HEROES OF MIGHT & MAGIC 3 : HINTS version 1.2 02/10/99 By King Hiss < king_hiss@hotmail.com > Copyright 1999 King Hiss ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Towns ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Dungeon's Portal of Summoning The Dungeon's Portal of Summoning acts as another dwelling. For the first week, the creatures generated are from the last external dwelling flagged on the world map. From the second week onwards, the creatures generated are from a random external dwelling that you have flagged on the world map. Therefore, if you are using the Dungeon army, you should be choosy of what you flag on the world map, so as to use this Portal of Summoning effectively. 2. Rampart's Dwarven Treasury The Rampart's Dwarven Treasury generates 10% interest on gold at the start of every week. Therefore, it may be better to hold out buying some units or structures that you do not actually need near the end of the week so that the 10% interest would be MUCH bigger. 3. Inferno's Castle Gate The Inferno's Castle Gate is especially useful for defending your Inferno towns if you have more than one Inferno town on the map. If one of the towns is in danger of being attacked by an enemy hero and your heroes are not able to rush back in time to save it, you can simply recruit another hero, use the Castle Gate to zip to all the Inferno towns you have and purchase as much units as you can get (in addition to getting the +1 to Attack from the Order of Fire and the collective spells from all the towns' Mage Guilds), then return to the first town to await the enemy. 4. Placing heroes inside town garrison One thing that I've noticed many people did not know is that you can station a hero inside the town garrison to defend the town just by clicking the hero's picture and then clicking on the banner of the garrison inside the town. This hero will not be visible on the world map and thus cannot move. This way, you can recruit more heroes than the maximum number of 8 heroes allowed. You can also use this method if you have 2 heroes needing to use 1 town on the same turn to refuel their spell points. Simply click 1 inside the town garrison and then have the other hero enter. Wait 1 turn and the next turn, both heroes' spell points will be back to maximum. 5. Defensive Fortress The Fortress is arguably the worst town in the game. Overall, the units are not as effective compared to the units of the other classes and its sole ranged unit the lizardmen are pretty useless. Its Mage Guild can only be upgraded to level 3. However, the Fortress is quite good in defensive capabilities. Its dragonflies are among the fastest units in the game, thereby giving you the opportunity to cast a spell before your opponent. Its gorgons can withstand a lot of punishment. You can also build the Glyphs of Fear and the Blood Obelisk, which improves the garrison hero's attack and defense by 2 each. The Fortress's moat is two hexagons wide instead of one. Other towns' moat are only one hexagon wide (not to include the Stronghold which don't have any moat). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- World Map ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Free boat using Summon Boat spell You can get a free boat even if there is no boat or shipyard available on the world map. Simply have your Water Magic skill at Advanced or Expert level as well as the spell Summon Boat. Then, cast this spell near the water and a boat will pop out of nowhere for your use, without cost to resources (except the mana points used to cast the spell). 2. Using Fly, Dimension Door or Town Portal spell The three abovementioned spells are movement-based magic on the world map. Although similar, they have different uses. The Fly spell should be used if you have many movement points but more limited mana points. On the other hand, the Dimension Door spell, which can be cast up to a maximum of four times per day with Expert Air magic, uses more of mana points than movement points. Therefore, you can still move a bit after the spell has been cast. At Basic Water magic, the Town Portal spell sends you to the nearest friendly town. If this town is occupied by a hero already, the spell fails. This spell is useful in that no matter how far the nearest town is, the spell would take you there instantaneously. However, remember to position your hero closer to the town you wish to go to as compared to other friendly town or your hero would be send to the wrong town. When cast at Advanced and/or Expert level, you will be transported to the town of your choice, not the nearest town like Basic level. 