Just from an offline perspective I think that some towns are actually superior. Most of you guys propably only play the large maps but on the small maps towns like Rampart are actually very good because they have very good early units.
@@madtechnocrat9234 Stronghold is one of the strongest on small maps because lot of Barbarian heroes start with ballista and it's easy to roll tactics and logistic skill early on, plus they have fairly good unit growth, especially early (1-4) tiers.
For Jebus, this is a solid list. I think Castle and Dungeon are tied at S, but everything else made sense. Outside of Jebus, I think Cove is on par with Conflux. The speed, specials and hero specials make Cove a nightmare to deal with. Cove hero with Resistance is super cheap.
Low key wish you went with worst first, because after I saw Necro & Conflux, I kinda sat there feeling like I knew the most relevant info, and skimmed the rest.
Inferno can get Really good if you get multiple inferno towns early on. Without town portal those castle gates are amazing for map control. If a bit on the expensive side.
A few thoughts (not that any of them matter really, see shortly afterwards as to why) on your rankings. You said up front, and thanks for that, that your main focus is the performance of each town in JC template games under HotA, my thoughts are for more "generic" games, perhaps longer games, campaign scenarios and stuff like that, you know, Heroes 3 stuff! So, JC/HotA aficionados can safely disregard my post completely. Necropolis IS the king of the endgame, if you let it. Their ability to amass skeletons (and Power Liches in So D, with that darned Cloak!) is truly overbearing but you CAN hold them off by using a combo of high attack, high battle speed units AND good numbers of effective shooters (with a sprinkling of Expert Earth to Mass Slow their bony behinds while you shoot them to...death? Undeath? I'm confused here.) Dungeon IS the most well rounded town in any game. It has THREE flyers, one of them invulnerable to magic, one a really good hitter that paralyzes you and one that hits like a boomerang with no retaliation! TWO shooters, one suffering no mellee penalty and the other able to stone your a$$. TWO ground units, one that is one of the best hitters out there, always with at least +1 morale (Minotaurs/Kings) and the other....kinda of "meh" but it is a level 1 unit so what did you expect? Dragons?? 😋 Castle is higher in my book, for a variety of reasons. Early game Marksmen can make or break you, unlimited retaliation from Royal Griffins (yes, they only have 25 HP, kinda standard for lvl 3, but they generate in good numbers), ressurection by your Archangels (plus, you go first in ALL battles except Phoenixes and Azure Dragons). Castle also has some decent heroes, Valeska as you mentioned, rules early on, and so does Adela, if you can get her (level her twice, get Expert Diplomacy, some money flow and you can hire half the map on week 1!), Christian and his Ballista can do wonders early on, especially if you land Artillery in his first level up, Edric, Whatshisname with the Monk specialty and Tyris rock their respective creatures with their specialties so you want to make armies for them that are ONLY their specialty creatures (I know, it is hard to have many Cavalries/Champions for Tyris on week 1 but we can dream, right?). Adelaide and Loynis with their Water Magic dependent spell specialties (I know, Water Magic is a pariah in JC, I am discussing H3 now and I maintain that it has its uses and they are many. You want Mass Bless? Mass Weakness? Mass Forgetfulness? Mass Prayer? Clone your Archangels? Teleport over walls? Get Earth....sorry, Water Magic to expert!). Rampart also has a "hidden" use in longer games (generally, "longer"=anything that sees week 3) and it is being your BANK! 10% for cash on hand on day 7 for each Treasury?? Yes please! You mean, if I roll 3 Ramparts by the end of month 1 (easy there fellas, again, it is NOT JC!!) I get 30% MORE MONEY on the start of next week, EVERY week?? YES, PLEASE!! Plus, Kyrre STILL rocks the roads in my games, nobody nerfed her!😉 For the others I don't have much to say, even though you were talking about a different game (see postscript) you said, more or less, what I would say about them (not about Cove, never saw it, never wanted to see it). P.S. Having a game like Heroes 3, with its campaigns, expansions, stand alone maps AND PvP templates (which are not solely for PvP but are mainly used for it, no?) and focusing on an unofficial expansion and, more than that, ONE specific template is kinda like having 100 fingers and using only ONE to type! Or, perhaps more aptly, having 100 fonts to choose from and always using Ink Free.
Thanks for sharing! Regarding the choice to make videos about HotA and JC, well it was simply because its the most widely played expansion and template (there are 2-3k players online during peak times), and making videos that apply to EVERY expansion and EVERY template is simply not possible, so I decided to go with that will apply to the greatest number of people.
@@alex_the_magician9483 no need to justify the choice to me or anyone else. I do understand that nowadays things have moved on from the original game, I just don't follow this flow and this is my problem and not yours.
@@MaegnasMw I am in a similar situation, I don't really play PvP at all, as a complete newbie who only just started playing again after a decade, trying out HotA. Guides like this are still valuable, though for campaign this one specifically might be a bit marginal since town choice isnt usually a choice in campaign, and hero choice is either set or RNG based, but the strengths and weaknesses are the same. Town specific playthroughs and guides are still great, and i've improved against AI a ton just learning how to maximize one stacks to minimize losses, and do stuff like chains and having a main hero. "back in the day" I would just play defensively until I could just whack the enemy with a massive army. Watching PvP and impossible 1v7 videos have sped up my games significantly by not wasting so much time travelling or waiting for new creatures and losing so many forces by just throwing stacks across the field.
Generic Heroes III complete games got a completely different meta obviously. If we talk about a large "generic heroes III map" like Brave New World(with small balance modifications) for example in a pvp setting (which is something I have played a lot against siblings/friends when I was younger for example) I would say that fortress is complete trash (hives/natural biome is the only reason it works on JC from what I can tell). Rampart is definitely lower than castle/dungeon/tower imo and necro/conflux is still up there obviously. 130% vs 160% changes the town balance quite a lot from my experience, I was not a huge fan on playing 160% on maps where the resources on the ground are quite scarce compared to JC/random maps and no hives etc to get army from. The pve oriented maps (with disabled dimension door/fly?) that causes uber-long games is something entirely different tho. But it is kinda useless to discuss meta on those maps imo. I can see why JC is a really popular pvp map tho, since it highlights a lot of "high" skill plays and rewards them.
