Hi guys!

We're having a Heroes 3 LAN on Saturday at my University (It's part of a course even) and I having just downloaded the game from GOG was trying to get a bit of practice before that.

But I digress...
It seems to me that the Fortress town has been buffed since I last played it (Before any of the expansions). Is this just me or did some kind soul take pity on my favorite town? :)

Cheers!

Haha my favorite town to man, but I don't think it was buffed, but the more you play a town the better you get at it.

IIRC no original town has been buffed, only (arch)angels were somewhat nerfed with increased price.

Thanks for the help. :)

I just felt like they were stronger somehow., but I must be imagining things.

Gorgon-ownage will do that. :P

Gorgons are also slow, and useless if you don't get the first strike (going up against top-level stats with an Level 5 creature is suicide). Combine that with too many slow walkers (including the average Hydras for a Level 7 creature) and they take a lot of punishment, especially against Rampart\Tower\Castle that have strong ranged units.

Gorgons are anything but useless. In fact people used to forbid me from playing fortress because of them. No sane player will let me get close to their 6th or 7th level creatures with them, because they know that they will lose them in droves. This results in a scramble that makes them group around the gorgon with their weaker units in order to bring them down and that is when you use teleport on the hydras and proceed to murder them all. ;)
Unless they're undead of course... ;(

And I was actually right about the buffing. I found this: http://www.heroesofmightandmagic.com/heroes3/creaturesfortress.shtml

And when you compare it to the original stats you can see a lot of differences. The Dragon fly, Lizard warrior and the especially the Wyvern Monarch are the winners here.

Now that is what I call balancing! :D

This. In general spellcasting + fortress = win. Or defense based hero + orb of inhibition (if you find it) = gg for spellcaster heroes.

Yeah, Fortress was buffed in Shadow of Death. Now Inferno is arguably the weakest faction in the game, for managing to be expensive without having any sort of power or specialty to make up for it.

As I said, you need to get the first strike, which is hard to do with a speed of 6. Otherwise they'll get decimated and the death stare will be weak. You need like 100 for a really killer stack. Or the grand elves shoot the crap out of them. In a straight fight, Fortress has a hard time against the likes of Rampart. If the enemy hero gets to cast first and does something like Mass Slow, it'd be a slaughter. Castle seiges are difficult because the Wyverns and Flies won't last long without support against enemy Level 7s.

Not a faction I'd choose as a beginner, that's for sure.

I disagree that you need to get the first strike. The Gorgons won't die from one attack and their counters will always hurt.
Why do you need 100 of them and against what? That number doesn't mean much when I have nothing to compare it to.

Grand Elves? F*ck 'em! :D They're just Dragon Fly food!

Mass slow is a killer against any kind of town, in my opinion.

I would say that Fortress has 2 glaring weak points as it is now:

1. Like you said: Sieges. You must find a way to get through the walls fast to win. Teleport helps.

2. Necropolis. Most of the units special abilities doesn't work against them, leaving them at a huge disadvantage.

Against most Level 7 creatures? Are you sure?

I'm assuming we're talking about a late-game showdown between human players..the death stare works with a minimum of 10 right? You've got a lot more chances with 100 Gorgons than say 50 or 30.

Actually, the "official" description of the gaze is wrong. You can instant kill more than one enemy with a retaliation, and you don't need 100 to have a 100% success. I believe the way it works is :

Each gorgona has 10% of insta-killing 1 unit.
The maximum number of insta-killed units is 1 per "started" stack of 10 gorgons, so :

1-10 gorgons => Max is 1
11-20 gorgons => max is 2
21 - 30 gorgons => max is 3...

Against a human player, the gorgons have a psychological effect much beyond their real effect : your opponent won't teleport his badass troops just next to your shooters, cause you sat the gorgons next to them as well. They are also really efficient when defending a castle, to quickly kill the high level units that fly directly in your castle.


Rampart is an OUTSTANDING city when you play in high difficulty, especially on S to L maps, because it allows you to have the wyverns and dragon flies in less than one week (low cost of structure, low pre-requesites), which allows you to explore easily (two fliers : archers easy to kill) and very fast (due to the speed of the dragon flies and upgraded wyverns), which means you are going to get a lot of mines, ressources and maybe a second castle much before your opponents.

Finally, remember that the Rampart player always cast first - or can make sure he double casts by making his Dragon Flies wait.