Gotta admit, in these pandemic times, these long ass videos have been an absolute blessing. You also got me back into homm 3, just redownloaded it and I got HotA which I havent checked out
Late to the party, but was curious about what morale does as I was reading the comments (as the video began).. so I googled it... and damn... lowest morale is 25% to not act, but highest is only 12.5% for bonus attack... I guess it's still good to have it, but no particular reason to seek it. (though, you certainly need to avoid going into negative)
@@cyryl3827 With max morale i get an extra attack every combat round on average. That's a significant advantage. Max luck is good too, & seems to activate a bit more often.
@@cyryl3827 i played necro the other day, had mixed units, had +3 morale from artifacts. I procc'd morale at least 13 total times, in 5 different battles. i only had those modifiers for like an hr.maybe i was rly lucky idk
Cheers! I hope you enjoy the rest of the content that I have to offer. :D I think that part of the reason why the subscriber to viewer ratio might seem a bit wonky is because my videos are much longer than most videos on RUclips (multiple hours in length as opposed to just several minutes). As a result, viewers often have to access my videos more than once to finish watching them, which inflates the view count by a significant margin. Having said that, I'm not too concerned about the subscriber count or the view count of these videos. What matters most to me here is whether or not I'm having fun and whether viewers are enjoying what I do, and since it seems to me that both these goals have been met, I have no complaints. ;)
The first (real) game I've ever played was HoMM3. I have played it on and of for, at least, 15 years (probably more). Just watching you play this is like discovering a new game. Even though I've played this for so many years I still suck at it because I only played it so casually and not in long periods of time. Thanks for really nice gameplay and commentary - I will subscribe and I am looking forward for your new videos!
Excellent video as always. My 3rd favourite faction with my 2nd favourite tier 7 unit. And ARTIFACTS! I love seeing the combination artifacts, so thank you for that (and the effort you put into trying to get the Grail). I recommend your videos to anyone I know that has an interest in Homm3. I know these videos are old, but keep up the good work
@@TheKnownWorld This is a carryover from HoMM2 where stables also upgraded cavalry for free; in fact, there were two other buildings whose only purpose was to upgrade units for free - foundry for iron golems, pikemen and swordsmen, and hill fort for orcs, ogres and dwarves
TheKnownWorld Hey Mekicks! I know you probably won’t read this but I thought I’d write you a little thank you message for all the content you’re putting out. I’ve been meaning to reach out to you for a very long time, because I’ve seen a couple of months ago that some people disliked your videos and it made me feel bad because I’m kind of a content creator myself. I am nowhere near your size as I mostly only get 10 views per video, but still, I don’t have to be a popular RUclipsr to know that even just commentating is so much effort. Even if you don’t edit/render your videos but just talk for an hour then upload, it’s very draining and when literally no one is watching your content it’s de-motivating as fuck. Let alone getting dislikes from stupid people for no reason. In your case you have a great fan base so you are probably motivated in that regard, and fuck the haters. They might have disliked because of sharp volume increases in the video, so it doesn’t even count. Recently I’ve been watching your videos mostly as background noise whilst playing WoW or to fall asleep, but don’t take that as an insult, I think that’s actually a compliment. The only reason I don’t watch your videos more is just because I know nothing about the game. It would be cool to have a completely “n00b, literally day 0 how to play Heroes 3” video, but I’m not sure how much of your fan base is a pro at the game. It’s funny because sometimes you make a mistake and you freak out, but I honestly can’t tell what’s happening so it’s okay haha Honestly, someone like you deserves more subscribers, but I’m reluctant to say this as I know how much it can poison your mind & attitude towards making videos. You explain things really well, and have a natural tendency to teach people about the game. Most other “pro” players would just stay silent for 5 hours straight. So yeah, heads up man. There will always be rude people on RUclips, people who just sort of tune out and watch videos, but you have a lots of great fans as well! Watching the Small Map 1v7 so gotta continue. See you! :)
Hello again! On the contrary, I do make an effort to sift through all of the new comments that I get and reply whenever I can. So yes, I actually did end up reading your comment, as you can tell by this response ;) First of all, I appreciate you taking the time to write up a long, well-thought-out comment with some kind words of encouragement for me. Indeed, as a content creator, receiving comments like these is always a welcome occurrence and makes me feel glad that I have such a supportive community! There's no need to feel bad for me receiving dislikes on my videos. Some viewers will inevitably end up disliking videos for one reason or another, or even for no reason at all - that's just the nature of any RUclips channel, really. What we should really be looking at is whether or not these people have constructive criticism to share, because if they do, then as content creators we can find our mistakes and learn from them. For me, audio issues fit into this category of "constructive criticism" too. Learning from what we've done in the past and improving upon it matters far more than the number of people who arbitrarily dislike your videos for whatever reason. You're definitely not the only one who likes listening to my videos as background noise, so no offense taken! I upload videos for people to enjoy them, and if your version of enjoying my content is falling asleep to my voice, then that's perfectly fine with me. As it stands, I'm impressed that you even watch my videos to begin with if you actually know nothing about the game :P I'm not sure what kind of "poison" you're expecting my mind to experience from saying that I deserve more subscribers, but I can assure you that while I do respect your opinion on the matter, my attitude towards making videos probably won't change as a result of it. Right now, my sub count is the least of my concerns - I make these videos for fun, people enjoy them, and that's good enough for me. It's nice to hear that you find my explanations about the game adequate! Anyway, thank you for taking the time to reach out to me! I hope you enjoy the videos to come!
Bought HD edition of this game in new year. I don't know how I've missed this game, since I used to play a lot of strategy games when I was younger. Just my personal preference but I prefer to see your cursor. Great vid!
Thank you MeKick for this :-) I've been watching your videos for a month now, I quite enjoy your content. This is nostalgic for me as well. I was three years old when HoMM III came out and some of my earliest memories are watching my father play it on that old CRT monitor. When I got a bit older we'd play together sometimes, he'd always play as Dungeon and I'd always play as Castle. I wasn't too good at it, but we've had loads of fun. Watching your videos and playing this game throughout the years I've learned quite a lot of tricks and tactics so hopefully next time I'll be the winner :D keep up the good work, have fun :-)
lol, those Den of Thieves were something! Anyway, you're welcome for the vids. Thank you for watching, and I hope you enjoy your return back to Heroes III!
After long time since the last time i've seen you, I saw the the name TheKnownWorld and it sounded familiar. Then I hear the introduction and say: "This is MeKick, after all, this is great!". :)
TheKnownWorld Firstly I saw you at RUclips and your channel really got me interested so I hoped on your Twitch streams :). You recommended me Couch_Frosty as well :). Btw I was wondering, when are you streaming on Twitch?
Indeed, the growth for this channel over the past year has been astounding! I can't believe we've gotten so far in such a short period of time, although oddly, much of this growth has actually come from just the past few months. Anyway, keep it up I shall! I hope to see you in my future videos as well :)
TheKnownWorld Ya dude. I have a challenge. A One Race only Run where let say you pick Castle, you can only use Castle creatures and dwellers. As well as Castle Heroes only. Of course you can use the resources from other races.
For thematic purposes, that actually sounds pretty cool. I have a slew of other challenges I want to complete first though, but let me think about that one for the time being.
TheKnownWorld thx man, I have many many challenges that can pop into my head and I have a couple already but take your time. Keep up dude. I coming back from a trip so I be able to finish the Siege part 2 hopefully
man your videos are so helpful i was always shit at heroes 3 and i had trouble with 80%(LOL) now i just went back to 80% after watching your vid with a town i dont know how to play and finished it on extra large in 40 days thanks bro
Hey, no problem! Glad to see you made such amazing progress so quickly. :D Perhaps try a tougher difficulty and see if you could attempt that now as well? ;)
You’re welcome! It seems that you’re not the only one who believes that they’re the last remaining Heroes III player on Earth. One of my reasons for starting this channel in the first place was to show Heroes III lone wolves that there are still others out there as well. :P
To answer your question long after the fact, I like watching the fights where the AI doesn't think you're going to win, or ones you think might be interesting or any fight where you have a trick to show us. Those are the ones I personally like to watch, so I wouldn't mind at all if you skipped fights that are obviously in your favor. But I mean they're your vids, I'm cool with whatever ^_^
Hello, and thank you for the feedback! This is what I would consider very valid reasoning, and the same line of thinking I have in these matters. In some of these fights, I question why I would play it out when I know that the fight itself is trivial. But apparently some people want to watch the fights regardless...? Cheers!
When I played as Loynis I try to bank on getting expert water magic for the mass prayer. Love your vids dude!! It's been a long while since I watched one of your streams since I got burnt out by people making fun of me for being (Older) and liking this game since I also played when it first came out back in 2000 (Homm3 no expansions)
Loynis with Water Magic - a classic combination! Of course, I would imagine that there are stronger options in competitive play, but having Prayer on all of your units is still a lot of fun to mess around with. Hold on, so you showed up to my streams and people made fun of you for liking Heroes III even though you're older? When was this? This seems rather odd, considering that much of the audience that makes up my channel (at least from my understanding) are also from an older demographic themselves. I'm sorry to hear that you were disappointed in the way my streams went! In any case, I'm glad you're enjoying my content!
@@TheKnownWorld But as I stated I would love to play against you again some time. Even if it's a 1v1, or teams, or even some type of speed run (with/without autocombat)
castle best faction in the game! easy to play and understand, castle is just rocksolid or even great on every level. they are good in every phase of the game and have answers to virtually everything. if it wasn't for cheating necro and "who balanced this crap? conflux, castle would be easily the strongest faction in the game. pikemen are a great tier 1 unit, only really beaten by centaurs in terms of combat strength, though they are really close to each other. having no gimmicks and jsut solid stats though, you won't be able to use them in too many exciting ways outside of the early game. marksmen are the best tier 2 unit except for storm elementals, and the comparison between the 2 in terms of damage is fairly close. double shot is an amazing ability, and their high numbers mean competent damage even in the lategame, something most tier 2 units can't say of themselves. they are squishy though, and turrets and ai controlled creatures LOVE killing them over anything else. a worthwhile unit to have around. gryphons are a cool unit, decently mobile and fairly tanky they make very good units for both backline defending and backline harassment. endless retaliation is a great thing to have for either of those jobs. they are fairly expensive though and lack damageoutput to be used often outside of the early and midgame, if at all. i like them, but in the end tier 3 is jsut the awkward cut off point between good early game unit and good midgame unit, so fitting them into armies might be difficult. swordsmen suck. they are slow, hve only mdiocre damage and are expensive. tanky though. on the other hand, crusaders are AMAZING. the only tier 4 unit besides vampire lords to be able to fight alongside the big guys like angels and dragons, their damage output is downright insane, and they are tanky enough to withstand a blow to be able to put that damage to use. they are still slow, but that's a downside anyone should be willing to take for this unit! monks are weak, 30 hp is not anywhere near enough for a tier 5, and their damageoutput is fairly poor aswell. really the only bad unit in castle. cavaliers and champions are my favourite unit in the homm series. i love knights and they are the most knightly knights ever. they are strong, decently fast and fairly tanky. they aren't as good as DKs or naga queens, but are coming in at third place. they are an all around well balanced unit that does nothing spectacularly out of this world, but does that very, very good. angels and archangels are probably the best tier 7 unit in the game, and only phoenixes with their increased growthrate can best them. their consistent damage, unreasonably high stats, good lifepoints and enormous mobility are already enough to make anyone want them on their side. that is when you realze they also have the ability to revive other creatures AND increase the moral of your army by 1, meaning ANGELS CAN BE INCLUDED IN ANY ARMY FOR BASICALLY FREE!!!! and not only that, but also all the other great castle units can be included with basically no moral penalty. arch angels are deservedly the mascot unit of homm 3, they are jsut that good. expensive, but unlike black dragons and titans i can wholeheartedly say they are worth een more than their pricepoint suggests.
