I couldn't resist grabbing Heroes of Might and Magic 5 and its expansions when the games went on sale recently on Steam. While I enjoy strategy-role-playing games, I foolishly held a grudge toward Heroes of Might and Magic. This had nothing to do with the game itself; I sadly admit that my grudge is much pettier than that. I loved the original Might and Magic series of role-playing games, but I felt that they got progressively worse as the franchise expanded into other genres. So I boycotted Heroes of Might and Magic as the original series floundered and faded from the role-playing landscape.

I realize that I was being a fool -- especially once I played King's Bounty: The Legend after my first layoff of the year. It didn't take long for King's Bounty to dominate my gaming time, and I played through it with each of its characters before setting it aside 2 months later.

Although the Heroes series lacks some of King's Bounty's goofy charm, it's still a fun, compelling game. Or maybe I should say compulsive. One of the problems that I have with RPGs -- and especially with strategy-RPGs -- is the desire to travel to every portion of the map, find every creature in the scenario, and claim as much of the loot as possible. And the compulsion was winning....

In the third mission of the second campaign (The Conquest), your hero must capture all of the enemy's towns in the region. I wasn't sure how many towns were in the scenario, because I found myself in a trap: the desire to build up each city. Now, it was apparent that the enemy wasn't making an effort to reclaim his fallen cities, and it was also apparent that the scenario did not require me to spend time finding resources and boosting my gold reserves -- especially since the scenario wasn't allowing me to add certain buildings to my cities!

The realization hit me suddenly -- I don't need to improve my cities. All that I needed to do was capture the remaining cities and move on to the next scenario. But my mind balked at that thought. I needed 3 more crystals before I could start recruiting Green Dragons! I needed those dragons! Why? My forces were strong enough to obliterate any enemy armies in my path. I had Pit Lords -- why did I want dragons?

And that's the trap that I do my best to avoid in strategy-RPGs: I desired the Green Dragons for no other reason other than that they were available, and I needed to collect everything that I could before moving on. Rationally, I knew that I didn't need those dragons. I had a demon army -- my forces would ruin the dragon's morale. The dragons were superfluous at this point because my forces were strong enough to handle anything the pansy-ass Elves threw at me. But I still wanted them....

Could I resist my compulsion? Could I move on and finish the scenario without those Green Dragons? The chances of that were about as likely as Homer Simpson resisting the temptation to scarf down the last donut in the box.

I'm happy to report that I did resist. I moved on without an army of Green Dragons -- and laughed a day later when I realized that I could have all the Green Dragons that I desired in the next mission.

I'm proud that I was able to resist one of my major gaming compulsions. And as I prepare to move on to the campaign's final mission, I wonder if I can continue to set aside those compulsions and still enjoy the game.