Playing SoD on hardest difficulty

[Alure155]

I've decided to try to beat HoMM3: Shadow of Death on the maximum possible difficulty. I'm currently playing the Birth of a Barbarian campaign as Yog. I've beaten the first mission, but am having trouble with the second. My problem is that, by the time I amass a decent army, the enemy amasses an unbelievable amount of units and proceeds to chase me and kill me. I've also faced this issue when playing Crag Hack's campaign (I never finished that one either). Do you guys have any tips for playing SoD on the Impossible (Or whatever it's called in English) difficulty?
Here is Yog's skillset:

(In case you can't tell from the graphics, the skills are: Advanced Tactics, Advanced Offense , Expert Pathfinding, Advanced Diplomacy, Basic Ballistics, Basic Logistics, Advanced First Aid, and Basic Armorer)
Also also, will my heroes' skillsets carry over to the bonus campaign (The one where they have to defeat Sandro, o̶u̶r̶ ̶L̶o̶r̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶S̶a̶v̶i̶o̶r̶) or will they start with a new one?

[Pitsu]

A general rule is that the higher the difficulty, the faster one needs to strike. Armies are collected as you press forward. In specific maps, like in campaigns a different strategy may be needed though. Unfortunately I do not remember the SoD campaigns that well. However, many people have completed them on impossible, so keep trying. IIRC some maps actually were challenging indeed.
Regarding carryover to later campaigns the heroes are supposed to carry over, but there was a bug, which caused the skills to be randomized. But you can reload until the random skills are decently matching your original build.
Edit: oh and once you complete a campaign, do not forget to load it before starting next one. Keep an eye on the marks, which show which campaigns you already have completed.

[Alure155]

Hmm, what about the Primary Skills like Attack, Defense, Spell power, and Knowledge? Are these randomized as well or do they carry over? Also, does the hero's spell book carry over or would I have to re-learn all of the spells in the next campaign?

[sigmundfreud]

Nothing carries over between campaigns, everything carries over between scenarios within a single campaign. In "Unholy Alliance" you 'll get a 25 level Yog with total 30 primary skills (starting 4/0/1/1 + random 24) and all 8 expert secondary skills (Pathfinding,Ballistics,Tactics,Offense fixed + 4 random). The only good thing about this new Yog is that he 'll finally be able to cast spells.

Looks like you have skipped Crag's campaign, because anyone who managed to beat its 2nd scenario on impossible doesn't asks questions anymore. Both in Yog's and Crag's campaigns it's highly recommended to abuse "Artillery". Then you either hire a hero with ballista or buy it from ballista yard. With ballista and some kiting you can rush the enemy on the first week. It's especially true for Yog because he 'll get 40-50 attack from the artifacts, starting from mission 3.

[Alure155]

Soooo I've beaten Yog's, Gem's, and Gelu's campaign. The "Strike hard, strike fast" strategy worked wonders.
"Nothing carries over between campaigns, everything carries over between scenarios within a single campaign. In "Unholy Alliance" you 'll get a 25 level Yog with total 30 primary skills (starting 4/0/1/1 + random 24) and all 8 expert secondary skills (Pathfinding,Ballistics,Tactics,Offense fixed + 4 random). The only good thing about this new Yog is that he 'll finally be able to cast spells."
Good to know.
"Looks like you have skipped Crag's campaign, because anyone who managed to beat its 2nd scenario on impossible doesn't asks questions anymore. Both in Yog's and Crag's campaigns it's highly recommended to abuse "Artillery". Then you either hire a hero with ballista or buy it from ballista yard. With ballista and some kiting you can rush the enemy on the first week. It's especially true for Yog because he 'll get 40-50 attack from the artifacts, starting from mission 3."
Funny how you should say that. I've just beaten the second mission in Hack and Slash today. However, I dun goofed a bit and didn't learn all of the spells that I could have. How hard would it be to beat the rest of Hack and Slash without using spells beyond basic ones like Blind, Haste, Slow, Bless, Cure, Dispel, etc.?

