Mind you, I have not played any game of the heroes series yet. I did do all the might and magic games though.

The reason why I ask this, is that everyone states homm 3 is the best and homm 4 the worst.

But why exactly? What makes it so inferior?

Basically, because Heroes 4 did not try to be Heroes 3.
Heroes 3 is viewed as a holy game. No, as THE holy game.

Heroes 4 just went a different way and it has changed some mechanics, much to dismay of all the Heroes 3 lovers.
If you want to go more into details, browse threads here in Heroes section, I bet there were a few discussions about it.

As for me, I personally like Heroes 2 most, with 4 close second. I did not like Heroes 3 that much because it is basically an upgraded Heroes 2.

As a long time Homm player, I must admit I must have uninstalled Homm IV at least 3 times, after only a few turns. Up until a week or so ago, when I gave it another chance, and I'm having a blast with it.

The good:
- different gameplay, as in an attempt to make Heroes more dynamic - Heroes are active, "able to die" units, unit pools are replenished on a daily basis;
- tactics are much more important now, as in you can change greatly the outcome of a battle if you replay with a different tactics and numbers aren't everything;
- the story is well developed and for the first time in a Heroes game I actually care for my characters and don't only focus on the objectives, but on the background also;
- the scripts are more complex and the objectives more interesting than Heroes 3 campaigns, IMO;
- the music is fantastic and ambient sounds are decent;
- the interface works well.

The bad:
- graphics and animations took a turn for the worse, it's too colorful and amateurish at times, and it's hard to find stuff on the map;
- the interface takes too much space from the game screen;
- much more micromanagement, with free-roaming units;
- AI is pretty much absent :)
- no RMG (well, not official anyway)

My conclusion: H4 is a very good single-player game, and a must-have for any TBS freaks (like me). It is not better than H3 in any aspect, but it's different and well worth the effort of having.

You don't need to do that, though, if you don't want to. It's perfectly feasible to
a) play the game in the traditional style, only gathering units weekly.
b) play the game without any units whatsoever, except for one fast movement-point-giver. AI is almost exactly the same as in Heroes 3. Except that due to Heroes 4's increased everything (especially the battlefields) and the daily growth the deficiencies of this AI are much more visible. But they really are the same.

If you want challenge, you need to use custom maps which, due to clever scripting, can overcome the AI's faults so that you won't even notice them. Try e.g. A Wind of Thorns (a massive 8-map campaign). Without any doubt it beats H3 in the mapmaking department.

Selfpwn much? :P

Lol, caught me :). Was referring to the game itself, not the story for that part. Will abstain posting in a hurry :)

As a huge H3 fan, back when it was released I hated it for changing how castle battles were fought and heroes being present on the battlefield.

Now years later I find that I don't really mind so much. Liking this game is very much a matter of personal taste, it's not objectively bad or broken.

contrary to most people say, I LOVE Homm 4. it's the only installment that allows your hero to combat in battle and once your hero is powerful enough, you dont need to build ton of armies. It's pretty satisfying + epic when you are finishing epic campaign by using a team that consisted all-star heroes.

seriously, I dont understand all the rants about homm 4. I like it as much as I like Homm 3. in the other hand HOMM V... still struggling to love it :(

homm2 and homm are good. however I prefer playing homm 3 and above due to graphic. bought it in gog because I was unable to buy it back then... wish I could buy it directly from new world computing...

There is nothing wrong with HoMM IV. This game is just a bit different from previous HoMM I-III. The main drawback of earlier versions HoMM IV was a lack of multiplayer but this problem was solved with official 2.0 game patch (or The Gathering Storm expansion pack).

So-called HoMM V-VI, however, have no relation to HoMM series in general (no connection with the original development team, no connection with the original story, different game world, different game mechanics, lack of creativity, etc).

For me its one word: battlefield. Its 3D view is the worst part of the whole game for me and was the main reason why I stopped playing it. I could stand rest of the changes but battlefield view was very very confusing for me.

