Playing the Haven vs Inferno custom game on heroic isn't that hard, neither side has access to the tavern, neither side can flee, surrender, or lose hero. As far as I could tell the hero on that game will never attack you, you have access to a more defensive position than the ai.. it's a very bad map to give them an advantage as it's a "historic scenario" and the Haven are meant to lose it. The AI doesn't want to attack you until it's sure to win, and it never will be.mctronic wrote:Have you guys tried to play H5 on hard lvl ? If so, you'll realize that the AI is good has the enemy (not the one scripted) will make smarter choices such as attacking weaker heroes and so on. I've never even tried heroic has this should be like impossible to win.
However, on normal, the AI doesn't play that well but I think it's similar to H3 with easy difficulty.
I also think that Ubisoft put a lot of effort on the AI because they know that the bad AI in heroes 4 was one of the reason of poor sales.
I'm playing the first campain on heroic right now, I've restarted about... 20 times
(maybe more), I currnetly have a full castle and an army large enough that the goal orrientated heroes will run in to attack and retreat instantly due to having a weaker position/army 
While it's somewhat comical it does mean I can't afford to take a large army on the offensive ~ the map is well designed to be a challange on heroic and I've enjoyed it without completing it and with many reloads for the last 5 days or so and with this goal orriented stupidity aside te AI seems to play well enough.
When I get into fights it doesn't make any glarring errors (like exploding it's own troops? I wish it would do that
) it doesn't play the same everytime I reload the same fight (even when I've intentionally set up the same and played the same to see if it does so I can abuse it ).The difference between heroic and noram (I tried it to see what the first fight was like), is +5 levels on that first goal oriented hero, + an army that is a lot bigger, and of course neutral stacks are larger and so you take more losses fighting them. The game is far too easy on normal (imo) but Heroic is a good challange.
So while the AI isn't up to human standards there are things, liek the goal oriented heroes, which make the game very challenging. This imo is more imporant than a human quality ai. The AI in this game isn't subpar, it's just, not a human
The game offers a good fight which isn't just "I have more troops so I can afford to screw up".I do wish the demo had a normal game which included taverns though, I'd like to see what the AI does without goal oriented hero help, or with the knowledge that if it can't win the first fight, it loses (which is really what the custom scenario is).
Still in terms of difficulty, in my current experience it's more like impossible on H3, with better playing, than H4's insanely easy to manipulate AI, that relied soley on mass numbers to cover it's stupid tactics.