Posts from HoMM3 HD is a mod (add-on) for the game Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Auto-translated

If you lack the willpower to carry — yes.

Aaaaaah, so you have to carry here?!! I guess our discussion is over.

As a penalty for reckless use of respawn (don't be greedy)

And what if it's the 4th generation in a row? Don't play those templates? A very wise remark!

And what if you saw THAT not on your own respawn, but on a second scouted one?
You have 2 scouted respawns, and there are no more exits whatsoever. And you noticed this on day 114-115, what then?

Rest periods can fix a lot. Right now, I'm playing with HL+U – there aren't any one-way paths, but it takes 6 days to reach one node and 8 days to reach another. Should we still be optimizing the route?

As a treatment, the game is prescribed ONLY on the 8XM12 and 6LM10 templates, without the "a". There is plenty of it there.

Variants with "a" do not differ in the number of one-sided connections from the original.

The probability of one-sided connections appearing is influenced by the number of zones and the number of connections between them, especially ring-shaped connections, which are difficult for the generator to lay out on land.

That's correct. But the only instance of a monolithic exit point in the penalty area happens in less than 5% of games, and if there's a choice – to simplify the game or leave some unplayability – I doubt which of the two is worse.

I don't even want a 1% chance that I'll have to write a game guide without playing the game.

"I don't play with these templates, but you still can't touch anything there!"

There's another position. "Let's create templates with a billion zones and a size of XXXXL and complain that the game generates them incorrectly." I'm sure that the templates weren't even tested during creation (as with maps/templates in any game).

Aaaaaah, so you have to drag things here?!!

Search for the entrance, obviously.

And what if this is the 4th generation in a row?

I highly doubt it; if it truly is, then god doesn't love you)

You have 2 scouted respawns, but there are more exits than that, nooo. And you noticed this at 114-115, so what then?

Wait-wait-wait, and if Shakti is in the underground with 2 stacks, and all blocks are arrows, and fast neutrals have had their morale procced a couple of times—then what?
Well it's crappy, yes, you lose day 2 or 3, but not every Dragon Utopia has sea artifacts, nor every conserve has morale. It's easier to ignore all this—and less interesting.

Added after 18 minutes

Now if you had also named the template. That would be great.

8mm6b;)

By the way, choosing paths is also interference with the original SoD.

Only an acceleration—rules and common sense already make slow players restart.

The probability of one-way paths appearing is affected by the number of zones and the number of connections between them, primarily ring connections, which are difficult for the generator to lay out overland.

Yeah, that's what I was asking. And what are ring connections?

I don't even want a 1% chance that I'll have to write гг without playing.

[off]Nope, you're no fisherman![/off]
Although it is possible to develop somehow on a couple of respawns, gather heroes, scout, and drag things along, like Mizrail did back then against Maretti, after accidentally entering the depths of the swamp via a one-way path.

Well, here we go again, I'm getting carried away: D
The road network on the map is created according to two principles:
1 - roads tend to connect all cities and villages
2 - the road network grows in the form of a tree
Thirdly, you need to know that templates can be open or closed.

The most striking examples of open templates are Jebus Cross and mini-Nosta.

In mini-Nosta, the road network fits perfectly, completely repeating the structure of the template. A disadvantage of such schemes is the certainty of the opponent's position, and rivals have to share the General area (ГО). This eliminates the possibility of rushing the enemy or starting an early attack, which basically impoverishes the game. In addition, the game is mostly played along the roads, and the ability to work off-road is also part of the skill.

But there are templates with a closed structure, for example, CM.

In version 1, red got 3 secondaries, and blue got one (the opposite situation is also possible: red gets 1 secondary, blue gets 3)
Version 2 is balanced; each player gets 2 secondaries.
In case 3, the road, fearing the General area (ГО), goes through a secondary and there will inevitably be a quick encounter. Well, and in version 4, the road breaks through the treasury and leads to the rival's rear secondary.
These are the main options on CM. As you can see, while maintaining significant diversity, both principles of building the road network are observed.

