**Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): ** 1. What mods do you use for Heroes III? / What version of the game are you using? I usually play Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Shadow of Death with the HD mod (downloadable from sites.google.com/site/heroes3hd/). Sometimes, I'll also use Horn of the Abyss (also known as HotA), but I'm not using it in this video. The HD mod is responsible for most of the features that you see in my videos. Note that the Heroes III HD mod is not compatible with Ubisoft's HD Edition on Steam. 2. How do I get your version of the game? Shadow of Death is functionally the same (e.g. there are no gameplay differences) as the Heroes III Complete Edition, which you can get from www.gog.com/game/heroes_of_might_and_magic_3_complete_edition for relatively cheap. Horn of the Abyss can be obtained from download.h3hota.com/HotA_setup. 3. How do you see how far units can move in combat? This is one feature of the HD mod (see FAQ #1) and can be done by mousing over a unit and holding down the CTRL key. 4. What are the hotkeys that you use? This is one feature of the HD mod (see FAQ #1). The most frequent hotkeys that I use for army management are: - CTRL+Click to create a 1-stack - ALT+Click to group up all units of the same type into one big stack - SHIFT+Click to split a stack into two halves - CTRL+SHIFT+Click to fill up all remaining empty slots with a 1-stack A full list of the hotkeys that the HD mod provides can be found at sites.google.com/site/heroes3hd/eng/description/extended-ui. 5. How do you display the extended hero details while setting up a map? This is one feature of the HD mod (see FAQ #1) and can be done simply by right-clicking on a hero's portrait while selecting a hero. Note that Single Scenarios do not support this feature. 6. How do you step through Two-Way Monoliths and Subterranean Gates without moving your hero? Pressing the Space Bar key will cause your hero to step on the same square that they are currently on, allowing them to move through Two-Way Monoliths and Subterranean Gates at will. The Space Bar key can also be used on Water Wheels, Windmills, Mystical Gardens, and other map objects. Note that this feature is only available in versions of Heroes III that come later than Restoration of Erathia, meaning that this cannot be done in Ubisoft's HD Edition on Steam. 7. How can I get my unit animations in combat to be as fast as yours? To get accelerated unit animations, download crAnim.txt from heroesportal.net/getfile.php?file=/files/information/16/Cranim.txt and put it into the Data folder of your Heroes III directory.
Fun fact: If you hold Ctrl on a unit to see the movement, keep holding Ctrl and press and hold right click for info, then release Ctrl and after that release right click. Now you have the Ctrl effect permanently, you just have to hover over units and not press anything. Slight convinience, I think it lasts for the entire match. After restarting it resets. Love your vids btw!
I love how during the Battle around 8:58:00 you had Spirit of Oppression on anyway. That Mass Mirth was priceless, however xD EDIT: I forgot SoO only removes positive Morale effects... whoops
You're not debating things by the way. A debate involves someone else that you discuss a topic with. You might be considering your next move, thinking about what to do, weighing the pros and cons, whatever. But since you're alone and recording your own voice, probably not really arguing with twitch chat about what to do, you're definitely NOT debating what to do next :P
TheKnownWorld: "I'll be doing the grail challenge, I can't attack, I can't use view air or land, no fly, dimension door or town portal, and if I don't get the grail first I automatically lose. Also it's 1v7 on the hardest difficulty." Me: "Hmm... I think I'll try playing normal difficulty this time."
11 hours... welp, there goes my day off. I know all the reservations you have in regard to a Perfect Score challenge, but once again, I want to express how much I'd love to watch a run with an unleashed Mekick abusing the crap out of every broken things the game offers, all the cheese known to mankind and every tools in the toolbox (all of the spells, DD, Fly, TP, cheap hit and run tactics, broken skills like Diplo and Necromancy, vampires lords, Cloak of the Undead King, Isra, Galthran, Dracageddon, Conflux, cartographers, Hives, Conservatories, etc) in order to achieve a perfect score. Even if the challenge results in a complete failure, I'd love to see every now and then a Mekick playing without any restriction on a quest for total obliteration of the AIs. Also, words cannot express how hyped I am for your future challenges. I wanted to see a Worst Hero/No Artifact challenge for a while due to how interesting the challenges get when a raid boss run away with the game and gain a massive boost to their stats in comparison to yours, Worst Hero/No Artifacts challenge will pretty much give us a game with multiple raid bosses, heck, I wouldn't mind a FFA run and an Allied run of that challenge, because I'd like the raid bosses to fight you, not fight among themselves. And then there is the Sinister Six-six-six... HYPED!!!!!! Keep up the good work, Mekick!
