Did you know?

- what is the multiplyer for each attack/deffence difference when you fight another hero?
- that you can make Skeleton Dragons from Hydras and any other Dragons?
- that Armor of the Damned will curse even if the enemy hero is using Orb of Inhibition?
...

Heroes of Might & Magic III is one of the best turn based strategy games, and here is why:

Intro

Heroes3 is basically like a chess game with more options.

There are so many things that can get you overpowered, tho almost always there is another thing with which it can be countered.

I'll not go into the very details, every thing that is already covered in the "Heroes of Might and Magic III - Tutorial[higijena.elcon.hr]" (gog version of this game contains the pdf)

However! I'll still mention the basics you should know:

When you start the game, you'll be given a hero - and a town in most cases.
-Without a town you will be eliminated from the game in seven days.
-Depending on the difficulty you will start with proportional resources (on impossible diff you get none)
- You can build once per day in your town.
- Move with your hero a given distance each turn.

Every hero in game has:

- Movement[heroes.thelazy.net] (per turn)

- skills: Primary (4) & Secondary (8)

Primary skills:

• Attack
  
• Defense
  
• Power (spell)
  
• Knowledge

"Every creature has a base Attack / Defense score.

When combat starts, your creatures get a bonus to Attack / Defense equal to your Hero's Attack / Defense scores.

If a creature's combined attack is greater than their target's defense, they take an additional 5% damage per point of difference, up to a cap of +300% damage (when attack is 60 greater than defense)

Conversely, if a creature's combined attack is less than their target's defense, they deal 2.5% less damage, down to 70% (when defense is 12 greater than attack).

Spellpower's exact effect varies depending on the spell. For instance, Magic Arrow does (10 * spell power) + 10 damage.

Haste has a constant effect and lasts Spell Power turns in duration."
source[gaming.stackexchange.com]

Secondary skills (28):

[www.heroesofmightandmagic.com]

• Air Magic[heroes.thelazy.net] - always worth to get with any hero (mass Haste/Counter Strike; Dim. Door)
  
• Archery[heroes.thelazy.net] - worth to get with all towns except Inferno and Fortress
  
• Armorer[heroes.thelazy.net] - amazing for physical damage reduction
  
• Artillery[heroes.thelazy.net] - allows manual control for your Ballista. Scales with attack; useful if you are low on gold & have a single fast unit and kite monsters controlled by AI
  
• Ballistics[heroes.thelazy.net] - not worth taking even if you are constantly in siege battles attacking enemy towns on daily basis.. The expert skill still doesn't guarantee a broken wall in one turn nor a tower, and usually by the time when finally break in your flying creatures/archers/spells already cleared the most of the defenders there. Even exp. water is better to be able to tele inside.
  
• Diplomacy[heroes.thelazy.net] - potentially one of the most overpowered skills especially on larger maps. To get the most out of it - you should be hoarding lots of gold to use the 'powerful hero' strategy; cause the stronger/greater your army is the higher chance you have that the enemy monster armies will join you. (Rogue and "Visions" spell will reveal if the wandering monsters will fight, join or flee.
  
• Eagle Eye[heroes.thelazy.net] - in the vanilla aka RoE this is the most useless skill along with Navigation (when no water content)...
  
• Earth Magic[heroes.thelazy.net] - Mass slow/Town portal/resurrection/Force field/anti-magic makes it incredibly valuable to have on all heroes
  
• Estates[heroes.thelazy.net] - for your secondary/peasant heroes to raise income
  
• Fire Magic[heroes.thelazy.net] - "omgwtfbbq" mass Berserk/Bloodlust/Blind/Fire Shield/Armageddon/Fire Elemental
  
• First Aid[heroes.thelazy.net] - almost useless, especially in SoD version as the Elixir of Life[heroes.thelazy.net] makes it obsolete; it has been enhanced tho in WoG/Era2 version as 'Advanced War Machines' skill.
  
• Intelligence[heroes.thelazy.net] - boosts your mana pool
  
• Leadership[heroes.thelazy.net] - might heroes tend to have higher chance to get it especially where mage guild can be upgraded only to lvl3.* After having Morale on +3 you don't get further advantage for stacking morale.
  
• Learning[heroes.thelazy.net] - the benefits are too minor to consider taking this
  
• Logistics[heroes.thelazy.net] - more movement = more actions/turn
  (logistics spec heroes are banned from WLC[heroes-iii.com])
  
• Luck (secondary skill)[heroes.thelazy.net] - similarly to Leadership the other choices tend to be better, you can also get the same benefits from having the Pendant of Courage artifact equipped (which makes both obsolete...)
  
• Mysticism[heroes.thelazy.net] - Mysticism can be completely replaced by Wizzard's Well. It 'only makes sense' in WoG where it restores percentages (30% each day).. or maybe on smaller maps mysticism could be actually better than Intel(?)
  
• Navigation[heroes.thelazy.net] - more movement on sea + speed during battles there
  
• Necromancy[heroes.thelazy.net] - restricted to necromancers
  
• Offense[heroes.thelazy.net] - great damage boost
  
• Pathfinding[heroes.thelazy.net] - reduces the movement penalty for rough terrains
  - native terrain[heroes.thelazy.net]
  
• Resistance[heroes.thelazy.net] - great for PvP, but due it's randomness it has been replaced by Interference[heroes.thelazy.net] in HotA
  
• Scholar[heroes.thelazy.net] - teach/share spells between heroes
  
• Scouting[heroes.thelazy.net] - Aeris, Piquedram, Calh, Lorelei, Shiva and Broghild start with makes them a good pick for smaller maps, but for long term Scouting for a main hero takes up the place of a possibly better skill (except in "Duel" - or other [1 hero] template where each step counts)
  
• Sorcery[heroes.thelazy.net] - good for small - mid maps with a magic hero, but on XL it doesn't scale that well.
  
• Tactics[heroes.thelazy.net] - great skill; when playing defensive you can body-block valuable creatures before the faster enemy units could attack; and if playing offensive can save your mana-points by not having to have cast haste to reach the enemy archers for example.
  