Alright, Better comment than in the Rampart video, but.... Castle probably wouldn't be "the best" alongside Necro and Flux. No one is immune to any magic, the angels are almost impossible to get on impossible, even hard to get on expert.. no answers to blind or other mind spells, no answers to other towns that might have "tankier" shooters, Gryphons don't exist, they are Griffins.. anyway, i'm quite sure that all other factions are equal, except for Flux, Necro (best easily), and Tower (and possibly) Fortress. Tower is too expensive which makes it really bad, and Fortress is commonly hated for good reasons. So Castle is as good as other factions. All factions have their own strengths in different situations, though. So...Griffins don't lack damage output at all, it's good damage, definitely in middle game too at least. The Griffin is actually one of the best 3rd lvl units. Swordsmen suck? Really? For an un-upgraded 4th lvl unit, they are not that slow, that damage is actually pretty good for not being upgraded, too! For their usefulness, that cost isn't bad either. That is true tho! Crusaders ARE great, and their damage is the same as Scorpicores have! Better than both 4th and 5th lvl units, reaching to 6th lvl... But their HPs are a huge downside, that is super low. Only a few 4th lvl units have worse HPs. So even tho Crusaders really are good, they are the opposite of tanky, and therefore you need to use them carefully. They are quite slow, yup. I agree about the Monks. Only Earth/Magma elemental is worse for 5th lvl. It still is a decent shooter-unit, no melee penalty..but yeah. Champions really are great, true. But i believe Champions are 4th. Magic elementals are the best for their specialities, DK/Naga are pretty much even - both are great, but useful for different situations. Archangel truly is the best 7th lvl unit in the game, no doubt. However, alongside Phoenixes, there is 1 more unit that beats it...quite easily, too. The behemoth. The behemoth can take out almost every other 7th lvl unit, due to high HPs and speciality. They also are about as cheap as Phoenixes.. So Archangel is the best, but it loses to these 2 in fights. What is their problem, tho, is their price. Archangels and angels are the most expensive 7th lvl unit in the game, even the building is the most expensive! And if like you said, they are "worth more than their pricepoint suggests" - imagine if they cost even more, you'd never get them.. some really great players have even said, that SOLELY because the 7th lvl for Castle is so expensive, that Castle is worse than most other factions... Believe me, if you play expert or impossible, you have to be LUCKY to get them angels quick. By the time you have them, you have SOOOOOOOO many behemoths and firebirds...
I'm not sure I fully agree with castle not being near top. The units themselves may not place them near top, but I've found they synergize very dangerously with magic. Angel (or even champion) initiative allow early casts and they have at least one unit that gets extremely powerful with each magic type (except perhaps fire): Earth's defense spells make griffins absolute monsters. I've seen them hold off and inflict significant losses on multiple tier 3-5 stacks at the same time. Combine with the fact that slow causes every one of their units to outspeed all but a few targets and things start getting ridiculous. Water's fortune and mirth make their multi-hitting units capable of digging into even tier seven stacks and even eat away significant chunks of the four super dragons' hp. Air allows three units full or near full battlefield coverage (and a damage boost to one) with haste and precision benifits two units (one of them a double shooter). Fire is slightly less nuts, but bloodlust does provide significant benefit to both crusaders and griffins while blind and fire wall combine well with castle units' generally good speed to allow for a powerful positioning advantadge. The best part is that despite having a lower max guild, all their important spells are in it's range and most are not uncommon finds on their tier.
Auron3991 Interesting points. But i'd say it depends... for example, cheap towns are usually better on low-resource maps. Then expensive towns might be better on maps with more resources.. it varies,and castle probably does what you say, but if your opponent, for example, has a lot of mana and berserk and blind maybe..especially expert berserk.. Those units won't be that useful with their non-existant immunities--it all depends on the situation. Castle IS powerful and easy to use, i agree, still wouldn't rank it alongside Conflux and Necropolis. It isn't bad like Tower or Fortress either, just as good as everything else. Remember, only 2 factions are banned in tournaments.
May just be my experience, as I can't use conflux to save my life (terrible at managing sprites) and I've only made necropolis work with guild level 3 first week or early second week (I'm bad at early game if I don't have range).
:) Sprites arent that hard to use. Use the huge speed, wait, stay away from enemies, hit after waited, run away, Plus Stormies and Ice fellas are AMAZING and ranged. Necropolis isnt that easy early-game, you need to horde skeletons, remember to 1 stack them - use the 1 stack-skeletons to protect units and waste retaliations. Zombies are the worst 2nd lvl unit, Wraiths aren't that good either.. so until you get vampires and so on, it can be difficult. It isn't a bad idea to play on easier difficulties to get used to the game :).
Finally a Grail video! I've been watching/listening your videos for the past 2 weeks while at work. I really enjoy watching ya play. I have Heroes 3 for my laptop but never could get the hang of it. Curious of how ya could set up a match where ya could get all factions/max troop in an army, probably would take a very large map and a lot of time, but would be interesting to watch ya decimate everything; like a full 100% cleared map game. But thanks again!
Haha, a Grail video indeed! At least, I think this was the match where I dug up the Grail. Hmm, I can't remember anymore. Anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying my content! I don't intend to do a match where I clear the entire map, but in my Diplomacy 1v7 video (ruclips.net/video/0Os25Sa243A/видео.html) I used Diplomacy to farm big stacks on the map (which would be akin to having "max troops in an army"). Perhaps that match would be of interest to you?
very good videos! Because of the tome of earthmagic: I would not call it cheating, but I really enjoy to watch your videos not using OP- spells like implo or townportal. good work!please keep this project running.
I appreciate the feedback regarding the use of overpowered spells like Implosion and Town Portal! I'll keep this in mind going forward. I've already taken the liberty of avoiding certain spells (such as Slow and Resurrection) in my recent challenge videos. In the future, I may go even further and ban other spells if I feel it to be necessary, but I think that this is a good start for now. At this time, I don't intend to stop doing this series, but I've had limited time to release videos as of recent. Cheers!
Wow, that's awesome! Warlords is probably my favorite original scenario, and I have fond memories of playing the Allied version with my brother ;) I'm glad you enjoyed having this video in the background while you played the game!
32:20 Are my ears deceiving me or do I hear Magnificent Field (grass theme) from Homm2 playing in the background? Is it a mod of some sort? If so, how do I acquire such a mod?
Good ear! I have indeed replaced the Heroes III Grass theme with the Grass theme from Heroes II. This can be done by going into the "mp3" folder of your Heroes III directory and renaming "GRASS.mp3" into something else and then putting another .mp3 file (named "GRASS.mp3") containing the Heroes II Grass theme into the same folder.
@@TheKnownWorld i think homm2 color pallette is superior to homm3. Everythin seems to blend together so well and world view is just awesome. Unit designs also good. There is a lot in homm2 to like. I find lack of ballance and asymmetry a feature rather than a problem. My ideal heroes game is a look and feel of homm2, mix of mechanics from 2,3 and 4.
Such epic game play .. am kinda new for the game ...Ur game play took me from play only normal to extreme challenges with no problem .. keep up the good work
@TheKnownWorld Why pro players usually start with Caitlin as secondary, to get a main hero later in tavern and not actually start with a castle main hero, like a knight? They may waste a slot with Leadership, but they are might heroes that fit more into water magic school, so in a way, they have better chances to use most spells from Castle (Cure, Clone, Bless, etc). I don't see why other hero classes could be better as main.
With Caitlin, the Gold specialty is especially helpful early on when trying to build up your starting army. Regarding why I've seen competitive players start off with Caitlin, I presume that there are two main issues regarding Knight heroes: 1. Knights lack good starting secondary skills/specialties. Castle has no Tier 1 unit specialists for a significant army boost early on (i.e. a Shakti equivalent), and no Castle heroes that have a Secondary Skill specialty (i.e. Offense or Logistics) that scale well into the late game. Orrin would be the one notable exception to this with his Archery specialty, but even then your army's main damage output would still probably come from melee units like Angels and Crusaders. Wyverns, since they are often farmed in PvP from Dragon Fly Hives, fit under the melee category too. As you pointed out, because all Knight heroes start off with Leadership, you get a "wasted slot" on your starting hero. The other worthwhile Secondary Skill on Knight heroes can be Artillery, Armorer, Archery, Offense, or Tactics which aren't bad. But if you can access a hero that starts with *two* "good" Secondary Skills (Tyraxor) instead of one, or even a "good" specialty (Gunnar), then why wouldn't you? 2. The other issue is sub-par Secondary Skill development (see heroes.thelazy.net/wiki/Knight). Among combat Secondary Skills, Knights have the highest chance of learning Leadership and among magic-based Secondary Skills, Knights have a much greater chance of learning Water than the other schools of magic. Knights are less likely to be offered Offense, Armorer, Tactics, and Logistics than Overlords and Barbarians, which has (especially from my experience) led to some pretty awkward Secondary Skill choices, like "Ballistics or Navigation", more often than not. Now, moving onto schools of magic. While Water can be useful for Bless and Cure early on, it does not benefit *Slow* and Haste (arguably important spells for the entirety of the match) at all, nor is Water useful for the crucial Adventure Map-based spells like Dimension Door (Air) or Town Portal (Earth). In fact, Earth Magic is half as likely to be obtained on level-up as Water Magic, which is a pretty big problem considering how useful Earth spells become later on. While a Mage Guild Level 5 can't be built in a Castle for DD/Fly/Implosion, the level 5 spells are often accessible in random maps via Spellbinder's Hat, Angel Wings, Tome of Air/Earth Magic, spell scrolls or Mage Guilds in other towns. I think it is also worth pointing out that when you purchase a Mage Guild Level 4, your odds of getting Prayer (20%) is double the odds of getting Clone (10%), and the same odds as getting Resurrection (20%) or Town Portal (20%). I could keep going, but I think this paints a general idea as to why Knights are less desirable over other hero classes. Clerics are even worse off in hero development (i.e. 10/112 chance to get First Aid upon leveling up).
Amazing response. It really clears things up to me. I've been playing Heroes for less than a year, and never played competitively. I'm still improving against AI. Thanks a lot, buddy. Castle is my favorite and I learned a lot with this episode, so just do a second Castle video or RIOT! haha.
Wow, Heroes III for less than a year! I'm impressed that people are still picking up this game even now. You're welcome for the response -- thank you for asking! I'm glad you learned a few tricks from my video. You won't have to look far for the next Castle video, though...
Prayer is a very underappreciated spell - it's basically haste alongside bloodlust/stoneskin and unlike haste - slow doesn't replace it, it only puts you down to right around natural speed. Which basically means that if your opponent has mass slow, you'll never be truly affected by it. and that tends to be a rather big deal if you yourself have mass slow also gj on not abusing the fact that you can have split stacks of arch angels that resurrect eachother in that scorpicore fight
Yes, Prayer is indeed nice for what it does. However, Prayer doesn't replace Slow like Haste does either. Also, Prayer tends to be a considerable amount more difficult to obtain than Haste and Slow, on top of the usual requirement of Expert *Water* Magic to be utilized at its full potential. Also, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic regarding me not splitting up those Archangels for that Scorpicore fight. While I admittedly didn't expect that many of them, I needed the Archangels in one stack anyway to do as much damage as possible per hit. Prior to the fight, I was under the impression that I'd have been able to one-shot each set of Scorpicores.
