Hi -

I'm playing Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - the version from GoG that has both the AB xpac as well as Shadow of Death. All are installed. I also installed the universal update.

I never really get a completed set of artifacts to create a combo artifact - I played all through Restoration of Erathia without get a chance to try it.

However, I'm playing Armageddon's Blade right now (I'm on the scenario where you have to find the smith to forge Armageddon's blade). My hero Xeron has the Bow of Elven Cherrywood, Bowstring of Unicorn's Mane, and Angel Feather Arrows. I equipped all 3 of them. I removed all other artifacts just in case the combo requires an unanticipated slot. When I right click on any of the 3 items in "bow of the sharpshooter" it doesn't offer for me to combine into the combo artifact. It just shows me the info for the artifact I've right clicked on.

Why can't I combine these? Is it because I'm playing in the AB campaign? I thought once I had Shadows of Death installed, combo artifacts would be enabled.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Yes, it's because you're playing AB campaign.

You can't use combo artifacts in the original RoE or AB campaigns. And if you play a single map, you can only use them in the ones that are SoD maps (you can tell by the icon next to the name). The ones that are RoE maps, can't use any features from AB or SoD (like the new Sir Mullich hero).

EDIT: I meant Sir Mullich not Sim Mullich.

Thanks - super helpful! I saw misleading text somewhere that said "combination artifacts are only enabled once the SoD expansion is installed" which makes it sound like they are enabled in all maps then. Clearly not!

Necroing this, but I've long wondered what it would take to enable combination artifacts in RoE or AB and their SP maps. Although I suppose if it were easy it would have been done by now.

Would it be at all possible? Does anyone know why it wouldn't be?

You can do it. You have to open each RoE or AB map in the Map Editor, open Map Specifications (Ctrl+Enter) and change Map version in General tab to SoD. Bear in mind that it will enable all SoD features in this map and you can't reverse the upgrade (make a backup of unmodified maps first).

Oh cool, not just the SP maps but also the RoE and AB campaigns?

Campaigns are a bit trickier, especially original ones.
First, you have to open a campaign file in Campaign Editor, export all scenarios that it contains, make changes in Map Editor as described before, and import them back in Campaign Editor, changing Campaign version accordingly. With original campaigns there is one more step needed, because they are packed in H3bitmap.lod and H3ab_bmp.lod files. You have to retrieve them first, using Resedit.exe, edit them, and pack them back.

Thanks! Though I still could use some help. I'll detail what I did below to help with figuring out what I'm missing.

First I got resedit 1.90 from here: http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/forgetown/files/resedit.rar (1.6.6. on resedit.net doesn't open .lod-files, I learned.)

Then I followed these steps outlined by Cepheus at heroescommunity:
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=26941&PID=609298#focus (Except I got the RoE and AB campaigns from H3ab_bmp.lod and SoD from H3bitmap.lod.)

As you said, under Tools -> Map Specifications -> General, I changed the map version to The Shadow of Death.

Then, in the campaign editor, I found that I could change the Campaign Version under Edit -> Campaign Properties to SoD, then under File -> Refresh scenario maps seems to update the map versions in the .h3c-files.

Also in the campaign editor, under Edit -> Scenario Properties, there is the option to allow artifacts and artifact combinations to carry over between scenarios, like in SoD (Armor of the Damned, Cloak of the Undead King). I'm not sure if I want them to, but it's there anyway if anyone wants to do it.

I couldn't work out how to repack the .h3c-files in resedit after editing them, but I found another program called MMArchive and read somewhere that using the Add function on the .h3c-files would replace the ones in the game, but the editor gives no indication of operation success or if it does anything at all. Turns out that it didn't do anything, as the RoE campaign I tested still behaves like RoE (4 left-side artifact boxes instead of 5, no combining).

So that's where I'm currently at.

Probably not important, but: When extracting the RoE and AB campaigns, I ended up with two 'neutral' campaign files, one called neutral1 (which I identified as Spoils of War) and one that I couldn't identify, but when trying to open the .h3c-file the campaign editor gave the error:

"Invalid campaign file version!

File version = 4
Current version = 6"

But since all RoE and AB campaigns and scenarios are otherwise accounted for, I just ignored it.

Update: I followed the steps of this tutorial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDmSmW5JZjk

1. Extracted .h3c-files from H3ab_bmp.lod with MMArchive
2. Opened them in Campaign Editor
3. Exported scenario maps
4. Changed map version for scenario maps to SoD in Map Editor
5. Changed Campaign type to SoD in Campaign Editor
5. Refreshed scenario maps (individually to be on the safe side) in Campaign Editor
6. Replaced .h3c-files in H3ab_bmp.lod with MMArchive

Still nothing.

I'm playing with HD+ mod if that matters.

Edit: Tried without HD+ mod, it doesn't.

Edit 2: I tried changing anything at all to see if it's specifically the map change that wont occur, but no changes that I make are saved to the game's .lod-file, which is strange because the file's last change made date is still updated.

Edit 3: After changing map version to SoD in map editor, I̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶c̶o̶v̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶I̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶o̶p̶e̶n̶ ̶m̶a̶p̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶c̶i̶f̶i̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶c̶k̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶b̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶r̶t̶i̶f̶a̶c̶t̶s̶ ̶u̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶r̶t̶i̶f̶a̶c̶t̶s̶ ̶t̶a̶b̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶w̶e̶r̶e̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶u̶n̶t̶i̶l̶ ̶I̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶s̶a̶v̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶p̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶s̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶. (Edit 3.1: Nope, that only made combination artifacts appear on the map as random artifacts.)

Thought for sure I had figured it out there for a second, but still no change, lol.

When extracting and checking the altered .h3c and .h3m-files from the altered .lod-file with MMArchive and the editors, all the changes I made are all still there, it's in the Data folder, but for some reason no changes are made to the actual game.

Edit 4: It works as a custom campaign. I'm guessing something other than the .lod-file must also be tinkered with.