Questions, Questions, Questions?

[J_L_Seagull]

Allright, I have three questions.

1. Is it possible to split armies. Sometimes I gather a horde of creatures on one hero and when another hero is starting to get in power, I would like to split armies between them. Is this possible? (still muttering about the lousy manual).

2. Winning the game in normal mode? So, I have no problem winning a map in easy mode, but in normal mode with a large map and many comp players, the game allways plays out the same. I start to get all the resources needed around my castle and during this time, some comp eradicates one or two opponents. When I finally get another castle from a computer, my opponent has eradicated all other opponents and sits on 5 castles. After this, it is all down hill. How can the computer get other castles while Im still having problem of fighting through creatures around my castle? Is there some sort of trick? Maybe awoiding trying to get all the mines (how do you then get enough resources for the right upgrade?)? Is there a difference between putting you on Normal and the map on easy in the two different menus? Would be nice to get some feedback on this?

3. How do you get the skills that you want? I can allways get only the skills that are no use to me and even if I have the prerequisite for the ultimate skill, I cant get the possibility to choose it. How does the skill wheel really work?

[vulnevia]

Splitting armies -> use shift + drag to an empty spot

[Ed Robinson]

There are a lot of folks on the forum who are better able to answer your questions. However, misery loves company, so I empathize with your problem. I play much as you describe. I try to put a lock on all of the resources as I go. And, like you, I winde up with one or two castles and someone else has beaten all of the others and is just building up their army.

Last night I started a custom map called "Divided Loyalties", I had played this before as a Dwarf faction and won. Last night I started as an Academy and picked Jahora as my beginning hero. 4 days into it another mage jumped me with 141 gremlins. How the hell does anyone get 141 gremlins in the first 4 days. I don't care how many heroes you hire and strip of troops. I also know from my previous that there is a creature generator near the castle but there can't be that many gremlins the first week.

I also have the problem of the computer offering me skills I don't want and then winde up taking a secondary skill to hold the slot open until I get what I want.

All in all, I really enjoy the game and havce been playing Heroes since the original came out. But every once in a while I get a set back like last night and it turns me off for a while.

Good luck with your problems, and as I said, others who are really good at the working should be able to answer your questions here.

Ed

[Gaidal Cain]

3. How do you get the skills that you want? I can allways get only the skills that are no use to me and even if I have the prerequisite for the ultimate skill, I cant get the possibility to choose it. How does the skill wheel really work?

The easy answer is: by making sure you have roughly as many skills as abilities. If you take to many skills, you'll have a hard time getting the abilities you want as well, forcing you to take more skills as well and so one. It's a fine balance to walk, but it's what needs to be done if you really want to be able to get a hero with the right skills and abilities. Advanced abilities also has a tendensy to not show up for a while if you decline them, which is something you need to be aware of.

[Omega_Destroyer]

Advanced abilities also has a tendensy to not show up for a while if you decline them, which is something you need to be aware of.

That's biten me numerous times.

[J_L_Seagull]

Thanks to both the Swedes (själv är jag från Tumba) for some tricks. Still could use some more hints about the skills though. So, how about winning the game? How come the comp can gather so big armies in no time?

[Elvin]

Has reduced costs and cheats heavily. As simple as that.

[J_L_Seagull]

Has reduced costs and cheats heavily. As simple as that.

Well, really isnt the answer Im looking for . Can someone else give me some advice without cheating (its no fun giving yourself 100k gold and 100 of all the resources). I would like something a tad harder than "Easy" but not as hard as what the game call "Normal" (I wonder what happens on the higher lvls). With the campaign I had no problems with "Normal", but as soon as I start up a game with more than 1 comp player, some comp player in no time kills all other comp (no honour among AI ) and attacks me with a huge army (and I do consider myself as a bit of a veteran in this game, at least with version 1-3). Oh, by the way, this is without clearing his side of the map of all the resources that is available (the comp seems to like leaving some resources/artifacts/gold around undefended for us humans to pick it up). I mean, how can one computer become so strong in short time without taking all the advantages of his neighbourhood? Maybe this is the trick that I should use to win a map? And also the comp seems to have no problems buying a lot of heroes. You finish three or four of his lesser heroes of and still he has a lot of gold to attack you with vengeance.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Has reduced costs and cheats heavily. As simple as that.

