Based on what you're saying, it seems like NWC and 3DO released the third Heroes game on the cheap?:rolleyes:
Many people say that the fifth Heroes game is a commercial project, and that the creatures in it have become too mainstream. Like, the developers lacked imagination. So what should we say about the first three Heroes games? There are no new ideas, only minor additions or expansions of the game's scope (new races, etc.).
With that logic, you could say that there's nothing new, and all TBS games are just clones of KB:)

Undoubtedly, starting with Heroes 1, KB turned into a commercial project, moving towards the same kind of mainstream gameplay (which many associate with the downfall of NWC). Therefore, Heroes cannot be considered a direct clone of KB. But, if there was a gradual departure from KB up to the third Heroes game, and not in a positive direction for the gameplay, then a more logical evolution for the Heroes series would have been a return to KB's gameplay, but with modern trends in graphics and 3D. But that didn't happen in the fifth Heroes game. That's probably why there are so many arguments about it. IMHO