Yesterday I played a game of Homm3, and it got me thinking about how great this game actually is. HOMM3 is 25 year old game, and I played it for the first time in the early 2000s, and still community releases expansions for it, and there are old geezers(I just turned 30, so don't judge me for feeling a bit old) like me who are still captivated by its magic.

I don't play it competitive online, because I think I would get crushed, I play just scenarios, and it never gets old. I watch streamers sometimes like Lexiav, but I don't think I have skills good enough to play online to go toe to toe with any of the guys they play. When HOTA came out I was happy like when I got my hands first on Shadow of Death 25 years ago, and boy it did not disappoint! IT WAS AWESOME! Pirates were so fun, and later they added Factory which is to me like Wizzard faction from HOMM2.

I played newer games, like Baldur's Gate 3, Darkest Dungeon (both parts), Civilization 6..etc. And I enjoyed them very much, especially BG 3. But I don't think that people will play them 25 years from now. (maybe CIV 15, but not CIV 6, lol) Why is that? What makes the game get that immortal status that people play it 25 years from now? An even better question what did newer games lose that older games had so they withstood the test of time?

Like I have 100 archer wouldn't it make more sense if I have 100 archer shooting than 50 archer shooting twice? Since a shot from 100 archer might take down enemy stack and remove its threat. Same goes with melee unit too , especially melee unit, more in one stack could probably survive the blow and retaliate, compare to splitting them into many weaker stack. I see a lot of people using stack of 1 , what's the deal with that? Is it to lure the enemy to waste their turn? Are they really fall for it?.

This is the end of the campaign in „restoration of Erathia”. I have a really great main with the all four stats being in 15 region. He already knows resurrection and has expert earth, however the stats are already pretty good as well. He has also learnt fly, magic mirror and summon earth. Which one is better and why?

Bad player here.

Usually I don't upgrade gogs because I don't like the fact that their damage area affects all units, not just the enemy's.

I don't upgrade the skeletons either because when I defeat an enemy or a random monster the skeletons I get are normal so I'd have to get back to my castle to upgrade them to add them to the others, unless all the seven spaces of what my hero can carry are occupied; in that case I get upgraded skeletons from my necromancy.

Are there creatures you don't evolve ?

EDIT: I corrected evolve with update, but I can't change the title (I think).

Hey there fellow players.
Heroes3 is one of my alltime favourite game. In my youth i put in hundreds of hours and if this was not enough. hundred more. and my friends and me we always thought. jeah go solmyr and chain lighting will obliterate everything. but the more videos and guides i see, it seems that also heroes that improve battle capabilites of your units are often chosen in higher difficulties. is this because the people want to challenge themselves or because the balance is not that much on magicians side?
i guess i somewhat never understood the game properly. that would also explain why i was always good in multiplayer mode against my friends... hot seat is still the best mp mode, you cant change my mind :D
and as soon as i play campaign. i really suck and loose.

thanks in advance for your insight.

I have a friend who plays HOMM3 a lot. He is a bit of a trash talker and showed me the game. He has for years ONLY played castle. His dad literally taught him this game. Anyways, he rolled me, wasn't very helpful, and laughed about it. It's all good, we have always been absolute cunts when playing games as is tradition. One time we played a certain game that he as literally a national level champion at for 3 days straight and he didn't let me win a single game while providing zero advice whatsoever. BUT, after 3 days of fatigue, he faltered and made some small mistakes that made it impossible for him to recover and I won a match, I called him a loser and refused to play him ever again. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. We are very much like siblings. Anytime he brings up that game I say "Oh you mean that game I whipped your a** in the last time we played". LMAO. Then he demands I play him again and I tell him "I haven't got the time to teach him." LOL. Anyways, he has a similar one where he got me just as good. He never plays poker but he came to play a game with me and had the most ridiculous luck. Anyways, little fish hit runner runner and knocked me out of the table and now refuses to play poker with me! DAMMIT!

Alright, on to the latest game I have hatched a murderous plan on, HOMM3. This friend ONLY plays Castle right? He claims angles are the most OP. This is a game he learned when he was a kid. From googling he doesn't know anything about using phoenix units speed to dive bomb people and then run away.

But I think the easiest to pull off would be skeletons with necromancy.

What settings should I set the game up with to be able to beat him best with this strategy?

I'm talking map size, players, random assignment for town, everything. What build order?

GPT gave me a little rundown but I feel like it is missing some finer details.

Help me make fun of him some more.

Starting a game with factory for the first time. Anyone know why one of the units for this castle is not buyable?? Kinda defeats the purpose of playing it?

I'm making a documentary trying to figure out what draws people to HoMM3, but people I talk to who don't play the game keep assuming that it's just nostalgia.

I know that's definitely a part of it, but I'm sure there's more to it ~ what draws you guys to HoMM? is it just nostalgia?

I play Jebus Outcast on impossible, each game I flag every town, find the Grail etc. I have no idea what else affects the score and the wiki formula seems innacurate

I’ve been interested in making a custom faction for the last week, and after seeing how demanding a process it is, I somehow still want to make one. I’ve chosen a light theme and the faction will be called The Radiance. If I finish this a few months down the line, I’ll create its opposite; The Umbra

I’m not an animator or visual artist so I’ll be relying heavily on AI to create the art assets. (It is what it is lol sorry, this is primarily a game design challenge for me)

After digging through the code, I still have a couple of questions that maybe some people here could help me with:

1. Is there any formula for creature fight value, or does the developer have to decide on an appropriate number?

2. What is the ‘stack experience’ section in a creature json file? There are arrays with 10 elements each for things like magic resistance, creature damage etc. why aren’t these single values and what decides which element is picked?

