City development | Haven M&M: Heroes VI Guide

Every game in Might and Magic: Heroes VI is a unique adventure. Even if we're gonna fight only on the one map and making the same decisions, game will look different for each time. This is caused by high randomness - great part of creatures and resources is random. Also enemies behaviors vary. That's why you can't create one general rule for an expansion - there are too many factors.

Nevertheless, you can make a common scheme, which you should follow during game - both in battles and city development. About wars you can read in chapter Tactics on the battlefield and about castles - below.

Haven's cities are impressive

Most of Haven's building requires big amounts of wood - it'll be the most important resource for us, which lets for fast develop in few first turns. Of course, stones are also meaningful, but less than wood. Crystals are useful to upgrading buildings (in beginning weeks it's not good idea) and recruiting more advanced units (much better choice).

So resources will decide about our direction of development - we should ASAP take over a sawmill, then stone mine and at last crystal mine. Such model of expansion exacts simple tactic of build-up - we should count on quantity, not quality. Huge numbers of weaker units will smash small amount of stronger ones - so we should invest during first turns into sentinels, crossbowmen and sisters, not even trying to buy an expensive sun raider.

How it looks in practice? We should begin our develop in the very same way every time - from building a Priory (sisters). Those holy women will be a base of our army - thanks to them our troops won't shrink during battles. Investment sisters is crucial in the first turn - it highly decreases any losses.

When the Priory is done, we have to care about economic aspect - town hall is the best choice (1000 gold per turn). Further decisions depend from the resources we have. If we have enough money, we can build a Loophole Tower (crossbowmen) - but usual it's better to construct a city hall. Regardless of our choice, we should think about building a city walls in the seventh day - they'll increase our population. Firstly, of course, we have to build some dwellings - that's why balance between economy and military potential is so important.

No one can stand us!

When we have dwellings of first level units (sentinels, crossbowmen, sisters), our gold income is sufficient and walls are built, we can think about bigger expansion. To do that, we have to care about second level units - radiant glories, sun raiders and griffins. Which we choose first doesn't matter really - they all are same useful on the battlefield. So we should invest in the unit we can afford (but remember: quantity over quality).

When we possessed all second level units, we have to build a capitol - only thanks to it, we won't bankrupt. Probably in this moment we have more than one city - town portal is a good idea. Only in this moment you can consider upgrading of units - earlier it was worthless - especially think about crossbowmen and sisters.

Such developed city is powerful - but to leave any chances to an opponent, we have to make a critical blow. Transept of Elysium, recruiting seraphs, should decide about our victory. If it isn't enough, we can build special structures, and if we run out of resources, think about marketplace. A nail in opponent's coffin will be upgraded units.

Full description of Haven's buildings you can find below in Buildings chapter.