As far as the campaigns go, the plot varies. Probably to add some longer, story building interest, and a chance to justify some unusual tactics. There will be some campaign maps starting with one town and requiring development, capture and finally conquer, but not all (or even many).

I usually treat the campaigns as a tutorial and have yet to back and do one a second time. Celestial Heavens has walkthroughs though, as does Youtube.

If, like me, You prefer to start with one town, like your opponents, develop, strike out, expand and conquer then try the single scenarios. Especially those on Maps for Heroes.

I usually spend anything from 6 - 12 months (gametime) to complete the larger ones. I can recommend some to try if like, when you are ready.

Back to the skillwheel...the three rings are similar to abilty "levels" in that some advanced or expert (centre and inner ring) have prerequisites. Looking at Urgashes Call, I can't remember if there are three ways to get it (Logistics, Attack, Dark Magic) or if you need to complete all three paths to get it.

Either way, don't fret about the scenario styles in the campaigns, the real fun lies in the custom maps. Plenty there to suit all style preferences.

Well, it also depends on luck. Demon Lord is looking to be well on his way to get it. First time I played it I got mostly picks that won't help, but after restart (I restarted previous level, since the random seeding seems to be done, at least partly, when level starts, so reloading won't help) every single skill I got helps me towards Urgash Call.
And don't get me wrong; they are interesting. I loved the first level of Inferno where you have to run around with your demon avoiding the main hero. It was nice to try something different. It's just that it doesn't feel like HoMM.
(HoMM4 didn't feel like HoMM too, but for a different reason; there most levels were proper levels with multiple towns... etc, but except for the first level of each campaign when your hero doesn't have good Combat skills, it just consisted of walking around with the hero and a single fast stack. Combat skill was so unbalanced that creatures weren't even secondary; they tertiary).

Speaking of story, is it me or does the acting appear very hammy?

Anyway, I might try the single scenarios. I'm generally a campaign kind of guy, but might try to give this a go too.
How are the random maps?


You need all three.

So, to get Urgash's Call, assuming you don't waste any skills, you're going to be at level 28 when you get it, unless you get help from other sources, like the Witch's Hut.

I got Logistics from a Witch's Hut, but was lucky not to waste a single skill. 3rd Inferno level was capped at level 24 for heroes, so I'm happy that I'm only 3 levels away from Urgash's cal...

... only to discover that you get Sylvan troops in level 4. hahaha. That's really funny. I'm going to be very amused when I finally get that ultimate skill, only to discover I can't use it.
Level 3 Inferno was finally a good HoMM level. You start with 1 town, enemy has 3 and your objective is to capture all towns.

The only problem is that it was a bit too easy, because of the poor AI. The enemy was a bit of a pushover. The idiotic difficulty system strikes again.

Problem is if I play at Hard, where the AI plays properly, then the extra large neutral stacks are going to be a pain. Especially at the beginning when you have a new hero and the difference between facing 20 or 27 archers could be the difference between you getting or not getting that sawmill.

Still, given how easy this was, I'll probably play the next campaign at Hard. *sigh*.

It is (or at least should be) in the "city information" (or whatever it's called in English version). The shortcut key is F I think.
You just summed up why I didn't like H5 campaign. There are proper missions in the game, but there are way too few cities on the map. Plus annoying "hide and seek" missions (which you can't even explore because you need all the starting forces for the boss at the end of the level). And missions where you only have one hero. And a bunch of other stuff. Expansions are supposedly better but I have yet to play those.

Honestly, the only really good thing to come from Ubisoft when it comes to Might and Magic is Dark Messiah.

I wasn't as lucky this level and didn't always get the choice of abilities that will lead to Urgash's call. I did get the useful Enlightment though. I'm at level 30 cap and all that separates me from the ultimate skill is Teleport Assault (from Logistics).

Problem is... I'm maxed out everywhere else. Got all other skills to Expert and taken all the abilities from them, except the missing one from Logistics. So if next level up I'm offered a choice of Scouting and Navigation, I'm pretty much screwed.
Oh, I know at this stage it won't really matter if I have Urgash's call or not, but I'd be very annoyed if I was so close to getting it and missed.
There is a 2/3 chance I'll get it. We'll see...

