Heroes of Might and Magic V.
Prototype
US/English version
June 2004
Heroes of Might and Magic V © 2003 UbiSoft. All rights reserved.
Heroes of Might and Magic is
a trademark of UbiSoft.
Contents of Readme
==================
1. Description
2. System requirements
3. Installation
4. Controls and hot keys
5. Known issues, artefacts and further improvements
6. Legal Information
1. Description
==============
This is the First Playable Publishable of HoMMV specified in the list
of the deliverables for Milestone #5 "First Playable Publishable".
Its primary goal is to demonstrate fully playable mission using final
art of one season complete.
Updates from the previous version (First Playable)
Adventure Map
- Minimap
- River
- Ship
- Terrain objects: flowers, lakes, craters, mountains, shrubs
- Flying info instead of dialogs
- Edge of the map
- Fog of war (depicting explored and unexplored territory)
- Shadow, clouds and birds over adventure map
- Basic AI
- Camera scroll via screen edge is implemented
- Music
Combat
- Siege arena
- Hero specialization (skills, abilities)
- Weather effects (rain)
- Grid on/off option
- Prediction of damage to creature
- When a player hovers the mouse cursor over one of the creature icons
on the ATB bar, the corresponding creature on the battlefield is highlighted
- Music
Town
- Closeup of the town view
- Animated clouds, birds, foliage
- Improved grass texture on the town hill
- Objects in background
- Music
Cut-scene
Interfaces
Main Menu, Spellbook, Town Building, Town Fort/Creature Hire, Hero,
Confirmation and Notification Dialogs, Tooltips
The ways of version improvement and known bugs are enlisted in Section
5 "Known issues and further improvements".
Enjoy the demo!
2. System Requirements
======================
Minimum
-------
- OS: Windows 2000/XP, DirectX 9.0
- CPU: 800 MHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor or higher
- RAM: 256 MB or higher
- Video: 32 MB AGP GeForce2 MX or ATI Radeon 8500 or higher video card
- CD/DVD-ROM speed: 8x
- Hard Drive Space: 200 MB free hard disk space (for the demo)
- Sound: DirectX compatible PCI 16-bit sound card
Recommended
-----------
- OS: Windows 2000/XP, DirectX 9.0
- CPU: Pentium 4 / Athlon 3,0 GHz or higher
- RAM: 512MB or more
- Video: 128 MB AGP 4x GeForceFX 5600 or higher video card
- CD/DVD-ROM speed: 32x
- Dolby Surround 5.1 sound processor
3. Installation
===============
Upon unzipping H5_fpp.zip file, run Setup.exe and follow the installation
wizard's prompts.
By default, the demo will be installed into C:\Program Files\Nival Interactive\Heroes
of Might and Magic V
directory. Upon installation, you can run it either from Windows Start
menu, or from the demo
installation directory (file H5_Game.exe in C:\Program Files\Nival Interactive\
Heroes of Might and Magic V\bin directory).
The installed Demo occupies as much as about 900MB of hard drive space.
4. Controls and hot keys
========================
Camera control
--------------
Adventure mode
Cursor arrows - camera scrolling around adventure map
Ctrl+Left/Ctrl+Right - camera rotation (it returns automatically to
the default direction, when buttons are released)
Left mouse button - plot path to the pointed tile or move to the pointed
tile if path already plotted
Right mouse button - tooltip
Enter - end of turn
M - move hero along the plotted path
N - select next hero
Ñ - open spellbook
H - show Hero screen-inventory for the selected hero
I - show Hero screen-abilites for the selected hero
T - show Town Screen for the selected town
Combat mode
Ctrl+Left/Ctrl+Right - camera rotation (it returns automatically to
the default direction, when buttons are released)
Space, D - Defend
C - open spellbook (when spellbook icon is present)
C - use special ability (when specialability icon is present)
R - retreat from combat
CTRL-A - autocombat
ESC - options
Town
B - build screen
F - fort screen
Debug
Scroll - show FPS and other info
Ctrl+Scroll - show camera info
Controlling characters and creatures
------------------------------------
Adventure Map
-------------
After staring the game Mainmenu is appear.
