Fortress | Hota 3

The Fortress is a relatively inexpensive castle with a good selection of units; however, its main drawback is that its units generally lack high damage-penetration capabilities, meaning the town relies heavily on the special abilities of its native troops (Wyvern, Basilisks and Mighty Gorgons).

Another issue with the fortress is its constant swamp spawn point, which imposes a 75% movement penalty when traveling off-road. Consequently, given the poor logistics, one must decide whether to traverse the swamp to reach a specific objective or stick to the high-speed road.

Heroes

The castle heroes are generally good, offering a wide selection of both warriors and mages. I would particularly like to highlight:

1) Drakon

Paradoxical as it may sound, Swamp Gnolls deal significant damage despite being Tier 1 units; with three of Draykon’s squads, you can pull off the famous “Gnoll rush.”

2) Wystan

This hero possesses a native ranged attack skill and arrives with three squads of Lizards—Tier 2 ranged units that lack any additional abilities.

3) Kinkeria

I enjoyed playing as her because, thanks to her “Learning” specialization, Kinkeria levels up faster; by gorging on experience chests during the first week, I was able to reach Expert level in Earth Magic. This allowed me to use the hero’s innate ability: Mass Slow.

4) Rosiс

The classic Mage hero starts with the Mysticism specialization and the Magic Arrow spell. You effectively gain an infinite-use projectile for combat encounters.

Fortress Build

In my view, the build order for the Fortress is quite linear and offers little room for alternatives, especially in the early game. On Day 1, 80% of the time you will build either Wyverns (if you find a second hero and secure 5 wood) or Flies; other options—such as upgrading Gnolls to Tier 2 or, even more rarely, upgrading Lizards—are far less common.

Day 1

1) Building Wyverns – if you’ve managed to gather 15 wood and 3,500 gold.

2) Buying Flies – when you ran short on gold for Ducks.

3) Gnoll upgrade – if you’ve decided to go for a Gnoll rush strategy.

Day 3

1) City Hall – more gold and economic development.

2) Mage Guild – if you stayed at your base or need more spells for your hero.

Day 5

1) Citadel – you build an additional Citadel to gain a larger army growth in the castle by the second week.

Week Two

You can build Basilisks or Gorgons, or simply build nothing at all, depending on your gold reserves. Also, I have never seen Hydras built in the late game when playing the Swamp faction.

Not enough gold