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SECRET CAMPAIGN: Having won what seems to be the last campaign, you
will be sent back to the Main Menu after watching a final video that
concludes the story. Now try "Load Game," "Campaign," once again and
select your last saved game file, the one which you created just before
watching the last video!
PLAYER DIFFICULTY:
"Normal" level does not correspond to equal starting conditions without
handicaps, as one might assume. "Normal" gives additional starting
resources to the human player, and has the AI playing less intelligently
than it could. Likewise, the "Hard" difficulty level does not turn on
"cheating" for the computer player but instead removes the bonus for the
human player and the handicap for the AI. The computer player only gets
additional resources on levels above "Hard."
MAP DIFFICULTY:
This display is completely unrelated to the Player Difficulty discussed
above. The Map Difficulty estimate has been provided by the map designer
to give a rough assessment on the level of challenge provided by this
map as a consequence of its individual layout and design. Use the Player
Difficulty setting to make a "Hard" map easier or an "Easy" map more
challenging.
RATING:
This display is directly tied to the Player Difficulty setting but
ignores the Map Difficulty estimate. Rating shows the percentage
multiplier that will be applied to your score received upon completing
a scenario. Higher Player Difficulty settings will grant higher scores,
all other things being equal.
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VISITING HEROES:
Heroes shown on the Adventure Map as standing between the flags of a
town entrance are always visiting heroes. Garrison heroes or creatures
never show up anywhere on the Adventure Map. See the Combat section for
a description of visiting vs garrison troops during siege combat.
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CREATURE DWELLINGS:
Creature dwellings offer a fixed number of creatures, replenished once
per week, to any visiting hero whose flag will then be planted at the
dwelling. The actual number of creatures offered is equivalent to the
base production of that creature type in their native town type. Any
creature dwelling that flies your flag will also add one creature to
the weekly production of all of your towns with a corresponding
creature generator. This means that if you have flagged three Cursed
Temples on the Adventure Map and two Necropolis towns with a Cursed
Temple already built, each of these towns will offer three additional
Skeletons per week.
To fully exploit a creature dwelling you will have to keep sending
heroes there once per week. The bonus creatures added to a town's
production will accumulate along with regularly produced creatures
until you choose to buy them, but any creatures that were not fetched
from a dwelling in any given week will be lost.
The Dungeon Town's Portal of Summoning duplicates a random, flagged
dwelling's weekly production by offering the same number of creatures
again that is also, and additionally, available at the dwelling itself.
However, in this case too unhired creatures will be lost.
First-level creatures will join a hero for free when invited at their
dwelling but come at the usual price when added to a town's production.
Creatures purchased directly at a dwelling are always of basic quality
whereas creatures added to a town's production are hired at the same
quality (basic or upgraded) as the corresponding town structure. Their
price changes accordingly.
CURSED GROUND:
No spellcasting is possible and all positive luck and morale modifiers
are removed.
MAGIC PLAINS:
All adventure and combat spells are cast at expert proficiency.
IDOL OF FORTUNE:
While giving either a morale or a luck bonus on most days, the Idol
will give both bonuses on the 7th day of the week.
TEMPLE:
The morale bonus bestowed on your troops by the Temple is doubled on
the 7th day of the week.
Note that it is always a good idea to conquer cities on the day just
before the weekly creature growth because you will be able to replenish
your forces on the very next day. The enhanced powers of Idols and
Temples on the 7th day of the week are meant to encourage this
strategy.
HOLY GRAIL:
Once you have discovered the Holy Grail, you must bring it back to one
of your cities. Click on the Town Hall after the hero carrying the
Grail has entered the city. You will receive a new permanent, greatly
beneficial structure in that city.
OBELISK MAP:
The obelisk map is not usually identical with the corresponding terrain
on the adventure map. Obelisks are supposed to be ancient objects so
their maps will be missing towns and other structures that were
nonexistent at the time of their creation.
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INTERFACE REFERENCE/HEROES AND THE HERO SCREEN
HERO BIOGRAPHY:
Would you like to know more about your heroes? Left-click or right-click
the hero portrait in the upper left corner of the Hero Screen for a
short biography.