• Water Magic[heroes.thelazy.net] - mass Cure/Dispell/Bless/Forgetfullness/Prayer/Clone/
  
• Wisdom[heroes.thelazy.net] Enables you to learn spells from lvl 3 and above. The only other way to get these higher spells are scrolls, Magic Tome's and the Spellbinder's Hat

https://youtu.be/PUkih3eaHj8

- Your Hero also has: Morale/Luck/Mana
- Morale makes your unit act again
- Luck effect doubles the base damage for that hit

calculations on Armorer and Offense:
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?FID=6&TID=11801

You can check the odds of getting a secondary for a given type of hero in the HCTRAITS.txt file or below (2.2)
Powertable[www.dropbox.com]

Damage calculation

https://heroes.thelazy.net/index.php/Damage
(becase attack/defence difference is just one coefficient of the formula)

Expanding with details on how damage is calculated:

When the attacking creatures attack is greater than the defending creatures defence by 60, then it takes the maximum possible damage in this aspect. (300% more; which can not be boosted by additional attack:defence ratio or frenzy spell since it only affects the attack, but when already capped it will have no further benefits - however bless on advanced or expert gives "maximum damage +1" so it will increase the maximum damage even for units that have no damage range - like Angels [50dmg].)

Archery and Offence add to that; and specialists with higher level even more. (Tazar - Armorer specilaist - receives 100% bonus to Armorer at lvl 114 /which in normal circumstances can't be reached/ at this level all units will take only ONE damage from any physical sources) Archery and Offence specialists as well as Sorcery cap at lvl 3k (which can be achieved/set via map editor). Offence is applied only for melee strikes, Archery only for ranged; Sorcery only for spells - Adela (bless specialist) applies to all (melee & ranged, but you have to cast bless, and the unit has to be able to be blessed - so it does never work on undead or for example Black Dragons without orb of vulnerability).

Luck is also an extra factor above 300% as well as special abilities (Hate/opposite element(al)/jousting...)
(Luck doubles only base damage of the creature stack - which means for example 1 Angel = 50dmg; a stack of 10 Angels = 500 dmg; when luck happens the stack will deal+500dmg independently of the attack defence and other coefficients...)

Decreasing factors are Armorer skill; being behind wall also influences the damage values as well as range penalty and waking up a creature with melee strike from at least advanced blind or petrified/paralized.
Hota introduced negative luck which halves your base damage when it happens.
⠀⠀
--

Luck gets stronger as the stack count is higher.

Luck doubles any number in between the damage range (unless explicit buff overrides it - such as curse [minimum range] or bless [maximum range]).
*Air Elemental has the wides damage range (from 2-8); thus benefitting the most from Bless spell.
This number then gets doubled and multiplied by the stack count. (how many creatures are within the same slot)
(Luck does not double the whole damage output - only the base creature damage!)

As previously stated one Archangel (AA) with no luck deals always 50dmg (this is the base damage), and 100 with luck.
One stack of ten AAs deal 500 damage with no luck; and 1000 with luck.

It is possible to get lucky many times in a row. The new worm unit from factory can technically attack up to 14 times in a row. (as it eats corpses for extra attacks - you can eat 6 your and 7 enemy units to attack an enemy summoned elemental...)

Luck can do some early game shenanigans. The best scenario in this case would be getting luck with a huge stack of skeletons against a high level unit (high level units have naturally higher attack and defence stats), while your heroes primary stats are still low. That is where luck has the highest effect. (...or in other words is meaningful; because quite fast it becames obsolete as the Hypnotize spell*)
However luck is too random and outshined by better skills to be considered a good pick; and once you reach the tresholds luck barely makes any difference, its value is too niche.

*Hypnotize is strong only with huge army of Fangarms - where its power is tied to not hero spell power, but Fangarm count (see Vietnamese Diplomacy template gameplay from PhuongNgo)

(Im)possible secondary skills

    

Who can't learn what secondary skill?

    

•     Estates:    Death Knight    

  ---

  
      
  
•     Fire magic:    Beastmaster, Ranger    

  ---

  
      
  
•     First aid:    Necromancer, Death knight     

  ---

  
      
  
•     Leadership:    Necromancer, Death knight     

  ---

  
      
  
•     Navigation:    Battle mage    

  ---

  
      
  
•     Resistance:    Warlock, Witch, Wizard, Elementalist
  

  ---

  
      
  
•     Water magic:    Overlord, Barbarian, Mercenary
  

  ---

  
  
  
•     Necromancy    Exclusive to Necropolis heroes & no other class can learn it

This means that the above secondary skills are normally not being offered while leveling up a certain type of hero; however they can still acquire these skills {except necromancy} (while having empty slots for a secondary skill) by interacting with special objects/cases such as: Witch Huts, Scholars, Seer's Huts, or Events like customised Pandora Boxes, WoG Artifacts or ERM scripts embedded to certain maps...

Magic School Chances

A new school of magic will be offered at least every 4 levels for Might heroes & every 3 levels for Magic heroes.

It can be offered more often by chance.

Example:
The Might hero was not offered a school of magic when reaching levels 2 and 3.
The hero will then be guaranteed to be offered a magic school at level 4.
At level 8, the hero will be offered again a new magic school if none was offered at levels 5, 6 and 7.

HCTRAITS file contents visualized for the magic schools:

• Air
  
  
  
• Earth
  
  
  
• Fire
  
  
  
• Water
  

Banned skills change the probability.

Conflux's  Magic University allows heroes to learn all of the four magic secondary skills.
    The cost for learning each skill is 2000 Gold.

Final Score

The formula to calculate scores in HOMM 3 stand-alone scenarios:

Base Score = 200 - (days+10)/(Towns+5) + 25 (if you defeated all enemies) + 25 (if you got the grail)
Final Score = (Base Score)(Difficulty level map was played on)

Explanation:
1. Start with a score of 200
2. Add 25 points if you beat all enemies
3. Add another 25 points if you get the grail
4. Subtract an inefficiency penalty: The number of days to complete - 10, divided by the number of towns on the map plus 5 (in other words, the more towns to beat, the more time you can take without being majorly penalized)
This will give you a score up to 250.