Hey man, I've been watching your videos bit by bit and I totally love them. Been playing HoMM for a looooong time now (with only about 30mins total against other people, and only watched your stuff online...) If you ever feel like having even more of a challenge, try my "Xenophobic Supremacy" rules I've been playing every now and then for the past few years. Go 200% 1v7 XL+U where you are one town type, and the opponents are other town types. You are only allowed to recruit in your type of towns and in external dwellings (including dragonfly hives and such). -When I want it slightly easier I make 1-2 of the computers the same town type as me -Generally I'd do a 3 and 4 split (both different to mine) -When feeling particularly brave, make all of them the same type -In terms of alliances I usually just go FFA, but you can also ally based on town type -One way of making it slightly easier is to allow the purchasing of units from any town as long as you sack them straight away (maybe even allowing use of a Skeleton Transformer or Freelancers Guild as long as you don't attack with any unit) Overall it puts a new spin on the game where suddenly there are only two things that are still OP, the first being necromancy, and then to a lesser extend diplomacy. You can Crag Hack or Castle, you can Fly until your lungs collapse, you can Dimension Door to your heart's content, but when those rich bastards walk into one of their towns you've been holding hostage for a month or two and buy up all those units, then you're in a lot of trouble. Few tips for anyone else in the comments wanting to try it: Necropolis is a good first attempt town. If not using Necromancy or Diplomacy, Dungeon is my recommendation with Gunnar, Portal of Summoning, and Artifact Merchants. DON'T underestimate the value of certain combination artifacts, keep your eyes peeled for their parts; they will save your life.
Very well-detailed explanation! To be honest though, this challenge idea (or, at least, a variation of it) has already been brought up to my attention. Others who suggested similar challenges tried taking the difficulty level one step further and setting all of the enemy factions to be the same type (i.e. 7 Dungeon AI or 7 Conflux AI), making it easier for them to build stronger stacks once they conquer one another. However, I fail to see how this constraint of using just one town type leaves Necromancy and Diplomacy as the “only” two overpowered aspects of the game. Armor of the Damned is still ridiculously strong, Dimension Door and Fly are still abusable, Conflux still dominates with just a single town, and so on. Furthermore, having access to creature banks like Dragon Fly Hives and Griffin Conservatories means that Fortress and Castle have an inherent advantage for obvious reasons. Anyway, I appreciate the suggestion! Thank you for commenting! :)
Hey thanks for the reply! Yea those are all just ways of making it easier for anyone reading the comments, or for me when I don't feel like paying too much attention to what I'm doing. Armour of the damned is great if you can get a hold of it, but I find that there's a surprising amount of expert water magic later in the game and it just doesn't have the stats to match some other armours. Also playing it without being able to purchase and sack creatures makes even fly/DD a bit of a challenge. I do admit that I have a severe lack of knowledge where conflux is concerned as I have never really been interested in playing it and thus ever since it became a town I have yet to have it as my starting town and get more than 30mins into a game. How much of an impact does choosing the template have on your game when compared to just randomly generating a map and not knowing/checking what template it used?
To be honest, you've asked a really good question and I'm not entirely sure how to answer it. There are several factors to consider here. For one, I wouldn't know how to define "how much of an impact" choosing a template makes on the match. What would the "amount" be, in this case? I generally opt to pick templates that I see getting used in competitive Heroes III matches since I'd like to think that they wouldn't be broken in terms of functionality. From my experience, if I don't choose a template, some of the templates that the game will use instead (i.e. Ring and Meeting in Muzgob) have rather interesting and imbalanced map structures. I'm not going to elaborate on this too much, but I've seen things like one AI player getting completely isolated from the rest of the map or one player starting off with multiple towns. Very strange, indeed. Of course, the main drawback to playing the same templates over and over again is that even if you don't look up the way the template looks, you might still recognize the pattern as time goes on. In an effort to avoid this, I've refrained from looking up the map template patterns as much as possible and I keep rotating map templates to try and forget the manner in which each map template is designed (and, naturally, to keep the maps fresh).
I've never played with the HD mod, and never bothered to check the templates. I've definitely had some really strange games, where I've checked the tavern on day 1 and two NPCs are 1st on number of towns, 3 NPCs are 2nd, and then there's me with the rest who have 1 town. Then there's starting with level 5 or 10 characters. There's also a few really messed up templates (one especially that has narrow, very long paths usually with teleporters on either side), but I don't even know the names so it's hard to discuss them online. I usually just play whatever hand the game has dealt and roll with it. Life isn't fair or that sort of stuff, and since it's not vs other players then it doesn't need to be. At the end of the day it's a solo experience for me, and if the game decides to throw a unique campaign my way then I'll be glad to play it :D By far my least favourite is probably when the game decides to wall off a chunk of my starting area, eg an ore mine. Oh by the way, have you been locked into your castle by some super strong monster stack in any of your playthroughs on RUclips? Something that has seriously hindered your start? I'd love to see how you go about handling a handicap of that sort on top of the usual 1v7 200%. I've had a few (impossible?) games where I definitely feel like it would have taken me at least a month or two to even reach my ore mine that I could see from my town.
+TheKnownWorld in my opinion I think you shouldn't take every fight because your videos are already too long and if you did take every fight it will be even longer
I swear these random generated maps are so much easier than vanilla ones. This plus the HD mod. I’m playing standard homm3 hd, and some maps are a nightmare. You make 5 steps and your turn is over, powerful monsters blocking everything and no actual roads like here. Can you do like a playthrough of all the vanilla maps on 200% difficulty? If you haven’t done that already that is.
I think it depends which randomly generated maps and which scenarios you're talking about. Barbarian Breakout, for example, was extremely difficult for me on my first attempt. Good To Go, on the other hand, was quite easy. In terms of randomly generated maps, 8xm8 is an absolute nightmare. I'm not quite sure where you got the idea that the HD mod makes the game easier, though. To answer your question, the main focus of my RUclips videos right now is on the random map challenges, so I don't have any intention of doing the vanilla maps at this time. However, if you're interested in seeing how to win against the vanilla maps, you might want to check out Ramsrock39's playthroughs for every vanilla map on 200% difficulty. You can view his channel at ruclips.net/user/Ramsrock39.
TheKnownWorld ok thanks for that, I’ve almost beat them all by now. What I meant with the hd mod is that it’s easier to play the game because of the shift commands, auto combat thing, and other features. Obviously no effect on the actual diff of the game.
+TheKnownWorld the only reason I actually started playing this game was because I was playing on our family's computer with my brother, and he said this game was really good, so I played it with him. Castle was the one that looked the coolest (and one of the few I could pronounce because I was six) and then I stuck to it. I'm actually playing a game with him as I'm typing this, and I'm playing on castle, while he's on tower.
McTheMan LOL, that sounds epic! Lucky you. I wish I had that kind of liberty to play Heroes III with my family. :) I recall playing Castle because it was the first one you can select when you click the Right Arrow on the "choose a faction" menu. Also, it was at-the-time the easiest faction for me to play -- I was always wondering why I would ever want to play a "weaker" faction like Fortress or Stronghold, with their cap at Mage Guild Level 3. Oh, how times have changed! ;D
Oh yeah, Archangels, everyone's favorite xD But seriously, of all Tier 7 units Archangels are probably the best of the bunch. If I had to choose between Black Dragons, Behemoths, Phoenixes and Archangels I'd always pick the Archangels.
Archangels are a pretty solid Tier 7 unit, yeah. They're made even stronger by the fact that Angels are available from Griffin Conservatories (which are often abundant on random maps). This makes it so that Archangels are not just very powerful individually, but can also come in significant numbers. However, I do have to admit that each of the units you listed has its strengths. I would certainly prefer having Black Dragons in the event that I was planning to use Armageddon. Although Ancient Behemoths are tougher to amass in the late game, they're easier to obtain early on and are good at cutting right through your opponent's Defense Skill. Phoenixes come in packs of 4 a week assuming you have a Castle in your Conflux town, so you'll have tons of them relatively quick. Knowing how strong each of these units are in different situations, I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying I'd "always" pick Archangels if I had the choice, although I can see why others would.
Hi MeKick. Your tutorial videos are great, but always full of restrictions (challenges are separate chapter). Could you consider to do an XLU 1vs7 run as best as possible, without any restrictions? Take any town you want, use also other factions after you beat them, use dimension door and town portal... The aim is to get the best possible score (grail needed).
Hello! I don't consider these faction playthroughs as "tutorials", but I'm glad you find them informative nonetheless :) Regarding your request for a match without rules, there's a specific approach I had in mind for how I would play such a match. However, with various other video ideas I still have to get through first, I don't want to showcase it at this time. In the far future after I'm doing all the challenges I want to I'll consider doing No Rules. Cheers!
Thanks for the feedback! Perhaps in the future, I’ll play more scenarios that have a “classic” feel to them. At the moment however, my hands are already tied with random maps and challenge scenarios, so I don’t have plans to do so anytime soon. I’ve heard of Maelstrom, but so far I haven’t given it a shot myself.
Casting Mass Sorrow would have solved a few earlier inconveniences, slow then sorrow is my startup if running expert earth it prevents good morale vs neutrals unless it’s a Minotaur...
You asked if you should take all the fights. I say nay, you should only take the fights with unacceptable battle results or the ones that are strategically enlightening :)) I learned a thing or two from watching you fight!
I agree to a certain extent. Resources can be useful in the late game if you're trying to get specific spells from Mage Guilds (i.e. DD/Fly), but I have my unwritten rules of not using many such spells even if I have access to them during my AI videos. Also, a lot of offensive spells do fall off, but that's to be expected considering the element of progression -- in other words, the longer a game lasts for, the more access you have to the stronger spells (which, understandably, lessens the use for the early-game spells).
Question: I main inferno and I always try and clear out crypts, nests e.t.c as fast I can to gain army and resources. I don't know which template to play on which balances every faction properly, because on Jebus there's always bound to be a way way stronger AI with absurd amounts of army (I'm talking several arch- angels, devils, chaos hydras and swarms of any lvl 1 creature plus tons of shooters while I am stuck with only a few of each of those). I don't know if I am just taking bad trades or if I'm just playing wrong, investing into too many towns (I usually am able to get three towns up to max upgrade in the period of 3 months, and I can buy out ALL stacks of army). My latest game was inferno as always, it's still not lost yet but I'm 3rd on the army strength according to the thieves den. I have 4 towns in total with only 1 town (Tower's town) not fully upgraded. Could you please do videos about knowing what trades to take, knowing what to invest in and maybe also templates?
Hello Greaceyrobot! First of all, I am not an expert in map templates myself by any means and so you should take everything I say here with a grain of salt. Having said that, I personally believe that there is no random map template that "balances every faction properly" for multiple players -- I would imagine that this just isn't possible in the context of Shadow of Death. Your best bet would be the Mirror template if you were playing with two players (which makes above-ground and underground exactly the same), but it seems to me that you want a template that works well for multiple factions. Popular XL+U (Extra Large with Underground) templates for multiplayer that involve 2 human players with 6 AI in the same match include: 8mm6a, 6lm10a, Spider (one of my personal favorites), and Mini-Nostalgia. I would also recommend giving Diamond, an L+U template meant for up to 8 players, a try at least once. Diamond is rather rich and has lots of goodies (treasures, artifacts, etc.) spread around. Anyway, if you're looking for balanced matches, perhaps try looking at the Horn of the Abyss mod for balance changes that have been made to every faction in the game. *In my personal opinion*, the "Warlords" scenario is a pretty good candidate for balanced matches too. Now, as for the second half of your comment, you discuss that you've been struggling to keep up with the AI in a number of in-game aspects -- army size/strength being a particularly big factor. Let me start off by pointing out that I wouldn't personally recommend Jebus Cross to beginners for a number of reasons (*I think a lot of pros would disagree with me on this*). But taking into consideration what you've told me about your experiences regarding the game, it seems that you may be spending too much time developing towns rather than making an army. Or, perhaps, you suffer losses that are too great when you clear fights around the map. To be honest, I would like to help you further, but I think that further insight into your matches (perhaps uploading a video of you playing a match?) is necessary. On a closing remark, I typically state what to invest in on each of my videos (see my Rampart video's chart, for example). As for trades, I'm not sure that it would be possible to make a video such that discusses trades effectively considering how I handle these on a case-by-case basis. Cheers! :)
Hello IRTEHLEETOKNPBB (not sure how to shorten that name)! I'm happy to see you've been liking my content so far. :) My main hesitation regarding Heroes III campaigns is that others (i.e. Meridian and boardgamergirl) have already pumped out videos for them, and so I feel it is somewhat redundant to do what they have done already. A speed run might be rather interesting since so few people have tried it, but there is still a long list of items to do on my Heroes III to-do list before I even touch Heroes III's Campaign mode. Cheers!
