Tactics for the Swamp (Fortress).

Regarding artillery, that might be true, but at the beginning, a ballista is very useful. Although you are right – even without any skills, it will be useful as a way to weaken neutral creatures. :D As for ballistics... I recently had a very interesting experience. I came to besiege an enemy castle, and instead of attacking head-on with his main army, he hid inside the castle. He had level 3 artillery and Earth magic. In the very first turn, the castle towers and Heavy Crossbowmen, along with Fanatics, after a mass slow spell, almost completely wiped out a stack of Monk Wyverns (Golden Bow). It was already too late to dispel the spells (Dragonflies and 2.5 Monarchs behind the walls wouldn't have lasted long), and speeding up wouldn't have helped either (what's the point of just running headfirst into the castle wall?). Only teleporting Chaos Hydras (of which I had twice as many as the opponent had Archangels) behind the city walls helped. At the same time, Gorgons and Basilisks were still milling around near the walls for another 6 turns, and I had to use countermeasures against the enemy's magic (the opponent was casting Berserk on a sizable stack of my lizardmen, and I had to constantly dispel it, although I might have been wrong about that). In the end, I lost much more than I had planned, and I didn't have enough strength left to storm the last castle. With Ballistics, it would have been easier – a catapult would have immediately created a breach in the walls or destroyed the gates (or at least the towers, which were really bothering me at the time), and the Basilisks and Gorgon-Naphthas would have entered the battle earlier, significantly reducing my losses in the end.