Time is money, or are you going to waste it?

The variance can be enormous.

Simply put, all other things being equal, the player whose generator has handed out more difficult problems will have higher turn costs.

And, by the way, the timer doesn't contribute that much here; the typical unevenness of the deal is much higher. So, for example, for Dungeon, you can easily trade half an hour off the timer for such an average unevenness as a single Griffin Conservatory under the Castle and still come out ahead. And there are even bigger unevennesses...

This turn is not just a turn, but the response the player arrived at after making a sum of different actions.

1. The wording is good, but there is another side: if on easy turns I can save time for hard ones, then if hard turns come immediately (e.g., blocks), I'll have to lose it. You could say, 'well, you'll make up for it later.' But what if the game plays out so that one player constantly has to work hard, barely managing within, say, the basic 400 seconds and often losing their starting reserve, while the other gets dealt simple guards, a convenient layout, and increases their reserve on easy battles. That seems somewhat unfair.

2.It stimulates both players, but the amount accumulated, all other things being equal (skill, speed of thinking), will turn out differently! It depends on the map, starting towns, and computers.

Advantages of the SoD timer:
1. All actions on the map are limited by a single and unchanging limit. This keeps players on equal footing throughout the entire game (does not give an advantage and does not worsen the position of players relative to each other, if the generator puts one of them in a position with difficult (time-consuming) tasks, and the other in the opposite position.

2.The limit for tournament play is set based on how much is needed in the most difficult stages of the game, i.e., a limit within which almost all possible turns, even the most complex ones, should be feasible.

In WT, players often try to save it up, and in the end, it wasn't even necessary, because either the game ended, or they had so much of it that I personally observed in some games where WT players, trying to save time (accumulate it), passed the turn, forgetting to do something with their army (artifacts), etc.

I believe that you should first and foremost play well and take as many actions as needed, and no one should have to pay for anything that is allowed by the rules.

demons don't come from thin air. You need to kill as many creatures by HP to get demons (without the ring).

Another option - try to imagine that Heroes was originally made with a chess timer and time in battles. What would the reaction of current players be to the proposal to make the timer like it is now in SoD? Probably a bewildered finger twirling at the temple... "boy, what's wrong with you?"

And if, for example, Heroes were taken to WCG and a requirement was set like "game duration no more than 5 hours", then all the active Heroes elite would start blitzing without any problem.

There's this Pole, Wojrad I think. Go play against him on unlimited. You'll have time to rethink many things in life.