I apologize if similar suggestions have already been made (I didn't read the entire thread). I would like to add the following:

1) Remove unnecessary artifacts from the game (the Admiral's hat and other water-related artifacts, and perhaps some other unused ones). For example, angel wings on some templates could also be removed. You could even remove artifacts partially, or create a menu where you can use checkboxes to ban artifacts. Similar to how object bans are currently set.

2) Regarding the shifted guards. How about making all Guard Towers double and reducing the chance of passing through them (you could reduce the value so that they can be bypassed in extreme cases).

3) Regarding banning objects, you could expand the number of objects that can be banned. If you remove more rarely used or prohibited objects, the quality of the map generation for each game will improve. And in general, more flexible hero customization would be beneficial.

And another suggestion on a different topic - I didn't find where to write about this. The HotA version has simultaneous turns, and this is their "selling point" to promote their version. They don't want to implement this for SoD (they say it's not feasible for SoD, although HotA works on SoD). But every feature has a price. Is it possible, for a certain price, to influence the implementation of this feature for SoD as well? The popularity of Heroes is growing, and donations are increasing - it might be possible to try to raise the necessary amount.

Thank you in advance for your response.