Finally! Someone who actually listened to me explicitly state that I am, indeed, going to do Cove next rather than posting about how I haven't yet played Cove. :D Have a +1, sir!
Mrsupergaming z That's right! :) Expect the Cove video to come out sometime in June, a nice way to round off this series that I started just under a year ago.
AWSOME series! i really would love to run the HD mod, im on win 10, and finaly got the file downloaded and installed. after fiddeling with smartscreen and whatnot (windows 10 hates this file) But i have the "coimplete edition homm 3) how do i get it to run with this game ? is there a way where i can make my game only run the "shadow of death" exp? hope this makes sense, yet another thnakyou for this channel!!!!
Nice to see a Castle LP. I struggle with this faction especially at the beginning, though they really kick asses later on with Arch Angels. Just a question off topic: Did you play the campaigns of HoMM 3? If so, which ones? Maybe all? I thought that they were somehow harder (I only played the first three of Restauration of Erathia).
I'm glad you're enjoying the video! To be honest, I find that Castle has a pretty solid start thanks to their Marksmen. But like you said, Castle's late game is remarkable thanks to their Archangels. So far, I've played the Restoration of Erathia and Armageddon's Blade campaigns in Heroes III. For years, I've saved the Shadow of Death campaign for a rainy day, but said day has not yet come. At some point in the future, I may consider making videos for all three campaigns.
Actually, yes. There are two ways this can be done. The first is by obtaining the HW rules plugin, which allows you to prevent Obelisks, Cartographers, Trading Posts, and Hill Forts from being spawned on random maps just before you start the game. The HW rules plugin can be obtained from forum.heroesworld.ru/attachment.php?s=4e8c700e809e43fc71699d0a0af220db&attachmentid=49904&d=1500418241. The other way this can be done is by editing the rmg.txt file to tweak the map generation settings in a way that you want. I'm not too familiar when it comes to playing around with rmg.txt, but this thread might be of interest to you: heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=14290&PID=286557#focus I apologize for the late reply, but I hope this helps!
Actually, I chose to do this in my Diplomacy video since I was already breaking the game by using Diplomacy to begin with. So if you're interested, make sure to take a look into that. :P
Not sure how this is done actually, but my PC opponent is able to have like 15 arch angels, 90+ marksman, etc. in month 2 week 2. When i see this and other videos, it just seems like somehow the AI having such weaker armies than my enemy actually is able to build. On top of that insane armies, he has also very strong defense in the castle.
15 Archangels? How would this even be possible on a random map? Even assuming that the AI could somehow get a Portal of Glory in their town with a Castle on the opening week (which basically requires a miracle start), they’d be getting just 2 Angels per week. By Month 2 Week 2, that would only be 5 weeks’ worth of reinforcements plus the initial Angel, totaling up to 11 Angels. I suppose that the AI could then acquire additional Angels from Griffin Conservatories or from other towns, but then they’d have to find a way to upgrade all of them into Archangels, which would require even more resources. This isn’t even factoring in the cost of other buildings and heroes. All in all - and I do apologize for this - I think that 15 Archangels is a little far-fetched for the time frame that you’ve stated. On random maps, the only time I’ve ever seen the AI with 15 of any Tier 7 unit by Month 2 Week 2 is when they play Conflux, and that’s only because Firebirds have a base growth of 2.
Hello there had nostalgia hit me on this game (ironicly enough to your video talking about nostalgia lol gotta give it to this game making you nostalgic) so i stumbled on your videos for a while nice videos btw! loved the series and the commentary.So would you mind explaining to me briefly what's the deal with templates? i can't find info on them either anywhere...for example some differences between some of them (i can tell they are something like a guideline for the map generator to follow while building the map but what rules are changing?)...what are good templates to play ?which ones are choosen for pvp? I would like to return playing heroes on a more interesting level of difficulty and maybe online so any info would help :)
Thank you, and I'm glad that you've enjoyed my videos and commentary thus far! First and foremost, you can download the HW rules plugin for the HD mod from forum.heroesworld.ru/showthread.php?t=10609. Now, as for templates, there are no "rules" changed. As you mentioned, templates dictate the manner in which the map will be generated -- that is, the contents of the map (like whether Dragon Utopias and Dragon Fly Hives are present), the number of zones present, what types of towns can be available, the value of each treasure zone, and so on. For example, in the Jebus Cross template (meant for XL maps with no Underground), there are 4 large player-controlled zones present as well as a fifth rich desert area in the middle. Meanwhile, in the 8xm8 template (for XL+U maps), you'll find 48 zones filled with Dragon Fly Hives. I can't list you the dynamics of each one, but you can certainly Google the map designs for each of them (i.e. Google "Heroes 3 8xm8 map template" on the Images section and you should get an image of 8xm8's design). Good templates to play depend on what map size you want and how many players you want to play with -- if you want to play with 4 players, for example, then Jebus Cross might be your best bet. The standard map templates chosen for PvP that I have seen would be Jebus Cross, Skirmish, Balance, 8mm6a, 6lm10a, 8xm12a, 8xm8 (I don't recommend this one), Spider, and Mini-Nostalgia. I hope this helps!
wow, after all those years i now realize there is a map generator in the game... anyways idk how you got such a good start; i tried the same template a couple of times and theres no way i get cavaliers on week 1. even one time, i got killed by an AI with rocs at day 4 rofl
To be honest, this map happened to be an unusually rich by sheer luck, even for the map template that I used in the Random Map Generator. Some map templates are richer than others - for example, 8xm8 is often quite poor relative to 8xm12 or Diamond.
Man this template is so harsh, I had to restart several times before I was able to get champions week 1 without pooling absolutely everything I could into getting them and then not getting raided by AI main hero week 2.
Hmm, that's somewhat surprising. I find this template to be quite generous as far as resources are concerned, and under the right circumstances I can even sometimes get a Portal of Glory on Week 1 on 160% difficulty. Given their close proximity to you though, the AI is indeed quite unforgiving.
Ha when I first played this a looong time ago I always used Castle and Orrin the same way you'd do Loynis. I just liked Orrin's portrait and thought he was cool. I'd always play hotseat with my buddy and he'd always pick Inferno so we had that friendly rivalry of angels vs devils
That’s awesome! I’m not quite sure I’d call “Angels vs. Devils” a friendly rivalry, though. ;) Back when my brother and I used to play the game together, I used to get him to random his faction and hero, but I never let him have Necropolis, Conflux, or Castle.
Hi Mr.MeKick. Your videos are great and its really fun to watch you and all but background white noise in this video is really annoying to my ears actually. It might be the mic or the settings you have for recording audio. I think it should be quite easy to remove that white noise completely which will definitely enhance quality of your videos! Peace
![Quando Rondo - Grow Up [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8zFnCg3BO4Q/mqdefault.jpg)
Gotta admit, in these pandemic times, these long ass videos have been an absolute blessing. You also got me back into homm 3, just redownloaded it and I got HotA which I havent checked out
Can you please tell me where did you downloaded from!? Thank you
@@bondocelu I just kinda googled it, I think it was like some Russian forum or something
"Oh wow morale was actually useful" -- MeKick after the 100th time morale has been useful
I dare you to list me the other 99 times that it's been useful. :'D
Late to the party, but was curious about what morale does as I was reading the comments (as the video began).. so I googled it... and damn... lowest morale is 25% to not act, but highest is only 12.5% for bonus attack... I guess it's still good to have it, but no particular reason to seek it. (though, you certainly need to avoid going into negative)
@@cyryl3827 With max morale i get an extra attack every combat round on average. That's a significant advantage. Max luck is good too, & seems to activate a bit more often.
@@cyryl3827 i played necro the other day, had mixed units, had +3 morale from artifacts. I procc'd morale at least 13 total times, in 5 different battles. i only had those modifiers for like an hr.maybe i was rly lucky idk
You don't have nearly enough subscribers considering how many views your videos get. Subbed, I love your enthusiasm for this game.
Cheers! I hope you enjoy the rest of the content that I have to offer. :D
I think that part of the reason why the subscriber to viewer ratio might seem a bit wonky is because my videos are much longer than most videos on RUclips (multiple hours in length as opposed to just several minutes). As a result, viewers often have to access my videos more than once to finish watching them, which inflates the view count by a significant margin.
Having said that, I'm not too concerned about the subscriber count or the view count of these videos. What matters most to me here is whether or not I'm having fun and whether viewers are enjoying what I do, and since it seems to me that both these goals have been met, I have no complaints. ;)
Tactical Chunder thats because we usually see his videos in parts..who has time to watch a 6h vid??? :))
i do
sometimes i do fall asleep to some mekick homm3 asmr though
@@Brzeuczydlak me too, thats why i see them in parts :)))
Day 56. still waiting for the second homm 3 tutorial. it's cold. I have almost no food remaining.
This is why his first video tutorial was about "Waiting." He was giving us the strength to wait on his next episode!
My God how did I not realize this.
It's all part of his Master plan :3
Still holding up, buddy?
if you want more heroes 3 content
check out my castle playthrough down below
ruclips.net/p/PL-1-w5nfLm9PczC02CJ1_8KGw4iiErbzc
thanks for watching
The first (real) game I've ever played was HoMM3. I have played it on and of for, at least, 15 years (probably more). Just watching you play this is like discovering a new game. Even though I've played this for so many years I still suck at it because I only played it so casually and not in long periods of time. Thanks for really nice gameplay and commentary - I will subscribe and I am looking forward for your new videos!
Excellent video as always. My 3rd favourite faction with my 2nd favourite tier 7 unit. And ARTIFACTS! I love seeing the combination artifacts, so thank you for that (and the effort you put into trying to get the Grail).
I recommend your videos to anyone I know that has an interest in Homm3.
I know these videos are old, but keep up the good work
Wow that cavalier trick is ridiculous..
I know, right? It seems a bit ridiculous that it would even be in the game to begin with. o.O
I played HOMAM 3 ever since it came out. (Not well admittedly). But how come I NEVER heard about this?
@@TheKnownWorld This is a carryover from HoMM2 where stables also upgraded cavalry for free; in fact, there were two other buildings whose only purpose was to upgrade units for free - foundry for iron golems, pikemen and swordsmen, and hill fort for orcs, ogres and dwarves
*_”Oh, look how the stables have turned.”_*
How clever! Here's a +1 for you :)
TheKnownWorld
Hey Mekicks!
I know you probably won’t read this but I thought I’d write you a little thank you message for all the content you’re putting out. I’ve been meaning to reach out to you for a very long time, because I’ve seen a couple of months ago that some people disliked your videos and it made me feel bad because I’m kind of a content creator myself. I am nowhere near your size as I mostly only get 10 views per video, but still, I don’t have to be a popular RUclipsr to know that even just commentating is so much effort.
Even if you don’t edit/render your videos but just talk for an hour then upload, it’s very draining and when literally no one is watching your content it’s de-motivating as fuck. Let alone getting dislikes from stupid people for no reason. In your case you have a great fan base so you are probably motivated in that regard, and fuck the haters. They might have disliked because of sharp volume increases in the video, so it doesn’t even count.
