A friend bought me HoMM3 a while go, and I liked it, I guess. Long-story-Short, I need some 'tricks and tips'. I'm REALLY bad at this game. I've tried to play and get a hang of the game, but I'm getting frustrated dieing from a obscenely huger army than mine that I was confused how it got that big in a month. Another problem for me is knowing if I can defeat another army, or monster or not. I've been having big arguments with my friend about the subject of whether not this game has a huge learning curve, and whether not it's got a hard-to-practice problem(I'm arguing that losing generally doesn't give a chance to improve, because someone won't say 'Oh, wow! I'd better not go and explore anymore, because that's what happened! I went out to explore, and the hero destroyed me!'.)

TL;DR I need some help on this game. I'm horrible at it.

Are you talking about HoMM #1?

Here's what Ido (in this order of importance)*:

0) Only get into battles that you can win. Preferably with no loses or, even better, be so big that the enemy joins your army.
1) Build things that make you resources
2) Capture things that make you resources
3) Build things that make more creatures
4) Always take XP over gold
5) Have 2 heroes when you can afford it easily. 1 hero with all the army, another hero that runs new recruits and equipment to your main hero

*DISCLAIMER: I'm not awesome at the HoMM games, but I get along


Here's a pretty nice help guidef or HoMM 2: http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes2/hintsandtips.shtml

It's pretty applicable to all the games, for the most part.

Where it differs with me, you're probably better off following it. :D

Is this HoMM1 that you're playing? There are a couple of differences in strategies between the different HoMM games; I'll tailor my advice to HoMM1, but if you're playing one of the later ones say so and I'll revise what I've said. HoMM1 castles don't have a huge number of buildings to construct, so choices there are pretty simple. Make sure you construct as many creature-producing buildings as you can afford in the first week, along with a Well (as that increases the growth of all creatures). Also hire a second hero immediately- give them only a single creature, and use them to scout around and pick up resources. For your main hero build up experience as quickly as possible (initially through choosing experience when getting treasure chests), and try to only fight neutral stacks which you can beat while taking minimal to no losses. It's tough to do this if you're fighting ranged units or fliers, so avoid these stacks until you have a strong enough army to just scare them off without having to fight (or unless they're guarding a critical resource).

For resources, all towns will require wood and ore (and you'll usually be able to find lumber mills and ore mines pretty easily), along with one of the rare resources which tends to be specific to the town (and is required for the highest level creature). Take note of what this rare resource is and try to flag a mine for it ASAP. The resource you'll find yourself the shortest on is usually gold, making gold mines the most valuable type of mine to flag- make sure you keep hold of any you come across.

When it comes to tackling the actually opponents there are a couple ways to approach this depending on the specific map. On small maps where you start close, a blitz tactic can sometimes be very effective- if you can out-manuever an enemy hero of similar strength and capture their town you can force them into an unfavorable battle out of desperation, both eliminating an opponent from the game and giving yourself a good advantage over the other opponents with the extra town you captured. On larger maps you'll want to build up a resource and production power base before taking the fight to the enemy. Also, on larger maps don't waste your main hero's movement chasing down nuisance heroes- use one of your other heroes with a weaker army (but strong enough to stomp nuisance heroes) to chase them down. Your main hero should spend his movement taking out stronger enemy heroes and capturing towns.

As for figuring out which neutral stacks are safe to attack, this is something you just have to get a feel for through experience. Save (and reload) before battles with neutral stacks until you figure out what you can easily beat and what will walk all over you. As I mentioned before, fliers and shooters are much more difficult to beat without losses. On the flip side, shooters are very useful to have in your own armies, and loading up an army with the best shooters from all the different town types can be extremely effective.

Finally, on larger maps as the game progresses set up a supply chain with other heroes to keep your main hero supplied with troops. As the saying goes, in war amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics. If you build a good resource and production power base and keep your main hero supplied with troops then it should be rare that you have to fight any close battles where tactics can make a significant difference.

