Incline Fheroes2 (open source Heroes of Might and Magic II engine) version 1.0 released

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https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2

Dear fans of fheroes2 and of Heroes of Might and Magic 2!

We finally reached the goal we have been working on for more than 3 years. Today we are happy to present you the 1.0 release of fheroes2 - https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/releases/tag/1.0.0

Since the last release, the team has made huge improvements in the rendering of the game. We fixed multi-screen support, fullscreen mode with high DPI, improved rendering on Adventure Map and more. Now you can enjoy the gameplay with maximum comfort.

The team brought the Android release to the fully playable state: we added right click emulation support, set minimum Android version to 5.1, fixed constant scrolling of Adventure Map and added several more improvements to provide smooth gameplay on every Android device.

We greatly improved the animation during battles. No more freezing units during actions or clunky animations of some monsters. Also the team added full replication of Luck and catapult animation.

Moreover, the team introduced a lot of algorithmically generated and translated buttons to be able to play the game in any language. The work is still in progress but it is a huge step forward. Besides this, we fixed issues with Campaign rewards, updated translations, reworked Hotkey system and more.

If you are not fully familiar with the features of the project over the original game you can take a look here: https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/wiki/Features-and-enhancements-of-the-project

Even though the 1.0 release is a huge milestone for the project, this is just the beginning of a much larger scale of the project. We are going to release the Android version in the Google Play Store, add an Editor, multiplayer and most importantly release our independent expansion. You can check the roadmap of the project here: https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/wiki/Project-roadmap

Thank you so much for your support and we really hope that you enjoy the game!

 

[whocares]

I will not eat the bugs. I will not live in a pod. I will not use 2FA.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

The autocombat is really nice! Also Heroes 2 is 75% off on GoG right now if anyone wants to try.

 

[Endemic]

I've played older versions (eg before there was campaign support), good to see they're still working on it.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I've played this for a couple of hours yesterday and can recommend. Installation is short and effortless, the game runs smoothly, no freezes or hiccups. It incorporates most qol that H3 HD has - autobattle, automatic force transfer between heroes, max stack by default when buying creatures etc. It also looks really nice on a 1024x768 screen.

There are also some original ideas, like showing you your total gold and xp needed for next level up when picking up a treasure chest or a button that lets you see the hero screen before choosing a skill on level up. Nothing mindblowing, but nice.

The only issue I've encountered is that I need to choose midi music, otherwise the sound gets super choppy.

 

[smaug]

I've played this for a couple of hours yesterday and can recommend. Installation is short and effortless, the game runs smoothly, no freezes or hiccups. It incorporates most qol that H3 HD has - autobattle, automatic force transfer between heroes, max stack by default when buying creatures etc. It also looks really nice on a 1024x768 screen.

There are also some original ideas, like showing you your total gold and xp needed for next level up when picking up a treasure chest or a button that lets you see the hero screen before choosing a skill on level up. Nothing mindblowing, but nice.

The only issue I've encountered is that I need to choose midi music, otherwise the sound gets super choppy.

What about the changes to the AI?

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I don't think these are a feature? Didn't notice anything, anyway.

 

[Gaznak]

Did GOG version stop working on your shiny ultramodern fashionable Windows 11 devices?

You must suffer.

 

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https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/releases/tag/1.0.1

fheroes2 - Release 1.0.1​

• fix many monster and spell animations in battle, even those present the original game
• add "fh2 Toolset" for Android devices to help to setup the game and also to manage save files
• speed up rendering in multiple places within the game
• update multiple translations and fully rework Russian font for buttons
• add scaled resolution support
• complete initial work for the future Editor
• Over 40 bugs are fixed since 1.0.0 release

Full list of changes can be found here.

 

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https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/releases/tag/1.0.2

Version 1.0.2 is up

Dear supporters of fheroes2 project!


We are very excited to announce 1.0.2 version of the project!


This release is full of interesting changes and improvements. So, let's get started.


The team always spends time improving the performance of the engine and in this release we again improved the Adventure Map rendering. It might not be visible for many players but if you use a mobile device to play the game then smaller energy consumption is very welcome.


