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Equilibris (the project's working title) is an add-on to Heroes of Might and Magic IV.

Heroes of Might and Magic IV is an excellent game. No doubt it is one of the best turn-based strategies of today.

However, to the regret of many players, the game was rushed to the stores too early, and came out in a somewhat unfinished shape. A sloppy AI, missing mulitplayer mode (in the beginning only Hot Seat was functional), continuous memory leaks during the game which made it run slow even on some powerful machines, absence of a combat grid, wrong descriptions of some artifacts and many more issues arose. All of that resulted in many fans of Heroes series, who were actually trying to learn all the subtleties of the game, giving up on it and returning to play Heroes III.

Since then, there has been 5 (!!!) offical patches that solved various problems. Patch to version 1.2, then to 1.3, to 2.0, next to 2.2 and finally 3.0. Also, 2 official add-ons came out, which contained a little bit more than just patches to versions 2.0 and 3.0 respectively: new creatures and artifacts.

While gamers were complaining about lack of multiplayer, memory glitches and such, less important issues were not well accounted for. Of course, players noticed them, but hoped that developers would at least fix the global problems. The patches corrected those, but, unfortunately, they stopped there.

Even now, the game, scripting engine, and artifacts are still plagued with bugs. Many creatures and tactics are never used. For example, you'll only encounter Ogre Magi guarding objects on the map or in pre-determined armies, but almost never in troops of your multiplayer opponent, just like venom spawns, nagas or minotaurs. Also, there's a mess with the advanced classes - some of them valuable, and others useless and bewildering. What's the last time you saw a Guildmaster in your enemy's army? Or how about a Seer?

Now that 3DO (publisher of Heroes of Might and Magic) is officially bankrupt, Ubisoft is concentrating on Heroes of Might and Magic V, and the developers are being forced to find different jobs, the last hopes to see an official Heroes IV fix vanished in thin air.

We, fans of the game, decided to carry through the enhancing of the diamond-in-the-rough started by developers, and make our own, unofficial add-on to Heroes IV. In this add-on, we intend to fix the various flaws, disbalances and bugs of the game, so that Heroes 4 might become better, more interesting and diverse.

The idea of the add-on is to balance out everything. As any ideal, of course, it's unreachable, but worth aiming at. We are changing the original game to equalize the chances of victory of different towns, strategies and tactics, usefullness of units. Hence, the name "Equilibris". But at the same time, we're trying to save the Heroes' IV look and feel, so the game would still be recognizable and playable. So, a "Wake of Gods" type of change is neither envisioned or wanted, at least until the game's faults are fixed (See the "Heroes Unleashed" idea in the forums for more about the more revolutionary changes).

We strive for the end of winning or losing situations, which are not dependent on player's actions. For example, if one player has several important game objects guarded by vampires, mages, genies or ballistas, and the other has ogres, unicorns, and cerberi in the same situation, it is clear that the latter gains a huge advantage, which, without any significant difference in player experience, is almost insurmountable and impossible to catch up to. Or, for another example, in same mage's chest one player can find a brazier of sulfur, and another à halberd. If the second player has enough time and opportunities to develop a combat-orientated hero, who can make use of it - chances of his victory are drastically improved.

The add-on will include 5 new campaigns, made by the best mapmakers in CIS, each with an original story. They will be bigger in size, and more interesting than those of the official add-ons. The campaigns will use all the power of game's scripting engine, resulting in non-typical and ingenious scripts, which enrich the game, take it to the next level, and just make it more enjoyable to the player.

The release date of the add-on is is planned for september 2004. The add-on would come out at least in two languages - Russian and English. It will install on any existing version of the official Heroes 4 (currently supported are both Russian and English version from Buka Entertainment, official English version). NOTE: Now all types of Heroes 4 games support Equilibris (Standard, The Gathering Storm, and Winds of War).

Until then, the last version of the mod is always available on this site. The mod is a modification of the game, without the campaigns and maps, which are to be included in the add-on. The Mod alternates the parameters of creatures and objects in the game to achieve the maximum balance possible.

If you are...

  • a gamer, and like to play Heroes IV, you can provide us with invaluable help just by testing out the mod. First of all, we wish to know how more playable is the game Heroes when opposing a human - are there still any balance or gameplay issues. But we also value any feedback, support and constructive criticism alike. You can use the guestbook, or send an email, address of which is on the "Team" page.

If you are...

  • a programmer;
  • an artist/graphics designer ;
  • a mapmaker;
  • a translator,

and you wish to help - tell us !

Unfortunately, we cannot offer you anything for your help, except for moral satisfaction from the work done and respect from the gaming community.

Yours Sincerely, the Equilibris Team