be as big as half of a castle. |
| 586 | * UnwittingPawn: From ''V'', Isabel. [[spoiler:She's the pawn of ''two'' {{Evil Plan}}s ''in the same game'']]. Then the people of entire Ashan in ''VI''. |
| 587 | * UriahGambit: One of Tatalia's heroes in ''III'', Alkin, was given a military post by King Trallosk, who dislikes Alkin and privately hoped he would go and get himself killed on the battlefield. Much to the king's displeasure, Alkin has enjoyed a long and glorious career. |
| 588 | * UselessUsefulSpell: |
| 589 | ** The Hypnotize spell in ''III'' sounds pretty sweet, but in practice it's almost entirely useless. You can only use it to take control of creatures with a total amount of health equal to or less than your Spell Power x25. You need tens of Spell Power before you can even start taking anything worthwhile, and by that point your direct damage spells will be way more impactful. |
| 590 | ** [[UnholyNuke Curse of the Netherworld]] in ''V'' deals damage to all non-demon/undead units on the battlefield. Unfortunately, Demon Lords and Necromancers tend to have trouble raising their spellpower, and at the point that it starts becoming useful, Decay spam would probably out-damage it in the first place. |
| 591 | * VideoGameCrueltyPotential: |
| 592 | ** After ''I'', if your hero engages a wild army which is much weaker than you, they may try to scatter without fighting, or even ''offer to join you.'' There's nothing stopping you from just wiping them out for fun and experience points instead. ''V'' allows you to let them scatter, gaining half the experience you would have gotten if you chased them down and beat the crap out of them. |
| 593 | ** In ''I'' and ''II'', if you refused their offer to join you, they'd attack you anyway. Sometimes if you refused in ''III'', they will attack as well. This usually happened if you happened to have a hero of the same alignment as the creatures and possessed a stack of said creatures in your own army, which is one of the ways to trigger a large force to joining you if you're lucky. Alternatively, the unit was scripted to join you for the mission in question, but you refused ForTheEvulz. Finally, you could have a maxed Diplomacy skill and encounter a much more powerful monster, which certainly wouldn't run from you but thinks you're just swell. If you refuse them, however... |
| 594 | ** In ''VI'' pursuing weaker stacks and attacking those that offer to join you earns you Blood points, while letting them go and accepting their offers earns you Tear points. So there's additional incentive to be cruel or merciful. |
| 595 | ** If you have a mind-control type spell, you can get quite creative. For one, mind controlled units (at least in ''V'') can not retaliate, so you can surround and attack said unit [[AndIMustScream without it being able to do anything against its eventual demise]]. Alternatively, mind control a caster type unit and have it cast an offensive spell on itself, rather than its allies. Or cast Firewall and/or Landmines, and have the unit walk into the walls and mines. Repeatedly. |
| 596 | ** Using Peasants in ''III''. It's even noted in the manual that, due to their pathetic stats (they're the only ones with 1 in every column) and being free to recruit (since they are only found in external L1 creature banks, which are always free) the only real use for them is to kill them and turn them into skeletons, as they have a higher growth rate. |
| 597 | * VillainousBreakdown: |
| 598 | ** Sandro at the end of ''The Shadow of Death'' starts having nightmares about his defeat, needing to keep guards posted in his quarters so that he doesn't die in his dream [[YourMindMakesItReal and end the spell that's keeping him undead]]. |
| 599 | ** Alaric also gets a memorable one in ''Tribes of the East'', after he finds out that [[spoiler:Isabel is really the demon Biara in disguise. Understandable though, in that he spent the entirety of two games leading an anti-demon cult under orders from "Isabel", and very fervently at that.]] |
| 600 | * VillainousUnderdog: Despite the ominous opening cutscene in which they destroy the city of Cloudfire, the Nighon invasion in ''III'' turns out to be this. Their own campaign is a race against time to throw everything they have into a CapitalOffensive while the war is falling apart around them, and in any plausible playthrough they succeed at this with barely enough time to dig in before TheCavalry arrives to defeat them. The real threat was that their actions led every other power-hungry faction on the continent to launch wars of their own. |
| 601 | * VillainProtagonist: In several campaigns/scenarios throughout the series the player takes the role of an ''evil'' bastard. |
| 602 | ** In the 2nd game the player can take the role of [[BigBad Archibald Ironfist's]] [[TheDragon Dragon]]. |
| 603 | ** The third game's "Dungeons and Devils" campaign makes the player the commander of the invading forces of Nighon and the Kreegans, and its "Long Live the King" campaign gives them control of the necromancers of Deyja. |
| 604 | ** In the main campaign in ''Armageddon's Blade'', there are some segments where you play as the demons trying to forge and then use the titular weapon. In two of the other ''Armageddon's Blade'' campaigns, "Dragon's Blood" and "Festival of Life", you play as an ambitious young EvilOverlord named Mutare and the vicious barbarian Kilgor [[spoiler:who as mentioned above, ends up destroying the world later]]. |
