Are there any good free online places to look to read about how to play this game better (high quality guides by truly good players)?

And secondly, I have heard the Castle faction is more gold-intensive, so people say upgrading to the Capital as quickly as possible is a good opening strategy. However, I am wondering if this is not such a great idea because upgrading to capital might slow down the purchasing units early in the game, which would stop you from expanding outward, taking nearby guarded treasure chests, capturing mines guarded by neutral units, etc. Thoughts on this?

I'm particularly interested in learning strategy for playing as Wizards, Castle, Stronghold, Necropolis, Dungeon, and Stronghold, but most especially Castle, Wizard, Necro, and Stronghold.

HeroesOfMightAndMagic.com has good guides on which creatures and skills are useful and which are not. They also have a nice Strategy subsection: http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes3/heroesofmightandmagic3iii.shtml There are multiple openers. You can get to the Capitol as fast as possible (Town Hall - Marketplace/Blacksmith/Mage Guild Level 1 - City Hall - Citadel/Castle - Capitol), you can get some advanced creature rushes (Wyverns, Rocs...), or play a mix of both.

I personally choose the early Capitol option, as you won't need that many or strong creatures when seeking out wood/ore mines and windmills/water wheels/leprechauns, and by the time you need them, you'll have a steady gold income. Only less frequent mines have stronger guards, and you won't be needing them in the early game anyway, unless you're a really creative pro player.

I think this comes down to the question of how big is the map you are playing. In larger maps with lots of castles and space between players it is better in the long term to build up your economy first because you're going to need more resources. In smaller maps where combat is more prominent, putting your money on creatures is often the better choice. One thing worth noticing is the different cost of units on each faction. For example Tower and Dungeon have rather expensive creatures and creature upgrades, and are as such more inclined toward late game. Inferno is maybe the most inexpensive and Castle is somewhere in-between with cheap lower tier creatures and expensive late game units such as archangels.


One good trick also is to have multiple heroes. You have one or two "primary" heroes and several "secondary" heroes. Primary heroes are your army commanders who get all the artifacts, the best troops and skill/attribute upgrades. "Secondary" heroes are your scouts who collect unprotected resources lying around (though not treasure chests or skill upgrades, Scholars, the monk looking guys with candles) and harass the enemy by flagging their mines/lumber mills.

I recommend reading the strategy threads at Heroes Community, a forum I frequented for years. The guys over there have broken everything down to a near science, and my casual self never came even remotely close to their level of expertise. You might learn a thing or two, though.

I'd say you are correct; prioritizing the Capitol is generally unwise because it sets you back in creature production by at least a week. You don't want your opponent to have that big of an advantage over you. It's better to build dwellings first and use those creatures to secure more resources. Don't hire slow melee creatures like Stone Golems and Ogres; prioritize the faster and/or more impactful troops whenever possible. Give your scout heroes a single fast creature like a Harpy or Stone Gargoyle so they can cover more ground per turn. Also, one very helpful tip I learned at Heroes Community is to always take gold from chests. Use that gold to build up and earn experience through combat. Even on a rich map, there's no such thing as having too much gold.

Regardless of which alignment you choose, consider hiring a Barbarian (e.g. Crag Hack) or Beastmaster (e.g. Tazar) to be your main hero. A strong attack and/or defense is essential for beating your opponents' best heroes later in the game. Stronghold and Fortress are the least expensive. Inferno has always been very pricey in my experience. Speaking of Scholars, avoid them until your main heroes have all their secondary skill slots filled. You don't want them giving you Eagle Eye or some other crappy skill.

I have always found the best resource to be Celestial Heavens. The forums have lots of useful information, and there are some good campaign walkthroughs. As for in depth guides, try these...

https://www.celestialheavens.com/homam-iii/general/jolly-joker-guides

Also once this page is open, the links to the left have more information as well.

