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Heroes of Might and Magic II is an absolute classic right? Released back in 1996, it lives on thanks to fheroes2.

fheroes2 is a free and open source game engine reimplementation. Think like OpenMW for Morrowind and openXcom for the original UFO/X-COM game. You need a copy of the data from the original to work with fheroes2, which you can find up on GOG.com.

"Lord Ironfist is dead and the Kingdom is plunged into a vicious civil war by his feuding sons. At stake is the ultimate prize: control of the land and succession of the royal throne. Will you support the villainous usurper and lead the armies of evil or be loyal to the righteous prince and deliver the people from tyranny." — Heroes of Might and Magic II synopsis.

The project still sees plenty of activity, with a new release going up earlier this month with these changes:

  • Add support for all official languages, including French, Polish, German and Russian
  • Add exchange buttons in hero meeting dialog
  • Extend The Succession Wars campaign support
  • Fix many places with hero drawings on World map
  • Fix multiple places with logic in battle
  • Over 80 bugs fixed since 0.9.2 release

See a video of it running below:

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Check it out on GitHub and remember to grab the data from GOG.com.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Solitary May 20, 2021
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
Liam Dawe May 20, 2021
Quoting: SolitaryThere 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.
Solitary May 20, 2021
Quoting: Liam DaweYup, 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.

Quoting: https://wiki.vcmi.eu/Main_PageAs 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
ageres May 20, 2021
Is there a scaling option for high resolutions? Everything is so tiny...
DamonLinuxPL May 20, 2021
Quoting: SolitaryNot 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
fheroes2 May 20, 2021
Quoting: ageresIs 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.
Cyril May 20, 2021
Great project indeed, its development is so fast! Sad that VCMI don't get the same attention though.

Quoting: freeheroes2
Quoting: ageresIs 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
Ketil May 20, 2021
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.
Rooster May 20, 2021
Quoting: KetilThe 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.
Cyril May 20, 2021
Quoting: Rooster
Quoting: KetilThe 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?
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