Heroes 3 Morale guide

Having good morale on the battlefield can often make all the difference. That extra attack good morale gives you can prevail in an evenly matched battle. On the other hand, having bad morale can make our units freeze in battle, therefore skipping our turn to attack, which can result in defeat. Morale can be positive, negative or neutral. It varies from +3 to -3. Neutral morale is always 0, so when entering a battlefield with neutral morale, you can’t count on any morale modifiers.

Positive morale of +1 has 4.2% chance of blessing your troops with an extra attack; morale of +2 has 8.3% chance of blessing them; and +3 morale has 12.5% chance of awarding you an extra attack. Negative morale has double the chance to occur. So, -1 morale has 8.3% chance of freezing your unit or a stack in battle, -2 morale 16.7% and -3 morale 25% chance of skipping your turn to attack.

All units start with a positive morale of +1. If they are all of the same alignment, the morale will stay positive. As soon as they are mixed with creatures from another town, this morale is negated. This is important to know when a wondering creature stack wants to join you, since it can cause more problems than it’s worth. Also, note that because of this all neutral creatures in the adventure map always have positive morale.

If you add more creatures from more towns to your troops, your morale will drop accordingly. This doesn’t apply to heroes from other towns under your command – as long as they have an army from the same town, the morale is unaffected. To summarize, if in your army you have creatures only from one town, your morale is +1; if you lead creatures from two towns, morale will be neutral; creatures from three different towns make your morale -1; creatures from four different alignments have a negative morale of -2; and morale of -3 is present when you have five or more mixed different town creatures. Neutral creatures are considered to be of the same alignment.

Mixing units from different factions will reduce your morale.

Creatures unaffected by morale are the Undead, Elementals and Golems. It doesn’t matter if they are all of the same alignment or if you have any artifact of specialty giving you positive morale, they just won’t get any bonuses. This does not mean that the opponent will be unaffected as well; opposing army will have their own morale modifiers when fighting against these creatures. Adding undead to your army will make you lose your bonus morale and you will suffer another -1 to your morale. Angels or Archangels grant your units morale +1, fighting against Bone or Ghost dragons you will suffer -1 to morale, and Minotaurs will always have positive morale.

Of course, there are artifacts that can influence morale. The Angelic Alliance artifact will remove all morale penalties for creatures of the Good and Neutral towns (Castle, Rampart, Tower, Stronghold, Fortress). This artifact will also cast expert Prayer spell at the beginning of the round. The Spirit of Oppression will remove all positive morale for you and your opponent, but it will leave the negative morale unaffected. This artifact is very useful for the army of undead. There is a number of other artifacts that affect your morale, such as Glyph of Gallantry (+1), Badge of Courage (+1), Crest of Valor (+1), Pendant of Courage (+3, also +3 to luck) and Still Eye of the Dragon (+1, also +1 to luck). In the Horn of the Abyss version of the game, Ring of Suppression decreases enemy's morale by -1, Hideous Mask decreases enemy's morale by -1 and Pendant of Downfall decreases enemy's morale -2.

Fighting on a Cursed ground negates all morale modifiers and the morale on this ground is neutral. Holy ground will increase the morale of Good creatures by +1 while decreasing morale by -1 for Evil creatures. When fighting in Evil fog, the Evil creatures get morale +1 and Good creatures get -1. These terrains do not affect neutral alignment creatures.

When defending against a siege, the Tavern in your town will give your troops +1 morale. Also, the Castle town can upgrade the Tavern to Brotherhood of the Sword, which gives the defending troops another +1 to their morale. If you have a Grail building in your Castle, it will provide a permanent +2 morale bonus to all allied heroes.

There are also secondary skills, spells and adventure objects that affect your morale. When it comes to secondary skills, Leadership will grant your troops +1, +2 or +3 morale depending on the level of the skill. Casting Mirth increases morale by +1 or +2 while casting Sorrow decreases morale by -1 or -2. Adventure objects morale bonuses last only until next battle, and they are: