Because the community was caught up in a dazzling display of groupthink - the community was simply wrong. The exact kind of collective wrong that, for instance, brought about the subprime mortgage crisis.

I think you're being a little dismissive (unless that metaphor was meant as a joke). Heroes IV was a weird, experimental attempt at bringing the series in a new direction and Heroes III was always going to be a tough act to follow. I also imagine some of the resentment directed towards it, at least early on, had to do with Heroes IV launching a little buggy and unfinished (IIRC, it didn't come with online multiplayer out of the box). .

Yes, it had a few minor bugs, but HoMM IV's biggest sin was its originality. Research shows that most people are very conformist (an evolutionary advantage, apparently) and so everyone tried to fit in by criticizing HoMM IV far beyond what the bugs warranted. And besides, people really weren't pointing the finger of blame at the bugs as much as the overall game design. Which was awesome, and as I said, the great success of the Eador series shows that it is something the community does enjoy if it only finds a way to unstupidify itself.

I guess what bothers me most about the whole thing is that even the biggest cretins in the HoMM community found a way conversation topic where they could be seen as "competent". All to the detriment of an excellent and quite original game.

I haven't played HoMM IV, but even if it's not bad, just "different" from HoMM 3, isn't there still a real problem with the AI being very weak?

Sadly this is very true at least with the non modded versions.

H4 would have been better received if it hadn't tried to continue the "Heroes of Might and Magic" series as it really was not the same series.

H2 to H3 was a very natural progression of the series and stayed "true". H5 was also a good continuation of the "series", however my major complaint with it was the damn camera angles and cheesy 3d graphics, would have been so much better without that. The thing H5 did really well was introducing the Heroes to actual combat. In H4 this was totally unbalanced.

Compared to what? I am playing HoMM V and the AI is totally braindead. I just picked up a treasure chest an AI hero passed by. On the same map, another faction has been feeding me poorly equipped heroes almost every turn. And the AI's behavior in combat is nothing to brag about, either.But yeah, let's criticize HoMM IV's AI, because reasons.

It's still a case of groupthink, though maybe it's eased up a bit, especially after what Ubisoft has done to the series (Heroes VI and VII). It's as if Ubisoft is trying to inflict maximum pain on the HoMM community. In the face of thism some members may have gone back to have a second look at HoMM IV and realized that it's a perfectly enjoyable game with some nice improvements over the first three episodes.

One thing I noticed is that Heroes V, VI and VII still have the weekly creature growth - this was always a pet peeve of mine and was very happy to see that HoMM IV modernized the concept and actually made it logical with progressive, linear creature accrual.

Conmpared to HoMM 3, of course. It had decent AI.
And "reasons"? As I said, I've not played IV, so I was asking.

That was simply a weasel question: you didn't ask if HoMM IV had "very weak" AI, you stated that as a fact, and asked if that's a problem. I mean, is it a problem that you kick your dog every day? I never visited your apartment so I don't know, so I am asking.

Rabid fanboi detected.

I asked if there was a problem with the AI being weak. How is that stating a fact?

Oh man, I kinda like Heroes 4 a bit as well, nice graphics, nice music and still fun Heroes gameplay, but the AI was terrible, it as basically inactive.