Earth Magic | Information about gameplay Heroes III HD Edition Guide

Last update: 11 May 2016

Magic Arrow

Cost: 5 Level: 1 Duration: - Description: Target, enemy unit receives (Power*10)+10 damage. Advanced level: Target, enemy unit receives (Power*10)+20 damage. Expert level: Target, enemy unit receives (Power*10)+30 damage.

The first offensive spell in the game, which can almost always be found in any first level Mage Guild. It's mainly used during the early rounds, because even those heroes who lack Power can deal significant damage - later on the effectiveness falls off considerably, because it lacks a good Power-damage ratio.

Shield

Cost: 5 Level: 1 Duration: 1 round Description: Shields a selected, allied unit, decreasing the amount of damage it receives in melee combat by 15%. Advanced level: Shields a selected, allied unit, decreasing the amount of damage it receives in melee combat by 30%. Expert level: Shields all your units, decreasing the amount of damage they receive in melee combat by 30%.

Another defensive spell, which increases the resistance of your units. It differs from Stone Skin in effect - Stone Skin increases the defense of your creatures, directly reducing any sustained damage, while here the effect is more indirect, because it only reduces damage from melee attack. When to use them?

Rules are simple - if your enemy does not have a lot of shooters, it's more beneficial to use Shield, which decreases MELEE DAMAGE. If the enemy, on the other hand, deals a lot of damage with the help of his shooters, it's better to use Stone Skin, which increases defense in general, reducing damage from both melee, and ranged attacks at the same time. Of course, you can as well use both of those spells simultaneously.

Stone Skin

Cost: 5 Level: 1 Duration: 1 round Description: Increases the defense of a single, allied unit by 3 points. Advanced level: Increases the defense of a single, allied unit by 6 points. Expert level: Increases the defense of all allied units by 6 points.

The basic defensive spell from the Earth Magic school, which allows you to increase the resistance of your unit, or your whole army, depending on the mastery over Earth Magic. Just as with the Prayer spell, it's a good method of reducing the gap between your units and the enemy ones, in a situation in which you are controlling a hero who is highly magic-oriented, while your enemy is a pure "fighter", with a lot of attack and defense. If you lack Prayer on Expert Level, this is a good replacement spell.

Slow

Cost: 6 Level: 1 Duration: 1 round Description: Decreases the speed of a single, enemy unit by 25%. Advanced level: Decreases the speed of a single, enemy unit by 50%. Expert level: Decreases the speed of all enemy units by 50%.

The opposite of Haste spell. Despite the low level of this spell, this is one of the most powerful and annoying spells you can cast on your enemy - on Expert Level it allows you to decrease the speed of the whole enemy army by half, which disrupts and delays the enemy movements, giving you a huge edge over your foe. Even if your enemy manages to take it off, the desired effect will be achieved, as it will delay some of your foe's troops, changing the outcome of the whole battle.

View Earth

Cost: 2 Level: 1 Duration: - until the end of the round Description: Displays the location of all resources on the View World Screen. Advanced level: Displays the location of all resources, as well as mines, on the View World Screen. Expert level: Displays the entire terrain, all mines and loose resources on the View World Screen.

Similar to View Air, this is a very useful and cheap spell. It comes in handy when you are frequently running out of a given resource and instead of buying it off the market yet again, you want to find and flag the mine responsible for delivering it. On Expert Level it allows you to see the entire map, which will help you to mark key locations.

Death Ripple

Cost: 10 Level: 2 Duration: - Description: All units, except undead, receive (Power*5)+10 damage. Advanced level: All units, except undead, receive (Power*5)+20 damage. Expert level: All units, except undead, receive (Power*5)+30 damage.

The equivalent of the Destroy Undead spell - the only difference is the fact, that it targets all units except for the undead ones. The spell, in theory, is very good, because while playing the Necropolis you will use only undead creatures in your army, allowing you to spam the spell each round without the fear of losing some precious units. There's only one problem - the spell deals incredibly low damage. Even a her with 30 points of Power will deal up to 180 points of damage to all living creatures (1260 in total) - for comparison, the same hero, with 30 points of Power, with the help of Chain Lightning will deal over 2500 damage to 5 enemy units (almost doubling the damage). The only time it's worth to use this spell is when your hero lacks spells such as Chain Lightning, Fire Ball, Inferno or Ice Ring.