Recently I’ve been watching your videos mostly as background noise whilst playing WoW or to fall asleep, but don’t take that as an insult, I think that’s actually a compliment. The only reason I don’t watch your videos more is just because I know nothing about the game. It would be cool to have a completely “n00b, literally day 0 how to play Heroes 3” video, but I’m not sure how much of your fan base is a pro at the game. It’s funny because sometimes you make a mistake and you freak out, but I honestly can’t tell what’s happening so it’s okay haha
Honestly, someone like you deserves more subscribers, but I’m reluctant to say this as I know how much it can poison your mind & attitude towards making videos. You explain things really well, and have a natural tendency to teach people about the game. Most other “pro” players would just stay silent for 5 hours straight.
So yeah, heads up man. There will always be rude people on RUclips, people who just sort of tune out and watch videos, but you have a lots of great fans as well! Watching the Small Map 1v7 so gotta continue. See you! :)
Hello again! On the contrary, I do make an effort to sift through all of the new comments that I get and reply whenever I can. So yes, I actually did end up reading your comment, as you can tell by this response ;)
First of all, I appreciate you taking the time to write up a long, well-thought-out comment with some kind words of encouragement for me. Indeed, as a content creator, receiving comments like these is always a welcome occurrence and makes me feel glad that I have such a supportive community!
There's no need to feel bad for me receiving dislikes on my videos. Some viewers will inevitably end up disliking videos for one reason or another, or even for no reason at all - that's just the nature of any RUclips channel, really. What we should really be looking at is whether or not these people have constructive criticism to share, because if they do, then as content creators we can find our mistakes and learn from them. For me, audio issues fit into this category of "constructive criticism" too. Learning from what we've done in the past and improving upon it matters far more than the number of people who arbitrarily dislike your videos for whatever reason.
You're definitely not the only one who likes listening to my videos as background noise, so no offense taken! I upload videos for people to enjoy them, and if your version of enjoying my content is falling asleep to my voice, then that's perfectly fine with me. As it stands, I'm impressed that you even watch my videos to begin with if you actually know nothing about the game :P
I'm not sure what kind of "poison" you're expecting my mind to experience from saying that I deserve more subscribers, but I can assure you that while I do respect your opinion on the matter, my attitude towards making videos probably won't change as a result of it. Right now, my sub count is the least of my concerns - I make these videos for fun, people enjoy them, and that's good enough for me. It's nice to hear that you find my explanations about the game adequate!
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to reach out to me! I hope you enjoy the videos to come!
Gr8 video m8. I think it's very nice that you auto-skip the battles that you are obviously going to win.
Awesome, I appreciate the feedback! :)
"Lots of trolls"
"Sounds like my Twitch chat"
Crushed it.
Damn you, recently found your videos and I have been binge watching them instead of studying for finals.
Hehe, try to ace your finals first and then you'll be free to watch my videos all you like after. : - )
if you want more heroes 3 content
check out my castle playthrough down below
ruclips.net/p/PL-1-w5nfLm9PczC02CJ1_8KGw4iiErbzc
thanks for watching
1:31:00 Deletes Cuthbert with estates. Doesn't have money to buy a hero. Complete disregard for city hall. xD Love your content.
Bought HD edition of this game in new year. I don't know how I've missed this game, since I used to play a lot of strategy games when I was younger.
Just my personal preference but I prefer to see your cursor.
Great vid!
My gf can't understand why I'm so happy when there's a new video from you! lol
Hehe, maybe you should watch it with her. ;)
Enjoy the video! ^_^
Have really enjoyed watching all your 1v7 FFA playthroughs. Would love it if you made more, including Cove and maybe a replay of Fortress?
Thank you MeKick for this :-) I've been watching your videos for a month now, I quite enjoy your content. This is nostalgic for me as well. I was three years old when HoMM III came out and some of my earliest memories are watching my father play it on that old CRT monitor. When I got a bit older we'd play together sometimes, he'd always play as Dungeon and I'd always play as Castle. I wasn't too good at it, but we've had loads of fun. Watching your videos and playing this game throughout the years I've learned quite a lot of tricks and tactics so hopefully next time I'll be the winner :D keep up the good work, have fun :-)
"water wheel alredy taken just like my mother" :D
#SAVAGE :'D
this game is so good...so relaxing, simple, beaufifull, incredible music and nice graphics untill today....just incredible!
Me either, still wanna play this game. Lol
Castle my favorite!
Archangels ftw!
Thank you for the videos. keep'em coming.
if you want more heroes 3 content
check out my castle playthrough down below
ruclips.net/p/PL-1-w5nfLm9PczC02CJ1_8KGw4iiErbzc
thanks for watching
"I'm 1 step short" the youtube series
:'(
It looks so easy when you play it. Good job!
lol all those den of thieves! Thanks man, appreciate the vids. Gonna reinstall this game since you've rekindled something from my early childhood
lol, those Den of Thieves were something! Anyway, you're welcome for the vids. Thank you for watching, and I hope you enjoy your return back to Heroes III!
Wow, the stables trick just blew my mind.
After long time since the last time i've seen you, I saw the the name TheKnownWorld and it sounded familiar. Then I hear the introduction and say: "This is MeKick, after all, this is great!". :)
Hehe, when was the first time you saw me? :P
TheKnownWorld Firstly I saw you at RUclips and your channel really got me interested so I hoped on your Twitch streams :). You recommended me Couch_Frosty as well :). Btw I was wondering, when are you streaming on Twitch?
literally a year later and you went from 3K to almost 9K subscribers. Keep it up dude!
Indeed, the growth for this channel over the past year has been astounding! I can't believe we've gotten so far in such a short period of time, although oddly, much of this growth has actually come from just the past few months. Anyway, keep it up I shall! I hope to see you in my future videos as well :)
TheKnownWorld Ya dude. I have a challenge. A One Race only Run where let say you pick Castle, you can only use Castle creatures and dwellers. As well as Castle Heroes only. Of course you can use the resources from other races.
For thematic purposes, that actually sounds pretty cool. I have a slew of other challenges I want to complete first though, but let me think about that one for the time being.
TheKnownWorld thx man, I have many many challenges that can pop into my head and I have a couple already but take your time. Keep up dude. I coming back from a trip so I be able to finish the Siege part 2 hopefully
Sounds good -- keep it up I shall!
Damn man I love these videos. please don't stop!
Oh please. He won't stop anytime soon
+1 to this!
Over a decade of playing and I didn't know the Cavaliers to Champions thing. What the f....
Yeah! I know, right? I didn't learn that until just recently myself!
@@TheKnownWorld I feel like I've had it happen to me.. but completely forgot, because I haven't played Castle in years.
your commentary is never boring
MeKick, Bro! Nice video again! I cant stop watching them! I hope you will go on with your work! Probs!!!!!
Hello! I'm glad you're enjoying my videos! Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@TheKnownWorld no problem Pal! Keep on you good work and merry christmas!
man your videos are so helpful i was always shit at heroes 3 and i had trouble with 80%(LOL) now i just went back to 80% after watching your vid with a town i dont know how to play and finished it on extra large in 40 days thanks bro
Hey, no problem! Glad to see you made such amazing progress so quickly. :D
Perhaps try a tougher difficulty and see if you could attempt that now as well? ;)
I thought i was the only guy on Earth still playing this game. Thanks for proving me that I'm wrong sir !
You’re welcome! It seems that you’re not the only one who believes that they’re the last remaining Heroes III player on Earth. One of my reasons for starting this channel in the first place was to show Heroes III lone wolves that there are still others out there as well. :P
To answer your question long after the fact, I like watching the fights where the AI doesn't think you're going to win, or ones you think might be interesting or any fight where you have a trick to show us. Those are the ones I personally like to watch, so I wouldn't mind at all if you skipped fights that are obviously in your favor. But I mean they're your vids, I'm cool with whatever ^_^
Hello, and thank you for the feedback! This is what I would consider very valid reasoning, and the same line of thinking I have in these matters. In some of these fights, I question why I would play it out when I know that the fight itself is trivial. But apparently some people want to watch the fights regardless...?
Cheers!
When I played as Loynis I try to bank on getting expert water magic for the mass prayer. Love your vids dude!! It's been a long while since I watched one of your streams since I got burnt out by people making fun of me for being (Older) and liking this game since I also played when it first came out back in 2000 (Homm3 no expansions)
Loynis with Water Magic - a classic combination! Of course, I would imagine that there are stronger options in competitive play, but having Prayer on all of your units is still a lot of fun to mess around with.
Hold on, so you showed up to my streams and people made fun of you for liking Heroes III even though you're older? When was this? This seems rather odd, considering that much of the audience that makes up my channel (at least from my understanding) are also from an older demographic themselves. I'm sorry to hear that you were disappointed in the way my streams went!
In any case, I'm glad you're enjoying my content!
TheKnownWorld I’ve always enjoyed your content and would love to play again against you sometime
@@TheKnownWorld But as I stated I would love to play against you again some time. Even if it's a 1v1, or teams, or even some type of speed run (with/without autocombat)
castle best faction in the game!
easy to play and understand, castle is just rocksolid or even great on every level. they are good in every phase of the game and have answers to virtually everything. if it wasn't for cheating necro and "who balanced this crap? conflux, castle would be easily the strongest faction in the game.
pikemen are a great tier 1 unit, only really beaten by centaurs in terms of combat strength, though they are really close to each other. having no gimmicks and jsut solid stats though, you won't be able to use them in too many exciting ways outside of the early game. marksmen are the best tier 2 unit except for storm elementals, and the comparison between the 2 in terms of damage is fairly close. double shot is an amazing ability, and their high numbers mean competent damage even in the lategame, something most tier 2 units can't say of themselves. they are squishy though, and turrets and ai controlled creatures LOVE killing them over anything else. a worthwhile unit to have around.
gryphons are a cool unit, decently mobile and fairly tanky they make very good units for both backline defending and backline harassment. endless retaliation is a great thing to have for either of those jobs. they are fairly expensive though and lack damageoutput to be used often outside of the early and midgame, if at all. i like them, but in the end tier 3 is jsut the awkward cut off point between good early game unit and good midgame unit, so fitting them into armies might be difficult.
swordsmen suck. they are slow, hve only mdiocre damage and are expensive. tanky though. on the other hand, crusaders are AMAZING. the only tier 4 unit besides vampire lords to be able to fight alongside the big guys like angels and dragons, their damage output is downright insane, and they are tanky enough to withstand a blow to be able to put that damage to use. they are still slow, but that's a downside anyone should be willing to take for this unit!
monks are weak, 30 hp is not anywhere near enough for a tier 5, and their damageoutput is fairly poor aswell. really the only bad unit in castle.
cavaliers and champions are my favourite unit in the homm series. i love knights and they are the most knightly knights ever. they are strong, decently fast and fairly tanky. they aren't as good as DKs or naga queens, but are coming in at third place. they are an all around well balanced unit that does nothing spectacularly out of this world, but does that very, very good.
angels and archangels are probably the best tier 7 unit in the game, and only phoenixes with their increased growthrate can best them. their consistent damage, unreasonably high stats, good lifepoints and enormous mobility are already enough to make anyone want them on their side. that is when you realze they also have the ability to revive other creatures AND increase the moral of your army by 1, meaning ANGELS CAN BE INCLUDED IN ANY ARMY FOR BASICALLY FREE!!!! and not only that, but also all the other great castle units can be included with basically no moral penalty. arch angels are deservedly the mascot unit of homm 3, they are jsut that good. expensive, but unlike black dragons and titans i can wholeheartedly say they are worth een more than their pricepoint suggests.
Alright, Better comment than in the Rampart video, but....
Castle probably wouldn't be "the best" alongside Necro and Flux. No one is immune to any magic, the angels are almost impossible to get on impossible, even hard to get on expert.. no answers to blind or other mind spells, no answers to other towns that might have "tankier" shooters, Gryphons don't exist, they are Griffins.. anyway, i'm quite sure that all other factions are equal, except for Flux, Necro (best easily), and Tower (and possibly) Fortress. Tower is too expensive which makes it really bad, and Fortress is commonly hated for good reasons. So Castle is as good as other factions. All factions have their own strengths in different situations, though.
