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Since you believe that the article contradicts what I am writing now, it means that you do not understand the meaning of what is written. Because there are no particular contradictions there; over the 8 years that have passed since the article was written, my conceptual vision of this issue has not changed; mainly, details have been clarified.

Why don't you, as a game developer, have such an idea? And when, for example, I talk about it, you reject it. Apparently, it is really very difficult to take this step back.

I, as a developer, have this idea more than enough. When developing Warlords, I am guided precisely by this idea; it is my flagship and ultimate goal.

And what you propose goes against it. I have repeatedly explained why, and this also follows from the text of the article.

More specifically, SoD is much less spectacular than Warlords. There are many reasons for this:

1) Low average player skill level
It is clear that this is not a criticism of SoD itself, but of the SoD community, but nevertheless.

2) Poor templates.
For example, Alex-Mareti watched the game and yawned; it is impossible to achieve a normal action on Panic, even for such masters.
Although this also applies more to the SoD community, which for some reason does not like to play normal templates, but prefers all sorts of nonsense like SMK balance and Panic.

3) Time stops in battles => the player has the opportunity to think => it is boring for the viewer; they need action. Spectacle implies constant action, a fast pace, that is, a chess timer and short control are essential.

4) Low game pace, a lot of fuss and stagnation.
For example, in Russian billiards, the evolution of the rules is going in this direction - to have more attacks, more balls scored, fewer comebacks, and a shorter game duration.

5) The factor of randomness - its significance is described in detail in the article.
It cannot be cured in SoD; all developments in this matter are possible only in Warlords - from balancing the game itself to mirror templates.

6) Increasing the game speed by setting up roads, advanced quick combat, disabling unnecessary windows, and other small improvements.

This is easily solved. It is elementary; when generating, the map is given to the leading organizer for review. He looked at it and gave his verdict - play, guys.

This cannot be solved in this way. Even with a preview for the probability of a quick match (which I did a lot of), problems, disputes, and discrepancies between forecasts and reality still arise. And to assess the playability of a layout, you need to delve very deeply into it, and even then, the probability of error will be high.

That is, the layouts will inevitably turn out to be with an advantage for one of the players, but here they will not blame the generator (it is ironclad; it doesn't care), but the one who reviewed the map. Do you need such a load? I don't.

Therefore, to achieve balance in the distribution of maps, it was decided to go another way - by creating symmetrical templates. This is faster and more reliable, and all complaints are directed at the generator.

I don't see more adequate ways.

But, in addition to the map itself, destructive randomness manifests itself in many other factors. Most of them have been eliminated in Warlords - castles, skills, heroes have been rebalanced, morale has been removed, and guild restructuring has been added.

All this leaves randomness as a source of gameplay diversity and takes away its right to determine the outcome. That is, an increase in the constructive component while reducing the destructive one. This is what is required for a competitive game.

That is exactly what the foundations should be. SoD is the foundation, Warlords is a different game. Hockey players on the ice do not play field hockey.

If we compare it with other games, then Warlords is more like an add-on for SoD. That is, like SC:BW for SC, WC3:TFT for WC3:RoC, and so on. They did not change the ideology of the game, but only added balance and diversity.

The same SC and WC3 differ quite significantly precisely in ideology; these are really different games, which is noticeable from many factors. For example, the composition of players - attempts to combine or even switch in most cases ended in failure; the initial advantage of Starcraft players in fast-clicking and grinding was quickly leveled out by new players whose thinking was better suited specifically for Warcraft.

But transitions between SoD and Warlords are relatively comfortable; there are many players who combine both versions; there are grounds to talk about a common heroic skill that is not tied to the version.

If Warlords had been released by the developer himself, then everyone would have long forgotten about SoD, happily playing the add-on and remembering about morale and other features as some kind of nonsense, childhood illnesses of the game.

That is, Warlords is precisely a patch, not a revision of the foundations. Therefore, my current thoughts do not contradict the position stated in the article.

new ideas in the person of me

Rather, (censored)...