About the vid where Mekick uses every known cheese and tool. We’d be looking at one hour of computer A.i being utterly bum F-ed, seems like a good vid to me XD (I really would enjoy getting a chance to watch that)
Roads are there as a boost for movement, they shouldn't exist in certain circumstances, for example, certain factions like Fortress counts with their native terrain as a defensive strategy to slowdown invaders.
MeKick - "I will avoid using Slow, Ressurection and Armageddon spells just for a challenge" Me - "I would sure like to have Slow, Ressurection or Armageddon but i don't, i guess i'm playing with a challenge too"
Personally for me this was the best challenge I've seen you play, it had it all, like all the challenges in one video, the ballista, skeletons power stack, seige survivel offense, no magic (for quite some time...) But the devil was my favorite part of the match, i wanted you soo much to upgrade him to archdevil, i almost cried when he died... and also i wanted to see the titan in action like the devil
I've been watching this for a while (at 1.5x speed, I admit) but I just reached the point where you put the grail in your hometown. Just what an amazing journey and an amazing video so far. I loved every second of it! Leaving a comment to help the algorithm and a like as well, you deserve it my man! Amazing video again, congratulations on getting the job done, the rest 6 hours are gonna be fun haha! I also loved the balista+devil combo on your second hero hehehe that was fun to watch too.
May I suggest 1. Slowest units challenge -Rule: Can only use units with speed 3 (no ballista allowed) 2. No (Siege) defence challenge -Rule: Can't leave units in towns at the end of turn (thus not being able to defend any towns) 3. Level cap challenge -Rule: Can't have any Heroes above level 4 (must dismiss anyone who goes pass that/to lvl 5)
The level cap challenge seems sweet. Not sure what the level cap should be. Also it should be something like dismiss all heroes above lvl X before finishing turn, so you can move your units from the hero before dissmissing him/her.
I personally like you've used necromancy, I don't want to see you suffering for beating the challenge (or even losing), but adapting and overcoming with the resources you get, so it's great for me! In fact I learn a lot when I see you using these kind of advantages, so I do prefer you to win the match using everything in hand.
this is the first video I have seen of yours: I was initially attracted to the absurdly challenging rules you imposed upon yourself. still, i expected to get bored after roughly 15 minutes of predictably vapid, terrible jokes, shoddy play, and shrill laughter to entertain the kiddies. nah man, NEIN. not on this channel. i really enjoyed your expertise and the pleasant, insightful commentary. honestly, no joke, this is really an impressive, detailed, INSANE "lets play" that roughly .4% of the population could accomplish or even fathom. keep up the fantastisch work!
I appreciate your kind words! Reading your comment gave me quite the chuckle. Admittedly though, while my jokes aren't predictable, they are pretty terrible ;) Even so, I'm glad you enjoyed the level of insight and entertainment I was able to provide in this video!
I grew up watching my dad play HOMM3 and enjoyed playing it myself so I find such nostalgia and joy watching your videos not to mention learning strategies please keep up the great work I’ll always keep watching 😁
@6:11:00 smashes 1st PC player; @6:27:00 gets smashed by next PC player, (props for sealing that nasty conflux element in the pocket, otherwise would've been sooner)
It has always bothered me how "poor man's town portal" was named.. Town portal costs spell points, while the "poor man's" method costs 2500 gold... It should be called Rich man's town portal :D
Does the youtube recomendation algorithm seriously think I'm going to spend 11 hours watching someone complete some arbitrary challenge that was released 20 years ago and I've barely even played... -.- You win this round algorithm..
to see someone being that good in this game makes me so happy.... in love this game since my childhood but only did brave new world on hard.... maps like this WERE impossible.... thank you brother
5:25:42 That was close! 6:36:44 AI surprise no.1, adds a spice to this particularly enjoyable battle :D 10:49:40 Final battle 11:03:47 AI surprise no.2 11:09:12 "Real final battle" lol This match is very interesting indeed, the map design matched the grail theme well. One thing is, there are too much spam clicking for my taste hmm...if only you can do something about that. I remember you responding to not following through what you commented, and now it went really smooth and clear, a significant point worthwhile to be complimenting!
lol, nice timestamps. I had to go back and rewatch these moments just to refresh myself on all the silliness that occurred during this match :P Like you said though, this match was "interesting" to say the least and the map design really did match the Grail theme well. I'll take the spam clicking issue into consideration for future videos. Cheers!
