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3. Task sharing between the heroes:
The main hero should spend his time doing only things that number two cannot do himself. The former are usually battling armies, getting artifacts and treasure chests, while the latter are usually occupying mines, picking up resources and exploring Witch huts. Of course, things like visiting learning stones and other skill increasing facilities are common. One more thing should the second guy do - probe trees of knowledge, because they're more valuable later in the game and you don't want to waste their potential in the beginning, when the needed experience can be achieved from a few chests.
4. Experience and advancement handling: a. In witch huts you can get random Basic skill. [Random in sense that level creator cannot affect which skill will it be, but every time the level is started, the skill is set and remains the same for the single playtime.] So, the backup hero has one important role: If your main guy still has some secondary skill slots free, his friend will check every witch hut and sacrifice his free slots to learn what the hut has to offer. Sometimes you might even buy a new hero, if the backup guy has ambitions to become another primary hero. b. Treasure chests and other sources of experience. As the experience needed to gain a level rises with levels already gained, it is pretty obvious, that if you have a hero with some 40000 exp. and his backup guy has some 3000 from stones only, then when ever you run into a treasure chest, you'd better take it by the second guy... Coz getting another +1 skill for your main guy is usually not as good, as getting some +6 for the same price... Okay, sometimes you take them with the main guy, because you desperately need some advanced skill to be upgraded... [Here I strongly recommend checking every now and then, how much the hero needs to advance to next level. Even with 100000+ experience points, the hero sometimes is just a 'chest-far' from next level.] c. The same thing comes with wandering armies... If the backup guy can take them out, let him do it and leave only hard targets to your main guy. There is one exception... If the main guy has a strong army, it is a good strategy to leave him one empty stack when touring the landscape... (The backup guy will carry the seventh army in case it would be needed for a castle siege or enemy hero attack).
Thus, wandering armies can join you. So, if you happen to have a force strong enough to defeat any wandering army, approach those you'd like to join you (or buy, having advanced/expert diplomacy) with the main guy. If they will join you, you can either use them immediately or give them to the backup guy, if they don't fit for the main guy's alignment, combat style or speed. Those armies can be then used by the backup guy as forces to kill other wandering armies and towns for experience, and later maybe to be left as garrisons in captured castles and towns (ogres and similar armies are excellent for this purpose, because their high HPs will either prevent any weaker heroes from attacking your towns or, at least, cause some losses to enemy armies.) d. One more comment on treasure chests - always bear in mind that they're also a good source of GOLD! If you plan to rely on diplomacy or build very expensive structures, it's worth it to take gold with the secondary heroes. In early game, I take all the 1000 gold/500 exp. chests for gold and with the better ones, I go for experience.
Later I shift up and take gold even from the 1500/1000 ones. e. Also, if your secondary hero explores a closed area that you don't want to visit with the main guy (maybe there's nothing important except a few chests, or he's in a hurry to somewhere else), you might grab gold or exp. with the secondary guy even at early stages of the game, where the main hero could profit them, but it'd cost too much time. f. All other sources of experience and skills can be used by more heroes (stones, primary skills increasers and tree of knowledge, which has the same price for all heroes (decided at startup, can be nothing, 10 gems or 2000 gold)). In case that a Tree of Knowledge wants no payment, the level advancement is done immediately (which is why it's better to try those with the backup guys first, because using a tree of knowledge before you already have some 50000 exp. is a real waste - in case that the main hero will probably be near this tree later in the game - if you're sure you'll never get there again, grab the level!. g. Harpies at sea and altar of sacrifice are a good thing. No longer will you just carry around unneeded artifacts and troops that have joined you yet you don't want them. Imagine this: Your hero with some massive army is offered i.e. a throng of demons. You accept, give them immediately to the secondary guy who sacrifices them, getting some two, three levels for them... and this can happen pretty often.
