[B0rsuk]

Yeah, H4 truly sucked out of the box. I seem to recall the was no multiplayer for about 2 months after release (!!), and once they implemented it... there was a bug which allowed you to drag&drop units between castles (!!!). Basically unplayable.
Vampires (level3) having stats on par with level4 units. On most maps, on normal difficulty, you could build Mansion on day2, and wipe most of the mines, treasures etc. with those 2 vampires. And don't get me started about Grandmaster Necromancy (hint: it produced vampires). No wonder Necropolis was usually banned in multiplayer.

Still, the game has many great features. I liked predictable and consistent magic. H4 had magic you could build a strategy around, because certain magic paths worked in certain ways. H3 system was extremely random and hit or miss. H5 spells were much more diverse, and also balanced. No more level5 (or was it 4 in H3 ?) Hypnosis, which was unbelievably crippled by hp/spellpower restriction. No more level2 Blind vs level3 Protection from Ice (ok, you could argue prot.fire could work with Armageddon).

I liked H4 skill system more than H5. H5 skill system was a lot like H3 one, but there was more variety in skills. Scouting was useful because it was merged with Pathfinding/Logistics. And for the first time in the serries non-combat heroes became viable. And I don't remember what they exactly did to Eagle Eye, but it worked to make it useful. My only real complaint here is that skill level cap (5) was too high, and encouraged putting too many levels into a single skill. 3 would've been enough.
H5 skill system is not that bad. It's interesting that they're not so much skills as perks - that is, skills from one branch are often unrelated to others from the same branch. In terms of mechanics, at least. But what I dislike about H5 system is that it's about combos and chain skills - that is, to have a bigger skill, you have to take several predefined skills in specific order. And you will want many better skills. Which means that your build order will tend towards few specific paths. H3 and H4 offered more freedom. H5 is like railroading. And yes - to qualify for a Good skill you often have to take mediocre skills which aren't very useful on their own. They just serve as arbitrary requirements.

I also dislike the upgrade system. While executed somewhat better than in H3, it's still a no-brainer. You just build the upgrades as soon as possible, the only difference being that they're somewhat more expensive.
Now in H4, you had actual choices to make. There were some imbalances, but for most part both choices were viable. There were basically 3 kinds of units in H4 - shooters, melee, and flyers. For each creature level except the first you had a choice of (flyer|shooter), (flyer|melee), or (melee|shooter).

What I really liked about AoW:SM is that few of the buildings are no-brainers. There are much fewer dwellings to build (most of them provide 2 creature types) and you can focus on interesting building choices. Homm had dwellings, income, and few misc buildings. AoW:SM has few dwellings, few income (no gold, just mana and research), and LOTS of misc buildings. But in Homm games, it was always like this:

First week:
income, dwelling, dwelling, dwelling, dwelling, dwelling, population bonus (Well / Fort / Castle etc)
Second week:
Remaining dwellings

Ad nauseum.