One thing you overlooked about rampart is the fact that Jazel exists. Given how common interference artis are her specialty makes a colossal threat to any hero especially magic ones. Your Solmyr has 40 spell power? Nah, more like 7. It's not to be underestimated
True, she is a hard counter to spellcasters. But the problem is that she's really only useful in the final fight. If you start with Gisele, you will be at a disadvantage in the early game, and she's nothing special for farming the map, etc.
I thought a big part of Horn of the Abyss was buffing Inferno in a bunch of ways. They're *still* the worst even after that? Can't they just... keep buffing them some more, then?
They should add either 3rd no retalition or unlimited retalitions to Demons, double Efreeti's fire shield, and maybe make Magog's fireball attack so it keeps burning the enemy for some damage :d. And add some speed to some lower level units, & add atleast 1 actually good hero(make him a berserk specialist ;) ). Devil's -2 luck was a nice add to Hota, as that activates super often.
1 - Necropolis 2 - Conflux (Elemental) 3 - Castle (Humans) 4 - Tower (Mages/Magical Creatures) 5 - Dungeon (Underground/Mythical) 6 - Rampart (Nature/Elf/Dwarf) 7 - Fortress (Swamp Creatures/Gnolls/Lizards) 8 - Stronghold (Orcs/Ogres/Cyclopes) 9 - Inferno (Demons) 10 - Cove (Pirates) This is my ranking based on a consensus from multiple good sources and from 20+ years of experience with the game. Having no lv4 and 5 magic guild on Fortress is a considerable drawback sometimes, so much that I find it basically on the same ranking as Stronghold. I personally really like Dungeon and Inferno.
interesting, i can see you ranking castle high due to it having strong units, but it's got a relatively weak early game and struggles in terms of tempo, which is crucial on JC
@alex_the_magician9483 True, I find it difficult to deal with and have good success with it, plus many people rank it high, so I do lean to put it up there. If we're talking along the lines of tiers I guess It would be like this for me: Tier Broken - Necropolis Tier S - Conflux Tier Mid - Castle, Dungeon, Tower, Rampart Tier Meh - Fortress, Inferno, Stronghold, Cove But I'm not really into hardcore competitive homm3 games, so I guess it's not such a refined opinion lmao
I'm glad I have some validation with Necro and Conflux. I keep arguing with a friend that Necro and Conflux has weaker units overall. That it will depend on the hero to make it work.
Necro has 2 overpowered unit (Vamp Lords + Knight), 2 good units (Skeleton + Lich) and the rest are worthless. But Skeleton volume is overwhelming and Vamp Lords are the best unit in the game. Conflux is a bit more complex to describe.
Necro is bad at early game but very good at late game. Vampire lords are so OP if u get at least 40 of them, its scratch ur opponents head also being an undead advantage - cant blinded, unaffected by morale, curse. Confluxes are very bad at early but their hero compensate that disadvantage compared to Necropolis. Conflux is good at early till mid game and stranded at late game however u dont worry about , you probably snowball already. Only downside of conflux is mercury loaded buildings or resources. Just upgrade Ice elemental and storm elemental and youre good to go
@@brianmayabella5992 Magic elemental and Phoenix are very good even , range attack and immunity to magic spell that only two 7th creatures have only , Phoenix is weak but you get double amounts of them and speedy flying creature .
Mine, but I play offline. Castle-Like the theme, like the units(except halberd) and overall a great town. Only flaws are crossbowmen and crusaders are slow, but overall great! A+. Heroes: Valeska, Loynis, Clerics. Conflux: Best mage town for me, as the Spell school rocks! Overall great group. A+ Heroes: Any are good, they all have a use. Stronghold: Quick Rocs/Thunderbirds. Wish the Cyclops weren’t gated behind orcs and Ogres, but.. B+ Heroes: Battle Mage all the way, and Shiva.
Oh no the Cyclop Cave .... Most expensive building in stronghood, I used to get all creatures even Behemoth then after month or more finally built a cyclope cave but its worth it , remember in Yog Campaign army lost in town last fight , I played it by myself , moved cyclops near the gate and one shot hit it and won with low loss .
Ghost Dragon is very weak but 1 stack Age gamble can seriously pay off - with Ageing attack being possibly one of the most powerful debuffs in the game. It's not as powerful against weaker units with a lot less health (it is still quite powerful, almost halving the damage needed to destroy the whole stack) - but it's very strong against high HP, sturdy, units.
True, aging is crazy, also dread knights double damage is crazy. But I'm never really a fan of RNG-based abilities, as they tend to be unreliable. More of a pain to fight against neutrals, than actually to rely on in your army.
Hi! Just arrived and subscribed to your channel, I'm French. What is the cove exactly? I did not remember thus town... How can we play this? Is this an unofficial Russian mode or something like that? I remember that some years ago I've downloaded something in Russian language, but I do not remember how I found that. Sincerly, Kad
Hi, thanks for subbing :). This is horn of the abyss, it's an unofficial expansion, but the most widely played one (there are between 2-3 thousand people playing online during peak hours), just google download HOTA, it's free. But you need to get Heroes 3 complete from good old games first (just don't buy the steam hd edition, as that is incompatible with hota)
@@alex_the_magician9483 hi Alex! Thanks a lot. I've just downloaded it today.. I remember I've gotten a Russian version of that years ago.. That was difficult for me! ^^. I do not master the h3 complete edition well so I think that it should be hard for me to be a better player with this new stuff but I will try. BTW I've got the cd version of h3 complete and I successed Installing this new stuff on that, no need gog! I think.
my favourite town, ever since I started playing the basic version of HOMM3 is Castle. I think Fortress and stronghold are my least favourite. I know Inferno is the weakest by far, but it's way more fun to play than those 2. After buying Armageddon's blade back in 2000, I can't say I've played Conflux alot. in Heroes of Might & magic 2, warlock was my favourite class to play, because it got black dragons. Wizard did get titans which were the second strongest unit. HOMM2 has classes instead of the towns being called something. I did install Horn of the Abyss, but I can't say I've played that version much. I prefer the original. I know they nerfed Necropolis in HotA. Adela is a good castle hero right? she starts with diplomacy.
