Nival releasing a game with major elements unfinished? Noooo! I can't belieeeve it! *sarcasm, in case that isn't obvious* (see Silent Storm: Sentinels for why I hate their guts; it wasn't their only bugridden cashcow but the only one I'm ashamed to admit I own)

They had to try a little harder than their usual because gamers have lost trust in the HoMM franchise and they wouldn't have gotten the sales they were hoping for. But making an AI that can understand when it can't afford things and save up? No way, they don't care about keeping players hooked they want us to buy expansion packs and HoMM6.

It might also just be an example of what happens when you have to divide time in game development between singleplayer and multiplayer. GC2 has no multiplayer to speak of and so happens to have a great AI. The upshot is that if I 'put it on the shelf' for years and then later come back to it, I can still be challenged instead of being stomped into the ground by people who've had years to refine 'cheap' or 'unfun' strategies.

The developers killed a good franchise game when they released HOMM5. Slow and boring.

meh i think they already killed the game with HOMM 4
HOMM 3 is the only good out there, ( i never even saw HOMM 1 or 2).
HOMM 3 has everything, and with the unofficial expension WOG the game was finished, it had so much options and you could turn them on and off just to see what game you wanted to play today.
HOMM 3 still rules today imo.

Stromko: The A.I was done in house by Ubisoft. Doesn't really matter as it should provide a challenge WITHOUT cheating!

Meglobob: Only played campaign so far but the first turns after I did what I was supposed to do (set domestic policies, start building, production, research and move my ships) I thought: "It that all?" It seemed kinda empty :/ But the killer was when I realised that you have to play this game zoomed out which kills the immersion for me. I was playing on the most outzoomed "normal" view when all of a sudden an explosion happened next to one of my main planets. I zoomed in even more and found a little Dreadlord fighter....I then zoomed out to the strategic view and realised that there were another Dreadlord ship very close to the other one and other ones a bit away. And playing in that view made it feel too much like a spreadsheet and way too less as a computergame.
And about those Borg cubes, Federation ships and that: I downloaded some ship collectoins from this site and you're supposed to add a number so the right shipparts show up with the right race. Problem is, he only explains which races numbers 1, 2 and 3 are connected too. The rest I have no idea about.

You now probably wonder why I didn't test the demo first. Well, all the talk on this site coupled with Stardocks policy made me keep watch of the game. But what really sold me was Frogboys battle examples and activity in the forums. I just assumed I would like the game since I like TBS games.

Don't even compare Heroes 3, 4 and 5, they're different games. To say that heroes 3 is better than heroes 5 is like "C&C: Red Alert is better than C&C: Renegade"...
(ahhh, that's just voices in my head saying to make me feal better...)

The instruction on installation and generation of maps for Heroes 5 here:

random map generator for Heroes V