Did You Know? (H3)

The old Heroes games developed by New World Computing. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
User avatar
Bonzer
Conscript
Conscript
Posts: 236
Joined: 11 Jul 2006
Location: South Coast UK

Did You Know? (H3)

Unread postby Bonzer » 26 Sep 2006, 23:39

Reading through a few posts, I was reminded of some tricks to help with H3.

1) Although limited to 8 Heroes, these are "active" ones. You can also have up to 8 more, one in each town if in the "fortified" position. Useful to have someone to hold all the resource and gold artefacts, and useful for statue of legion parts (until you have them all).

2) If you "dig" your coastline, it is impossible for the enemy to land from the sea. A hole is seen as an "active" position, and disembarking is not possible. Leave a hero on the last undug position until you get Town Portal. Beware of flying enemies, or those with boots (or spells) of water walking.

3) Fed up with collecting cheap artefacts? Equip them in the "Backpack" slots, together with a mega artefact. In a town with an Artefact Merchant, select, "Sell Artefact", select the biggie, then scroll the backpack onto a minor one. The selling price stays the same. You can even sell scrolls this way (useful for random maps which are always littered with scrolls).

4) You will always get your turn first each day (SP), so if you take a town on day 1 the enemy can't recruit the creatures for that week to help defend it.

5) If you go through a whirlpool, you will always lose half of your weakest stack. So always split off 1 creature and wave (sic) him goodbye.

6) You can place troops at any mine to guard them - sometimes this is useful as a place to park them for collection, and cuts down on "hero chains".

7) Any Hero giving a 350gp / day bonus will pay for himself in 10 days. After that you are in profit. His troops are useful as well, and sometimes the war machines are useful.

8) Never equip a ballista if you intend to use "Blind / Ressurect", unless you have the skill to control it.

9) Know your enemy! If you are taking casualties happily, knowing you will use "blind / resurrect" later in the battle, it is annoying when you blind their last stack, and the enemy hero flees when he gets to "use" his First Aid Tent or Ballista. If he has these skills (watch what they do during combat), take them out before blinding the last stack.

10) If your "Mass Berserk" lets the enemy attack his war machines, cast berserk and then missile the machines.

11) (A bit picky), if you have a choice between a mine or a loose resource with your last part of movement, always take the mine (unless you MUST have several of the loose resource NOW. The mine will give you one at the start of the next day, and you still get the loose ones.

12) If an enemy Inferno has the grail built, there will be no more Plague weeks (every week is week of the imp). Let the neutral imps grow on the map for more xp. If you are playing Necro, try and recruit them with an Expert Diplomacy hero and transform them into skeletons.

13) If playing Rampart, maximise the Miners Guild. Sell unwanted resources / artefacts on day 7 to boost the 10% bonus. Note that the 10% is cumulative for each guild (20% for 2 guilds, 30% for three etc.) If you are playing hot seat allies against PC, you can "give" money to your Rampart ally, and they can give you some back with interest!

Just amazed myself, I only had three of these in mind when I started writing! Anyone else got some useful tips for new and not so new players?
We will either find a way, or we will make one. Emperor Hannibal.

User avatar
Kristo
Round Table Knight
Round Table Knight
Posts: 1548
Joined: 23 Nov 2005
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Did You Know? (H3)

Unread postby Kristo » 27 Sep 2006, 02:08

Bonzer wrote:1) Although limited to 8 Heroes, these are "active" ones. You can also have up to 8 more, one in each town if in the "fortified" position. Useful to have someone to hold all the resource and gold artefacts, and useful for statue of legion parts (until you have them all).
Are you sure it's only 8 more? I would think you could have as many garrison heroes as you have towns.
Bonzer wrote:2) If you "dig" your coastline, it is impossible for the enemy to land from the sea. A hole is seen as an "active" position, and disembarking is not possible. Leave a hero on the last undug position until you get Town Portal. Beware of flying enemies, or those with boots (or spells) of water walking.
I'd consider this a cheap tactic in multiplayer since the spells needed to defeat it are usually banned.
Bonzer wrote:3) Fed up with collecting cheap artefacts? Equip them in the "Backpack" slots, together with a mega artefact. In a town with an Artefact Merchant, select, "Sell Artefact", select the biggie, then scroll the backpack onto a minor one. The selling price stays the same. You can even sell scrolls this way (useful for random maps which are always littered with scrolls).
Eh, that's an exploit of a bug. I'd consider it cheating.
Bonzer wrote:5) If you go through a whirlpool, you will always lose half of your weakest stack. So always split off 1 creature and wave (sic) him goodbye.
Note that you'll never lose your last creature this way. I often have boat explorers go to sea with only one creature so I never have to worry about whirlpools.
Bonzer wrote:6) You can place troops at any mine to guard them - sometimes this is useful as a place to park them for collection, and cuts down on "hero chains".
You can do this with garrisons too, but be warned that some are set to not let you remove creatures. Also, bear in mind that this may be an expansion feature. I don't recall if it was present in RoE.
Bonzer wrote:7) Any Hero giving a 350gp / day bonus will pay for himself in 10 days.
Actually it's only 8 days. 2500 / 350 = 7.14 :D
Bonzer wrote:11) (A bit picky), if you have a choice between a mine or a loose resource with your last part of movement, always take the mine (unless you MUST have several of the loose resource NOW. The mine will give you one at the start of the next day, and you still get the loose ones.
This is very good advice. It comes up more often than you'd think.
Bonzer wrote:13) If playing Rampart, maximise the Miners Guild. Sell unwanted resources / artefacts on day 7 to boost the 10% bonus. Note that the 10% is cumulative for each guild (20% for 2 guilds, 30% for three etc.) If you are playing hot seat allies against PC, you can "give" money to your Rampart ally, and they can give you some back with interest!
That works well as long as your allies aren't picky about being exact. When you're dealing with thousands of gold it's a real pain to get the slider set perfectly. But it can be a huge payoff; it's a good incentive for requiring all Rampart players to be good at math. :-D

