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| Thread: Frank's HOMM3 Tactics | |
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TheEverLiving
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posted January 14, 2003 02:32 PM |
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Frank's HOMM3 Tactics
Frank's HOMM3 Tactics
- HOMM3 Tactics -
Every now and then I will post a tactic here. Most of you will find some of them tactics obvious. Hopefully I can share with you some other less obvious tactics that you will find helpfull.
1) Gold management and building tactic with rampart.
There is a building I`ve seen few Rampart addict ever build. I do it every games that last 3 weeks+. The Treasury building. 5000 gold 5W 10Ore might seem a lot but if you do all that you should do you will get 5K + gold the very first week change it comes into play. Day 7 you should build a market in every cities you own. Trade every ressources you don`t need. Let`s say you are playing a random XL map and you have 100 gems-sulfur-mercury to trade. Depending on the number of markets you own that`s easily +15k gold before the new week. Also do not upgrade your green dragon dwelling just now, wait until day 1. In fact, all major expenses should wait until the next day with the exception of going to a new month. You can still gamble it but plagues may occur every other new months and so you might consider buying all that you can to save as much as possible. Week 3 should be your goal to build the treasury else I suggest you wait until week 5 unless you want to gamble it.
2) Fighting against Harpy Hags tactic
Having to fight against Harpy Hags early in the game can be desastrous. Here is 2 things you should know about hags. First, your formation should have your best archer group in 1st position, in 2nd position your largest hand to hand combat unit group. 3rd positon should be your 2nd hand to hand combat group or a single unit. I suggest single units for each of the remaining position. Your archer group should always aim for the groups for which they deal full damage (full arrow). Unless, and this is the key,if your best hand to hand combat group can kill one stack of hags outright. Then it becomes more advantageous to aim the the stacks of hags starting from the 3rd group or so. Leave one tile from which your archers can be attacked by the hags. The first group of hags will then come right beside your archers without attacking them. Wait with your archers and when it`s your best hand to hand combat group`s turn kill the stack of hags completely with using magics if you have to. Then on the return your achers will be able to fire at the remaining stacks. This way you kill twice as many stacks of hags in every combat turns. This tactic does wonders. Instead of running towards the hags with your pikemen`s group and see it destroyed completely by 7 stacks of hags the next turn, you keep as much of your pikes and let the hags come to you.
3) Fighting against crypts tactic
In this example I will demonstrate how to do it with Rampart, the best at it. Note that it can be done with other castle type. Experience it for yourselves. Crypts are great for extra income week 1. Don`t let the big crypts (10 vamps) scare you. Place your troops this way before entering. 1 fodder / all your remaining centaurs / 1 fodder / 1 fodder / all your grand elves / 1 fodder / 1 fodder. For fodders you can use a single centaur, that way you gain +1 morale or you can use goblins, pikemen, imps, trogs, etc... This works best on grass, rampart`s homeland and is dangerous on dirt, necro`s homeland. First turn, (7+)Grand Elves wait. Then your group of centaurs, you should have about 50 of them, kill the whole stack of 20 squeletons by attacking them from directly in front of them. Use your fodder to attract the vampires and the wights the further away from your centaurs. Still on the first combat turn, if you are on grass, you can fire arrows on 20 zombies or move to the tile where the squeletons were. The 2nd combat turn you still have 2 fodders to keep the vamps and wights as far away from your centaurs/grand elves as possible. Then simply kill the foes as they come within reach carefully managing the wait feature to let them come at full damage arrow range. You shouldn`t lose much using this tactic ( a few centaurs ). Note that if you have an archery skilled hero and/or magic arrow you can improve your results. That way you can do all crypts as soon as you have grand elves the very first week of the game. Whichever castle type you are, remember to follow the same principles going in a crypt. It works well with tower and castle too. For other castle type you need more fire power and/or magical assets.
4) Managing secondary skills tactic
How to developp your main hero is the key to success in any games. You have to know one thing about secondary skills. If your main hero starts with logistic and archery for example, when you reach a new level of expertise, you will be offered 100% of the time either archery or logistic + a new secondary skill. There are a lot of skills at this point that might interest you. Likely: Tactic, offense, armorer, air and earth magic and wisdom. It`s a common mistake for the beginners to jump on them new skills the very first time they show up. Be patient. At first you should try to gain expert logistic as fast as possible unless earth magic is offered. From the moment your hero reaches expert logistic, the more you will gain experience points each upcomming turns. Why should you only focuss on earth magic as for your third secondary skill? A skilled archery hero with mass slow will be able to get rid of huge AI groups such as lots daemons, or do naga banks, conservatories, etc... much faster then any other configuration hero/troops/spells there is in HOMM3. The only moment you should take something else than earth magic on such an hero (Kyrre) is if you have expert log and advanced archery or expert archery and advanced log. Instead of taking archery or log you may want to get air / tactic / offense / armorer / wisdom at that time. The reason is simple. If you have both your starting skills at expert then the next time you get a level, 2 new skills will be offered to you and you may have to chose between 2 unwanted skills such as eagle eye and navigation.