Not the best but you with me , I feel that Inferno is very good town overall (all maps) very strong units , sultans , devils and Up Demons , demon farming , cerberus is fast , the town mostly spawn in underground lava biome with hell gates will take great advantage in map , and defending strategies, lv5 mage guild , some heroes are usable and the rest are useless I know , and great advantage with fire spells (they rank this tomb low but it have very strong spells , for real air and earth tombs ranked high cause the fast movement across the battlefield or map but the water tomb has the positive advantage for your creatures and fire tomb offence and disadvantage for your enemies) , The town maybe is bad in JP map but its good overall.
Stronghold are very good town with cheap army and great growth with super offence heroes , If I want cheap buildings and get stronger very fast this is the right castle (Watch out for mage heroes) , I saw that most its missions in story got upgraded as fast as you can and do money or attacking in time limit . Inferno for me is stronger than castle by himself: I would say the two has nearly same towns (Not strategical , power or mage towns) they are in center and his some own specials , but Inferno mostly spawn in underworld (just enough thats its good strategy for another good town there) its in lava terrain, even so when you find multiple Inferno towns you will control the underground with gates , for me its solid town and sometimes I got afraid of it more than castle in most times (wothout sultan with Armagedon) . See that everyone else have different idea , still I'm afraid of this town .
Thanks for sharing your point of view! The thing about this list is, it's influenced pretty heavily by the Jebus Cross map template. And on Jebus cross, a lot depends on how strong/weak the town is in the early game. Inferno has a pretty weak early game (I do like the town, but it's objectively pretty weak), and while stronghold is decent, the early game power stack is very squishy, so you can lose all your goblins/wolf raiders to unlucky morales or improper unit placement, which makes it challenging.
Agree w stronghold man. I mean starting with Creg Hack with a trillion AP, getting beemoths and birds first week, clearing and snowballing because I can rush dragon utopias and rush levels like a maddafakka early on really win games... for me atleast. Although i´m not Lexiav. Inferno should be redesigned, such a cool castle but too weak.
I like inferno but it is true it is hard town. Many things need to roll for them. I like dogs for me they are like low tier cavalry. I like to go for magic quick 2nd level is crucial. Lightning and blind are my go to spells if you get them. Imps are crap but at least they are quick. I like about them their ability to stay on assault. They trade spells, are good in movement and get offence quick. I know that mysticism is weak but it helps. Saw many videos recently where a lot of players opted not to cast when they played inferno to save points. Imo they are quite versatile and because of price I rather spent resources to buy guilt and work from there. For me fire is most for them. Mass curse, bloodlust is op if you manage to get it early plus splash dmg units and spells nicely add up. Inferno is weak and thus I exploit weak mobs on the map to get them rolling resources. 😂 overall I agree on your video but I guess people should give inferno another chance and go against the norm and play more spell power oriented characters trade spells from other heroes they get in tavern. With so many tricks inferno has in sleeves they can be jack of all trades. Their units are for me like cage warriors each is good when has to face equal tier or bloodlusted or cursed, or blinded and difference is significant. Devils with it has more attack then archangels and with their speed and situational slayer or frenzy mlem. Frenzy on magogs or dog is also pretty strong when you are safe to do so. And then is there cherry on top sacrifice imps or other units to overturn the tide. Some of the things I mentioned don’t work again people but could help you start rolling more quickly into stronger units in town which are quite good. All in all they shine when you can get hands on more than one town and weakly grow is transferred and upgrades not need in all of them which a bit counter their cost.
121 means month 1 week 2 day 1, biome is your starting zone, and regarding the towns - when you start a pvp game, you will roll a random pair of towns and then trade for them, because one town will be stronger than the other, the player who gets that town will need to pay the player who gets the weaker town. Also there is a trade for color (red is better than blue). You can check out this video - I explain all these things in more detail there th-cam.com/video/XEsnn25K5_0/w-d-xo.html
Good video. A few disagreements and 2 major mistakes. The first big one is the Luna comment. Yes, she is OP, but she is never the only or the biggest reason why Conflux is strong. Conflux without Luna beats ANY other town in any map, EXCEPT Necropolis on a larger map. Those two belong in the OP category together. You also underestimated Castle, Stronghold, and especially Rampart. Having Fortress and Tower above Rampart is the second major mistake. IMO this would be the tier list with no specific order inside the tiers: OP - Necropolis, Conflux. A - Castle, Dungeon, Rampart. B - Tower, Fortress, Stronghold. C - Inferno.
One thing i dont get: You claim Nekro's units arent that good, but then say Liches are good, Knights are good, Skeletons are decent, Wraiths are ok; only Zombies are slow/weak and Ghost Dragons. And the latter can age stuff and are fast...
When compared to other units in the same tier. Vampires and dread knights are the only good ones really. Skeletons are only good because of their numbers, everything else not so good.
@@alex_the_magician9483 I didn't even know there was one, thank you! I played the game back in the day with just the cd rom. Great to see so many people playing nostalgia titles these days.
Those describe the turn. 121=month 1 week 2 day 1. Check out these 2 videos to learn the basics: th-cam.com/video/XEsnn25K5_0/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/G3PpTGeh0H0/w-d-xo.html
@@davidbalon2004 You don't see the 2 links that I sent in my comment above? Anyway you can just search my channel for "Heroes 3 Strategy: The basics you need to know before starting an online game" and "Heroes 3 Strategy: Introduction to the jebus cross map template". Those are the two videos I'm talking about.
