/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.3287419]

How do I get get good at HOMM3?

[Anonymous No.3287445]

Most common mistakes:
>building up economy first instead of army. you can make more money with an effective army
>playing inferno

Hope this helps

[Anonymous No.3287461]

get into fight and receive skeletons

[Anonymous No.3287480]

>>3287461
I tried but the Necropolis units seem brittle as fuck

[Anonymous No.3287487]

>expert air vs. expert earth

[Anonymous No.3287525]

>>3287419
Savescum. It's how you learn.

Go for expert level magics, they are OP as fuck and will make the difference.

Always take gold over XP when given the choice. You can get XP easily, but you are always limited on how much gold you can get, so go for the gold.

[Anonymous No.3287664]

>>3287480

Necropolis snowballs once you have higher necromancy skills+magic+necro amplifier. You gain units during fights. Learning how to fight without losing units is always a good place to start learning.

[Anonymous No.3287679]

>>3287419
By keeping an eye out for shipwreck survivors.

[Anonymous No.3287682]

>>3287525
Starting off, choose gold instead of resources or the shitty artifact.

Avoid witch hut's and the like, sure you might get something good out of it, but you are just as likely to wind up losing a slot to something worthless.

In the beginning of the game, you probably want to spend your gold on some extra heroes. You can use them to go around and collect unguarded treasure, and condense all of their units into your main combat hero for additional early-game firepower, and deliver reinforcements to your main.

Understand the units you run up against, and use the right magic to gain the advantage. If you are facing off against nothing but melee units, throw slow at them and haste at your units. If you are going against ranged units, use forgetfulness to make them easy pickings.

Understand your spells, and know which packs more punch and when. Death Ripple is great for Necropolis, but there are other spells that can do more damage to a stack or a few stacks, so casting DR every turn might not be the best strategy.

Take full advantage of wells/stables. Once you find a well, you should be using your magic to it's utmost, since you can refill easy.

Know your units. Sure, zombies make great cannon fodder. But they are slow as fuck and will shorten the range of movement for your hero. Either convert them into skeletons or leave them at home for defense.

[Anonymous No.3287690]

Go for the gold instead of the experience. More gold means more troops means more fights means more experience + map control + artifacts + mines and towns conquered.

Going for experience means more skills but... nothing else.

[Anonymous No.3287715]

>>3287445
Inferno is so fucking cool though.

[Anonymous No.3287776]

>>3287690
Jebus, this is where I have been going wrong for YEARS! I always take XP.... I gotta change that, since, you know, I've never actually beaten any real levels before, despite years of play.

[Anonymous No.3287803]

>>3287445
When do you start building up your towns? Like others in the thread I've always taken the XP while building up my economy on the assumption that I should be taking advantage of the 1 building constructed per day alongside the steady income of the main building.

[Anonymous No.3287835]

mod question,
is there a way to merge Horn of the Abyss with In the Wake of Gods?

been playing HotA and thought that while having a new faction and new buildings and all that is nice, I totally miss the platinum bars and having a troop commander and the really useful everyday autosave function.

[Anonymous No.3289654]

>>3287445
I always rush capitol first, is this bad?
if I don't do this, I can't afford units

[Anonymous No.3289659]

>mfw people are now telling me to take gold instead of XP
b-but 1500XP is a lot for early game;_;

[Anonymous No.3289662]

>>3289659
more units is better than an upgraded hero I guess and I guess also you can get xp easy from random creeps.

[Anonymous No.3289692]

>>3289659
Trust me, experience is worthless in the earlygame. Unless you know you can get something like extra movement it's simply not worth giving up the gold, and even then it's not a big deal in the long run.

When the battles start happening, the XP you gain from chests is a pittance compared to everything else.

[Anonymous No.3289871]

>rateyourmusic, a site where people rate albums, is getting a vidya section (currently in beta)
>HoMM3 is the 26th most highly rated game there atm

>>3287835
Ask the question on Heroes Community forums. People there are massive spergs, they should be able to help you.

[Anonymous No.3289893]

>>3287445

This>>3289654 When I was just a novice I builded army first and it always wrecked my shit, then I started play into economy and git gut.

[Anonymous No.3289903]

>>3287487
Only Earth

>Town portal
>Stone skin
>Shield
>Anti-magic
>Meteor shower
>Resurection
>Implosion

Earth magic is the best magic

[Anonymous No.3289935]

>>3287715
My biggest problem, but they just suck so much, Would like to play them for something other than a challenge

[Anonymous No.3289943]

>>3289903
earth magic is op as fuck, there are good spells from the others. But so many of the fucking earth spells are godlike

[Anonymous No.3289951]

>>3289903
>>Implosion
Useless on late game XL maps. Low-level spells cast by expert heroes are the shit. See: expert slow, shield, haste, bless...

[Anonymous No.3289956]

>>3289951
>mfw buffing lightning bolt to deal 1500 damage

[Anonymous No.3289960]

>>3289903
>>3289943
Earth magic is only overpowered because of resurrection.

>>3289956
40 mighty gorgons can outdamage that without effort.

You want to see something fun? Get a bunch of dragons and cast Armageddon.
Or user expert Berserk on a high-tier fortress army.

[Anonymous No.3289973]

third time around playing HoMM2 and I think it finally clicked. Still, it bothers me a bit that a game that is so comfy and turn based actually is realtively stressful cause pacing is so important and its often better to rush your enemy and play aggressiv. i think thats where a lot of the difficulty comes from cause it seems counter intuitive to a lot of players who are used to patiently build cities and such.
in a lot of video on youtube i see people sperging out over every single movement cause they have a certain plan in their head to rush for resources and what not to the point they reboot when they get shitty spawns. I dont really like that the game often feels more like a puzzle than adaptive.

is HoMM2 harder or easier than 3? or are they about equal?

also, does one of your guys have the HoMM related 'what they see - What I see' demotivator image?

[Anonymous No.3289980]

>>3289973
I think the expansion pack campagin of HOMM2 is hard as fuck, there is a mission where you start in the snow with necro troops that I've never been able to win

[Anonymous No.3289998]

>>3289973
I haven't played both enough to make comparisons, but it's more difficult to develop in H2. The resources and mines are very scarce, a marketplace is required in early game even though the exchange rates are horrible (5000gp=1 mercury/crystal/gem/sulfur, iirc)

[Anonymous No.3292037]

>>3289935
been playing them, just hours ago. I did pretty well until I got steamrolled because I only used one hero and that asshole Tower faggot hero was simply riding through obstacles and captured my main town.

[Anonymous No.3292052]

>>3292037
> I only used one hero
Nooooooo why do people do this
Which difficulty?

[Anonymous No.3292072]

>>3292052
100% difficulty.

>Nooooooo why do people do this

well, because I had a narrow ass corridor map large size, no decent hives anywhere to recruit something, enemy kingdom closeby with only 2 portals inbetween both kingdoms.

I would have lost the weaker hero then anyway since there wouldn't have been any troops for both of them. I built all hives for creature stacks early but then they kept rushing me and had me occupied. since I didn't have shackles of war, the enemy hero always fled, every normal battle, every town siege.

so yeah, I didn't had have much chances. but I captured two other kingdoms, eradicated Tan player and lost the Inferno town to some Red player douchebag. simply because there were no troops. had troops in the other towns though.

[Anonymous No.3292103]

>>3292072
Well then you can still recapture your castle and already have several new ones. You can still win, I think.
>100%
Come on, this shouldn't be too difficult

[Anonymous No.3292168]

>>3292072
Besides recruiting troops from dwellings, the secondary heroes can also fetch troops from your towns to your main hero so he doesn't have to return there every week. Also, you could have one who'll pick up treasures and tag the mines your main hero clears, that way your main hero doesn't waste his movement on things like that. You're not supposed to have any real army with them, they're there just to support and be errand boys.

Having a secondary hero or two is always useful, especially since the troops they have with them when you recruit them cover some of the costs. Or all of the costs if you buy a hero with a ballista.

[Anonymous No.3293156]

>>3292103
>Come on, this shouldn't be too difficult

yeah, maybe. only me and the Red AI player left. he killed the Green AI and has its town though so it's somewhat even now.

>>3292168
I'll keep that in mind.

[Anonymous No.3293862]

>>3287419
I'm not a good player by any means but I've been playing a lot and reading up on strategy recently so my advice can help if you're a total noob.

>army first. you want your level 6/7's on week 1/2 and a good army earns a lot of gold. this means leaving your town hall until you get the mages' guild and your value dwellings, you're going to get a lot of resources in the first few days anyway
>it's ok to skip dwellings if you can build better ones instead. for example, as fortress go straight for wyverns day 1, skipping dragonflies. or as inferno, go for efreeti day 2/3, skipping dogs
>hire a shit ton of heroes. like 5/6 on the first day. transfer all troops to your main, leaving 1 fast creature (like a dragonfly) on each extra hero and have them scout around, gather resources and tag mines. you should also use your scouts to transfer units from your capital to your main
>always pick gold from chests. you can get MORE than enough experience fighting neutrals, but gold isn't a renewable resource
>best mains: level 1 creature specialists (start with a lot of weak creatures and can snowball fast, Shakti the troglodyte specialist can take a dragon utopia on turn 1), offence/defence specialists (rock the endgame), ballista specialists (good at clearing neutral stacks early/mid game), necromancy specialists (duh). might heroes are strictly better than magic heroes
>speaking of utopias/crypts/dwarven treasuries, clear them when you see one and clear them early. they're one of the best sources of income
>early game it's best to avoid witch huts and scholars until you already have the best skills (earth/air magic, logistics, wisdom, diplomacy) as they can take skill slots up with shit like navigation
> you don't have to always fill all of your army slots. zombies for example are dead weights who slow down your hero and are best left in cities
>early on fill up your army slots with 1 of your weakest creature to protect your fliers and proc retaliation on the cheap

[Anonymous No.3293869]

>>3293862
>to protect your shooters
fix

[Anonymous No.3293896]

Watch this guy play.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Chris67132/videos

I started playing again a few weks ago and it's so damn addicting, altough very easy, even on impossible difficulty and impossible maps.

Also, download the HD-mod or Horns of the Abyss.

[Anonymous No.3293905]

>>3293862
>>early game it's best to avoid witch huts and scholars
I recommend sending those secondary heroes to witch huts first, to see which skill they give. Scholars are trickier since they also can give primary skills and do it only once. Because of that, I send the main hero to them. There is a chance to get a shitty skill, but much smaller than in a witch hut. There's also savescumming...

>Shakti the troglodyte specialist can take a dragon utopia on turn 1
Have you ever actually done this?

[Anonymous No.3293912]

Go back in time and be born Russian.

[Anonymous No.3294701]

The best version of the game in my opinion is probably "Heroes of Might and magic III Complete".

To get good at it, I often make sure you upgrade Town Halls first for a good gold income early, and then try to capture as many towns as you can and make sure you always buy guards and a hero in any castles that are about to be taken away by an enemy hero nearby, like that when they capture it, they'll lose troops during a siege and they won't be able to buy units.

[Anonymous No.3294708]

Reading this thread has made me want to play this series, but I always get near the end, get my ass kicked a few times, and put it down.

[Anonymous No.3294760]

Good luck with "army first" on maps without treasure chests and other easy shit. You should also install the pirate mod to nerf the retarded Necro.

[Anonymous No.3294762]

>>3289903
I would argue in the Supreme Court that Town Portal is by far the best spell in the game.

[Anonymous No.3294819]

So /vr/ let us settle this once and for all.

Stone Skin vs Shield

which one is better?

[Anonymous No.3294989]

Guys, are the two different campaigns in HoMM2 just the same maps in reverse or is it worth it to play through both of them?

Is one more difficulty than the other or are they about the same?

[Anonymous No.3294993]

>>3294989
>Guys, are the two different campaigns in HoMM2 just the same maps in reverse or is it worth it to play through both of them?
Play through both.
>Is one more difficulty than the other or are they about the same?
The difficulty depends on if you play the optional missions. If you do play them you can easily abuse the campaign bonuses to rush the enemies down but if you skip them then prepare for hell.

[Anonymous No.3295232]

>>3294819
isn't Stone Skin better?

Shield is hand-to-hand combat but I think Stone Skin is that + ranged damage protection as well.

[Anonymous No.3295391]

anyone knows what games this footage is from? I recognize Master of Magic but not the others.

https://youtu.be/xetp4WsUD6Q

[Anonymous No.3295393]

>>3295391
beginning 5:50, meant to copy url with time code

[Anonymous No.3295413]

>>3295391
The first one is some console version of Civilization.

[Anonymous No.3295418]

>>3295232
Stone Skin raises defense, while Shield gives a percentage reduction. I have no idea how the math works, but I assume Shield is better if there's no ranged attackers.

But you might as well cast both if you want to maximize your defenses.

[Anonymous No.3295468]

>>3295393
I'd guess Knight's Bounty but I'm pretty sure that it actually isn't that game.

[Anonymous No.3295470]

>>3294819
Bless, Slow, and Haste.

[Anonymous No.3296061]

>>3295391
Civilization, Warlords, Gemfire, Master of Magic

[Anonymous No.3296090]

>>3296061
thanks bro!

[Anonymous No.3296876]

>>3289903
Air together with Earth is best. Once you have Town Portal and Dimension door or flying, you've already won the game.

[Anonymous No.3296885]

Everybody knows HoMM2-3 are classics, but what is /vr/s opinion on HoMM4, 5, 6 & 7?

[Anonymous No.3296891]

>>3296885
They're not retro.

[Anonymous No.3296897]

>>3296891
well, HoMM1-3 are and if we are comparing how games of a series hold up and compare against each other that should be legitimate, no?

[Anonymous No.3296949]

>>3296885
been playing 4. actually really like it but no upgradeable units and shitty barebone siege mechanics are worse than what HoMM3 had.

Heroes 5 is like 3. there was a nice mod as well, that brings back several old heroes. game needs that badly imo.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/might-magic-heroes-55

Heroes 6 needs a resource overhaul albeit being pretty good otherwise.

and H7 is reused assets: the game.

[Anonymous No.3298963]

>>3296897
shouldnt 4 be retro? It was out in 2002 or something

[Anonymous No.3298976]

>>3296897
No. This isn't the place for talking about RE4, the latest CoD, or any other modern game that is part of a series that started on a retro console/on PC before the cutoff.

>>3298963
What does the sticky say?

[Anonymous No.3299245]

What did fans hate so much about HoMM4?

[Anonymous No.3299404]

>>3299245
Changes, unbalanced stuff, bugs.

[Anonymous No.3299781]

I usually try to have City Hall + Citadel by the end of week 1 and Capitol by the end of week 2, is that a good strategy?

[Anonymous No.3299789]

>>3299781
No, you should always go for the unit production buildings first to maximise the number of creatures you have.

[Anonymous No.3299810]

>>3299781
Personally I think getting the city hall at the start of the second week is enough. They produce money every day while dwellings and castle only produce creatures once a week.
But there are other factors to consider instead of doing the same order no matter the circumstances.

[Anonymous No.3300894]

>>3298976
but the sticky is two years old

>>3299245
personaly i like it but but i see why some people wouldnt.
The devs should have put in more work but there was no money.

They totaly fucked up the town and skill balance.
Battlefield heroes are fun but the fact that they are killable is very abusable.
>>3299781
depends on the map, if there are no random resources lying around easy mobs, go for capitol

[Anonymous No.3300934]

>>3299781
Get as many dwellings as you can on first week.

Then go for City Hall on 2nd week, and if you can then go for Castle, more dwellings, or the extra buildings that increase creature growth.

Keep an eye on your resource income, so you know which one of those can afford - go for the route that gives you more creature growth, since creatures will only cost gold and you can save up on resources.

Resource Silo is a very good choice early on, but only if you have a lot of starting resources. It pays for itself only once you go for tier 7 creatures though.

One exception is Rampart. Go for the Dwarven Treasury as soon as you can. That thing is game breaking.

[Anonymous No.3301592]

>>3289973
I only played the first mission in HoMM2 and at first I thought it would be easy because every first mission in video games is always easy for starters and I've played other HoMM before. I got rekted hard. I had to restart and play seriously to beat it. I didn't have the courage to continue the campaign.

[Anonymous No.3301597]

>>3301592
Archibald or Roland? I think Archibald is easier since Warlocks and Necromancers are great while with Roland you don't always get Wizards.

[Anonymous No.3301608]

>>3301597
Roland.

>>3296885
I absolutely love HoMM4 campaign. I feel like living in a magical world because the graphics is so beautiful, the music is best fit with the map and the story is detailed enough. Gameplay wise, it's not good or balance but the heroes level up system is the best in the series.

[Anonymous No.3301632]

>>3287419

Pretty simple really, stack a decent amount of range units in two or 3 slots and go to town on non range units. Abuse the shit out of the wait command for double attack/cover more ground on the battlefield.

And remember that you don't have to build and upgrade everything in town. A lot of units barely benefit from upgrades stat wise. In fact you will benefit the most if you skip to the 6th and 7th tier units as fast as possible in many cases. Buying all units every week is not needed either, let some units accumilate and buy them when you need them.

Don't waste resources on mage guilds unless you have a large surplus, or really need a spell.

