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Posts from [Tournaments-SoD+FreshMod] Favorites, to battle! - 12 - The Battle of Favorites! - 12

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I am hosting a tournament in connection with the top-tier update of Fresh Mod v7.
If you don't like its idea of native troops for specific towns (hydras for Fortress, etc.), then in this tournament you can choose a town that suits you. 


I. Rules and Templates


1. The tournament is played on SoD version 3.2(4.0) + HD mod of the latest version + Fresh Mod of the latest version (7.1 at the moment) with the Gameplay Changes checkbox enabled.
2. Throughout the entire tournament, each participant plays all their games with the same favorite town they have chosen.
3. Game with OH by default. Can be played without OH by mutual agreement.
4. Templates
(1) Jebus cross (2) 6LM10b (3) Diamond (4) 8xm12a (5) 2SM4d(3) 
(6) h3dm1 (7) mt_Jebus (Fresh Mod) are added in case the opponents play with the same towns. 

The right to strike out a template first is determined by a coin toss. The player who "wins the coin toss" chooses who will strike out first.

In a BO3 series, all played templates must be different. Standard striking, but 3 templates must remain. They are played in turn in the series. In the first game, the template is chosen by the player who lost the coin toss. In the second game, the template is chosen by the other player. At a score of 1:1, the last remaining one is played in the third game.


OH limit 115 on all templates, except JC (116).
Timer on all templates 16-8-1:30.
Roads:
6LM10b, Diamond, 8xm12a, 2SM4d(3), h3dm1 - medium.
Jebus cross, mt_JC - fast.

5. Bidding for the right to choose color. In case of identical towns in a pair, after the bidding for color, there is a bidding for the right to choose the hero.
6. Restarts 112. On mirror templates 111.
7. Hw rules:
Hill Forts, Obelisks, Library rebuilding - checkboxes disabled.
HW_rules, Gameplay changes, Mage Guild rebuilding, always two stacks, always built second level - checkboxes enabled.
In games where at least one player plays Tower, one more checkbox is set - Rebuild Library.

8. Conflux is allowed to choose the starting hero on all templates.
Necropolis is allowed to choose Galthran as the starting hero. 
It is allowed to level up and use Vidomina and Isra with expert necromancy.
It is allowed to build the Necromancy Amplifier, Vampire Lords, Pixie upgrade, Psychic Elemental upgrade, Phoenixes.
It is allowed to use Diplomacy, Hill Forts (cannot upgrade level 7 creatures).
It is allowed to use level 4-5 scrolls without building the Mage Guild.

9. Other rules are standard.
10. Any changes to the rules are allowed by mutual agreement.

II. Regulations 

1. Group stage: 8 groups. 1st place advances to the upper bracket. 2nd place to the lower bracket. All games are BO1.
2. Playoffs - double elimination.
Upper bracket games are BO3. Grandfinal is BO3 from a score of 0:0.
The first round of the lower bracket is BO3, subsequent rounds are BO1. The lower bracket final is BO3.

In the group stage, a win awards 3 points, a draw – 1 point, a loss – 0 points.
Places are distributed based on points earned. In case of a tie in points, additional criteria apply in order of priority:
1) Berger coefficient;
2) Head-to-head result;
3) If priority cannot be determined by additional criteria between players, a tiebreaker game is played on the Jebus cross template with a blitz timer of 8-4-2.

Fixed schedule for the group stage. The numbers in the playing pairs are the numbers in the group.
Round 1. 01.01.2022 - 10.01.2022. Pairs: 4-3, 2-1. 5
Round 2. 11.01.2022 - 20.01.2022. Pairs: 5-3, 4-1. 2
Round 3. 21.01.2022 - 30.01.2022. Pairs: 5-4, 3-2. 1
Round 4. 31.01.2022 - 09.02.2022. Pairs: 4-2, 5-1. 3
Round 5. 10.02.2022 - 19.02.2022. Pairs: 5-2, 3-1. 4

