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Frank
Promising
Known Hero
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posted November 19, 2002 02:26 PM |
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Edited By: Frank on 30 Dec 2002
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HOMM3 Tactics
Every now and then I will post a tactic here. Most of you will find some of them tactics obvious. Hopefully I can share with you some other less obvious tactics that you will find helpfull.
1) Gold management and building tactic with rampart.
There is a building I`ve seen few Rampart addict ever build. I do it every games that last 3 weeks+. The Treasury building. 5000 gold 5W 10Ore might seem a lot but if you do all that you should do you will get 5K + gold the very first week change it comes into play. Day 7 you should build a market in every cities you own. Trade every ressources you don`t need. Let`s say you are playing a random XL map and you have 100 gems-sulfur-mercury to trade. Depending on the number of markets you own that`s easily +15k gold before the new week. Also do not upgrade your green dragon dwelling just now, wait until day 1. In fact, all major expenses should wait until the next day with the exception of going to a new month. You can still gamble it but plagues may occur every other new months and so you might consider buying all that you can to save as much as possible. Week 3 should be your goal to build the treasury else I suggest you wait until week 5 unless you want to gamble it.
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Frank
Promising
Known Hero
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posted November 19, 2002 02:46 PM |
bonus applied. |
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2) Fighting against Harpy Hags tactic
Having to fight against Harpy Hags early in the game can be desastrous. Here is 2 things you should know about hags. First, your formation should have your best archer group in 1st position, in 2nd position your largest hand to hand combat unit group. 3rd positon should be your 2nd hand to hand combat group or a single unit. I suggest single units for each of the remaining position. Your archer group should always aim for the groups for which they deal full damage (full arrow). Unless, and this is the key,if your best hand to hand combat group can kill one stack of hags outright. Then it becomes more advantageous to aim the the stacks of hags starting from the 3rd group or so. Leave one tile from which your archers can be attacked by the hags. The first group of hags will then come right beside your archers without attacking them. Wait with your archers and when it`s your best hand to hand combat group`s turn kill the stack of hags completely with using magics if you have to. Then on the return your achers will be able to fire at the remaining stacks. This way you kill twice as many stacks of hags in every combat turns. This tactic does wonders. Instead of running towards the hags with your pikemen`s group and see it destroyed completely by 7 stacks of hags the next turn, you keep as much of your pikes and let the hags come to you.
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HeyYou
Known Hero
and beloved food provider.
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posted November 19, 2002 11:20 PM |
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On tactics . . .
Well, this works great against the AI, but not against a human player:
Whenever there's a Sanctuary near a castle, and you might not be able to successfully defend it against a siege, put a hero in the sanctuary, and leave 1 creature in each spot in the castle (or put up as good a fight as you can with the creatures you have, to wear down the attacking hero some).
When the attacking hero is done and has taken your castle, oftentimes they'll leave and start going somewhere else, leaving the castle completely undefended. Hop in there with your hero waiting in Sanctuary, buy another hero, put him in the Sanctuary, lather, rinse, and repeat.
It's a little time-consuming, and of course you're spending 2500 GP on each hero, but it can give your main hero time to get over there to help out, or eventually kill off the attacking hero by attrition. Also, usually the towers will kill off more creatures than the 7 cheap-o ones you have lined up, because you'll often get 2 rounds of tower attacks.
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Frank
Promising
Known Hero
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posted November 20, 2002 05:59 AM |
bonus applied. |
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3) Fighting against crypts tactic
In this example I will demonstrate how to do it with Rampart, the best at it. Note that it can be done with other castle type. Experience it for yourselves. Crypts are great for extra income week 1. Don`t let the big crypts (10 vamps) scare you. Place your troops this way before entering. 1 fodder / all your remaining centaurs / 1 fodder / 1 fodder / all your grand elves / 1 fodder / 1 fodder. For fodders you can use a single centaur, that way you gain +1 morale or you can use goblins, pikemen, imps, trogs, etc... This works best on grass, rampart`s homeland and is dangerous on dirt, necro`s homeland. First turn, (7+)Grand Elves wait. Then your group of centaurs, you should have about 50 of them, kill the whole stack of 20 squeletons by attacking them from directly in front of them. Use your fodder to attract the vampires and the wights the further away from your centaurs. Still on the first combat turn, if you are on grass, you can fire arrows on 20 zombies or move to the tile where the squeletons were. The 2nd combat turn you still have 2 fodders to keep the vamps and wights as far away from your centaurs/grand elves as possible. Then simply kill the foes as they come within reach carefully managing the wait feature to let them come at full damage arrow range. You shouldn`t lose much using this tactic ( a few centaurs ). Note that if you have an archery skilled hero and/or magic arrow you can improve your results. That way you can do all crypts as soon as you have grand elves the very first week of the game. Whichever castle type you are, remember to follow the same principles going in a crypt. It works well with tower and castle too. For other castle type you need more fire power and/or magical assets.