And now, let's try to determine how the road network is built on the popular 8mm6a. First, let's answer what type this template belongs to, open or closed?..
That's right! Neither. 8mm6a represents a mixed type; it has both looped structures and dead-end branches.

Let's start by looking at the central square, considering that a road must lead out from each of its vertices. Obviously, there are 4 possible variants (crosses indicate transitions across off-road).

If we look more closely, we will see that there are not 4 variants, but only 2. Variants No. 1 and No. 2 mean that red has 2 roads leading to 2 centers, and blue has only one road leading to one center. Variants No. 3 and No. 4 are the opposite: blue has 2 centers, and red has only one. Here, as in communicating vessels, whatever decreases for one increases for the other. That is, one central village is always General, and contact with the opponent is most likely there, and the other center can be called your/opponent's, depending on whether you have a road to it or not.

Now let's see how the road is formed in the red quarter; everything will be identical for the rest of the quarters.
And again, there are 4 possible options, but they are already more interesting than in the center.

Variant No. 1 Near Center One road from the main leads to zone 19, where there are roads to the center and the brown camp. On the bot respawn, the road splits again, going to the bot itself and the corner treasury.

Variant No. 2 Far Center Here, you are, conversely, far from the central quarter. The only road from the main leads to section #15, then splits into the corner treasury and the brown bot, and only then leads to the center. This scheme is generated much less often than the other three variants, but how do you distinguish it from the near center? How do you determine that you ended up in zone #19 and not in zone #15?
1. The only reliable sign is the presence of guards with 12500 strength in the off-road treasure №17
2. If you got 2 roads leading to the center, then by the abundance of roads, you can determine that you have option 1.
3. Zone #15 is usually (but not necessarily) smaller than zone #19.

Variant No. 3 Scoop (Or any other figure your imagination suggests). Two roads lead from the main; one goes to section #15, further to the corner treasury, and that's all... If you end up here, you need to turn around. There is a guard in the corner with 6000 strength and multiple units; with some experience, you can easily distinguish it from the center guard. In the early game, there is nothing to do here; there are no easy resources for building in the corner, and the probability of blocking the corner village is high (it is still a treasure). The second road leads from the main to the center and the brown bot.

Variant No. 4 Whale Tail Again, 2 roads from the main; you broke through into zone #19, oriented yourself according to the 12500 guards, everything is great, it's time to kill the brown one. But there is no road to him. You can get to him through zone 15. In general, if you got 2 roads from the main, it is better not to be lazy and break through both sides, just to collect more freebies with pawns.

One-way Roads
A one-way road is not as scary as the place where it appears. On 8mm6a, one-way roads appear rarely but accurately, in the most important direction, to the center.
The color of the entrance monolith always corresponds to the color of the exit monolith. The scheme of a one-way transition looks like this:

In each zone between which there is a one-way transition, there is always an entrance monolith and an exit monolith, and they are always the same color. Moreover, one-way transitions visually differ from two-way ones, and accidentally diving into them with your entire army is a sign of skill. The problem is that there are no roads between the entrance and the exit in one zone. By blocking one of the exits with a pawn, you can go where you need to, and also attack the opponent while remaining temporarily inaccessible. If you get a one-way road to the center, you can calmly taunt, summon demons, or even camp. You have time for this; a one-way road is the last thing your opponent will try. Or you can rush forward (after scouting with a pawn) and let the chain of castles be a ticket to nowhere; this may well be enough to win.

8mm6b
If the number of transitions in the template is 28 or less, then one-way roads do not appear guaranteed (unless you abuse multiple transitions). There are no one-way roads on 8mm6b.
The changes in 8mm6b turned out to be not as cosmetic as I would like; the road network is noticeably denser than on 8mm6a. The game is more contact-based; it is played more along the roads than off-road.

In general, templates with a mixed (open-closed) structure can inherit both the advantages and disadvantages of both types. But the future lies precisely in such templates, diverse in terms of the road network and all sorts of strategies, templates where there is room for rushing, fast attacks, harassment, farming, late-game play, and even camping, but not for boring mirror matches.