3. When programming bonuses for a building, there’s a function where the type, subtype, value, value type and propagator are defined. These are all filled with keywords like “GENERAL_DAMAGE_REDUCTION”, “damageTypeAll”, “ADDITIVE_VALUE”, “PLAYER_PROPAGATOR” etc. that seem to be recognised by the game’s code

These are all clear to me, but is there a list of these keywords anywhere so I can have more freedom when creating my own bonuses?

1. Finally, in the dwellings.json file where building animations are defined, they all have arrays with multiple small strings of letters (e.g. “mask” : [VVV, VVV, VBB, VAB]). I’m guessing the mask is used to define which parts of an image are visible, but what does these small strings of letters mean?

I attached some early versions of the Daybreak Cleric, Blessing Bearer and Lightforged Paladin creatures if anyone’s curious. Before anyone mentions it I found a method for animation, but I’m definitely open to suggestions as mine will be very time-consuming.

Thanks in advance for any responses, and if I’m missing something, please let me know!

To me, it’s Deemer. I’ve always wondered just how dangerous he was and how he learned to control his powers. I’d like to know who you think is most interesting.

People have mixed feelings about Factory, have not really heard much about Cove though.

Personally I’m not the biggest fan of Factory and I am with the opinion it doesn’t fit in the “HOMM genre” like some others are and I don’t care for any of its creatures other than Coatls.

But I understand many like it, however Cove felt appropriate and a naturally more sea based version of fortress if anything.

Let me know your thoughts:)

I'm trying new things while playing random maps (SoD) and I'd like to experiment with more magic based strats. I've already played Solmyr a lot, so I was wondering if you guys have any recommendations besides Black Dragon Armageddon. Alagar with focus on Ice Bolt? Zydar and deal damage with fire magic spells? Is Septienna focused on Death Ripple viable?

What do you think?

Edit: wow, I wasn’t expecting so much positive and helpful feedback! Seems I really need to pay more attention to skills and level up more heroes in the first scenario so that I have more peeps to move the army around. I think I’ll just give the mission again sometime this week and see if I can make things work a bit better for me. Thanks!

I’ve had the game since it first got released, but it was way too hard for me to play when I was a kid so I just kinda goofed around, recruited “cool” looking monsters, and maybe managed to finish like the first mission of each campaign, but that was it. I tried to replay it multiple times over the years as I love everything about it, but I always felt overwhelmed and ended up quitting.

Now I’ve decided to give it a proper go and figure it out - first campaign was fairly simple, I got strong magic heroes and managed to win without any difficulties. I thought hey, maybe I got a tiny bit better at it.

Then I started the second campaign, I believe the English title is “spoils of war”or something similar? Played swamp then stronghold, built up some nice heroes, all went well.

I picked swamp for the 3rd mission, played for the last 3h and I still didn’t win, even thought I think the game is kinda leaning my way now. I lost waaaay too much time chasing the red player around the middle of the map - somehow all my heroes move super slow, I thought swamp would slow fortress heroes down? Either way, it’s a drag and I think I’m doing something seriously wrong, I feel like I’m always one step behind the enemy.

I like figuring games out by myself, I don’t really read guides or watch tutorials unless I have to, but I think I could really use some tips or suggestions that would help me get a bit better as I play. I’m a huge M&M fan and I’d love to beat Homm3 at some point but sometimes I feel like I’m just too daft to play it.

Thanks in advance!

Hello! You got an uber newb to Heroes 3 here. I started 3 days ago and am hooked!

I understand that having undead troops in your army + living troops causes a -1 morale debuff.

Does the same apply if the hero is undead and all of their troops are living? (Only undead member would be the hero)

With HD Mod and HoTA, there is now an easy way to retry at battle if you're not happy with the results. This used to require 'cheating' by saving before the battle and loading the save. But now that the option is there, is it considered part of the game and completely legitimate?

What is your the most incredible victory in the Herose 3? As for me it was a few minuts ago, I win 181 Ancient Behemoth with only 9 Black Dragon (and very much other my monsters)). I'm beginner in this game, it can be normal for you but it cool for me. What do you think, what tactics I shoud have and what mistake I have in this battle?

Apologies if this has been posted before, I couldn't find any info on it. I'm playing HOTA HD on a 43inch 4k tv and everything is incredibly small, is there a way to zoom in to make the map and hero/town info on the left more visible and easy to see?

I have never found (nor really looked for) the grail. As far as I can tell the AI hasn't either since I have never seen a grail building in a captured AI town. So I was wondering how relevant the grail is overall. Do you guys go looking for it? And if yes how do you do so? Just send one random hero to go find it? Or do you spend considerable effort in obtaining it?

I know about going for capital vs going for units/heroes, but after that, do you guys focus on buildings that increase units per day? Or do you go for your top tier unit first?

Also once you capture other towns, do you recruit from them? Or do you mostly recruit from your original city so that you can doomstack with the same type of units, and just use the other towns as income?

Hi!

New player here who has so far tried out rampart and castle and done the same thing twice: relied on my tier 3 range unit plus the might hero that specialises in them.

I would like to try out a more magic approach and conflux seems to be the premier town for that. However, I am unsure what exactly makes magic good besides throwing some spells I have. Could you folks explain to me what my focus should be when playing a magic main like grindian? Are there. Specific units I should focus on? Do I need to rush mages gild? What should I be going for on the map? Any help for a absolute newbie would be welcome!

Also bonus question: what maps do you guys play? Just doing random map generator, is this recommended or should I play specific maps as long as I am a new player?