DISCUSSIONS on “Rules for online games in HoMM3 and formulas for calculating player rating.”

Sure, IMHO :).

The main components of interest are variety and unpredictability. Since Starcraft was mentioned, there is a similar trend there – NR, which stands for no rush. That is, people agree not to attack each other for 5-10-15 minutes from the start of the game and calmly develop. I don't think I'll surprise anyone if I say that these people are on the periphery of the Starcraft community and are labeled as noobs (which they actually are).

But in Heroes, it's the same...

No, it's not the same. Firstly, many people, who are far from being noobs, don't really like skirmishes in the first weeks. Secondly, I repeat, Heroes is a game that is specifically designed for development, unlike Starcraft, where everything is perfectly balanced for rushing/defending against rushing. In Starcraft, everything really comes down to the amount of "meat," both at the beginning and at the end of the game. That's why the game is primitive; the champions are those who work the mouse faster, not with their brains (there simply isn't time for that). To confirm this, I'll tell you about a funny incident from some Starcraft championship, where one awesome player lost in the final because he forgot to build detectors and was successfully defeated by invisible units. So, in short, Heroes and Starcraft are completely different games, and I suggest you read reports of online matches; few people write that an encounter in the 2nd week made the game incredibly interesting. And the idea that the possibility of a rush is taken into account in development, in my opinion, is incorrect; few people specifically prepare for it. If this is off-topic, sorry.