Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars is the second instalment in the Heroes of Might and Magic series, and later received an expansion, The Price of Loyalty.

Sub-Page#

Prerelease Info

Unused Graphics#

Adventure Map#

Alternative Graveyard

Seemingly pitiful versions of Graveyard for different terrains. The rumour is that it can be generated by random maps generator, but unconfirmed. The snowy version can be also found on one of standard maps - "Peasants".

Alternative	Final

Ultimate artifacts

Four of the ultimate artifacts — Ultimate Shield, Ultimate Staff, Ultimate Crown and Golden Goose — have miniatures for adventure map screen but left unused. Ultimate artifacts that were present in Heroes 1 don't have such icons, although there are empty bitmaps for them. All eight Ultimate Artifacts and a Spell Book can be added to an adventure map via hex-editing of scenario, they can be also normally picked up by a hero. Dialog box will show only a big icon of an artifact without a typical short story about circumstances of acquiring an item.

Artifacts placeholders

Game contains Art32.icn, file that is leftover from HoMM1; it was also going to be used in HoMM2, but all the artifacts graphics were decreased for some reason (see one of the adventure map screenshots from prerelease article, fragment below) and eventually removed. Only this placeholder graphic with two "x" was left.

Battlefield#

Graveyard Battlefield

With 3 specific obstacles.

Unfinished Lava Battlefield Obstacle

Unused mouse cursors#

Spells

Adventure Map

Battle

Unused spell Icon#

There are no other remains of this spell in the game files; its purpose is unclear.

Non-glitched Dwarf Death#

Due to a bugged frame count, dwarf death animations contain two frames from idle animation and lacks two final frames. Because this dwarf's animations end earlier, leaving their dead bodies with upraised hand and two final frames left unused.

Non-glitched	Glitched, used in-game

Non-glitched	Glitched, used in-game

Uncut Waterfall#

Centaur dwelling and Waterfall graphics in Warlock Town have wrong order on a townscreen and because of that Waterfall is truncated in a final release.

Uncut	Cut, used in-game

Heroes of Might and Magic 1 Leftovers#

Alternative Random Hero Placeholder

An alternative placeholder can be found together with files of icons from monsters category of map editor, just like in HoMM1.

Alternative	Final

The victory screen

Different bars and buttons

Catapult Button

Button that also remains unused in HoMM1; in early demo version of H1 player had to push this button in order to fire boulder off Tents and Flags

In HoMM2 Heroes found enough courage to come out of their tents. Death Animations

Unused Sounds#

Alternative Stone Skin Sound

Unused Mass Shield Sound

"Wait" Function in Battle¹#

The "wait" button can be seen on of some prerelease screenshots. It's possible to bring this functionality back to the game, however only human players can use it, getting a great advantage against AI. Still, it can be an interesting addition to a multiplayer game. Restoring this function allows the player to press the W key and place a unit into the bottom of the turn order for a round, effectively making them go last. However, the trouble is, that units can wait for the second time (e.g. two player's monsters wait, slower and faster, then enemy monsters move, then slower creature waits again while faster moves and the slower creature is moving eventually) and that these units could get positive morale twice! (e.g. creature moves, gets morale, waits, moves again, receives morale once again and moves for the third time). This functionality wouldn't see proper implementation until the next game and has been a staple of gameplay ever since.

This line for hovering mouse over the "wait" button can be found in Heroes2W.exe:

Wait for other units to go.

And this is probably info under right click on the "wait" button:

{Wait}
Have the current creature wait to take its turn until all the other creatures have gone.  The creature does not lose its turn.

In order to give "wait" function back to the game change bytes in HEROES2W.EXE as described below (works only with PoL v2.1, GOG version won't work).

Unused Morale Modifiers#

Battle cowardice#

There is only this one line of text in the game, that mentions battle cowardice. Probably surrendering or fleeing the battle would decrease hero's morale as much, as many times he left the battlefield infamously.

