SkeleTony: Edit: Also you kind of contradict yourself by saying you liked Heroes 2 most but did not like Heroes 3 as much because it was "basically an upgraded Heroes 2". Not that I agree or disagree with that idea but it basically reads as "I don't like it for being a more robust version of Heroes 2".
klaymen: The thing is, though, that in my eyes, Heroes 3 is a slightly upgraded Heroes 2. Heroes 2 upgraded Heroes 1 quite a lot - secondary skills, changed spell system and so on. Heroes 3 just used H2:PoL's new features, slightly reworked magic, added the "Upgrade all the units!" syndrome and called it a day.
Now, I'm not implying that Heroes 3 is a bad game, not at all (I just like Heroes 2 more, feel free to hate me for not adoring Heroes 3). It feels to me just like a slightly upgraded Heroes 2. That pile of puke called Heroes 5 turned it up to eleven with "let's copy Heroes 3 and add a few things to call it a new game". Heroes 4 on the other hand, did not just wanted to slightly upgrade Heroes 3, but to bring a new experience and it did. But the people raged. Remember that people bitch like hell when their favourite game changes a bit. Case in point: Counter-Strike 1.6 -> Counter-Strike: Source. I, for one, like if the games change.
The AI is exploitable even in older Heroes games, let's not pretend that it isn't true, but in Heroes 4 it happens to be the worst. Sure, the game is imbalanced and bugged, but what do you fucking expect when 3DO is sinking and forces NWC to release the game, even though it is not yet ready? Might and Magic 9 suffers the same fate. I'm not saying that you should excuse all the game's flaws because of the situation the devs were in, I'm merely pointing out that when you want to bitch about the game, look at the bigger picture first. Also Equilibris mod fixes many problems. The devs did not have the time to do it, so the fans decided to fix the game.
I think we agree on most of your points here. I own Heroes 4 through Gog and use the Equilibrius mod. My original post was more to the specific points raised by you in that first post. It read like you were saying the ONLY reason people disliked Heroes 4 (particularly the vanilla/original release), was because it was different than H3 and that H3 was unfairly regarded as a perfect Heroes game or something.
I can point out flaws in Heroes 3 all day long. It was FAR from perfect. Asking teenaged forum visitors at the 3DO web site to name the unit upgrades was stupid. Not play testing enough to see the grave imbalances within the magic system as well as between different town/factions was stupid. Replacing trolls with cyclopses was pointless and stupid. Etc., etc.
Heroes 4, balance/AI/bug issues aside, was not a terrible game. but yeah, slapping "Heroes of Might and Magic" onto THAT game is a bit like Eminem performing as Eazy E's replacement in N.W.A....Eminem is a far better rapper than Eazy ever was IMO but he is still not a "N****", with or without "Attitude". Or for a more serious analogy, it is like Steve Fawkner selling the rights to the "Warlords" games and the new IP holder decides that 'Warlords 5' is going to be a real-time, first person tactical combat game(whatever THAT might be...).
As I have said I cannot dispute much which game is better between Heroes 2 & 3. I can totally see and concede most of the points being made in favor of Heroes 2 now and admit to Heroes 3's shortcomings. I myself will give the edge to Heroes 3 because:
1)Random map generator.
2)One 'Might' and one 'Magic' hero class for each faction was a fantastic idea! Even if it ultimately was not as well executed as it could have been.