Also also, try here (once open, scroll down for the links). Again Their forum is worth a visit.
http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes3/heroesofmightandmagic3iii.shtml

-Capital versus creatures: unless I absolutely need creatures right now, then I'll spend the first week building toward the City Hall. The Capital is too expensive to be an early game project, especially when you factor in the costs for the Citadel and the Castle. The City Hall is usually attainable, though, and then you can focus on dwellings. It doesn't matter how many creatures you have stored in your dwellings if you don't have the gold to buy them; as someone already said, there's no such thing as having too much gold.

-Learn the relative strengths and weaknesses of each faction's creatures, and which creatures get a bigger relative boost from their upgrade. Some upgrades are definitely worth investing in as soon as you have the resources to do so.

Excellent unit upgrades:
-Gremlins -> Master Gremlins: a speed boost and become ranged
-Archers -> Marksmen: get a stat boost and fire two shots per attack
-Vampires -> Vampire Lords: Drain life
-Harpies -> Harpy Hags: No retaliation, huge speed boost
-Ogres -> Ogre Magi: Speed, hp, spell casting
-Woof Elves -> Grand Elves: Two shots per attack
-Hell Hounds -> Cerberi: multi-hex attack, speed boost, no retaliation
-Pixie -> Sprite: speed, no retaliation

Some other units have good upgrades, but these are some of the early-mid unit upgrades that really stand out. The common theme is getting more speed or better ways of dealing damage without taking hits in return.

-Learn which units are good cannon fodder for soaking up enemy retalations. For example, Zombies, Stone Golems, and Demons are much better candidates for doing the dying than Skeletons, all the Tower ranged units, and Cerberi/Pit Lords.

Still useless :D

The prevailing notion among the expert players I've mingled with is that your first week's creatures are your meal ticket to more and more gold. Using multiple heroes to scout and transport creatures, you can clear out your starting area fairly quickly. Adventure Map locations like Crypts and Imp Caches can be cleared for Gold, and there are tactical strategies for doing this during Week 1 with minimal casualties. It requires practice, but I can attest to it being effective. I'm a lazy player who doesn't listen to the experts often, but I have to admit that their strategies have helped me tremendously on 200% difficulty.

Making 2000 or 4000 Gold per day may look tempting, but getting there requires five-plus days of not building creature dwellings. Going the Capitol route might work with the right map conditions, but early military aggression is arguably the best way to play competitively. I used to build the Town Hall on Day 1 to increase my income to 1000 Gold, but I won't even do that anymore.

Sure, they fold up and die against anything that can hit them, and I wouldn't use pixies for that very reason, but sprites are pretty good at kiting a lot of the lower tier walkers. *shrug* Maybe I can get away with my usual strategies because I don't play at the Expert or Impossible difficulty levels. I find that whenever I start by making the creature generators, I'm out of cash in very short order and the creature dwellings just start stock piling creatures that I can't get at. When I start by going for the City Hall first, I'm a little delayed on creatures, but the money keeps rolling so I can keep spending as necessary.

On the flip side, I suppose if you start at Impossible, then you can't really aim for a City Hall anyway because you lack the resources to do so. You need those early creatures to make any headway in building your town at all.

I remember that frustration very well from years ago. Unless my starting area was littered with unguarded resource piles, I'd always be short on Gold. My luck started changing when I adopted a more aggressive clearing procedure early on. I usually grab some loose Gold and resource piles during the first few turns and start building creature generators if I can afford them. Opting for Gold rather than EXP from chests, I also try to hire a second hero to join in the scouting and resource-gathering. Then, when Gold permits, I hire a third hero. Soon enough, I'll give my preferred hero (usually might-oriented) my full ranged stack along with the other heroes' Level 1-2 creatures. From there, I'll clear my surroundings of guarded resources while my remaining heroes continue exploring and grabbing what they can. As more Gold rolls in, I'll send a scout back to town to ferry new troops to my main hero. You get where this is going.

