Dwellings are buildings and adventure map objects in the Heroes of Might and Magic series that allow you to recruit creatures to fight in your army. Dwellings begin with one population of creatures when first built/encountered. In most games, the population will fully replenish at the start of each week, while in Heroes of Might and Magic IV dwellings accumulate a small number of creatures every day, equaling to one full population each week.
Kingdom dwellings[]
Royal griffin, crusader, and halberdier dwellings in a Castle in Heroes of Might and Magic III.
Kingdom dwellings are built inside towns for a resource cost, typically gold, wood, and/or ore. More powerful dwellings may also require tertiary resources. Once constructed, dwellings allow the player to buy creatures generated by that building, up to the amount currently available to purchase. Each type of town has a unique selection of dwellings, providing all of that faction's different creatures. Typically, towns require a Fort to be built before any dwellings can be constructed.
In every game except A Strategic Quest and Heroes IV, dwellings can also be upgraded after being built. Upgraded dwellings sell a more powerful version of the base creature and also allow the base creature in a visiting or garrisoned army to be upgraded for a small fee. In Heroes II, only certain dwellings can be upgraded instead of all of them. In Tribes of the East and Olden Era, upgraded dwellings also allow creatures to swap to their alternate upgrade.
In Heroes I and II, building a Well increases the growth of all creatures in the town. From Heroes III onwards, growth is instead increased by building a Citadel and Castle. Some dwellings also have horde buildings, special structures that can be built to increase the growth of creatures sold. Building a Grail/Tear of Asha also greatly increases the growth of all creatures in that town.
In Heroes IV, each town has access to two creatures of each tier, however building the dwelling for tiers 2, 3, and 4 disallows building the dwelling for the other creature at that tier in that town. Similarly, each town in Heroes VII has two champion level dwellings which are mutually exclusive.
External dwellings[]
External nomad and peasant dwellings in Heroes of Might and Magic IV.
External dwellings can be found on the adventure map and claimed by heroes. Visiting an external dwelling allows the hero to purchase all of the creatures available. However, creatures cannot be purchased if the hero doesn't have any available slots in their army. Additionally, while a dwelling is claimed, any kingdom dwellings of the same type that the player controls gain a small bonus to their weekly population which is unaffected by internal bonuses like the Castle or Grail. In Heroes IV and V, captured dwellings can be purchased from remotely using a caravan.
Unlike town buildings, external dwellings cannot be upgraded and always sell unupgraded creatures. The one exception is the external Golem Factory in Heroes III, which sells stone and iron golems as well as the neutral gold and diamond golems.
Rather than selling creatures directly, dwellings in Heroes VI and VII add directly to the growth rate of creatures in the region's town or fort of the matching faction. If the corresponding upgraded dwelling is built in a town, the dwelling will provide upgraded creatures. Dwellings can be converted into those of the player's starting faction for a price.
In Heroes I and Heroes II, only a small number of creatures have external dwellings. In Heroes III, IV, and Olden Era, there is an external dwelling for every creature. In Heroes V, there are external dwellings for creatures from tiers 1-3, while tiers 4-7 are sold together at their faction's military post. In Heroes VI and VII, there are dwellings for each faction that sell all of that faction's Core, Elite, or Champion creatures respectively.
More powerful creature dwellings require a battle in order to be claimed. Heroes I and II have battles on a case-by-case basis. In Heroes III, dwellings of tier 5 or higher as well as the Golem Factory and Elemental Conflux are guarded by a stack of 3x the creature's weekly growth. In IV, dwellings tier 2 and above are guarded by one week's population of its creature. In V, military posts are guarded by a small force of all creatures available to its respective faction.