Hi! My name is Grimy Gremlin, and I will be your host in these pages. We gremlins were a little lax during Might and Magic VI, but fear not. We were in full force during Heroes of Might and Magic III. I'll show you some of our best accomplishments

A special thanks to New World Computing's Gus Smedstad for his assistance in verifying which bugs have been corrected by the patches, and which are still pending. -- The Quebec Dragon

If you have a problem such as map blow offs, patch or update errors, or any other HOMAM malfunction, drop the BugWatch Wizard a line at Bug Watch Problem and I may post it (if suitable) here for others to see and possibly resolve. Please remember to include your hardware information (speed/memory/video card/audio card/OS) [NOTE: I only report them. I don't vouch for them unless specifically indicated in a foot note. -- The Quebec Dragon]

If you have a solution to a problem that has been posted here drop the BugWatch Wizard a line at Bug Watch Solution and I may post it (if suitable) here for others to use to resolve their problem.

Shannan Hargreaves has reported getting a "_INS5576" Error during the installation process. Shannan reports that this error is not related to hardware. [posted 03/27/1999] [According to the 3do website, this is related to the program attempting to detect the computer's capabilities. There is a solution for this. Follow these steps:
1.Launch the Heroes III installer and select YES or NO at the DirectX prompt (it does not matter which is selected).
2.At the welcome screen, minimize the install by selecting the left-most button at the top of the installer window.
3.Open either 'My Computer' or 'Windows Explorer' and navigate to your C:\Windows\Temp folder.
4.Once you are in the 'Temp' folder look for a folder called _istemp#.dir (where # is any number). If there are more than one folder that look like this, select the one with the highest number and double click on it to enter this folder.
5.Once in the folder locate the folder called _istmp0.dir and double click to enter this folder.
6.Locate the file called chkreqs.dll and delete it. (If you cannot locate this file, select the View option at the top of the window and then Folder Options. On the View tab you will see a list of options, select the Show all Files button. And press OK.)
7.To make sure that the file is deleted, empty your recycle bin (if you have Norton Utilities installed make sure you empty your 'Norton Protected Recycle Bin' as well).
8.Switch back to the Heroes III installer and continue as normal.
Thank you Steven Trilling for pointing this out -GW [posted 03/30/1999]

Several people have reported that the Head of Legion artifact is a lot more useful that intended by the game designers. Instead of giving you one additional sixth level creature, it gives you five. [We gremlins added this bug to be fair (like we need to). After all, we figured with some of the bugs the computer has on it's side, you humans would need some help if you are ever going to win. We know how difficult it is for humans to think] - GG
[posted 04/10/1999]

Fixed by patch 1.1. -QD

Here is a neat little trick bought to us by Brian Miller. Having trouble with your castle siege? Try bringing along some Cyclops next time. Make sure your hero has the tactics skill. During your tactics phrase, you can target the castle walls with your cyclops, and knock a piece down. Now skip the rest of your creatures tactics until you get back to the cyclops. Take down another piece of wall. Repeat this until you have a nice hole in the wall for your troops. [posted 04/10/1999]

Fixed by patch 1.1. -QD

The infamous "Timed Event Bug" has been reported and investigated many times over by several mapmakers including some of our own AW mapmakers. For those of you unfamiliar with this bug, it has been reported that computer players will not receive timed events.
Grayson has found that this bug will only affect the computer player if the timed event is specified for certain players, but the computer will receive the event if all players can receive it. Grayson explains, "So, if the computer is Red (player 1), and the event is specified for player 1 only and you tell it to allow the computer to get the event, the computer will still not receive the event. BUT if the event is specified for any player and the computer is allowed to get the event, then it seems to work." [posted 04/10/1999]
This Timed event bug is still confusing, and its behaviour is as well. Rickard has found that if he puts the timed events in the castle specific screen, it will work even for the AI, however, the timed events in the general map screen will not work as per the statement above. [posted 05/30/1999]

Fixed by patch 1.2. -QD

Mpaton is having a problem probably related to his video card. When he passes his mouse over the screen, it 'blurs' in a way similar to the 'smudge' tool in photoshop. He is running on a P233 with an 8Meg VooDoo Rush Card, and a SoundBlaster 64. [posted 04/11/1999]

Voodoo Rush mouse problem fixed by patch 1.1. The problem with animated mouse cursors on other video cards was fixed by patch 1.2. .-- QD

Capt. Caveman discovered that when you cast some adventure screen spells (such as scuttle boat), and the intended target is not available (for example because the screen shifted to focus on the hero when you cast the spell) there is no way to cancel the spell, and you must kill the game.
[It is always a good thing to keep in mind that all adventure spells will focus around your hero. If you hero is in the center of the screen, and your target is not on the screen, then you can not affect it with a spell until you get closer.] -GW [posted 04/11/1999]
[I have had a number of people tell me that the ESC key will work to cancel this spell, however, I too have had it happen to me where ESC will not cancel for some reason.] -GW [posted 05/30/1999]

Fixed by patch. -QD

Thomas Nicolaj has reported that when you resurrect a stack of archangels with another stack of archangels that two stack appear. [I played with this one for a while. I resurrected one stack of 5 archangels with another stack of 20. My 5 were resurrected, but when I moved them to a different location, a 'ghost' of the original 5 stayed there. This 'ghost' had no bearing on the game, except that I could right click on it to receive information about the real stack of 5. When it was the real stack of 5's turn, the 'ghost' was also highlighted. I then joined the 'real' stack the and 'ghost' stack together, and the 'ghost' disappeared.] -GW [posted 04/11/1999]

Experienced something similar but with stacks other than Archangels. Doesn't seem to have any effect on the game. -QD

Michelle O'Keefe has encounted a strange bug. She explains, "Here's a nasty bug I encountered. I attacked a castle that was once mine to retake it. There was either a visiting hero and a garrison hero, or just one hero with additional units defending the castle (I believe the latter). I easily won the battle, but the ownership of the castle did not change hands. When I put the cursor on the castle, it shows the sword icon. But when I click to fight, it puts me into the castle build screen. I can build garrison units, and even attack the units I just built. However, I can't weed out the visiting hero that in permanently entrenched there. This hero clones himself from time to time and exits the castle looking for trouble.[04/11/99]

Very likely fixed by patch 1.2. -QD

Nerius was the first one to report this to me, although I have taken some time to post it. :-) There has ben discussion about this on the Quill, but when you have a special lose condition of 'lose hero', if Orrin ever shows up on the map, the lose condition changes from 'lose hero x' to 'lose Orrin'. I can only guess that someone out there really likes Orrin. [posted 05/30/1999]

Fixed by patch 1.2. -QD

This is an interesting one that no one has been able to pin down yet. I have only started hearing about it since the release of the patch, however, occasionaly someone will get hordes of creatures in their army from some event. It has happened to both players and AI, and the figures are usually in the thousands (i.e. 5000 or more). If you attack an AI and he has thousands of creatures, it may not be the map makers fault. Please write in if you have additional information about this (such as when it happens).
[posted 05/30/1999]

The so-called Legion bug was fixed by patch 1.2. -QD

Lord Lake has found that the shadow movement will disappear under some circumstances (when he waits with all his creatures in a battle for example. [posted 05/30/1999]

Fixed by patch 1.2. -QD

Quebec Dragon points out that the Naga Bank gives out sulfur when, logically, it should be giving gems. [posted 05/30/1999]

