Heroes of Might and Magic 4 Guide

This is the last game developed by New World Computing, not too long before their parent company, 3DO, went bankrupt. Despite numerous bugs in the initial release, later patches fixed the game and two expansions provided a few more units and several new campaigns. It is different from the other Heroes games in several ways, perhaps the most notable is that your heroes participate directly in combat.

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This guide will explain how to install the digital edition of the game available on GOG.com

Tips & Specs

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux explained

Arch Linux 64-bit
PlayOnLinux 4.2.1
Wine 1.7.6

Downloading from GOG

GOG games can be downloaded on Linux by using a web browser, just make sure the "GOG.com Downloader mode" is OFF

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Or you can use the lgogdownloader, which is my personal preferred choice. It is a very useful program for downloading GOG games. There is no graphical interface for it, but it is very fast and provides error free downloads.

For some Linux distros it may be found in community repositories or similar community provided packages. Installation and usage instructions are located here: lgogdownloader

On first use, you must log in by opening a terminal and using the command:

lgogdownloader --login

You will be prompted for your gog.com account email and password, which you must type in correctly before you can use lgogdownloader to download games.

To list all games you own, type:

lgogdownloader --list

If you only want to see specific games you own, for example any games with 'heroes' in the name, then type:

lgogdownloader --list | grep heroes

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To download Heroes 4 with no extras and no cover artwork, just the actual installer:

lgogdownloader --download --game heroes_of_might_and_magic_4_complete --no-extras --no-cover --directory /path/to/folder

Setup PlayOnLinux

Launch PlayOnLinux and select 'Tools' and 'Manage Wine versions'

In the new window that appears, scroll through the 'Available Wine versions' box to find '1.7.6' and click on the right pointing arrow to install it, now it will be visible under 'Installed Wine versions' on the right side
If you have a 64-bits system, make sure you have selected the 'Wine versions (x86)' tab above

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Just close the window. Back at the main PlayOnLinux window, select 'Install'

Click on 'Install a non-listed program'

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Select 'Install a program in a new virtual drive' and click next

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Name the the virtual drive "Heroes4" and click next

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Select "Use another version of Wine", "Configure Wine" and "Install some libraries" before you click next

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On the wine selection window, select 1.7.6 and click next. Make sure you select '32-bits window installation' if you are on a 64-bit system.

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When the wine configuration window appear, select the 'Graphics' tab, and click the checkbox for all four options, just like in my screenshot. The resolution is not that important is it will change to the game resolution when you start it.

However, it you intend to use the campaign and scenario editor, then you should set the resolution to your desktop resolution.

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Note: Even though the language is Norwegian in my screenshot, the layout will look the same for you

When you come to the selection of libraries to install, select: POL_Install_gdiplus
This will let the GOG installer display correctly

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Then click 'Next'

When you are asked for the install file to run, navigate to the GOG installer and select it. Then click 'Next'

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Installing the Game

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Click on options, then you can uncheck the Foxit reader install as it is not required and will just take space. Then click to accept the UELA and click 'Install'

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When the installation is complete, 'Exit' the installer

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When you are asked to create a shortcut, select "heroes4.exe", if you want to create your own maps and campaigns for the game, then you should create another shortcut for "campaign_editor.exe". When you have created the shortcuts, simply select "I don't want to make another shortcut"

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You can now go ahead and start the game. On the game main menu, you can select "Options" and "Game settings" to change the resolution. The game only support 3 different resolutions.

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Screenshots

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Nice guide!
I like the lgogdownloader program. Didn't realize it existed.
Will it work for large 3 Gig download games?
 
The lgogdownloader works for all games on GOG. I used it to download The Witcher 2, which is 16 gb. By the way, if you intend to install it, I recall something which should be available in Mint repos called "checkinstall". You can use that whenever you install something from source (which you most likely will have to do with lgogdownloader), when you are supposed to use the command "make install" use "checkinstall" instead, provided you have installed it first. This will make your package manager handle the install so you can easily and cleanly uninstall, or update.
 
Very nice guide, Daerandin! The single-player works like a charm!
Could you please elaborate on how to get multi-player running? The game seems to require DirectPlay. I tried several different things and none succeeded (ubuntu, trusty).
Thanks a lot!!!
 
I've never been much of a multiplayer gamer. But if all it requires is DirectPlay, then you could try this:

Select the game shortcut in PlayOnLinux. Click on configure, then select the "Install components" tab. Find "directplay" on the list and click Install. You can test that to see if it works.
 
Hi Daerandin! Thanks for the answer!

I have done what you suggested, but with no luck.
heroes: Multiplayer - Host Game - Direct TCP/IP - Create - [chose one scenario] - Next
result: DirectPlay failed when attempting to open a listening connection
Does it work for you?

As a side question: how could confirm DirectPlay is really installed?
 
I didn't test it myself prior to giving you that tip. I just tested it myself and multiplayer does indeed not work. The debug output was not overly helpful, so I did some googling and came across an old bug report on winehq. This bug is still unresolved (it was initially opened in 2006, and have comments up to 2012), and seem to only affect multiplayer of certain older games, which is probably why it is not a priority to fix.

However, I found this:

https://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=1638

Check at comment at the bottom. It mentions a workaround to get multiplayer working, it requires you to download a .exe file and place it within the virtual drive. I do not have much time today, but if you have problems with this then I can test this out myself tomorrow and do detailed step-by-step instructions, provided that it works.
 
That is an interesting "work around"...
Doesn't really tell us what it does and why it works.

Notice this person also posts "This game requires a crack to work"
Hopefully you won't need the "no cd crack" for mulit-player to work
 
I took a closer look at that comment, and decided that we should definitely forget about that work around. The files are hosted on a shady website, so I'm not touching that.

So I don't think you can expect to have multiplayer working for this game. Considering how long the bug report has been there, I would not keep my hopes up. Reading about this directplay bug made me realize that another of my favorite games is affected too, Spellforce.
 
How is multi-player supposed to work?
IPX, Ethernet?

Is it one of those "host the game locally" with a listenserver and someone joins on your network?
 
Multiplayer for this game can work over either IPX, or regular TCP/IP, however both have the same error message. You host the game locally, and others connect either by using your IP or over LAN. But this bug seems to be a problem with Wine's implementation of directplay that affect some older games.
 
Ok, I was making sure that you knew if it was the game or Wine.
Do you know of any other games that have a similar problem?
Particularly old games...
 
I found some better information here:

http://wiki.winehq.org/DirectPlay

So this is well known since WineHQ got a page specifically about this. A lot of games are on that list, it says Heroes 4 got a work around on the list so I will do some more digging later this week.
 
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