After explaining the starting heroes, Wayne began teaching Little Tess the priority list for building upgrades in the Castle faction.
With a Town Hall and a Tavern provided by default on Day 1, the first order of business was to spend 2,500 gold to upgrade the Town Hall into a City Hall. This would increase the fixed daily income from 500 gold to 1,000 gold.
Whether it was recruiting troops or constructing buildings, gold was the most important currency in the game.
Next was building the Blacksmith. For a hero like Orrin, buying a Ballista early on—combined with the starting Archers—could significantly boost early-game exploration power. Since Wayne was using the Priestess Adela, he built the Level 1 Mage Guild first to learn a few basic spells.
Generally, between Day 2 and Day 4, one should finish the Blacksmith, Level 1 Mage Guild, and Marketplace. Then, the City Hall could be upgraded to a Capitol (in earlier versions/common parlance, the secondary income upgrade), raising daily income from 1,000 to 2,000 gold.
During this period, if they encountered treasure chests in the wild, gold was the priority choice. Once the income was boosted, a large amount of gold would be needed to upgrade the Fort into a Citadel, and eventually into a Castle.
After completing these, a massive sum of gold was required to upgrade the structures into the ultimate Capitol, providing a steady 4,000 gold per day. This ensured a continuous stream of wealth to buy troops in the later stages.
Additionally, besides the main exploration hero, one should recruit a second Castle hero from the Tavern on the first day. Who appeared was purely down to luck. At this stage, Wayne didn't teach Tess the "hire and fire" method to cycle through heroes in the Tavern, as early-game gold was too precious.
Once this secondary hero was hired, they would hand over all their troops to the main hero, keeping only a single, low-level Pikeman for themselves. This secondary hero's job was to scout the map and pick up resources, allowing the main hero to use all their movement points on the "real work": fighting monsters, capturing mines, and seizing equipment.
Under Wayne's guidance and aided by a decent starting position, Tess's exploration went very smoothly. Wayne even taught her how to split the initial Pikemen into several single-unit stacks. When encountering neutral monsters that were faster and could reach the Archers in two turns, she would use these 1-unit Pikemen to surround the Archers on the first turn, acting as "meat shields" to soak up damage. It was the maximum gain for the minimum cost.
By the first day of the second week, both of them successfully had their Capitols.
While waiting for the other players to finish their turns, Wayne glanced at the progress of the other teams. Although they were constantly discussing and figuring things out in pairs, they were not only much slower in operation than Wayne's team, but their actual battles were resulting in heavy losses.
The Westbrook quartet had chosen the Knight "Tyris." Her specialty was increasing the Attack and Defense of Cavaliers and Paladins. But these were Tier 6 units; anyone with a brain knew it would take a long time to unlock the buildings for them. Choosing her significantly slowed down their early-game momentum.
The magic-loving Amy had chosen the Priestess "Sanya" (Cyra). Her specialty was Wisdom and "Eagle Eye." The function of Eagle Eye was a certain chance to learn the spells cast by the enemy hero during combat.
To a novice, this skill sounded amazing—stealing magic seemed absurdly strong. In reality, this was the weakest skill in the entire game, bar none. To veteran players, it was "trash among trash," likely something a designer threw together at the last minute without thinking.
First, the opponent had to actually cast a spell for you to learn it. If you were fighting neutral monsters, they didn't cast spells, making the skill useless for 90% of the game.
Furthermore, even if the opponent cast a spell you didn't know and you got lucky with the trigger, you still needed the appropriate level of Wisdom. For instance, if the enemy cast a Level 4 spell but your hero only had Basic Wisdom, you still couldn't learn it.
While watching Amy, Wayne told Tess in the team channel: "When playing this game, if a hero has Eagle Eye, don't even touch them. They are 100% super trash..."
In Heroes of Might and Magic, unit populations refresh every Monday for recruitment. Since Wayne and Tess had spent the first week focusing on economic buildings, on the first day of the second week, the only units they could recruit in their towns were the basic Pikemen.
The Westbrook group, however, had focused on military buildings to unlock higher-tier units. Through the "Thieves' Guild," which allowed players to see general intelligence—such as how many towns a player had, who the strongest hero was, and what the strongest unit was—they saw Wayne and Tess's data.
This created an illusion: "Miller isn't all that great. He's been playing all this time and only has Tier 1 Pikemen." Since it was a medium-sized random map with only a few mountain ranges separating the four corners, they weren't far apart. After a week of exploration, they had a rough idea of each other's locations, leading them to a ridiculous decision:
"Come on, while Miller hasn't developed yet, let's form a temporary alliance and take him out together!"
Tess's secondary hero discovered their intention while gathering resources. She saw Hudson's hero appearing in the distance with an army, heading straight for her. Scared, she immediately retreated.
After both sides had exhausted their movement points for the day, Tess checked the status of Hudson's troops.
In the game, you could usually only see which unit types the opponent carried and a vague term representing the quantity range.
For example: "A few" meant 1–4; "Several" meant 5–9; "A pack" meant 10–19; Followed by "Lots," "A horde," "A swarm," "A throng," and "A multitude," all the way up to "Legion," which represented over 1,000.
Tess quickly reported what she saw to Wayne: "A lot of Pikemen, lots of Archers, lots of Gryphons, and a pack of Swordsmen! Boss, what do we do!"
Before Wayne could answer, she checked Wayne's status, since he was her teammate.
Wayne said to her: "Quickly, copy me. Recruit any useless hero from the town, preferably a magic type, and learn some spells in the town. Remember, bring only one Halberdier—just one. To be safe, place it in one of the far corners of the tactical grid. Do NOT use a Pikeman. Then, charge at Hudson. Fight him as soon as you see him!"
Tess was confused: "Boss, bringing only one soldier... isn't that just seeking death?"
"Wait until the battle starts. Let his Gryphons and Swordsmen charge first. That way, you can see exactly how many troops he has."
"Since Halberdiers are faster than Archers, the Halberdier will act before his Archers. When it's your turn, don't move toward him. If you have Lightning Bolt, use Lightning Bolt. If not, use Ice Bolt, or even Magic Arrow. Aim it at his Archers. After casting, choose 'Retreat.' It's only one soldier; the loss won't hurt at all."
"This way, you get exact intelligence and whittle down a few of his Archers."
Tess had a sudden realization: "Understood!" She immediately went to the Tavern to recruit a hero.
Wayne, on the other hand, had already gathered his main army.
42 Pikemen, 18 Archers, 16 Gryphons, and 14 Swordsmen. This was basically the total two-week production from two towns. And just like Hudson's side, because they focused on quantity and unlocking new tiers within a limited time, none of these units were upgraded.
He used a useless hero named Ryan and learned the Level 2 Air Magic "Lightning Bolt" in the Mage Guild. This spell was one of the most frequently used offensive spells in the early stages of Heroes III.
Since Ryan was a male Priest, his starting "Power" stat was 3. The Lightning Bolt cast by this fresh recruit dealt 60 damage, while a single Archer had only 10 health.
Hudson and the others laughed: "Miller ! Your army only has one soldier? Have you given up on yourself? Hahaha."
Wayne ignored them completely.
As soon as the battle started, a crackling Lightning Bolt struck down. With a loud CRACK, the stack of 18 Archers instantly dropped to 12.