Table of Contents

1. Was it something I said?
2. Unreliable guides
3. Records set
4. Hero development
5. Declining difficulty
6. Mighty vs Mage
7. Morale and Diplomacy
   1. Overview
   2. Campaign
   3. Fluff
8. Next campaign
   1. Iconic handicap
   2. Gorbag's joke

[pic: queen
caption: Separation of church and state is like cleavage.]

Was it something I said?

This series has multiple purposes, one of which is to introduce gamers to Emacs Org-mode so they can use their obsessiveness to win at health, wealth and worldview, despite Clown World's best efforts to poison, impoverish and deceive them. Playing HoMM3 is a good way to learn Org-mode without risking your critical info on an unfamiliar app.

r/Heroes3 gave the first campaign writeup a 50% ratio despite upvoting its three scenario writeups 90%. Maybe it's my heterodox strategy, or the mention of trannies and whores, or the implication that separation of church and state is illusory?

Unreliable guides

• Changing the difficulty for this tutorial campaign requires using the campaign editor.
• The guides are not written for Impossible difficulty, so only the background info is reliable.

Records set

I found only two competitors who played this campaign on Impossible: Meridian and MasterKD.

The win conditions in this campaign were not suitable for timed evaluation. The first two scenarios encourage the player to secure dominance and then develop his heroes at leisure before defeating Tan. The last scenario encourages the player to defeat Orange and then build up a large army at leisure to overcome static defenses.

Therefore I evaluated based on time to dominate the AI via town conquest, which worked in all but one game (MasterKD's Griffin Cliff playthrough).

1. In Homecoming, my win was on day 26, and Meridian's win was on day 33. 7/26 = 27% faster.
2. In Guardian Angels, I was 150% faster than Meridian
3. In Griffin Cliff, I was 25% faster than Meridian, with MasterKD impressive but non-comparable.

On average, I was about 100% faster. Scenario #2 was an outlier relying on Diplomacy snowball; 26% faster is the usual improvement. My wins were more robust and tolerant of tactical errors, making the strategy demonstrated user-friendly. For example, I had a larger advantage in kingdom army size on the victory dates. I didn't invade the AI until my advantage was overwhelming.

Hero development

• Navigation and Pathfinding are useful in Homecoming but not thereafter.
• Prefer Castle heroes since starting towns are all Castle, and starting terrain is grass.
• Having Dungeon or Inferno heroes is not worthwhile.

Declining difficulty

Once the enemy AI is defeated, I turn on cheats to ease the tedium of developing my heroes for the next scenario. This contributed to an observable negative difficulty curve. Scenario 1 was the hardest and scenario 3 the easiest.

Each scenario had a strategic quest that granted de-facto victory:

1. Homecoming had imprisoned Orrin, who was most difficult to take before Nighon.
2. Guardian Angels had the Angel Wings and the 2 extra pressgangable Archangels.
3. Griffin Cliff had the Seer's 50 griffins and Conservatory for 4 angels, which was easily completed and practically impossible for Nighon to take.

This was odd, but I guess the goal of the tutorial was to increase complexity gradually. The designers used the difficulty setting to increase difficulty rather than map design.

In all cases, the AI lost sooner than expected, usually before I could implement my full strategy.

I did not have unused operations on Homecoming, because it was difficult enough I had to script it tactically rather than operationally. Starting with only one hero also blurs the lines between tactics and operations. I felt I had blitzed a dangerous foe.

In Guardian Angels, it felt more like pouncing on helpless prey. In Griffin Cliff, it felt no different than clearing creep. That was anticlimactic.

Mighty vs Mage

You may have noticed my heterodox hero development. Might heroes do not get Wisdom or magic schools, focusing on mundane combat. Mages don't get physical combat skills, focusing on magic.

Mighties and Mages are meant to play different strategic roles. Mages cast with small high-level armies, while Mighties conquer with large low-level armies.

This was demonstrated in the first and last scenarios. The middle one was a pure snowball.

In Homecoming, Mighty Christian blitzed with low-level troops while Mages cleared creep at home.

In Griffin Cliff, the Mages used their starting MP to rip the scenario apart. They cleared roadblocks, Diplomacied, and teleported to strategic points. The Mighties scouted and harvested. Orange lost before the Mighties could do much fighting, but Diplomacy Mighties did snowball conquer two of Orange's three towns.

Morale and Diplomacy

Overview

Morale is a central Castle theme. Castle gets high morale via angels and Leadership.

A point of negative morale is much more harmful than a point of positive morale is helpful. This incentivizes adding irregulars to an army until its morale is neutral.

Diplomacy therefore synergizes with Castle's Morale theme, providing many irregulars to absorb surplus morale.

Most skills are suitable for either Might or Magic heroes. However, some skills are suitable for either support or main heroes, e.g. Estates. Diplomacy is a main hero skill. It is wasted on a support hero who will rarely have a large army, and then only late in the game.

Campaign

The Long Live the Queen campaign emphasizes morale and Diplomacy:

1. The Library of Enlightenment in Homecoming requires Advanced Diplomacy to enter.
2. One should level at least one Diplomacy hero in Homecoming, ideally two: a Mighty and Mage. This is easy after securing the surface.
3. This allows snowballing in the next scenario, Guardian Angels.
4. In Griffin Cliff, it allows Castle recruitment in the starting zone, and underdark diplomacy to vanquish Orange.

Fluff

Whores and war go together like brothels and ports.

Why the high morale for human armies? My theory is that their camp followers offer the most bang for your buck. Yes elves are prettier, but only the officers can afford them.

Humans are unspecialized templates who hybridize easily with other species, with a high libido and a roughly 1:1 sex ratio. There is more than one kind of silver tongue.

Next campaign

In the last campaign, I won too quickly, preventing me from fully testing my strategies. The next campaign is Dungeons and Devils. So I'll make it devilishly hard.

Iconic handicap

The first scenario is Devilish Plan. The orthodox strategy is to select the 100 imp starting bonus and blitz Red's main town. Meridian won on m1w3d1, faster than MasterKD's win on m1w4d7. Nobody wants to see that strategy a third time.

Meridian's method was fastest, but it mostly skips the map. It's a boring generic strategy with high risk of failure. For example, it's easy to get lost in the roadless unscouted grassland — which he does and has to reload! A strategy guide should do better. I promise to scout the prairie like Comanche before plunging in like Custer.

Here's my handicap. The orthodox starting bonus is 100 imps. Instead I'll pick the Slayer scroll, because it is iconic for the dragon-centric win condition. The spell helps kill huge beasts such as dragons.

Presumably Slayer is the worst choice. It's easier to just defeat the AI and then build up at leisure. The AI can't even build Dragon Cliffs.

However, the AI does have two Refugee Camps which could randomly offer behemoths, dragons, etc at any time. So the Slayer scroll is basically like those 2-year warranties on electronics that they always try to sell you at checkout. Not totally useless, but definitely for morons.

In the previous campaign, the consensus bonus was also iconic, so that's what I picked:

• 14 Pikemen for Homecoming's Halberdier blitz to Orrin
• an Angel for Guardian Angels
• Lion's Shield of Courage for Griffin Cliff

I'll always pick iconic over orthodox. In future scenarios, I might continue picking the worst bonus, to give the AI a chance. I want to write strategy for struggling players, so I must suffer with them.

Below is a bit of hellish fluff about how the Inferno player ended up with the Slayer scroll.

Gorbag's joke

The problem with working for devils is the ubiquitous treachery. Gorbag, your boss, knows you're gunning for his job. That's a given. The prick also has it in for your clan. Infernal politics. That's why your backpack is empty save for this useless scroll, and your retinue consists of nothing but your personal guard.

By all accounts, you're on your way to a freshly-sprouted volcano about to be stomped by AvLee's rangers. The Dragon Queen was tipped off (surprise, surprise) and is buttoned up tighter than a baby's butthole.

Speaking of assholes, you pull out the scroll and examine Gorbag's tracking seal. You can't even sell the "strategically invaluable artifact" to fund your campaign; he'll have you crucified in a heartbeat. If you somehow survive this, you promise to introduce Gorbag to your favorite sexecutioner. Lady Pain may not be a lady, or even conventionally female, but no one is better equipped to give Gorbag a lesson in professional courtesy.