It took the gem that was HoMM II and polished it to a gleaming shine. HoMM II had in turn built off of its predecessor.

The problem with HoMM IV is that it deviated from the formula that made the previous games popular, which made it not as popular with fans of the franchise. It's a good game in its own right as you note, but it just doesn't feel like the successor to HoMM III.

To be somewhat honest, HoMM V feels like the game HoMM IV should have been, only it's too little and too late to salvage the franchise.

HoMM IV would have probably been better off as a standalone title due to being a genuinely good game.

I haven't actually been able to play HOMM 4 but here's the impression I get:

The issue is, to an extent, "It's not H3!" but that's not as stupid as it sounds. Basically, from what I can see, the problem with H4 is that it kind of tried to be a bit more Age of Wonders-y (heroes participating in battles, heroes being levelled to super-units, armies moving independent of heroes, etc). The only problem is that people who prefer HOMM aren't going to want an Age of Wonders-y Heroes game, and people who prefer AoW will stick with, well, AoW. In other words, it's stuck in a rather unhappy middle ground. It's a good game, but for Heroes style, it's not as good as H3, and for AoW style, it's not as good as AoW. If you were to review it in a vacuum, it would probably be much more popular, but that's not the case. As it stands now, it begs the question: Who was it made for?

You can make HOMM 4 feel just a little more like HOMM 1-3 by turning off wandering enemy units in the options screen. Then they'll stand still in front of what they're guarding until you attack them, just like in the previous versions of the game.

Well, I happen to like both Heroes and AoW games. I guess I'm the lucky one. :)

Yeah...THAT'S the reason HoMM 4 was generally despised until recently by Heroes fans and still considered the weakest of the HoMM games even now (rolls eyes). Didn't have anything to do with the AI being abysmal (to be polite), poor balance, bugs etc. right? Nothing to do with them scrapping the promising system H3 had under-developed of MANY factions each having it's own 'Might' and "magic' heroes in favor of a dumbed down and much more limited system right?

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".

So do I, HOMM and AoW are tied with Civ for my favourite TBS games. But when I want to play AoW, I play AoW. When I want to play Heroes, I play Heroes. I haven't really got much space for a game that tries to do both unless it does so very, very well, which I gather HoMM 4 didn't.

None of that makes it a bad game, mind you, just not as good as its alternatives.

This is also why I don't play Disciples 2 all that much, even though I enjoy it. It's a good game, but it's not as good as the ones that compete for its attention. I would imagine HoMM 4 is around on the same level: A game you'll probably turn to when you want something "similar-yet-different," but probably not something that will dominate your TBS gaming.

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 can't help myself, but I cannot start liking Disciples games. I don't know why, I just don't like them at all, even though I gave them a few chances.

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.

In the (completely unnecessary) defense of H3, I wouldn't call the balance between towns all THAT bad. Conflux is too powerful for sure, and some might consider Inferno to be too weak (though they have the potential to be incredibly powerful, depending on the situation and skill with Demon farming, etc), but that's about it. Necro is far too powerful on 10-month XL slugfests, but those aren't really my kind of game. Fortress might be a bit underpowered on lower difficulties (though with its low costs it dominates on Impossible), but again, that's a rare situation. Castle, Dungeon, Tower, Rampart, and Stronghold are all reasonably well-balanced and even if a couple might be more difficult to learn, they can go toe-to-toe against each other in most situations. So that's five towns that are balanced in all situations, two towns that are balanced in most situations, and then two towns that are too powerful/not powerful enough, which isn't too bad.

Magic is a bit trickier, in the sense that it depends how you define balance. There are a number of useless spells, yes. However, the schools themselves are pretty even, with Earth, Air and Water all being competitive choices and Fire, while not quite as useful, is still a viable option (Expert Berserk, anyone?).

Well, for me it started out of curiosity what the predecessor was to HOMM V, the game I got to know first. I don't know Age of Wonders at all, but I liked HOMM IV even more than HOMM V as I always find it strange my heroes didn't themselves partake in the fighting in HOMM V. Well, they did sort of, by running past and then retreating to the backline if you have them attack, but it doesn't feel very heroic to lead from the back. And it takes a feeling of suspense out of the game, if your hero can't be slain unless all of his army is defeated.

My conclusion in short: Heroes of Might and Magic IV is a wonderful game and I don't know HOMM III, but if it doesn't stand up to expectations if you expect it to be the same, well, as a standalone game it's indeed wonderful. But probably I'd have to look to Age of Wonders rather than HOMM III if I want to enjoy a game that's like it. Though I'm tempted to buy HOMM II, as there's a port for it to play it on my Android tablet.

the really really bad thing about homm4 is the interface.. the screen seems small and you really have to try to get used to it. After that you can play nice and easy...

And also a fog. I still dont believe there should be fog in homm series. It makes less strategy.
Chess also doesnt have fog of war. So homm shouldnt also.

While one can make a case that, probably in MOST strategy games, fog of war is often unrealistic (after all, if you are the leader/king of an up and coming empire one would expect you'd know the surrounding lands pretty well), your...argument here does not make sense. Saying that chess does not have fog of war so Heroes of M&M should not either is like saying "Pac-man does not have cars so Carmageddon should not either!". Heroes is a turn-based strategy game but it is not a TABLETOP strategy game. Chess is a type of strategy game but it is nothing at all like a turn-based PC strategy game (apart from also being turn-based which is a necessity for tabletop games of this type).

In short fog of war exists in PC strategy games because without it games can become too easy and you lose the exploration factor.

Noob :P imagine homm3 with fog of war.. that would be dumb. There is no need to constant fog of war...

Heh, Stronghold underpowered? Now I've heard everything. Ancient Behemoths are the strongest level 7s in one-on-one combat (even killing Archangels), and they're available on Day 2 in some situations, and Day 3 in most others. Add to that the fantastic Rocs which you pick up along the way, as well as the high damage potential of Wolves (if you can keep them alive that long) and they're pretty threatening. They're not the most powerful town in the game, but they're a far cry from being too weak.

The lack of high Mage Guild levels isn't too awful for two reasons: First, because the only spell Stronghold REALLY needs is Haste. Second, because if you want to get levels 4 and 5, you're throwing 18 of each special resource into it. Eighteen! That's an absurd amount, and if you're picking that up before the second month you're either playing a very rich map, or you've gotten it instead of your lvl 7s, which is never a good idea. Part of the reason why Might heroes are generally considered so much stronger than Magic heroes is because Mage Guilds are so overpriced that higher levels are rarely attainable.

You also have to realize that your presumption (L map, only starting town type available) is a very rare situation, and not really one you can use to reasonably evaluate the strength of towns.