Some people are reporting that the music for the Rampart, Dungeon and between-turns is scratchy, however the same music plays clear from WimAmp. NWC was looking into this, and has not yet solved the problem. [posted 05/30/1999]

Chat messages disappear too quickly and there is no way to pull them back up.
[This is especially annoying to me when I am in my castle screen, and I miss the messages entirely.] -GW [posted 05/30/1999]

The impossibility of calling back a message log is still an annoying flaw which I sincerely hope they correct in Heroes IV but contrary to what Gwaihir wrote, and many people believed, even if you spend very long in the Castle screen,  the messages from your opponents will still be there when you exit. -QD

Since the patch, many people are having mouse trails appear on their screens. It seems to get worse the longer you play.
[I get mouse trails when I play on a 200 with a bad video card, but when I play on an updated system, I do not get these mouse trails. What I do get, which is equally annoying, is my horse icon with my windows arrow on top of my horse. Sometimes the horse is gone altogether, and I just have my windows arrow. This is expecially annoyng because I can not tell when my horse is supposed to be rearing up. This is only a problem since I installed the patch.] -GW
[What - you think we quit putting in bugs simply because the game was released?] -GG [posted 05/30/1999]

Fixed by patch 1.2. I'm fairly sure the mouse trail problems (which happened to me when I used animated cursors) are also fixed. Those problems happened by switching from full-screen to window repeatedly by using F4 or Alt-TAB. -QD

  The Master Gremlin rush, while not a bug, is very unbalancing. It deserves honerable mention on here, simply because of the name of this page. :-)
[Give you one guess who is responsible for this.] -GG [posted 05/30/1999]

Limited somewhat in patch 1.1. by heroes no longer receiving full movement points when rehired in the same day they die, retreat or surrender. Resolved in patch 1.2 by having only the first two heroes hired each week receive a full set of troops. All subsequent heroes receiving a single troop. -QD

Quebec Dragon has reported that if you are inside a scenario and choose to restart it, then the difficulty level will revert to 'normal' no matter what was selected before. [posted 05/30/1999]

Fixed by patch 1.3. (RoE)/ 2.1 (AB) -- QD

Hero representations during a battle are often the incorrect hero - sometimes not even the same sex as the actual hero This should be corrected.[posted 05/30/1999]

Tested this myself. Hero icons on the battle screen are based on the gender while hero icons on the adventure screen are based on class. The only hero with the wrong gender in the battle screen was Jenova (not Mephala as previously written) who showed up as male. I don't think this little oversight was fixed. -QD

In the original Heroes III, the game let you cast Sacrifice on enemy stacks.[posted 10/25/1999]

Fixed by patch 1.2. -QD

Jeddite reported that you can not disable Protection from Earth spell from appearing in the Fortress Town. You can do so in all the other towns, but not the Fortress. [posted 10/25/1999]

The game rolls over when you hit 200+ million Gold, the next turn you will have negative gold. [posted 10/25/1999]

Fixed by patch 1.2 -- Caesion

In allied maps you can control your allies heroes. If you enter in your allies castle and then exit you can control that allied hero. [posted 01/15/2000]

A few of the people that run this site have noticed this same bug. This bug has been fixed by patch 1.2. The person that emailed this bug was in Europe and new patches to Heroes usually take some time to make it to different countries in Europe. -- Caesion

Blows back to desktop when you dismiss creatures from town:
1. Double-click on any town that has no visiting or garrison hero,and no creatures in the garrison.
2. Use the mouse to buy any creature.
3. Click on that creature (first slot in the garrison). Highlight only--don't bring up dialog.
4. Press the "d" key. Brings up creature dialog.
5. Press <Enter>. Dismisses creature dialog.
6. Click on the creature. [posted 03/19/2000]

Fixed by patch 1.3 (RoE)/ 2.1 (AB). -- QD

You get dropped out of the game and back to the Windows 95 desktop when you use the option Replay Opponent Turn. [posted 03/19/2000]

This happened to me against 2 different opponents on 2 different maps of large size when hosting an internet multiplayer game. It has happened one more time since then on a medium map and now I'm adamant to use it at all. It seems this game feature still has some kinks to work out...the bug has been there for a while and I thought that patch 1..2. had eliminated it. -- QD

More issues with Replay Turn have been resolved with the latest set of patches (1.3/2.1) according to NWC's Gus Smedstad. --- QD

Hasted Archangels will lose their turn if you make them wait. This was fixed in AB but not patch 1.2 of the original game.
[posted 03/19/2000]

Should be fixed by patch 1.3. -- QD

If you target the main turret with your catapult or a Cyclops's boulder, you will almost always destroy the southern turret. [posted 03/19/2000]

Fixed by patch 1.3 (RoE) / 2.1 (AB) . -- QD

Here's a bug involving garrisons as discovered by Sean G. Carrol. In the Editor, even when you make sure the little box is unchecked, the one that says "troops are not removable", the troops can actually be removed by the human player during the game. [posted 03/20/2000]

Fixed by patch 1.3 (RoE) / 2.1 (AB). -- QD

You can play a game, visit the tents, restart the same scenario and you'll be able to open up the border gates even though you might have not visited the associated tents this time around. The computer colors might also be able to open up the border gates even though they have not visited the tents. [posted 03/20/2000]

As the submitter of this bug hypothetized, this might be due to a temporary file recording which tents you have visited already. -- QD

NWC's Gus Smedstad thinks this one has been fixed but it still needs confirmation. -- QD

The experience of a hero will become negative if he gets too much experience. His level will be 0 if this happens. A primary stat will become 1 again when you equip an item boosting it beyond 99. [posted 03/20/2000]

I wonder in what kind of Monty Haul map you could get to these extremes. Primary stats are supposed to be limited to 99. It was not tested by NWC (because they did not know  of it until it was too late ;-). -- QD

The computer will never upgrade the Serpent Fly hive even though it's one of the best upgrades for the Fortress [posted 03/20/2000]

It was considered a poor upgrade by the AI programmer (what was he thinking ? :-) so it is why it was not done. This is supposed to be changed now with the latest patches 1.3 (RoE) / 2.1 (AB). -- QD

Ray Esker has noticed that the stat improvement structures (such as Cage of Warlords or Wall of Knowledge) are hardly ever built by computer players no matter how long they've owned the castle and everything else is built. [posted 03/20/2000]

This has not changed. The AI will only consider buying those when there is a hero inside. -- QD

You can get unlimited movement for rehired heroes if you have a stable built in your Castle town. The stable event happens every time they are rehired. The player reporting this bug had an enemy two steps away from a castle and attacked him with the same hero for 6 times in one turn, using one spell to decrease his army, until he was defeated. Finally her hero had a +++ movement, because he always got that stable event and the AI remembered just the movement points left. [posted 03/20/2000]

Fixed by patch 1.3 (RoE) / 2.1 (AB). -- QD

A player built a map with a I of building the grail in any town. He tested the map, and got the Grail, but whenever he tried to put it in any town, no matter how many buildings he had built in it, he would get a message saying that he wasn't worthy to put the Grail in that city. This happened in every single city that he owned. [posted 03/20/2000]

Sometimes, an enemy hero will just stop moving at one point in the game, even when your own heroes are fairly nearby.
[posted 04/03/2000]

