Heroes 3: Favorite Cleric

[Jolly Joker]

Yep. I'd play with a Knight anyway, if I could pick.

Caitlin has a useful spell, a useful special and no wasted skill.

[Muszka]

Adela's spell is better, his skills are stronger, and the speciality can evolve with her lvls.

[Jolly Joker]

Ah, that's a superficial analysis.

Her spell is better. Agreed. Her special is of no use in the immediate beginning. In the end the special will add an extra where Castle isn't needing any: a simple Mass Bless will make their damage output massive anyway. Still, I agree that the special is indeed a useful one.
Diplomacy is a mixed blessing, in my opinion. You still need A FORCE to get stacks to join, and your Marksmen are no force that will impress opposing forces in game terms. Your Clerics don't come with Leadership either, which isn't all that good when an alien stack joins - you can't have your Marksmen lose a turn.
On the other hand Castle needs a lot of money for their town which is why I would rate Caitlin's special very high for initial development - you need to hire those Marksmen and keep the building going while Intelligence will give her more casting options.

In the end it comes down to personal preference and I'd prefer Caitlin.

[Muszka]

The personal reference is something I agree with. But as diplomacy is a "mixed blessing", with wisdom (the player's not the in-game one) you can use it to your advantage. What if a pack of monks join your army on the second week? And I mean join for free, or just any other stack what can help you for a week of two, what if anything guarding a wood or ore mine joins? instead of killing some of your troop. Plus you don't have to accept all the creatures that join. And bless is a thing that will make Marksmen insane, just as can do so with Crusaders.
I can gladly sacrifice that damage for 350 gold/day. Plus it's enough that a high lvl native stack (champions, zealots, angels) to join, near the end-play, and you already won. I gladly leave my Marksmen unbought for 10 Archangels.
But again, all this is personal

[BigThingWithHolesInIt]

Diplomacy is a mixed blessing, in my opinion. You still need A FORCE to get stacks to join, and your Marksmen are no force that will impress opposing forces in game terms.

Sure but on the other hand it works cumulatively, one join is usually enough to give your "impressiveness" a substantial boost so consequent joins can be stronger.

Your Clerics don't come with Leadership either, which isn't all that good when an alien stack joins - you can't have your Marksmen lose a turn.

This is a point I'm more sensitive to. Still, morale +1 artifacts are not rare, neither are temporary boosts from location visits, and there's the Archangels +1 boost (but of course that's not available early on). I can often manage with two slots of alien joins without endangering morale. Obviously the two extra stacks counterbalance the loss of double moves.
Undead is basically out of the question though I might make an exception for good numbers of (Power) Liches or Dread (Black not so much) Knights.

I feel the mixed blessing though, it's probably because offers can be so tempting that you don't notice the disadvantages until they bite you in the ass: like the morale example, or when you discover their fee was better kept in your Capitol savings account...

[Jolly Joker]

Of course my general playing style is influencing me as well here. I think as in most cases you are better off with the might hero because the game favors the might heroes (you can get mass spells as a might hero as well, but you can't get the attack and defense stats with a magic hero) which means that the Clerics are second rate main heroes anyway, at least for me. That makes Caitlin the automatic choice for 2nd hero.

I agree, though, that as a SECONDARY Adela has her advantages. A very good game may result starting with her and hiring a Knight as soon as she gets an alien join or two. Then, while the Knight would get the Castle troops and develop regularly, Adela would take the riff-raff making her a pretty effective forward scout.

Later on, IF there is week of some Castle creature, you are the n in good position to let her tour the map and get a lot of joins.

@ Muszka
Didn't you say you don't like Wild Cards and don't want to base your play on them? What is Diplomacy if not a wild card?

[Banedon]

What is Diplomacy, if not a wild card? Diplomacy is an imbalanced skill, that's what it is.

Diplomacy is a mixed blessing, in my opinion. You still need A FORCE to get stacks to join, and your Marksmen are no force that will impress opposing forces in game terms. Your Clerics don't come with Leadership either, which isn't all that good when an alien stack joins - you can't have your Marksmen lose a turn.
On the other hand Castle needs a lot of money for their town which is why I would rate Caitlin's special very high for initial development - you need to hire those Marksmen and keep the building going while Intelligence will give her more casting options.

You don't need too large a force to get stacks to join. It doesn't take Angels in your army to impress opposing forces. Clerics don't start with Leadership - so what? It takes 3 stacks from different races to cause a drop in morale, and if the alien stacks prove more a hindrance than a boon dismiss them. Castle doesn't need a lot of money for initial development. Marksmen + Pikemen are enough on most maps for the first few days; after that Marksmen + Crusaders suffice for the next few days; and after that you'll have Zealots and perhaps some Cavaliers / Champions. None of the buildings cost heavy gold, and the only stack in which you need as many numbers as possible is the Marksmen stack. You'll run short on gold only if you invest in buying more Pikemen, or if you start buying Griffins.

To be fair, if you get 30 Centaurs joining you in the first few days, you'll scarcely need to recruit even Crusaders.

[Muszka]

Wild Card or not, I like diplomacy. Plus I can decide what to accept and what not, and as Banedon told, you can dismiss joined stack when you want. it's enough to survive from stack to stack and you always have a cannon fodder, or a shooter or, whaterver you want to use the joined stacks for.

[Deni]

voted Ingham

[MagusofStars]

Loynis. Castle has nice odds to get Expert Water and Mass Prayer is just too awesome. Especially since high level Mage Guilds are always the very last thing on the list, so I might not get level 4 spells for a month (and they could very easily be something less useful).

[Zubbus]

Yeah umm First Aid sucks.
Forst Ring is nice, but not big enough compared to Meteor Shower.
I'm not a big fan of diplomacy myself.
Loynis for me.