Current Morale Modifiers: Battle cowardice %d

Knight bonus#

It's probably leftover from HoMM1, where having +1 to morale was Knight's exclusive quality. In HoMM2 it was replaced by Leadership secondary skill - every Knight starts with basic Leadership, granting them +1 to morale.

Current Morale Modifiers: Knight bonus +1

Third creature stack#

The game code reveals (just like in HoMM1 early stages of development) that it was planned to give a hero starting army level 3 creatures. In the final release however, heroes can start with 1 stack of level 1 creature only or with 2 stacks of level 1 and 2 creatures.

Prerelease Heroes Names#

First issues of HoMM2:SW contain a game save from "TUTORIAL" map, seen in a manual; the save was made in a late stage of development of the game. When looking closer, one can find that in this map heroes that weren't present in HoMM1 were given a different name. The old names have nothing to do with New World Computing, while the new ones are often references to a Might and Magic series.

Old Campaign Names#

Changing the campaign maps extensions from .HXC to .MP2 let us open them in a map editor. Three of the Succession Wars maps descriptions contains an old names for campaigns

Campaigns Transcript#

H2CAMP.txt contains transcript of the Succession Wars campaign. It differs in one place from the intro :

Fade to portraits of three other seers.

Final intro doesn't contain portraits of the seers. There are also short descriptions of voices from the campaign:

Voice Descriptions

Narrator:  Old man, historian sounding, kindly, blah, blah, blah.

Roland:  Good guy knight type.  Deep voice.

Archibald:  Evil wizard type.  Think of Tim Curry, or John Hurt 
in the role.  Cultured, faintly British accent.

Command Line Commands²#

Cheat Menu#

Running the game with the "/NWC" parameter enables debugging "cheat menu" in the world map and Town/Castle screens if the game is run in windowed mode. It works both for The Succession Wars and The Price of Loyalty.

The options are pretty self-explanatory. The Free Creatures and Secondary Skills have sub-menus enabling the player to add them to the currently selected hero for free. Free Spells also gives a vast amount of spell points.

Again, most of this speaks for itself. However, Build All Buildings doesn't complete the Mage Guild; it only builds the next level of it. Likewise, Build Mage Guild constructs the next level, and it can be used consecutively to get all five levels. Docks cannot be built in Towns/Castles not adjacent to water.

Debug Mode#

• /p[n] - enable debug mode (n - detailing level), where:
  • /p0 - disabled (default),
  • /p1 - provides additional information about the cell under the right click,
  • /p2 - the minimum level from which the game starts logging the actions of the game and players (a text file KB.LOG is created in the game folder),
  • /p4 - turns on Quick Combat (when attacking monsters, the game crashes if at least one army has shooting units.)
  • /p9 - maximum log detail.

Other Commands#

• /d0 - disable digital sound
• /m0 - disable MIDI music
• /r0 - disable Redbook music
• /i0 - skip the intro
• /s0 - disable sound and music
• /w0 - disable waveOut

Any number can be used instead of zero, for example /D1. In this case, the key will enable the option (if it is not enabled by default).

• /v - video setting ("Normal"/"Interlaced") is reset to "Interlaced"
• /x - used by developers (When the game was launched with this key, some SMK videos were loaded locally (from a specific folder on the developers' computer).
• /z - not used (previously held memory diagnostics)

Keys for multiplayer game via TCP/IP protocol:

• /ta[Host_IP_Address] - host IP address
• /tn[Player_Name] - player name
• /tp[n] - number of players (n = 2..6)
• /ts{h, g} - player status (/tsh - host, /tsg - guest)
• /tt{n, l} - game type (/ttn - new, /ttl - load save)

Development Text#

Developers' Hard Drive

These strings can be found in Heroes2w.exe.

