Heroes of Might and Magic: Quest for the DragonBone Staff



Heroes of Might and Magic: Quest for the DragonBone Staff

by 3DO for PS2

Written by Brad Newman on May 7, 2003

bnewman777@

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Table of Contents

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1: Game Overview

2: Walkthrough

3: Battle Strategy

4: Personal Notes

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1: Game Overview

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Heroes of Might and Magic (HoMM) is something like a RPG game where your Character traverses four different Continents (Islands) seeking out castles to overtake, monsters to defeat, and treasure to amass while you search for the DragonBone staff.

I do not recommend beginners trying to win this game without a PS2 memory module. I recommend many SAVES (via start button) during game play to avoid having to start the game over after hours of play.

Each of several castles on each Island has a main Villain that must be defeated. The final Villain (a dragon) is called Malazak. The reason you are searching for the DragonBone staff while on your quest is due to the fact that Malazak cannot be defeated unless you possess it. Also keep in mind that, oddly enough, you will not "see" Malazak until after the game has been won.

When you begin the game you are prompted to select one of four different types of players:

Sorceress

Knight

Paladin

Barbarian

I think the best Character for beginners is the Sorceress as she starts out with more gold and ready spell power. If you start out with another player, you will eventually have to pay Celestro (he's easy to find just North of the Argus castle) 5000 in gold to teach you magic before you can use any game spells - in this case, hold off until you have about 10,000 or so gold. Whichever player you select, you can either take the random name assigned your Character or type in your own. You will then be prompted for the game mode you wish to play. There are four modes of game play, each giving your Character a number of game days in which to defeat Malazak. The four modes are:

Easy - 900 days

Normal - 600 days

Hard - 400 days

Impossible - 200 days

I have played them all and won easily at each level of play with different Characters. I recommend beginners go for the Easy mode the first time through.

Now the game scenario is based on the number of days you are given to find the DragonBone staff and beat Malazak. You see, the King (you don't see him until the game is won either) has been poisoned and he has only that number of days to live. If you run out of days you will be hurled into a 'game end saga' that basically makes you feel like the most useless idiot this side of the Mississippi, and then the game ends. So, don't run out of time unless you just want to see this 'lost game' clip - I admit it is kind of amusing and rather artistically creative.

After you select the game mode, your Character will be placed on horse in front of King Argus' castle. At this point you can employ two personal methods of game play.

One method can basically be described as trying to snatch every treasure chest you can find on the four Islands while trying to avoid monsters. Without going into detail, the purpose behind this method is to build up your Character's gold and leadership points so that you can go after Malazak as soon as possible and win the game and be done with it. I have read claims by some that the game can be won this way in 10 days. This may be possible if you were to find large amounts of gold in which to buy enough Time Stop Spells at the onset of the game, but I have not been able to beat the game in the Impossible mode in less than 70 days. But then I've always had a "Slow Children" sign posted at the nearest corner from where I live.

Note that you can Pause the game at any time (via Start button) so that no days will be lost while paused.

At any rate, the method that I will talk about will entail what may be termed the conventional way to win the game. This way involves gathering (buying) soldiers/creatures for your army so that you can defeat monsters so that you can win more gold to buy more soldiers in order to defeat more monsters - this is all accomplished under the umbrella of gathering experience points (called leadership) so that your Character eventually becomes powerful enough and rich enough to create an army strong enough to beat Malazak.

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2: Walkthrough

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So, now that you are in front of Argus' castle (notice that there is a Town near the castle - each castle has one of these near it). Enter the castle and select the Throne (before you buy soldiers) so that you can have an audience with the Queen - she will tell you what you need to do to get promoted. For instance, if you selected the Sorceress as your Character, she can be promoted to Magician, Mage, and finally Archmage. The Queen will tell you that you can get promoted if you beat "X" number of Villains. After you beat that number of Villains, go and see her again and she will promote you. Each promotion brings more gold, commission (the amount of gold the Queen will pay you per month), leadership, and the number of spells you can hold.

Ok, now exit talking with the Queen and press the X button and buy as many Archers and Pikemen as you can - if you have some spare change left over, pick up some Militia too, but only use them until you don't have to - you will know when after you have experienced their weakness through a few battles. If you are prompted to accept any creatures into your army, you will almost always do well to accept them if you have room (you can only keep five different types of creature). Some creatures can cause your morale to be lowered (press L2 button to see) - I do not know how this affects your army's skill or fighting strength. You can dismiss creatures from your army at the L2 screen by selecting them. Also, you can recruit (for gold) creatures into your army at their various dwelling places (you will see them). I think there are four types of creature dwelling places. Each type will offer specific kinds of creatures.

