Плагин Fresh Mod для SOD

The strength of a game doesn't always correlate with its understanding. And after watching streams and reading posts from top online players, I personally came to the conclusion that their opinions are not what you should rely on. Because, unfortunately, they have a poor understanding of the game. And most importantly, they have huge blind spots that offline players don't have.

Understanding is determined not so much by strength (although it is certainly important), but by experience. As an offline player with vast experience, I can say that online and offline are two completely different gaming worlds. And for representatives of one world to interfere in the other with advice is simply foolish. This becomes very clear when a top online player completes some Paragon or campaign on stream, or a top offline player loses to an average online player. This is natural and there is nothing wrong with it. But you can adapt, but you need practice to develop that understanding.

A 1-on-1 game on large maps without AI, or with very weak AI, without trying to improve this AI or put it in advantageous conditions - this is a complete misunderstanding of the original idea of the classic game.

Again, let's not mix things up. Indeed, the original idea of the classic game was player versus computer, completing campaigns, etc. But a 1-on-1 game is a battle between people; let it remain that way, and the computer plays the role of a spectator.

As a "couch analyst," I claim that the solution to 90% of your online problems lies in strengthening the AI. Not excessively, and in smaller battles (the methods of conducting sieges by the AI should, of course, be improved).

But this will already be a different format of the game - which, unfortunately, you don't realize...

Regarding "putting the computer in more favorable conditions," we have already gone through this stage. Take a look at THIS thread. A template was created with unrealistically strong armies for the computers. But this idea only lasted once; no one else wanted to play like that. There are great single-player maps available to fight against the computer.

I read several pages from the archive of the Heroic Corner forum. It discussed ordinary diplomacy (paid or free), and it was subtly noted that allowing diplomacy might be an attempt to provoke the player into making losing tactical decisions. Sometimes that is indeed the case. And, of course, it concerned not very large maps (or if the map is large, there were AI players who could compete with human players).

Just understand how absurd your paragraph sounds. "Heroic Corner Archive"!!! The website existed, if I remember correctly, from 2002 to 2005. Back then, online gaming was on a completely different level. Fifteen years have passed, hello! Diplomacy really struck a chord with me, and I want to discuss it in more detail.

1. Diplomacy has been returned to the game; it works even with the "HW rules" flag enabled,
but with one limitation: neutral factions whose "AI Value" > 25,000 cannot join, for M and S maps, "AI Value" > 8,000 (with the help of igrik, RoseKavalier, Ben80).

Online players, tell me: why can't you just remove only free joining, while leaving the paid mechanic untouched? What is the problem or catch?
And then diplomacy doesn't need to be reworked; it can remain original and pristine.

These two posts show how incompetent mod creators are when it comes to practical issues in online play. Such suggestions come from people who haven't played a single game with diplomacy. I already answered about the first quote that the main joins are monsters up to 25,000, and this change almost does not change diplomacy at all. Diplomacy provides a good boost when there are joins of 3,000-6,000 in the first week and 6,000-9,000 in the second. It is wrong to think that the biggest benefit is GO joins (this is only late game, which rarely happens).
As for diplomacy only for money, this can also help a lot at the beginning. Experienced players, when attacking small and necessary guards, always try to keep 3-4 thousand gold in reserve for paid joins. Yes, this will definitely hurt diplomacy because you won't be able to fly around and collect everything. But on templates where money isn't an issue, after many defeats, it will depend on whether someone found a secondary diplomat or not. The endgame will become a game of economics, where money will turn into troops. In general, this idea has been discussed more than once.
We have several strong players who have played a huge number of games with diplomacy, such as BISHOP, HellLighT, Redwhait. Why wouldn't we ask one of them for advice?

It's bad that they are following the path of HotA (eat what they give you). The difference between Fresh mod and HotA is that HotA succeeded, but Fresh mod did not.

And do you know why? Why did HotA succeed? Because the creators of HotA consulted with strong players about what to add and what to remove, albeit poorly. And the creators of the fresh mod follow the principle: eat what they give you, or my friends play and it's fine. That's the whole difference.

igrik's plugin about guarding neighboring objects by neutral factions is very good.

I don't disagree with this; moreover, I am sure that igrik has vast experience in creating mods and plugins, and he is definitely good at it. Therefore, I urge you to separate bug fixes from gameplay.

Or are debut systems in chess or authors of excellent new works more often created by average-strength players, rather than champions (and if there are champions, then suddenly it turns out that they have an analyst somewhere on their team)?

Can you give a couple of examples where some innovation was invented by a weak player or novice? (not just 18th-19th century) Very interesting. Also, I would like to know which options are named after novices. Maybe there are any serious books written by first-category or candidate masters. This goes back to the question of game strength and understanding. As a chess player, I am very interested.