I know it'll sadly never happen under Ubisoft's watch, but I would absolutely kill for a new HoMM game that combined HoMM2's graphical aesthetic with the game mechanics from HoMM3.
There’s the mod homm3 succession wars that kinda do this. They recreate homm2 in the engine of 3, and thus also bring in a lot of the gameplay/qol improvements from 3 like the magic system and more tiers of creatures
I've actually never played Wesnoth, although I've heard good things about it. I want to say that combat plays out more like the Civ series rather than having a dedicated "battle screen" you'd see in HoMM - at least based on the gameplay footage I've seen [1].
OTOH, can never have enough turn-based strategy games though so I should give it a shot!
Wesnoth is great if you like games where you have to create and exploit situational advantages. Using advantageous terrain, the day/night cycle, and varied unit types makes it one of the most tactical games I’ve played.
