If you intend to get HoMM V, either get he Gold Edition which has all the goods, or then just Tribes of the East, as it's a standalone expansion that has most of the problems of the base HoMM V ironed out. Biggest problem is that the base campaigns aren't in that expansion.
I liked the campaign storylines, but playing on Heroic, got stuck on the Warlcok campaign's third scenario, which is utterly ridiculous and requires cheats to get anywhere on the Heroic difficulty.
HoMM V is thematically much closer to HoMM3 than to HoMM4, which was too much of a crossover into AoW mechanics. Pity they did not keep the old HoMM3 world.
HoMM3 was great all around, and the music was amazing. Even my mother commented on how good it was, and she's about as distant from the average video game as any given African Bushman over the age of 50 or so.
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You've sailed off the edge of the map--here there be badgers!
Hmm, really? I heard that HoMM V sucked, primarily because the AI was terrible and they tried to get around it by flooding the game with hordes of enemies, and also because of lack of creativity in the overall map and campaign design.
I would love to learn I am wrong though, so if so please let me know!