HERO SPECIALTY:
Some hero specialties come as bonuses to creatures, spells, or
secondary skills. The descriptions of these specialties state that the
bonus would increase "for every level after the nth". The bonus is not
actually increased by a fixed amount of points per level. Its
calculation merely involves the current hero level as a factor, as
follows:
Creature Specialty. The indicated creatures gain a percentage bonus to
their Attack and Defense ratings equivalent to (Hero Level / Creature
Level) x 5. Note that since Creature Level appears as denominator, it
can take a very long time before you see any effect at all on high
level creatures.
Spell Specialty. The effect of the indicated spell is enhanced by a
percentage value of (Hero Level / Creature Level) x 3, where "Creature
Level" is the level of the creature(s) targeted by the spell.
Skill Specialty. The effect of the indicated secondary skill is
enhanced by a percentage value of Hero Level x 5. Note that this
percentage value is multiplied with, rather than added to, the skill
value: a 10th level hero with a Logistics specialty and Expert
Logistics (30% movement bonus) receives an additional movement bonus
of 15% (10 x 5 = 50, and 30 x 50% = 15) for a total movement bonus of
30% + 15% = 45%.
HERO TRADING:
As described in the manual, two allied heroes can trade items and
troops when they meet on the Adventure Map. However, as stated in the
previous section, garrison heroes never appear on the Adventure Map.
This means you will need to remove a hero from the garrison slot before
this hero will be able to trade artifacts or war machines with another
hero, and any such trade must be initiated on the Adventure Screen.
Only troops can be traded between visiting and garrison heroes on the
Town Screen.
NECROMANCY:
After a victory in battle, if all seven creature slots of a victorious
hero with the Necromancy skill are already occupied, and none of these
creatures are Skeletons, and there is at least one Skeleton Warrior
present, then the Necromancy skill will resurrect fallen enemies as
Skeleton Warriors instead of Skeletons. This means a necromantic hero
may safely upgrade Skeletons to Skeleton Warriors without fear of
losing the effects of the Necromancy skill entirely.
Note, however, that the efficiency of the Necromancy skill is
drastically reduced in this case: only two thirds of the number of
Skeletons that would have been resurrected will appear as Skeleton
Warriors. This accounts for the improved attack, defense, and speed
ratings of Skeleton Warriors.
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INTERFACE REFERENCE/COMBAT
LUCK AND MORALE:
Luck and Morale are both affected by a number of modifiers pertaining
either to the hero (and therefore to all of his or her creatures alike)
or to the individual creature stacks.
HERO MODIFIERS:
Modifiers affecting all of your troops alike include the hero's Luck
and Leadership skills, artifacts carried by the hero, and any sites
visited whose effects are still active. Outside of combat, bring up
the Hero Screen and click on the luck or morale icon to see a breakdown
of all modifiers taken into account. No such breakdown is available
during a battle. Overall hero luck and morale are still shown by
right-clicking on the hero, however.
Creature Modifiers. Modifiers affecting individual creature stacks
include native conditions, such as constantly neutral morale for all
undead, the terrain morale bonus for creatures native to the current
terrain, the morale effect for combining creatures native to the same
or different town types, the morale penalty for mixing living creatures
with undead, effects created by a combat spell, or effects caused by
other creatures on the battlefield. On the Hero or Town Screen, first
click on a creature icon and then click on the luck or morale icon to
see a breakdown of all modifiers affecting that particular creature
stack. During combat, click on a creature when the cursor is turning
into a question mark and then right-click on the luck or morale icon.
MAXIMUM RANGE:
All ranged weapons have the same maximum range of ten hexagons beyond
which their attack is considered hampered in the same way as by city
walls. You will see a "broken arrow" cursor, and the attack will only
do half damage. Artifacts that remove the city wall penalty will also
remove the maximum range restriction, making them extremely valuable
to heroes with strong ranged attackers.