I've noticed something like this myself a few times but it is so rare and unpredictable that I'd consider this a fluke more than anything else. Usually when I approached with a hero, that would unfreeze the enemy. I also think the map layout might have something to do with it. In other words, if it has nowhere particularly interesting to go, it will stay put for a while (myself I will sometimes let heroes stand still). One must also remember that it's possible, and likelier in most cases, the enemy hero has a certain narrow patrol radius beyond which he or she will not move. -- QD

Covenant enlightened us with this variation on a known bug on our Quill mailing list (hint: people should really send them to me directly): if you play a game, get some tent passwords (permissions), then return to the main menu to start a new game (another map), without quitting Heroes, you can open up border guards without visiting the associated tent. If you visited 2 Tents in a previous game for example, you could open the 2 first border guards you encountered in the next game. [posted 04/07/2000]

Combo Artifacts that you only get one chance to assemble under limited circumstances and can't disassemble. And once assembled, the parts aren't recognised by Quest Guards or Seer's Huts [posted 04/13/2000]

I can't blame NWC too much for this one. They were trying to make the original game work with Shadow of Death. -- QD

This is not a bug per say, it's a feature even, but it's a bit disappointing because since players can now reenter liths infinitely without any movement penalty, it ruins a fun random aspect of a lot of old maps. [posted 04/13/2000]

Not a bug per say, but more of an important game design issue that could be easily solved with a patch. Diplomacy is much too strong and unbalancing in its current format. An hero with expert diplomacy and a troop of the same type in his army has a 80% probability that the wandering stack will join for free or money (it goes by 10% increments). Why not simply go by 5% increments instead (maximum of 40% join) leaving Diplomacy still powerful but not as much? [posted 04/13/2000]

Before the patch, you could disable Artifact default text/guardians/requirements by simply clicking the Customise checkbox in the guardians screen. Not anymore. Now you actually have to put some text into the textbox to achieve this effect.
[posted 04/13/2000]

Subluxon discovered that when you play a 2 player hot seat game and set the player handicap to "severe.", if you leave the game and reload the savegame, "no handicap" will now be the modifier instead and you cannot change it back. [posted 04/07/2000]

  Adrian Gilmore reports that a problem occurs when picking up miscellaneous artifacts (orbs, bags of gold, etc. that do not go on a specific body part) and the hero in question already has four miscellaneous artefacts equipped. When this is the case, rather than the item being added to your stash of non-equipped artifacts, the item is lost instead (it seems lost but apparently it stays active because it goes into an invisible 5^th slot added by Shadow of Death coding). If you unequip one of the four misc. artifacts then obtain the new artifact it is added to the hero as normal. Simon Mooncalf specifies the problem: "the good news is that if you get an artifact from a TREASURE CHEST or from a QUEST, it will go to your backpack.The bad news is that is you get an artifact from an EVENT or by defeating another HERO, it will go into the fifth invisible slot and you won't be able to unequip the item." [posted 04/13/2000]

This is actually a new bug added by the patch and it's not a problem in Shadow of Death. Until this is fixed, people having the original Heroes 3 and AB might have to keep a empty miscellaneous spot empty in their inventory. -- QD

Double spellcasting  Bug: This has been in since the original release of Heroes 3 but was only recently discovered. It's a huge bug particularly for multiplayer games where dishonorable players might exploit it. On the combat screen, you can keep the letter C pressed and click on the hero (the alternate way of casting spells), releasing the C key at about the same time as the spellbook opens. You pick the spell, select the target, cast it and then the spellbook will open right away again. In this way, it is possible to cast 2 spells each turn. [posted 06/08/2000]

Moat Sensitivity Issue: Might or might not be a bug but it's a potential AI issue. With the most recent set of patches,
AI units are a lot more wary about entering moats, because they now inflict damage each turn  even though there might be a hole in the wall and the stack beyond is easy to defeat. It seems they will often wait for the drawbridge to be broken to enter. [posted 06/08/2000]

View Enemy Town Bug: Peke reports that when you play multiplayer and it's your opponent turn, you can go
into your town and right click on a town picture from the right side (town list). You'll then see your opponent town (whoever is
moving - if there are more than one opponent) instead of yours including any garrisoned troops. You can also see if he has a Town
Hall/City Hall/Capitol/Fort/Citadel/Castle/Resource Generator built. If you have more than one castle you can view other towns from you opponent also - same trick with the list - click on the other pictures. Don't try it if the other players have less castles than you
- the game will crash). [posted 06/08/2000]

Visual C++ Runtime Error: This is a strange runtime error during the startup-sequence on a few user-created maps and even in AB campaigns if what someone reported is true. It cannot be determined why it happens (or what causes it to happen) but it did not happen pre-patch. It has been reported (on the Quill, etc) by several people already. [posted 06/08/2000]

Fizbin the Magniloquent might have found a cause for this one. If a hero is created with the starting spell customized to "none", a
visual C++ error will occur when the map is selected for play. Let's hope it's fixed in the next patch anyway though. -- QD 

Vanishing Scroll Spell Bug: Breathe experienced that when your hero has an equipped spell scroll with say, Implosion, or Chain Lightning, that upon visiting certain towns - especially Conflux with Grail (but not always Conflux), the hero will lose the use of that spell, as in it no longer appears in the spellbook. [posted 06/08/2000]

I would suggest unequipping the scroll (putting it in the scrolling bottom row) of the inventory and re-equipping it. You might also try transferring it to another hero and back.  -- QD

Marketplace Slider Bug: In the marketplace (or any similar place a slider is used for trading), if you click the
Max button to select the maximum number of resources to trade, and then click the pointer on the slider to the far left (in order to quickly reset it back to zero if you've changed your mind), the value does NOT reset to zero, but remains at the maximum.
[posted 06/08/2000]

Special Victory Condition Bug: If you create a map and select a special victory condition to Acquire a specific artifact, Build the grail structure, Defeat a specific hero, or Transport a specific artifact, you do not have the option to disallow the normal victory condition. [posted 06/08/2000]

According to NWC's Maranthea, this is intentional. The reason you cannot disallow normal victory on certain conditions is because the computer has the opportunity to get there before you.  For example:  If the special victory condition is 'obtain Artifact X', the computer just may find it before you do.  You may not think this is such a bad thing because you can always fight him to get the artifact.  But, what happens if he lost a battle with another computer player or a wandering monster stack?  He could be out of the hero pool for quite some time.  This type of thing applies to some of the other win conditions as well.

Work around:  First, make sure the artifact, creature etc., can't be obtained by the computer player.  This is usually done by a well placed Quest Guard who only lets a certain player through. Second, place a computer owned town in a corner that no one can get to.  We usually create a small area in the underground, up in a corner that isinaccessible.  Third, cut off all the buildings in this town.  Otherwise the computer player just may hire a hero or teleport out of there, or simply waste resources.  Now you have a situation where the player has to complete the special win condition.