So...Griffins don't lack damage output at all, it's good damage, definitely in middle game too at least. The Griffin is actually one of the best 3rd lvl units.
Swordsmen suck? Really? For an un-upgraded 4th lvl unit, they are not that slow, that damage is actually pretty good for not being upgraded, too! For their usefulness, that cost isn't bad either.
That is true tho! Crusaders ARE great, and their damage is the same as Scorpicores have! Better than both 4th and 5th lvl units, reaching to 6th lvl... But their HPs are a huge downside, that is super low. Only a few 4th lvl units have worse HPs. So even tho Crusaders really are good, they are the opposite of tanky, and therefore you need to use them carefully. They are quite slow, yup.
I agree about the Monks. Only Earth/Magma elemental is worse for 5th lvl. It still is a decent shooter-unit, no melee penalty..but yeah.
Champions really are great, true. But i believe Champions are 4th. Magic elementals are the best for their specialities, DK/Naga are pretty much even - both are great, but useful for different situations.
Archangel truly is the best 7th lvl unit in the game, no doubt. However, alongside Phoenixes, there is 1 more unit that beats it...quite easily, too. The behemoth. The behemoth can take out almost every other 7th lvl unit, due to high HPs and speciality. They also are about as cheap as Phoenixes.. So Archangel is the best, but it loses to these 2 in fights. What is their problem, tho, is their price. Archangels and angels are the most expensive 7th lvl unit in the game, even the building is the most expensive! And if like you said, they are "worth more than their pricepoint suggests" - imagine if they cost even more, you'd never get them.. some really great players have even said, that SOLELY because the 7th lvl for Castle is so expensive, that Castle is worse than most other factions...
Believe me, if you play expert or impossible, you have to be LUCKY to get them angels quick. By the time you have them, you have SOOOOOOOO many behemoths and firebirds...
I'm not sure I fully agree with castle not being near top. The units themselves may not place them near top, but I've found they synergize very dangerously with magic. Angel (or even champion) initiative allow early casts and they have at least one unit that gets extremely powerful with each magic type (except perhaps fire):
Earth's defense spells make griffins absolute monsters. I've seen them hold off and inflict significant losses on multiple tier 3-5 stacks at the same time. Combine with the fact that slow causes every one of their units to outspeed all but a few targets and things start getting ridiculous.
Water's fortune and mirth make their multi-hitting units capable of digging into even tier seven stacks and even eat away significant chunks of the four super dragons' hp.
Air allows three units full or near full battlefield coverage (and a damage boost to one) with haste and precision benifits two units (one of them a double shooter).
Fire is slightly less nuts, but bloodlust does provide significant benefit to both crusaders and griffins while blind and fire wall combine well with castle units' generally good speed to allow for a powerful positioning advantadge.
The best part is that despite having a lower max guild, all their important spells are in it's range and most are not uncommon finds on their tier.
Auron3991
Interesting points. But i'd say it depends... for example, cheap towns are usually better on low-resource maps. Then expensive towns might be better on maps with more resources.. it varies,and castle probably does what you say, but if your opponent, for example, has a lot of mana and berserk and blind maybe..especially expert berserk..
Those units won't be that useful with their non-existant immunities--it all depends on the situation.
Castle IS powerful and easy to use, i agree, still wouldn't rank it alongside Conflux and Necropolis. It isn't bad like Tower or Fortress either, just as good as everything else. Remember, only 2 factions are banned in tournaments.
May just be my experience, as I can't use conflux to save my life (terrible at managing sprites) and I've only made necropolis work with guild level 3 first week or early second week (I'm bad at early game if I don't have range).
:) Sprites arent that hard to use. Use the huge speed, wait, stay away from enemies, hit after waited, run away, Plus Stormies and Ice fellas are AMAZING and ranged.
Necropolis isnt that easy early-game, you need to horde skeletons, remember to 1 stack them - use the 1 stack-skeletons to protect units and waste retaliations. Zombies are the worst 2nd lvl unit, Wraiths aren't that good either.. so until you get vampires and so on, it can be difficult.
It isn't a bad idea to play on easier difficulties to get used to the game :).
you and your punz, also gz on 3k
Indeed I did! I honestly never expected to make it so far so fast.
Kudos to all of you for making this possible. :'D
Finally a Grail video! I've been watching/listening your videos for the past 2 weeks while at work. I really enjoy watching ya play. I have Heroes 3 for my laptop but never could get the hang of it. Curious of how ya could set up a match where ya could get all factions/max troop in an army, probably would take a very large map and a lot of time, but would be interesting to watch ya decimate everything; like a full 100% cleared map game. But thanks again!
Haha, a Grail video indeed! At least, I think this was the match where I dug up the Grail. Hmm, I can't remember anymore.
Anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying my content! I don't intend to do a match where I clear the entire map, but in my Diplomacy 1v7 video (ruclips.net/video/0Os25Sa243A/видео.html) I used Diplomacy to farm big stacks on the map (which would be akin to having "max troops in an army"). Perhaps that match would be of interest to you?
2:20:08 - lots of trolls xD That moment killed me xD
Hey, you know it's true! :P
very good videos! Because of the tome of earthmagic: I would not call it cheating, but I really enjoy to watch your videos not using OP- spells like implo or townportal. good work!please keep this project running.
I appreciate the feedback regarding the use of overpowered spells like Implosion and Town Portal! I'll keep this in mind going forward. I've already taken the liberty of avoiding certain spells (such as Slow and Resurrection) in my recent challenge videos. In the future, I may go even further and ban other spells if I feel it to be necessary, but I think that this is a good start for now.
At this time, I don't intend to stop doing this series, but I've had limited time to release videos as of recent. Cheers!
Poor man's is worse than real town portal IMHO.
I love this game when I was a little kid yet didn't really win once, now I do.
Good on you!
Bhaha, good background for playing HOMMAM 3. Finished right before end of the video. 138 days of warlords :-)
Wow, that's awesome! Warlords is probably my favorite original scenario, and I have fond memories of playing the Allied version with my brother ;)
I'm glad you enjoyed having this video in the background while you played the game!
I was told that it was Heroes of Might and Solmyr, what is this second Magic hero? :O
He's the Prayer in your Loynis. Kappa
@@TheKnownWorld *Sandro enters the chat*
Solmyr is the best
1:30:20 i swear if mekick had done the battle himself he would not have gotten morale twice the ai definitely hogs all of mekick's morale for itself
Very nice play dude. Enjoyed watching this one a lot. God bless you
Thanks! I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed this playthrough :)
32:20 Are my ears deceiving me or do I hear Magnificent Field (grass theme) from Homm2 playing in the background? Is it a mod of some sort? If so, how do I acquire such a mod?
Good ear! I have indeed replaced the Heroes III Grass theme with the Grass theme from Heroes II. This can be done by going into the "mp3" folder of your Heroes III directory and renaming "GRASS.mp3" into something else and then putting another .mp3 file (named "GRASS.mp3") containing the Heroes II Grass theme into the same folder.
@@TheKnownWorld Wow, I was wondering about this too, haha. Awesome
@@TheKnownWorld i think homm2 color pallette is superior to homm3.
Everythin seems to blend together so well and world view is just awesome.
Unit designs also good. There is a lot in homm2 to like. I find lack of ballance and asymmetry a feature rather than a problem.
My ideal heroes game is a look and feel of homm2, mix of mechanics from 2,3 and 4.
Really enjoy your videos and commentary man. Good videos.
Thank you. I'm glad you enjoy my content!
Such epic game play .. am kinda new for the game ...Ur game play took me from play only normal to extreme challenges with no problem .. keep up the good work
Sog D same
Thanks! I'm glad you found my videos useful in helping you get better at Heroes III :)
@TheKnownWorld Why pro players usually start with Caitlin as secondary, to get a main hero later in tavern and not actually start with a castle main hero, like a knight? They may waste a slot with Leadership, but they are might heroes that fit more into water magic school, so in a way, they have better chances to use most spells from Castle (Cure, Clone, Bless, etc). I don't see why other hero classes could be better as main.
With Caitlin, the Gold specialty is especially helpful early on when trying to build up your starting army. Regarding why I've seen competitive players start off with Caitlin, I presume that there are two main issues regarding Knight heroes:
1. Knights lack good starting secondary skills/specialties. Castle has no Tier 1 unit specialists for a significant army boost early on (i.e. a Shakti equivalent), and no Castle heroes that have a Secondary Skill specialty (i.e. Offense or Logistics) that scale well into the late game. Orrin would be the one notable exception to this with his Archery specialty, but even then your army's main damage output would still probably come from melee units like Angels and Crusaders. Wyverns, since they are often farmed in PvP from Dragon Fly Hives, fit under the melee category too.
As you pointed out, because all Knight heroes start off with Leadership, you get a "wasted slot" on your starting hero. The other worthwhile Secondary Skill on Knight heroes can be Artillery, Armorer, Archery, Offense, or Tactics which aren't bad. But if you can access a hero that starts with *two* "good" Secondary Skills (Tyraxor) instead of one, or even a "good" specialty (Gunnar), then why wouldn't you?
2. The other issue is sub-par Secondary Skill development (see heroes.thelazy.net/wiki/Knight). Among combat Secondary Skills, Knights have the highest chance of learning Leadership and among magic-based Secondary Skills, Knights have a much greater chance of learning Water than the other schools of magic. Knights are less likely to be offered Offense, Armorer, Tactics, and Logistics than Overlords and Barbarians, which has (especially from my experience) led to some pretty awkward Secondary Skill choices, like "Ballistics or Navigation", more often than not.
Now, moving onto schools of magic. While Water can be useful for Bless and Cure early on, it does not benefit *Slow* and Haste (arguably important spells for the entirety of the match) at all, nor is Water useful for the crucial Adventure Map-based spells like Dimension Door (Air) or Town Portal (Earth). In fact, Earth Magic is half as likely to be obtained on level-up as Water Magic, which is a pretty big problem considering how useful Earth spells become later on. While a Mage Guild Level 5 can't be built in a Castle for DD/Fly/Implosion, the level 5 spells are often accessible in random maps via Spellbinder's Hat, Angel Wings, Tome of Air/Earth Magic, spell scrolls or Mage Guilds in other towns.
I think it is also worth pointing out that when you purchase a Mage Guild Level 4, your odds of getting Prayer (20%) is double the odds of getting Clone (10%), and the same odds as getting Resurrection (20%) or Town Portal (20%).
I could keep going, but I think this paints a general idea as to why Knights are less desirable over other hero classes. Clerics are even worse off in hero development (i.e. 10/112 chance to get First Aid upon leveling up).
Amazing response. It really clears things up to me. I've been playing Heroes for less than a year, and never played competitively. I'm still improving against AI. Thanks a lot, buddy. Castle is my favorite and I learned a lot with this episode, so just do a second Castle video or RIOT! haha.
Wow, Heroes III for less than a year! I'm impressed that people are still picking up this game even now.
You're welcome for the response -- thank you for asking! I'm glad you learned a few tricks from my video. You won't have to look far for the next Castle video, though...
"three angels, now i am set". Hi set
Hello!
Your video has taken 285,000 times 3 hours of time from the world. Congratulations, you're a time gatherer. : )
Prayer is a very underappreciated spell - it's basically haste alongside bloodlust/stoneskin and unlike haste - slow doesn't replace it, it only puts you down to right around natural speed.
Which basically means that if your opponent has mass slow, you'll never be truly affected by it.
and that tends to be a rather big deal if you yourself have mass slow
also gj on not abusing the fact that you can have split stacks of arch angels that resurrect eachother in that scorpicore fight
Yes, Prayer is indeed nice for what it does. However, Prayer doesn't replace Slow like Haste does either. Also, Prayer tends to be a considerable amount more difficult to obtain than Haste and Slow, on top of the usual requirement of Expert *Water* Magic to be utilized at its full potential.
