[Poll]Strongest town excluding Conflux

[BigThingWithHolesInIt]

I went with Rampart. Rangers are awesome, and once you get the hang of using the Dwarves and Dendroids properly, it's really hard to outlast them... especially if they pick up Resurrection which seems to show up in the guild for them a lot.

Castle and Dungeon have better line-ups, and Castle is really the best faction against the AI.
But against human players, Castle is so straightforward that it's really easy to mess up their game plan (like Blinding the Archangels at the right time) and their heroes really aren't all that good.
And Dungeon is just really problematic in the first month. Everything is bloody expensive and your initial troops are very weak. If you get through the first month they're probably the best, Overlords may be the best hero type available.

Stronghold and Necropolis are also excellent. Tower and Inferno are the weakest.

[BoardGuest808888]

Rampart, then Castle, Stronghold, Necropolis, Tower, Dungeon, Inferno, Fortress roughly in that order. Here's what I thought about them all;

Rampart; not my favorite town (though Mephala is so damn cute ). Its creatures, other than Gold Dragon are unimpressive and slow. Not to mention the complexities required for Dragon Cliff. However, Rampart did have several redeeming features. The creatures are uniformly cheap, plentiful and their dwelling requirements are somewhat simple. This enable it to maintain even a moderate weekly loss without severely crippling its overall power. Furthermore, Rampart creatures complement each other well, this make a well rounded combat feature which even a complete loss of one or two stacks won't make the whole thing automatically fell apart. Add this to the fact that Rampart can generate more gold and resources on its own, and u get a town gladly welcomed in most game.

Castle; strong contender for the top. A town geared to play it rough and designed to simply dominate everyone else. Even the lower tier creatures are quite troublesome. Of course, the lack of lvl 5 mage guild, valuable resource generator and persistent stable (which require u to go back every week) is a bit disappointing. Add this to the creatures' high cost and expensive Portal of Glory, then it won't make it as welcomed as Rampart.

Stronghold; Highest initiative. Though lacking coherence, Stronghold was designed to quickly build up and beat up everyone as soon as possible. Of course, the longer the game is, the worst it will be for Stronghold. Still, not much can compete with Stronghold's rush. Stronghold creatures are cheap, have high HPs and quite dangerous with the right tactic. And this is compensated with the murderous resource drain required for their dwellings.

Necropolis; masters of the horde. Quite simply, skeletons alone would automatically place Necropolis in the top rank, if not for that it's actually not a Necropolis' feature. Massing skeletons is the Necromancer's forte, not the Necropolis'. This make it a very hero-dependent town. Anyone who wanted skeletons can just hire a Necromancer as well. And a Necropolis without Necromancer lacks important punch (not to mention morale penalty). Of course, undeads did have very good features like immunity to this and that, but creature-wise, nearly half of Necropolis' creatures are either too slow or too low weak to cut it to real battle. Not to mention the high dwelling cost and expensive individual creature cost, I won't give it any rank higher.

Tower; the -supposedly- masters of magic. Tower creatures are uniformly powerful, difficult to disable and in certain conditions, pretty nigh unstoppable. Combine this to the awesome Library, and u see what defines invincibility. On the other hand, trying to build those all just like filling a bottomless pit. Tower requires the most resource to built up, the creatures are expensives and there's no alternate route (like Inferno). Still, if u DID get all the requirements, it can get pretty impressive.

Dungeon; jacks of all trades-and masters of quite a few-. Like Tower, Dungeon is filled with expensive creatures and buildings. Of course, the creatures themselves are quite powerful. But this make Dungeon is very hero-and-map dependent. For one, its Portal would be useful only if there 'is' creature dwelling outside. The mage guild can also become killer or..sucker. All in all, playing Dungeon can get u either easy power or sucking hard. There's just too much luck involved.

Inferno; master of adaptation. Inferno really beats Dungeon in coming out of expectancy. Various tactics, strategies and gameplay can be applied here. U can start with Efreeti-Devil combo, or play it low with Cerberi + Magogs, or even become a cheapskate Demon herder. All's are viable here. Add this to the various knick-knacks like gate, mage guild, and all, they are really interesting on their own. Unfortunately, all these good features also made Inferno lacks focus. Instead of focusing u'r power in one or two sure-fire tactics, Inferno must continually adapt on situations. It is an adept at making bad situations worse for others. This of course means, in certain situations favorable to others, Inferno just run out of options to begin with.

Fortress; my favorite town to begin with. A combo of slow, weak creatures that have no punch and expensive cost at all tier just make Fortress quite a trouble...for the player, that is. Of course, Fortress did use an interesting tactic and combat feature all with various disables and creature specialties, but in any serious play, all those fall just between a slight bonus and convenience, not something u can really depend on.

[dr_nick_94]

I think they each have something to offer, and the small differences depend more on your style of playing. I agree the Castle is the best town for most strategies, (particularly the AI player style), but for me I think Tower is the best. This is probably because I'm usually too protective and don't commit my nice shiny units in battle as I don't want them to get scratched. I try and weaken the enemy from distance. Now the tower has 3 rangers, 2 of which are very good, plus the heroes are good at spells, and genies can cast too, so it suits this strategy well. It does take a while for a Tower army to be able to effectively use this strategy (as the best ranger requires very expensive upgrade), but hey, I don't usually do much at the start of the game anyway..

