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"Refinements" may be too weak a word, though - "wholesale changes" might be a better description. I had the extreme pleasure of fooling around with the game engine, albeit in a beta stage.

The graphics, for one, have been updated. As Heroes III improved upon Heroes II's cartoony visuals, Heroes IV is much more bright and vibrant than III's. While it is more "real" than III's, though, it brings back some of the colorfulness from II. In addition, the max resolution of IV is at 1280x1024 - and the higher the resolution, the more information can be seen on the screen.

There is also a greater range of terrain - including some odd magic terrain that looks sort of like blue fishnet - they did not explain what the effect of that terrain was, though. However, the terrain now has more of an effect on creatures travelling on it, according to the development team.

The other effect is in the town screens - whatever the terrain a town lies on is reflected in the town screen - unlike, say, the way the Tower was always on snow-covered peaks, even when it lay within a lava terrain. Additionally, all of the buildings are now in the same positions, regardless of the town - this eliminates the "hunt-and-search" looking for buildings in the earlier editions.