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As I understand it, the changes for the latest version of the mod are described in the thread header? If so, let me list the questions that have arisen. As far as I can tell, the mod is intended for small and medium maps (since there's little point in conducting long games in tournaments).
1. Demons.
In my opinion, they went a bit overboard with the nerf to Hell Hounds; I doubt that one aura is comparable in utility to fear attack combined with higher initiative and damage. Especially since the aura only takes effect at the start of the next turn, and by then the rows of hounds could easily be thinned out. The Nightmare buff is pleasant, of course, but they were often preferred anyway; I find it hard to imagine who will take Hell Hounds in their current state (I might be wrong, as I rarely play on small maps; perhaps the passive damage at levels 10-20 is too high). Buffs to other creatures are generally justified, as the demon army is weak in the early game. I especially liked the idea with Fire Demons. However, the Archdevil buff is also confusing; I always preferred them over Archdemons because the latter's ability has limited use due to their low movement speed. Of course, the ability to pick off enemy archers on turn 2 is very useful, but they can only hit them on turn 3.
Meanwhile, Archdevils possess the ability to summon Cave Lords, who can also open gates, significantly increasing the army's size.
2. Necropolis
The situation with Bone Archers is also ambiguous; total damage increases by 30% with shooting + BB (though this is partially offset by increased evasion, which is now simply a must-have against any faction except demons). As a result, skeletons with BB and shooting will deal 13.75% more damage to a target with evasion, but they will have 20% less health (without buffs), making defense even more important for the undead. Undead with good build-up became even stronger; undead without good build-up became even weaker (unless attack or defense were rolled).
The change to vampires also causes bewilderment and makes Ornella even stronger. Of course, it's not very pleasant that their growth is reduced, but the total number won't suffer much since vampires are a top priority for resurrection with dark energy. So this change is more of a buff, as it makes them much tankier (Vampire Lords are 25% thicker, and Higher Vamphires by 28.6%). As a result, they will be even harder to get rid of. The change to sleep is also not quite clear; it already puts targets to sleep for 2 turns, not 3. The reduced chance is offset by increased HP, so it won't suffer much.
The change to Liches, in my opinion, makes little sense. The nerf to Archliches (because one point of damage won't compensate for the loss of 2 attack) and Higher Liches (who lost 4 attack and an inexplicable 0.5 damage) is quite strange. The fact that raising dead is now at expert level will hardly help (essentially we sacrifice damage and cloud to cast another mediocre raise, because two expert resurrections are roughly comparable to three ordinary ones). In my opinion, they were unbalanced before and remain so—the first are still stronger in long games, the second are now even better for rushes.
3. Orcs: The buff to Nomad Centaurs is pleasant, of course, but without a rework of maneuvering intelligence, it fundamentally changes nothing. At least they are now good in fights against neutrals. I liked the change to Sky Daughters, although the fact that they no longer need to kill a goblin to cast mass chain lightning is a rather ambiguous decision. However, considering that damage without level 1 blood rage will be cut by a third, you'll probably still have to slaughter a goblin. At expert level, they will create absolute chaos, but on tournament maps it will be difficult to push them to expert level since UA can only be dreamed of, as reaching 1000 or even 750 rage points will be very difficult. Although, with war cry and education branches, it's possible, but the hero will have to spend precious turns. And then the opponents will be hit by a chain lightning dealing 3200 damage, launched by 30 Sky Daughters. The regeneration boost is also unlikely to affect much, although the Shakk'Karukat buff makes wyverns very decent tanks (at level 25 their HP is comparable to level 7 creatures). Although damage is still low and they still don't gain rage.
The change to Chieftains is also quite pointless; on tournament maps it's quite difficult to get the number of chieftains up to 60, so why not reward the player for this achievement? It only becomes significant when a player has more than 120 chieftains, which is an average of 2-3 months of game time.