I agree with most of the previous post, especially about the Fortress maybe being quite good fun, particularly for new players, but that their troops are probably the least efficient. But I'm sure there must be a strategy that works with them though, perhaps they are good for early skirmishes and treasure grabbing because they can get the high end creatures early?

[Korbac]

Fortress; my favorite town to begin with. A combo of slow, weak creatures that have no punch and expensive cost at all tier just make Fortress quite a trouble...for the player, that is.

Fortress being expensive at all tier ? Nonsense. Fortress is THE cheapest town to build up and the units are quite reasonably priced.

Creatures being weak? Sure, they do not do big damage, but they are very durable (they have high defense values themselves and Fortress heroes specialize in making their units durable). Also, if the gorgons can actually touch the opponent's lvl7 troops - then you'll find the overall damage output very high.

[Torur]

I go with the necro's on this one. First off its my favorite town and second their numbers alone will overrun anything thrown at them.

[BoardGuest808888]

Well, Fortress might be cheap to build up, but sure it not as cheap as can be, compared to say, Rampart or Stronghold. But what I meant were the creatures' cost, not the buildings.

For such kinds of creatures, their costs were high, especially considering u don't get that many specialty kicks, ranged attacks, etc. They 'might' be come deadly 'if' they did manage to actually meleeing their target but well, the mights and ifs were just too unreliable here

They're not that durable either. Considering other towns creatures of the same tier. They 'look' tough because Beastmaster ( a hero kind mostly used by Fortress) happened to have quite high defense skill and Armorer secondary skill. However, I consider this to be the Beastmaster's strength, not automatically a Fortress' edge since it's also possible for other towns to get similar edge (high stats, Armorer specialties, etc).

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

Well it's a while since I've played Heroes III, I'll get back into it once I'm finished with Irina's campaign.

As I remember from having played the whole of Restoration of Erathia is that Castle is deadly. Having deadly marksmen allows you to build up some ranged firepower quickly and unlike Rampart it has some muscle behind it in the form of Crusaders (I love crusaders). Lack in Level 5 mage guild is hardely a problem, you can always steal someone elses (I never build my own mages guilds anyways much).

Dungeon is good because of tough, all round units with lots of nastly special abilities. So there is a tough choice to make but I go for Castle in the end.

[Mihalidis]

Would go with castle .2 shooters,2flyiers,decent level 6 unit,good level 1 unit ,.... and of course Archangels

[grobblewobble]

Noobs opinion here.

Necropolis is the town I tend to perform best with in my single player games. Not even because of necromancy, really. It's the vampire lords. Their dwelling is easy to build in week 1 on impossible and they make fighting the map without losses easy. My favourite hero to hire for them is Crag Hack, vampire lords led by him can win fights against overwhelming odds. Even in the hands of an incompetent player like me.

[Bandobras Took]

Noobs opinion here.

Necropolis is the town I tend to perform best with in my single player games. Not even because of necromancy, really. It's the vampire lords. Their dwelling is easy to build in week 1 on impossible

The upgraded dwelling, or the base dwelling? Getting 10 of Crystal and Gems can be a stretch on Impossible.

[grobblewobble]

I meant unupgraded.

[Arret]

Definitely Castle. By the time you need level 5 spells you should've conquered a city to get them.

2nd Dungeon due to early strength of creatures (although getting the gems for the labyrinth is always annoying). Strike and retreat with no retaliation, and double ranged is great for early clearout, especially with the logistics specialist.

3rd Stronghold due to ease of t7, but they don't carry the day like other races simply because behemoths don't fly (admittedly WoG fixes this). Offensive race that fits my playstyle pretty well.

Necro is probably next, because as mentioned, the strength of Necro is the hero type, not the city. The units always feel underwhelming because of the lack of a 2nd shooter.

[Freeloader]

Hmm, looks like Castle takes this. If Conflux is included, do people tend to think they are the best? I found Necropolis and Ramparts to be more impressive than the Castle, maybe it was just those games.

I honestly thought Tower or Ramparts would be 2nd on this poll when I saw the thread. I was under the impression they were on par with the Castle in terms of efficiency.

<-- lone Stronghold vote

I'm also pro Dungeon, when you're in underground. On the surface it can be Rampart who would dominate but much easier on crush are Stronghold and Fortress.

Are there resource differences on surface and underground? Does Dungeon receive some type of bonus underground I am unaware of? I know some races start out on certain terrain fitting to their race - some type of bonus associated with that?

And yes, I'm against Castle. It's a very simple town, second in that line after Conflux...[/quote]

I'm with you there. I started playing this game with a large group of friends recently - one uses Inferno, one Tower, and four use the Castle. I hate them on that alone.

[Korbac]

If Conflux is included, do people tend to think they are the best?

Yes. However, if it is a huge map with lots of weak neutral monsters then I'd say Necro players would be overpowered.

Are there resource differences on surface and underground? Does Dungeon receive some type of bonus underground I am unaware of? I know some races start out on certain terrain fitting to their race - some type of bonus associated with that?

Every unit has a native terrain. They receive +1 to speed, attack, defense if they fight on it.

Also, if your army consists only of units native to a terrain - you do not suffer movement penalties. For example, a hero with a Castle army would spend 75% more movement points when travelling a swamp. If he had all Fortress troops, he would have no penalty.