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Frank
Promising
Known Hero
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posted November 20, 2002 06:24 AM |
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Edited By: Frank on 20 Nov 2002
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4) Managing secondary skills tactic
How to developp your main hero is the key to success in any games. You have to know one thing about secondary skills. If your main hero starts with logistic and archery for example, when you reach a new level of expertise, you will be offered 100% of the time either archery or logistic + a new secondary skill. There are a lot of skills at this point that might interest you. Likely: Tactic, offense, armorer, air and earth magic and wisdom. It`s a common mistake for the beginners to jump on them new skills the very first time they show up. Be patient. At first you should try to gain expert logistic as fast as possible unless earth magic is offered. From the moment your hero reaches expert logistic, the more you will gain experience points each upcomming turns. Why should you only focuss on earth magic as for your third secondary skill? A skilled archery hero with mass slow will be able to get rid of huge AI groups such as lots daemons, or do naga banks, conservatories, etc... much faster then any other configuration hero/troops/spells there is in HOMM3. The only moment you should take something else than earth magic on such an hero (Kyrre) is if you have expert log and advanced archery or expert archery and advanced log. Instead of taking archery or log you may want to get air / tactic / offense / armorer / wisdom at that time. The reason is simple. If you have both your starting skills at expert then the next time you get a level, 2 new skills will be offered to you and you may have to chose between 2 unwanted skills such as eagle eye and navigation.
Whichever hero you select as your main, you should foccuss on getting 1st) logistic 2nd)earth/air 3) offense/armorer/tactic/wisdom. If you know you can count on a better moving speed troop than your opponent has, a lethal combination of skills would be tactic and air expert with the spell haste.
Keep in mind that the more secondary skills you have the tougher it gets to aquire new ones. The other thing to consider about managing your secondary skills is the map your are playing on. Is there enough XPs availabe to reach 3 expert secondary levels? 5 secondary expert levels? When would a main fight be likely to happen? 1st week? 3rd week? The time table is important. You should never enter a main fight with your opponent without either mass slow or mass haste.
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Destro23
Promising
Famous Hero
Keeper of GrongGrong
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posted November 20, 2002 01:48 PM |
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Just to clarify a little something regarding Crypts and the Tower..
If attacking in week1 on snow based terrain, it is nessecary to not bring ANY gargoyles with you.
The reason for this is the gargoyles will go first..
On snow terrain vampires and master gremlins have the same speed. If you attack with anything faster than a master gremlin, or your large stack of masters is not in the first slot of your army, those vampires will go first.
golems provide great blocks as do dwarves, bless is definately handy.. those 90+ masters can kill 10 vamps blessed with basic archery and a 4 attack. Then proceed to kill the wights, then run away run away, until you can safely shoot the skels and dead.
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The Dead Walk!!!
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Frank
Promising
Known Hero
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posted November 21, 2002 09:08 AM |
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Edited By: Frank on 21 Nov 2002
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5) Fighting tactic with level 6 units against archers
In week 2 if you can count on level 6 units you can easily send any hero kill the packs and even the lots of ranged units ( lizards, orcs, archers, elves, master gremlins, beholders ). This can work with only 2 level 6 but against the lots I suggest you bring all level 6 units you have. Split your level 6 units in stacks of 1 unit. 1st turn you wait with all units. Most likely the archers will fire at the same unit but not always. On the return you advanced towards the archers with all units but the one who got hit. Then be sure to attack or at least place one unit beside every groups there are. Monitor your Hit Points closely as the fight can last for several turns. Withdraw the units too close from dying.
Fighting with only your level 6 units will allow you to not lose a single of your own archer & level 1 - 2 -3 troops.
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Frank
Promising
Known Hero
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posted November 22, 2002 04:19 AM |
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Edited By: Frank on 23 Nov 2002
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6) Common mistakes to avoid
- Visting a castle with your main hero and depart from it without having bought a magic book. Cost: at least 2 turns !
- Entering a combat in which you will have to cast ressurect but you forget to unequip the recanter. Cost: from some of your troops to your whole army + 2500 gold to rehire !
