wth is this difficulty snowball!?

[JoeShmoe]

Yea havent played this game in a decade, but wow normal is hardcore.

Barely out of the first month in two campaigns and the AI is 3 heroes deep with t4-6 units. One campaign I tried to cheese it with a skele farm, I got to 500~ and Inferno hero rolled up on me with a stack of 30 Efreeti, 60 cerb and 90 hellhound alt f4

Im playing on normal to try and get back into the game and cant make it a month.. this doesnt seem anything like I remember.

[Dapre]

What campaign ? And what map ? Skeletons are only good if they get the first hit, after that they wear down, faster then you can say Animate Dead.

You play on normal ? I thought the campaign was LOCKED at a certain level ?

I dont think they have changed the difficulty.

In GENERAL I would say that AGRESSION pays off. You should send scouts (hereos with few or no troops) in different directions to remove the fog of war, and collect recources.
Focus on ONE main hero, and let him do all the fighting. He should not pick up recourses or claim mines. The scout that follow in his path, should do that. They also brings him a CONSTANT supply of fresh troops.
His only goal is to fight and push forward.

Tell me if you want more tips from a fellow veteran.

[Arllem]

^ this guy
Gather army, use good 1 tier spells (slow, bless, haste, shield m stone skin, magic arrow) and attack low lvl enemies to lvl up, pick up gold from chests and build army in ONE town that when enemy take over unbuilded towns he has nothing. Cover your range units, go watch some basic strategy with one stack army to slow enemy army.
MAGIC is the key. MASTER EARTH AND AIR IS BASIC MUST HAVE. Mass slow, shield, haste most the time win game. Get knowledge and you will traver anywhere you want, teleport to your cities to defend them if you get correct spells in mages guilds.
Choose wisely main heroes, most of them won't be good based by skills they got.
I made 2 videos about first (human) campaign, showing basic, not the best, no commentary, yet showing what Dapre and I wrote.

[Lockhart]

The enemy attacks you with no mercy indeed, this game is hard as hell even in normal difficulty. But if you manage to survive the attacks for a long period, at a certain point, the enemy will lose all his superheroes and eventually will stop to attack your castles (or will attack you less). At this point, you should strike him.

Never expand your territory if you your castles are unprotected.

[Dapre]

If you prefer and specialize on Ranged units, like me, then one of the best all-round tips is the ability to protect them fast in battle.

And by fast I mean, that you have them surrounded by the time the enemy can reach them with non-ranged units.

Look at the units bar for the hero. The one that show what troops you have in your army.
You should place the ranged units all the way to the left (or right)

Then you place you other troops beside him. Most likely you only have 2-3 others troops available. You then split out 1 (yes ONE) troop into the reamaining slots.
This PUSHES the ranged troop all the way up in the corner of the battlefield.

When the battle starts, your ranged troops are already in their right place, and do not need to move.

Since you have 2-3 slots with just ONE troop in them, the remaining troops are also pushed up, and is able to reach/sourround you ranged troops in ONE turn.