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4. Memorizing hero positions.
I often see people scrolling through the hero list looking for a specific one. This wastes time that could be saved if you remember who is where and what they are doing.
This is especially critical with 7-8 heroes, where the time lost searching for the right hero can sometimes reach 20-40 seconds per turn. The correct way to find the needed hero is with a single click right on their face.
For example, when building a chain, you need not only to remember that there is a 3-hero chain over there, but also to know each hero by sight and by name.
This saves a lot of time especially when your "loch" (fodder/decoy hero) is attacked by the computer or an opponent — knowing exactly where the attacked loch is allows you to calmly think over the changed situation on the map (the timer does not tick).
Therefore, after ending your turn, you should first click through all your heroes, memorizing who is where, with what army, artifacts, etc. Besides the goal mentioned above, this also allows you to quickly spot mistakes like forgetting to give an army/artifacts to idle heroes.
5. Sitting posture at the computer.
As a person who got into esports through StarCraft and shooters, I was surprised by the typical Heroes player's posture at the computer — left hand propping up the chin, right hand lazily clicking the mouse, body either lounging back in the chair or slumping to the right/left, etc. As if they weren't playing a competitive esports game, but browsing porn sites.
The correct posture when playing on short control should be roughly that of esports players in real-time games — back straight or slightly tensely hunched, left hand playing chords on the keyboard, right hand clicking the mouse sharply, eyes staring intently at the screen, the whole demeanor illustrating tension and concentration.
Specifically regarding the left hand's position — it should be resting near Ctrl-Alt-Shift almost all the time, not only moving there when the need arises. This saves about one second per action, which is a lot.
The same goes for other keyboard buttons — the hand should move there in advance. For example, when performing the last action in combat, you should simultaneously move your hand to the Enter key to immediately accept the battle results as soon as they appear. And don't stare at them — those extra 2-3 seconds per battle will add up to a significant amount of time by the end of the game.
6. Hotkeys
Much has been written about them, but not everyone knows/uses them even now. I've seen top players manually splitting stacks, dragging the slider, etc., more than once.
The general principle is — if a hotkey exists, you need to use it. There are few useless hotkeys even in the original Heroes, and in their extensions (WT and HDmod), there are none at all.
Everyone seems to use splitting single units and gathering them, but not everyone uses, say, the transfer via Ctrl-Alt.
Example — the very start of the game, you put your starting hero into the inner garrison and buy a second hero, and you need to transfer his army to the first hero. Here's what I've observed many top players, including Alex, doing — click elves, click elves, click dwarves, click dwarves, click centaurs, shift-click centaurs, drag the slider all the way right, click OK. That's 7 clicks and 1 slider.
When playing with short control, you shouldn't do that.
The correct algorithm: ctrl-shift-click Centaur, ctrl-alt-click Centaur, ctrl-alt-click Dwarves, ctrl-alt-click Elves. That's 4 clicks. Moreover, these clicks are ergonomically arranged in a row from left to right, not up-down-diagonally, which forces longer aiming time.
In general, the slider should not be used under any circumstances — fast keys suffice for almost all tasks, and for non-standard stack splitting, you should type the quantity on the keyboard, which is faster even considering the time spent on calculations.
Also, not everyone uses the ctrl-alt-shift key (splitting evenly among free stacks). For example, if you need to split 36 wolves into stacks of 1-1-17-17, you do it as ctrl-shift-click + ctrl-shift-click + ctrl-alt-shift-click (if the other 3 stacks are filled with goblins/orcs), which with fast hands takes 1-2 seconds, while using the slider takes at least 5 seconds, or more.
In HDmod, by the way, this operation is even more refined — ctrl-click + ctrl-click + shift-click, the same number of actions, but easier to press, and there's no dependence on the number of free slots.
I'll also note that many people fail at standard SoD hotkeys — ending the turn, viewing the opponent's turn, sending a hero on a route, putting a hero to sleep/waking them, switching underground/overworld, Enter for various confirmations, etc. All of this should be done from the keyboard, not by clicking icons on the screen.
to be continued ...
