Tactics Tips

[Omnificent Aspiration]

I know many of you probably already know many of these but here they are for the ones I do not know. All of them I figured out over the years. I do not really watch HoM&M3 videos or look up strategies online. I know no one asked. You do not have to read if you do not like all the reading. Some are for beginners, others for more advance players than that.

One for Battle: At least in the earlier stages of a match it is often a good idea to pour all your initial troops into one hero. Have them fight the battles and have the others act as gatherers and scouts to pick up or flag freed up stuff.

Off to a good start: When you use the One for Battle strat you do not need to make as many recruiting dwellings to get stuff. So instead, it is best to get the village hall (likely start with), town hall, city hall, and capitol asap. That way you are getting more money per day to buy things later. The things you pick up on the map are important but the guarded ones around you can be gotten a bit later. You miss extra money per day when you miss out on making the money making buildings. If you do not do this already try it out. Here is what you'll get per week for one town depending on what is built in it. Village Hall 3,500, Town Hall 7,000, City Hall 14,000, Capitol 28,000, Grail Structure 35,000. Wouldn't you rather have 28,000 after week 2 then two or seven or fourteen thousand? If you can afford making them at all, I highly recommend it asap even if it means no other spending until you get the capitol. Also lending a human ally money to make their capitol earlier would be good if they need the money to do it.

Just Stepping Out: Vs Ai that is about to take a town of yours, even if you are out of monsters buy a hero or two and make them step out of the town and walk a decent distance away. Often the ai will take your town then leave it empty for you to take back especially to attack a close by hero. So 2 heroes is better than one. This can buy time for day 1 to come around or one of your stronger heroes to come.

All Spells: If you have a version with Armageddon's Blade you can get all spells with 3 things and you should get them. Conflux town, grail, hero with expert wisdom. Just collect enough obelisks and keep an eye out for the grail spot. Secure the area then have as many heroes digging as possible to find it before knowing the exact spot. Have a strong hero bring it to the conflux, go into your current build building there.

Always Home: If you pour all of your best troops into one hero, they have Advance Earth Magic, Advanced Wisdom, and Town Portal Spell then you can possibly (though not always) have that one hero protect all of your towns. Of course there are many factors to the specific situation that can make it not work. Just do not forget about this as an option. One note is that you may get conflicted if you want your hero to stick at what they are doing and where as opposed to going to protect a town.

Iocane Powder: Use a mass spell that could damage your own troops as well but then make sure your troops are immune to it. Armageddon but have fire/energy elementals, magic elementals, fire birds/pheonix, efreets/efreet sultans, gold dragons, black dragons, diamond golumns (95% immune). Or death ripple with your undead vs living, or destroy undead vs the undead with your living. Armageddon version is the best except vs other immune troops or artifacts that stop your spell casting.

Harass: I've seen people run their troops across the battle field when they have range attackers and can lose no troops by simply harassing the enemy troops with range fire while they keep their melee troops back to guard them. Of course other factors are to be considered. Like if the enemy has ranged units. One strategy is to make all your troops wait until the end of a round. The enemy may get close enough to shoot better or let your melee troops get in the first strike.

Trade with Humans First: If you have a real person as an ally try trading with them before you use your market places unless you have a lot of them.

Utilize Specialties: Do not forget to not just use a heroes specialty to your advantage but go out of your way to make it better. For example: Heroes travel on the map partially by their slowest monster (sort of). So if a hero has Logistics as their specialty, then give them things like fast flying creatures only, level them up a lot to increase their logistics specialty bonus, and equip them with faster map moving artifacts. They while travel very far each turn at higher levels. (Note that changes in speed only happen the turn after you make them.) Another example is Sorcery as a specialty, then make this your primary spell guy, level them up a lot and get them the best spells, get them elemental magic secondaries, plus equip them with spell augmenting artifacts. These are some of the best specialties to make your main hero as they level up if you utilize them right in the most to least useful (generally): Sorcery, Logistics, Specific Spell, Offense, Armorer, Intelligence, Mysticism. Maybe a specific monster could be good but not as universally as one of the other specialties.

Many Earners: If you find a witch hut or university with Estates then buy a bunch of heroes, have them learn it, level them up with safe to get experience. Without leveling up that secondary skill they will eventually pay for themselves then bring in new money. If you are doing a campaign and have a witch hut nearby you can reload until you get an estates one.

The Best Heroes For Later: During a campaign you can often get or make a situation where you can keep 1 move from completing the current map. Like guarding the last enemy town with an overwhelming force. While they guard. Have the number of heroes that you can take on to the next map go around and get as good as they can before you end it. Level them up to the max, get them all the spells you can, have them go to all the bonus primary skill boosters, etc. You can wait for weekly random monsters to appear and stack up for experience opportunities for your heroes, or use an alter of sacrifice for the heroes that can get xp from it.

