Posts from Tactics for the Swamp (Fortress).

How can you build Wyverns in the first week if you need 15 units of wood, and the lumber mill produces 2 units per day? It takes 8 days to gather 15 units. Or are the resources scattered across the map taken into account? And if there aren't any? It's not that easy to build Wyverns without wood.

It's better to search (the map) and take the wood bonus. And in that case, you need 20 wood because you need to build Lizards first.

Hey everyone! My save files have already been viewed 11 times, but no one has offered any suggestions. Is there anyone who can help?:(

Hey guys! My saves have been viewed 11 times now, and no one has offered any advice? :(

And you're still waiting and hoping to hear a response? Despite the fact that everyone has forgotten and moved on :D

Alright, I'll take a quick look.

111 Building Serpentmen for rushing is good. But I see some serious noob behavior – the hero, with all his troops (goblins, dogs), went through a swamp with a PENALTY. Download and study the combat mechanics. Never do that. There are 3730 gold left, and with that money, you could have bought another hero, recruited an army, and positioned them somewhere on the road. Also, it's unclear who the main hero is here. If it's Bron, why the heck is he collecting ore? You should know that the main hero doesn't collect anything; there are secondary heroes for that – they're just weaker.

112 Building Wyverns. Amazing turn management from Verdish. Returned to the city, recruited an army, and ended up essentially where she started.

113 Nothing particularly wrong here.

114 Even though a dungeon was taken, the principle of hero rushing isn't being followed. You could have taken the city, rushed with Serpentmen, and entered a gem of experience.

115 A bold move. 27 Cyclops were killed, but again, the hero has 2 Dragonflies, and the second hero also has Lizardmen.

116 At least one hero was rushed.

117 Some unclear movements.

121 For some reason, he rushed towards the Treasury through the Monks, even though he has 2 Hive and a hidden Wyvern lair in his home base. He should have been buying up all the weak units and going to take them. If necessary, with reinforcements.

122 Again, he entered the Treasury, but what next?

123 The same thing.

124 In general, he went off somewhere and did something unclear.

The story ends here. I suspect that the Water Elementals were defeated, and you surrendered. But you had a great home base with 2 Hives + a hidden Wyvern lair. If you hadn't wasted time, you could have either put up a decent fight or at least retreated to the Treasury. The Barbarian Fortress was empty, but you could have moved to the grassland (by the way, there's another secondary hero there that you didn't clear a path to, but you need to clear such paths). And then, Cons and diving into another Treasury. The main city is no longer that important. The main thing is to buy up the most necessary things from it.

Something like that. A quick overview.

And yes, Oppa's attack on you was absolutely justified

Leader1, Thank you for your answers. Regarding the excellent resource location, what about the money? The stash of artifacts is far away and well-guarded. Two hives are good, but again, there's no gold around. So, even if I successfully raid the hives, I won't be able to buy troops from the castle before the opponent arrives (the opponent has 14 cats, 2 angels, and 100 gr of traglads at the time of the invasion). But what about the hive guards? While I can ram through the mummy horde with minimal losses, the fly horde at the second hive would severely deplete my troops. Moreover, if the hives are at maximum level, it's a loss, and if they're at minimum level, it's also a loss because time is wasted, and no gold is gained since the land is extremely poor. I emphasize that there are only 2 or 3 small gold piles as free loot on the secondary map. Therefore, I decided to go to the neighboring treasure. I cleared the guard, but the treasure is just as poor; everything valuable is too heavily guarded, and there's no easy loot to be found. There isn't even enough money to hire scouts, so I had to scout it with my main heroes. The crypts on the swamp were minimal, meaning they didn't bring in much income. If the opponent's passage through the water elementals was justified, did I have the right to rush through them in the first week? Yes, I still couldn't decide on the main hero. Initially, it was supposed to be Verdish, but then I noticed the stash of basilisks and started to waver between Verdish and Bron. Given the current situation, which hero would be preferable to develop, Verdish (he has a scroll with an arrow) or Bron? And by the way, I did manage to break through to the grass and started collecting goodies there, but it was too late..

Gelimer
I rushed across the map from the very first save, and I think the situation is bad in the last one; I usually prefer to defend in the castle in such situations, but there's clearly no castle here. By the way, in my game, the enemy never came, even though I've advanced quite a bit. In general, it's interesting to know how everyone prefers to start the game. Personally, I prefer to build a Capitol and then gather an army; otherwise, there's no army even with money. I also don't take additional heroes if there's nothing special to collect, and they won't pay for themselves. If there's a lot of gold on the map, and gold mines are available, then I can spend money on developing creature dwellings.
In short, I started with a slightly different tactic on this map; we'll see how it ends.

