The winning conditions can vary depending on the scenario. You might have to capture a number of structures on the map, or find a particular artifact, or destroy all your opponents. But typically capturing all the cities on the map will do the trick. Resource mines are scattered about the map which will provide a constant flow of their specific resource to the player who last visited them. Cities provide the player with gold every turn. That gold can be used to purchase troops. Some higher-level troops require resources as well. Gold and resources also can be used to build up the infrastructure of controlled cities. Structures within cities produce troops or creatures once a week. Such structures may also be upgraded to produce better quality troops. Gold is also required to hire heroes. As no army can move out of a city without a hero leading it, heroes are all-important in the game.
The heart of the game is building armies under your heroes. Armies can
have up to 7 stacks of troops/creatures. Each stack must contain only one
type of troop or creature, but can contain any number of them. Battles
occur when two non-allied heroes meet on the main map, or when a hero moves
to occupy a garrisoned enemy city or when a hero encounters a wandering
stack of creatures on the map. These battles play out on smaller
hexagonal submap, again in a turn based manner. Commanding heroes also
typically have an array of offensive and defensive spells they may cast
at to affect the course of the battle.
The handling of heroes has been undated a bit. Now each city type has two native hero classes. Typically one class will lean more towards "might" while the other leans more towards "magic". But of course a hero's ratings in all categories will increase as they gain experience. Each class has both female and male heroes of various races (although race doesn't affect anything much but the hero's' picture). The inner role-player in me was disappointed to discover that the hero's gender and race have no effect on the hero's icon on the main map. Its hair length and clothing will look the same for every hero of the same character class. It would also have been nice if the hero's picture looked more like an army marching than a lone individual on a horse. The increased realism everywhere else made that little bit of abstraction look odd. But the heroes do now have several new types of sites to visit, including some that give out quests. Usually a quest involves finding and returning some powerful item. If an opponent finds it first, you will of course have to kill them in combat to get it. When returned to the designated location you will generally get some kind of reward. However, often the reward is not as great as the item you are returning. Let your conscience be your guide here...yeah, right!
There are some new spells, but really blind is about the best spell available. Dispel is also quite handy as a counter when your opponent has blind, of course. The only other spell that gives me real problems when used against me is Clone. It creates a copy of a unit stack that can inflict the same damage as the original, but will be dispelled when struck. There's nothing worse than watching your opponent clone his stack of 50+ champions right before their move. I can certainly see why congress would consider regulating it...
The "wandering" (actually stationary on the main map) stacks of monsters
are much the same as before. Thankfully the game-unbalancing ghosts are
history. The major new addition to the map though is the underground level.
On most maps there is now a second underground level that may be entered
via cave openings on the surface. This literally adds a whole new dimension
the the strategy of hero movement. A player's strategies for hero movement
and city protection on the main map must now be a lot less one-dimensional.
But the extra complexity puts the AI at little more of a disadvantage than
previously. Typically the scenarios have the underground level as a series
of caverns rather than a wide open space like the top side is. Often dungeon
and inferno cities may be found down there.
There have been a lot of changes to the towns themselves as well. Each town type now has a couple of special structures unique to it. One quite powerful example in the Inferno town is a structure teleport a hero and his army to any other inferno city the player owns. Another nice one is the Skeleton Transformer, which turns creatures into skeletons. Did 100 army-slowing dwarves ask to join you? No problem; take 'em home and skeletonize them! Every town has several structures it can build to increase its income as well. This extra income greatly reduces the financial pressures that tended to make the previous installments in the series hopelessly bog down in the middle of the game. As long as you do a reasonable amount of exploring, and don't overextend yourself by trying to train black dragons in every city, you should be able to buy your fill of troops every week. It is quite possible to suffer a rush attack while you are concentrating on infrastructure in your starting town, but I have only had a computer player try that on me once. (Their treachery served them ill). This makes the mid game a lot more fun, and considerably shortens it as well.
The game basically keeps the same town types from the second installment, with two new additions.
The new Inferno cities are populated with creatures straight out of hell itself. Its top-level unit, the Arch Devil, is a bit weak as top units go. But it can teleport anywhere on the map to attack, and cannot be counterattacked. The flying Efreet Sultans are quite tough (although I never seem to have enough of them). I also like their Cerberi, which are quite sturdy for low-level units that can attack multiple adjacent enemies at once. Their archer units are fireball throwing Magogs. The Dungeon towns now have the awesome black dragons, as well as all sorts of dungeon-dwelling beasties. The second-rank flying petrifying Scorpicores are just about my favorite unit. With midlevel Medusas and Evil Eyes as ranged units, and swooping Harpy hags as effectively ranged units, and high-powered spellcasting heroes, the dungeoneers are one of my favorite forces to play.