[sigmundfreud]

In 2nd mission everything depends on the enemy behavior. If you are lucky and his strongest hero is chilling near the second stronghold while you capture his castles - it's easy. But if his strongest hero comes to your first stronghold at the right moment - you are dead. Your tent is guarded by fairy dragons, so you can't rush him. It's by far the most unfair mission in all H3 campaigns.
You don't have wisdom or what? In 3rd mission you only need to kill liches in the corner, it's not hard. In the last mission you can free a very strong hero right off the bat and you get 2 castles instead of strongholds, so it's even easier.
Given that you have a respective expert magic school 1-2 level spells e.g. mass slow/haste/shield/bless/cure are the most OP spells in the game. Blind is useless against undead. Ofc "destroy undead", "resurrection" and "town portal" can be very helpful, but even without them it's doable.

[Alure155]

Alright, status update: I've beaten Mission 3 of Crag's campaign. However, I could only level up Crag Hack to level 18 because, despite the fact that I had expert logistics and advanced pathfinder for most of the mission, the enemy main hero could still outpace me and I had to rush to avoid getting killed. My current stats as of the start of mission 4 are :
Attack: 21
Defense: 10
Spell Power: 2
Knowledge: 5

Crag's skills as of starting Mission 4 are:
Expert Offense, Expert Logistics, Expert Pathfinder, Expert Tactics, Expert Air Magic, Expert Wisdom, and Basic Artillery.

"You don't have wisdom or what?"

I do, but, as I was busy building up creature dwellings in the towns, recruiting an army, and trying to avoid getting killed for most of the second and third missions, I couldn't learn every spell that was available.

" In the last mission you can free a very strong hero right off the bat and you get 2 castles instead of strongholds, so it's even easier."

I am playing the last mission right now, and it doesn't seem like that hero was of much help. Yes, I get two castles with his help, but one of them has lots of building restrictions. However, the AI has 3 Necropolis towns, all protected by a border guard, and the tent happens to be inaccessible to me. I've also noticed that the AI has either advanced or expert town portal. Even if I rush to get the top-tier units, the AI will beat me just by virtue of having more towns and instant resupply. The fact that they have Animate Dead doesn't help much, either. I don't know if I can rush to complete the quest, since I know that the hero that I have to kill to get the Shield has an army that includes, among other things, 30 spectral dragons.

[sigmundfreud]

In the second mission you could have captured all the castles and killed all the heroes except the death knight in the underworld. Then you would have unlimited time to learn every spell and visit every power-up.
In the third mission you can't capture his last necropolis without cheating, but your winning condition is to kill the liches. If you 've killed all his high level heroes, he poses no threat to Crag. So again, pretty much unlimited time to do whatever you want. It's in the third mission where I usually get the town portal, but it's possible to have it from one of the "Swords" from the previous mission.
In the fourth mission you can't capture his necropolises without cheating, but again you don't need it. All you have to do is to kill Charnath and then swim to the isle with the shield. The annoying part is the one-sided portal to your base but that's why you should have the "town portal". The devs even placed a scroll of town portal guarded by the spectral dragons if I remember correctly. Visit all power-ups and both utopias, teleport back to protect your base and get reinforcements when needed. Charnath has a fixed army, therefore earlier or later you 'll be stronger than him.

[Alure155]

"In the second mission you could have captured all the castles and killed all the heroes except the death knight in the underworld. Then you would have unlimited time to learn every spell and visit every power-up."
No, I couldn't have killed every hero except Marzeth. The enemy's main hero was still way stronger than my army and could still travel faster than Crag Hack. Whenever I captured a town, he would recapture it in a few days. I could barely get to Marzeth without getting killed by the enemy main.

"In the third mission you can't capture his last necropolis without cheating, but your winning condition is to kill the liches. If you 've killed all his high level heroes, he poses no threat to Crag. So again, pretty much unlimited time to do whatever you want. It's in the third mission where I usually get the town portal, but it's possible to have it from one of the "Swords" from the previous mission."
IF. The enemy's main had an enormous army and more movement than me. So, again, I had to rush before he killed me.

