ASW – Alternative hero leveling.

That's an interesting point of view – hero classes are a good thing (despite the game's RPG elements), while city classes are even better. Although, in essence, both serve the same purpose – supporting a larger number of effective upgrades for each race (in the first case, through stats and chances, and in the second, through spells).

City classes were intended for the NTBF project, but initially, they were supposed to have alternative buildings (not in the way they are now, of course, but something similar). Since they easily solve the problem of native magic, why not apply them here?
In multiplayer, I prefer more strategy; in single-player, I prefer the RPG aspect (maps – single-player maps from the same Heroes 5).
I didn't say that hero classes are bad. I said that "they are only needed with a large number of heroes," because development strategies start to repeat. For some reason, you perceive my relative answers as absolute (the uselessness of summoning because it's weak (as you thought I thought), hero classes are unnecessary... – there are many more examples).

Added 2 minutes later

It depends on the map. I prefer maps like those in Heroes 3, where there are already places to expand to in the first week. Or do you only envision one type of map, with completely blocked passages and staying in the starting zone? On closed maps, the role of the starting guild is more important, which is understandable.

Most maps have difficult access to the second city. Who was the parenthetical remark intended for?

I agree about leveling up. Regarding the army from the second native city – read the previous post carefully, specifically:

What prevents developing an army in both?