Necropolis

Fully built Necropolis, as seen on the adventure map Fully built Necropolis, as seen on the adventure map. (HotA)	Towns
	Castle
	Rampart
	Tower
	Inferno
	Necropolis
	Dungeon
	Stronghold
	Fortress
	Conflux
	Cove
	Factory

Necropolis is an evil alignment town type, that is overrun and ruled by undead creatures. They are the natural bases for the Necromancer and Death Knight hero types. Necropolis armies have many units with abilities to weaken their opponents. This may give them an advantage over an equal or even a stronger opponent.

Native terrain for Necropolis's troops is dirt.

Overview

Structures

Resource	Basic	Upgrades	All
	33400	25500	96400
	45	25	135
	65	25	135
	5	12	45
	5	12	45
	5	27	60
	15	7	40
Troop cost/week:		26920 2

Incomplete Necropolis town seen from inside

Necropolis Specific Buildings

• Cover of Darkness (unique Necropolis town building, like cover of darkness, creates 20 tiles of shroud around the city)
• Necromancy Amplifier (unique Necropolis building, works like Vampire's Cowl, stacks with each city)
• Skeleton Transformer (unique Necropolis building, enhance values of Peasants to Skeletons (+4 attack, +3 attack, +5 hp, +0-2 damage +1 speed) or life span of other non undead creatures to those of Skeletons, or, in case of Dragons and Hydras Bone Dragons)
• Shipyard (1000 gold, 10 wood, like Summon Boat but more reliable when not on expert Water Magic with a freely gotten Summon Boat and loosing adventure map movement points when boarding/deboarding ships instead of Water Walk or Fly)
• Soul Prison (Grail building, +20 Necromancy for allied heroes, the usual 5000 gold each day and +50 creature growth in the Grail town)
• Unearthed Graves (+6 Skeletons per week horde building)

Creature Dwellings

• Cursed Temple (12x Skeleton, Skeleton Warrior)
• Graveyard (8x Walking Dead, Zombie)
• Tomb of Souls (7x Wight, Wraith)
• Estate (4x Vampire, Vampire Lord)
• Mausoleum (3x Lich, Power Lich)
• Hall of Darkness (2x Black Knight, Dread Knight)
• Dragon Vault (1x Bone Dragon, Ghost Dragon)

Heroes

Necropolis
Death Knights
Charna
Clavius
Galthran
Isra
Moandor
Straker
Tamika
Vokial
Lord Haart
Ranloo
Necromancers
Aislinn
Nagash
Nimbus
Sandro
Septienna
Thant
Vidomina
Xsi
Towns

Template:Herotable Template:Herotablerow Necropolis |} List of all heroes

Creatures

Necropolis creatures
Level 1
Skeleton
Skeleton Warrior
Level 2
Walking Dead
Zombie
Level 3
Wight
Wraith
Level 4
Vampire
Vampire Lord
Level 5
Lich
Power Lich
Level 6
Black Knight
Dread Knight
Level 7
Bone Dragon
Ghost Dragon
Towns

All Necropolis' creatres are undead, which means that they are unaffected by morale. They are also immune to all mind spells as well as Curse, Bless, Resurrection and Death Ripple.

Template:Creaturetable Template:Creaturetablerow Necropolis |}

Discussion

Overview

Necropolis is one of the most powerful towns in Heroes of Might and Magic III. It has very strong 4th, 5th and 6th level creatures. Vampire Lords and Dread Knights are among the stronges in their respective levels, and while having Power Liches in an army consisting of living creatures may have problematic because of the death cloud attack, in the army of undead it is an advantage. As if this was not enough, Necropolis' heroes have Necromancy secondary skill, which enables them to harvest Skeletons (or Skeleton Warriors) from enemy armies as well as allied creatures. It is possible for a hero with Necromancy to pull through from a battle with more troops than he went into it.

Necropolis has also excellent magic capabilities. It can build level 5th Mage Guild and has few special spells like Animate Dead and Death Ripple to support the armies. Also, undead hordes are immune to mind spells, which greatest advantage is that they cannot be blinded or "berserked". In addition, undead do not suffer from negative morale (nor do they benefit from positive).

Perhaps the only true weakness in Necropolis' creatures is Bone and Ghost Dragons, which are among the weakest 7th level creature.