If you are close enough to a level, and you find something earl in the next map that will bump you over the edge, then you could just restart the map until you get it. That's how I secured Enlightenment for the main hero in the Necromancer campaign (made sure to get it for my first level up).

If there isn't anything to make you level in the first 2-3 turns, then it isn't worth the effort.

Yeah, from level 30 to 31 no amount of monsters will do. It'd have to be a tree, and I don't think there is one.

Well, I didn't find out. Because there wasn't enough XP to level up. Barely made it 1/3rd of the way. What with crazy jump from 800k to 1.2M

Of course even if I did reach it, it wouldn't have mattered because I wouldn't have had enough XP for the level after that to get that Urgash's Call.

And none of this mattered because I wasn't even Gating in those battles. Simply killing those creatures was too easy.

Still, disappointed.

Next campaign on Hard. I hope it's actually challenging without being too frustrating due to the large neutral stacks.

I believe Undead is next, so it should be more fun. Those larger neutral stacks will become larger stacks of undead for you, and Markal's hero ability is pretty sweet. To be fair, I played before the patch that made Dark Energy (a limiting factor on how many undead can be raised per week) a thing.

Edit: For a good time, see if the wizard that has Arcane Omnience is still in Map 3 (I think it was). Beat him, hire him, enjoy learning every spell you haven't learned to that point. He was missing a bunch of pre-req's to have the skill, which was rather amusing when I found him in my tavern rotation.

Well, it's finally challenging on Hard. Level 2 was pretty tough since a wizard landed in week one (didn't attack though), and a second one in week 2 (this one did attack, and my armay was barely powerful enough to repel him).
Level 3 is the first one that truly feels like a HoMM game. Many cities, many enemies and it finally doesn't feel like I'm playing against a retard. I'm more than halfway through, and it feels like I have the edge now, but it wasn't easy.

Not sure if I defeated the Arcane Omnience hero. A lot of them fleed anyway.

The Dark Energy is pretty interesting. I don't get has as many undead from necromancy as I want to, but at least it doesn't feel like cheesy, plus I don't only get skeletons, which I believe was the case before Dark Energy was introduced.

Starting Ranger campaign. The ultimate skill seems amazing, but I won't get it, because for some reason developers wanted to give my starting hero Tactics, meaning it won't be possible to get the prequisites for Nature's Luck.

If they purposely gave a skill so that Nature's Luck won't be reached, I wish they'd at least given me Archery...

The Elf ultimate is definitely one of the better ones, mechanically speaking, but it has a sizable drawback. You have to watch that little rainbow animation on Every. Single. Attack. Gets rather aggravating after a while, but guaranteed double damage is very nice.

Yeah, and like Urgash's Call, very difficult to get. Even if you manage not to waste any skill, it takes ages to get there. By that time, you're powerful in other aspects anyway (and, you have a high luck to get those rainbows often as it is).

I was also disappointed to see that elves don't get Summoning as their mage guild school. I wanted to be expert in every skill at least once, and kind of took it for granted, that in Summoning's case I'll do it when I play ranger. In previous HoMM games, summoning spells where usually associated with them.

But there was really no "good" time to choose Summoning before. Haven was more focused on Light Magic, Dungeon on Destructive and Necropolis on Necromancy.

Think I'll go with a might choice now (Attack, Defence, Logistics, Enlightment, War Machines). Not the most optimal; I know. But War Machines is the only other skill I haven't experted, and for Ranger it makes most sense. And I'd like to try to see what it's like without those high level spells.

Then for the next campaign I'll try a heavy magic skill choice. That's when I'll take summoning.

Every castle type is associated with two types of magic (I think, though maybe it is only one), and will always have a spell of that type in their mage guild at each level.

For example Haven is Light, Dark Elves are Destructive, and Necropolis is Dark. Wizards are associated with Summoning, so you should be able to make heavy use of it with them. I think the Sylvan faction might be Light magic, but I'm not sure.