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There are games that I have great admiration for, fond memories of, and an absolutely terrifying skill set and output. Heroes of Might & Magic III (or HoMM 3) has long been one of those games.

I’ve played it on almost every computer I’ve owned since I deleted it on my college GPA. I love being tasked with managing not only heroes, armies, resources, villages and battlefield positions, but also time itself. If you’re running around the map clicking to find every single power-up and resource pile, using move after move, you’ll almost certainly let your enemy get strong enough to beat you. But I do this, without fail. I get halfway into a campaign and the (horse cart) wheels fall off, so I put the game aside until the click to move horse impulse returns.

With the release of Songs of Conquest in 1.0 form on PC today (Steam, GOG, Epic), I feel liberated from this cycle of repetitive humiliation. This title from Lavapotion and Coffee Stain Publishing pretty much hits the same points of pleasure of discovery and choice as HoMM 3. But Songs of Conquest it has much easier entry, modern resolutions, interfaces that aren’t too overwhelming (to the point of being confirmed on Steam Deck), and detailed difficulty customization. More importantly for most, it has its own stories and ideas. If you like to play with things line by line, it’s hard to imagine not finding something in Songs of Conquest to hook you up

Songs of Conquest you must move your horsemen (the heroes of his inspiration) and their armies around a world map, using each limited movement point to free up a new resource, grab treasure, get a temporary power-up, or engage in battle. When it’s time to fight, you switch to a hexagonal grid where your troops trade blows and you choose spells so your caster can help. Win the battle (manually or with an automatic “quick” decision), unlock a new area, collect new resources, recruit more troops, and repeat until the map is clear or some other condition is met. You’ll get tons of spellcasters, new troop types, and tons of new spells and artifacts as you progress, and follow a very sword and dragon story.

The art is a mix of intentionally grainy (and nice) pixel art, scrolling and stone UI elements, and cutscenes and dramatic shots with a deliberately hand-drawn look. Even if every element looks good, I’m glad the game mixes it up and you get a break from each. Proper medieval music seems well done, although it’s at a disadvantage as my brain makes 45 decisions a minute and tends to block out brass, strings and choirs.

There are four campaigns in the game, each with their own lands, enemy casters and units, spells, and many other new things to uncover and throw into your mental strategy RAM. This is good variety, especially when combined with the difficulty and other campaign options you can set. Coming to this game from HoMM 3 memories, I found the variety of map elements, town/castle buildings, and caster types to be novel and engaging. My biggest gripe with the game is that spell management and caster upgrades are too rich a field for me, kind of just one rich system over the line. Deciding what kind of magic a Caster should specialize in and remembering the huge variety of spells available to put in their fast lane blew my mind.

As I noted above though, I’m not really good at these games, I just enjoy the magic they throw at me. Songs of Conquest is a rich new chapter for Heroes of Might & Magic fans, but it’s also a good starting point if you’ve never been tempted by the series before with its clunky title and heavy difficulty. Unlike your casters, you can go around its thousands of little things at whatever pace you like.

List image by Coffee Stain Publishing