5. Artifacts
Since the hero now has the backpack and can un-equip artifacts, handling them is much easier. There is one general rule: most of the artifacts
COULD be needed later, even if you don't want to use them. Equipping the
Spirit of Oppression (that prevents morale bonuses) would be a nonsense when you have positive morale. But you might run into an enemy that has expert leadership, three medals, visited temple and likes to cast Mirth on expert level. Needless to say, in that battle you'll gladly use the morale preventer.
Since you can now weild only one weapon etc., your backup heroes will probably get some from the captured artifacts, too. Also, only four misc. artifacts can be equipped, so it's imperative that you transfer all gold and resource providing stuff to some secondary guy.
Unwanted artifacts are disposed of at altars of sacrifice, already mentioned above.
6. Movement rules
Movement bonuses for fast armies (the slowest troop determines the bonus) are: 0 for Extra Slow (4) 1 for Slow(5) 2 for Swift or Extra Swift (6-7) 3 for Very Swift(8) 4 for Ultra Swift or Super Swift (9-10) 5 for Quick and faster (11+)
Therefore, having Arch Devils (17) instead of Devils (11) won't help you, but you'll outrun a knight with Archers by 5 tiles/day. The default value is 15 tiles.
[Just came to my mind that this could be a good way to waste your opponent's time - once the enemy wanders onto the edge of your territory, get close enough to him to let him see you. But be sure to have very fast armies, possibly logistics or a movement increasing artifact... and every turn, keep just a few steps ahead of him... And run around the map, wasting the time of the powerful enemy army...
7. Also, use always appropriate heroes! In rough terrain, try to hire somebody with PathFinding, on high seas try hard for Navigation. Get to remember what skills do the nearby witch huts give, let secondary heroes get some experience ASAP to determine the purpose they'll be used for.
8. Secondary skills Advancement
- Magic heroes
A typical hero will start with two levels of secondary skills, which gives him another 22 opportunities. In these, he'll be offered a total of 44 skills to take. The chart below, however, shows how many times will a hero be offered a particular skill in 112 level advancements.
Don't ask me how this number came to existence - only it allows much finer distribution of probabilities than the '44'. A zero indicates that the hero will never be able to learn this skill. I believe that a ten indicates that the hero will reach the expert level quickly... I haven't tested it but it should be that a skill with ten will be offered in every advancement - or was it something like getting the skill to Expert before having all eight slots filled?
Skill Cle War Wit Her Nec Dru Bat Wiz Total
Air Magic 4 2 2 3 3 2 4 5 25
Archery 3 2 3 4 2 5 4 2 25
Armorer 3 1 4 4 2 3 4 1 22
Artillery 2 1 2 4 3 1 4 1 18
Ballistics 4 6 4 6 5 4 6 4 39
Diplomacy 7 4 2 3 4 4 3 4 31
Eagle Eye 6 8 10 4 7 7 5 8 55
Earth Magic 3 4 4 4 5 4 3 4 31
Estates 3 5 1 1 3 3 1 5 22
Fire Magic 2 3 1 5 2 1 2 2 18
First Aid 10 3 1 5 0 7 4 7 37
Intelligence 6 8 7 6 7 7 5 10 56
Leadership 2 3 1 1 0 2 4 4 17
Learning 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 32
Logistics 4 2 3 3 4 5 10 2 33
Luck 5 2 4 2 1 10 2 4 30
Mysticism 4 8 8 10 6 6 4 8 54
Navigation 5 4 6 2 5 2 0 1 25
Necromancy 0 4 4 4 10 0 2 0 24
Offense 4 1 2 4 3 1 7 1 23
Pathfinding 2 2 2 3 6 5 4 2 26
Resistance 2 0 0 3 1 1 4 0 11
Scholar 6 8 7 5 6 8 4 9 53
Scouting 3 2 2 3 2 2 4 2 22
Sorcery 5 10 8 6 7 6 6 8 56
Tactics 2 1 2 4 2 1 5 1 18
Water Magic 4 1 3 2 4 3 1 3 21
Wisdom 7 10 8 7 8 8 6 10 64
Total 112 112 112 112 112 112 112 112
Intersting details: Clerics, Wizards and Druids cannot learn Necromancy.