Here's a few more:

14) When defending a castle, split ground stacks so that you use all 7 slots. Extra stacks are useful for plugging holes in the wall.

15) The AI isn't afraid to move creatures into moats. If you plug a hole in the castle wall with a stack, the AI will try to attack it from multiple angles. Those that can't reach it will sit in the moat for multiple turns, taking damage each time.

16) Expert Dispel works on Tower mines.

User avatar
kitcat0
Scout
Scout
Posts: 182
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Location: estonian in Denmark

Re: Did You Know? (H3)

Unread postby kitcat0 » 27 Sep 2006, 08:45

Bonzer wrote:
13) If playing Rampart, maximise the Miners Guild. Sell unwanted resources / artefacts on day 7 to boost the 10% bonus. Note that the 10% is cumulative for each guild (20% for 2 guilds, 30% for three etc.) If you are playing hot seat allies against PC, you can "give" money to your Rampart ally, and they can give you some back with interest!
That reminds me of one tactics I have used. If ally has a trading post close and goes to use it, send your stuff to ally so he can trade them cheaper. Unless you have 5 marketplaces of your own already

One suggestion for new players would be, that if you rest in town to get your spell points filled, leave only the fastest creature on hero and put the rest in town. That way you maximise your movement for the next day. Also if you use secondary hero for transporting new weeks creatures, hire him the day before and give him fastest creature possible.

User avatar
dallasmavs41
Demon
Demon
Posts: 331
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Location: Fredericksburg, Virginia

Unread postby dallasmavs41 » 27 Sep 2006, 10:14

# 14 and #15 is the most important advice, IMO. I've won tons of tough battles when I was vastly overmatched just by having extra stacks and plugging up holes..

User avatar
arturchix
Titan
Titan
Posts: 1352
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Location: Latvia

Unread postby arturchix » 27 Sep 2006, 18:56

1) Although limited to 8 Heroes, these are "active" ones. You can also have up to 8 more, one in each town if in the "fortified" position. Useful to have someone to hold all the resource and gold artefacts, and useful for statue of legion parts (until you have them all).
Actually I never bother to have more than 5 heroes, with very few exceptions. My optimal amount of heroes is 3, if there are more, the game progresses slower and it's easy to forget what was you going to do with that particular hero. Especially when you are maximizing your stats in a campaign XL scenario.
2) If you "dig" your coastline, it is impossible for the enemy to land from the sea. A hole is seen as an "active" position, and disembarking is not possible. Leave a hero on the last undug position until you get Town Portal. Beware of flying enemies, or those with boots (or spells) of water walking.
This is new to me but I've never had a need for it - most of the visitors from seaside are visible days before they can launch an attack and usually it's enough to prepare.
3) Fed up with collecting cheap artefacts? Equip them in the "Backpack" slots, together with a mega artefact. In a town with an Artefact Merchant, select, "Sell Artefact", select the biggie, then scroll the backpack onto a minor one. The selling price stays the same. You can even sell scrolls this way (useful for random maps which are always littered with scrolls).
Cheater! :devious:
4) You will always get your turn first each day (SP), so if you take a town on day 1 the enemy can't recruit the creatures for that week to help defend it.
That's so obvious, I'm sure any Heroes player has already figured that out on their own. :)
5) If you go through a whirlpool, you will always lose half of your weakest stack. So always split off 1 creature and wave (sic) him goodbye.
Interesting, I'll try this out!
6) You can place troops at any mine to guard them - sometimes this is useful as a place to park them for collection, and cuts down on "hero chains".
Yes, but I've never used them for chaining - it's easier to hire secondary heroes who do the stuff. Of course, there might be exceptions.
7) Any Hero giving a 350gp / day bonus will pay for himself in 10 days. After that you are in profit. His troops are useful as well, and sometimes the war machines are useful.
Of course! I hire one always when I see him.
11) (A bit picky), if you have a choice between a mine or a loose resource with your last part of movement, always take the mine (unless you MUST have several of the loose resource NOW. The mine will give you one at the start of the next day, and you still get the loose ones.
Also quite obvious but usually it doesn't matter, except the beginning of a new map. I must admit sometimes I make this mistake anyway.
12) If an enemy Inferno has the grail built, there will be no more Plague weeks (every week is week of the imp). Let the neutral imps grow on the map for more xp. If you are playing Necro, try and recruit them with an Expert Diplomacy hero and transform them into skeletons.
Possible but the chances that all the imps will join you and the spent time for gathering them and then transforming into skeletons might be not worth it. Depends on the situation.
13) If playing Rampart, maximise the Miners Guild. Sell unwanted resources / artefacts on day 7 to boost the 10% bonus. Note that the 10% is cumulative for each guild (20% for 2 guilds, 30% for three etc.) If you are playing hot seat allies against PC, you can "give" money to your Rampart ally, and they can give you some back with interest!
Let's just put it this way - never make big purchases in weekends, do it in Mondays. The more Rampart towns you own, the faster your money will grow. If you happen to own about 10 Rampart towns in a XL map, you'll get millions in no time if will play carefully.