OBSTACLES:
Although the in-game text frequently speaks of "obstacles" that hamper
ranged attacks, city walls during a siege are actually the only such
"obstacle" in the game. Cliffs, trees, rocks and so on do not hamper
ranged attacks in any way.
SIEGE COMBAT:
When a hero attacks a town, the presence of garrison or visiting forces
in that town determines if, how many, and which battles must be fought
to win the town, as follows.
If there are no creatures (and consequently, no heroes) present at all,
either as visitors or garrison, then the town changes ownership
immediately, and without any combat.
If there are garrison troops present (with or without a garrison hero)
but no visiting hero then siege combat commences, and the victorious
side will occupy the town.
If there is a garrison hero as well as a visiting hero present then the
attacker must first defeat the visiting hero in regular combat. If
victorious, the attacker may then initiate siege combat against the
garrison hero. Only the outcome of this second battle decides ownership
of the town.
If there is a visiting hero present but no garrison troops (and
consequently, no garrison hero) then the visiting hero automatically
assumes the role of garrison hero. In this special case attack on a
visiting hero will initiate siege combat with the visiting hero's army
placed within the town walls (if any). Whoever wins the siege will
gain ownership of the town.
If there is an attack against a visiting hero, but there is no
garrison hero, the visiting hero will automatically combine his
forces with the garrison forces, if any, to form an army of the
most powerful units. Then siege combat is initiated against these
combined forces as described in the previous paragraph.
If the attack fails the defending hero will be placed back in the
Visiting Hero slot, keeping all surviving garrison creatures that
were transferred to his army. If the attack is successful any
remaining garrison creatures will be eliminated immediately, and
the town will change ownership.
Note that the presence of a garrison hero prevents a visiting hero
from defending the town during a siege. If you do not have a
sufficiently strong garrison hero available you might be better off
using no garrison at all and instead rely on a powerful visiting hero
to defend the town. Otherwise the presence of a weak garrison hero
would force your valuable visiting hero to fight without the aid of
fortifications, and then waste the weak garrison force during siege
combat. Only install a garrison hero if you have reasonably strong
forces available.
Also note that without a garrison hero, any garrison creatures that
cannot be absorbed into a visiting hero's army will be lost at no cost
to the attacker after a successful attack on a visiting hero. Try to
minimize these losses by swapping or upgrading and combining creature
stacks prior to an impending attack, or else hire a garrison hero to
prevent such losses altogether.
WAIT:
Creatures that waited when it was their move will become active again
at the end of the turn, but in reverse order. The fastest creature
will go last. The purpose is to give fast creatures an edge even if
they forfeit their first chance to act. By moving last, they can react
to everybody else's actions, and they may even be able to move twice
in a row (last in one turn, first in the next).
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INTERFACE REFERENCE/TOWNS
CREATURE GENERATION:
Right-click on any of the Creature Generation icons to find out how
the weekly production of this creature type is calculated. The display
will show modifiers incurred by various Town Structures as well as the
effect of flagged Creature Dwellings.
FORTS:
Clicking on a Fort, Citadel, or Castle structure not only displays the
troops available for recruitment but also allows you to recruit any or
all of them without going to their individual dwellings.
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CASTLE TOWNS:
Angels and Archangels grant a +1 morale bonus to all friendly troops.
DUNGEON TOWNS:
Minotaurs and Minotaur Kings always have positive morale. They will
never fall below a morale of +1 even when the current set of modifiers
causes neutral or negative morale for other friendly troops.
The Mana Vortex structure only works once per week. Each week, only
the first hero to visit a Dungeon Town with a Mana Vortex will receive
twice his or her maximum spell points. The Mana Vortex will then
become inactive till the first day of the next week.
FORTRESS TOWNS:
The moat added by the Citadel and Castle structures is two hexagons
wide instead of one. As usual, entering any moat hex ends the turn
of creatures using ground movement. Such creatures therefore require
at least three turns to cross the moat of a Fortress town.
INFERNO TOWNS:
As with any creature that can strike multiple foes at once, no
retaliation is possible against the attack of a Cerberus.