4. Memorizing hero positions.
I often see people scrolling through the hero list looking for a specific one. This wastes time that could be saved if you remember who is where and what they are doing.
This is especially critical with 7-8 heroes, where the time lost searching for the right hero can sometimes reach 20-40 seconds per turn. The correct way to find the needed hero is with a single click right on their face.
For example, when building a chain, you need not only to remember that there is a 3-hero chain over there, but also to know each hero by sight and by name.
This saves a lot of time especially when your "loch" (fodder/decoy hero) is attacked by the computer or an opponent — knowing exactly where the attacked loch is allows you to calmly think over the changed situation on the map (the timer does not tick).
Therefore, after ending your turn, you should first click through all your heroes, memorizing who is where, with what army, artifacts, etc. Besides the goal mentioned above, this also allows you to quickly spot mistakes like forgetting to give an army/artifacts to idle heroes.
5. Sitting posture at the computer.
As a person who got into esports through StarCraft and shooters, I was surprised by the typical Heroes player's posture at the computer — left hand propping up the chin, right hand lazily clicking the mouse, body either lounging back in the chair or slumping to the right/left, etc. As if they weren't playing a competitive esports game, but browsing porn sites.
The correct posture when playing on short control should be roughly that of esports players in real-time games — back straight or slightly tensely hunched, left hand playing chords on the keyboard, right hand clicking the mouse sharply, eyes staring intently at the screen, the whole demeanor illustrating tension and concentration.
Specifically regarding the left hand's position — it should be resting near Ctrl-Alt-Shift almost all the time, not only moving there when the need arises. This saves about one second per action, which is a lot.
The same goes for other keyboard buttons — the hand should move there in advance. For example, when performing the last action in combat, you should simultaneously move your hand to the Enter key to immediately accept the battle results as soon as they appear. And don't stare at them — those extra 2-3 seconds per battle will add up to a significant amount of time by the end of the game.
6. Hotkeys
Much has been written about them, but not everyone knows/uses them even now. I've seen top players manually splitting stacks, dragging the slider, etc., more than once.
The general principle is — if a hotkey exists, you need to use it. There are few useless hotkeys even in the original Heroes, and in their extensions (WT and HDmod), there are none at all.
Everyone seems to use splitting single units and gathering them, but not everyone uses, say, the transfer via Ctrl-Alt.
Example — the very start of the game, you put your starting hero into the inner garrison and buy a second hero, and you need to transfer his army to the first hero. Here's what I've observed many top players, including Alex, doing — click elves, click elves, click dwarves, click dwarves, click centaurs, shift-click centaurs, drag the slider all the way right, click OK. That's 7 clicks and 1 slider.
When playing with short control, you shouldn't do that.
The correct algorithm: ctrl-shift-click Centaur, ctrl-alt-click Centaur, ctrl-alt-click Dwarves, ctrl-alt-click Elves. That's 4 clicks. Moreover, these clicks are ergonomically arranged in a row from left to right, not up-down-diagonally, which forces longer aiming time.
In general, the slider should not be used under any circumstances — fast keys suffice for almost all tasks, and for non-standard stack splitting, you should type the quantity on the keyboard, which is faster even considering the time spent on calculations.
Also, not everyone uses the ctrl-alt-shift key (splitting evenly among free stacks). For example, if you need to split 36 wolves into stacks of 1-1-17-17, you do it as ctrl-shift-click + ctrl-shift-click + ctrl-alt-shift-click (if the other 3 stacks are filled with goblins/orcs), which with fast hands takes 1-2 seconds, while using the slider takes at least 5 seconds, or more.
In HDmod, by the way, this operation is even more refined — ctrl-click + ctrl-click + shift-click, the same number of actions, but easier to press, and there's no dependence on the number of free slots.
I'll also note that many people fail at standard SoD hotkeys — ending the turn, viewing the opponent's turn, sending a hero on a route, putting a hero to sleep/waking them, switching underground/overworld, Enter for various confirmations, etc. All of this should be done from the keyboard, not by clicking icons on the screen.
to be continued ...
