Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (
More info?)
In article <1117289224.687883.28850@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
michael_near_to_baldersgate@yahoo.co.uk says...
> Staying with Heroes3, I'm finding the single player scenarios quite
> difficult even on the easy setting - in particular to produce units
> more quickly. Would it make more tactical sense to hire more heroes to
> explore for more resources?
> After about 3-4 months I'm set upon by heroes with far more troops...
It's nearly always a good idea to hire a second hero immediately.
Indeed, if you are on easy setting, you start with more gold AFAIK, so
you could make this a rule. Usually you will give most of the army to
one hero, and use the other for picking up resources, bringing troops
to the main fighting hero, sitting in a castle with artefacts such as
the 'legs of legion', and so forth.
For a long time there won't be enough for a third hero to do.
For do-nothing heroes, skills like 'Estates' etc. are useful. Choose
the better fighter of the first two to build up. It may be useful
eventually to have two good fighters, but after a few months you can
build up any hero rapidly by giving him a big army and having him crush
a medium-sized army. Lots of artefacts improve fighting skills, so
give these to your main hero.
I usually build a magic library right away so the main hero has a few
spells to start him off. After that you usually decide whether to go
for gold or monsters. If your problems occur only after months, you
could start with gold, i.e. town hall, castle etc. Depending on the
race you will probably do a few monster builds in the first week anyway
- tower forces will build upgraded gremlin factories, swamp guys will
go for wyverns. The good-value troops that can have your hero
exploring at a good pace while you build the gold-producing buildings.
You do need to expand in this game, so long as you can do so without
too many losses. There will usually be neutral castles you can
capture, and the sooner you find and take these, the sooner they have
town halls adding to your wealth.
In the longer term, the strategy for the human player is often based on
attrition of superior forces. The AIs will split their forces into
several medium-size stacks. As you defeat these, making sure to kill a
lot of monsters without losing many of your own, you weaken him - even
if you still have to run from his best hero. If you have the artefact
'shackles' (I can't remember shackles of what) you can force enemy
heroes to fight to the death and claim their artefacts. You can also do
this in most castles - it's one of the main reasons for taking castles,
in fact.
So - keep the gold flowing - expand reasonably fast - keep your troops
alive - attrit the enemy - these are the main things I would be mindful
of.
Don't be *too* cautions with your troops, however. Sometimes you must
take losses because delay would be more costly. And of course if you
play as the undead you can be more blase about the whole death thing...
- Gerry Quinn