If only: A manticore monster in heroes of might and magic 3

[gooddragon1]

Deleted content

[Winthur]

Do you mean to replace the already existing Manticore, as in, Dungeon's tier 6? Because Dungeon doesn't need buffs at all, and presumedly turning the Manticore into a fast, flying shooter with a debuff would be a net gain.

I can imagine your proposed unit being ridiculously abusable for creeping on the map, too.

[Morty]

A flying, shooting unit with no melee penalty and a debuff on top of that is definitely not "mid tier". I don't think the series has ever had a flying and shooting unit, nevermind the other stuff.

[LansXero]

Necromancer wins were ever hard though? Just have sandro rolling around with a huge stack of skeletons, destroy everything and if you get to assemble the artifact make them all liches.

[Morty]

From dnd 3.5, so not the same:


http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/manticore.htm

With the WoG mod tools it might be possible on a unit with a ranged attack. I made base Skeletons with flying, 500 hp, 50 damage, and other stuff (for easy wins with necromancers)

Yes, this kind of creature exists in D&D 3.5. How does that relate to Heroes of Might & Magic? And I'm sure it's technically possible to have a flying, ranged unit, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

[LansXero]

Also, low min. high max. damage means nothing since Bless exists. Original poster must've been high or something.

[Winthur]

Also, low min. high max. damage means nothing since Bless exists. Original poster must've been high or something.

To their credit, Expert Water Magic isn't competitively popular.

The synergy is bigger with Expert Earth Magic due to Slow, as an aside; the biggest issue with such an unit would simply be its sheer ability to solo any slow groups of units. You just fly away and shoot them at will.

[zlefin]

Ahhh, homm3, that was a fun game. I wonder if my old cds are still playable at all; probably not.

Expert earth magic was so brokenly awesome indeed.
A flying (and presumably high speed) archer does indeed sound like too much; high speed fliers were already first strike death machinse in that; at least when high tier.

how are the more recent homms?
I played 4/5; 6 iirc some vile company took over and added obnoxious drm or something horrible, so I skipped it; and I've heard naught of more recent ones.

oh, and on the homm3 remasters; iirc there was some issue that they lost the code so they couldn't do some of the expansions or something? does that still apply?

[Winthur]

oh, and on the homm3 remasters; iirc there was some issue that they lost the code so they couldn't do some of the expansions or something? does that still apply?

Yes. You ignore HoMM3 HD by Ubisoft (available on Steam and presumably Uplay) in favor of the GoG-released HoMM3 Complete with the HoMM3 HD Unofficial Patch, which comes with some minor quality of life addons (comes with the cranim.txt hack that gets rid of the delay at the start of combat, adds higher resolution / GFX scaling, also it's much easier to browse through random map templates and there's more customization in setting up multiplayer matches. They also added some utility to the Quick Combat functionality to speed up MP games, mostly by allowing you to not waste time battling trash.)

Then, to the GoG version, you can add whatever you want - WoG is sorta outdated nowadays and its utility is mostly replicated by stuff like ERA and VCMI, although those are still in progress. There's also Horn of the Abyss (HotA) which was embraced by the online multiplayer community (HotA has its own, in-game lobby, if you install it), which adds a whole new faction (Cove; it's decently mid-high tier with a rather high skill floor on Week 1 and a lot of gimmicks) and rebalances a few things (Tower is no longer stupidly expensive, all level 2 specialists got buffed, Inferno's ramp-up curve is a little smoother, Necro and Conflux were nerfed [though still high-tier]). It's been more embraced by the "competitive" community than WoG, and is still being patched, with a new faction coming. HotA also has its own single-player campaign and there are maps coming out for it, since it adds in a bunch of new mapmaking functionality.

Ubisoft's official remaster is trash and has been entirely abandoned. Just don't get it.

As for HoMM4 and 5, I liked them; I just don't play them in MP as much. HoMM5 didn't click with me in a Hot Seat setup simply because the game is great, but it also seems like it's slower to play than the more intuitive, what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface of HoMM3. Wasn't interested in the series afterwards.