Thx for your kind words. Yeah cove isn't great in my opinion, and what makes it bad is mostly the terrain penalty, if it wasn't for that it would probably be mid tier.
@@alex_the_magician9483 If you are not fighting against Necropolis town, then the game is very simple (of course not economically and at a multiple castle disadvantage): Take your time and fight and fight, the challenge against Necropolis town is really what you have to learn, but you can only really learn it against people because the artificial intelligence is very stupid and cheating (certainly in the WOG version). I use Google translate
Hello, why is Cove town down? Haspids are best 7lvl monster in game. And have 2 archers and sea witches are best archer in game vith magick speels. Your conclussion is not correct. Conflux is not good town. Only phoenix are good with her speed at game, all other units is to weak.
You should play PvP on Jebus Cross, and you will understand my reasoning. Cove - yes it has good units, but the problem is the swamp terrain, and also their early game power stack (usually oceanids) makes them tricky to use as you really can't take any hits on them. Conflux, yes, the units are not that great, but there are things that compensate for it, like having luna, who can do a lot of fights without any units at all, just using her firewall - just look at this video: th-cam.com/video/ocqYd4OdP5A/w-d-xo.html - what other town/hero can possibly do this on turn 1? There are also other things that make conflux good - magic university is great, and units, while not strong, they do give some unique advantages, like firebirds/phoenixes being the fastest units in the game, and magic elementals giving you magic immunity.
After playing WoG the regular HOMM3 just feels lacking. When everything is OP nothing is op, except necro. Tactics and first aid seems pretty busted, and you can achieve some wild zergs to fight other zergs
Correct, necromancy % has been decreased and the cloak of the undead kind does nothing except for the component effects, but necro is still the strongest town.
You can download HotA for free here: h3hota.com/en/download If you want to buy the complete edition - get it from good old games - www.gog.com/game/heroes_of_might_and_magic_3_complete_edition
I didn't play homm3 for over 15 years and recently started watching competitive games on yt to see how it works now. I'm confused why you put necro so high, I saw other players/streamers pay to play dungeon, conflux or castle over it... Dungeon seems really overpowered on these very fast maps where you can get a t7 dwelling right off the bat and tomes/spellbinder's are easy to get as well. Fortress also seems insane if the majority of your army will be wyvern. edit: so sad to see Inferno fall so low. In SoD it used to be the only town to rival Necro (which was usually banned in pvp) and Conflux due to demon farming.
I have not seen anyone pay for dungeon, flux or castle over necro. The reason necro is the best is stability - that is what you're paying for. Basically necro can break on 121 in like 90-95% of cases on just skeletons and animate dead, even if the biome sucks - all other towns (except for conflux with luna) would struggle to do that with bad biomes.
@@omgopet Well, theoretically it is possible. People trade based on their level of comfort with the particular towns. When I first started playing pvp, I first learned dungeon, and didn't know how to play necro, so I would be more inclined to pick dungeon over necro. However, if a player knows he wants to pick dungeon in necro vs dungeon, he can just lose the trade on purpose because its widely accepted that in anything vs necro the winner of the trade will most likely pick necro.
Well, there's definitely something to be said about your particular level of comfort with the town. If you like it, you will do better with it for sure.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 85 | คู่เอก "ยอดเหล็กเพชร vs ผึ้งหลวง"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qq_19bnnxEo/mqdefault.jpg)
Stronghold is the best town. You can't lose with town theme that majestic.
Good theme indeed, that and fortress are the best
I like them all and the fact they aren't well balanced is a strength not a weakness.
Just from an offline perspective I think that some towns are actually superior. Most of you guys propably only play the large maps but on the small maps towns like Rampart are actually very good because they have very good early units.
Makes sense
@@alex_the_magician9483 Stronghold is one of the best castles for small or medium maps.
@@madtechnocrat9234 Stronghold is one of the strongest on small maps because lot of Barbarian heroes start with ballista and it's easy to roll tactics and logistic skill early on, plus they have fairly good unit growth, especially early (1-4) tiers.
Definately. Town Portal makes inferno very strong on XL maps, if theres 4+ inferno towns, even if they are a very weak faction otherwise.
For Jebus, this is a solid list. I think Castle and Dungeon are tied at S, but everything else made sense. Outside of Jebus, I think Cove is on par with Conflux. The speed, specials and hero specials make Cove a nightmare to deal with. Cove hero with Resistance is super cheap.
starts at 2:45
Low key wish you went with worst first, because after I saw Necro & Conflux, I kinda sat there feeling like I knew the most relevant info, and skimmed the rest.
Thanks for the feedback! I do this now in my tier lists.
@@alex_the_magician9483 good change indeed!
Or just... go with alphabetical order. Don't do best-to-worst or worst-to-best because it's quite boring. Really kills any anticipation.
The fact that Inferno is so underpowered makes the wins so much more satisfying for me. But I do wish they'd buff them a little more.
Inferno can get Really good if you get multiple inferno towns early on. Without town portal those castle gates are amazing for map control. If a bit on the expensive side.
yea if only they buff archdevil from 200hp to 250hp, the town would be better.
A few thoughts (not that any of them matter really, see shortly afterwards as to why) on your rankings. You said up front, and thanks for that, that your main focus is the performance of each town in JC template games under HotA, my thoughts are for more "generic" games, perhaps longer games, campaign scenarios and stuff like that, you know, Heroes 3 stuff! So, JC/HotA aficionados can safely disregard my post completely.
Necropolis IS the king of the endgame, if you let it. Their ability to amass skeletons (and Power Liches in So D, with that darned Cloak!) is truly overbearing but you CAN hold them off by using a combo of high attack, high battle speed units AND good numbers of effective shooters (with a sprinkling of Expert Earth to Mass Slow their bony behinds while you shoot them to...death? Undeath? I'm confused here.)