Also, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic regarding me not splitting up those Archangels for that Scorpicore fight. While I admittedly didn't expect that many of them, I needed the Archangels in one stack anyway to do as much damage as possible per hit. Prior to the fight, I was under the impression that I'd have been able to one-shot each set of Scorpicores.
You had cure to negate the retaliation damage/paralysis and if they did manage to snipe an arch angel then you would be able to recover it. :-)
ZeddBloaxigan Doubtful.
Hey man, I've been watching your videos bit by bit and I totally love them. Been playing HoMM for a looooong time now (with only about 30mins total against other people, and only watched your stuff online...)
If you ever feel like having even more of a challenge, try my "Xenophobic Supremacy" rules I've been playing every now and then for the past few years.
Go 200% 1v7 XL+U where you are one town type, and the opponents are other town types. You are only allowed to recruit in your type of towns and in external dwellings (including dragonfly hives and such).
-When I want it slightly easier I make 1-2 of the computers the same town type as me
-Generally I'd do a 3 and 4 split (both different to mine)
-When feeling particularly brave, make all of them the same type
-In terms of alliances I usually just go FFA, but you can also ally based on town type
-One way of making it slightly easier is to allow the purchasing of units from any town as long as you sack them straight away (maybe even allowing use of a Skeleton Transformer or Freelancers Guild as long as you don't attack with any unit)
Overall it puts a new spin on the game where suddenly there are only two things that are still OP, the first being necromancy, and then to a lesser extend diplomacy. You can Crag Hack or Castle, you can Fly until your lungs collapse, you can Dimension Door to your heart's content, but when those rich bastards walk into one of their towns you've been holding hostage for a month or two and buy up all those units, then you're in a lot of trouble.
Few tips for anyone else in the comments wanting to try it: Necropolis is a good first attempt town. If not using Necromancy or Diplomacy, Dungeon is my recommendation with Gunnar, Portal of Summoning, and Artifact Merchants. DON'T underestimate the value of certain combination artifacts, keep your eyes peeled for their parts; they will save your life.
Very well-detailed explanation! To be honest though, this challenge idea (or, at least, a variation of it) has already been brought up to my attention. Others who suggested similar challenges tried taking the difficulty level one step further and setting all of the enemy factions to be the same type (i.e. 7 Dungeon AI or 7 Conflux AI), making it easier for them to build stronger stacks once they conquer one another.
However, I fail to see how this constraint of using just one town type leaves Necromancy and Diplomacy as the “only” two overpowered aspects of the game. Armor of the Damned is still ridiculously strong, Dimension Door and Fly are still abusable, Conflux still dominates with just a single town, and so on. Furthermore, having access to creature banks like Dragon Fly Hives and Griffin Conservatories means that Fortress and Castle have an inherent advantage for obvious reasons.
Anyway, I appreciate the suggestion! Thank you for commenting! :)
Hey thanks for the reply!
Yea those are all just ways of making it easier for anyone reading the comments, or for me when I don't feel like paying too much attention to what I'm doing. Armour of the damned is great if you can get a hold of it, but I find that there's a surprising amount of expert water magic later in the game and it just doesn't have the stats to match some other armours. Also playing it without being able to purchase and sack creatures makes even fly/DD a bit of a challenge.
I do admit that I have a severe lack of knowledge where conflux is concerned as I have never really been interested in playing it and thus ever since it became a town I have yet to have it as my starting town and get more than 30mins into a game.
How much of an impact does choosing the template have on your game when compared to just randomly generating a map and not knowing/checking what template it used?
To be honest, you've asked a really good question and I'm not entirely sure how to answer it. There are several factors to consider here. For one, I wouldn't know how to define "how much of an impact" choosing a template makes on the match. What would the "amount" be, in this case?
I generally opt to pick templates that I see getting used in competitive Heroes III matches since I'd like to think that they wouldn't be broken in terms of functionality. From my experience, if I don't choose a template, some of the templates that the game will use instead (i.e. Ring and Meeting in Muzgob) have rather interesting and imbalanced map structures. I'm not going to elaborate on this too much, but I've seen things like one AI player getting completely isolated from the rest of the map or one player starting off with multiple towns. Very strange, indeed.
Of course, the main drawback to playing the same templates over and over again is that even if you don't look up the way the template looks, you might still recognize the pattern as time goes on. In an effort to avoid this, I've refrained from looking up the map template patterns as much as possible and I keep rotating map templates to try and forget the manner in which each map template is designed (and, naturally, to keep the maps fresh).
I've never played with the HD mod, and never bothered to check the templates. I've definitely had some really strange games, where I've checked the tavern on day 1 and two NPCs are 1st on number of towns, 3 NPCs are 2nd, and then there's me with the rest who have 1 town. Then there's starting with level 5 or 10 characters.
There's also a few really messed up templates (one especially that has narrow, very long paths usually with teleporters on either side), but I don't even know the names so it's hard to discuss them online.
I usually just play whatever hand the game has dealt and roll with it. Life isn't fair or that sort of stuff, and since it's not vs other players then it doesn't need to be. At the end of the day it's a solo experience for me, and if the game decides to throw a unique campaign my way then I'll be glad to play it :D
By far my least favourite is probably when the game decides to wall off a chunk of my starting area, eg an ore mine.
Oh by the way, have you been locked into your castle by some super strong monster stack in any of your playthroughs on RUclips? Something that has seriously hindered your start? I'd love to see how you go about handling a handicap of that sort on top of the usual 1v7 200%. I've had a few (impossible?) games where I definitely feel like it would have taken me at least a month or two to even reach my ore mine that I could see from my town.
Yes finally, I humbly thank you mekick.
^_^
+TheKnownWorld in my opinion I think you shouldn't take every fight because your videos are already too long and if you did take every fight it will be even longer
Remember always bless angels for the value.
Oh yeah -- totally forgot to use those pro strategies. Thanks for the reminder!
Special shoutout HYPUUU xD
:) Thanks again!
I swear these random generated maps are so much easier than vanilla ones. This plus the HD mod. I’m playing standard homm3 hd, and some maps are a nightmare. You make 5 steps and your turn is over, powerful monsters blocking everything and no actual roads like here. Can you do like a playthrough of all the vanilla maps on 200% difficulty? If you haven’t done that already that is.
I think it depends which randomly generated maps and which scenarios you're talking about. Barbarian Breakout, for example, was extremely difficult for me on my first attempt. Good To Go, on the other hand, was quite easy.
In terms of randomly generated maps, 8xm8 is an absolute nightmare. I'm not quite sure where you got the idea that the HD mod makes the game easier, though.
To answer your question, the main focus of my RUclips videos right now is on the random map challenges, so I don't have any intention of doing the vanilla maps at this time. However, if you're interested in seeing how to win against the vanilla maps, you might want to check out Ramsrock39's playthroughs for every vanilla map on 200% difficulty. You can view his channel at ruclips.net/user/Ramsrock39.
TheKnownWorld ok thanks for that, I’ve almost beat them all by now. What I meant with the hd mod is that it’s easier to play the game because of the shift commands, auto combat thing, and other features. Obviously no effect on the actual diff of the game.
Gratz on 3000 subs!!!
Thanks! ^_^
I actually used castle almost every time I played this game, and I still use it around 60% of the time I play it now.
Now that's true dedication to this faction! ;D
+TheKnownWorld the only reason I actually started playing this game was because I was playing on our family's computer with my brother, and he said this game was really good, so I played it with him. Castle was the one that looked the coolest (and one of the few I could pronounce because I was six) and then I stuck to it. I'm actually playing a game with him as I'm typing this, and I'm playing on castle, while he's on tower.
McTheMan LOL, that sounds epic! Lucky you. I wish I had that kind of liberty to play Heroes III with my family. :)
I recall playing Castle because it was the first one you can select when you click the Right Arrow on the "choose a faction" menu. Also, it was at-the-time the easiest faction for me to play -- I was always wondering why I would ever want to play a "weaker" faction like Fortress or Stronghold, with their cap at Mage Guild Level 3. Oh, how times have changed! ;D
Lol my wife plays castle eveytime we play together cause it's the only town she is familiar with :)
Man - that was painful seeing you lose 2 archangels to the horde of scorpicons unnecessarily...
Oh yeah, Archangels, everyone's favorite xD
But seriously, of all Tier 7 units Archangels are probably the best of the bunch. If I had to choose between Black Dragons, Behemoths, Phoenixes and Archangels I'd always pick the Archangels.
Archangels are a pretty solid Tier 7 unit, yeah. They're made even stronger by the fact that Angels are available from Griffin Conservatories (which are often abundant on random maps). This makes it so that Archangels are not just very powerful individually, but can also come in significant numbers.
However, I do have to admit that each of the units you listed has its strengths. I would certainly prefer having Black Dragons in the event that I was planning to use Armageddon. Although Ancient Behemoths are tougher to amass in the late game, they're easier to obtain early on and are good at cutting right through your opponent's Defense Skill. Phoenixes come in packs of 4 a week assuming you have a Castle in your Conflux town, so you'll have tons of them relatively quick. Knowing how strong each of these units are in different situations, I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying I'd "always" pick Archangels if I had the choice, although I can see why others would.
in fourth grade "Troglodyte" was my favorite insult because of this game.
lol
Hi MeKick. Your tutorial videos are great, but always full of restrictions (challenges are separate chapter). Could you consider to do an XLU 1vs7 run as best as possible, without any restrictions? Take any town you want, use also other factions after you beat them, use dimension door and town portal... The aim is to get the best possible score (grail needed).
Hello! I don't consider these faction playthroughs as "tutorials", but I'm glad you find them informative nonetheless :)
Regarding your request for a match without rules, there's a specific approach I had in mind for how I would play such a match. However, with various other video ideas I still have to get through first, I don't want to showcase it at this time. In the far future after I'm doing all the challenges I want to I'll consider doing No Rules. Cheers!
Did u smoke a joint before and during this gameplay?
I would love to see more special maps along the same lines of pestilence lake or Brave new world. Doing a map like maelstorm would be awesome
Thanks for the feedback! Perhaps in the future, I’ll play more scenarios that have a “classic” feel to them. At the moment however, my hands are already tied with random maps and challenge scenarios, so I don’t have plans to do so anytime soon. I’ve heard of Maelstrom, but so far I haven’t given it a shot myself.
great vid! i feel like a noob when im watching you.only playing on 130%
it's 2019 and there is hd heros 3 on steam so what about that?
Casting Mass Sorrow would have solved a few earlier inconveniences, slow then sorrow is my startup if running expert earth it prevents good morale vs neutrals unless it’s a Minotaur...
Nice video yet again. Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for watching!
You asked if you should take all the fights. I say nay, you should only take the fights with unacceptable battle results or the ones that are strategically enlightening :)) I learned a thing or two from watching you fight!
Angelus Nihilus would've been a pretty good alt name for the vid, the current name is still dope tho
I wanna see some azure dragon play!
i wanna see some pixie play *kappa*
That sounds kinky...
I love when you go like "boooom" or "au, au" 😁
Dude, 5,004 subs, congrats!
Thanks! :D
To answer your question - no, I do not mind if you don't take all the fights.
Congrats MeKick :)
thx man really helpful playthrough , love castle
It was my pleasure. I really enjoyed returning back to this faction myself. ^_^
I wish there was more to do with resources in that late game. Also, a lot of offensive spells lose their importance as units are amassed.
I agree to a certain extent. Resources can be useful in the late game if you're trying to get specific spells from Mage Guilds (i.e. DD/Fly), but I have my unwritten rules of not using many such spells even if I have access to them during my AI videos.
Also, a lot of offensive spells do fall off, but that's to be expected considering the element of progression -- in other words, the longer a game lasts for, the more access you have to the stronger spells (which, understandably, lessens the use for the early-game spells).
Taking the result of auto combat for trivial fights and to save time is perfectly fine.
congratz dude!