[Starwulf]

Snip

Whoa, HoTa is releasing a 2nd faction soon? Woot! I loved Cove back when I downloaded HoTa the last time. Unfortunately I got a new harddrive a while back and never re-installed HOMM3 or HoTa. I've been thinking about it recently though, starting to get that itch to play again(I often go on week long benders where I do nothing but play HOMM3 in my free time).

Also, I absolutely agree with everything you said about the steam version being trash(I got it for free a while back when I bought HOMM7). What is this unofficial patch on the GoG version? Can you get it if you don't have the GoG version?(I have my original discs still).

[Forum Explorer]

HoMM 5 is really good, I liked it a lot. I've got some quibbles about it, mostly about the Dwarves which are completely broken in the hands of a human, but I find it to be quite fun, and I'd consider it to be mostly an upgrade to HoMM 3.

[Winthur]

Whoa, HoTa is releasing a 2nd faction soon? Woot!

Yeah, it's called Factory and looks like a western / steampunk faction of sorts. I've only seen a teaser, I don't know if there's anything new, feel free to look it up yourself.

What is this unofficial patch on the GoG version? Can you get it if you don't have the GoG version?(I have my original discs still).

Oh, you can use any version of HoMM3 Complete including a manual RoE+AB+SoD install as long as it's fully officially patched first; I just recommend the GoG version since it's the easiest to get from a retailer, and it's become synonymous with "Complete 4.0" in my mind. Then install the unofficial HD+ patch and run the game through the HD Launcher, which lets you set up some options. Anyhow, I listed some of its functionality in my post; even if I don't play HotA or whatever else is there, I always make sure to install it. Really speeds up my Hot Seat matches with a buddy who pops up once a month or so.

[Morty]

I never thought I'd see someone working on a new Heroes 3 faction in year 2019, yet here were are. Cove seemed solid enough, though I never really played it much.

[factotum]

HoMM 5 is really good, I liked it a lot. I've got some quibbles about it, mostly about the Dwarves which are completely broken in the hands of a human, but I find it to be quite fun, and I'd consider it to be mostly an upgrade to HoMM 3.

I went off HoMM5 on release when it became clear pretty early on that the AI was able to summon troops out of nowhere--e.g. I controlled the AI's only town and was guarding it with my army, when an AI army appeared out of nowhere and attacked my own town in my absence. HoMM3 and 4 never did that, the AI might start with additional troops but they could only replenish them thereafter the same way the player did.

[LansXero]

Yeah in 3 you could keep track of the AI's main hero / army and hunt them down; when that massive fight was done the leftovers were simple to mop up.

[Forum Explorer]

I went off HoMM5 on release when it became clear pretty early on that the AI was able to summon troops out of nowhere--e.g. I controlled the AI's only town and was guarding it with my army, when an AI army appeared out of nowhere and attacked my own town in my absence. HoMM3 and 4 never did that, the AI might start with additional troops but they could only replenish them thereafter the same way the player did.

There is actually a spell for that in the game. Called Summon Soldiers or something. You can do it too, every mage guild gets that spell. But basically, it lets your hero replenish their troops without actually returning home.

Not to say the AI doesn't cheat, in one notable game it somehow had over 50 of it's 7th tier unit, but I've never seen it create heroes with armies out of nothing.

[Thomas Cardew]

I could never quite get into 5. The 3d graphics always made everything feel clunky to me.

[Olinser]

I could never quite get into 5. The 3d graphics always made everything feel clunky to me.

THAT'S the reason you couldn't get into 5?

Not the utterly godawful 'story' (that's about a 10-paragraph rant all on its own), the trash-tier voice acting, the 'cutscenes' that just had the models standing around doing stock animations?

Not the trash balance that made some units and skills absolutely god tier (summoning skeleton archers lul) and others utterly useless (OMG zombies), and a lot of units having cost WAY out of whack with how good they actually were.

HOMM5 was far and away the worst entry in the series on just about every level until HOMM6 came along. And at least that one tried to be different.

[Winthur]

Not the trash balance that made some units and skills absolutely god tier (summoning skeleton archers lul) and others utterly useless (OMG zombies), and a lot of units having cost WAY out of whack with how good they actually were.

Not to nitpick, but this is the case in the classic HoMM games as well. 3 isn't free of this either.

