So which, in your opinion, are the best towns? Comment on whichever HOMM games you're most familiar with, I suppose.

I haven't played 1 and 2 enough to say anything intelligent, but I do know HOMM 3 pretty well. My top towns for it are:

1. Inferno. Yes, Inferno. It takes a lot of skill and even more work, but effective use of Pit Lords can effectively become a sort of Necromancy that raises lvl 4s instead of lvl 1s. Incredibly powerful if done right. On XL maps with the Grail building? Unbeatable. Plus Demoniacs are one of the best hero types, with a great range of skills. Offence, Armourer, and Logistics can all be reasonably expected to pop up fairly quickly.

I personally like splitting my army up by giving my Imps, Gogs, Demons, and Pit Lords to a Demoniac (usually Marius) and my Cerberi and Efreeti Sultans to a Heretic. First army is my main fighting army, and I'll start feeding Imps and eventually Gogs through the Pit Lord Demon machine. Second army is fast attack, using mostly speed and magic to hamper enemies. Once I get Armageddon, Cerberi go over to main stack and Heretic just starts blasting armies with magic (Efreeti are immune).

In terms of power, the next two towns are Necropolis and Conflux, the order depending on the size of the map. But I won't go with them. Instead:

2. Rampart. I've found a great strategy that makes these guys a joy to play, for me. I'll have a Ranger (almost always Ivor) who will form a main attack force of Centaurs, Grand Elves, and War Unicorns. This is a quick and incredibly effective combination, and it's usually enough to take down everything that's not the enemy's main hero. Second hero is a Druid, with Pegasi and (eventually) Gold Dragons. Fast attack force that is fantastic in sieges and disrupting enemy lines. Third army is a "home" army, a Ranger (usually, occasionally a Druid) with my Dwarves and Dendroids. This guy floats around my territory, and his army is usually enough to bring down any fast attack armies the enemy might try to sneak in.

That combination lets me control most of the map and have solid forces in several places at once.

3. Dungeon. I love these guys. The units are awesome and most of them have got some interesting tactical potential. Absolutely miserable to play on resource-poor maps, though. Warlocks are one of my favourite hero types, by far the best spell casters in the game. Give them a small, quick, army (it's not like those Manticores were doing anything useful, anyway) and go to town. Or give them Dragons and Armageddon everything to death. Your choice, really.


Honourable mention to the Fortress: Interesting, unique, and has lots of cool abilities. Not actually all that strong ordinarily, it's low resource costs makes it possibly the best town at Impossible, allowing you to rampage around with Hydras and Mighty Gorgons while the other players are still mucking about with lvl 4s.

In HoMM 2 the Sorceress town was my favourite.
Hire a Barbarian, teach him Mass Haste and let the Elves and Druids annihilate their enemies.

In HoMM 3 the Dungeon was probably the strongest, but I agree the Fortress was the most unique.

(Homm3)

Since it's banned in tournaments, obviously Necro is the strongest.

For quick games on small random maps, I enjoy Castle. Something about it's unit mix pleases me.

In HoMM3 I tend to enjoy the Stronghold quite a bit. While goblins and wolf riders are pretty lousy units, hobgoblins and wolf raiders can dish out some good damage, plus are quite fast for level 1 and 2 units. While they're a bit squishy, they're also numerous and cheap, plus if you take advantage of their speed you can end things pretty quick before the enemy can dish out much damage. An army of hobgoblins and wolf raiders can clear neutral troops pretty easily for the first few weeks helping you quickly get resources to speed along the production of stronger units. And speaking of stronger units thunderbirds provide and excellent mix of speed and power- get an artifact with +1 or +2 speed and they're able to cover the full length of the battlefield without haste. Behemoths and ancient behemoths and incredible offensive units, due to their ability to ignore a large portion of enemy defense.

Overall the Stronghold lends itself to a very aggressive, offensive style- my preferred method is to ensure a hero has expert air magic, then lay down mass haste and blitz the enemy with hobgoblins, wolf raiders, thunderbirds, and ancient behemoths- this is usually enough to do some serious damage to their forces before they even get a chance to act. Orc chieftains and cyclops kinds provide decent support damage (and cyclops can be particularly useful for sieges), while ogre magi are great tanks for their level, plus they can be casting bloodlust on the frontline attackers so they're not completely useless while they're hanging back and guarding the archers.

Like I said, I would consider Inferno to have the potential to be much stronger than Necro (I'll take 500 Demons over 1200 Skeletons anyday), but it's much harder to do and requires a lot more work. Unless Cloak of the Undead King is assembled, of course. Necro with Cloak is by far the most powerful town.