Your main hero should be a might hero, expert water magic is good to have due to mass status, buffs, debuffs and HP recovery. Support hero should be mages in case your mage guild has town portal or fly. That way you can transfer troops much faster to your main and damage dealing spells are good to have while defending your towns, while your main is away. Otherwise never rely on magic. It's only good late game and only really potent at damage dealing with spells like armageddon, even then, magic resistant creatures are common and dragons will wreck your shit.

Tactics, ballistics and estates are underrated skills. Estates is especially useful for expensive towns like Tower.

[Anonymous No.3301641]

>>3295232

Despell is best

[Anonymous No.3301642]

>>3299245

It tried to be Diablo

[Anonymous No.3301713]

>>3301642
what does that even mean

[Anonymous No.3301771]

>>3301608
>Gameplay wise, it's not good or balance

there is a balance mod for HoMM4. you should get it.

[Anonymous No.3301774]

>>3299245
it was not mainstream enough for all the faggots. no, seriously. there will never be a game in that series that has such a unique choice of music.

all the other parts don't have that.

on release, another problem was that 3DO was suspended and so they sold the rights to Ubisoft to make expansions for an unfinished launch version of the game.

>>3301608
leveling system is indeed fun. I like that a lot of Heroes 3 characters are back too. some look half-dead or pretty darn battered and scarred though. like Ayden or Ash who used to be in Inferno and then became necromancers.

[Anonymous No.3301830]

>>3301771
the big balance mod make's necro even more op

[Anonymous No.3302830]

>>3301642
No, it tried to be like its imitators.

[Anonymous No.3303441]

>>3289903
>>3287487
>>3296876
On the most difficult Single Player maps which don't have Berserk banned, you absolutely have to go Water&Earth. Earth is for Ressurection and Slow, but Water also has Clone (for Archangel ressurecting and all other needs), Cure, Bless, Prayer (which in a long campaign outdoes Haste) and even Summon/Scuttle Boat can be really necessary when the creator is a particular type of gaylord.

Air is kinda shitty in long single player if you are playing without Fly and some maps do that to prevent you from breaking the map.

If you're doing a rushdown, though, Air is boss.

Same in how Intelligence in Multi is an okay skill at best, but becomes ridiculously important on some big maps. It's even advisable to train an Intelligence specialist (Andra, Elleshar) when playing behemoth maps like The Empire of the World 2.

Expert Fire Magic is important for stuff like pic related.

[Anonymous No.3303563]

>>3287419
1. Get Blind
2. Cast Blind
3. ???
4. Win game

[Anonymous No.3303590]

>>3287679
>shipwreck survivors
yeah, nah, fuck those guys

[Anonymous No.3303603]

>>3289973
I'm coming from the opposite direction. I've played a shitload of HOMM2, and am just now getting into 3.

My god, there are so many damn units. There are so many armies. There is so much damn content.

No man needs this much content!

[Anonymous No.3303621]

>>3303603
Remember to get Eagle Eyes.

[Anonymous No.3304118]

>>3303590
>HOMM2
Shipwreck survivors can give gamebreaking artifacts like a completed Battle Garb of Anduran or the Sphere of Negation.

[Anonymous No.3307027]

Posting obligatory reading material:

http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes3/
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=27539

[Anonymous No.3307223]

I did it right or should start over again?

[Anonymous No.3307229]

>>3307223
Offense and Archery truly shine in the lategame, and Earth has some absolutely ridiculous spells. Having pathfinding and logistics means Dracon there is going to be storming enemy territory with impunity once he gets an army up.

[Anonymous No.3307480]

>>3307223
Sorcery isn't particularly useful. Pathfinding isn't either if you don't come across swamp terrain (I don't remember Dracon's campaign very well, but I think you won't). But otherwise it's actually really good.

[Anonymous No.3307486]

>>3307223
You want expert fire magic for expert berserk. I remember there's this stack of thousands of magi and thousands of nagas, you berserk them to kill each other.

[Anonymous No.3307525]

>>3307480
Sorcery and Pathfinding are mandatory skills for Dracon

[Anonymous No.3307858]

>download horn of the abyss for dem GIANT random maps
>not even twice as big as XL
What a scam

[Anonymous No.3307874]

>>3307858
XL is a total of 20736 tiles, Giant is 63504 tiles, meaning it's three times the size.

[Anonymous No.3309001]

>>3307858
that's wrong. I don't even know how you can have such a misinterpretation.

[Anonymous No.3309006]

>>3307223
>water magic

into the trash it goes.
pick fire magic. I mean christ I've even seen mass blind as a spell before, it's instant win but I think it only was in the WoG add-on.

I think offense is shit personally but archery is worth it. also, it suck having no intelligence skill. 120 spellpoints is trash.

[Anonymous No.3309249]

>>3307223
Is this the campaign? . If so better get fire magic for the infamous 3,5k naga queen fight

Other than that always make sure to pick up all permanent powerups spells and cap max level to have an easier time on the next level.

>>3309006
this guy is right, in the last level of the campaign there are no wells/magic guilds.

[Anonymous No.3310067]

>>3287679
Lol

More memes pls

[Anonymous No.3310071]

>>3310067
>More memes pls

seconded, I am particularly looking for a 'what they see- what I see' that I cant find online anymore. its similar to pic related but its not pic related

[Anonymous No.3310451]

>>3287682
>they are slow as fuck and will shorten the range of movement for your hero

I never understood why units do this. It seems really unfair since movement is so important.
Logistics and rough terrain are some of the best skills already, and since skills are random, the player who has them usually got an advantage.
A player with a town with faster units probably got an advantage over a player with a town with slower units then aswell since units impedes movement.

[Anonymous No.3310470]

>>3310071
I wonder, would it be possible to make a Heroes game that plays like HOMM3, but have battles that actually look like on the bottom - despite having the exact same hexagonal grid tactics based gameplay?

[Anonymous No.3310475]

>>3310067

[Anonymous No.3310617]

>>3310451
You can use a scout near your main to carry slow armies. Also, if youre staying in a town, only keep your fastest unit on your hero and put the rest in the town until the next day

[Anonymous No.3310645]

>>3310475

The funny thing is, if you have a shitload of Dungeons with creature portals and you only flag a red dragon dwelling you're gonna be overrun by dragons. You will not even have enought money to buy all the dragons

Imo upgrading to black dragons is a mistake though. They might be squishier, but cheaper and can be ressurected. Dungeon already has two ressurect specialists anyways, Alamar and Jedi

[Anonymous No.3310816]

>L map, random, playing Necro cause over 9000 power liches
>start with two towns, before long have teams of heroes, but only two carrying decent armies
>up against two CPUs, turns out map stuck me right in the middle between them
>everytime I get a decent enough army together, CPU rolls by with lots of 5-7's and knocks it back down to skeletons and the surviving vampires
>main hero is level 18 with expert earth and air and armorer, using stone skin and shield to protect, using slow to run around, still getting armies thrashed
>it's not too bad, since the only way in is at the bottom of the map, so I have a choke point to work with
>suddenly one CPU teleports or warps a hero with 5-7's near my main town at the north edge of the map
>PANIC.png
>rush my main force back to town just in time to get into the base and refill mana before the fight
>take down enemy hero's army, they flee(fuckers)
>only have 200 vampire lords and 400 skeleton warriors to show for months of army building after the brutal fight
I'm fucked beyond belief. I have no access to any other towns to take over to increase my troop flow, my towns are already maxed out and I have enough resources to purchase all troops on the first day of the week. Yet I can not keep pace with the two CPU's spitroasting me. This may end up being a game where I'll just have to finish it with 9000 skeleton warriors or something. Fucking hell.

[Anonymous No.3311063]

>>3309249
>this guy is right, in the last level of the campaign there are no wells/magic guilds.

would you say that Mysticism is always worth it though as well? I always pick it. the artifacts that recover spell points usually recover too little of them.

[Anonymous No.3311276]

>>3287679
this pic is true btw. unironically happened to me. sometimes the survivors have a more realistic item. one of them gave me some conjuring ring.
but yeah, I don't know why they programmed that fucking cart artifact for the shipwreck survivors.

[Anonymous No.3311281]

>>3310067

[Anonymous No.3311295]

>>3310067

[Anonymous No.3311332]

>>3311063
No since you have to beat that mission before a certain day and 3 mana a day is complete trash.

Just try to collect ALL powerups in the map so by the end all of his stats would be 30+

[Anonymous No.3311369]

>>3310645
black dragons are immune to Armageddon though. That's pretty useful, you could have 1-2 scouts inflicting major damage at the cost of 1 black dragon.

[Anonymous No.3311371]

>>3311276
They are programmed to give you random artifacts.

[Anonymous No.3311372]

>>3311371

[Anonymous No.3311454]

>>3311371
>>3311372
oh, I thought it was only a select few. that's alright then.

[Anonymous No.3311915]

>>3289973
> is HoMM2 harder or easier than 3? or are they about equal?
Well, I'd say HoMM II and HoMM III lie in different layers of difficulties.
HoMM II is simpler mechanically but HoMM III is simpler in other layers, for example, with races - every race has flying and shooting units.
So it's the matter of your preferences.

[Anonymous No.3311921]

>>3311915
Isn't it just that warlock and wizard are simply better than the rest?

[Anonymous No.3311937]

>>3310470
I dreamt about it, like you play as a hero in headquaters and it has a tactical map of the battlefield and you can switch between HQ and battlefield views.
It would require some overpowered machine though.

[Anonymous No.3311941]

>>3311921
Necros are the best and you know it.

[Anonymous No.3311961]

>>3311921

wizard is kinda low tier, needs a gold mine just to barely afford his titans every week.

[Anonymous No.3311968]

>>3311941
What was the maximum amount of skeletons you could have in 2? I remember exceeding it.

[Anonymous No.3312015]

>>3311921
>Isn't it just that warlock and wizard are simply better than the rest?
Yes, but in HOMM2 that doesn't always matter as much.

Keep in mind that most maps in HOMM2 give you much less money and resources than in HOMM3, and most maps are generally smaller as well. So while you Warlock and Wizards have generally better units, you might not be able to buy all their dwellings and still have the cash to recruit them all by the first or second week. If a dwelling needs a resource you don't have easy access to, it might take until the third week.

Meanwhile, a Knight or Barbarian player basically only need wood and stone to get everything but their final units. And if a Barbarian shows up to your Warlock castle on week two with Ogre Lords and Trolls, while you're stuck with griffins because you don't have the gems or sulfur for your better units, then you're shit out of luck.

Getting an early lead is fucking massive in HOMM2.

[Anonymous No.3312442]

>>3312015
The problem with that line of thinking is that Warlock units are so much better than anything that by the time you get a fully built Knight castle the Warlock will have already been prancing around and winning with just Magic Arrow and Gargoyles, which have superspeed and good stats across the board, with proper micro you just can't die at all. Knights and Barbs also have royal troubles sieging anything.

The good things about Knights and Barbs is hiring them as your primary hero and training them high in Attack and Defense because it scales better (and they get better skills than wizard-types do), and Barbs are great in some campaign maps, particularly the Archibald campaign when you're off to conquer the Dragon Utopias; the map is covered in sand and with proper planning and scouting you can zoom through the map at high speed and claim the utopia early (especially with Ogre's Alliance, if you don't have it what the fuck are you doing), getting a good end of campaign score.

Knights and Barbs are also great for double-building so that they can double their dwelling growth faster than anyone.

Also, Sorceress gets a niche in having the ultimate fastest unit in the game, which can be great even if her costs and stats place her in a weird place between Warlocks/Wizards/Necros and Knights/Barbs.

[Anonymous No.3312448]

>>3312015
>>3312442
Also one of the things they kinda fucked up when making HOMM3 was bloating everyone's HP but keeping spell damage at the same value, even with scaling. In HOMM2, it was much easier to build a killer sorcerer who would win encounters with spells alone, and he'd scale much better. In HOMM3, while the killer sorcerer Magic Arrow spam route is still viable, it peters out way too fast unless you have a specialty hero like Ciele or Luna.

But yeah, in HOMM2, Magic Arrow + well = the Warlock's off to a good start.

[Anonymous No.3312576]

>>3312448
>Using magic arrow

Nigga theres like 10 broken tier spells in homm3

[Anonymous No.3313032]

>>3287487
>Mass Haste
>Mass Slow

[Anonymous No.3313036]

>>3289871
25 places too low honestly

[Anonymous No.3313083]

>>3312442
A champion has the same speed as a phoenix. It's also funny that a champion is cheaper than 2 gargoyles.

[Anonymous No.3313098]

>>3289960
>Expert town portal not being OP as fuck

[Anonymous No.3313132]

>>3312442
>(especially with Ogre's Alliance, if you don't have it what the fuck are you doing)
Can you resist Necromancers?

[Anonymous No.3313253]

In the tutorial heroes skipped their turns so I thought time is not an issue but I'm getting wiped. Am I supposed to hire as many of them as possible and plan all my movements ahead and stuff?

[Anonymous No.3313339]

I'll just leave this here

[Anonymous No.3313414]

>>3313253
>Am I supposed to hire as many of them as possible and plan all my movements ahead and stuff?
Well...yes. It's a strategy game anon. And the tutorial AI is not exactly the pinnacle of skill.

You don't have to micromanage a whole lot of heroes, just have a main and a bunch of scouts with one fast creature each to scout ahead, collect resources and beeline troops from your capital to the main. When you get extra castles with creature production you could get a secondary army going to cut off enemy stragglers on your territory.

[Anonymous No.3313420]

>>3312576
Look at its situational usage. You can use it in Week 1-2 to clear out stacks. Before you get to the truly OP spells, you will be able to build up a great lead with Magic Arrow.

>>3313083
Ooh, that's right. But Phoenixes are less likely to get wiped out immediately and also you can comprise a successful wandering hero stack with just Phoenixes; Champions alone are going to be less versatile. Still, Knight as a whole is a pretty slow town aside from the Champions.

[Anonymous No.3313725]

>>3310816
>my level 24 hero is now sitting at the bottom of the map keeping the remaining player off my ass since the other AI got wiped.
>has 300 vampire lords and 1500 skeleton warriors
>don't even bother buying any other forces, they just die off anyways thanks to the enemy throwing meteor swarms and shit
>in weird position right now
>gotta leave main army where it is to prevent AI from rushing my position
>AI has three heroes with armies running around east, where the other AI was, every time I move my main army, they head towards my shit
>small portal to the west, where new forces come from
>rapidly trying to build army of other units to send after the three assholes who keep playing chicken with me
This has been one slow crawl of a game.

[Anonymous No.3313745]

>>3313420
>You can use it in Week 1-2 to clear out stacks
You can also use expert slow to fuck up non-shooter stacks

[Anonymous No.3313765]

>>3313339

If only there were a gay version of this, it would be a dream come true.

[Anonymous No.3313770]

>>3313765
Fairies were never men.

[Anonymous No.3313778]

>>3313339
I dont get it.

[Anonymous No.3313797]

>>3313339
>tfw no HoMM3 rule 34
Why live...

>>3313778
It's an actual video, look it up. It's just a chick sucking a dude off with HoMM3 running on a laptop in the background, but the title is funny

[Anonymous No.3314603]

>>3313725
>hero level 25 now
>enemy snuck a hero past my main, intercepted my supply run hero who was carrying 1000 skeletons
>wiped the entire group
>start building army from scratch again
Every fucking time I get built up, I get knocked back to barely anything. I'm ready to give up on this round, I just can't change my situation any.

[Anonymous No.3315137]

>>3303563
so many units are immune against blind.

all elementals, I think most undeads too.
they literally don't have eyes so you can't blind them.

[Anonymous No.3315165]

>>3315137
Efreets as well since they're immune to fire magic

[Anonymous No.3315169]

Simultaneously the best and worst artifact in the game.

[Anonymous No.3315181]

>>3315165
true.

[Anonymous No.3315182]

>>3315169
The best and worst artifact is the Orb of Inhibition.

[Anonymous No.3315185]

>>3315182
Recanter's Cloak is also a piece of shit. not even helpful if you fight against a Tower faction wizard class since the 1 and 2 level spells of them will still fuck you up.

[Anonymous No.3315203]

>>3315185

The cloak is good on barbarians and beastmasters though

[Anonymous No.3315217]

>>3315137

Blind should mostly be used on fuckhuge beefy lower level stacks that will do fuckton of damage like hordes of ogres/dwarves and also against shooters.

[Anonymous No.3315224]

>>3315203
it depends. I don't know the algorithms but if the AI decides to give a demoniac or a beastmaster more magic based skills then it's not a good item either way.

[Anonymous No.3315236]

>>3289654
Rushing capitol usually isn't bad when playing against the AI

[Anonymous No.3315242]

>>3315169
Absolutely needed against the AI to avoid having artefacts taken right before your eyes

[Anonymous No.3315262]

How to giid gut? Play multiplayer. AI doesn't play well, it just gets bonuses.

If HoMM /vr/ is interested, we could make a HoMM group and play online on Gameranger?

[Anonymous No.3315273]

>>3315224

It's got more to do with the fact that both the Fortress and Stronghold receive only lvl 3 mage guild. You can still have an effective spellcaster from these factions but your best bet is to go into ballistics and tactics rather than hope for earthquake and teleport. Especially early game. Spamming mass cure/bless with expert water magic is magnitudes more efficient than hasting and slowing because you get strong creatures early but the are still pretty squishy. Curing behemoth and rocks is vital, so is wyverns and Hydras.