Also, the buff to Free Cyclopes is completely incomprehensible; they were made even better at what they were already very good at—crushing enemy squads supported by the hero and chieftains. With higher initiative and a speed of 7, under a +1 speed cry and with a speed aura, they will be a very serious threat to the opponent, and classic storm wind (which weakens all level 7 creatures except titans) and fog veil (which weakens titans) do not affect them. You end up with these crushing and stunning monsters with a speed of 9 (or even 10 if you take speed boots). In my opinion, the Stronghold looks the strongest in this mod, solely because of the cyclopes. Meanwhile, Blood-eyed Cyclopes are unjustifiably weakened. The reduction in speed is justified; the reduction in initiative—not. If compared to dwarf dragons, the latter are much more durable and hit harder. The fact that Blood-eyed Cyclopes can still shoot doesn't save them, as their debuff (which became much weaker after the luck nerf) does not apply to shooting.
4. Dungeon.
The most obvious radical change is the modification of Stalkers. On one hand, 50% armor penetration might allow them to deal decent damage in the final battle, but their main source of damage has always been poison, which will be problematic to apply without invisibility. At least they should be given a single point of speed so that they are on par with those dancing with wind/death, who have higher growth and all stats except health. I don't actually play Dungeon, but these problems seem serious to me. I can't say anything about the other changes.
5. Academy.
I think they went too far with the Pests; a reduction in attack is understandable (though debatable), but weakening the gremlins' ability by 10 times is very strange. Even if it was too strong, in its current state it won't work on enemy golems. At least there's sense in leaving the coefficient at 2 or even 3 (especially since gremlins are often killed first, and this ability ceases to be useful even faster). It should also be added that this ability wasn't OP with any coefficient because a stack of gremlins spends a turn to disable a ballista for one turn, meaning they don't attack and the ballista doesn't die. While deadly cold simply kills the ballista without any fuss.
The nerf to Elemental Gargoyles is also incomprehensible. The main reason to take them was their sufficiently high initiative; without it, they are barely applicable. The Kshatriya nerf also looks strange; I rarely took them anyway because they are very vulnerable to almost everything, and now they are just paper. And finally, the strengthening of Thunderers is very pleasant; this upgrade has finally stopped being pointless on small and medium maps.
6. Haven
The weakening of archers, while justified, is in my opinion exaggerated (especially against the backdrop of the evasion buff). The change with griffins is interesting, but again ambiguous. Although it makes a strategy based on readiness very feasible (though considering the evasion and shooting buffs, I suspect that even with an increased counterattack this won't be enough to choose such a tactic). However, the potential is huge; I can already imagine how strong Iris could be with such a build (the main thing is to activate defense before the opponent hits, which low initiative hinders). The same can be said about the knight nerf as for the archers: justified, but perhaps excessive. Although it's not bad for a defensive tactic; you can put them in a box with griffins. Overall, it looks like humans were harshly nerfed (perhaps they really were among the strongest in Multiplayer, but this looks like overkill). On the plus side—an attempt to open up the possibility of playing through defense and counterattack.
7. Elves.
The Wasp Swarm is now strengthened. Why buff some of the strongest level-one creatures—it's unclear, but why not. The nymph buff is doubly questionable. The dancing with death buff is triply questionable. Native lands are weakened (on one hand, they are now strictly worse than the speed aura; on the other, perhaps +2 really was too much). I would suggest an alternative change—rework the skill wheel so that you could take either native lands at +2 and, for example, empathy (for instance, if native lands branched from empathy), or a speed aura, but NOT native lands. That is, either 1 everywhere with optional logistics, or 2 on grass with mandatory leadership. Then native lands would still be strong, but harder to obtain, and you couldn't stack insane +5 to speed (+2 NL, +1 SA, +1 boots, +1 sanctuary).
The buff to bow masters is not justified; +1 initiative is ok, higher stun chance—no. The nerf to Forest Archers is ambiguous. Instead of reducing initiative, it would be better to weaken the passive (change 50% penetration to 30%). Well, they'll arrive a bit later, but they'll still one-shot any stack of creatures. Especially since elves are the only ones with full luck (for everyone 5 luck gives an average of 25% damage increase, while for elves it's 50%, which more than compensates for all nerfs and makes elven luck an indispensable ability). In my opinion, the change to luck and elven luck is one of the most unbalanced changes in the mod. Although almost all skill changes are for the worse. The imbalance of senior druids also hasn't been fixed; on the contrary, they've been made even tankier.
