Should we ban the Griffin Conservatory and the Hive of Serpents?

» Well, finally people will start building mage guilds.

By the way, there are other templates besides Jebus, where people build up to 5 guilds.

» Many here say that farming for resources and dwellings is a skill.

Of course, it is also a skill. Just like playing against the AI on the map. Heroes is not purely a PvP game.

» Most players can do this very well.

If someone can do it well, and you can't, that doesn't mean that the statements are "fundamentally wrong."

» Because you don't need tactical maneuvering and improvisation skills to capture resources, because everything always goes according to plan.

Once again, playing Heroes is not only PvP; it's also about playing against the map. What maneuvers can you make if you can't fight well on the map? You'll just fall behind in map exploration speed (tempo), and you'll get rekt.

» Your "skill" here simply consists of knowing what a not-so-smart AI will do.

Knowledge is what matters. In any game. The one who knows more has a higher chance of winning. Experience is based on knowledge. What is experience? It's the sum of accumulated knowledge.

And if it's as simple as you say, then play with different races, different armies, and at different stages of the game, just like they do. And I'll count how many times you lose. You might not even reach those resource nodes and dwellings.

» This is just complete nonsense. Skill can only be determined by battles against real players, which, with resources and dwellings (the beloved randomness), boil down to the fact that the one who simply doesn't make mistakes wins, playing against an AI whose moves are known in advance.

Give people identical armies, and one of them will definitely lose. What about different troops, different hero stats, and different specializations? And most importantly, different spawn setups.

That's why mirror templates were invented for such cases.

And if you think that Heroes is only PvP, otherwise it's unbalanced, then play arenas like those in Heroes 3, with pre-made armies, where you just need to choose bonuses and fight.

But there is no ideal, and there can't be, because imbalance and a huge amount of randomness are at the core of the game. If you haven't understood this yet, I didn't want to upset you. Welcome to the real world; you should have taken the other pill.