Uff, I think I'm feeling better now: D

Hey, did you do all this yourself?
True, only the most "convenient" options were considered.
Why can't all 4 nodes in the center be connected by roads? Are roads along 2 opposite sides also possible, or even none at all (is that right)?

On 8mm6a, one-way roads appear rarely but accurately, on the most important route, towards the center.

Is this based on experience, or are there any logical reasons for this?

True, only the most "convenient" options were considered.
Why can't all 4 nodes in the center be connected by roads? Roads along 2 opposite sides are also possible, or even no roads at all (is that possible?).

They can't. Only in the case of map bugs. But buggy passages are a separate topic; I'll leave it for the next full moon. :)

Um, who and what can't do what – please clarify. And again – is this based on experience, or are there rules in the RPG?

Why can't all 4 nodes in the center be connected by roads?

They can't be, roads rarely form a closed loop, only in the case of some kind of bug.

It is also possible to have roads along 2 opposite sides or not along any sides at all (is that so?)

It's not possible, there is only one road network, and it can only split in the case of a complex bug.

Not possible, the road network is single and can only split in the case of a sophisticated bug.

1 road to the village on the map is quite common, enough to include it in the list of tech tests.

The road leading to the village is quite frequent on the map, enough to be included in the list of technical tests.

When they say "1 road to the village is balanced," they mean: 1 road to the village + 1 road to the main road (which connects it to the rest of the road network).

Really? At least once, it happened exactly as I said. I'll try it out when I have time.

For the three hundred and seventy-third, five hundred and sixth time, I'll remind you that balance in the game isn't about everyone having everything in equal measure, but rather about how the author envisioned the game world – with its strengths and weaknesses. One has a lot of life force but no weapons, another has weapons but few ammunition, a third has both weapons and ammunition but no one to shoot, and a fourth has horses that keep dying – either from hunger in the kingdom or from riders overburdened with equipment. One has damage dealing (DD), and the other has an explosion; one has slow, and the other has haste; I have a lot of useless wood, and you have ore. One has a monolith, and the other, for some reason, doesn't. This is some kind of deep dive into puberty regarding the presence of monoliths. For example, I wouldn't be ashamed to trap a blue Necromancer in a basement on a Small Map (SM) or a blue creature on a Large Map (LM) with a swamp full of monoliths in between; I might even build a strategy around it. This is a gameplay element. It's the same as giving one player an explosion and the other a mirror. (Or is it better to play poker with a new deck, without shuffling the cards?) It's just that in the first case, the player realizes their inadequacy sooner and, therefore, reacts to it more painfully, while in the second case, the illusory hope lasts longer and creates a semblance of a competitive game. The monolith is a striking element of gameplay. And sometimes there's a bug where the entrance monolith is separated by an excessive distance from the exit monolith, or one of them disappears. However, they should always be generated in the same area. It would be better if there was a radius for their placement. The same problem exists with buggy passages. Especially when the opponent should have two exits on an unpaved road, one leading to sand (on the LM), but a third buggy passage appears, leading directly to the computer. But it's okay; we're still playing. (In Heroes of Might and Magic III, they gave tactics instead of intelligence... and who will be the overpowered one now? It's a rhetorical question. Although the most problematic areas remain – the Sphere of Suppression and the Cloak of Negation, and also the Logisticians... there are too few of them).
By the way, what software principle governs the green multi-door teleport? It could smooth things out.

Your vision of the game is clear. But what you described isn't balance. It's a lot of different elements that make up the gameplay.

Removing one-way paths won't suddenly make the game perfectly balanced (and it doesn't seem like anyone is claiming it will), but it will make it more playable on maps where there's too much of it (8x12, 6LM10).

For me personally, the problem was solved with 8MM6B, although I haven't played it much yet. And those who want to "win" by having a clear path to a one-way area can go for it. But predictably, they'll end up playing only with CMs and Jebus.