HoMM III: Strongest town/faction

[og_greek]

A long time ago, when I was bored, I decided to try and determine which town is the strongest in the game, based on units alone. I graded each level character/monster against others of the same level. Some things I graded them on were health, speed, damage, cost, special, etc. I assigned point values to each monster from 1-9, 1 being the best and 9 the worst. So the town with the lowest point total was best and the highest the worst. Here are my final rankings:

Town / Points
1. Rampart 25
2. Castle 27
3. Dungeon 29
4. Tower 30
5. Conflux 35
6. Necropolis 39
7. Stronghold 41
Fortress
9. Inferno 48


Now that I'm starting to play this game a lot once again, I may have to revisit these ratings. I'm just curious if others out there agree with me.

I was unable to find another post that ranked all the towns from strongest to weakest, simply each level character and what town you enjoy using the most.

[Pol]

On the unit(s) alone?

Not sure, how much of testifying value that can be. By itself strongest would be Stronghold, closely followed by Fortress, then Dungeon and after that it will make the Tower.

However just units/towns never go itself...

(And because you may be meaning really "by itself", just for sure I put my vote to Dungeon - here's no other way in such case. No if you dwell in underground with mid fared evil neighbourhood.)

[Corbon]

Creature-wise it's Castle, overall it's Conflux.

We did something similar on GameFAQs a while ago and this was my ranking, solely based on creatures, their prices, growth rate, etc.

1. Castle, 21 Points
2. Tower, 29 Points
3. Conflux, 30 Points
4. Rampart, 34 Points
5. Dungeon, 34 Points
6. Necropolis, 37 Points
7. Fortress, 42 Points
8. Stronghold, 43 Points
9. Inferno, 45 Points

Dream Team
Level 1: Centaur Captain
Level 2: Storm Elemental
Level 3: Royal Griffin
Level 4: Vampire Lord
Level 5: Thunderbird
Level 6: Dread Knight
Level 7: Phoenix

[Muszka]

Based only on the creatures it;s nonsense. It worth to think about it only if you have nothing to do with time. (Curious what would JJ say )


btw:

Dream Team
Level 1: Centaur Captain
Level 2: Storm Elemental
Level 3: Royal Griffin
Level 4: Vampire Lord
Level 5: Thunderbird
Level 6: Dread Knight
Level 7: Phoenix

In your dream team there is only one, low-level shooter which cones in small numbers, and cannot be resurrected. Plus there are no defender units. The only one who can be counted as such is the R Griffin.

[og_greek]

Creature-wise it's Castle, overall it's Conflux.

We did something similar on GameFAQs a while ago and this was my ranking, solely based on creatures, their prices, growth rate, etc.

1. Castle, 21 Points
2. Tower, 29 Points
3. Conflux, 30 Points
4. Rampart, 34 Points
5. Dungeon, 34 Points
6. Necropolis, 37 Points
7. Fortress, 42 Points
8. Stronghold, 43 Points
9. Inferno, 45 Points

Our positions from 6-9 match, and other than your Rampart and Dungeon placement, the order at your top match as well.

[HodgePodge]

Had to go with The Fabulous Conflux. My favorite (overpowered) Heroes III Town.

[Kristo]

Conflux shouldn't count IMHO, so I have to go with Castle. I have no rational basis for that choice beyond the fact that I seem to have the most consistent success with them. Perhaps Castle simply fits my playing style best.

[HodgePodge]

Conflux shouldn't count IMHO, so I have to go with Castle. I have no rational basis for that choice beyond the fact that I seem to have the most consistent success with them. Perhaps Castle simply fits my playing style best.

Conflux has to count. It's one of the towns in Heroes III. Albeit added later, it's still a great town. I love it.

