In your opinion, which faction is the strongest in Heroes 5? Let's discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each faction.

By the way, the Necromancer's special ability is one of the most useless ones – a -6 penalty to morale is just laughable, especially considering that the maximum negative morale you can achieve is -11, while it's easy to get over 12 positive morale, and a Mage with Minotaurs can easily crush them... And getting to that ability is one of the most difficult things, the lack of "Mind Control" only makes this already useless ability even worse...

If we agree that you can only attack after three or four months of the game, or even more... In my opinion, I can only evaluate the strength of a faction at its maximum level of development and using all its possibilities; here, I repeat, Mages crush everyone...

I'm not going to argue, but a reasonably good opponent won't let you level up to 60 knowledge. At best, to 30, and even that's a lot. Normally, it's 20... The Necromancer, by the way, is less dependent on the map, but also less dependent on randomness in general. His tactic of "making a lot, a lot of troops" is effective to some extent, because there are no large maps with a small number of neutrals, and no additional cities, at least the random map generator doesn't create such maps, these are already some kind of fantasies. The Necromancer is good on small maps, good on large maps, and not so dependent on resources, constant in all respects. Only on large maps without additional cities is he just okay, and with additional cities, he becomes a very serious opponent that not every faction can defeat.

No, the strength of a faction is evaluated by the number of victories with it in games, when there are no agreements (except perhaps for the rules of online games, which are made to create some additional balance, so they can be understood). People should play to win, not for ambitions, then it will be clear which faction is strong in what. But these agreements... You could as well agree to use only Chaos magic and buy armies exclusively of the third level, no more, no less. This is so that Mages definitely win, with Alt-Grey golems against Chaos. Come up with something else... But there is little point in these agreements.

By the way, I wouldn't replace it. Fireball is a Fireball, but archers need to be protected, and archmages cannot be protected, they will shoot at their own (not all the time, of course, throwing fireballs).