Posts from Tactics for the Swamp (Fortress).

Hmm... An interesting title for the topic. Fortress and Stronghold are two different towns.

A good nation, especially the bulls (gorgons), who are effective against powerful creatures (death gaze will kill at least 1, regardless of how much damage was dealt)
In my opinion, Vasya is also not bad (a solid 3)
Gnolls in the Dragon's paws can be effective against creatures of a higher class...
Lizardman (powerful defense, decent damage)
Hydra - in skilled hands, it fights back
but I don't like dragonflies and wyverns at all...
firstly, to build upgraded wyverns, you need a total of 25 wood + 10 mercury (o_O) and some money; they are simply not worth those resources!
Serpents are among the weakest creatures in the game... and almost ineffective; you can consider them a small + spell removal and the rather weak "Weakness" spell...
I rate the Castle at ... 4! even if they only have one type of shooter and their creatures don't stand out in terms of strength, I liked the castle music) it really creates an atmosphere...

I would raise basilisks in the "ranking" of level 4 creatures – they are a serious opponent; you can rate them 4 out of 5. Good defense, acceptable speed, attack, and survivability + an excellent feature with petrification (it works often). A unit taken out of action at the right time is sometimes more valuable than any damage! Vampires are stronger, of course, but I would compare griffins and ogres to basilisks – they all have their own features, and they partially offset each other...
Dragonflies can also be annoying with their speed and ability to remove spells.

The Castle is simply terrible!!! No magic, no decent warriors!!! And it requires a lot of wood, which greatly complicates the development process, especially on expert difficulty!

I disagree. There isn't much magic, but there are excellent units (hydras, gorgons with deadly gaze, wyverns, and even snakes are sometimes essential), and the fortress has excellent defense! On expert difficulty, just build wyverns, and you can clear the territory and gather resources.

Unfortunately, I don't have much experience playing AS Fortress...
but I have a lot of experience playing AGAINST Fortress... and that experience is mixed (for me)... it's very difficult to defeat Fortress in a castle battle – there are swamps everywhere, and even good logistics skills don't always help (I usually ignore pathfinding with my main hero...). The creatures have such high defense that my Grand Elves barely manage to deal any damage...
The dragonfly kamikazes completely block (the Elves) and almost halve their numbers in one attack... Only one thing saved me – teleporting a LOT of dendroids to the enemy territory, supported by dragons and a few pegasi... otherwise, I wouldn't guarantee the outcome of the battle...
Fortress is a strong opponent; I don't think it's necessary to try to compensate for their weaknesses by leveling up the Witch. I think it's better to enhance their strengths, max out their defense, plus support with magic resistance, and definitely (!!) have the Tactics skill....
The strength of Fortress lies in close-quarters, prolonged combat!!!!
Gentlemen!!! (and ladies)... I cry when I play against Fortress..

yeah... they're weak =(
but it's an interesting faction, you need to know how to play with them...
I think it's the hardest faction to play with...
and Demons are also difficult... they have low HP, the Devils and Demons with whips...
and the archers are bad, they damage their own units.

And I like swamps more than Barbarians.

The swamp appeals with its unusual nature. I have the impression that the main disadvantage of the swamp is the great difficulty in clearing out neutral creatures BEFORE serious battles, when it is important not to win the battle, but not to lose your units. Almost all castles (except perhaps Inferno) have a good chance, with a certain tactic, to defeat medium-strength neutral creatures (up to level 4) without any losses - for the Swamp, this is problematic - the only ranged unit does not provide the necessary firepower, and dragonflies and basilisks, although not weak units, can suffer losses in melee combat even in a fight with not the strongest opponent. Plus, the limitation in magic, of course...

If you take a Tazar, the losses are minimal. And if you take about 10 Wyverns with you, you won't have any problems. Joshua, you're probably just used to archers (and they are MUCH better in the Fortress).

either Stig or the hero with the armor specialization
and Wistan is a good hero too.

a guy whose specialty is armor

That's what a Tazar is.

As far as I remember, the armor specialization gives a 5% bonus to defense... aren't you exaggerating the importance of this? Considering the already strong defense of creatures and heroes, the actual increase in armor due to Tazar's special ability is small... You'll laugh, but I like the type (I don't remember the name) that specializes in basilisks - he has a decent number of them from the very beginning.

5% is for a novice armor, and 15% gives Expert armor. And the hero with basilisks is called Bron; he's not bad at the beginning because he has basilisks.

He does have Basilisks, but not always in large numbers. It's decent at the beginning, although they are easily killed until the hero levels up.

the armor specialty, as far as I remember, gives a 5% bonus to defense....aren't you overstating its value???
The armor specialty provides 5% of the percentage value of the armor skill (this skill adds nothing to defense; it simply reduces damage dealt to units).
For example, with an expert "armor" skill:
At hero level 5 it will be: (15%+15%x5x5%)=18.75% damage reduction.
At hero level 10 it will be: (15%+15%x10x5%)=22.5% damage reduction.
At hero level 20 it will be: (15%+15%x20x5%)=30% damage reduction.
And so on...

Added after 55 seconds

He does have Basilisks, but not always many. It's decent at the start, although they are easily killed until the hero is leveled upThat already depends on who is controlling them.