Gold Rush | Campaign - Spoils of War Heroes III HD Edition Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
Key points of Heroes of Might & Magic III: HD Edition - Goldrush mission - Spoils of War campaign
Cities, which belong to the player from the very beginning of the mission.
An enemy garrison building - to get to the other side, you must first defeat the units garrisoned there.
Guard - "a" stands for the Guard Tent, while "b" indicates the Guard Tower, which can be passed after visiting the Guard Tent.
The entrance to the underground - "a" stands for the entrance itself, while "b" indicates the exit leading to the surface.
A mirror entrance - "a" stands for the entrance, while "b" indicates the exit.
Points of interest - visiting, or capturing it can make the mission a lot easier.
This icon represents the place, in which the player can complete the main goal of the mission - it can either be the task to seize an artifact, defeat a certain enemy, or simply capture a city.
This icon represents key mines, which should be captured in order to complete the mission.
Neutral cities, which can be captured.
Cities, which belong to the enemy player.
At the beginning, as always, you will have to choose between 3 starting bonuses: 3 Thunderbirds, 2 Cyclops Kings or 1 Ancient Behemoth. The choice is obvious - the Ancient Behemoth is the best one, which you surely will find out in a moment. Your task is to collect 200,000 gold - an easier task it may initially seem.
Two Stronghold cities have been given to you, each one with a hero at the gates. Near your first city (point S1 on the map) there's a Hill Fort (point POI1 on the map), which will allow you to upgrade your units without the need to construct upgraded buildings in your cities - this is even more important, as with the case of the Stronghold city, you can easily gain access to 7th level unit as soon as the second day of the first week!
The first week in your "first" city (S1) should look like this:
- Day 1 - Wolf Pen
- Day 2 - Cliff Nest
- Day 3 - Behemoth Lair
- Day 4 - City Hall
- Day 5 - Citadel
- Day 6 - Castle
- Day 7 - Mage Guild
This way, after the first week ends, you will have access to 3 Behemoths, 9 Rocs and a group of Goblins and Wolf Riders. What is more important, you can easily upgrade those troops at a Hill Fort almost for free - no other player in no other city can have access to 4 Ancient Behemoths and 9 Thunderbirds at the beginning of the second week. With those troops you will have no problems while dealing with your enemies. Remember to build your Capitol as soon as possible - construction costs will pay back after 5 rounds and afterwards it will allow you to easily recruit your troops.
The second city (S2) should be build in this way:
- Day 1 - City Hall
- Day 2 - Marketplace
- Day 3 - Mage Guild
- Day 4 - Blacksmith
- Day 5 - Town Hall
After you've constructed those 5 buildings, wait a little bit after you've completed the buildings in the first city - after you've done that, build those exact same buildings in this one as well, to gain access to Rocs and Behemoths, as well as Castle, which will increase their weekly growth. Having access to those units in both cities, as well as being able to upgrade them at the Hill Fort, will make your army extremely powerful.
The reason why you're not building all those buildings in both cities at the same time is the limitation of resources, especially wood - Stronghold cities are known for their quick development, i.e. early access to powerful units, but immense amounts of wood and ore are needed in the process, especially when you want to build Citadel and Castle as well. If you, however, managed to quickly capture lumber mill(s) and ore mine(s), as well as secured some "loose" resources, you can execute the construction plan from the first city in the second one as well - you will have access to more units early on. Additionally, remember to build other unit-production buildings (you can have some problems with Cyclops, as their building is extremely expensive) - you don't have to upgrade them, naturally, as you have a Hill Fort close to your cities.
After the second week begins, get back to city in which you have access to Rocs and Behemoths (S1) and recruit all the units there. Afterwards, order your hero to go East from that city - bust through the Halberdier group blocking the passageway, seize control over the Gold Mine located further to the East (point MINE1 on the map). The Gold Mine is protected by a group of Griffins, but you should have no problems while dealing with them. After you capture the mine, head South, to upgrade your units at a nearby Hill Fort (point POI1 on the map). Finally, after you've upgraded your units, head North, where the first enemy city (point W1 on the map) awaits and capture it, which should be trivial. Examine the surrounding area, collect all the resources, items and capture all the mines you might have missed.
With the arrival of the third (or fourth, depending on the time you've spent on collecting your army) you should get back to the city, recruit all your troops and upgrade them again at the Hill Fort. Afterwards head South, where you will find an underground entrance (point P1a on the map). You can go either North or South from there - the first option will lead you to a bigger island, where you can find two enemy cities, while the latter one leads to a small island with a single, lone enemy encampment. Start off with the Northern entrance and send your hero to the exit leading to the surface (point P2b on the map) - if you don't want the enemy from the bottom entrance to interfere, send a second hero to the underground to block the entrance, which should scare off the attacker.
After emerging to the surface through the exit (P2a) immediately head North-East - the first enemy city on this island awaits you there (point W2 on the map). After you've captured it go straight South - at the end of the second part of the island there's the next enemy city (point W3 on the map). All you have to do now is to go back to the underworld and leave through the Southern exit (point P3b on the map) - you can use the second hero for that task as well. Go there and capture the final enemy city (point W4 on the map). After you've captured all 4 enemy cities the enemy will be defeated and you can now fully focus on your goal of collecting 200,000 gold.
There are two methods - you can simply click the "end turn" enough times until you reach the required threshold (with the amount of cities and Gold mines it won't even take half a minute), or go to the underground exit near the second enemy city (Northern exit - point N2 on the map) and visit the red Guard Tent (point K2a on the map - before you go there, however, you have to visit the first Guard Tent, located at the K1a point). After you've done that, go to the upper left corner of the map (point K2b on the map) - a passageway awaits there, leading to a small place filled with gold (you can collect up to 100,000 gold here!) One way or the other, the mission will end as soon as you collect 200,000 gold.
Remember that heroes from this mission are transferred to the next one - a maximum of 8 heroes up to 12th level. You won't be able to level that many heroes to that level, because there aren't enough opportunities to do so during this mission, but if you want to choose them as your heroes for the final chapter of this campaign, try to level up one hero to 12th level and have 2 or more heroes with 8-10th level as well - remember to collect spells from Mage Guilds.