H3:What should be built first under expert difficulty?

[Kildars]

@Banedon
I am beginning to like Rampart faction! If you can remember it could please give me a specific order of your building? I played map "Crimson and Clover"(or something like that) and I tried to rush the troops, it was a very poor map, and building the Unicorn Glade wasn't possible in early game...I wasn't even able to build Capitol smoothly, not until I captured the second town. It would be nice to have Dradons in the 3rd week...

@Jolly Joker
Hey, might I ask why you didn't write the guides for Tower and especially, Conflux? The Tower town is ok, not so interesting to me and all, but I would dearly read some sort of guide for Conflux town~wouldn't you write it? I tell you, your guides are great no matter what although I have only read about Castle. If you are still running this game we could some time play it online...

[Jolly Joker]

I have Wog installed since you don't need the disc for that, but I don't play anymore because I've come to dislike WoG for some aspects of the game.
Anyway, you might read the Rampart guide as well - it will serve you well on a poor map.

Anyway, I'd never do a Conflux guide because I loathe that town. A guide is basically rather easy. Play a magic hero and develop the starting skilll to expert. Grade Pixies up and blitz everything. The few air Elementals your heroes will come with serve as decoys in tougher battles. You don't need Storm Elementals at all for most map stacks. Of course MG level 1 and 2 can't hurt. Anyway, your heroes will have an insane speed.

For tower I had it started, but somehow my time for writing guides was out - I simply didn't get to it anymore.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Conflux is such a stupid, badly designed town that beyond lowering Phoenix growth, it's pointless to balance it out.

4 units are immune to fire/armageddon = can't balance that out.
Makes Fireball, Inferno, Blind, Berserk, & Curse spells too weak vs that faction. Already 1 faction is immune to Blind, why one more?
Magic university = can't do a thing there either.
Basic 4 elemental units = Can't touch them because they are summoned by their respective level 5 spells, available to all factions. And as a summoned unit, they are pretty well balanced.
Planewalkers's creature bonuses are above an beyond most creature specialists' bonus.
Elementalists are broken.
Grail structure, as already mentioned.
And more.

Thankfully, if you play SOD or Complete, you can take it out of your heroes 3 experience by simply removing/hiding the data files with "AB" from the data folder, it will fool H3 into thinking AB isn't installed.
- Conflux will become un-selectable at game startup
- Neutral Random towns won't spawn into Conflux
- Conflux heroes won't show up at taverns.


In my balance patch though I still reduced Firebird growth because it caused a problem even without Conflux town - the map dwelling produced too much of them.

I, along with JollyJoker, loathed the Conflux ever since I bought AB when it came out, so this needed repeating.

Conflux is so umbalanced that it should not even be part of any SERIOUS H3 strategy discussion.

[Pol]

Conflux is so umbalanced that it should not even be part of any SERIOUS H3 strategy discussion.

As long as the Conflux is part of Homm3, it should be mentioned everywhere. It's having fairly unique, even if not balanced, concept. Still it's part of the game.

Faster building is of course better, but it's always depends on what all is grabbable in your nearest area. The strategy must be tailored to the terrain/resource factor.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Conflux is so umbalanced that it should not even be part of any SERIOUS H3 strategy discussion.

As long as the Conflux is part of Homm3, it should be mentioned everywhere. It's having fairly unique, even if not balanced, concept. Still it's part of the game.

BUT as I mentioned, it also has a very interesting disctinction of being OPTIONAL to Homm3. So, it's not *necessarily* part of the game. It may be part of *your* game, but not necessarily every Homm3's player's game. Same goes with every new faction added to expansion packs in general.

So since it's not necessarily included in HOMM3, it does not have to be mentioned *everywhere* like you said.

If playing SOD with AB uninstalled (like I did ever since I got SOD), Conflux will be unselectable. No other towns can be un-selectable. If I hated the Dungeon town for example, there is to way I could take it out of my HOMM3 and claim it's not part of my HOMM3 game.

And "Uninstalling" AB is simply a matter of renaming the six files that start with "H3AB*.*" in the data folder.

That way, not even neutral random towns can spawn into Conflux.

There, gone! Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Conflux. Nowadays, the only time I ever hear about it is when I read forums.

[Jolly Joker]

Yes.

Even though I have to admit, I made one of my finest plays ever with Conflux. You may find that an interesting story, so I'm telling it here.

