In our previous articles, we’ve covered some astonishing mods, and let me tell you, it’s been a blast going through both Horn of the Abyss and Wake of Gods. If you are yet to check these articles, they cover the mentioned Heroes 3 mods in depth. That said, there’s always more out there, isn’t there? So what better way to continue our exploratory journey, than to poke that beehive with a cane and gleefully prance around at what comes out of it?
We may just do that because apart from the aforementioned two giant mods, there’s also the Era (the third one), and VCMI – large mods, way up there, hanging around with HotA and WoG. We also have Tides of War, Heroes Chronicles, Hill of Unrest, and Legend of the Red Dragon mod among these expansions at our disposal. They all bring an abundance of new and unique additions to the game, in a somewhat similar fashion, as we covered in our previous Heroes 3 Mods HotA and WoG articles.
Alright, so we have large mods covered, but what about the smaller ones? You know, the ones that are like sprinkles on top of a cream-covered strawberry cake? Well, they’re right there for us to grab and enjoy them as we see fit. We have loads of town mods for us to download, by my reckoning beyond 30 at the very least which would be worth mentioning, which will add exciting new towns. Some of which are Forge Town, Courtyard, Grove Town, Bastion Town, Mythology Town, Evergreen mods, and more. There are also mods that alter the towns looks, we have Sand Tower, Autumn Rampart, Another Rampart, Red Castle, Ghost Necropolis, and other mods that we could dig out from the big treasure chest of creations.
As for the lovers of creatures and a variety of new troops, there are Axolotl Creature Packs that adds around forty new neutral beings to the map, and Extra Creature Pack mod with around twenty neutral creatures (once called Exotic Beast Mod), The Other Kingdom that adds a variety of new creatures as well as new heroes for us to play with. On top of that we have a mod called Necropolis Creatures and smaller Heroes 3 mods that add specific creatures on their own, basically covering most of our desires, should we be in such a mood.
Since we’ve touched some heroes in one of the previous mods, there’s also a whole bunch of such Heroes 3 mods. Few to mention are Tarnum Is Back, and then there’s Campaign Heroes mod, both of which add their own characters from campaigns for us to have available. Shooting Centaurs adds a new rampart hero, whilst Neutral Heroes adds an entirely new hero class called Drifter. Golemcraft also adds two new Tower heroes, and a mod called Minotaur Warlock gives us new animations for Dungeon Warlocks that are Minotaurs.
There’s a whole bunch of mods that expand on artifacts out there, such as H4 Artifacts (both, Regular version and Commanders version for WoG Heroes 3 Mod). Witchking Artifacts with artifacts of its own – Whereupon WoG expands on this mod with a Soul Prison. Shadow Sect Medallion and H2 Artifacts are among the mods that expand on such items for us also. Spells themselves have been balanced with a Spell Balance mod, having its own three submods, and New Old Spells grants nine entirely new spells with their own balancing and effects, including Fear spell.
There are other mods that also cover map objects and interactables, a few of which to mention here are Ballista Bank, Abaddon Column – the latter of which grants an extremely tough encounter with loads of treasures for us to be rewarded with. Stone Pyramid, Damned Utopia which presents us with Bloody Dragons and Dracoliches to defeat, and last, but not least in the map object section, there’s Monoliths 2 Way mod. There are other mods that offer us a lot of reworked and rebalanced mechanics to the game. An’s Expansion Mod, for example, rebalances a various amount of things throughout the game, whilst Reworked Commanders makes commanders in WoG, simply said, that much more awesome. Other Heroes 3 mods add their own mechanics, such as an Unlucky Ones mod, adding its own negative luck effect, and a Resourceful AI mod that changes starting resources to almost unlimited, among other things of such nature like some AI changes. The aforementioned mod Shooting Centaurs, whilst adding a new hero, and Enraged Minotaurs mod are pretty much self-explanatory in their function, and there are dozens of more mods out there with more specific changes, as such, for us to enjoy and enrich our gameplay with.
To improve on the quality of the sensory aspects of the game for us, there have been a lot of graphical, music, and sound Heroes 3 mods out there created, and there are also translation mods in their own category for those that don’t speak English very well or just want to enjoy the game in the comfort of their mother tongue. To mention as well, we have a few theme mods which just change the game’s theme in a visual way and some utility mods that balance out certain nagging little things.
Well, whilst that covers some of what’s out there, there are new mods being created by the Heroes 3 community quite often, bestowing upon us some good and interesting Heroes 3 mods, whilst others, not to walk on eggshells, aren’t that great. So in the end, which are the ones then that are actually worthy of our attention the most, considered the best mods?
Pretty simple – As far as Heroes of Might and Magic 3 mods go, Horn of the Abyss and Wake of Gods are the two giants that stick out from the Dead Marshes like a couple of lively ogres, high on pipeweed, flinging boogers at one another (LotR reference). In all honesty and agreed upon by the majority, from all the Heroes 3 mods, Horn of the Abyss and Wake of Gods are indeed the two expansions, which receive and practically deserve the most love from the majority of us – merely a reflection of all the love and care received from their creators, no doubt. Whilst you will surely prefer one over the other (Or perhaps you may disagree entirely here, and have in fact found a jewel of your own. Bless you! Please let us know about it.), we just have to agree that Horn of the Abyss and Wake of Gods expansions are in fact the two best mods out there. Simple as that.
HotA vs WoG
Once again, if you haven’t checked out the previous articles, you really ought to as we’ve enjoyed writing them with a passion! Other than that, briefly and swiftly, what do the two revered mods offer us?
Wake of Gods has additional 8th Level Creatures and more, such as creatures that represent Gods themselves. It gives us Champions to take into battle and level up alongside heroes, and with the troops themselves, as they battle and gain experience of their own. We can demolish and rebuild towns as we please, be empowered or cursed with buffs and debuffs, and even have our heroes represent Gods as their Emissaries, gaining them extra bonuses. We can tailor our game as we please with extra new scripts and empty new items, and on top of that, it’s a mod that’s still being continuously developed, receiving love from their creators and its followers, regularly.
On the other hand, Horn of the Abyss, the other giant of a mod – expansion, receives loads of love from their creators and devotees just the same as WoG. It expands on the lore of Regnan Empire from the original Heroes 3 game, granting us an extensive and well-crafted Campaign, which takes us on a journey of pirating, betrayal, and battling mini-Cthulhus. It grants us an entirely new pirate-themed town with its own heroes, brand new cool creatures, and a wide variety of new interactables all over the maps – Especially the water part, being something that’s interesting to explore with this mod. With new AI tactics and challenging gameplay, we’re given an option to battle other players online through its own lobby.
To summarize, among the Heroes 3 mods, you’ll be hard-pressed to find better than these two. HotA offers an amazing Campaign, with a lot of original new features, and feels like it belongs in the Heroes 3 universe as its expansion, whilst granting us online player interaction. Wog on its own offers a huge assortment of original features, like leveling up troops and new creatures, whilst improving on the features from Heroes 3. Whichever mod you choose, you really can’t go that much wrong in the end. Are we biased? Yes, and it’s easy to be biased, especially when there have been such masterpieces created. Long live Heroes of Might and Magic 3!
Conclusion
The internet is full of mods for Heroes and Might and Magic 3. When it comes to choosing one there isn’t right or wrong. It all boils down to personal preference and how much you want to alter the gameplay.
If you want to buy Heroes 3, be sure to check it out on GOG.
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