[Olinser]

Not to nitpick, but this is the case in the classic HoMM games as well. 3 isn't free of this either.

It's not free of it, but it's not nearly as widespread. HOMM5 tried to give every single unit a gimmick ability, and they missed the mark on the vast majority of them, far over-valuing a lot of very weak abilities, while tending to under-value the strong ones.

Certainly the series hasn't been that great at balance in the past - they badly missed the mark with the Conflux town in the expansion, for instance. With so many varied units some are bound to be out of line with their cost, but HOMM5 was by far the worst for unit balance, IMO.

Coupled with the godawful story and voice 'acting', there's a reason that HOMM5 was the last offical Heroes of Might and Magic title, and they tried to re-brand the franchise for 6.

[Winthur]

there's a reason that HOMM5 was the last offical Heroes of Might and Magic title, and they tried to re-brand the franchise for 6.

Considering that HoMM5 was more of a success than your review would indicate, I doubt it had anything to do with HoMM5's particular suckitude and more with Ubisoft's gross mishandling of the franchise more than anything else. It seems most people actuallly liked HoMM5 to some extent.

Same with how HoMM4 (and M&M9)'s issues were more of a symptom than a core cause of the original timeline falling apart. HoMM5 did nothing so boneheaded as trying to put a sprawling RPG like M&M9 into LithTech in a very short deadline.

It's a servicable game, I think you're being too harsh. HoMM's changes since 4 seem to signify a struggle with the concept of reinventing the wheel, as I guess they didn't know how to iterate on the same formula anymore.

And I'd argue it is quite widespread considering HoMM3 has Learning and Eagle Eye, as well as other skills that you have to really stretch the viability of for them to even qualify as niche (First Aid, Mysticism, often Navigation), it also has trash units in many tiers...

[Forum Explorer]

It's not free of it, but it's not nearly as widespread. HOMM5 tried to give every single unit a gimmick ability, and they missed the mark on the vast majority of them, far over-valuing a lot of very weak abilities, while tending to under-value the strong ones.

Certainly the series hasn't been that great at balance in the past - they badly missed the mark with the Conflux town in the expansion, for instance. With so many varied units some are bound to be out of line with their cost, but HOMM5 was by far the worst for unit balance, IMO.

Coupled with the godawful story and voice 'acting', there's a reason that HOMM5 was the last offical Heroes of Might and Magic title, and they tried to re-brand the franchise for 6.

HoMM3 really wasn't any better. In any way. For example, Stronghold and Fortress were much much weaker then pretty much any other faction simply because having good magic was a massive boost that having good Strength or Defense isn't. Not that it mattered, because the AI was so incredibly dumb. Mind you, the AI in HoMM5 is only slightly better.

And the voice acting and story has never been good. At the very least, I've never had any patience with any of it.

[Winthur]

HoMM3 really wasn't any better. In any way. For example, Stronghold and Fortress were much much weaker then pretty much any other faction simply because having good magic was a massive boost that having good Strength or Defense isn't.

This is wrong. Stronghold and Fortress are insane tempo towns with great heroes (Barbarians are probably best in the game), good curve and some other useful utilities (Fortress gets to reap insane benefits from Dragonfly Hives). These towns ramp up really fast and continue to snowball. Any Barbarian can reach Wisdom and Earth Magic on Expert, and then still picks up from a very good set of skills. Every single Barbarian hero is great, and breadwinners like Tyraxor / Gretchin / Crag Hack are exceptional.

Attack and Defense are insanely more valuable than Spell Power / Knowledge with the "mass level 1 spell" meta. Cast Expert Slow once on a hero with SP 5 ad Knowledge 5 and it lasts really long, and you can keep recasting it whenever. Often you will meet the enemy before your spellbook offers anything other than level 1 and 2 spells. It's Might heroes that take fewer losses throughout the game, too, and will continue to do so in the deciding skirmish because the impact of A/D is very noticable. Vanilla SoD also allows artifacts like Recanter's Cloak and Orb of Inhibition, in which case Wizards are horribly, utterly screwed with no available recourse if they're unlucky. And they have to keep hoping for good luck, because magic heroes keep being offered Eagle Eye / Scholar / Mysticism / Sorcery instead of Offense / Armorer / Tactics.