3. Movement based on slowest creature unit The amount of movement points which you have on the world map is not only based on your Logistics or Pathfinding skills or the artifacts you picked up. It can also be reduced based on the slowest creature unit in your army. Therefore, if you want to move fast, you may wish to consider dropping some of the slowest units in your army. 4. Raising skeletons When playing as the Necromancer, you can raise skeletons from enemies you have defeated. It is also possible for your Necromancer to raise the upgraded model, the skeleton warriors. To do this, you must not have any skeletons in your Necromancer's army. One of the units must be skeleton warriors and there must not be any empty slots in your Necromancer's army. With these requirements fulfilled, you will get skeleton warriors every time your Necromancer defeated his enemies. 5. Training various magic skills Initially, I thought that the various magic skills such as Air, Water, Earth and Fire are useless skills compared to the other skills which you can learn, such as Offense and Logistics. I also did not upgrade my Mage Guilds beyond Level 2 or use much spells except the Lightning Bolt spell. However, I later found out that spells can become quite powerful if you have the corresponding magic skill, not just in the strength of the spell but also in the spell having extra effects. It is not possible to list all the extra effects here so you should experiment for yourself. You can actually win a battle against a much superior army using magic alone. One basic example is that in the first round, with Expert Earth magic, you can slow the enemy down to a crawl using the Slow spell, enough time for you to pummel them with ranged attacks and other magic. Most of enchantment type spells (like Bloodlust, Slow, Cure) can target multiple targets at Expert level. Therefore, Bloodlust at Expert level become Mass Bloodlust (target all friendly creatures at once). 6. Defeating Steadwick This tip is for those playing the campaign game, the scenario whereby you have to capture the city of Steadwick, guarded by the super-powered General Kendal. He is VERY powerful, with loads of units and stats that make your most powerful hero look like a wimp. However, the objective of the scenario is to CAPTURE Steadwick, not defeat Kendal. Therefore, for those of you who does not wish to spent months (game- time) building a few big armies to defeat this powerhouse, do the following. First, train up one of your heroes in speed (Expert Logistics, movement enhancing artifacts, no slow creature in the army). Then, after defeating the last garrison before your hero arrived at Steadwick, have one of your other expendable heroes move close to Steadwick, just enough so that General Kendal will use up nearly all his movement points to come forward and make mincemeat of this hero. Have your speedy hero stand somewhere behind, just out of reach of Kendal. By the way, there is also a Castle nearby with stables which can make him even faster. He does not even need much troops (just give him one Champion is enough). Wait one turn and Kendal would bring ALL his troops from Steadwick just to kill your expendable hero. However, if you followed the above conditions correctly, he would not be able to attack your speedy hero or get back to Steadwick before expending his movement points. When it is your turn to act, simply move your speedy hero into the unprotected city and you have won! 7. No movement penalty An army made up of only units native to the same terrain will not suffer any movement penalty when traversing its native terrain (eg. a Witch with only Fortress units has no movement penalty when traveling on swampland). 8. Bonus campaign After you have completed all 6 campaigns, there will be one bonus campaign, "Seeds of Discontent", which takes place after the war with the Necromancers. Here, you take the part of Faruk Welnin, a man who wish to free the Contested Lands from both AvLee and Erathia. To get this bonus campaign, just load your latest save game after you watch the final movie. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Battles & Spells ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Creature unit's special ability One important feature to note in Heroes 3 is that many creature units have their own special abilities. I will be discussing some of the units' special abilities but for those not discussed, you can right- click on the unit's picture and read about it yourself. Learning about what each creature can do and applying it will greatly enhance your gameplay. 2. Creature spells Some creature units can cast their own spells, such as the genie's random beneficial spell and the ogre mage's Bloodlust spell. If you have these creatures in your army and some empty slots, you can separate these creatures and thus cast as much spells in one round as you are able to split up your genie or ogre mage units, eg. if you have 3 empty slots and some ogre magi, you can split them up and place them in the 3 empty slots. Now, you will be able to cast Bloodlust 4 times in one round! You only need one creature per slot to do this! 3. Using Behemoths A good way to use Behemoths or Ancient Behemoths is to have your hero learn the Tactics skill (which the barbarian class seems to learn easily). At the start of the battle, move your Behemoths as close to the enemy as possible. Then, start the battle. Except for faster enemy creatures, your Behemoths will usually be able to move first. Just move him over to the enemy and attack. Because of the Behemoth's ability to reduce the defense of the creatures it is attacking, you can severely damage the creatures you are attacking. A very powerful first strike indeed! 