- Entering a combat with your main hero only for being able to rebuy it in another castle but you have the shackles equipped. Cost: all your artefacts + your main hero or (n) times 2500 gold if you are lucky to get it back in your tavern 
- For any chain of heroes that has to pass through a town: Switching your troops IN the town to the next hero and depart from it without having transferred the needed artefacts. Cost: you get your troops implosionned whereas with the recanter...
- While moving towards opponent`s castle day 7 a Marletto attracts you just by the road and you end up short 1 tile from your target. Cost: instead of getting a free castle you end up fighting the opponent`s main hero with + 1 week worth of troops.
- You see your opponent`s main hero with few thunderbirds and you are in reach with dragon flies. What are the only 2 factors that can prevent you from ending the game right there given the fact that you have enough dragon flies to kill 4 t-birds at once? answer: more advanced tactic skill and speed artefacts !!! You think that 13 speed would be enough to kill 11 speed when the opponent hero isn`t Shiva and not standing on rough (barbarian`s terrain). Well cape of velocity +2 and Wayfaerer ring +1 is all it takes ! I had the swiftness necklace and being careless I didn`t equip it before the fight. To my big surprise I wasn`t playing first with same tactic level. What a great opportunity missed to end the game.
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fran7738
Tavern Dweller
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posted November 27, 2002 05:25 AM |
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Hey Frank,
Do you have some topias strategies to share besides the hydra's trick on easy level or the use of force field with arch-devils?
Mandrake
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Sach Khand
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splexx
Known Hero
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posted November 27, 2002 06:03 AM |
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Edited By: splexx on 27 Nov 2002
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Frank....
One, among many of my weaknesses is...
Being a p@ssy when it comes to facing a strong stack of archers wk 1, with only lvls 1 @ 2 units..
Share some of your best strats...
Call me grasshopper
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Azif..
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andiangelsla...
Disgraceful
Famous Hero
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posted November 27, 2002 02:22 PM |
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The most important thing when planning to fight shooters is to rate the speed of your armies/blocking stacks and the speed of the monster - a good exemple is fighting on snow and got some gargoyles:
Now if the shooter is something like a archer or elves you can reach them in round 2 and block them until your main stack(s) arrive to kill the elves them being helpless in melee.
And the other side of the story is if you got for example centaurs and theres a horde master grems on snow - you will be in big trouble coz most of the centaurs will be shot, same speed as the grems - while on gras its a easy kill, and on other terrains its possible coz the centaurs are 1 faster there.
Also you need to know which monster has a melee penalty, and what a upgraded stack would do to you - e.g. several cyklops look tough first look but could be a very easy kill when forced into melee.
If you fight elves count 1/4 grand elves in, if you fight archers on gras think about what a stack of speed 7 marksmen could do to your speed 6 stack, and so on.
Than finally, on rdms you needa judge how many they prolly are...depending on what they guard, on some like gold mine you cant know but if theres for example lots archers guarding 1 chest and a learnign stone its prolly only close to 20.
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HeyYou
Known Hero
and beloved food provider.
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posted November 27, 2002 07:43 PM |
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Too many creatures have "no melee penalty." Like the ArchMage, why on earth would he have no melee penalty? Mages are sissies in hand-to-hand, they definitely should have melee penalty. Monks too.
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
~ Hanlon's Razor
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Hexa
Responsible
Legendary Hero
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posted November 27, 2002 09:04 PM |
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Offtopic from me again ... I gave Xarfax that QP .. just loved that post!@
Since I know ToH mod never give QP's I just feel the need to give some for them.
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If you want to realize your dreams >>> you have to wake up!@
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Xarfax111
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
The last hero standing
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posted November 27, 2002 10:13 PM |
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Quote:
Btw..a little question:
Why is it better to attack dungeon then to get attacked by dungeon? (im not talking about hit and run)
Xarfax1
Hi Hexa,
thanks for the QP . But dont have u (anyone) have a suggestion to this question?
Xarfax1
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bjorn190
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Jebus maker
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posted November 27, 2002 10:49 PM |
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To place dragon so that they easier to hurt own units?
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Frank
Promising
Known Hero
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posted November 27, 2002 11:06 PM |
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First of all thx to everyone who shared some tactics with us.
Fran: Ways to open an utopia have to be thought off on the base of 2 things. 1) How fast (in terms of months/weeks/days)can I risk it with any chance of being successfull. 2) What will I lose
- The fastest way involves ressurect/animate. It can be done with enough spell power/mana and with as few as 3 lvl 7 + some other ''baits'' troops.
- 3 or 5 chaos hydras with 6 dragon flies. In words I won`t be able to explain how this one works. I`m thinking of making pics of each battle phase...