Whichever hero you select as your main, you should foccuss on getting 1st) logistic 2nd)earth/air 3) offense/armorer/tactic/wisdom. If you know you can count on a better moving speed troop than your opponent has, a lethal combination of skills would be tactic and air expert with the spell haste.
Keep in mind that the more secondary skills you have the tougher it gets to aquire new ones. The other thing to consider about managing your secondary skills is the map your are playing on. Is there enough XPs availabe to reach 3 expert secondary levels? 5 secondary expert levels? When would a main fight be likely to happen? 1st week? 3rd week? The time table is important. You should never enter a main fight with your opponent without either mass slow or mass haste.
5) Fighting tactic with level 6 units against archers
In week 2 if you can count on level 6 units you can easily send any hero kill the packs and even the lots of ranged units ( lizards, orcs, archers, elves, master gremlins, beholders ). This can work with only 2 level 6 but against the lots I suggest you bring all level 6 units you have. Split your level 6 units in stacks of 1 unit. 1st turn you wait with all units. Most likely the archers will fire at the same unit but not always. On the return you advanced towards the archers with all units but the one who got hit. Then be sure to attack or at least place one unit beside every groups there are. Monitor your Hit Points closely as the fight can last for several turns. Withdraw the units too close from dying.
Fighting with only your level 6 units will allow you to not lose a single of your own archer & level 1 - 2 -3 troops.
6) Common mistakes to avoid
- Visting a castle with your main hero and depart from it without having bought a magic book. Cost: at least 2 turns !
- Entering a combat in which you will have to cast ressurect but you forget to unequip the recanter. Cost: from some of your troops to your whole army + 2500 gold to rehire !
- Entering a combat with your main hero only for being able to rebuy it in another castle but you have the shackles equipped. Cost: all your artefacts + your main hero or (n) times 2500 gold if you are lucky to get it back in your tavern
- For any chain of heroes that has to pass through a town: Switching your troops IN the town to the next hero and depart from it without having transferred the needed artefacts. Cost: you get your troops implosionned whereas with the recanter...
- While moving towards opponent`s castle day 7 a Marletto attracts you just by the road and you end up short 1 tile from your target. Cost: instead of getting a free castle you end up fighting the opponent`s main hero with + 1 week worth of troops.
- You see your opponent`s main hero with few thunderbirds and you are in reach with dragon flies. What are the only 2 factors that can prevent you from ending the game right there given the fact that you have enough dragon flies to kill 4 t-birds at once? answer: more advanced tactic skill and speed artefacts !!! You think that 13 speed would be enough to kill 11 speed when the opponent hero isn`t Shiva and not standing on rough (barbarian`s terrain). Well cape of velocity +2 and Wayfaerer ring +1 is all it takes ! I had the swiftness necklace and being careless I didn`t equip it before the fight. To my big surprise I wasn`t playing first with same tactic level. What a great opportunity missed to end the game.
7) Archery tactics - Dancing with the enemy
Archery is a great skill. For it to give you the edge in a game you must know how to use it properly. Let`s say for this example that your army is composed of 7 grand elves and 54 centaurs in the hands of Jenova lvl 2 with expert archery skill and 1-4-1-1 stats. This is typical day 3 situation for rampart. Just how many zombies can you kill do you think? Hint: personnaly I know horde zombies can go down even if 99... Place your troops this way: 7 GE - dwarfs - 50 centaurs - 1 centaur - 1 centaur - 1 centaur - 1 centaur. What is the key in this particular fight is first - making sure the zombies won`t advanced strait to your grand elves and second - knowing how many zombies you can kill +/- 1 with your 50 centaurs. Try using your arrows only when you deal full damage on a target. In the case of bigger hordes you`d even be better off not firing at all on a turn if you don`t have such a target (dealing full damage). With your individual centaurs you can attract the zombies back and forth in the battle screen almost forever if you forsee where to go well enough. Remember that you don`t have to kill each stacks of zombies solely with your grand elves ! Just reduce the stack enough so that the 50 centaurs can kill the remaining zombies at once.