The Castle forces demoted HOMII's lame Paladins to mid-rank Crusaders, and in their stead placed the devastating flying Archangels (arguably the best unit in the game). Their equestrian Champions are greatly feared by wiser players. Plus they have two different ranged units, including their third-best unit (Zealots). Thus where the Castle forces used to have to rely on large numbers to have a chance in HOMMII, they now are on equal if not better footing than any other faction. In large numbers, as anyone who has played the Steadwick campaign can tell you, they are practically invincible.
The Fortress is roughly equivalent to HOMMII's Warlock town. However, the dragons have been transferred to other town types, and in their place the Hydras have been promoted to the top rank. Chaos hydras are much quicker and tougher than their HOMMII counterparts, but they are still the weakest top-level unit in the game. Their second level unit is the nasty flying poisonous Wyverns. Like the Inferno Efereets, I tended to find I never had enough of them. They also possess the highly dangerous Mighty Gorgons, which can kill creatures outright with a death stare. This leads to a rather unconventional strategy. A smart player will send the top stack (Chaos Hydras) wading into large packs of low-level units, hoping to kill large numbers of them with their uncounterable multiple strike capability. Meanwhile, the middle level Gorgons are best used to try to take out the opponent's tough but not numerous top level creature stack with the death stare. Other unit abilities include petrifaction for their basilisks and dispelling for their dragon flies. They only have one archer unit, so they are definitely an offensive group.
The Necromancers have probably changed the least of any city type. However they have been considerably strengthened. Their Ghost Dragons are still weak compared to other top units. But their dread knights are one of the better second level units, and can inflict double damage. The power liches large area projectile is now a death cloud, which does not injure other undead units. Thus they are now useful throughout the melee, rather than only on the first round like in HOMMII. However their bottom 3 units are quite weak, so they are not one of the more powerful factions.
The Rampart town was a bit of a disappointment. Their top level Phoenix from HOMMII were replaced with dragons. It was kind of nice to have 1 top level unit in the game that was as deadly as it was pretty. This was my wife's favorite faction in HOMMII, and the Phoenix was her favorite unit, so she was even more disappointed. Their next units are War Unicorns and the tree-like Dendriods, both of which are very sturdy fighters. The War Unicorns also have the ability to blind an entire enemy stack, which can come in mighty handy in battle. Blind is about the best spell in the game. The rest of their units are fairly weak, although the Centaurs are a definite improvement over HOMMII's useless sprites.
The Stronghold town is not quite as week as it was in HOMMII, but it is still not one of my favorites. The top level is held by the tough but unexceptional Behemoths. Boulder-throwing Cyclopses have become the second level unit. Their boulders also can be used against castle walls as an extra catapult during sieges. Thunderbirds can fly, and sometimes cause lightening strikes against attacked opponents. But somehow this strike never seemed horribly devastating when I was employing them. The Ogre Magi are great for middle level units. They can cast bloodlust once a round instead of moving. If it comes to melee, I found them to be my most effective stack, given the numbers of them I typically possessed. I have had quite a few battles where all seemed lost when I got down to my lone stack of Ogre Magi against multiple enemy stacks, only to emerge victorious. Since they also have the axe-throwing Orcs, this faction is equally dangerous on the offensive or defensive.
The Tower town is my personal favorite. Its top level unit, the
Titan, is as tough as any in the game, plus its attack is ranged. It also
has 2 other ranged unit types. The second-level units, the multistrike
uncounterable Naga Queens, are really nasty opponents that must be given
priority attention by an enemy that wishes to survive the combat. Two of
its remaining three units fly, the other filler unit being the Golems.
One weak point is the small number of scenario maps, particularly cooperative
maps. My wife and I play a lot of HOMIII that way, and 5 maps just doesn't
last too long. But for creative types with oodles of spare time, Heroes
III also comes complete with a map editor. My artistic abilities are about
on par with Senator Strom Thurmand's, so I didn't try it out myself. But
I still love this feature, as it ensures that there will be lots of user-written
maps available for download.
-- T.E.D.