>the "hero" just hides in the back like a coward and watches the soldiers fight
Why are homm games like this?

>>2065393 (OP)
They tried to fix that in HoMM 4, and it ended up with the heroes just being an almost immortal demigods that slaughter entire armies (although mostly due to the glitching "AI" against tough opponents). Heroes could die easily, as they were supposed to be still mortals, but to prevent the game being just armies clash into each other, without leadership, the devs added "potion of immortality", and that delivered to the name, because if your hero drank one, it resurrected after dying, so it was basicly opponent units attacked, took massive damage from hero retalliation, and even when they'd kill the hero, it got revived back into life, just to drink an other potion while still can defend with retalliation, ad infinium. It was theoratically possible to put out enough damage to kill the hero twice in one turn, but the "AI" was bad at it, especially in town battles, when it climbed on and off turrets (other change in 4, by default unmanned turrets, that you could stand your troops to shoot from).

The commander needs to see the entire battlefield to command.
The commander dying mid-battle is also guaranteed to create chaos likely leading to defeat of that side. This is why chain of command is a thing that was invented likely before ad hoc tools even. Replicating ranks like lieutenants in HoMM is impossible due to its shitty design (troop stacks).
Finally, in HoMM the commander might also be a spell caster who can literally resurrect the troops unlike IRL.

>>2066130
>and it ended up with the heroes just being an almost immortal demigods that slaughter entire armies
Except you need to grind at least one whole campaign map for them to get there first. So outside of campaigns that carry over heroes this doesn't happen.
>potion of immortality
If the enemy army is strong enough all your hero(s) will do is burn through their potions after being revived and eventually run out and die for good.
>opponent units attacked, took massive damage from hero retalliation
Even if your heros only get combat branch skills the damage still won't be "massive" until you've cleared at least one campaign map. It will be decent, like a week's worth of about L5 troop growth at most.
>and even when they'd kill the hero, it got revived back into life, just to drink an other potion while still can defend with retalliation, ad infinium
Wrong. He "dies" with retaliation, gets brought back by bottled Guardian Angel, drinks another potion on his turn or he's gone for good, "dies" with retaliation again, and this continues until he runs out of potions. If the enemy has a hero with illusions or summoning he is fucked unless he has more potions than the enemy has mana (pro tip: never happens). If the enemy has a large enough stack of vampires he's fucked too. If the enemy has a strong enough stack with First Strike he's fucked too. If the enemy has enough angels to resurrect whatever is attacking him once it might be over too if the attacking stack is strong enough.
>computer opponents are trash
Duh. But it still doesn't work until you go partway into campaigns.

IV has lots of flaws but heroes on the battlefield aren't among them.

>>2066287
>L5 troop
I was thinking in terms of III. Middling T3 then.

The HoMM 3 virgin hero vs the Eador Genesis Chad

>>2065393 (OP)
In HoMM V a hero can do a runby with a sword, with none of the problems of HoMM IV like fearing a stack of ugly gorgons sniping him. Still, only 4 and 5 understand the MEANING of the word HERO.

>>2066476
>In HoMM V a hero can do a runby with a sword, with none of the problems of HoMM IV
And with two new of its own: it's both irresistible and doesn't get a retaliation. So worse overall.

>>2066287
You could just use scouting/sneak skilled heroes on random maps, level them up that way fast, and just spend most of your income on potions of immortality for the battles you actually fight. Higher the difficulty setting, the easier it was, as computer could not handle random guard monsters, and took a long time to move around. The larger the map was, the higher level you could climb, also you got to pick up more combat bonus loot, and artifacts, to make your hero even tougher, plus double strike from grandmaster combat, or double shooting from grandmaster archery, it was super easy, you unironically nerfed your hero if you had any troops, and only used any if facing a massive army close to a castle where you can buy units.

>>2066621
Getting GM stealth is 4 levels straight up. So even with sneaking past neutrals you'll be at what, around level 12? With just 8 in the combat branch you're not going to have either GM melee or GM archery.
Maybe you can grind to around level 18 on really fucking large maps, okay. That's bad. So the solution is to either use one of the retarded mods to nerf stealth (and needlessly change dozens of other things) or not play very large maps.
Either way, note how from "zomg heros so OP pls nerf" we're now down to a very specific and boring strategy on a specific type of maps.

Maybe your heroes
Mine solos the entire enemy army with implosion