Dungeon IS the most well rounded town in any game. It has THREE flyers, one of them invulnerable to magic, one a really good hitter that paralyzes you and one that hits like a boomerang with no retaliation! TWO shooters, one suffering no mellee penalty and the other able to stone your a$$. TWO ground units, one that is one of the best hitters out there, always with at least +1 morale (Minotaurs/Kings) and the other....kinda of "meh" but it is a level 1 unit so what did you expect? Dragons?? 😋
Castle is higher in my book, for a variety of reasons. Early game Marksmen can make or break you, unlimited retaliation from Royal Griffins (yes, they only have 25 HP, kinda standard for lvl 3, but they generate in good numbers), ressurection by your Archangels (plus, you go first in ALL battles except Phoenixes and Azure Dragons). Castle also has some decent heroes, Valeska as you mentioned, rules early on, and so does Adela, if you can get her (level her twice, get Expert Diplomacy, some money flow and you can hire half the map on week 1!), Christian and his Ballista can do wonders early on, especially if you land Artillery in his first level up, Edric, Whatshisname with the Monk specialty and Tyris rock their respective creatures with their specialties so you want to make armies for them that are ONLY their specialty creatures (I know, it is hard to have many Cavalries/Champions for Tyris on week 1 but we can dream, right?). Adelaide and Loynis with their Water Magic dependent spell specialties (I know, Water Magic is a pariah in JC, I am discussing H3 now and I maintain that it has its uses and they are many. You want Mass Bless? Mass Weakness? Mass Forgetfulness? Mass Prayer? Clone your Archangels? Teleport over walls? Get Earth....sorry, Water Magic to expert!).
Rampart also has a "hidden" use in longer games (generally, "longer"=anything that sees week 3) and it is being your BANK! 10% for cash on hand on day 7 for each Treasury?? Yes please! You mean, if I roll 3 Ramparts by the end of month 1 (easy there fellas, again, it is NOT JC!!) I get 30% MORE MONEY on the start of next week, EVERY week?? YES, PLEASE!! Plus, Kyrre STILL rocks the roads in my games, nobody nerfed her!😉
For the others I don't have much to say, even though you were talking about a different game (see postscript) you said, more or less, what I would say about them (not about Cove, never saw it, never wanted to see it).
P.S. Having a game like Heroes 3, with its campaigns, expansions, stand alone maps AND PvP templates (which are not solely for PvP but are mainly used for it, no?) and focusing on an unofficial expansion and, more than that, ONE specific template is kinda like having 100 fingers and using only ONE to type! Or, perhaps more aptly, having 100 fonts to choose from and always using Ink Free.
Thanks for sharing! Regarding the choice to make videos about HotA and JC, well it was simply because its the most widely played expansion and template (there are 2-3k players online during peak times), and making videos that apply to EVERY expansion and EVERY template is simply not possible, so I decided to go with that will apply to the greatest number of people.
@@alex_the_magician9483 no need to justify the choice to me or anyone else. I do understand that nowadays things have moved on from the original game, I just don't follow this flow and this is my problem and not yours.
@@MaegnasMw I am in a similar situation, I don't really play PvP at all, as a complete newbie who only just started playing again after a decade, trying out HotA. Guides like this are still valuable, though for campaign this one specifically might be a bit marginal since town choice isnt usually a choice in campaign, and hero choice is either set or RNG based, but the strengths and weaknesses are the same.
Town specific playthroughs and guides are still great, and i've improved against AI a ton just learning how to maximize one stacks to minimize losses, and do stuff like chains and having a main hero. "back in the day" I would just play defensively until I could just whack the enemy with a massive army. Watching PvP and impossible 1v7 videos have sped up my games significantly by not wasting so much time travelling or waiting for new creatures and losing so many forces by just throwing stacks across the field.
Generic Heroes III complete games got a completely different meta obviously.
If we talk about a large "generic heroes III map" like Brave New World(with small balance modifications) for example in a pvp setting (which is something I have played a lot against siblings/friends when I was younger for example) I would say that fortress is complete trash (hives/natural biome is the only reason it works on JC from what I can tell). Rampart is definitely lower than castle/dungeon/tower imo and necro/conflux is still up there obviously. 130% vs 160% changes the town balance quite a lot from my experience, I was not a huge fan on playing 160% on maps where the resources on the ground are quite scarce compared to JC/random maps and no hives etc to get army from.
The pve oriented maps (with disabled dimension door/fly?) that causes uber-long games is something entirely different tho. But it is kinda useless to discuss meta on those maps imo.
I can see why JC is a really popular pvp map tho, since it highlights a lot of "high" skill plays and rewards them.
One thing you overlooked about rampart is the fact that Jazel exists. Given how common interference artis are her specialty makes a colossal threat to any hero especially magic ones. Your Solmyr has 40 spell power? Nah, more like 7. It's not to be underestimated
True, she is a hard counter to spellcasters. But the problem is that she's really only useful in the final fight. If you start with Gisele, you will be at a disadvantage in the early game, and she's nothing special for farming the map, etc.
I thought a big part of Horn of the Abyss was buffing Inferno in a bunch of ways. They're *still* the worst even after that? Can't they just... keep buffing them some more, then?
They should, it's still the worst town for sure.
They should add either 3rd no retalition or unlimited retalitions to Demons, double Efreeti's fire shield, and maybe make Magog's fireball attack so it keeps burning the enemy for some damage :d. And add some speed to some lower level units, & add atleast 1 actually good hero(make him a berserk specialist ;) ). Devil's -2 luck was a nice add to Hota, as that activates super often.
It's good to have a weakest town. If a game is 100% balance... it lose some charm.
@@Vaginaattori Xeron cries in the corner even when he is only campaign hero 🤣
Infernos concept is like stronhold. Hard to buff.
