I played hundreds of hours in skirmish mode in demo version and I really liked it. Interesting part is that at start of skirmish you have a hero with option to start a base, but this turns hero into statue for quite long time. The stronger the hero the more workers you receive when you start the base.
Or you can SELL the base creation spellcard and just play with hero.
Also over time hero can get so powerful that no army stands a chance.
Balancing between hero and base is quite challenging, but the game is quite nice to play.