Visions

Cost: 4 Level: 2 Duration: 1 day Description: Displays number of monsters in a wandering monster troop and whether or not the troop will offer to join the casting hero's army. Range is equal to Power or three, whichever is greater Advanced level: Additionally, it now shows the enemy hero's primary skills, as well as his army. Expert level: Additionally, it now shows the information about an enemy city.

Another very useful spell, which can be cast on the world map. After casting it, you must press and hold the right mouse button over an enemy hero to learn about a set of things - the amount of information depends on the highest level of proficiency in a given school of magic. Additionally, it's an useful spell while dealing with neutral monsters, as it allows you to estimate the chances of the enemy joining your army.

Quicksand

Cost: 8 Level: 2 Duration: until touched Description: Quick sands are placed in four random hexes on the battlefield. Those places are invisible to creatures unless they are on their native terrain. A unit stepping on the quicksand pit will be stopped. Advanced level: Creates quick sands in six random places. Expert level: Creates quick sands in eight random places..

In theory a somehow effective spell, but in practice one of the most useless ones - the chances of an enemy unit stepping on the quicksand pit are extremely slim, and if you want to disable a certain unit from combat, it's safer to just use Blind or Frenzy on it.

Anti magic

Cost: 15 Level: 3 Duration: 1 round Description: Target, allied unit can only be affected by spells from 4th and 5th level. Advanced level: Target, allied unit can only be affected by spells from 5th level. Expert level: Target, allied unit is completely immune to magic.

An extremely powerful spell, especially in those situations, in which you are fighting with powerful magic-oriented heroes, who may want to seize control over your unit (Hypnosis), or disable it from combat for a couple of rounds (Blind). Before you cast it, think about which unit from your army poses the biggest threat to your enemy - this unit should be protected by Anti Magic.

Protection from Earth

Cost: 12 Level: 3 Duration: 1 round Description: Protects the selected unit, reducing damage received from Earth spells by 30%. Advanced level: Allied unit receives 50% less damage from Earth spells. Expert level: All allied units receive 50% less damage from Earth spells

In contrast to other protection from element spells, this one may prove useful to you. The reason for that is simple - earth magic has two powerful offensive spells. The first one is the Meteor Shower, which can deal immense damage to your units when stacked close to each other, and the latter one is Implosion, a spell, which deals the highest amount of damage in the game (a powerful mage can easily deal 2000 points of damage to a single target).

Protecting all your units with this spell should effectively discourage your enemy from using the above mentioned spells. If, however, you are certain that the enemy does not have those spells at his disposal (which can be easily judged by his Power and Knowledge attributes - if they are low, there's a high chance that he can't even cast them), you can just ignore this spell.

Earthquake

Cost: 20 Level: 3 Duration: - Description: Damages the enemy walls in two random places. Advanced level: Damages the enemy walls in three random places. Expert level: Damages the enemy walls in four random places.

A spell which can only be used during a siege on an enemy city. After casting it, you will damage the walls of the enemy castle in several random places (the amount of them are dependent on the level of Earth Magic your hero has) - each place is damaged in a same way as if a stone from a catapult would hit it. On an Expert Level, this spell can severely damage the enemy castle, making the whole siege a lot easier.

Animate Dead

Cost: 15 Level: 3 Duration: permanent Description: Reanimates deceased, allied undead units - the amount of health points cannot exceed (Power*50)+30. Advanced level: Reanimates deceased, allied undead units - the amount of health points cannot exceed (Power*50)+60. Expert level: Reanimates deceased, allied undead units - the amount of health points cannot exceed (Power*50)+160.

The equivalent of the Resurrection spell, with a slight difference - it only affects undead units. This spell, coupled with the Necromancy skill of your hero, allows you to decrease the amount of troops lost during a battle - it has a huge Power/effectiveness ratio, which means, that even not so magically-focused heroes will be able to bring back a lot of troops. A thing worth noting is the fact, that the effect is permanent and the troops aren't lost after the battle ends.

Force Field

Cost: 15 Level: 3 Duration: 2 rounds Description: A two-hex wide Force Field is created in the designated place, preventing enemy units from passing it. Advanced level: Force Field is now three-hexes wide. Expert level: Force Field is now three-hexes wide.