Back in the old days of the 3do board, when - after a very successful individual community tourney featuring maps made specifically for the event - the community decided to do a team tourney (2 vs 2). Before the start of that tourney it was requested to ban the Conflux for the event, but the tourney direction decided to wait the first round and look what would happen.
What happened was, of course, that nearly every team featured at least one Conflux and some even 2. Maps were again made specifically for the event and downloaded by the host immediately before game start only.
My partner and I decided to go for the Dungeon/Conflux combo for very good reasons (not knowing what map would await us). I would play the Flux, my partner the Dungeon.
Our opponents went for a no-nonsense double Flux - which has advantages and disadvantages -, but as it went it couldn't have been much worse for us.
The map wasn't bad as such, by no means. It just had the snag that it featured a randomly placed grail that was not to be found on what I would call "neutral" or "contested" terrain, simply because there was no such terrain. Terrain would be either team 1 or team 2, connection between team terrains was via Portals. Consequentially all games of the first round were won by the team that had the grail on their side of the map - all games except one, that is.
After the first few days and monolith visits we had no trouble to realize that the Grail was NOT on our side, which meant that SPEED and surprise was the one slim hope we had. Since the way lead through a portal combining forces would be possible and pay - our only hope was that the opponents - knowing that the Grail was theirs - would take it, well, easy, and NOT blitz like mad, taking their time, massing a decisive troop advantage.
Later, after finishing the game and analyzing it was clear that they had hired heroes like hell and dug the thing out extremely early.
However, my magic hero (don't know which one, might be Grindan or Ciele) really blitzed our map part (it was an M map, of course) only with Sprites and Spells, and since we could go only for one town's full mage guild we decided for the Dungeon's in which the blitzing hero ended, luckily acquiring Town Portal.
If I remember right my hero stormed at the end of week 3 into opposing territory and surprised the opposition completely, taking a Flux, but sadly the wrong one (without the grail) - there was no choice.
Even with that Flux taken (not many captives there), and a possibility to grade my Firebirds up, chances were non-existant. The opponent had the grail, still more troops AND the opposing main hero had better casting stats, which didn't make it an option to stay in town and wait it out (remember the Titan's Lightning spell the grail hands out, for example?). Waiting in town would lead to the opposing Shooters and Phoenixes attack my Magic Elementals, while the damage spells would do the rest.
If I wanted to have a chance at all I'd need a free battlefield and make my better might stats felt.
So I simply advanced brazenly into the direction of the 2nd town - and of course the opponent couldn't resist fighting me on open terrain.
I still won the battle, leaving the opponents stunned. Conflux was fairly new then and not so well known, and I supported my ploy by battling high speed and without hesitation, trying to tempt the opponent to follow suit, unthinkingly - after all, he had the advantage. Knowing that the Phoenixes were toast anyway, after losing 3 with Titan's Lightning immediately, I sacrificed them, flying to the opposing line attacking their Magic Elementals. The opponent took the chance decimating them for a resurrection from the ashes - and on round two, after wreaking as much havoc with them as possible and making sure the opposing Magic Elementals were killed I slipped into the circle of units round the ash pile with my Magic Elementals which held supreme reign now since I had the better might stats and they were magically immune.
My losing opponent was fair. He admitted to his mistake, having taken the bait unthinkingly.

In the end I think that the opponents lost the game because the dice were loaded too much in their favor - they basically had already won the game on day 5 or so and all they needed was to play straight down the middle.

Very memorable game. I was pround of that one.

As a sidenote, and just to show that I make mistakes as well (and pretty bad ones; I was really ashamed of it): In another game of that tourney, when we played Tower/Fortress against Dungeon/Rampart (I was Tower), we were CLEARLY, CLEARLY winning, when I simply got to greedy with my main hero who had a very meagre force venturing very far into opposing turf to secure a nice artifact. I did secure the artifact, but the opposing main hero caught me - and had the Shackles. Bad play.
I survived the game, if I remember right, but didn't play any role anymore - except the fact that I shipped my Titans to the Fortress.
Anyway, that game was, then, won by my partner and by him alone - and I may add that the opposition didn't have a chance against his superior Tazar, albeit the Dungeon player was sure he'd win.

P.S.: Conflux was OF COURSE banned after the first round.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

I seem to recall that the Necropolis was also banned in some tourneys, am I right?

If that was the case, was it because they took too long to finish their turns (because they have to fight every stack)? It certainly cannot be because of they being too strong...

[Humakt]

Interesting read JJ. Sounds like it was bad and extremely unbalanced map you played.

[Angelspit]

Good game report JJ, interesting read.

[Jolly Joker]

Writing this down I realize that this is just, well, 8 years or so back. Incredible.