[Anonymous No.3315285]

>>3313745
>expert slow
>week 1-2

Not everyone plays 130% Jebus Cross exclusively, anon.

[Anonymous No.3315290]

>>3315273
>Spamming mass cure/bless with expert water magic is magnitudes more efficient than hasting and slowing because you get strong creatures early but the are still pretty squishy.

Noteworthy fact is that Barbarians are naturally exempt from learning Water Magic, unless you can find a Magic University or a Scholar. Air Magic is better in most MP sessions because they end pretty early, but if playing a huge vs AI map you probably want a Battlemage like Gundula, Terek or Dessa, just for Cure/Clone/Bless.

Recanter's is the best on barbs and the like because expert level 1 spells are the ones that most buff up your Attack and Defense spells; any might hero will have enough artifacts and +1 doodads picked up on the way to have adequate SP and Knowledge.

>>3315262
gitting gud can also involve playing solid, challenging, sprawling maps. Not every MP player would be able to beat Wayfarer, Unleashing the Bloodthirsty or The Empire of the World II.

[Anonymous No.3315296]

>>3315262
>>implying carrying an artifact the length of the map is worth 1000 exp
This one slightly triggers me because the artifact is just nearby in the underground, guarded by imps. The reward is good as well, particularly because it's early game.

>If HoMM /vr/ is interested, we could make a HoMM group and play online on Gameranger?
Could be neat. I'm interested.

[Anonymous No.3315312]

>>3315296
Ok, you and anyone interested in HoMM multiplayer with anons can add Yooha (the one from Finland) in Gameranger and we can arrange a game.

[Anonymous No.3315357]

>>3313339
DELET

[Anonymous No.3315448]

>>3315290
>Noteworthy fact is that Barbarians are naturally exempt from learning Water Magic

Oh man, why are barbarians so handicapped? If they didn't have some of the best heroes they'd be dead.

[Anonymous No.3315454]

>>3315448

And by dead I mean inferno tier. At least inferno has a big chance at armageddon spam.

[Anonymous No.3315556]

>>3315448
other warrior heroes have the same problem.
had Gerwulf (Beastmaster) recently and found out he can't learn Fire Magic.

so it's not only the barbs who have magic handicaps.

[Anonymous No.3315585]

>>3315448
Barbs get earth and air magic, what else do you need? Although I do guess Teleport for ogres and behemoths would be nice.

[Anonymous No.3316856]

>>3315448
Barbarians ain't handicapped. Their hero class is overall one of the best and there's hardly any Barbarian hero that outright sucks, and Battlemages are among the best magic heroes in the game specifically because they significantly advance in Attack and Defense. Stronghold is a strong town because of Day 1 Rocs and Week 1 Behemoths, and if you can preserve your Wolf Raiders till late game then they're amazing kamikaze assassins. They're also cheap, only really needing wood, ore and some meager gold. They're easy to double-build with.

>>3315585
Air is way less important on sprawling maps that go for over 2 months. Water is better for Clone/Cure/Bless/Prayer otherwise. Not everyone plays MP. I'd train Gundula over Crag if I was going through some trudging campaign. Although on the other hand barbs can still learn Water Magic, it's just more difficult.

[Anonymous No.3317739]

>>3315556

Fire magic is pretty shitty though. Curse isn't as good as weakness and bloodlust isn's as great as bless and prayer. Blind you can cast whenever anyways and armageddon is a strong enough spell on its own.

[Anonymous No.3317745]

>>3317739
Armageddon is actually really weak, even if you were immune to it it's not that great a spell. A stack of any worthy size outdamages it no problem. It's only good for mopping up trash mobs with a single black dragon

[Anonymous No.3317747]

>>3317739
Expert Fire is mainly for Expert Berserk.

But some map designers make encounters without Expert Berserk in mind because it's a fairly cheap spell.

Even then, it has a pretty shitty build up. Water Magic gives you early Magic Arrow and Mass Bless; Air Magic makes your Lightning Bolt stronger if you need it, and gives you Mass Haste; Earth has Shield, Stoneskin and Slow; Fire has a pretty bad buildup until you get that Berserk -- if you even get it. And Berserk can be nullified by some shit-tier artifacts.

[Anonymous No.3317753]

>>3315585

Air and haste are overrated though a lot of the time you're better off using the wait command and let the enemy come to you then double strike them rather than go on full attack yourself and expose your fastest troops for a beat down. You don't really need to dimension door 5 times on the map either. Fly doesn't require expert air magic. Its damage spells are pretty shitty as well. Blind is better than hypnotise.

Imo expert water and earth is a stronger combo than air and fire. Because you can really buff the shit out of your army.

[Anonymous No.3317760]

>>3316856

I am really dissapoint that wizards are so shit. A cleric or a druid is a better magic caster than a wizard. Otherwise wizards are pure utility for when you need to teach some hero spells.

Agreed that battlemages rule, imo they're better than most barbarians. Which get zero defence and have some really shitty specials and secondary skills.

[Anonymous No.3317764]

>>3317747

Berserk is super situational though. Its area of effect can really backfire or make the spell unusable after the first round.

[Anonymous No.3317781]

>>3317760
>cleric or druid
No fucking way. Both of those classes have terrible skill progression. Alagar's Ice Bolt specialty is terrible when you realize he starts with 1 Power, that's not good for creeping at all. Wizards aren't perfect magic classes - best casters are Warlocks, Elementalists because they have high initial Spell Power, and Battlemages because they progress just like Barbarians except a bit more equally - but they start with decent Spell Power and have a better chance of advancing it further.

>>3317753
>Air and haste are overrated though a lot of the time you're better off using the wait command and let the enemy come to you then double strike them rather than go on full attack yourself and expose your fastest troops for a beat down.

Air is, once again, primarily for MP games where you meet the enemy's main hero in a vast battle and the first round is a chess game between Slow and Haste and then bullrushing the enemy's frontline. If you're Stronghold and your Behemoths, Rocs and Wolf Raiders get the first strike, you will inflict massive damage.

Water is better long-term because of Prayer and all the other utility spells, but "long-term" does not work in many games, and Expert Air is still great for early game creeping against lots of shooters.

[Anonymous No.3317829]

>>3317781

It's easier to just cast forgetfullness than haste and water magic has great utility throughout all of the game. Rushing with haste is only good for clearing weak mobs, and even then it's easier to just scare them away with your forces and not engage, instead of risking loosing troops for 200 xp. Air spells loose any strategic value until late game when you're just teleporting all over the place for artifacts or whatever. It's generally better to let enemies get to the middle of the battlefield where your shooters can reach them and the enemy shooters won't be able to do as much damage in long battles. Or mass dispel enemy haste and other buffs.

So yeah, expert air is kind of a waste of a skill slot.

Also, actually Clerics are useful as fuck to tower and any faction really because they have a high chance of getting estates. Esteates is really underrated as all hell and really handy to have on scouts and idle or support heroes. Tower is expensive as fuck as it is. Also druids have a couple of magic skill specialists which wizards lack and are just generally great for town defence agains larger forces because they can actually learn magic resistance and have a high chance for luck.

Wizards in general have even worse skill distribution because barely any of them can learn combat or mobility skills. They're almost as bad as necromancers and witches.

[Anonymous No.3317907]

>>3317829
You do not build up Mage Guilds in the initial week, though, you want dwellings. It's much easier to get Haste, a level 1 spell, it can drop from a scroll or a starting area magic shrine, or just from level 1 mage guild, or can even be in your starting book.

In the "meta", air is an uber-early game school solely because of Haste. It might very well win you the game way before you get Prayer or Forgetfulness.

On a 1v1 MP map where you'll clash on Month 2, I'd not go Water. On a FFA-style map with close contacts and easy backstabbings, I'd not go Water (and in the FFA example, the value of another Air spell - Lightning Bolt - would be much greater).

Estates on Tower isn't at all useful, certainly not on a main hero, and it's hard anyway to train your secondary heroes to the point they'd actually have any proper secondary skills, you'd be better off aiming for those who start with them, or +350 gold heroes. What you want on Tower is a hero with Archery and high attack, to actually utilize your archer units; Orrin would be perfect, but even someone like Jabarkas or Jenova is just great.

The only saving grace of Druids is Elleshar the Intelligence specialist on maps that specifically encourage Intelligence. High chance of Luck means trash when it's a heavily unreliable stat that can easily be raised to +3 through easy artifacts; magic resistance isn't a great skill if the enemy just swarms you with fliers; and you don't train heroes to just idly sit in your town and wait for defending, you set up chains so that you can easily respond to threats. That, and both Druids and Clerics have way shittier Spell Power progression than anyone. If you want actual good defense, you better at least be able to whittle down enemy stacks with some Lightning Bolts or have an efficient mass spell that's actually worth a damn.

[Anonymous No.3320156]

bump

[Anonymous No.3320787]

I started all over again

[Anonymous No.3320875]

>>3320787
looks much better already. I just don't think that more than 2 magic schools are necessary but I think it's fine.

now you can buff the fuck out of your troops in combat.

[Anonymous No.3321369]

>>3289973
>third time around playing HoMM2 and I think it finally clicked.

this guy again. played halfway through evil campaign first and then all the way through the good campaign. just tried the last scenario but got my ass kicked pretty badly. I probably made the mistake to spread my carry-over forces too thinly and then was unable to defend the cities I had taked and my power got divided. I will try to keep them closer together next time round. over 5hrs of gameplay down the shitter but now I have a plan. gonna blitz the purple necromancers and then take the warlock castles and restock any black dragons I lost.

try, fail, try again, fail better.

one thing that irritated me was that Corlagon showed up, even though I got the Corlagon defetead award. Whats that all about?

[Anonymous No.3321406]

>>3321369
Just take the carry-over forces and run straight to Archibald ignoring everything else.

[Anonymous No.3321439]

>>3287445
>playing inferno
>a mistake
>mfw

>>3299245
In my case, it's a combination of few elements I dislike.
For example, I can't comprehend simultaneous retaliation. Why does this exist?
The other things I'm not fond of are creatures. They are, on average, pretty ugly. Additionally, lack of unit upgrades is disappointing.
And a minor complaint: IIRC, town select screen gives you no information about the chosen town (and with names like 'Life' and 'Order' that's a problem).

>>3294819
Stone Skin since it helps surviving ranged attacks.

[Anonymous No.3321950]

>>3321406
that would not be fun though, it feels like cheating. I wanna beat the whole map

[Anonymous No.3322783]

>been struggling with the third mission of the castle campaign where you flag the 7 towers
>realize i'm a shitter
>madman rush angels
>clear out the first observatory near start for free 3 angels
>laugh as i clear all the neutrals and their underground bases
>squat in their bases with shitty heroes and watch them be eliminated
Fucking christ why didn't I just do this sooner.

[Anonymous No.3322891]

Post good HoMM feels

>start as inferno
>fug
>get Ciele (magic arrow specialist) in the tavern
>give her a couple efreeti sultans
>casually clear a couple lv4 hordes, get 40 wraiths from a pandora
>train devils to her, tag a bone dragon external with no losses
>nothing that can't cross the map in two turns or isn't a lot of shooters is a threat anymore
>start clearing the map at an alarming pace

Literally gotta go fast: the castle. Inferno is better than the rap it gets

[Anonymous No.3322975]

>>3311937
It is called the Total War series I guess. But I only played Shogun.

OTOH I'm bit baffled we did not see a M&M movie already

[Anonymous No.3322992]

>>3313420
>Phoenixes

is phoenices right? Spell check underlines it for me though

they just love to die lightnings

[Anonymous No.3323001]

>>3322992
Both are okay.

[Anonymous No.3323462]

What's the best HoMM after 3?

[Anonymous No.3323808]

>>3323462
2 or 4.

But just play HotA.

[Anonymous No.3323895]

>>3289973
>>>>3321369

>third time around playing HoMM2 and I think it finally clicked.

finally beat the last scenario today on the second attempt. I blitzkrieged the necromancers and then duked it out with the warlocks while defending homebase from barbarian attacks. once I consolidated everything, I wrapped things up. roughly 50 black dragons, 20 titans, phoenixes and crusaders against archibald pitiful forces.

thats it, comrades!

now what?

disciples 1 or age of wonders 1?

[Anonymous No.3323898]

>>3323895
>roughly 50 black dragons

come to think of it, i find it strange that archie had so few, I expected a very high number. he only had 5 black dragons, in a lets play I saw, he had 75 or so. what happened there?

I didnt rush to him either, took several hours to clear the whole map so he had enough time to build up.

[Anonymous No.3324103]

>>3323462
technically Heroes 5. it's like 3 if you mod it properly. it's just not as smooth not being sprite-based anymore.

[Anonymous No.3324110]

>>3323895
Disciples Sacred Lands is underrated as fuck. One of the most unique and striking artstyles I've ever seen in a videogame. The sequel straight-up improved everything about the gameplay without changing the base, but the art direction was vastly inferior. I still play Sacred Lands on a regular basis

[Anonymous No.3324118]

>>3320787
combine your titans and instead split the master genies for their castings

>>3323895
heroes 4 and the expansions

[Anonymous No.3324171]

>>3322891
Almost all of inferno creatures suck. Efreets are the only good ones, so you really have no other options in the early game then to rush them ASAP. But you can't even build them until day 4 (3 if you're lucky), so inferno's early game can be extremely rough.
They are super good in the late game though. Dat demon stack

[Anonymous No.3324194]

>>3324171
Efreeti Sultans are incredibly good. They can run circles around foes like nobody else but faeries (and those are the reason Conflux is usually banned) can. Cerberi aren't bad either and archdevils are awesome. Inferno's problems (mostly lack of glaring exploits like necromancy, bad lv 1's and focus on fire magic) can be mostly fixed by picking the right hero from the tavern. They can have a rough first few days but then they can clear the map very quickly. Late game there's also demon farming and efreeti+armageddon.

In my honest opinion, Stronghold is worse than Inferno. They have some of the best heroes (Hack, Dessa, Gurnisson, battlemages in general) in the game but you can get those from a tavern and their town itself offers very little with pretty bad creatures who just benefit from Barbarians' outrageous offense. Even Fortress can wyvern farm and has mighty gorgons. Stronghold's lv 1-4s are a footnote and their cyclopes are priced at the same level as level 7s.

[Anonymous No.3324285]

I wish Necropolis didn't make me feel like I'm cheating.

[Anonymous No.3324339]

>>3324285
I don't even care, Necro all day, every day, every game, no exceptions.

[Anonymous No.3324360]

>>3313797
Not really rule 34 but slightly sexy and cute.

[Anonymous No.3324363]

>>3324360

[Anonymous No.3324371]

>>3324110
My nigga. Disciples' artwork look gorgeous though the pre-rendered map graphics are not that great.

>>3323895
HoMM2 Price of Loyalty if you want more of the same. Disciples and AoW are pretty different games so I'd recommand playing both.

[Anonymous No.3324417]

>>3324194
>lack of glaring exploits like necromancy
>there's also demon farming
>and efreeti+armageddon.

[Anonymous No.3324441]

>>3289903
don't even have slow...
The best spell with a shooter on your team

[Anonymous No.3324725]

>>3324441
that's not how you spell haste

[Anonymous No.3324764]

>>3324363
>Queen Catherine

So she wanted to cuck king Roland?

[Anonymous No.3325107]

>>3324417

both of those things take a while to get going where another town would already have a huge early advantage to run wild on the map.

[Anonymous No.3325385]

can someone give me some assistance? I installed Heroes 2 on a new computer with windows 7 and I vaguely recall there was a really simple fix for the problem I am having. I have installed the game but eventually after 2 turns or so the games sound fucks up massively and it becomes laggy as shit, I can still play but the horse clopping sound effect or whatever I happened to be doing during the fuck up plays constantly.

[Anonymous No.3325786]

How different is AoWIII from HoMM3 in terms of gameplay?

[Anonymous No.3326469]

>>3324360
lol
Any moar?

[Anonymous No.3326645]

>random map
>6 external cavalier dwellings
>4 external angel dwellings
>find a spellbinder's hat in an utopia
>main can grab and upgrade 5-6 archangels and 16 champions each week in 2-3 days using DDoor
wew lad

should've leveled Tyris for even more overkill though

[Anonymous No.3326651]

>>3325385
Do you play in full screen?
Does this bug repeat in windowed mode?

[Anonymous No.3327316]

>>3325385
I remember a similar bug, it was acting weird when there was a disc in the cd-rom. Any disc.

Is it still shit if you turn off the audio altogether?

Have you tried the usual, checking compatibility modes, maybe running in a vm?

[Anonymous No.3327343]

>>3320787

Should have dropped sorcery for mysticism. You're really gonna need mana regeneration on the last map. Pathfinding doesn't do much because snow is native terrain.

[Anonymous No.3327351]

>>3326645

Champions are a waste of money. Get stacks of Archangels, fuckers will regenerate each other ad infinitum

[Anonymous No.3327358]

I've been leveling all my heroes and splitting armies evenly between them. Am I doing it wrong?

[Anonymous No.3327372]

>>3327358
No, not necessarily. In general, a good practice is to have one main hero, but on really large maps you won't cut it without numerous heroes, so might as well have some of them do some battles, especially if they have crucial skills.

