Stage of the Van Kaneghem Tournaments for HEROES II!!! "Continuing to continue!"

Why is it more honorable to take 1st place among 32 people?

It's not just about the number of participants, or even primarily about it. Forgive my frankness and lack of modesty, but the top 3 nicknames in the final standings of this tournament are enough to consider it representative.

Tournaments are interesting to play, but this "load-save" principle is very annoying...
It turns out that whoever has more time for generating moves can theoretically achieve a better result.

I played the "skip turn" option at least 50 times, moving from day 3 to day 4. Not once did the computer move downwards.

I want to dispel some illusions. The AI has its own clear behavior algorithms, so the number of its move schemes is quite limited. In my observations, there are usually 2-3 options, so generating moves doesn't usually take much time. Also, you can influence the AI, albeit to a limited extent, with your own actions. For example, in my playthrough, the computer always ran in the same way; the only difference was whether it left mummies in the Castle on the first day or took them with it. Obviously, since the Castle was well-developed, the option with only vampires in the Castle should have been chosen. The computer ALWAYS ran downwards because my hero stopped at the end of the 3rd day in a cell directly adjacent to the gold mine and wood. The AI also has its own field of view near the Castle, and in this case, it "saw" the enemy hero and returned closer to the Castle. That's why the hero capturing the Castle had 2 extra movement points on the 4th day (which is usually a luxury in offline tournaments), because on the previous turn, he had to stand on a "visible" cell. If he had stood on a cell next to the treasure chest and the desert, the computer would have strictly moved upwards. This is an example of controlling the computer's actions with your own actions.