Town you least like to play

[Apocalypse]

I hate Academy. Not really their gameplay but the design. Random creatures all over the place, it's just not for me.

[Banedon]

I don't know, but maybe my style has changed some. Dungeon's now quite OK for me with all races except Academy (and Dwarves; I still don't have HoF) being fine:

Sylvan - If I play this race and end up with Skeleton Archers or, even worse, Assassins guarding my Sawmill, it's going to be a tremendous blow to my economy.

Haven - OK, though the Peasants are going to die in really large numbers. Hope to find Ellaine in the tavern or something.

Necropolis - Kaspar + Animate Dead almost guarantees victory without losses. Easy town to play.

Inferno - Must start with Deleb, or else any kind of Ranged creature simply destroys the early-game (sad).

Dungeon - I like the Blood Fury hit-and-run, they are a lot more consistent at it than Sprites. Problem again is Ranged creatures. While Sylvan can start with Ossir and duke it out, Dungeon has to sacrifice Blood Furies, something no Dungeon player does willingly.

Academy - I've never played this race seriously; when I rely on Magic I favour Spell Power a lot more than Knowledge. But then, that's just me I know for one SmokingBarrel pulls off great tricks with Nathir and his Fireball, and I do not find Academy underpowered by any means. Just that I don't like Academy as a race.

[Odish]

Don't have to be expert to suggest that

and yet you are a knight of the round table

[86wyp]

Sylvan. I love magics, and sylvan heroes have the lowest power. I love war machines, and sylvan heroes can never learn it. I love attacking, and sylvan heroes have very low attack. I love creeping fast, and sylvan's early creeping is very annoying. Finally, the wood cost just drove my mad, totally unacceptable.

[Elvin]

Almost expected you to say academy! I get your thinking but apart from the wood costs you can go either light or destructive and have some magic fun. If you skip the dragons that is...Mage guild AND dwellings is a hard feat for sylvan and their magic potential isn't great either. Still I love going light & luck!

[Jolly Joker]

Sylvan. I love magics, and sylvan heroes have the lowest power. I love war machines, and sylvan heroes can never learn it. I love attacking, and sylvan heroes have very low attack. I love creeping fast, and sylvan's early creeping is very annoying. Finally, the wood cost just drove my mad, totally unacceptable.

It looks like you wouldn't play them "right" then. Sylvan is all about attacking due to their high init troops.

[asandir]

to be honest I haven't played sylvan on 1.4 (and I do know that they've changed a little thanks to the wood costs) but I used to love them in 1.1 and found them to be an excellent creeper!

[Banedon]

It looks like you wouldn't play them "right" then. Sylvan is all about attacking due to their high init troops.

Or maybe defending since their high-initiative units have very low HP, perishing to spells from the simple Eldritch Arrow to (gasp) Meteor Shower...

I don't mind Sylvan, just that I'm inclined to think it's the weakest race.

[Jolly Joker]

No, not defending.
I don't want to go into detail here, because you have to find that out for yourselves. However, there are other ways to dish out big amounts of damage than having a good attack attribute and the attack skill (which won't hurt, mind you).
But with high init troops any waited turn is a wasted turn (if danger threatens). In most cases you have to find the right initial hitter only to keep losses acceptable - and here defense is helping a lot.

[Starbatron]

Yes, I agree. Even though they have low attack, you can compensate for that with attack, and their high init. screams for you to attack!!

[Banedon]

Actually I mean by 'defending' that Sylvan heroes have to take certain steps to protect themselves, for example, by learning Light Magic instead of Destructive / Rain of Arrows / Imbue Arrow (not saying this second path won't work though). Of course if you are already in battle you'll be attacking all the time, but before it you'll have to make some defensive preparations. An all-out last-man-standing brawl between Dungeon and Sylvan would be a very nice battle though

[Starbatron]

Ah, that makes more sense. I suppose the different builds comes down to preference for style of play (although some builds clearly have advantages over others)

[86wyp]

Almost expected you to say academy! I get your thinking but apart from the wood costs you can go either light or destructive and have some magic fun. If you skip the dragons that is...Mage guild AND dwellings is a hard feat for sylvan and their magic potential isn't great either. Still I love going light & luck!

I would normally go destructive and enlightenment and wait for war machines, or some artifacts that raise power when the hero is not wyngaal. If I have to play this faction.......

[Caradoc]

To get off to a good start with Sylvan, I choose Ossir to get his Hunters. These will get me through the first week, unless I have to fight other shooters, who will inflict losses.

You should also note that you do not need to take a Sawmill right away. I build the Market and the upgrade to start the Gems coming in, and then the level 3 thing that gets more resources at the start of the week. I will have enough wood to build Pixies, Hunters, and MG1. At the start of week 2 I am able to defeat any level 1 and most level 2s. I ignore dancers, ponies, and trees so I can get to dragons asap.

[Apocalypse]

The tier 3 specialists start with too much army!
That's why Ossir is so useful at early game creeping.

[Banedon]

Not really...Ossir's 12 Hunters at maximum don't exactly allow him to steamroll all the neutrals about, and if you rely just on the Hunters to fight a Horde of Skeleton Archers, you'll lose 1, maybe 2, Hunters. Sylvan's early-game expansion is certainly slow; they can't do anything until they have Sprites (when they can hit / run the slow walkers around) or the Hunter Dwelling (and even then it might not be enough).