"In the fourth mission you can't capture his necropolises without cheating, but again you don't need it. All you have to do is to kill Charnath and then swim to the isle with the shield. The annoying part is the one-sided portal to your base but that's why you should have the "town portal". The devs even placed a scroll of town portal guarded by the spectral dragons if I remember correctly. Visit all power-ups and both utopias, teleport back to protect your base and get reinforcements when needed. Charnath has a fixed army, therefore earlier or later you 'll be stronger than him."

The enemy main hero has town portal, so whenever I approach one of the three Necro towns, he just teleports in and kills me. Looking at the map design, it seems as if I have no choice but to approach one of the towns in order to get to the Subterranean gate to access Charnath and later the island.

[sigmundfreud]

Then maybe it would be better to restart the campaign completely? I don't care about high score (I still get it sometimes though), I always try to dominate the enemy even if it's not needed and visit every power-up/learn every spell. If that's not possible, you 've done something wrong while developing your hero.
The key to success is the correct choice of secondary skills, Offense is fixed, 7 more skills to choose:
- mandatory Logistics, Earth Magic, Air Magic, Wisdom,
- any 3 of these Artillery (ballista lets you kill strong melee armies without any losses on the first week, insanely OP when combined with mass slow), Archery (affects ballista as well, so better take both), Tactics, Armorer, Diplomacy (has a good synergy with Leadership, but Leadership alone is useless)
- avoid everything else, except maybe Water Magic if you get it from the witch hut
So you restart first Crag mission till your starting secondary skill is Logistics + you get something useful in the nearest witch hut. Then rush the red enemy and boost Crag before ending the mission. I 've already told that 2nd mission is the hardest in the game, so you may have to restart it even if you did everything right. After maxing out Crag in the first 2 missions, 3rd and 4th ones will be a breeze.

[sigmundfreud]

This discussion has evoked nostalgia, so I even replayed it again. This time I got insanely lucky - one of two his strongest heroes, Sorsha, went to the island (where Marzeth is hiding) for a couple of weeks, so I 've captured all his castles and was prepared for a showdown. As you can see, the griffins which were guarding the portal have joined him, but it won't save him ofc.

[Alure155]

I've managed to beat Hack and Slash without having to restart. Turns out that the enemy hero would only try to teleport-rush me when I got within a certain distance of one of his towns, so, through trial and error, I found the right spot to stand in without provoking him. I then ended my turn and rushed to the island. I also used a secondary hero to distract him.

I've also beaten Rise of the Necromancer. However, a funny thing happened to me as I was playing. I was playing the first mission of Rise and came across four quest huts. One asked for 12 griffins, another for the Clover of Fortune, another for the Sentinel's Shield, and another for the Titan's Gladius. I got the Shield, but couldn't find the Gladius and the Clover. After some searching on the Internet, I found out that the Gladius and the Clover were hidden behind some mountains.


(Images taken from another site)
Now, I personally found that to be some cheap bullshit, but that's not the worst part. When I got to the island with the Gladius, I found that the stack of creatures and the sword were gone. I then realized that one of the enemy AI players took it and then got eliminated when the AIs started fighting amongst themselves, taking the Gladius with him. This also happened to me in another mission, where one of the Seer Huts asked for the Eversmoking Ring of Sulfur. Using the View spell confirmed my suspicions in both cases. Anyways, I beat the rest of the campaign just fine.

Currently, I'm playing Unholy Alliance and have just beaten Gelu's first mission. I'm currently playing Final Peace, where Gem has to kill the undead Lord Fayete. Do you have any tips for beating that mission? It seems like the undead player will raise a larger army faster even if I take all three Rampart towns as fast as possible, and the stack of creatures (Black Dragons in my case) guarding the path to the Necropolis towns prevents me from rushing to take the towns. Would the strategy here be to build up an army, let the AI kill the creatures and take a Rampart town or two, and then rush to capture the Necro towns while the AI is taking the Ramparts?