H3 Fortress Discussion

The old Heroes games developed by New World Computing. Please specify which game you are referring to in your post.
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cjlee
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H3 Fortress Discussion

Unread postby cjlee » 29 Jun 2015, 18:06

I’m a longtime Heroes player, but I never got used to the Fortress faction in H3.

Many experienced players love Fortress. That’s significant to me because you are good players.

But why?

No matter how I cut it, I keep struggling with Fortress.

1- Aggressive moves, not possible. Fortress can’t lay siege to anything. They aren’t fast either, unless you have an army with only Dragonflies.
2- Their heroes are crap outside the Armourer specialty guys. (And I think there was also this Gorgon guy who started with one gorgon?) Do I really want a hero who specializes in lizardmen or gnolls?
3- Their spells are pathetic, maxing out at level 3 mage guild. IE you need to lay siege to some other town to get better spells.
4- Their terrain looks terrible and you can’t mix their army with anything or else you slow to a crawl.
5- Defence is nowhere as important as attack in most situations. Yes, I know Fortress creatures outlast all other races in a protracted battle. But a strong attacking race (eg Dragonnedon or Archdevil-Efreet Sultan-Berserk) can usually finish the battle more quickly with few casualties, allowing you to move on and conquer more territory or level your hero more. Fortress is usually too slow to catch an opponent on the map or in a battle, so you can’t force him to fight if he doesn’t want to.
6- Keep getting the feeling that I’m bogged down when playing Fortress.

Really hope to see you guys come forward with a thorough discussion on Fortress. Maybe after all these years, I can learn to play Fortress better.

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Salamandre
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Unread postby Salamandre » 29 Jun 2015, 18:51

Well, I will give probably the most common and worthless answer: it depends.

It depends on map and style of gameplay. Are you playing human vs human? Then you can build wiverns on day 2 and your main hero will shine in level up, because with 2 wiverns a lot of battles are much easier. Then serpent flies are the perfect creature for hits and runs. Seeing that in mp the town siege is prohibited, you won't have any of the constraints you complain about. Spells: you don't need except the common ones, slow/haste. If your gorgons get a hit to enemy's main stack, he is doomed too. Heroes: any beastmaster is good, he will get offense, logistic so okay.

Now, if single-player, indeed any towns except castle are somehow penalized. Fortress the most perhaps, but in single map, random or not, you get access to other towns, so spells should not be a problem. Then accept ballistic when is offered, this way sieges will not be anymore a problem. Then get resurrect and blind, then resurrect phase, like every other town. Also fortress on random map has a primordial advantage, all the wiverns it can upgrade from hives. You will get hundreds of them.

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Taro
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Unread postby Taro » 29 Jun 2015, 20:30

This town is weak in single player, but pretty strong in multiplayer.

In single best way to play is having one fast unit (archangel, archdevil, dragons) and win battle after battle with this one unit and spells. So when you play fortress, you don't have this opportunity and you have to lead large army with slow units (except wyverns and flies, but they haven't survivability like tier 7 units).

In multiplayer this is somehow different. To defeat human you will need to use all you got. Not one fast unit, but entire army. And this town has one big adventage - it's cheap. Good players don't build capitol from the start. They try to get as many dwellings as possible, gold from chests and xp from neutrals. With this town you can clean the map fast.

Second - with mighty gorgons you can easily kill level 6 and 7 units, despite of your low atack.

Third - with hydras you can do massive damage to low level units.

If you can play fast, this is good town indeed.

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Re: H3 Fortress Discussion

Unread postby cjlee » 09 Aug 2015, 04:38

Thanks Taro and Salamandre!

I agree with both of you, but your responses have reinforced my view! You haven’t added anything I don’t know. I am an experienced player after all, even if not particularly good.

When playing multiplayer with friends we used to do so in the same house, so we would do a lot of talking or watch something on TV while playing. Gaming is just part of our ‘catch up and relax time’ with each other. That makes a big difference, because unlike in your standard multiplayer, for my social circle lengthy actions are allowed. Including lengthy sieges. So Fortress’s early advantage is reduced. Everyone’s got at least a keep by Week 2 to hide behind.

