Need HoMM 1 Campaign Help

[Wrathchilde]

I'm playing through this game for the 1st time and am stuck on the same scenario for at least the 6th time now. I just cannot win, as the other forces just swarm me. It's the 4th map, which is fairly and you have to conquer all of the other 3 opponents. I'm even willing to use cheats at this point if there are any, as I am just getting beat back time after time after time. The scenario ends up with me backed into a corner with one city, and I just cannot make enough money to hire troops and heroes to go against the the constant onslaught of the enemy stacks. I've looked at the walkthroughs and they really don't give much help to getting through the scenario.

[Zubbus]

Yes, this map is extremely difficult if you are new.
The easiest way is to choose to defect at the start, then you'll be on the side that is 3 vs the guy who didn't defect.
You see, if you start good and defect, you end up evil.
And then if you want to play ithe campaign again, start evil and defect and finish the campaign good, you would have played every battle in the campaigns and not missed anything.

[Metathron]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the thread starter is talking about HoMM I, not HoMM II? Though it can be ambiguous to be sure.

Wraithchilde, this scenario may seem intimidating, but it is actually not THAT difficult. I have won it with the sorceress and barbarian, and most recently with the warlock. Which faction are you playing? Generally, a good tip is to build up your forces and be aggressive in capturing mines, especially a gold mine and a crystal/crystal/mercury/sulfur mine for knight/barbarian/sorceress/warlock, respectively. Protect your castle with slow troops that you would naturally leave behind (i.e dwarves, hydras, ogres and whatever for the knight) and work towards capturing nearby enemy castles and fortifying those with troops as well. Magic will be of great help, though it will be hard to scrounge up the resources for the higher level mage guilds; capturing an enemy castle with a fully built mage guild will be a most welcome surprise.

Let us know how it goes, and if you just can't manage this scenario (though I think you should), I can send you my saved game, but it's for the warlock campaign.

[Wrathchilde]

I'm definitely talking about the first HoMM. I decided to go back to the beginning and play all of the games' campaigns since I never have. I picked the Knight for my first go through on this campaign, and am having a terrible time on this map. This time I went all out to get the ultimate artifact, which happened to be the +12 Attack sword, so my one remaining hero is almost invincible right now, but I just can't keep both him with a stocked army and keep any garrisons when I capture a town. 2 of the players have been eliminated, so my opponent owns everything on the map except my one last castle. I sometimes take out 2 or 3 of his heroes per turn but they just keep coming back!

[Metathron]

I haven't played the campaign as a knight yet. I imagine it is the most difficult of the bunch by far.

[Wrathchilde]

Are there any working cheats for this game?

[Metathron]

The ones that exist have never worked for me.

[Wrathchilde]

I'm doomed.

[Wrathchilde]

You know, I can't believe that I'm having such trouble with a game that came out in 1995. How embarrassing.

[Kristo]

Maybe you can try posting a week-by-week summary of how things go. Then we can offer suggestions for improvement. Just because a game is old doesn't mean it's easy.

At this point the only suggestion I have is to find a way to cut off the computer's supply of heroes. That means conquering castles and holding on to them. To do that effectively you need good exploration (to see where the enemy heroes are) and fast heroes (leave the peasants and archers at home if you can help it).

[Wrathchilde]

Maybe I'll do that if I don't succeed on this run through. I've actually resorted to using the show map cheat so that I can keep an eye on what's going on with the enemy.

[Zubbus]

You know, I can't believe that I'm having such trouble with a game that came out in 1995. How embarrassing.

Well then I don't recommend chess. It came out thousands of years ago.

The knight IS the hardest of the 4 in H1. Due largely to the army being much weaker.

[Wrathchilde]

For what it's worth, I hate chess these days. I think it's because the only time I'm exposed to is about 6 a.m. after pulling all night party session and I'm in a state where my brain just doesn't want to deal with such thought processes. In fact, watching others play at those moments makes me just want to knock their board over.

EDIT: Also, if anyone somewhere has a saved game for the Knight campaign that will get me past this scenario, I'm willing to use it. I'll never even get to HoMM2 campaigns at this rate!

[Kristo]

If I can get H1 to cooperate on my computer and not crash every five minutes, I think I'll try playing up to your scenario to see if I can help. FWIW, the one time I played through that campaign I used the Knight, so it can be done. If you're getting too frustrated you might consider taking a break and playing some H2 for a while.

[Wrathchilde]

I think that there just must be something wrong with my playing style. I can get a few castles, maybe 4 or 5, but then I can't defend them and still expand, as I can't raise enough troops to both defend my existing holdings and supply more than 1 army. I usually get my Knight up to 15th or 16th level with a whole supply of artifacts before the one remaining opponent just ends up having overpowering force and hits with me one large army after another.

[Kristo]

I suggest trying an all-offense strategy. Don't bother defending any castles. Better said, play defense by playing offense. If the enemy heroes don't reach your castle, the defenders aren't doing any good. It's better to have them in your conquering army than to have them sit idle. I hold my castles by holding territory on the map with heroes, something the AI is not programmed to do.

[Wrathchilde]

So what do you do? Do you form one or two large armies and just keep advancing, attacking any heroes that come your way? I think a more aggressive behaviour on my part is definitely required. If I lose this current go round of the scenario I will give that a try.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

You might wanna try my Heroes 1 patch. Makes Knight castle units quite a bit stronger and Warlock gets only 2 dragons per week.

[Wrathchilde]

You might wanna try my Heroes 1 patch. Makes Knight castle units quite a bit stronger and Warlock gets only 2 dragons per week.

Where would I find that? And would it screw up an in-process campaign? I'm not sure any patches or mods will work with my version, though as the game is actually played through Comcast Games on Demand. I don't think I have the full directory structure as a disk-based install.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

It doesn't matter if you use it with an old savegame. Savegames do not save unit statistic data or unit/building prices. It will work perfectly as long as you are using the Windows 95 CDROM version (the version that comes with a map editor). If your current "Heroes.exe" file is exactly 699 KB, you're in business. But if you don't have the original CDROM that goes with the game (with quality CD audio tracks), you're shit out of luck.

http://pages.infinit.net/plague/h1mod.zip