The explanation is useful and appreciated, however if the computer manages to reach or complete the special victory condition before you do, shouldn't it just be allowed to win?. -- QD

No-Tavern Hero Bug:  In the advanced option screen, after selecting a scenario to play, it shows the starting Hero as "None" if there isn't a tavern available for that player, even if that color DOES in fact have a starting hero placed on the map.
[posted 06/08/2000]

Inaccurate Scenario Information Save Game Bug: If a game is saved where the victory condition is to defeat a particular
monster, the type of monster is not saved with it. If such a game is later loaded (after exiting and restarting the Heroes program), the message in the Scenario Information screen will be something like "Defeat the  in the central region of the world." It also sometimes shows up as "Defeat the Pikemen in the central region of the world." even if the monster to defeat is something different.
[posted 06/08/2000]

Vanishing Hero Bug: If a map starts with a set hero and also a random hero (but does NOT have the "Generate hero at main town" option selected in the map Editor), one of the heroes will vanish if the map is restarted with the Restart Scenario option. (If more than one player has this combination of a set hero and random heroes, they will each lose one of their heroes when the scenario is restarted.). [posted 06/08/2000]

Underground Combat Terrain Bug:  The combat map while in the underground layer is always the same, regardless of terrain type.  When other terrain types are used in the underground it would make far more sense if they were the ones used for the combat map (rather than the default subterranean map). [posted 06/08/2000]

Map Editor Crashes. For those experiencing crashes while customising towns or heroes, make sure you have a current version of the file comctl32.dll in your Windows system directory. The Microsoft Developers Network has a current version of this file available for download. (Thanks to Rick B and Bruno Wolff III for this tip) [posted 06/08/2000]

Found this on Cristoph Nahr's Manual Addenda -- QD

Broken Miscellaneous Button Bug: In the Kingdom Overview screen, the "Miscellaneous" button showing the miscellaneous artifacts of the hero does not work (I did not even know about these buttons) [posted 07/24/200]

Artifact Merchant Selling Bug: Fnord explains that prices shown for selling artifacts at the Artifact Merchant are based on
the original location of the five visible items in the selling hero's backpack. If a hero has a lot of artifacts, this becomes a problem: when you select an item and click either scroll arrow, the selling price remains the same as it was for the item that last occupied that spot in the backpack. Thus, if Angel Wings is in the first position (from the left) and you click on it, it will show a selling price of 4000 gold (assuming you only own one marketplace). If a Spell Scroll of Magic Arrow is immediately to the right
of it, instead of selling the Wings, you can click the right arrow and the Spell Scroll will move into the first position in the backpack where it can be sold for 4000 gold. [posted 07/24/2000]

It seems the Artifact Merchant has several funky problems. I hope they take a serious look at it. -- QD

Missing Guardians Problem: If an event has guardians, the guardians are gone forever once defeated -- even if the event is set to recur on later visits. [posted 07/24/2000]

Triggering bug: If a hero steps on an event tile guarded by a monster, that event is triggered after the battle -- even if the hero is defeated by the monster. [posted 07/24/2000]

According to Maranthea, this is a function of the engine.  She writes that we have two possibilities for workarounds, depending on what best fits the situation.

1.)  Place your text in the creature's text box.  That box isn't just for things the creature says, but descriptive events as well.  If this doesn't really fit, or you already have something there, then try option 2.
2.)  Create a longer forced path that the hero must take, and make sure the event dot is at least one square (in all directions) away from the creature.

Seeds of Discontent Glitch: Dan Harlow came upon this obscure glitch in the first scenario of Seeds of Discontent where every time Uland was sent to the Obelisk near the Windmill on day 1, the game quitted to Windows. [posted 07/24/2000]

Rick Pierce reports that this does not happen only with Uland but with any other hero also. It can also happen on day 2, not just day 1. You get the message you're about to see the map and then you're sent back to the Windows 98 desktop.
[posted 09/17/2000] 

Yet Another Artifact Merchant Problem: Roberto Ullfig found out that if you have many items stored in your backpack and none equipped elsewhere, the game will crash when you go into an Artifact Merchant to sell items. [posted 07/24/2000]

Pikemen Refugee Camp Bug: Likely introduced by the latest set of patches but pretty minor, the number of Pikemen you get from Refugee Camps is not constant anymore. You get a random number instead of just 14 as before. Reported by Tormentor and I think I saw something similar but did not take notice of it at the time. [posted 07/24/2000]

Teleport Cost Bug: With expert skill in water magic, it only costs 3 spell points to cast Teleport where it should normally cost 12 points (15 points minus 3 points) .  [posted 08/08/2000]

Earthquake Automatic Win Bug: Malta reported that while attacking a town with Citadel fortifications, once he cast Earthquake, he was automatically awarded the win. His hero had expert Ballistics and he tried reloading the savegame, before the assault, to see if the same thing would happen. It did, either on round 1 or 2. It only happened in this particular battle against a Rampart town with a single stack of 288 defending Centaurs. Later on, he reproduced it with a test map: continuing to cast Earthquake until the win was given. I tested it myself and it's true. It might only happen when there's one stack defending the town though.  [posted 09/17/2000] 

Harpy-Dendroid Bug: There is a bug concerning Harpies and Dendroids. If you have a normal Harpy attack a stack of Dendroids, then when the Dendroids retaliate, they will bind the Harpies down. This is what should happen anyway. What actually happens is that it does the binding animation, but the Harpy still returns to where it came from- and is bound to THAT space. Then, when the Dendroid stack is killed, the Harpies are not released. Thanks to Qurquirish Dragon for explaining it so well.
[posted 09/17/2000] 

Ambush on Water Bug: DragonSister found out while playtesting a map that when a hero flew over a body of water and triggered an ambush event, she was kicked to the desktop. [posted 09/17/2000] 
 

When you build the faerie/sprite horde building (Garden of Life), it claims that you get 10 extra creatures added, but it turns out that you only get 6 extra creatures. - Sent in by Craig Gingrich [posted 10/25/1999]

Fixed by patch 2.1. -- QD

Random crashes when saving or loading a game. [posted 03/19/2000]

Quoted directly from the 3D0 webpage: " If the map description of any saved game file exceeds 300 characters, the LOAD/SAVE dialog box cannot be displayed. Before displaying the load/save game dialog, H3Blade first reads the headers of all the files in the GAMES directory. It crashes since it cannot handle the description of over 300 characters. The work-around for this is for the user to manually delete any saved game files from their HEROES3\GAMES directory that have descriptions longer than 300 characters. It is likely that this will only include saves from big random maps. It could also include the autosave file." This bug in the random map editor will be fixed in the next patch for sure -- QD

Fixed by patch 2.1. -- QD

During long castle battles, one of the human players will see a unit highlighted while the other player sees none. No player will be able to control any unit anymore and the battle cannot be finished. This usually happens at the end of battles. [03/19/2000]

According to NWC's Gus Smedstad, this is a bug related to the descruction of arrow towers. It's a problem that crops up in multiplayer, due to code added to allow the player to control the arrow towers. Unlike the original game, in AB the arrow towers are "creatures". Unfortunately, they were only marked as "dead" when destroyed on one computer in multiplayer. You don't have to have the Artillery skill for this to show up in AB. This bug will be fixed in the first AB patch. -- QD

It was indeed fixed in patch 2.1. -- QD

Infinite loop: When you see enemy heroes entering and exiting the same lith/subterranean gate over and over again. [posted 03/19/2000]

It's likely caused by this new spacebar function that allows heroes to re-enter the same place without spending movement points. Until the patch comes along, if this happens to you, do this:
Press F4 to switch HOMM3 to a Window instead of full-screen. Close the game by pressing X in the top-right corner. Load your autosave. In the System Options, set Enemy Speed at Do Not Show Enemy Movement. OR when the loop is going on, you might simply wait for the enemy to finish its turn because although it might look infinite, it's not or so people have reported (it's really really long though). -- QD

According to Gus Smedstad, This is a general symptom. One condition that resulted in the behavior is fixed, but it's possible it will crop up again. -- QD

New expansion pack creatures (except Peasants and Dragons) are turned into Pikemen when processed in the Skeleton Transformer. [posted 03/19/2000]

