DNLH wrote:
The game requires sequential turns to have hotseat, not simultaneous ones. This is one obstacle against hotseat in Amplitude strategy games that simply cannot be jumped over without changing fundamental mechanics of the game.

My introduction to strategy games was playing HoMMIII with my brother and his friend. Castle and Stronghold. Years later we've spent hours playing HoMMVI, haven't touched VII, but judging by what Lord_Funk wrote, not much changed.

I acctually got the "HD" version HoMM III (playable via steam) included with one of the other HoMM games collectors version, maybe it was V or VI, I can't remember. I was in the mood to replay it at that time and without having a stretched out window resolution or alot of black areas on the sides (which playing the old install would result in on a more modern monitor back then on both windows xp and windows 7). I then realized it wasn't complete. It lacked alot of the content (particularly the expansions content), as those original codes seems to have been lost by time, so they could not rework it all into HD (at least I remember reading some explanation like that back then). Then I have just let it be. I do still have all my original CD ROMs, as well as all the patches I downloaded back then from New World Computing (the developers) or 3DO's (the publishers) web-site (before they went bust and ubisoft took over the franchise). I just didn't want to fiddle with trying to get the game to run from those old versions. 

However this Black Friday I noticed that Ubisoft Connect (former uplay) on their store page section (which I haven't visited for years) did have both the first HoMM, as well as HoMM II (I still have my old boxes of those as well) and that they now had HoMM III "Complete" version for sale as well, so I bought them all. Not had time to play them yet, as testing Humankind is my priority whenever I have some time over for gaming.

I was really happy to see they had all those 3 and that they should be working on Windows 10 (if I understood correctly). I'm really looking forward to playing them all again. Even if I was not a fan of UPlay as a platform and I have no idea if Ubisoft Connect will be any better.

Civilization series and Heroes of Might and Magic series are by far the strategy games I have played the most on PC. Acctually Civ 1 was back on Amiga for me. I'm hoping Humankind will fill that void they have left. Civ 6 I don't like and HoMM VII came out 2015 and I have not seen a new one in the series since. I can say that so far Humankind is very promising and seem to be able to fill that void for me. 

One thing has changed since then, is that all my friends have families or at least partners (some married) and their partners will not allow those long night and weekend HotSeat sessions. I have to wait for them to get divorced I guess, he he he !!! However now that my son is getting to that age we can have such sessions together. I guess we could try with his friends too (not tried that yet), as long as they have done their homework of course. I can tolerate and even enjoy Multiplayer in strategy games when playing with close friends, since we all agree to NO time limits on turns and NO fast animations (not that homm had any of that anyway). No stress, we sit and chill and talk while one of us do their turn. HotSeat is great that way. It feels like playing a boardgame and is very social in a positive and relaxing way.

DNLH wrote:
Oh man, now you opened a memory box for me. As you can imagine I was a punching bag in HoMMIII, being a newbie and all, but then my brother received HoMMI+II for Christmas. First one shows its age, honestly, though it has its charm. It's just, imo, not enough to warrant long playing sessions, more like short trips down the memory lane. But HoMMII? Gods, it was amazing. We wouldn't play that often, though, because I devoured it in single and when it came to our first hotseat game I just curbstomped him. It's been years and I still remember it, revenge really is sweet.

Ah, it was fun. Thanks for sharing, man.

The same. *thumbs up*

It's so nice to read what experiences others with the same interests has had. How much they even might resemble Your own experiences. Even though we might be half a world apart, from different nations/cultures etc, but still share some things and feel "connected". To go a little "poetical", it's one of the beauties with gaming. It transcends borders, cultures, social status, genders, politics etc. It removes barries that might otherwise separate us. We can lay all that aside for a while. It kind of makes us all equals and nothing else but the game matters. 

I guess You could say that about alot of hobbies. Fishing, model building, physical training etc. It's why when I ask someone "So what do You do ???" I am not that much interested in what they work with (that's 8 hrs a day, or even longer in some countries, that we can not hang out together anyway), but I'm rather more interested what they do in their sparetime, their interests, their hobbies, taste in movies and music and such. To me that says alot more about someone, than just simply what they work with (not meant to diminish anyones work of course).

Then on the other hand, people can always find a reason to argue and get into heated conflicts over games too, or who caught the biggest fish, he he he !!! I guess nothing is perfect. :)

I have found some previous comments quite moving and my suggestion goes like this: Collaborative multiplayer (2 or more people controlling one culture)

Ooh, like in SC 2? Might actually be handy, considering that managing many cities & units in long sessions with big maps can be a bit of a pain. That might be even integrated in regular sessions as an option, like advanced alliance or vassalization contracts. Imagine winning a war against another player and instead of killing it's leader, force him to watch over some distant Peoria or mecrenary goon army just to not bother about it.