HOMM 3 : Strategy on Liberation 4 "Tunnels and Troglodytes"
Sebastien Patenaude
large-sized map of hard difficulty rating. The objective is to drive the
Dungeon forces out of Erathia through the tunnels they used to invade.
You start with one of each good town (Rampart, Castle, Tower) and 3
heroes of level 3 : Christian the Knight, Jenova the Ranger and our own
infamous Astral the Wizard (who was really created in honour of Phil
McCrum the Astral Wizard for those who were wondering). Most of the
surface land is water and the action will mostly take place underground.
The enemy only starts with 2 more towns (not even forts) than you and
all of his towns are Dungeons. I finished this scenario on month 3, week
2, day 4 on my first play.
0) As your starting bonus, the best choice would be the three Level 1
Mage Guilds. Since the Mage Guilds are requirements for other creature
dwellings in all your towns, you might as well get them built free of
charge because you're going to get them anyway. It will also serve to
make your week 1 building orders a little quicker.
1) Make your starting heroes enter their nearby towns so they can get
some starting spells. Don't forget to buy spell books for Christian and
Jenova.
2) When you build structures at the end of turns (except on day 1 where
it's at the start of the turn), try to follow the same order each time:
from town you most want to develop (the one you think will be most
useful) to the town you least want to develop. Something like
Castle-Tower-Rampart or Tower-Rampart-Castle. I know that I have often
suggested when the players starts with more than 1 town to concentrate
on creature production in one and concentrate on gold production in the
others. This map is an exception. I decided to go for creature
production in every town since they were all partially built-up. The
three first creature dwellings are already built in each town and I took
the 3 Mage Guilds bonus. Here are my suggested week 1 building orders :
Castle
1) Upgraded Archer Tower
2) Blacksmith
3) Barracks
4) Monastery
5) Stables
6) Training Grounds
7) Citadel
Rampart
1) Upgraded Homestead
2) Miners Guild
3) Dendroid Arches
4) Citadel
5) Dendroid Saplings
6) Enchanted Spring
7) Unicorn Glade
Tower
1) Upgraded Workshop
2) Sculptor Wings
3) Mage Tower
4) Citadel
5) Golden Pavilion
6) Skipped because of lack of resources
7) Altar of Wishes
Building notes : You'll notice that in each town I upgraded an existing
structure on day 1. Those are the critical most essential early upgrades
for each of those good towns (the shooters) but that in most cases I
will delay doing until week 2. Citadels were built on day 4 in the
Rampart and Tower while they are usually built around day 7 instead.
This is due to lack of gold and resources. The exact building order does
not matter much as long as you manage to build most of the structures
you want to build (in my case, I wanted the first 6 creature dwellings
and the Citadel in each town by the end of the week).
3) On day 1, buy the troops in your towns except Dwarves, Golems and
Pikemen. Upgrade the Elves, Gremlins and Archers your heroes started
with. Leave the Dwarves and Golems in the town garrisons; they will only
slow you down. You will not buy any more town troops until much later.
4) Buy 1 extra hero in each town (preferably associated with the town of
the same type). This will set you back by 7500 gold, around 9000 gold if
they're Might heroes and you have to buy spell books. You won't be able
to hire all those extra secondary heroes on day 1 so instead hire one
per day until you have 3 (two hired heroes on day 1 is also good but
more risky). Combine troops so you have 3 main armies: 1 Rampart army, 1
Castle army and 1 Tower army. The 3 secondary heroes should have a fast
low-level troop and serve as squires and scouts.
5) It is quite probable you will get Summon Boat in one of your Mage
Guilds (it's level 1 now instead of level 2 like in HOMM 2). Very useful
spell to have especially for your secondary heroes who will navigate.
6) Most magic heroes start with a default spell in their spell book that
is not always evident. I'm not talking about the spell specialists here
(such as Solmyr with Chain Lightning or Astral with Hypnotize), I'm
talking about standard magic heroes such as Gem who might start with a
spell such as Summon Boat for example... This is not mentioned anywhere
in the manual but it is good to know.