With such a technic you can amass enormous quantities of experience points against golems/dwarfs/zombies/ rather easily. If you can count on a serpent flie you can even make some ogres dance long enough, even in great numbers, for your grand elves and centaurs to do the job.
I`m often using rampart for my examples. Maybe it`s because rampart is good? You have to know that every archery heroes can do just about the same with almost all castle type. If you don`t get a logistic specialist, a ballista specialist, a off/armorer specialist or level 3-4 heroes but you see Jarbakas with stronghold, Wystan with fortress, Valeska with castle, Calh with inferno, Jenova/Kyrre/Orrin with any, Go for them heroes, you`d be surprised at how great they can be on a battlefield. Heck personnally I chose archery heroes on random maps only after logistic specialist... Your goal is to get expert slow. If you can get it in week 1 or 2 you will amass xps twice as fast as your opponent, just about any opponents, it is just that good.
8) Opening a monk dwelling tactic
A very efficient way to open a monk dwelling: You have to kill 9 monks in a single stack. That`s 270 hps or, 6 magic arrow doing 50 damage, or 4 m arrows doing 70, etc...! In the first week it`s usually possible to train a magic hero well enough to have the proper stats. You should seek one of the following skills: air/earth/fire or water to lower the cost of casting magic arrow from 5 to 4 mana points. Seek intelligence to. Then all you need is 7 imps ! If the monks ever get high morale and you have to retreat you have to know that what you will have to fight when you return is the monks you left when you fleed. You don`t have to kill 9 monks again. Of course you could use your main hero to do the same job but monks don`t pay much xps and you will lose your precious archers for nothing. That way of fighting with a properly trained magic hero works wonderfully for all fights involving one group of a fixed number of units. For example, the titan on the island guading a quest item on hg3, don`t waste time with your main hero getting it, use 7 imps to kill that titan !
9) Scouting wars
On open maps the scouting war is very important. You have to find a way to see your opponent`s land and prevent your opponent from scouting your land. If you can achieve that early in the game it`ll be much easier for you in the later stages of the game.
First thing first. Knowing the scouting tactics will benefit you the most if you know the map perfectly. Focuss on knowing which path is the shortest to get to a specific area. Know approximately where the red zone is. By red zone I mean the area of the open map in which fights can occur if both players starting on day 1 send a scout strait towards the enemy. You have to know the basics about HOMM troops such has unit`s speed on all type of lands, dwarfs' potential to resist magics, fire elementals` immunity against magic arrows, etc...
How to create a good scout. There are 3 ways to setup a good scout.
1) a very fast scout with either pathfinding /logistic / 1-4 native land troop. Examples: piquedram with gargoyles on the map battle for honor. Knowing which area of the map you can reach with no chance of getting attacked by your opponent is the key.
2) A loaded in hit points hero. Use all your dwarfs or zombies. This type of scout will be slow getting to the red zone (zone in which fights can occur) but once there chances are you will have the edge against your opponent`s scouts.
3) A strong magic user. 7 fast troops on an hero with at least 2 knowledge and 2 spell power can also be good. If you take into account your type of castle vs the castle your opponent, you can improve the potential of such a scout. Example: you are rampart and your opponent is tower on grass terrain map. Your centaur will have 7 speed whereas your opponent`s gargoyles will have 6. So such a scout will work even better having the first and last decision in any fights with your opponent`s scouts.
Combination of the 2nd and 3rd type of scout is the best to kill your opponent`s scouts.
Whichever type of scouts you use you must use a global scouting strategy. Remember that the prime objective isn`t to kill your opponent`s scouts. Your objective is to scout most of your opponent`s land while preventing your opponent to do exactly that. So if you win a fight between scouts, chances are that if you continue deeper into your enemy land, you won`t win the next fight... So I suggest that you withdraw by returning towards your main castle in such a position that you can link more troops to your scout in case your opponent choses to run after you.
This is the hardest part of any games on open maps. You have to develop a main hero but meanwhile each heroes you use must have access to the core of your army in case you need it to stop the progression in your land of enemy scouts. I don`t want to be too specific but try forming a grid of heroes, each of them active (doing stuff), so that if ever your opponent tries something radical, you can counter his every moves.
10) Chests - gold or experience points?
In a multiplayer game, given a fair map, you can count on one thing: both players will have access to roughly the same quantity of gold. If you take some of your gold as xps (experience points) for your main hero it shouldn`t jeopardize the best line of buildings for your main castle at least for the first week.
