Oh and before anyone says it i will be pre-ordering the forthcoming game from Stardock

After spending MANY hours, days, (and maybe years!) playing HOMM in its various incarnations, this is my opinion:  Play either 3 or 5.  They both have similar gameplay (in fact Ubisoft stated they wanted to be faithful to #3), the only real difference being that 5 is a resource hog.

Further, 5 does have a better set of campaigns than 3.

1 & 2 are just previous versions of the exact same game going into 3.  4, in my opinion, was horrible.

My 2 cents!

Most people view number 3 as the classic, definative version. I was always a bit partial to number 4, if only because I felt there was a tonne of variety in their different campaigns and I really grew attached to some of the characters in those. However the general opinion from the long time HoMM fans is that of Bomberross' and as 4 was the first one I played that probably biases my view. Also I can heartily recommend the recenetly released modern King's Bounty; the origional of which was the forerunner of the HoMM games. You just have one hero, but the combat system is pretty identical, and there is no city building\defending in it (although there are still cities to be attacked and to recruit troops from, you just don't have direct control over them). It also has an incredible sense of humour; for example in one quest you are asked to find a spell to turn a man's wife back from being a zombie; however after you have the spell you can instead buy her off her husband if you wish, and then turn her between zombie and human at will. Your wives can even have children that give you combat bonuses.

True. I love the way they have treated dragons:

- the one who want you to bring back its princess. Nice twist on the dragon - princess classical story

- the one about the dragon under the orc castle in Liberty Islands. The line about dragons gathering treasure to ensure that food come to them is too funny

And you can't miss the LotR allusion when you spoke about the ring to the zombie wife

I'll throw in for King's Bounty.

The humor is great. There's also a quest from some lonely castle ruler that keeps stealing magic frogs from a swamp, kissing them to turn them into princesses, then abandoning them in the castle dungeon.. so he asks you to bring him another frog, but you instead end up going to an old witch in the middle of nowhere because it sounds "perfectly reasonable" to stop wasting frogs and just make him a love potion for the next frog-princess so they can stay in love and she wouldn't turn back into a frog

I didn't go for the zombie wife, took the frog wife instead She turns back into a frog on occasion, just have to keep smooching to turn her back into a princess

So you think Kings Bounty should be the one i go for then?

How about system specs... I only have a laptop.

Specs: -

Will my system run the game ok?

King's Bounty has a demo for you to try out

http://browse.files.filefront.com/Kings+Bounty+The+Legend+Official+Demos/;2297720;/browsefiles.html

As far as demos go, this one is very good. It easily has 5-6 hours of gameplay, has a tutorial sort of thing and lets you explore the first zone - which gives you an idea of how long it is if the first zone can take you 5-6 hours to do everything in

It'll definitely give you a great idea of what the game is like, and how well it runs.

Bonus: Zombie wife quest is in the demo

Personally, between HOMM 5 and King's Bounty I've enjoyed King's Bounty a lot more.

To give you more of an idea of the scale; when I first started playing I thought the first zone was going to be all there was to it. Needless to say the subsequent continents made me very very happy. But not as happy as the recent announcement of an expansion.

I reallyed enjoyed HoMM3:Complete.  This included all the expansions for it, which made it more fun.  I'd like to try out the HoMM 5 games, but I haven't seen a fully compiled version that includes all expansions for a reasonable price yet (although I haven't looked too much).  Plus, I like the art style in HoMM 3 better than 5 (more bold and less angsty).

Ditto what Lord Reliant said, on all counts.   HOMM3 was the bomb, together with Shadow Magic and Armageddon's Blade (or was that HOMM2?).   I haven't gotten around to HOMMV yet to know, either, but also that's because the gamers magazines gave it good-but-not-great reviews.  But HOMM3 might have gotten the same were it released in 2008.

My favorite is HOMM IV. It's the most interesting one with heroes being on the battlefield, and being able to die even if you win the battle. I also like the different schools of magic there, and the way you can develop your heroes.

The bad thing about Heroes IV is the bad AI, and that the AI can't make use of the powerful scouting abilities in the game. But if you want to play online/lan vs humans, it's the best!

The editor is also very good, so I use to power up the AI players alot befor playing singleplayer.

All that said, I also love Heroes 3, and there the AI is a much better challenge too. Heroes V is just a bad Heroes 3 copy, with less charm, no hero classes, and 3D graphics.....

To be honest, if you're looking for a strategy fix, go with Age of Wonders 2 or if you want more puzzle-ish strategy, maybe King's Bounty.

The problem I had with HoMM 5 was it's very much a puzzle game with tactical combat. You MUST do things in a fairly linear order because you won't be powerful enough to tackle certain areas initially. There's really no Explore, Expand phases in HoMM. You're very restricted on where you can choose to go initially or what you can eXterminate.

Unlike a true 4x strategy game where you are more or less free to expand and explore how you wish. HoMM isn't bad, it's just not a 4x game. The Disciples I and II games were similar. You HAD to progress in certain ways and usually reload after a bad battle because there weren't enough low level bad guys left to rebuild your troops levels after a defeat.

I can't speak to HOMMV, but HOMMI-III I view quite the opposite:   it takes explore & expand to a whole new level.  Tons of neat, various little sites to go around and visit. Indeed, I heard of a kid who turned off having opponents altogether in HOMM--he was perfectly happy just exploring everything and clearing everything out.

HOMM2 I've played quite a lot of, and it's good, but also too difficult in my opinion. HOMM3 I played the demo of and was impressed. HOMM5 I played the demo, but somehow didn't like it - the new storyline and redone factions smelled a bit too Warcrafty for me. King's Bounty I was partway through and enjoying, but it's since taken a back seat to Fallout 3 and a second run through of Mass Effect.

I've only played HoMM 3 and 5. Both are quite good, but I think HoMM 3 is better. It is more polished, runs faster, is easier to pick up and play, and has far more maps. I've been playing HoMM 5 recently because they've added some cool things and the battle system is arguably better, but I've had the most fun with 3 and in my mind it is the definitive version.

Keep in mind that I primarily play multiplayer.