The playing strategies often concern the Accurate Shot ability of the Sea Dogs, Revenge ability of the Haspids, and often the good defensive stats of the Nixes and Nix Warriors. The Cove faction is mainly attack-oriented, with its heroes having their primary skills growth prioritized like 45/25/20/10 for Captains and 15/10/40/35 for Navigators before 10th level with 30/30/20/20 for both classes after the 10th level. The Cannon cannot be bought anywhere except the Cove town or the Cannon Yard, a new global map object. It possesses greater combat statistics to those of the ballista, and costs 4000 gold. It cannot be put in a backpack, and replaces Ballista in the Hero inventory. HotA invents the new type of the war machine - the Cannon. The Pirate creature has two upgrades, similar to the green dragon in Heroes of Might and Magic II. The Cove lineup is represented by pirates, sea sorcerers and various sea creatures which are allied to them. Several heroes from the other games of the series, like Astra, appear in the Cove's hero roster. The HotA project fills the empty space on the Regnan topic, and provides new related campaigns for players to know more about the Regnan Empire and the Cove faction in specific. This is in contrast to the Foolhardy Waywardness campaign in Armageddon's Blade, where the Regnan Empire was represented by the classical castles without adding of any new creature.

The Cove is a town represented by the Regnan Empire which is often mentioned in Might and Magic VI and Might and Magic VII, and featured in Might and Magic VIII as the Regna Island location. Moreover, it saves the original game's functionality, unlike the VCMI platform, and is fully standalone, meaning it does not interfere with the original game, and they can both be run normally once HotA is installed. Unlike WoG-based modifications, HotA provides a complete tenth castle without replacing any of the existing ones. The Cove is the tenth castle which is a calling card of the project.

2.1 New factions: Forge, Cathedral, Kronverk.

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