III. Organizational Matters

1. Tournament host and judge – Xocenk (ICQ: 703804372 Discord: Xocenk#2473). The organizers reserve the right to refuse participation in the tournament to a user without public explanation of reasons, and also to make any changes to the regulations and rules during the tournament if necessary.
2. Preliminary: tournament start January 2022, registration for the tournament – until January inclusive until 24.00 MSK
3. All tournament games count toward the seasonal rating. The list of tournament reports is also located at the beginning of this thread. For each played match, participants must submit a report and confirmation in this thread, created automatically.
4. Time limits for one group stage game - 10 days, BO1 playoffs – 10 days, for a BO3 series - 3 weeks.
5. Immediately after the start of the next stage or round, contact your opponent for a preliminary agreement on games. To agree means to reach an understanding after negotiations and discussion. An offer without a response will not be considered an agreement.
6. Temporary problems (with internet, trips, personal matters) must be reported to the tournament hosts.
7. The preferred time for tournament games is daytime (12-24 MSK) on weekends and evening (19-24 MSK) on weekdays. If a participant is unable to play at this time, the host will interpret the absence of a game result in favor of their opponent.
8. Saves and HD_Crash_LOG (after crashes) of all matches must be kept until the end of the tournament and presented upon request of the tournament host. In case of a connection loss, also save separately BATTLEsave.gm2 or BATTLE_non_continuable if available, which will be loaded to continue the match.
9. The tournament winner will receive a medal under their avatar.
10. Prize fund. Distribution 50-30-20%. If you have the opportunity to contribute to the prize fund and thereby increase the prestige of the tournament, contact us.
Sponsors: 1. Kventin - 20 000 rubles

Key changes of Fresh Mod:
1. Native troops from hives and conservatories.
2. Always "good roads" for human players. That is, roads are guaranteed along all possible connections from spawn. 
3. One-way portals are excluded.
4. The appearance of "bugged" passages between zones is completely excluded.
5. Road blocks have a value of no more than 1/3 of the maximum in the zone. 
6. On maps without water, the following are excluded - water spells, artifacts, navigation skill.
7. Movement point calculation and transfer between heroes inside the castle.
8. Balanced acquisition of "Town Portal" and "Dimension Door" spells. Also increased the value of scrolls with significant spells.
9. Necromancy is weakened, especially for towns other than Necropolis (see details). Galthran selection is allowed.

The full list of changes is more convenient to view in the table.
Full list of changes in version 7:1. Improved random map generator:
- Always "good roads" for human players. 
- In all zones, guards with MaxValue of Zone / 3 are generated along the road.
- Exit to one-way portals is excluded. The number of monoliths is increased to 32 = 2*(8 two-way + 8 one-way entrances).
- Connection between two identical zones always forms only one monolith/underground gate. 
- Improved object placement algorithm.
- Mines, passage guards, and objects cannot be blocked by terrain.
- Improved shapes and proportions of zones.
- The appearance of "bugged" passages between zones is completely excluded.
- Fixed the entry point of the road and guard for "wide" monoliths.
- The distance between passage guards is at least 1 tile.
- Implemented - "Double main passage guard". 
    A passage between zones with a road on the ground is guarded by 2 different guards.
    Which are always generated so that you can pass to another zone by breaking through only one of them.
- The appearance of water on the map is completely excluded: "flooded zones", "strips of water", "lakes", etc.
- The appearance of "mountain" zones, as well as narrow strips of zones in the underground, is completely excluded.
- Improved algorithm for forming and displaying roads.
- The appearance of "shifted" guards is completely excluded.
- Fixed the appearance of a straight road going through all obstacles.
- Fixed a rare emergency termination of RMG when drawing rivers.

2. In conservatories and hives, the player receives not angels and wyverns, but level 7 and 6 creatures of their starting town, proportionally to the health points of Angels and Wyverns.

3. Diplomacy is returned to the game, it works even with the "HW rules" flag enabled, but with 2 restrictions: - neutrals whose total *AI Value* of the stack > 20 000 cannot join, for M and S maps *AI Value*> 4 000 - creatures do not join if there are undead in the hero's army. 
4. The "First Aid" skill additionally gives all living creatures in the army +1,+2,+3 to health at basic, advanced, expert levels.
5. "Eagle Eye" triggers not after the battle, but during it, at the beginning of each round, when your unit gets its first turn, you can learn a spell that the opponent has cast before. The dependence of the skill level on the level of the spell being learned is removed - now even with the basic skill you can learn a level 5 spell.