[Storm-giant]

The strongest is conflux by sure. If I don't count it, I would go either Castle(great AA ) or Stronghold(Craj Hack+AB+Antimagic=Smash them all!!! )

[Deadguy118]

Conflux obviously. This is because NWC dumped forge for super generic elemental town but didn't get around to balancing it. That's why it was banned back in the days of the heroes III tourney.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Among the original 8 towns, and without any patches/mods applied, RAMPART is the strongest town. Highest HP per week of all towns, and those units are cheap individually. Higher Lv 4 & 5 unit growth. Treasury. Kyrre the logistics specialist. Lots of magic resistance specials for units. Very strong combo of level 1-2-3 units (centaurs captains, battle dwarves, and grand elves dominate the other factions' early units). No weak points. What's not to like?

Castle's Portal of Glory costs too much gold and the Cavalier dwelling, too much wood for them to be able to get their stuff early enough.

Yes, Conflux is the strongest if we include it, but also the most boring and stupidly designed town. Good thing I can turn it off at will by renaming my files (or simply not installing AB on my H3SoD)

[HodgePodge]

Say all the derogatory things you want about the Conflux, I still love it!

[Jolly Joker]

Okay, since the public demands it

Strongest town is the Conflux.

If you'd leave the Conflux out it's a toss-up between Castle and Rampart, Castle due mainly to their high damage output, Rampart due to their high HP output mainly.

HOWEVER, there are a lots of things to add here:

a) Necropolis has a POTENTIALLY very high output; they would need about 120, 125 Skeleton WARRIORS in addition each week to reach Rampart and Castle level.
b) Inferno is the FASTEST town, delivering their damage with the most speed.
c) At face value Dungeon is on par with Tower behind Castle/Rampart, BUT it's the most versatile town with the most possible strategies and developments to go for AND it will close the gap to Castle and Rampart (but not Conflux) on a map that has an outside dwelling, reaching them not quite with level 2, but starting with level 3 due to their special portal dwelling. Moreover the Dungeon units have a nice speed structure and are fast overall. Lastly their level 6 and 7 are flyers (as well as Inferno) making them really good in siege attacks. And finally they have a wide range of really good heroes.

I find the Conflux patchy and not up to the design of the other towns because everything is so freaking unbalanced: creatures are either over- or underpowered, Magic Heroes are overpowered and Might heroes have strange specials, the special and Grail buildings are overpowered as well, so all in all it just hasn't got the right feel for me.

So, if I had to play ANY map I didn't know anything about with a random hero and Conflux was banned or not available I would pick the DUNGEON as the town giving me the best chances to win. I don't think I've ever been disappointed with it.
Therefore my vote goes to DUNGEON and to make this an interesting poll I'd drop the Conflux out.

[Yurian Stonebow]

"What do you think is the strongest faction"


Is this a trick question?
(voted for the Conflux)

I totally agree with UndeadHalfOrc. He summed up well what I think about the Elemental City:

"Yes, Conflux is probably the strongest if we include it, but also the most boring and stupidly designed town."

Also, Jolly Joker's thoughts on Conflux are in line with my general opinion of the said faction:

"I find the Conflux patchy and not up to the design of the other towns because everything is so freaking unbalanced: creatures are either over- or underpowered, Magic Heroes are overpowered and Might heroes have strange specials, the special and Grail buildings are overpowered as well, so all in all it just hasn't got the right feel for me."

Those of you who have played my H3:SoD map "Dark Elves!" may recall me placing the Conflux (two cities) on the central plateau of the map. I chose the faction for this role because of the overall ridiciously overpowered nature of the bunch of them. However, I chose to disable the Grail in those two Conflux cities to avoid spoiling the gaming experience. The Conflux player (Tan) here is, of course, limited to AI only. Despite being subject to eventual invasion from all sides, the AI Conflux player holds his own reasonably well until the late game. I wouldn't call this a mere lucky chance hit.




Yurian

[Muszka]

I never really saw how can Conflux be so strong. Their best thing is the magic university, but otherwise it has not middle line, and must base the whole combat on the Sprites, Storm Elementals and Phoenixes. But the Phoenixes despite their numbers can be overcome by other lvl 7 units.

