My basic Homm3 strategies. Please give me your opinions.

[Darkzephyr]

Since I'm still pretty new to Homm3 (i just reinstalled, after not playing since 2001), I thought I would reveal my overall strategies and see how noobish I really was. If anyone has an alternative strategies that will help me improve in the long run, please don't hesitate to tell me!

Before I start, I'll tell you some basic things about what race/map I typically play. I usually play Normal difficutly with Fortress or Dungeon (my 2 favorite castles) against any opponent I can find who is willing to play me.

1st Week, Day 1.
Obviously, I have a main hero. Typically I will build Town Hall or a creature dwelling. Normally I would start exploring with my main and kill whatever I thought I could take. Now I have a new strategy for Day 1.

1. Build a dwelling that has a fast creature (such as Serpentfly hive for Fortress).
2. Hire a second hero, give him at least 1 serpentfly and have him start exploring.
3. Use this intial scout expedetion to determine where to go with my Main, then hire the remaining serpentflies and any other units and head out to the nearest stack of monsters I want to take.

Day 2
Build Town Hall, continue exploring and gathering resources. I usually take Gold from the Chests to boost my income so I can get most of my creature production buildings.

Day 3-6
(Building Creature buildings)
1.Usually throughout the week, I'll hire additional heroes to bring reinforcement to my main. Otherwise, I keep scouting and killing stacks. At this point my Main is usually headed as far as he can in a certain direction.
If I can get all my 2-6 creature building and still have 1 day left, I may go for my Mage Guild or MarketPlace.

Day 7 (or sooner)
Citadel to increase creature production.

Here are a few common problems I have

1. I put all or most of my available creature on my Main for the first week. I don't know if there is a way to split them up between a main and a secondary...but sometimes I have 2 or more heroes that are basically doing nothing for most of the first week, excepting grabbing a mine or resource that my Main hero has cleared.

2. Hiring too many Heroes too soon. Sometimes I hire a 3rd Hero on Day 2 or 3. Of course he doesn't have come with any units, so he usually just explores or brings reinforcements, but then has nothing to do until my main clears more. Maybe it would be better to wait until a later day so he can bring more reinforcements or at least has some resources to gather.

3. Not knowing if I can take on a stack of creatures.
Even on my main who has a lot of creatures, sometimes I'm not sure how tough a stack will be. Usually I guess pretty well and sometimes I even take a risk or accidently encounter more than I had planned to and I come out ahead! ( I need a refresher course on how many units are in a Pack, Lot, Horde...etc.)

4. Not splitting my Units between Heroes well.
Usually in past games, I gave my main hero 1 stack of every available unit levels 1-7. So my main fortress hero would have Gnolls, Lizardmen, DragonFlies, Basilisk, Gorgon, Wyverns and Hydras. Although, sometimes a stack would die or be replaced by a surrendering force. Now I realize I can divide up my units into multiple stacks on the same hero, and some units aren't worth puttin on the main, since they'll slow him down...or just be free kills for the enemy. Any suggestions on how to split my forces are most welcome though! I've been reading Frank's posts about Rampart armies...so I have a few ideas I may experiment with.



One Recent Summary
Last but not least, here's an example of a recent game I played..Most of the problems I mentioned above happened in this game.

By the end of Week 1 I had 1-6 creature dwelling, Town hall and Citadel, and a Basilisk building/sulfur mine. My main had about 27 gnolls, 8 serpent flies and 4 Basilisk. I had avoided several groups of a *few* Diamond Golems, because I thought they were too tough, and a Lot of Lizard Warriors because I was hoping to come back with a decent force in hopes they would want to join me!

In the last game I played at 160 Difficulty. By Week 2, Day 6 (playing Fortress) I had been lucky enough to find 2 towns (a Necro and Inferno) and A Gold Mine. So I had 2 extra towns with Town Halls and 3 Marketplaces. I don't recall if my Main had a City Hall, because I think I was saving gold for my Hydra building, but I had my Castle and almost all the other important buildings.
Unfortunately on Week 2, Day 7, My opponent decided to quit because he said his main died in battle....
It really sucks because I even had a Pandora's box I was looking forward to getting soon!

