What is your opinion about Heroes IV?

Once something more complex appeared, everyone simply became too lazy to figure it out.

Naturally, this is always the main limiting factor. No matter how much I criticize the fifth game, this problem should be addressed first. But on the other hand, if I knew that heroes in the fifth game stand on the battlefield, and not next to it, and that you can take not one hero into your army, but both or four heroes, and that you can kill both or four heroes on the battlefield, then I would overcome this typical laziness. Otherwise, why bother when there is no goal.

Here, a lot has been said about the individuality of heroes in the third game and its absence in the fourth. But if you think about it, what kind of individuality is there? Just one illusion.

You might not believe it, but when I was reading posts on this topic, I couldn't understand what they were talking about for a long time. At first, it seemed to me that the fourth game actually has individuality in the form of advanced classes, but what about the third game? And then, after a glass of beer :D, it dawned on me what individuality in the third game is. And, in my opinion, this specialization is nowhere near as good as the advanced class system. Well, if it were there, it would be better, but the loss wouldn't be significant. Especially if there is a replacement.

... in the third game... all players try to get approximately the same skills, listed above. Do you agree, friends?

I agree, friend. I've tried to play the third game online many times, but I've never been able to connect, no matter how much the GameSpy experts advised me. Of course, many years of offline experience and hotseat games don't allow me to boast about my knowledge of the third game, but I'm sure that in reality, it happens as you described. In the fourth game, unlike the third, the development of heroes is determined by several factors at once. These include your own starting Castle and the opponent's starting Castle, artifacts on the map, quests, the density of neutrals, the size of the map, and so on and so forth.