I try to buy only the creatures that I need for clearing wandering stacks. These tend to be ranged ones (e.g. Archers and Wood Elves) backed up by some melee support (e.g. Pikemen, Griffins, Rocs). I split Level 1 melee troops like Pikemen and Centaurs into one huge stack and five others with a single troop apiece. The single stacks are then positioned so as to protect my ranged stack, while the huge stack kills enemies that get too close. By making the most out of very basic troops during the first week or so, Gold and resources will steadily pour in while your town is generating hirelings. I'm honestly a lackluster player, but I've improved by leaps and bounds after I adopted this aggressive approach. That's true, although I'd still prioritize creature generators on lower difficulties. I never liked the idea of falling behind with my available hirelings, whether or not I could afford them. The AI's main armies tend to be packed to the gills when I finally encounter them, so I try to keep up with the arms race from the very first week. I will say this, however: if the City Hall strategy works for you at your difficulty, then that's great. If you ever find yourself struggling, then maybe you can give my method a try.

I combine the troops from my main hero and scout(s) on Day 1, and send my main hero off to kill things while the scouts pick up the loose resources. Saves movement on my main hero that could be used getting to more monster stack to clear. The number of scouts I start with depends on how much free space seems to be available; if there is next to no open area, then I'll just get the one, while a lot of open area is an invitation to hire more scouts.

Each scout gets a single weak, fast creature. The main hero gets everything else.

I don't generally split weak guys off into single unit stacks in the main army, since it reduces the power of the primary stack. I'll do it if the primary stack is over killing things, though. I generally have enough different stacks that I can wall off my shooters; griffins and pikemen are sufficient to wall in a stack of archers that are in a corner. Alternatively, just move the non-shooters to engage the enemy before the enemy gets in range to attack your shooters.

I should remember to do it so I have victims that can eat retaliations, but the micromanagement of keeping them alive to soak a retaliation gets kind of tedious, and they can't do anything besides soak a retaliation and take up space.

That's how I used to do things. I continually find that later in the game, I can't hire all my stockpiled creatures even if i do start with economy, so I'm not really getting anything out of having a bunch of extra creatures stockpiled. My current theory on generators versus economy is "What good is having an extra week of creature growth in my town if I can't afford to hire those creatures?"

I also find that if I don't focus on that gold income early, then I tend to forget about it until I'm straight up broke, and then it is very hard to get out of that slump. All of the town hall upgrades require an amount of gold equal to 5 days of
the previous upgrade, and that is a lot of time to not be spending money in the early game.

I will say that I usually have the time to get a few generators built in the first week. Maps generally start you with a town hall (1000 gold/day), a tavern, and a dwelling (two if you are lucky). A Marketplace, Blacksmith, Mage Guild 1, and City Hall takes 4 days, leaving 3 days to build some generators before the new week. A village hall (500 gold/day) means another day to build the town hall, and yet another day if you don't have a tavern; however, having only the village hall also makes getting those economy upgrades that much more important (and a missing tavern is always a Day 1 buy to get the extra heroes).

Being a little generous to each side, say you can choose 3 extra creature dwellings (tiers 4, 5, and 6) or a city hall by day 4. You'd start Week 2 with either 4000 extra gold (days 5, 6, 7, 8) or extra creatures (T4 gets maybe 6, T5 gets 3, and T6 gets 2), and the gold difference just keeps building for each day the City Hall isn't built, but the creature difference doesn't change as long as those dwellings go up some time during week 2.

Anyway. As you say, if it works for you, then keep enjoying it. I tend to play at Hard difficulty, so my building tactics might not be feasible at Impossible due to a lack of resources to pay for the City Hall.

Sorry, I took an unplanned hiatus from GOG. Picking up where we left off...

This sounds reasonable. I essentially do the same, albeit on a potentially limited scale due to my starting with nothing. Depending on the map and if there are enough unguarded Gold piles and chests around, I'll make a drive for Wood/Ore piles so I can build a new creature generator by at least Day 2. If I can afford another hero and a generator (but not both), I might choose the former. Since 200% difficulty is extra challenging, I usually try to have the Level 4 creature generator and a Citadel built by the end of Week 1. It's all very situational, but I typically aim to recruit two stacks' worth of creatures and start raiding for Gold.

