Discussion about Heroes 4.

I meant that in the fourth game, I built warriors and that was it. But in the third, you still have to worry about where to get the money for upgrades.

That's why the game belongs to the high genre of strategy games, because you have to worry not only about tactical maneuvers. And it's also pleasing to the eye when the warriors recruited from the surrounding shady places receive new weapons in the castle: it immediately becomes clear that my vassals weren't "shaking down" the local merchants, in the form of millers, miners, and leprechauns, for nothing.

But I like the caravan and consider it one of the best innovations of the fourth game. Monsters can move around the map on their own, but they can't recruit themselves!!! What nonsense is it to run around and collect every increase, like in the third game. And then the hero has nothing else to do.

The caravan is indeed a convenient innovation, but... mercenaries have always been hired by recruiters. These aren't conscripts.

Caravans are useless in 5 out of 10 cases, and sometimes they are simply absurd, when 100 elves cannot be hired because 3 trolls are blocking the road.

Consider that these 3 trolls regularly have your messengers for lunch, who are trying to get to the camp of mercenaries) - in the "third game," secondary heroes, collecting reinforcements for the royal army in taverns, modestly named "creature dwellings" by the developers, sent such outlaws to the afterlife.
Now about the AI. I haven't looked at the maps yet, but in the campaigns... Magnus sat in the castle, occasionally going out to repel the sawmill - and that's it!!!
And in the previous mission, Solmyr wandered around the underground possessions of the amorous necromancer for several months, and he didn't even lift a finger to stop the djinn's rampage!
Damn it, I've completed 3 campaigns - only in the barbarian campaign did I have to defend my city a couple of times - in all other cases, the AI gave the initiative to the player from the very beginning.
But in multiplayer, the game is really great.