Choose Singleplayer option, then please wait a few seconds to see a
cut-scene.
Then you'll see the objective dialog for the mission. Press OK and enjoy
the Demo.
Combat
--------
By default you are starting combat in the turn-based mode. There is
ATB bar present in the upper part of interface.
Creatures are moving from right to left along the bar. When creature
reaches left end of the bar it is selected.
Selected creature depicted by changing underlaying tiles in combat and
by arrow above it. You can order creature to do any action available
to it.
Actions available to the creature is move, move-attack (if hostile creature
is present in the movement range), defend. Archers and Priests as well
as ballista have ranged attack. Clerics could cast spells. Archers,
Royal Griffins, Paladins, Archangels, First Aid Tent has special abilities,
that could be activated.
Hero also can be selected during combat. Hero has access to the several
spells (Magic Arrow, Chain Lightning, Bless, Curse, Blind, Stoneskin)
and several hero combat abilities (Prayer, Holy charge, etc).
When you are giving order preselection shows you which creature or tile
you are going to select.
When one creature attacks another creature sequence of actions are as
follows:
Attacking creature deals damage (attack could be lucky (special rainbow
FX is depicted above the creature) dealing increased amount of damage).
Damage dealt is shown as "flying" numbers. Attacked creature
could get retaliate strike (only once per its move) and deals damage
to the attacking
creature this attack also could be lucky).
After any order creature could gain bonus from the high morale (which
is also shown by special morale FX above the creature)
after that creature is moved to half of the ATB bar instead to be moved
to the right end of the ATB bar.
Abilities of creatures and spells are described below:
Abilities:
Archers - Volley Shot - Archers could shot volley of arrows that will
strike several enemies. To use this ability click on special ability
button (showing hero with glowing eyes) when archers are selected and
then point to the tile on the battlefield with special ability cursor
(glowing hand).
All enemies around selected tile (including diagonals) will be affected.
Royal Griffins - Battle Dive - Griffins can soar in the skies and then
dive on the enemies to make devastating attack.
To use this ability click on special ability button (showing hero with
glowing eyes) when griffins are selected and then point to the enemy
on the battlefield with special ability cursor (glowing hand). Griffin
will fly away and when his next action will become available he will
plummet on the tile in which enemy was when attack was ordered. If there
are no units present in that tile - no damage will be dealt.
If somebody is present in the tile (it could be friend or foe) - than
griffin will deal damage to that creature.
Paladins - Lay on Hands - Paladins use divine power to heal wounds
of the friendly unit.
When Paladins are selected point cursor on any friendly unit with their
movement range (cursor will change to glowing hand) and then
click left mouse button. Paladin will move to the selected creature
and will heal all wounds of the creature (he will not ressurect any
of the killed creatures)
Archangels - Ressurect - Archangels use their enormous powers to ressurect
fallen creatures. When Archangels are selected point cursor on
any friendly unit or corpse of friendly unit (cursor will change to
glowing hand) and then click left mouse button. Archangels will ressurect
several creatures.
First Aid Tent - Healing - First Aid Tent heal friendly creatures and
will even ressurect fallen creatures in stack.
Spells:
Magic Arrow - deal damage to the selected creature
Chain Lightning - deal damage to the selected creature, than closest
creature is selected and lightning jumps to that creature dealing half
damage,
than closest creature to the second one is selected and quarter of damage
is dealt to it and finally closet creature to the third affected creature
is selected and 1/8 of damage is dealt to it.
Bless - enchanted creature deals more damage, overrides Curse
Stoneskin - enchanted creature receives less damage
Curse - enchanted creature deals less damage, overrides Bless
Blind - enchanted creature does not move on the ATB bar. Removed after
attack against
enchanted creature
Hero abilities:
Holy Charge - Hero deals damage to the selected creature
Prayer - All friendly creatures gain +1 to morale and luck as well as
damage dealt to them is slightly reduced
Encourage - slightly increase initiative of the selected unit
When you attack hostile creature camera will show close-up on the melee
attack or ranged attack scene.