The purpose of single-troop stacks is to create diversions away from the stacks you want to protect. This is most effective when your decoys are fast creatures like Centaurs or Pixies. You "kite" enemy stacks away from your shooters, for example, even sacrificing those single troops and using up that enemy stack's turn. It's similar to that HOMM2 tactic where you bring along a single Halfling so the AI's Black Dragons will waste their turn killing it. This strategy is useful during the first week or so, as it allows you to start cleaning house with the few stacks you've got. After you've bought more creatures, the urgent need for decoy stacks in your main army goes down.

Just to be clear, you're not talking about buying every available creature, are you? I hope you just mean all the important ones, as a few are less essential than the others. Whenever I play Stronghold, I don't bother with Ogres except in emergency situations. Furthermore, it's exceptionally rare that I can recruit all the Hobgoblins and Wolf Raiders during the same turn. For the most part, I do just fine with Thunderbirds, Orc Chieftains, Ancient Behemoths, etc. I still contend that having creatures available is the safest bet (particularly on small maps and multiplayer games).

Many other players have echoed that sentiment for years. While I understand the logic behind it, I've never liked the idea of putting off generators until later weeks. I'm actually surprised that some players have found success with that strategy. Whether or not it has anything to do with playing on lower difficulties, I don't know.

It's interesting that you're struggling despite the economic advantage. Based on what you described earlier, you can't be that far off base. I think it's just a matter of fine-tuning your opening strategy. Certain maps are painfully unpleasant by virtue of their design, but there are usually ways to even the odds. In my case, it was choosing Gold from chests and making the most out of low-level armies. Maybe playing exclusively on 200% forced me to become more thrifty. It's something you can try in your spare time.

I tend to monitor my treasury every turn, so I'm always abreast of where I'm at financially. I used to buy the Town Hall upgrade on Day 1, but I currently think that Gold is better spent hiring scouts for resource collection. Even if my starting area is poor, I can combine my armies and make a push against guarded resource piles. Whether the map is rich or poor, the key to profiting in that early stage is to fight with as few casualties as possible. Nowadays, I forget that my income is still 500 Gold per day since I'm looting at a steady pace. However, I should mention that I'm not against buying the Town Hall upgrade if I happen to be short on Wood or another resource for my next generator. It's probably a reckless move on my part, but I hate wasting a turn like that.

Is it safe to assume you're referring to single player maps? Are there any specific examples to give me a rough idea? I mostly prefer random maps these days, and they always start you off with a Village Hall and Tavern.

I was following you up until that last bit about the creature difference not changing. While it's true that generators function weekly rather than daily, the point of building generators by the end of the first week is so that they'll spawn new recruits on Day 8. If I were to wait until the second week to build those generators, my opponent would most likely have a numerical advantage by then. Using the Wyvern Nest as an example, I'd have 2 Wyverns during the second week while my opponent has 4-6. This is what I mean when I talk about falling behind. Has this ever happened to you as a result of prioritizing your City Hall?

I forget if you mentioned it already, but do you take Gold or EXP from chests? As I said earlier, choosing Gold over experience is highly recommended since experience can be gained through combat (funded by the Gold you receive from chests, no less). Without watching you play, it's hard for me to know exactly why Gold is a problem for you. But certainly, taking Gold from chests should alleviate the problem somewhat. If you've been doing that already, however, I'm not sure what it could be.

Welcome back. :)

Always start with the more important creatures, then move to the optionals. Depending on the map's economy, somtimes I run out of gold before getting all the important ones, and usually before getting all of them (though if I have a lot of towns, then I can fully hire everything in some of those towns). If the map has been going for awhile, then even trade-dumping all of my other resources into gold isn't enough.

Early and mid game, no, I'm usually not buying everything. Late game may become a different matter. To be fair, I suppose that by the time I'm really running out of gold just hiring, it is because I've got too many creatures stockpiled across multiple towns.

It is starting to sound like our play is pretty similar in most regards, with two exceptions. One is (obviously) our focus when building up a newly acquired town (which includes the starter town at the beginning of the game); I'll push those economy buildings while you favor dwellings (do you handle newly conquered towns with a similar focus on creature generators first?). The other would be our reaction to treasure chests; I usually take the experience, especially early on when it often means my main hero gains another level. A lower difficulty means I don't start off scraping for every coin I can find, which might easily be the difference here. If I were playing at Impossible, then I'd very likely take the gold over the xp so I could fund town development.