Multiply this by the difficulty rating (0.8, 1, 1.3, 1.6 or 2) to get final score. Theoretically, the max score would be 500 (defeat any map in 10 days on impossible while killing all enemies and getting the grail). Map difficulty (easy normal hard, expert) seems to be irrelevant.
(source: Maranthea on the 3DO Message Board and submitted here[heroescommunity.com] by Quebec Dragon and Angela ) [posted on 06/06/1999]

Tactics

*Personally I mainly play on random XL maps at Impossible difficulty against my friend.

First advice is to use multiple heroes; (aim for secondary heroes with specialty to grant resources on daily basis). More heroes = more actions per turn.

Consider your strategy based on the map's parameters.

Are you playing on easy or hard?
• Easy = buy heroes & army and conquer;
• Hard/Impossible = if not surrounded by strong creatures in starting area then buy at least one additional hero & save/gain enough money for the Town Hall, to increase your daily income ASAP.

Secondly build Magic guild lvl 1 / Blacksmith / Marketplace - order depending on what type of hero you have, and if you already found and conquered the mines (wood, ore especially).
If you haven't you might be heading to find some wood or any other resources you need. Try to get what you need with the best effort, loose the least creatures possible. If you can't find the other mine build resource silo in your town.
As mentioned above it is worth to check the tavern regularly (weekly), and if you are lucky you can find a hero that will produce a type of resource every day.

Before the first week is going to end you should make a decision whether or not buy for example the dwelling of the lvl 6 Wyvern on day 7, or save some more money to be able to buy the Citadel to increase your income from 1k gold /day to 2k. Buying the creature dwelling will enable you to buy all of the weekly growth + half from the previous week you bought the dwelling. So overall you'll have two more available Wyvern's in this case, but less money to buy it. Might be better to buy dwelling & one or two of the creatures that are necessary to fight the weaker creatures that are guarding gold piles, and other goods; than wait... because the faster you conquer the higher chance to collect the scarce artifacts which can be essential to win the game.

After you've built the citadel you are probably strong enough at this moment to wisely fight the creatures you can defeat with small or almost no losses. (Fighting wisely with minor losses - spited stacks of single creature per slot to 'cheat' retaliation is actually better than no losses at all; because if you go for 100% no losses you are loosing TIME - which actually matters more when playing against another player). Try to use magic (when necessary to minimize losses; but preserve mana), count how fast your enemy is & lure/kite them around with a fast unit, while shooting it with your ranged units. Remember spitting your army into stacks is essential!

When you have also built the Capitol in your main town, and by that time probably explored quite a big area (bunker) and gathered finally some greater army with which now almost 'nothing can stop you' try to get the the greatest goods before somebody else does. (Utopias, Pandora Boxes and Artifacts, Towns and spells)

To get rich:

- Find Ramparts and build the Treasury
- Fight Utopias

You can get huge advantage by being rich especially if you are playing Heaven/Rampart/Stronghold with a hero that has diplomacy on a big enough map to collect enormous armies
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

To became powerful:

- Fight everything while considering whether it is worth your movement points; collect all the additional primary skills you can, and try to get the best artifacts. If you are playing at least SOD it is good to know what artifacts make up the combination artifacts[www.heroesofmightandmagic.com].

To became a wizard:

- When leveling: about every 4th level you are offered one of the magic schools to learn and if you don't pick wisdom it is still re offered every 6th lvl if you haven't capped the number of secondary skills yet.
If you don't want to risk or play Magic hero anyway, you should have expert wisdom before opening Pandora's boxes, because if you open one that would have given you one of the best fifth level spells or maybe all - well bad news - you won't. (it will say: the box is empty) Because you couldn't learn the spell. Although you can still find and use the fifth and fourth level spells on the adventure map even without a spell book, if you happen to find the Spellbinders hat, or one of the Tome-s (Artifact).

Having expert air magic + dimension door/fly; (possibly even diplomacy/armorer); high Knowledge/Power and Wizard's Well[heroes.thelazy.net] is usually GG for you; as with those you'll be fast & independent enough to get a lot most of the primary stats available on map; best/good artifacts and even with just few high level units you'll be almost unstoppable if you can do any of these in combat: Resurrection/Summon Elements/Implosion/...

The most useful and game-changing spells are:

- Dimension Door (dd) / Fly
- (mass) Slow/Haste/Berserk/Cure/Dispell/Prayer/Forgetfullness
- blind/implosion/antimagic/dispell-cure/ressurrection

Good combinations:

- Vampire Lord + Counterstrike (spell) + Sphere of Permanence (artifact) + Fire Shield (spell) + Anti-magic (spell)

- Creatures immune to fire spells + Armageddon (Dracageddon[heroes.thelazy.net])

- Having special units: Enchanter (for the mass buff/curse); Mage (makes your spells cheaper during battles); two stacks of Arch Angels [heroes.thelazy.net]to able to resurrect even more easily without having to cast clone; Gin Masters - having them split to buff your strongest units without spending mana;

---

Fun things to do:

• Berserk Dendoid soldier to hit his nearest target, who will be bound next to the tree (if he doesn't kill the trees with the retaliation) and then if you blind the tree the 'nearest target' who has been bound by the tree is now there stuck forever! -well till the Dendoids are blinded or till the creature is killed of course.
  
• WALLHACK: use 'View Air' spell with Expert Air magic skill to reveal the location of all artifacts, heroes and towns (whole map, not just explored area!)

Story

Once I've played Rampart and my friend picked Necropolis.
He had almost 10k skeletons after a few month (ingame not irl) while I only had the army that I carried from my town, and piled up by and almost flawlessly clearing the part of the adventure map where I got sooner than him.

After we've almost cleared the map and agreed to duel;
The first time he literally crushed me.

