Heroes Of Might and Magic

[Father Beast]

I have HOMM 1 and 2, and the demo for 3. I have this problem where I do good on the tutorial, but I keep getting conquered whenever I start a regular game. it seems that I'm expanding just fine, and all of a sudden someone shows up and conquers my home town. I get it back fast enough, but others come along and pound me until I'm gone.
What is the best way to go? What am I doing Wrong? Do I need more heroes or towns, or just to knock over all the goodies first?

[Urban Ranger]

Hard to say. I usually don't expand that fast, go around knocking down the good stuff, have a stack defending my own castle and another one out wandering around, just in case some of the locations got run over by an opponent.

You have to find out where the other people are and knock them down first.

[Richard Bruns]

In HOMM 3, I always keep a force in my home town that is at least two week's worth of production, plus a decent hero to garrison.

The hardest part of the game, and the one that decides the outcome, is that first battle between decent heroes. If you can eliminate the enemy's good hero, any stack led by your good hero will be able to eliminate the stacks led by his low level replacement heroes. Then you start to go on the offensive.

[SuperSneak]

Isn't this game up to version 8 already?
I have 7...got pretty far, then my computer died.
Haven't had the energy (or patient GF) to reload and start over.
Try a newer version...they are cool.

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Bring it!

"How ridiculous and how strange, to be surprised by anything that happens in life." Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
Chief Revealer of Personal Foibles

That's Might and Magic, the RPG. This is Heroes of Might and Magic, the light-hearted Strategy Game. Not to be confused with Crusaders of Might and Magic, the crappy fantasy-themed action game, or Legends of Might and Magic, the forthcoming MMRPG.

[Urban Ranger]

Another thing to do is to keep taking over your opponents special locations (gold mines, etc.). It serves two purposes. First, to decrease their income and increase yours. Second, if they send wimpy stacks out you can run those over, weakening them further.

[bondetamp]

Expert Earth Magic and Townportal. It saves the day for me.

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-bondetamp
but you may call me sir.

[Father Beast]

Thanks, guys, I'll have to try some of those. I know that I always get irritated when some enemy army comes and takes over my mines and mills and so forth.
one of my big problems is having enough creatures to fill an army. There's always a bunch of low level critters (peasants, goblins, or their counterparts) but when a stack of 80 of them got wiped by a couple of unicorns, I lost interest in using their kind.
If I build enough improvements (is that what they're called?), I don't have the cash to hire enough monsters. If I do have cash, it seems my hero uses up the monsters in various enounters so that he has to play around for a day or 2 waiting for the dwellings to refill.
having enough monsters for a garrison and a travelling army seems to be a pain.

How large is HOMM2? I was wondering if I could find it anywhere as abandonware...

[Urban Ranger]

Father Beast,

Definitely wait for the high level monsters, the sole exception is Pixie (or whatever it's called) because of it's special ability (no retaliation).

You should always try to improve your towns, I ususally give rangestrikers the first priority. Also don't forget about the Wizard Towers.

[Urban Ranger]

quote: Originally posted by Dr_Strangelove on 12-23-2000 09:49 PM How large is HOMM2? I was wondering if I could find it anywhere as abandonware...

It's not abandonware I'm afraid. 3DO came out with HoMM: Millenium Edition that included HoMM 1, 2, and 3, plus HoMM 2: The Price of Loyalty.

[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited December 25, 2000).]

Damn. I really wanted that game, but it's nowhere to be found in BA.

[Urban Ranger]

C'mon, pay for the compilation. Three games and an expansion for the price of one. Great value for the money, really.

[Urban Ranger]

Youngsun,

Hi there. You have escaped from the land of Shogun, after being sucked into your monitor?

I have played some HoMM though I haven't played all that much to know the different between all the top level monsters, esp I had no idea that bone dragons suck

P.S. What about other ones from HoMM 3, such as archangels and archdevils?
[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited December 26, 2000).]