4. Waiting for enemy to get close before shooting at them For creatures with ranged attacks, there is a difference between a broken arrow and an unbroken arrow when you move the cursor over your enemy creatures. An unbroken arrow definitely causes more damage to the creatures than a broken arrow. Therefore, it is usually best for your ranged creatures to use the "wait" feature for a non-ranged enemy creature unit to move closer first before shooting. 5. Creatures with no retaliation to attack first Many creatures, eg, naga queens, vampire lords, have the ability of no retaliation to their attacks. Therefore, against very powerful enemy units, it is best for these creatures to act first before the other units (but if possible after the ranged units). Then, have one of your more powerful units attack after that. This way, you can minimise your damage. 6. Dendroids Dendroid soldiers have the ability to entangle the unit it is attacking. If the enemy unit is entangled, it cannot move until the dendroid moves or is attacked by another unit. 7. Armageddon spell This is a level 4 spell that is very powerful. The offset is that it affects all creatures on the battlefield, regardless of friend or foe. However, there are certain creatures which can counter this problem. Gold and black dragons are immune to at least level 4 spells and efreet sultans and fire elementals are immune to fire magic. Thus, you can go into battle against a much superior army with just these creatures and cast Armageddon spell to your heart's content, causing enormous damage to the enemy without suffering any yourself! 8. Selecting heroes Whenever you wish to hire heroes from taverns, you are given the choice of 2 heroes. Sometimes, you may not want either of the heroes, either because their race is incompatible with your castles or because they have very lousy specialty skills (eg. Navigation in most scenarios). Therefore, you can try restarting the scenario if you are just beginning or save and then reload the game on the seventh day of the week. See what heroes you can hire the next round and if you are not satisfied with them, just reload the game. However, some heroes appear less often than others. Some good heroes (in my opinion) include Sir Christian (start with ballista) and Solymr (Chain Lightning specialty). 9. Vampire lords attacking low level units Vampire lords have the ability of no retaliation and also of regeneration. Therefore, it is quite an effective unit to use, as while attacking an enemy, it also sucks the energy from it and transfers the energy into itself. This allows it to restore lost health points, and even to revive those within the unit which have already be killed. This can be used most effectively against weak units that are numerous in numbers. This only applies to "living" creatures, so it does not work on Gargoyles, Golems, and all Elementals. 10. Cyclops against castle walls The Cyclops and Cyclops kings have the ability to knock down castle walls during siege battle on castles. This will help very much if you need to get your troops into the castle quickly but do not have sufficient ballistic power. You can also use them to aim for the damaging castle archers. 11. Dragon flies to dispel beneficial spells Besides being one of the fastest units in the game, dragon flies have the ability to dispel any beneficial spells cast on enemy troops, eg. Bless, Prayer. Just attack the enemy unit as per normal. 12. Some creatures can be positioned to damage more than 1 unit Some creatures can attack more than one adjacent enemy. These include the hydra and the cerebrus hound. Therefore, with some smart positioning, you can go in-between 2 enemy units whenever there is a chance and do damage to both the enemy units. These attacks cannot be retaliated. 13. Champions' charging bonus The champions have their attack statistic increased when charging at and attacking an enemy unit in the same round. The further away from the enemy unit at the start of the round, the higher the increase in attack. The distance is measured by the squares of the battle terrain. When attacking an enemy unit, it is therefore best to move your champions all the way around him to take advantage of this ability. 14. No melee penalty for medusas and evil eyes The Dungeon class is perhaps overall the most powerful class in the game. Besides the black dragons, it have two ranged units, the medusas and evil eyes, which are quite powerful and numerous for low level units. Both units do not suffer any penalty for close combat fighting. Furthermore, the medusa may actually benefit from close combat as then, it has the additional ability of stone curse. 