Resource

Resources are used to build and improve towns, purchase troops, and recruit heroes.

There are seven resource types in the Heroes of Might and Magic series. Gold is the most common, required for virtually everything. Wood and Ore are raw materials used for almost all buildings. Gems, Mercury, Sulfur and Crystal are rare magical resources used for the most powerful creatures and buildings. The resource types were the same, from the first Heroes game launched in 1995 until the fifth installment of the series, launched in 2006. The sixth game, Might & Magic: Heroes VI, removed Gems, Mercury, and Sulfur. The next instalment, Might & Magic: Heroes VII, replaced regular Crystal with Dragonblood crystal and introduced three new resources: Shadowsteel, Starsilver, and Dragonsteel.

The total amount of resources of each kind the player has can be viewed in the Resource Bar (usually displayed in the very top or very bottom of the screen).

Resource Production

There are three main ways to produce resources: finding loose resource piles on the adventure map, flagging resource mines, and trading resources at marketplaces.

Loose Resources

One of each loose resource, including a treasure chest and campfire. Screenshot taken from Heroes of Might and Magic III.

On the course of the adventure, a hero may encounter resource piles (each resource type has its own resource pile, easily distinguished by the similarity between the pile's aspect and the resource type's icon). The piles can be collected, each of them offering 2-10 units of the resource type they represent (for Gold, the offered quantity is a multiple of 100, between 200-1000). More often than not, a concentration of resource piles of a certain type indicate a mine of the same type in the vicinity . All piles discovered should be collected, because they are quite numerous especially in the starting area and usually prove to pay a very big importance on the economical field. There is no way to see the exact amount of resources that can be found in a pile before picking it up.

When you encounter a resource mine surrounded by piles, it is wise to try to flag the mine first. If you spend your movement points collecting the piles, you might not be able to reach the mine in the same turn, virtually losing the mine's production for a day. If you get the mine first and can't pick all the piles in the same turn, you don't lose anything, as they will be still there the next day waiting to be taken. Should an enemy hero be nearby, usually it would be better to collect the piles first, as they might be picked up by the enemy if you let any untouched during your turn and each of them worth more than a mine's production for a day (this is true for all resource types excepting gold).

There are also a handful of special loose resources such as campfires, treasure chests, and flotsam. These function similarly to loose resources in that they can be collected by a hero then disappear, but with unique features. For example, campfires provide both gold and another random resource, with no way to know what the extra resource will be until it's picked up. Some games also have adventure map objects that can be searched for resources one time like the wagon or lean-to, but don't disappear after being interacted with.

There are several ways to improve the benefits of resource piles. Resourcefulness is a subskill in Heroes of Might and Magic V, available to all hero classes under the Luck skill. This subskill randomly increases the resources gained from piles by 5%-25% (the minimum bonus being 1 unit of resource).

In Heroes of Might and Magic III: In the Wake of Gods, the Sorcery skill can also be boosted in order to increase the quantity of resources collected from piles. When the skill receives the boost, it can even allow the hero to see the exact amount offered in piles by right-clicking them, or it simply allows the hero to pick the piles from distance (and thus saving valuable movement points).

Resource Mines

Resource Mines are special Adventure structures that can be found by heroes on the adventure map. If flagged, they produce resource units on a daily rate for their owner. Each resource type is associated with a mine type. A mine produces only it's appropriate resource type.

The Hero collects a pile of wood. A sawmill is nearby, waiting to be flagged. The Ore Pit can also be seen in the vicinity, but it is guarded. Our hero must defeat the wandering monsters in order to claim the mine. No mine has garrison guardians. Screenshot taken from Heroes of Might and Magic IV.

Resource Type	Associated Mine	Units Produced/Day
Gold	Gold Mine	1000
Wood	Sawmill	2
Ore	Ore Pit	2
Gems	Gem Mine	1
Mercury	Alchemist's Lab	1
Sulfur	Sulfur Mine	1
Crystal	Crystal Mine	1

In some installments of the games, there are several mine types that have a slightly different name than the one shown in the table. For example, in Heroes of Might and Magic III, the Sulfur-associated mine is called Sulfur Dune.

Mine Guardians

Like most Adventure structures, the mines are usually guarded. A mine however, unlike many structures, can have up to two types of guardians (which can both appear guarding the same mine).

The first type are the wandering monsters, which can be seen blocking the way to the mine. In the picture on the left, the ore pit is defended by monsters in the form of Peasants (see picture caption).