With a great help of an artist, we fixed the original look of Captain's Quarters building in Sorceress town as well as changed multiple icons for options to give each option a unique and logically correct image.




Speaking of improvements AI heroes now know how to use Town Portal and Town Gate spells. This makes AI the same advantages as human players. Moreover, the overall AI task logic decision on the Adventure Map was reworked, leading to better strategic decisions.


This release also brings multiple fixes for spell logic in battles, fixes for special cases of monster movement and additionally we corrected all sounds being used for objects on the Adventure Map.


In the past it was impossible to know the in-game date from a save file unless you load it. Having tens or even hundreds of save files might lead to difficult navigation among them. From now on you can right click on a save file to see the date without even loading the file.



Android players had no way to type anything within the game as most of mobile phones do not have a physical keyboard for this. To overcome this disadvantage, we introduced a virtual in-game keyboard which will popup if you click on text edit area.


Beside all these changes the team fixed over 60 bugs and updated multiple translations for the game.
Note that old save files before 1.0 version are not supported anymore.


Thank you so much for your support and we hope that you enjoy the game even more!


You could also support the project development on Patreon.

 

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https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/releases/tag/1.0.3

version 1.0.3

Dear supporters of fheroes2 and players of Heroes of Might and Magic 2!

A month has passed and it is time to bring an updated version of fheroes2 project - 1.0.3. This release contains many hidden to players changes which will greatly impact the project in the future so let's get started.

In this release AI has become even more smarter: the team improved the logic for fog discovery (the original game's AI knew the whole map since the beginning), fixed the behavior of using Dimension Door spell and enhanced formulas to evaluate object priorities on Adventure Map. In the near future we are going to make even more in-depth changes to make AI truly an opponent to play against.

Adventure Map rendering had several small rendering issues which have been fixed for this release. Small imperfect details always affect an overall game look so not having them is important. However, besides this the team speeded up the rendering on Adventure Map as well which means that less processing power and less battery are required to play the game!

We also added a special button for several dialogs in the game to open recently introduced Virtual Keyboard dialog. This dialog is present for all touch screen devices by default if you touch on edit text area but some devices running Windows were not identified to be eligible for this feature. From now all platforms support Virtual Keyboard dialog:

The list of hidden changes consists of code preparations for the upcoming future in-game Editor. That's right, the Editor is going to be within the game itself, not as a separate application. Such integration will allow not only to create maps on any supported platform but instantly test them.

As the most important preparation made in this release is to bring the engine to Google Play Store. We did all necessary procedures for this and we are waiting for a review approval to be able to publish the application in the store. We are expecting to be done within the next few days and once it is done we would be happy to inform you about this.

Besides the highlighted changes the team made multiple fixes in logic during battles such as Mirror Image or Teleport spells behavior, updated multiple translations and also added Vietnamese and Slovak languages.

We hope that you would enjoy this release and thank you so much for your valuable support of the project!

 

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fheroes2 is available on Google Play Store

Dear supporters of fheroes2!

As we mentioned in 1.0.3 we were waiting for the game to be published on Google Play Store and it has finally happened! You can install the game from here. This is 1.0.3 release, the same we announced 2 days ago.

We hope that you would love this new addition!

 

[Anthedon]

I started HoMM2 a while ago and am almost done with the first campaign, I'll give fheroes2 a shot when I tackle the second one. Unfortunately saves are not compatible, otherwise I'd switch right now. The DOS version is pretty janky.

 

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https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/releases/tag/1.0.4

version 1.0.4 is here

Dear supporters of the fheroes2 project and players of Heroes of Might and Magic 2!

Today we are introducing an updated version of the fheroes2 project - 1.0.4. This release as usual has plenty of changes which we would like to share with you.

In this release the AI has powered up. The AI is now more picky about resource collection on the Adventure Map and this will depend on the kingdom's needs. AI heroes got their logic upgraded regarding several objects on the Adventure Map. Besides this, the AI heroes will tend to avoid unnecessary jumps back and forth using Dimension Door, and also heroes are smarter in terms of unblocking paths for other heroes.

This release adds important changes for game resolutions. Widescreen resolutions are available so many players, especially on Android, will have a better experience playing the game. Moreover, the team expanded the logic for scaled resolutions.

We added missing post-victory special effects as well as map ratings shown to players. This feature from the original game was missing until now. On top of this, we expanded map rating information so it is even better than in the original game.

The team fixed multiple issues with rendering and timings during battles. Now monsters do not freeze while certain spells are being applied and also no more small lags for certain actions. Moreover, we fixed several logical issues during battles such as castle towers not shooting if castle monsters are unable to move.

This release adds Polish and Russian languages support for the in-game virtual keyboard. This feature allows players not only to enter victory player name, but it also helps with completing some maps which require visiting the Sphinx object on the Adventure Map. This will be expanded to support more languages.

This release contains over fixed 40 bugs and many updates to translations to give the best experience to more players.

Thank you so much for your awesome support and we hope you will enjoy fheroes2!

 

[mwnn85]

Been playing a few more open source remakes on Linux.
Lots of these projects popping up now - very lucky that these old classics aren't just dying as technology changes.

I've managed to finish Dark Forces on Hard with all the wonderful improvements in The Force Engine. (successor to the old DarkXL project which got abandoned)
Everything's working. Mouse aim, high resolutions, videos and the dynamic music. Superb, it really is.
Even for an old Doom era game it's leagues ahead of modern FPS titles. There's maybe 3 bad levels in the entire game.

Plus I'm going through Dark Forces 2 on Hard using OpenJKDF2.
GOG tried to mash it all together with Glide wrappers and other trickery but this is much nicer.
Trying to find all the map secrets for the bonus Jedi Force points. It's a brutally tough game on Hard - enemies practically never miss.

You just don't get great FPS games like these two anymore.

Then there's fheroes2 and VCMI of course...

fheroes2 is really quite excellent - far better than running the limited old DOS version.
I've been playing at 1280x720 and the newly added display scaling does a decent job - choice of filter would be nice. xBRZ, hqx, etc are all proven techniques. scaleFX is meant to be pretty clever too.
They seem quite active, making daily changes on Github.
There's a few big bug fixes that haven't made it into a new release yet - consider compiling from source.
As a purist I suppose you could stick to the DOS version or play the Windows Gold version (that GOG include as a bonus) with something like WINE or maybe in a virtual machine.

Only a few niggles...
> The AI needs a bit of work - I think it does a poor job of defending it's towns with their heroes often walking straight out of a settlement even with a player army within capture distance.
> I've also seen some complaints that suggest the campaign scenarios don't play out in quite the same way as they were intended.
i.e. In the second Roland scenario - Annexation - you really have to move very quickly against the Sorceress and Knight using the starting genies as the powerful Wizard player can clean up the map with his Giants.
> The original game imbalance is still there - why did they make the Warlock so strong? More gold than anyone else plus the cheap, strong dragons. The Wizard is strong but Titans take forever to acquire.
Ghosts are meant to be a silly expansion addition too.

I can't say I've been quite as pleased with VCMI unfortunately.
Some crashes, missing functionality, feels a bit off for some reason.
HoMM3 with the HD patch is still the way to go there - thankfully that works through WINE.

I definitely agree that fheroes2 is like the HD patch for HoMM3 - I only wish I could say the same for VCMI.
If only someone could get hold of the source code:
https://twitter.com/diskblitz/status/920801845349466113

 

[Lagi]

fheroes2 best feature are hot keys. I have no idea how great is to just press w,m to hire all creatures (maybe i will change it to w,e). [ofc.. for my skill level, probably pros carefully buy 1 by 1 selected units, donno dontcare.]
also Heroes 2 factions have fantastic rosters... i have a feeling that nowday every games have the same units - armored infantry, archers, knights, female casters.... some dragon or gryphon as last tier.

 

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https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/releases/tag/1.0.5

Version 1.0.5 is here

Dear supporters of fheroes2 project!

