Posts from "The Art of Strategy"

Why don't you take Kill's advice when organizing your tournament, as this tournament is already running in the format that has been defined. Strange people, they just need something to tinker with:D

No one is even suggesting changing this tournament. I'm not tinkering with anything; I'm just giving an example of an idea about the predictability of the tournament. And in general, you're starting to see things that aren't there. The rules aren't changed during the tournament.

Killa suggested dividing the players into 2 categories and holding a tournament for different categories. And there WILL be a truly unpredictable result.

Interesting, but how would you divide them into 2 categories?

Interesting, how would you divide it into 2 categories?

officially :smile26:
1 Fans of The Restoration of Erathia
2 Fans of The Succession Wars
unofficially :smile04:
1 Monsters
2 Noobs

officially :smile26:
1 Fans of TE
2 Fans of ToE
unofficially :smile04:
1 Monsters
2 Noobs

I raised this issue during the discussion of the tournament, but in general, it didn't receive much response. Moreover, some saw it as a kind of discrimination, as if someone has the right to divide people into "white" and "gray" based on certain considerations. Therefore, I believe that this conversation is just for the sake of conversation.

I don't know if I should post this here or not, but there's a small nuance regarding HoMM.
I'm not participating in the tournament myself, but I'm rooting for everyone (please share replays of the finals and interesting battles :)), and I've noticed an interesting nuance after playing a few games: monsters and artifacts are created rigidly during map creation, not during game creation. This means you can open a map on another computer, for example, I have two: a home computer and a work laptop, enter well-known cheats, and see everything that's on the map: monster units, artifacts, the location of zones, etc. So, you play on one computer and view the map on another.
I don't think it's possible to detect this, and it's also unclear whether it's a cheat or not.
The only way to prevent this is to generate artifacts and monsters randomly at the start of the game. The zones and the location of objects will remain, but at least that's half the battle.

I ask the tournament creators to pay attention to this.

yes, that exists, and it’s probably the biggest drawback of Heroes of Might and Magic.
but
I don’t think such peeking brings honor to that player.
I’ve never peeked myself, and I doubt that someone who peeks
will ultimately become the strongest player.

because a strong player respects their partner and themselves and wouldn’t do that, IMHO.

The same thing happened in the original game; here, you can only hope for the opponent's fairness. This issue cannot be fixed because the probability of each artifact appearing and the strength of its guard are set individually (which is what makes Heroes of Might and Magic great). Therefore, a specific artifact is placed on the map...

I didn't want to clutter the reports, so I'm writing here:

in such a game, there were "not few" of them, but there were none at all. It's not interesting to play when one player has everything, and the other has nothing.

1. Please explain what "everything" and "nothing" mean? I'm not an expert in the fifth game, but based on the principle of the third game, I understand what the situation is when there are no decent main heroes, no hidden spots, no banks of money/resources/monsters... just freebies on the respawn points... cool artifacts...
In this map, resources and money are not a problem; free monsters/hidden spots are distributed quite normally... money banks and resource banks are also not a problem to find, especially on adjacent respawn points.
Artifacts on the home territory and nearby usually drop at a simple level - you can't really count on relics... and as for the starting hero, I don't know which one it was, but Ingvar looks quite good as a main hero....
2. For the Elven ability "Sworn Enemies," you need to kill a certain number of corresponding monsters. Does it count if you defeat a mixed army in one battle, for example, 20 shamans, 50 latniks, 50 wind dancers, and 40 golems?
Can any of them be chosen as a sworn enemy? ... or does it only matter what form this unit was in on the respawn point (for example, shamans)?

2. For the elven ability "sworn enemies," you need to kill a certain number of corresponding monsters. Does it count if you defeat a mixed army in one battle, for example, 20 shamans, 50 halberdiers, 50 dervishes, and 40 golems?
Can any of them be chosen as a sworn enemy? ... or does it only matter what type of unit was present on the map when the ability was activated (for example, shamans)?

It doesn't matter what unit was on the map. All that's needed is to defeat a number of creatures equal to twice the growth rate of that creature, and then you can add them to the list of sworn enemies.

I assume the discussion wasn't about the quirks of random chance. Perhaps it was about the Necropolis faction versus the Fortress, where the latter requires a longer setup time. But most likely, it was about the Necromancer with its scaling – its skills improving over time.

"All or nothing"—I'm exaggerating, of course. But the point is this: for a gnome to advance without losses, it needs 1) either bears with soldiers (not a super-reliable tactic, and there are still losses) – initially, there wasn't enough wood and stone – well, it happens when resources are scarce; 2) siege engines (I initially leveled up three heroes to level 5, waiting for someone to get one – no one did. Then I started leveling up Ibbu to level 15, but she wasn't offered a siege engine either. As a result, she couldn't break through and fight anything in the center, where the money and experience are, without significant losses); 3) Light magic, regeneration, and resurrection, and banners – which, of course, comes later. Everything else is unreliable. So, in my game: 1) there was no energy rune – Inga had it, and the bears were getting wiped out; 2) no one got siege engines – as a result, I fell behind; 3) I found regeneration, but too late. As a result, even though I started leveling up (when I barely scraped together enough resources for dragons), it was too late, and I simply didn't have time to level up properly before Negan arrived. That's what I meant. Even considering all of the above, Ingvar was very decent, so if I had at least one of the things mentioned above, I could have easily kept up and provided strong competition to Negan.

Well, regarding the units, it's clear whether they'll be available or not – I personally don't get too upset about it, even though they make things much easier... but I wasn't really aware of other tactics; I always played based on the principle of separating single units with shields. I would take Bears and Jarls, you could say, for the endgame or to break through the enemy's main force, but usually, I'd have 1 stack of copies, 1 stack of shields, and a couple of single units, and that's how I approached every battle.

and in almost every battle, you'll suffer losses – if you're lucky, you'll lose fewer than 30 shields in a week – and for Ingvar, that's his main stack. Plus, you still won't be able to tackle even the highest-level Dwarf Fortress with such units. I won't even mention Elementals and the like. And breaking through to the center and killing something significant with just a handful of shields is unlikely to succeed. As a result, if there isn't a significant advantage, there will be a lag in resources, level, and gold because you'll have to choose who to fight.

To the organizers: How will you handle replacing players who drop out? What will happen to the games that were already played with them?

The replacement will be done while preserving the results of the eliminated players, i.e., if a player with two losses is eliminated, then the player who will replace him will start with two losses accordingly.