Playing on fixed maps can be compared to chess, while playing on random maps is like poker or even bridge.

Excellent comparison, especially with bridge! :smile20: That's why I haven't played either for a long time. :) In both cases, the player mostly acts "on autopilot" - in bridge, they play "7 as 8," or in random maps, they execute the "Miner and Trolls take the minimum rations on week 1" strategy for the umpteenth time. The brain doesn't have to work hard, as everything is well-known and predictable. :smile48:
It seems to me that when playing cards or on random maps, a person becomes fascinated by observing the "whimsically shuffled deck" (c) Koroviev. :cool: That is, they are waiting for an interesting outcome (in bridge, this could be a good hand or a small hand; in Heroes, it's unexpected actions by the opponent that require a non-standard reaction). But interesting outcomes, unfortunately, make up a small minority of the total.

But unlike chess, where the board is always 8x8, fixed maps need to be studied carefully, and due to lack of time, this can be problematic.

Ideally, that's how it should be. But in practice, we have very few meaningful, multi-variant, and balanced fixed maps :( and it is usually these that are played in tournaments, so practicing players are familiar with them.
And most maps are so simple that they don't require предварительное изучение. For example, the maps for "The Succession Wars" - I'm ready to play on any of them after looking at it for 10 minutes in the editor. And the opponent won't have the advantage of "knowing the map" - because there's nothing there that needs to be known.

As far as I understand from reading reviews and reports from random map players, there aren't that many generally accepted templates. And, knowing these templates, it's not difficult to navigate the area. I just don't understand - how can these templates be identified in advance so that only they are generated? Where are they defined, and how can they be changed?

Each template is defined by a single line in the rmg.txt file, so to generate only the desired ones, you just need to delete all the other lines. Moriarty has explained everything clearly; I'll just add that the original version of this file can be extracted from h3bitmap.lod (tools for extracting and editing lod files are available on many sites).

Even so, you need to play a couple of times, otherwise you won't be able to calculate a couple of squares, you'll lose momentum, and accordingly, this could cost you the game.

This is a relatively rare situation. And you can estimate the distance "by eye" even in the editor to understand where you will be able to get by a certain day.

Wow... So, this elevates the deeply respected and beloved Random Maps to a whole new level! Now, I just need to figure out how to generate these templates according to my own wishes.

The template is chosen randomly from the list. If you leave only one option in the list, it will be "according to your wishes." :rolleyes:
But, in my opinion, this doesn't elevate it to a new level. :smile27: The chance that the generator will create an interesting map is approximately the same as using a text generator to create high-quality poems or stories. The templates in this example are just grammatical rules that the program follows when selecting words. There is no more meaning in the text because of this.