Well, really isnt the answer Im looking for . Can someone else give me some advice without cheating (its no fun giving yourself 100k gold and 100 of all the resources). I would like something a tad harder than "Easy" but not as hard as what the game call "Normal" (I wonder what happens on the higher lvls). With the campaign I had no problems with "Normal", but as soon as I start up a game with more than 1 comp player, some comp player in no time kills all other comp (no honour among AI ) and attacks me with a huge army (and I do consider myself as a bit of a veteran in this game, at least with version 1-3). Oh, by the way, this is without clearing his side of the map of all the resources that is available (the comp seems to like leaving some resources/artifacts/gold around undefended for us humans to pick it up). I mean, how can one computer become so strong in short time without taking all the advantages of his neighbourhood? Maybe this is the trick that I should use to win a map? And also the comp seems to have no problems buying a lot of heroes. You finish three or four of his lesser heroes of and still he has a lot of gold to attack you with vengeance.

The computer is given free resources. That is the trick it uses.

You can win on any difficulty level. I play only on heroic difficulty level. On heroic the computer is allowed to use all spells. On lower difficulty levels it can't use all spells.

On day 1 I hire one additional heroe and combine troops. I then capture the ore and wood mines first and the other mines as quickly as possible. Ocassionally I may hire the other heroe in the tavern depending on I am going to have to take heavy losses on the mine guardians and if the heroe happens to be the same type as my town.

Look in the fan made manual to determine which resources are a priority for the faction you are playing and capture those mines/resource piles first.
http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/he ... uals.shtml

Prioritize your buildings. You may have to skip some dwellings. If you are playing as the academy you may be forced to skip a lot of dwellings for a while.

Use a secondary heroe to pick up loose resources and to flag mines. This will save your main heroe some movement points. It may not seem like much but it adds up.

Keep an eye out for heroes with recruitment or estates as well as for experienced heroes in the tavern.

Check out the strategy articles for the various factions. Don't limit yourself to playing only one faction. Play with them all so you get to know the strengths and weaknesses of all the troops.

If you haven't downloaded the skill wheel yet download it. It will help you plan the skills you should take for your heroe.
Edit: https://www.celestialheavens.com/520

Don't become discouraged. As you gain more experience with each faction you will be able to win consistantly on heroic.

GOW

[winterfate]

Don't become discouraged. As you gain more experience with each faction you will be able to win consistantly on heroic.

*sigh* I can't beat it on Heroic (I've only beaten the AI 3 times at that difficulty, all with Sylvan...out of perhaps 11 or 12 games I've played at that difficulty). Usually, I get attacked by upgraded 7th level units at the beginning of Month 2...

But Hard is too easy...

Where's the middle line for difficulty levels??

[PhoenixReborn]

Where's the middle line for difficulty levels??

In the game files...think hard is too easy? Cut down your resources by a little bit with a text editor. Say, start with 12 12 77777.

[J_L_Seagull]

Thanks Grumpy Old Wizard. Will try to do exactly what you say and start adding up on my difficulty lvl.

[-thing]

About them gremlins...

Yes, it's possible to have 141 gremlins on day 4 if you start with Havez, he starts with nearly 80, then hire another wizard for ~25 more (not Razzak though, he starts with golems only), then recruit 20 from your town and 20 from an external dwelling, assuming one is availible.

The A.I is quite tame on Normal, but it does come for you if you show exceptional weakness, otherwise it just runs away and flees every time you catch one of it's heroes, which really starts to annoy me, so maybe i should step up the difficulty ladder as well...

[lord_demion]

One of the main things you will want to do to overcome the orriginal #2 question is this...

Do not neccesarily hang arround your own area too long... If you hang arround till you can take some of the better defended mines and such, you will fall behind. Hit what you can take and move on. You can grab the rest with either secondary heroes or when your main one retuns for new troops and spells.
Second key... If one AI is beating the rest, then work for balance, or take advantage of the weakness... By this I mena you should either A) distract the big nasty AI, or B) let him beat up the others and sweep in to take his plunder from him. (Ties in with the previous suggestion as you need to be out and about to do this.)
Third key... Avoid major losses. When wiping out nuetrals, do not sacrifice troops. EVER!!! If you do not have the strength to take a mine without significant looses wait till the end of the week and try then. This is a game of attrition. You need as many troops as you can buy. Any troops you loose in early battles are troops you don't have when the the enemy attacks. Now, I am not encouraging idleness here. Keep exploring and finding things you can attack. Battle means XP which improves your ability to take out those stonger units. Just makesure to pick your fights and pace yourself so you don't over extend.

Lord_Demion

John

[HodgePodge]

Has reduced costs and cheats heavily. As simple as that.

Well, really isnt the answer Im looking for . Can someone else give me some advice without cheating (its no fun giving yourself 100k gold and 100 of all the resources).

No, no Elvin wasn't suggesting that you cheat but just saying that the AI cheats outrageously in Heroes 5. That was the way Nival chose to try and fake a quality AI … by giving it huge amounts of resources and creatures. I think the AI cheats with movement points too. It's very discouraging.