If you're talking Homm3 practice using the random map genator. Make the smallest maps vs. 1 opponent. Play for 1 or 2 weeks, then start another game. You'll get a QUICK idea of what works and what doesn't.
Start by playing on easy level and ramp up the difficulty when it seems too easy.

Also, Homm3 has an excellent beginners campaign. You could try that after the tutorial game.

Gah, sorry, #3. Edited my post.

Good to know you're playing HoMM3- not only is it the best of the series (IMO), it's also the one I have the most experience with (so I can now provide you with quite a few additional tips).

With HoMM3 there are basically two ways to kick off the start of a game in the first week- build gold production or build creature production. Both methods have their merits (depending on the specific map), and knowing which one to go for can make a big difference in how well you start off the game. For building up gold production you'll want to produce Town Hall -> City Hall -> Fort -> Citadel -> Castle -> Capitol, basically ensuring you get the capitol built ASAP, then afterwards building up creature production mostly during the second week. For the other method, building up creature production, you'll want to ignore building gold-producing buildings for the first week and instead build the base creature production facilities (don't upgrade them yet), along with a Citadel (typically you'll want to hold off on a Castle until the end of the second week, as that 5000 gold is better spent on recruiting creatures at the start of week 2, or getting a Capitol built ASAP in the second week).

As for when to use these two approaches, if you're playing on the easier difficulties (which start you with lots of resources), and/or there are lots of free resources for you to grab then it's usually better to build up your creature-producing capabilities first (as you'll have plenty of gold to get you started out). Also, this approach is preferable on smaller maps, as having a decent-sized army ready to go at the start of the second week will let you take the fight to nearby opponents quickly (or just expand your territory and capture resources), and if you gain an early advantage on a small map it can be very difficult for opponents to claw their way back. On larger maps, and on maps where you start with fewer resources, it can be better to build up your gold-producing capabilities first, as it doesn't help having lots of troops to recruit if you have no money with which to recruit them.

Still on the topic of building up your town, try to get all basic creature production facilities built before using turns and resources to upgrade them. There can be exceptions to this, though, where an upgrade confers a very significant advantage that will help you clear neutral stacks much easier (and potentially earlier than you would be able to without the upgrade). Examples of such advantages would be picking up the ability for ranged attacks (gremlins -> master gremlins), gaining the no enemy retaliation ability (hellhounds -> cerberi), or picking up a second attack (archers -> marksmen, wolf riders -> wolf raiders). Also, while those level 7 creatures are often very tempting to try to buy early, they are very expensive for their capabilities and it's often better to hold off on buying them until you have a strong economy going. On that topic, though, the base level 7 creature dwellings are often reasonably cheap to produce, it's just upgrading them and buying the creatures that will break the bank. So get the base dwelling built and accumulating creatures, then once you have plenty of gold coming in upgrade the dwelling and buy the creatures that have been accumulating.

The stuff I mentioned about quickly recruiting a second hero for scouting and about using additional heroes to keep supply lines running still holds in HoMM3.

For developing your heroes, I'd consider Logistics, Wisdom, and Earth Magic to be essential skills for any primary hero. Pathfinding can be incredibly useful or fairly useless depending on what kind of terrain the map you're on has, so make a judgment call for each individual map. Other useful skills are Offense and/or Archery (depending on whether you focus more on ranged units or melee units), Air Magic, and Water Magic. Armorer can be good if you're going to be duking it out in fairly evenly matched battles, but those are the kind of battles that are better avoiding through good strategy, so your your judgment on whether that skill will be useful to you. If the map involves a lot of sailing between islands then navigation is good to have, but for most maps it's useless. On larger maps that will last a long time Intelligence is a good skill to complement other magic skills, as it will give you a huge mana pool that can really make a difference in big drawn-out battles. The usefulness of Luck and Leadership depend on what kind of artifacts you're able to acquire. If you're able to boost your luck and leadership up to +3 with just artifacts then there's no point in taking these skills, while on smaller maps where you probably won't be able to put together a killer collection of artifacts these skills can be quite useful. Typically useless skills which should be avoided are Eagle Eye, Scholar, Learning, Scouting, First Aid, Artillery, Ballistics, Estates, and Sorcery. The usefulness of tactics and diplomacy depend heavily on the map and your play style.