8. Dwarves.
Reducing the damage of mountain guards is pointless even with the defense buff. The warriors' passive is still much stronger, and their damage has actually increased. The second grade was worse before and remains so. Jarls are now even better than they were, although no longer immune to fire. Earls became slightly faster but more fragile—an ambiguous change. Arkata's dragons were much worse than the alternatives and remain so. The problem with runes persists, albeit to a lesser extent (at least they can no longer be used three times, but still twice).
9. Skills.
I already mentioned shooting and evasion—now these are two must-have abilities.
Cursed land is still practically useless, as are mana explosion and banishment.
For some reason, reinforcements were weakened.
Buff to stunning blow +.
Barbarian luck, as I understand it, gives a fixed 5% damage reduction; imho it should have just been fixed rather than turned into another clone of reflection (especially against the general nerf to luck). If undead can receive -20% damage, why can't an orc with 5 luck receive -25%? Or at least -4% per unit of luck. Or as an option, make it so that every time spell damage is received, it's reduced by 25%, but only in the case of luck (if implementable).
The new "protect us all" is interesting, but in my opinion too OP. In fact, it's equivalent to reducing damage from all sources by 9% (including magic and ranged attacks) + a small bonus to combat effect chance.
The nerf to wide gates of hell is completely incomprehensible; they were already worse than the gate master, and after the change almost twice as bad. (i.e., 50% chance to summon an additional 20%, while the gate master is 100%).
The buff to hellfire is OP. Just for the record, it also works on creatures summoned through gates. And for example, one imp can deal 150 damage for free. Magnificent. Especially OP with BDP. The mana cost was there for a reason.
Soul eater nerf—well, ok.
Counterattack—considering other human nerfs—is weak in almost all tactics except the griffin tactic.
I can't say much about the removed skills—although some are unclear to me (for example, endurance, grave cold and dark revelation).
Retribution for demons is certainly good, although their attack branch is already overloaded with useful skills. (While the bonus from the most skilled attack is simply tiny, 15% only in melee compared to 25% in melee AND ranged from retribution or 30% shooting damage).
It's not quite clear why fire arrows were removed for factions other than Inferno (someone loves Deleb too much). Just make it so that taking them requires a ballista or rapid-fire ballista for other races, then they won't clog the skill tree.
Also unclear why the forest leader was removed; for elves, attack is the best stat in my opinion, and they get very little of it. In education there's now nothing for them to take except mentorship. The same applies to dwarves, undead, and orcs. In my opinion, all races should have everything except skills leading to mentorship removed from education (or just nerf mentorship, as was done in 5.5).
Also, for some reason they swapped the defense branches of the warlock and knight; I didn't watch the overview, so the idea behind such a change escapes me.
10. Buildings.
Undead were justifiedly weakened because randomly joining stacks and 2+ castles ruined the balance on large maps (or maybe they didn't, since undead troops are much weaker in the late game).
Finally, you can build bone dragons without shooting yourself in the foot.
Humans were hit in the balls once again by cutting the number of creatures that can be retrained in half (it seems someone really dislikes them). Not to mention increased resource costs. And griffins now cannot be built in the first week, even if you really want to.
For some reason they weakened the fire trap; now it not only summons 2 mines, but they also deal same-tiny damage.
They strengthened the fist (and with it neutral mages). I think this is more of a plus.
They strengthened the swarm (Dirael will be happy). Again, probably good.
They strengthened resurrection and raising dead (not that they were too weak, but oh well).
The wall of swords was nerfed to oblivion. Now you can't mock neutrals.
Divine vengeance was weakened by 4 times (CARL!). I don't understand why everyone dislikes it so much, but I assume it's OP on small maps (well, the earth shock scale for 100 kills is indeed strong).
Vampirism was heavily cut, in my opinion too much.
Stopping cold was weakened. Although in the late game it was probably strengthened due to a stronger damage increase.
Pleasant buff to magic arrow. Well ok, although unclear why. And generally almost all chaos magic was strengthened. Okay, dark elves are happy. Although without invisibility for stalkers it's still not great. Ah, no, Armageddon was weakened. Dark elves are now crying.