If you find any of these in tavern:
>Gurnisson with Ballista intact
>Luna, Ciele, Solmyr, Deemer, Thant, appropriate Elementalist (depending on what spell you want) for a strong mage with a strong starting spell that can win you battles or minimize losses greatly
>Jeddite or Alamar for Ressurection (esp. if you can Scholar it to your main hero)
>random secondary skill heroes with possibly useful stats that scale, like Scholar
>Intelligence specialists - Andra, Elleshar - on very huge maps that demand lots of dimension door/flying/very long, tricky battles with lots of spells (TEW2, Wayfarer)
>Logistics specialists even if they're not your main, great for rushing down empty castles

you can groom them into a secondary hero.

For instance, you can start with someone like Crag Hack/Stronghold for that late game armorer, but since Ciele pops up in your tavern, you can train her a few levels to get some high-powered Magic Arrows to clear choice encounters, such as hordes of slow walkers (that early-game Crag could potentially have a problem with, with Stronghold having archery problems) or dwellings guarded by strong monsters.

[Anonymous No.3327376]

>>3327358

Depends on map size. Large maps usually require 2 main heroes and several support heroes for scouting, flagging, resource gathering and troop transport.

But you generally want one strong hero with a bigass army so that you can overwhelm the enemy and smash through random creatures at little loss of troops.

Splitting everything evenly means more losses and overall more costly to replenish your troops. Because the enemy AI will come at you in a one big force.

[Anonymous No.3327396]

>>3327372

A lot of those heroes and strategies are really situational.

[Anonymous No.3327398]

>>3327358
Here's another example: in HoMM2's (still kinda applicable to other games, just an example) Roland Campaign, in "The Defender", you start with a Sorceress and Lord Halton, both decently leveled, having a few artifacts, and you have a shipyard nearby. I went into this map blind and decided that I will transfer the +1 SP/Knowledge artifact, 5 Genies (fast units that have a chance to reduce an attacked enemy's stack by half) to my Sorcie and flag a gazebo for a chance at more SP. Sorceresses in HoMM2 start with Navigation, so I had her go on a ship and rush to the hinted-at Barbarian town in the South with just Genies (for high movement). With super-fast movement and high-damage Lightning Bolt, the Sorceress wrecked caught many heroes and killed them. Meanwhile Lord Halton took all the slower ground forces and advanced north, and a few more heroes went around scouting and collecting allied Dwarves. The sorceress ended up taking the Barbarian town and took her Genies back north, giving all the numerous artifacts and units bought at the conquered town back to Lord Halton and keeping a single Phoenix (that I managed to get at the start of week 2), and kept on being an ultra-fast hero killing everyone with a super-powered Lightning Bolt. I ended up beating the scenario in 2 weeks.

Point is, specialize your armies, if you split them that way. Let's say you have Shakti the Trog specialist; he could have like 200+ Troglodytes to one-shot enemy stacks and a few Manticores to block shooters. You could give all your Minotaur Kings/Eyes/Medusas to another hero, say, Gunnar you got from tavern, and a magic hero could abuse Armageddon with Black Dragons. Just an example.

If I have a strong level 6 unit (Unicorns, Naga Queens, Death Knights), by week 2 I like giving my main army to one hero and the level 6-ers to another, for instance.

[Anonymous No.3327413]

>>3327396
Yes. That's why I denoted some of them. In 1v1 MP games, you have no use for an Intelligence hero, but it becomes extremely convenient to train one on huge maps with lots of magic abuse. Gurnisson with Ballista is a week 1 wonder, because with just a couple of goblins and his Ballista he can do wonders. Same with Luna and Ciele and their spells. However some of those heroes are universally good, like Logistics specialists.

So, y'know, it's just some examples. Even if you have no use for a certain hero, you can still use him as a simple scout or secondary. If playing PvP on an open map and scout wars are a factor, having a strong spellcaster can be very good for killing enemy heroes and denying scouting.

Also, obviously, Necropolis players should preferrably run a couple Vampire Lords on their best skeleraisers (preferrably Isra and Vidomina, of course) to speed up gathering skeletons for the main army.

[Anonymous No.3327467]

>>3327398

It really depends if stacking troops makes sense though. A lot of towns have terrible 1-4 tier troops that quickly become cannon fodder and aren't worth buying even early game. A lot of walkers for example only work best in large numbers and are better off left to gather a critical mass. While shooters and flyers will die off extremely fast if you can't direct all enemy agro to a tough unit or cannon fodder. Selective army splitting only really works effectively when you mix different factions, that way you can put the strongest units of both factions on one hero and damage sponges on another.

Otherwise you'll quickly stretch your troops thin and risk loosing your strongest units and your main.

[Anonymous No.3327506]

>>3327413

I've seen some videos of the fire wall exploit and I'm guessing the arrow specialist is in a similar vein. I gotta say that it only works week 1 on tier 1 or 2 weak stacks and imo doesn't really add much to early exploration, because your and enemy areas are always guarded by tougher creatures on both exits. You can accomplish equally as much with a stack of shooters, minus the headache of gaiming the AI, just to save a day or two on exploration and a bit of gold. Also thant and vedomina are phenominally bad. Necromancers in general are squishy as all hell. You'll loose more troops than you'll manage to generate or recover with them. Especially in big battles.

[Anonymous No.3328335]

>>3327372
>Logistics specialists
No one runs away from Kyrre, Dessa and Gunnar.

[Anonymous No.3328557]

>>3326469
I have a few.

[Anonymous No.3328562]

>>3328557

[Anonymous No.3328601]

>>3328335

I like using Gunnar as a main. Tactics is underrated as fuck and especially good for Dungeon.

[Anonymous No.3328638]

>>3287776
>>3287690
IIRC you get the experience anyway, so you should get the gold to build up your towns/army quicker

[Anonymous No.3328670]

Why did they pussy out and remove the forge town?

[Anonymous No.3328672]

>>3328670
Too many fans of HoMM without knowledge of M&M lore.

[Anonymous No.3328676]

>>3328670

Probably because everybody hated conflux

[Anonymous No.3328678]

>>3328670
Because fuckwads who don't play Might & Magic think that Heroes of Might & Magic is the main series.

[Anonymous No.3328697]

>>3328678

I've never played M&M, what's the most essential one to play?

[Anonymous No.3328708]

>>3328697
You should get the 6 pack off GOG and play at least 3-6. 4 and 5 are combined into one game which is interesting. MM6 is probably the best starting one out of that pack.

[Anonymous No.3328717]

>>3328697

World of Xeen, VI, VII

[Anonymous No.3328720]

>>3328717
>>3328708

Alright thanks guys.

[Anonymous No.3328795]

>>3326651
>>3327316

Thanks for the help but I tried every combination of compatibility and stuff but nothing seemed to work. However reinstalling the game completely seems to have fixed it for no reason I can think of. Maybe not installing it in the default location was it?

[Anonymous No.3329081]

>>3328670
Authors got tons of boycott messages and even death threads

[Anonymous No.3329249]

>>3329081
It's not true that there were 'tons' of complaints. In fact, there was only a handful of them, which makes it even more sad as we know that Forge was stopped not by mass boycoot, but by a small groups of misinformed retards. Here is a part of ope FAQ-like letter from Greg Fulton to fans:

Q: WHY DID YOU PULL THE FORGE?

GF: Reason One: As much as I thought the actions of many fans showed a lack of vision and an inherent distrust for a company who have given them hundreds of hours of quality gameplay, I still didn't want to fight our fans. Reason Two: There wasn't enough pro-Forge activity.


Q: DO YOU THINK 50% OF THE HEROES FANS WERE AGAINST THE FORGE?

GF: No. Total, the number of emails we received asking to remove the Forge were less than 100. I doubt 3DO received much more. As a series, Heroes has sold over 750,000 copies world wide. I would be surprised if more than 5% of the audience would have 'boycotted' the product. However, I still felt 5% was too high.

Q: DOES SCIENCE FICTION BELONG IN HEROES?

GF: Yes. Science fiction is the foundation of the Might and Magic universe. It is the reason the Might and Magic universe exists. At its core, the Might and Magic is about advanced civilizations who have descend into barbarism. If you disagree, your reasoning is emotional, not logical. Many people forget the Inferno is not populated by demons. It's populated by aliens who look like demons. If I told you the origin of the Arch Angels I'm sure many of you would have a heart attack.

[Anonymous No.3329350]

>>3327358
>>3327372
I've been watching a few russian pro streams lately and what they seem to be doing is to keep one large army but swap it between several heroes each turn

>hero clears a neutral stack
>another nearby hero takes the army and goes on to clear another stack, with yet another hero hanging out in the vicinity
>end up with two or more decently leveled heroes on week 2
>they build a fast army from hives/conservatories and go fuck shit up

Admittedly this requires extreme amounts of planning and movement economy

>>3327506
Ciele's magic arrow is basically an ice bolt that is 2x cheaper. She can use it to clear early lvl 1 stacks with just one sprite in her army, like Luna can do, or strafe slow, high-level creatures like crusaders or ogres to oblivion

She's not to be underestimated, of course she falls off late game but her early aggression is great

Vidomina and Thant /are/ inferior to Isra and Galthran though.

[Anonymous No.3329369]

>>3329249
Too bad the anti sci-fi fags won in the end since jewbisoft rebooted the entire series and got rid of all sci-fi elements.

[Anonymous No.3329480]

>>3314603
how did it go, anon?

[Anonymous No.3331172]

>>3329249
>If I told you the origin of the Arch Angels I'm sure many of you would have a heart attack.

now I'm interested

[Anonymous No.3331267]

>>3331172
They are robots

[Anonymous No.3331364]

>>3331267
More likely genetically modified super-human beings (maybe a bit mechanical) made by Ancients to guard worlds from Kreegans.

[Anonymous No.3331449]

>game tries to scam me with auto battles

[Anonymous No.3331450]

>>3331364
So, metahuman cyborgs?

[Anonymous No.3331458]

>play a new map I don't know the layout of from scratch for about 40 minutes
>suddenly enemies come out of nowhere and captures my capitol
>quit

What do I do when I cba to go through the effort of reclaiming the capitol and keep playing rather than just going "eh, fuck it"?

[Anonymous No.3331485]

>>3331449
When you use auto-battles, the game uses its AI to fight, and it has a really shitty AI.

I don't know how it could possibly lose that fight though. Even if the dragons are split into 7 stacks of 4-5 dragons, they'd still overwhelm that force.

[Anonymous No.3331535]

>>3331458
Scout and don't leave your capitol defenseless?

[Anonymous No.3332606]

Holy fuck I had a retard intense campaign finish
>dungeons and devils
>have to capture steadwick
>peek and see steadwick is barely defended
>literally 3 movements away
>main hero tests the waters with his dungeon army and dragons against their general
>gets his fucking shit pushed in
>2nd hero with inferno army moves in and dies to 84 champ stack
>contemplate restarting but decide to wait for an opening again
>have PIC RELATED this motherfucker camping my with auxiliary army
>their general finally takes the bulk of the army and leaves 34 skeletons and 28 halberdiers
>SWOOCE right in
>"You are victorious!"

[Anonymous No.3333805]

>>3331450
Yes, much more. NWC, nor Caneghem were never too clear about the subject and lore in general.

[Anonymous No.3333853]

>>3331485
Not arguing against you but stacks are not re-arranged by AI before Quick Combat, it will play the battle with your arrangement (which means different arrangements give different results for same seed).

[Anonymous No.3334352]

>>3332606

You're supposed to armageddon spell spam with black dragons or efreet. They even give you a dragon dwelling so you can creature portal a fuckton of dragons

[Anonymous No.3334597]

>>3334352
I held off way too long on the black dragons then and I never got the Armageddon spell for my magic hero. Is it supposed to be guaranteed in the campaign?

[Anonymous No.3334675]

>>3313036

+1

[Anonymous No.3334682]

>>3333853
again, how could the AI possible lose in that case? The dragons would one-hit kill any stack they attack. Even factoring in losses from the arrow towers, counter attacks, and picking hits where their 2-hex firebreath is not useful, they'd still kill everything.

[Anonymous No.3334706]

>>3315169

HotA makes them a bit better by enabling retreating when fighting monsters.

[Anonymous No.3335612]

>>3329249
but honestly, just from one simple look at that whole town screen, it really doesn't fit the whole scope of the game at all.

and ask yourself, why would they have top-notch cyber technology while Tower can't even have something beyond Giants and Golems who are mechanically driven?

[Anonymous No.3335650]

>>3334597

You can easily get armageddon and town portal in previous campaigns, the key is to choose dungeon heroes. If I remember correctly. You get a campaign map where you have like 10 dungeons in underground tunnels and plenty of time to raise several powerful magic heroes.

[Anonymous No.3335652]

>>3329249
>Many people forget the Inferno is not populated by demons. It's populated by aliens who look like demons.

She may look and act like a 12 years old little girls but actually she'a a 10.000 year old all powefrull Genie.

Donotsteal TM

[Anonymous No.3335716]

>>3334682
Refer to >Not arguing against you

Only way to find out for sure would be to step through the battle routine, which is not that difficult to find. For HD Edition I know a needle is:
8D842428020000 (LEA EAX, [ESP + 0x228])
64A300000000 (MOV DWORD PTR FS : [0], EAX)

Not that this level of autism is worth the effort to find out why those 33 Black Dragons didn't take that Castle.

[Anonymous No.3335803]

>>3334682
>we don't see that stats of the oppo hero, only the towers doing damage

>incredible defense
>infinite resurrection / elemental summoning

[Anonymous No.3335815]

>>3334682
Look at the casualties in case of auto-battle. Seems like opponent has Summon Earth Elemental, and judging from artifacts, huge spellpower and tons of mana. This, combined with summoning stack of elementals every turn and retarded AI clearing them with dragons one at time instead of nuking them with spell, may end in defeat.

>>3335612
I completely agree with you that Forge being 100% futuristic, like on that screen, wouldn't merge well with the rest of the game. Some ancient technology from before the Void, discovered and used here and there (like blasters or that sunken spaceship with guard droids in M&M7), sure thing, but whole town full of inventions infinitely more advanced than discoveries of strongest archmages?

[Anonymous No.3335825]

>>3335652
actually, I think that Kreegans are more like Doom-type demon-aliens. They might be fused with some high grade technology, or straight use it (like town gates), but it's all called magic by Enroth denizens anyway

[Anonymous No.3335872]

>>3332606
>>3334352
>>3334597

The whole point of that level is to just swoop in the capitol while the general is away to the nearby wind/water mill
i've won that level a few times and never fought him in a seige battle unless i wanted to

[Anonymous No.3336917]

I heard about this mod that gives you approximations instead of the vague adjectives they use like pack and zound. The thing is though something must of been fucked up in the array.txt I got because it's displaying -249 for a certain number group.

Anyone have an array.txt that doesn't have this weird error?

[Anonymous No.3337054]

Saw a post about savescumming to get the desired skills you want from witch huts and Scholars. But I just get the same options every time. What am I doing wrong?

[Anonymous No.3337097]

>>3337054
I'm 99% sure it's not possible to reroll huts and scholars, seed for them is generated at the star of mission and there is no new seed on saving and loading game. Maybe someone was using some mods?

[Anonymous No.3337109]

>>3337054
Skills in witch huts and scholars are randomly selected at the beginning of the game. (Unless the mapmaker explicitly selected a skill.) Savescumming here is useful when you want to avoid getting a useless skill like scholar or eagle eye.

[Anonymous No.3337121]

>>3337097
>>3337109
>Savescumming here is useful when you want to avoid getting a useless skill

Thanks guys

[Anonymous No.3337129]

I actually use Eagle Eye sometimes. When I was playing the first segment of the Shadow of Death campaign, I was stuck fighting with less troops against a massive force of Necromancers, but I managed to learn Destroy Undead from Thant fighting against him and actually won. Actually still use Eagle Eye sometimes with Oris.

[Anonymous No.3337130]

>>3337054
I think that guy who made that post was simply referring to reloading the game if Bitch Hut gives you shitty skill to avoid it, not to actual possibility of changing the skill being taught in there

[Anonymous No.3337138]

>>3337130
Yeah, thanks. Is it ever a good idea to dismiss your hero at the start for someone better that can be hired?

[Anonymous No.3337168]

>>3337138
If you can freely pick from all heroes available for given faction, I see no reason to, unless you are extremely lucky and find someone who has unique specialty and works great for all factions, like Sir "Sanic" Mullich

[Anonymous No.3337182]

>>3337129
Eagle Eye can be useful, if one party has much better spells than the other.

[Anonymous No.3337338]

>>3337182
It's highly situational and maybe useful on small maps, partially because you probably won't fill up all eight skills to expert anyway. On any medium and large map, you will visit enough mage guilds and chapels to learn all useful stuff sooner or later, no reason to put three levels worth of skills into something that might never be useful once, with all better alternatives around

[Anonymous No.3337395]

>>3337182
It can definitely be useful, but the situations that it's most useful are situations you want to avoid.

If your opponents have spells that are that much better than your own, then either one of two things has happened:

1.) Your opponent built mage guilds _in place of_ creature structures, and so you run them down with more/better creatures. The fact that you can learn their spells through eagle-eye is useful but likely not necessary because you are already at an advantage.

2.) Your opponents have mage guilds _in addition to_ creature structures, and you're just fucked six ways from Sunday. If you can pull off a victory, you'll learn some nice spells but you're already at a tremendous disadvantage and those extra spells aren't likely to be enough to turn the tide.

