AstralLein
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Yes, that's exactly the problem – I'm playing without balance mods. There's only one of your maps in the maps folder. I watched a video walkthrough of your map on YouTube:
There, under your guidance, a guy named Remix plays through the map. But he plays through the old version of the map, v0.2 beta, from September 1, 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzJr53T2-uY
That version is very different from the latest one, as you made many changes and improvements that directly or indirectly affected Giovanni and the blue player.
In particular:
v1.1 (09/26/2018)
— Giovanni's Education has been replaced with Leadership.
v1.2 (12/09/2018)
— The number of days Giovanni is blocked has been reduced from 28 to 21, and the cost has been increased from 35,000 experience to 45,000. Also, experience is now taken from the hero who activated the event, rather than a fixed amount from Arantir.
— The "Raise Dead" spell has been removed from Arantir's champion heroes at the start, but they have been given "Slow" instead.
— Arantir's champion heroes, as well as Lucretia from Giovanni's champion heroes, are now "immortal" and always return to the tavern.
— The strength of the blue AI has been increased, and several additional scripts have been added for its main heroes and cities.
— The blue AI no longer visits Giovanni's lands.
— Giovanni becomes stronger at a certain point in the game.
There were many other changes that ultimately affected the walkthrough, making it more difficult. For example, Giovanni comes to me exactly every 15 days.
In the old version that Remix played, he appeared after a month. At the same time, he was much weaker in terms of army and stats.
I just skipped three weeks on a hero, and in that time, Giovanni is still chilling in his territory with a decent squad of skeletons, three packs of various ghosts, and other minor units like undead. Giovanni cannot return to his city until he is killed by the player. Therefore, he does not receive an army from the city after teleporting through a one-way portal to his main zone along with the loot. The only thing he gets is experience from battles and ghosts from his specialization. Plus necromancy, but the AI uses it inconsistently. So, I have no idea why he's rushing you.
Added 10 minutes ago
What I wrote is confirmed by a replay from a user named Flame_Haze, which can be found earlier in the map's thread. The very first replay is the first encounter with Giovanni. The latter's army is almost exactly the same as mine was during the fast check. So, this is around the fourth week, where Arantir is quite developed and has a solid army, significantly exceeding Giovanni's, but the latter will return after death with purchases from the city, i.e., with dragons and other units.
Added 3 minutes ago
I don't know what's going on. Recently, someone complained about a script that wasn't working, but it works everywhere and for everyone. Giovanni is acting completely untypically for himself here. It's clear that something is influencing this.