That's the problem. Heroes of Might And Magic IV is a RPG, it's not a strategy game. The previous games were a nuclear arms race, it was all about hiring heroes, exploring, collecting resources, securing gold and important resource mines, buying units, conquering and holding vital castles... Battles were much more like chess where spells were used once per turn to change the dynamic of the battle and increase your odds of winning.

The fourth game instead is all about leveling heroes, learning spells, getting artifacts, accomplishing quests, not that any of these features were absent in the previous games, but in the previous games the focus was always on the strategy aspect, I don't recall building a party of wizards, teaching them as many damage spells as I could, then using them to blast every monsters and enemy heroes I could find while my creatures tanked the damage in the three first games (Excluding the Armageddon + Dragon/efreet missions in the first campaign of Restoration of Erathia), but in Heroes IV, it was a valid strategy, and I was very successful at it.

In the end it's all about that. If you like RPG, leveling heroes and finding artifacts, you'll love Heroes IV, if on the other hand what you like is the strategy aspect, the nuclear arms race and fighting for every inches of land, stealing others players' mines and castles, then Heroes II and III are still the games to beat.

I guess this. I, personally, don't have it...but a friend told me that they changed the dynamics, and completely gameplay of the game compared to the other games. And, he despises it. Of course, he's more on Strategy side of games.

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts.

I love strategy AND rpg. So I guess I will like both games. Maybe it is for the best those games are not carbon copies of eachother and put emphasis on different aspects.

Heroes IV gets a lot of crap for trying to do something different, and for the most part doesn't deserve it. But let's be fair. It has problems. The art design is perhaps the biggest culprit, with its plastic looking creature design made worse by the (similarly terrible) isometric battlefield. Then of course we could talk about the functionally retarded AI, the crappy expansions and the cool but broken character development system, in which one hero with all the grandmaster combat skills is basically death incarnate and can take on entire armies no problem.

However, it's still fun and the Equilibris mod fixes a lot of the balance problems. It's not my favorite in the series, but I still can play it and enjoy it.

Hopping in on this thread as I wanted to start a new thread with the question 'What exactly is so good about HOMM III?'

It strikes me most people around here absolutely glorify Heroes of Might and Magic III (a well, using a bit of hyperbole here, put it IS the most popular one).

My introduction to the series started with Heroes of Might and Magic V, which I loved especially for it's beautiful 3D-splendor fairy-world-like graphics. It's much much more uplifting to see than an average WWII or dark-fantasy themed game.

When I got to know Heroes of Might and Magic VI I absolutely loved it and still do:

The storyline (well, I've only played one yet - about Lysander) is absolutely involving, the story is well-written, you really get to care about your heroes. It has the same thing that makes RPG's like Baldur's Gate so wonderful in having a protagonist that can easily get killed by wolves and take him through campaign after campaign seeing him slowly rise to power and being amazed about the plot-twists).

Furthermore, he get's to recruit more heroes which slowly grow in power, some of which you can take with you to other maps and if a walkthrough tells you it's the protagonist, 1 mandatory character and the 2 highest level, it becomes a challenge to make your own most liked characters the one that get carried through to the next scenario.

Battles furthermore are a wonderful mix between RPG and strategy: your hero fights alongside rank-and-file troops of ordinary peasants up to creatures of almost mythical proportions, each has it's own strengt and weaknesses and for the really big battles it takes a lot of thinking through and trying out different strategies to bring the most effective mix into the battle: do you take all your heroes, some of them, a lot of cannonfodder or just a few mighty angels or champions, though you'd miss them dearly if they fall?

Well, that's my rant about why I love HoMM IV so much.

Now what's the reason HoMM III is so popular, I'm asking out of curiosity? (I did try it out, I own it on GOG as part of the package, but I got turned off by the graphics that look too much like DOS-games. I've never got used to pre-BG times (before 1998) graphics.