Posts from Beginner's Guide (Lectures)

Greetings.
This thread will present information that can help beginners successfully play in offline tournaments.
This topic will be constantly updated and expanded. Therefore, if you have any interesting information, please write to me in PM and it will be posted in this thread.

And of course, anyone who wants to learn how to play Heroes must have: Reference Guide to the Physics of the World of Heroes

Well then, let's begin:

To start, the esteemed Qwerty will briefly talk about the general ideology of offline tournaments titled:

And in the morning they woke up ...

First, let's clarify one question immediately: who is this that you are reading now addressed to?
Answer: ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY for beginners. For experienced players have known all this for a long time. And for them, it is all so "obvious" that they often don't even talk about it, but do it automatically. We don't often think, "How do we breathe?" or "How do we walk?" ...

Introduction.
"The beginning of the hero's journey ..."

So, you are, of course, a good player in Heroes III. Well, a real player. Meaning you easily beat computers. And when you play with your acquaintances (who are also, by the way, not bad players) - you win very often.
And then you found a site where people play Heroes. Well, you think, I'll show them a real class now. Now they will all see how cool it is possible to play Heroes.
And so it came, the first day of the tournament. Hurrah!
They gave a save and a map. Why a map if there is a save from which you need to play - it's unclear. Indeed, strange people.
And also: they gave almost a month for completion - apparently, people just don't know how to play at all.
But isn't it quick for the skilled? In a couple of evenings all enemies are defeated, the save is sent to the organizers and a long wait begins for the rest of the slowpokes who are still trying to finally complete this map.
And so it came - the day of triumph! Now they will announce the results ...
What's this, it can't be! Third place from the bottom? And the first result is three times faster ... But that's impossible!

But no. It is possible.

Part 1.
Basics of Gameplay.

The first thing to do is read the rules. You should also save them along with the save file. And reread them from time to time. If any points are not entirely clear - write a private letter to the tournament organizer.
The second thing to do is open the map (specifically the map) in the editor and CAREFULLY study it. This has already been discussed.
The third thing to do is open the save and also CAREFULLY study it.
Remember - without reconnaissance, there will be no normal results!
And now another extremely important aspect. FORGET about how you played until this minute. A scheme like "on the first week I'll build a municipality, on the second I'll try for a capitol, and then I'll build up troops and it will be easier" does not work on the vast majority of maps!
And what does work, you ask me?
The approach of "here and now" works, meaning specific play on a specific map. There are many options, naturally, but some can be mentioned.

• playing for various types of joining. Depending on the conditions of joining, you may need: an army, specific hero upgrades, gold. Accordingly, we build the game around this.
• playing to acquire key spells. May require: wisdom, school of magic, an army to obtain a spell (capturing resources to build the guild, capturing a utopia with the corresponding magic book, breaking through artifact or Pandora guards, etc.).
• rush. A hurricane run across the map without getting distracted by details. Heroes with an army or magic are needed.

Naturally, there are many other cases.

Part 2.
Well-known Truths.

Remember how many beautiful victories were won with the help of one maxed-out tank hero with a bunch of troops, magic and everything else? How you accumulated strength for two months, and then swept across the map and leveled everyone with that one hero?
Well. All this is not suitable for the vast majority of offline maps with the goal of speedrunning.
What is suitable is the following:

