World Team Cup 2019! Discussion about organizing the second world championship.

Currently, the following changes are being considered:
- Fixing shifted guards (not 100%, but in many cases).
- The ability to refuse skills at Witch Huts and from Scholars.
I agree with the first two points.
- Always start with three stacks of units and a built second-level dwelling.
I entirely don't understand why. With this "fix", you're changing the hero balance. Dragons from the mine will be taken over Tazar with Gunnar, etc. I could understand a mandatory second stack, but three...
- Reducing the number of obelisks on the map so the dig radius is larger.
Also a bad fix. By reducing the number of obelisks, first of all you won't distribute them evenly across the map, and secondly you'll simplify the digging process. This should be a rarely achieved parameter, not in every second game.
- The ability to buy off neutrals.
Absolutely, entirely, and completely contradicts the logic of the game and its balance. Where will the money go??? What benefit does the opponent get from you buying off neutrals???
- Convenient calculation of movement points and more information about spells in the spellbook.
My IMHO, against it. This greatly reduces the variance in skill and speed of decision-making. Haven't you noticed on the HotA ladder that players in HotA have ALL BECOME THE SAME LEVEL, except for a couple of people? Precisely because of such fixes.
- Improvement of skills: Eagle Eye, Scouting, Learning, Mysticism, and spells: Quicksand, Land Mine, Disguise, etc.
What's wrong with Scouting and Mysticism? How do you break through a strong 2-hex guard if you don't have Oil but do have Quicksand? I don't see the global logic in these fixes. You don't want them to be obtained — remove them. But I don't see much point in that either.
- Plugins that fix many in-game bugs.

Changes that may cause more negativity, so their implementation is still very much in question:
- Joining via diplomacy is only paid.
- A third of monsters on the map never join.
- Stack joining limit based on value.
A game with diplomacy will never lead to anything good, balance-wise.
- Troops in Dragon Fly Hives and Conservatories are changed to native 6th-7th level.
The Fresh mod already exists. IMHO, rounding up should be done.
For example, Mini Hive = 280 HP = 2 Castle horses, since they have 300 HP. Rounding up gives 3 Castle horses.
But Necro horses will still be 2.
- Curbing Luna and everything related to Necromancy by 2 times.
Then Luna will become an ordinary mage with a wall. If you want to nerf it — then change the specialization. As for Necros, you'd then have to at least allow the Power Up, and at most, greater vampires.
- Curbing Logistics.
I'd like more detail here. Logistics or logisticians? If you remove Logi from the game, then XL maps will be played for 12+ hours by two equally skilled opponents.
- Strengthening guards on higher-level scrolls.
This also needs to be done carefully. Should control spells be distinguished from combat spells? Should Implosion be valued more than Mirror Image? Etc.
- Unbanning campaign heroes (except for imbalanced ones like Gelu and Dragon, and 7th-level unit specialists).
Well, no comment here. One question: why?

4. Template pool. As the last championship showed, there's not much point in using XL+U and mini-Nostalgia templates. A large share of games on them dragged on for a whole day or night, and viewers just watched in parts. And if you also had to save — that's even worse. In general, we need more or less dynamic templates, designed for games of 2-4 hours (5-6 max), no more.

2sm4d(3) XL - moderately dynamic, sometimes drags on (played on XL size because more playable games are generated, plus treasure zones on swamps and snow are disabled).


An XL SMK without an underground? More balanced and playable? Could you send me the template in a PM, because I find that hard to believe.

For now, these seem to be the main points on which I'd like to hear opinions, justified criticism, and advice.