Treatise: on the delights of the work of a cesspool cleaner.

- Saves of an unfinished match may not be opened by anyone except the tournament judge/host or a member of the AC, and only in the event of a dispute arising in the match. If, at the moment a dispute requiring the opening of saves arises, there is no contact with the judge/host/AC, the match must be interrupted and saved by both participants until contact with the judges is established.

Well, for starters... This context of the rules does not assert that saves cannot be loaded during a postponement. At least because the second sentence indirectly contains an explanation of the content — why on earth would anyone in a dispute need to "load a save". Naturally, the judge will open the save from both sides, possibly the map, and based on that, will render a decision in the disputed situation. I do not see here any indication of the impossibility of loading a save in single-player.

Perhaps this is not stated, but is implied by the creators; let's approach it from that angle. In that case, it would be reasonable to assume that loading a save should give the player some advantage unattainable by other means. But, firstly, a participant can ask their opponent for the opportunity to recall the map during multiple reloads. This is formally allowed, and moreover, it is common practice. Besides the fact that a player can look for as long as the time limit is ticking, they can quite easily avoid accepting their opponent's turn, using the fact that HD+ provides this opportunity. Accordingly, they can start their turn after the same kind of preliminary analysis.

Secondly, a player can simply take screenshots of the game, knowing that the game will be postponed, and thus have the same information at their disposal. Thirdly, if we imagine that a stubborn opponent refuses the possibility of loading a save before handing over the turn online, one can prepare in advance and write down certain thoughts on the game in, say, Notepad. Naturally, all these considerations pertain specifically to difficult moments, when the obvious strongest development is not immediately visible.

Will a player who has studied the game in single-player have an advantage over one who has not? Yes, that is the case. But, firstly, postponing the game in any case provides a number of opportunities to play in a way that would be impossible for a player to do directly online. For example: say player A sent their turn and stepped away to use the bathroom, which took them 2 minutes. They return, and it turns out the opponent has already made their move; accordingly, player A needs to make a decision in the game on the fly, although again there may be situations where the correct and best move is very difficult to find.

If the match was postponed, then at the very least, it is possible to restore the game map from memory and carefully weigh the pros and cons of a particular choice.

Another possible situation is, for example, a player is facing a battle, say, of a level 9 Pire against 5-9 War Unicorns. Directly online, one might decide to take that battle, but might also get scared. If the game was postponed, nothing prevents me from simulating such a situation in the editor and testing the course of the battle.

I will give an example. In the Favorites -5, I had a match against GoedenDag. on the 8mm6a template. I had a Barbarian castle and I was planning to get Angels at the computer on the first week. During the postponement, it became clear that to get the required amount of gold, I would need to take a Medusa Fountain and a Dwarf Cottage in a row. The moment was obviously very important for the entire match, and I needed to understand what losses I could take the Medusas with, and also I needed to figure out if I could use the remaining army to break a normal-sized Dwarf Cottage. In single-player, I checked that my army and hero allow me to confidently take a Medusa Fountain with 30 units, but with 40 it's very risky. As a result, I came up with this plan: split the hero to check a Treasure Vault. If it contained 8, then simply transfer the army to the Dwarf Cottage and build Bears in the Fort. If it contained 20-30, then take both buildings (which is what happened in the game, allowing me to get Angels tempo-wise and rush to the center with 2 units of Mephala on day 121).

In general, the advantage for a player who analyzed the save certainly exists, but it is of the most legitimate nature. Therefore, to be honest, I don't see any "offense" in principle. Furthermore, a player who has streamed the game has the ability to simply watch the replay. And obtain, again, the same thing. I won't even mention that hints received on stream have 7 times greater influence on the course of the game than game analysis.

So, to the point. I must say that a certain vital organ, hereinafter referred to as the AC, conducted a very interesting dialogue with me. Namely, there was no dialogue at all. When the well-known player HW Numone deigned to send me information on ICQ, his only question was: explain how 5 saves ended up on your computer. HOW could 5 saves appear, allowing you to study them for 5 days??? I don't quite understand. I possess the codes nwcwhatisthematrix and nwcnebuchadnezzar, but I still examined 5 game saves. How so??
Here I made a big mistake. Instead of immediately telling this biased individual and mediocre Heroes player Numone to take a hike, after he admitted that he had NOT STUDIED the game saves.
I, for some reason, started describing the game situation and the course of the battle to him. Which, obviously, was of no concern whatsoever to player Numone. I admit, I hadn't fully recovered from a sudden bout of the flu.
And I didn't assess the situation properly.

So what am I waiting for? If, as the AC organ assumes, I gained an advantage during the course of the match against Alexander,
specifically

: the saves were opened before the end of the match with the aim of gaining an advantage in the game.

then it would be quite expected to hear what kind of advantage this was and in what it was realized. If the AC organ interprets the situation in such a way that I, say, cracked the map, but did not use the obtained information in any way, then I ask them to write this in clear, plain text.

If, however, I did use the illegally obtained information, then I want to understand where exactly and in what manner.
Non-lyrical digression:

Actually, in my naivety, I was planning to build my defense line on the premise that for the situation at turn 126, the plan for further play was not only clear, but also the only one. The question was only about the timing, exactly when this could be realized. In short. In the match, I had a very difficult situation, due to a respawn block that was not noticed initially, which later prevented me from building either Horses or Angels. Achievement — level 6 in the Stronghold for the Fortress hero and good heroes. By turn 117, the development for the week was already clear. A Dragon Utopia was scouted in one of the centers. Which needed to be taken in a simple way on the third week. Preferably on turn 131. So, the preparation for the capture was proceeding with difficulty. Namely, the water skill of the main hero was not being fully leveled up with high probability (due to a mistake on turn 124), and a full logistics skill was desirable for the week 3 Dragon Utopia. In short, after much deliberation, I decided that forcing the pace would likely be disadvantageous, and decided to take it with a buyout on turn 132, and in case the opponent appeared and stole it, to return to the swamp respawn and take the Dragon Utopia there. Everything after that is completely linear; after I got the town portal, I replenished my mana, took the only scouted Hive in the area, and was planning, through double mana, to go break the remaining two Dragon Utopias, using expert Summon Water and having 30 upgraded Wyverns.

What the AC is trying to convince me of:
the different dates of the saves indicate their "illegitimacy". No, they do not — this is a common phenomenon. The difference in dates with, say, Vick was about half a day. But I have had a firm conviction of the AC's incompetence since its inception, for which confirmation can be found in earlier posts. No surprises there!

To be continued...

P.S. If anyone has questions about games, this one or others, then ask them here; if they are worthy of attention, I will be sure to answer when I have free time.