Granted, it's possible that learning your opponents spells does lead to a from-behind victory in scenario 2. It can happen. But that's an up hill battle, and if your heroes had a more actively useful skill, you might have avoided falling so far behind to begin with.

Having to depend on eagle eye to survive is miserable.

[Anonymous No.3337519]

>>3336917
Did more googling and assume this is intentional.

[Anonymous No.3337543]

>>3336917
>I heard about this mod that gives you approximations instead of the vague adjectives they use like pack and zound. The thing is though something must of been fucked up in the array.txt I got because it's displaying -249 for a certain number group.
It's not "-249," it's (iirc) "200-249."
Or, between two hundred and two hundred and fifty.

It's just the first half is being truncated.

[Anonymous No.3337720]

Am I missing something? I'm trying to defend my shooter Lizardmen with some basilisks and they're covered from all sides except one hex in the back which is the edge of the battlefield.

The thing is though they're still being shot through the basilisks.

[Anonymous No.3337916]

>>3337720
You cant protect your units from ranged attacks.

[Anonymous No.3337938]

so what's the verdict on the Cove faction compared to all the others?

I don't even know if I like them. Was a pretty good idea for a new faction though.

[Anonymous No.3338048]

>>3331172
Probably some kind of golems that have some connection to ancients.

[Anonymous No.3338069]

>>3337395

I don't think I'd ever rely solely on Eagle Eye to carry me through a game, but it's definitely smart to keep it in mind the need for it arises.

What is annoying though is that most people in HoMM3 threads just put it in the "pure shit" category, as if it had no uses at all. Like Mysticism and Diplomacy it seems more like a mixed bag, subject to its utility.

When I played the Fall of Steadwick I got Mysticism and Diplomacy on my secondary hero Jeddite, and Malekith got the regular loadout that a HoMM3 thread might recommend. So I built an army with Malekith to take Steadwick, and Jeddite explored and conquered castles. With the first I had to backtrack to castles for Magic Points, and with the former I used diplomacy to build a huge army of over 500 Pegasi (and other creatures), and never had to move into a town for Magic.

It just feels like there is more merit to some skills than most players will admit.

[Anonymous No.3338121]

>>3338069
nope, he described it perfectly in 1. Eagle Eye is inherently shit. When you already overpowered your opponent some niche spell you could get not really affects anything. Anything else is thought experimenting.

>diplomacy
>not the most broken skill

is this b8?

[Anonymous No.3338150]

>>3338069
Players actually admit that diplomacy has merit. IIRC it's banned from tournaments.
Eagle eye requires a lot of luck to be useful. Keep in mind that you can have only 8 skills, it's better to get one that is guaranteed to be useful than one that might be slightly useful in a particular situation.

[Anonymous No.3338248]

>>3338069
diplomacy is never discussed because it is completely overpowered and usually banned in MP. like you found out, get diplo+visions and you can just cruise around collecting massive armies

[Anonymous No.3338250]

>>3337938
two upgrades for a single unit bugs me

[Anonymous No.3338271]

>>3287419
I love me some HoM&M3, but is this retro?
It doesnt feel retro.

And the only advice I can give is to learn which heroes are best for your army, and never have only one or two heroes.

[Anonymous No.3338310]

>>3338271
>game that used to have generals for years
>is this retro?

[Anonymous No.3338312]

>>3337182
>>3337338
>>3337395
There is a specific map, A Wizard's Tale, which revolves around being an Eagle Eye specialist on a map with no shrines and mage guilds, and a lot of other mages as enemies. It's pretty fun for a change of playstyle.

[Anonymous No.3338313]

>>3338271
>but is this retro?

read the sticky.

[Anonymous No.3338328]

>>3338250
there must be a reason for that, like one unit tier being too weak and cheap or something to justify that.

I think it's those shitty birds or the nymphs/oceanids. the nymphs die incredibly quickly. they might be worse than pixies.

other than that, the ballista is not as useful as the cannons now. cannons shoot walls at sieges and do more damage than the ballista in general. they just cost twice as much.

[Anonymous No.3338432]

>>3337182

Eagle eye is good for battlemages and witches defending castles against other factions.

[Anonymous No.3338505]

>reaching lategame with a resurrection specialist
Too fun watching a stack of 14 hydras just pop right back up.

[Anonymous No.3338513]

>Basic Eagle Eye: gives your hero a 40% chance to learn any 1st or 2nd level spell used in combat.

Just a reminder that you need to level up Eagle Eye to even have a chance to get those nice fourth level spells, and those levels don't necessary come that easily. I suppose even at basic level, it can still give you some nice spells you're missing, so it's probably not as awful as, say, Learning.

[Anonymous No.3338620]

>>3338505
Is that Heroes IV?

[Anonymous No.3339149]

>>3329081
>>3329249
Some guys are working on it and want to add it to the game.

[Anonymous No.3339968]

>>3338620
Speaking about Heroes IV, I wonder what are the most broken and unbalanced tactics in it. We've discussed III meta inside out and know what to stick to in both single and MP, but what would you call the cheapest method of overpowering enemies in IV? For me, it is playing as Might, but hiring secondary Order hero with nobility. Grandmaster in nobility + breeding pens = 200% unit growth. Combine that with main hero being proficient in Tactics, cyclops that can one shot up to three units at once and gorillions of thunderbirds and you are breezing through any army.

[Anonymous No.3340084]

>>3338620
Nah senpai just Jeddite.

[Anonymous No.3340090]

>>3339149
Sauce?

[Anonymous No.3340242]

>>3329249
Cowards didn't stay true to their creative vision.

[Anonymous No.3340271]

>>3340084
>Jeddite

craziest motherfucker in the game.

[Anonymous No.3340282]

>>3338271
It came out in 1999 fuckwit

[Anonymous No.3340446]

>>3340282
uncalled for, but it really makes you think it does not feel old at all. It aged really well and I think it is still underrated and unknown to many. Buying PC magazines in elemntary, I don't even remember they reviewing Heroes.
Even though I remember buying +8MB RAM just to be able to play h2 back in the day, then switching to windows when 3 came around. Playing hot seat was the shit, memes have nothing on irl banter.

>>3338250
I don't play fanfic and pirates of the heroes sounds stupid, nevertheless they had 2x upgrade on Green Dragon in h2, granted it was called Red/Black Tower and not Upg. Green Tower

[Anonymous No.3340490]

>>3339968
I remember playing hotseat with my cousin. He had life faction, I had death. We stopped playing when I had GM necromancy and got 3 vampires after every battle.

[Anonymous No.3341160]

What exactly does 200% difficulty do? I understand you get less resources at the start and AI just plays better?

[Anonymous No.3341196]

>>3341160
never played that difficulty but I think the AI is the most aggressive then. like the AI town closest to your place will seek you out immediately.

[Anonymous No.3342103]

People complain about eagle eye but what about shit like navigation?

[Anonymous No.3342312]

>>3341160

in homm2 the ai doesn't play better but simply gets more resources while reducing what you start with. On impossible you start with nothing, no gold or resources while the ai starts with what the player would on easy difficulty and gets 2 of each resource without having any mines at all and doubles it's gold income.

Without this massive resource injection the AI plays just as poorly as it did before. If the ai can't get enough gems/sulfur/whatever by the first of the week it usually sells its resources to buy it's units. AI's with Wizard/Warlock and Sorceress towns get hit particularly hard by this as without control of a massive amount of mines they will be stuck unable to afford their level 6's on easy and normal.

In homm3 the AI has a large list of behaviour changes.

http://www.celestialheavens.com/viewpage.php?id=24

[Anonymous No.3342445]

>>3342103
It's good for a sea maps, eagle eye is not good for anything

[Anonymous No.3342449]

>>3339149
There are so many teams working on their own projects and no team made anything playable

[Anonymous No.3342471]

>>3342103
Navigation is so-so, even on water-heavy maps. It would be way more useful if it would give you at expert that no movement drain after entering/leaving the boat buff, or at least allow you to conserve part of points. Extra movement is rarely useful, as usually island maps have many lighthouses and you can hop from one landmass to another in one turn of sailing anyway.
In WoG, navigation was buffed by granting additional attack and defense for sea battles, but it's also kinda meh because you don't really need that for pushover battles against wraiths and water elementals, and AI-controlled heroes avoid naval combat as much as possible for some reason, sometimes will escape you even with overwhelming forces.

tl;dr Take navigation only on maps with significant distances between islands that cannot be water walked.

[Anonymous No.3342689]

>>3342103
Situational, if there is significant amount of water, I would get an aux hero starting with navigation for looting the sea. Even at basic it offers a huge bonus. You can get your money back from the floating stuff and shipwreck survivors can give you game breaking stuff. Also useful when you need to outrun your opponent on the water with.

[Anonymous No.3343198]

>>3342103
it's better to have an artifact covering navigation rather than the skill itself. HotA added new ones I think.

[Anonymous No.3343294]

>watching mekick play RoE campaign
>goes to a refuge camp
>"Would you like to recruit a gold dragon?"
this fucker

[Anonymous No.3343352]

>>3342312
The AI in HOMM2 can't buy any level 6 units at all on easy and normal no matter how many ressorces they have unless the castle already had the level 6 dwelling when they got it.

There are plenty of other behavior changes too.

[Anonymous No.3343423]

>>3343352
Speaking about AI dwelling limitations, am I the only one that had a "problem" with AI never ever buying creatures from summon portals in Preserve towns in Heroes IV, regardless of difficulty level? It builds summon portals alright, but leaves them untouched. It makes playing against Preserve, or on nature-heavy maps piss easy as when in late game. after conquering each town like that you can hire 150 - 200 water elementals or waspworts.

[Anonymous No.3343440]

>>3343294
"A horde of black dragons seek greater glory"

I rofflestomped the entire map after that

[Anonymous No.3343740]

>>3343352

The AI will eventually get Crusaders and Cyclopses on the lower difficulties, they would also be able to get the other level 6 structures if they had enough gold.

[Anonymous No.3344278]

>>3343294
Is it just me or are there Pikemen half the time?

[Anonymous No.3344283]

>>3343423
maybe you should drop retro for a while and play Heroes 5 instead. the system there is much more intelligent and the AI isn't completely retarded like in 4.

[Anonymous No.3344362]

>>3344278
I've seen a fair selection ranging from Dread Knights to Champions. Pretty sure RNG is just fucking with you.

[Anonymous No.3344908]

>>3343294
A few days ago I was playing a scenario with a refugee camp near where I started:

>Week 1: A Red Dragon
>Week 2 or 3: A Titan

I'm not sure if there's any point in curbstomping the map. Overall refugee camps aren't really fun at all.

[Anonymous No.3344987]

Is there any way to put Heroes of might and Magic 4 in non stretched widescreen resolution ? pcgaming wiki and WSGF were of no help.

[Anonymous No.3345062]

>>3335612
fag

[Anonymous No.3345104]

Don't upgrade anything, except lvl 7 creatures.

[Anonymous No.3345157]

>when that stack of skeleltons hits

[Anonymous No.3345206]

>>3345104
you must upgrade Archers into Marksmen, Wood Elves into Gray Elves and Harpies into Harpy hags

[Anonymous No.3345239]

>>3345062
not an argument

[Anonymous No.3345271]

>>3339149
Horn of the Abyss still looks better than most of the stuff related to Forge resurrections.

[Anonymous No.3345290]

>>3303590
>mfw

[Anonymous No.3345343]

>>3310071
That picture is accurate, it really was what I felt. This game is awesome, even today I still play it regularly.

[Anonymous No.3345350]

>>3345206
And Gremlins (range attack), pixies (no retaliation), Air and Water elementals (range attack), Gorgons (death stare is the single deadliest unit ability in the game), Efreets (fire shield) pretty much all range attackers, wolf riders (double attack), swordsman (double attack), griffins (infinite retaliation), Vampires (damage turns into hitpoints that resurrect them), wraights (mana draining), Dread Knights (curse and double damage)...

... actually, money permitting, there's not a single unit type you should not upgrade. There are however a few exception where you may want to consider not upgrading:
- Dragons - gold/black dragons are immune to resurrection. This is actually a case where the first aid tent can be very handy, especially with the skill.
- Gogs - magogs throw AOE fireballs which hurt allies
- Hell Hound - Cerberi has smaller defense (only example in the game where upgraded unit has worse stats)
- Psychic Elementals - so you can cast magic on them

there might be more, I don't remember.

[Anonymous No.3345378]

>>3345350
>There are however a few exception where you may want to consider not upgrading:
-Skeletons, maybe. I don't usually play necro, but I think you want your stack of death be normal skeletons because the way necromancy works.
-Maybe Wyverns and Manticores, at least not right away, since they'll get quite expensive if you upgrade them.

Overall I think you want to upgrade your fliers as soon as possible though, since the upgraded units are much faster.

>- Hell Hound - Cerberi has smaller defense (only example in the game where upgraded unit has worse stats)
Still, Cerberi have no retaliation and three headed attack, I don't think they're worse than Hell Hounds.

[Anonymous No.3345384]

>>3335612
You would have an aneurism if you played mainline M&M then with robots, mechs, spaceships, phasers all over the place near the endgame. Might and Magic has been sci-fi from the start.

[Anonymous No.3345431]

>>3345384
still doesn't fit the game at the end of the day and others agree. it's not a lore observation but an observation about aesthetical compromise.

mainline M&M has that, sure. so?
wizardry games have it too. same thing. but I'm sure the more modern entries of both game series kinda moved away from that.

[Anonymous No.3345447]

>>3345431
>wizardry games have it too. same thing. but I'm sure the more modern entries of both game series kinda moved away from that.
Wizardry 1-4 really didn't have any sci-fi and with 5 it's kind of dubious.
Even in 6 it only shows up for the epilogue while it's strong in 7 and 8.
Other titles are Wizardry mainly in name.

Ultima would be the series were Sci-Fi was common in 1 and 2 but got cut out of the lore afterwards.

[Anonymous No.3345457]

>>3345378
>Still, Cerberi have no retaliation and three headed attack, I don't think they're worse than Hell Hounds.

Yeah, problem is, they are not better either, but cost more.

[Anonymous No.3345514]

>>3344987
Set system resolution.

[Anonymous No.3345734]

>>3345431
It fit just fine you flaming homo. You're just ignorant of the setting and can't handle your generic fantasy setting being something more than that.

[Anonymous No.3345774]

>>3345734
>You're just ignorant of the setting
Did you read the post you quoted?

[Anonymous No.3345781]

>>3345774
I have and it doesn't excuse his ignorance about a series where you go around fighting robots with swords on spaceships and artificial planets.

[Anonymous No.3346170]

>>3345350

Dragons are a really boring 7th tier unit imo. Plus the ai constantly uses dragons retaliate to hurt your units due to dragons 2 hex attack. Teleporting hydras are deadly as fuck though.

[Anonymous No.3346207]

>>3345781
>I have and it doesn't excuse his ignorance about a series where you go around fighting robots with swords on spaceships and artificial planets.
He isn't ignorant about the series. In fact, he acknowledges that it's part of the lore. His argument was that it didn't fit the game regardless.

Again, you'd know this if you read his post first.

[Anonymous No.3346226]

>>3346207
nope, they is right, casting away the sci fi elements because of muh lore is observation bias

[Anonymous No.3346269]

>>3346226

Sci fi doesn't really fit in a game based on greco-roman, christian, celtic and northern mythos.

[Anonymous No.3346270]

>>3346170
>Plus the ai constantly uses dragons retaliate to hurt your units due to dragons 2 hex attack.

So just position them in such a way so this cannot happen. On the other hand, you can also use the 2-hex attack to obliterate 2 stacks of enemies on your first move, which can make a huge difference.

I agree that Dragons are really "vanilla" tier 7 units, they are good but not the best, nor the worst. All their extra skills are double edged (fire breath, magic immunity).

Their magic immunity in particular is as annoying as it is helpful. You can't buff them with haste or prayer (not that they need them...), and you cannot resurrect them or clone them, unless you are using unupgraded dragons. However if you use un-upgraded dragons, you also cannot cast Armageddon with only dragons in your army; which is an incredibly dick tactic but way more efficient with dragons than it is with efreets, due to the dragons having very high speed.

They were more special in HOMM2 where being a flyer was a much bigger deal.

>Teleporting hydras are deadly as fuck though.

Not really imo, since they are slow. By the time they get a turn, the enemy already moved all his units and slowed/blinded your troops. And you also need retaliation cast on them for them to be really effective in close quarters, but that's 2 rounds of casting, during which time the opponent can just blind them, berserk them, implode them etc.

Mighty Gorgons are much more exciting as far as Fortress creatures go. Death Stare absolutely murders higher tier units. I think it affects all units too, except maybe Azure Dragons.

[Anonymous No.3347583]

When I play Necropolis I don't buy Walking Deads, I buy them only if I have a lots of money and turn them into skeletons

Is it a good strategy?

[Anonymous No.3347658]

>>3347583
yep, they are useless

[Anonymous No.3347701]

>>3345350

Of course upgraded creatures are stronger, but the extra money isn't worth it except on lvl 7 creatures. Losing the extra money will slow you down.

[Anonymous No.3347895]

>>3287445
>building up economy first instead of army. you can make more money with an effective army
This. I watched a HOMM2 speedrun the other day and feel like I've been playing incorrectly/too conservatively for the past 20 years. Apparently you just need to start attacking shit left and right the moment you start the game and no one can ever recover from your onslaught.