Fixed by patch 2.1. -- QD

Gwhenwyfar from the H3Trio site has had the following experience: "If the victory condition in a game is build the grail structure and you have several towns of the same kind, where the grail building is disabled, you cannot build the grail at all, even not in the towns where the grail building is enabled. This was experienced with conflux towns". [posted 03/19/2000]

Fixed by patch 2.1. -- QD

Conflux Fort/Citadel/Castle: If you click on these structures in order to view the Conflux's creatures, their backgrounds are that of the Fortress instead of the Conflux. [posted 03/19/2000]

Fixed by patch 2.1. -- QD

A lot of the new dwellings in AB produce the same default sound effect (clanging swords). [posted 03/19/2000]

Not fixed and won't be. -- QD

Unconfirmed but there might be a problem with changing the hero's sex in the new Editor. In other words, it might do nothing. [posted 03/19/2000]

This was a real problem and is fixed in patch 2.1. -- QD

John DiFool reports some weird bugs involving the Heroes3 Artifact Merchants...(using the Armageddon's Blade expansion): 1) When in the selling artifacts screen, you often get many weird effects IF the number of the items in your backpack is larger than 5 (which is the width of the scrollable backpack interface): a) You often will, upon selling one artifact and then going to the next one, think you are selling the one you just selected but often you are selling something different You had better be careful when selling them since you might inadvertently trade away something you dearly wanted to keep This most often takes the form of selling one, having the next one in line pop up on the screen, but usually this artifact is 'camouflaging' the one you really want to sell. b) Sometimes you will end up selling the same artifact over and over and over-it is possible to get a huge amount of gold using this bug. Another player reports that items he sold stayed in his inventory and could be sold at wildly varying prices. Playing with that bug, by selling an Orb of Driving Rain 10 times, he eventually lost all items in his backpack. [posted 03/20/2000]

Not fixed by the latest patch because it was not seen by NWC. -- QD

The Grail for the Conflux town is the Aurora Borealis giving you all spells. Any hero that enters it can learn all the spells even though he or she might not have the wisdom for them. [posted 03/20/2000]

This might be intentional. I am reporting it here in case it was not -- QD

According to Gus Smedstad, this was not intentional, it is supposed to be limited by Wisdom. I doubt it was fixed by patch 2.1 since they saw it reported too late. -- QD

Fnord wrote to us explaining a bug involving Mage Guild customization. There are now two lists for every mage guild, one that lets the mapmaker determine which spells *may* appear in the guild and one which lets the mapmaker determine which spells *must* appear in the guild. The *may* appear list works fine but the *must* appear list does not work at all. [posted 03/20/2000]

Fixed by patch 2.1 (AB)

You cannot select between a hand-to-hand attack and casting a spell for Faerie Dragons under your control [posted 03/20/2000]

I think it's just a engine limitation which happens for all troops. For example, Medusas cannot attack hand-to-hand (stoning their opponents) until either the opponent is next to them or they run out of arrows. -- QD

I was correct, it's an interface issue and it will not be addressed in a patch. -- QD

A s reported by Yvette, certain sound effects and bits of music repeat when the hero is underground, freezing the screen and mouse until it's done. Having just finished playing a map with underground terrain *above* ground, she thinks that it's the terrain, not the level. She also pinned down exactly when it happens (for the most part). In short (or long): when a hero passes over underground terrain, some sounds or bits of sound get "stuck" and play three times, freezing the cursor until it's done (max about 2-3 seconds total). Specifically: the "whoosh" noise made when a wandering stack is defeated or flees, and whatever bit of music and/or effect is playing for the first (approx.) second that the hero moves during his/her turn when starting on underground terrain. If there is underground anywhere in a map, this also occasionally happens on other terrain according to her. She has a Celeron 466, Win95-OEM2, ATI Rage video card and a Sound Blaster 16 card and plays with patch 1.2. [posted 03/20/2000]

The person mentioned reinstalling the game. It would not hurt and all the amateur maps you downloaded would NOT be deleted automatically (backup your high score files though). However what we might have here is a case of outdated drivers for the soundcard which is relatively old. I would try going at Creative Labs webpage and downloading their latest Win95 drivers for it. -- QD

NWC could not repeat it at their offices, so it's hard to comment on. It is true that music is tied to terrain but not above ground / underground. I did not personally catch it right away but I've experienced this repeating sound effect bug myself. It is indeed irregular so perhaps I started ignoring it after a while. I have a Diamond Monster Sound Mx200 and a Pentium 200 with 32 Megs of RAM. I thought that problem might have been due to my lower-end system but since the lady reporting it had the same problem, I guess it's not related. Perhaps it's the amount of RAM or the sound drivers ? -- QD

Towns gradually vanishing from the index bar at the right of the screen, turn by turn, one by one, until you have none left. [posted 03/20/2000]

Surprisingly, I encountered this one myself although not all towns vanished (we reloaded before then). It was related to the Replay Enemy Turn function, particularly when towns change colors. I've not had any reports of this or seen it myself since patch 1.2. and Armageddon's Blade release. So if you encounter this one, patch your game. -- QD

We got a few e-mails from people unable to launch the game although the map and campaign editor work fine. The hard disk seems to work in the background for a few seconds. [posted 03/20/2000]

Because of a new protection scheme to prevent people from copying the CD, it takes longer to load. From my experience, up to 10 seconds or so. It might also be that you're trying to play your compact disk of AB on a CD-Read/Write drive. As stated on the box, Armageddon's Blade needs a CD-ROM (Read Only Memory). It will not run on a CD-RW. If you have both a CD RW and a CD-ROM in your PC, be sure that the CD-ROM has a higher drive letter than the CD-RW when you launch the game. If you still can't launch the game and you're not using a CD-RW drive, then 3D0 suggests looking for more recent manufacturer's drivers or using commercially available CD cleaning disks to clean your CD optics. -- QD

Nicole Shoemake noticed a bug where refugee camps will offer AB-only creatures (like peasants, energy elementals...) and if you try to recruit them, the game crashes. [posted 03/20/2000]

New World Computing hasn't seen this one. Early, pre-release versions of AB had this problem because the background in the recruiting screen wasn't set correctly. -- QD

A player reports that on several occasions since installing the Armaggeddon expansion, he has run into trouble saving maps with the new editor. These are not random maps but just regular self created ones; they seem to save fine for a while but after saving and exiting the editor, whenever you try to load the map again it comes up blank with an incorrect file version. Specifically it says: file version=14 should be saved as file version=21 . At first he determined this was due to not saving as an AB map, but after having it happen again, he wonders if the program keeps defaulting to saving as a regular homm3 format file. Also the message about incorrect file versions is invariably preceded by an illegal operation in module KERNEL32.DLL. [posted 03/20/2000]

New World Computing hasn't been able to reproduce this one. -- QD

Bjoern-Falko Andreas encountered a bug while toying around with the new quest types. It seems thatthe kill-monster-stack quest _MAY_ become impossible if the AI beats the critters. Sometimes it works, sometimes the quest is considered uncompleted. This is also an issue in the Dragon Blood campaign in the scenario where you get the Vial of Dragon Blood. It contains a set of linked Quest Gates. The first quest stack are some Ghost Dragons that are accessible by the computer player. If the AI gets the monsters before you do, the next quest gate might not open. [posted 03/20/2000]

This is a potential problem when creating maps. It is not fixed in the NWC maps. -- QD

