| ||||||
 |
|
 |
||||
 |
 |
|||||
| ||||||
Economic Warfare in Heroes of Might and Magic 2
submitted by Lord Mollari
From playing assorted games, I have learned that there are two ways of warring with your opponent(s). One way involves some old-fashioned military beatdown. While this can work if you are carrying a nice large army, it may be less effective in the early game when it is hard to know what someone else is carrying. The other form consists of stealing resources, amassing a small fortune, building up your castle to the limit, and preparing a nice large unit of whatever your final-stage creature is, destroying whoever comes by in the process. This warfare, economic warfare, is much easier to perform early game if you do it correctly. If not, you are asking to be doomed.
If you plan to declare economic War on someone (really, everyone), then prepare for a long game, as the strategy tries to enable for an easy ride during the late game by vitrue of your enormous unit. Rushing yourself is not the way to do this. In addition, you do not require many heroes for this. For the greater part of the game, you may only have 2 or 3, as that is all you need (1 super-agressive unit, probably your starting unit, and other resource-snatching units). It is vitally imperitave that these Heroes be set up correctly. Ideally, your attacking Hero will be a magic-user, as access to higher level attack spells (very useful ones are Chain Lightning and Meteor Shower) can reduce the wear on your own army, and Resurrect True will sustain your lesser units until your inate Defense Skill will be enough to handle it. It may be a wise idea to save Resurrect True for your ranged attackers, since the AI does go after them. Useful secondary skills include Logistics, Archery, Pathfinding/Navigation if appropiate, and Wisdom (definately Wisdom). It is worth stockpiling Artifacts which improve Primary skills on this person, particulary the Ultimate Artifact if you can find it (which, as I shall note, may not be as hard as you think). Your secondary heroes, who perform exploratory functions, do not need large units. In fact, I have sent them out as suicide reconnaisance missings using a single Gargoyle to maximize speed. Since they may not last long, they need Logistics and Pathfinding. In addition, Scouting serves their purpose well, as well as allowing them to see a potentially nasty situation ahead of schedule. If you have given them a Very Fast, then having Diplomacy can also reduce expenditures for retreating.
Now, it is imperitave that you maximize your resource intake if you wish to do this. For this reason, I recommend the Warlock for your starting Hero if you can. Outside of the Scouting and Wisdom skills, both of which are useful for an economic strategy, having a Warlock castle allows you to build the Dungeon (+500 gold per day), which can seriously improve your finances. Do not forget your statue, and Estates may be a useful skill to take. You must also seize every resource you can get your hands on, a reason your exploration heroes should have Scouting, Logistics, and Pathfinding. This will enable them to head in, seize a resource, and head out while losing as few movement points as possible, thus allowing them to move towards taking a new resource site or pull away from an enemy.
When constructing your castle, it is important to make sure you can still buy your units. Therefore, once you have the basic unit structures in play, you can spend time building the less costly ones. I shall use the Warlock castle for an example, but the same theories apply to everyone else.
Given our goal of dominating the economic position, I start off with my Dungeon and then Statue, doing the Dungeon first (note: since the Warlock castle is the only one with two money structures, non-Warlock players can construct whatever they will in that day). Since I will be able to build 7 structures, and 2 have been done, I am left with 5. I will need to begin developing my eventually massive army, so I spend the next 2 days building a Crypt and Nest (to get Gargoyles and Griffins, respectively). Looking to the future of my army, I now can build the Well and Waterfall. With one day left, I look at how many Gems I have. If I have enough to build the Maze one day and upgrade it the next, I go ahead. Otherwise, I build the Tavern, Thieves Guild, or Marketplace. After buying units, I begin to build up my Mage Guild, upgrading when I have the resources to do so. After I have my Swamp, I build towards getting the Green/Red/Black Towers and Dragons (NOTE: make sure when you do this that you have a good supply of gold and sulfur coming in. Reclaim any gold/sulfur mines that are stolen FAST). Eventually, I have a fully built castle, a large unit, and a new hero to act as my Homeguard. I can now go out and mutilate my foes with 200+ Centaurs, Mass Haste, and Resurrect True.
No game can be won on money alone (alright, so some scenarios may have accumulating money as a Victory Condition, but it’s not as common as Military Victory.), so you have to have a way to attain a victory by fighting. This strategy uses the most defensive techniques you will ever see (except for the person who never budges from his castle, but that person runs out of non-gold resource points fairly quickly). For starters, your main hero will rarely go very far from his castle, as all the troops every week will be transferred to him, and he will spend the greater part of the game defending the castle. This goes on until he has an ENORMOUS unit, ideally containing at least 10 of your final creature (be it Dragons, Phoenix, Titan, or whatever). At that point, you now recruit a SECOND hero who shall stay at home (I refer to him as the Homeguard unit), and your military hero can go farther out and engage. However, he must be able to return home FAST if something comes, as the second hero may not have a large unit. Once he does (which will take at least a month and probably longer), he continues to stay, can go out to engage nearby threats, and retrieve nearby stolen resources. Your main hero, in the meanwhile, is out steamrolling over everyone who divides their troops 8 ways instead of 2 ways. At this point, you should have enough of an advantage to win. If you can capture a castle of your attacking hero’s type (e.g. a Warlock capturing another Warlock castle), you have a gold mine in the form of a close resupply base, and the castle should be built up and defended ASAP. It is not uncommon to have upwards of 100,000 gold at the end of the game, and probably over 100 of several of the other resources as well. Try it, refine to your paticular style, and you too can live like a king (well, you’ll have as much money as one)