I was using Orb of Inhibition, however the penalty of not being able to cast anything was more painful for me then to him. I just had a fear that he would kill my highest damage output unit - the elves with spells in the early rounds.

We had a break, did watch some tv.. and I was *thinking* and came up with an idea;
so I asked him for a rematch on that battle.
We replayed that duel one more time.

I've arranged my army with tactics to the top corner, guarding the grand elves with the two hex unicorns that gave me me also magic aura and enabled to shoot with my elves - since when for example his Ghost Dragon flies up to my elves, he would block me thus making my elves not be able to shoot, till I don't change position or kill the Dragons; but obviously he still has six more units that could be standing next to me respectively.
As I mentioned, tactics enabled me to surround the elves in the top corner with my Unicorns Dwarves and Ents (The most tough/tanky creatures I had) before the rounds begin. With the other creatures and with Magic I first targeted his Litches, to prevent the massive damage he could do there to my creatures in the corner with 'death cloud'..
With the guarding creatures I was only pressing 'Defense' while shooting with elves and trying to take down the skeletons with the remaining units as soon as possible before they reach me - and when they got close I had to attack them, checking if they already made their counter-strike or not.. cause obviously you want to attack it with a unit that can possible survive that missive counter hit.
When he finally broke my defense in the corner - Dwarves died - there was a one hex freed up and he could teleport the skeletons next to my archers.. but I was "lucky" since the skeletons are slower and before they could act I also teleported the archers.. to the other very opposite side of the battlefield - diagonally to the furthest corner.
Now I had to take into account everything, if he already cast a spell already in that round, how fast are his creatures (how many hex can they move), if they already retaliated once or not...
*one bad decision* and it would have been all over for me.

However somehow I ended up winning - with almost no army left, but still I've overcame the huge difference in the size of the armies with great tactics and it felt good #feelsgoodman
Even I was surprised that there was a way to turn the tables there

　　　　　　　In any fight, you can always change your position　　　　　　　　


Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.
Sun Tzu

Interesting facts

Dispel:
After casting fire shield on your unit - when Dragon Flies attack your unit they will remove the fire shield along with all spells, but still they will be hit by the shield before it is taken down. (except if Sphere of Permanence is equipped, then it does not remove anything)

Expert Anti-Magic[heroes.thelazy.net]: Grants spell immunity to a single creature
Also removes all curses from your creature, but the beneficial buffs will remain.
However after the Anti Magic is up you can't re-buff that unit since it is immune to all spells.
The only things that can remove it are the above mentioned^ Expert level Dispel and Dragon Flies.

If you are blinded for a lot of rounds and have no cure or dispel but you have an AOE spell, it is better to wake yourself up by damaging yourself with a fireball for example, instead waiting till your army is killed while you are being stoned.

Orb of Vulnerability - negates all magic resistances
This way you will be able to:
-curse enemy Dragons and other creatures that are naturally immune to spells, and buff your own Dragons and all creatures that you couldn't otherwise.
However this also means that your opponent can do that as well - since it "negates the natural magic resistance of all creatures on the battlefield."
Now comes the less obvious part: because this also means that you will be able to berserk undead creatures; but you still can't blind them (cause they can't see); and can't bless them either.
Another interesting fact regarding this orb is related to Badge of Courage that makes your creatures immune to all mind spells however the Orb does negate this as well.
On the other hand the Orb does not negate the necklaces:
-Pendant of Death (Destroy Undead);
-Pendant of Dispassion (Berserk);
-Pendant of Free Will (Hypnotize);
-Pendant of Holiness (Curse);
-Pendant of Life (Death Ripple);
-Pendant of Negativity (Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt);
-Pendant of Total Recall (Forgetfullness);
-Pendant of Second Sight (Blind)
For example if you have Pendant of Dispassion and the enemy has the Orb of Vulnerability, he still won't be able to curse any of your creatures with Berserk because your necklace makes you immune to that.
Having Armor of the Damned with the Orb of Vulnerability will curse everything even the creatures naturally resistant to all spells like Black Dragons. (again: exception if you have one of these necks, then that one curse will not be applied)


Angelic Alliance and Armor of the Damned will cast the spells even if the enemy hero is using the Orb of Inhibition[heroes.thelazy.net] that prevents both you and him to cast any spells (thus even remove these after applied)

Both Angelic Alliance and Armor of the Damned's spells are not affected by your magic power and will always last fixed amount (if not dispelled). Duration: AA=10 rounds; AotD=50 rounds.

Fire/Water/Earth/Air damage boost orbs: ~ spells inflict an additional 50% damage
In case you ever wandered: Orb of Silt/Driving Rain/Tempestuous Fire/Firmament will increase only damage of your offensive spells of the appropriate element, it will not boost the power of helpful spells.
A lvl1 hero with 0 magic power and no secondary skills that would increase the damage the Implosion spell will deal 175 damage. With the Orb of Silt (since Implosion is Earth magic) it does 175 + 50% = 262 damage
At lvl 10 hero with 10 Magic power will deal 850 damage by default and with the orb it will increase it's damage to 1275.
The Resurrection spell however will heal 540 HP regardless if you have the orb equipped or not. (note that these calculations are done with no Sorcery or Earth Magic skill - as Expert Earth provides 120 extra hp resurrected compared to Basic Earth making it heal 660 and for the Implosion's damage it deals 1050 with expert Earth Magic skill and 1575 if you have the orb as well - at lvl10/10magicPower)


You can summon only one type of Elemental during a single battle. (however you can do it multiple times.. depending on your manapool)

With upgraded Conflux Elementals you can buff your War Machines (First Aid/Ammo Cart/Ballista/Catapult) with Protection of Fire/Air/Water/Earth.

You can NOT cast any kind of (de)buff and neither Implosion/Berserk/Blind on War Machines, however any other damaging spells are effective against them.

Titan's Thunder
Hero gains the spell book (permanently, if not already present) and a
Lightning Bolt spell that does 600 damage and costs no spell points to cast.
- it does not grant you the spell permanently, as when you unequip it (even tho still have it in your backpack you'll not able to cast that extra spell..)