1 - Necropolis
2 - Conflux (Elemental)
3 - Castle (Humans)
4 - Tower (Mages/Magical Creatures)
5 - Dungeon (Underground/Mythical)
6 - Rampart (Nature/Elf/Dwarf)
7 - Fortress (Swamp Creatures/Gnolls/Lizards)
8 - Stronghold (Orcs/Ogres/Cyclopes)
9 - Inferno (Demons)
10 - Cove (Pirates)
This is my ranking based on a consensus from multiple good sources and from 20+ years of experience with the game.
Having no lv4 and 5 magic guild on Fortress is a considerable drawback sometimes, so much that I find it basically on the same ranking as Stronghold.
I personally really like Dungeon and Inferno.
interesting, i can see you ranking castle high due to it having strong units, but it's got a relatively weak early game and struggles in terms of tempo, which is crucial on JC
@alex_the_magician9483 True, I find it difficult to deal with and have good success with it, plus many people rank it high, so I do lean to put it up there.
If we're talking along the lines of tiers I guess It would be like this for me:
Tier Broken - Necropolis
Tier S - Conflux
Tier Mid - Castle, Dungeon, Tower, Rampart
Tier Meh - Fortress, Inferno, Stronghold, Cove
But I'm not really into hardcore competitive homm3 games, so I guess it's not such a refined opinion lmao
Yeah. We cal agree on the split between good and bad halfs I think. Fortress, stronghold and inferno is just lousy.
I'm glad I have some validation with Necro and Conflux. I keep arguing with a friend that Necro and Conflux has weaker units overall. That it will depend on the hero to make it work.
Necro has 2 overpowered unit (Vamp Lords + Knight), 2 good units (Skeleton + Lich) and the rest are worthless. But Skeleton volume is overwhelming and Vamp Lords are the best unit in the game. Conflux is a bit more complex to describe.
Necro is bad at early game but very good at late game. Vampire lords are so OP if u get at least 40 of them, its scratch ur opponents head also being an undead advantage - cant blinded, unaffected by morale, curse. Confluxes are very bad at early but their hero compensate that disadvantage compared to Necropolis. Conflux is good at early till mid game and stranded at late game however u dont worry about , you probably snowball already. Only downside of conflux is mercury loaded buildings or resources. Just upgrade Ice elemental and storm elemental and youre good to go
@@brianmayabella5992 Magic elemental and Phoenix are very good even , range attack and immunity to magic spell that only two 7th creatures have only , Phoenix is weak but you get double amounts of them and speedy flying creature .
Mine, but I play offline.
Castle-Like the theme, like the units(except halberd) and overall a great town. Only flaws are crossbowmen and crusaders are slow, but overall great! A+.
Heroes: Valeska, Loynis, Clerics.
Conflux: Best mage town for me, as the Spell school rocks! Overall great group. A+
Heroes: Any are good, they all have a use.
Stronghold:
Quick Rocs/Thunderbirds. Wish the Cyclops weren’t gated behind orcs and Ogres, but.. B+
Heroes: Battle Mage all the way, and Shiva.
Thanks for sharing :)
Oh no the Cyclop Cave .... Most expensive building in stronghood, I used to get all creatures even Behemoth then after month or more finally built a cyclope cave but its worth it , remember in Yog Campaign army lost in town last fight , I played it by myself , moved cyclops near the gate and one shot hit it and won with low loss .
Ghost Dragon is very weak but 1 stack Age gamble can seriously pay off - with Ageing attack being possibly one of the most powerful debuffs in the game.
It's not as powerful against weaker units with a lot less health (it is still quite powerful, almost halving the damage needed to destroy the whole stack) - but it's very strong against high HP, sturdy, units.
True, aging is crazy, also dread knights double damage is crazy. But I'm never really a fan of RNG-based abilities, as they tend to be unreliable. More of a pain to fight against neutrals, than actually to rely on in your army.
If you're running Wog mod, and lvl7 4th tier upgrades, the blood bone dragons are ridiculously OP!
Hi! Just arrived and subscribed to your channel, I'm French.
What is the cove exactly? I did not remember thus town... How can we play this? Is this an unofficial Russian mode or something like that? I remember that some years ago I've downloaded something in Russian language, but I do not remember how I found that. Sincerly,
Kad
Hi, thanks for subbing :). This is horn of the abyss, it's an unofficial expansion, but the most widely played one (there are between 2-3 thousand people playing online during peak hours), just google download HOTA, it's free. But you need to get Heroes 3 complete from good old games first (just don't buy the steam hd edition, as that is incompatible with hota)
@@alex_the_magician9483 hi Alex! Thanks a lot. I've just downloaded it today.. I remember I've gotten a Russian version of that years ago.. That was difficult for me! ^^. I do not master the h3 complete edition well so I think that it should be hard for me to be a better player with this new stuff but I will try. BTW I've got the cd version of h3 complete and I successed Installing this new stuff on that, no need gog! I think.
I always go for Armageddon und the spicy bois and golden/black dragons. I often reach the point of dealing almost 4.000 damage with armageddon.
Solid strat
my favourite town, ever since I started playing the basic version of HOMM3 is Castle. I think Fortress and stronghold are my least favourite. I know Inferno is the weakest by far, but it's way more fun to play than those 2. After buying Armageddon's blade back in 2000, I can't say I've played Conflux alot. in Heroes of Might & magic 2, warlock was my favourite class to play, because it got black dragons. Wizard did get titans which were the second strongest unit. HOMM2 has classes instead of the towns being called something.
I did install Horn of the Abyss, but I can't say I've played that version much. I prefer the original. I know they nerfed Necropolis in HotA.
Adela is a good castle hero right? she starts with diplomacy.
Adela may work on some templates, but for jebus cross valesca is the only viable castle starter because of the 3 stacks of archers
I don't play or watch conpetative jc, but I really enjoy your videos.
Can you make a video about the pvp combat of jc?
Good idea, I think I will do that in the future!