[Panda Tar]

I have a question, which seem a bit dumb but I got myself lost in due course of lack of Heroes news.

There are these alternate upgrades now, as it seems, for all castles. And there are these Renegades guys, who are Haven alternate as well. So, it means that Renegades are Haven new alternate upgrades, or there'll be their new alternate upgrades because they're part of another Expansion Pack than Hammers of Fate?

[Gaidal Cain]

Most likely, it will be the renegade models, but their names and stats, and perhaps abilities, are subject to change,

[konfeta]

You are in all probability suffering the number one problem all newbie players suffer in RTS, TBS, and plenty of other games.

You aren't aggressive enough. That's all there is too it. If you spend too much time upgrading your castle or building up troops or clearing out your own area you will get squashed.

Don't wait until you have an overwhelming "advantage" when clearing out neutrals, you would be surprised how many of them are easy to take out with equivalent forces but no actual losses (just don't touch Druids or Mages... ). Remember, sometimes losses are worth it if you manage to score a powerful map object, dwelling, or resource cluster. I remember winning after I put down practically 75% of my army in name of getting a Dragon Utopia very early in the game, but damn being able to quickly train an army of Champions with a hero who was higher level and better equipped then anything else on the map was an easy victory.

Don't use a single hero to do all the work, you waste valuable movement points on picking up resources, exploring, and picking up troops that should be used on clearing out neutral stacks.

Don't build everything in your city in "order", the game has non-fully-linear tech tree for a reason; i.e. sometimes building a level 6 unit dwelling is on Day 7 is more important then building a level 3 or 4 unit dwelling.

Don't build for sake of buildings, pick what you need over what you feel like building.

Don't wait upgrade a dwelling the day after you build it in vast majority of cases, in early stages of the game having, for example, level 3, 4, 5 units is far more advantageous then having upgraded level 1 and 2 units. Unupgraded units, very often, are a very important aspect of the game. Upgrading just because you can results in wasting massive resources for marginal improvements in your army, which can result in stuff like being unable to hire your weekly growth, buy a high level unit dwelling, upgrade a newly conquered city, get a mage guild, etc.

Chests are a big one. Often you will find the need to get expirience to improve your hero over getting gold in them. Bad way to make a decision, especially on harder difficulties. Making a strong hero fast can be a good strategy for rushes or custom scenario, but you must be able to judge when you will NEED the money over expirience. Being able to build a capitol or fully buy your weekly growth can be a life saver more often then getting a level up on your hero. Of course, if you feel you need to get your hero a skill that is crucial to your strategy don't be afraid to get XP. Just don't fall into the mentality that you must get one thing instead of another all the time.

Don't play on the easiest difficulty all the time, you need to get used to having to play on budget right away. Nothing builds up choice making ability better then there being a neccesity to make a choice in what to build.

For each race the strategy naturally differs, but I guess these are the basics to not slow yourself down as a begginer player. I used to suck at HoMM series period because I was obsessed with having a fully upgraded army befor even thinking of venturing out of my starting area, refused to use more then one hero, had poor understanding of importance of playing aggressive, and always preferred damage spells over buffs, etc. Then I played with a friend who knew how to play. About after 7-8 hotseat games with him I eliminated almost all of my bad habits. I simply saw a real time difference in speed - I was a better tactician then him in battle (I could reliably beat him with a slightly inferior army and a level 1 hero because he made some stupid mistakes) but he always scored a guaranteed bigger army then me, always cleared out his area faster then me, and always had a better economy then me. At first I simply mirrored his build order and habits, after a while as I understood the reasoning behind these simple strategies I stopped sucking at this series. My most immediate improvement in a week was shown in HoMM 3 campaigns. I went from being humiliated on any map beyond the first one of practically any campaign to banging my head over the desk on how easy the campaigns became.


So, to conclude this overly long post with its presumptious assumptions over how you play; IMHO the key to playing this game is knowing how to manage your economy, being able to take calculated risks with neutrals rushing and building, and playing aggressively. The first two come with expirience; the last one can be jump-started immediatly. You will feel uncomfortable with doing things fast at first (with multiple heroes, not-building-upgrading-everything, expanding early without a fully upgraded/developed army) but you will quickly grow used to it. Good Luck :/

[okrane]

Great post konfeta... I think it should be placed somewere in a newbie suggestion thread/guide.

[PhoenixReborn]

Great post konfeta... I think it should be placed somewere in a newbie suggestion thread/guide.

I agree.

Similar to Konfeta, playing H5 has made me more agressive and it has made me better at the older heroes games too.