Clone [heroes.thelazy.net] spell enables only a single Clone to be present for the same unit stack at a time, with the only exception of Hota (expansion) hero called Eovacius[heroes.thelazy.net].
When a Clone is summoned it doesn't inherit any (de)buffs from the original unit (such as Haste, or Bloodlust, or Slow...).
The maximum number of units on the battlefield is 20 for each side (this includes war machines and destroyed units - that leave corpses behind; summoned elements do not leave corpses)

Disrupting ray may be cast on same stack repeatedly, making it the only cumulative spell - diminishing at 0 defense (can't have negative defense)

When searching for the grail your hero will leave holes on the map.
These diggings prevent the enemy from being able to dock from sea to the coast on places that have been dogged; this way you can safeguard your whole island.. however this counts as exploit.

Trivia:

Homm3 has a built in console where you can chat with enemy players (broadcast) and also apply a few cheats[www.heroesofmightandmagic.com] trough that.
AB Expansion cheats are inspired by StarWars & SoD by Matrix movies;
example: 'nwcredpill' = Immediate victory, ranks you a "Cheater!!!" in the "Land" column.
While I discourage cheating, there are some legit commands (such as 'ping') that you can use, as well as the 'gosolo' which makes your session to be overtaken by AI to test your own map. (does not work with HD Mod tho)


More facts that I did not mention here can be found at:
http://heroes3wog.net/did-you-know-second-edition
or
https://heroes.thelazy.net/index.php/Did_you_know.

Towns

Inferno produces the least hit points / week; whereas Rampart produces the most - on the other hand Rampart has three large (two-hex) - so it is easier to hit them with area spells, tho Unicorn provides 20% resistance aura; dwarf also has 20%, and Dragons are completely (100%) immune to all spells.

Not only Undead creatures but also Conflux's Elementals are not affected by morale.

Best Units[heroescommunity.com]
Best / Worst creatures
lvl1 Centaur (NU) - Hlaberdiers (UPG) / Familiar
lvl2 Air Elementals / Walking Dead
lvl3 Hell Hounds (NU) - Royal Griffins (Upg) / Orcs
lvl4 Magi (NU) - Vampire Lords (UPG) / Fire El.
lvl5 Rocs (NU) - Pit Lords (UPG) / Earth El.
lvl6 Black Knights (NU) - Naga Queens (Upg) / Cyclops
lvl7 Devils (NU) - Archangel (UPG) / Behemoths (NU) - Ghost Dragons (UPG)

Besed purely on units the town power order is:
1. Castle
2. Tower
3. Rampart
4. Inferno
5. Dungeon
6. Necropolis
7. Conflux
8. Fortress
9. Stronghold

however when simulating battles by AI with an army worth of one week it is
Conflux > Necro > Castle & Rampart > ...


Creature cost/week:

Stronghold: 24 530 Gold + 2 Crystal
Rampart: 26 620 Gold + 4 Crystal
Fortress: 26 660 Gold + 2 Sulfur
Necropolis: 26 920 Gold + 2 Mercury
Dungeon: 27 205 Gold + 4 Sulfur
Inferno: 28 090 Gold + 4 Mercury
Conflux: 28 500 Gold + 4 Mercury
Castle: 29 580 Gold + 6 Gem
Cove: 29 935 Gold + 4 Sulfur (HotA)
Tower: 30 800 Gold + 4 Gem
Conflux: 31 100 Gold + 3 Mercury (HotA)
Factory: 35 920 Gold + 6 Crystal (HotA 1.7) #Note that this town has 8 units!

(With a single town that has Capitol built your weekly income is 28 000 Gold)

Castle

Castle[heroes.thelazy.net]

Well balanced, strong town. Only weaknesses are that it requires a lot of resources and that the Mage Guild caps at lvl three. Ways to warfare: Send griffins right into the enemy's face, cast bless; get the golden bow, shoot.. and in the end resurrect the griffin casualties with Archangels.
(It is better to have the Archangels split up into more than one stack; also take into account that you need 3 Archangels to raise 1 Archangel back to life so consider the splitting according that)

Rampart

Rampart[heroes.thelazy.net]

Don't let yourself to be fooled by seeing Mephala as defense specialist hero, this town will overall benefit more from stacking Attack as Primary Stat whenever possible than defense, since you want to hunt down enemies before they reach your archers as well as not having to deal with the retaliation to your Pegasus since they are weak on defense.. so badly that stacking defense usually does not worth it. You can became almost unstoppable when playing money wise Treasury combined with diplomacy. Your greatest firepower will be the Grant Elves, so picking expert Earth Magic for mass slow, and tactics makes life much more easier, tho if you are about to conquer the world with your enormous money and negotiations you'll probably end up having much more other creatures than grand elves.. Still having tactics will worth it in any case of scenario, because either way you'll be protecting and it is important to make the wall before anybody can move, so that you are not only in the right place in time, but you also can already shield your creatures passing action for that round gaining more defense. OR! you'll be rushing the enemy, whereas tactics will enable you to start the charge from the middle of the battleground.
As for the Earth magic - as mentioned you always want to have at least either Expert Earh or Air, but having both is is even better - with any town or hero, and especially Rampart!

Tower

Tower[heroes.thelazy.net]

Similar gameplay as Ramplart, with more magic. Upgrade your gremlins asap, and investigate the tavern for more if you have enough money. Also Mage-s are incredibly useful since having them in your army will make every spell cost less by 2 spell points. Slow down everything, buff your Naga's with the master ginies, wait for the enemy to make their turn and then shoot and charge them.
Titan is the best shooting creature in-game and this town also have the most ranged units (three), which makes archery even 'more best' choice along with the expert Earth and Air magic.. aaand Water Magic - because Mass Slow + Bless/Clone/Mirth/Precision/Prayer/Precision till the enemy is not in your face, preventing you from shooting..
-which can be countered btw with the combination artifact named
Bow of the Sharpshooter[heroes.thelazy.net]

Inferno

Inferno[heroes.thelazy.net]

No matter what, if you play Might or Magic hero expert Fire magic is a must to get skill. This town has the greatest chance to have Blind in it's Mage guild. With expert fire the Blinded creature will not retaliate when awakened. Your combat style is based on speed, which makes Air magic also a viable-if not must option. In most cases you'll start with either haste or if you have tactics and artifacts that give speed (-artifacts can grant extra + 4 speed) cast a mass Bloodlust. Fight mainly with your Arch Devil and dogs that are not retaliated anyway. And remember to kite.
If you have enough towns you can sacrifice the living creatures to make more demons with your Pit Lord[heroes.thelazy.net]. Blind an enemy, kill your creatures with Fireball/Meteor Shower to hoard demons!