Inferno is the best town
Not the best but you with me , I feel that Inferno is very good town overall (all maps) very strong units , sultans , devils and Up Demons , demon farming , cerberus is fast , the town mostly spawn in underground lava biome with hell gates will take great advantage in map , and defending strategies, lv5 mage guild , some heroes are usable and the rest are useless I know , and great advantage with fire spells (they rank this tomb low but it have very strong spells , for real air and earth tombs ranked high cause the fast movement across the battlefield or map but the water tomb has the positive advantage for your creatures and fire tomb offence and disadvantage for your enemies) , The town maybe is bad in JP map but its good overall.
how do you clear a dragon cave for the portal of summoning on day 1 or 2? with only a few trogs? is there a trick?
m.th-cam.com/video/Ziq7nPxF75Q/w-d-xo.html
4:24
@@alex_the_magician9483 Thank you! I really appreciate your channel!
@@АлександърГенчев-щ1э Happy to hear that :), thanks!
Stronghold are very good town with cheap army and great growth with super offence heroes , If I want cheap buildings and get stronger very fast this is the right castle (Watch out for mage heroes) , I saw that most its missions in story got upgraded as fast as you can and do money or attacking in time limit .
Inferno for me is stronger than castle by himself: I would say the two has nearly same towns (Not strategical , power or mage towns) they are in center and his some own specials , but Inferno mostly spawn in underworld (just enough thats its good strategy for another good town there) its in lava terrain, even so when you find multiple Inferno towns you will control the underground with gates , for me its solid town and sometimes I got afraid of it more than castle in most times (wothout sultan with Armagedon) .
See that everyone else have different idea , still I'm afraid of this town .
Thanks for sharing your point of view!
The thing about this list is, it's influenced pretty heavily by the Jebus Cross map template. And on Jebus cross, a lot depends on how strong/weak the town is in the early game. Inferno has a pretty weak early game (I do like the town, but it's objectively pretty weak), and while stronghold is decent, the early game power stack is very squishy, so you can lose all your goblins/wolf raiders to unlucky morales or improper unit placement, which makes it challenging.
Agree w stronghold man. I mean starting with Creg Hack with a trillion AP, getting beemoths and birds first week, clearing and snowballing because I can rush dragon utopias and rush levels like a maddafakka early on really win games... for me atleast. Although i´m not Lexiav. Inferno should be redesigned, such a cool castle but too weak.
I like inferno but it is true it is hard town. Many things need to roll for them. I like dogs for me they are like low tier cavalry. I like to go for magic quick 2nd level is crucial. Lightning and blind are my go to spells if you get them. Imps are crap but at least they are quick. I like about them their ability to stay on assault. They trade spells, are good in movement and get offence quick. I know that mysticism is weak but it helps. Saw many videos recently where a lot of players opted not to cast when they played inferno to save points. Imo they are quite versatile and because of price I rather spent resources to buy guilt and work from there. For me fire is most for them. Mass curse, bloodlust is op if you manage to get it early plus splash dmg units and spells nicely add up. Inferno is weak and thus I exploit weak mobs on the map to get them rolling resources. 😂 overall I agree on your video but I guess people should give inferno another chance and go against the norm and play more spell power oriented characters trade spells from other heroes they get in tavern. With so many tricks inferno has in sleeves they can be jack of all trades. Their units are for me like cage warriors each is good when has to face equal tier or bloodlusted or cursed, or blinded and difference is significant. Devils with it has more attack then archangels and with their speed and situational slayer or frenzy mlem. Frenzy on magogs or dog is also pretty strong when you are safe to do so. And then is there cherry on top sacrifice imps or other units to overturn the tide. Some of the things I mentioned don’t work again people but could help you start rolling more quickly into stronger units in town which are quite good. All in all they shine when you can get hands on more than one town and weakly grow is transferred and upgrades not need in all of them which a bit counter their cost.
Hey dude what does 121, biome and "pay for" mean? Are there a coin flip in PvP btween two factions?
Thanks!
121 means month 1 week 2 day 1, biome is your starting zone, and regarding the towns - when you start a pvp game, you will roll a random pair of towns and then trade for them, because one town will be stronger than the other, the player who gets that town will need to pay the player who gets the weaker town. Also there is a trade for color (red is better than blue).
You can check out this video - I explain all these things in more detail there th-cam.com/video/XEsnn25K5_0/w-d-xo.html
I waited so much, thnx a lot!
Good video. A few disagreements and 2 major mistakes. The first big one is the Luna comment. Yes, she is OP, but she is never the only or the biggest reason why Conflux is strong. Conflux without Luna beats ANY other town in any map, EXCEPT Necropolis on a larger map. Those two belong in the OP category together.
You also underestimated Castle, Stronghold, and especially Rampart. Having Fortress and Tower above Rampart is the second major mistake.
IMO this would be the tier list with no specific order inside the tiers:
OP - Necropolis, Conflux.
A - Castle, Dungeon, Rampart.
B - Tower, Fortress, Stronghold.
C - Inferno.
You should preface everything you say with "In my opinion"
I love how you just casually forgot about Cove xD
@@averagelizard2489 Intentionally*
@@CragHack This is a JC Tier list, there is no JC in other versions of Heroes 3, so if you play JC, you will 99% play Cove.
@@averagelizard2489 Fair, I don't remember this comment or the fact it was actually a JC list... Never liked HotA, Cove or JC.
Hey you were suppose to make some self development videos like you said I cant find them!
I uploaded a couple but then deleted them, realized it would be better to start another channel for it if i wanted to do that
Rampart is S tier. 10% interest on gold at the end of the week? That spirals out of control fast.
Does a horse go Clip Clope or Clip Clop?
What is luna?
One thing i dont get: You claim Nekro's units arent that good, but then say Liches are good, Knights are good, Skeletons are decent, Wraiths are ok; only Zombies are slow/weak and Ghost Dragons. And the latter can age stuff and are fast...
