Jump to page:
Sponsors:
lots of castles it will save you some losses to your vulnerable shooters... Either by destroying enemy castle installations or just making way for your armies to run in and slay the defending troops sooner. Not needed much for flyers/shooters based armies, such as dragon or titan task forces. Expert ballistics increases chance of hitting arrow towers to 75% (until all walls are destroyed).
However, there is one big advantage of ballistics: Since you get manual control of the catapult and the catapult always plays first in the battle rounds, you can cast a spell before the opponent gets his fastest troop to move. Favorite spells are
Slow/Haste/Earthquake.
o Artillery: Might heroes profit from that skill pretty well. It has proven worthy in many battles, especially in the earlier stages of the game. It's firepower can be immense.
o Archery: Increased damage from ranged attacks usually comes in pretty handy, unless you have small stacks or none shooters at all.
(I.e. Fortress, Necropolis).
o Tactics: This is the BEST skill for me, no doubt about that. Two things should be separated: 1) The fact that your walkers can start their action at 7th row - when your armies are faster than enemy, this is the deadliest skill in the game, because even relatively slow walkers (6-7) can strike in the first turn - so if everything goes well, the enemy doesn't get to play at all! Especially well used with Rampart or Castle troops. 2) Then there is the ability to rearrange your troops upon seeing the enemy 'configuration' - and it's always nice to be able to move all your troops out of range of the enemy fast flyers! I've won many battles ONLY because I had this skill. Only in castle defenses this skill is less useful, as the point 1) doesn't apply - but point 2) still does!
o Offense: A very potent skill for all Might heroes, especially those that depend on aggresive approach.
o Armorer: Smaller brother of Offense, a bit less useful, but definitely beats Mysticism and Eagle Eye ;-)
o First Aid: This could be an important skill for cases where enemy fire is concentrated on high-level units. If you're walking around the map with your 7thlevel creatures only, the First Aid Tent with
100 points of healing can prevent losses - it successfully eliminates castle towers' fire (towers usually score about 100 points of damage.)
o Luck: Causing double damage can't be a bad thing, ever ;-), but it's never a thing I'd wait for to come. And, the damage is not exactly doubled, it is increased only by an average raw damage of the stack, without A/D included.
o Leadership: Can sometimes save you a lot of trouble and losses. I prefer it to Luck, as it gives you more tactical benefits. (You can let enemy units share the double damage you're granted.)
o Learning: An useless skill. For a wasted slot, you only get one level ahead of opposition.
o Logistics: A must, except for Small, sometimes Medium and those island realms scenarios.
o Pathfinding: A must, whereever large desert, swamp or snowy areas require exploration. Otherwise useless.
o Navigation: Don't have to tell you that you won't need that, when you have no seas/rivers to conquer, do I? ;-)
o Necromancy: Not of much use, unless you manage to get expert one and find large masses of cannon fodder such as trogs. However, in necromancer's hands it's a powerful weapon.
o Resistance: This skill is stronger than it looks. Especially heroes that have it as a special are dangerous opponents, because a spell resisted at the right time can decide whole battle. If you manage to get some artifacts, enemy spellcasters will have a hard day then. On the other hand, results are not guaranteed and therefore I usually pick other skills - those that work always, not by percentage.
o Diplomacy: If you get it in early stages, comes quite handy, coz with expert level of this skill, you get quite a fair price for new units. [And you can see how many they are, before fighting them... and hell, there IS a difference between 'lots' and 'lots', 20 and 40 ogre lords definitely aren't a bit the same easy bait. A few times, having adv/expert diplomacy saved my life, because I could avoid fighting a stack of grand-elves, that would have beat crap out of my armies.] There's another VERY important aspect of diplomacy - surrendering is cheaper! At expert level, you have 60% discount, which can be pretty important in saving crucial parts of your army.
And another thing that I tested: Every level of diplomacy gives you
TWO levels' discount on the requirement to enter Library of
Enlightenment! So that if your hero at level 4 has Expert Diplomacy (or at 6 Advanced or at 8 Basic), he'll be let in, getting +2 to all skills! This can be very useful, if the library is near to your castle (and even more, if you can learn Diplomacy in a hut. You might then want your secondary heroes and/or castle defenders to get the Diplomacy, grab some experience and get this +8 bonus...
From Gus at NWC we've learned exactly how Diplomacy works.
