I finished the campaign last night, so between a good night's rest, and going to the EPGS meeting today for some good boardgaming fun, I thought I'd post my thoughts.
The storyline was very enjoyable. Top quality. This was the kind of story I only thought the fans could make. (Wait- I really meant that as a compliment to the 3D0/NWC guys, not a slam against the fan base
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The last map very much emphasized how much the heroes dominate this game at higher levels. Although I had several towns from early on, I kept all six of my starting heroes in one force (along with the summonned stack from Lysander). Once I built a few angel dwellings, I used caravans to send them forward. It can't hurt to have a creature capable of ressurrecting troops in-battle. They weren't necessary, but once I had a decent stack of them, they were able to take out an occassional stack before my three grandmaster archers walloped them.
Charming the occassional stack worked nicely, as the charmed forces could go and gather loose resources for me, while the heroes concentrated on flagging objects and advancing through the map.
Due to the great hero power, I am thinking that I may want to experiment with more diverse skills, rather than building up a few trees in my next campaign (most of my heroes had 2 fully-built trees at end, and a few skills in the other 3. Getting basic magic in some school should be useful for any hero)
It is nice to see that summonned troops (from the skill) build up, even if you do not have an army slot for them. When I split Lysander off from the rest to end the map, a huge pile of sprites magically formed - obviously the 5 or 6 week's worth that hadn't any room until then)
Speaking of troops, minotaurs are very annoying with that blocking skill. One stack blocked an entire round's attacks (2 melee and 7 ranged). I actually needed to use a healing spell in that battle. The fact needing to heal was a once-in-the-map occurrance further emphasizes the hero strength.
One thing I missed, but didn't conciously register it until near the end was the lack of "map bonuses" in the campaign. Whether it was just this campaign, or that the option isn't there remains to be seen (although I would guess a pmap designer could script a choice on day 1, if you really wanted it.)
@Chorus: I don't find that the advanced classes are that special. The abilities are nice, but the skill selection offerred to heroes is so rigid that it is very hard to get the one you want. For example, I tried to get an archmage, but it was only when I found a site on the last map offering order magic that I was finally able to get someone to have 3 schools of magic. By then the other skills were so far advanced through levelling that it would have taken a dozen more levels to even have a chance at the title. Perhaps if I decided to do this from the first map, when characters were low in level, I might have been able to succeed. I'll have to think about this in the next one.
So far, my impression is that this game really emphasizes the HEROES part of HoMM, but it seems to possibly be to the detriment of the rest of the map.
Anyway, I am now on to a new campaign.
. It had lots of bugs and it was so different. But later, even now I can play them as all other HoMM games 