[Heroes III] Handicap

The old Heroes games developed by New World Computing. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
Thorjac
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[Heroes III] Handicap

Unread postby Thorjac » 29 Oct 2014, 07:58

Hey there, just joined the forums. :)

I've been testing out the Handicap function in Heroes III.
I assume most of this is well known, but I'll just give it a go anyway.

Just for reference, here's a table of standard starting resources:
Image

Mild Handicap reduces all starting resources and all resource income by 15%*
Severe Handicap reduces all starting resources and all resource income by 30%*
*This amount is always rounded down.

Effectively this means that while Gold income is always reduced by approximately 15/30%, the income of other resources is a bit more tricky.
This is because resource income is usually dealing with very small numbers.

Here's a table showing the effects of Handicap on resource income:
Image
With both Mild and Severe Handicap a single Wood and Ore mine would give only 1 resource, while a single precious resource mine would give 0 resources. Considering that most maps only have one of each mine in the starting area, this may be a much larger handicap than initially expected.
Luckily, multiple sources of income for the same resource add up.
This includes mines, Resource Silo, Estates, Hero Specialty, and Artifacts. So although it may not seem worth it to even claim mines with Handicap in the beginning of the game, if you buy a Resource Silo and get the matching mine, you will have an income of 1 resource. The same applies if you get the opportunity to buy a hero with a resource specialty. This is certainly better than no income.

Handicap affects all sources of daily income. This also includes mines, Resource Silo, Estates, Hero Specialty, and Artifacts.
It does not affect Experience gain. Nor does it affect weekly resource generators, Creature Bank rewards, Resource pick up, Marketplace trading, and lastly, it does not affect the Rampart Treasury.

Interestingly, though, it does affect the Rampart Mystic Pond. The Mystic Pond gives between 1-4 of a random precious resource at the beginning of every week. It seems that these resources take the same penalties as daily resource income, and are even added onto the daily income when determining the effective income for the day. This means that at 30% Handicap with no other income, the Mystic Pond would effectively only give between 0-2 resources. On the other hand, if you already have 1 income of a resource, the income for that resource for the day would instead be between 1-3 with Mystic Pond.

I hope this has been of some help.
I had a lot of fun testing this out, and would love some feedback. :)

Solmyr
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Re: [Heroes III] Handicap

Unread postby Solmyr » 17 Feb 2019, 02:50

I signed up just to reply to this 4+ year old post. Thanks for the great info, I've played a LOT of Heroes 3 over the years and this was not common knowledge to me. Specifically the thing about handicap affecting income, since the game only says it affects starting resources. This info is also apparently not in the wiki at thelazy, which in my experience is generally the best Heroes 3 source.

I searched for this after discovering I was getting zero mercury per day despite having an inferno resource silo in a hot seat game where I have handicap turned on. The always rounding down makes this particularly brutal! It confused me since, again, the game says it only affects starting resources but as it turns out the income element is actually much more important!

One question (if you're still out there): what version of the game did you test this with? I've only played Horn of the Abyss for the last few years and I'm wondering if this might be part of that and not in the original game/expansions.
Last edited by Solmyr on 17 Feb 2019, 02:50, edited 1 time in total.

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Pol
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Re: [Heroes III] Handicap

Unread postby Pol » 17 Feb 2019, 07:25

Out of curiosity I run a quick Hot Seat game with HDMod and it works exactly as described. The reason why is not too much mentioned anywhere could be because Handicap option is available only in MP.
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