[Anonymous No.3347984]

>>3347583
You're playing Necro as everybody should
Full skeellies ftw

[Anonymous No.3348635]

Holy fuck son where does the time go when I play this game. Told myself I'd play an hour and then it turned into 4.

[Anonymous No.3349085]

>>3347583
thats retarded, keep alot of them then upgrade them to zombies when you really need to

[Anonymous No.3349117]

>>3347895
But the only thing you can do in 2 to build up an economy is the statue. And the dungeon if you are a wizard.
You can't rush for a city hall or capital like in 3.

[Anonymous No.3349408]

>>3349085
>keeping unupgraded walking deads
enjoy your daily movement of ten squares

[Anonymous No.3349429]

>>3349408
>ever bringing them outside of castle

[Anonymous No.3349454]

>>3349429
If you intend to keep them in a castle al the time, why even bother with wasting money on them (that is, unless you are on a rich scenario and can buy everything anyway)? They are sort of decent bullet sponges during sieges, but that's all about them. I'd say they are still absolute last in necro creature queue, and turning them into skellies in a long run is only reasonable choice.

[Anonymous No.3349671]

>>3287419
How does hosting a game work in this? Is it possible to set up a drop in drop out dedicated server where people can set up their own games when one ends or upon vote?

[Anonymous No.3349683]

>>3349671
Your best bet is to use Hamachi, Evolve or something similiar. Especially the first one, where you can just make or join rooms and have a talk with potential opponents. You will find a lot of still active players that are up for some III or IV too. It might be a little tricky to make it work if you are on Windows 10 though.

[Anonymous No.3349972]

>>3349671
Host plays. No mods too allow host as spectator tmk

[Anonymous No.3350169]

>>3349972
>>3349683
Damn. Not what I was hoping for. Oh well.

[Anonymous No.3350332]

>>3287679
>>3311276
The survivor is riding in the cart like a boat

[Anonymous No.3350349]

I actually never played HoMM3, I should go through all the campaigns to learn the game right? Any mods I should grab?

[Anonymous No.3350353]

>>3350349
Restoration of Erathia maybe

Don't start with Shadow of Death, you're gonna die

[Anonymous No.3350359]

>>3350349
Do whatever's fun. Random maps present a different challenge.

You'll definitely want the HD mod for video settings and increased resolution.

HotA is a content/balance mod that's nice and the community uses. But vanilla+original expansions is still amazing. No wrong choice.

[Anonymous No.3350389]

>>3350359
the one lame thing about the HD mod for new players is that it removes the cool little stories when you find artifacts, which are fun the first few times you see them at least

<UI.AdvMgr.SkipMapMsgs> = 0 fixes it though

[Anonymous No.3350501]

>>3350349
I'll be honest the game doesn't do too good of a job of explaining much to you. If you have a GOG copy then play with the manual with the game side by side.

If you're not interested in that then just watch MeKick/TheKnownWorld and you'll start to get understand the flow of the game and the pace that you can play it at.

Everyone else has already told you to get HD mod which is really easy to install and configure. Biggest tip I can give you is to hire a 2nd hero day 1 to exclusively follow your main her to pick up shit while your main hero battles.

[Anonymous No.3351064]

>>3350332
dude, there is lumber or ore inside. it would sink like a fucking rock.

[Anonymous No.3351083]

>>3351064
But it's also magic

[Anonymous No.3351131]

Anybody here is familiar with HoMM2 campaigns remake for HotA form this thread?

heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=42097&PID=1347153#focus

[Anonymous No.3351179]

>>3349408
let them stack in the castle and buy as zombies

300 zombies > 300 skeletons

any day

[Anonymous No.3351286]

>>3296885
HoMM4: Best writing, great music, some really good new features like the caravan. Art sucks, although the direction could've gone places if they'd had more time. Some really shitty changes: hero prisons and daily creature growth for example. Some changes that weren't so much bad or good as just different: heroes as fielded units, picking between units each tier, no unit upgrades, impossibility to master all skills one picked.
The most glaring fault in my opinion is the battlefield configuration. Holy fuck positioning your units was a painful piece of shit in IV. All in all a pretty good game that could have been fantastic if it hadn't been fucked over by 3DO's retarded development policies that gave NWC barely a year of development for each game. MM9 too could have been fantastic, but the one-year development coupled with the need to make it in a more modern engine fucked NWC over, and we ended up with a buggy piece of mess.

[Anonymous No.3351398]

Just installed gameranger and it detected HoMM3 but will it already detect the exe using HD mod or will it default to vanilla when hosting a game?

[Anonymous No.3351435]

>>3346269
>it doesn't fit
It does fit though because the series is fantasy mixed with sci-fi.

[Anonymous No.3351487]

1st week i up my economy till city, then i try to get most army's structure possible untill the end of the week, then i upgrade to capitole and start to get usefull creatures. Don 't know if it's the best way in general.

Also if i play with barbarian i rush really fast to behemoth and use it to scout and find all the mines possible.

[Anonymous No.3351494]

>>3347701

Shooters like archers, gremlins and elfs are insta upgrades though. Not all lvl 7 creatures are worth upgrading either imo. Bone dragons aren't even worth buying and devils are too expensive for what they offer. Behemoths aren't much to write home about either. I'd get cyclops if their dwelling didn't cost 20 crystal.

[Anonymous No.3351973]

>>3351494
>Behemoths aren't much to write home about either.
you can get the motherfuckers on week 1 though and that's plenty to write home about

[Anonymous No.3352185]

>>3303590
kek everytime

[Anonymous No.3352269]

>>3351973

That's kind of the only advantage, they're slow and cannon fodder in sieges

[Anonymous No.3352379]

>>3351487
If you really value economy above army, I'd say you should try and build citadel on day 6 and castle on day 7 at the very least to double population for those dwellings that you have, so 2nd week won't suck that much in terms of combat

[Anonymous No.3352393]

>>3351494
>>3352269
Ability to ignore 80% of opponent's defense, combined with usually high attack stat of barbarian heroes, is not much to write home about? Add some prayer or bloodlust, and ancient behemoths completely wreck any tanky hero like he has 0 defense points.

[Anonymous No.3352438]

>>3287419
>Playing HD Edition

Kill yourself

[Anonymous No.3352447]

Can someone list the pros and cons of each town? I have been playing this game on and off for 10 years and still hsven't figured out a playstyle for each one.

[Anonymous No.3352502]

>>3352447
That's something really hard to compile and I'm pretty sure everyone has own opinions, so I can just share my own, one by one.

Castle:
+ well-rounded and balanced, not a single useless unit;
+ Good creature specific skills that help on many fields of combat (double strike, double shot, jousting, motherfucking resurrection)
+ relatively easy to build, majority of structures demand just wood and ore (although a lot of it, better flag quarry and sawmill really fast);
+ good start if you like going for early skirmishes, pikemen handle themselves well for tier 1 and early archers are always useful;
+ all knights start with leadership, you can mix early followers with your army without morale penalty;
+ Sir Mullich is one of the best guys to have, no matter which faction you play
+ possibly the most useful tier 7 unit...

- ...that also costs a lot, not to mention expensive dwelling that is nearly impossible to pull of on week 1 on any harder difficulty level;
- you need a lot of wood to obtain cavaliers too;
- all castle specific buildings but stables are nigh useless;
- resource silo doesn't produce gems, which are required in large quanities for archangels;
- weekly cost of troops slightly exceeds even amount produced by capitol, you have to rely on external sources of money.

[Anonymous No.3352549]

>>3352447
http://www.celestialheavens.com/heroes-of-might-and-magic-iii/general/jolly-joker-guides

The guy goes REALLY in-depth and even gives you a build order to try out to get a feel of each town except tower/conflux.

[Anonymous No.3352553]

>>3352502
Tower:

+ Three shooting units in total;
+ Nagas are fast, hit like a truck and have no retaliation, which kinda counts as "ranged" attack that won't cause any casualties in some situations;
+ Good bare unit stats in general;
+ All kind of town specific buildings orientated around magic, easy to get spells that you look for, +1 to wisdom combined with archmagi reducing cost of all spells by 2 means that you rarely run out of mana;
+ Artifact merchant;
+ Mage guild up to 5;
+ Best type of "moat", easy to defend against AI that will walk straight into mines all the time;
+ Temple of clouds is only 5000 gold...

- ...and 30 gems.
- Everything worthwhile in this town requires tons of gems and other valuable resources. Play on a map that offers a little besides wood and ore and say goodbye to decent mage guild, library, and upgrades of all creature dwellings above tier 3;
- Whole town requires investment of 89 gems, along with nearly 50 of every other expensive resources in total to be maxed out;
- Troops even mroe expensive that in Castle;
- Golems do not contribute much due to their poor speed;
- Not a single troop that traverses whole combat screen without hep of haste, so pretty bad at blocking shooter-heavy armies;
- Multiple useless heroes with specialties like golems, Mysticism or Eagle Eye;
- Master genie spell skill is pretty meh, you never know if you are not wasting their move only to cast counterattack on archmagi or precision on nagas.

[Anonymous No.3352589]

>>3352502

Castle high build price is offset by estates. Each castle hero has a high chance of getting it and.

Cavaliers and stables are a waste of money imo. Better to just skip to angels

[Anonymous No.3352603]

>>3352553
Rampart:

+ Best tier 1 unit;
+ Also arguably best tier 3 unit, especially after upgrade; clearing out early neutral stacks with them is a breeze;
+ Split stacks of dendroids and unicorns can keep enemy exactly where you want to have him with binding and blind;
+ Silver pegasi and gold dragons can lock down opponent's shooter stacks in one turn;
+ Cheap troops in general;
+ smart use of dwarven treasury, especially if you have multiple ramparts, can eliminate all problems with money in this and all other towns;
+ Mage guild up to level 5;
+ Rangers have either archery, or resistance, which combines well with already resistant dorfs and unicorns;

- Elves are only shooters, get them locked or blinded and your ranged proficiency is done for;
- Dorfs and/or dendroids terribly slow you down on world map;
- Pegasi have hitpoints and defense of wet cardboard;
- Gold dragons are all in all just poor man's black dragons;
- No town specific buildings that boost heroes in any way.

[Anonymous No.3352616]

>>3352553

Tower has a high chance of getting chain lightning. So you can clear a whole section of the map with just that or lightning bolt and just some iron golems

[Anonymous No.3352671]

>>3352603
Inferno:

+ Farming demons with pit lord's ability on large maps can actually amass quite an army;
+ Two units with no retaliation ability;
+ Efreet sultans are a real pain to deal with for enemies;
+ You can't praise enough usefulness of town gates on maps with multiple Infernos;
+ Mage guild up to level 5 that has a high chance of drawing useful spells and order of fire;

- Useless imps and terrible attack stat of gogs mean absolute suffering in early combats;
- Only one shooter, on top of that shitty and with ability that can literally backfire;
- Devils are ridiculously expensive for what they represent (and they are huge downgrade when compared with angels on all fields);
- Bad defense of all units; either strike first or you are fucked;
- Lackluster heroes, especially in heretic department;
- Whole town feels like challenge mode.

[Anonymous No.3352741]

>>3352671
Necropolis:

+ Mana drain of wraiths is extremely unnerving if you split them into all free spots;
+ Death blow of dread knights can decimate prized stack in one turn, curse will do the rest;
+ Vampire Lords can be nearly immortal if used in a smart way;
+ Good Luck I'm Behind 7000 Skeletons: The Game: The Show: The Experience;
+ No morale, not a single follower unit in free spor can harm you;
+ Even when not playing as Isra or Vidomina, you can get some ridiculous skelly count with expert necromancy + amplifier + artifacts;
+ Quite cheap buildings;
+ Mage guild up to level 5;
+ Cover of darkness pisses off human opponents and can contribute to some great escapes;
+ Skeleton Transformer to morph level 1 and 2 units from other towns to break game even further;

- Dragging walking dead around, combined with lack of logistics; completely ruins exploration chances, leave 'em at home;
- Rough start when numbers of skellies are still low;
- Lihes do not have much HP and defense, and AI loves to target them, so expect some unavoidable casualties and don't count on shooting too much;
- Boner dragons do not deservev the title of tier 7 units;
- Dread knights skill require some luck, and you cannot ever count on second move from morale bonus;
- Twon is probably banned by homerules of your buddies, as well as from all Slav multiplayer games anyway.

[Anonymous No.3352817]

>>3352741
Dungeon:

+ Harpy hags almost count as shooters;
+ Combining that with tier 3 and 4 being actual shooters, you can go places against neutral stacks without drowning all your money on army;
+Not a single unit with melee penaly (and medusas being actually slightly better due to petrify), no use trying to rush and lock down this army;
+ Black dragons have incredible stats and beg you to use nothing but them and spam armageddon;
+ Once you go through building the town to the max, units are actually quite cheap;
+ Warlock heroes have great power stat gain, which makes direct damage spells actually viable through whole game;
+ Two resurrecton specialists = whole army being vampire-like;
+ Artifact merchant;
+ Mage Guild up to level 5 and mana vortex, cast all kind of expensive spells as much as you like;
+ With portal of summoning and only selected batch of outside dwellings flagged, you can increase population of high tier units by visible margin;

- Troglodytes are run of the mill units without much use; They are kinda like skellies, except that they won't grow in numbers;
- Manticores are dissapointing for tier 6 creatures, with minotaur kings nearly outclassing them in bare stats;
- Town is expensive to build, comsumes tons of sulfur and little bits of all valuable resources here and there, which makes it hard to play as on 200% difficulty;
- Slim chances of reaching those dragons on week 1.

[Anonymous No.3352823]

>>3352741
>+ No morale, not a single follower unit in free spor can harm you;
Yeah, except for that unit in the free spot that gets negative morale.

A plus is also that op combination artifact that gives you liches instead of skeletons.

[Anonymous No.3353242]

>>3351286
hey daily generation was a good idea, no more red rush shit
what they really fucked up was removing hero specialities (not talking about classess) which essentially killed the heroes, carg tzar sandro etc were the same as everyone else

[Anonymous No.3353536]

>>3352438
what reason is there not to play the HD version?

[Anonymous No.3353560]

>>3352817

Dungeon, Castle and Rampart are my favourite to play as. You're pretty much guaranteed a comfy match.

[Anonymous No.3353562]

>>3353536

No random map generation and some weird rebalancing.

[Anonymous No.3353613]

>>3353562
>No random map generation

is this fucking true? best part of the game gone?

[Anonymous No.3353638]

>>3353613

Yup, they didn't bake in the expansions and just released a vanilla Homm3.

On the plus side there's no conflux either and the campaigns for armageddons blade and shadow of death are pretty abysmal.

[Anonymous No.3353649]

>>3353638
damn. total waste considering buying this.
good thing I never did.

[Anonymous No.3353653]

>last mission of Crag Hack's campaign

[Anonymous No.3353662]

>>3352447
Not the same guy, but

Stronghold:
+ Best heroes in the game: Crag, Dessa, Gurnisson, Gundula. Battlemages are very good in general
+ You can get Behemoths on like day 2
+ Fairly cheap town, but with a caveat
+ Your heroes can actually use a ballista
+ Good offence means your units will melt everything if they can get there

- Only 3 tiers of magic guild
- No Water Magic, so no Mass Bless, Mass Dispel and no Teleport, something a Stronghold army could really use
- Slow army. Thunderbirds are your fastest unit and they only have a speed rating of 11, so they can be outrun by most level 7 units as well as dragonflies, pegasi, efreeti etc. You'll be going second in most major battles
- Cyclops dwelling costs more than your level 7 dwelling
- You don't really have any exceptional creatures, though no outrageously poor ones either. Hobgoblins and Wolf Raiders are good on offense, but are as durable as wet paper towels. Cyclops Kings are great shooters, but incredibly overcosted and should be only gotten in the late game

In general I feel like Stronghold can only pull its weight because of its strong heroes and early Behemoths. It doesn't have much going on for it. Personally I think Stronghold is actually weaker than Inferno, unless in very long games.

[Anonymous No.3353663]

>>3353662
Fortress:
+ Tazar
+ Can get Wyverns on day 1 and also farm Wyverns from Dragonfly Nests more effectively than anyone else
+ Fairly cheap town
+ Dragonflies have better speed than some unupgraded level 7 creatures, so you will be outrunning most stuff in the early game
+ Mighty Gorgons are the most cost-effective unit in the game, probably the best unit period
+ Your native territory is Swamp, so your armies will be moving at full speed while on it, while enemy heroes will be massively slowed. This makes defending towns much easier

- Only 3 tiers of magic guild
- Witches suck ass
- A lot of offence without defence is better than a lot of defence without offence
- Second worst level 7 unit, but likely access to Teleport makes it potentially useable
- You only have one shooter, and it deals jack shit for damage

Don't even bother with other units, just go Flies, Mighty Gorgons and Wyverns. Fortress is strong in early-mid game with all those Wyverns and Mighty Gorgons, but unless you're on a XL map with a shit ton of Nests and Tazar, it kind of falls off late game

[Anonymous No.3353747]

>>3353638

>Shadow of death
>abysmal

Are you high?Shadow of death is the best campaign,original is fucking awful,lots of empty maps,and boring scenarios with minimal storytelling.Armageddons blade while not good and really hastily put together at least had engaging story.