I think having 7 stacks is a must all the time - even if you're losing your opponent will have to spend one more attack for your extra stack. There's also this cheap tactic if a stronger hero with lots of mana is coming towards your town. Hire some weaklings, split them in 7 stacks and let the AI to cast on them some implosion spells, it really enjoys to do so. :D After some time he'll have almost no mana left and you can take him out easily.

Here, let me add one more I've learned from Pacifist. If you have lots of gold and taverns around the map, you can move your hero, then dismiss him, use your secondary heroes to rehire him and he will have full bar of movement points. This can be repeated as much as you want, with a note that there are quite a lot taverns around, your hero can move a lot, and you have lots of money and secondary heroes who can rehire your main hero. I remember there was once a H3 contest here at CH and I and Pacifist were the main rivals. Back then I was amazed how he could finish one medium sized hard map on impossible within just some 20 days. As he explained me later, at one point he was able to finish the map within one day, just keeping dismissing and rehiring his hero. :)

User avatar
kitcat0
Scout
Scout
Posts: 182
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Location: estonian in Denmark

Unread postby kitcat0 » 27 Sep 2006, 19:46

arturchix wrote:
Here, let me add one more I've learned from Pacifist. If you have lots of gold and taverns around the map, you can move your hero, then dismiss him, use your secondary heroes to rehire him and he will have full bar of movement points. This can be repeated as much as you want, with a note that there are quite a lot taverns around, your hero can move a lot, and you have lots of money and secondary heroes who can rehire your main hero. I remember there was once a H3 contest here at CH and I and Pacifist were the main rivals. Back then I was amazed how he could finish one medium sized hard map on impossible within just some 20 days. As he explained me later, at one point he was able to finish the map within one day, just keeping dismissing and rehiring his hero. :)
I think the map was "Kid Heretic", really fun map and I was also impressed by Pacifists ability to finish it in no time.

User avatar
Paulus1
Archlich
Archlich
Posts: 1128
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Location: Odense, Denmark

Unread postby Paulus1 » 27 Sep 2006, 21:16

Here, let me add one more I've learned from Pacifist. If you have lots of gold and taverns around the map, you can move your hero, then dismiss him, use your secondary heroes to rehire him and he will have full bar of movement points. This can be repeated as much as you want, with a note that there are quite a lot taverns around, your hero can move a lot, and you have lots of money and secondary heroes who can rehire your main hero.
It's a really good trick, but also quite tedious to use, since it can take lots of tries/reloads before your hero shows up.

This is not a really a trick - don't EVER cast Air Shield when attacking a town with arrow towers. There's a bug in the spell mechanism, so you actually take extra damage from the towers.

mr.hackcrag
Round Table Hero
Round Table Hero
Posts: 1525
Joined: 05 Jul 2006

Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 27 Sep 2006, 22:45

Here, let me add one more I've learned from Pacifist. If you have lots of gold and taverns around the map, you can move your hero, then dismiss him, use your secondary heroes to rehire him and he will have full bar of movement points. This can be repeated as much as you want, with a note that there are quite a lot taverns around, your hero can move a lot, and you have lots of money and secondary heroes who can rehire your main hero.
I don't understand how this is possible. When you dismiss your hero, he doesn't become recruitable in the tavern immediately afterwards. On top of that, he'll lose his entire army, so I don't really understand what the heck you're talking about. :| Even more so when you mentioned that this person won a map on day 1. :|

User avatar
Paulus1
Archlich
Archlich
Posts: 1128
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Location: Odense, Denmark

Unread postby Paulus1 » 27 Sep 2006, 22:53

You just need a lot of patience and some gold.

