Ben80
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Armag, no offense, but the Tournaments you host don't feature a high level of gameplay, so the opinions of those players don't really matter.
That's completely wrong. The strength of a player doesn't always correlate with their understanding of the game. After watching streams and reading posts from top online players, I personally came to the conclusion that their opinions are precisely what shouldn't be taken into account. Because, unfortunately, their understanding of the game is weak. And most importantly, they have huge blind spots that offline players don't have.
Playing 1-on-1 on large maps without AI, or with very weak AI, without trying to improve that AI or put it in advantageous positions, is a complete misunderstanding of the original concept of the classic game. This is where all the problems of online play originate, and the distortion of the classic game as an attempt to solve these problems – additional artificial rules, restructuring of guilds, replacing bonus creatures in conservatories, etc.
Bringing diplomacy back into the regular game is a bad idea.
I once read a few pages from the Heroic Corner forum archive. It discussed regular diplomacy (paid and free), and it was subtly noted that allowing diplomacy might be an attempt to provoke the player into a losing tactic. Sometimes that's exactly what it is. And, of course, it was about maps that aren't very large (or if the map is large, the presence of AI players who could compete with human players).
igrik's plugin for protecting neighboring objects with neutrals is very good. It's an excellent temporary solution until there's a real fix for RMG regarding unprotected (shifted) objects. It also solves the problem of stealing objects using Flight.
The plugin only slightly changes the basic mechanics of the original game, and this change isn't jarring – unlike replacing bonus creatures in conservatories.
By the way, if anyone didn't know, AI, unlike humans, can't steal shifted objects; it considers any objects near monsters to be protected, just like in the plugin.
https://postimg.cc/hJMxwGyX
The plugin is well-made, on par with the HD mod and HotA, and it's much less jarring than HW Rulez.