Money Backing: In some situations it is better to only build what is required for a city hall in each and save the money you would have used in building up their dwelling places to recruit more troops from you other ones. Sometimes 1 or 2 very powerful heroes with high stacks of monsters is much more effective overall than many heroes with low stacks of variety monsters.

That is all I can think of for now. I am sure I will remember more as I play again.

[Arllem]

A good start: Don't buy a capital, build an army and take a free capital from your opponent becaused he wasted week to build it and has no army to defend it. To be more serious, do not rush Capitol in early game. Higher difficulty, less gold. Less gold, you have to adapt to it. How to get gold? Chests lying around, protected or not. Do not pick experience. Gold to build creatures is better.
Just stepping out: the enemy AI is dead because you rushed it with an early army (got some cool artifacts, gold, buffs, lvl up hero), If not, enemy hero with weak army is going back and forward doing nothing to exit starting zone, so you can easy kill it with better army.

All Spells: It could be nice to cast them but no mana, enemy hero is rushing to me, no time to find obelisks (or you found them but protected by high tier creatures), my hero is not lvl up enough to get skills.

Always home: Would be nice but you need to get lucky or get earth tome to obtain all earth spells. Also with out resources you can not build 4th tier mage guild/tower.
Iocane Power: See above. To do this :resources, got lucky with spells, got lucky to get skills, have enough mana to do it, opponent doesn't have artifacts to protect from this spells/has for example black dragon, opponent has antimagic spell (and advancerd earth magic because base antymagic is not protecting you from high tier spells).

Harras: What if you don't have range units? Waiting is correct answer like OP mentioned.
Example: you have flying units, these units most the time, are quite fast. Do not rush to opponent range units just wait. Then after they attack you, move to them. Next turn your flying units are able to damage or block damage from opponent range units.

Trade with Humans First: Marketplace at overland: works like next marketplace in your town so reducing cost of exchange, use them when no one wants to trade.

Utilize Specialties: Hero has Logistics as their specialty... ok he can move fast... but in combat? What This hero can do? Pick specialty that will help in endgame. Example:
Solmyr: early game one us chain lighting, do it only when opponent is attacking you or you him. Easy big damage, opponent is dead at beginning of game. In late game also is quite useful. Opponent might counter it (artifacts, units) but opponent is wasting slot for better artifacts.
Tazar: With high defence units and armorer, no one will damage you.
Crag Hack: With behemoths builded in first week and high attack, no one will, able to survive.
Marius: Farm demons. It takes a skill to do it and time but with this 4th tier unit you can create quite a havoc.
Galthran: farm skeletons, Isra: Farm even more skeleTONS, Vokial: immortal vampires, Tamika: Undefeded Dread knights
Sir Mullich: Ban him, +2 unit movement you will; be ahead with basic units. Orrin: archery is underrated skill, with marksman and other higher tier shoters you should run away from him (golden bow and bless, imagine it)
Thorgrim: bit weird. Opponent spells not working? Shame :D
Deemer with Meteor Shower, Jeddite with resurrection
Luna and her meme firewall

Many Earners: That's good idea, depends if your main hero is not Lord Haart.
The Best Heroes For Later: Good idea. Do like this and you will be able to defeat opponent in next missions faster.

Money Backing:: Good idea. Build only towns from your fractionn. Build only upgraded in one town to save resources (if you are able to move unupgrded to main town).

[Omnificent Aspiration]

Originally posted by Arllem:

A good start: Don't buy a capital, build an army and take a free capital from your opponent becaused he wasted week to build it and has no army to defend it. To be more serious, do not rush Capitol in early game. Higher difficulty, less gold. Less gold, you have to adapt to it. How to get gold? Chests lying around, protected or not. Do not pick experience. Gold to build creatures is better.
Just stepping out: the enemy AI is dead because you rushed it with an early army (got some cool artifacts, gold, buffs, lvl up hero), If not, enemy hero with weak army is going back and forward doing nothing to exit starting zone, so you can easy kill it with better army.

All Spells: It could be nice to cast them but no mana, enemy hero is rushing to me, no time to find obelisks (or you found them but protected by high tier creatures), my hero is not lvl up enough to get skills.

Always home: Would be nice but you need to get lucky or get earth tome to obtain all earth spells. Also with out resources you can not build 4th tier mage guild/tower.
Iocane Power: See above. To do this :resources, got lucky with spells, got lucky to get skills, have enough mana to do it, opponent doesn't have artifacts to protect from this spells/has for example black dragon, opponent has antimagic spell (and advancerd earth magic because base antymagic is not protecting you from high tier spells).