For battle tactics, there are a couple of good tactics to be aware of. First off, get used to using the Blind spell, as it's incredibly useful for taking a powerful stack out of action. When fighting other heroes it's often a good idea to let them cast their spell for the round first, so that you can either counter what they do, or ensure that they don't have a spell for the round to counter whatever you do. If you're playing more defensively with ranged units then mass slow is an excellent spell, while if you're playing more offensively with melee units then mass haste combines very well with blitz tactics. If you grabbed Expert Water Magic then the Forgetfulness spell is excellent against enemy archers (it completely negates their ability to use ranged attacks). If an enemy stack contains powerful melee units then you can make those units work for you with Berserk, as it will cause a stack to attack the stack nearest to it, even if that stack is friendly; try to time the casting of this spell just before the targeted stack moves to ensure that the spell can't be dispelled and that enemy stacks can't be moved away from the berserked unit. Finally, a cheesy (but effective) tactic for minimizing losses in battles is that once the battle is almost won, blind the last 1 or 2 enemy stacks, then have all your units skip their turns while you resurrect any fallen creatures (you'll need Advanced/Expert Earth Magic for this). With a high spellpower and knowledge you can bring back thousands of creatures while the opponent can do absolutely nothing about it.

Also, some a final starting tip about town selection for beginning players. The Castle town is probably the most balanced and easiest to play town for a beginning, while the Inferno is the most difficult. Stronghold and Dungeon are also pretty easy to just get into and play, while the Tower, Fortress, Rampart, and Necropolis can be a bit more challenging to figure out the best tactics for.

-Take Air Magic and use Visions spell to get information about roaming creatures, whether they will fight, flee or join. That or save before encountering them, if they prove to be too difficult, load
-Start your castle building by creating creature dwellings anytime they become available, worry about money later
-Pay attention to the mission objectives: If you don't have to defeat everyone, usually you don't have enough troops to beat every enemy hero. They might start off with much more troops. Use View Air to find out where the enemy heroes are, and try to avoid them.
-Expert Earth Magic is incredibly useful to have: In battles you can slow them down, which gives you a great tactical advantage, and outside battles you can use Town Portal, which lets you teleport into any castle you own. It's a must-have skill for any hero, in my opinion. Expert Air Magic is also good, you get Expert Visions, View Air and Dimension Door (provided you find the spells); the latter let's you navigate a huge part of any map in just one turn. Mages rule this game, so stack up on Power and Knowledge, you cannot have too much of either.
-Ignore useless skills completely; some of the worst ones include Navigation, Scholar, Learning, Estates, Fire Magic (especially if you're going against Necromancers), and a few others. The really good ones are Wisdom (naturally), Logistics, Air Magic and Earth Magic. If you get a crappy skill from a Witch Hut, reload.
-When starting off, invest in troops with bows. Don't hire the rest of the troops: you need the money to build dwellings which is much more important in the early phase. With bowmen, you can usually beat any creature stack roaming next to your land and resource mines with ease (especially if you're good at magic).
-The ultimate double team: Your hero with Expert Armageddon and a bunch of Black Dragons. You'll know why. Similarly, see what spells you've got and combat accordingly. You don't ever have to march your troops headfirst into battles and suffer losses: with spells and archers you can kill a lot of enemy troops before they even get close to you. Most battles can actually be won without suffering a single loss. This is important when trying to achieve a complete victory over the map: make the enemy lose troops and money, but without suffering losses so that you can continue pushing forward without having to go back to get more troops.

Good luck with the game, I am sure you'll get better at it once you learn the ropes a bit more!

Thanks everyone! Specifically, the last two. I'm going to bookmark this page and play some time soon to try all of this. Great to have helpful players!