If you love Heroes of Might and Magic II do check out this open source reimplementation

Looking at the reported issues it seems the AI might still be problematic.

There is also project VCMI doing the same for Heroes 3 https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi

There is also project VCMI doing the same for Heroes 3 https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi

Yup, we're following that too but no new release for some time now.

Yup, we're following that too but no new release for some time now.

Yea, they havent made stable release for almost 5 years now. But Fedora for example has 2 years old build in its repos. Although as far as I remember this also had some AI issues last time I tried it, but thats some time ago.

It is still active project and they explain why they dont make big releases.

As of January 2021, we dont make big official releases anymore, but instead we provide a new version every several days: everytime when there is a new feature finished or new bug fixed.
Although there are no official "big releases", we reccomend updating the game at least twice a year, to make sure you have an updated, best version.
We try not to break savegame files compatibility, so you shouldnt have problem returning to your old games after update.
Please see corresponding "installation on" articles for details for your platform.

Not sure where or how those new versions are provided though.
Edit: I see now, they only offer it for certain distros https://wiki.vcmi.eu/Installation_on_Linux otherwise needs to be build from source.


Last edited by Solitary on 20 May 2021 at 11:02 am UTC

Is there a scaling option for high resolutions? Everything is so tiny...

Not sure where or how those new versions are provided though.
Edit: I see now, they only offer it for certain distros https://wiki.vcmi.eu/Installation_on_Linux otherwise needs to be build from source.

They provide only source. Upstream packages for distros in many cases contain old version (except ppa).

Thats why most of distros (who still maintain the VCMI) update the game in their repositories every few months, sometimes weeks. In the same way we work in Mandriva. See below:
https://github.com/OpenMandrivaAssociation/vcmi/blob/master/vcmi.spec


Last edited by DamonLinuxPL on 20 May 2021 at 2:47 pm UTC

Is there a scaling option for high resolutions? Everything is so tiny...

Try F4.
Or for SDL2 you can stretch the window itself.
Also, try to prefer not extremely high resolution. Simple HD would be enough even for large screens.

Great project indeed, its development is so fast! Sad that VCMI don't get the same attention though.

Is there a scaling option for high resolutions? Everything is so tiny...

Try F4.
Or for SDL2 you can stretch the window itself.
Also, try to prefer not extremely high resolution. Simple HD would be enough even for large screens.

I think he was thinking like play in full screen in 1920*1080 for example but I may be wrong, I tested it and I agree with him.
But I didn't test another resolution to see if it's better...


Last edited by Cyril on 20 May 2021 at 6:38 pm UTC

The HD mod for heroes 3 is great on windows so I don't think non-linux users have the same incentive to work on vcmi. I believe it should work in wine, but haven't tried for a while.

The HD mod for heroes 3 is great on windows so I don't think non-linux users have the same incentive to work on vcmi. I believe it should work in wine, but haven't tried for a while.

It works perfectly.

The HD mod for heroes 3 is great on windows so I don't think non-linux users have the same incentive to work on vcmi. I believe it should work in wine, but haven't tried for a while.

It works perfectly.

Am I the only who play Heroes III without the HD mode?

The HD mod for heroes 3 is great on windows so I don't think non-linux users have the same incentive to work on vcmi. I believe it should work in wine, but haven't tried for a while.

It works perfectly.

Am I the only who play Heroes III without the HD mode?

I use it, but not to have HD resolution, but because it also includes some small quality of life improvements, especially when moving armies between heroes.

I use it, but not to have HD resolution, but because it also includes some small quality of life improvements, especially when moving armies between heroes.

What do you mean by "small quality of life improvements"? This game is perfect period.
No seriously, you mean like move all troops in one click? I play mostly with only one hero so...

What do you mean by "small quality of life improvements"? This game is perfect period.
No seriously, you mean like move all troops in one click? I play mostly with only one hero so...

There're dozens of places, where fans improved gameplay, making it more comfortable and enjoyable. (I'm talking about mostly UI)
Also, each game always has some flaws after release and can be improved in some gameplay aspects. Original HoMM game has them too, and I'm 100% sure you're abusing them. ) I'm not against fixing them and making game as it was supposed to be.


Last edited by fheroes2 on 20 May 2021 at 9:00 pm UTC

I use it, but not to have HD resolution, but because it also includes some small quality of life improvements, especially when moving armies between heroes.

What do you mean by "small quality of life improvements"? This game is perfect period.
No seriously, you mean like move all troops in one click? I play mostly with only one hero so...

