HoMM2 Strategy Guide

Tim Fountain provides strategic tips for the leading RISC OS strategy game, Heroes of Might and Magic II

Heroes of Might and Magic II is one of R-Comp Interactive's most popular RISC OS conversions, and is an essential purchase as long as you don't mind losing a month or two (or three, or four...) of your life to it! Below are a few tips to get you conquering castles and defeating wizards quicker than you can say "Price of Loyalty."

Starting off

• You can usually pick your computer opponents' starting castle types, so you can make them start at a disadvantage. If you're playing on a small map, force the computer to start as a Warlock or Wizard (which need lots of resources to build up an army); but if you're playing a large map, force the computer to start as a Knight or Barbarian (which don't have quite such powerful forces).
• It is almost always a good idea to buy a second hero immediately as you can then collect and use resources and artifacts more quickly and before your opponents. Later in the game these heroes can be used to guard your castles and hold 'backup' armies for your main heroes.
• Don't forget that your hero doesn't need to be of the same type of your castle, and you usually have a choice as to which type you recruit. In small maps, pick heroes such as the Knight and Barbarian, who have good attack/defence ratings. On larger maps, pick spell-casting heroes such as the Warlock, Wizard and Sorceress. If there are lots of wandering armies nearby, pick the Necromancer, as you can build up lots of skeletons very quickly.
• If there is a body of water close by at the start of the game, try to obtain or build a boat as quickly as possible, and buy a hero (preferably a Sorceress, as they have the Navigation skill) to explore the waterways. There are usually lots of resources to pick up in the water (wood, gold and artifacts), but unless you're quick the opponents will get them first. Exploring the water will also usually allow you to chart the overall layout of the map more quickly than if exploring by land.
• At the start of each new week, check the tavern to see which heroes are available. Sometimes a defeated hero from earlier in the game will pop up, complete with lots of experience and developed skills and sometimes carrying artifacts. Such heroes cost no more than normal 'fresh' heroes, and are well worth recruiting.

Moving around the map

• Know your enemy: each of the computer opponents has a personality rating (builder, explorer or warrior: you can check which opponent is which by looking at the Thieves' Guild). This affects the way the computer plays. Builders concentrate on building up their towns and castles; these are therefore good castles to conquer as they are well upgraded but badly defended. Explorers spend most of their time running around the map collecting lots of resources and artifacts. These heroes are good ones to defeat in battle, as you can then steal their artifacts, but they often have large armies as they get to the troop-generating structures first. Warriors spend most of their time building up their armies, and so are best avoided as they will be difficult to defeat in battle and have relatively undeveloped castles anyway.
• It is usually best to have one or two 'main' heroes, who have the best armies, experience and artifacts. These are the ones you use to conquer enemy castles and well-guarded artifacts. Keeping them in the vicinity of your main castles at other times is usually enough to scare off attackers.
• If your main hero has a high Diplomacy skill, make sure he never has more than four creature stacks. This way, wandering armies can join you (and you can then transfer them to another hero).
• Don't forget that experience/skill-giving structures can and should be used by as many of your heroes as possible, so that each of your heroes can build up their experience and effectiveness.
• Make sure your main hero doesn't have the maximum number of artifacts, as if you defeat an enemy hero, any artifacts he carried will be lost.
• You can get rid of unwanted artifacts (i.e. the Tax lien, Hideous mask and Fizbin of Misfortune) by transferring all of them to one of your heroes and then sacrificing him in a battle he can't win. If this battle is against one of your opponents' heroes, that opponent will end up with the detrimental artifacts, but beware that defeating an opponent in the future may result in your getting stuck with them again later in the game! To get rid of the artifacts permanently, make your hero lose a battle against a wandering army of creatures on the map.
• The distance your heroes can move during each turn is not only dependent on their skills, but also on the speed of the creatures that travel with them. For this reason, keep all the very slow creatures (halflings, peasants, hydra and so on...) either on defence in your castles, or with the same hero.
• Unless you have a very powerful hero or artifacts that provide good luck and morale, avoid having too many different kinds of troops with any single hero. Good luck allows your troops to do extra damage during battles, whilst good morale sometimes allows them to get an extra attack within a round. But using too many types of troops together reduces morale, and makes the useful extra strikes less likely. Having undead (Necromancer) troops in your army is particularly bad for morale. If possible, try to have no more than two kinds of troops with a single hero; having all the same kind of troops will in itself bestow a bonus.
• Save your game (in a new file, not overwriting the previous save) before doing anything 'dangerous' such as investigating a shipwreck or attacking an enemy castle. If it goes badly, you can just reload and take a different course of action.
• At the start of a new week, there will sometimes be growth advantages for a particular creature type, but occasionally it will be a week of plague and all the creature dwellings will be decimated. If your heroes have powerful armies with them, this may not matter to you, and may be a hindrance to your opponents. But if it happens at an inopportune time when you're badly in need of more troops, try reloading the AutoSave file (which is updated every time you end the turn) and clicking the End turn button again. You'll probably get a different beginning-of-week bonus on the next attempt.
• When picking up treasure chests in the early stages of the game, it's almost always worth choosing to gain experience for your hero rather than gold, so you can build your hero up to be more powerful more quickly. The only exception is if you are desperately in need of a little extra cash during that turn.
• Try to get the Wisdom skill for every single hero, as without it they can only learn the weak level 1 and 2 spells. Logistics and Pathfinding are also highly useful throughout the game, and Navigation in maps with lots of water. Ballistics is extremely useful for heroes you intend to use for attacking castles. By contrast, Scouting is almost entirely useless except in the earliest stages of the game, and even then its usefulness is arguable.
• If you encounter wandering armies with a powerful but relatively inexperienced hero, and the armies are awed by the power of your forces and try to run away, don't let them; unless they're rangers or other more dangerous range-attacking creatures which could cost you a few troops, fight them anyway. You'll almost certainly be able to defeat them without any losses at all, and probably without using spell points, and the fight will give your hero a little extra experience. The more experienced your hero, though, the less benefit there is in fighting such small-scale battles.
• Look at the screen carefully, and watch to see if the 'horse' pointer rears up when moving your cursor around the map view. Resources and artifacts are sometimes hidden in the areas behind castles and trees, making it hard (or occasionally impossible) to see them.
• Read any signs and pick up any floating bottles you come across; many will say something useful, or occasionally give you a laugh!

