@bengoshi Ugh! I hate it when people start doing stuff like that! "X is too strong!" "Y is too OP!" "Nerf this!" "Rebalance that!" "Metaknight is cheap!" "" "" "I know! lets just ban half the game and mock everyone who wants to use the banned portion!" UGH! I wish people would just play the game and stop taking everything so seriously! If you ask me there is too much random variability in terms of who gets what artifacts and who gets lucky with this or that thing to make any of the H3 faction differences matter all that much. I would say that there are MUCH more important balance factors that affect the game than the factions individual strengths and weaknesses. Scenario design, if done incorrectly, can be by far the most significant factor in skewing the odds to one player's side. Heck! Just having your starting town in a corner as opposed to the middle of the map can give a player a significant edge in a scenario. I have also noticed that SEVERAL of the default scenarios are hugely (and seemingly purposefully) biased towards one player over the others ("When Dragons Clash" comes to mind; even after all these years). I often refuse to play certain scenarios until I edit them to be more sanely balanced (unless I feel like a more laid back game).
Just to be clear: I am not blaming/attacking @bengoshi in any way, shape, or form. I just need someone to vent my frustrations to from time to time.
I tried to switch it up and play all the factions about evenly. I played conflux the most I think because I was obsessed with getting as much magic as possible and conflux made it easy to get all the magic skills. Despite this I would still say that fortress was my favorite town. I liked how just about every creature had a nasty special ability and how cool all the creatures and the town itself looked. I think I played inferno the least because every time I did play it I ran out of money and died due to expensive and mostly weak creatures.
Anyway, I am more of a casual Heroes player and I don't like too much of a challenge because I have a strong competitive nature and losing is annoying. Therefore I usually at most prefer equal odds.
Yeah, Phoenixes are definitely the weakest (albeit fastest) 7th level unit in the game, but still, that double growth rate seems like a bit too much...
And no one else can hold a candle to their grail structure, that much is certain!
I don't think I could play Heroes games like you, Shandyr. Sure I may be skilled enough to win a game every once in a while and I may even enjoy the challenge every now and again, but I am fairly certain that my brain would explode because the computer was annoying me so much and 90% of the time I would not have fun with it. I hate losing to computers of any sort above all else.
@bengoshi Ugh! I hate it when people start doing stuff like that! "X is too strong!" "Y is too OP!" "Nerf this!" "Rebalance that!" "Metaknight is cheap!" "" "" "I know! lets just ban half the game and mock everyone who wants to use the banned portion!" UGH! I wish people would just play the game and stop taking everything so seriously! I
@Tresset I actually think exactly the way you do. An in a singleplayer game take any faction I like in this particular minute. But the thing I've spoken about is a multiplayer game. There're lots of sites that provide tournaments for HoMM3 and many people play with each other even without those sites.
And a multiplayer game is when your faction matters really. The thing @Shandyr said about the lack of balance can be easily seen in a multiplayer game when one player took the Necropolis and the other player took the Tower, for e.g. In 90% of sutiations, if both players are nearly of the same skill, the Necropolis will win.
Well, let's put it that way: necros can clear up virtually any camp with just a dozen of vampire lords. More than that, it will increase their forces with time. More than that, you can have multiple secondary heroes with vampire lords clearing out everything around and gaining control of mines in a gargantuan area. No other faction can do that.
I usually played Necropolis and with a heavy focus for magic and skellies. Bone dragons is not the best top tier unit for magic focusing since they have poor speed thus letting the opponent usually get the first change to attack with both units and magic, but nonetheless, this was my preference. I loved liches but my favorites was the dread knights. Everytime my buffed up dread knights' special attack proc'ed vs the enemies top tier units I'd scream out in pure ecstacy.
I had a period where I played alot of Stronhold and for some time also Tower, but couldn't get the hang of it. I've always considered Dungeon to be the "best" in terms of balance though, and I usually lost when I played vs my older brother (hotseat!) when he was dungeon and I was necro. We usually ganged up on the AI 'til they were all dead, then we attacked eachother: main army vs main army, to settle the score. Fun times.
Conflux was ridicuilously OP with the phoenixes speed and power at the forefront. I agree with what many other said above in this thread, I wanted to like Inferno but could never really get it to work for me. Good idea for a town setting, but poor unit execution. Sultans being the only redeeming factor IMHO. I'm kinda surprised that Fortress and Rampart get so many votes. I like Rampart decently, but Fortress? Wow, that was IMHO one of the most gimped cities with Gorgons as the only really good, though somewhat unreliable, unit IMHO.