Also, I should say that I put off creature generators until later week, not later weeks. I'm pushing for those generators as soon as I get to the City Hall (if the CH is feasible), which is late week 1 and early week 2. I don't really have a rule for when I'll invest in the Citadel or the Castle; factors include whether the city is threatened, whether they are econically viable (more of a concern for the castle, since the citadel is fairly cheap), and what dwellings have been built in the town (the more/better the dwellings you have, the better your results from the % increase).

I don't really start watching the treasury until my income becomes a major factor in how much cash I have on-hand. Even 2000/day is kind of a non-issue when I'm still sitting on most of the starting 100k (or however much it is; I don't remember). If I'm still sitting on that Village Hall when I run out of easy loot, then it is a 5 turn slog to the Town Hall, and another 5 turn slog to the Town Hall (after getting the intervening buildings, which blow about a turn of income each).

I know it is a bad habit, but occasionally I've just not been paying attention while I'm focused on my looting, and the next turn pops up with me able to build nothing.

I definitely feel you on that "don't waste the chance to build something" impulse. I have the exact same feeling.

Yeah, I'm referring to the various scenarios. They can vary wildly from "We're only giving you a Village Hall because the engine requires it" to that one scenario that's specifically "Look, forget about economy. Here's everything, even the grail. Your job is to take these dudes and go fight." (I think that map is 'Good to Go', and it has a certain charm once or twice)

It has been awhile since I've really delved into the scenarios or even random maps. I've been churning through Chronicles for my H3 fix (and so I can put them in my "finished" list).

Look at most of the medium sized maps that ship with the base game (RoE). That should give you something of a base line.

The generator provides the same number of creatures when first built, whether it is built on Week 1 or Week 100.

If you build the Wyvern Nest on Day 1 of Week 1, then my generator is still only one week's growth behind your generator as long as I get it built in Week 2. It doesn't matter whether I build it on Day 1 or Day 7. In the case of the Wyvern Nest, you'll have only 2 wyverns more than me. You'll never have more than those 2 extra Wyverns as long as I get my dwelling built in the next week, regardless of when it is built. This is assuming base growth rate, since modifiers start complicating the numbers. And if you’re on a map where those 2 wyverns on Turn 2 are going to make or break you, then I’m right there with you in saying “Screw the economy, give me the creatures”; most maps don’t start you with so little elbow room, though.

The economy buildings are the opposite, where every day the building isn't built increases the difference in resources. If I (magically) build my City Hall on Day 1 of Week 1 while you don't get yours until Week 2 Day 7, then I'll be netting 2k gold over you for each day of those nearly 2 weeks. If you build it on W2/D1, then you'll have 12000 more gold than if you build it on W2/D7.

I've been up against numerically superior (mostly AI) opponents before, but I can't really say how much of that was me delaying dwellings for a week and how much is attributable to our respective expansion conditions (maybe I took more losses early because my neutrals tended to be more shooters). An interesting experiment might be to make a save at the start of a new game so we'll have the exact same starting conditions. We each play it for X turns and compare our respective positions. Variance in random chance (or the AI) can explain the difference if we're pretty close in resources, creatures, and map coverage. One skewing factor in the experiment would be our respective difficulty levels, if the amount of starting resources is the main cause in our difference of preferred strategy.

I usually have my main hero collect the chests and take experience. Wandering monsters do provide experience, but they aren't an unlimited source and those first few chests are basically levels.

Please forgive me if I seemed to over emphasize how much trouble I have with making money. Generally gold isn't a problem for me, as long as I remember to secure a decent source of it before my initial funds and early looting run out. Eventually the early loot runs out, and you have to fall back on your production base to support further expansion.