At that time I was regularly playing MP with a high quality 4-some: Blackdog, Grasshopper, Ungoliant and me. I was the only European and used to get up at 5 in the morning, about 3 days a week, start the machine and play until 9 or so - when it was, like, 3 in the night for Blackdog, I think, who was living on the East coast.

Games were generally very high quality. For example, when I played Dungeon once (with a Warlock as my main hero) I lucked out, getting Armageddon AND Implosion in my guild (for explanation, we played a SoD map which featured very difficult terrain maps that you'd need time to traverse, so games tended to be long, but of course we played all 4 extremely high speed) and decided to make what might look like a rather ambitious Armageddon run with a couple of Black Dragons against Ungo playing Rampart. I was pretty sure he would NOT come with an army, but use his Gold Dragons to battle me - which I would Implode, of course.

Not a bad plan, but Ungo smelled the rat - he knew, of course, that I wouldn't come with Armageddon alone against Goldies - and had JUST the right counter. I don't know where he got them - a refugee camp or a second or third town developed, no idea - but he came with Gold Dragons AND a few Ancient Behemoths, which made quite a difference with the handful of Dragons we both had. I had to flee - after we lost most of our main troops, which would look like the game was over for us, but of course it wasn't since the other two now could dismiss us as sufficiently weakened and take care of each other.

I really miss that playing round. Nice atmosphere, all high speed talkers and jokers as well, and by the time I had my 2nd cup of coffee I could compete in that department as well.

[Banedon]

Two things JollyJoker:

I still won the battle, leaving the opponents stunned. Conflux was fairly new then and not so well known, and I supported my ploy by battling high speed and without hesitation, trying to tempt the opponent to follow suit, unthinkingly - after all, he had the advantage. Knowing that the Phoenixes were toast anyway, after losing 3 with Titan's Lightning immediately, I sacrificed them, flying to the opposing line attacking their Magic Elementals. The opponent took the chance decimating them for a resurrection from the ashes - and on round two, after wreaking as much havoc with them as possible and making sure the opposing Magic Elementals were killed I slipped into the circle of units round the ash pile with my Magic Elementals which held supreme reign now since I had the better might stats and they were magically immune.

In a game where Conflux isn't banned and it's possible to dig up the grail so quickly, the only thing I can say is your opponents played terribly. Extremely terribly. With the Aurora Borealis behind them, all they had to do to win was to kamikaze single heroes with 7 Sprites into you, casting Titan's Lightning Bolt over and over, until you folded. Such a tactic would normally be banned, but when Conflux is allowed, I don't think it is

Not a bad plan, but Ungo smelled the rat - he knew, of course, that I wouldn't come with Armageddon alone against Goldies - and had JUST the right counter. I don't know where he got them - a refugee camp or a second or third town developed, no idea - but he came with Gold Dragons AND a few Ancient Behemoths, which made quite a difference with the handful of Dragons we both had. I had to flee - after we lost most of our main troops, which would look like the game was over for us, but of course it wasn't since the other two now could dismiss us as sufficiently weakened and take care of each other.

Split Black Dragons before fighting.
Gold Dragons move first, they can do whatever they want, it won't matter much.
Black Dragons move next. Cast Implosion on Gold Dragons. Defend.
Ancient Behemoths shamble forward.
Next round.
Gold Dragons move first, what they do still doesn't matter.
Black Dragons move next. Cast Implosion on Gold Dragons. All the Gold Dragons are dead (or should be, since you wrote that there were only a 'handful' of Dragons on both sides).
And then here's the best part: surrender. He can't stop you, you've only a 'handful' of Dragons so you won't lose much Gold. You seriously weaken him yet not yourself.

Ungo can't do anything about it - well, maybe he could cast Haste or had Tactics or something, but in either case you can extract a greater toll on him than him on you. I don't know the exact situation on the battlefield, but it seems to me you could've done much better with little problems.

[Muszka]

Interesting.
I've read those guides, and they are great for noobs -> mediocre player. Others don't need guieds anyway. So no matter what Banedon says, good work JJ. Congrat.

About the topic's question, I say, that on Expert I would go for a shooter (like: marksmen, grand elf, mgremlin, evil eye, magog, lich, lizardw, storme) with a melee(halb, Ccaptain, obsgarg, harpyh, cerberi, dragonfly, sprite) unit as protector, or just cannon fodder. Then for City Hall. Then one or two more units depending on town and map. Then capitol.
Obviously I tend to do Castle on week 1 along with Mage Guild lvl1 'cos contrary to Banedon I find it important to have a bless or haste or slow or magic arrow in my pocket against the neutrals, cos in my eye they can do the enough difference in the first week of play.
As for the units there are some whitch ones upgrade is essential and some that are optional. For example Gremlins and sprites are almoust useless, while their upg. Can win you every fight in the first one or two weeks. But if you have for example gargoyles or pikemens, their upg won't give that plus what worths an early day build.
I intentionall left Stroghold creatures out, 'cos if possible I would go for Behemots directly cos they only need wolf den, cliff nest (supposedly goblin b. is prebuilt). And as soon as possible Upg. the behemots 'cos after they got they power almost doubled.