The weakest towns are, variably, Inferno and Tower, because they suffer from insane teching costs, poor biomes, low unit cost-efficiency and the poorest selection of heroes, both starting and main material. Tower isn't saved by being a strongly Wizard town because it suffers from weird vestiges of HoMM2 design (Mages and Giants cost hideous amounts of resources for what they provide, and their tech tree is schizophrenic), poor movement speed, crap terrain (Snow spawns very few map features that provide resources). Inferno's overall brute force strength is low, making them downright tricky in end-game fights.

By the time building up your mage guild is relevant (often enough it really is not as you win before that) the Strong/Fortress town simply builds up the guild in a more accessible town; the game isn't played in a vacuum where you only ever have your starter town.

Tome of Magic (especially Earth) makes this a non-issue, and Strong/Fortress are both really good at taking Utopias, something that provides Tomes often. (Conversely, Towers struggle with Utopias because their powerstack is often really slow and the AI loves to prey on their best units, because they're archers). Pandora Boxes also provide spells.

If you hit late game, all heroes become somewhat homogenized due to artifacts, in which case the edge is provided by specialty and secondary skills, and I'd rather fight alongside Crag Hack than Solmyr in that case. Might heroes fit the bill of a true Hero of Might & Magic much better than Magic heroes generally can.

The best case scenario for dedicated wizards is early-mid game shenanigans with a strong tempo hero of their own, like Luna, Ciele or Solmyr, where they either abuse the starting spell for huge gains or meet the enemy super early and poke him down before they even buy a spellbook (in a really open, FFA map). Either that, or if they have tons of mana and manage to starve the enemy out with Elemental spam. Otherwise, they're struggling.

Magic is great and all, but HoMM3 is horribly biased towards Might supported by a teensy bit of magic simply because of how broken level 1 mass spells are.

[Morty]

It's a servicable game, I think you're being too harsh. HoMM's changes since 4 seem to signify a struggle with the concept of reinventing the wheel, as I guess they didn't know how to iterate on the same formula anymore.

I think that's mostly true. I certainly can't blame anyone for trying to do something new rather than try to redo Heroes 3, but the quality of the actual attempts was inconsistent. I'm generally in favor of innovation over tradition, but the problem with innovation is that it can fail. Which it certainly did for Heroes 6 and 7. Then again, Heroes 7 was just an undercooked, buggy mess, innovation or no innovation. With enough patches it becomes more or less playable, though I didn't play it for long for unrelated reasons. Maybe I should try it again.

I feel like Tribes of the East comes closest to delivering a solid Heroes experience that's different from Heroes 3 without trying to reinvent the wheel.

[Thomas Cardew]

THAT'S the reason you couldn't get into 5?

Not the utterly godawful 'story' (that's about a 10-paragraph rant all on its own), the trash-tier voice acting, the 'cutscenes' that just had the models standing around doing stock animations?

Not the trash balance that made some units and skills absolutely god tier (summoning skeleton archers lul) and others utterly useless (OMG zombies), and a lot of units having cost WAY out of whack with how good they actually were.

HOMM5 was far and away the worst entry in the series on just about every level until HOMM6 came along. And at least that one tried to be different.

I mean yes? Because I couldn't get past the first campaign to experience any of that other crap? I'm honestly not sure I made it past the third level of the human campaign. If I did, I definitely never made it past the first campaign. So yes, the balance, voice acting, and cut scenes didn't matter because the game failed on it's most basic level before I even started.

HOMM 4 on the other hand for all the changes from 2/3, I mostly enjoyed. It was different. Inferior to 3 my opinion but it didn't make me hate looking at it. The campaigns were decent.

[Forum Explorer]

This is wrong. Stronghold and Fortress are insane tempo towns with great heroes (Barbarians are probably best in the game), good curve and some other useful utilities (Fortress gets to reap insane benefits from Dragonfly Hives). These towns ramp up really fast and continue to snowball. Any Barbarian can reach Wisdom and Earth Magic on Expert, and then still picks up from a very good set of skills. Every single Barbarian hero is great, and breadwinners like Tyraxor / Gretchin / Crag Hack are exceptional.

