Heroes of sword or magic?

However, in general, the fourth-tier heroes also deviate from the aforementioned thesis.

And I think I mentioned that they deviate from my argument, but only slightly.

Added 37 minutes ago

As you know, in Heroes 1 and 2, magic castles had exclusively magic heroes, and combat castles had exclusively combat heroes, and even the guilds were of the same size, so, if you don't hire a non-native hero, the path of development was predetermined. But the creatures themselves were completely different in strength. For example, the Warlock has the strongest creatures, while the Human has weak and mediocre ones (yes, fast construction and so on, but that's not important now). Therefore, a Human or a Barbarian could not simply "easily learn all the same spells" or have enough strength and knowledge to use them effectively, and mass slowing and speeding were separate spells that could appear, or they might not appear in the guild; it is not enough to simply choose "earth" after the first chest and visit a hundred buildings on the map (the game was noticeably faster). At the same time, the Warlock does not end up in a situation where he has a bunch of weaklings who are incapable of opposing a powerful combat hero, because the hero does not have dragons or hydras. And in the first part, spells were generally in charges, replenished in the guild, and if you have little knowledge and strength, you don't cast them often.

Well, firstly, in Heroes 1 and 2, castles or cities of non-starting races appeared slightly less often than usual, so the argument about units doesn't hold water (and even if they don't appear, what are these hydras with 0 defense to me, if I have 10 attack)! Also, in Heroes 1, due to the lack of secondary skills, any hero could learn all the spells at once after building a full guild of mages, so the mages of the first levels were mainly good for minor "trolling" (which the computer readily used) in the form of learning Storm or Armageddon - took a mage of the first level (thankfully, strength +3), learned the spell, attacked a strong hero, cast it, and that's it. And for a normal big battle, mages clearly lost to warriors (especially if the difference in attack and defense is about 10, this is clearly visible in the first two games). Also, + for warriors in the first part of Heroes is that any curse applied to your unit can be removed by any positive spell applied to yourself (in Heroes 5, not every dispel or antimagic will save you from a curse if your magic power is much less than the opponent's magic power, even a small + to mages).

Secondly, I have played through the first and second Heroes many times (I started playing Heroes with the first part in 1997, just so you know), and believe me, I have played as mages and as warriors, and I have not noticed any special difference in the speed of learning magic in the 1st and 2nd parts. Yes, in the 2nd part, mages and sorcerers have the "Intelligence" skill at the beginning, but it is not so difficult for a warrior or barbarian to get this skill (and I can live without powerful magic for a month).

And I also want to add that warriors have a bunch of artifacts that will help them protect themselves from magic even better and destroy the mage to smithereens, for example, if a warrior finds the Cloak of Negation in Heroes 3, then all the mage's efforts are in vain (the only worthwhile counter-artifact for a mage is the Sphere that allows you to remove all magic protection, but if the opponent has a cloak, then you can't cast spells above level 3), and warriors also have various monsters with different magic resistances.

So, I repeat, the "+" that mages have in Heroes 1-3 (okay, let's not touch the 4th) are nothing compared to the strength of warriors. If mages had a chance to cast spells twice, or, for example, in Heroes 2, the "Shield" spell of the first level gave +3 to defense, for example, a mage has +10 magic power, and "Shield" gives not +3, but +10 to defense, then it would be a completely different conversation