*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/). In this video, I'm using Horn of the Abyss (also known as HotA). 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.
It's the same headset that I've been using in my past videos as well. However, I played around with some audio settings and I even took the time to clean out my computer too (which reduced the computer fan volume considerably). I'm glad that you appreciate the difference in the audio quality!
It was immediately noticeable and your fan was legit the only reason I couldn't stand watching your videos. Now, though, I got no excuse (except that they're ridiculously long, how do you even manage to do this yourself, oml)
lol, well, just watch as much of it as you can or want to, I suppose. :P As for how I can stand doing these videos all in one sitting, I'll admit that it takes a fair bit of mental fortitude to pull off. However, even though I wanted to, I wasn't quite able to finish this match in a single day.
@@TheKnownWorld Do listen to criticism. Don't be an echo chamber RU-vidr that shuts out all negative feedback and slowly their content slides into low effort garbage Still, cheers for the video
Wooo Im so damn happy this is out! And I cant wait for the next part and the next challenge! Love your content dude not to mention your comentary! Keep up the amazing work and rock on!
That moment, when mekick uploads at 10pm at your place, and you thought its friday but its actually thursday and youvalso have to go to school tomorrow but there are no lessons and you re like. I ll allow it... For now
Thumbs up for the Deus Vult challenge. You're only allowed to capture towns once you've installed the grail in the starting town (largest possible map FFA).
I'm glad that you're enjoying my videos! :) As it turns out, you're not the first one to suggest the "Grail Challenge". Others have requested this challenge as well, but personally, I don't like the sound of it. In my opinion, RNG plays too strong a role in determining whether or not I can successfully complete this challenge. What I mean is that if, for example, the Grail is spawned in the starting zone of an AI player who is halfway across the map from me, then there is little that I can do to stop them from digging up the Grail and building it in their own town. Conversely, if the Grail spawns too close to my starting area (which is the much more unlikely scenario), then the match would become a joke fairly quickly.
Found my copy of HoMM3 Complete a couple of weeks ago, been playing it like crazy. Found and subbed to your channel today. Lovely videos. Keep it up man.
Armor of the Damned : The armor has effect that causes Slow, Curse, Weakness and Misfortune on enemy units at expert level with a duration of 50 rounds at the beginning of hero's first turn during combat.
5:51:25 *recruits Crag Hack, making the slot available for Isra to come into the Tavern* 5:51:32 *disbands Crag Hack, even though there are currently only four adventuring heroes besides Crag Hack* Never thought I'd see the day.
Yeah, that artifact was a journey in itself, I must say. There were some pretty stressful moments on my end too, as I'm sure you could tell, but at least it worked out for the better. It's nice to hear that you felt the tension in those moments!
You definitely went the extra mile. I would have never thought that to be able to work out the way it did. But yea, you're really good at this game so :D you have great content and would love to see more challenges and I personally liked your playthroughs of custom maps too!
I'm not going to lie, I didn't think so either. I just had faith and #YEAROFTHEYOLO Anyway, I'll take what you said as a compliment, and I'm glad you're enjoying my content! Another random map challenge will be on the way for October, but I don't intend to do another custom map playthrough for a while. Currently, my main focus is on these random map challenges for RU-vid and on PvP matches for my Twitch streams. Cheers!
Yeah, that bit was probably the most exciting about this part of the match. Even if it isn't the most efficient way to deal with it, I enjoy the slow plays with elaborate, fun strategies.
"Shitty creatures only" challenge - You are allowed to use only the creatures, which are normally avoided. Necro: zombies, wraiths; conflux: magma, maybe energy; rampart: dwarves, dendroids, tower: gargoyles, golems etc. These creatures must feel sad that no one recruits them.
In addition to the regular bonuses from combined artifacts, the Elixir of Life increases health of all living creatures by +25% and they gain a regeneration ability similar to that of Trolls or Wraiths. *Neither of these abilities apply to Undead or non-living (unliving) units.* So yeah...
lol, yeah, other people pointed that out a while back. I totally forgot that the Undead don't get the Regeneration bonus or the extra +25% Health :( At least I still got the additional +4 Health from the effects of Elixir of Life's components!
Considered you always heavily rely on magic I want to see how you can pull this off :D, but I recall the first time I played H3 I never used magic because I didn't understand it ahahaha (playing on normal though)
lol, you'll have to wait and see. I think others share a similar opinion regarding my heavy use of magic, especially in my recent videos where winning without magic would be close to impossible.
