Adventure Map

1:11 The adventure map is the strategic half of Heroes of Might and Magic 3: each day your heroes ride across it, flag mines for the seven resources, pick up treasure, visit buildings that teach skills or sell creatures, fight wandering monsters and enemy heroes, and dig for the Grail that the Puzzle Map points to. The official guide puts it plainly: "Heroes of Might and Magic III is won or lost on the Adventure Map" (Prima guide, p.181). Fights it starts are played out on the Combat screen. The rules here come from the official Prima strategy guide for The Restoration of Erathia (1999), with later additions from Armageddon's Blade and The Shadow of Death named as such. Ubisoft's gameplay overview of the 2027 Remake, shown here, describes the same loop: "turning exploration into power one turn at a time."

Quick facts

Days, weeks and months

Each turn is one day. One at a time, the players move their heroes and manage their towns, and when everyone has finished the next day begins (Prima guide, p.2). Each town can build one structure a day (p.3). Seven days make a week, and creature dwellings in towns and on the map, along with wandering monsters, grow on Day 1 of each new week; creatures you leave unrecruited stockpile (pp.110, 192). That is why the guide advises fighting a monster or attacking a town before the week turns, and taking towns on Day 7 (p.192). The series counts four weeks to a month (Wikipedia).

The seven resources and mines

Towns are built and creatures recruited with seven resources. Each has a mine that pays out every day once your hero has flagged it (Prima guide, pp.100, 350):

2:07 Wood and Ore build most structures, so the guide says to flag Sawmills and Ore Pits as early as possible, and to flag a mine before picking up a loose pile when movement is short (the Remake's overview poses the same choice: race to "a vital mine before an opponent can seize it" or visit the Hut of the Magi to see past the fog): the pile will still be there tomorrow, while the mine gives an extra day of output (p.187). A Windmill gives a random resource to a hero who visits it each week, and a Water Mill gives 500 gold in the first week and 1,000 gold every week after (p.100). The Marketplace trades resources, and late in a game, the guide notes, you need little but Gold. Since The Shadow of Death you can leave creatures at your own mines to guard them, as in a garrison (The Shadow of Death manual, p.10).

Towns, mines and many other places are flagged by the last hero to visit them, and change color when another player's hero arrives; when a player is eliminated, all their flagged places turn neutral (Prima guide, p.99).

Movement and terrain

A hero's movement each day depends on the slowest creature in the army, so a scout carrying one fast creature goes farther than a general with a full army. The Logistics skill adds to it (Prima guide, p.97):

Terrain changes the cost of each step. Dirt, grass, lava, subterranean ground and water cost 100%; roads are cheaper (cobblestone 50%, gravel 65%, dirt road 75%); rough ground costs 125%, sand and snow 150% and swamp 175%. The Pathfinding skill removes most of the penalty: rough falls to 100% at Basic, sand and snow to 125% at Basic and 100% at Advanced, and swamp to 150%, 125% and 100% (p.98). Mountains, forests and other barriers can only be crossed with the Fly or Dimension Door spells (p.96).

Water needs a boat, bought at a Shipyard or summoned with Summon Boat, or the Water Walk spell; getting on or off a boat uses up the rest of a hero's movement for the day (p.98). Each town also has a native terrain on which its creatures fight better (see Towns).

6:22 Monoliths teleport heroes between gates of the same color: pink, tan and blue ones are one-way, green, red and purple two-way. Whirlpools do the same for boats, at a price: you lose half of your weakest stack, so the guide suggests carrying a single level 1 creature as the "victim" (pp.98-99). Norovo's video of adventure map secrets (Nov 15, 2021) says the Whirlpool takes half of the stack with the lowest combined hit points, so a single creature split off on its own is all you lose, and that a hero left standing on one exit of a one-way Monolith forces later heroes through to another exit.

The Shroud and the underground

0:39 The map starts dark. You see only what your heroes have uncovered, normally everything within five tiles of where they have been, and the Scouting skill widens that; each player has their own Shroud, and the guide notes that the computer does not cheat by seeing yours (Prima guide, pp.96-97). Maps can have a surface level, an underground level, or both, linked by Subterranean Gates, Monoliths and Whirlpools, and by the Town Portal spell (p.95). The edge of the map blocks all movement, which makes land along it easier to defend (p.96). In SergiuHellDragoonHQ's HD Edition footage (Apr 20, 2017, no commentary), a new map opens almost entirely black around the starting hero's first patch of land.

