One of my favorite games came out in 1999 for Windows PCs. I started playing it then and I haven't really stopped since.
You'd think that would mean I'd be really good at this game. Nope! I am still terrible at it! (I like to pretend that I have more fun that way.)
Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is a turn-based strategy game where, generally, the aim is to have more creatures than your opponent so that you can defeat them and take over their castles. (Some maps have different win conditions, like flagging every creature dwelling, but even on those I usually try to take out all my enemies first because I don't understand fun.)
There are different types of castle, and they determine what creatures you can most easily recruit (though additional creatures can be obtained from creature dwellings across the map) and which heroes you'll probably want to hire. You can hire heroes that don't match your castle, but where's the fun in that?
My top three castles are:
I like the Necropolis because necromancers raise skeletons after every successful battle, so as long as you keep winning, one of your creature stacks will keep increasing. I've gotten skeletons in ridiculous numbers just from fighting low-level high numbers creatures on the map. It's very fun. I also like the Vampire Lord creatures because they can regenerate their numbers in a fight by attacking any living enemy creature.
I like the Conflux because they have a building that lets you learn each elemental magic, which boosts your spells, and if you find the Grail (which is like a fun little sidequest I always try to do when possible) this town makes your Mage Guild give you every spell which is ridiculously powerful.
I like the Rampart because they have a building that boosts your gold, which is really useful. I like to take a Rampart as a secondary castle when I can, so I can get the benefits of both. I also like the Rampart because it's just classic elves-and-unicorns fantasy shit, and I've always been into that.
The rest of the castles have their perks and flaws, these are just the ones I like best. I can work my way around most of them if I have to.
My main strategy is to get my creatures built as quickly as possible, up to at least level 5, including upgrades, and farm as many of them as possible. I also try to get my mage guild up to at least level 4, to try to get the Town Portal spell, and to get my hero(es) to expert earth magic so I can move them from town to town as quickly as necessary. And, I try to search out as much of the map as I can, if possible, but this is a secondary goal. If there are any obelisks on the map, I try to get as many of those as I can while I search the map, and try to obtain the Grail. I don't focus on enemy castles so much until I'm more confident in my unit numbers, though I will take out enemy heroes when I find them on the map.
All of these things take quite a long time, as you'd expect, and I think that's why I'm "bad" at this game. When I finish maps I rarely rank very high on the leaderboard against the computer, and I think this is why; the computer values speed a lot more highly than I do. I guess I could just go straight for other towns, but that might not work, and I am here only to have fun.
I love this game, even though I am bad at it. It has an iPad version for some reason that is beyond my understanding. Please play it if you like strategy things or numbers-go-up machines. Thank you.
---
In doing research for the accuracy of what I'm writing, I discovered a fan-made expansion I didn't know existed. I've been playing it a bit and it's quite fun! I like the new towns (though not more than my old towns), and I had grown bored with the old maps because I've done all of the easy and normal difficulty level ones at least a dozen times before. I'm not really much for the campaign tracks, as they can be limiting and too long to hold my interest, but I might try some of the new ones in this expansion just to see what they're like.
I'd like to explore making my own maps and, perhaps, my own campaign some time, but that requires even more focus that I don't have just at the moment. (Especially on top of all my other projects.)