Besides, Necro is only unbeatable on XL maps, in my opinion. Maybe L, but smaller maps they don't have nearly as much time or opportunity to gather Skellies, and so it becomes harder for them to win.

I agree with Castle, though. I don't always like them, mainly because their abilities, while powerful, aren't terribly interesting, but man they rock. The only weak link in their chain is lvl 5, and even Monks aren't terrible. Certainly preferable to Dendroids, at least. Royal Griffins are some of my favourite units in the game for sieges, and Archangels are, well, the best unit in the game, in my opinion. Only Phoenixes are better, and that's only because of their absurd growth.

Well there goes my 5 paragraph dissertation.... No seriously. I could go on about Conflux for a while.

In that case, most powerful is probably castle, as all of its units are above-average except for monks. Dungeon is similarly solid. As for my favorites, I've always been partial to Fortress and its ultra-tanky might heroes. Probably one of the weaker towns, but having swamp as native terrain cannot be underestimated on certain maps.

+1 on all counts. Especially Minotaurs, which are insane. I would put Castle significantly ahead of Dungeon, though, just because it's so much cheaper. 1 each of Mercury, Crystal, Gems and Sulfur to build the lvl 3 dwelling? Beholders rock, sure, but so do Gryphons, and all they want from me is wood and ore (and the lvl 4 dwelling, which has always struck me as bizarre). But Dungeon does have better heroes, so it makes up for it in that way (not that building up to lvl 5 Mage's Guild makes Dungeon any less expensive, lol)

And like I said before, that's Fortress's big advantage. On resource-poor maps or on Impossible, they are the clear-cut winner because of how cheap their town is to develop.

I've been playing Heroes 3 for years and years, and it never seems to get old! My favorite side is the Castle, which is also the strongest. In terms of strength, overall, I'd rank all the sides, 1) Castle, 2) Rampart, 3) Dungeon, 4) Tower, 5) Conflux, 6) Necropolis, 7) Stronghold, 8) Inferno, and 9) Fortress. This said, "if" the necropolis or even the inferno with demons have time to build their armies, then they can give any of the other towns a run for their money or a beating depending on the advantage they can get, but if any extraordinary circumstances have to happen first I can't consider these towns to be generally more powerful. I've taken a lot of time ranking the nine towns, making a table ranking every unit, and then adding the results up and seeing which towns have the "lowest" score I got my conclusions. (If Castle's units were ranked all 1st, it would have a perfect score of 9, and if Fortress were all ranked 9 it would have a score of 81.) I also broke this down into the first 2 troop types, the third-fifth, and the sixth and seventh. I'll try to post a copy of that table in an attachment someday, but for now let me just share some of what I remember off-hand:

Level 1-2 creatures, upgraded

Most people say the best first level creature is the centaur captain. He has fantastic speed for a first level creature, and 10 HP, which ties the Halberdier for the most. The fact that the Master Gremlin can shoot can easily count for more, however, and the Sprite can also even with its wee 3 HP because it can fly with speed 9 and enemies can't retaliate.

Second level most people would probably say belongs to the Magog, because it's a ranged unit whose attack will hit everything surrounding the target also. Because this can hit friend or foe alike, however, you often can't use Magogs to back up your forces once they're engaged. The Storm Elemental is really the best because with 25 HP, immunity to mind-affecting spells, and an awesome 2-8 points of damage with 24 shots of ranged attack, speed 8, and no melee penalty, you are just going to slaughter. The vulnerability to lightning is significant, but these units can't be blinded, or made to "forget" to fire, and 25 HP is more than the battle dwarf and they can shoot and they have speed 8, and they have twice the HP and more damage than the marksmen even with two shots.

Given the combination of strength in these first two levels by sprites and storm elementals, the conflux is the clear winner in this category. Not upraded, however, they aren't nearly as powerful and then the centaur and the archer are the best, respectively.

Level 3-5 creatures, upgraded

The Royal Griffon is a common pick for level 3. I agree. It can retaliate an unlimited number of times each round, and with the air shield and shield spells they will be very hard to stop. The enemy will have to send its best units against them, and how many level 3 units can say that? The Ice Elemental would be second, and it is again a head above the next best level 3 because of the immunities and 30 HP.

Level 4 is much more difficult to call. The Crusader comes to mind, having two attacks and a lot of staying power for its level. The Archmage is also very powerful, and so is the Vampire Lord! Archmagi reduce the spell-point cost of your spells, and they can dispel enemy spells with their shots, which can pass through castle walls without a reduction in damage. The Silver Pegasus increases the spell-point cost of your opponents' spells, so it is very powerful too, besides its 12 speed and cheap cost which makes it the best bargain at this level.