The ratio by which you get xps is different for all possible chests. 2000 gold chest gives 1500 xps or 75% of it`s value. 1500 gold chest gives 1000 xps or 67% of it`s value and 1000 gold chest gives 500 xps or 50% of it`s value. Personnaly I take almost only 2000 chests for xps and rarely 1500 in some key situations.
Why would you need xps from a chest? There are some situations in which taking xps from a chest can help you gather even more gold for the given week than you would have if you took gold instead of xps. If you recognize those situations than you are clearly managaging gold vs main hero build vs caslte build in a great way.
Examples of those situations:
- 2 chests are behind lots marksmen. Your hero has expert offence, advanced tactic and needs only 1000 xps for the next level. If expert tactic means that your unit can reach the marksmen in the first combat turn thus avoiding massive losses than you really should take a chest for xps instead of gold.
- For any logistic heroes like Pyre, Gunnar, Dessa and Kyrre. Getting expert logistic sooner means more distance covered the next turn and so in the end, your main hero will open access to more gold than he would have if you didn`t take xps from earlier chests.
- If a fight between main heroes with full army is about to happen, you have an advanced secondary skill such as air or earth magic with the related good spells, than you have to take xps from chests to get expert level. 2000 gold worth of gnolls isn`t nearly as beneficial for you than gaining the ability to cast mass haste, mass slow, mass shield, etc...
In any case, chests taken as experience points make a greater difference early in the game. In the later stages, when your main hero requires 5000 xps to get a new level, gold should solely be used to buy all the troops you can
11) Building tactic with rampart and dungeon.
On most maps you will find that it`s possible to build the dragon dwelling on day 7. But instead of getting that dwelling level 7 wouldn`t it be better to build up to level 6 dwelling with citadel and castle but without 2 levels of magic guild? Compare the following troop quantities stats on day 8 for the 2nd option over building dwelling 7:
Bonus troops on day 8:
Rampart
+14 centaurs/+16 dwarfs/+7 elves/+5 pegasis/+5 dendroids/ +2 unicorns *
That`s 872 hit points worth of troops that you gain. Is one green dragon worth it?
Dungeon
+14 trogs/+8 harpies/+7 beholders/+4 medusas/+3 minotaurs/ +2 manticores *
That`s 746 hit points worth of troops that you gain. Is one red dragon worth it?
* no legion parts nor special buildings involved.
Of course fighting with 2 dragons on day 8 with your main hero is very effective. Your main hero is fast having speed 10 for green dragon and speed 11 for red dragon, he can do just about any fights rather effortless. But simplistic fights come at a high price. Too high if you ask me. 6 war unicorns can be just has effective as 2 greens. As for serpicores it involves 5 extra sulfurs which you may not have in abundance considering you still need 24 sulfurs to build your dragon dwelling in week 2... Try fighting with manticores and minotaurs instead.
12) Dragons
Dragons are amongst the mightiest creatures in HOMM. They have great spead, nice def and att stats, they are immune to the first 2 levels of magics and most of all, they attack on 2 hexes distance...
Here are some tips on using dragons to the best of their abilities.
- Against AI (Arteficial Intelligence) controlled creatures.
The computer controlled troops will always use your own dragons retaliation against you if you let them have a proper hex and orientation from which to attack your dragons. Usually you don`t need a lot of planning to avoid that. However in fly hives and topias, if you are using green or red dragons, chances are you will get hit by your own dragons if you are careless placing your army before entering those areas.
- Against lower level monster groups you can take advantage of the 2 hexes attack by being patient. Wait until 2 groups are lined up and then attact both groups via the smallest one to avoid any undue retaliation damage. Avoid getting hit by all groups in the same combat turn. Just one dragon can be amazing against slow groups. Against faster and tougher groups like pack efreet you may want to use more than just one gold dragon because the outcome will be desastrous. In single playing mode you`d just look silly. In multiplaying mode, you may lose the game because of it. But don`t despair, if you do such a stupid move, you can always pretend you didn`t do it by forcing a reload (!).
- Against your opponent
In main fights if you know that you don`t have the initiative (first move in the fight) you should place your dragons accordingly. There are several ways to place your dragons so that your opponent can`t use them on your own troops. Practice makes perfect.
13) Units fighting order in a combat.
You`d be suprise how often in a game my opponent sends me a message like this: why are you playing first!???