[Pol]

It seems good to me

Especially because you already figured out your own problems. I for example don't tend to having superfluous heroes early. Later it maybe, sometimes, different thing.

As to the quantity here was somewhere table ... somewhere, - I find it in the help file.

Label. . . . . . Population
Few_________1-4
Several______5-9
Pack________10-19
Lots________20-49
Horde______50-99
Throng_____100-249
Swarm_____250-499
Zounds_____500-999
Legion______1000+ (like Zilions, Quadrilions, Quantilions etc... )

As to the units splitting just listen to the situation.

[Muszka]

I would also advice playing some SP games where you can use autosave, thus learn from your own mistakes. But be careful, to don't become dependent of autosave, that can ruin you future multipayer games.

[Banedon]

Some (very quick - I haven't much time) thoughts:

1. There's nothing wrong with hiring a third hero in the first week. You might even hire more.
2. You might not need all your available creatures on your main hero in the first week. If that hero has a reliable creep-clearing force already (eg. 2 Efreet Sultans in the first week) then there's nothing lost by putting your other creatures on secondary heroes.
3. Experience is the only thing that can tell you if you can beat a stack of creatures.
4. Who's Frank?
5. You play, in my opinion, too slowly. It's normal difficulty, and you should have no problems with Gold for the first few turns. I can't remember the build order precisely, but rush the level 7 dwellings. You can definitely do this with Fortress; you might not be with Dungeon though (if only because of the prerequisites, which I've forgotten) but I know it's possible with Castle. Start stockpiling those creatures early, get the Citadel / Castle next, and then (and only then) build the Town Hall -> City Hall -> Capitol track (you might build the Town Hall earlier though if you're having serious difficulties getting the higher-tier buildings.
6. Know the map. Do your homework so you're familiar with the map, the points to fight for, where the neutral castles are and so on.

Nice scouting though

[Kristo]

Have you tried rushing your way to Capitol? The 20k gold you start with goes a long way, but when it's gone you won't have the income to buy all of your creatures. Making 4000 gold per day can cover up for a lot of mistakes. Granted, Banedon's strategy will probably beat you if done correctly, but I think focusing on money first is easier.

You guys shouldn't be so quick to give up after a mistake in the second week. Lots can happen.

[Darkzephyr]

Some (very quick - I haven't much time) thoughts:

1. There's nothing wrong with hiring a third hero in the first week. You might even hire more.
2. You might not need all your available creatures on your main hero in the first week. If that hero has a reliable creep-clearing force already (eg. 2 Efreet Sultans in the first week) then there's nothing lost by putting your other creatures on secondary heroes.
3. Experience is the only thing that can tell you if you can beat a stack of creatures.
4. Who's Frank?
5. You play, in my opinion, too slowly. It's normal difficulty, and you should have no problems with Gold for the first few turns. I can't remember the build order precisely, but rush the level 7 dwellings. You can definitely do this with Fortress; you might not be with Dungeon though (if only because of the prerequisites, which I've forgotten) but I know it's possible with Castle. Start stockpiling those creatures early, get the Citadel / Castle next, and then (and only then) build the Town Hall -> City Hall -> Capitol track (you might build the Town Hall earlier though if you're having serious difficulties getting the higher-tier buildings.
6. Know the map. Do your homework so you're familiar with the map, the points to fight for, where the neutral castles are and so on.

Nice scouting though

1. Yes, I know..I usually hire at least 3 if not 4 by the first week. I guess I was thinking of specific situations where I couldn't do anything with the heroes because my main hadn't cleared any new areas where there were resources to gather. I was thinking perhaps I should Hire him day 4-7 to synch up with a good time to bring reinforcements or have available tasks to do. Not a terrrible mistake overall....just sometimes I feel I have heroes that are temporary deadweight.

2. That's great advice. I guess I'm just afraid of not being able to take something with a small level of units. Do you have anything that you would suggest for diving my forces for a week 1 fortress build?

3. Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. There are some great posts on HeroesCommunity about clearing Crypts and slow moving enemies with minimal number of heroes. I think I'll try some. Btw, Frank is a guy who posted most of the strategies on Heroescommunity that made me realize I could improve on my tactics.