- Arch devils or Arch angels with either force field (be sure to use borders of the battle screen else it won`t work) or a very good cure. In both case armorer and great defence helps a great deal.
You have to know that of all the games I personnaly play, those above technics I use maybe 5% of the time? Personnaly I use a huge army and I let dragons focuss on destroying the troops I wouldn`t even use further in the game anyhow.
Splexx: There is couple of ways I have used successfully to take care of pack or lots archers with level 1-2-3 troops in week 1 but you need either a warlock with great magic arrow or a tactic expert hero. For instance it`s always possible to make it so shatki/gunnar/tyraxor/etc... get it very early. Then all you need is speed 6 or greater depending on what you are attacking. An other way would involve 2 groups of archers, 1 good and 1 you can afford to waste. If you have 7 grand elves from your castle and 6 lizards from a tavern hero, first turn fire at the upgraded or biggest group of archers with GE, advance all single centaurs towards archers and the enemy will shoot at the lizards. Lizards will last for at least 1 turn. 2nd turn your main centaur group is in reach and so are all remaining single centaurs... All you lose is your lizards and few centaurs.
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Motorschaaf
Bad-mannered
Famous Hero
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posted November 27, 2002 11:15 PM |
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Quote:
Hey Frank,
Do you have some topias strategies to share besides the hydra's trick on easy level or the use of force field with arch-devils?
Mandrake
im not frank but i have a quite easy tactic how to take a topia with inferno with minor losses.
all u need is a good might hero with good defense and attack . usually u use ur imps and gogs as fooder but they die faster than u can say "hi". i dun use imps and gog stacks in topias - i just use my demons as fooder  before entering topia take a stack of demons with you and don't make this stack any bigger than u can resurrect cause our target will be to let that stack die completely and rise it just before topiafight is over (i think 1 pitfiend can rise 1,2 - maybe a bit more -demons) so for example if u have 20 pitfiends take 32 demons with u into the utopia. the other 6 stacks are Archdevils, sultans, pitlords and 3 single imps . on 100% difficulty the dragosn will first go for the single imps and then after ur demons and attack em over and over again - but compared to the imps and gogs (which surely most of u take as fooder into a topia) they wont die in a second . while the dragons concentrate on the demons and slaughter em the archdevils and sultans kick their butts. the good thing about a big stack of demons is that u can even use them to take the dragons retalation - specially if u got spells on em like shield. try taking drags retalation with a stack of 60 imps for example that wont do you any good - u run out of fooder and lose a lot .
not that ur devils and sltans have minimized the number of drags keep an eye on the number of ur demons and let 1 maybe 2 drags surive (best red or greens) then hit wait with all ur units till the demon stack is totally whiped out and then rise em with the pitlords. in the next turn ur archdevils and sultans should go first and whipe out the last standing drags so they cant hurt ur loyal demons anymore
after a bit of practice ull c taking topias with inferno is a piece of cake. even without high lvl spells
Demonschaaf
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Frank
Promising
Known Hero
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posted November 28, 2002 05:25 AM |
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Dancing with the enemy
7) Archery tactics
Archery is a great skill. For it to give you the edge in a game you must know how to use it properly. Let`s say for this example that your army is composed of 7 grand elves and 54 centaurs in the hands of Jenova lvl 2 with expert archery skill and 1-4-1-1 stats. This is typical day 3 situation for rampart. Just how many zombies can you kill do you think? Hint: personnaly I know horde zombies can go down even if 99... Place your troops this way: 7 GE - dwarfs - 50 centaurs - 1 centaur - 1 centaur - 1 centaur - 1 centaur. What is the key in this particular fight is first - making sure the zombies won`t advanced strait to your grand elves and second - knowing how many zombies you can kill +/- 1 with your 50 centaurs. Try using your arrows only when you deal full damage on a target. In the case of bigger hordes you`d even be better off not firing at all on a turn if you don`t have such a target (dealing full damage). With your individual centaurs you can attract the zombies back and forth in the battle screen almost forever if you forsee where to go well enough. Remember that you don`t have to kill each stacks of zombies solely with your grand elves ! Just reduce the stack enough so that the 50 centaurs can kill the remaining zombies at once.
With such a technic you can amass enormous quantities of experience points against golems/dwarfs/zombies/ rather easily. If you can count on a serpent flie you can even make some ogres dance long enough, even in great numbers, for your grand elves and centaurs to do the job.