| 605 | ** ''The Shadow of Death'' has an entire campaign in which you play through Sandro's StartOfDarkness, a few missions where you play as him in the finale campaign, as well as an entire secret campaign where you play through his Plan B after he's defeated for the first time. |
| 606 | ** The first episode of Heroes Chronicles, ''Warlords of the Wasteland'' featured the ruthless Tarnum, but he becomes TheAtoner in later episodes. |
| 607 | ** For the most part this trope is avoided in the fourth game, though you do play as [[TheDragon Solymr]] for a few missions in the "Price of Peace" campaign [[spoiler:prior to his HeelFaceTurn]]; Gauldoth and Tawni certainly aren't saints either, though their campaigns are mostly EvilVersusEvil. |
| 608 | ** The campaign of the fourth games's ''Winds of War'' expansion lets you play as at least three. The immense Life nation of Channon is being attacked by the five neighboring factions, and when their armies all meet on the outskirts of Channon's capital, the winner will lay claim to all five kingdoms. While none of the leaders can be described as entirely good people, Baron von Tarkin takes the cake, deciding to turn the kingdom into an undead army out of boredom. |
| 609 | ** And in the fifth game and its expansions there is only one campaign that fits this: "The Necromancer", in which you play Markal, who is arguably the most evil person in the series. |
| 610 | * VanillaUnit: |
| 611 | ** In the first two games, the Knight faction fits HumansAreAverage to an extreme, having [[BoringButPractical cost-efficient and well-statted creatures with no special abilities]]. The only unit with a special ability in the first game was the Paladin which attacks twice, while the second only added the Ranger that shoots twice and the Crusader that's immune to curses and deals 2x damage to Undead. Averted by their Castle successors in III, which added several new creatures with more diverse effects and gave new specials to existing creatures. |
| 612 | ** Any unit that can't fly, can't shoot, and doesn't have any immediate impact is nicknamed a walker, since all they can do on their first turn is walk towards the enemy. Most walkers have good stats to compensate, but those that can't even deliver on that are the worst creatures in the game. Walkers do at least fill the important role of defending your shooters from flyers that dive on them, since they threaten to counterattack and kill anything that moves too hastily. |
| 613 | * VideoGame3DLeap: From ''V'' forward the series uses 3D graphics instead of sprites. |
| 614 | * WarriorPoet: Girlaen from the fifth game is a literal example. He is an elf warrior who, after his first defeat, sends Agrael a poem about how he will seek a HeroicRematch. |
| 615 | * WeaponizedOffspring: Breeders and Mother Breeders in ''Heroes VI'' are demons whose bodies constantly generate imps, which they then command to fly kamikaze-style at the enemy. |
| 616 | * WeddingSmashers: In the opening of ''V'', courtesy of the demons. |
| 617 | %% * WellIntentionedExtremist: Some possible final antagonists of ''VI'' are particularly bad people, but the heroes are stuck opposing them anyway because either of them surviving would restart a ForeverWar. The final antagonists of the earlier faction campaigns [[ManipulativeBastard don't]] [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil have]] [[BeastOfTheApocalypse any]] [[EnemyWithin such]] [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils excuses]]. |
| 618 | * WhamLine: In the cutscene before "For King And Country," the last mission of the third game's campaign. |
| 619 | -->'''Queen Catherine''': There is one more order you must follow without question. [[spoiler:Lord Haart]] must not die. [[TheMole He is our traitor]]. |
| 620 | * WorldWreckingWave: At the beginning of ''IV''. When the Armageddon's Blade and the Sword of Frost caused the end of TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. |
| 621 | * WrongGenreSavvy: Much of the supporting cast in ''Armageddon's Blade'' assume the Kreegans are simply aiming for the usual conquest scheme and can be driven back; they don't understand that the demon king is mad and intends to destroy the world. |
| 622 | * YouAllMeetInAnInn: Save in ''I'', ''II'', and ''VI'', Taverns are your classic way of hiring new heroes. The only alternative is [[YouAllMeetInACell to liberate them from a prison]]. |
| 623 | * YouCantThwartStageOne: ''Armageddon's Blade'', the heroes try to stop the titular weapon from being created, but fail. For extra measure, you play as the Kreegans when they're carrying out the plan to create it. |
| 624 | * ZebrasAreJustStripedHorses: In the fourth game, heroes from the [[InHarmonyWithNature nature-themed]] Preserve faction use zebras as steeds. |
| 625 | * ZergRush: The Necropolis faction generally has the ability to convert a percentage of the casualties of any battlefield into Skeletons, so if your Necromancers fight enough battles against swarms or legions of peasants, they can raise swarms of skeletons. In certain scenarios (such as "Rebellion" in ''Heroes II'' or "Betrayal's End" in the ''The Price of Loyalty''), this is actually the best way to defeat the enemy. This gets ridiculous with the Cloak of the Undead King combination artifact in ''III'': a skilled enough necromancer can pull off a ZergRush... with [[EliteMooks Tier 5]] '''liches'''. |
| 626 | * ZombiePukeAttack: The Putrid Lamassu from ''VI'', a [[NonHumanUndead zombie sphinx]] that vomits parasites at opponents. |
| 627 | * ZombifyTheLiving: The Necropolis faction typically has access to an undead transformer that can convert living troops into undead. |
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