Don't be fooled, this one is super easy! It's like Quick Combat challenge only easier - he can position his units and not play like a bot. Upvote the no might one, people! :D Unless this one is spiced up with something like "No magic, 2 stacks only". Any stacks, but just 1 or 2 or 3. Whatever is unreasonable enough to be challenging ]:)
Finally finished watching after 4 days XD. I don't have the time to watch in one go. But anyway awesome video, keep up the good work, and I can't wait for part 2. :D ps I love u
Wow! Kudos on your tenacity in watching the video all the way to the end, even if it took you four sittings to do. It's nice to hear that you enjoyed it, and you need not worry - Part 2 is on its way. Cheers! ;)
4:14:18 "I really wish that we could view the minimap while [opponent] turns were going [...] I don't know why you're not allowed to see exactly where they're moving on the map - that strikes me as kind of odd" My guess is that there might not be a way to make it so that you can't see where monoliths/portals go to, or if a hero casts DD or TP, where they go. 'Cause you will notice that when a hero teleports in that fashion, if they teleport off-screen, the camera will move to where they end up (and it'll show the fog of war there), so if you could see on the minimap where that was, you'd be able get extra information you shouldn't be able to have.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds to me like you're guessing that the developers didn't display the minimap during enemy turns because you would've been able to see where opponents teleported to on the map? Is that right? It's a reasonable guess, but I find the notion that the game developers weren't able to "make it so that you couldn't see where monoliths/portals go to" a bit unlikely. In reality, I suspect that they overlooked this bug. Even in the case where your theory is correct, from a quality of life perspective of Heroes III, I would argue that the benefits of being able to see these moves (and the amount of time saved overall) vastly outweigh the drawbacks.
heroes 2 and 3 are the best even though i stopped playing after heroes 5. this was my go to video game when i was younger before i discovered starcraft.
Your new favourite word is access, huh.Was honestly waiting for your arrow towers to start targeting the enemy catapult in that early siege against the 5 liches.
In an ideal world, I would be able to do both at the same time. But for obvious reasons, that won't be happening here. :P Anyway, (bad) jokes aside, I'll eventually do both. As I explained in the video, this vote is for which challenge you would rather see first. Thanks for the support!
It's nice to hear that you're enjoying my content, and that I got you into streaming! If you don't mind me asking, what's your Twitch channel? Greetings from Canada :)
TheKnownWorld Of course I don't mind :) The name of the channel is Ceks7, the profile picture is a pic of Korbac from Fortress (my older bro always used to make fun of me by saying I look like him haha) and I stream almost every day, sometimes on English and sometimes on my native Croatian and I give away some random steam keys for indie games :) Thanks for taking your time to answer!
Actually, I've already set the release date of the next part to be October 8. I want to do another challenge for this month to hit my quota, so you can look forward to that one being released sometime in the next 4 weeks. :P
So~~ I've watched all. 1) Elixir of Life puzzle was fucking amazing! 2) I love how you move your hero in random (for me) direction and then b00m epic chain from nowhere. Love it. 3) The way you move your heroes on map (surrender, flee and move rest of army) is brilliant and i love watching it. 4) I wish you play some water level. Episode: Brave new World is your best work yet ;D I wish we can see more video like that. Thx for your work, let's go to the 2rd part!
You watched it all? Awesome! 1) I'm glad you enjoyed the puzzle for the Elixir of Life! 2/3) Hero chaining and Poor Man's Town Portal can be tricky tactics - I'm just happy that I actually set them up properly from time to time, and that you like watching me do so. ;) 4) I actually wouldn't mind playing more water-based maps, but I just don't know of any good way to set those up. Random maps with the Islands setting are hardly satisfactory, and I'm not familiar enough with the other scenarios to determine which of them contain ample amounts of water and which ones don't. I hope you enjoy Part 2! Thanks for watching and commenting!
Thank you for your kind words, but you're giving me too much credit! There are so many other players who are more skilled than I am, such as dave_hun (www.twitch.tv/dave_hun) and huanito6803 (ru-vid.com) to name a few. I'm just using the strategies that I've seen get used by higher-level players. Either way, it's nice to hear that you enjoy my content!
Thank you for the video I know I stopped commenting but I didn't stop watching I'm sick rn and it's a long weekend so I have a lot to watch thanks to you keep up the good work:)
Yes, it was! What a relief to finally get the components for the Elixir of Life. Too bad the Elixir of Life doesn't actually work on the Undead! Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed my commentary style! Thanks for watching and subscribing!
lol, priorities. :P I haven't yet played a match where I've set myself up against 7 Conflux AI at once. Admittedly, someone else made a request where they wanted to see me play as Inferno against 7 Conflux AI all on the same team, but I still haven't gotten around to giving that one a try yet.