Sparhawk has a problem since he installed AB and did the autoupdate from 1.1 to 1.2. for the original executable . What will happen is this: he chooses his game (load or new), chooses single or multiplay, chooses map or game to load, then the Armageddon's splash screen comes up with the blue progress indicator just below the figure on the screen. Right about the time it gets to about 45% loaded, it throws him all the way back to his desktop. No error message, or anything. He noticed that if he lets the CD auto start, and allows the music to play. If it plays through alright, 99% of the time he can either load or start a new game fine. However, if the music "skips", or the images jump, he knows for sure he won't be able to do anything. [posted 03/20/2000]

A very peculiar problem indeed. If I were you, I'd try uninstalling and reinstalling everything but I'm sure you probably already tried that. You probably already tried updating your video and sound card drivers also, as well as reinstalling the latest version of DirectX. What you might not have done is search for updated drivers for your CD-ROM drive. -- QD

The Legions of Nagas in the Dragon Slayer 3 campaign scenario are NOT a bug. Try checking out Rally Flag if you need help on how to beat them. [posted 04/03/2000]

Craig Arnold found out while playing the "Playing with Fire" campaign that he Frost Ring spell does not do double damage against the fire elementals as the manual says it should. [posted 04/03/2000]

This is not a bug. The Qurqirish Dragon wrote: My evidence has been that it DOES work as double-damage. I think the problem
is that Craig was reading the status bar, where it says "the frost ring does xxx damage". As with all multiple-target spells, this says what the BASE damage is (i.e.: for frost ring power*10+skill+sorcery+artifact bonus). eg: If it SAYS 70 damage, you will notice that 4 fire elementals die (=140 hp). [posted 06/01/2000]

Kevin reports that if you have control of a Fairie Dragon in an anti-magic garrison, the game tells you that the dragon has readied such-and-such spell. If you press 'F' to have it cast the spell, the game kicks you out to the desktop. [posted 04/03/2000]

Team Display on Random Maps  Bug: When selecting options for to play a random map, regardless of what teams
you set up, right-clicking on the Alies and Enemies line does not show the team alignments--each color in the game is shown as being in a separate team. However, once the map has been loaded, this information is displayed correctly in the Scenario Information screen. [posted 06/08/2000]

Quest Log Line-Wrap Bug: If a particular Quest is longer than a single line, it does not wrap to the next line but is simply cut off and the rest of it cannot be viewed. This especially affects any quests where more than one Artifact must be delivered to complete the quest. [posted 06/08/2000]

Seer's Hut/Quest Guard: Multiple Artifact Bug: When more than one of the same artifact is set as the quest, the quest can
be completed with only a single copy of the artifact. For example, if a Seer's Hut quest requires locating the three talismans of mana, returning to the Seer's Hut with only one will get you the reward. [posted 06/08/2000]

Titan's Lightning Bolt Bug: If the Conflux Grail Building is built, heroes can learn the Titan's Lightning Bolt spell there, allowing them to cast this powerful spell at no spell point cost, even if they don't even have Wisdom skill. Thus, a barbarian could become a powerful spell caster by simply visiting a mage guild there and purchasing a spell book. [posted 06/08/2000]

Kingdom Overview Anomalities: Steven Lynch reports that on the Kingdom Overview screen:
1. The Orc and Wolf Rider graphics are exchanged.
2. The Efreet and Pit Fiend graphics are exchanged.
3. Old Elemental Confluxes and new Altars of the Elements give the same bonus, but are listed separately with the same icon used for each.
4. The "Elemental Conflux", the map dwelling with four different elementals, gets put down as a Basilisk dwelling but adds only to the production of air/storm elementals.
5. The Golem Factory gets put down as a Behemoth dwelling but provides its correct bonus to golems in Tower towns.
[posted 07/24/2000]

Vanishing Coop Hero Bug: On a randomly created map, in a cooperative scenario where Oliver Zechiel was allied with a computer player, he managed to make his heroes vanish from the display by doing the following: he clicked on his computer ally's castle, where he found a garrisoned hero and a visiting hero present (both allies, certainly). Just for fun, he clicked around a little and discovered that as a human player you can make your computer ally's garrisoned hero the visiting hero (and vice versa) just as well. The problem was that when he exited, all his heroes were gone from the display (I suppose he means the column of hero portraits). He could find his heroes on the map the hard way but once their movement was exhausted, he could never move them again even after ending his turn. [posted 07/24/2000]

Elemental Immune or Not?:  The game allows you to select an elemental as the target of a mind spell (hypnotize, berserk,
...) though there is no effect (since elementals are immune to mind spells) so you end up wasting the spell. Roberto Ullfig thinks that the elementals should be unselectable as targets for mind spells. [posted 07/24/2000]

I think it's more fun seeing the heroes wasting their spell on something they should have remembered would not work :-) In fact, I think all spell immunities should work like that.  --QD

Artillery Boosting Arrow Towers Bug: Arrow towers are not supposed to be influenced by the hero attack and defense ratings nor by Artillery (besides you being able to control them). Yet Gaidal Cain saw that an Arrow Tower that was supposed to do 10 damage with each shot instead infliced 25. His hero had the Artillery skill and might explain this peculiar potential bug.
[posted 07/24/2000]

Crashing Hero Bug: This is mentioned somewhere else as a solution but I think it deserves its own entry. When you customize a hero in the editor and set the starting spell to "none", the game will crash when you try to load the map. This one was introduced by patch 2.1. [posted 08/08/2000]

Playing With Fire Campaign Bug: I've had reports from 2 different people about what seems to be the same problem. Their game will crash between campaign scenarios. [posted 08/08/2000]

Walter Pullen, a third person experiencing this bug, wrote to me with more details. He chose the hero's bonus, selected Begin, and proceeded through the animation. The map started loading and when the blue bar was halfway across, he got a Windows error box titled "Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library" with error message text "Runtime Error! / Program: C:\GAMES\HEROES3\H3BLADE.EXE / abnormal program termination". The error box only had an OK button, which when pressed exited him to the Windows desktop. [posted 09/17/2000] 

I sent a couple of savegames to the programmer but unfortunately he could not reproduce the problem on the New World Computing machines. Neither could I reproduce this bug on my computer for that matter. Walter Pullen found a workaround for this one that will penalize you for the next scenario though. Before finishing the second scenario in Playing with Fire, dismiss all your heroes except Adrienne. If you are experiencing this bug and want  6 carry-over heroes (as you were supposed to), write to me and I'll send you a savegame at the start of the third scenario.  -- QD

Magic Elemental Immunity Bug: Johnny Troy discovered that with the Orb of Vulnerability (negates all creatures' innate magic resistances in battle) equipped, you are still unable to cast Resurrect or Sacrifice on Magic Elementals.  There is no "Magic Elementals are immune to resurrect" message displayed at the bottom, as there is when the orb is not equipped.  It just says "Select a target for a spell" and the spell icon just won't appear over them, as if they were not even a target.
[posted 09/17/2000] 
 
 

Bugs found in Shadow of Death

Hero Carry-Over Bug: In the later campaigns, the heroes Crag Hack, Yog, Gem and Gelu will not really carry over as they were at the end of their respective initial campaigns. They will be level 25 (even if you finished the campaign at a lower level), the secondary skills will be different (as in random) and the spells learned will be gone. [posted 04/13/2000]

The 3D0 website says it's a game engine limitation. I do think they should at the very least change the campaign scenario descriptions then.  --QD

Michele O'Keefe found out that in the scenario Too Many Monsters , one cannot select the hero if the Conflux town is chosen.  It is weird because it does not happen on other maps or with other towns chosen.