[Anonymous No.3353754]

>>3352741

So play on HotA where they are more balanced.There is almost no reason anymore to not play multiplayer on HotA.

[Anonymous No.3353761]

>>3351398

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T8aEZ4NvwY&t=0s

[Anonymous No.3353787]

>>3353613
No random map,only patches for original heroes 3,too many bugs,Ubisoft did not get the sourcecode for expansions so they cannot make HD editions of them,to much money for inferior version of the game,not compatible with Wog or HotA,not compatible with HD mode which alone makes the game more playable,corrects numerous bugs,adds many shortcuts to the game that when you use once you can never go back to the vanilla version without them and not to mention that HD mod has filters that can actually make the game even more prettier than HD edition.
And this is only my personal problem with the version but this changed font of the game annoys the hell out of me.

[Anonymous No.3353859]

>>3353662

i think stronghold is dominant early and the ability to start with a hero like dessa or crag hack makes them solid. also since the town is relatively cheap to build up it makes finding and building up a 2nd town easier. id rate the towns as follows:

1) castle
2) dungeon
3) rampart
4) stronghold
5) fortress

Necro and conflux dont get rankings because they are both EZ mode.

[Anonymous No.3353862]

>>3353859
Where is tower?

[Anonymous No.3353871]

>>3353562
>>3353638
wait what the fuck are you people talking about

I'm talking about the fanmade HD mod

[Anonymous No.3353908]

Starting to get tired of this RoE campaign. It's either bumrush the AI within the first 3 weeks or having a fun time fighting a fight of attrition.

[Anonymous No.3353940]

>>3353871
OP's picture is from the Ubisoft HD edition which is shit.

[Anonymous No.3353951]

>>3353908
RoE campaign is shit.Just use the cheatcodes so you can unlock the movies and see the story and go straight to the The Shadow of Death.You can play The Armageddons Blade it's better than RoE but not by much,and it has some cheap and annoying scenarios for which you need to have specific skill or spell and if you don't then,tough luck you need to start the whole campaign over again.

[Anonymous No.3354758]

>damage spells are shit
>magic heroes are shit
You guys are forgetting one thing. Lots of players, especially new players, are playing the campaigns, rather than just endless skirmishes. Magic heroes and damage spells rock in campaigns, since you usually start the subsequent maps with a small army. A might hero with a starter army is not going to be particularly strong, but a high level magic hero is going to clean up half of the map with 0 losses just with hero damage spells. It's a massive help at the start of the map for gaining the upper hand and a ton of resources.

[Anonymous No.3354803]

>>3353940
>OP's picture is from the Ubisoft HD edition which is shit.

OP picture is 800x600 so it is probably the non-modded original edition.

[Anonymous No.3354938]

>>3354758
Wouldnt want noobs to be misinformed.

Generally magic heroes outscale might heroes at high levels

[Anonymous No.3354949]

It's literally impossible to keep cerberi alive.

[Anonymous No.3355358]

>>3354949
Besides efferreti and sometimes Pit fiends all Inferno units are pretty much cannon fodder

[Anonymous No.3355476]

Give me some tips, please.
The way I lose about 90% of the time is going down a path with my main hero flagging stuff and clearing, and the AI will attack from the other side almost every time. The thing is, I usually can't scout towards the other side of the map that far in because there's always some neutral mobs blocking the road.
So for example I clear the fog of war for 5 days' of riding to the west, can't go further with my other heroes than 3-4 days of riding towards the north and east, and when the AI suddenly pops up at the edge of my fog of war, he will be 3-4 days away from my town while my main hero will be 5 days away. At this point I usually savescum and start running home a couple of turns earlier since it's not possible to save the town otherwise.

I could try to clear the fog of war evenly around my town, but that would take a lot of redundant back-and-forth with my main hero.
And of course I don't have town portal yet, when it comes to later parts of the game I usually have enough fog of war cleared that I can see them attacking soon enough. This is mainly causing problems for me when the AI attacks you the first time on the map.

[Anonymous No.3355542]

>>3355476
Just have supply chain of heroes between ur main and the base. You wont get caught out and you can reinforce easily.

[Anonymous No.3355678]

>>3355476
It was never said that 'secondary heroes' are guys supposed to run along with 1 pikeman and nothing else. You also don't need to put 100% of your army production on your main hero as long as you don't already know where the AI towns are and are coming for them. Depending on which town you play, you might give a one week worth of production to your secondary hero(es), or only a big pack of units that would only slow main hero down (stuff like golems or zombies). Just enough to let them clear neutral stacks and clear more fog of war around your starting point. Also, are you playing unmodded HoMM? If so, that's strange, even on highest difficulties AI won't cheat by going straight into your town until it clears FoW, as it "pretends" to not know where it is

[Anonymous No.3356012]

>>3355476
use view earth/air to get an idea of the map, very easy if you are on magic ground

[Anonymous No.3356392]

Every time I try to get into Heroes, it's ruined for me by my autism of having to lock the enemy in his last surviving town and then spend the next 2 hours to pick up every attribute point bonus with all heroes that will move on to the next map.

How do I deal with this? I enjoy the game and played the campaigns halfway in Heroes III, V and VI (sorry), but when I look at my last save game from a year ago, I dropped all of them on a fully cleared map where I need to spend ages to train up my secondary and tertiary heroes.

[Anonymous No.3356440]

>>3356392
Unless it's a campaign map that says the heroes will carry over then it's fucking pointless.

[Anonymous No.3356457]

>>3287419
What game is this?

[Anonymous No.3356497]

>>3294819
Stone Skin is better unless the casting Stone Skin pushes the defender's defense stat above attack-defense cap. So if the target has 20 (22?) more defense than the attacker's offense, Shield is better.

>>3309006
>water magic
>bad

Your opinion is what belongs in the trash. Bless, Prayer, Cure, Clone and mother fucking holy god damn this spell is good Teleport are all amazing spells. Teleporting that stack of Dendroids? Awesome. Teleporting Chaos Hydra stack is basically Berserk ite.

>>3315182
Orb of Inhibition on a high level Armorer specialist is basically cheating.

>>3338069
One of the most OP heroes in the game is the tower chick that starts with Diplomacy.

>>3339968
6 heroes + 1 stack of t4 creatures + spam immortality potions was the norm way back.

[Anonymous No.3356508]

>>3356497
You seem knowledgeable on the subject, what game is this?

[Anonymous No.3356512]

>>3356497
>attack-defense cap

Tell me more about this.

[Anonymous No.3356559]

>>3356512
Haven't looked at the values in ages, but the damage formula basically works by subtracting the defender's defense from the attacker's offense. If the result is positive, you get a 5% dmg bonus per point of attack over defense, up to +300% for quad dmg. If the result is negative, you a 2.5% dmg penalty up to a maximum of -70% for a whooping 30% dmg taken.

That's what makes Behemoths so fucking scary: on top of having the Barbarian's innately high offense stat, they shred the defender's defense into nothingness, giving you a metric fuckton of extra damage.

>>3356508
This is a HoMM3 thread?

[Anonymous No.3356567]

HoTS made game better Y/N?

[Anonymous No.3356569]

>>3356567
HoTA*

[Anonymous No.3356573]

>>3356567
It's cool I guess. I still think the pirates are out of place and could of been something more generic like bandits.

[Anonymous No.3356587]

>>3356559
I do not know what that stands for.

[Anonymous No.3356671]

>>3356567
Hell yea. New locations on the map are a big improvement. Better balanced. Cove is good but not great.

[Anonymous No.3356684]

>>3356567
Just play WoG like everyone else. HoTA is just a hipster version of it with less features.

[Anonymous No.3356732]

My mistakes:

>Getting full room of all creatures from all levels. This is a typical mistake for a novice, some creatures are so shitty that better leave them in town or never buy them
>Not getting diplomacy. I thought it's completely useless when I got full room of town creatures
>Buying upgrades for all creatures. Some upgrades are not worth and they will cost you a lot of money and you economy will got shit
>all units went to one hero. Hero was super powerful but opponents conquered my towns very easly and it took long time before hero reached them
>investing in town halls instead of creature dwellings and castles in first weeks
>Investing in useless skills like leadership, luck, first aid, artillery, tactics

[Anonymous No.3356759]

>>3352817
what does melee penalty mean?

[Anonymous No.3356781]

>>3356759
Shooters get a penalty in melee.

[Anonymous No.3356825]

>>3356573
Pirate would look silly and a bit anachronistic if implemented in HoMM 3
I'm not saying sci-fi and a mangled sense of time is not still in the lore, or that this lore doesn't occasionally shine through, but the big picture would benefit from something more generic, which wasn't always a pejorative term either

[Anonymous No.3356842]

>>3356732
Rushing capitol is still viable if you're playing against the AI and can provide for a more comfortable playthrough less reliant on a good map seed

[Anonymous No.3356907]

>>3356684
"more features" are the bane of community mods, just cramming a bunch of unbalanced garbage in doesn't automatically improve a game

[Anonymous No.3356953]

>>3356907
you know you can simply turn on only features that you like or even write own ERM scripts if you know how, right? Good thing about WoG is that it does not only comes with gorillion of features, but also it does not shove them down your throat. If you dislike novelties and care only about balance, you can turn on only those that fix whatever wasn't working in vanilla (like: witch huts asking you if you want their skill or not, scholars offering only primary skill points, skills like eagle eye or scouting having secondary effects to make them less shit, new effects for "artifacts" like stoic watchman or pendant of holiness, and so on). You can decide on your own if something is balanced and worth using or not by creating own preset.

[Anonymous No.3357273]

>>3356567
>semen

literally your answer

[Anonymous No.3357334]

>>3356825
>>3356573
>It's cool I guess. I still think the pirates are out of place and could of been something more generic like bandits.
>Pirate would look silly and a bit anachronistic if implemented in HoMM 3

What the fuck, anons. Regnan empire is a vital part of many M&M stories. Pirates are good in every setting.

[Anonymous No.3357384]

>>3356567
>Ayssids

What the fuck?

[Anonymous No.3357395]

>>3357334
people are retarded

[Anonymous No.3357403]

>>3356907
>>3356953
Agree with both of you. Too many mods cram a bunch of dumb features with a few great ones. The problem is that, from what I've found, the majority of mods that do this don't allow you to pick and choose which features you want. And while I do think the majority of the stuff in WoG is downright retarded, the fact that it gives the option to turn everything on or off is a great thing about it.

[Anonymous No.3357464]

I don't know if it's okay to ask about other heroes games here, but is the AI just simply broken in the latest version of Heroes V Tribes of the East?
I'm trying to play the campaign, but the AI army just runs away every time. Even if he has the advantage.
I haven't had a satisfying battle for several maps, and it's really leaving me frustrated and bored.
He runs straight for my town, sieges it, and retreats as soon as he gets his first turn, even if my defending army is much smaller, same with field battles. I played the base Heroes V game before without the expansion, and there he only ran away if he was actually outnumbered.

[Anonymous No.3357473]

>>3357464
>I don't know if it's okay to ask about other heroes games here
Who's going to stop you, the internet police?

[Anonymous No.3357552]

>>3287419
>>3355476

Long time player here.

What really helped me learn is Jolly Joker's guides, they re-sparked my interest in the game after a long time: http://www.celestialheavens.com/viewpage.php?id=448

Other tip: watch pro players on YouTube. Like Maretti and such. You will probably misunderstand what they're doing at first but you will get it eventually. Also, take a look at Tribute to Strategists (just google it).

Now for some tips I found most helpful (note they vary on map/game mode):

Early game

—Immediately after the start, get some scouting heroes. Give them 1 unit stacks of some fast creatures. Let them flag mines, visit witch huts, and explore the fog.

—Then let the main hero pick up all the experience you can find. Unless you are in a desperate need of cash, always choose experience in chests.

—Key skills to advance: Earth Magic, Air Magic, Logistics. Second priority: Offense, Defense, Tactics, Intelligence.

—Start fighting ASAP. In tavern, hire the hero of your faction who has some units. Use him as a a scout/your secondary one and give all army to one hero. If you have shooters/no retaliation units, you're done. If not (rare case), try to minimize losses anyhow.

—The 2 greatest combos in the game are: 1) slow strong units + mass haste 2) shooters + mass slow. Make sure to abuse the living fuck out of them.

General

—Learn which units have the best value. You'd be surprised when you actually compare stats and understand which units are worth it and which are not.

—Make sure to get Mass Haste ASAP unless you already have some very fast units somehow. Along with Mass Slow these are the 2 best spells in the game, because you don't even need Wisdom or building Mage Guild further than lvl 1 to get them.

—Learn to use Wait command.

—Learn to surround your shooter from all sides with strong meaty units. E.g. put Grand Elves in the corner, and make 3 stacks of Dwarves around them so that enemy couldn't touch the shooters.

[Anonymous No.3357561]

>>3357552
Almost forgot: http://heroes.thelazy.net is your best friend.

Also, I have made an Excel chart of all units and calculated some of the best value units in all categories (damage/gold, HP/gold etc., all adjusted for damage). Will share if needed

[Anonymous No.3358026]

What is the purpose of Wisdom?
It's just RNG bullshit that fucks up your heroes.
Having the elemental spell skill should give you access to the higher level spells already.

[Anonymous No.3358058]

>>3356392
no no keep leveling them up, it will be worth it

>always chose experience

no, just no, why would you ever say something like this?

>>3358026
agree, investing in magic guilds is just throwing all your resources away so you can get magic mirror - fireshield - sorrow

[Anonymous No.3358085]

>>3310470
If you don't mind turns taking fucking ages, quite literally.

[Anonymous No.3358092]

>>3358026
> Having the elemental spell skill should give you access to the higher level spells already.
No it won't (at least if it's HOMMIII we're talking about).

Wisdom is required to learn 3rd/4th/5th level spells.

Magic school skills do exactly 2 things:

—increase spell effect (advanced and expert)

—reduce spell cost (basic)

They don't allow you to learn higher level spells. However, you may still get them with Tomes of Fire/Air/etc. Magic, magic scrolls, or with hero specialities (see Solmyr for example).

[Anonymous No.3358157]

>>3358058
>always chose experience
Depends on map/difficulty. If there are experience cubes around or it's on hardest difficulty, I might take gold. Otherwise, I get Air and Earth ASAP.

I don't get why people say gold is not a renewable resource when you get gold from every city daily. You need gold—invest in City Hall/Capitol. It returns the investment in 5 days. Of course if you're low on money that's another story.

[Anonymous No.3358245]

>>3358157

You need a metric ton of gold to even buy a capital. Wasting chests on xp that you can get by clearing neutral stacks is a waste. Especially when your hero might need to get to level 10 to even get the option to upgrade to expert air/earth. Sometimes the mage guilds don't even carry haste and slow. It's just overall better to focus on building up your army first because you won't get your shit pushed in as easily when the enemy hero comes waltzing in.

Blind is also an equally important spell as haste and slow.

[Anonymous No.3358273]

>falling for the experience meme

[Anonymous No.3358320]

>>3358245
Now as I said a lot of this depends on map size, starting conditions and so on.

On a lot of maps, low-level neutral stacks give pretty shit exp. Now if you have 4th level+ stacks just standing there, never mind—of course take gold and build high level dwellings ASAP. Also, if you have plenty experience stones/cubes this works too.

Otherwise, you need 10,000 exp to reach level 8. This amounts to few chests and fights. Out of it you can easily get either Air, Earth or Logistics, depending on hero, and of course level up your existing useful skills like Archery for shooters, Offense for melee combat, Intelligence and Wisdom for spells and so on. Plus, if you have good speciality, you will level it up—e.g. Neela, Crag, Solmyr etc.

By taking this route, you make your main hero much stronger from the very beginning. Essentially, you can achieve more with cheaper units. Lvl 7 units are cool and all, but most of them provide very mediocre damage/gold ratio. The rest are Behemoths and Giants which need Haste anyway.

Also, it depends on faction, but for example, Stronghold really needs Expert Air and/or Tactics.
With Rampart, your weekly supply of Grand Elves deals MORE damage than Pegasi, Dendroids, or even Unicorns. With Mass Slow they can handle most stacks very easily.

Finally, there's only so much you can buy with money alone; you need resources and there's only that much of army you get every week. Conversely, you can grab a few chests and advance your hero forward by a far margin very fast.


> Sometimes the mage guilds don't even carry haste and slow.

According to Tribute to Strategists, Haste has 30% ~probability of appearing in all towns except Fortress, Dungeon, Conflux and Rampart, where they have 50%. Same goes for Slow, except it has 50%+ probability of appearance in Conflux, Inferno, Tower and Rampart.

Even then, these spells are incredibly common and are easily found on adventure map, unlike, say, Armageddon or Frenzy.

[Anonymous No.3358339]

>>3358157
Gold = army
army = victory

seriously unless you have 5 gold mines and 3 treasuries gold is not enough

once you have a big army experience litteraly starts to rain from the sky because of all the fleeing monsters you could kill with no real lossess

while if you take the xp you are basicly fucking yourself over because of how many chests you need to level up a hero who is not complete dogshit
you are litteraly shooting yourself in the foot for +1 stat and a choice between eagle eye and navigation on a dry map

>>3358320
or you could just get your level 7 building with that money and just rape the computer who is still stuck at level 5

and you can raid creature banks for easy resources and xp

[Anonymous No.3358346]

>>3358245
As for Capitol—again, it depends if you even need it. But again, it returns the investment in 5 days. It's bad short-term, very good long-term. That said, you might not even need it if you have enough income already and don't need Castle in a given town.