I love your videos so much. I come back and watch several every year. They bring me so much joy. They are relaxing, watching someone really exceptional doing something they are really good at always is. I also have so much nostalgia for this game that it makes me so happy to watch it be played. And the challenge rules are always fascinating.
One of the best videos of gameplay so far. Can we get another grail challenge. It is more entertaining to watch you play against a built up enemy than just wiping them out as soon as possible. Makes the game more similar to my own games since I don't know mechanics very well. Maybe show and explain more cheese mechanics to some of us who can't play the game as well too.
2 vs 6 Protect your AI ally. To make it harder you can chose your allied computers race or limit the number of expansions to equal or less to your ally. (Initially, you cannot get your 2nd town before it does but if he loses one you dont have to abandon yours!)
jesus.. the AI at 5:25:55 during the grail transport was almost so clutch xD that was awesome (edit: Holy s**t all the AI aggro at once xD you must've tripped an alarm)
literally some of the worthy video-game based content on this youtube right here, don't think i watch anything else videogame related, but then again i still haven't taught myself dwarf fortress lelele, hope you're having a good year, MeKick
Haha! To be honest, if I had dug up the Grail so soon in the match, I probably would've started over in hopes of getting a more interesting match. Lucky for me, this didn't happen since my first attempt turned out to be a very fun game.
Just finished watching and i agree it was a lot of fun and much more than i myself was expecting, considering the task. Looking for the obelisks, digging the grail, Gurnisson with the Devil and the ballista, the refugees camps, the unusual combat spells, Vokial stuck in the trees, AI digging in the wrong spot, the big battles... it was all fun, thank you.
Keep up the good work MeKick. You are a joy to watch. I dreamed of a scenerio; with Legolas and Gimly only challange. Your hero will be Aragorn. Just select "Ivor the Ranger" (Aragorn) in Rampard town and use only dwarves (Gimly) and elves (Legolas), no other units. Magic will not be permitted so you cannot cast spells. You can freely use items. No ballista, no first aid tent. All your enemies should be stronghold i think. Kill them all and find the hobbits (grail) to complete your mission.
lol, my bad. I forgot that I wasn't supposed to use Slow partway through the match. On the bright side, it was only regular Slow I used and not Mass Slow :P
Challenge idea - neutral creatures only, no faction/town creatures allowed, except the starting ones that come with each hero, all spells and magic are allowed, portal of summoning is allowed, diplomacy also allowed but only in case of neutral alignment creatures on map. I think it would be fun to see Mekick leading a factionless army of rogues, halflings, enchanters, sharpshooters, etc to one more glorious victory! comments plz :)
Challenge: Learn to fly - You can only use units flying on the wings Additionally to teach you how to fly even higher - You can't use retreat/run hero teleportation - You can't stand on things to shorten the way - You must choose the "Eagle Eye", "Leadership" and "Air Magic" skills whenever possible
My god the grail find was so clutch, like one week later and probably it would have been lost. Also couple of challenges fused unexpectedly there: such as balista only challenge or defend the siege or some fun strats like necromancy was showcased too. Good watch.
Okay, I have a new challenge, even though I don't know the internal game mechanics, so I hope it is possible: - Play 1v7 FFA. - Every time an AI player is defeated, you must lose/sacrifice all your current heroes to the AI (you can keep the artifacts). - You are not allowed to get back your (main) lost heroes. - Maybe make it also so that you need to lose/sacrifice half of your current total army every time an AI player is defeated as well.
When you moved Gundula near the One way entrance, I had a thought of what if an AI hero pop up out of it and kill the Grail wielder, and it happened for real, I bursted out laughing lol
4:34:27 I like how you called this skeleton a bad boy LOL. I love in general how you refer to creatures in this game as "skellies", "troglies", "water ellies", etc. It's rather cute :)
Kites zombies for 10 min, "Haven't played a battle this dumb for months." Next day - plays 2 hour arena with mass slowed fortress troops, quicksand, no spell points and hit-and-return nagas Kappa
i just stumbled over your videos a few days ago and damn dude..i learned so much from you since then.. now im trying to get my old HoMM disc to run on my laptop but it gives me some pain.. still focused on making it work...i want to try some stuff since i saw your videos!