5. Actually, in Normal difficulty, I do have level 1-7...I think.
The games where I waited until Week 2 were on 160 (which is hard, I believe) and I started with 10k gold and couldn't really get enough resources to build the Hydra den. Plus I didn't want to sacrifice the gold or extra creatures I would get from the Citadel and Town Hall.

[Pol]

3. Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. There are some great posts on HeroesCommunity about clearing Crypts and slow moving enemies with minimal number of heroes. I think I'll try some. Btw, Frank is a guy who posted most of the strategies on Heroescommunity that made me realize I could improve on my tactics.

You don't need so much units to doing so, actually Magic Arrow and something like Wyverns2/Basilisks4/DF8/LW12 is sufficent. But you would need a strong magic arrow.
Of course you may destroy Crypts/Wrecks just with a little more of, ideally Wyverns, less ideally DF or eventually Destroy Undeads if you got it somewhere. Nothing beat the experience like visiting Crypt with 12Gnolls and wiping out all enemies in first turn. (You would need Witch for that with high power though.)

[Darkzephyr]

Nothing beat the experience like visiting Crypt with 12Gnolls and wiping out all enemies in first turn. (You would need Witch for that with high power though.)

So is there anyway to do it within the first week? I guess you would have to gain a few levels first.
I actually setup a game with various "crypt" type locations (I.e. Crypt, Treasury, Naga Bank, etc>) and I was able to defeat the crypt (with 5 vamps) with about 5 basilisk (that came with Bron), 23 lizard, 21 gnolls and about 26 Wolfriders. Not that impressive, but my main losses were a few gnolls and wolfriders...maybe 1 basilisk and 1 archer.

[Pol]

You don't need levels, just power, witch and that spell. Typical develop for Fortress is Gnolls, Lizards, Serpent Flies, Basilisk and Wyvern in first week, not all would be necessary depending on resources. But Wyverns are good ground for sweeping strategy, especially when accompanied by spell. No need to relly on Destroy Undeads - Ice Bolt, Lighthing Bolt will be serving almost as good.

[BoardGuest808888]

For Fortress, just Gnolls and Lizardmen are enough for mostly anything within 1st week, or 2nd week if surrounding monsters are weak or normal.

If you're in rush, then run for high levels for 2nd week, but if the map is reasonably large and long, emphasize on funding first.

[dxrb2108]

i ususally dont build my creature dwelling til i have my capitol cuz i usually run out of money but i have creatures to hire

[Banedon]

i ususally dont build my creature dwelling til i have my capitol cuz i usually run out of money but i have creatures to hire

You don't need to hire all your creatures until you expand close to your opponent. Against a typical map, there's little difference between having 6 Efreet Sultans and 10 - it's only against an equally developed human player will those 4 Sultans make a crucial difference.

This means that when given the chance, you should prioritize creature dwellings over the Capitol. If I build the Portal of Glory in week 3, run out of cash and only manage to purchase all my Angels in week 5, I will still have 2 extra Angels over the player who picks Capitol first, then builds the Portal of Glory in week 4. The player with Capitol will be able to use all his Angels in the fourth week, yes - but it just might not matter. Unless both players are already colliding with each other, the only things those Angels can do is to kill neutrals already highly-vulnerable to Marksmen / Crusaders.

[Trevor]

Briefly, I usually do a slight mix of the creatures vs capitol first week or two.

I usually build one or two creature dwellings, whatever would be most useful in easily clearing a few mines and such. This is often one shooter and/or one fast creature.

I'll buy at least one extra hero as scouts, and put one fast creature with each. While they scout and pick up free resources, I'll use my main hero to get the easy mines or other guarded things.

Back at the castle, after that first day or two, I usually totally concentrate on getting to capital as soon as possible. As others have mentioned, what is the point of having tons of creatures if you have no gold to buy them?

Of course, I often totally go against the last paragraph, because you can look at it the other way as well. Towards the end game, you often have more gold than you can spend. So if you put all your resources in week 1/2 into building creatures, you'll end up with an extra week's worth of creatures over someone that builds the capital week 1/2.