Building up your castles

• Always start by building the money-generating structures (the statue and, for Warlock castles, the dungeon) to maximise your income at the start of the game.
• Always try to build the creature dwellings that provide you with your troops before the end of the week. This way, they can provide you with creatures almost immediately after they have been built.
• Thieves' Guilds and marketplaces are not too essential near the beginning of the game (unless you really desperately need one particular resource and have no other way of getting it). These structures work well in large numbers (i.e. if you have one in each of your castles and you have lots of castles), as the Thieves' Guilds provide you with more information, and you get better exchange rates in the marketplaces.
• Always build turrets and moats. These give you a major advantage when defending your castle against attack, especially near the start of the game.
• After building the statue and the well, try to build as many different types of creature dwelling as you can during the first week; that way, you will maximise the number of creatures available near the start of the game. Also build the structure that increases the rate of production of the weakest creature (e.g. the Waterfall increases the rate of Centaur production). If you plan carefully, you can usually have all but the most powerful kinds of creatures building up in the dwellings by the end of the first week. You can then upgrade the dwellings at your leisure, and build the various other structures and fortifications later on. Remember, upgrading the dwellings improves the quality of the creatures produced, but doesn't increase their rate of production, so upgrading them during the first week wastes a day when something more useful could have been built.
• Don't waste resources on structures that you don't need or can't use. For instance, don't buy the higher Mage Guild upgrades until your heroes have acquired the appropriate levels of Wisdom. Also, it's often possible to do without shipyards; boats can frequently be found lying around, or can be summoned using the Summon Boat spell.

Hero-specific tips

Barbarian

• Barbarians have good starting attack levels, so are useful at the start of the game.
• Goblins have a good speed and attack rating for a first-level creature, but are very weak, so are best used against fast-attacking creatures or creatures that don't retaliate (such as ones that have been paralysed by your Cyclops).
• Orcs and Orc Chiefs have a good defence rating for a low-level creature, but are quite slow, so are best used in defence.
• Cyclops can attack two adjacent creature stacks simultaneously.

Knight

• The main advantage of the Knight is that it has good attack and defence ratings, and its army can be built up quickly and cheaply.
• The peasants are the weakest creature in the game and can only really scratch opponents even in extremely large numbers. Never fight ghosts with peasants! Regardless of how many peasants you have, the ghosts will defeat them easily, and as a new ghost appears for every creature the ghosts kill, you'll soon find yourself totally outmatched.
• Archers and Rangers are quite a good long-range creature, and are fast, making them useful to take with wandering heroes.
• Crusaders do double damage on the undead, so are very effective against Necromancers.