The fighting order is relatively simple... if no spells and no morale are invovled ! If you aren`t using versions 1.4 - 2.2 - 3.2 - 4.0, this topic isn`t for you. Tactic was working right in the previous versions and so upgrade your versions or read another topic.
a) There is 2 part in any combat turns. The downward part and the wait part. In the downward part units play accordingly to their own speed.
b) Units that gets morale in the downward part and wait instead of moving will all play firts beginning the wait part starting from the first unit that got moral and not on a speed basis. This is important. If slow, haste or prayer is cast on a unit that wait on the downward part it`ll change the order in which they will play in the wait part but not on units that wait after having morale in the donward part ! I hope you are still with me.
c) Most suprises comes when the 2nd turn begins especially when one player casted either blind or slow with 1 sp. If your attacking opponent started the first turn with a unit of equal speed of your fastest unit, casting slow or blind having 1 sp on the opponent`s fastest unit will make your opponent play first again in the 2nd combat round ! That is unless your opponent had 2 units moving at that same fastest speed and both opponents had 7 different groups starting the combat and that none of the groups that waited on the downward part died before the wait part begun !
d) In a none castle fight, siege engines will ALWAYS have their turn to play at the end of the downward part and before troops with morale that waited get their turn. That is important if you fight against an opponent equipped with a first aid tent. If you can`t kill a unit completely, wait on the wait part in order to avoid the tent`s healing power.
{I know tossers will rejoice at seing that last commment, lot of tossing material in there for you... Know that in games in which 1st week fights happens, the first aid tent can be decisive in a fight. So there. }
e) The above is true for a fight against a castle with a few exceptions. The first one to play in such a fight are the turrets if the defending hero as artillery as a secondary skill. The skill is important here, not the ballista. Don`t buy a ballista on a none artillery hero thinking that will grant you first move ! If no such hero is defending then it`s the attacker's catapult. There is something interesting here. If the attacking hero has ballistics and the defending hero doesn`t have artillery it will grant you the right of casting first even if your opponent has the fastest unit in the combat. If solmyr is defending, deemer will be very pleased to cast first in each combat rounds hey Troelen ?
Knowing when each units will have their turn in a combat is essential if you want to have any success in a multiplayer game. When you know all that you think about such technic as casting slow on a blinded unit so that all your units can hit and hopefully kill the last standing unit to keep your opponent from having a say in the fight. You can also be more effective attacking wraiths and wights inflicting all damage after those units used the regenerating abilities on the downward part in vain. Same thing goes for trolls in SOD or complete...
I just got complete and I didn`t play AB much before that so if there are some of you experts out there I would like to see more tactics posted here about the creatures we don`t see in 1.4 like rust dragons, enchanters and such...
14) How to play with Necropolis
Hopefully I will get the real expert on the subject to post a beneficial to all of us tactic topic about playing Necropolis...
I can already tell you things not well known about necropolis.
1) Squeleton transformers can provide you with bone dragons if you put in it any type of hydras and dragons ! Chaos, red, green, gold, black, azure if you wish... will provide you with bone dragons.
2)Vampire lords can only drain hit points from living things! That means, don`t enter a fight with 10 vampires lords against horde water elemental... or any elementals. Tower has some none living troops too like gargoyles and golems. Of course you can`t drain any necro troops either. So if your vamps depends on draining to win a fight, chose your targets wisely.
3) Ghost dragons can`t age troops that vampires can`t drain...
ok TIM554 now it`s your turn... I want to see 4) 5) 6) 7) etc)... EDIT: <-------- Tim554, never did reply, hmm...i wonder why ???
15) Strategy to use with each castle type
HOMM3 without conflux is one of the best game (real time or turn based games) I know as far as balanced between army type. What is even more interesting is that each castles offers more than just 1 way to build a successfull army.
Each castle type plays differently depending on starting difficulty and the richness (ressources) of the map behing played.
a) Playing Castle.
- Rich map/easy settings: Your best move is to try getting portal of glory with castle before week 2 begins. 3 angels will vanquish just about any AI controlled groups. It`s always better to build portal of glory even without citadel and castle.
- Poor map/hard settings: If you start with the archer dwelling already built, upgrading your archers to marksmen day 1 may be your best option. Another option, risky but proven successfull on larger maps in which main fights can happen no sooner than week 3+, you can build strait to capitol starting from day 1 keeping in mind that before week 3 begins you absolutely need your portal of glory and your castle.
b) other castles comming soon, my turn...
Awaiting More...
Oo_TEL_oO
Meatloaf: Bat Out Of Hell
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Kuma
Promising
Supreme Hero
u can type so much text in her
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posted February 27, 2003 02:34 PM |
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@ TOP
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People used to call me crazy, but now that I'm rich I am excentric.
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thecastrated
Famous Hero
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posted September 12, 2003 01:00 PM |
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