A Town Guide

Inferno

Overview: This town type is new to the Heroes series, and it comes in as one of the weaker town types, although its powerful magic makes it a better bet than the fortress towns. The creatures of this town type are relatively strong, but suffer from weak upgrades. This town is strong in magic. Its heroes aren't expert at might or magic but blur the line between the two attributes. This town doesn't require as many resources as other town types, and it can be built relatively quickly. It has a good early-mid game due to some good mid level creatures and good magic, but suffers slightly until the powerful devil and arch devil can be produced.

Pros: Prolific low-level creatures; strong in magic; can teleport between inferno towns; fast low- and high-level creatures.
Cons: Only one ranged unit; no low-level flying units; some upgrade buildings require precious resources; poor upgrades to creatures.

Creatures
The inferno units are not among the more powerful of Heroes III's creatures. The imp is a terrible first-level creature, but you should keep a small stack of upgraded ones in your army to steal spell points from enemy spellcasters during combat. This is a useful special ability. The gog is a fair ranged unit, while the upgraded magog is a dubious warrior because its area of effect damage can harm your own troops. Compounding this problem is that the magog is slower than most of the other inferno troops, so by the time the magog can fire, his cohorts are already surrounding the enemy and thus in the line of fire. The hell hounds are decent troops, but cerberi, with their ability to strike three opponents at once (without fear of enemy retaliation) are great mid level troops. The demon and pit fiends are middle of the road creatures, tough and relatively strong, but not in the same league as the crusader or minotaur. The efreet has good speed, attack, and damage, and it is the lone flying unit. The devil is a good seventh-level troop, but the upgraded arch devil is much better, able to teleport anywhere on the tactical map and gaining a huge speed enhancement. Physically, though, it is weaker than the behemoth, dragons, archangel, and titan. Fortunately for inferno heroes, the enemy cannot retaliate against devil attacks.

Upgrade your hell hounds as soon as you can. The other creature upgrades do improve their respective creatures, but not very significantly, so it's not a priority. The horned demon, for example, only gains +5 hit points and 1 speed. You might want to consider upgrading your imps to familiars so you can get their magic channeling special ability and upgrading efreet to gain their +4 speed jump and the fire shield defense. As for the other upgrades, only do so when you have the luxury.

Buildings
The inferno buildings are something of a contradiction. Their initial creature dwellings don't have excessive dependencies and aren't that expensive. In fact, the hell hole (the dwelling of the fifth-level unit) doesn't even require any resource except gold to build. However, the upgraded buildings do need special resources (even the gog upgrade requires mercury), so you will need to scour the map for extra mines and resources, although not anywhere near to the extent the dungeon player has to. The sixth-level dwelling is relatively cheap in precious resources, although it requires a mage guild before it can be built. The only real resource dependency is on mercury, as you'll need a lot of it for the devil and arch devil. Fortunately, the resource silo can help. The horde dwellings increase imp and hell hound production.

The special buildings enhance the magical abilities of inferno heroes. The most powerful building is the castle gate, which allows you to teleport heroes between your various inferno towns. The order of fire bestows a permanent +1 to power, and the brimstone stormclouds boost spell power during a siege. The blacksmith builds ammo carts and the resource silo produces +1 mercury.

The inferno grail building is the fearsome Deity of Fire, which offers you 5000 additional gold each day, increases creature growth by +50 percent, and causes every subsequent week to be the Week of the Imp - meaning, even more imps for you, and many more imps for everyone.

Magic
Both hero types from this town are able spellcasters. This town is most likely to acquire a good complement of destructive spells and creature-enhancing enchantments. Spellcasters from this town have good power skill and should be able to support their troops with able magic.