When compared to other units in the same tier. Vampires and dread knights are the only good ones really. Skeletons are only good because of their numbers, everything else not so good.
@@alex_the_magician9483liches are solid as well, yes? Best t5 ranged unit
Are the other castles from an expansion?
Conflux and cove were added yes
@@alex_the_magician9483 I didn't even know there was one, thank you! I played the game back in the day with just the cd rom. Great to see so many people playing nostalgia titles these days.
What do comments like 1 2 1. 1 1 7 1 2 3 etc. Mean I'm kinda new.
Those describe the turn. 121=month 1 week 2 day 1.
Check out these 2 videos to learn the basics:
th-cam.com/video/XEsnn25K5_0/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/G3PpTGeh0H0/w-d-xo.html
I don't see the links for the basics
@@davidbalon2004 You don't see the 2 links that I sent in my comment above?
Anyway you can just search my channel for "Heroes 3 Strategy: The basics you need to know before starting an online game" and "Heroes 3 Strategy: Introduction to the jebus cross map template". Those are the two videos I'm talking about.
Alex_The_Magician i rly like your guid :) you help me a lot so thanks for your work :) keep it going ! is cove so week tho O_O?
Thx for your kind words. Yeah cove isn't great in my opinion, and what makes it bad is mostly the terrain penalty, if it wasn't for that it would probably be mid tier.
Meybe an update for 2024 ?
Necro is the Cheat Town. Unstoppable.
Well not quite, and it is challenging to learn how to play it right. But objectively it is the strongest town
@@alex_the_magician9483 If you are not fighting against Necropolis town, then the game is very simple (of course not economically and at a multiple castle disadvantage): Take your time and fight and fight, the challenge against Necropolis town is really what you have to learn, but you can only really learn it against people because the artificial intelligence is very stupid and cheating (certainly in the WOG version).
I use Google translate
Hello, why is Cove town down? Haspids are best 7lvl monster in game. And have 2 archers and sea witches are best archer in game vith magick speels. Your conclussion is not correct. Conflux is not good town. Only phoenix are good with her speed at game, all other units is to weak.
You should play PvP on Jebus Cross, and you will understand my reasoning. Cove - yes it has good units, but the problem is the swamp terrain, and also their early game power stack (usually oceanids) makes them tricky to use as you really can't take any hits on them. Conflux, yes, the units are not that great, but there are things that compensate for it, like having luna, who can do a lot of fights without any units at all, just using her firewall - just look at this video: th-cam.com/video/ocqYd4OdP5A/w-d-xo.html - what other town/hero can possibly do this on turn 1? There are also other things that make conflux good - magic university is great, and units, while not strong, they do give some unique advantages, like firebirds/phoenixes being the fastest units in the game, and magic elementals giving you magic immunity.
What is a picket?
heroes.thelazy.net/index.php/Wolf_Raider_Picket
Anyone know where I can get the expansion?
h3hota.com/en/download
After playing WoG the regular HOMM3 just feels lacking. When everything is OP nothing is op, except necro. Tactics and first aid seems pretty busted, and you can achieve some wild zergs to fight other zergs
I feel like wog is too much personally.
I definitelly prefer HOTA than WOG because HOTA still updating and balanced, but WOG being still like beta version with a lot of bugs without anything
Lol straight rampart due to being able to do compound interest
Necro is nerfed in tournament mode. Does that impact?
Correct, necromancy % has been decreased and the cloak of the undead kind does nothing except for the component effects, but necro is still the strongest town.
@@alex_the_magician9483 Got it, so basically nerf was smart
@@fulldecent how it's got nerfed? i can't find any patchnotes about this
What is JC?
jebus cross, most popular map for online play
Where can I buy homm3?
You can download HotA for free here: h3hota.com/en/download
If you want to buy the complete edition - get it from good old games - www.gog.com/game/heroes_of_might_and_magic_3_complete_edition
I didn't play homm3 for over 15 years and recently started watching competitive games on yt to see how it works now. I'm confused why you put necro so high, I saw other players/streamers pay to play dungeon, conflux or castle over it...
Dungeon seems really overpowered on these very fast maps where you can get a t7 dwelling right off the bat and tomes/spellbinder's are easy to get as well. Fortress also seems insane if the majority of your army will be wyvern.
edit: so sad to see Inferno fall so low. In SoD it used to be the only town to rival Necro (which was usually banned in pvp) and Conflux due to demon farming.
I have not seen anyone pay for dungeon, flux or castle over necro.
The reason necro is the best is stability - that is what you're paying for. Basically necro can break on 121 in like 90-95% of cases on just skeletons and animate dead, even if the biome sucks - all other towns (except for conflux with luna) would struggle to do that with bad biomes.
@@alex_the_magician9483 Guess I misunderstood what happened then.
@@omgopet Well, theoretically it is possible. People trade based on their level of comfort with the particular towns. When I first started playing pvp, I first learned dungeon, and didn't know how to play necro, so I would be more inclined to pick dungeon over necro. However, if a player knows he wants to pick dungeon in necro vs dungeon, he can just lose the trade on purpose because its widely accepted that in anything vs necro the winner of the trade will most likely pick necro.
1. Conflux 2. Necro 3. Castle 4. Fortress/ stronghold 5. Dungeon
@@brianmayabella5992 1 Necro for me
its funny i play cove all the time and i can beat AI 98% of the time... other towns i struggle badly..
Well, there's definitely something to be said about your particular level of comfort with the town. If you like it, you will do better with it for sure.
@@alex_the_magician9483 i need to watch more of your videos to learn how to play other towns as i struggle to beat AI..
Wtf is a jc
One of the most popular Random Template scheme map
@@zielskotorowe haha like what jesus cancer
Heroes 3 is unbalanced as hell
Edit out all the throat clearing next time, please.
offering to edit my videos for free?
Man, good content but you talk too much and say little.
Sounds like you don't understand what I say