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Ben80  Famous Hero |
One guy for polish community remade some these campaigns to make them harder. Minus is.. they are in polish language. Master of the Elements Warlords of the Wastelands: Conquest of the Underworld The World Tree: http://www.mediafire.com/file/xv8l37abmaunt24/HC+-+Drzewo+%C5%BBycia+hard.h3c The Fiery Moon: Probably I will try, thank you. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Doomforge Admirable Undefeatable Hero Retired Hero |
As much as I love challenge, I try to stay faithful to what the developers intended. Every campaign can be made stupidly hard. Just put 999 Archangels in anti magic garnissons and voila. And that's often what modders do. They crank up the numbers, but what would make sense (and is behind a typical modder's reach) is a better (much better) AI that would actually encourage smart play, not just more unit mass. Same goes for every game. Difficulty mods usually suck, I can name a few that are actually worth a player's time. GMDX for Deus Ex and Sword Coast Stratagems for Baldur's Gate, to name a few. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Elvin Admirable Omnipresent Hero Endless Revival |
I've finished the first 6 or so missions and I'm enjoying it Barbarian ballista is perfect for hardest difficulty, speeds things up so nicely. On the last map I played, I took down some angels on week 1 that guarded golden bow. Full range ballista and orcs from the get go Tarnum started with artillery, tactics, logistics and along the way came pathfinding, armourer, archery and leadership. I'm happy that I passed on resistance, I half expected magic to be a more serious threat. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Ben80 Famous Hero |
Same goes for every game. Difficulty mods usually suck, I can name a few that are actually worth a player's time. GMDX for Deus Ex and Sword Coast Stratagems for Baldur's Gate, to name a few. We can hope that someday VCMI will made AI stronger and we will get opportunity play Heroes Chronicles again. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Doomforge Admirable Undefeatable Hero Retired Hero |
Good going, Elvin. yeah, warmachines kills it on impossible with heroes that can amass so much ATT. Every mission, there's a hall of valhalla to be built (sometimes more than 1, since you can have many barb towns) and some camps to visit as well, and the Barbarian level up highly prioritizes ATT over anything else. In 2nd campaign, since you're not prohibited from taking magic skills on Tarnum anymore, he gains much needed magical mobility and of course mass slow to fuel his ballista. As a knight, he needs it = no halls of valhalla and less chance to get ATT on level up. I wasn't offered logistics yet, though, hopefully it will pop up sooner or later. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Elvin Admirable Omnipresent Hero Endless Revival |
Warlords campaign completed, 295 days Time for the conquest of the underworld! Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Doomforge Admirable Undefeatable Hero Retired Hero |
Good job bro! I guess my choice to collect +ATT/DEF for my secondaries slowed me down a bit Actually, can you not get Archangel on this? lol. IIRC the time formula for HOMM3 isn't too important in score; difficulty and number of captured castles have the most impact. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Elvin Admirable Omnipresent Hero Endless Revival |
I am spending a ridiculous amount of time hunting stat boosters in the 2nd mission and I haven't even been offered logistics! The map designer is a sadist, he forces an allied AI on you and it keeps blocking the tunnels Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Doomforge Admirable Undefeatable Hero Retired Hero |
Maybe logistics is banned on Tarnum, just like magic skills were in Warlords of Wasteland. Lol, the ultimate troll Hopefully it will pop... one of my mages got it but not Tarnum sadly. And his ballista sucks compared to the time he was a glorious barbarian. Ugh. EDIT: beat the 1st mission. Couldn't get town portal, but I did get Implosion on Cuthbert. So that's a start. EDIT2: I have to admit, the 2nd mission of Conquest of Underworld is indeed a little bit sadistic.You're given a useless AI "ally" who does nothing but steal your resources and block you in those tight corridors. I fished for the moment he loses his castle so I can get rid of him, but the opposing AI didn't attack him. At least I managed to take over all other castles on the map before the stupid AI did! And it built order of fire in his capitol early, so that's a plus. Tarnum still doesn't have logistics, but Caitlin is becoming the perfect magic support hero. Awesome! Perfect skill setup if you ask me. I picked fire magic because she has learned armageddon from the magic guild. I was lucky to get estates on her as well. All my heroes now rock implosion, fly, ressurection and armageddon. This is going to be fun, lol. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Elvin Admirable Omnipresent Hero Endless Revival |
I had forgotten the ridiculously high magic stats you can get with Tarnum, his implosion outperforms Cuthbert ^^ Mission 2 was such a pain. Having to run for all these errands without logistics, with the roads frequently blocked and just as I'm about to move to next mission the AI builds order of fire on both of its northern towns. Whyyy!! Lolrandom moment, purple sends me 12 ore and says it would appreciate a gift in gold. Whaat..? Next mission managed to waste a lot of my time. Wasn't worth visiting all these (far apart to require chaining)dwellings and if I hadn't missed the northern-east portal I wouldn't have had to cross half the map and back. Maybe Tarnum should have learned scouting after all? Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Doomforge Admirable Undefeatable Hero Retired Hero |