c:\TEMP\Z.DIF
c:\heroes2\anim\voy24.smk      F:\h2xsrc\Base\Soundmgr.cpp
F:\h2xsrc\Source\dpnetwin.cpp  F:\h2xsrc\Source\TOWNMGR.CPP
F:\h2xsrc\Source\GAME.CPP      F:\h2xsrc\Source\KB.CPP
F:\h2xsrc\Source\COMMAND.CPP   F:\h2xsrc\Source\ADVMGR.CPP
F:\h2xsrc\Source\Newgame.cpp   F:\h2xsrc\Source\Wsnetwin.cpp
F:\h2xsrc\Source\Overview.cpp  F:\h2xsrc\Source\FINDPATH.CPP
F:\h2xsrc\Source\REMOTE.CPP    F:\h2xsrc\Source\netwin.cpp
F:\h2xsrc\Source\EVENTS.CPP    F:\h2xsrc\Source\wingraph.cpp
F:\h2xsrc\Source\SPELLS.CPP    F:\h2xsrc\Source\PHILAI.CPP
F:\h2xsrc\Source\comwin.cpp    F:\h2xsrc\Source\CURSOR.CPP
F:\h2xsrc\Base\WINMGR.CPP      F:\h2xsrc\Base\BITMAP.CPP
F:\h2xsrc\Base\Misc.cpp        F:\h2xsrc\Base\RESMGR.CPP
F:\h2xsrc\Base\MOUSEMGR.CPP    F:\h2xsrc\Base\ICON.CPP
F:\h2xsrc\Base\TEXTWDGT.CPP    F:\h2xsrc\Base\Bzip.cpp
F:\h2xsrc\Base\PALETTE.CPP     F:\h2xsrc\Base\Blur.cpp
F:\h2xsrc\Base\Textntry.cpp    F:\h2xsrc\Base\listbox.cpp
F:\h2xsrc\Base\droplist.cpp    F:\h2xsrc\Base\TILESET.CPP
F:\h2xsrc\Base\SAMPLE.CPP

Miscellaneous

Heroes2W.exe contains these strings, it looks like they were adressed to Phil Steinmeyer, Heroes 2 programmer and designer.

AI encountered object type %d and doesn't know how to deal with it.   Tell Phil

Data miscommunication in hero position, first %d, %d, second %d, %d.  Please give Phil a copy of  your Autosave and, if possible, instructions to recreate this error

Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty

Title Screens

Base Game	Expansion Pack

The first and the last expansion to HoMM2. It added four new campaigns, new scenarios, new adventure map objects, artifacts, heroes portraits and music tracks. The later "Gold Edition" release was simply PoL expansion with additional fan-made maps and no new features.

Artifacts Placeholders#

There are four artifacts placeholders (bigger for Hero Window and smaller for Kingdom Overwiev and Trading Window), the most probably the creators of the expansion were planning to add more artifacts.

Artifacts can be put on map via hex-editing just like Ultimate Artifacts. When picked up, such info will occur and artifact will fall into equipment:

Revisional Differences

Glitched Ultimate Staff#

In PoL 2.0 Ultimate Staff's icon was replaced by a strange item, that appears to be a part of Legendary Scepter. It has transparent background, thus part of underneath window can be seen.

Towns Music Tracks#

There are three different sets of town music for HoMM2: for "The Succession Wars" vanilla, The Price of Loyalty expansion and Millenium Edition. Moreover, SW and demo versions contain swapped MIDI versions of the files; PoL also received MIDI counterparts, but in a correct order. PoL game files also contain swapped SW MIDI versions, but unused. In the GoG release the files for both the Succession Wars and Price of Loyalty town music are included with the game, with the PoL version being the default. Main menu track also differs between MIDI and CD Stereo version.

Watch on YouTube

Strange theme for Sorceress from Millenium Edition.

M&M VI Trailer#

HoMM2 Gold received a trailer with a few new images from early M&M VI cutscenes.

Links

• 1 - HoMM2 museum on Forums of Enroth

References#