• precise calculation of necessary forces (army, magic, specific hero upgrades) to solve a specific task. What is meant: if, for example, there are three opponents in different corners of the map, you need to think whether it's possible to divide the forces into three parts and go for capture. And it doesn't matter if only 1 serpent remains of a magnificent army as a result - the goal of fastest completion will be achieved!
• building chains and transferring armies. The technique of transferring an army from one hero to another is one of the most used in offline (and, by the way, in online too). Calculating the optimal chain is not such a difficult thing, and the results of applying this technique will pleasantly surprise you!
• TURN MANAGEMENT!!! You must remember this aspect of the game ALWAYS! And this applies not only to tournament play, and not only to offline. Always remember that starting from speed 11 of the slowest creature, the hero's movement speed does not increase. Do not drag slow units without need or create chains. Remember penalties on "heavy" terrain; often on "native" terrain a slow unit tramps further than a fast unit for whom this area is "foreign".
• Use of magic and mana calculation. I recommend paying attention to the "Mana Vortex" building in the Black Dragon castle. There is also the "Wall of Knowledge" for Titans. I do not doubt your ability to fight, but remember spells such as "Forgetfulness", "Force Field", "Fire Wall". The efficiency of Town Portal, Fly and Teleport is, I assume, already very well known to everyone.
• Remember that you can dig up any unoccupied hero! The digging mechanism is quite simple; moreover, there are specialized "helpers". Digging up Cili, for example, can greatly ease the game on some maps. Digging up a hero with Literacy and passing the necessary spell to everyone who needs it - an interesting technique! Alamar, for example, or Tan ...
• Fewer templates - more "positional play". Playing "from general considerations" is far from always good. You were told "on the last day of the week it's always better to build a creature recruitment building", but it's quite possible that doing something completely different will be better. And in general, building up your own castle is not needed on all maps ...

Of course, all these notes will be useful only to a few and for not too long - soon achievements and another level of understanding the offline game will come.
I have written only what "lies on the surface" - reach the depths!
Qwerty, 09.10.2007, 14:08 - 16:08.

Lecture №1: Reconnaissance.

Before starting to complete a map in an offline tournament, you need to think about how to do it most effectively and develop some plan of action, i.e., develop a strategy. And what kind of strategy can there be without reconnaissance data? Therefore, at the beginning, the most important thing is to conduct proper reconnaissance. How to do this will now be explained by the esteemed AmberSoler:

Preliminary reconnaissance of the map before playing is half of a successful completion.

In two words, for those who haven't done this but might be interested:

1. Map Editor.
Open the map in the editor and check the main points that can significantly affect the layout of the game: quests, events, dungeons with heroes, Pandoras, witch huts and scholars.

To simplify the process - right-click on the object of interest (for example, any event) and in the drop-down menu select the option: "Find". After this, the computer will sequentially offer all similar objects on the map via the F3 key; our task is to look at their properties. Then we take another type of objects, for example a Mage Hut. Right-click it again, select "Find", then view all huts on the map via F3, etc. Similarly - everything that interests us.

Also check the following points in the map specifications:
- spells, heroes and artifacts that are banned on the map
- victory and defeat conditions
- events set by the author. These events occur on a strictly specified day and can bring much good, but it can also be the opposite! :) (not to be confused with events on the map that trigger only when visited).

2. Starting Save.
This is a bit more complicated, but also interesting. Open the starting save and save it under another name, for example - "Test". After this, using the map check mode with cheat codes (switch to window mode F4 and select the Cheat menu; if this menu is not there, write to me in private, I'll tell you how to get it), check the main points of the starting save:
- open the entire map (cheat code) and look for artifacts that ended up on your save
- build yourself a strong army via cheat codes and take all utopias in a row to know which artifacts are where
- take all crypts and warrior graves - there may be artifacts there too, even Angel Wings!
- set expert diplomacy (cheat code), a strong army and a couple of attack-increasing artifacts for our hero. After that, in "View enemy towns" mode, scan the map and check all neutral troops on the map (just hover the cursor and right-click, provided the hero with diplomacy is active) for possible joining. It is important to know that increasing attack, army strength, as well as having the same unit in your army, increases the chance of joining neutrals.
- set expert wisdom for our hero and capture all Pyramids on the map; they give a 5th-level spell after victory, check if there's anything interesting.
- build all buildings in all cities (cheat code), enter every city on the map in "View enemy towns" mode and look at the built mages guilds - then mark the cities that must be captured first...