Archangels resurrect fewer creatures with health artifacts on, but Pit Lords raise more creatures with additional health points with health artifacts.

Similarly as for Stronghold best defense strategy is having high offence primary skill and artifacts that boost your unit's speed.


Homm3 HD Mod[sites.google.com] (among many extremely useful features) enables you to target Magog's Fireball to ground by pressing the "g" key. (same applies for Litches @necro). This way you can avoid unnecessary friendly fire (as one stack of Pit Lords can raise only one friendly corpse / battle - without cloning it).

Necropolis

Necropolis[heroes.thelazy.net]

Town of the walking dead. Most powerful heroes are Galthran (skeleton spec); Isra/Vidomina (Necro spec.) and Vokial (Vampire specialist). I prefer Galthran, since he gives also +1 speed to all his skeletons under his command - which means that if you don't use the "Walking Dead" or its upgraded version "Zombie" units then your slowest creatures are skeletons. With the +1 speed your hero will not be so turtle.. not only in combats but on the adventure map you'll be able to move faster too - because your daily movement is always adjusted to your slowest creature in your army you are carrying.

Undeads cannot be berserked (only with the Orb of Vulnerability) and cannot be Blinded.
Also the undead has no morale nor is affected by luck. If you have creatures from any other town it will affect only their morale; still it is much wiser to just convert almost everything to bones with the skeleton transformer. Hydras and dragons will be converted into bone dragons, which is nice, since this is the weakest lvl7 creature in the whole game.
This town is quite strong, but very slow without the dimension door or the shortcuts that fly/angel wings artifact grants; or simply without Logistics/Pathfinding skill.

The best unit is the Vampire Lord obviously, just remember that it can't heal on non-living units like undeads, elementals and golems.

Dungeon

Dungeon[heroes.thelazy.net]

Powerful magic town in both might and magic. Has great units. The archers have no melee penalty, Black Dragon is immune to all spells, harpy has no retaliation.
Dungeon requires loads of resources for its buildings, which balances this town from being overpowered.

Both shooters deal full damage with melee attacks as well.

Stronghold

Stronghold[heroes.thelazy.net]

Strongest offensive town. Your defense lays in your offense. Basically the tactics is "Hit fast and hit hard". Mass Haste/Tactics/Offense/Archery/Logistic...+diplomacy. You can risk not to learn wisdom and just crush everything till you find the Tome of Air, or the Spellbinders hat. Use artifacts that will give you morale and luck, don't aim for it to have it as secondary skill unless you have no better option. With diplomacy and Dessa with logistic spec... is just unstoppable. It is recommended to have some 'peasant heroes' running around you to collect the amry from your main hero so you dont waste any recruiters that are willing to join for free, and later you can sell them in your town.

Fortress

Fortress[heroes.thelazy.net]

Town of the defensively savage beast. You can reach very high stacks of defense with this town and see your army becoming rock under your command, when you enter Utopias and even eight Green Dragons can hardly kill some of your low level units..
Expert Water magic and tactics can greatly improve many tough battles. (Forgetfulness/Cure/Dispel) Also mass haste seems very important to have since this town lacks speed, and charging strong units for example an enemy Wizard with Titans will leave your Dragon Flies and Wyverns to be slaughtered by Nagas, golems and..everything by the time your other creatures would get there. Still I think that this town is underrated. It can be extremely powerful combined with good strategy and wise use of spells.

PS.: with Mighty Gorgons you should almost always (non-living creatures are immune to 'Death Star') head for the highest lvl creature on the battlefield, since the 'death stare' ability grants chance to kill an additional unit for every 10 Mighty Gorgon you have; so the stare of 1–10 Mighty Gorgons may only kill one enemy, while a stack of 11 might kill two.

Conflux

Conflux[heroes.thelazy.net]

Magic themed town with army of elemens each being immune and vulnerable to the class of element it belongs to. Conflux has the highest weekly growth, which means that the creatures are low on defense, so you should focus on getting high attack power, and your mainly on spells.
The lvl1 upgrade creatures - Sprite has no retaliation so having enough mana and kiting the slowest creatures can win you many battles in the early game. Later having upgraded creatures you'll be able to shoot from distance, and then pwn them with the Magic Elemental which is the most useful creature in this town with its no retaliation, adjacent damage and spell immunity.
Definitely it is worthy to learn all the spell schools, and trying to accumulate as much primary skills as possible; the sooner the better. Also finding the grail and building it in your own town will grant you all the spells existing in-game. Cool hah? (Aurora Borealis[heroes.thelazy.net])

Grail

The Grail[heroes.thelazy.net] is an item similar to an artifact in the sense that heroes can carry it and exchange it between them in the same way as artifacts. Also it can be sold for 1 unit of any resource. In fact, the Grail is sometimes unofficially referred to as the ultimate artifact. The Grail is typically hidden somewhere in the ground of adventure map, and finding it requires digging it with a hero. Recovering the Grail artifact and taking it to any town enables the player to build town specific Grail Building.

The primary bonuses of Grail Building for all towns are extra 5000 Gold generation per day and 50% additional creature growth per week (rounded down). The growth bonus applies after all the modifiers: external dwellings and Statue of Legion or its components. Additionally, every town has its own unique bonuses.