Resistance is even less popular - no chance for Warlocks, Witches and
Wizards, tiny chance for Druids and Necros.
Battle mages are superb in Logistics - they make both great scouts and main heroes. Their only disadvantage is low affinity towards magic schools.
Also take mental note of general frequency of skills - for all magic heroes Leadership and Tactics are very infrequent and so you shouldn't waste the opportunity if you're offered one of these. Necromancer's ban on First Aid seems logical - only stressing the unbelievable fact that
Necro castle Blacksmith sells only First Aid Tents...
- Might heroes
Skill Kni Ove Bea Dem Dkn Ran Bar Alc Total
Air Magic 3 1 1 2 2 1 3 4 17
Archery 5 6 7 6 5 8 7 5 49
Armorer 5 6 10 7 5 8 6 6 53
Artillery 5 8 8 5 5 6 8 4 49
Ballistics 8 7 6 6 7 4 8 6 52
Diplomacy 4 3 1 4 2 4 1 3 22
Eagle Eye 2 1 1 2 4 2 2 3 17
Earth Magic 2 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 24
Estates 6 4 1 3 0 2 2 4 22
Fire Magic 1 2 0 4 1 0 2 1 11
First Aid 2 1 6 1 0 3 1 2 16
Intelligence 1 1 1 2 5 2 1 4 17
Leadership 10 8 5 3 0 6 5 3 40
Learning 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 10 38
Logistics 5 8 8 10 5 5 7 6 54
Luck 3 1 2 2 1 6 3 1 19
Mysticism 2 3 2 3 4 3 3 4 24
Navigation 8 4 8 3 8 3 2 3 39
Necromancy 0 1 1 0 10 0 1 4 17
Offense 7 8 5 5 7 5 10 6 53
Pathfinding 4 5 8 4 4 7 8 4 44
Resistance 5 6 5 6 5 10 6 5 48
Scholar 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 3 12
Scouting 4 5 7 5 4 7 8 4 44
Sorcery 1 2 1 3 4 2 1 3 17
Tactics 7 10 6 6 5 5 7 4 50
Water Magic 4 0 2 1 3 2 0 2 14
Wisdom 3 3 2 4 6 3 2 5 28
Total 112 112 112 112 112 112 112 112
It's pretty easy here. All the magic skills are low. If your might hero has a chance to learn Air magic, he should. Mass Haste is almost as good as Tactics (overally, in some aspects it's even better.
Magic schools are generally scarce, with Fire being forbidden to Rangers and Beastmasters, while Water magic is a nono for Overlords and
Barbarians. Note that Alchemists are extremely good learners - which also means that if you decide to not take
Learning in the beginning, you'll be offered it many times later. So you'd better take it soon, because you risk that on some well-earned level above 10 you'll be faced with a combination like Learning and
Mysticism... Generally all the 'tens' indicate that you should take that skill sooner or you'll be fed it later. Here the ten for Tactics makes
Overlords highly appreciated. (Arlach, Damacon and Gunnar have non-dungeon specials and are therefore good for any class!) Demoniacs with Logistics are pretty good for scouts (namely Pyre and Octavia with non-infernal specials.
Every hero has eight slots for advanced skills. Therefore you have to be picky and choose only those you'll profit from. The simple fact that your hero would profit from a skill doesn't mean that you want to take it... There always could be more skills to profit from. A good example may be a knight that gets offered Advanced Leadership and Basic Archery.