Gelimer, you've lost a lot of momentum. If you had played a bit more strategically (building up, moving without penalties), you would have achieved more and sooner.

If the opponent's advance through the water creatures was legitimate, did I have the right to rush through them in the first week?

The rules are the same for everyone!
Naturally.

(Maybe you should have gone through the water creatures to rest and meet them later).

As for Verdish, he's just bad. If you had focused on building up armor (since he's a warrior), you wouldn't have had the question of who to send into the hive.

Personally, my preference is to build a capitol and then raise an army, otherwise, without money, you won't have an army anyway.

That's a noob strategy. It's the standard noob strategy of all beginners. With it, you will always lose if you play against real people.

By the way, in my game, the enemy never came, even though I had advanced quite a bit.

Anyway, on this map, I started with a slightly different tactic; we'll see how it ends.

What enemy? Where didn't they come? What do you even think will happen in the end??

You're comparing a game against the computer to playing against a real person! That's nonsense!!!

Personally, I prefer to build a capitol and then recruit an army; otherwise, you won't have an army even if you have money.

...This is a noob strategy. It's the standard strategy for all beginners. With this strategy, you will always lose if you play against experienced players. Real players don't start a war without placing a Grail.

Many players have learned to capture level 7 monster nests with their starting army in the first week. But capturing a Hydra nest raises questions. Once, I broke through the guards, but I didn't even enter the Hydra nest. If you surround the Hydras (because you can't defeat them otherwise), they will wipe out your entire army in one turn with their attacks in all directions. What can you do in this situation?

Usually, players try to lure the Hydras out with flies and shoot them down from a distance with lizards. In SoD, this is more difficult due to morale, but there's nothing you can do about it: capturing an angel or horse nest in SoD for a castle is a lottery without any tactics.

2 Chingis
PReDS means that there is another version of the game where, unlike Shades of Darkness, you can disable the morale of neutral creatures. By the way, when playing on all-random, the artifact that removes positive morale brings me the most joy.

when playing with random settings, the artifact that removes positive morale brings me the most joy.

I agree: the Spirit of Despair is a very valuable item (unlike the Sands of Time, it's actually useful)! It's especially needed if we're relying on Berserk: then we can be sure that the berserked enemy stack won't flinch and attack a second time – but this time against our troops!

By the way, when playing with all random settings, the artifact that removes positive morale brings me the most joy.

The Spirit of Despair is a double-edged sword. For a Castle, for example, high morale of its own troops is more beneficial than the poor morale of the enemy. Morale affecting Arkham, the Crusaders, or the Champions can decide the outcome of a battle even when the initial forces are equal. But for the Swamp with Hydras and Gorgons, having no morale actually makes things easier. Although, sometimes you want to hit with Hydras twice, dealing three hits each :smile08:, or with Gorgons against seventh-level troops :smile26:, but the deadly gaze and multiple attacks without a response and without morale do their job. However, good morale of the enemy, considering the average speed of the Swamp army, is definitely not beneficial to us. Although, the spell Sadness hasn't been canceled. The only downside is that when playing as the Swamp, the first cast usually targets the enemy.