Hey MeKick! Why are you not using Death Ripple in sieges, with small amount of troops? I mean you have expert earth magic + orb. Not a fun of that spell or you other reason? Keep up the great work, waiting for 2nd part! P.S. Im glad GOD gave me a chance to find you on youtube, have watched almost all of your vids! :D
Hello! First of all, it sounds to me like you're enjoying my videos, which is great to hear! :D To answer your question, by my recollection I did use Death Ripple during sieges with small numbers of enemy troops. Whether or not I started doing so in this part or the next is beyond me, but I do recall some sieges where I had my hero cast Death Ripple to try and deal the maximum amount of damage to opposing armies. Of course, part of the problem with Death Ripple is also that with a low amount of Spell Power, Death Ripple does far too little damage to be worth using, which could explain why I avoided using it early on in the match as well. Part 2 will be released on October 8. Thanks for your support!
Generate map and ask someone to put azure dragon building (dont know what is its name?) and resources for one of them and start with buying one! Would be interesting becouse of the fact, that you can't recruit more heroes before you coud get next dragon I'd like to see it!
BEST PART EVER 1:45:20 ahahahahaha "I could go in and build a mage guild, but instead.... I HAVE ENOUGH! I HAVE ENOUGH!!!" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I have been sitting by the edge of my seat for those last 10 minutes thinking "Will he get the elixir? WILL HE DO IT????" Oh, man...... so good, just so good
Just a little language reference :) In official Russian version of the game he (gargoyle specialist) is "Пигедрам" (Pygedram) or sometimes it's "Пигуэдрам" (Pyguadram). He definitely isn't "Пайкедрам" (your variant). Although it sounds alright :)
Thanks for the input! Perhaps my wording was a little bit unclear. By my understanding, some of the Russians who play in competitive leagues (particularly, Heroes World) refer to Piquedram as "Pikedrill", a name which I eventually started using because it feels right to me. To be honest, this statement could just be a figment of my imagination and I could be completely wrong about any Russians actually calling out the name Piquedram as "Pikedrill", but this is what I recall once hearing from someone else and I've stuck with it ever since. Cheers!
I would like to see a slow 1v1 MP match for RU-vid where you explain your moves as you go. On Twitch there's really no time for that and it's more back and forth with the chat.
Thanks for the feedback! I suppose that it is a bit odd for me not to have an actual (non-Twitch VOD) RU-vid video of myself playing PvP despite all of the Twitch streams I've done. I'll keep this request in mind, but I'm not going to guarantee anything given how many other videos I still have yet to do (i.e. future Let's Play Heroes III episodes, the Heroes III Campaign, The More You Know, etc.). While this might be a bit of a stretch, have you checked out Meridian's channel (ru-vid.com) by any chance? Meridian has recorded himself playing many games against human opponents on his channel while delivering a commentary where he explains his moves as he plays.
I played with cheats for few hours, I had 50 000 of them in a single stack and got 1 new for each enemy defeated. 6 pcs were defeated 1 left, i went to explore some Island... "Do you wanna engage those Hydras?" Me : yes ofc, Hydras: 5 stacks of 750... Lost my hero and lost my shit 😂
TLDR: Is Hota good? Is it good on old Maps too? Awesome! I found your Channel through reddit and i'm glad that there's a HOM III Community i can join :) I got a question because of Hota. I downloaded it today and would like some opinions about it. The balance changes look reasonable but is it really that good? For sure i gonna try everything out i mean a whole new race is really interesting but if some of you played it i would like to hear some opinions :)
there aren't really to many downsides, i don't really like the new faction but it's not bad. The new artifacts are kind of cool. It makes playing necromancer more interesting since it nerfs necromancy. And the starting armies of dungeon are a bit smaller. it comes with a bunch of maps, some of which are better than others but they are ok. it's a bit more content without really changing anything fundamental. + with hd mod it prompts you if you want to start hota or hd. which means that it's not a hassle to switch between. there are some quality of life changes. You won't get navigation on a map without water and stuff like that. so tldr: Necro is less op. New artifacts. New maps small campaign. new faction no real fundamental changes. (except maybe how spell specialisations work, but i'm not sure if that is just the new faction or not)
