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MARREND PLAYS HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC 2!
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Marrend
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CloseWell, everyone...
...this is it. The final assault on Archibald. The scenario "bonus" is the self-same as Archibald Scenario 11. Naturally, we also have been given control over...
...the True King of Enroth, Roland Ironfist. Our other heroes include Luna (Sorceress), Tyro (Knight), Wilfrey (Wizard), with Sister Eliza (of course) joining the fray.
Here...
...is a screencap at the beginning of Week 2, Day 4. My heroes have been steadily moving to the northwest, where Archibald probably lies in wait. You can also see that I switched Roland to Wizard troops. The lava terrain, and unexplored territory, can look very similar on the mini-map, just like Green Player can seem "invisible" on a grassland terrain.
A few more in-game days later, and I suddenly get the peculiar sensation that the river is the only access to where Archibald is hanging out. I'll admit to extending Roland's movement capacity for several turns in a row via UGE. Even then, it's not until Week 3 Day 7 that we can complete this map.
Roland has Archibald turned to stone, and kept into the West Tower, with the possibility of being restored should future generations feel a need, or pity. Which is an interesting point, considering...
Restoring Archibald to life is a plot-quest for Might and Magic 6 - Mandate of Heaven. I'm not sure how old Prince Nicolai is, as of that game, but, I figure he's somewhere around seven or eight. Given that Nicolai is Roland's son, I figure that makes the events of MM6 maybe ten or nine years after HOMM2. Though, you'll have to forgive me if I remiss in recalling the exact circumstances surrounding his restoration.
I think it's a request of the Oracle, once you finally get to see the damn thing. More than that, though, I just can't recall.
...certain things. Roland being crowned king of Enroth, and marrying Catherine Griffinheart of Erathia, is a story moment that's not specifically covered in the franchise. However, it's an event that is relied upon, in some way, by Might and Magic 6 - Mandate of Heaven, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - Restoration of Erathia and Might and Magic 7 - For Blood and Honor. Might and Magic 8 - Day of the Destroyer might have a cameo of Roland and/or Catherine? It's certainly based in the same world as the aforementioned games.
Might and Magic 9 and Heroes of Might and Magic 4 were the last games 3DO made before declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and it... kinda showed. Like, I played MM9, and it was a complete mess of a game. It clearly needed some kind of Day 1 patch to be even remotely playable. Meanwhile HOMM4, I felt, was a better offering, but still feel very flat and uninspired.
As I may have mentioned in my World of Xeen LP, Ubisoft has since acquired the license, their first offering being Heroes of Might and Magic 5. Outside of expansions, they've also released HOMM6, HOMM7, and MM10. Of these, I've only really played the original HOMM5 and MM10. The combat of HOMM5 had more of a CTB feel to it, has a hero had their own turn separate from their units.
For full disclosure, when I first sat down to this, I was very much considering doing an LP of Heroes of Might and Magic 3. I have the Complete version, meaning that I'd be going through each of the campaigns across the three main content areas. I've UGEed HOMM3 save files to my heart's content, and I've made my own UGE modules to edit pretty much any value you could possibly imagine. However, it's a very tedious game to UGE. If ever I do end up doing an LP of HOMM3, I'll go into more detail. However, I'll leave it there for now.
*Edit: Oh, one more thing.
...this is it. The final assault on Archibald. The scenario "bonus" is the self-same as Archibald Scenario 11. Naturally, we also have been given control over...
...the True King of Enroth, Roland Ironfist. Our other heroes include Luna (Sorceress), Tyro (Knight), Wilfrey (Wizard), with Sister Eliza (of course) joining the fray.
Here...
...is a screencap at the beginning of Week 2, Day 4. My heroes have been steadily moving to the northwest, where Archibald probably lies in wait. You can also see that I switched Roland to Wizard troops. The lava terrain, and unexplored territory, can look very similar on the mini-map, just like Green Player can seem "invisible" on a grassland terrain.
A few more in-game days later, and I suddenly get the peculiar sensation that the river is the only access to where Archibald is hanging out. I'll admit to extending Roland's movement capacity for several turns in a row via UGE. Even then, it's not until Week 3 Day 7 that we can complete this map.
Roland has Archibald turned to stone, and kept into the West Tower, with the possibility of being restored should future generations feel a need, or pity. Which is an interesting point, considering...
Restoring Archibald to life is a plot-quest for Might and Magic 6 - Mandate of Heaven. I'm not sure how old Prince Nicolai is, as of that game, but, I figure he's somewhere around seven or eight. Given that Nicolai is Roland's son, I figure that makes the events of MM6 maybe ten or nine years after HOMM2. Though, you'll have to forgive me if I remiss in recalling the exact circumstances surrounding his restoration.
I think it's a request of the Oracle, once you finally get to see the damn thing. More than that, though, I just can't recall.
...certain things. Roland being crowned king of Enroth, and marrying Catherine Griffinheart of Erathia, is a story moment that's not specifically covered in the franchise. However, it's an event that is relied upon, in some way, by Might and Magic 6 - Mandate of Heaven, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - Restoration of Erathia and Might and Magic 7 - For Blood and Honor. Might and Magic 8 - Day of the Destroyer might have a cameo of Roland and/or Catherine? It's certainly based in the same world as the aforementioned games.