Attack and Defense are insanely more valuable than Spell Power / Knowledge with the "mass level 1 spell" meta. Cast Expert Slow once on a hero with SP 5 ad Knowledge 5 and it lasts really long, and you can keep recasting it whenever. Often you will meet the enemy before your spellbook offers anything other than level 1 and 2 spells. It's Might heroes that take fewer losses throughout the game, too, and will continue to do so in the deciding skirmish because the impact of A/D is very noticable. Vanilla SoD also allows artifacts like Recanter's Cloak and Orb of Inhibition, in which case Wizards are horribly, utterly screwed with no available recourse if they're unlucky. And they have to keep hoping for good luck, because magic heroes keep being offered Eagle Eye / Scholar / Mysticism / Sorcery instead of Offense / Armorer / Tactics.

The weakest towns are, variably, Inferno and Tower, because they suffer from insane teching costs, poor biomes, low unit cost-efficiency and the poorest selection of heroes, both starting and main material. Tower isn't saved by being a strongly Wizard town because it suffers from weird vestiges of HoMM2 design (Mages and Giants cost hideous amounts of resources for what they provide, and their tech tree is schizophrenic), poor movement speed, crap terrain (Snow spawns very few map features that provide resources). Inferno's overall brute force strength is low, making them downright tricky in end-game fights.

By the time building up your mage guild is relevant (often enough it really is not as you win before that) the Strong/Fortress town simply builds up the guild in a more accessible town; the game isn't played in a vacuum where you only ever have your starter town.

Tome of Magic (especially Earth) makes this a non-issue, and Strong/Fortress are both really good at taking Utopias, something that provides Tomes often. (Conversely, Towers struggle with Utopias because their powerstack is often really slow and the AI loves to prey on their best units, because they're archers). Pandora Boxes also provide spells.

If you hit late game, all heroes become somewhat homogenized due to artifacts, in which case the edge is provided by specialty and secondary skills, and I'd rather fight alongside Crag Hack than Solmyr in that case. Might heroes fit the bill of a true Hero of Might & Magic much better than Magic heroes generally can.

The best case scenario for dedicated wizards is early-mid game shenanigans with a strong tempo hero of their own, like Luna, Ciele or Solmyr, where they either abuse the starting spell for huge gains or meet the enemy super early and poke him down before they even buy a spellbook (in a really open, FFA map). Either that, or if they have tons of mana and manage to starve the enemy out with Elemental spam. Otherwise, they're struggling.

Magic is great and all, but HoMM3 is horribly biased towards Might supported by a teensy bit of magic simply because of how broken level 1 mass spells are.

In my experience, getting to Expert anything takes forever. Also getting a particular artifact was really rare. Mind you, for me HoMM3 was before DLC and expansions, so I never got any of them for that game. Besides the mass spells there was also stuff like Blind which just shut down people so hard.

Also though, I only ever faced the computer. Maybe it's different when you are facing a bunch of human players instead of one or two.

[Winthur]

In my experience, getting to Expert anything takes forever

You are guaranteed, as a warrior-type, to be offered a Basic Magic school at level 4 at the earliest.

Also getting a particular artifact was really rare.

True, but it's one of those things that is merely a nail in the magician's coffin, and they already have other issues that they have to get through.

Mind you, for me HoMM3 was before DLC and expansions

Then Fortress as a weak town might hold true because SoD was the patch that buffed it, but Stronghold was always a very good town, nevertheless.

Besides the mass spells there was also stuff like Blind which just shut down people so hard.

Doesn't require Wisdom or any Expert Magic to cast, Strongholds/Fortress can both have it in their mage guild, and it's also cheap enough that you're liable to use it as a warrior. So, again, low-level spells are usually king.

A common thing in those "Might vs Magic" discussions is that often one side assumes that the Might hero never bought a spellbook and isn't wearing even a common SP/Knowledge trinket whereas the Magic hero managed to tech up their Mage Guild and STILL retain an equal army to the Might hero. This doesn't happen; you Blind me, I Blind you back or Cure the unit. You can argue for running the warrior out of mana faster, but if the discrepancy between your A/Ds is large (and skills like Offense and Armorer are in play), then you are also on a strict time limit before you simply get overwhelmed.