When you dismiss your hero, he is added to the big pool of available heroes.
So you can keep hiring (and dismissing) heroes, until the right one shows up in tavern.

Of course you relieve him of his army before dismissing him. The big point in this is, that he will have full movement when hired again.

And Pacifist didn't beat the map on day 1 (though he beat another contest map in 2 days), but after 20 days, he was able to finish the rest of within the same day, due to the rehiring trick. I think he captured a town with one way portals to key locations at day 20, and could reach all important parts of the map from that location.

mr.hackcrag
Round Table Hero
Round Table Hero
Posts: 1525
Joined: 05 Jul 2006

Unread postby mr.hackcrag » 27 Sep 2006, 23:50

But what I'm trying to say is that if you play on impossible, you won't have enough gold to continually hire heroes until you get the right one, especially if it's only on day 2. Do you mean that he loaded his game until he got the right one? Because you would need to have tremedous dedication and have to be a little crazy to do that imo. On top of that, it's cheating. :)

As for the 20 day map, how many other maps are similar in having so many taverns as to make this an effective strategy all the time? It seems unrealistic if you ask me.

User avatar
DaemianLucifer
Round Table Hero
Round Table Hero
Posts: 11282
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Location: City 17

Unread postby DaemianLucifer » 28 Sep 2006, 00:03

Its not cheating,its exploiting.There is a subtle diference.Even though both are just as bad.

User avatar
arturchix
Titan
Titan
Posts: 1352
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Location: Latvia

Unread postby arturchix » 28 Sep 2006, 06:12

kitcat0 wrote: I think the map was "Kid Heretic", really fun map and I was also impressed by Pacifists ability to finish it in no time.
I think you're right - now I seem to remember this name. I found it in the CH map database - really great map and nice work by Charles Watkins. :)
It's a really good trick, but also quite tedious to use, since it can take lots of tries/reloads before your hero shows up.
But in that particular map there were no heroes available from taverns or atleast limited amount. I wonder if the mapmaker did this with a purpose... :D
And Pacifist didn't beat the map on day 1 (though he beat another contest map in 2 days), but after 20 days, he was able to finish the rest of within the same day, due to the rehiring trick. I think he captured a town with one way portals to key locations at day 20, and could reach all important parts of the map from that location.
Correct.

User avatar
kitcat0
Scout
Scout
Posts: 182
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Location: estonian in Denmark

Unread postby kitcat0 » 28 Sep 2006, 09:25

arturchix wrote: But in that particular map there were no heroes available from taverns or atleast limited amount. I wonder if the mapmaker did this with a purpose... :D


If I remember correctly, then there were only Infreno heroes available in tavern and that made things a whole lot easier. Otherwise you can hire a hero and hope that the one that shows up after that is the one you dismissed. That way you only need 5000 gold. If it is not right hero - reload. But that requires a looooooot of time in real life.

User avatar
Monte Cristo
Leprechaun
Leprechaun
Posts: 34
Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Location: Carrig Merlin, Ireland

Unread postby Monte Cristo » 08 Oct 2006, 05:46

On the subject of reloading, one is defeated if you have to use that option. No second chances for the real Hero.
The truth is out there

User avatar
kitcat0
Scout
Scout
Posts: 182
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Location: estonian in Denmark

Unread postby kitcat0 » 08 Oct 2006, 19:31

It was a tournament map and objective was to finish it as fast as possible - all tricks allowed. (Ok, objective was getting the highest score, but it is all connected)

User avatar
xerobull
Leprechaun
Leprechaun
Posts: 12
Joined: 06 Jan 2006

Unread postby xerobull » 26 Oct 2006, 16:15

Very nice- Even though I've been playing HOMM3 since it game out, I wasn't aware of the digging the coastline trick, the artifact exploit, or the wall plugging technique. I always wondered about the Miner's guild stacking. It's good (and useful!) to know that it stacks.

Thanks guys! HOMM3 never gets old!

I'd have to argue that fortifying the coastline by digging seems legit, even though I'm sure the original developers probably didn't intend it. Indeed, this could be an irreversable way to wall yourself in if no town has magic means to bypass it and there are no artifacts that will give you the power to go over the digs. On the legit side, in every war that involved a coast line, the coast line was fortified.


Return to “Heroes I-IV”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 31 guests