Thanks :)
I hope one day I play this with my grandson
YAAASSS THANK YOU ❤
:)
Question: I main inferno and I always try and clear out crypts, nests e.t.c as fast I can to gain army and resources. I don't know which template to play on which balances every faction properly, because on Jebus there's always bound to be a way way stronger AI with absurd amounts of army (I'm talking several arch- angels, devils, chaos hydras and swarms of any lvl 1 creature plus tons of shooters while I am stuck with only a few of each of those).
I don't know if I am just taking bad trades or if I'm just playing wrong, investing into too many towns (I usually am able to get three towns up to max upgrade in the period of 3 months, and I can buy out ALL stacks of army).
My latest game was inferno as always, it's still not lost yet but I'm 3rd on the army strength according to the thieves den. I have 4 towns in total with only 1 town (Tower's town) not fully upgraded.
Could you please do videos about knowing what trades to take, knowing what to invest in and maybe also templates?
Hello Greaceyrobot!
First of all, I am not an expert in map templates myself by any means and so you should take everything I say here with a grain of salt. Having said that, I personally believe that there is no random map template that "balances every faction properly" for multiple players -- I would imagine that this just isn't possible in the context of Shadow of Death. Your best bet would be the Mirror template if you were playing with two players (which makes above-ground and underground exactly the same), but it seems to me that you want a template that works well for multiple factions.
Popular XL+U (Extra Large with Underground) templates for multiplayer that involve 2 human players with 6 AI in the same match include: 8mm6a, 6lm10a, Spider (one of my personal favorites), and Mini-Nostalgia.
I would also recommend giving Diamond, an L+U template meant for up to 8 players, a try at least once. Diamond is rather rich and has lots of goodies (treasures, artifacts, etc.) spread around.
Anyway, if you're looking for balanced matches, perhaps try looking at the Horn of the Abyss mod for balance changes that have been made to every faction in the game.
*In my personal opinion*, the "Warlords" scenario is a pretty good candidate for balanced matches too.
Now, as for the second half of your comment, you discuss that you've been struggling to keep up with the AI in a number of in-game aspects -- army size/strength being a particularly big factor. Let me start off by pointing out that I wouldn't personally recommend Jebus Cross to beginners for a number of reasons (*I think a lot of pros would disagree with me on this*).
But taking into consideration what you've told me about your experiences regarding the game, it seems that you may be spending too much time developing towns rather than making an army. Or, perhaps, you suffer losses that are too great when you clear fights around the map. To be honest, I would like to help you further, but I think that further insight into your matches (perhaps uploading a video of you playing a match?) is necessary.
On a closing remark, I typically state what to invest in on each of my videos (see my Rampart video's chart, for example). As for trades, I'm not sure that it would be possible to make a video such that discusses trades effectively considering how I handle these on a case-by-case basis.
Cheers! :)
Alright. I'll try and make some videos of my gameplay so you can judge better. Thanks for the reply!
***** Sounds great! I look forward to it! (I'll try not to be too harsh. ;D)
Hey man! love your vids!
how about u make a speed run or walkthrough through heroes 3 Campaign???
would love to watch that!!!
Hello IRTEHLEETOKNPBB (not sure how to shorten that name)! I'm happy to see you've been liking my content so far. :)
My main hesitation regarding Heroes III campaigns is that others (i.e. Meridian and boardgamergirl) have already pumped out videos for them, and so I feel it is somewhat redundant to do what they have done already. A speed run might be rather interesting since so few people have tried it, but there is still a long list of items to do on my Heroes III to-do list before I even touch Heroes III's Campaign mode.
Cheers!
ah. well, at least you got that in to the consideration. thats already good!
happy i found your channel.
watching/listening to your vids wile working.
IRTEHLEETOKNPBB That's great! I hope you enjoy the rest of the time you spend here. :D
Oh wow...that was awesome! Cant wait for Cove! :)
Finally! Someone who actually listened to me explicitly state that I am, indeed, going to do Cove next rather than posting about how I haven't yet played Cove. :D
Have a +1, sir!
Thanks Mekick! By the way,when will you release it? (I think you upload those 1v7 with specific towns every month, right?)
Mrsupergaming z That's right! :)
Expect the Cove video to come out sometime in June, a nice way to round off this series that I started just under a year ago.
AWSOME series!
i really would love to run the HD mod, im on win 10, and finaly got the file downloaded and installed. after fiddeling with smartscreen and whatnot (windows 10 hates this file)
But i have the "coimplete edition homm 3) how do i get it to run with this game ? is there a way where i can make my game only run the "shadow of death" exp?
hope this makes sense, yet another thnakyou for this channel!!!!
Actually, I'm not sure what you're asking. Shadow of Death and the Complete Edition are the same for virtually all intents and purposes.
Awesome stuff man, keep it up
Cheers!
1:29:43 LOOOL!! haha poor orange guy haha
Izi katka!
i "watched" until 2:42:40, you are a good voice in th ackground which i can jump back and to
I'm glad to hear it!
Nice to see a Castle LP. I struggle with this faction especially at the beginning, though they really kick asses later on with Arch Angels. Just a question off topic: Did you play the campaigns of HoMM 3? If so, which ones? Maybe all? I thought that they were somehow harder (I only played the first three of Restauration of Erathia).
I'm glad you're enjoying the video! To be honest, I find that Castle has a pretty solid start thanks to their Marksmen. But like you said, Castle's late game is remarkable thanks to their Archangels.
So far, I've played the Restoration of Erathia and Armageddon's Blade campaigns in Heroes III. For years, I've saved the Shadow of Death campaign for a rainy day, but said day has not yet come. At some point in the future, I may consider making videos for all three campaigns.
Oh yeah, those videos would be awesome! I'm looking forward to it. :)
Glad to hear it! :D
You talked something about different map templates, is there actually a way to change how a random map generates on top of the regular options?
Actually, yes. There are two ways this can be done. The first is by obtaining the HW rules plugin, which allows you to prevent Obelisks, Cartographers, Trading Posts, and Hill Forts from being spawned on random maps just before you start the game. The HW rules plugin can be obtained from forum.heroesworld.ru/attachment.php?s=4e8c700e809e43fc71699d0a0af220db&attachmentid=49904&d=1500418241.
The other way this can be done is by editing the rmg.txt file to tweak the map generation settings in a way that you want. I'm not too familiar when it comes to playing around with rmg.txt, but this thread might be of interest to you: heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=14290&PID=286557#focus
I apologize for the late reply, but I hope this helps!
thanks you for doing castle
I think you should play a game where there is no rules so you would be able to use all the spell scrolls ;) thx for all the awesome videos
Actually, I chose to do this in my Diplomacy video since I was already breaking the game by using Diplomacy to begin with. So if you're interested, make sure to take a look into that. :P
Is the external stables feature - upgrading the cavaliers for free - an easter egg? I've never come across that before.
I haven't a clue, but it exists. I'm not too sure why.
Why do i only discover this chanel now
Interesting fact: castle + graal + statue of legion = 6 archangels per week
Cool!
Serghei Anicheev Add an extra head and few external dwellings and you will never can afford to buy all the angels. :D
Not sure how this is done actually, but my PC opponent is able to have like 15 arch angels, 90+ marksman, etc. in month 2 week 2. When i see this and other videos, it just seems like somehow the AI having such weaker armies than my enemy actually is able to build. On top of that insane armies, he has also very strong defense in the castle.
15 Archangels? How would this even be possible on a random map? Even assuming that the AI could somehow get a Portal of Glory in their town with a Castle on the opening week (which basically requires a miracle start), they’d be getting just 2 Angels per week. By Month 2 Week 2, that would only be 5 weeks’ worth of reinforcements plus the initial Angel, totaling up to 11 Angels. I suppose that the AI could then acquire additional Angels from Griffin Conservatories or from other towns, but then they’d have to find a way to upgrade all of them into Archangels, which would require even more resources. This isn’t even factoring in the cost of other buildings and heroes.
All in all - and I do apologize for this - I think that 15 Archangels is a little far-fetched for the time frame that you’ve stated. On random maps, the only time I’ve ever seen the AI with 15 of any Tier 7 unit by Month 2 Week 2 is when they play Conflux, and that’s only because Firebirds have a base growth of 2.
Hello there had nostalgia hit me on this game (ironicly enough to your video talking about nostalgia lol gotta give it to this game making you nostalgic) so i stumbled on your videos for a while nice videos btw! loved the series and the commentary.So would you mind explaining to me briefly what's the deal with templates? i can't find info on them either anywhere...for example some differences between some of them (i can tell they are something like a guideline for the map generator to follow while building the map but what rules are changing?)...what are good templates to play ?which ones are choosen for pvp?
I would like to return playing heroes on a more interesting level of difficulty and maybe online so any info would help :)
also if you pleeease tell me where to download the HW rules mod?:)
Thank you, and I'm glad that you've enjoyed my videos and commentary thus far! First and foremost, you can download the HW rules plugin for the HD mod from forum.heroesworld.ru/showthread.php?t=10609. Now, as for templates, there are no "rules" changed. As you mentioned, templates dictate the manner in which the map will be generated -- that is, the contents of the map (like whether Dragon Utopias and Dragon Fly Hives are present), the number of zones present, what types of towns can be available, the value of each treasure zone, and so on. For example, in the Jebus Cross template (meant for XL maps with no Underground), there are 4 large player-controlled zones present as well as a fifth rich desert area in the middle. Meanwhile, in the 8xm8 template (for XL+U maps), you'll find 48 zones filled with Dragon Fly Hives.
I can't list you the dynamics of each one, but you can certainly Google the map designs for each of them (i.e. Google "Heroes 3 8xm8 map template" on the Images section and you should get an image of 8xm8's design). Good templates to play depend on what map size you want and how many players you want to play with -- if you want to play with 4 players, for example, then Jebus Cross might be your best bet.
The standard map templates chosen for PvP that I have seen would be Jebus Cross, Skirmish, Balance, 8mm6a, 6lm10a, 8xm12a, 8xm8 (I don't recommend this one), Spider, and Mini-Nostalgia. I hope this helps!
Thank you very much for all the info definitely helped a lot!
Theodore T. My pleasure. :)
wow, after all those years i now realize there is a map generator in the game... anyways idk how you got such a good start; i tried the same template a couple of times and theres no way i get cavaliers on week 1. even one time, i got killed by an AI with rocs at day 4 rofl
got it after 10+ tries lol
To be honest, this map happened to be an unusually rich by sheer luck, even for the map template that I used in the Random Map Generator. Some map templates are richer than others - for example, 8xm8 is often quite poor relative to 8xm12 or Diamond.
Man this template is so harsh, I had to restart several times before I was able to get champions week 1 without pooling absolutely everything I could into getting them and then not getting raided by AI main hero week 2.
Hmm, that's somewhat surprising. I find this template to be quite generous as far as resources are concerned, and under the right circumstances I can even sometimes get a Portal of Glory on Week 1 on 160% difficulty. Given their close proximity to you though, the AI is indeed quite unforgiving.
Ha when I first played this a looong time ago I always used Castle and Orrin the same way you'd do Loynis. I just liked Orrin's portrait and thought he was cool. I'd always play hotseat with my buddy and he'd always pick Inferno so we had that friendly rivalry of angels vs devils
That’s awesome! I’m not quite sure I’d call “Angels vs. Devils” a friendly rivalry, though. ;)
Back when my brother and I used to play the game together, I used to get him to random his faction and hero, but I never let him have Necropolis, Conflux, or Castle.
Just got into heroes 3. I play on easy but I'm just learning. I'm also maining castle
Hi Mr.MeKick. Your videos are great and its really fun to watch you and all but background white noise in this video is really annoying to my ears actually. It might be the mic or the settings you have for recording audio. I think it should be quite easy to remove that white noise completely which will definitely enhance quality of your videos! Peace