I'll try to share my opinion on playing as the Swamp:
At the start, a fast, aggressive start by clearing all the territory around the Swamp and breaking through quickly, since wyverns can be built as early as the 1st week, and in general, all creature dwellings from level 1 to 6 can be built and subsequently upgraded quite quickly and easily. A problem may arise with hydras and their subsequent upgrade, as a significant amount of sulfur is required (on maximum difficulty 200%, of course, not everything is so fast and easy, and it stretches out in time due to the lack of resources).
There are many good and useful heroes: it's probably best to start with Bron (comes with basilisks), Korbak (has logistics or something similar that increases movement distance, plus the naga specialization), or Tazar (increases defense); you could also use Verdish (starting skill is healing), but that will be more difficult.
If the map is small and you won't be able to level a hero to level 20 or higher, it's better to make a pure warrior hero without relying on magic; if a long, drawn-out game is expected, then the hero needs wisdom and expert Water Magic (healing, remove spell, joy, teleport, clone, and a few other spells useful for the Swamp, but they are only useful at expert or advanced levels, as well as the single use of other available spells), and combat skills (defense, attack or tactics, leadership, or something similar), logistics can also be added, if it drops.
It's best to take artifacts that give a bonus to defense and attack...
Overall, the Swamp army is quite strong and can withstand any opponent.
Combat tactics: against random creatures on the map, everything is basically simple—we wait with nagas and wyverns, move the others slightly forward, wait for the enemies to come closer, and then wipe out the enemy squads, preferably all attacking one enemy squad at once. If you're dealing with utopias or such storehouses where the squad is in the middle, there should be no problems at all; flyers attack one squad, while basilisks and gorgons attack another.
Against heroes: this is where it gets more interesting. There are many options, and much depends on whether the hero levels are below or above 20, and the type of opponent hero (mage or warrior). If there are many nagas (specifically their upgrades) and they don't die after their first attack, you can immediately send them to weaken a strong enemy squad or block shooters by attacking a not-so-strong enemy squad. In general, it's best to play defensively: the nagas wait, and the others move forward a few cells (tactics is very useful here, as you can position them this way before the battle starts, and at the beginning of the battle just give defense). After the enemy's first turn, attack with your squads—gorgons, wyverns, and basilisks first target one stronger squad, then the next, or send some to one squad and others to weaken another (depending on the situation). Hydras and gnolls are better sent against weaker creatures (I personally like teleporting hydras into a crowd and attacking 1 to 3 squads or taking out shooters; if there is no teleport, then either into the thick of the fight or, conversely, picking off the weakest). Gnolls in any battle are cannon fodder that will be gone by the end of the fight; lizardmen are simply sturdy shooters...
In any case, if there is such a difficult battle between heroes with substantial forces, by the end, a few gorgons, basilisks, and maybe lizardmen or wyverns should remain (though the latter is unlikely)...
Use of magic in battle: Water Magic—most often it's this that occupies the 3 levels of the Mage Guild in the city, and it's generally the only one useful for the Swamp due to healing, teleport, and remove spell, since you'll often encounter a mage hero casting slow, blindness, berserk, curse, or haste, stone skin, or blessing on their own squads. Then an expert in Water will either heal their own or remove everything from the enemy squads; basic healing, which can be used even by a warrior hero without magic skills and by nagas, will save from single spells... the rest is not so important for the Swamp...
In a fast game, especially on medium and small maps where the hero cannot be brought to level 20 and above (more accurately level 23-24, as it seems at that level all hero skills become expert), it makes sense for the Swamp to have rapid development and a rush, but only not against a good mage hero from the Tower or Dungeon with a set of offensive spells.
P.S. I played as the Swamp offline and online with a friend on random maps with conditions (from 1 to 7 computer opponents). On Rook or King difficulty, there's nothing special (Pawn and Knight are just too easy and boring to play); on Queen, it's problematic to find and collect the necessary amount of resources, so rapid development and capturing the enemy city doesn't work, but on the other hand, the game becomes quite long and one or two heroes can be well-leveled, and the AI pleases with normal behavior in combat.
I don't understand any of your SODs etc. etc., as I have the complete Heroes 3 collection installed; there is no troop experience, and no mods etc. etc., only the original game... in principle, all races are balanced, and playing as any race, you can defeat any other...

...

With all my heart! Seriously, it's written sincerely and, I repeat, with all my heart :)

The Spirit of Despair is a double-edged sword. For the Castle, for example, high morale of its troops is more beneficial than low morale of the enemy. Morale affecting Arkhams, Crusaders, or Champions can decide the outcome of a battle with initially equal forces. But for the Swamp with Hydras and Gorgons, it's even easier without morale. Although sometimes you want to hit with Hydras twice, dealing three slots of damage at once :smile08:, or with Gorgons against seventh-level troops :smile26:, but the deadly gaze and multiple attacks without a response and without morale do their job. But high morale of the enemy, considering the average speed of the Swamp army, is definitely not beneficial to us. Although the Sadness spell hasn't been canceled. The only downside is that when playing as the Swamp, the first cast usually happens against the enemy.

The Spirit of Despair and the items that remove luck, whatever they are called, are needed by the Necropolis because undead do not have morale or luck, so that they can level the playing field against those who attack them with high morale or luck...
Only sometimes and rarely is this needed against heroes whose troops have very high morale, most often Castle warrior heroes with leadership and angels in the squad, but this is also a double-edged sword, why deprive yourself of the opportunity to attack twice...
First, if you don't add any troops to the Swamp creatures, they will already have +1 to morale, then if the hero has leadership, that's another + to morale, artifacts that increase morale are not that rare, you can find them, so Swamp creatures will sometimes attack twice, which is very, very useful, and even this single probability outweighs the benefit of using the Spirit of Despair, if you are, of course, going to mix different troops from other races in the squad without artifacts with + morale, and without the hero having the leadership skill.

Added after 4 minutes

From the heart! Seriously, it's written sincerely and, I repeat, from the heart :)

Thank you :) Well, the Swamp is just my favorite race in Heroes of Might and Magic III, and generally the only one with which I won on a random map against the computer at 200% difficulty :)

- and in general, it's the only one I could win with on a random map against the AI at 200% difficulty.

hehe

Come on, I always play as the Pawn.