Necromancer

• The Necromancer's main advantage is being able to build up very large numbers of skeletons quickly.
• Always take skeletons with heroes that have the Necromancy skill; built up into large numbers, skeletons can be extremely effective in attacks, and you get free ones after winning each battle. Unlike the other hero types, Necromancers will normally have their weakest creatures (skeletons) with them even when the most powerful creatures (bone dragons) are available. Elect to leave the zombies at home instead of skeletons when using a Necromancer whose creature dwellings have all been built.
• Vampires are powerful flying attackers, especially as creatures they attack won't retaliate. They are particularly useful when upgraded to Vampire Lords, as they can then regenerate themselves as they destroy other living creatures.
• Power Liches are very powerful long-range attackers with a high defence rating, and their shots affect more than one hex on the battlefield. They are also very fast, so are ideal for attacking heroes.
• Bone dragons are powerful flying creatures and reduce the morale of creatures they attack, but their defence rating and overall effectiveness isn't nearly as high as "proper" dragons.

Sorceress

• Sorceress castles are very dependent on mercury, which can be quite hard to find.
• Sprites are good for getting rid of other low-level creature stacks, especially as the stacks they attack don't retaliate.
• Dwarfs are good defensive and (with the upgrade) offensive creatures. Their ability to absorb some of the enemy's spells makes them a good creature to have with you in battle against other spell casting heroes.
• Phoenix are the fastest creature in the game, so will always get the first strike. They can also attack two adjacent creature stacks simultaneously.

Warlock

• Warlocks become a powerful attack force later on in the game as they have the most flying creatures of any hero and also the dragons: the most powerful creatures in the game.
• Forces are expensive and require lots of resources, especially sulphur.
• Hydras make excellent defensive creatures, especially as they can attack multiple creatures simultaneously.
• Dragons can attack two adjacent creature stacks simultaneously.

Wizard

• The Wizard requires quite a lot of resources early on, and so builds up forces quite slowly. You will need to build up your spells quickly so that you can use them in battle to give you an advantage.
• The Library gives you a major advantage by providing you with extra spells: build one as soon as you can.
• Later on in the game you'll find yourself needing lots of gold and gems (for Titans), so you'll definitely want more than one castle, and keep a close eye on your gold and gem mines.
• Halflings can be quite powerful in large numbers, but they are very slow so are often best left to defend castles later on in the game.
• Mages and Archmages are very powerful long range creatures, and their ability to dispel good spells on creatures they attack is a bonus. They are also fast (and so will be one of the first creatures to strike in battle), and have no adjacent penalty (so unlike most creatures do just as much damage on enemy stacks standing right next to them).
• Giants are useful in defence, but Titans are really very much more powerful and useful, so get the Cloud Castle upgraded as soon as you possibly can.

