The gameplay of Heroes VI mainly follows in the same vein taken by its predecessor, i.e. hero-based faction-affiliated development. As such, every faction has two types of heroes, every unit has an upgrade and turns affect combats as they affect the general gameplay. There are substantial changes, however, and these include the replacement of magic guilds by the creation of spells/abilities wheel, in addition to the skills wheel. New affiliations called "Tears" or "Blood" appear and play a major role in hero development, notably influencing their skills. For instance, a "Tears" affiliated hero will have more defensive/beneficial buffs and his or her reputation will allow for more peaceful negotiations between potential enemies. A "Blood" affiliated hero, on the other hand, will profit from destructive/dark abilities and gain bonuses in adversary combat aimed to hurt the opponents.
The player's possessions are still regrouped in "Kingdoms", though now it's not just an overview, but also a part of the map "owned" by that player. The presence of a town determines who owns the land itself. All forts, mines/deposits and occasional goods givers now automatically replenish the army and the wealth of this player even if another player's heroes "flag" them. This situation lasts as long as the player is the owner of this given town. Only a few buildings within the area still remain neutral to whomever visits them. The feature was reported as a big improvement of the gameplay since the previous games, as players no longer need to garrison their mines and dwellings located outside town for protection, even though it was also criticized as being "too easy" by some older fans.
Finally, the game now features only four collectable resources (instead of the classic seven): gold, wood, ore, and blood crystals. The wood and ore are more common and serve to build the player's towns as well as keep the flow of the marketplace. The gold is less common and serves to purchase goods and armies. The crystals are rare, most valuable and add up for otherwise unaffordable content (like Champion creatures, for example). There is also a new mode called "kingdom conquest" in multiplayer, in which the players must capture as many towns as possible, and maintain their uphold of their "kingdoms" for a certain period of time. Basically, it's like the "king of the hill" feature in many first-person shooter games.
Minimum System Requirements
* OS: Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7
* CPU: Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo E4400 @ 2.0 Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 5000+ @ 2.6 Ghz
* RAM: 1 GB Windows XP and 1.5GB Vista / 7
* HDD: 8 GB free disk space
* Graphics: 512 MB Graphics Memory, Pixel Shader 3.0, Vertex Shader 3.0
* Sound Card: DirectX 9 Compatible
* DirectX: Version 9.0c
Recommended System Requirements
* OS: Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7
* CPU: Intel Pentium Core 2 @ Duo E6400 @ 2.13 Ghz, AMD Athlon II X2 240 @ 2.8 Ghz
* RAM: 2 GB
* HDD: 8 GB free disk space
* Graphics: 1 GB Graphics Memory, Pixel Shader 3.0, Vertex Shader 3.0
* Sound Card: DirectX 9 Compatible
* DirectX: Version 9.0c
