Hi,

I have never played a heroes of might and magic game before, but I’m familiar with other strategy rpgs like Final Fantasy Tactics or the Fire Emblem games. Playing these games never was a problem – but HOMM Chronicles, which I bought here at GOG, is frustratingly difficult.

At first I made the mistake to wait too long before trying to conquer the cities of the AI. After rushing from town to town I barely made it through the second mission of Warlords of the Wasteland. In Mission 3 you have to unlock several gates before getting in contact with the opponent – by the time I unlock the last gate, the enemy is way too strong. There are three opponent heroes (maybe even more) who kill my three heroes easily.

I read that the Heroes Chronicles episodes are known for being rather on the easy side because they were made for beginners. With that in mind, I think I must do something wrong – but what? My heroes are well equipped, I use magic… When I lose I have more money than I can spend – what ways are there to increase the creature-output of my buildings – because one thing I noticed is the opponent heroes always have way more creatures than I have.

Is there some basic advice you could give me? I’m thinking about giving up, it’s so frustrating to spend all that time building my armys and exploring the map and then get completely overrun in a few turns…

First of all, I hope you can enlighten me by explaining what 'Chronicles' is..

Secondly. the Well increases your creature growth by 2 all around, if you hadn't noticed.

Since you're new to the game, just keep practicing, it'll come.

Some advices on what skills to get:
Wisdom [MUST]
Logistics [MUST]
Pathfinding [MUST]
Ballistics [MUST] If you don't have this, it can take up to 10 turns if you're unlucky, to just break the walls down. If it's on expert, the enemies castle is destroyed within 5 turns.s
Diplomacy - Deppends on the length of the map. Short games and it ain't worth that much, long games, and it can easily decide the outcome.

I'm sure I missed something, but right now I'm tired;) Hope I was to any help though

And about building your army. My experience is, that it's best to strike, before your or your opponents army gets to big, then spells are way more affective.

A lot of the maps in Heroes Chronicles are small or medium sized, and this makes getting a quick start very important. Concentrate your forces on a single hero (this will be Tarnum for Chronicles) so that you can quickly take out neutral mobs even from day one, then use your other heroes to scout and pick up unguarded resources. For town development you should try to focus on building up creature production first (aim for level 1-5 dwellings and a castle by the end of the first week), then split building between upgrading to a capital and upgrading creature dwellings (you should soon learn which ones give the biggest benefits from upgrades). For maintaining your army size, you should make sure that you aren't losing significant forces during your battles- against neutral mobs you should be losing few to no forces, and against enemy heroes you should still be able to keep your losses pretty low. You can also increase your forces by flagging creature dwellings on the map, as well as having your non-main heroes visit them every week to collect the creatures there. Also take care to not neglect your primary skills (Attack, Defense, Spell Power, Knowledge) as these make a significant difference in the performance of your troops once you get them boosted up a bit.

Heroes Chronicles

dont confuse newbie with a "must" skills.. :)
this is for those who wants to know about the game: its pure information :)
http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes3/heroesofmightandmagic3iii.shtml