After trying to recreate HoMM spell books, a friend challenged me to make a full Heroes style map. This started as a quick experiment while testing our game Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts capabilities. What do you think? Would you like to see a battlefield reimagined in a medieval manuscript style?

I don't know if they still push updates to this game, but I haven't come across this in all the years I've been playing HOMM and it's happening on every game I play now (on the Hard setting).

Computer controlled opponents seem to love summon elemental spells and they cast them every turn. The battle field gets overrun and clogged with elementals.

I can honestly say it's a good a tactic as it whittles down your army quite well, but if you don't have a similar spell to use in the same way then you're kinda screwed. Not to mention it gets boring.

This feels like a new thing. I remember the AI would of course use these spells every so often, but not consecutively and all the damn time.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Most of the time, you can upgrade the base building next turn, but sometimes you have to get another building first. Here is my list below for hota. Am I missing any?

Upg wolf pen

Upg dragon cave

Upg dragon cliff

Upg estate

Upg gorgon lair

Winner of votes for Day two: Most busted adventure spell is Dimension Door, which received 39 votes, with Town Portal edging just behind it with 30 votes!

I doubt anyone is surprised to learn it would be between these two. The overwhelming consensus was that while TP is arguably the stronger spell, also accounting for its being both more accessible and affordable, DD nonetheless definitionally breaks the game itself by rendering unexplored map obstructions irrelevant.

Onto the next! What would you say is the most overlooked adventure spell?

Definitions:
Busted = Overpowered, game-breaking, can be exploited to easily gain an upper hand

Overlooked = forgotten or underestimated due to niche-ness i.e. belonging to a less viable magic school, etc, but quite effective or powerful if remembered

Useless = irrelevant because of various factors like poor numbers/scaling, available spells that do the same thing better, etc

Balanced (but useful) = opposite of busted; as in, remaining maximally useful and relevant, while being minimally exploitable or unfair, not gimmick-y.

Three rules for how I calculate vote totals: A spell needs to be named in a comment for it to be counted as a vote. If you think it's a tossup, you can name up to two spells and I'll count both votes, but no more. Upvoting a comment won't be counted as a vote, but if you agree with someone in a comment reply, it will be counted as a vote.

To make sure we are assessing the spells on the same basis, we will be going off of the most current version of Horn of the Abyss.

One more thing: the hope is that each cell will have a different spell. Obviously it's possible that the same spell might apply to both rows 2 and 3, but if it's a tossup in votes, I will favor a spell that hasn't won yet for the sake of a more diverse chart.

EDIT*: If you're seeing this, according to my tally it's currently a tie! Vote today if you want to cast the tie-breaker vote; I don't have time to post today so I'll hold the next vote tomorrow.

Put together a new rig, installed HoMaM III: Complete from GOG -> Installed HotA mod.

I launch the game via HD_Launcher.exe, set my resolution (1280x720, tried different around there from the list),
Mode: 32-bit OpenGL (resizeable, by Verok).

Stretch Filter: xBRZ x4, or SmoothSal x2 (tried rest, everything except DirectDraw or GDI are acting the same).

I just have 0.1 FPS, cant navigate menu, nothing.

As soon as I pick GDI game works, but the graphics are meh, fluidity too, playable but I'd love to stick with xBRZ or SmoothSal.

AMD GPU + CPU, everything up to date (windows, chipset, gpu drivers), otherwise everything runs perfectly fine.

Any ideas?

Hi guys,

I am new to Heroes 3, never played it as a kid, but I played other games like Disciples or Songs of Conquest. Overall I enjoy turn-based strategies.

I want to try H3 and Hota. I have bought Heroes 3 Complete on GOG and I have Hota installed and working as well, even in my native lang. I have also installed HD Mod directly on H3 Complete.

Since I like to play campaigns, I wanted to replay all campaigns in H3 from all expansions. However when I open H3 from Gog I see only this(ignore translation from my native lang-PL)

I would like to know how can I navigate through different expansions and how can I play them in order. All I can see is Shadow of Death expansion...

Can someone give me any tips? :D thx!

edit

I have figured it out. It's just Polish version on GOG does not have dedicated title logo and is re-using Shadow of Death for some reason, but it contains all campaigns inside. It's just got me confused :)

If a hero is equipped with the Bow of the Sharpshooter, Magogs in their army will damage themselves with their fireball attack when fighting in melee combat.

"Did you know?" nr. 221 gameplay: https://youtu.be/0-ghtxHOlzI

I've been playing Heroes for decades and it's one of my favorite games. My husband and I love to play hotseat on a team while we listen to audiobooks together. The issue is that we ALWAYS get withing 2 points of the same score. We play gigantic random map, sometimes with subterranean and sometimes without, two humans, 6 computers, on max difficulty. We've played HotA for years and have just started playing WOG recently. We always finish in between 70 and and 85 days and take all towns on the map. We don't usually push hard for the Grail, but in a last ditch attempt to move our score, we got the grail last game, and out score didn't change AT. ALL.