Also though, I only ever faced the computer. Maybe it's different when you are facing a bunch of human players instead of one or two.

Magic heroes work best at close spawns in FFA when you can rush someone down with Magic Arrow or Chain Lightning, and they also do the map well early in the game, it's just that the Might heroes scale better and take overall fewer losses. This varies, but in no way would I call HoMM3 a "mage's" game. More like a Swordmage's game.

The problem is simply that it's, generally, most of the time, better to have a formidable warrior with just enough magic to get by, because the difference between someone with 15 A/D and 5 A/D is actually substantial, and warriors of all kinds get much better skills because NWC decided Wizards should get Learning and Eagle Eye while Warriors have an Offense / Armorer / Tactics / Logistics bias. The amount of scaling the Mage needs to really dominate usually comes from abusing an Intelligence specialist on some sort of an XL+U map in order to Dimension Door all over the place, and that usually happens really, really late into the game; also, Mages are prone to RNG moodswings as well simply because you can get subpar spells in your mage guild.

[Thomas Cardew]

This is wrong. Stronghold and Fortress are insane tempo towns with great heroes (Barbarians are probably best in the game), good curve and some other useful utilities (Fortress gets to reap insane benefits from Dragonfly Hives). These towns ramp up really fast and continue to snowball. Any Barbarian can reach Wisdom and Earth Magic on Expert, and then still picks up from a very good set of skills. Every single Barbarian hero is great, and breadwinners like Tyraxor / Gretchin / Crag Hack are exceptional.

Attack and Defense are insanely more valuable than Spell Power / Knowledge with the "mass level 1 spell" meta. Cast Expert Slow once on a hero with SP 5 ad Knowledge 5 and it lasts really long, and you can keep recasting it whenever. Often you will meet the enemy before your spellbook offers anything other than level 1 and 2 spells. It's Might heroes that take fewer losses throughout the game, too, and will continue to do so in the deciding skirmish because the impact of A/D is very noticable. Vanilla SoD also allows artifacts like Recanter's Cloak and Orb of Inhibition, in which case Wizards are horribly, utterly screwed with no available recourse if they're unlucky. And they have to keep hoping for good luck, because magic heroes keep being offered Eagle Eye / Scholar / Mysticism / Sorcery instead of Offense / Armorer / Tactics.

The weakest towns are, variably, Inferno and Tower, because they suffer from insane teching costs, poor biomes, low unit cost-efficiency and the poorest selection of heroes, both starting and main material. Tower isn't saved by being a strongly Wizard town because it suffers from weird vestiges of HoMM2 design (Mages and Giants cost hideous amounts of resources for what they provide, and their tech tree is schizophrenic), poor movement speed, crap terrain (Snow spawns very few map features that provide resources). Inferno's overall brute force strength is low, making them downright tricky in end-game fights.

By the time building up your mage guild is relevant (often enough it really is not as you win before that) the Strong/Fortress town simply builds up the guild in a more accessible town; the game isn't played in a vacuum where you only ever have your starter town.

Tome of Magic (especially Earth) makes this a non-issue, and Strong/Fortress are both really good at taking Utopias, something that provides Tomes often. (Conversely, Towers struggle with Utopias because their powerstack is often really slow and the AI loves to prey on their best units, because they're archers). Pandora Boxes also provide spells.

If you hit late game, all heroes become somewhat homogenized due to artifacts, in which case the edge is provided by specialty and secondary skills, and I'd rather fight alongside Crag Hack than Solmyr in that case. Might heroes fit the bill of a true Hero of Might & Magic much better than Magic heroes generally can.

The best case scenario for dedicated wizards is early-mid game shenanigans with a strong tempo hero of their own, like Luna, Ciele or Solmyr, where they either abuse the starting spell for huge gains or meet the enemy super early and poke him down before they even buy a spellbook (in a really open, FFA map). Either that, or if they have tons of mana and manage to starve the enemy out with Elemental spam. Otherwise, they're struggling.