Here's the mail quoted (and slightly reworded):
Here's how it works, in a nutshell.
Diplomacy makes it more likely that:
+ Monsters will join you for free.
+ Monsters will join you for money.
+ Monsters will run away (avoid fighting).
Each monster has a aggression level, set at the start of the game.
You can adjust the range of aggression in the editor, but there's always a random factor, unless the monster is "compliant" or "savage."
When you encounter a monster group, the monsters first decide whether to fight. The depends on your strength, how friendly they are, your diplomacy skill, and whether you have similar creatures in your army.
If they are friendly or ambivalent, they may decide to join you. For normal monsters, 10% of the time they'll join you for free. Every level of diplomacy makes this 10% more likely. Having similar creatures also makes this 10% more likely. Having an army that is mostly similar creatures makes it 20% more likely.
Example: Sir Christian has an army composed exclusively of pikemen, and Expert diplomacy. Normal pikemen and halberdier stacks will join him roughly 60% of the time - if they don't fight.
Diplomacy also allows you to persuade monster stacks to join for money.
You always get the full stack, and the price doesn't change. Each level adds 10%.
Of the pikemen stacks that Sir Christian encounters, another 30% will offer to join for money, again if they don't fight. Only 10% of them will flee without offering to join. Sir Christian's a really likable guy.
If the creatures are ambivalent, and you turn down the offer to join, they'll fight you. If they're afraid (or impressed by your silver tongue), they'll run away. Diplomacy never makes it more likely they'll fight. If you turn down an offer and get a battle, they would have fought you anyway. This is for normal, "Aggressive" monsters. If they're set to "Complaint" in the editor, they'll join anyone. If they're "Friendly", they're 30% more likely to join. If they're "Hostile", they're 30% less likely to join - you'll need
Expert diplomacy, or similar creatures, to have any chance of them joining for free. If they're "Savage", they won't join anyone.
[End of quotation.]
o Scouting: Useful for exploration, coz you'll be able not only to see resources and mines you're looking for, but sometimes you'll spot your enemy soon enough to turn back or even spot him without him spotting you.
o Eagle Eye: Learning spells from your enemies is a good concept, especially if you don't have enough resources to build your own guilds. But I personally prefer other skills and take this only when
I either have to or know I'll need it. (Being offered Navigation on land-based scenario, it's really lesser evil to take Eagle Eye.) Of course, there might be situations where you could even RELY on this skill. Imagine a map that is short on magical resources and yet you've been forced a magic hero...
o Estates: I never take estates for my main hero, but the secondary guys would be foolish to not take it. If there's a witch hut, all the army and resource couriers should visit first and then get some levels at stones and trees to upgrade.
o Intelligence: More than effective replacement of Mysticism. Top spellcasters can then make long journeys and be generous with offensive spells ;-). Also, Might heroes that won't ever be good at knowledge should consider taking this skill - if only to have a decent spellpoint reserve for Haste/Slow/Dispel - which are pretty important. Especially dispel may be needed pretty often against the way too often blinding AI.
o Sorcery: A must for offensively thinking spellcasters. the 15% increase of damage is a great thing.
o Scholar: This is a great skill for secondary heroes!. You won't have to return home with your main hero to learn spells from newly built guild - the secondary guy will take the knowledge on the road and share it with all others.
o Mysticism: Could be useful for long journeys without castles, if you need to use magic. The better knowledge your hero will have, the lesser need of that skill you have. However, with magic schools that reduce spell costs, I rarely use mysticism - sometimes with Might heroes that need to cast Haste/Slow/Dispel often and don't want to waste a slot on a magic school (because their most used spells come from different schools each.)
o Wisdom: Unless you build higher level of mage guilds, you won't find much use to it, but take this rather than other, worse skills, coz somebody might build the guild levels for you (either in your or his city). In large scenarios, even magic-hating/fearing knights/barbies should take this one - it will give them access to spells in conquered castles and spells like Berzerker may greatly improve their battle efficiency, not to mention getting i.e. TownGate.
However, I would recommend some planning here - to try and get some magic school, too, as wisdom alone will not get you the real power of the spells. [I.e. Town Portal without advanced Earth magic sucks.]
o Magic schools: I don't want flamewars about which school is better, so I'll let anyone make their choice... All damage spells have increased base damage (usually it's + 10,20,30 or 10,20,50), elemental summoning has doubled effectivity. Protection from another school is 50% for all friendly units.. I will use the following syntax: Interesting spell (effects), applying for Expert level of that school.
