I have a question about the GoG version of Heroes of Might and Magic 5. Simply put... which patch version does the base game come with? For the longest time, I've wanted to play through the campaigns without the sweeping changes made to, for example, the Necromancer's abilities that came with patches (1.3, I believe), but this is not possible with the Steam-bought game.

Would this be possible with the GoG version of the game, or does it load the later patches into the base game's original campaigns as well? I want to play through as Markal and raise hordes of Skeleton archers instead of the "Dark Energy" system :(

GOG always puts last official versions (when not using community patches), so you should expect 1.60 for vanilla Heroes V.

Must admit, that's disappointing - if a previous version of the game were available, I likely would have made the purchase. As it is, looks like I'll be sticking with Steam.

The reason I ask at all is because, even aside from the mechanics changes I mentioned above (the Necromancy skill changing from the skeleton hordes to the vastly different dark energy system), and various changes to magic and the warlocks, one thing I find is that the AI scripting for a great many levels through the campaigns appears to have been damaged or outright broken, if 90% of walkthroughs and anecdotes I've seen are to be believed.

I must admit some amusement though, as the worst case of broken scripting actually occurred in Hammers of Fate, rather than the vanilla game, as a hero that was supposed to be idle instead took over a town that was not meant to be attacked, that I was intended to be handed in a cinematic that proceeded to never play, killing one of the "must survive" heroes in the process before I got control of them, NOT triggering the loss condition. But I digress, the point is that aside from the raw mechanics, the AI doesn't seem to behave as it should - heroes that are supposed to charge blindly into you are cowards or entirely idle, whereas some other heroes are far more active than they are supposed to be, or outright ignore the "task" they're supposed to be carrying out.

From the sounds of it though, the only way I'm going to find an unpatched game would be to find a copy of the game on physical disc, or perform a miracle and find a usable copy online on a site not riddled with malware.

Hm, nothing uncommon with neglecting campaign AI when patching, sadly :P

If you have the Tribes of the East expansion, you may try using the MMH5.5 mod. It aims to fix a lot of things in the game, and appears to be compatible with campaigns of both vanilla Heroes V and Hammers of Fate.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/might-magic-heroes-55
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=41303