Harras: What if you don't have range units? Waiting is correct answer like OP mentioned.
Example: you have flying units, these units most the time, are quite fast. Do not rush to opponent range units just wait. Then after they attack you, move to them. Next turn your flying units are able to damage or block damage from opponent range units.

Trade with Humans First: Marketplace at overland: works like next marketplace in your town so reducing cost of exchange, use them when no one wants to trade.

Utilize Specialties: Hero has Logistics as their specialty... ok he can move fast... but in combat? What This hero can do? Pick specialty that will help in endgame. Example:
Solmyr: early game one us chain lighting, do it only when opponent is attacking you or you him. Easy big damage, opponent is dead at beginning of game. In late game also is quite useful. Opponent might counter it (artifacts, units) but opponent is wasting slot for better artifacts.
Tazar: With high defence units and armorer, no one will damage you.
Crag Hack: With behemoths builded in first week and high attack, no one will, able to survive.
Marius: Farm demons. It takes a skill to do it and time but with this 4th tier unit you can create quite a havoc.
Galthran: farm skeletons, Isra: Farm even more skeleTONS, Vokial: immortal vampires, Tamika: Undefeded Dread knights
Sir Mullich: Ban him, +2 unit movement you will; be ahead with basic units. Orrin: archery is underrated skill, with marksman and other higher tier shoters you should run away from him (golden bow and bless, imagine it)
Thorgrim: bit weird. Opponent spells not working? Shame :D
Deemer with Meteor Shower, Jeddite with resurrection
Luna and her meme firewall

Many Earners: That's good idea, depends if your main hero is not Lord Haart.
The Best Heroes For Later: Good idea. Do like this and you will be able to defeat opponent in next missions faster.

Money Backing:: Good idea. Build only towns from your fractionn. Build only upgraded in one town to save resources (if you are able to move unupgrded to main town).

You cannot count on finding and taking your opponents capitol before they get reinforcements to it before you arrive with an early game army. You cannot count on a blitz. Especially not knowing how they are going about things. How can you know they are only going for a capitol? And getting through monsters on the way to them may dwindle you down to weaker than them even if they do not get dwellings first. Blitzing also leaves you vulnerable to other factions. Too much risks for your capitol to not be where you start. Come to think of it, are capitols not demolished by invaders? I thought you cannot take a capitol. Better to be funded earlier on an every day bases. I have done it on harder difficulties too. Consider the difference in money in a week with the different halls. Village 3500, Town 7000, City 14000, capitol 28000. That is a ton of freaking chests to make up for that. And map chest run out. No point in more dwellings if you cannot afford to buy them out.

I have used all these tactics many times. I think you are discounting them based on surface logic only and not experience from trying other tactics. You play differently and are justifying your playstyle over different ideas by saying things that only sound like they make sense based on limited experience.

I find time to get the obelisks just fine to get grail often before others. And all spells if very much worth it. Again I think you are assuming my strategies are just theories and not tested because you play a different way. I hope people try my strategies and do not assume your alternate perspective is the only way to go since that is how you present it.

If you do not get the right spells then do not use strategies that depend on them. Saying the strategy is invalid because you may not get the spell is a logical facially. It is perfectly valid if you do get the spell. And getting spells give advantage and is worth the investment even if you do not get ones for a strategy. I assumed people reading my post would know I mean only try the strategies that the opportunity arises when the variables are conditional. When it requires luck then use them when you get lucky doing what you normally do. It's not invalid, just conditional. I usually do great with building an army and getting new spells at a point.

For harrass I said there were other factors to be considered. If you do not have range units it should be implied fairly obviously that this is not a strategy to use instead of it is a tip to be discounted completely because you can run into a situation where it cannot apply.

I believe the market place acts like 3 in town shops. I did not mention it because it is a map building not a strategy. I do not want to list all the useful map buildings as tips. But yes if you do not have enough town markets or a human ally, go to the one on the map if you can find one.

When a hero is fast they can get to artifacts or unoccupied castles before others and various other great advantages that can get them more powerful in combat too than otherwise. If they have good troops then some other the other specialties are not as useful overall comparatively. Having a combat specialty hardly guarantees victory. Leveled logistics is useful anytime you travel. Run down enemy heroes trying to get away. Get to enemy towns before they can get reinforced. or easily escape enemies who would outclass you with troops even if you had a combat special. By the time a logistic specialty hero is a high level even speed artifacts on another type of hero cannot catch up with them. When they have speed artifacts themselves with leveled logistics they can go several times more spaces in a turn than other heroes. Do the work of many heroes in one turn. Including zipping around with a vast army to take out multiple invaders.