It is interesting to note that if you dismiss all but the creatures from your army that can fly, your Character will be able to leave its horse and fly over the Island (by pressing the Triangle button - pressing the Triangle button again will cause your Character to re-mount the horse).

Now leave the castle, go to the left, and find some monsters to battle. Each victory will bring you more gold. Each battle will undoubtedly bring you some army losses as well.

When you find a treasure chest and you get prompted to (1) take the gold, or (2) distribute the gold, ALWAYS give the gold away! Giving the gold away increases your leadership points. These points are very important to winning the game. There is a direct relation to the number of creatures you can carry in your army and your leadership points. It works like this - the total number of Hit Points for any given group of creatures in your army (press the L2 button to see) cannot be greater than the number of your leadership points (press the L1 button to see). If your leadership points are less than adequate, your creatures will go out of control and actually fight each other during a battle rather than fight the enemy! This situation can be created when storing your own army creatures at a defeated castle and adding them to your army at a latter day.

Another interesting thing to remember about keeping your army is you must pay them at the end of every week (you will see the text screen prompts from time to time). If your on-hand gold does not equal the total gold required to pay your army per week, then some of your army will leave. You do not want this to happen! If it does, I recommend you RELOAD the last SAVED game and regroup your game plan to avoid where you went wrong.

Pay particular attention to large armies that create a negative weekly cash flow - keep your eye on it. It is ok to keep a slight negative cash flow if you are taking out castle after castle, or if your gold on hand is kept fairly high. Going below, say, 50,000 in gold during the later stages of the game may result in all your dragons and knights leaving your army (when you need them the most). If this happens, RELOAD the game.

Another quick note about SAVING. Don't SAVE if you are very low on gold and very stocked in army unless you are sure you can acquire large amounts of gold quickly. Also, check the condition of your army (L2 button) before SAVING - make sure they are all there!

Ok, back to battling monsters. After you have won a few battles with land roving monsters, go back to the Argus castle and buy some more soldiers. Some soldiers, like the Knights for example, will not be for sale until you get a couple promotions.

Now go and beat some more land roving monsters.

When you think you are strong enough (you will know with experience, believe me) go and try to defeat a castle. You will have to buy some Siege Weapons first from any Town for 3000 gold. There are three different types of castles:

Green Roof - monsters only, no Villain here

Red Roof - monsters and Villain (get a contract before entering!)

Blue roof - a castle that you have already beat

Once you get your Siege Weapons, go to (but do not enter) a green roofed castle and SAVE.

Now go into the castle and try to defeat the monsters. If you are successful, go back to castle Argus with your new gold and buy some more soldiers/creatures. If you get defeated, RELOAD the game (make sure you don't accidentally hit the SAVE button at this point - it is so easy to do!) and go beat some more land roving monsters to get enough gold to buy more soldiers…you get the picture.

Eventually you will want to take on a red roofed castle, but before you do, make sure you know which Villain is in the castle first. One way you can do this is by entering the castle, reading who it is and then exiting (press the Triangle button). Go to any Town and take out a contract on that Villain, then go back to the castle and defeat it. Not only are the additional points worth it, but each defeated Villain brings you closer to another promotion. Also, in most cases, the nearest Town to each castle will tell you which Villain (and what kind of monsters) is in the castle - make sure you check your R2 button info with the castle info to insure you have the right contract before battling.

I have read that some suggest storing a creature at each defeated castle. The reason for this is so that each defeated castle will not be taken over again by Villains/monsters. I have found that this appears to be a waste of time. Once you get this game down, you will be doing little but defeating Villain castle after Villain castle, not worrying about the fact that some of these castles may be taken over again - trust me. Once, a castle that I had defeated was taken over at the end of the week so that I could go back and defeat it again for easy gold. If you must leave someone at a castle, go and get a peasant (or other low cost creature) and store it at the castle.

Remember to go to the Queen to get promoted when you can.

Boats will have to be used at some point in the game to travel to other portions of the Island that you are on. You can check "out" or check "in" (to save a weeks boat rental) a boat at any Town. Boats can also be taken to other Islands once you have found the map to that respective Island within a random treasure chest some where. Each Island holds the map for the succeeding Island you must travel to. The names of the Islands are:

Arcathia

Elestra

The Pearl Islands

Vazara

Vazara is the Island where Malazak is staying.

Each Island has several Towns. Each Town also offers a different type of spell for sale. Here are the spells you NEED to buy:

Non-Battle Spells

Time Stop Spells - (for those of you trying to beat the game in Hard or Impossible mode)

Town Gate Spells - (for those who are trying to go from Island to Island without losing a week of time)

Battle Spells

Fireball Spells - (get at least 25 or 30 before going to see Malazak)

Freeze Spells - (ok, they are handy, but NOT necessary)

Note that all dragons are immune to battle spells!

