A Town Guide

The first thing you need to consider when starting a Heroes III game is what town type to take. In the campaigns, that decision is made for you, but in multiplayer games and individual scenarios, you can usually choose to start as one of eight different town types. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, which we will explain shortly.

You should be comfortable with the town that you choose and be aware of its creatures' capabilities, special buildings, and magic propensities. However, during the course of a scenario, you will very likely have the opportunity to take other town types. Your starting town should thus be your headquarters. Most of your troops will come from here, but you definitely don't want to stay restricted to this town no matter how powerful it might be. Take other town types and bolster your armies and production capability at every opportunity.

Two Starting Strategies; Military or Economic

No matter what town you decide to start with, there are two general building choices you need to make. Heroes III's town building aspect is more complex than Heroes II's, and it provides you with a real choice between a military buildup or an economic one. Basically, the first week of any game is crucial. However, there are two roads you can take. You can either climb up the "tech tree" by building all your unit dwellings and upgrading them as fast as possible, or you can decide to pump up your economy and quickly upgrade your town hall, acquire non-dwellings like marketplaces and blacksmiths, while only building the bare minimum creature dwellings. The question really is one of quality versus quantity, and it must be decided in the first week. Later on, there isn't much of a question because the two paths become intertwined, but in the early game, you have to decide which of these two tracks you'll take.

If you go the military route and concentrate on creature dwellings, you will get a headstart in both the type and number of troops you'll have at your disposal. If you had a tower town, for example, you could swiftly climb to a naga dwelling by the end of the week, thus acquiring this powerful sixth-level creature just in time for a new week of conquest. The obvious benefit is that you can acquire stronger troops than your enemies. At such an early stage in the game, it is crucial that you get the leg up on military strength, not only to fight your enemies, but also to dispatch wandering monsters and take the mines and artifacts they guard. However, the drawback to this strategy is that you are pouring so much of your resources into building your creature dwellings that you have none left to recruit those creatures. Sure, you'll have that naga dwelling, but you'll only have enough gold now to purchase maybe one or two of them, and nothing else. Sometimes even a few of these powerful high-level creatures is enough to batter any wandering monsters, but if the neighboring enemy necromancer comes at you with a horde of skeletons, your two nagas might be in trouble. You'll need to judge for yourself within the first two days of the scenario whether to take this path by seeing if the surrounding land is rich in resources and treasure chests. If it is, by all means, scramble up the tech tree and don't worry about the lack of gold. The powerful troops this strategy will give you will allow you to take the gold from guarded chests, thus refilling those empty coffers.