Today we are releasing a new version of fheroes2 project - 1.0.5! Also you can install an Android version from Google Play Store. As usual the team made many changes since the last release and we are excited to share details with you.

Let's start from the Editor relates changes. The team made internal source code restructure to allow to add new artifacts to the game. This change is invisible to players but essential to move forward with the Editor. Additionally, the team has started creating the Editor's UI. There are many changes to be done but we are moving forward:

As highlighted earlier the Editor is going to be a part of the same application.

We reduced CPU usage for rendering and sound playback during battles. This helps with performance on low-end devices and also prolongs battery life on portable devices.

The team made significant changes for many UI elements in the game. For example, we added a blinking cursor for text input positioning, added missing shadows for Virtual Keyboard buttons, expanded Evil interface for windows which do not have this feature in the original game and many more.

These are tiny changes which in general make the game experience even better.

AI in this release got a huge boost in logic. We fixed multiple issues related to creature upgrades and hiring for AI heroes, make AI heroes to visit castles in advance (just before the first day of week), fixed cases when AI heroes did not meet each other in the middle of a turn and also enhanced logic for heroes to defend castles and attack enemy's castles.

Besides these changes the team updated translations for many languages, fixed issues with several Android devices and fixed more than 30 bugs since 1.0.4 release.

We hope that you enjoy the updated version of the engine and thank you so much for supporting this project and the team!

 

[Anthedon]

Been playing a few more open source remakes on Linux.
Lots of these projects popping up now - very lucky that these old classics aren't just dying as technology changes.

I've managed to finish Dark Forces on Hard with all the wonderful improvements in The Force Engine. (successor to the old DarkXL project which got abandoned)
Everything's working. Mouse aim, high resolutions, videos and the dynamic music. Superb, it really is.
Even for an old Doom era game it's leagues ahead of modern FPS titles. There's maybe 3 bad levels in the entire game.

Plus I'm going through Dark Forces 2 on Hard using OpenJKDF2.
GOG tried to mash it all together with Glide wrappers and other trickery but this is much nicer.
Trying to find all the map secrets for the bonus Jedi Force points. It's a brutally tough game on Hard - enemies practically never miss.

You just don't get great FPS games like these two anymore.

Then there's fheroes2 and VCMI of course...

fheroes2 is really quite excellent - far better than running the limited old DOS version.
I've been playing at 1280x720 and the newly added display scaling does a decent job - choice of filter would be nice. xBRZ, hqx, etc are all proven techniques. scaleFX is meant to be pretty clever too.
They seem quite active, making daily changes on Github.
There's a few big bug fixes that haven't made it into a new release yet - consider compiling from source.
As a purist I suppose you could stick to the DOS version or play the Windows Gold version (that GOG include as a bonus) with something like WINE or maybe in a virtual machine.

Only a few niggles...
> The AI needs a bit of work - I think it does a poor job of defending it's towns with their heroes often walking straight out of a settlement even with a player army within capture distance.
> I've also seen some complaints that suggest the campaign scenarios don't play out in quite the same way as they were intended.
i.e. In the second Roland scenario - Annexation - you really have to move very quickly against the Sorceress and Knight using the starting genies as the powerful Wizard player can clean up the map with his Giants.
> The original game imbalance is still there - why did they make the Warlock so strong? More gold than anyone else plus the cheap, strong dragons. The Wizard is strong but Titans take forever to acquire.
Ghosts are meant to be a silly expansion addition too.

I can't say I've been quite as pleased with VCMI unfortunately.
Some crashes, missing functionality, feels a bit off for some reason.
HoMM3 with the HD patch is still the way to go there - thankfully that works through WINE.

I definitely agree that fheroes2 is like the HD patch for HoMM3 - I only wish I could say the same for VCMI.
If only someone could get hold of the source code:
https://twitter.com/diskblitz/status/920801845349466113

There is some wonkiness with the AI, during one campaign my opponent just streamrolled me with the huge garrison they had in their capital. That was before the latest patch though.

