Playing Heroes III Natively in Linux with VCMI and GOG Installer

Posted by Chris7mas on Jul 6, 2014 12:11 PM EDT
TuxArena; By Craciun Dan
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VCMI is an ambitious project that aims to recreate the entire Heroes III engine and add new features, and has been in the works for a few years, and up to now it is in good shape.

VCMI is an ambitious project that aims to recreate the entire Heroes III engine and add new features, and has been in the works for a few years, and up to now it is in good shape.

heroes05

To play Heroes III with VCMI you will need the following:

1. Install VCMI (see below for instruction on how to install in Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr)

2. Have a GOG Installer for Heroes III Complete (currently available for $9.99 at GOG.com)

3. Run VCMI to install Heroes III

Step 1: Install VCMI in Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

Complete instructions on how to install VCMI from the PPA can be found here. Just add the PPA, update the package list and install it using the following commands in a terminal: sudo apt-add-repository ppa:saven-ivan/vcmi sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install vcmi

The latest version is 0.96. There is also a PPA for development versions, but the stable one should be enough: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vcmi/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install vcmi

2. Get the GOG.com installer for Heroes III Complete

In addition to VCMI you will also need the Heroes III Complete installer from GOG.com, available for $9.99. Here is the link to the game. The installer is a Windows executable, and in the next step you will need to run the vcmibuilder script to install it.

3. Set it all up

Once you have VCMI and the installer, you will also need to install the innoextract package: sudo apt-get install innoextract

Now use vcmibuilder to install the game data from the GOG installer: vcmibuilder –gog /path/to/gog/installer –download

For example, you could use something like: vcmibuilder –gog /home/USER/Downloads/setup_homm_3_complete.exe –download

(The –gog and –download arguments use double dash)

4. Configure the game

To configure VCMI, run the vcmilauncher script. Here you can change the resolution and several other settings, or install new mods:

vcmilauncher01

5. Run Heroes III

To start Heroes III, use the bottom icon in the vcmilauncher script, or run the vcmiclient command in the terminal:

vcmilauncher02

This is only one of the methods for installing VCMI. An offline installation guide is also available on the VCMI Wiki.

Playing a single player scenario:

heroes01

heroes03

As a downside, the the AI currently takes a long time to perform its turn, but other than that, VCMI supports scenarios and campaigns, and has some neat features compared to vanilla Heroes as well. Also, playing over the network is not yet supported.

VCMI has support for campaigns too, but for me the AI froze when trying Restoration of Erathia.

vcmi01

Starting a new scenario:

vcmi02

VCMI recreates In the Wake of Gods and has support for widescreen resolutions, a completely new AI, hot-seat mode, basic battle and adventure AI.

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