[Youngsun]

Long time no see Urban Ranger! you're now emperor(my gosh)

Once I played this game to death it's so addictive!

My tactics were simple. I always get the right resource for building upgrade for the earliest possible moment(sulfur for warlock etc.)then tossing my major force between hero to hero it's like a relay of force.

Whenever serious threat comes near my border I activate this relay system to deliver the force to the threatened sector quickly.

If I got right unit stack for major conquest I sent my best hero(usually Barbarians cuz they get higher attack bonus as they become more experienced)to enemy castles.

Black dragons rule and so cost-effective.
Titans are good but expensive.
Phoenix can be deadly with righr mix of magic but too fragile.
Vampire lords ,if you have many, can kill almost anything.
Bone Dragons suck.
Crusaders are just alright.
Cyclops? Hmmm just so-so.

You have to choose which hero is going to be your best hero and invest on him/her heavily then the investment will be paid off. Having many good heros are the key for easy victory.

[Youngsun]

Well I haven't played Shogun for a long time my friend.
(as you know that game has zero replayability)

I tried only HOMM & HOMM2 so don't have any idea about HOMM3 but heard that it is a very nice game.

[St Leo]

Definitely wait for the high level monsters, the sole exception is Pixie (or whatever it's called) because of it's special ability (no retaliation).

Thank you very much, but I will go for Halflings instead (especially against the AI in late game when I have Titans ).

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St. Leo
http://www.sidgames.com/hosted/ziggurat/
http://www.sidgames.com/forums/

[Urban Ranger]

Nah, titans are too expensive at 2G+5000. I could have 3 phoenixes which beat up a titan.

1. 3 phoenixes don#t beat up a titan.

2. sometimes you don't have 3 phoenixes left in the tower, and time is the most important resource in that game, so 1 titan is better

3. rumor has it they're working on HOMM 4... I hope they'll get some of the AOW features in it

[Urban Ranger]

1. You need to use your strengthes against your enemies' weaknesses, not the other way around

2. What tower?

3. Never could get into HoMM...

[Youngsun]

I would say it all depends on how many gem mines you control. If you have heaps of them with enough money then go for titan. In small map, when two people fight and one controls wizard and the other does sorceress, I bet my money on sorceress due to sheer might of medium to basic monsters which can be produced from sorceress castle. However in large map, with lots of resource and enough time to build up your army then wizard rocks! nothing can stop army of titan except black dragons.

[axi]

To me HoMM is for fantasy what civ is for historic strategy games: the saga!

I was a Heroes2 player but I bought Heroes3+Armageddon's Blade really cheap and it is just gorgeous! In the past 3 days I have only played the 1st scenario of the Restiration of Erathia campaingn. All the other time I've spent loading and unloading scenarios, gazing at the adventure map, the monsters and the towns: they're awesome! If Heroes2 was cartoonish, Heroes3 is photorealistic. All towns are immensely beautiful, even the evil ones.

I don't know yet which I prefer, Heroes3 however seems to have a more complete gameplay. They say the AI is better and that it's more balanced (i.e. no ghost sleaze). What I see is that they have made a popularity contest among the monsters of Heroes2 and have put the best of them into the most prominent position, while the most unbalanced ones were corrected/gotten rid of. (see trolls and peasants). Oh and the combinations in the 8 alignments make more sense now.

The best HoMM site i've found is: http://www.astralwizard.com/

If there is a HoMM4, I would like to see a change in the combat calculations. Units should have different attack/defense ratings in melee and range combat and also against air/land, hard/soft targets, big/small creatures. I was thinking about a Panzer General type calc system. Swordsmen cannot attack dragons, because swordsmen cannot fly. Human archers cannot even scratch iron golems: an arrow is an arrow; not an antitank weapon!

