I'm going to loot Titans' Stronghold with few invisible scrolls too, for sure! I just don't know if my skills are good enough. I have hunter with expert disarm (4 points) and now got disarm ring +14. So I have disarm expert with 18 points. I hope It will be good.

My favourite place to start is Clanker's Laboratory. If you have level 15 - 20 just go there and take your gold!!! :)

You should be fine. Even if you fail to disarm the damage will be reduced due to the fact that a person with disarming was trying to do it.

This part of the game is very sad for me - I work in the lab myself and I hate when too many people are going around, rearranging some stuff etc. Looting the lab is so much worse! I hate doing it but well... sometimes you have to ignore your sentiments... ;)

Haha! :) But you must notice, that a lot of monsters walking and messing around in this lab. It's not so professional Mr Clanker! In this case cleaning it up from monsters - and ocasionally items ;-) - is kind of favor.

Here's my tips for a first time party:

1. play the light path
2. there are 3 mandatory classes Thief, Cleric, and Sorcerer.
3. my preference for a fourth member is a paladin or a monk.

Thieves are invaluable because a basic thief can master disarm--which means they can open about 80% of the chests in the game, they can also master perception, which is a very underrated skill. I prefer Monks and Paladins because I don't like swords, Maces and and Staves can stun and paralyze(M and GM).

You should also hire a scholar and a merchant. The scholar gives you unlimited (free) ID item. Sometimes the game is stubborn an Scholars are hard to find. All other hirelings are relatively worthless IMO.

Very early game priorities-spending skill points--expert and master Disarm and Perception, and expert Merchant. Follow these tips to never have cash flow issues.

Once you are familiar with the game it is pretty easy to get your Cleric and Sorcerer promoted---you can do this at level 10 or even earlier--by using the bow skill and Fire Aura.

Fun fact for those who don't already know, the evil path is probably a bit more fun because it was originally the canonical ending to MM7. It was supposed to lead into the original plan for the Heroes of Might & Magic 3 expansion featuring the Forge Town.

Details: http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes3ab/forgetown.shtml

But when the Forge Town got scrapped, the good ending sort of became the canonical one by default. Sad. :^(

I know, that really sucks. It's like... argh. Why did Might & Magic fans protest against sci-fi in HOMM? MIGHT & MAGIC HAS SCI FI. A FORGE FACTION IN HOMM3 WOULD HAVE BEEN AWESOME.

But... but... every professional lab must have roaming monsters! It's the very basic feature, believe me!

I'm not so sure about it... think about the balance. The Forge Town should be, byt the definition, the most powerful faction and it won't be very good for multiplayer games.

Besides... there is a huge difference between some relicts scattered here and there (blasters in MMVIII) and a full production line. Other nations should at least have the possibility to pick up those weapons from fallen enemies and start using them by themselves. It would ruin the idea of HoMM and without this feature... well I guess you can always say that they are not trained to use it but that would be seriously far-fetched, don't you think?

From what I've read (there's another article on it at Celestial Heavens), the Forge Town was going to be in the single-player campaign only. Also, if you read the link I posted, Forge units were going to be very expensive and limited. So, powerful, yes, but also usually outnumbered. But on top of that, the plot was going to involve Catherine seeking and forging the Armageddon's Blade precisely because it was their only hope for winning the war. Sort of like destroying the One Ring was the only hope against Sauron's superior forces in Lord of the Rings.

As for your other point--shouldn't the good guys be able to use the weapons of the fallen enemies--I agree in principle. But the game universe had already established going back to MM6 that lack of training implies you can't use certain weapons. In MM6 and MM7 you can find blasters long before you actually get the training to be able to use them. Maybe it's a bit silly, but it's a game after all.

I'm not trying to be offensive here, but honestly, here's what saddens me about the Forge never happening: the complaints were registered largely by people ignorant of and with a lack of respect for the history of the Might and Magic franchise as a whole. Their personal vision for how the game ought to look and feel was shoved down on the developers who gave them a great game to begin with. That hardly seems grateful, and it certainly wasn't fair to the long-time fans of the entire franchise like myself. The blend with sci-fi was always a really strong part of what made Might and Magic stand out. Look at Ubi's current incarnation with Ashan... it's about as me-too, generic fantasy as you can possibly get. And it suffers for that.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. I can understand the counter-arguments.

I think it's time for me to write something more elaborate ;) First of all - I own you an apology - I didn't read the article, I just remembered something about the Forge that I've read long time ago. It turned out that I was wrong on some points so I'm really sorry for this. But now I refreshed my memory so let me add a few things:

I stand corrected. Let us forget about my first concern

It's not the same. As I said before - in MMVI and VII you deal only with a few scattered artifacts and most important of all - almost nobody can use them. So it's really hard to find somebody who can teach you that (I believe it's just 8 people on the whole continent). I can easily agree that "figuring it out yourself" may be too difficult. But with a full production line the knowledge how to use those weapons is more or less common - it should be enough to capture some goblins/orcs, torture them and voilà! Of course you still cannot produce those weapons but you should at least be able to use them.