Places to visit

The map is full of buildings a hero can visit. Some of those in the guide's appendix (Prima guide, pp.349-351):

• Primary skills: Mercenary Camp (+1 Attack), Marletto Tower (+1 Defense), Star Axis (+1 Power), Garden of Revelation (+1 Knowledge), Arena (+2 Attack or +2 Defense).
• Experience and secondary skills: Tree of Knowledge (a level), Witch Hut (a random secondary skill, never Leadership or Necromancy), School of War and School of Magic, University (a skill for 2,000 gold).
• Spells: the Shrines of Magic Incantation, Gesture and Thought (level 1, 2 and 3 spells), and the Magic Well.
• Help and information: Stables, Sanctuary (a hero there cannot be attacked), Prison (a free hero), Redwood Observatory and Pillar of Fire (reveal the land around them), Cartographer, Den of Thieves, Trading Post, Black Market, Hill Fort (upgrades creatures).
• Gates and quests: Seer's Huts give quests, Border Guards open for heroes who visited the matching Keymaster's Tent, and Garrisons hold passes.

Armageddon's Blade and The Shadow of Death added Quest Gates, which open only for a hero who has done their quest; Border Gates, which unlike Border Guards stay on the map for good; new Seer's Hut quests; and revisiting the place a hero stands on with the space bar (The Shadow of Death manual, p.10).

2:55 The guide's tip for a Witch Hut: visit an unknown one with a minor hero, so a useless skill does not fill a slot on your main hero (p.101). Norovo notes that Witch Huts never teach Leadership or Necromancy unless the map's creator allows it, and that the fan-made, unofficial Horn of the Abyss lets you turn the skill down.

Treasure chests offer gold or experience (and sometimes an artifact), and the guide generally prefers the experience, given to the hero you want to level up (p.101). Artifacts lie loose or are guarded.

Dwellings and creature banks

9:09 Creature dwellings on the map sell their creature's base version and refill every week like town dwellings. A dwelling of level 5 or higher must be won in a fight before you can flag it, and a flagged dwelling of a creature your towns also produce raises those towns' production of it (Prima guide, p.101). Norovo describes the pattern: level 1 dwellings give a week of creatures free, levels 2 to 4 sell them without a fight, and levels 5 to 7 are guarded by their own creature in multiples of three (nine Monks, six Cavaliers or three Angels for the Castle's).

4:41 Creature banks are guarded treasure sites: the Crypt, Cyclops Stockpile, Derelict Ship, Dragon Fly Hive (which rewards Wyverns), Dragon Utopia, Dwarven Treasury, Griffin Conservatory (which rewards Angels), Imp Cache, Medusa Stores, Naga Bank and Pyramid (p.349). Full creature lists are on Creatures. Norovo's beginner tips video (Dec 23, 2020) shows how to see roughly what a bank holds before fighting: refuse to enter, then hold right-click on it; in the original game the Crypt alone will not say.

Wandering monsters and joining

Wandering monsters guard roads, treasure and passes. Each group has a hostility rating from 1 to 10 set in the map: at 1 it always offers to join you, at 2 or 3 it offers to join for gold, and at 10 it always fights. Between 4 and 9 the outcome depends on your army's strength, the hero's Diplomacy skill and how much of your army comes from the same town as the monsters; a strong army makes them flee or join rather than fight (Prima guide, p.102). Right-click a group to see its size, given as a word unless you cast Visions:

The guide treats monsters as an asset: an easy fight is experience, and a group blocking the way into your land keeps enemy scouts out, so you may leave it standing (pp.102, 188).

The Grail

11:26 The Grail is buried on any map that has Obelisks. Each Obelisk you visit uncovers part of the Puzzle Map, an engraving of the land around the Grail; the more Obelisks a map has, the less each reveals. The Puzzle Map shows terrain only, not buildings. The Grail lies on one of the nine tiles of the 3 x 3 square at the center of the puzzle, and never within nine tiles of the map's edge (Prima guide, p.103). Once you recognize the place, the guide says to send a hero or two to dig, and if you see an enemy hero digging, to stop it before it carries the Grail home (p.260). In SergiuHellDragoonHQ's HD Edition footage (Apr 20, 2017, no commentary), the Puzzle Map is shown partly uncovered, its engraving revealed on one side and still blank stone on the other.

Brought to a town, the Grail builds that town's Grail structure. Every one adds 50% creature production in its town and 5,000 gold a day, and only one can exist per scenario. Each also has its own power: the Castle's Colossus gives +2 morale to all your heroes, the Rampart's Spirit Guardian +2 luck, the Necropolis's Soul Prison +20% Necromancy, the Inferno's Deity of Fire makes every week the Week of the Imp, and the Tower, Dungeon, Stronghold and Fortress structures strengthen the hero defending the town in a siege (p.111).

The computer looks for the Grail too: from Hard difficulty once it has a quarter of the Puzzle Map, at Normal once it has half, and at Easy never (pp.182-183).

Victory and loss

Every scenario sets its own conditions. Winning may mean finding an artifact, taking a town, defeating every enemy or another task; losing means losing all your towns and heroes, or letting someone else win first (Prima guide, p.2). The campaigns use goals such as capturing a named town, gathering 200,000 gold, flagging every mine or finding the Grail within two months (pp.288-344); see Maps and Campaigns.

In the Remake

2:34 The Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Remake rebuilds the map in 3D with free camera control in place of the fixed isometric view (Ubisoft, Aug 25, 2026). Its gameplay overview says creatures react to your presence and "seasons and weather constantly change the world around you", and adds a Kingdom map for a strategic view; Ubisoft has not said whether weather affects play, as of Oct 21, 2026.

3:00 The Remake also lets you automate heroes "by assigning roles": collecting resources, following your main hero, or carrying freshly recruited troops to the front line, according to the same overview. See What's New in the Remake.

Frequently asked questions

How do you find the Grail in Heroes 3? In Heroes of Might and Magic 3 you visit Obelisks to uncover the Puzzle Map, match its terrain to the adventure map, then dig: the Grail lies on one of the nine tiles at the center of the puzzle and never within nine tiles of the map's edge. Only maps with Obelisks have a Grail.

What are the resources in Heroes 3? Heroes of Might and Magic 3 has seven resources: Gold, Wood, Ore, Mercury, Sulfur, Crystal and Gems. A Gold Mine gives 1,000 gold a day, a Sawmill and an Ore Pit 2 a day, and the other mines 1 a day.

How does movement work in Heroes 3? In Heroes of Might and Magic 3 a hero moves 15 to 20 tiles a day on normal ground depending on the slowest creature in the army, roads cost less, and rough, sand, snow and swamp cost more unless the hero has Pathfinding. The Logistics skill adds movement, and boarding or leaving a boat ends a hero's move.

When do creatures grow in Heroes 3? In Heroes of Might and Magic 3, town dwellings, map dwellings and wandering monsters grow on Day 1 of every week. Unrecruited creatures stockpile, which is why the official guide suggests attacking towns on Day 7.

Will wandering monsters join you in Heroes 3? In Heroes of Might and Magic 3 each wandering group has a hostility rating from 1 to 10: at 1 it always offers to join, at 2 or 3 it joins for gold, at 10 it always fights, and in between your army's strength, Diplomacy and same-town creatures decide whether it joins, flees or fights.

Sources

• Heroes of Might and Magic III: Prima's Official Strategy Guide, Prima Publishing, 1999, pp.2-3, 95-103, 110-111, 181-183, 187-188, 192, 260, 288-344, 349-351
• Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Shadow of Death User Manual, The 3DO Company, 2000, p.10
• Heroes of Might and Magic, Wikipedia, revision of Oct 8, 2026
• Heroes of Might and Magic III Remake: Return to Erathia in 2027, Ubisoft, Aug 25, 2026
• Heroes of Might and Magic III Remake - Gameplay Overview Trailer, Ubisoft, Aug 26, 2026 (video)
• Heroes 3: 14 Beginner Tips & Tricks to Instantly Improve Your Play, Norovo, Dec 23, 2020 (video)
• Heroes 3: 20 Tips and Secrets of Adventure Map Objects, Norovo, Nov 15, 2021 (video)
• Heroes of Might and Magic 3 HD Edition - 4K GAMEPLAY, SergiuHellDragoonHQ, Apr 20, 2017 (video)