I'll address this first since it's kind of important. Like you, I used to choose EXP whenever it was offered in amounts of 1000 or 1500. I enjoyed leveling up my main hero in this fashion, especially if I received Logistics in doing so. In hindsight, however, I never made much progress back then since I'd often run into an economic crunch. My hero would be Level 3 or 4, but I couldn't clear my starting area fast enough. Financial stability only came once I'd had a Capitol for a while. Nowadays, I see the value in taking the 1000-2000 Gold chests tend to offer. While it takes a little longer to level up my hero, that's a small price to pay. More Gold means more generators and troops, which means quicker access to resources and EXP.

Contrary to what you said, I'd argue that free Gold is even more limited than sources of EXP (e.g. wandering monsters and enemy players). Gold piles and chests will disappear after a while, whereas there'll always be opportunities to level up through combat. The advantages gained by leveling up early aren't fully exploitable unless you have a good army accompanying that hero. Building towards a City Hall during Week 1 means your main hero will need to fight for quite a few turns with whatever he/she has. Unless it's a rich map, it might be rough.

Therefore, I highly recommend choosing Gold over EXP. This strategy is useful at any difficulty - not just the higher ones. Unfortunately, to truly reap the benefits of this strategy, you'll need to focus on building generators.

I revisited quite a few ROE scenarios and quickly remembered why I didn't like them very much. Certain maps are so barren and heavily-guarded that you're almost required to play on a lower difficulty. Others throw a lot of rarer resources at you but not enough Gold or chests. Still yet, I'm not a fan of the more gimmicky scenarios that throw twists at you. I love building up from scratch, so "Good to Go" isn't my cup of tea. "Divided Loyalties" and "Golems Aplenty" are among the better ones, in my opinion.

I obviously didn't play these scenarios for very long, but I can see where you're coming from now. For many of these, you're at the mercy of the map designer and whatever economic disadvantages he incorporated. There was a long period where I owned ROE and SOD, but not AB, so I couldn't play random maps. I distinctly remember playing no higher than 130% and still doing rather poorly. I much prefer random maps because they're more open-ended and usually give you enough resources to work with. Randomization can backfire, like Necropolis starting underground or your initial town not having a Fort, but you can always generate a new map until you're happy with the results.

For the most part, no. Since neutral towns almost always lack a Fort, I'll focus on building up to a City Hall for the time being. If it appears that a neutral town might be vulnerable to enemy attack, I'll consider stopping at a Town Hall. Most captured AI towns are fairly built-up, but I might build any missing generators if I have resources to spare.

Maybe your approach to the game is more casual than mine. It's something you can improve on, though, should you ever decide to play more competitively. I don't have every generator cost memorized, but I have a basic idea about how much Gold or which types of resources they need. The Town Hall, City Hall, Capitol, Citadel, and Castle are the easiest costs to remember, so I keep those figures in mind as I survey the Adventure Map. Sometimes keeping tabs on my treasury allows me to be flexible. For example, if I suspect I won't find enough Gems to build a Monastery or a Lake of Fire, I'll postpone building a Mage Guild and build a Citadel instead. It's all second nature to me now.

Yes, that has always been clear to me. As I said, generators operate weekly rather than daily.

Likewise, I've never contested this mechanic. However, I'll remind you that not only does the economic path take many turns to get underway, but it also delays your offensive growth for much of that duration. Eventually making 2000-4000 Gold per turn might give you the impression that you're doing well, but don't neglect the underlying trade-off. You can still win, but the opposition will be that much harder to take down.

If only it never went beyond the base growth rate, right? Should your opponent build a Citadel or Castle during Week 1, you can expect him to have 4-6 Wyverns during Week 2. Perhaps you could Slow or Blind that stack when the time comes, but you'll still have to contend with the rest your opponent's numerical advantage. Maybe this disparity is more apparent on higher difficulties, but if you've ever slogged through the SOD campaigns, you'll know just how unfair it is to be outnumbered.

From the sound of it, maybe a combination of both. Without a stronger emphasis on creature production during Week 1, losing troops to shooters can stall your main hero's progress until later weeks. It'd be a more even playing field if the AI went straight to Capitol, as well, but that's never the case.