Strategy

If you can upgrade your Estate early, you should do so. The Vampire Lords are one of the best 4th-level creatures in the game. Since they draw life from their enemy, and resurrect themselves, they can be used to solely take out large numbers of low-level creatures. Combine with "counterstrike" to get even better effect.

"The month of the Hobgoblin" and the like are Necromancers' wet dream. Just take your strongest hero and stockpile Skeletons. Necromancy adds a little bit of motivation on clearing maps - who needs experience and levelups, when there's Skeletons aplenty?

The Necropolis has only a few units they can rely on, the others can wait with being bought and, in time, even be ignored. The reliable units are: Skeleton Warriors, Vampire Lords, Power Liches and Dread Knights.

You get Skeleton Warriors only if your ranks are full at the *end* of combat and if you have a stack of Skeleton Warriors and no stack of Skeletons. The downpart is that you get less than if you'd get normal Skeletons (2/3rds as many). Therefore, if it is logistically managable, it would be better to try and get a horde of normal Skeletons first, and then upgrade them at a Necropolis or Hill Fort for the last battle.

If there are any Level 1 dwellings nearby, recruit them and take them to the Necropolis. If you have a Skeleton Transformer, you're practically getting free skeletons, and even free Skeleton warriors if there is a Hill Fort close by too.

Be on the lookout for Hovels. Peasants come free and, though extremely slow and non-lethal, once inside a Skeleton Transformer they gain a 600% increase in health, up to 300% increase in damage, among other bonuses. Since Hovels spawn 25 peasants each each week and there are usually 4 or more Hovels close to each other one can gain an extra 100 or so Skeletons each week. Have a hero be a collector of these benefits.

In tough combat, devide your Ghost Dragons. Keep a big stack, and two 1-stack. Thus you can greatly increase your chance for the Aging, which can turn the tides of a battle.

Pros

• A variety of good heroes to choose from
• A variety of strategies available
• Unaffected by negative Morale
• Unaffected by Mind spells
• Necromancy is a powerful secondary skill that only Necropolis heroes can utilize effectively
• Vampire Lords are by far the most cost-efficient level 4 unit (and arguably the most cost-efficient unit in the game), as they can beat armies of much greater size as long as they are not (like Undeads or Constructs) immune to the Vampire Lords' Life drain ability and as long as the Vampire Lords are used properly.
• The level 3 spell Animate Dead (which the necromancer hero Thant has inbuilt) can ressurect units in combat, and they stay ressurected after combat (the 4th level Earth Spell Resurrection and Angels or the 5th level Fire spell Sacrifice can ressurect units, but so treated units are removed after combat quite like Summon Air Elemental created creature stacks).
  So given a good balance of Thants undead and repairable units compared to the opponent, enough mana for the ressurects and having Shackles of War for unlimited turns he would not lose any units in combat but also often get additional Necromancy created skeletons (which would hamper movement on the adventure map a little, as Skeletons are slow creatures (and even with Town Portal and Dimension Door there's a adventure map movement penalty to consider).
• There are number of artifacts that are only useful to Necropolis (artefacts enhancing the created creature number of the unique secondary skill Necromancy like Cloak of the Undead King, but also Pendant of Death which counters the mini, undead-only version of Armageddon, damaging all undead on the battlefield, even those recruited in no Necropolis but on the adventure map).
• Both Necropolis hero types begin with a spell book

Cons

• Walking Dead and Zombies slow armies down
• Only one ranged attacker Lich/Power Lich
• Unaffected by positive Morale (creatures of other towns might still have less morale when doing combat with creatures of other towns, and the Skeleton Transformer mostly creates skeletons and not Necropolis type creatures of the same level (except for perhaps transmuting hydras and dragons to bone dragons)) - Spirit of Oppression is a nice thing to have for any Necropolis hero with no non Necropolis units.
• Difficulties in the early game, where your slow level 1 and level 2 creatures are not the best to conquer mines and explore the map (and in the endgame a host of in-combat ressurectable skeletons might hamper adventure map transfers (to reflag buildings for instance))
• Bone and Ghost Dragons are near the bottom of the Level 7's in strength and usefulness

WARNING! This town is often considered too strong and thus is banned in many multiplayer games/tournaments.