A newbie will snatch the archery, while the Pro will stop here, think about waiting for wisdom/logistics with the free slot and therefore will take the advanced one. This waiting is generally affordable in cases where the basic offered to you isn't a rare skill for your hero, or in cases where you don't need it any badly right now. And the archery in this example is a good one, since knight has only two shooters of which one is frequently targeted by all enemies.
o Ballistics: A must for walker based armies, in every scenario with
The main hero should spend his time doing only things that number two cannot do himself. The former are usually battling armies, getting artifacts and treasure chests, while the latter are usually occupying mines, picking up resources and exploring Witch huts. Of course, things like visiting learning stones and other skill increasing facilities are common. One more thing should the second guy do - probe trees of knowledge, because they're more valuable later in the game and you don't want to waste their potential in the beginning, when the needed experience can be achieved from a few chests.
4. Experience and advancement handling: a. In witch huts you can get random Basic skill. [Random in sense that level creator cannot affect which skill will it be, but every time the level is started, the skill is set and remains the same for the single playtime.] So, the backup hero has one important role: If your main guy still has some secondary skill slots free, his friend will check every witch hut and sacrifice his free slots to learn what the hut has to offer. Sometimes you might even buy a new hero, if the backup guy has ambitions to become another primary hero. b. Treasure chests and other sources of experience. As the experience needed to gain a level rises with levels already gained, it is pretty obvious, that if you have a hero with some 40000 exp. and his backup guy has some 3000 from stones only, then when ever you run into a treasure chest, you'd better take it by the second guy... Coz getting another +1 skill for your main guy is usually not as good, as getting some +6 for the same price... Okay, sometimes you take them with the main guy, because you desperately need some advanced skill to be upgraded... [Here I strongly recommend checking every now and then, how much the hero needs to advance to next level. Even with 100000+ experience points, the hero sometimes is just a 'chest-far' from next level.] c. The same thing comes with wandering armies... If the backup guy can take them out, let him do it and leave only hard targets to your main guy. There is one exception... If the main guy has a strong army, it is a good strategy to leave him one empty stack when touring the landscape... (The backup guy will carry the seventh army in case it would be needed for a castle siege or enemy hero attack).
Thus, wandering armies can join you. So, if you happen to have a force strong enough to defeat any wandering army, approach those you'd like to join you (or buy, having advanced/expert diplomacy) with the main guy. If they will join you, you can either use them immediately or give them to the backup guy, if they don't fit for the main guy's alignment, combat style or speed. Those armies can be then used by the backup guy as forces to kill other wandering armies and towns for experience, and later maybe to be left as garrisons in captured castles and towns (ogres and similar armies are excellent for this purpose, because their high HPs will either prevent any weaker heroes from attacking your towns or, at least, cause some losses to enemy armies.) d. One more comment on treasure chests - always bear in mind that they're also a good source of GOLD! If you plan to rely on diplomacy or build very expensive structures, it's worth it to take gold with the secondary heroes. In early game, I take all the 1000 gold/500 exp. chests for gold and with the better ones, I go for experience.
Later I shift up and take gold even from the 1500/1000 ones. e. Also, if your secondary hero explores a closed area that you don't want to visit with the main guy (maybe there's nothing important except a few chests, or he's in a hurry to somewhere else), you might grab gold or exp. with the secondary guy even at early stages of the game, where the main hero could profit them, but it'd cost too much time. f. All other sources of experience and skills can be used by more heroes (stones, primary skills increasers and tree of knowledge, which has the same price for all heroes (decided at startup, can be nothing, 10 gems or 2000 gold)). In case that a Tree of Knowledge wants no payment, the level advancement is done immediately (which is why it's better to try those with the backup guys first, because using a tree of knowledge before you already have some 50000 exp. is a real waste - in case that the main hero will probably be near this tree later in the game - if you're sure you'll never get there again, grab the level!. g. Harpies at sea and altar of sacrifice are a good thing. No longer will you just carry around unneeded artifacts and troops that have joined you yet you don't want them. Imagine this: Your hero with some massive army is offered i.e. a throng of demons. You accept, give them immediately to the secondary guy who sacrifices them, getting some two, three levels for them... and this can happen pretty often.
