Round table

Could you describe the gameplay of an ideal Heroes of Might and Magic map? But please, don't talk about balance, as balance isn't determined by the map's design. I'm interested in what the gameplay should be like: a non-contact game until the fourth week, or, conversely, the possibility of a rush? More resources and mines for building a GM (Great Mage) or relics on the ground? (or all together) Many development options or a limited number (2-3)?

In my opinion, each Heroes of Might and Magic map is good in its own way. Creating a new one is a good idea, but I agree with the previous speakers that it should not be a remake of existing ones, but something unique.

I'm not setting the task of creating an ideal map; that's why I wrote "more playable than the existing ones." Today, the most playable one is 6LM, and this is not my personal assessment, but a direct consequence of the statistics; it is currently played at least twice as often as any other Heroes of Might and Magic map. At the same time, the map has an obvious drawback – a large percentage of layouts with unplayable paths for one of the players (usually blue). I propose to eliminate this drawback, and nothing more.
Accordingly, regarding the gameplay, I can say that I (and, apparently, not only I) am satisfied with the gameplay of 6LM when it distributes more or less normal paths.
Attempts to create a map for certain strategies do not interest me much due to their low prospects. An example is Spider, which was supposedly created for playing as mages, but in fact, it is rarely played at all, and very rarely by mages in particular.