G (Games played) W (Wins) L (Losses) PI (Power index) = 2*W + 0.5*L
Conflux and Necropolis are considered OP and are not used in the online tournaments. From the rest of the towns, Castle and Rampart are considered way better than the rest.
Also, it's a common thing to use a hero not from your native town. In fact, in the online tournaments players often spend a LOT of money on hiring heroes, just to get what they want. Some heroes are not used in the tournaments because they're OP, like Solmir or Kyrre.
This is why when I used to play a hotseat with people from my work, I always chose Inferno or Fortress, just to try the castle that is harder to play.
I love buffs, so being able to get several free buffs from my monsters (including Prayer!) allows some flexibility when it comes to my spell book.
Also, Titans are the only level 7 shooters in the game, and shooters are the best kind of monsters there are, in my opinion. Tower even has a level 1 shooter (Master Gremlins) and a level 4 shooter (Magi), so you have plenty of ranged options there.
Comments
Just to be clear: I am not blaming/attacking @bengoshi in any way, shape, or form. I just need someone to vent my frustrations to from time to time.
Anyway, I am more of a casual Heroes player and I don't like too much of a challenge because I have a strong competitive nature and losing is annoying. Therefore I usually at most prefer equal odds.
And no one else can hold a candle to their grail structure, that much is certain!
I don't think I could play Heroes games like you, Shandyr. Sure I may be skilled enough to win a game every once in a while and I may even enjoy the challenge every now and again, but I am fairly certain that my brain would explode because the computer was annoying me so much and 90% of the time I would not have fun with it. I hate losing to computers of any sort above all else.
And a multiplayer game is when your faction matters really. The thing @Shandyr said about the lack of balance can be easily seen in a multiplayer game when one player took the Necropolis and the other player took the Tower, for e.g. In 90% of sutiations, if both players are nearly of the same skill, the Necropolis will win.
I had a period where I played alot of Stronhold and for some time also Tower, but couldn't get the hang of it. I've always considered Dungeon to be the "best" in terms of balance though, and I usually lost when I played vs my older brother (hotseat!) when he was dungeon and I was necro. We usually ganged up on the AI 'til they were all dead, then we attacked eachother: main army vs main army, to settle the score. Fun times.
Conflux was ridicuilously OP with the phoenixes speed and power at the forefront.
I agree with what many other said above in this thread, I wanted to like Inferno but could never really get it to work for me. Good idea for a town setting, but poor unit execution. Sultans being the only redeeming factor IMHO.
I'm kinda surprised that Fortress and Rampart get so many votes. I like Rampart decently, but Fortress? Wow, that was IMHO one of the most gimped cities with Gorgons as the only really good, though somewhat unreliable, unit IMHO.
http://www.heroes-iii.com/
Towns G W L PI*
Castle 8823 4540 4283 11221.5
Rampart 7672 4076 3596 9950.0
Stronghold 4765 2331 2434 5879.0
Dungeon 3990 1837 2153 4750.5
Fortress 3532 1748 1784 4388.0
Tower 2592 1211 1381 3112.5
Inferno 1971 928 1043 2377.5
Conflux 269 135 134 337.0
Necropolis 233 95 138 259.0
G (Games played)
W (Wins)
L (Losses)
PI (Power index) = 2*W + 0.5*L
Conflux and Necropolis are considered OP and are not used in the online tournaments. From the rest of the towns, Castle and Rampart are considered way better than the rest.
Also, it's a common thing to use a hero not from your native town. In fact, in the online tournaments players often spend a LOT of money on hiring heroes, just to get what they want. Some heroes are not used in the tournaments because they're OP, like Solmir or Kyrre.
This is why when I used to play a hotseat with people from my work, I always chose Inferno or Fortress, just to try the castle that is harder to play.
Tower
Two words: Master Genies
I love buffs, so being able to get several free buffs from my monsters (including Prayer!) allows some flexibility when it comes to my spell book.
Also, Titans are the only level 7 shooters in the game, and shooters are the best kind of monsters there are, in my opinion. Tower even has a level 1 shooter (Master Gremlins) and a level 4 shooter (Magi), so you have plenty of ranged options there.