+ Air magic:
+ Haste (All +5 speed) - a decisive factor
+ View Air (Artifacts, heroes, Towns) - great for hunting down enemies
+ Disrupting Ray (Defense -5)
+ Precision (All ranged +6 Attack) - that means +30% damage!
+ Air shield (ranged damage taken is reduced to 50%)
+ Counterstrike (All +2 retaliations!) - great for armies with specials!
+ Dimension Door (4 jumps/day)
+ Fly (100% of normal movement)
Important spells: ChainLightning, Hypnotize (to use enemy's small stacks to waste retaliations of his top units.)
+ Water magic:
+ Bless (All Damage is Max(damage)+1)
+ Cure (Cures all friendly)
+ Dispel (Dispels ALL spells on the battlefield)
+ Weakness (All enemy -6 A)
+ Forgetfullness (All enemy ranged attackers don't use range attack)
+ Teleport (Can teleport anywhere, incl. castle.)
+ Clone (Works on 7thlevel troops too)
+ Prayer (All A,D and speed +4)
+ Water Walk (100% of normal movement)
Important spells: Bless, Cure, Frost Ring,
Summon Boat, Scuttle Boat
+ Earth magic:
+ Slow (All 50% speed)
+ Stone Skin (All +6 Defense)
+ View Earth (Entire terrain and mines/resources)
+ AntiMagic (Immunity to all spells)
+ Town Portal (Can choose destination)
Important spells: Animate Dead, Resurrect, DeathRipple, Meteor
Shower, Implosion (aka the only Dragon killer around ;-))
+ Fire magic:
+ Bloodlust (All +6 Attack)
+ Blind (Doesn't retaliate when blinded and attacked)
+ Berserk (All in 19hex radius affected!) - total insanity!
However, there is one big advantage of ballistics: Since you get manual control of the catapult and the catapult always plays first in the battle rounds, you can cast a spell before the opponent gets his fastest troop to move. Favorite spells are
Slow/Haste/Earthquake.
o Artillery: Might heroes profit from that skill pretty well. It has proven worthy in many battles, especially in the earlier stages of the game. It's firepower can be immense.
o Archery: Increased damage from ranged attacks usually comes in pretty handy, unless you have small stacks or none shooters at all.
(I.e. Fortress, Necropolis).
o Tactics: This is the BEST skill for me, no doubt about that. Two things should be separated: 1) The fact that your walkers can start their action at 7th row - when your armies are faster than enemy, this is the deadliest skill in the game, because even relatively slow walkers (6-7) can strike in the first turn - so if everything goes well, the enemy doesn't get to play at all! Especially well used with Rampart or Castle troops. 2) Then there is the ability to rearrange your troops upon seeing the enemy 'configuration' - and it's always nice to be able to move all your troops out of range of the enemy fast flyers! I've won many battles ONLY because I had this skill. Only in castle defenses this skill is less useful, as the point 1) doesn't apply - but point 2) still does!
o Offense: A very potent skill for all Might heroes, especially those that depend on aggresive approach.
o Armorer: Smaller brother of Offense, a bit less useful, but definitely beats Mysticism and Eagle Eye ;-)
o First Aid: This could be an important skill for cases where enemy fire is concentrated on high-level units. If you're walking around the map with your 7thlevel creatures only, the First Aid Tent with
100 points of healing can prevent losses - it successfully eliminates castle towers' fire (towers usually score about 100 points of damage.)
o Luck: Causing double damage can't be a bad thing, ever ;-), but it's never a thing I'd wait for to come. And, the damage is not exactly doubled, it is increased only by an average raw damage of the stack, without A/D included.
o Leadership: Can sometimes save you a lot of trouble and losses. I prefer it to Luck, as it gives you more tactical benefits. (You can let enemy units share the double damage you're granted.)
o Learning: An useless skill. For a wasted slot, you only get one level ahead of opposition.
o Logistics: A must, except for Small, sometimes Medium and those island realms scenarios.
o Pathfinding: A must, whereever large desert, swamp or snowy areas require exploration. Otherwise useless.