General battle tips

• If you've got turrets in your castle, take advantage of them wherever possible. If you're defending and are being attacked by a superior force, try and make the battle last as long as possible so that the towers can do as much damage as possible. If you've got flying creatures and the attacker only has walking creatures, keep moving your flying creatures around until your towers are destroyed by the attacker's catapult.
• Never place two stacks of your range-attack troops (archers, halflings etc.) next to each other, as if a stack of flying creatures lands between them, they won't be able to do anything except attack that creature (thus losing their range-attack advantage).
• Know which creatures are immune to which spells. For example, Phoenix are immune to all elemental spells, so if they're the only creature you've got you can use elemental spells without worrying about damaging your own army. The same applies for Dragons and the Armageddon spell.
• If you've managed to recruit some genies, consider splitting them up into small stacks, as genies have a 50% chance of halving the enemy's troop.
• When battling a hero with one of the resurrect spells, when you've killed one of their stacks, place one of yours on top of it: the hero can't resurrect it while you're standing there!
• If an attacking hero has managed to break a hole in your castle walls, try and paralyse/blind one of their stacks while they're standing in the hole. This way, the other stacks can't get through until the spell/blindness wears off.
• If a computer hero has a lot of artifacts, he will flee when the battle isn't looking too hopeful. Try to prevent the computer from doing this by using spells and your most powerful stack in the same turn.
• Using attack-boosting spells such as Bloodlust on already-powerful creature stacks can often be more effective than using direct damage spells (such as lightning).
• Know the abilities of your creatures. Some creatures can attack two hexes at a time (Dragons, Phoenix...), so if you see two enemy stacks next to each other, take advantage of them! Similarly, Hydra can attack more than one surrounding square at a time. Don't forget that this works both ways, so don't put a stack of Phoenix on either side of an enemy stack or you'll damage yourself as well.
• Remember which artifacts your hero is carrying: some artifacts may enhance certain spells, such as lightning spells, or render you immune to other spells, such as Death Wave, so be sure to take advantage of these bonuses.
• Remember what day it is! If your hero is attacked during the computer's turn and you are not able to win, it's useful to know whether it's worth surrendering or not. When a hero runs away or surrenders during a battle, that hero normally reappears in the Tavern for the remainder of the week. However, if you are attacked after day 7 and pay money to surrender and keep your troops, that money will unfortunately be wasted. The heroes will not appear in the Tavern because the heroes available at the Tavern change at the start of day 1. Moral: don't allow yourself to get attacked at the end of the week!
• Range-attacking creatures are invariably attacked first by the computer, so protect them with magic and by using your other troops to surround them. Put your range-attack creatures at the outer ends of your rows of troops, so that they are only vulnerable at two sides rather than three, and try to use larger creatures that occupy two hexes (such as wolves or cavalry) to defend them. However, beware of bunching your troops up in this way if your opponent has creatures which can attack more than one adjacent creature (such as dragons or power liches).
• If you have the Resurrect True spell and lots of spell points, then it's worth using this exclusively to regenerate your best troops (e.g. titans) at the start of each turn. Use your first spell at the start of the battle either to do major damage (Chain Lightning) or to give all your creatures a bonus (Mass Bless), and use Resurrect True in subsequent rounds.
• Elemental creatures are extremely useful if you have a good spell-casting hero with a Summon Elemental spell. They are quite tough, but are totally dispensable as you can't keep them after the battle in which they were summoned is over. So, summon a number of stacks of them (assuming you have plenty of spell points) and let them take the damage instead of your more valuable creatures.

The Price of Loyalty

• If you are close to stables, be sure to pay them a visit. If your hero's troops include cavalry then they will be upgraded to champions for free, which is a good bonus. However, this upgrade facility is not the stables' only purpose: all heroes visiting the stables will benefit from extra movement for the rest of the week. This can make the difference between either being able to reach a castle to attack or defend it, or not having quite enough movement points to get there, thus allowing your opposition an extra turn in which to improve its forces.
• Beware of the Alchemist's Tower. On the face of it, this tower is very useful because it allows you to pay to get rid of unwanted, negative artifacts (such as the Fizbin of Misfortune) without having to sacrifice a hero (as in the earlier tip). However, the expansion pack introduces a number of artifacts which have both negative and positive attributes, and these will also be removed by the Alchemist's Tower, which may not be what you want. For example, the Arm of the Martyr gives your hero +3 Spell Power but imposes the undead morale penalty. If you don't care about having the undead morale penalty (e.g. if your hero is a Necromancer with all undead troops), be careful when visiting the Alchemist's Tower; you might end up paying to lose artifacts that you want to keep! The Alchemist's Tower doesn't tell you which artifacts will be removed, but it does tell you how many it will remove, so check that the number is what you're expecting. You may have to juggle artifacts between heroes before you visit the tower.
• Beware of sirens: they give you experience points in return for a percentage of your troops, but the small amount of experience provided for relatively large numbers of troops makes the transaction barely worthwhile. If you visit them at all, make sure it's with expendable troops.
• If you find the Sphere of Negation, make sure you use it with a hero with good attack and defense ratings but poor spell-casting abilities (such as the average Barbarian). The Sphere of Negation will render powerful spell-casters unable to use their magical abilities, enabling your Barbarian's brute force to triumph much more easily.
• The Heart of Fire and Heart of Ice are complementary to each other, so allowing a hero to carry both at once will negate the effects of each. The only effect in this case will be to waste two slots in your hero's inventory.
• Some scenarios in the Price of Loyalty allow you to recruit ghosts from barrow mounds. Acquiring ghosts early on in the game will render you almost invincible; just try to prevent your opposition from getting them, too! You need only buy a small number of ghosts: as soon as you have them, go and find some weak roaming armies to fight. You should initially look for large groups of weak creatures such as peasants or goblins. Attacking these creatures with your ghosts will cause the ghosts' numbers to increase by the number of creatures they kill. You will be able to build up hundreds of ghosts very quickly, and will soon find that you have become virtually unbeatable.