The second type are the garrison guardians. These have no visual representation on the Adventure Map, but it is possible to tell whether the mine is guarded or not by right-clicking on it. This will also reveal limited information about the creatures securing the mine. Upon visiting a mine with garrison guardians, the hero will be asked if he/she wishes to attack the garrison creatures in combat.

After the guardians are defeated (if any or both of the two types are present), the mine is automatically flagged and made part of the owner's domain. Garrison guardians appear only in Heroes of Might and Magic III, Heroes of Might and Magic IV and Heroes of Might and Magic V.

The owner can place garrison guardians in the his/her mines, and the guardians will be controlled by the owner should they be attacked by an enemy trying to seize the mine. There will be no hero on their side, however (unless a hero is also camped there, a feature possible only in Heroes of Might and Magic IV). The garrison creatures can be retrieved by any allied hero that visits the mine (in Heroes of Might and Magic IV, the mines can be set to forbid the retrieving of creatures; this is done during map making, not in the game itself).

In Heroes of Might and Magic III, the garrison cannot contain neutral guards. A mine can have guards only if it was already captured and filled with creatures by it's owner. In the other two games, a mine can have garrison guards from the start of the game, but they do not grow with the passing of time, unlike most creatures on the Adventure Map.

In Heroes of Might and Magic V there is a subskill called Haunted mines, available under the Summoning Magic skill and only to the Necromancer class. This subskill allows the Necromancer to haunt each mines he/she captures, thus summoning a number of Ghosts as garrison creatures.

Special Mine Types

Abandoned mines can be found in the Heroes of Might and Magic III and Heroes of Might and Magic V games. They have a specific look that separates them from the all other mines, and they always have garrison guards. In Heroes of Might and Magic III, these mines are guarded by a healthy number of Troglodytes, and in Heroes of Might and Magic V the mines are haunted by medium to strong undead armies. After the abandoned mines are secured, they will produce a resource type randomly chosen with the normal production rate (abandoned mines never produce wood). In Heroes of Might and Magic III, the fight with the garrison troglodytes takes place on the subterranean arena, no matter on what terrain type the mine actually stands on. In the two games, abandoned mines always look the same and there is no way to tell what resource an abandoned mine produces before capturing it.

Several resource mines can be seen in the picture. The gray ones are ore veins, and the ones under them are crystal veins

Abandoned mines also appear in Heroes of Might and Magic IV, but they are a bit different. There are 7 types of abandoned mines, one for each of the normal resource mines, and defeating the undead army that haunts an abandoned mine automatically transforms it in it's respective resource mine. Abandoned mines look like an deteriorated version of the normal ones, so it is very easy to tell what resource an abandoned mine will produce.

Heroes of Might and Magic IV also features resource veins. Resource veins are places where a resource of one type is abundant in it's natural form, but there are no means to exploit it. Upon visiting it, the hero is offered to construct an associated mine on the vein. If the hero agrees to pay the building cost, the vein is replaced by the respective mine type.

To view the resource spent while building a mine on a vein, consult the table below.

Resource Type	Associated Vein	Building Cost
Gold	Gold Vein	15000 gold, 20 wood, 20 ore
Wood	Wood Pile	2500 gold
Ore	Ore Deposit	2500 gold
Gems	Gem Vein	4000 gold, 10 wood
Mercury	Cinnabar Deposit	5000 gold
Sulfur	Sulfur Vein	4000 gold, 10 wood
Crystal	Crystal Vein	4000 gold, 10 wood

Trading Resources

Resources can also be traded at a marketplace or trading post, allowing players to trade unwanted excess resources for needed resources. In most games, the more Marketplaces a player controls the better the exchange rates will be, while trading posts offer a fixed rate that is much better than marketplace value in the early game but much worse once multiple markets are built.

Additional ways of gaining resources

There are several additional ways of gaining resources.

Weekly Resource Generators

Some adventure map objects can be visited weekly to produce an amount of resources. For example: Waterwheels give gold, Mystical Garden gives gems or gold, and Windmills give a small amount of any random resource except wood or gold. In Heroes IV, these buildings can be flagged like regular mines, removing the need to revisit them each week.

Selling Artifacts

Selling artifacts in Marketplaces earns resources, depending on the artifact's power.

Resource Producing Heroes

Some heroes have resource-producing abilities.