Impressions of Heroes V, for those who have played it.

I played Heroes V for several years. It turned out to be a very good game. What prevented me from giving it an "excellent" rating was the poor optimization and not-so-great AI. What makes the optimization poor? It's that even on a number of the most powerful computers, it lags terribly on very large maps. And what made the AI mediocre? It cheats on "Veteran" and "Hero" difficulties, buying absolutely all creatures, and it's very difficult to defeat it. You have to use super-heroic tactics and strategies to beat this AI. Also, the AI is somewhat slow, especially as described by Magistar, in version 3.1: it casts the same "Evasion" spell repeatedly. And also: along with the optimization, the game slows down and freezes noticeably during the AI's turn. But otherwise, everything is good.