Finding the Grail

In order to recover the Grail, a hero must dig it out of the ground. A hero without empty slots in a backpack cannot dig. Digging demands the whole amount of a hero's movement points so it is not possible to dig at the same day when a hero crossed even just one tile on the map. (Actually, there is a way which includes tinkering with fast/slow units in the hero's army, but good girls never do such things). Only one Grail may be hidden in the adventure map. However, it is also possible for a mapmaker to set any number of heroes and towns to carry the Grail in their backpack or have their Grail structure built, respectively. When the Grail is buried into the ground, clues to its location can be found at obelisks. Every visited obelisk reveals a part of the puzzle map, which shows the location of the Grail marked with X. Typically the X becomes visible when the entire puzzle map is revealed, but occasionally it will be shown before the last obelisk is visited. However, it is often possible to guess roughly the area where the Grail might lie, and systematically start digging it. In fact, the AI at hard difficulty levels starts digging the Grail even if only a third of the puzzle map is completed.

If the hero carrying the Grail retreats, surrenders or is defeated in battle, the Grail is lost forever. But when he is fired it is possible to find him in a tavern with a Grail in his backpack.

If the map has no obelisks, it is completely impossible to find the grail (even if every single block on the map is dug on). Also, using "nwcoracle", a cheat that reveals the puzzle map, will have no effect and the puzzle will not show anything.

Grail Buildings

When the Grail is taken to a town and the visiting hero with the Grail "visits" the Town Hall (Village Hall/Town Hall/City Hall/Capitol), a town-specific Grail Building will be built. It can be the second town building per turn, but nothing can be built on the same day after it. Also, Grail can be built in an allied town, which can be helpful if you don't have your own Tower or Conflux. All unique Grail building features will be effective for allies (except Castle, Rampart and Necropolis buildings).

Colossus

(Castle)

Colossus is a huge golden statue of a soldier holding a sword and a shield. It increases the morale of all of the owner's heroes by +2. Although the documentation states that it increases all allied heroes morale, this appears to be wrong.

Spirit Guardian

(Rampart)

Spirit Guardian is a totem pole with a pegasus on top. It increases owners all heroes' luck by +2. Although the documentation states that it increases all allied heroes luck, this appears to be wrong.

Skyship

(Tower)

Tower's Skyship looks like a "gnome-made zeppelin". It reveals the entire map for the player who owns it, and gives extra 150 spell points bonus to the hero defending against a siege, replenishing immediately after the battle. The revealed map is a permanent effect and is not canceled if the player loses the town with the Skyship. Unlike the Lookout Tower, the Skyship cannot be used to disperse the darkness generated by a Cover of Darkness. Having this building gives a massive tactical advantage, and any player will be perfectly able to spot any attempt of siege or attack not only to this town but to all friendly heroes and buildings.

Deity of Fire

(Inferno)

Deity of Fire is an enormous glowing devil that stands on the horizon. It causes every week to be The Week of Imp, which means that the population of Imps and/or Familiars are increased by +15 in addition to normal growth. External dwellings are not affected by this special week.

The problem with Inferno's Deity of Fire is that typically grail buildings are built long after the imps, low tier creatures, are useful. In fact, it is Necropolis who benefits more from extra imps available to be harvested as skeletons or transformed into one. [1] However, the Imps can at least be used for demon farming.

Soul Prison

(Necropolis)

Soul Prison resembles an obelisk with an upside-down pyramid halo on the tip. It increases the Necromancy skill of all the owners' heroes by 20%. Although the documentation states that it increases all allied heroes Necromancy skill, this appears to be wrong.

Guardian of Earth

(Dungeon)

Guardian of Earth resembles giant skeletal humanoid embedded into the rock watching over the whole city. It increases spell power skill of the hero defending against a siege by +12.

Warlords' Monument

(Stronghold)

Increases the Attack of a garrison hero by 20 when defending against a siege. This bonus gives an absurd damage bonus, able to increase the damage output of even the highest leveled creatures by about 50%, any hero holding a town with this building is nearly unbeatable except by an overwhelming army or an opposing hero with a very high level.

Carnivorous Plant

(Fortress)

Increases the Attack and Defense of a garrison hero by 10 each when defending against a siege. This boost is considered to be the best in terms of siege defense, not only does it make all units tanky but also gives them a powerful damage steroid, this is particularly useful for the Fortress creatures, who have somewhat low stats (but extremely powerful and annoying abilities) and allows them to achieve a powerful combination of destruction, tankiness and annoyingness.

Aurora Borealis

(Conflux)

Fills the town's Mage Guild (*regardless* of mage guild's level) with all unbanned spells. (Excluding Titan's Lightning Bolt)*. Even spells banned on the global map can appear unless they're not banned in a town with the Grail. The best Grail building. In earlier version, any hero that enters the town learns all spells there are in the game. It was patched later to require wisdom to learn high level spells.

In Horn of the Abyss Horn of the Abyss Aurora Borealis allows to learn spells up to according level of the Mage Guild only and doesn’t allow to learn spells not available for this town.

Screens

　　　　　　 　　 SCREENSHOTS　　　 　　　　　

　　　　　　 　　 not all above are from RoE　　　　　　 　　

Addendum

Here is a picture showing which town can be defeated more easily with an other:

Favorite map:

Monster Slayer[www.maps4heroes.com]

Single Player Challange Maps:

Beginner - I passed Arrogance on 80%
Newbie+- I passed Viking we shall go on 160%
Normal - I passed Back for Revenge on 200%
Normal+- I passed Jedi Story on 200%
Normal ++- I passed Empire of the World 200%
Standard - I passed Wayfarer 200%
Standard+ - I passed Paragon 2.0 200%
Hard - I passed Way Home
Hard+ - I passed Xiedu
Hard++ - I passed Lord Rings (by season)
Insane - I passed Metataxer's Revenge
Autism - I passed Dark Man
Beyond human level OVER AUTISM BADASS TOTALL IMPOSSIBLY INTENSE:
Alcatraz Escape, Shadows of the Forest

Favorite template(s):

I've merged (and adjusted) the following templates:

• Duel 2.7 and JO 2.97
  
• FoD v1.04
  
• Vietnamese diplomacy 2.5

into a single template pack which in nutshell is for PVE plays where special artifacts are enabled (especially Horn of The Abyss) and the enemy computer(s) are boosted via guaranteed free boxes to make the AI actually challenging.