5. Artifacts
Since the hero now has the backpack and can un-equip artifacts, handling them is much easier. There is one general rule: most of the artifacts
COULD be needed later, even if you don't want to use them. Equipping the
Spirit of Oppression (that prevents morale bonuses) would be a nonsense when you have positive morale. But you might run into an enemy that has expert leadership, three medals, visited temple and likes to cast Mirth on expert level. Needless to say, in that battle you'll gladly use the morale preventer.
Since you can now weild only one weapon etc., your backup heroes will probably get some from the captured artifacts, too. Also, only four misc. artifacts can be equipped, so it's imperative that you transfer all gold and resource providing stuff to some secondary guy.
Unwanted artifacts are disposed of at altars of sacrifice, already mentioned above.
6. Movement rules
Movement bonuses for fast armies (the slowest troop determines the bonus) are: 0 for Extra Slow (4) 1 for Slow(5) 2 for Swift or Extra Swift (6-7) 3 for Very Swift(8) 4 for Ultra Swift or Super Swift (9-10) 5 for Quick and faster (11+)
Therefore, having Arch Devils (17) instead of Devils (11) won't help you, but you'll outrun a knight with Archers by 5 tiles/day. The default value is 15 tiles.
[Just came to my mind that this could be a good way to waste your opponent's time - once the enemy wanders onto the edge of your territory, get close enough to him to let him see you. But be sure to have very fast armies, possibly logistics or a movement increasing artifact... and every turn, keep just a few steps ahead of him... And run around the map, wasting the time of the powerful enemy army...
7. Also, use always appropriate heroes! In rough terrain, try to hire somebody with PathFinding, on high seas try hard for Navigation. Get to remember what skills do the nearby witch huts give, let secondary heroes get some experience ASAP to determine the purpose they'll be used for.
8. Secondary skills Advancement
- Magic heroes
A typical hero will start with two levels of secondary skills, which gives him another 22 opportunities. In these, he'll be offered a total of 44 skills to take. The chart below, however, shows how many times will a hero be offered a particular skill in 112 level advancements.
Don't ask me how this number came to existence - only it allows much finer distribution of probabilities than the '44'. A zero indicates that the hero will never be able to learn this skill. I believe that a ten indicates that the hero will reach the expert level quickly... I haven't tested it but it should be that a skill with ten will be offered in every advancement - or was it something like getting the skill to Expert before having all eight slots filled?
Skill Cle War Wit Her Nec Dru Bat Wiz Total
Air Magic 4 2 2 3 3 2 4 5 25
Archery 3 2 3 4 2 5 4 2 25
Armorer 3 1 4 4 2 3 4 1 22
Artillery 2 1 2 4 3 1 4 1 18
Ballistics 4 6 4 6 5 4 6 4 39
Diplomacy 7 4 2 3 4 4 3 4 31
Eagle Eye 6 8 10 4 7 7 5 8 55
Earth Magic 3 4 4 4 5 4 3 4 31
Estates 3 5 1 1 3 3 1 5 22
Fire Magic 2 3 1 5 2 1 2 2 18
First Aid 10 3 1 5 0 7 4 7 37
Intelligence 6 8 7 6 7 7 5 10 56
Leadership 2 3 1 1 0 2 4 4 17
Learning 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 32
Logistics 4 2 3 3 4 5 10 2 33
Luck 5 2 4 2 1 10 2 4 30
Mysticism 4 8 8 10 6 6 4 8 54
Navigation 5 4 6 2 5 2 0 1 25
Necromancy 0 4 4 4 10 0 2 0 24
Offense 4 1 2 4 3 1 7 1 23
Pathfinding 2 2 2 3 6 5 4 2 26
Resistance 2 0 0 3 1 1 4 0 11
Scholar 6 8 7 5 6 8 4 9 53
Scouting 3 2 2 3 2 2 4 2 22
Sorcery 5 10 8 6 7 6 6 8 56
Tactics 2 1 2 4 2 1 5 1 18
Water Magic 4 1 3 2 4 3 1 3 21
Wisdom 7 10 8 7 8 8 6 10 64
Total 112 112 112 112 112 112 112 112
Intersting details: Clerics, Wizards and Druids cannot learn Necromancy.