You can also fight in the realtime mode. To do this access combat options
by pressing on gear button (or ESC key) and press on button near
turn-based combat on/off. Combat will continue in realtime mode. In
realtime mode there will be NO pause when creature reaches left end
of the ATB bar.
Combat will still be paused when some action is commenced (like casting
a spell or moving creature).
Town
------
To hire Hero after previous was defeated click Tavern button and you
get default one. Only one hero can be under player's control in this
version.
You can access build screen by pressing B key or pressing the leftmost
button (with hammer and wood planks) in the town screen. Then screen
will fade out and building, that could be built will be highlited. Building
price shown at the second row under resources, as well as name of the
building. Building, that could not be built right now (because one building
was already built in this turn or you haven't enough resources) highlighted
in red. After you selected the building confirnation window will appear
and then screen will fade in along with newly purchased building. You
can leave that screen by pressing the gate (exit) button or by pressing
Esc key.
You can access fort screen by pressing F key or pressing the Fort button
(with several coins) in the town screen. Then you will see Fort hall,
where all creatures available to hire will be present. To hire creature
press it's icon on the right side of the screen and then confirm purchase.
Creature will be hired into the garrison army slots. You can move stack
of creatures by clicking on it and than clicking on the slot in which
you want to place them. You can leave that screen by pressing the gate
(exit) button or by pressing Esc key.
5. Known issues, artefacts and further improvements
===================================================
Adventure map issues:
- There are some problems with depicting path on water
- Moon calendar is not final
- Some tooltips and texts are absent or slightly incorrect
- Double click on town on adventure map doesn't position camera on it
- There is short-term FPS decrease when new week begin
Combat issues:
- No cinematic camera on siege arena
- There are possible slow downs on large arena
- Old-style tooltip for creature
- There is no interface to perform attack from different direction,
right now creature is moving to the target on shortest route available
- Some creatures lack sound (peasant attack)
- Turnbase/realtime option are not saved between combats
Town:
- Marketplace, Hire All and Magiñ Guild interfaces not functional.
Last one is an old-style interface.
- User may hire only one hero (and restore him in tavern when hero fled
or died without paying any cost)
- Hire creature window will be more informative (will be shown recruited
creature, scrollbar)
- When user has no possibility to build some buildings (altar of light
and altar of haven) they are shown with not correct red background
- Buttons Leave Fort and Leave Build interface have wrong tooltip
- Normal creature can't be upgraded
- User can't hire both normal and upgtaded creatures, only one of them
(upgraded one if dwelling was upgraded)
Hero Screen
- Sometimes number of artefacts are increased without special actions
- There is possible game slow down after hero screen is closed
General Improvements:
- Performance will be optimized
- Memory leaks will be fixed
- Sound engine is not optimized (some sounds could be missed if there
are too many sounds to play)
6. Legal Information
====================
Copyright Information
---------------------
This software product and the manual are copyrighted and all rights
are reserved
by UbiSoft and Nival Interactive and are protected by the copyright
laws that pertain
to computer software. You may copy this software for back-up and casual
distribution.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may not modify, adapt, translate,
create derivative works,
decompile, disassemble, or otherwise reverse engineer or derive source
code from all or any
portion of the software or anything incorporated therein, permit, or
encourage any third party
to do so.
Heroes of Might and Magic is a registered trademark of UbiSoft. Pentium,
Microsoft Windows, Athlon, GeForce, Radeon, SoundBlaster are trademarks
of their respective owners.
Limitations of Warranty
-----------------------
Nival Interactive and UbiSoft expressly disclaim any warranty for the
Demo Program and Readme file.
The program and Readme file are provided "as is" without warranty
of any kind, either express or implied.
The entire risk arising out of use or performance of the Program and
Readme file remains with the User.
Limitations of Liability
------------------------
Neither Nival Interactive nor UbiSoft, or their parent, subsidiaries
or affiliates shall be liable in
any way for loss or damage of any kind resulting from the use of the
program.