o Navigation: Don't have to tell you that you won't need that, when you have no seas/rivers to conquer, do I? ;-)
o Necromancy: Not of much use, unless you manage to get expert one and find large masses of cannon fodder such as trogs. However, in necromancer's hands it's a powerful weapon.
o Resistance: This skill is stronger than it looks. Especially heroes that have it as a special are dangerous opponents, because a spell resisted at the right time can decide whole battle. If you manage to get some artifacts, enemy spellcasters will have a hard day then. On the other hand, results are not guaranteed and therefore I usually pick other skills - those that work always, not by percentage.
o Diplomacy: If you get it in early stages, comes quite handy, coz with expert level of this skill, you get quite a fair price for new units. [And you can see how many they are, before fighting them... and hell, there IS a difference between 'lots' and 'lots', 20 and 40 ogre lords definitely aren't a bit the same easy bait. A few times, having adv/expert diplomacy saved my life, because I could avoid fighting a stack of grand-elves, that would have beat crap out of my armies.] There's another VERY important aspect of diplomacy - surrendering is cheaper! At expert level, you have 60% discount, which can be pretty important in saving crucial parts of your army.
And another thing that I tested: Every level of diplomacy gives you
TWO levels' discount on the requirement to enter Library of
Enlightenment! So that if your hero at level 4 has Expert Diplomacy (or at 6 Advanced or at 8 Basic), he'll be let in, getting +2 to all skills! This can be very useful, if the library is near to your castle (and even more, if you can learn Diplomacy in a hut. You might then want your secondary heroes and/or castle defenders to get the Diplomacy, grab some experience and get this +8 bonus...
From Gus at NWC we've learned exactly how Diplomacy works.
Here's the mail quoted (and slightly reworded):
Here's how it works, in a nutshell.
Diplomacy makes it more likely that:
+ Monsters will join you for free.
+ Monsters will join you for money.
+ Monsters will run away (avoid fighting).
Each monster has a aggression level, set at the start of the game.
You can adjust the range of aggression in the editor, but there's always a random factor, unless the monster is "compliant" or "savage."
When you encounter a monster group, the monsters first decide whether to fight. The depends on your strength, how friendly they are, your diplomacy skill, and whether you have similar creatures in your army.
If they are friendly or ambivalent, they may decide to join you. For normal monsters, 10% of the time they'll join you for free. Every level of diplomacy makes this 10% more likely. Having similar creatures also makes this 10% more likely. Having an army that is mostly similar creatures makes it 20% more likely.
Example: Sir Christian has an army composed exclusively of pikemen, and Expert diplomacy. Normal pikemen and halberdier stacks will join him roughly 60% of the time - if they don't fight.
Diplomacy also allows you to persuade monster stacks to join for money.
You always get the full stack, and the price doesn't change. Each level adds 10%.
Of the pikemen stacks that Sir Christian encounters, another 30% will offer to join for money, again if they don't fight. Only 10% of them will flee without offering to join. Sir Christian's a really likable guy.
If the creatures are ambivalent, and you turn down the offer to join, they'll fight you. If they're afraid (or impressed by your silver tongue), they'll run away. Diplomacy never makes it more likely they'll fight. If you turn down an offer and get a battle, they would have fought you anyway. This is for normal, "Aggressive" monsters. If they're set to "Complaint" in the editor, they'll join anyone. If they're "Friendly", they're 30% more likely to join. If they're "Hostile", they're 30% less likely to join - you'll need
Expert diplomacy, or similar creatures, to have any chance of them joining for free. If they're "Savage", they won't join anyone.
[End of quotation.]
o Scouting: Useful for exploration, coz you'll be able not only to see resources and mines you're looking for, but sometimes you'll spot your enemy soon enough to turn back or even spot him without him spotting you.
o Eagle Eye: Learning spells from your enemies is a good concept, especially if you don't have enough resources to build your own guilds. But I personally prefer other skills and take this only when
I either have to or know I'll need it. (Being offered Navigation on land-based scenario, it's really lesser evil to take Eagle Eye.) Of course, there might be situations where you could even RELY on this skill. Imagine a map that is short on magical resources and yet you've been forced a magic hero...
o Estates: I never take estates for my main hero, but the secondary guys would be foolish to not take it. If there's a witch hut, all the army and resource couriers should visit first and then get some levels at stones and trees to upgrade.
