Played since H2 though, discovered the site during H5 and I find it resourceful.
Now I will play the advocate of the devil
I found the changes are quite going in the good direction in the sense that a lot of bothering micro-management is taken out to focus more on the action.
Examples:
- Mines controlled via key-points, being a city or a fort is quite a relief. No more chasing after a swarm of lvl 1 heroes with 1 unit flagging your mine. You want my mine, take my keep. Straightforward, allow for setting up proper defense without running all over the map again and again.
- This brings me to the second point of having 1 special resource only. Not too bad either considering the above. You can now set-up a hero to plunder a mine for 1 week and I believe it pays a lot to cripple blood crystal production for that amount of time (in multiplayer).
- Who seriously miss the caravans? That was a pain in the a$z to setup every week for little reward, some were blocked along the road, never finding their way to the castle... This particular design choice though prevents to cut enemy reinforcement (in multiplayer) and thus should be re-thought somewhere in between. Maybe something like dwellings from an area effectively automatically boost the production in the main city but between those cities you still need to run caravans... It was pointless to setup 20 caravans arriving in 1 or 2 turns time for 12 halflings.
I need to play more to better evaluate the consequences of those changes but first-hand impression is not as bad as I could read. Okay, I did not mention the skill redesign.
And yes, releasing the game in the shape it was (is?!), is a shame, Bad Ubi, bad! I mean you must not touch the game at all to miss luck bonus or griffins' special...