Hello, and welcome to TheKnownWorld! Summing it up very quickly, I would argue that HotA is good overall, despite some misgivings I have concerning the mod that I'll explain below. At the very least, HotA is certainly worth trying if you're a Heroes III fanatic looking for a "fresh" experience that offers some new aspects to the game yet doesn't deviate too far from the original gameplay. As I mentioned in the video, HotA not only introduces balance changes, but offers a brand new roster of scenarios, campaigns, and an online multiplayer lobby system as well. HotA is also compatible with older maps (that is, maps from Restoration of Erathia, Armageddon's Blade, and Shadow of Death). Of course, HotA-specific balance changes will be in effect if you do decide to play those maps on HotA. Now, regarding the balance changes that you asked about, there are some mixed opinions on the rebalancing done by HotA. The majority of the balance changes are (arguably) positive. Factions that were often considered the strongest for competitive play in the original game (namely, Necropolis and Conflux) were nerfed so that they weren't brutally overpowered. On the other hand, "weaker" factions such as Inferno and Tower were tweaked to make them much more viable. In my opinion, not all of the balance changes that got introduced were good. My main two criticisms regarding the balance changes involve the introduction of Cove, a faction that (for various reasons) feels slightly overpowered, and the overnerfing of Conflux (Conflux was nerfed to the point where it feels weaker than the other factions in HotA). I could elaborate a bit more, but these changes aren't the focus of this post. Anyway, regardless of these "drawbacks", I would still recommend trying out HotA. It's a lot of fun, and for all we know, you might even enjoy the nerfed Conflux and the new faction. I hope that this explanation helps!
2:49:41 could have possibly get that orb of earth magic to boost meteor shower 50% would've actually helped quite a bit Edit: 2:51:38 could've just waited 2min with my comment though lol
I think there is a feature in the HD mod that allows your heroes to "memories " those artifacts they have equipped, and than switch to the right set. It's like ctrl+1 for the Wizards Well and than ctrl+2 for the battle artifacts. After that you can just press "1" or "2" to reequip. I haven't noticed you ever using this though it's pretty convenient.
Thanks for the feedback! You're right in that such a feature exists within the HD mod, and I have used it a few times during my Twitch streams (particularly, when I have to continually switch my setup from turn to turn). I neglected to use it here, but I'll try to remember this for future videos.
Can I ask you for something? Can you explain what those crafted items do? I've played Homm3 when I was 10 (2002) and I had no idea you can craft items. I saw it few times in your older videos but every time I need to stop video and search for it in google. And if you can just briefly tell ,,that sword gives you +3 power" would be great. No more, just simple what items do. I see a god damn bronze disk and I have no idea what it is. I can't even google it - I have no idea how it's called even. Thx for all your videos, have a ncie day!
Oh, I see what you're talking about. You want me to explain what the combination artifacts do, as well as giving a summary of the newer artifacts that were introduced into HotA. I'll try my best to do so, but that's as much as I can really say. You're not the first person to request this and I've been trying my best to give a quick summary of artifacts as I pick them up, but I sometimes forget to do this.
Hey, what do you think about only tier 7 units challenge? You are only allowed tier 7 units and one tier 1 starting unit so your hero doesn't dismiss. Thumbs up for tier 7 challenge!
I wouldn't quite know how I would build up to Tier 7 units without actually using any other units to make it to that point. Besides, I'm a little sick of Tier-based challenges at this point.
This proposition has already been brought up by several others, but I simply don't like the premise of this challenge given the amount of randomness associated with trying to find the Grail. In particular, if the Grail starts right next to an enemy AI player that has started on the other side of the map from myself, then I would have no way of influencing the match such that I could beat them to it. Conversely, if the Grail happens to be placed in my starting area or a nearby zone, then the match would likely turn into a joke rather quickly.
Yes, I have, and I believe a sub-1.5 hour speedrun to be possible as well (I'm assuming, of course, that you're talking about this in terms of XL+U-sized maps). My main issue with doing this is that the timer pressure means that I don't get very much time to talk about my thought process as I make my moves.
Postcommentary would be a possible solution to the issue of having time/energy to explain your moves. I don't know if anyone has attempted this so it would be fun to see how it would work. I am also curious to what extent it is beneficial to use autocombat under the circumstances.
I'm aware that a post-game commentary is also a possibility, but I'm not too thrilled about the notion of finishing a match and then having to go back and rewatch the entire video just to commentate over it. I much prefer being able to record gameplay and audio simultaneously to make the best use of my time possible.
I really like HotA, is the general consensus of the community that it's not an improvement over the base game? , i get that cove is a "bit" over the top but still.