I may put scouting on my magic heroes next time. Fire magic - due to obscure amount of Cursed Ground and the fact Anti-magic refuses to carry over/is banned - wasn't that much of a great choice. The game tries hard to prevent you from just spamming armageddon. Ridiculous stats... My Tarnum at mission 6 is actually near 50 on every main stat. Talk about ridiculous lol. I'm pretty sure the "Fly" spell in mission 2 was some oversight(did they forget to ban it from the AI "ally" town ?) because I can't get DD/Fly to happen and I've developed ~ 30 towns or so. Town portal finally appears in mission 6, but only in your capital. The "kill Sandro" mission is actually the hardest one on this campaign so far but it's still fairly easy. It features the biggest annoyance in Homm3 - ****ing cover of darkness. On all towns, with AI waiting to capture any Necro town they can put their hands on and of course they build Covers of darkness instantly to obscure a large portion of the map from your sight. BLARGH. Also, the AI has one million dwellings at his disposal. With Fly, all it takes is a week 1 rush to get rid of both AIs (Sandro is a passive hero in a secluded part of the map so you can expand freely from there lol), but if you let the AIs develop, they can amass a stupidly big army in a fairly short amount of time. Plus, there's cursed ground. A metric ton of it. Of course Next missions feature a lot of bordergate trolling (fetch artifacts) which, I guess, is the only thing slowing down three 30+ SP heroes rocking level 4-5 spells. But they are obviously super easy because of much less cursed ground spam and the fact that your guys are so far ahead that it's ridiculous. Then there's Mission 6 and it's a bit of a trollish contraption. An XL map riddled with ridiculous amounts of resources/unguarded mines and three allied AIs that go ape**** seeing all that stuff. The map, ironically, can be completed ridiculously fast when you know where to look for the item you're supposed to get. I'd say it's doable in 2 weeks, and that includes securing Sandals of the Saint. I did it in 2 months (because I decided to beat AI first, which was unnecessary), and the game events (story) extend to 6th month! LOL! That was a LONG end-turn-spam. Not much tactical brilliance here when my secondary mages rock 30 SP/KL. At that point I mostly use chain lightning since it guarantees most hits without much hassle. Actually, air magic is a late game killer, even bigger than earth, it turns out. It does grant better-than-logistics mobility (DD), better-than-pathfinding terrain crossing ability (fly), hands down the best spell for clearing neutrals and capturing castles with ~30SP (chain lightning - also destroy undead if you find undeads on the map), decent single target spell (Lightning) and amazing utility in View Air skill which you can use to quickly track annoying AI heroes that try to hide in the corners when you expand. With 400+ mana, spell costs are obviously a non-issue. Getting it on at least one of your casters is a must (View Air - it will really make your life easier. Much much easier. It's practically worth it for this single spell, lol) I'm on mission 7 and it's a relief that it's a "S" map. Not gonna lie, not a fan of XL format in campaigns. From the description, it seems that Tarnum is again the only carry-over to the final mission, just like in Warlords of Wastelands. Which will be annoying - he doesn't have logistics and he doesn't have dimension door. Fly and TP will have to suffice. Overall, I've made some mistakes in skill development (Fire magic turned useless due to map design, for instance - and logistics trolling) but it obviously mostly worked. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Doomforge Admirable Undefeatable Hero Retired Hero |
Conquest of the Underworld completed! Only Black Dragon? i guess completing some of those missions in a week is too fast for the score machine to calculate. Lol. Homm3 campaign score formula honestly sucks. Finishing thoughts: 1. Indeed Fly was an oversight. The missions were clearly designed with Fly being banned. So I guess I was lucky. 2. The story wasn't as captivating as the in Warlords of Wasteland. For once, the writing wasn't as consistent. Tarnum did a 180 turn, from raging psycho to noble knight, I would expect this to happen over a course of the whole Chronicles series (if at all), and not in the 2nd installment. I would have loved if the story was a bit darker. For instance, Tarnum trying to be noble for the whole campaign, losing his niece in the final mission and losing his cool, going back to his murderous ways. His morals SHOULD slip at times. When the spy exposed him, I totally expected Tarnum to gut him and throw im into a hole in the ground. But nope. That was pretty out of character if you ask me and forced. Even if Tarnum tries to learn a lesson, he shouldn't insta-become a goody two shoe. I liked the first half of the game more, with Tarnum being tormented by dreams. The second half didn't have enough impact and the writing wasn't as good, either. 3. Final battle was fun. I cast antimagic on muh crusaders, focused effereti down and nuked everyone instantly with Armageddon in the next turn. And that was a 52 SP armageddon. K.O. 4. Angelic Alliance felt unnecessary for the sake of "difficulty", or lack there of. 30 allstats is enough, 50 is pushing it. 5. Map design was obviously built around the idea that DD/Fly are banned, logistics on Tarnum probably too (didn't check). A lot of artifact fetching and choke points. I'd risk saying that if some of those maps were made harder, it would be much more interesting overall. For starters, allowing three carry-over heroes is overkill. Tarnum is enough. Do we seriously want the player to have three arma/implo throwers with 30SP at the start of each mission? might as well start the mission and give the player victory next turn. 6. Perhaps that's why I enjoyed the previous campaign more. I find it a better idea when Tarnum can't learn wisdom (his commanders can't learn it as well). It puts more focus on micro and macro management of your heroes and empire. With those things allowed, it becomes a rushfest filled with TP, armageddon, implo, chain lightning and Fly/DD, with armies being (pretty much) for decoration. After a short break I'll move onto the 3rd installment of the series. Master of the Elements, IIRC. EDIT: Yeah, it does seem time has very little effect on the score. I loaded a save and rushed the final objective 1 week faster and still the same 1990. Oh well. I guess it's as good as it goes. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| verriker Honorable Legendary Hero We don't need another 'eroes |