15. Death Ripple and Destroy Undead spells Both the Death Ripple and Destroy Undead spells are spells that affect multiple units. The Death Ripple spell affects all living units on the battle screen (subject to the unit's magic resistance) while the Destroy Undead spell affects all Undead (Necropolis) units. While the damage caused to each unit initially is not much, you can upgrade the respective magic skills to cause more damage. Just be careful of your own units as they can also be damaged by the spell if they are of the same type as the targeted units. The Destroy Undead spell is especially useful in the campaign "Song for the Father" as nearly all the foes you face are undead. 16. Sacrificing weak troops by putting them beside powerful ranged units, forcing them to attack Some of the ranged units can be very damaging on your units. In some circumstances, you may want to stop the ranged units from shooting at your vital units, usually your own ranged units, but your only unit closest to the enemy is so weak that it is bound to die by the retaliatory attack if you use it to attack the ranged unit. The enemy unit would then still be able to shoot at your vital units. In this case, you should consider sacrificing this unit to save your vital units from being cut down. Just move your weak unit to stand beside the enemy ranged unit but DO NOT attack it. In this way you will force it to act by moving away or killing your weak unit and thereby losing its opportunity to shoot. This allows your own ranged units to attack and your hero to cast a spell at the enemy ranged unit with less casualties suffered. 17. Chain Lightning spell The Chain Lightning spell is a rather useful spell in that it can inflict good damage on multiple units in one turn. The downside of this spell is that it does not discriminate between friend or foe. No matter how many enemy units are on the screen, it would still inflict damage to four units (five if your Air Magic skill is at Advanced level), including your own units if they are closer to the targeted unit or there are less than four (or five) enemy units. Therefore, you may hesitate in using this spell then. There is one way to still use this spell in the mentioned situations. For some people, before engaging powerful enemy heroes or wandering monsters in battle, they would usually save the game first so that after the battle, they can review the fight and reload the game again so as to fight again and thereby reduce the damage caused. You can use this to reload the game and before engaging the enemy unit, split up one creature from one of your troops. It is best if he can move fast. When you need to use the Chain Lightning spell, position him in such a way that when you use it the next round, the only casualty in your army is the lone creature. This would greatly reduce the general damage suffered by your units. 18. Using Fire Wall spell for certain terrain During battle, the Fire Wall spell is best use in terrain where there are obstacles in the way, such as a ridge, which forces more than one enemy unit to move a specific route. Cast the Fire Wall right in the path of the advancing enemy units. In this way, the enemy units cannot avoid going around the Fire Wall to bypass it. Take note that it should only be used against walking units and not flying ones. Another way to use this is to place the Fire Wall right in front of your ranged unit if it appears that the enemy wants to concentrate on it and have more than one unit moving towards it. 19. Against elementals, use vulnerable magic When fighting against elementals, you should use classes of magic which it is more vulnerable to. Check the description of the elemental unit to find out which class of magic to use against which type of elementals. 20. Against golems, avoid using magic Golems, especially obsidian golems, are very resistant to magic. Unless you have no other choice, avoid using magic against them. 21. Advanced Resurrection spell The Resurrection spell is very useful at Advanced level. The creature units that you resurrect will stay with you even after the battle. At Normal level, your resurrected units can only be used for the battle and will disappear after that. 22. Using Scholar skill The Scholar skill is used to trade spells between heroes. You need only one of them to have the skill. This skill is very useful in having all your heroes learn up to level 4 spells of all of them combined without having spend time visiting all the castles. The best way to trade spells is to have the hero with the Scholar skill click on each hero from one end of the map to the other end, and then back again. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Acknowledgements ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The following fellows have shared with me some of the hints that I have mentioned above: Guy, Blitz, City Hunter. And also special thanks to Stephanus Rudiyanto Natari for pointing out some extra info and correction to this work. Thanks, guys!