7) As in most maps, in the first few weeks, always try to take gold from
chests (except perhaps for the 2000 gold/1500 experience chests where
you might be tempted to pick experience a few times for your main hero)
8) In week 1, flag almost all the mines and creature dwellings in your
home territory. Do not enter subterranean gates just yet (although in
hindsight you might, only the center one has an ambush but when I first
played I did not know that, so erred on the side of caution). I did
write "flag" the external creature dwellings, not necessarily buy the
troops inside them especially since gold will be lacking and you'll need
all of it to build structures. Golems from the Golem Factory I might not
buy for example but Swordsmen I'd be more tempted too. Try to use your
best judgement, this is not an exact science ;-) Starting in week 2 or 3
you won't have to be so economical anymore, you'll be able to afford
those creatures from adventure map dwellings each week (well the ones
you want to have, I never bothered with Golems much ;-)
9) I cannot know for sure but it seems stacks are inclined to join
(perhaps they were set like that in the map editor). Something for sure
though, you have a better chance of having troops join you if they're of
the same type as the majority of your army (for example: a group of
Archers would be more likely to join a strong knight army with Pikemen,
Marksmen and Griffins). I do not know if having an army composed
exclusively of troops of a certain town type is better than simply
having a majority of troops of that town type.
10) You do not really need to upgrade any other creature dwellings in
your towns right away since there's a Hill Fort just north of the Tower.
However later in the game, it's more convenient to upgrade the dwellings
anyway so you don't have to make such a long trip.
11) Trade a little Mercury and Sulfur for missing gold and resources at
the Trading Post north of the Tower. When you have 3 marketplaces, don't
bother using it anymore.
12) In week 2, do buy any more troops right away except perhaps more
Centaurs and Grand Elves.
13) The construction objective for this week is the Portal of Glory, the
Cloud Temple and Castles in each town (for extra creature production).
14) Send 2 scouts by boat (bought at the 2 shipyards) and 2 scouts to
the underground by subterranean gates (the center gate is protected by
troglodytes on the other side). When they've picked up the free
resources and gold they should come back up to the surface.
15) Early in week 2, I had 3 Marketplaces and 8 heroes.
16) Do not buy any War Machines in the first 2 weeks.
17) Go for City Halls in the Knight's Castle and the Wizard's Tower.
18) Christian (one of the main heroes) should go underground by mid-week
(he used the southern subterranean gate since the Hill Fort was closer
to it) while the 2 other main heroes (Jenova leading Rampart troops and
Astral leading Tower troops) will continue exploring and killing off
wandering stacks on the surface. When Jenova is mostly done clearing out
the north surface section (around the Rampart) she should head
underground too using the northern subterranean gate (this will be
around week 3 or 4)
18a) On the way to the Hill Fort, Christian should enter and exit the
center subterranean gate to simply clear out the horde of Troglodytes on
the other side (should be easy with Marksmen). Another secondary hero
can then pick up the resources below while Christian continues on his
way south.
18b) Near the center subterranean gate, you will see a weird blue hat
protected by a horde of Harpy Hags. Although it is an amazing artifact
called the Spellbinder's Hat, giving you access to all the level 5
spells, you do not need to attack the Harpy Hags to get it right away.
It can wait. Besides, none of your heroes would really have the wisdom
or the spell points to make good use of it right now.
19) You'll find plenty of wood in the water. You'll never really lack in
it so trading your extra wood makes a lot of sense.
20) By day 6 of week 2, I realized that in addition to the Cloud Temple
and Portal of Glory, I could make the Dragon Cliffs too. So by the end
of week 2, I had managed to get the three level 7 dwellings and 2
Castles. With more aggressive trading, I could have had 3 Castles so you
might want to try your luck ;-) For more beginning players, do not worry
if this seems impossible, managing to build just one level 7 dwelling
and the Castle in your favorite town is good enough :-)
21) In week 3, try to get your Capitol (for 4000 gold each day)
22) Something I did not realize very quickly and that came off as a bit
of surprise is that after you build the shipyard in the Knight's Castle,
you can build a Lighthouse to improve the navigation movement of your
heroes !
23) Do not upgrade any structures in your towns just yet.
