Secondary skills, continued

Diplomacy
This was one of the more useless skills from Heroes II, but it is much better in Heroes III. As you advance, you are more likely to recruit wandering monsters. In the later game, when you have lots of gold, this ability becomes useful for amassing hordes of troops. And at the expert level, it's not really a question of whether or not a wandering stack will join you, but whether you want them to or not. You're more likely to get wandering monsters to join if you have a stack of the same creatures in your army. Of course, you don't want to give this ability to every hero, and only one hero should really have this ability. If one hero already has diplomacy, avoid it for all your other heroes.

Likely students: Cleric

Eagle Eye
This skill wasn't very useful in Heroes II and it isn't very useful in Heroes III, unless you are a witch or battle mage, in which case you want to advance to expert level and learn some fourth-level spells. Unfortunately, using this skill pretty much assumes that you are going to be battered by many harmful spells in order to gain any benefits. In multiplayer games, human opponents are very likely to cast magic, so as a witch or battle mage, you can chase after enemy warlocks or wizards, bet on them casting a spell or two, and then finish them off with your troops. Wizards, warlocks, and other powerful magic classes shouldn't bother with this skill at all because you'll learn plenty of magic from your town and other conquered ones as well. And you don't have a magic deficiency that would necessitate learning this skill. You should instead concentrate on learning all the schools of magic and a few other, more valuable skills.

Likely students: Witch, warlock, necromancer, druid

Earth Magic
This magic skill is an extremely useful skill to acquire, as are all the magic schools. Earth magic offers some truly destructive spells, including meteor shower and the most powerful attack spell of all: implosion. This school also has town portal and anti-magic. Basic skill in earth magic reduces casting costs by one point per level of spell. Ideally, your spellcasters should try to master all schools.

Likely students: Necromancer, warlock

Estates
Estates is a skill you want several heroes to have, especially if you have an expensive town type to support. It isn't really necessary to have every hero acquire this skill, but if you have at least half of your heroes learn this skill, you are gaining an extra 2000 gold a day at expert level. A little extra spending money goes a long way in Heroes III, so learn this skill.

Likely students: Knight, wizard, warlock