When you have all the reconnaissance data on your desk, you can leisurely plan the map completion scheme, think about which heroes with which secondary skills you should have, hire exactly those heroes using a Hero-digger (useful thing), because many already have the necessary skills and spells at the start. After that - on your way! :)

Important: after using cheat codes, be sure to restart the game and start from a clean original save. If you need to check something during the process - load "Test" and look. Then - restart the game again and continue playing the clean save. And you will have no problems when your save is checked for cheat codes! :) Reconnaissance is allowed by the rules of offline tournaments.

Everything stated above is simply my wishes and own observations. It is not absolutely necessary to do all this if you don't want to. After all, playing without knowing in advance what awaits you on the map is very interesting. However, the essence of an offline tournament consists precisely in building a completion scheme in advance and trying to execute it. After conducting such work, I believe no one will have any doubt that even the most difficult maps can be completed very quickly! :)

Good luck to everyone in future tournaments!

Map check mode with cheat codes: In the command line, type heroes 3 /nwcgrail. Load a save and press F4. Various menus will appear, and among them – CHEAT.

A very important aspect is the proper management of the "walkthrough journal." These tips will help beginners not only successfully defend controversial issues and requests from the tournament judge, but will also explicitly reduce the time spent and allow them to find the most optimal path.

Before starting the walkthrough:
- Temporarily move all your save files to a separate folder. This way, you won't get confused about which saves are new and which are old.

- Try to save after each turn. It is also advisable to save before or after each important event. For example, before attacking a monster or after gaining an important property, such as "Learning."

- It is better to use a specific standard in the name of each save file. For example, the standard could be as follows:
turnamentWM_1_2_6_000, where turnamentWM is the name of the tournament, and the three digits represent the month and day of the week, respectively. The last '000' digits indicate that this is the first save on that turn.
That is, the second save on turn 1, month 3, day 2, would look like this: turnamentWM_1_3_2_001.
Addition from IronAxe:

This is a very useful tip. I would only add that you shouldn't be afraid of long names. You can even make them more detailed. For example:
turnamentWM_1_3_2_001_Gargon_Bat
turnamentWM_1_3_2_002_Gargon_Win
turnamentWM_1_3_2_003_Aleksandretta_Building

It will then be easier to navigate through the saves.

- If you don't like a particular path you've chosen, you can load from the moment you want. But keep in mind that as soon as you load from a new point, you need to remove, overwrite, or copy to another location all the saves that were obtained in the previous attempt. Otherwise, there may be significant confusion.

- If the task in the tournament is to gain a certain amount of experience, keep an experience and property journal. On a separate sheet, record in order all the experience gained and for whom you received it. This journal will greatly simplify things for you and the judges. But most importantly, the maps for such tournaments are usually large, and therefore there are many ways to gain experience. Such a journal will help you find the most optimal one.

- If the task of the tournament is to solve a specific problem, don't forget to take screenshots of the game. This will simplify the description of the walkthrough.


- Enemy heroes, with a large army, can significantly increase your experience. Often, enemy heroes flee, even though they have not lost all their troops. Therefore, you get less experience. To optimize this, the so-called "sacrifice" tactic works best. During the battle, you try not to destroy all the enemy's troops, but only a part of them. It is best to leave the enemy with one powerful unit. Another option is to use the "Blindness" spell. And most importantly, act foolishly. Send part of your troops to their doom, and so on. There are many options you can come up with.

- In the editor, check if some monsters, for example, do not have the "Number of monsters increases over time" checkbox enabled (select the monster and click Properties). If, for example, you see this and are sure that you will return to this area, for example, in two weeks, then it might be worth postponing the killing of this enemy. This way, you will get more experience for killing it. The same applies to neutral castles.

- A similar situation applies to chests and stones. If you don't have the "Learning" property of rank 3 yet, it might not be worth picking up this chest or visiting the experience stone. It is also best to visit the tree of knowledge at the end, because the tree of experience always gives a standard amount of XP, equal to the difference between the hero's current level and the next. Therefore, the greater the difference between the levels, the more experience you will get. ;)



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p.s. with respect, maximula