HoMM 5 >Towns and creatures >Semi-towns

The Semi-town is not a town or an alignment, but it has a lot of characteristics of a town. For example you should be a town interface when entering a semi-town. It is not possible to start a game as a semi-town, and there are no usual heroes aligned to the semi-towns, although there could be a few neutral or quest heroes with that alignment.
The semi-town can be build as an ordinary town and can have a garrison. In that aspect, think of it as a creature dwelling with defenses. A few fundemental differences between towns and semi-towns are:
- You cannot hire heroes in a semi-town.
- The semi-town has no town hall, although there could be other money-producing structures.
- The defenses have no upgrades, like a castle.
- The semi-town has a smaller number of creatures, which do not correspond to normal creature levels.
- Semi-towns have no magic or mage guilds.
- (If I had it my way with the system), semi-towns cannot be used for trade routes.
However, the buildings that you can build are possible resource-producing buildings and buildings that boost statistics of visiting heroes.

So, the mapmaker can decide whether the semi-town has a garrison, or who the owner is. The other nice thing about the semi-town is that you don't care about balance. Players will not actually play these towns, so any idea that disturbes the balance can be put here. Personally, I was thinking of giving every element a semi-town. Perhaps, that will soothe the HoMM3 magic lovers a bit. The whole thing would look a bit like this, then.

Water town:
Possible creatures: Water Elemental, Kelpie, Mermaid, Siren, Triton, Kraken, Sea Monster.
Notes: The water town would be able to form a fairly powerful army by themselves. However, they are limited to the water terrain and anything that is within 1 tile from the nearest water. This number could be increased to 3 or 5 tiles with a special building in the water town itself.

Fire town:
Possible creatures: Fire Elemental, Flame Warrior, any of the fire-based demons that are kicked out of the death town.
Notes: This town could be an excellent place to dump the demons, since no one wants them to remain with the undead. In my opinion, they are not strong enough to become a town by themselves, so this would be the best solution.

Earth town:
Possible creatures: Earth Elemental, Moulder, Juggernaut, Vines, Stone Golem, Petrified Dendroid.
Notes: I guess this town would be found more in the underworld. All creatures would be slow, but strong. It would be a very bad town to play with, but since this is a semi-town, that is no concern.

Air town:
Possible creatures: Air Elemental, Wisp, Spirit, Elemental Sorcerer, Tempest.
Notes: Probably the strongest semi-town in magic, and with fast creatures. I could incorporate some things from my old spirit town here (I eliminated it when revising my own proposals).