NECROPOLIS TOWNS:
The special healing and resurrection ability of Vampire Lords only
applies to their own stack. After executing an attack Vampire Lords
gain an amount of hit points equal to the damage they just inflicted
on their enemies. Use of this special ability is fully automatic and
does not require any player interaction.
Note that Vampire Lords can only drain hit points from living
creatures, not from other undead or magically animated creatures
such as Golems or Gargoyles. Likewise, the ranged attack of Liches
and Power Liches does not damage "all non-undead creatures in
adjacent hexes" but only living creatures, excluding not only undead
but also magically animated creatures. However, the creature in the
target hexagon proper always takes damage.
RAMPART TOWNS:
Unicorns and War Unicorns do not themselves benefit from the aura
of magical resistance they project on neighboring hexagons. However,
two adjacent Unicorn stacks will bestow magical resistance on each
other.
STRONGHOLD TOWNS:
The Ogre Magi's Bloodlust spell is affected by Magic Plains and
Cursed Ground in the same way as hero spells are. Otherwise Bloodlust
is cast at a Power of six and with Advanced expertise in the School
of Fire Magic.
Instead of the usual moat, Citadels and Castles place two large
obstacles covering more than a dozen hexagons in front of the city
walls. These obstacles do not protect the walls themselves, but they
may hinder the enemy's advance across the battlefield.
TOWER TOWNS:
Stone and Iron Golems always have neutral morale, just like undead
troops.
The special ability of Master Genies (one random beneficial spell
per combat round) is restricted to three uses per combat for each
stack of Master Genies. The spells are affected by Magic Plains and
Cursed Ground in the same way as hero spells are. Otherwise the
spells are cast at a Power of six and with Advanced expertise in
the corresponding school. Although their spells are basically random,
Master Genies are clever enough not to cast an already existing spell
on a creature, nor a spell that is obviously useless in the current
situation. For instance, they will not cast Protection from Earth
unless there is an enemy spellcaster present.
Citadels and Castles add a belt of land mines in place of the
usual moat. Each hexagon next to the city walls contains one land
mine, with the exception of the hexagon in front of the drawbridge.
NEUTRAL CREATURES:
The descriptions for the various Elemental creatures list spells
that are not in the game. The correct list of spell immunities and
vulnerabilities is as follows:
Air Elementals are immune to Blind and Meteor Shower but take
double damage from Lightning and Chain Lightning.
Earth Elementals are immune to Lightning and Chain Lightning but take
double damage from Meteor Shower.
Fire Elementals are immune to all Fire School spells (including
Fire Shield cast as a protective spell) but take double damage
from Ice Bolt and Frost Ring.
Water Elementals are immune to Ice Bolt and Frost Ring but take
double damage from Fire Wall, Fireball, Inferno, and the effects
of a Fire Shield protecting their target.
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8) Game Update
All players in a multi-player game must have the same version of
Heroes III. If you attempt to play with someone who is using version
1.0, please instruct that person to update Heroes III using the Game
Update feature.
To use Game Update, click the Windows Start button, select Programs,
then 3DO, then Heroes of Might and Magic III, then Game Update.
Also, you can use Game Update to update your version of Heroes III,
should an updated version become available.
If you have any difficulty using Game Update or if you do not have
an internet connection, contact our Customer Support department.
Contact information is provided at the end of this readme file.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
9) Purchasing 3DO Software
You can order other 3DO software directly from 3DO through our order web
page at http://www.3do.com/direct, or you can call the 3DO Direct line
at 800-336-3506 (outside the United States at 650-261-3227).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
10) Contacting Customer Support
For technical problems or questions:
3DO Customer Support Website:
http://www.3do.com/support (includes an email question form)
E-mail:
customer-support@3do.com
Phone:
Monday through Friday
from 9 a.m. to 12 noon and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time, at (650)
261-3454.
Fax number:
(650) 261-3419.
Copyright 1999 The 3DO Company. All Rights Reserved. Heroes of Might
and Magic, New World Computing, 3DO, and their respective logos, are
trademarks and/or service marks of The 3DO Company in the U.S. and
other countries. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.
New World Computing is a division of The 3DO Company.
--The End--