Serpent flies are indeed good for hit and run, but your witches don’t have much dangerous spells to discharge.

I suspect many of the Fortress enthusiasts play 1v1 on Small maps. On any reasonably large map, or one with multiple factions, having an early 2 wyvern advantage is of limited use because by the time you reach enemy territory, they’re into 2nd week of production.

Resurrect sounds unrealistic to me. To resurrect you need to get expert earth magic. All the time I get stuffed with Water Magic when playing Fortress, and the computer seems allergic to giving me Teleport in my mage guilds.

Strangely I have found Tazar by far the best among Fortress heroes only in long games. If playing small map multiplayer where Tazar doesn’t have time to make armorer shine, there is a big difference when facing an enemy spellcaster who can hit you with 200 damage in a spell. Nearly everyone is faster than Fortress, so once your serpent flies go down, enemy fliers (or faster enemy units) can do the dance and you will die to spells.

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Re: H3 Fortress Discussion

Unread postby Salamandre » 09 Aug 2015, 19:28

I am afraid you have too theoretic approach. Maps with 2 towns only are super rare and not very fun to play. Nobody expects you to play fortress and rely on fortress heroes or spells. The game experience already revealed that might heroes are overpowered thus any might will do good, just forget the witch you probably have on first day. As for spells, that's why the 2 wiverns rock, explore fast, get other towns, witch huts, schools, improve your chances to get skills you would not get naturally + spells you could not get from main town.

This is why people keep playing HoMM III online. There are no backsides for any town when you have a global view, just don't stick to "my town and what I do with".

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Re: H3 Fortress Discussion

Unread postby cjlee » 12 Aug 2015, 13:12

It seems that we are back again to my old grouse.

Some races are great on their own.

Some are crap and can only be used as stepping stones to greater glory.

I've played Fortress A LOT. I'm perfectly competent at it, and (to my surprise) when I check my computer's high score list, I have done very well with Fortress.

But even if I started with Fortress, I hardly ever go to the final battle on a Fortress lineup. 9 times out of 10, there are no chaos hydras, lizardmen, wyverns or gnolls. 7 times out of 10, there won't be dragonflies or basilisks either.

I can start with almost any race and wind up with a final lineup with mostly their own people. That doesn't happen with Fortress. With Fortress it seems you're always stuck with one strategy - build fast, expand fast, try to grab as much land and resources and whatever as possible, until you grab some town with better spells or more mobile troops. Once you do that, dump your ugly creatures and get something much faster and usable - eg Harpy Hags. As for my Mighty Gorgons, when not playing against Human opponents I tend to let them breed at home until I have something really useful for them - such as attacking Dragons. Five MGs are wasted trying to take on 70 Pikemen or 100 skeletons.

Also there is the plodding, not-making-progress sensation that greatly impedes my pleasure in gaming. I made a similar post in the Heroes V forum, where the Fortress in Heroes V is the Dwarven race. Heroes V dwarves are VERY powerful in the endgame thanks to their runes. But when you're getting there, the journey sucks. So you've got to make a decision between playing a race that you're more likely to win with in multiplayer, and playing a race that is fun to play but has a lower chance of crushing your opponents in the end.

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Re: H3 Fortress Discussion

Unread postby Salamandre » 12 Aug 2015, 13:39

Look, you start your argue with pure subjective opinion: some races are great, others are crap. Subjective because it relies ONLY on your first hand experience. If we look at statistic in competitive multiplayer leagues (toh, world tournament, heroes league), fortress is doing very well, based on results of thousands of games between very experienced players.

So, after this opinion, all that you bring as arguments is biased as well. You say you never finish a game with all fortress troops, but this may be also due to your opinion about fortress. So as soon as you can replace its units with others, you do it because you lack confidence in fortress.

And grabbing units from other towns is a very good strategy everyone uses with any town. Who keeps beholders or lizard man when you can replace by gran elves? Or nagas when you can go with wiverns or thunderbirds, much more mobile. Adapting to each challenge requires various strategies.

So finally it may be just that you don't like enough to thrust it. This is perfectly acceptable, everyone has his preferred towns, maps, heroes and playboy pinups.


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