Furthermost I say that with time every player will learn to recognize, that in a specific situation what is better. (If not, than this game isn't for him) but till then he could live with some general tactics, that worked for most of us.

But I mostly tend to say that a guide is a help for general play, if a guide is for a special map, then it becomes a walktrough.

@Banedon
Please don't get me wrong, I do respect your Round Table Knigh status, but somebody once said: "As soon as somebady can make difference between bad and good advice, than this somebody doesn't need any advice at all."t

[Jolly Joker]

Two things JollyJoker:

I still won the battle, leaving the opponents stunned. Conflux was fairly new then and not so well known, and I supported my ploy by battling high speed and without hesitation, trying to tempt the opponent to follow suit, unthinkingly - after all, he had the advantage. Knowing that the Phoenixes were toast anyway, after losing 3 with Titan's Lightning immediately, I sacrificed them, flying to the opposing line attacking their Magic Elementals. The opponent took the chance decimating them for a resurrection from the ashes - and on round two, after wreaking as much havoc with them as possible and making sure the opposing Magic Elementals were killed I slipped into the circle of units round the ash pile with my Magic Elementals which held supreme reign now since I had the better might stats and they were magically immune.

In a game where Conflux isn't banned and it's possible to dig up the grail so quickly, the only thing I can say is your opponents played terribly. Extremely terribly. With the Aurora Borealis behind them, all they had to do to win was to kamikaze single heroes with 7 Sprites into you, casting Titan's Lightning Bolt over and over, until you folded. Such a tactic would normally be banned, but when Conflux is allowed, I don't think it is

Not a bad plan, but Ungo smelled the rat - he knew, of course, that I wouldn't come with Armageddon alone against Goldies - and had JUST the right counter. I don't know where he got them - a refugee camp or a second or third town developed, no idea - but he came with Gold Dragons AND a few Ancient Behemoths, which made quite a difference with the handful of Dragons we both had. I had to flee - after we lost most of our main troops, which would look like the game was over for us, but of course it wasn't since the other two now could dismiss us as sufficiently weakened and take care of each other.

Split Black Dragons before fighting.
Gold Dragons move first, they can do whatever they want, it won't matter much.
Black Dragons move next. Cast Implosion on Gold Dragons. Defend.
Ancient Behemoths shamble forward.
Next round.
Gold Dragons move first, what they do still doesn't matter.
Black Dragons move next. Cast Implosion on Gold Dragons. All the Gold Dragons are dead (or should be, since you wrote that there were only a 'handful' of Dragons on both sides).
And then here's the best part: surrender. He can't stop you, you've only a 'handful' of Dragons so you won't lose much Gold. You seriously weaken him yet not yourself.

Ungo can't do anything about it - well, maybe he could cast Haste or had Tactics or something, but in either case you can extract a greater toll on him than him on you. I don't know the exact situation on the battlefield, but it seems to me you could've done much better with little problems.

Two answers Banedon.

I fail to see what is so terrible in NOT sending useless kamikaze heroes with useless spells against a team playing Conflux and Dungeon, in short, towns with more then enough creatures immune to that spell, or any other for the kamikaze matter. In a 4-player mp game I would call this a waste of time and therefore an insult of all players.
The correct thing here is simply to play straight on, kill every monster fast, picking up artifacts and train heroes as well as possible, then lead a nice and obviously superior army to victory.

For the other thing. For someone keen on kamikaze immune creatures with spells you show remarkably low appreciation for what spells can do. A simple Haste and the Behemoths aren't shambling anymore. a simple Teleport does the trick as well. Clone isn't so good either.
And of course it get's a bit annoying when the opponent splits HIS Dragons as well.
And of course I DID extract a toll on him. But he as well on me - after all I had to flee back home. And it was a 4-player game, remember? So the point wasn't reducing dragons - the point was to try and be offensive in a 4-player game without leaving home unguarded against some sort of attack by another player.

Frankly, I don't even know why I write this. You know everything so much better...

