Posts from Useful information: HoMM3 Software.

1) Install The Shadow of Death (recommended) or Platinum Edition, or a previous version of WoG.
2) When installing The Shadow of Death, the catalog is selected automatically (at least that's how it works for me); therefore, move all the contents of the Heroes folder to a folder whose path consists ENTIRELY of Latin letters, for example, C:\Games\Heroes III WoG.[br][/br]3) Extract all files from the allion1 archive into the allion1 folder, where a file named wog358f.part01 with the WoG icon will appear, along with files with the RAR extension.
4) Run wog358f.part01; after that, confirm the extraction path (by default, this is the WogInstall folder, which will be created in the allion1 folder).[br][/br]5) After unpacking, the WogInstall folder will appear, which should be moved to the folder C:\Games\Heroes III WoG.[br][/br]6) Run the install file from the WogInstall folder – after some time, a menu will appear asking you to choose a language; then, a window with the inscription "welcome" will appear – click the next button.
A window titled "list of found components" will appear, and there will be 3 buttons: change patch, install, and cancel.[br][/br]7) Click change patch; in the window that opens, specify the path to the Heroes folder (C:\Games\Heroes III WoG\) and click ok.[br]8) After clicking the ok button, the "list of found components" window appears again – press install.
After installing WoG, you will definitely need to install a Russian language pack for this:
1) Extract the three files with the wog extension from the rubeta358f archive.
2) Move these files to the directory C:\Games\Heroes III WoG\update.[br][/br]3) Run the H3Wupd.exe file in the folder C:\Games\Heroes III WoG.[br][/br]Then proceed as when installing WoG.

1) Start - My Computer - Control Panel (right-click to open the context menu) - Services and Applications - Services. In the list of services that appears, select "Windows Firewall" and then double-click. In the window that appears, click "Stop" and select the startup type "Disabled".

Recently, the Hamachi server has been overloaded - but I want to play :)
There is a quite competitive and also free alternative to Hamachi - pLan + instructions

1. Launch Heroes and start a game.
2. After your first autosave, launch the Autosave counter program.
3. If you want to pack all files into one archive after the game, it is best to check the box "Save saves in unpacked format".
4. Choose the version (3.5 / III). Select the autosave file using "Browse".
5. Click "Start".

How it works:
The program monitors the appearance of files with the selected name, unpacks them, searches for information about the current player and the in-game date in the file, which was used to create the save, then renames either the original or the unpacked file (depending on what you choose).
As a result, in the Games folder, after 5-10 seconds from each autosave, a file will appear in the format: Prefix MWD [C].GMx, where M is the month, W is the week, D is the day. GMx - gm2, gm3... depending on which save is selected.
[C] - player color. 1-red, 2-blue, etc.
You can use the prefix as a list of players, for example, "Red vs Blue".

What do we have initially? We have save files packed in gzip format by the heroes themselves. Let's say a game (L+U, two players) ended on turn 227. That means we have all the autosaves from 111 to 226, totaling 41 files with a total volume of 12.4 MB.

The size is not exactly suitable for uploading to the Internet. Most players would say, "Forget about downloading that; I'll pass." But we don't want that reaction, right? So, what can we do about it...

The first thought that comes to mind is, of course, to archive everything into rar or zip! We try. Both archives are 12.2 MB in size. We scratch our heads thoughtfully...

We are advanced PC users and know that there is also the mega-archiver 7zip! We compress the files with this archiver and get a result of 8.02 MB. This is certainly better than previous attempts, but still not suitable for posting online.

And then, unexpectedly, we remember what was said above - our original saves are already packed in gzip format, and each file weighs approximately 313 KB. We make an assumption (and it turns out to be correct, as intuition suggests) that these saves are not optimally compressed. Therefore, our next idea will be to unpack the saves.

They are unpacked by any reasonably advanced archiving software. As a result, after spending some time unpacking and renaming the files (they come out of the archives without extensions, so you have to add ".GM2" to the name of each file), we get a set of files with a total weight of 193 MB.

Anticipating success, fan joy, and other pleasant things, we press the files again into rar or zip. We get 9.86 MB in rar and 12.2 MB in zip. That is, our first attempt with 7zip gave even better results.

Clinging to a straw (because after our old faithful WinRAR failed on the task, all subsequent actions can only be called something else), we pack the files using 7zip. And, lo and behold! The archive weighs only 365 KB (the same number of days in a year, which is already a sign!).

Which is what we wanted. Now the file can be sent by email and uploaded to the forum.

7zip has the ability to set the dictionary size to 8 megabytes, which EXCEEDS the size of one map file by a large margin, while Winrar has 4 megabytes, which is NOT ENOUGH for one map, hence it is not possible to compress strongly with rar.

Therefore, the compression result of 7zip with four saves from one game is almost identical to the compression result of forty saves from the same game.

Of course, a player who encounters the need to unpack and repack saves for the first time will say that this is a difficult process (and so it is, especially with 40 files!). I'll answer: don't forget to use the useful Autosave counter v2 program, which has a function to unpack saves on the fly. After the game, you just need to compress all the files with 7zip and put your pride on display for everyone to see.

This project aims to bring together disparate information, knowledge, and skills that will be useful to any Heroes of Might & Magic III player.

1. Launch the program.
2. Select a version - English or Russian. The default is English when launched for the first time.
3. You can minimize the program.
4. When the hero troop exchange window is open, pressing the F10 key exchanges troops between heroes, and F11 exchanges artifacts.