And yes Titans are worth their money, at least against the AI: in Heroes2 they attract all the fire and let all the other units slay in peace. Also when surrounded by enemies, it's time for a high power cold ring! Not to mention that enemy dragons surrounding a stack of Titans finally end up killing eachother with their 2square attacks. My army containing 88 Titans (and 200 Champions, and 36 Magi and 3 more stacks) once beat the crap out of a castle with 130 Black Dragons (and 50 Bone Dragons and 46 Vampires and 3 more stacks). The enemy used to cast Armageddon each turn! That was a cool battle, at the end of an XL map!

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"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 02-13-2001 10:22 PM 1. You need to use your strengthes against your enemies' weaknesses, not the other way around 2. What tower? 3. Never could get into HoMM...

you spammer

[Urban Ranger]

quote: Originally posted by axi on 02-14-2001 07:04 PM My army containing 88 Titans (and 200 Champions, and 36 Magi and 3 more stacks) once beat the crap out of a castle with 130 Black Dragons (and 50 Bone Dragons and 46 Vampires and 3 more stacks)

This is, you know, a bit over the board, isn't it?

But it's not something adding maintenance costs wouldn't solve

[Youngsun]

my modem is very ill you know...
[This message has been edited by Youngsun (edited February 15, 2001).]

[Youngsun]

quote: The enemy used to cast Armageddon each turn! That was a cool battle, at the end of an XL map!

haha! the enemy must be one of those spell casters(possibly warlock or wizard)regarding series of Armageddon attack. Black dragons are the best when lead by an experienced barbarian who is likely to have extremly high attack stat.

Erm... you guys do know that something like 130% is the highest bonus on firepower a unit can get when attacking one with lower defense strength than the attacking unit's attack strength.. that means, more than a difference of 26 between attacker's attack strength and defender's defense strength is just waste of experience

I don't know whether it's 130% (5% per attack-defense) is the actual max bonus, but it's something like that.

[axi]

About that battle: Sorry, I didn't remember the figures correctly: I was a 16-14-12-24 Wizard with 88 Titans (2 even stacks), 220 Archmagi (2 even stacks) and 208 Champions. He was a 13-7-11-14 Warlock with 135 Griffins, 132 Black Dragons, 108 Minotaur Kings, 50 Bone Dragons and 50 Ghosts. It was a warlock castle. It was on the first day of the third week of the 5th month, Slayer Legacy scenario, downloaded from the Astral Wizard.

Overkill? Of course. Introducing maintenance costs would be swell indeed.

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"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

[Father Beast]

Back to this great game...

I just stayed up most of the night playing Homm1, and FINALLY finished the "around the bay" map on simple. I had some problems when my expansion got met by the other guy (the big one), and pushed back. I really started feeling bad when he came to me and conquered my starting castle and a couple others nearby (my first 3 castles) while my bad a** hero was at the other end of the map, pushing forward.
But the turning point did come. I think it was when I was barely holding on to a border city, and loaded a middling hero down with range creatures. and attacked my city they had just took with a few meteor shower spells. it was close, but I won with about 20 orcs left over.
Then - Wow! I discovered I had gained about 6 artifacts with that win. must have been THEIR tough hero.
After that, it was just a matter of time. I just knocked over their heroes whenever they came out to play, and took over the map. I felt Like Lord Ironfist!

some things I've learned.
I find it best to have 1 hero for each 2 cities and areas. he skims the best of the two for his army, leaves the rest for garrison.
Whenever someones coming to conquer my city, I always make sure that I buy everyone in town. it makes it a bit harder for them to conquer (and you might win! I once won a siege with 1 unicorn left), and they can't buy any reinforcements when they conquer. makes it that much easier to take back.

well, that's what I've learned

[Father Beast]

Oh, and by the way, they are making HOMMIV. I read a preview in CGW.

among the features:
Heroes will get out and fight
can have more than one hero per army
armies can set forth without heroes

7 castle types, only 6 have magic, 6th is Stronghold, with attack bonuses.


I can look it up and tell more if you guys are interested