for sure the Fly spell is actually not banned in mission 2 so that is a big dirty, stinky oversight, I even have the map here and it is not banned so you may cheese the campaign lol I liked the concept and atmosphere of this campaign that there is an endless world below the world full of demons and weirdos, even though it does not make too much sense to the Might and Magic story because the demons are supposed to be Space Invaders lol the interesting plot twist about Tarnum's family was well done and tied him into the Heroes story, also I enjoyed the Mensor character a lot (I hope he retired to a beach after that lol) and actually did not expect things to be the case with the villain in the end, although that is possibly because I am a stupid idiot (albeit not as trump supporters) lol for me I think Tarnum would certainly have lost his temper in the final mission and regressed if you know who had not suddenly shown up to cool his pants, that made him use his brain and was a very important moment in his redemption arc cheers lol oh and lol who cares about the score, the formula was never tailored for this kind of campaign and it has basically nothing to do with anything, it means nothing lol Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Doomforge Admirable Undefeatable Hero Retired Hero |
In HoMM2 ratings were a decent benchmark. Getting Black Dragon rating (300 days or less) on 1st attempt (that is - without previous knowledge of the map) was actually challenging. I've managed to get Black Dragon rating in 2 out of 6 campaigns on first attempt and get within range in the rest (305-320 days) with only one outlier (Roland's campaign - 350). HoMM3, on the other hand, uses a different formula, taking stuff like number of castles, time spent is of less relevance. As a result, it's indeed meaningless, just like you say. I like personal performance benchmarks, but this is poop. As for Tarnum, I'd much prefer if he did his "redemption arc" a bit more gradually. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| verriker Honorable Legendary Hero We don't need another 'eroes |
true and fair comment, also I remember that for some unknown reason they left Fiona recruitable by the player in map 3 as the only evil hero you can ever recruit in the whole campaign, therefore I used her as my secondary for I was in an evil mood hue hue hue furthermore in the final mission the enemy can hire both Mutare and Mutare Drake, I remember running into them both which was a bit of a headscratcher haha lol Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Elvin Admirable Omnipresent Hero Endless Revival |
Those nwc lazies didn't even bother renaming your lieutenants and we're talking centuries before H3 campaigns took place Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Doomforge Admirable Undefeatable Hero Retired Hero |
Now I have a little dilemma. What's next? GoG conveniently numbered the Chronicles games so I guess I could go with the one with number 3, which is "Master of the Elements". But... A guy from celestial heavens posted this as a correct in-universe order of games for Erathian world (Enroth iirc?) Hm. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| avatar Promising Supreme Hero |
All ways are correct. gog.com gives you order of release dates. Post from CH gives you chronological story order. You must decide what suits you best. Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| Doomforge Admirable Undefeatable Hero Retired Hero |
@avatar what concerns me is the references, I guess. for instance, Conquest of Underworld was full of references to Warlords of Wastelands. Playing those in reverse order would be confusing. So, to people who beat Chronicles: were there references (in game) to Master of Elements in Revolt of the Beastmasters? I don't really care that much about chronology of the whole M&M world, more about continuity within Chronicles. I don't want to see characters refer to events in previous Chronicles games that I didn't play yet Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
| avatar Promising Supreme Hero |
So it's better to play with release date order - you'll be sure that there will be no refenernces to the non-release game yet Send Instant Message | Send E-Mail | View Profile | Quote Reply | Link | |||
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This thread is pages long: 
And behemoth dwelling in sight? I built behemoths week 1 and they started amassing ^^ The first few days can be a little annoying but after mission 1, I would build blacksmith -> ballista and the pace would pick up. I regret not hiring the wm specialist, I had forgotten that ballista does not carry over. My secondary had to buy a ballista on each mission!
I thought I'd be slower due to tent delays, that red one at the edge of the map was a pain in the @ss. Of course, I ended up saving before finishing each map to see the rest of the story, then reload and onwards to the next mission. I'd forgotten but the maps were nicely designed, each with a different feel. A good AI would have made the missions a lot more enjoyable but the playthrough was worth it.
I didn't know what to expect so I tried to buff them as high as possible which obviously took me a couple days at times 
I cannot decide which feels worse, leadership or the pitiful ballista. It should get better with more celestial carryovers but it's just so mediocre.