[Jolly Joker]

It adds up.
If you start with a magic hero you get one primary point more AND they all start with a Basic Magic skill already, ensuring fast proficiency in mass spells. If you take a might hero, the University will make sure you CAN get magic skills, if your might hero doesn't get any.
The massive speed of your initial creeping forces lets your heroes cover more ground than everyone else initially.
The mid level creatures have no real purpose except delivering creatures with spell immunities. The Magma elemental specialists will actually make them usable, though.
Firebirds own the pre-upgraded-level7-phase - you can finish the smaller maps with them alone, basically. Try to kill 10 Firebirds when you may just have 3 Angels, 5 at most. Firebirds will act first as well as Phoenixes, and casting Clone on them will finish most battles before they really started.
If it gets really hard, the Magic Elementals will kill everything that survived the Phoenix onslaught and the losses you took killing them without any chance to hurt them magically.
That means, tactically, that you basically have to put the Phoenixes on second priority since you have to kill the Magic Elementals, as long as you have the army power to do so which is just awkward. Basically spoken, if the Phoenixes attack immediately and you gang up on then, you'll see the surviving or resurrected phoenixes move away and then the Magic Elementals take their place. Devastating.

In short: you creep FAST, your heroes are guaranteed to get powerful magic and your levels 6 and 7 will dominate the battlefield even without the 7 upgrade EARLY.

[Gaidal Cain]

A long time ago, when I was bored, I decided to try and determine which town is the strongest in the game, based on units alone. I graded each level character/monster against others of the same level. Some things I graded them on were health, speed, damage, cost, special, etc. I assigned point values to each monster from 1-9, 1 being the best and 9 the worst. So the town with the lowest point total was best and the highest the worst.

I'm sorry, but that is just nonsense. Let's for comparison say that you put azure dragons as level 1 units, with same stats but at the price of 1 gold´, and fill the rest of the ranks with peasants. According to your scheme, that would be the worst town of them all...

As for the poll, there only possible choice is the Conflux. It's a town with several excellent units (and two real duds), very good (magic) heroes, excellent special town structures and a grail that's so overpowered it's not even funny. It might not be the most interesting town, but it's far beyond the others in terms of strength.

[heromagraev]

I voted for the Necropolis, but it depends on how the map is laid out.

If you can get a lot of fights against low level hordes you can get a really strong stack going quickly. Add to that the great lvl 4, 5 and 6 creatures, cheap ressurection, nice heroes and the possibility of getting the ultimate artifact (cloak of the undead king) and I think we have a winner. You can really confuse the AI with some cover of darkness cheese too if you want.

And I just love shoving joining peasants into my skeleton transformer...

[og_greek]

I'm sorry, but that is just nonsense. Let's for comparison say that you put azure dragons as level 1 units, with same stats but at the price of 1 gold´, and fill the rest of the ranks with peasants. According to your scheme, that would be the worst town of them all...

Fortunately for me, that's not how it works, so it's not nonsense. What you suggested though, is nonsense.

[Gaidal Cain]

I'm sorry, but that is just nonsense. Let's for comparison say that you put azure dragons as level 1 units, with same stats but at the price of 1 gold´, and fill the rest of the ranks with peasants. According to your scheme, that would be the worst town of them all...

Fortunately for me, that's not how it works, so it's not nonsense. What you suggested though, is nonsense.

No, it's just an extreme example to show that your way of rating is severly lacking, since all it does is add some unrelated numbers. It makes no sense to say that being the best level 1 unit (a position for which there are at least four serious contenders) is as important as being the best level 7 unit (Phoenixes, by far). And of course, it completely misses heroes, town specials, and resource dependency, and synergies between these, which is made painfully obvious by it ranking even a mediocre town like Tower above the Conflux.