[Banedon]

@Banedon
Please don't get me wrong, I do respect your Round Table Knigh status, but somebody once said: "As soon as somebady can make difference between bad and good advice, than this somebody doesn't need any advice at all."

That's not a problem Muszka, it's not that I'm always right after all. Also of course, whatever works for you is good

I fail to see what is so terrible in NOT sending useless kamikaze heroes with useless spells against a team playing Conflux and Dungeon, in short, towns with more then enough creatures immune to that spell, or any other for the kamikaze matter. In a 4-player mp game I would call this a waste of time and therefore an insult of all players.
The correct thing here is simply to play straight on, kill every monster fast, picking up artifacts and train heroes as well as possible, then lead a nice and obviously superior army to victory.

Hey, it's a tournament. You play to win the game. If you're playing such as not to be an insult to all players, you should ban Conflux outright. If you allow Conflux - and allow the Grail to be dug up so quickly and easily - then you also allow kamikaze heroes tossing Titan's Lightning Bolt and killing 3 Phoenixes every suicide attack. The process can be repeated ad infinitum as well, until you have zero units left that are vulnerable to Titan's Lightning Bolt.

Your opponent obviously did not utilize this tactic or else you wouldn't have any Phoenixes in the final battle, yet you 'lost' 3 against Titan's Lightning Bolt there. If he'd just abused the Aurora Borealis (and the loopholes in the tournament rules) a bit more he would've made a very comfortable victory.

For the other thing. For someone keen on kamikaze immune creatures with spells you show remarkably low appreciation for what spells can do. A simple Haste and the Behemoths aren't shambling anymore. a simple Teleport does the trick as well. Clone isn't so good either.
And of course it get's a bit annoying when the opponent splits HIS Dragons as well.
And of course I DID extract a toll on him. But he as well on me - after all I had to flee back home. And it was a 4-player game, remember? So the point wasn't reducing dragons - the point was to try and be offensive in a 4-player game without leaving home unguarded against some sort of attack by another player.

You should still get at least one turn without losing any Black Dragons, unless there're enough Gold Dragons to kill a Black Dragon in a hit (not very likely). Or even if you lose one Black Dragon, you can kill two Gold Dragons with Implosion. I don't see how Haste or Clone or Teleport causes you to lose more units than your opponent. The Ancient Behemoths still aren't going to move before the Black Dragons, nor are they going to kill a Black Dragon in a hit. They might not be able to hit the Black Dragons in the first place.

I'm afraid I really don't get you, but we might be seeing right past each other:

Did he have Tactics? Haste? Teleport?
Just how big were the armies?
How much damage could your Implosion do, as well as how much mana did you have to cast it?

[Jolly Joker]

You mean, AFTER I took the first town? The Kamikazes.
Well. It's a long time gone and I can't remember that much. They had hired out and I don't know about their cash then. I don't know about the exact playing order either. I don't even know how far I was away from the Grail town. They may simply not have thought about it.
Or they felt they couldn't resort to that tactics when they had the grail and the better army. I think, they wanted to end it there and then and were pretty annoyed.
Patch 2.2 banned the spell from the Flux, by the way to make that impossible
For the Black Dragon thing. You can't surrender. I don't know how much money you have in such a game but the surrender cost for a couple dragons are too high anyway to afford, that is, you can't salvage more than one or two dragons at most, if any, which means you wither have to stay until then or simply flee after having done as much damage as possible.
And as I said, if the opponent splits the dragons as well you simply can't implode so many.

[Pol]

Yes, that bug with 'free' Titan's Lightning Bolt offered from Aurora Borelias was corrected if memory serves me good. (Which is likely.)

[UndeadHalfOrc]

From H3SDUpdate.txt:

3. Changes in Version 3.2 - General Updates

Conflux Grail structure now requires the 'Wisdom' skill prerequesite for
spells granted.

Conflux Grail Structure no longer gives 'Titan's Lightning Bolt'.

Corrected the single turn, double casting of spells during combat.

Specific Armageddon's Blade(TM) format maps after the v2.1 update:
A custom Hero with a Spell-book and no spells now functions correctly.

[Banedon]

Well if they cast Titan's Lightning Bolt in the final battle it certainly couldn't have been patch 2.2. With the Aurora Borealis granting 5k gold per turn too chances are they can afford such hero spam with little problems. If I were playing I would probably have multiple scouts out and about with the 7 Sprites soom after digging up the Grail - it's an unstoppable advantage after all.

As for Black Dragons, then stay and Defend and Implode them all one by one. I need the numbers. How many Gold Dragons were there? Black Dragons? Ancient Behemoths? How much gold did you have, when could you safely surrender?