Yo have a very strong point that in games we just have to agree to some kind of simplifications. But my problem is that with implementation of the Forge there could be too many and too silly simplification. Let me mention just a few:
1) Aforementioned problem with technology stealing
2) Futuristic weapons should have bigger range than bows so it should be technically possible to shoot an enemy from the distance (before engaging in hand-to-hand combat)
3) Why shouldn't we use this technology in mining? Using chainsaws in sawmill should drastically increase the wood production (and same can be applied to other facilities as well)
I see no problem with expanding this list. I'm aware that each issue can be somehow solved but... my point is that implementing the Forge is not that easy. I'm afraid we will end up with something very silly and far-fetched. That's my primary concern. I'm not saying that those problems couldn't be overcome but I'm really afraid that it wouldn't happen.

And let me add one more thing: I love the way fantasy and sci-fi was merged in MM VI and VII - the whole story how many worlds degenerated and became barbaric. I'm not strictly against the Forge but as I pointed above - I have a lot of concerns. And with your last point:

I wholeheartedly agree. Especially if we consider how it was done - with death threats and so one...

Just to summarize my point: it seems that I'm quite conservative - I love the idea of fantasy - sci-fi blend but only to a very small extend (just like it was in MM VI and VII). The Forge would mean a drastic increase of the sci-fi part and I'm not a big fan of sci-fi so I'm afraid it wouldn't turn out nicely but I have to admit - I cannot be sure.

Hey, no worries! Apology accepted, although there's really no need. I've worked off memory and been wrong before, too. :^)

Those are some good points. I suppose I'm a little more willing to let those kinds of things slide without thinking about them too much, but I know they can bug others, and I definitely respect that.

I can definitely understand that. Blending sci-fi and fantasy is hard to do in a way that doesn't break the suspension of disbelief. To be fair, Might and Magic didn't always do it that well.

Of course it's all just speculation now, so we'll really never know.

Woo! Beat the game! The last level was pretty hard (and I think I may;ve been a little underleveled, everyone was 56). I didn't fully explore it, but I'm definitely going to return sometime since I need two more Blaster Rifles. For now I still have some quests to clean up.

Gonna head to M&M6 now (though i'll probably pop back to 7 now and then for some of the missing quests I need). How's Archer/Druid/Cleric/Sorcerer. Too squishy? Thought it might be fun to play a versatile caster party. If that's too squishy I'll probably go Paladin/Archer/Cleric/Sorcerer so I can still have a lot of magic, but also have more muscle behind it.

EDIT2: Went ahead with A/D/C/S. Although it's a bit squishy, it doesn't feel too much more squishy than the short time I played with a more standard party, and it'll probably pay off later. My Archer only has 10 Spell Points though, with 16 Int. Is 16 Int too low? I thought it seemed like a decent number since I wanted to gear her mainly towards combat with Air as support. (For magic, I'm doing: Archer: Air, Druid: Earth/Spirit, Cleric: Body, Sorcerer: Water/Fire.)

You'll do fine. 10 sp is enough for the essential low-level air spells, and it will increase at a decent enough pace. MMVI is a lot easier, because if you can learn a skill, then you can master it. Just remember to drink from every well (it helps to save or go to the bank before doing so) and use stat-raising barrels.

Also, in this game, you can learn both sides of the mirrored path. Since you have both a cleric and a sorceror, you have two characters who can do so. Have fun :)

Yeah, I like the sound of the character development in VI, looks like it offers a lot more freedom. Although it has fewer classes, which is a bit of a shame (but I actually like the removal of Thief. Frees up a space in the party, so you can experiment), and no Grandmaster level. And yeah, learning Dark and Light will be nice. I actually heard that one of the most powerful parties is C/S/S/S or C/C/S/S, but that just seems like it'd be really annoying early on and really boring later.

I've done both of those; I find the cleric is overrated on an all-spell-caster party. I'd prefer to use the druid, so I can get four fire casters, and still have healing before light magic. It does get a bit old, though, using such an overpowered party. Right now I'm playing through with level one paladins, and it's made me rethink some of my old strategies. I've also been playing it for years, though; I doubt you'll have to do anything so drastic on a first-run. It's fun enough exploring and interacting, which you get more of in this game as well, so if it's a little easier it really doesn't take anything away.

Oh yeah, using a Druid makes more sense. But yeah, that's the feeling I got. At first it's fun flying around spamming Meteor Storm and Armageddon, but after a while it'd just get dull.

In any case, yeah. I'm not looking for a really crazy party. In 7 I played the boiler plate K/T/C/S, so I just wanted to do something a bit more interesting, and A/D/C/S seems to be working out for that.

Also, one thing that I find very strange is that, in all the M&M games I've played (Xeen, 6, and 7), Goblins look totally different. In Xeen it's mostly due to the different art style, but they're human-size and muscular. In 6 they look like typical Goblins, and in 7 they're back to looking basically human, but with the green skin and fangs.