Awesome gameplay as usual. But the AI magic use in final battle is so incredibly sick, it hurts. Would be hilarious, if purple opened with expert berserk on your whole nicely grouped army and watched the show. Repeated until last stack of Behes. Or whatever else, he had expert air magic as seen later, even mass haste and charge would be efficient. In fact very efficient, when no slow condition was in game. Still, thank you for making that battle fun with good magic/terrain use.
You're welcome for the "fun" final battle! I agree with you in that the AI could've used their spells a lot better in that last fight. However, for whatever reason, the AI in SoD is programmed not to use Berserk. If they could cast Berserk, I probably would've organized my units quite differently in the final battle.
Hi MeKick! I really love your videos and so far I've watched every single HoMM3 video and you've taught me quite a few things that I was able to use in single player scenarios or while playing against my friends, so thank you for that! I don't know why but Tower is one of my favourite factions, despite it being enormously expensive. I was wondering, as you've done a "Dwarf Power Stack" video before, what do you think of having a "Golem Only" challenge? This means, that you'd start with Josephine who herself is not the best hero with Sorcery and Mysiticism as her starting skills. But I would be really interested to see how it would work out as Golems are slow, however, quite tanky. Keep up the good work and cannot wait for the next videos to come! See you soon!
I know this is an old video and MK will probably never see this comment, but since I did not see anyone comment on this, I think the reason Vokial was sitting in the bushes with enough mana to fly was due to the two covers of darkness blocking his vision on both sides of the trees, so he was not able to step in any direction due to fog of war. surprised MK missed this ;)
I still continue to bow before your thought process and overall knowledge of the game, plus the cheese tactics xD Thanks, again, for enlightening me :) Also, I have a question, have you ever thought about making these kinds of videos but with HoMM V, even if on rare occasions?
My pleasure! I'm glad that you've gained some insight on my thought process and acquired new knowledge about Heroes III :) The idea of doing videos for Heroes 5 has already been brought up, and I can't say I'm too interested. Unlike with Heroes III which I grew up with and thoroughly enjoy, I don't like Heroes 5 much.
id like to see another grail first video but with inferno. I know that town isnt the best but if you could try and utilise the imp week to build an enormous demon army that would be great.
Wow! Finally you're playing it for the grail! Berry nice. Will watch this bit by bit. Keep it up mekick. Still havent watched ur stream as i do not know the time for your stream according to SEA time.
I did not have time to watch your videos lately but came back and found as much fun as always in watching these Heroes matches. You're a great talker so I will watch any other game that you are going to play (except for Fortnite, sorry). League is good but you could also give Warcraft III a shot, especially when the Reforged version will be out?
Thanks for this. Took a while for me to see it as 11h scared me Also wanna see a no roads game. Maybe xl no underground. Fly dd town portal OK. As when you say you won't use them you don't ever lvl mage guild which is a fun little rng mini game. Wanna see hard games but 11hours... Wanna see as soon as you get strong enough just close it out. As fly dd town portal doesn't make you any stronger, only influences your reach.
You're welcome! Coincidentally, No Roads is going to be the next challenge that I do. Also, I can see why you might advocate for permitting Dimension Door, Fly, and Town Portal, but these spells generally make the game far too easy when they're used.
Definitely one of the best challenges, so many really cool things showcased and that fireshield bug :D I was also wondering how the casual match would turn out if all the heroes from tavern would start with diplomacy and you would be the only one not allowed to use it. Add that every AI player starts with conflux as well and you migth see some really strong armies by the end of the game :P
Agreed! I would definitely put this match up there as one of the better ones I've done. Indeed, there were plenty of interesting events and strategies that were put into use :) What a clever idea you've come up with! I'll admit, having heroes start the game off as Conflux and with Diplomacy while I'm not allowed to use it would probably make for an extremely difficult challenge (perhaps too difficult, even). Unfortunately, there's no straightforward way that I know of to set up such a match.
6:37:00 I'm so curious now about that hypnotize?, fireshield, efreet and cerberi 0 damage interaction now, and how that happened! That's really interesting. They are immune to fire damage and that triggers before the retaliation so the retaliation damage is somehow ignored? Curious.
A possible small (extra) challenge, you might combine with a main challenge: Eliminate all enemy players combined within one week. Don’t take their last castle’s until the end. Obviously, you can’t avoid them killing each other, so it’s just for style points ;D