You may want to write down the names and locations of the Towns where you get your favorite spells.

When you get less useful spells like the Bridge Spell, you may want to use them up immediately to save room for more useful spells. After your third promotion you will have more room for spells than you need.

The Fireball Spells can be used during battle only (Circle button). They can really wreak some havoc on the enemy. The Time Stop spells can only be used when you are not in battle (Circle button). When you activate a Time Stop spell, you will see an hour glass in the upper left of the screen and receive regular text prompts informing you of how many more time pauses you have left before you go back to regular game day counting again. An interesting thing about Time Stop spells is that you don't have to pay your entire army while you remain under them since armies are only paid at the end of each week (i.e., no weeks go by while under constant Time Stop spell usage). Adversely, you will receive no weekly allowance from the Queen either.

Occasionally you will want to view the DragonBone map (Square button). The DragonBone map is a small section of some location on one of the four Islands. Once you positively identify that location go and dig (via Start button) on the space that corresponds to the dragon head on the map. When you find the DragonBone staff you can get promoted by the Queen. Also, while looking for the DragonBone location, the Island map is helpful (press R1 button).

Each Island holds two Artifacts of power (i.e., Pot of Gold, Flaming Sword, etc.). Collect all eight if you can as they increase your Commission and Score and grant you a piece of the map.

After you have traversed the four Islands amassing gold and soldiers/creatures for your army, you will eventually be ready to go and fight Malazak located in one of the three castles on the Island of Vazara. Before you do, leave room for Dragons in your army, and go and find at least one (and sometimes two) dragon lairs in which to hire "X" number of dragons into your forces.

After Malazak has been defeated you will view a small 'end of story' saga telling you how great you are, etc., etc., etc. - and then - the game is over. If your score is good enough, you will be added to the Hall of Fame. A funny thing to note here is that Malazak will cough up about 660,000 gold when defeated, but you will not be able to use it as the game ends.

HoMM can be won in no more than 6 to 8 hours the first time you play.

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3: Battle Strategy

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I thought it necessary to throw this section in as I found no help in anyone else's walkthrough or FAQ that covered some good battle strategy. It is hoped that these hints may help the HoMM player save a lot of time, gold, and soldiers, and get better game scores.

Button Usage:

R1 - Select different views of the 6 x 5 battle field grid

R2 - Display stats of selected enemy

L1 - Display stats of your Character

L2 - Display stats of your army/creatures

X - Your selected soldier/creature group will attack the selected monster group

(or if your total space movement for that creature is at the limit, X will end that creature's turn)

Square - Select a particular monster group

O - Allows you to select one combat spell per round of battle

Triangle - Skips your creature group momentarily (one skip allowed per creature group)

Start - Allows "Give Up" or "Auto Combat"

Right Joy stick - Allows different 3D view of battle grid

Left Joy stick - Moves selected creature group until X button is pressed

Note that the creature group selected will have a brown circle at its feet. The monster selected will have either a green or a red target. Red means the selected soldier/creature cannot attack that selected monster, and green means that the selected soldier/creature may attack that selected monster by pressing the Square button. It will often be the case that before a selected soldier group can attack an enemy monster group, the Square button will have to be repeatedly pressed until the monster group of your choice may be selected/attacked.

Never select "Give Up" unless you want to end the battle soon in order to RELOAD. The "Give Up" option has the same result as "You Have Lost The Battle" which means you return to castle Argus without your army and gold. Hopefully, if this happens, you can RELOAD your game that you SAVED in a favorable condition before you fought the battle.

During battle, I find it best to often wait for an opponent to come to you rather than running out after the enemy. You can often set up three or more of your soldier/creature groups on adjacent battle squares such that a monster will move into position so that all three of your soldier groups can attack on the next round. This strategy is very effective if you have one or more hurling groups of soldier/creature (i.e., archers/elves/orcs). For example, let two groups of archers and elves remain behind the battle lines attacking the enemy monster first (thus weakening the monster) so that the three remaining soldier groups can attack second - this results in less damage points incurred to the front line soldiers via weakened monsters that re-attack. Try to avoid giving monsters the first strike on any of your soldier/creature groups.

You may notice a re-attack sequence that the game allows your army and the monsters. Getting the right re-attack sequence may allow you to keep your favorite soldiers completely unharmed if they are in the right sequence of three groups of soldier/creature groups attacking one monster group.

Note that when your soldier/creature groups strike enemy monster groups, you will see blue numbers floating over the monster groups. These blue numbers represent the number of enemies in that group that have just been defeated. You can always view the number of monsters left in each group by using your Square button to select that group. Also, the green numbers floating over your soldier groups are the numbers of creatures per that group that have just been defeated.

