Is there any reason to choose Naga over the Genie in Heroes IV?

Question

In Heroes IV one playing Academy must choose between the Genie and the Naga. But I have never actually bothered with Nagas.

1. Naga is slow on the adventure map, which means that I can make less in one move than if I have chosen Genies.
2. Genies can cast Create Illusion, finish many battles with the Ice Bolt very quickly, all without spending Hero's mana, and even one Genie can switch entire stacks off with Song of Peace. They are versatile, they can do everything. Naga, at the same time, can only melee, this makes taking battles without losses a lot harder.
3. Because Naga is slow on the battle map as well, some ways to transport them are needed, such as the Teleport spell. It's not good.
4. After all, Naga can be cloned if you need them and somehow get at least one in your army, or enemy army. Anyway, they are not even the nearly the best creature to be cloned.

But I have never actually played competitively, so I would like to know if there is any sense in choosing the Naga over the Genie. Any specific economical situation? Any specific enemies? Something else?

When you describe any situation where you consider Nagas good, please also tell me why do you consider them to perform better than Genies in such a situation.

Answer 1

Naga is in a bad spot. It's inferior to a genie in pretty much every way.

Even against magic immune enemies genies can just summon creatures to take hits, whereas you need to spend mana on nagas to get them into a fight and then you have a decent damage dealer.

That doesn't even account for strategies, where you split your genies into several stacks, using single genies to song of peace an opponent for several turns, while other creatures pick them off.

Nagas get the upper hand, once Genies run out of mana, but usually battles do not last long enough for that to make a difference. I always pick Genies over Naga 100% of the time.

But HoMM 4 is full of decisions like this. Cyclops vs ogre mage is another, where the ogre is so much weaker than the other choice, that you should never consider it. Griffin/Unicorn, Angel/Champion, Vampire/Venom spawn, Medusa/Minotaur, Gold Golem/Mage are other very lopsided matchups in favor of the first creature.

Answer 2

Personally, I've always been a naga fan. Combining them with a cast of haste or flight gives you a powerful shock unit that has the "No Retaliation" skill. Plus they are quite capable of taking a hit with 90 hp and 22 melee and ranged defense.

However, overall I would say it would depend on army comp, if you have magi, halflings, and titans, you would probably want nagas.