o Intelligence: More than effective replacement of Mysticism. Top spellcasters can then make long journeys and be generous with offensive spells ;-). Also, Might heroes that won't ever be good at knowledge should consider taking this skill - if only to have a decent spellpoint reserve for Haste/Slow/Dispel - which are pretty important. Especially dispel may be needed pretty often against the way too often blinding AI.
o Sorcery: A must for offensively thinking spellcasters. the 15% increase of damage is a great thing.
o Scholar: This is a great skill for secondary heroes!. You won't have to return home with your main hero to learn spells from newly built guild - the secondary guy will take the knowledge on the road and share it with all others.
o Mysticism: Could be useful for long journeys without castles, if you need to use magic. The better knowledge your hero will have, the lesser need of that skill you have. However, with magic schools that reduce spell costs, I rarely use mysticism - sometimes with Might heroes that need to cast Haste/Slow/Dispel often and don't want to waste a slot on a magic school (because their most used spells come from different schools each.)
o Wisdom: Unless you build higher level of mage guilds, you won't find much use to it, but take this rather than other, worse skills, coz somebody might build the guild levels for you (either in your or his city). In large scenarios, even magic-hating/fearing knights/barbies should take this one - it will give them access to spells in conquered castles and spells like Berzerker may greatly improve their battle efficiency, not to mention getting i.e. TownGate.
However, I would recommend some planning here - to try and get some magic school, too, as wisdom alone will not get you the real power of the spells. [I.e. Town Portal without advanced Earth magic sucks.]
o Magic schools: I don't want flamewars about which school is better, so I'll let anyone make their choice... All damage spells have increased base damage (usually it's + 10,20,30 or 10,20,50), elemental summoning has doubled effectivity. Protection from another school is 50% for all friendly units.. I will use the following syntax: Interesting spell (effects), applying for Expert level of that school.
+ Air magic:
+ Haste (All +5 speed) - a decisive factor
+ View Air (Artifacts, heroes, Towns) - great for hunting down enemies
+ Disrupting Ray (Defense -5)
+ Precision (All ranged +6 Attack) - that means +30% damage!
+ Air shield (ranged damage taken is reduced to 50%)
+ Counterstrike (All +2 retaliations!) - great for armies with specials!
+ Dimension Door (4 jumps/day)
+ Fly (100% of normal movement)
Important spells: ChainLightning, Hypnotize (to use enemy's small stacks to waste retaliations of his top units.)
+ Water magic:
+ Bless (All Damage is Max(damage)+1)
+ Cure (Cures all friendly)
+ Dispel (Dispels ALL spells on the battlefield)
+ Weakness (All enemy -6 A)
+ Forgetfullness (All enemy ranged attackers don't use range attack)
+ Teleport (Can teleport anywhere, incl. castle.)
+ Clone (Works on 7thlevel troops too)
+ Prayer (All A,D and speed +4)
+ Water Walk (100% of normal movement)
Important spells: Bless, Cure, Frost Ring,
Summon Boat, Scuttle Boat
+ Earth magic:
+ Slow (All 50% speed)
+ Stone Skin (All +6 Defense)
+ View Earth (Entire terrain and mines/resources)
+ AntiMagic (Immunity to all spells)
+ Town Portal (Can choose destination)
Important spells: Animate Dead, Resurrect, DeathRipple, Meteor
Shower, Implosion (aka the only Dragon killer around ;-))
+ Fire magic:
+ Bloodlust (All +6 Attack)
+ Blind (Doesn't retaliate when blinded and attacked)
+ Berserk (All in 19hex radius affected!) - total insanity!
Jump to page:
Sponsors:
Other files from this game:
- Heroes of Might & Magic 3 trainer by System on 14/03/2006, 06:30
Start the program - it's self explaining - Heroes of Might & Magic 3 trainer by System on 14/03/2006, 06:30
+16 trainer - Heroes of Might & Magic 3 savegame by System on 14/03/2006, 06:30
- Heroes of Might & Magic 3 trainer by System on 14/03/2006, 06:30
Trainer for v1.13 - Heroes of Might & Magic 3 document by System on 14/03/2006, 06:30
- Heroes of Might & Magic 3 editor by System on 14/03/2006, 06:30
Resources editor - Heroes of Might & Magic 3 hints by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
- Heroes of Might & Magic 3 FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
- Heroes of Might & Magic 3 cheats by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
- Heroes of Might & Magic 3 FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50