u/CEOofracismandgov2

My thought was a thread dedicated to tips for players who aren't brand new would help a lot. If you've got the basics of combat and building down then these tips should help.

First, to start off, some players are reporting that setting the AI to Multiplayer is making the AI play at absolutely max difficulty and it loves to rush, so I'd suggest not using that if you're new.

If you're newer to the game I'd suggest trying out maps which are safer, to be able to get more used to the economics of the game. Helltide has been my personal favorite, it's a map where the players cannot fight until the final battle is called and the game ending fight happens, anywhere from the end of Week 4 to Week 5.

Easy Towns: Temple, Dungeon

Intermediate Towns: Schism, Necropolis

Hard Towns: Hive, Grove

As any Town, it's pretty much a must have to rush down the laws that give you the one time Wood/Ore/Gold especially early game. Additionally, any laws that give you additional law points, resources per turn or gold per turn are very good to take immediately.

When selecting a Hero for your town, it's a good idea to have a loose plan in mind. For instance, the Mercury Hero for Necropolis is fantastic for rushing Vampires, but for rushing Dread Knights not so much.

The Hero Sub-Classes that are available are mostly a consolation prize for making a bad build as it currently stands. I highly suggest going for skills that help you now or help you soon, rather than shooting for one of those more unique bonuses. YMMV depending on starting hero, Schism's Icequeen for instance with the minimum damage one is easy to reach for instance.

It's important on every hero that's going to be used for fighting to either have 2 Schools of Magic or taking 1 School and Wisdom. All Casters should take Thaumaturgy, all Might heroes should strongly consider tactics.

Something that made a massive difference in my matches was realizing how consistently many of the towns can rush out a Tier 6 or Tier 7 unit by the end of Week 1. It's very important to go for more units early. Going for a full economics build in Olden Era is VERY risky in comparison to how HOMM3 was vs AI.

Familiarize yourself with the spells in the game, particularly Tier 1 spells. Mouse over the spells in the Guild or your spellbook and hold shift to see what the upgrades do. For instance, Shadecloak is pretty great without any skill into it, but spells like Primal Hide, Unnatural Calm or Blessing get really crazy once fully upgraded. HOMM3 is dominated by Slow/Haste spam, but there's a lot of better low tier spells in Olden Era.

Don't forget to get some Astrology Points in your Town Hall upgrades. Not having access to 2 charges of Town Portal later on is really crippling in a pinch.

Due to Laws being able to give injections of Ore/Wood, only finding one of your Sawmills/Ore Pits in the first few days isn't so bad, don't waste multiple turns searching for it when you have better things to pick up on the ground.

I've noticed a lot of posts where players are struggling against early strong AI armies. Feel free to post images of those too and I'd be happy to describe what to do to beat it.

Is anyone else experiencing some big consistency issues as Hive? My biggest problem I'm running into on both of them is how extremely limited they are in resources for building more units, particularly on maps like Helltide, it's brutal how much Crystal you need.

To put it simpler, for Hive ZERO recruitment structures or upgrades require anything but gold/wood/ore/crystal. Gems and Mercury can literally only be spent on Mage Guilds/Eco buildings.

This is something I strongly dislike, as what units the player is encouraged to buy should just as much be determined by the map and resource availability as anything else but currently both of these towns have to rush hard for the Crystals law.

And, to be clear, other towns are much more balanced in resource requirements. Temple leans on wood with several structures having a spread of resources and lowered gems requirements comparatively. Necro is also too Mercury heavy, but they can reach T6 without anything but wood/ore and their gold per turn law is early so I think they get a pass. Schism is heavy on wood/ore but gets a unique law to balance it and several all rares buildings. Dungeon has mostly balanced costs buildings early, then all gems/ore late and a law making ore cheaper. Grove has low ore/wood costs and several balanced cost structures too, has a law for cheaper wood but it's kinda too situational.

If they want to keep it this way, I really think Hive should have their Crystals law be upgradable 4 times for 1 point each and the build tree should be reshuffled in that case to be more open particularly early T7's would be cool for gameplay on desert zone contesting maps.

Also, I wish there was a structure or two across the game with zero gold cost, that'd be a good unique differentiation to add, but that's a different topic.

TLDR: All hive unit buildings require gold/crystal/wood/ore and nothing else without anything to make up for this economically, it makes any map with owning multiple Hives very hard to build up and their T7 not viable to rush.