Might and Magic 9 and Heroes of Might and Magic 4 were the last games 3DO made before declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and it... kinda showed. Like, I played MM9, and it was a complete mess of a game. It clearly needed some kind of Day 1 patch to be even remotely playable. Meanwhile HOMM4, I felt, was a better offering, but still feel very flat and uninspired.
As I may have mentioned in my World of Xeen LP, Ubisoft has since acquired the license, their first offering being Heroes of Might and Magic 5. Outside of expansions, they've also released HOMM6, HOMM7, and MM10. Of these, I've only really played the original HOMM5 and MM10. The combat of HOMM5 had more of a CTB feel to it, has a hero had their own turn separate from their units.
For full disclosure, when I first sat down to this, I was very much considering doing an LP of Heroes of Might and Magic 3. I have the Complete version, meaning that I'd be going through each of the campaigns across the three main content areas. I've UGEed HOMM3 save files to my heart's content, and I've made my own UGE modules to edit pretty much any value you could possibly imagine. However, it's a very tedious game to UGE. If ever I do end up doing an LP of HOMM3, I'll go into more detail. However, I'll leave it there for now.
*Edit: Oh, one more thing.
Call me curious, but I installed the Price of Loyalty expansion. Under regular circumstances, the PoL expansion disallows negative spell power in that UGEing a hero's spell power below 1 would have the hero-screen set it to one, with the game reacting as it if were 1. On the other hand, UGEing it above 99 would have the hero-screen set it to 99, and the game would act as if it were 99.
So, what I did was start a game, set up a hero with 21 Spell Power, and tossed up Cheat Engine to see what things accessed the address that hero's spell power. I don't know about specifically Armageddon, but, there was a trace to that variable when entering combat that returned three addresses. I don't pretend to know what this all means, and I don't know the specific addresses within the EXE, but, what I'm effectively looking at is something like...
...this? I'm supposing the value to set based on this post, with 0x80 translating to either 128 or -128, depending on whither or not it's a signed byte. What I don't know is if I do happen across these values/addressees in the EXE, itself, is if any of them will do the thing I'm looking for. Which is, specifically, "negative Armageddon". The way the spell it was meant to beTM.
I'll let the thread know if I have any success, of course. However, as of this writing, I'm not inclined to go through the campaigns within the Price of Loyalty expansion.
*Edit: Welp! This went absolutely nowhere! However, for what it's worth, there is two bits of curiosity in regards to Heroes 3. One I've already confirmed and the other should be momentarily.
So, what I did was start a game, set up a hero with 21 Spell Power, and tossed up Cheat Engine to see what things accessed the address that hero's spell power. I don't know about specifically Armageddon, but, there was a trace to that variable when entering combat that returned three addresses. I don't pretend to know what this all means, and I don't know the specific addresses within the EXE, but, what I'm effectively looking at is something like...
address: 009F357F
value: 8B 04 08
opcode: mov eax,[eax+ecx]
address: 009F3677
value: 8A 04 08
opcode: mov al,[eax+ecx]
address: 0040D4B6
value: 8B 14 18
opcode: mov edx,[eax+ebx]
target address: ???????
value: BA 80
opcode: mov edx,80
...this? I'm supposing the value to set based on this post, with 0x80 translating to either 128 or -128, depending on whither or not it's a signed byte. What I don't know is if I do happen across these values/addressees in the EXE, itself, is if any of them will do the thing I'm looking for. Which is, specifically, "negative Armageddon". The way the spell it was meant to beTM.
I'll let the thread know if I have any success, of course. However, as of this writing, I'm not inclined to go through the campaigns within the Price of Loyalty expansion.
*Edit: Welp! This went absolutely nowhere! However, for what it's worth, there is two bits of curiosity in regards to Heroes 3. One I've already confirmed and the other should be momentarily.
On a lark, I reinstalled the Price of Loyalty expansion, and putzed around (as one does in a HoM&M game). But then I thought, what if I LPed the campaigns? It's quite the act of necromancy for this thread, though, this is the Month of Necromancy, isn't it? XD
Anyway, as a brief primer, the Price of Loyalty expansion adds new artifacts, places to visit, four self-contained campaigns, and, as noted before, a new set of tracks for each of the castle types. The cost of these features, however, included a fix to hero stats so that they would not fall below 0, nor rise above 99. I'd certainly have to deviate from my usual play-style due to Armageddon no longer being able to deal negative damage!
While I might not mind changing up my play-style (have no doubts that I would still UGE the hell of of my games), the question, though, is if there is any interest in expanding this LP into the Price of Loyalty content?
If nothing else, while looking around for ways to maybe mod the game so that Armageddon could deal negative damage, I found an awesome metal cover of Combat 3, my favorite combat theme in this game.
Anyway, as a brief primer, the Price of Loyalty expansion adds new artifacts, places to visit, four self-contained campaigns, and, as noted before, a new set of tracks for each of the castle types. The cost of these features, however, included a fix to hero stats so that they would not fall below 0, nor rise above 99. I'd certainly have to deviate from my usual play-style due to Armageddon no longer being able to deal negative damage!
While I might not mind changing up my play-style (have no doubts that I would still UGE the hell of of my games), the question, though, is if there is any interest in expanding this LP into the Price of Loyalty content?
If nothing else, while looking around for ways to maybe mod the game so that Armageddon could deal negative damage, I found an awesome metal cover of Combat 3, my favorite combat theme in this game.
