Movement
This article refers to the movement of heroes on the Adventure Map. For the movement of creatures in combat, see speed.
Movement refers to a hero's capability to travel on the Adventure Map. At the beginning of each day a hero has certain amount of movement points, which are consumed as the hero moves on the map. Moving from one tile to another consumes movement points at different rate depending on terrain, roads and direction of the movement. The hero cannot move any further, when he has no movement points or he has too few of them to move to the next square.
Initial points
The movement points of heroes are renewed at the beginning of each day and cannot be stored up from day to day. The exact amount given depends on many factors:
- Heroes with logistics gain extra movement points on land, while heroes with navigation gain extra movement points while in a boat.
- Heroes with specialties in either of these skills are given even more.
- A weekly visit to the stables will increase movement speed over land.
- Each allied lighthouse increases the movement of all heroes in the kingdom while in boats.
- There are also landmarks on both land and sea, as well as many artifacts that will increase the daily allotted movement speed.
- If the slowest creature in the army has a movement speed of less than 11, the amount of movement points over land is reduced.
Moving on the map from one square to another consumes hero's movement points. The amount of reduction depends mainly on the direction a hero moves and the terrain. Moving diagonally on the map consumes 1.41 (square root of 2) times the points compared to moving vertically or horizontally. Moving on swamp, snow, sand or rough terrains consumes hero's movement points more than other types of terrain. This is called terrain penalty.
Terrain penalty can be reduced with Pathfinding secondary skill and eliminated completely with Expert Pathfinding. Also moving on roads neglects the terrains effect completely and even reduces the consumption of movement points. Another way to neglect terrain penalty is to cast Fly spell or use Angel Wings artifact. Additionally, the terrain penalty is eliminated, if a hero only has creatures native to the above-mentioned terrain types in his army. None of the creatures are native to sand terrain, but Nomads have sandwalker special ability, which neglects terrain penalty on sand.
It should be noted, that in original manual of Heroes of Might and Magic III, movement refers to the method of moving, which is either flying or ground. The main difference between these two is, that flying creatures can fly over obstacles (e.g. walls) while creatures moving on ground must go around them (if able).
Calculation
Movement points
| Creature speed | Movement points | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 1500 | |||||||
| 4 | 1560 | |||||||
| 5 | 1630 | |||||||
| 6 | 1700 | |||||||
| 7 | 1760 | |||||||
| 8 | 1830 | |||||||
| 9 | 1900 | |||||||
| 10 | 1960 | |||||||
| 11 or more | 2000 |
Base movement is a hero's number of movement points before any bonuses from secondary skills, artifacts, or adventure map locations are included. On water, base movement is always 1500. On land, it is determined by the slowest creature in a hero's army. Base movement is as low as 1500 when the slowest creature has a speed of 3, and as high as 2000 when it has a speed of 11 or more (see table). Base movement is calculated only at the beginning of each day. As a result, heroes cannot earn movement points during the day by transferring their slowest creatures, nor do they lose movement points when receiving even slower creatures.
Heroes gain additional movement points when wearing certain artifacts at the beginning of a day. Boots of Speed give +600 points on land, and Equestrian's Gloves +300 points. Wearing two Equestrian's Gloves still gives the bonus only once. On water, the Necklace of Ocean Guidance gives +1000 points, the Sea Captain's Hat gives +600 points, and each lighthouse gives +500 points.
Certain locations on the adventure map provide a temporary increase in movement. Visiting a Watering hole, Fountain of youth or Rally flag will give a hero +400 movement points for one day and an Oasis will grant +800 points. Visiting Stables will give +400 movement points for each remaining day of that week.
Two secondary skills, Logistics and Navigation, increase a hero's movement. Basic Logistics increases base movement on land by 10%, advanced Logistics adds 20%, and expert Logistics 30%. Basic Navigation increases base movement on water by 50%, advanced Navigation adds 100%, and expert Navigation 150%. Logistics and Navigation do not affect bonuses from artifacts and adventure map locations.
Consumption of the points
A hero will consume the movement points when he moves on the map. The basic cost for moving horizontally or vertically is 100 points and 141 points for moving diagonally. Terrain penalty will increase this cost to 175% on swamp, 150% on snow or sand and 125% on rough. Other types of terrain do not cause penalty. All creatures have one native terrain, which means that if a hero is moving on a terrain with terrain penalty, and all the creatures in hero's army are native to that terrain, the terrain penalty is eliminated. This basically concerns three towns: fortress whose creatures has swamp, tower whose creature has snow, and stronghold whose creatures has rough as native terrain. Additionally, a hero can eliminate terrain penalty of sand if he has at least one nomad on his army, because of their sandwalker special ability. Also, pathfinding secondary skill completely eliminates terrain penalties.
Moving on roads is also an exception to terrain penalty rule. No matter where the roads are laid, they always reduce the movement cost from the basic costs (100 or 141). Dirt roads reduce these cost to 75%, gravel roads reduce the costs to 65% and cobblestone road reduce the cost to 50%. This means, that traveling on dirt roads consumes 75 points, traveling on gravel road consumes 65 and traveling on cobblestone consumes 50 moving points. As for moving diagonally, traveling on dirt roads consumes 106 points, traveling on gravel road consumes 92 and traveling on cobblestone consumes 71 moving points.