All castles in Heroes 3. Auto-translated

For me, the idea is still the most important thing. Although I didn't like the city either.

Well, not all factions in Heroes of Might and Magic III have unique ideas... but the Barbarians definitely do!

Yes. And that’s a good thing.

The Swamp, the Elements, and the Dungeon – there are no ideas for them.

Personally, I like Necropolis because they are Necropolis. Playing as Barbarians is not interesting... After all, it's Heroes of Might and Magic...

I don't like undead! The idea is far-fetched... But barbarians are really cool!!!
Except that birds die quickly...
And monsters like orcs, cyclopses are strong. Goblins and wolves are average, but they don't lose out at all!

Barbarians might not be skilled in magic, but they have battle mages! And they learn magic in captured cities!

It was certainly interesting to read what people think about the strength of the Castles... In my opinion, most of the arguments presented here are very detached and based (not all, but very many) primarily on people's personal preferences. In my opinion, to evaluate the Castles, we should at least discuss the conditions under which the game is played! Here are my arguments for a random map, without a dungeon, with strong monsters and no water:
a) map size - in my opinion, the ideal option for a duel is XL (the highest probability of a more or less balanced setup), or L; you can, of course, play on other sizes, but in my opinion, this is closer to perversion.
b) difficulty - again, in my opinion :) 160% is ideal for a duel
c) The game should be played without diplomacy!!!
Now, directly about the strength of the Castles and their heroes:
1) Undoubtedly, the strongest Castle is Conflux (if there are no restrictions on unit upgrades). I will list some of their advantages:
Upgraded fairies with a +50 bonus, speed 9, and the fact that no one can counter them is already cheating! In the first week, almost any non-ranged unit with a speed of less than 5 is destroyed (if there is slow and magic power of 3 or more, the limit increases to 7-8), for example, a couple of Ogres in the first week!!! This is impossible with any other Castle!!! Next, the second level is comparable in power to any third level from other Castles. It is easy to develop to level 7 - with the second level built, this happens in more than half of the cases (I can't say more precisely, I haven't played with this Castle very much). Phoenixes are built in the first week, i.e., in the second week, you already have 6 level 7 units!!! Next, very fast map exploration and resource capture - starting from the second week, you can run around the map with your main hero in most cases with only birds, and use scouts (auxiliary heroes) to capture resources with the help of fairies, as we did with the main hero in the first week. If there is Armageddon (personally, in 3 out of 4 games, I already had it by the 3rd-4th week, since there are usually no particular problems with resources, due to the ability of scouts to collect guarded resources, and Castles where you can build a Mage Guild up to level 4 by this time (also usually :) ) are enough). In general, it is not very clear how to counter Conflux, since 4th-level units have immunity to it. Of course, there is a solution to this problem - the Sphere of Inhibition and the Cloak of Negation, but it is not possible to find at least one of these artifacts in every game! I hope that further arguments for recognizing this Castle as the most cheating are not needed :)!

Added 10 minutes ago
I will write briefly about the rest now, I really want to sleep, if anyone is interested in knowing my opinion in more detail, I can write it on Sunday
2) next in strength are definitely the Necromancer...
3) in the other Castles, everything depends very much on the setup, but personally, I probably prefer Humans the most, although in principle, it doesn't really matter which Castle to play :)

PS And for the fans of Inferno (although I sometimes like to play with it) - it is objectively (in most cases) the weakest Castle

Keep in mind that these creatures take double damage from certain spells, which makes them easy to defeat! Magma elementals are not very strong for their level! Magic elementals cannot be enhanced, and they are not very powerful either! Energy elementals are also not champions! When fairies encounter archers, they die quickly!

I always win when I play as Necropolis or just with humans... I'm not very good with the other factions... :o

regarding Arcomage elements and their strength... if you take a specialist in them, you get a pretty decent level, but this isn't really that important. Regarding the double damage from certain spells... I haven't tested it much, but with the right gameplay, Conflux simply won't allow your opponent to develop to a decent level. That is, the probability of finding an opponent on XL in the first month is very high, and at that time, there's simply nothing the element can do to counter it. Plus, there's another nuance that hasn't been proven (at least by me): elements often have a lot of external dwellings randomly, which I haven't seen in any other castle. Regarding defeating Fae with archers... I wrote about it in the first week: we eliminate all moving troops, then in the second week

I always play in random mode, and I haven't encountered many dwellings of the same faction! More often, I come across dwellings of other factions!

As for Necropolis and Haven, I already wrote that these are two truly strong factions. Although, in principle, you can play with any faction (and you should, I usually played duels with random factions and restarted if Conflux appeared), because there are no unbeatable factions (after all, people play them :)) and it is highly desirable to be able to play with any faction, at least for a general understanding.

I sometimes play with a random faction, but I usually play as Barbarian or Fortress!

I also play on random maps; we only played with elements a few times for an experiment. And they really do get dwellings often. Try loading a random map with a Conflux several times and opening them each time over the course of a week; personally, I got the result I wrote about. I don't want to spend too long checking, so I might be wrong :)

Added 5 minutes later
Unfortunately, I can't chat anymore (work is over – it's time to go home). I'll probably be back on Sunday, and then we can continue the conversation. If you need anything, here's my ICQ number: 201638134.