From the top of my head:

Move all troops in one click,
Move all artifacts in one click,
Being able to auto result a battle,
Being able to actually quit/load the game during battle


Last edited by Rooster on 20 May 2021 at 9:19 pm UTC

I use it, but not to have HD resolution, but because it also includes some small quality of life improvements, especially when moving armies between heroes.

What do you mean by "small quality of life improvements"? This game is perfect period.
No seriously, you mean like move all troops in one click? I play mostly with only one hero so...

From the top of my head:

Move all troops in one click,
Move all artifacts in one click,
Being able to auto result a battle,
Being able to actually quit/load the game during battle

OK the 4th is nice, the rest I can live without, I rarely transfers things between heroes and I never wanted to auto result battles so I'm fine.

HoMM 2 was the first game in the series I ever played, and I loved it.
Being an old school gamer I'm genuinely happy that there are so many open source projects keeping these classic games alive today.

HoMM 2 was the first game in the series I ever played, and I loved it.
Being an old school gamer I'm genuinely happy that there are so many open source projects keeping these classic games alive today.

I started with Heroes III on my side. But yesterday I seriously tried Heroes II with fheroes2, big map, hard mode, it run very well! Graphically it's another world, but after a while you get used to it, and even old it's still charming.
It's very interesting to see the differences between the two games thought, some things are bad, some are better.

For me, after only some hours in-game, the worst is the hero's inventory that is so tiny, and didn't find a way to sell them after discovered the majority of the map and multiple towns. But in fact, you don't have an inventory with some active artifacts and some disabled, all you carry is active.
The possibility to buy all creatures from a building in one click is nice, curious they removed it in the III.
Magic spells seems a lot easier to me as apparently there isn't Magic elements Skills, so no specialization to get powerful spells like slow down all enemies troops etc, no there it's just different spells that everybody can learn.
Some things are very strange to me, like towns are not equal at all. In terms of upgrades, cost and power of creatures...
Like Necromancers have Bone dragons without upgrades, and the other town have Green, Red and Black dragons which are far better (300HP...), and of the other side the most powerful unit of the human town is the Crusaders with only 65HP, very curious.
There is also one thing that bother me, the lack of information's special skills of creatures, you don't if one can resist magic, curse another or regenerate etc.
Another thing is that towns can recruit 6 different creatures but your hero (and town) have only 5 slots, I clearly don't understand why.

I started with Heroes III on my side. But yesterday I seriously tried Heroes II with fheroes2, big map, hard mode, it run very well! Graphically it's another world, but after a while you get used to it, and even old it's still charming.
It's very interesting to see the differences between the two games thought, some things are bad, some are better.

Heroes of Might and Magic II is balanced in not obvious way, comparing to Heroes 3, where it was implemented mostly through creatures. In Heroes 2 there's an essential differences in movement speed of faction. (Also, I should note here, that heroes move not so fast over world map, comparing to H3, so movement distance is very important)
Also, Primary attributes have a greater influence on troops, so strength-specialized fractions can deal much more physical damage, over weak wizards.
Also, regarding special abilities of creatures... With the help of our open engine we will add description to every creature in game. Just give us some time to polish our engine.


Last edited by fheroes2 on 22 May 2021 at 10:42 am UTC

I started with Heroes III on my side. But yesterday I seriously tried Heroes II with fheroes2, big map, hard mode, it run very well! Graphically it's another world, but after a while you get used to it, and even old it's still charming.
It's very interesting to see the differences between the two games thought, some things are bad, some are better.

Heroes of Might and Magic II is balanced in not obvious way, comparing to Heroes 3, where it was implemented mostly through creatures. In Heroes 2 there's an essential differences in movement speed of faction. (Also, I should note here, that heroes move not so fast over world map, comparing to H3, so movement distance is very important)

Yeah but you have that spell "Dimension Door" that you can use multiple times and cost only 10 SP... ^^

Also, Primary attributes have a greater influence on troops, so strength-specialized fractions can deal much more physical damage, over weak wizards.

I don't know. But I find that Primary attributes seems less "broken", not high as in Heroes III or it's harder to get them high. For example in my current game my hero (necromancer) is : level 26, bag full of artifacts, and Primary attributes are only at 17/14/16/19.

But again I'm discovering the game.

Also, regarding special abilities of creatures... With the help of our open engine we will add description to every creature in game. Just give us some time to polish our engine.

Oh that's great!