Just because the strategy is for a useful utility thing instead of directly in combat does not mean that hero is not also loaded with spells or troops. Or has not used their speed to gather more artifacts, troops, spells, xp. Or that is your only hero. You picked one thing about this strategy that it didn't help with and call it a flaw. That is a logical flaw. I could say why use a combat focused specialty if your enemies can chase you down if they happen to have more creatures and also a combat specialty, when you could have been able to run away with logistics specialty. or what if they are fast enough to zip around you and take your town without fighting you because you have your best troops on you and now you have to fight your own town defenses to get them. Or you got a great artifact and do not want to loose any troops but they are after you and stronger but you cannot out run them. You should not assume you will always have more combat strength (level, troops, spells) and you will never need to run away.

I think you focus too much on invalidating other strategies by cherry picking situations like I just did to demonstrate it. If you were not about this then why suggest a strategy other than mine about the heroes rather than say get these other good heroes too. Again I think you are knocking a strategy without trying it or thoroughly understanding it's effectiveness. Not sure your motives but trying to dismantle my strategies and place in your own so people reading it won't try mine seems either ignorant or selfish and arrogant.

[Arllem]

Some maps has open borders, exaple Warlords, nothing is blocking your way to attack opponent in first week and get Town hall, extra income yes? Sure you can not or might not able to capture capitol still extra income and one opponent less. So why building Capitol in your Town if you can bulid army instead? Also Building capitol requires a lot of gold. How are you able to get that much gold in higher difficulty? By bulding army to beat monsters protecting chests to speed up game. You can not wait because other players are getting stronger or AI has massive advantage.
Most players i have played at Steam were building Capitol first. That was slowing them down.
Also if you dont have army and opponent has, who will controll game in early stage when you are looking for resources and where what is placed?

I have played like you, no worries i have seen flaws i was doing back then. Maybe i am trying to suggest changes but i might be blind by what i seen from more experienced players than me. I know this strategy works but you are just slow, giving space for opponent to act. I know that players are enjoying this game at whatever progress/speed they like, i don't mind that still if there is way to improve, why not to try?

Your main hero should focus on: getting higher lvl to get skills and improve specialty.
Main hero should not do what other heroes are for: picking weak artiffacts resources, maines, that's why you have scouts to do this kind job and to not waste movment speed of main hero. Yes, you have a point to move faster to do more thing but still, following that you are not building army (because resources are protected by guards or you can not move forward because pathway is blocked by guard), not able to support more your troops.

Originally posted by Omnificent Aspiration:

If they have good troops then some other the other specialties are not as useful overall comparatively

Yes, IF. I have played aganist player with this specialty, still he lost because when i got him (yes, was it hard but i as able thx to spells i got from air magic tome provided by Utopia) he lost. Why? Even if he can out run me and pick my empty towns. i was able to discover more than him faster thx to army i have builded and scouting skill.
Logistic as secondary skill is great! As main? I would not recommend.
Also support chains exist: with out dimension door, town portal or Logistic your support heroes and create "chain" to give your main hero army. Logistic then can be helpful on support heroes too but not required.

Building Mage Guild after army, good. Yes you should try get new spells. Yes spells are rng. Thats why hero with higer damage spell at begining is GREAT. Solmyr and Deemer! I do not need to build Mage Guild because i have already spell i need!

Then congrats you found grail. Still you had time to find all clues and where is hidden. What if you are not able to get to Grail because is on other side of map? Finding Grail is optional, should not focus on this to win a game. My opponents got grail, twice still they lost because they wasted time to pick and bo back to town. Also was late game so they did not benefit from this and i had bigger army because look above.

Also to pick and point

Originally posted by Omnificent Aspiration:

Just because the strategy is for a useful utility thing instead of directly in combat does not mean that hero is not also loaded with spells or troops.

You can see stats of other heroes thx to spell or thiefs guild? You can see even number of monsters you have.
Visions, second lvl spell
Basic effect
Displays number of monsters in a wandering monster troop and whether or not the troop will offer to join the casting hero's army. Range is equal to power or three, whichever is greater.
Advanced effect
Same as basic effect, except an enemy hero's primary skill stats, and the composition and quantity of the hero's army can be viewed. Range is (power x 2) or three, whichever is greater.
Expert effect
Same as advanced effect, except an enemy town's statistics and garrison composition and quantity may be viewed. Range is (power x 3) or three, whichever is greater.
Don't need knowledge or just capture towns that you got in early game thx to army, depends on map you are playing of course.
Or you can predict how big is opponent's army:
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+

I would recommend diplomacy than logistic. Monsters joining your army, creating snowball to roll opponents down. Your opponent is coming after your main town/capitol with few high tier monsters or greater numbers of low tier, what can you do with logistic? Always ban this skill people

Also i was not making character profile. My writing might can be rude but still pointed flaws? Yes i picked and pointed flaws, yes, i did not provided many suggestions. Still i shared informations about other heroes that might help better than logistic hero? Short info yes yet still? From each fraction?