Terrain Considerations

Just as terrain affects your movement on the strategic map, so too does it affect your units on the tactical map. Different terrain types have varying effects on tactical combat. Basically, creatures fighting on their native terrain gain a +1 bonus to speed. Golems and gargoyles fighting on snow terrain, for example, move one hex faster. (For a list of each town type's native terrain, read your Heroes III manual)

Another type of terrain that affects combat is obstacles such as lakes, stalactites, and rocks. These will impede the movement of your ground troops, although the terrain doesn't affect fliers and devils when moving. Obviously, obstacles can be used to tactical advantage.

There are two other types of terrain that affect combat, in a much more drastic fashion than just extra movement. These two terrain types affect your spell casting.

Cursed Ground
The skull-laden, bleak landscape of cursed ground is so bereft of life that it can't even support the casting of magic. During combat on cursed ground, no spells may be cast. Keep this in mind. If you are poor in magic but your opponent is not, lure him to battle on cursed ground. Also remember this when assaulting towns built on cursed ground. Such towns also dampen all spellcasting. Just remember that when battling on cursed ground, no magic can be cast, and your fight will be determined by raw physical strength. On the strategic map, no spells can be cast either. Thus you need to leave the cursed ground before casting such spells as vision and town portal.

Magic Plains
Magic plains have the opposite affect on spellcasting. All spells cast on magic plains are cast at the expert level, even if you don't have the spell skill for that school of magic. A fireball cast in the magic plains would do the maximum range of damage, while a haste cast in the magic plains would speed up all your units. Your power and knowledge are still used to determine how many spell points and how much damage is done, but the modifiers, range, and area of effect can be increased by the magic plains' spell-boosting properties.

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