HotA has done a number of things in an effort to update and balance Heroes III, but can this be seen as an overall "improvement" to the base game? It really depends on who you are and what metric that you're using to measure the improvement. For example, some people have pointed out that a few of the balance changes (i.e. starting towns in random maps all having pre-built Tier 2 dwellings) that were added to HotA to make the game "easier" have actually made the game less enjoyable for them since they preferred the difficulties that were present in the original game. Having said that, I would like to think that for a lot of people (myself included), change can also be difficult to adjust to. Mainly for this reason, and also because I don't agree with some of the balancing and content that got introduced into HotA (such as the radical nerfing of Conflux or the Cove faction), I still *prefer* SoD to HotA. But does this mean that HotA isn't an improvement over SoD? Not necessarily.
Nice Video ! as always ! Can you do another skeletons only but in shadow of death ? We know how strong it can be but i want to see without the nerfs xD (can't play it myself)
Thanks! I was considering doing a Skeletons Only playthrough in Shadow of Death as well. Whether or not I do one will depend on viewer interest as well as how willing I am to play Necropolis again after having just trudged through 13 hours of this faction.
TheKnownWorld. Do it if you feel for it :) And don't worry for the "bad explanations" i think everyone who understands the game knows where you are going.
Not everyone. A lot of the less-experienced players have pointed out that they find my on the spot explanations to be confusing, to say the least. Either way, I'm glad you're alright with them.
TheKnownWorld. One last question, and thanks for answering ! I know you since like two months, watched almost all of your "let's play" videos, but i'm stuck because the part 4 of the wayfarer series is not working :/ and after like 20 hours of watching it feels sad. RU-vid says that the video is unavailable
Oh, sorry about that. In that episode, there was some copyrighted content that I used (I think it was music, if I recall correctly) which caused RU-vid to automatically ban my video in some countries. Try checking out www.twitch.tv/videos/100761181 if you want to watch Part 4 of my Wayfarer series. I appreciate your dedication in watching my content!
I found the AI to be far less capable in hommV, as in they wouldn't progress very far and it was often a let down late game. Did you have a different experience? I do really like the game but this problem ruins it for me since I usually play against AI with buddies.
lol, I don't quite see how getting all Tier 7 units would be a challenge. If there's at least one of every town present on the map, then the game would drag on just for me to collect at least one of every Tier 7 unit. If there isn't one of every town present, then there's no way for me to complete this "challenge". If you want to see a game where I use most of the factions (and some of their Tier 7 units), you might be interested in my Islands! playthrough (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-d1mwSwkwgA8.html). Regarding the tutorial videos, I'm glad that you enjoy them, but I haven't had the time or motivation as of recent to continue that series. In the future, I hope to try and complete The More You Know at some point, but I don't know quite when that will be. Cheers!
MK, actually, on 1:46:53 why didn't you buy Isra in Fortress town to give those arties straight to Vidomina, so she could hold the Elixir Of Life at once? Didn't get your point...
Yea) have to say, that moment with the goal to get Elixir of Life and the difficulties you faced was pretty exiting, I really worried about it and was happy like a child when you managed to make it right))) Wish there are more such moments in your future games)) Waiting for Part 2 with a cup of tea and few cookies...
Indeed, those last few turns of the month were gut-wrenching. It was quite a relief when I finally assembled the Elixir of Life on Vidomina, but still, I'm not sure if I'd want to do that again given how close I cut it this time around. I'm glad you shared my joy! :) Part 2 will be released on October 8.
Hi! Thanks for your videos mate, first of all ) And second, how about zombie challange? A lot of videos with a Galthran hero..a tons of sceletons. And almost nothing about start with a 2nd level units - walking dead.. Every1 talking about necropolis is a very strong. Just tell me how? )) Super slow start, slow units -> low movement speed, NO shooters until middle of week 3 may be. Im talking about 200% difficulty. I've started with a different castles, and necropilis is a HARDEST one. Dear author! Could you plese make a video-guile with a Straker start. And especialy combat with a zombies ) Without shooters. Almost everytime AI skips theier turns and move twive therir units in a row. Whats that means? That means i take all the damage 1st! Its lika a..face-tanking )) Is there and tactic to avoid this (because of big losses)? Yes you have a haste from the start with this hero (Straker), but its only 1 fight.. Yes its very easy to have a no-losses combat for...the Cave for example. Hard shooters from the beginning of the game. Boom-boom and you win. But slow units..without shooters. Eh...
![Heroes of Might and Magic III: Skeletons Only 1v7 FFA (200%) [ft. 50% Necromancy Nerf] {Part 1}](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