[Caradoc]

Not really...Ossir's 12 Hunters at maximum don't exactly allow him to steamroll all the neutrals about, and if you rely just on the Hunters to fight a Horde of Skeleton Archers, you'll lose 1, maybe 2, Hunters. Sylvan's early-game expansion is certainly slow; they can't do anything until they have Sprites (when they can hit / run the slow walkers around) or the Hunter Dwelling (and even then it might not be enough).

That's true. However, you can deal with walkers like Peasants and plain Skeletons. The idea is to defeat the opponents that you can while getting your Sprites and Hunters ready to go at the start of Week 2. If you can see a few chests, you might also want to get a second hero, who will usually have some pixies and dancers.

[BoardGuest808888]

After Hammer of Fate, I think the town I'd least likely to play is, sadly, Fortress.

The all dwarven army is uninspiring, the Fortress look a lot more like borehole, the heroes didn't connect well with their army's specialty, and the buildings are uniformly dull and boring.

Just from the reviews and hints, I imagine this new faction would be anything like Fortress in Heroes 3. Well, I couldn't be anymore wrong in that. Not only it's nothing like the old Fortress, but it also nowhere like anything I can imagine. Even if it's a dwarven town, it's unlike dwarven town at all.

[okrane]

Dwarves are boring and useless... in fact HoF was a bigger disapointment to me than H5 vanilla itself... I stopped playing it pretty quickly after seing the expansion and the new features that are simply unatractive.

I hope Nival goes bankrupt

[Orfinn]

Usually I do play the different towns, depending on my mood, Inferno when Im in hatred:flame: , Sylvan when Im at peace , Fortress when I miss norse like attitude and mountains:proud:.....*cough* well to be serious this is what I think about the towns overall:

overall character where 1 is best and 6 worst.

Dungeon - Evil: Eeeeexpensive but strong units, the so called unusual town that have low troop stacking but that deal bigger amounts of damage. I like the skills and abilities avaiable to them and the towns atmosphere are deep, dark and calming.

Overall From 1-6: 5
Resource and gold cost: Expensive
Look and atmosphere: Great
Hero skills and abilities: Interesting
Might and Magic: more magic than might



Haven - Good: Ah who cant love walking trashcans, fat peasants, holy fanatic blessers and godly angels? Well I like them but dont love them, sure they have a nice town, interesting skills and abilities, the training speciality is great to, but they are just...yeah you got it humans, and they are all kaukasoids! But I like their cost in buildings and units, abit below average expensive.

Overall From 1-6: 7
Resource and gold cost: Average
Look and atmosphere: Ok
Hero skills and abilities: Good
Might and Magic: more might than magic



Academy - Good: Man, if theres one thing I love about this town, it gotta be the town view itself, fantastic done! And the town is unique among the most (the only other one the new interesting Orc town) when it comes to creature lineup, the only themebased town among race based towns. The units are shnaiz, the titans, the mages, the gremlins and raksashas. The artificer is a pretty nice speciality too but in the end the town is darn expensive, just like its predecessors.

Overall From 1-7: 4
Resource and gold cost: Expensive
Look and atmosphere: Awesome
Hero skills and abilities: Ok
Might and Magic: Pure magic



Necropolis - Evil: Gothic, viktorian whatever.. I just love the dark attitude of the necrotown. Weak but plentiful units and vile abilities makes them useful enough, well except for the infamous bone dragon *cough* And the skill set and the abilities for the hero is the ones I find most entertaining. Most of the buildings and units are cheap which is what I expected since the first patch. The town look itself is a bit pointy but get me straight into the autumnic halloween, spooky traditional feeling with vampires, ghosts and crazy, fragile skeletons!

Overall From 1-7: 2
Resource and gold cost: below average
Look and atmosphere: Great
Hero skills and abilities: Interesting
Might and Magic: More magic than might



Inferno - Evil: Hot! If theres one thing about this town that make me get all fiery is...no not the succubies but the gating speciality which have saved me from hell many times over when playing with this town. The units are well varied, some a bit to weak (horned demons included) but they have their own suicidal, cannon fodder uses :p. The town looks good enough, red hot chili peppers and loads of brimstone, lava and smoke. This is not a place for snowmen I say! But I dont find the abilities and the skills for the heroes to interesting, pretty straight forward, but good enough.

Overall From 1-7: 6
Resource and gold cost: Cheap
Look and atmosphere: Good
Hero skills and abilities: Ok
Might and Magic: More might than magic



Sylvan - Good: Ah! The great tree cities of the earth dragon Sylvanna
This is a great raiding town, a bit expensive but highly effective units. The druids, hunters, unicorns...well all of the creatures are in mye eyes equally important. The town IMHO focuses more on might than magic. The town has a nice calm atmosphere which is refreshing at hot summer days ;p

Overall From 1-7: 3
Resource and gold cost: Above average
Look and atmosphere: Great
Hero skills and abilities: Ok
Might and Magic: More might than magic



Fortress - Neutral: Oh This is one town I love. But the only drawback is that there are too many dwarves! A frost drake or firebird and maybe werewolves would be nicer to see here among the dwarves. The speciality is really powerful and the runemage, thanes, the spearwielders are great too. The costs on units and buildings are good enough. Cheaper than I expected. Also the town itself reminds me of my beloved Norway, snow, runes and sturdy mead drinking dwarves are all important ingredients

Overall From 1-7: 1
Resource and gold cost: Average
Look and atmosphere: Great
Hero skills and abilities: Interesting
Might and Magic: A balanced mix of those two