11. Heroes.
Miv now casts mass haste at level one. Well, they made the most OP late-game hero strong at the start too, wonderful.
Axel became quite strange, well ok.
Iris, considering all changes, should be top-tier, especially with mass slow at the start.
I can't say much about Anwen. Best in late game after Wingael. For clearing tough neutrals simply the best hero in principle (I remember killing 480 death knights with a stack of 300 archers in 1 attack). I don't particularly like the attack branch on elves because even considering all bonuses, luck simply gives more damage.
Talanar is OP with druids in the finale, even with the nerfed divine vengeance. Against neutrals his special is useless, so in a real game the hero isn't especially strong.
Ilfina is in my opinion the weakest elf hero. Strong in late game of course, but in tournaments the effect of her passive is tiny.
Ossir, considering all changes, is incredibly strong. Easily gets Elven Luck, and his special works better with bow masters than Forest Archers, who were heavily buffed. Elven archers have never been this strong. And if he finds a unicorn bow and full dwarf armor, then there's no chance at all.
I can't say much about the dwarves, but OP specializations remained OP.
Faiz with avatar of death is quite fun. If he reaches level 27, it's twice as fun. Better not to take him against undead or dark elves. The only weakness—ring of cold, everything else can be reflected with a good chance. In my opinion, this specialization is even more OP on him than on Arantir.
Jaliba is apparently very disliked, since they changed his specialization. The new one is quite interesting, especially for high-level creatures. But at the start he'll have a hard time, especially since he gets a practically useless skill for himself at the start.
Krag is on one hand weaker at the start, but on the other has freedom of development in any direction. Although orcs are the only race that absolutely cannot do without attack, so this just slows his development at early levels.
Garuna became slightly stronger. In fact, by level 21 she will give +5 to attack for every killed squad, and this bonus should not be underestimated. Even at level 6 the bonus will be +2 to attack, and clears involving single goblins will strongly boost the damage of your strike squads. Overall I approve of this change. Although in late game she can receive up to 8 attack per killed squad, and this could quickly get out of control. Not hard to imagine a lone stack of Warmongers with 100+ attack. From rage alone he'll get at least 11 attack and 48 from the passive (plus hero stats and artifacts).
Haggesh nerf is unjustified. In my opinion, on the contrary, bonuses should be added to heroes who have too weak a specialization. Centaurs are far from the strongest creatures in the orc army; if compared to say crossbowmen or forest archers, they definitely lose. Moreover, orcs have no access to resurrection and magic to minimize losses, and Haggesh/Krag are the only ones capable of dealing with this somehow. As an option—you could weaken her specialization by analogy with Wingael (whose special is incomparably stronger even in weakened form). But in my opinion she's fine as is.
The ShakkKarukat buff is pleasant, although in late game it might be too strong, as it more than doubles wyvern health.
Tilsek became even stronger, although he lost access to war machines, and now orcs have no machinists at all, just like mages. Apparently the mod author has a special love for Deleb and doesn't want her to have any competition in this matter.
Speaking of demons, Nibros was turned into a pile of trash by giving him the most useless specialization in the game. Mages could at least justify such weakness with the wizard's mark potentially doubling damage (actually they couldn't). What is it doing on a demon—completely unclear. His old specialization was quite strong; the new one is absolutely useless. This is another biggest problem in this mod—it doesn't balance hero specializations at all; rather, the imbalance has grown.
The new Sorgal is also quite OP, especially against factions with many archers (mages, humans, elves). Another reason why campaign heroes shouldn't be added to Multiplayer.
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I can't say anything about other changes, but many of those I've already listed negatively affect the balance. In general, calling this mod "tournament" is a stretch; too much homebrew and changes justified by the creators' subjective point of view (excessive shift of humans toward defensive play, adding campaign heroes, removing key skills of some creatures, overly strong buffs/nerfs, too radical change to luck, artificial limitation of development options, etc.). But there are good changes. Overall, the expression "my tournament—my rules" applies here. There is a certain balance in this mod (but whether it's better than in the original game is a question).
Remix