It allows to practice snowball effect, and tempo.
Each size map size has respective spells and boxes enabled.

On S size there is only one artifact (so selecting artifact as bonus start instead gold or resource guarantees HoTA). Dracon can breeze trough easily day 1.. but it is still fun taking down enemies that would be impossible otherwise without raising fangarms and hypnotize).

As for balance some heroes are stronger than others, but since this is meant to be against computer and for fun I don't think that would be an issue.

M-L is modified Fight or Die template; the major changes are guaranteed Ancient Altar (clear 25 haspid creature bank to get HoTA) in biome, removed some artifacts (mainly the luck related, and necro); added diplo to the skill pool; rebalanced some objects (most importantly -replaced 2 utopias for the ^Altar) and box adjustments. Added Armageddon's Blade to be able to spawn in central zone.
Hero recruiting is allowed per template level checkbox (instead I'm using the Baratorch fix [1 hero] workaround to be able to retreat, but not hire other heroes)

XL is from Duel and JO pool, only changes made are granting CPU 99k gold; 20k XP and Black market to starting area and granting AAltar to biom.

XL+ VN Diplo ^same as above - except AAltar does not spawn in biom.

The template pack is available here:

PVE Madness - FngARMY[www.dropbox.com]

YouTubers/Streamers:

LC
Lexiav
TheKnownWorld

Links:

http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes3/heroesofmightandmagic3iii.shtml
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=13673
http://heroes.thelazy.net/
https://heroes3wog.net/

[attack turtle]

Ah okay, didn't know about it, thanks!

[-=|Markus|=-]

When starting the game there is "more options -> PvP Neutral Combat" on/off. When it is turned on they the enemy player will control the neutrals you fight against. Tho I haven't seen anyone using this feature yet.

[attack turtle]

Btw, I think there was an issue back then, I'm curious if it's still the same. So when u play pvp now, and u have a battle; the bot still takes over the defender's army or was that only an issue in the single PC games, where players played on the same PC?

[attack turtle]

Must be the curse of knowledge. I also noticed in other games I have more experience in; the less I know, the more I can enjoy them - and not just in strategy games, but in general. Everything starts with the small challenges, but at least in single player or 1v1 type of multiplayers are less annoying, than heavily team based games.
I've got like 6-7k hours in L4D2 - across my ~15 accounts - we hunted down every single competitive teams multiple times and regularly bully them. It's the level of competitiveness, that I wrote a software that tracks when any team with some skills are online, so we can play against them.
And if I'm not playing with my team, I need to consciously focus on not reacting the sheer amount of errors made by random team mates.

[-=|Markus|=-]

I enjoy the game more while I was noob; love rampart and treants. With my friend we used to play with no time pressure limit, he had his own area and me as well, then we decided to clash when there was not much around left. In this case it did not hurt to have slow army cause we were both playing similarly. In competitive environment or playing more optimally it usually means leaving slow units in the town or not even buying those - only when needed to defend and no TP or poor-man-TP is viable...

[attack turtle]

I don't know what templates are in the game, is that something new?
I think I didn't play the game for at least a decade, maybe once or twice when HD version came out. I did these calculations before that, when I was around 20 or so, that was 12 years ago. At that time only 2 expansions were out.
I remember however, that I only accounted for upgraded units, and excluded the early game units. I also didn't consider the unit speed, because I couldn't figure out how to apply it on a model like that, and Rampart for example does have slower units, like the ents and dwarfs. Like, I could add some bonus points for unit spells, but I didn't know what to do with unit speed. The main question was, how much do I have to play weekly to get how strong of an army.

[-=|Markus|=-]

@attack turle: Interesting approach. Did you measure this on the default template?
The game is pretty well balanced, tho Conflux and Necro always felt a bit like outliers due to the ease to snowball fights early.
WIth the introduction of HoTA many balance changes have been made (Conflux: Phoneix weekly grow reduction; Necromancy percentages lowered; etc...).
as well as it introduced new templates [from MKC] such as Duel, where players compete against each other in "turbo" mode and thus have DD & Fly spells guaranteed in biome. This style however kind of negates or diminishes the weakness of some towns (such as Castle - as naturally it has spells only up to 3rd level for example). It is still maintained and balanced, the point is that balance is always matter of context. My personal opinion is that uniqueness where each town has its place to shine and its nuances what makes the game fun, everlasting and special.

[attack turtle]

Then there was an update or two around that time, one of them had Conflux, so I did the canculations aaand it came out at 30%, due to the fact that 4 levels are just different type of elementals with around same level of strenght.
I don't remember all the things, but just wanted to share this memory shard.

[attack turtle]

I remember when this game was released. I had a PC with 1.5GB, Pentium 1 Intel Processor just switched from 133hz to 200hz.
Mb. 10 years later I spent some time trying to figure out which castle results the best unit combination. I considered HP, damage, resistances, unit magic, max magic level in town, trainable units, ect. It was a made up logic, but I think it wasn't totally baseless. I assigned scores to each caste based on my calculations, then a percentage score relative to the strongest.
I remember that the best was Rampart, which got the 100% percentage. On second place was the Tower with around 92%, then 3rd place around 4-5% lower was divided between 3: Castle, Dungeon, Stronghold - this last one really surprised me, because I thought it's a very bad castle.
Idk the rest, but Inferno was around 55%, which was surprising. I also expected the Necropolis higher, but the skeleton dragon was just way to weak for a top tier unit compared to what the others have.

[-=|Markus|=-]

What to choose from chests?

Bad chests (1000 gold or 500 XP) is a 2 to 1 gold ratio i.e you pay 2 gold per XP.
And the ratios gets better as the chests gets better (1500 gold or 1000 XP/1.5 to 1 and 2000 or 1500/1.33 to 1)