Destruction obviously destroys enemy armies, summoning conjures powerful elementals, light buffs your own units and dark magic curses enemy units. There are 4 schools of magic: destruction, summoning, light and dark magic. Heroes can also learn mighty spells, that can either improve the abilities and performance of the heroes army, or destroy and curse the enemy army. Each skill also has sub-skills that become available, each hero can only have 3 sub-skills to each skill.

There are skills that any hero has access to, and there are some skills that only heroes of certain factions have access to. Each time a hero gains a level they can choose a new skill. Luck works in a similar manner to critical hits, the higher the luck, the higher the chance that a unit will inflict extra damage on attack.Р”Р„part from the attributes each hero has a level, heroes gain experience by defeating enemies on the field of battle. The higher the morale, the higher the chance that a unit might decrease the time between their next action in battle. These attributes can not be raised by leveling up, but rather by skills or certain objects in the world (the increase from objects is temporary, and is only available for one battle). The hero also has 2 other additional attributes, morale and luck.

Spell power - Increases spell parameters, power and duration.

Knowledge - Increases the amount of mana the hero has by 10 for each point of knowledge.

Defense - increases defense of all creatures, reducing damage they might take.

Attack - increases the damage all creatures inflict.

Heroes also have some RPG elements, these include. The player may also choose to divide the stacks of units in other unoccupied slots. But each stack must only be made up of a single type of unit. Each stack can have as many units as the player wishes. The hero himself is not limited to a certain number of troops, but rather 7 stacks of units. Heroes have 7 slots, where the army is located. They command armies and expand your lands. HeroesHeroes are your commanders on the battlefield. There are no neutral, or unoccupied towns, each town is owned by a certain player. All buildings have a town level requirement, as well as a previous building being built in the list. The player however, does not have access to all buildings. Towns also have a town level associated with them, for each building the player builds the town level increases by 1, up to a maximum of 30. Heaven faction has a special Training Grounds building, where units may be upgraded to a greater level (Peasants become archers, archers become footmen etc). For example, the Academy faction has the Arcane Forge, where an Academy hero may add artifacts to stacks of units, improving them in the process. Each faction has their own unique buildings, that are unavailable to other factions. The town is where you'll recruit your armies, heroes as well as adding war machines to a hero's army. Resources are used to construct buildings and create level 7 creatures. These objects must remain in the control the player if he wishes to gain resources. Each day the player receives gold and resources from resource producing buildings such as mines or lumber mills. The player then, must expand by capturing mines, dwelling and destroying creeps. The player may also adjust teams and colors of each player.Р”Р„t the begining of each scenario, the player is given one hero, a town and some resources. Before starting the custom game the player may choose his faction, his first hero, a random amount of resources, gold or a minor artifact as well as a adjusting the same for the computer controlled players, or they may leave everything to chance.

The maximum number of players for a custom game is 8. The objectives of each map vary from finding the tear of Asha, to defeating all enemies to special scenarios, each map also has a size associated with it. The player chooses from a number of different maps. Custom game, as the name suggests, is well, a custom game.

The campaign mode is where the story of Heroes of Might and Magic V is told, in which different races deal with the demon invasion and their problems. There are 2 types of game modes, campaign and custom game, the gameplay elements remain the same in both modes however. The gameplay in HoMM V is the same as previous games in the series, although now the game engine is 3D.

Heroes of might and magic 3 skills