Well, so long as it doesn't detract from your games. But given what you've told me, I think you'd do well on random maps. They offer a lot more variety and breathing room than the hand-crafted SP scenarios.

This sounds like a good idea. You choose a map and all the starting conditions and we can give this a shot. Just...not "Good to Go." I wouldn't enjoy that one very much.

That is true (and you make a good point about gold being in shorter supply). I wonder if my starting areas have usually been open (or weak) enough for me to feel like I can keep making progress with just the troops from those first two heroes.

On reflection, I might also be biased by playing through mostly campaign style maps when I've been playing in the past few months. A handful of troops are fine if you've got plenty of spell support.

It wasn't until I bought the Complete Edition from GOG that I had access to anything more than ROE, so most of my experience is from there.

I have enjoyed some of the quirky maps. I'll probably never play them again, but I don't replay most of the scenarios again anyway.

I'll occasionally kick out a tiny random map, often the smallest possible size and packed with 8 players. Makes for a very brutal, amusing diversion for a few hours. Definitely a scenario to skip straight to creature generators. I don't think I've ever done a random map larger than Medium size; I just have too many games to play, and there are several campaigns and many, many scenarios I haven't tried yet.

Looks like more of our map differences are coming into play; many of the towns I capture will have the Fort already built. Having no Fort isn't unheard of, but it is pre-built more often than not.

I'll focus economic first, unless I need those troops. If I don't expect to keep the town long, then I might not build at all, instead taking whatever it produces before I lose it again.

I'll never really get into the competitive scene, since it tends to sap some of my fun (I can get too focused on trying to win). When I play, I expect that I will win against the AI eventually, but I could almost certainly improve.

How soon do you push for the higher tier mage guilds? I almost never go higher than level 1 Mage Guild for quite a while. Level 2 is doable, but the higher tiers just burn out the special resources too quickly before at least mid-game. I love having them, but I hate paying for them.

It is usually a delay of one week on the generators which I'd have been able to afford anyway (i.e. NOT a cyclops cave), which doesn't bother me much. I usually don't have an issue knocking out the AI when we meet, and I almost never play against human opponents, so I haven't seen much reason to change back.

I acutely remember the difficulties of trying to buy all those stockpiled creatures, but being broke. Granted, that is mostly ROE maps, with a much younger and less experienced me, and I was probably trying to buy all of everything, but the memory is there. ;)

I specified base growth rate because trying to factor in the growth bonus from flagging map dwellings would have made the example unworkably complex (and if there are several of the same dwelling, then I'll try to get it built in my town to take advantage of the extra creatures).

Even with a Castle, you'll only have two extra Wyverns for the next week. Granted, you'll probably have another extra Wyvern over my total if I don't get the Castle up in Week 2, but I expect to have it built by Week 3 regardless (and the Citadel in Week 2). So 3 total extra Wyverns, plus some extra lower tier units.

I haven't played much of any of the SOD campaigns. I think I started on Gem's at one point, but I got distracted or something before beating the second map.

I don't tangle with shooters until I'm prepared to whatever I expect to lose. Shooters can wait unless I need whatever they are guarding.

Broken record, but I think we're back to play style variances based on usual map conditions. I start with enough resources to skip some of the wandering stacks if I need to, and scenarios usually don't stall your progress without some sort of compensation (like the enemy having to deal with the same sorts of stalls).

Yes, random maps do provide a lot of variety. I just don't have time to play everything I want to play, so I don't usually start a random map that I can't finish in a RL day or two.

As of right now, I've got an active game of Civilization 3, an active save of Might and Magic 7, some Play-By-Email games of Age of Wonders:SM, and an active save of Heroes Chronicles (the Rampart one).

'Good To Go' wouldn't be any sort of indicator anyway, since it skips the entire process that we've been discussing: early game build up. It boils down to combat, and we probably use very similar strategies for that.

I'll probably start a large Random map on Hard difficulty. We can post our respective saves every 7 turns or so, with a turn log of highlights from that week, and reporting what "Week of..." we get for the next week.