 

[Endemic]

Generally for most HoMM campaigns, moving as quickly as possible is the best plan, before the AI hoovers up resources mid-map etc.

 

[Anthedon]

There is some wonkiness with the AI, during one campaign my opponent just streamrolled me with the huge garrison they had in their capital. That was before the latest patch though.

This is very apparent on the last map of the Archibald campaign. The AI owns the entire map at the beginning and will accordingly attack the player with everything. Which does not happen if you play vanilla Heroes 2.

 

[Endemic]

This is very apparent on the last map of the Archibald campaign. The AI owns the entire map at the beginning and will accordingly attack the player with everything. Which does not happen if you play vanilla Heroes 2.

It's been a long time since I played that scenario. What is it "supposed" to do exactly? Wait until month 2 to attack?

 

[Anthedon]

This is very apparent on the last map of the Archibald campaign. The AI owns the entire map at the beginning and will accordingly attack the player with everything. Which does not happen if you play vanilla Heroes 2.

It's been a long time since I played that scenario. What is it "supposed" to do exactly? Wait until month 2 to attack?

In the vanilla version the attacks are not concerted. With fHeroes, you fight twelve towns worth of creatures simultaneously. This is the only map (so far) where the AI changes are so noticeable.

Anyways, onwards to the expansion campaigns.

 

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https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/releases/tag/1.0.6

Release 1.0.6 is here

Dear players of Heroes of Might and Magic II and supporters of the fheroes2 project!

Today we are introducing the latest version of the fheroes2 engine - 1.0.6 with many changes done by the team in the last month!

This release brings an updated version of the Adventure Map AI. AI heroes are more accurate in terms of analyzing threats for castles and defending them, they don't visit useless objects and have better estimation of a possible battle outcome when attacking enemies.

However, since the AI has been significantly improved in the last months such changes affect campaign gameplay making it very hard for some players to complete. Therefore, the team added an option to lower the campaign difficulty during playthrough. But remember that changing the difficulty affects the final score of the campaign.

In this release the team polished several tiny issues with original images, sped up loading the game's resources and also improved rendering speed which subsequently reduced CPU usage, leading to lower battery usage on portable devices.

Speaking of UI, the team continues to work on the new Editor. It is still in progress, but we are happy to share screenshots of it. In the upcoming months, the main focus of the team will be the Editor to bring it to a functional state and make it open for all players.

Besides fixing more than 20 bugs from the last release the team updated several language translations and expanded the list of UI elements available for translation.

We hope that you like this update. Thank you so much for your continued support!

 

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https://github.com/ihhub/fheroes2/releases/tag/1.0.7

Version 1.0.7 is here

Dear players of Heroes of Might and Magic II and supporters of the fheroes2 project!

A month of work has passed and our team is presenting the newest version of fheroes2 engine - 1.0.7! As usual, we are going to cover the most interesting changes in this release.

First of all, the AI got a huge boost in this update. Now AI heroes know how to use Summon Boat spell. The team fixed multiple places with pathfinding logic, decisions during battles and also estimation of threats from enemy heroes and castles. AI heroes are going to be more practical towards their castles and when to attack enemy castles.

The team is expanding the translation functionality of the engine, allowing more and more UI elements to be translatable. This is not trivial as the engine needs to generate these UI elements from scratch for all languages. Fortunately, we can make it happen. Speaking of UI changes we also fixed the rendering of many windows. For instance, Battle Only dialog has properly rendered item lists where you can even right-click on items:

Since touchscreen device owners, in particular Android devices, are limited to device capabilities the team expanded Android Toolset application to export and import save files. This helps players to transfer files between multiple devices.

The work on the Editor continues and in the past month we added UI elements for different Brush types and it is possible to draw terrains. As of now, the Editor is only for developers as it is not ready to be used but we are happily sharing news about the progress.

This release also brings a lot of translation updates, and tweaks in animation in battles and more than 40 bugs have been fixed since the last release.

Thank you so much for your valuable support of the project! Enjoy the game!

 

[Endemic]

Cool Hopefully it didn't break save compatibility.