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The Unofficial
Heroes of Might and Magic Two
Frequently Asked Questions
version 2.2
First published: November 20th 1996 Last updated: May 2nd 1997
Table of Contents
1.....Terms 2.....Introduction 3.....General Questions
4.....Multi-player Sessions 5.....Bugs and other related problems
6.....The Game 7.....The map editor 8.....Gimme more! 9.....Credits
A.....Artifacts
1 Terms
1.1 Autorun: A feature included with Win95 that allows cd rom
programs to start automatically after loading.
1.2 Hi Color: A 15 bit color SVGA color mode. It displays between 32k
and 65k colors depending on your video card.
1.3 HOMM: Heroes of Might and Magic
1.4 IRC: Internet Relay chat
1.5 IPX: A network protocol commonly used on local area networks.
1.6 NWC: New World Computing - The creators of HOMM II and the entire
Might and Magic line.
1.7 TCP/IP: The protocol used for the internet.
1.8 True color: A 24 bit color mode that displays 16 million colors.
1.9 Patch: A modification of the program released by the company that
created the program.
2.0 Hack: A modification of the program released by someone else
besides the company that created the program.
2 Introduction
2.1 What is HOMM II? -Heroes of Might and Magic II is the sequel to
Heroes of Might and Magic which is itself a sequel of the game King's
Bounty. HOMM II, like its ancestors, is a fantasy based strategy game
of war and resource management. The characters, monsters, and settings
are loosely based the Might and Magic universe established in the five
role playing games of the same name. The game is played out in turns
not real time. Most games take less that four hours to play.
2.2 So is HOMM II like .......? -There are many turn based strategy
games that appear similar to HOMM II. Managing the castles feels a lot
like Civilization. Moving the Heroes around feels like Master of
Magic. Combat feels like Master of Orion and Panzer General. In truth,
there is no game like Heroes of Might and Magic II. Well, except for
Heroes of Might and Magic I.
2.3 What are the differences between HOMM I and HOMM II? -There were
many improvements. New to HOMM II were:

-Two new character classes: Necromancer and Wizard -12 New
Monsters -Upgrade able dwellings that draw more powerful troops. -New
types of buildings: A trading post to trade for needed resources, -A
larger battle area. -Castles' defenses can be upgraded. -A campaign
mode were one mission will effect the next -You can hire captains to
defend towns and castles instead of taking up a valuable hero.
-Heroes have secondary skills. -Slower units like Dwarves move faster
and thus are more usable. -The graphics have been updated with hand
painted computer models. -Winning isn't always dependent on destroying
all other players. -IPX and TCP/IP protocols are now supported. -Opera
Music.
2.4 What is the appeal of HOMM II? -Beauty is often hard to define.
Some people like the strategy element, the resource management, the
beautiful graphics and music, the fantasy setting, the rock solid
code, and/or the turn based nature of the game. I'm sure those aren't
all the reasons, but you get the picture.
2.5 What are the system requirements? -DOS: 486/66 or higher, 8 megs
of ram, and 2x cdrom That being said, some people have been running
The Dos version HOMM II on 486 sx 25s and are happy with it. -Win95
486/66 or higher, 8 megs of ram (I would say 16) and 2x cdrom Both
the Dos and Win95 versions of the game will run on a 386 sx16 with 8
megs of ram. In fact testing was done on a 386 sx25 system. However it
is reported that it was painful.
-Mac: 68030 or Power mac, 8 megs of ram, 2x cdrom, and system 7.
2.6 Can I run HOMM II under Win NT? -Yes. Version 4.0 of NT
workstation supports the DirectX drivers needed to run HOMM II. It is
recommended that you have at lest 32 megs of ram.
2.7 Is there a demo and if so, where is it? - Yes!. It is 27 megs and
available for download from
http://www.nwcomputing.com/heroes2/h2demo.html. Also it will probably
be available on all the major CD magazines such as PC Gamer and
Computer Gaming World.
2.8 Where can I buy HOMM II? -HOMM II should be available anywhere
you find new PC games. It comes in four packages. Package one is
priced $39.95 US and comes with the Dos and Win95 version of HOMM II
Some have seen it as low as $29.95 at places like Best Buys. Package
two is priced $44.95 US and comes with the Dos and Win95 version of
HOMM II and the Dos version of HOMM I. Package three comes with HOMM
II, HOMM I, and the Might and Magic trilogy. No word on the price of
package three. Package four is the mac version and it sells for
$39.95.