6. Artifacts that add to health do not affect undead.
7. In the Hill Fort, level 7 creatures cannot be upgraded. It can only appear on snow, swamp, lava.

8. Necromancers
- Necromancy skill percentages changed to 10%/15%/20%.
- Building the Necromancy Amplifier is allowed (gives 5%), but each subsequent one gives half as much as the previous one.
- Amulet of the Undertaker gives 2.5%, Vampire's Cowl - 5%, Dead Man's Boots - 7.5%.
- Creatures with less health than a skeleton cannot be placed in the Skeleton Transformer.    
- Isra and Vidomina have their usual "leveling" restored.
- Building Vampire Lords is allowed. Vampire Lord restores 50% of the damage dealt. 

9. Conflux
- Upgrading Magic Elementals is allowed. Its cost is 1350. 
- Building upgraded fairies is allowed. The "Garden of Life" is required for construction.
- Firebird growth reduced from 2 to 1. Their upgrade is allowed. Phoenix growth remains unchanged - 2.

10. Inferno. Upgrading pits requires only MG1. Inferno gates - do not require a fort, cost 4000.

11. Tower.
- Astral doubles the spell power of Hypnotize at any level.
- Added generation of the Golem Factory on snow (value 4500).
- The Roof gives 3-5 resources (in the original 1-5).

12. Balanced acquisition of "Town Portal" and "Dimension Door" spells.  
    With the same pace of MG construction, the maximum gap in obtaining these spells will be 3 days:
    Initial MG construction - 0% chance
    1st rebuild - original chance
    2nd rebuild - original chance * 2
    3rd rebuild - original chance * 3
    4th rebuild - 100% chance

13. Using level 4-5 scrolls without building the MG is allowed.
Their value changed:
    - 22500: Town Portal, Dimension Door, Fly.
    - 13000: Implosion, Resurrection, Armageddon, Summons, Chain Lightning, Meteor Shower, Berserk, Inferno.
    - 4000: Sorrow, Counterstrike, Clone, Prayer, Fire Shield, Frenzy, Slayer, Magic Mirror, Sacrifice.
    - 1000-3000: Level 1-3 spells unchanged.

14. Campaign heroes are allowed (everywhere except mirrors), except Gelu. Dragon's starting army is changed to the standard Tower starting army. These heroes cannot be selected from the start (similar to Mutare)
15. *AI Value* changed. Efreet Sultans: *2842* (was 1848). Faerie Dragons: *31 000* (was 19580). Monks: *565* (was 485).
16. MG rebuild is possible from any level (in Rampart, to rebuild MG1, you need to click on the MG roof).

17. You can view expendable movement points by holding the "Alt" key
18. By pressing the "E" key you can exchange between heroes in the town
19. Neutrals guard objects around them, except resources, chests, and campfires.
20. You can refuse a skill at the Witch Hut and the Scholar.
21. The appearance of the "Conflux" town in all zones is allowed (relevant for JC).
22. In "Conflux", you cannot build the Grail if there is no town with a built *MG5.
23. Fixed the "anchor hex" bug - wall of fire, force field can be placed on any available hex.
24. When attacking banks, the description of the guard is shown
25. In battle, the duration of applied spells is shown
26. In battle, damage is shown in the number of creatures killed
27. A hero can enter the MG without a spell book or money
28. Extended spell descriptions in the spell book by right-clicking on a spell. Skills, specialization, artifacts, and hero SP are taken into account. Shows - wall of fire damage, number of summoned elementals, number of resurrected HP, cost of TP and DD in MP, etc.
29. In battle, when applying a battle\restoring spell, the number of killed\resurrected*creatures is shown


Winners of past Battles of Favorites!:

"Battle of Favorites! - 1" (2008) - Dudge (Necropolis) - Tournament History
"Battle of Favorites! - 2" (2009) - Pit for LM (Conflux) - Tournament History
"Battle of Favorites! - 3" (2010) - Сатир (Fortress) - Tournament History
"Battle of Favorites! - 4" (2011) - Maretti (Castle) - Tournament History
"Battle of Favorites! - 5" (2012-13) - GoD (Rampart) - Tournament History
"Battle of Favorites! - 6" (2013-14) - Pit for LM (Conflux) - Tournament History
"Battle of Favorites! - 7" (2014-15) - Pit for LM (Necropolis) - Tournament History
"Battle of Favorites! - 8" (2015-16) - HellLighT (Necropolis) - Tournament History
"Battle of Favorites! - 9" (2016-17) - FireToSky (Tower) - Tournament History
"Battle of Favorites! - 10" (2017-18) - Dave_HUN (Dungeon) - Tournament History
"Battle of Favorites! - 11" (2019) - Dave_HUN (Stronghold) - Tournament History
ICQ - 703804372
Discord - Xocenk#2473
In reply to Мирон
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Miron
More Conflux, crustaceans looking for easy ways out!

Dear Miron, so you advise some to take a "stronger" town, others a "weaker" one, but where's the scale?)

Without a sufficient base of games, it's hard to objectively determine strength. Some conclusions can be drawn after the tournament.  

I, for example, believe that Conflux is definitely not the same level of dominant as Necro was in the previous SoD Favorites.

Above average? Maybe, but not by much. There are plenty of well-developed mid-tier factions here, and that's good for this tournament format.

Kventin
Turns out there are quite a lot of people who have been "since childhood" for Conflux.
We're waiting for a Hero who will pick Fortress.

Kventinych, well what's the problem, you could have made hydra growth +100%! And everyone would be more eager to reminisce about how they're fans of their native, beloved swamp))

P.S. still deciding between castle/inf/tower.  

icq 718927032
skype: goshanstop.ru
discord: puzzz0#3215
In reply to kamukag3e
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Please register me for the tournament. They say that no one chooses Fortress. I choose Fortress!
Discord  5884
In reply to Xocenk
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Please register me for the tournament
Tower
:smile51: ICQ: 677361928
In reply to noangel
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I tested the 7th iteration, and my impressions are mixed. There are more objects, and the underground is denser, which ultimately gives an advantage to logistics-focused players.

Безземельный дон с HeroesPortal, инкогнито.
In reply to Meo
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Meo
I tested the 7th Fresh, mixed feelings. More objects, thicker underground, resulting in an advantage for logistics heroes.

Don't you like the adjusted zone density? What new advantage does this give logistics heroes compared to SoD, where runners on poor maps could reach the first object earlier, having scouted more zones.
At this point, combat-oriented heroes also have the opportunity to take an object earlier, due to the increased frequency, i.e., Crag Hack won't have to struggle long searching for the first Griffin Conservatory/Dragon Fly Hive (and will take the object, beating the timing of, say, Deessa).   
In my opinion, everyone benefits from this generator change.
P.S. if you want an imbalanced loga — go play HotA. 

icq 718927032
skype: goshanstop.ru
discord: puzzz0#3215
In reply to Puzzz0
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Puzzz0

Don't like the adjusted zone saturation? What new advantage does this give logisticians compared to Sodom, where runners on poor maps could reach the first objective earlier and scout more zones?
Currently, conditional combat units also have the opportunity to take an objective earlier, due to the increased frequency, i.e., Kreg won't have to struggle for long searching for the first clue/objective (and will take the objective, outperforming, for example, Dessu, in terms of timing).
In my opinion, everyone benefits from this change in the generator.
P.S. If you want a non-imba log, play HotA.

The density of the hives reminded me of HotA.

Безземельный дон с HeroesPortal, инкогнито.
In reply to Meo
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Meo
I'm getting a whiff of HotA from the density of Hives.