Depending on the types of monsters you are battling, you may not want to leave your archers/elves/orcs alone. For example, archmages will inevitably fly behind your battle lines and beat on your archers left to themselves. Leave a group of soldiers to defend the archers/elves/orcs.

Hurling soldiers are great at taking out enemies who move only one space per round. Often times, weaker monsters, like peasants, dwarfs, zombies, etc., can be taken out by archers before they even come close to the rest of your soldiers. In these cases, just pause the other soldier groups rather than moving them out (the Triangle button).

Sometimes you may want to hit an enemy with the best of your most powerful soldiers at the onset of the battle. Other times you may want to send out your weakest soldiers to take at least a few hit points from the monsters before you send out the best of your army groups. Each monster of each group has a certain hit point value. That many hit points must be given in the form of damage before each monster is defeated. Keep in mind that some monsters will rebuild/regenerate their hit points after a round of battle (i.e., ghosts, vampires, trolls).

When confronting flying monsters that like to pick on your archers, you can often move your archers into a corner space of the battle field and then move two other soldier/creature groups around them. The reason for this is many archers can inflict much more damage on monsters if they can hurl arrows rather than do hand to hand combat. When confronting giants, send one group of fast moving soldiers to keep them busy. Giants will not hurl rocks at your archers/elves/orcs when one of your soldier/creature groups is on a space that is adjacent or diagonal to them. This is not true for archmages.

I usually use the fireballs on the hurling monsters (archmages, vampires, druids, giants) before I take out any others.

Freeze Spells are neat to use in certain rounds of battle as they do not allow attacks or re-attacks from the monster group that is frozen per that round of battle.

Resurrect Spells are helpful to completely rejuvenate a group of soldiers/creatures if used repeatedly for several rounds of battle.

Turn the Undead Spells are very useful when encountering ghosts, vampires, skeletons, zombies as each spell will take out many monsters from each group simultaneously. If you have any of the above creatures employed in your army, this spell will take them out as well!

The last time I beat Malazak per the Impossible level, I went into his castle with 35 Fire Ball Spells and the following army:

209 Knights --> lost 198 Knights

25 Dragons --> lost 8 Dragons

50 Giants --> lost 50 Giants

732 Archers --> lost 105 Archers

26 Elves --> lost 26 Elves (by the second round)

This is no magical formula, by any means, to beat the game - and you certainly could beat Malazak with much less of an army than this, but I list it only to give you a feel for how powerful your army should be before you do battle with Malazak. Don't forget to take out a contract on him before you do battle!!

SAVE just before you battle Malazak. You can RELOAD and try different strategies until you defeat him.

Malazak's army is typically the same each game consisting of something like the following (this is my foggy memory as I have never written down the stats):

105 dragons

23 dragons

23 dragons

110 demons

50 archmages/vampires

Fireball Spells will bring the most Hit Points per these last two types of monster. Make sure you use one Fireball Spell each round of battle. Take out the archmages/vampires first - then the demons. Use your archers to take out the archmages/vampires using arrow attacks (not hand to hand). By this time your knights and dragons should have taken out all Malazak's dragons.

You may find it very helpful to skip (pause) some of your soldiers/creatures altogether at the first stages of battle and use them only on re-attacks.

Move your dragons and knights in front of your archers. No need to move your soldiers out into battle - all of Malazak's monsters will immediately come to you. Your dragons are much more powerful than Malazak's.

Experiment to see what are the best battle squares to set up your men on.

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4: Personal Notes

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Often game walkthroughs will offer little help unless the reader has actually tried to play the game for a while. I'm afraid this is the case for this little write-up as well. Try the game for an hour or two and this all may make a little more sense.

Some have given HoMM:Quest for the DragonBone Staff bad reviews. I honestly don't know why. Sure, the architecture is a little outdated by now, but I still find the game challenging and interesting. I think the bad reviews may come from those that want this version of HoMM to be something it was never intended to be. Sure it is not the greatest game out there for PS2, but it certainly is not a bad game by any means. I, for one, liked it.

Some may see moral problems with the content of this game due to the fact that it employs the use of spells and certain creatures like ghosts, skeletons, vampires, and demons. Three things here:

(1) many Saturday morning cartoon shows are much worse than this version of HoMM

(2) the use of spells and the creatures are merely fairytale

(3) this version of HoMM uses no questionable language and there is absolutely no blood

Having said that, if you think this game is going to lead you or your youngsters into the occult (I am being facetious here) then don't play it. I offer this for those who may possibly indeed wound liberty of conscience. Actually, I turn down any offers from demon creatures that wish to join my army :)

I would like to point out another walkthrough for this game that I thought was superbly written by Dustin Wood, which is well worth your time to read if you are serious about this game. It can be found at:



Happy gaming!

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