2.9 Should I buy HOMM II? -Yes. Its really a great game.
3 General Questions
3.1 Is it my imagination but isn't HOMM II a lot harder than HOMM I?
-Yes. It appears that not only the computer players are getting
advantages that the human player doesn't, but the maps are designed to
favor the computer players. Also, some of the scenarios appear to have
their level of difficulty mislabeled.
3.2 That is all well and good but can you help me stop the computer
players from kicking my butt? -I can not give you any sure fire tips.
I have lost more games that I have won. On top of that, this is a FAQ
and not a strategy guide. I can give you some observations that may
help.
-At the beginning of the game, all players, computer and human,
are about even. So expand quick and fast. As time marches on, the
computer players appear to get special bonuses making them harder to
kill later in the game. -Heroes from strongest to weakest: Warlock,
Wizard, Necromancer, Barbarian, knight, and Sorceress. -Computer
players will almost always attack troops that fire first. So try to
organize your slow/powerful troops next to your firing troops. -Gather
resources as fast as you can. Sure can buy anything you need via the
marketplace but you really need a steady supply of everything. -If all
else fails, try posting to the newsgroup:
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
3.3 What is this Might and Magic VI preview found in the game?
-At the beginning of the game, click on the glowing, unmarked door on
the left and you'll see a series of sceen shots for NWC's next episode
of the RPG series.
3.4 What language is the Opera music and where can I buy a CD of it?
-The opera in HOMM2 is in German. All the music, including the opera,
is original works commissioned for the game and is only available on
the game.
4 Multi-player Sessions
4.1 Hey! Where's chat? - While in Battle or looking at the map,
press F2. Hit enter to send and esc to abort. Also you can use [ or ]
to change the chat color.
4.2 Is it just me, or does the Hot seat option favor the last player?
- Yes it does. The computer only shows the movement of computer
players in the visible area of the last player. Thus the first players
will not be able to see a computer hero invading his kingdom. You can
even the odds by changing enemy speed to don't show. This also make
for a faster game.
4.3 Can I run a network game with only one copy of HOMM II? -Yes.
Install the game on the guest computers. The master computer is the
only system that has to have the original cdrom in the drive. The
guest computers will be unable to play CD music. Up to six players may
play this way.
4.4 Where can I meet people to play HOMM II over the internet? -Check
out IRC channel #HOMM2 and Holliane Holmes' HOMM II web page at
http://www.swweb.net/~hholmes/heroes/homamii.html -Check out:
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/6470/
4.5 Why can't I do anything when other players are taking their turn?
I thought that a simultaneous turn option was going to be allowed?
-See section 5.2.
4.6 Can I play over the Internet using the Dos version of HOMM II?
-Yes. You'll need a program called Kali. SJG writes: "Reference
www.kali.net for basic information. Basically, Kali is a program that
tricks the computer into thinking your PPP/Slip connection is really
an IPX network. Another program, based on the same principles as Kali,
is Kahn. Kahn can be found at www.ladder.com/~nbright. Both are
shareware, Kali is $20, Kahn is $15. This is for lifetime
registration."
4.7 Why can't I type in a 12 digit IP address? -see section 5.5
4.8 Is it possible for two human players to join forces and share
resources? -There is no team play option in HOMM II. However,
emgreen@net-link.net has found a hack that will allow you to do this:
"You have to hex edit one of the included team maps, to make it
editable in the Map editor. Change offset 4 to 01 and then you can
edit them. Then edit the map so that the team players can both/all be
human or computer. The only thing you have to worry about, is that if
you take a team members mine, any computer team members will start
taking your resources, and maybe attack you."
4.9 Can I play HOMM II over Mplayer? - Sure and here's Neal Spears to
tell us how. "Ok, here is how you can play Heroes of Might & Magic II
through Mplayer.
1) Go to www.mplayer.com and download their software, it is totally
FREE!
2) Once the software is downloaded and installed, launch Mplayer and
go to the "Chat Lobby".
3) Here you can make a Room (Click on "Create Room"), call it whatever
you want but it would probably be a good idea to put "HOMM2" somewhere
in the title. Once people join the room, you can chat (either VOICE
or keyboard) and agree on a game.
