What were your expectations for Heroes 4?

Really? I didn't know that. I'm not an expert on the third game either; I've played it a couple of times, but I always thought that Fortress wasn't the strongest faction. I'm talking about the original third game with its expansions. Maybe someone can enlighten me: what makes Fortress stronger than Castle?

The units in Fortress are tougher, their defense stat is high, and it seems to grow at about the same rate as the attack stat of Barbarians. Plus, heroes like Bron, Vistan, and Tazar provide excellent offensive capabilities.

My opinion is the opposite. In the third game, critical imbalance is excluded by the equal availability of magic.

Excluded? :eek: Then why do they have so many rules regarding necromancy, for example? And you can't even upgrade firebirds into phoenixes.
In general, in the third game, mage heroes are considered weaker than warrior heroes, and the most widely used spells are, surprisingly, level 1 spells.