So, you prefer the old feeling of emptiness and observing mountain ravines?)
It seems that 5 years ago, at the dawn of HotA's appearance, the Sod-masters (though, for that time, it would be better to simply call them research-masters) complained quite a bit about how worthless, from a gameplay perspective, HotA-Jebus seemed to them, and how difficult/unpleasant it was to play due to the complexity of assembling a unified battle stack, since in Sod it was much easier to get a breakthrough army for ГО — a bunch of Hives, 2-3 cons, and a primitive army is ready for the outing. (In HotA, as you probably already know, value is distributed across different objects, and the result can often be a "mixed salad", which is much less comfortable to fight with than a pair of Archangels.)

Back then, some players thought this change overly complicated the gameplay, and now a comrade argues against "decadence", implying that playing will be too easy, and it seems nothing pleases him.
The reference above suggests that people of the same class held opposite views on the issue of changing the "density" of objects and its impact on gameplay, solely so that some pseudo-correct difficulty of the game process would remain the same. // in other words, so that everything would be as it was before.
Meo, why on earth did you sign up for the tournament if the fresh air is so sharply unpleasant to you?
If the key changes to the generator already cause a feeling of nausea, is it worth violating your conservative organism?

It's written in English, freshmode, not oldfagmode

icq 718927032
skype: goshanstop.ru
discord: puzzz0#3215
In reply to Puzzz0
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Puzzz0

So, you prefer the old feeling of emptiness and observing mountain crevices?)
It seems that 5 years ago, at the dawn of HotA's appearance, the gentlemen from SOD (though back then it would be better to call them simply gentlemen-researchers) complained quite a bit about how worthless, from a gameplay perspective, HotA Jebus seemed to them, and how difficult/unpleasant it was to play due to the complexity of assembling a single battle stack, because in SOD it was much easier to get a breakthrough army for ГО - a bunch of Hives, 2-3 Griffin Conservatories, and a primitive army ready to go. (In HotA, as you probably already know, value is distributed across different objects, and the result can often be a "mixed bag," which is much less comfortable to fight with than a pair of Angels and Archers.)

Back then, some players thought this change overly complicated the gameplay, and now a comrade is speaking out against "excess," implying that playing would become too easy, and it seems nothing pleases him.
The reference above suggests that people of the same class held opposing views on the issue of changing the "density" of objects and its impact on gameplay, solely so that some pseudo-correct complexity of the gameplay would remain the same. // in other words, so that everything would be as it was before.
MEO, why did you sign up for the Tournament if the fresh air is so sharply unpleasant to you?
If the key generator changes already cause a feeling of nausea, is it worth raping your conservative body?

It's written in English, freshmode, not oldfagmode

Yeah, come on! Now you'd want to strangle MEO too ). He wrote: "the feeling is ambiguous," which means both pros and cons, a normal reaction, as it were. MEO is just always for increasing complexity. For example, he told me it would be cool if Hives and Griffin Conservatories gave units depending on the zone they are in. Now *that* would be a truly strategic game ).
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Puzzz0

If the key changes to the generator already cause a feeling of disgust, is it worth torturing your conservative self?
Why overcomplicate things? I already said – the impressions are mixed, and that’s all.

We tested it on a small map; both times, by turn 141, only one treasure was consumed, and there was already full control, and then the player with the main logistics hero has more freedom, because with high-level units, their advantage fades away, but there are still things to do on the map, and they can snatch what’s left from under the opponent’s nose.

On the other hand, I agree that the gameplay is different on other map templates, and in small maps, the abundance of resources generally equalizes the chances in the early stages.
Also, Dungeon gets a boost because its underground becomes more appealing. We need to test it further.

Безземельный дон с HeroesPortal, инкогнито.
In reply to Alessandro
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Please register me for the tournament.

Town later.
In reply to Xocenk
Please register me for the tournament because of fresh mod I am thinking about town, thx for your patience
In reply to Alessandro
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Please register me for the tournament
Castle
In reply to Alessandro
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Please register me for the tournament.

I'll register provisionally, just to add to the numbers. DUNGEON)

Скил За инферно
Эксперт Башни Сюда.
КТо боится некра ? сюда Его кто такие некроманты )
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