4) Now, minimize Mplayer and go to the "Start" menu, select "run" and
type "WINIPCFG". This will give you your IP ADDRESS. The only player
that needs to do this is the host of the game.
5) Go back to Mplayer and tell the other players your IP adress,
launch a game and select Multiplayer, network (TCP/IP), and "host" (if
you are the host). The other players then do the same thing and
select "Join Game" at your IP address.
6) Now you can play! Note that you can keep HoMM2 windowed and keep
Mplayer open in the background, therefore you can play HoMM2 over the
Net with Voice chat! And ALL FOR FREE!!!
-While at the Mplayer web site, check out the "Big Board BBS", go to
"Open for suggestions" then "games" then "Play HoMM2 on Mplayer
NOW!".
We can use this forum for discussing games, tips, etc and to set up
times to play.
Hope to see you all there!"

5 Bugs and other related problems
5.1 The crest doesn't take me to the Kingdom Overview screen. -This
feature was changed. As the Kingdom Overview screen grew in
complexity, it was causing confusion.
5.2 During multi player games, the game locks up and I'm unable to do
anything till after the other player takes their turn. - This isn't a
bug, its a feature. The original HOMM performed the same way. HOMM II
was originally was going to allow players to look over their castles
and such while the other player was taking their turn. The designers
couldn't figure out how to include this feature smoothly and fairly.
5.3 During combat, the game runs awfully slow. What's wrong? - The
cause of this problem is hard to track down. If your running Win 95
and met the minimum requirements here are some possible solutions:

-Add more ram. If your running the Win95 with 8 megs of ram, its
going to be slow. -Turn your colors down to 256. Hi and True color
modes eat processor time -Make sure your playing in full screen mode.

-For any version of HOMM II try:
-Turning the music off. -Change the battle speed to fast.
5.4 Why does the autorun introduction screen pop up sometimes when the
music changes? - This is a Win 95 and cd rom hardware problem. Some
cdroms seem to handle audio tracking "hicups" differently. Some will
try to correct the problem, others will just drive right through
causing audio breakup and others will reset from the index and search
for the track again. The last method causes Win95 to think a new CD
has been inserted and runs the autorun file again. If your CD rom does
this, then the only option is to turn autorun off from your device
manager. The higher number of auto tracks, the greater the chance this
can happen. Since HOMM I and HOMM II have a large number of tracks,
over 50, the chances are quite great.
5.5 I can only type in 11 digits for the IP address? -This is a real
bug. Go to http;//www.nwcomputing.com to download the patch that will
fix this problem.
5.6 Can I change my modem setting to a none standard IRQ In the Dos
version of HOMM II? I could in HOMM. -It doesn't appear so but there
may be a hack around this. I'll post any information I receive on this
subject.
5.7 Why does the cd-audio keeps skipping and repeating? -No one is
sure why this is happening. The skipping and repeating doesn't happen
to everyone. The CD-audio code is different than HOMM I so the problem
probably lies there. NWC may switch the code in HOMM II back to HOMM
I. Until such time, switch music from CD-audio to midi or just turn it
off. If you use the Win95 version, read 5.8
5.8 The CD audio music repeats and breaks off or I hear nothing at all
in the Win95 version. How can I fix it? -The problem is with your
DirectX drivers. Select add/remove programs under the control panel.
Select DirectX drivers and from there you must restore your old audio
drivers. If that doesn't work, try selecting midi music from the HOMM
II configuration screen.
5.9 Why does junk appear where ever I click and how can I get rid of
it? - This problem appears in the Win95 version. Its due to a conflict
between your video drivers and DirectX. Try using the HOMM II color
cursors. If that doesn't work, disable your video acceleration.
5.10 Hey! I won a battle and my computer rebooted. -Assuming you are
using Win95, its a DirectX problem. Some video cards are not 100
compatible with DirectX3. Try downloading the latest version of
DirectX3 and the latest drivers for your video and sound cards. If it
still doesn't work, try using the dos version.
5.11 The hour glass is on all the time. Why? -Its a DirectX problem.
Turn on the color cursors, or hit F4 to switch back and forth from
window and full screen mode, or change the hour glass icon to a
pointing icon.
5.12 Why does the editor keeps crashing when I add things? -This is
one of the bugs the patch will fix. Basically you have added too many
objects of one time and the editor breaks. Go to
http://www.nwcomputing.com to download the patch that will fix this
problem.