Now where GOING for it is actually desirable is on highest difficulty, because that's where the money is extremely tight and you don't have tons of colonies supporting you.

So this leaves City hall which gives you 2,000 gold every day. Not bad. Now if you don't have a lot of treasure chests lying around, I really see no reason to take gold in the beginning. If you have tons of them—of course I'd go ahead and take gold, after acquiring level 10 or so.

Still, it's not set in stone—if taking gold works for you, so be it. Everyone has their own style of play, and they seem to be quite successful with it, so what's the difference? It's just the way I play personally and find most rational on intuitive level.

> Blind is also an equally important spell as haste and slow.

It's very useful, but it's not a mass spell. It works great from tactic standpoint, but it's more expensive and Slow/Haste provide greater possibilities. Still very good to have regardless.

It's good

[Anonymous No.3358374]

>>3358339
Which mode do you refer to, i.e. campaign, single, multiplayer? What maps, what difficulty?

> or you could just get your level 7 building with that money

If there are so many chests—yes, true. Also it works perfectly for rushing Efreeti or Wyverns. But good luck rushing angels with Castle and finding all those gems.

>once you have a big army experience litteraly starts to rain from the sky because of all the fleeing monsters you could kill with no real losses

If on a map you play on this is true then of course, why bother.

But seriously, if it works for you, what can I say? The game varies a great deal. Heck, even different maps can play very differently.

[Anonymous No.3358394]

>>3358374
pritty much all of them

this is where the other army comes in, you can easily get all your mines and artifacts

what map has so many chests lying around unguarded and free excess gold in the starting area that picking xp is ever viable?

[Anonymous No.3358405]

>>3358374

The problem with investing in your hero rather than building up an army is really tangible. Because you won't be able to expand as fast. You're probably going to get stuck in the starting area for two month while the enemy grabs all the easy resources and builds up their town much faster than you, while taking all the conservatories, dwarf treasuries, artifacts and the likes. You only have the first few weeks to clear as much as you can before creature growth really kicks in and the whole map is litrered by hordes of liches or you're hit with a plague.

[Anonymous No.3358409]

>>3358394

Even campaigns cap how much xp you can get, so going for xp is pointless.

[Anonymous No.3358428]

>>3358405
That's why I buy scouts, then get my main hero some shooters/strongest units, grab exp from chests and go fighting nearly from day 1. I have no time to spend building stuff, I go fight stacks guarding mines and exits and let scouts explore further. Then capture the cities I see.

Shooters + Mass Slow can get rid of most walking stacks really quickly and with no losses. I like playing Tower, but with other factions like Castle and Rampart this is especially viable. Otherwise, Tactics + Mass Haste does the work for me.

[Anonymous No.3358551]

>>3358409
in campaigns its not that important because its pointless to level up past level 18 or something because all of your skills will be maxed out

there its about getting as much stats as you can

[Anonymous No.3358670]

>>3356392
sorry to break it to you, but you can always wait for This is the week of X and get more experience points by killing stuff. Enjoy your endless map now.

[Anonymous No.3358684]

>>3358394
>going through the motions
pleb tier

1. There is a difference between e.g 2/1.5 and 1/0.5 chests
2. It is very much situational for the given instance of the map. Leveling up from a chest can enable you to snowball faster the same way other resources can. E.g. stacks guarding powerful artifact / gold mine and your ballista/tactcs/magic skill increasing just edges it.

[Anonymous No.3358890]

>>3358670
Nah, campaign maps have level cap for the heroes and you hit those easily. The boring part is always making those laps around the map.

[Anonymous No.3358910]

>>3338069
>>3356732
I used to underestimate diplomacy until I realized that's what weeks/months of X are for. One of my recent games I scored like 200 silver pegasi at the beginning of month 2 thanks to diplomacy and crushed the AI with ease. It is definitely the single most powerful skill in the game, if a bit luck reliant.

Well, and free cannon fodder and shooter stacks never hurt either. The only downside is morale damage, but that's what leadership is for.

>>3358684
Exactly, "always go for gold" isn't the best advice and it strongly depends on the map and board state. On richer, larger maps there's no harm in feeding your main a few 2/1.5 chests, especially if that means the difference between advanced and expert magic for example. "Always gold" is only truly applicable on Impossible.

[Anonymous No.3358921]

Does the AI hero ever die when fighting neutral packs? Don't think I've seen it happen.

[Anonymous No.3358927]

>>3358890
you can hire more heroes though

[Anonymous No.3358931]

>Cast mass haste
>Opponent casts mass slow
>cast mass haste again
Why was this never patched to mean neutral speed instead of the other player wasting their spell and getting demolished for the rest of the turn?

[Anonymous No.3358947]

The flaws of homm 3 have been picked over and discussed to death for years has the community ever made a balance patch to make the game more level?
(I'm not talking about WoG and all its options since the vast majority just break the game with dumb shit like berserker flies.)

[Anonymous No.3358978]

>Newfag barely starting with the game
>Tutorial done, I understand this shit
>"Ok, let's do this"
>Pick up a random scenario with random everything so I can understand the game
>I am fortress
>They are necropolis and conflux
>Medium map
>By third week I cannot get out of my town and I'm barely resisting because my units can't handle those elementals and magic shit thrown at me
>Finally drive them off, know that I'm probably fucked but still hope from a small recovery
>A day later necro hero appears with 300 skeletons

Also
>Random enemies in the map vary from some broken fuckers to some shitters like a bunch of pixies, no way to know until you fight
>Numbers are indefinite stuff ike a pack, lots etc
Fuck me, it's fun but I cannot hold my shit more than a month at best. I should pick a main city or something.

[Anonymous No.3358995]

>>3358978
You should probably read what those stack size descriptions mean online, and look up creature stats. That stuff was all printed in the manual, so it's not cheating to find out what they mean.

[Anonymous No.3359004]

>>3287419
Depends on the map size. On smaller maps obviously go for the army, on bigger for economy.

[Anonymous No.3359051]

>>3358684
2/1.5 chests are very rare
>implying you wont have to chose between scholarship and first aid
>implying balistics is a good skill

>>3358890
thats the best part fool, having your main hero's stats all be in the 50s

>>3358910
you need the extra gold to persuade joining troops

>>3358978
>play random map
>come here to complain about it

atleast you didnt spawn with a sharpshooter garnison infront of your town

[Anonymous No.3359063]

>>3358947
>berserker flies
That's not even turned on by default. Did you turn on every lolsorandumb option so you can cry about it?

[Anonymous No.3359068]

>>3358978
Ok, first off learn about the creatures and castles here so you can at least know what you're up against on the world map:

http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes3/

Neutral numbers go as following, you'll memorize it after a few games:

Few 1-4
Several 5-9
Pack 10-19
Lots 20-49
Horde 50-99
Throng 100-249
Swarm 250-499
Zounds 500-999
Legion 1000+

Maining a faction isn't going to do you a lot of good, learning the general strategies is much more important. Here's a few tricks: >>3287682 >>3293862

Although if you're just starting out, playing a broken combination like Necropolis with Galthran as your hero can help you learn the ropes.

[Anonymous No.3359070]

>>3359051
>thats the best part fool, having your main hero's stats all be in the 50s

>having to go through an excruciating grind for 2 hours making a road trip around the map with 4 heroes to make the next map the intended difficulty
You cannot possibly defend this game design.

[Anonymous No.3359084]

>>3359068
tfw I always carry a cheat sheet with those monster numbers in my wallet... for like, 15 years now?
Best thing is I used it last Friday last time.

[Anonymous No.3359207]

>>3358978
>plan to slaughter gremlins
>know what horde means
>they are split in 2 stacks, one being master gremlins

fuark

[Anonymous No.3359242]

>>3359051
by ballista skill I meant artillery and it can be helpful in early game. Still, ballistics can still edge a siege.

[Anonymous No.3359332]

Getting a bit confused about how wisdom and elemental skills work.
If my hero only has Expert wisdom, can he cast every single spell in the game, even if he doesn't have elemental magic skills?
For example, can you cast basic town portal with wisdom only, and not even having earth magic?

[Anonymous No.3359341]

>>3359242
you will visit them with your main guy why conquering the land, the other heroes are litteraly optional but it doesent hurt to bring them along with you

>>3359084
why? incase you see a pack of niggers on the street and you wonder if you can take them on?

>>3359242
yeah super early game then it falls off quick ( http://heroes.thelazy.net/wiki/Artillery ) its practicly useless if you dont have crazy attack stats

as for seiges i cant count more than 5 times where having artilery actualy saved me. The AI will always either outnumber you completely when attacking your defenceless town OR commit suicide despretly throwing themselves at your walls becasue you took all ther towns

atleast in WoG its good because of the stackable balistas

[Anonymous No.3359353]

>>3359332
in heroes 3 elemental skills increase the effects of the elemental spells you have

wisdom just lets you learn tier 3, 4 and 5 spells

[Anonymous No.3359356]

>>3359332
Elemental Magic skills simply makes spells of their respective elements better. It has no effect on which spells you can/cannot cast or learn. Only Wisdom does.

[Anonymous No.3359389]

>>3359332
>For example, can you cast basic town portal with wisdom only, and not even having earth magic?
Other two anons answered this well, but just to illustrate with this example- Yes, but without earth magic you'll just be teleported to the nearest town. With Expert Earth Magic it's much cheaper and you can choose where you want to go.

[Anonymous No.3359408]

>>3359332
No Wisdom: you can LEARN only lvl 1–2 spells
Basic Wisdom—lvl 1–3 spells
Advanced Wisdom—lvl 1-4 spells
Expert Wisdom—lvl 1-5 spells, so all spells.

You DON'T need elemental schools to cast spells. However, having a Basic magic school drops the spell cost by 1–5 depending on level.

Advanced lets you get increased effect spells; it's not that much for direct damage spells (often barely noticeable), but for buff/debuff it usually increases effect nearly twice. So, Slow will decrease speed not 25%, but 50%; Haste will increase speed by 5 instead of by 3; Stone Skin will add +6 instead of +3 defense and so on. Also worth noting is, with Advanced Earth, your Resurrection spell restores units permanently, and Town Portal lets you teleport to ANY city instead of only the closest one.

Expert is obviously the coolest out of them all. If you get it, you can cast most buff/debuff spells on all friendly/enemy units at once. This is where spellcasting gets really useful.

[Anonymous No.3359425]

>>3358890
What's actually useful in campaigns is getting all available spells to start with them next mission. Gem's campaign in Shadow of Death was pretty easy after this

[Anonymous No.3359513]

>>3358978
Don't feel bad as Fortress are considered the most shit faction by many. See >>3353663 anon's posts for more help.

To add to this:

+ Gnolls and their upgrade do some of the cheapest damage in the game; with Captain's Quarters you can snowball them with some good results. However, remember that they have very little HP.

+ Mighty Gorgons have Death Stare, see http://heroes.thelazy.net/wiki/Death_stare , and yes—they do have excellent HP and damage for the money.

+ Lizard Warriors (the upgrade) do alright damage if blessed.

- Wyvern Monarchs are very expensive and have absolute shit health. It's not just low, it's shooter-tier low. Make sure to attack after the target retaliated or go for a sure kill, or you'll be decimated shortly.

- Dragonflies do absolute shit damage and are very cost uneffective. Good to stop shooters early and eat up retaliations, bad for literally everything else.

[Anonymous No.3359549]

>>3353662
>>3352817
>>3352741
>>3352671
>>3352603
>>3352553
>>3352502
Do this for Conflux and Cove

[Anonymous No.3359553]

>>3359513
Gnolls are very meh level 1, they're kinda slow, have low HP and their upgrade is overcosted for what it does (very little). I wouldn't actually use them at all if I'm starved for gold. Flies, some Lizards and Wyverns alone can go a long way in the early game.

Flies are actually well-balanced, since they have retarded speed, as I said above, among the highest in the game. Their tactical use is to hit big mean stacks after they've retaliated and weaken them.

[Anonymous No.3359571]

>>3359549
Conflux:

+ Best lvl 1 creature in the game (Sprite)
+ Fastest creature in the game (Phoenix)
+ One of the best lvl 6s in the game (Magic Elemental)
+ Best level 2 creature in the game (Air Elemental)
+ Can armageddon spam not with one but with 3 creatures
+ Fast lv 1 and 2 creatures and heroes such as Luna and Ciele can go a long way for scouting early game
+ Very good heroes, especially Elementalists. Plainswalkers are mid-tier, but still have very nice secondary skill selections
+ Magic University

- Earth/Magma and Fire/Energy Elementals are kinda shit

Conflux is a very balanced town :^)

Cove:

- Fanfiction

[Anonymous No.3359576]

>>3358947
>a balance patch to make the game more level?
HotA?

[Anonymous No.3359580]

>>3359571
>+ Best lvl 1 creature in the game (Sprite)
They die like flies in late game. Maybe early game they are good (I didn't play conflux for a long time, I admit), but they are surely inferior to halberdiers and centaurs.

[Anonymous No.3359582]

>>3359571
Don't forget
+ Twice as many level 7s
+ Heroes get an extra primary skill point
+ "Neutral" dwellings are their dwellings, so they get even better growth

>>3359580
They have amazing damage/cost and are no-retal fast flyers.

[Anonymous No.3359601]

>>3359580
They're ultra fast no retaliation fliers. Their fragility doesn't matter when they can wait-attack-move and have like 70 weekly growth. Not to mention they're way more valuable early on than centaurs and pikemen

[Anonymous No.3359606]

>>3359553
I forgot the upgrade was actually pretty shit, but anyway, 30 of them cost 1500 gold—that won't leave you broke. That's actually the cheapest damage from any lvl 1 units, except for Fairies/Sprites obviously.

As for flies, they are to me another case of Gargoyles which I never buy. Yes, casting Weakness is a good thing, but what can I say—your weakly 30 Gnolls do more damage than them.

[Anonymous No.3359610]

>>3359070
>You cannot possibly defend this game design.
You're not supposed to do that, and having a super strong hero sort of makes the final scenarios too easy.

[Anonymous No.3359619]

>>3359606
>As for flies, they are to me another case of Gargoyles which I never buy.
You're making a mistake. Speed is by far the most important thing in HoMM3, and dragon flies have it in droves. Basically until your opponent gets his archangels/archdevils/phoenixes out, you'll be running circles around everything. Just keep them out of harm's way and use them tactically (weakening dangerous stacks, blocking shooters, outmaneuvering the enemy)

[Anonymous No.3359659]

>>3359619
Well, anyway I rarely get to play Fortress, I admit I haven't played them in a while, but why would you honestly need a whole stack of Flies? Of course you need them for 13 speed, but just take around a dozen to have something to spare. Eat up retaliations and cast weak.

But for damage, just consider this:

—Weekly price of 16 Dragon Flies: $3840. Their damage when attacking enemy with 10 defense: 53,2

—Weekly price of 6 Mighty Gorgons: $3600. Their damage when attacking enemy with 10 defense: 88,2

—Weekly price of 4 Wyvern Monarchs: $4400. Their damage when attacking enemy with 10 defense: 96

For the rest, Fortress NEEDS Haste and Tactics more than anyone.

[Anonymous No.3359668]

What happens if only summoned elementals survive when the battle ends?

[Anonymous No.3359678]

>>3359659
>—Weekly price of 6 Mighty Gorgons: $3600. Their damage when attacking enemy with 10 defense: 88,2

plus up to 300 when death stare kicks in, which is every odd hit in my experience (including all your 1st hits).

Are any enemies immune to death stare? I think Azure Dragons are the only ones but I'm not sure. I know that Death Stare is not magical, so it works on all magic immune enemies too.

[Anonymous No.3359703]

>>3359678
http://heroes.thelazy.net/wiki/Death_stare

Up to 300? Try to up to infinity.

1 mighty gorgon stack: 10% chance to kill 1 unit
2 : 20% to do the same
…
10 : 100% to kill 1 unit (yep, it means sure kill)

11 : 100% to kill 1 unit, AAAND 10% to kill SECOND unit

So for example a stack of 56 Mighty Gorgons SURELY KILLS 5 UNITS with Death stare, with and additional 60% chance to kill one more.

> Death stare has no effect on golems/non-livings, elementals or undeads.

So yep, Azure Dragons are out along with some other units.

[Anonymous No.3360101]

>>3359513
> fortress are the most shit faction

the most pleb of opinions

[Anonymous No.3360125]

>>3359668
hero gets 0 units and insta lose to anything

[Anonymous No.3360184]

>>3360125
>be level 20 barbarian with the armageddon's blade, a full set of magic armor and a spellbook full of reality-defying spells
>run into a single peasant
>oh no, I got no army with me, better surrender immediately

[Anonymous No.3360209]

New thread anyone?

[Anonymous No.3360341]

>WoG adds bonus free XP gain every day to learning skill to make it slightly more useful
>it doesn't check for hero level limit in campaigns
Quality mod.

[Anonymous No.3360468]

>>3360209
This thread was breddy good, hopefully this can last as a general again

>>3360465

[Anonymous No.3362201]

>>3352741
>Boner dragons
Ghost dragons' aging ability is kinda strong though. Too bad dragons themselves will probably die before they even manage to proc it.