Level 5 is often given to the Minotaur King. I disagree. With no disrespect to the pit lord, level 5 belongs to the Thunderbird and the Power Lich most of all. The Power Lich's ranged attack hurts all adjacent enemies, and unlike the Magog, it won't hurt your own troops (as long as they are all undead or mechanical). The Thunderbird has more HP than the minotaur king, better speed, and a potential lightning attack that can make up for the difference in damage, which the minotaur king is just awesome at. For the castle, the Zealot is probably their weakest link, but that's quite a statement in itself because the Zealot isn't really bad.

This category goes to the Necropolis. Unupgraded, the troops are all much weaker again. The best troops are probably the griffon, the mage, and the minotaur.

Level 6-7 creatures, upgraded

The Naga Queen is the best. She has a clear advantage in HP and damage over any other unit with the exception of the Dread Knight and then only when it does double, and with enemies being given no retaliation against the Naga Queen, she is worth her massive cost, which exceeds the cost of a Behemoth. The Cyclops King I'd say is the second best level 6 unit, because in him you have a strong ranged unit that can damage castle walls. If you ever lose your ballista during a siege, the cyclops king and even the cyclops before he's upgraded can save your entire army. Personally, I really like the Efreeti Sultan, because not only is he immune to fire which makes the way for Armageddon as with your own strategy, KingCrimson250, his speed lets him cross the map and enemies often don't want to attack him because of his fire shield. It isn't as powerful, but it's very helpful and it really opens things up for me when I play Inferno.

The Archangel is the most powerful leve 7 unit, and the most powerful in the game short of the special dragons (faerie, rust, etc.). All I have to say to show this now is that when they made the Heroes 3 Complete version, they changed the cost of the Archangel from 5,000 gold a piece to 5,000 gold and 3 gems a piece, which is an increase of 3 rare resources(!) and putting it over the Titan which was the most expensive unit before. The Archangel has 18 speed, which lets him go anywhere on the map from anywhere (corner to corner mobility), and his damage is a set 50, which is the black dragon's max, only the archangel's attack power is the best. Being able to resurrect fallen enemies takes the cake, of course, and for those who don't know, they can do this to themselves if some of them are taken down if you have the clone spell at expert skill level. Give the archangel counterstrike, air shield, and protection from the kind of magic your opponent uses the most (especially earth in case he has implosion), and the archangel will take care of EVERYTHING.

Warlock and Wizard Towns in HOMM 2
Dungeon and Tower Towns in HOMM 3

Most Favourite - Necropolis

Besides all this "undead" theme with Necromancy ability that are just cool it has the best looking units too.

Skeletons - stacks of 1000+ units just look sweet on the battlefield.
Dread Knights - my favourite mounted unit in the game. They are as strong as they look. And their special ability is great.
Ghost Dragons - maybe not so powerful, but they they fit perfectly into the undead theme.

Least favourite - Conflux

Maybe it is overpowered but I hate its creatures, maybe besides Phoenixes. As someone else mentioned they are "gay". Water Elemental is a total joke fighting with its tail. Magic Elemental is totally ridiculous. Magma, Fire, Air elementals aren't convincing too.

Best town: Castle. It has the best creatures. Most troops are among the best of their ranks (Halebardiers, Royal Griffins, Archangels) or average to very good (Marksmen, Crusaders and Champions). Zealots are weak, but at least they shoot. So it's only one creature below average. Stables building is very useful.
BUT, and there is a big BUT, you need a hero to fight battles and Castle heroes (both Knights and Clerics) are bad. They tend to get crappy skills. I think Knights are the worst Might heroes. They all start with Leadership (almost useless), have high chance to learn Navigation and Estates (crappy skills) and low chance to learn Logistics, Earth Magic and Armorer (great skills). Clerics aren't any better. So, the best town is taken down by its heroes.

Taking in account both creatures and heroes, all towns are good, except for Inferno and, perhaps Fortress.

EDIT: I forgot about the Castle hero Sir Mullich, a special hero which by some strange reason is active by default on all SOD maps, but even he usualy gets only 6 great secondary skiils out of 8. The best Castle hero nevertheless.

HOMM3 Castle's good, but the build requirements force you to forgo some mid-tier creatures in the first week (either that or you rush to Angels if its a resource rich map). I've played a few games with Fortress\Tazar and found them highly underrated. Early rushes with Wyverns and Flies are great, all you need is lumber. High defense of the creatures\heroes + armourer is an excellent combination (a shame Witches suck though).