Malta checked this out and it turns out that all the Conflux heroes were unavailable in this particular map. It is therefore not a bug.
-- QD

Missing Slot: The Shadow of Death added another miscellaneous slot in the hero inventory screen for a total of five. However, there is NO 5th miscellaneous when you want to sell artifacts at the Artifact's Merchant. [posted 07/24/2000]

Missing Campaign Hero Bug: Twentyfirstcenturyschizoidman has come upon a peculiar occurence where if you hire an hero that was not a starting hero (i.e. featured) in this particular scenario (say Gem in a Gelu scenario); in the next one where both heroes are featured (Gem and Gelu), the hero that was hired in the tavern (Gem) will not show up as a starting hero. I hired Yog in a Crag Hack scenario so if this bug is true, I'll know soon enough. The bug reporter suggests to avoid hiring "campaign heroes" during scenarios they are not a part of and I'd tend to agree just in case...  [posted 07/24/2000]

Dragonfly Weakness Bug: Patrick Moreau was the first to write to us about this: On the Magic Plains, where all spells are cast at expert level, whenever the Dragonflies attacks a single stack, all enemy stacks will be stuck with the Weakness spell.
[posted 07/24/2000]

This is intentional. On Magic Grounds all creature spell abilities are cast at Expert Level.  That means the Dragonfly's ability will
affect all creatures, per the Expert effect. -- QD

Random Level 4 Artifact Bug: Something is screwed up with the graphics on the adventure map for random level 4 artifacts since when Tormentor saw an Armageddon's Blade, he actually got an Angelic Alliance sword and when he saw a Bow of the Sharpshooters, it was the Wizard's Well. When he saw the Wizard's Well on the adventure screen, he got the Ring of the Magi instead. You get the drift... [posted 07/24/2000]

Warning About Installation: Do not install Restoration of Erathia again after installing Shadow of Death. It cause glitches and all SOD savegames will be unplayable. If you want to absolutely reinstall Restoration of Erathia (to get the old menu looks and see the intro), you need to uninstall Shadow of Death first. This was reported to me by the Light Mage. I do not consider it a bug, simply something to be aware of. [posted 08/08/2000]

Tactics in Moat Bug: As reported by the Qurqirish Dragon on the Quill and confirmed by another player, a computer player with expert Tactics and defending a town might lose a significant number of units because the AI will move its troops around as if there was no damaging moat.  [posted 08/08/2000]

Map Validator Error: The Qurqirish Dragon encountered an error in the map validator while making a map.If you have a seer quest that wants a combination artifact, but only places the pieces of it on the map, the validator says that the target of a seer quest is missing! The map can still be played, but the validator messes this up. [posted 09/17/2000] 
 

Kevin and Veronica have noticed that multi-player crashes are always occuring at the end of the month. The crashes appear to happen on random months. Kevin called 3D0 Support, and they are aware of the bug's presence in the game. A solution is expected in the patch, however, Kevin reports this from 3D0 support. "They suggested saving the game on the day before it crashes as a multiplayer level and reloading the same level as a single player. Then after it gets past the day where it crashes go in and reload the game again as a multiplayer level. The other suggestion they gave was to turn off all enemy movement.
[I have experienced crashes at all times of the month during multi-player without regards to the end of the month. Most of them seem to be related to Internet lag times. -Gwaihir]
[This little nasty was included by Cruddy gremlin. We expected NWC to put up more of a fight, however, they did not test multi-player extensively, so many of our best bugs went by unnoticed until after the game was released. A shame for NWC, however, we are enjoying the extensive publicity we gremlins are receiving] - GG
[Many people have reported that turning off enemy movement will solve this problem. A couple of people tell me this almost always happens on month 1, week 4, day 7. Thank you all who have responded to this bug!!] -GW [posted 03/30/1999]
[A couple people have reported still getting crashes even with the patch installed. This is usually happening in hotseat games. While a problem, it certainly seems to be less than the number of crashes before the patch] -GW
[Hehe. They will never be able to solve this problem. We gremlins work hard to make sure that software will always crash. It's more likely that Microsoft will solve the General Protection Faults planted by our cousins than NWC squashing this particular bug.] -GG
[posted 05/30/1999]

Crashes should be much less frequent with the patch 1.2. The "Replay Turn" feature was the cause of a lot of problems and it's been stabilized.-- QD

It definitely still has problems... I still crash back to the desktop from time to time because of it. -QD [posted 03/19/2000]

Raistlin wrote to us saying he had potentially found a solution to the recurring hotseat crash at the end of months problem. Simply save before the end of the turn. I get the impression it might have been a fluke but if anyone tries this and it solves their problem, please write back to us and share your experience. -- QD [posted 3/20/2000]

Lord Lake has noted that HOMM 3 does not save the players names So every time you load a game, (even if it is the autosave) you have to type in the names of the players And if you type them in the wrong order everybody will be called names that belong to the other players.......
[This is not only in hotseat, but occurs in all multi-player maps. When loading a map, be careful to check your player assignments under advanced options before you hit the begin button, or you will be playing for your partner -Gwaihir]
[Hehe. One of my favorites This little 'bug' is sure to give us hours of fun and enjoyment as we watch the confusion grow Why since the game was shipped, almost 50 fools have reloaded a total of 200 times trying to get the order of the players correct before they figured out you could change the assignments! (Yes, we keep tabs on these things via the gremlins that inhabit computers around the globe).] - GG [posted 03/27/1999]

Patrick Wright has found that if you replay enemy movements in hotseat, you had better do it at the start of your turn. If you make any movements before you click on the Replay Enemy Movement button, you will be kicked out of the game. [posted 03/30/1999]

Fixed by patch 1.2. -QD

Tan-Chi Nguyen found that in a hotseat game, you can control your opponent! If you can see the enemy hero, left click on him. The left click on your town once. Then double-click (left) on the enemy hero again. If you double click on him one more time you will be able to control him, dismiss him, or change his troops You'll never be caught off guard again This trick only seems to work for human controlled heroes. [posted 03/30/1999]

Fixed by patch 1.2. -QD

Kris Junker has encountered a problem which may be related to the crashes people are experiencing at the beginning of a new month in Hotseat and Multi-player games. Instead of crashing, the game played the normal beginning of week message, and all dwellings should have increased their available creatures, but there were no creatures in any of the dwellings. [posted 04/10/1999]

Not really related but a bug sparing creature dwellings, who had associated "horde" buildings, from being penalized by months of the plague has been fixed by patch 1.2. -QD

I have had a number of people report that when they are playing TCP/IP over a LAN (Local Area Netowrk) their computer will attempt to dial out to their ISP. This can be canceled by hitting the cancel button, and you will be able to connect as usual.
[I have played a number of times myself on a LAN without this problem. I believe that those of you getting this have Connect Automatically checked on your computer. This allows your computer to automatically dial into the internet via your ISP when a socket is required and none is available (such as when you check e-mail). You can turn this feature off, and that may prevent this from happening, although you will have to manually dial in to check your e-mail and surf the web.] -GW [posted 04/10/1999]

A lot of people have related to me that they have trouble if they have two network cards. Heroes will not identify the correct IP address.
[There are two solutions I have come up with for this. The first is to disable the network card in your hardware profile. The other is to change your internal lan to IPX/PSX inctead of TCP/IP.] -Gwaihir [posted 10/24/1999]