Another fairly situational spell, which can be useful in some critical situations. With the help of Force Field, you will be able to block the passageway to your shooters whenever you are too short on troops to leave them by to defend them. It can also be used to block a hole in a wall - this way the enemy won't be able to get inside your walls.

Meteor Shower

Cost: 16 Level: 4 Duration: - Description: Units in the range of the spell receive (Power*25)+25 damage. Advanced level: Units in the range of the spell receive (Power*25)+50 damage. Expert level: Units in the range of the spell receive (Power*25)+100 damage.

One of the most powerful offensive spells in the game - in an ideal situation, you will be able to attack 5 units at the same time. Inflicting damage on even 1-2 enemy units is still effective, as this spell has extremely good Power/damage ratios and it will still hurt them a lot, even if your hero lacks insane amounts of Power points. In the hands of a powerful mage, this spell is extremely lethal - a single use can kill several 7th level units!

Sorrow

Cost: 16 Level: 4 Duration: 1 round Description: Decreases the morale of an enemy unit by 1. Advanced level: Decreases the morale of an enemy unit by 2. Expert level: Decreases the morale of all enemy units by 2.

Similarly to Misfortune, this spell is a rather useless one, if the enemy hero (and his units) has 3 points of morale. In such a situation, you will decrease it to 1 - enemy units will still have a bonus, giving them a chance for an additional move (1 gives 4,2% chance, +2 is 8,3% and +3 is 12,5%).

However, if the enemy hero has 0, or -1 point of morale (this can be checked by pressing and holding the right mouse button over the enemy hero, or any of his units), it can be effective. Contrary to luck, morale can reach negatives values - with -1 the enemy units have 8,3% chance to lose their move during a given round, -2 gives them 16,7% chance for that, while -3 gives a 25% chance of them losing their move. If you manage to drop the morale of your enemies to -3, there's a high chance that some of those units will lose their move.

Town Portal

Cost: 30 Level: 4 Duration: - Description: After casting, the hero moves to the nearest allied city, losing 30 points of movement during the process. Advanced level: The hero can move to any allied city, but it cannot be visited by another hero. Expert level: : The hero loses only 20 points of movement while casting the spell.

The time has come for the most unbalanced, overpowered spell in the game, which, at any moment, provided that he has enough movement points, allows the hero casting it to move to an allied city, even from the other side of the map - it makes any surprise attacks futile, as you won't be able to even get near an enemy castle, when the enemy hero has this spell at his disposal, and there's no need for the enemy to leave any army at the city garrison.

Resurrection

Cost: 20 Level: 4 Duration: - Description: Restores a fallen, allied unit for the duration of the battle - the amount of health points cannot exceed (Power*50)+40. Advanced level: Increases the health limit to (Power*50)+80. Expert level: : Increases the health limit to (Power*50)+80 and the units are resurrected permanently.

The equivalent of the Animate Dead spell, this time affecting the living creatures. In the basic, and advanced form, it allows you to bring back your units only for the duration of the battle - on the Expert level, however, the units are resurrected permanently. This spell allows you to bring back immense amounts of fallen creatures, which makes it extremely effective during long bouts, especially if your enemy lacks this spell.

Implosion

Cost: 30 Level: 5 Duration: - Description: An enemy unit receives (Power*75)+100 damage. Advanced level: An enemy unit receives (Power*75)+200 damage. Expert level: : An enemy unit receives (Power*75)+300 damage.

Implosion is an immensely powerful offensive spell - it has an extremely high Power/damage ratio, which allows it to deal insane amounts of damage. It's a perfect way of eliminating any target, but it's primary use is to get rid of enemy 7th level units - with the proper amount of Power, it can easily kill over 10 units of 7th level with a single use!

Earth Elemental

Cost: 25 Level: 5 Duration: whole battle Description: Summons (Power*2) Earth Elementals. You can't summon more than one type of elemental during a single battle, but several of the same time can be summoned. Advanced level: Summons (Power*3) Earth Elementals. Expert level: Summons (Power*4) Earth Elementals.

The strongest summoning spell in the game, because of the fact that Earch Elementals are the strongest from all the other types - if you want to aid yourself with a summoned ally, the best choice is to select an Earth Elemental.