for example in Heroes 4 "immortality" potions was a must in keeping your heroes on the battlefield (especially magic casters) which the AI never used. Thus the AI heroes was the first unit killed on the battlefield. With the mod the AI still doesn't use immortality potions yet one potion is automatically cast on AI hero at the beginning of the battle so you at least have to kill their heroes twice. (This is one of the things that totally broke Heroes 4 for me)

My thoughts:
HOMM2 - good, but was kind of hard. Especially the mission where you have to kill all the dwarfs, ick. Graphics are a bit dated at this point.

HOMM3 - My favorite. The best of the series IMHO. I also liked the expantion pack Shadow Of Death.

HOMM4 - Nice graphics, horrendous AI. It feels almost like there is no AI and you are just fighting random creatures on the map. Hard to imagine that they actually made the AI worse, it was so good in 2 and 3!!

HOMM5 - I did not finish this, my system was not powerful enough. Game was a major resource hog and initial release was buggy. I'll have to try it again on my new system with the latest patches.

Is this available from a site on the web and if so does anyone have the url to save me from hunting high and low for it

HOMM 3 rules!

BTW should i play the game before loading in the mod, or would you suggest using it from the outset?

Oh and what extrras etc does the mod bring to the game that you dont get automatically?

Thanks

I'll make this simple for you.

Start with HoMM II, it has great charm and simple core mechanics.

Move onto HoMM III, its such a natural evolution of HoMM II that you'll appreciate it.

Then try HoMM IV, its not for everyone, but approach it with an open mind and you might love it after awhile(it took me some time to warm up to it)  Its different enough that you would want to play it at the same time you're playing other HoMMs.

But for THE best HoMM experience ever made, Play All the Heroes of Might & Magic V games, they have a great story and blend every element from all previous titles.

1. HoMM 5 series

2. HoMM 3

3. HoMM 4

4. HoMM 2

5. HoMM 1

6. That nifty little HoMM game on PS2 for forgiving fans like me, hehe.

None is really better than the other i suppose, it all comes down to personal preferences, personally i prefer HoMM V, a great game that became even greater with the expansions. So personally i would suggest that.

I think I'd have to say V. I prefer III, but I come back to V more often because III gets entirely too repetitive to me.

To be honest I think King's Bounty is a much better option. The game is simply fun . . . and new, so it'll look pretty. Or pick up Disciples II. Or. Or. Or.

This thread has convinced me, I just ordered HoMM 3 Complete from Amazon.  I`ll post my thoughts of it after it arrives.

V to me is a logical evolution of III, but some prefer III, I guess.  It does change the nature of the heroes though, so they are kind of in between III and IV.  They take turns like the units, and can even attack creatures like units, but don't move on the maps, and cant's be themselves directly attacked.

To me, attack magic is better ballanced in V than in III.  It can make a huge difference, but the implosion spell shouldn't be able to wipe out whole stacks of powerful creatures to the point that might heroes have no chance.  V does it better, althought the Warlock class can still do severe damage with his attack spells.

I also really like the fact that all classes are unique.  In III, they all look alike, really.  There's a few slight difference in skills and stats, but nothing really unique about any but the Necromancer.  V fixes that, so they all have unique skills, plus the new skill/ability system allows even heroes of the same class to play quite differently from each other.  So I definitely say V is the ultimate so far, if your system can handle it.

I would buy Heroes of Might & Magic V : Tribes of the East (released in October 2007). It is a stand-alone expansion which has a lot of content and bug fixes (in relation to the May 2006 release of the original H5). Last August, it was patched to version 3.1.

Caveat emptor # 1 > The multiplayer still is so unstable & slow that it rarely works for a long time.

Caveat emptor # 2 > It's not guaranteed to function on a laptop, and it (sometimes) has fatal issues with Vista.

Caveat emptor # 3 > The A.I. adversaries are so limited that you eventually get bored playing against comps.

Caveat emptor # 4 > Your videocard must at least be of a GeForce 6600 level to enjoy the game in its very gorgeous 3D glory.

Concerning Elemental : War of Magic, I hope that SD will not go overboard on the videocard requirements, to the detriment of fluid, crash-free gameplay (especially when synchronizing computers in MP).

I still can play at Master of Magic on my XP system (using VDM Sound to launch the game in compatibility with my SB Live! card). It looks aweful on a 19-inch widescreen ... but the gameplay still is very challenging (much more than H5).

The only thing i am finding with homm3 is that on my widescreen 19" monitor the images dont scale too well and there appears to be no way to run the program in a windowed mode...

Plays wel,l though i have only just completed the tutorial

Window mode's easy, it's the only way I play any of the older ones.  Just hit F4 and there you are.  With one minor detail out of the way anyway.  Switch your desktop to 16bit color first.  Don't ask me why they skipped supporting 32bit color, 3DO was run by fucking retards.

http://www.maps4heroes.com/heroes3/in_the_wake_of_gods.php

Since this adds a lot to the game you may want to play Homm3 without the mod until you are comfortable with the game. This mod add a lot replayablity to Homm 3 for many fans who was disappointed with Homm 4. Thus it's more like  Homm 3.5 .

 Here's where you can dl "Equilibris" for Homm 4.

http://www.equilibris.celestialheavens.com/eng/downloads.html

 I would recommended you run this mod for the beginning since without it the AI is almost non-existance (the AI is still weak but the mod does help) and the mod deals with some of 4 balancing issues.

I don't really have a good opinion of the HoMM's as a whole, but having played all of them (), I will say 5 is the best because it has very charming graphics and atmosphere and, for the most part, each of its units are unique and interesting.

On the other hand, it is much much more expensive than the HoMM3 complete pack.

Seeing as you've already bought 3, though, I'll commend you for not getting 4. :3