24) Buy the City Halls in the towns that don't have them and then the
Resource Silos.
25) Around this time, you should feel freer to take experience from
chests especially for your 3 main heroes.
26) In week 4, I started building up the Mage Guild in the Tower. It's
always more advantageous to develop Mage Guilds in Towers because with
the Library they get one extra spell per level plus they can go all the
way to level 5 which certain other towns cannot do (Stronghold and
Fortress are limited to level 3 while Castle is limited to level 4).
27) In week 4, you should continue your underground assault and sea
exploration as usual. I had one army (led by Christian) comprised of
Marksmen, Royal Griffins, Halberdiers and Crusaders (all troops upgraded
at Hill Fort except for Marksmen). My second army (led by Jenova) was
comprised of Grand Elves, Centaurs, Pegasi and Swordsmen (not upgraded
because Hill Fort was too far away). Those were starting troops, troops
initially bought on day 1 or troops bought from adventure map dwellings
(no troops bought and transferred by hero chain from surface towns).
Both those armies also had reinforcements from Harpies, Medusas and
Beholders that joined them for greater glory or were bought at external
dwellings such as Harpy Lofts and Pillars of Eyes.
28) You'll come upon some garrisons soon enough, not far beyond these
are the first Dungeon towns you will capture. Kill any enemy heroes you
encounter preferably when they're outside their towns.
29) In those garrison battles, target the Beholders first.
30) The underground is composed of a large main tunnel going from west
to east in the center and 2 secondary tunnels also roughly going from
west to east but with plenty of curves. On each secondary tunnel, there
are 2 Dungeons (overall it's like they're laid out in a four-leaf clover
formation). At the end of the main tunnel, there is the most powerful
Dungeon that you should take last of all.
31) Since I had so much gold, I was also buying troops and preparing a
strong Tower army that would constitute the second wave assault. I
would upgrade those troops at the nearby Hill Fort and have an even
stronger force.
32) Around week 5 (and possibly before I'm not sure), I started
upgrading structures in the Rampart in preparation for the third wave
assault, however I did not buy troops there yet. My gold went mostly
towards buying Tower troops and upgrading them.
33) With the Tower troops, I eventually formed 2 armies: the main
offensive one that would have Titans, Archmagi, Naga Queens and Master
Genies and the secondary defensive army that would have Master Gremlins,
Iron Golems, Obsidian Gargoyles and 4 single-unit stacks of Master
Genies. Both armies went underground in week 5 and never came back until
the Dungeon Overlords were defeated.
34) By end of week 5, I had captured 3 Dungeons out of 5 (the wizard
armies had not even captured anything yet)
35) In week 6, I bought all the Rampart troops I had accumulated (except
Dendroids I never bought and Battle Dwarves who could also be skipped
but that I bought anyway) for the third wave assault. I kept expecting a
stronger opposition, which never really materialized. Some relatively
strong Dungeon enemies did manage to sneak through and capture some of
their Dungeons back but they never kept them for very long.
36) Out of pure luck, I found a shipwreck survivor next to the Shipwreck
(surface) that gave me a Tome of Water Magic (this gives you all water
spells). There are some "locations" giving out random items that have a
small probability of giving out extremely powerful relic artifacts
(Warrior's Tomb is also like that). I personally think that this is a
just a bit too unbalancing.
37) In the underground, you will see gray caverns in the corners that
are linked by monoliths. They are shortcuts permitting you to travel
more quickly from the southwest to the northeast and from the northwest
to the southeast.
38) If you're lucky and clever, it's quite possible to catch empty towns
on day 1 before the computer has time to buy the troops inside. Being
quick and aggressive, not to mention your main army not being distracted
in enemy territory by out-of-way mines, resources, locations until the
town is captured, helps in that regard. Picking up stuff and flagging
locations/mines should be the job of secondary heroes. The main heroes
should fight and conquer.
39) I eventually built up to 2 Dragon Caves in 2 of the Dungeons (the
eastern ones are best because they're closer to the last Dungeon), even
the Mage Guilds too for the heroes that had not gone back to the surface
for so long.