Magic is great and all, but HoMM3 is horribly biased towards Might supported by a teensy bit of magic simply because of how broken level 1 mass spells are.

I second most of this. My caveats are that I always found fortress to be mediocre.

They really seem to depend on the map tileset. If there's very little swamp land their atrociously slow unit speeds are just a complete handicap on the adventure map. Swamp spawns decent materials and dragonfly hives for wyvern stacking are great, but if your opponents aren't slogging through the mud at the same speed as your snail paced units, it's easy to get left behind. Getting dragonflies early helps get around this but I still find they require a larger supply chain of back up heroes. Also, offense is king in this game and most of fortress units are slow tanky types. Compared to the alpha strike potential of some of the other towns after a mass slow/haste/prayer, I find them lackluster. Admittedly this is for vanilla 3/ SOD not HoTA. I have no idea what balance changes those guys made or how that would change things.

You are guaranteed, as a warrior-type, to be offered a Basic Magic school at level 4 at the earliest.

Magic heroes work best at close spawns in FFA when you can rush someone down with Magic Arrow or Chain Lightning, and they also do the map well early in the game, it's just that the Might heroes scale better and take overall fewer losses. This varies, but in no way would I call HoMM3 a "mage's" game. More like a Swordmage's game.

The problem is simply that it's, generally, most of the time, better to have a formidable warrior with just enough magic to get by, because the difference between someone with 15 A/D and 5 A/D is actually substantial, and warriors of all kinds get much better skills because NWC decided Wizards should get Learning and Eagle Eye while Warriors have an Offense / Armorer / Tactics / Logistics bias. The amount of scaling the Mage needs to really dominate usually comes from abusing an Intelligence specialist on some sort of an XL+U map in order to Dimension Door all over the place, and that usually happens really, really late into the game; also, Mages are prone to RNG moodswings as well simply because you can get subpar spells in your mage guild.

100% this. Even in the campaigns where your hero has to swear of magic entirely (Yog and Tarnum) and you CANT remove effects, it is comically easy to get broken fast just because of how much the hero stats help your units. The late stat growth for mages is virtually nill since it all goes into knowledge and spellpower. 1 more turn of effect or 10-20 more damage per spellpower doesn't compare to +1 attack or defense to your whole army. More knowledge and mana points are nice, but it isn't particularly hard to manage mana and no amount of reasonable amount of knowledge lets you throw out spells without having to care about managing it short of Intelligence specialist shenanigans. But even intelligence shenanigans pale in comparison to diplomacy shenanigans (can't stack mana if your already dead because I got free troops/resources/dwellings) or logistics shennigans (Kyrre and Gunnar are great heroes. Gunnar even starts with tactics which makes early mapping much easier) unless you get Dimension Door (which I find to be rare)

[LansXero]

Also, offense is king in this game and most of fortress units are slow tanky types. Compared to the alpha strike potential of some of the other towns after a mass slow/haste/prayer

Just what ever goes before a dragonfly? Angels, Phoenixes and? if you attack and or get a +speed item, you're almost guaranteed to get your mass slow off, and then you just pick stuff apart. Sure, Gnolls and Lizardmen are trash, but Gorgons, Wyverns and Hydras are excellent.

[Winthur]

Fortress gets by because their starting heroes aren't bad (Drakon, Bron, also Wystan in HotA) and they have great scaling (esp. Tazar), plus they have a few quirks that keep them afloat (Dragonfly Hives were mentioned and also their mix of cheap / relatively tanky makes them really good at taking Utopias and such). Dragonfly scouts are really good and they can expand fast. Wyverns can be bought early and Hydras can even arrive in Week 1, and they're fairly self-reliant. Remember that with all of that defense and just a sprinkle of magic you can tank a lot of stuff with just your initial first few hydras after finishing a week.

Ultimately, you get a larger Wyvern Monarch powerstack than your opponent, Gorgons that are really cool, and all those layers of defense are hard to penetrate, so you win the slugfests.

Having low Attack early on sucks though, so there's quite a lot of finesse to playing Fortress. Still, it's generally solid. As mentioned, I would pick it over Inferno or Tower a lot of the time, and I consider it my favourite town so I'd pick it over quite a few other towns.