Heroes Of Might And Magic III: In The Wake Of Gods (Mod)

Heroes Of Might And Magic III: In The Wake Of Gods (WoG) is the holy grail of fan-made Homm III (get it from GOG) modifications at the moment. It requires you to have the original "Shadow Of Death" expansion version (or "Complete") of Homm III installed in order to function. It's a mod fancied by both groups: the players and the modders alike, because it's as much of a ready playable mod (with four extra campaigns, and many game changing new features), as it is a modding tool for creating new Homm III mods.

Download Homm III: In The Wake Of Gods at ModDB.

The development for In The Wake Of Gods -mod began around 2001 when a group of Homm III fans became annoyed of the original "vanilla" Homm III map editor's limitations; the lacking tools given for altering in-game objects and events (which we also find too restricting in many cases).

The group of fans then found a solution, coming up with new scripting language called "The Event Related Model (ERM)", which allowed map-makers to alter function, details, and appearance of any map object of Homm III (for example: adventure map locations, chests, anything). The scripting language was soon expanded beyond the limits of altering existing objects, so, that map-makers and modders could also create totally new objects from the scratch and add them into Homm III, or alter events much further than original map editor of Homm III could. ERM script-commands would also function in-game from on the fly, if one had WoG mod installed.

This sounds complicated! In short, what is WoG?

It's actually two things: a fully functional fan-made mod for Homm III: Shadow of Death version, as well as a tool working as a basis for new generation Homm III modders, due it's highly modifiable ERM scripting language, which can easily push the vanilla version of the game beyond it's limitations.

Firstly, In The Wake Of Gods provides a ready made set of new improved/altered rules and objects for Homm III; the heroes can take part in combat also physically (having hit-points, attack, defense, and speed), and they have new improved leveling process with new skills; there are new monsters, monster upgrades, adventure map locations, challenges, additional set of new graphics. The mod does add some complexity over the vanilla Homm III rules, stretching them a bit more than just a little (especially on the part of the heroes), but keeping the spirit of original Homm III definitely present. The combat rules, on the other hand, are pretty much unchanged, if we look outside "the hero-combat".

Any existing vanilla map (be it either a hand-made or random map) can be "WoG:ified" automatically prior loading them up, which is a nice feature if you want to try out the mod's changes compared to the vanilla version on the fly in-game. You can also alter the selection of which of the "new rules" presented by WoG you want to select and set on in the game; you don't have to pick all of them if you don't want to (eg. new rules and improvements for the heroes). There's rather large fan-based community supporting this mod at the moment, so you can be sure to find a lot of new fan-made content for WoG, such as new maps created especially for WoG. Vanilla Heroes' maps "should" work with WoG, when you "WoG":ify them on the fly when setting up a scenario in the game, but WoG made maps do not work without In The Wake Of Gods expansion. In The Wake Of Gods does also present four (4) completely new campaigns, which take advantage of the new game features: 1.) In The Wake of Gods 2.) The Samaritan 3.) A Life of Adventure 4.) Evil Way Home

(new altered hero development, rules, skills, and leveling-up process of WoG)

Secondly, In The Wake Of Gods works as a tool, because ERM scripting language is a great basis for a new generation of modders to create new in-game rules, objects, graphics, and such; and then import them into the game as a new mod based on WoG. Some of the more ambitious projects aim to create a fully new set of races and towns with new graphics and import them into the game.

Even though WoG is highly modifiable mod by it's rules one is allowed to switch on and off directly at the in-game Homm III menu; if one does want to play full vanilla Homm III regularly, we suggest you to keep two separate installations of the game on your hard drive. One installation with In The Wake Of Gods applied to it, and one without any mods installed. That's the easiest way of keeping the vanilla Homm III as vanilla, without having to change the rules in-game constantly!

That being said, we highly recommend WoG to anyone familiar with the vanilla Homm III gameplay and rules, who are seeking for new challenges and increased complexity to the game! Recommended for the gamers and the modders alike!