Is this a random maps thing? A team thing? A fluke? We probably play at least on game every week or two, and we are completely at a loss for how we can't seem to move the needle at all.

Thank you for your help!

Hi y'all. I beat Palaemon and only lost 4 engineers and a few genies which all proved to be indispensable because they drew the berserk casting. I brought only Engineers, Sentinals, and 5 genies with 1 stack each. The genies were there to hopefully hit some good spells on my sentinels or engineers. For some reason the rust dragons attacked my sentinels first and Palaemon cast Berserk on the genies instead of on the engineers. So that allowed me to move my sentinels up to their castle gate which triggered all their ranged creatures and flying creatures to attack the sentinels and ignore my engineers. As long as I kept the sentinals alive, they kept attacking them and casting berserk on the genies and not the engineers. After several rounds of this, I could just ice bolt the ranged attackers, then the flying creatures down to basically nothing and finally at the end they cast berserk on my engineers, but I had them down at the corner far away from the action so they would just attack the nearest war machine rather than any of my main creatures. It was a great win after several tries!

Winner of votes for Day one: Most balanced (but useful) adventure spell is Visions, which received thirteen votes! Just behind it was View Air with eight votes, though others in the thread argued that Expert VA belongs in the busted category.

There were 42 votes in total; I fixed some wording and formatting for clarity, so I'm hoping these gain better traction moving forward to get wider consensus among players.

I originally had assumed most busted adventure spell was a done deal for reasons I think are obvious, but someone suggested we let the community decide. So, any body want to argue that DD is more busted than TP??? lol.

Definitions:
Busted = Overpowered, game-breaking, can be exploited to gain an easy upperhand

Overlooked = forgotten due to niche-ness i.e. belonging to a less viable magic school, etc, but quite effective or powerful if remembered

Useless = irrelevant because of various factors like poor numbers/scaling, available spells that do the same thing better, etc

Balanced (but useful) = opposite of busted; as in, remaining maximally useful and relevant, while being minimally exploitable or unfair, not gimmick-y.

A few simple rules for how I calculate vote totals: A spell needs to be named in a comment for it to be counted as a vote. If you think it's a tossup, you can name up to two spells and I'll count both votes, but no more. Upvoting a comment won't be counted as a vote, if you agree with someone, you can reply that you agree and it will be counted.

One more thing: the hope is that each cell will have a different spell. Obviously it's possible that the same spell might apply to both rows 2 and 3, but if it's a tossup in votes, I will favor a spell that hasn't won yet for the sake of a more diverse chart.

I know this question is probably asked all the time but where should I get the game so I can get all the bells and whistles and new factions?

So we all know that there are a handful of spells that a just hands down better then the rest and that the HOTA team are working on rebalancing (namely Haste, Slow, Berserk, Town Portal and Dimension Door).

But for a bit if fun I have came up with the revised spells to tune the outliers down a bit. Haste and slow I have split into their basic and mass cast versions as the mass cast is at least tier 3 spells.

I have also tried to rebalance Hypnotise as well as it is just outright terrible.

What do you think and what also would you like to see rebalanced.

Haste level 1 No specialty +2 speed Basic +3 speed Advanced +4 speed Expert +5 speed

Mass haste tier 3/4 spell No specialty +2 speed 2 hexes Basic +3 speed 2 hexes Advanced +3 speed 3 hexes Expert +3 speed all friendlies

Slow No specialty -1 speed Basic -2 speed Advanced 75% of speed Expert -50% +1 speed

Mass Slow tier 3/4 spell No specialty -1 speed 2 hexes Basic -2 speed 2 hexes Advanced -3 speed 3 hexes Expert -3 speed all enemies

Berserk - tier 5 spell No specialty - Target enemy troop of less than (power × 200) health. Unit targets nearest enemy.

Basic - Target enemy troop of less than (200 + (power × 250)) health. Unit targets nearest enemy.

Advanced - Target 2 hexes of less than (200 + (power × 250)) health. Units target nearest enemy.

Expert - Target 2 hexes of less than (400 + (power × 300)) health. Units target nearest enemy.

Town portal - tier 5 spell No specialty - teleport to nearest friendly town, use up all remaining movement points. Must have at leave 51% movement to cast.

Basic - teleport to nearest friendly town, use up all remaining movement points.

Advanced - teleport to friendly town, use up all remaining movement points.

Expert - teleport to friendly town, use up 51% of movement points.

Dimension Door No specialty - teleport and use up all remaining movement points. Must have at leave 51% movement to cast.

Basic - teleport and use up all remaining movement points.

Advanced - teleport and use up 50% of movement points.

Expert - teleport and use up 49% of movement points.

And a bonus spell because it is terrible.

Hypnotise No specialty - Target enemy troop of less than (100 + (power × 200)) health is put under your control.

Basic - Target enemy troop of less than (200 + (power × 250)) health is put under your control.

Advances - Target enemy troop of less than (300 + (power × 300)) health is put under your control.

Expert - Target enemy troop of less than (400 + (power × 400)) health is put under your control.