Ebonheart said:

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Just take heed, self made maps are hardly ever well balanced. The main issue is not the balance of units/artifacts, but the fact that the creator(s) got knowledge on the map layout, the spots of important buildings/treasuries or an overall "map" for how to fight the map.
This may not sound like much to you, but for an experienced player it is almost enough to say check-mate.

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OhforfSake said:

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For campaigns spells are very important as they transfer like you found out.

The map makers have probably put limits to what spells are available, but otherwise getting hold of spells like Dimension Door, Fly, Town Portal, Armageddon, Resurrect, Blind, etc. are game winners vs. the AI.

Don't overestimate the quality of the AI, it has really big weaknesses on every difficulty.
I don't remember the exact differences between the 3 highest difficulties, hard, expert and impossible, but they are very minor apart from the starting resources.

Like said already, campaigns and multiplayer with friends don't really have much to do with each other, unless your friends make some rather special maps I suppose.

More concretely and advices that are easy to follow just from the top of my memory:
1) Get a good armies early, so if you play e.g. Dungeon or Necropolis go with Shakti or Galthran, their first level unit specialties means they have the potential to start with large armies.
2) Go for creature buildings as main priority, get your seventh level unit as fast as possible, if you can get it week 2 you're probably fine (for some towns, like Rampart and Dungeon you usually can't get it before week 2). If you can get it week 1 and perhaps say a level 7 dwelling on top you're looking really good.
3) Use lots of heroes, plan your movement well and you'll see your "kingdom" expand extremely fast, especially if you can manage to use most of your army in battles required by moving your army between heroes.
4) When you pick a chest, go for gold.
5) Prioritize what objects on the map are important enough for you to go for, e.g. creature dwellings marked on the map that is the same as you've build in your town won't only generate creatures in the dwelling, but generate extra production of said creature in your town as well.
6) For primary stats go for might stats over magic stats unless you're playing a campaign where you can often complete the map faster with a strong magic hero who can use his power right away against the weak AI.
Might stat is Attack and Defense, usually pick Attack over Defense. Power and Knowledge you only need a limited amount in and artifacts should be able to provide you this.

Like said before, if you play on a fixed map, you should probably watch it before playing, perhaps even play and plan it out depending on how committed you are to doing well.
If you're not allowed to do this, you can also get map information from cartographers and the spells View Air and View Earth.

There is a lot more, but that was just from the top of my head and I've probably forgotten things while writing it anyway.

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Dispo96 said:

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I respect your opinion on the map stuff, the two guys that create the map are all about equality and balance.  They make the largest map and it takes them a very long time to perfect it so that it's a fair and equal match.  They've both been playing the game since it's birth and they are both top percentile logic/math in the nation.

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Ebonheart said:

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If I understand you correctly you wish to play the game in order to grow more in order to give a better match to your friends?

If that's the case I would advice you to stay away from the campaigns as they are nowhere near the typical multiplayer game.
It is better if you take a random map like Jebus and spam random games with the town you wish to get better with.

However if you insist on doing the campaigns there are tactics for each map if you google the map name. [url=https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Heroes_of_Might_and_Magic_III:_The_Shadow_of_Death/New_Beginning#After_the_Amulet]Guide[/url]

My general advice is to not underestimate your troops (they are stronger than they appear to be), engage in fights where the losses will be minimal (so avoid archers unless they really guard something crucial), only turtle (go for capitol/more troops) if you are locked in. Aquire Earth or Air magic and avoid the other schools. Due to how campaigns work, the better the magic skill and Power/Knowledge you start with, the more you can do early game.

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Galaad said:

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In case you don't know there is a powerful artifact that immunes your troops to Blind, just got to be lucky enough to find it.
Water has some excellent spells and don't worry about "wrong" choices in single-player, there is no such thing as wrong choices vs AI.
For multi yes I would favor Air and Earth over it.

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