I've had the pleasure of tackling this problem myself and believe me it's no fun. I'm fairly sure the solutions above only work for the computer who acts as the server, not the client. My computer was the client in our new network, I fixed my problem by using a modem sharing program called Wingate (Sygate did not really work). Other similar programs might work also. You might also try playing as the guest instead of host to see if it helps. In my case, when I tried as a guest, I could connect to another's game but the game tended to freeze up when sending data between turns. As a host, no one could connect at all because the game took the wrong i.p. number. -- QD

When you try to load up a savegame in a multiplayer internet game, not all the savegames will show up. [posted 03/19/2000]

This seems to happen when you have too many savegames in your directory. It is possible the game times out before being able to load up all the saved game headers. It's not a problem in singleplayer. Until this is fixed by a patch, the solution is to delete (or move) a bunch of savegames or send the savegame to your adversary and have him/her act as host (your opponent loads the savegame). -- QD

Hotseat HoMM3 crashes occuring at random when attacking computer players. The game kicks out to the desktop when attacking or being attacked by some computer players (random occurence). The game is is not capable of being completed as these players cannot be eliminated. As of yet this player has no been able to complete a single "Hotseat" scenario. His computer specs are way above the minimum: Pentium III, 450Mh, Diamond Viper 770, AWE32 SB, Memorex 40X CD. [posted 03/20/2000]

Hotseat is supposed to be even more stable with the latest patch. Early reports from players indicate this long-standing problem might finally be solved. -- QD

For all those still experiencing random crashes in multiplayer, Kristmas wrote to us that he was having random HOMM III crashes with his K6Amd system, with an AGP ATI video card and a Diamond Monster 2 . He found that both video card manufacturers had, within the last 3 months released updated drivers for 3Dnow and so he installed them. Those drivers corrected the problems he had. The morale of the story is to always try to keep your drivers current especially if you don't have an Intel Pentium chip. [posted 03/20/2000]

Some might say it's a design issue but the MAC and PC versions of HOMM 3 can't "talk" to each other over a network. I suspect the same is true for play over the internet. It sure would be nice for MAC and PC players of HOMM 3 to play together but this is not currenly possible. This is an interesting omission because such a thing was possible with HOMM 2. [posted 03/20/2000]

Covenant reports that sometimes in multiplayer games the map doesnt update properly; ie the castle will stay empty even when the opponent has moved troops inside, The enemy heroes on the main display show the troops they HAD during your turn (unless they fight something, then they might update). This is normal, but here sometimes the enemy heroes and castle stay unupdated even when it was back to your turn. This is not caused by transmission error since both players had cable connections. [posted 04/07/2000]

This might be related to the old Orrin bug perhaps but Dark Kittin reports that during a 4 player cooperative game (teams of 2), they experienced a crash after many hours of gameplay. In any case, what happened is that the Blue AI player created a phantom "Cyra" hero that mirrored DK's hero... same army, artifacts, stats. So the game somehow got some sort of a "duplicate" hero assigned to two different colors, and started crashing during the AI's turn, giving them a "sprite"eror - the game engine kind of "sprite", not the critter kind of "sprite". One of the players seems to believe this "doppleganger" hero was there from the start. [posted 04/07/2000]

Shadowmaker suggests selecting the heroes for each faction before the game starts to prevent this problem from happening. -- QD

Treebeard found out that on your opponent's turn, you can buy artifacts from your town's Artifact Merchant using THE OPPONENT'S money and resources. [posted 04/13/2000]

Funky Cover of Darkness Bug: Maneater shared with us that In allied games, whenever your teammate visits a cover of darkness structure you get the area it is supposed to cover revealed for the duration of that turn.  This, in effect, acts like a temporary observatory. [posted 06/08/2000]

Problems with Heat, Mplayer or the Zone and you have a non-english version of Windows ? Mathias Mueller has this to suggest:

"The problem might be  caused by a missing or "broken" entry in the Win registry database. You probably can fix the problem by inserting the correct entry manually :

a) Start the "regedit" program. It should be located in your windows
b) Search for the path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \
DirectPlay \ Applications \ Heroes of Might and Magic III
c) Some international versions of the game seem to create an entry with key "datei", value "heroes3.exe" (the german one). Rename the key  to "file". (with edit->rename)
d) If the entry is completely missing insert one with key "file" and
value "heroes3.exe". (with edit->new)

The mplayer, heat, zone software searches for such an entry with "file as a key. If it doesnt find it it gives you the error message.
Reinstalling does not  work because the software only creates the non-english entry.I haven't tested it myself, but it worked for a few people I know." [posted 06/08/2000]

Be warned that messing wih the registry is risky at best and that the Astral Wizard's site will not be held responsible if you try the above solution and it screws up your system although it shouldn't if you're careful. -- QD

  Too Many Map Headers  Bug:  When you try to load a game in multiplayer TCP/IP, the host can get to the chat screen as usual but when the second player attempts to join and specifies the IP number of the host, he briefly gets to the chat screen
and  then is dumped to the desktop without any error message (or the host might freeze while the guest can chat).  Meanwhile, the host gets the "Player2 has joined the game" message followed shortly  thereafter by "Player2 has left the game. [posted 06/08/2000]

This is one of the most devious bugs because it's not going to happen to everyone every time. Until and if New World Computing releases a patch to fix this, I suggest temporarily moving the majority of your savegames to another directory or making sure you keep them to less than 200 or 100 files at any given time in your /games directory. The problem when loading the game is that there are too many map headers to load and if it takes too long, the networking code doesn't handle it well causing you problems. Be patient though, if you have a certain number of savegames, it might seem frozen for the host but it might not be, the game might just still be loading map headers. Another solution is to send your savegame to the guest and having him or her host the game. Yet another solution suggested by Chris Mero is reinstalling everything in the default directory (not sure if the default directory was a factor or not)  -- QD

Big I.P. Number Identification Problem: I'm currently using a computer which is the client (subordinate) on a small home-network. When I try to play Heroes 3 over the internet, it identifies the wrong I.P. (internet protocol) number from inside the program. It gives me the arbitrary set I.P. number from the network card (192.168.0.2) instead of the right I.P. number (which should be the one related to the internet-specific cable network card). This I.P. number identification problem is not severe in itself (you can always find the right I.P. number by asking the other person to check your info/user details in ICQ) but this situation (using a client for my Heroes 3 play instead of the server) has prevented me from playing Heroes 3 multiplayer for many months now. I can usually connect fine but it takes a long time and is so unstable (kicking the other person out when sending or receiving data) that it becomes totally unplayable.  I would appreciate if someone could suggest an actual internet sharing program that worked fine with Heroes 3 (and other games too) when you're the second computer on a home-network. Please do not suggest using the server computer (this is not logistically possible here) or an internet sharing program which hasn't proven itself for you already :-) . If you're in the same situation as me, I want to hear from you! [posted 09/17/2000]  

Mandate of Heaven - No Brown KeyMasters Tent to go with the Brown Border Guard.
There is a blank event in front of the main subterrainian enterence.
Fixed by patch 1.1. -QD

Divided Loyalties - Warrior's Tomb at 42,50 is not searchable.

Gold Rush (Spoils of War) - The starting bonus is useless since you do not have a hero.
Fixed by patch 1.1. -QD

A Thousand Islands - on one of the orange players islands you cannot get off because a section of the island is not passable to the shipyard.