Inferno is weak because:
1. only one shooter, with low damage. Yes, it's possible sometime to damage more targets. Usually the area damage is more of a nuisance. You hit with the devils, again with effrets and cerberi and.....defend with magogs.
2. many crappy creatures: Familiars and Demons are the weakest 1 and 4 level troop respectively. Magogs are also below average. Pit lords - only average.

Cerberi, Devils and Efreets are good, but not the best in their ranks. Demoniacs are quite good heroes.

Fortress also has only one shooter, sturdy, but first of all a shooter must be a good damage dealer not a tough creature. It's hard to capture a town because the flyers are not that strong.

I really like the two shooters that Dungeon has. If you can get any quantity early in the game, you'll be able to free up resources like mines, or even other castles, very early on while losing a minimum of troops. The immunities of the black dragon and his ability to hit two adjacent enemy stacks at once combine to make a very powerful creature that you'll hate seeing have the first strike on you. If you have slow at expert level and your black dragon lets you cast the first spell, he can take out or severely damage a stack or two while some of the enemy troops will either be too far away to attack him or will get zapped by your other troops before they can attack. Having the ability to double your hero's mana is also huge, especially with town portal (earth again) at expert level. Expert level air can also give similar advantages if your black dragons give you first attack -- the black dragon smashes a stack or maybe two, and before your enemy can retaliate with many (or any) stacks, your mass haste will have given you the opportunity to pound either multiple stacks or wipe out another single stack, as well as use up enemy retaliations where you want them used up instead of on things like your black dragon that cannot be resurrected (there's that earth mastery again!). The gold requirement can be crushing on a cheap map, though.

I like the wizzie town for the same reason, and even better, it has three shooters! The titan is an extremely dangerous shooter. But wow is he expensive, and so is his upgrade building. However, the second-level golems are extremely slow and best left at home if you want your hero to uncover the map with any speed. Then again, you can say the same about other 2nd levels too -- the zombie comes to mind. A problem when you're tight on cash at the beginning of the game is that, unlike every other town, the Tower will not let you buy heroes who pay for their cost by coming with troops that would have cost just as much anyway. Common is to spend your 2500 on a Tower hero and get 800 worth of troops. This can add up very quickly early in the game, especially if you find heroes well worth buying because, say, they give 350 gold per turn, or a rare resource like crystal etc.

Expense is also a big problem with Tower in another way. Nagas are extremely expensive, and so losing one is a very big deal. At the same time, giants are expensive enough that losing any of them before they're upgraded to Titans is a big loss, and both getting the Titan building and upgrading each giant you've bought so far is very expensive, taking up tons of both money and gems.

The efreeti's ability to buff your other troops is a nice one, and his speed often lets you cast the first spell. Good news. But his strength hand to hand doesn't much match his cost. Unless you accumulate a lot of efreetis, you generally won't want to risk losing them to retaliation strikes. That takes a while and is money that might better be spent elsewhere, like on nagas and toward buying the Titan building and then upgrading your giants to the disatrously expensive titans.

It's a fun town with a lot of character and, if things go your way, three (!!!) shooters, which can decide, if not end outright, many battles before they begin. Three hasted shooters is nothing to sneeze at.

But I have the easiest time playing necro. Vampire lords are stupendous and can take the place of almost the entire rest of your army by themselves, if you build them early and protect them devotedly. The liche's ability to hit not just a troop but the hexes around it is extremely powerful, and better yet is that, unlike the magog, he won't hurt any of your troops doing it. A hero with nothing but vampire lords and liches, plus perhaps some skeletons to draw a little fire and to collect the revived skeletons of your dead enemies, is very powerful. The ghost dragon has a great effect, taking away health points, but it doesn't fire often enough to make up for its weak attack and defense compared to other level 7 creatures. It's effect on enemy morale, though, is always welcome and can be surprisingly powerful. However, I'm never in a hurry to get ghost dragons and even when I have them, I usually leave them at home with zombies and wraiths on defense. Three subpar units doesn't mean necros are bad; just that you better get your joy out of fewer units than usual, and your play style may be more monotonous because of it.

Necros also have crazy artifact sets, worth making a lot of sacrifices(troop losses,, etc.) to get, and you can wear more than one of them at once! But the threat of those sets, so good that they are unbalanced, is a bit exaggerated. I've played many dozens of games as a necro, and even on the XL maps I usually play, assembling one of the sets is uncommon. It's nothing like the flip of a coin whether you'll get one of the sets or not.

Plus, necros are very weak until you get vampire lords and/or other higher level troops like liches and dread knights(also a very strong unit), so they can be extremely slow starters and tough to play on smaller maps. Still, they give great atmosphere, and I'm all about that in computer games. That's why I almost always check out and play an undead/demonic side first. Spooky is fun!