Resistance is even less popular - no chance for Warlocks, Witches and
Wizards, tiny chance for Druids and Necros.
Battle mages are superb in Logistics - they make both great scouts and main heroes. Their only disadvantage is low affinity towards magic schools.
Also take mental note of general frequency of skills - for all magic heroes Leadership and Tactics are very infrequent and so you shouldn't waste the opportunity if you're offered one of these. Necromancer's ban on First Aid seems logical - only stressing the unbelievable fact that
Necro castle Blacksmith sells only First Aid Tents...
- Might heroes
Skill Kni Ove Bea Dem Dkn Ran Bar Alc Total
Air Magic 3 1 1 2 2 1 3 4 17
Archery 5 6 7 6 5 8 7 5 49
Armorer 5 6 10 7 5 8 6 6 53
Artillery 5 8 8 5 5 6 8 4 49
Ballistics 8 7 6 6 7 4 8 6 52
Diplomacy 4 3 1 4 2 4 1 3 22
Eagle Eye 2 1 1 2 4 2 2 3 17
Earth Magic 2 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 24
Estates 6 4 1 3 0 2 2 4 22
Fire Magic 1 2 0 4 1 0 2 1 11
First Aid 2 1 6 1 0 3 1 2 16
Intelligence 1 1 1 2 5 2 1 4 17
Leadership 10 8 5 3 0 6 5 3 40
Learning 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 10 38
Logistics 5 8 8 10 5 5 7 6 54
Luck 3 1 2 2 1 6 3 1 19
Mysticism 2 3 2 3 4 3 3 4 24
Navigation 8 4 8 3 8 3 2 3 39
Necromancy 0 1 1 0 10 0 1 4 17
Offense 7 8 5 5 7 5 10 6 53
Pathfinding 4 5 8 4 4 7 8 4 44
Resistance 5 6 5 6 5 10 6 5 48
Scholar 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 3 12
Scouting 4 5 7 5 4 7 8 4 44
Sorcery 1 2 1 3 4 2 1 3 17
Tactics 7 10 6 6 5 5 7 4 50
Water Magic 4 0 2 1 3 2 0 2 14
Wisdom 3 3 2 4 6 3 2 5 28
Total 112 112 112 112 112 112 112 112
It's pretty easy here. All the magic skills are low. If your might hero has a chance to learn Air magic, he should. Mass Haste is almost as good as Tactics (overally, in some aspects it's even better.
Magic schools are generally scarce, with Fire being forbidden to Rangers and Beastmasters, while Water magic is a nono for Overlords and
Barbarians. Note that Alchemists are extremely good learners - which also means that if you decide to not take
Learning in the beginning, you'll be offered it many times later. So you'd better take it soon, because you risk that on some well-earned level above 10 you'll be faced with a combination like Learning and
Mysticism... Generally all the 'tens' indicate that you should take that skill sooner or you'll be fed it later. Here the ten for Tactics makes
Overlords highly appreciated. (Arlach, Damacon and Gunnar have non-dungeon specials and are therefore good for any class!) Demoniacs with Logistics are pretty good for scouts (namely Pyre and Octavia with non-infernal specials.
Every hero has eight slots for advanced skills. Therefore you have to be picky and choose only those you'll profit from. The simple fact that your hero would profit from a skill doesn't mean that you want to take it... There always could be more skills to profit from. A good example may be a knight that gets offered Advanced Leadership and Basic Archery.
A newbie will snatch the archery, while the Pro will stop here, think about waiting for wisdom/logistics with the free slot and therefore will take the advanced one. This waiting is generally affordable in cases where the basic offered to you isn't a rare skill for your hero, or in cases where you don't need it any badly right now. And the archery in this example is a good one, since knight has only two shooters of which one is frequently targeted by all enemies.
o Ballistics: A must for walker based armies, in every scenario with
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