HoMM 6 - learning curve

[Variol]

Since I bought the game from Humble Bundle last week I have been playing it a bit. I'm finding that all of the skill choices available are quite daunting.
I would appreciate some suggestions which I can try in the scenarios.

Thanks

[wimfrits]

Below my personal recipe for the main hero build:
1. Logistics
2. Stand your ground or Flawless assault / Heroism *
3. Tactics I
4. Heal spell 1**
5. Snatch
6. Evasive Maneuvres or Pressed Attack *
7. Pathfinding
8. Reinforcements I
9. Rush
10. Pressed attack (if on the Tears path)
11. Heal spell 2 **
12. Ambush
Now I'll probably save a few skillpoints until reaching lvl 15
I'll pick Battle March and Reinforcements II at some point.

With a might hero I'll want Cleave, Heroic Charge, Rampage and Taunt, in that order.
With a magic hero, I'll want elemental 1, meditation, elemental 2, time stasis and maybe elemental 3, in that order. Elemental preference: 1. water, 2. light, 3. dark, 4. earth

Towards lvl 30 I'll start spending on reputation related passive skills (Defender/Assailant etc). Archery when archers play a significant part. Giant Slayer probably

* an active combat skill to boost Blood/Tears points. Can be replaced by another skill when reaching reputation level 2.
** regeneration, life drain, heal (in that order). When playing Haven or Sanctuary I'll only pick 1. With Necropolis I'll start with life drain.
_________________

[Konfuzius]

Yeah, at the beginning all the choices really are daunting, but depending on which faction you play, there are only few "must have" skills left and the rest is up to your hero build and personal preference.

Something I'd take right at the beginning is always enlightment or logistics (sorry if I name the skills wrong, I haven't played the english version).

However, without any further information like faction, magic/might and blood/tears there is no good answer we can give you.

[Variol]

I'm currently playing a Haven army.

[Variol]

My game just crashed and I went back into it, but my qucksave and autosave both seem to be missing. Could someone tell me where to find them? I hate to start over.

[Pol]

What type of saves are you using? By default the game was using online saves via Uplay and that could be disabled in the Uplay pre-running utility. When disabled it was saved locally, in the Documents I think.

Try to check first our summary, it contains very helpful FAQ.

[Variol]

I'll have to find the settings. I've only been relying on the auto and quick saves. But I should be about to access any save game in the load screen; right?

[Pol]

No, it's either online saves or offline saves. Also if you have online saves only and there's some connection error you may just try later.

Ahem, from past I remember complaints on disappearing online saves, it may be you case. There it's true that I disabled them almost from the beginning. I'm sure that Avonu was the first, bringing here that hint.

[Variol]

Can I change this setting in my "options" menu?

Also,
Why is that I can only select Sandra or Crag Hack in a scenario now? Before, I had a lot more options.
I don't know why I buy this online sh!t.

[Pol]

You need to change it from the game launcher, whatever the name is, don't remember.

Because of Famous Marzhin's campaigns, with Crag Hack and Sandro. I hope. That's at least reason why I bought it. There was also a very nice Christmas map but that was a bonus.

There will be some order but I only played (ages ago) vanilla game, so cannot tell you.

Ubi_Irina from patch 1.5 foreword:
..Finally, we decided to add some other major changes, notably much-awaited compatibility of on-line and off-line saves.
To give some details: while playing in offline mode, you’ll be able to create save games. The next time you start the game in online mode, during the boot-up of the game, all offline save games created in the previous offline session will be uploaded as online saves to the Ubisoft servers. So when you open the Load Game menu, you will have access to both your online and offline save games. This change will enable you to get your on-line saves directly on your computer and play off-line.

[Variol]

Thank you Pol!
I'll launch UPlay and look for settings. I still don't get how I lost all of the different hero options...

[Pol]

@Variol
Uplay -> Right up icon of Cogwheel -> Settings -> Enable Cloud Save Synchronization for supported games

Disable that option.

[Variol]

I just removed and re-installed the game and I still only have Sandro and Crag Hack as hero choices. Pretty frustrating. Humble Bundle said that they would give me my money back.

[Pol]

@Variol
Good to hear.
The correct order of missions is likely important, because even in vanilla you must first start with available campaigns and after that you can pass to final capitols.

Still, it's a bug.

[Variol]

But before the crash, I could play a stand alone game and select about 12 different heroes from different factions.

[Variol]

I'm more than a little disappointed that, even in H6 the enemy AI still has heroes running back and forth, doing nothing.