40) When new towns are captured and visited by main heroes, I always
like to build the statistics boosting structure such as the Cage of
Warlords (Defense +1) or the Wall of Knowledge (Knowledge +1). I rarely
build those structures in main towns but I often do in newly captured
towns. I also like to stay "overnight" to regain my spell points while
only leaving the fastest troop in the hero's row while the other slower
troops are in the garrison row. The following day, my hero will move
according to the fastest troop movement rate even though the slower
troops are reintegrated in his army. That's a very old trick in HOMM
games that's still useful but less so in HOMM 3. If you're confused by
my explanation, check out the Movement Allowance table on page 15 of
your manual. To quote it: "How far a given hero can move is determined
by the speed of the slowest creature in their army". That little
overnight shuffle permits you to override that little restriction for
one day.
40a) For newly captured Dungeons in particular, building the Mana Vortex
is also quite nice since it doubles the total of your spell points.
41) In newly captured enemy towns in general, I also tend to build money
halls (town hall, city hall) and Mage Guilds. However if the Fort is
already built and several creature dwellings are also built, then I will
have a stronger tendency to continue building other creature dwellings
(after the money halls have been done of course but usually they are
already built).
42) This is completely optional and unnecessary but for those interested
in what is worthwhile on the surface sea islands... there is a black
Keymaster's tent, a cartographer in the center protected by Water
Elementals and a Cyclops island with a Cyclops Cave and Cyclops
Stockpile. The surface land you will see to the east contains no enemy
town.
43) Some people might realize by now that I haven't really bought any
new Castle troops after week 1 and they would be quite right. It turns
out that the Rampart, Tower and Dungeon armies were quite enough.
However, I did buy a few Castle troops to fend off an orange enemy who
had sneaked into my territory by monolith. So in my opinion, you could
do quite well by only buying troops from one of your starting towns and
adding to them with Dungeon troops underground. It's cliché I know but
it's better to prepare for the worse and hope for the best. At least
with my strategies, you have plenty of troop reserves if you decide to
take more time or if anything goes wrong underground :-)
44) By the start of month 3, I only had 1 Dungeon town left to capture
(the one at the end of the main tunnel) and so I was getting prepared
for the final assault.
45) You have 2 ways of doing this : the conventional way by combining
all your best high-level troops on your best hero or by attacking with 2
different armies one after the other. I went the second way...
46) The final enemy army included 159 Evil Eyes, 530 Infernal
Troglodytes, 88 Medusa Queens, 47 Minotaur Kings, 220 Harpy Hags, 25
Scorpicores and 2 Black Dragons. The hero leading them was a powerful
Troglodyte overlord with statistics of 14,19,10,8.
47) I attacked first with my Rampart troops in the hope of weakening the
enemy as much as I could. My troops got clobbered worse than I had
thought, barely making a dent in the enemy ranks (those were Rampart
troops from about a month and a half accumulation, that had fought
several battles before and that were led by Christian, now a level 14
Knight)
48) I then attacked with the strongest Dungeon army I could muster
myself: 160 Evil Eyes, 44 Scorpicores, 414 Infernal Troglodytes, 69
Minotaur Kings, 107 Medusa Queens, 334 Harpy Hags and 17 Red Dragons led
by a level 17 Alchemist (stats : 12,9,19,14) while the main enemy,
Arlach, was now at stats of 15,21,10,8. What is quite surprising is that
the computer thought his army was stronger than mine because it
attacked me outside of his fully built Dungeon ! I won without too much
trouble but who knows what might have happened if he had more Black
Dragons or if he had done the wise move and stayed in his town waiting
for me to attack (which I had done with Christian)
49) In any case, with only 1 Dungeon left and me having 3 towns plus 4
Dungeons underground, it was only a matter of time before he was
destroyed. I'm fairly certain that this very strong overlord was limited
to a small patrol radius, which dramatically reduced his effectiveness.
50) And not to forget, I also had that huge Tower army a little farther
away and all those unbought knight troops in reserve ;-)
I finished the Liberation campaign in 208 days for 1095 points and a
rating of Dendroid Guard.
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