I`m often using rampart for my examples. Maybe it`s because rampart is good? You have to know that every archery heroes can do just about the same with almost all castle type. If you don`t get a logistic specialist, a ballista specialist, a off/armorer specialist or level 3-4 heroes but you see Jarbakas with stronghold, Wystan with fortress, Valeska with castle, Calh with inferno, Jenova/Kyrre/Orrin with any, Go for them heroes, you`d be surprised at how great they can be on a battlefield. Heck personnally I chose archery heroes on random maps only after logistic specialist... Your goal is to get expert slow. If you can get it in week 1 or 2 you will amass xps twice as fast as your opponent, just about any opponents, it is just that good.
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ironmlh
Known Hero
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posted November 28, 2002 06:18 AM |
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Quote:
7) Archery tactics
Archery is a great skill. For it to give you the edge in a game you must know how to use it properly. Let`s say for this example that your army is composed of 7 grand elves and 54 centaurs in the hands of Jenova lvl 2 with expert archery skill and 1-4-1-1 stats. This is typical day 3 situation for rampart. Just how many zombies can you kill do you think? Hint: personnaly I know horde zombies can go down even if 99... Place your troops this way: 7 GE - dwarfs - 50 centaurs - 1 centaur - 1 centaur - 1 centaur - 1 centaur. What is the key in this particular fight is first - making sure the zombies won`t advanced strait to your grand elves and second - knowing how many zombies you can kill +/- 1 with your 50 centaurs. Try using your arrows only when you deal full damage on a target. In the case of bigger hordes you`d even be better off not firing at all on a turn if you don`t have such a target (dealing full damage). With your individual centaurs you can attract the zombies back and forth in the battle screen almost forever if you forsee where to go well enough. Remember that you don`t have to kill each stacks of zombies solely with your grand elves ! Just reduce the stack enough so that the 50 centaurs can kill the remaining zombies at once.
With such a technic you can amass enormous quantities of experience points against golems/dwarfs/zombies/ rather easily. If you can count on a serpent flie you can even make some ogres dance long enough, even in great numbers, for your grand elves and centaurs to do the job.
I`m often using rampart for my examples. Maybe it`s because rampart is good? You have to know that every archery heroes can do just about the same with almost all castle type. If you don`t get a logistic specialist, a ballista specialist, a off/armorer specialist or level 3-4 heroes but you see Jarbakas with stronghold, Wystan with fortress, Valeska with castle, Calh with inferno, Jenova/Kyrre/Orrin with any, Go for them heroes, you`d be surprised at how great they can be on a battlefield. Heck personnally I chose archery heroes on random maps only after logistic specialist... Your goal is to get expert slow. If you can get it in week 1 or 2 you will amass xps twice as fast as your opponent, just about any opponents, it is just that good.
Agreed Frank once u know the moves of the AI exactly, which is not hard to do with some experience the use of a few fast troops and some shooters is a fine weeapon indeed.
One more thing to add, if you have enough $ early on and can afford an ammo cart you can take out even greater armies with shooters, a few fast troops (preferably a few dragon flies from a Fortress hero) and mass slow. But you dont even mass slow to make it work effectively if you can move troops properly.
Also, if you have advantageous terrain in you battle map, like a few logs or rocks in a row, you can simply hop back and forth over them and the slow troops will repeat the same movements over and over again, allowing you to kill unlimited amounts of slower troops(especially with an ammo cart)
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"Knowledge has discarded all biblical teachings"
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andiangelsla...
Disgraceful
Famous Hero
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posted November 28, 2002 06:56 AM |
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and all this falls under "how do i make my opponent active"
no really, i think everyone knows how to defeat zombies with some ranged shooters and 1 hitter stack...
i strongly disagree that archery is good with most towns, i dont wont if for my main too often.
How often does it happen you meet exactly the monsters on map where archery makes such a huge difference?
Wystan with fortress or calh...shhhhhhh they suck for me.
With Stronghold it sux coz usually u dont build clops, which leaves archery as good skill for castle, Tower of course and sometimes dungeon.
With rampart i only want it early if i got a elf dwelling...for elves only from normal build? no way, they get blocked in main battle and all the skill is for nada.
Heres some stuff about topias: dont attack the greens and the reds with a weaker unit before they move...somehow they tend to attack the stack that is placed right in front of them - that happened to my quiet often with sultans, attacking 5 reds with a stack of 14 sultans sounds good if your force isnt so big, kill some off before they move and only loose 1 maybe, but: the reds and the greens will attack them and you loose too many.
the greens are your main target to hit after they moved usually - lowest defense skill but biggest damage they deal, so take the retal and concentrate on them...your last target should be the blacks.
Never use the spirit of oppression in topias - drags alrdy cant get morale and wont freeze (only if you got a ghosti).
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