Posts from Modifying templates for HotA.

Since HotA allows specifying mandatory roads in a template, it makes sense to optimize road networks on standard templates.

1) Nostalgia (already done)



Mandatory are the roads to native companions and the road through GO:
1-3-2
1-4-10
1-5-11
1-6-12
2-7-15
2-8-13
2-9-14
Roads to treasure villages are now randomly distributed.

Discussable – you can make continuous passages through intermediate treasures (16, 17, 24) so that you can reach your opponent not only through GO.

2) 8mm6a



I suggest making a ring of roads in the center: 11-22-12-19 and adding direct paths to the center: 1-19 and 2-22

3) 2sm4d(3)



I suggest adding a road through GO: 1-2 and two roads to secondary locations: 1-4, 1-6, 2-7, 2-8

4) 6lm10a



It needs to be done so that there are always 2 roads, and the road to the crossroads (21 and 25) does not turn into the only road to the corner village (7 and 16 respectively). How exactly – discussable.

5) 8xm12a



There must definitely be 2 roads - to both corner treasure zones, and from them to the center. And then there are possible options. For example, make a large ring around the perimeter of the map through the pink and blue companions, and let the central zones connect as they do. Discussable.

6) 8xm8a



I haven't played this template even once, so I have no ideas.

7) Spider



The main problem here is the layouts with a single road (most often it happens with blue), so it seems necessary to extend the roads to all 3 nearest villages, and probably to native companions (orange and purple for red, pink and blue for blue). This will also reduce the risk of restarting due to an encounter.

8) Diamond



I think nothing needs to be changed; the road network fully corresponds to the idea of the template.

9) All sorts of balances





I practically haven’t played them, so I don’t have any ideas either. The mandatory road to the village in HotA is already defined; let me know what else is needed.

10) Panic



I haven't played this template even once, so I have no ideas.

11) Anarchy

It seems that it does not need such tuning, but if there are wishes for individual layers, I will do it.

For the 6lm10 template, and for other templates as well, you can create several variations of road networks and save them in a single template. Then, each time, one of the variations will be randomly generated.

I think this fix might bring life back to competitive play! The balance is already perfect; there's no need to improve what's already great. Anarchy, in my opinion, needs a slight tuning, but not in the road networks, although some maps might benefit from it.

How does the HotA Crew view the idea of globally expanding the standard template to include all default starting settings (map size, difficulty, monster strength, road type, timer, etc.)? It could also include the number of restarts (if an integrated restart system is implemented) and the active rules for that template (for HW-rules). Ideally, I envision it this way: the tournament organizer creates such a global template that already includes all settings and rules and posts it in the tournament thread. Players download this file, select it in the game with two clicks of the mouse, and all settings are automatically set to the values specified in the template. All that remains is to choose the castles and starting heroes, agree on a rollback (if there was a trade), and click the "start game" button. In my opinion, this would significantly simplify things for everyone, especially beginners. Of course, if desired, nothing prevents changing some settings by mutual agreement between the players.

How does the HotA Crew view the idea of globally expanding the standard template by including all default starting settings (map size, difficulty, monster strength, road type, timer, etc.)? We could also include the number of restarts (if an integrated restart system is implemented) and the active rules for this template (for HW-rules). Ideally, I envision it this way: the tournament organizer creates such a global template that already includes all settings and rules and posts it in the tournament thread. Players download this file, select it in the game with two mouse clicks – all settings are automatically set to the values specified in the template, and all that remains is to choose the castles and starting heroes, agree on a rollback (if there was a trade), and click the "start game" button. I think this would significantly simplify things for everyone, especially beginners. Of course, if desired, nothing prevents changing some settings by mutual agreement between the players.

Yes, something similar is planned.

P.S. It would also be good to add the option to manually set the map size and the number of starting resources. For example, in the last M-200 tournament, it turned out that for this type of mirror match, S maps are too small, and M maps are too large.

Anarchy needs a little tweaking, IMHO, but not in road networks, although some schemes might.

For example?

For example?

Well, just my IMHO. 1. Remove the templates with three castles, which are used by default by almost everyone. 2. Remove one of the Jebus-like schemes, where the difference is in the villages/forts on the native map. 3. Fix the asymmetrical guard of 12.5k on one of the schemes. 4. I'm not ready to say anything about the roads yet, but some schemes may need adjustments. By the way, it's not entirely clear how relevant anarchy is for Haven, since it seems impossible to steal from under shifted guards there, and there aren't that many rules that one would want to break.

Hello everyone, I really liked the Jebus Cross template. I would like to change the number of players to 8. I added more computers up to 8 in the settings file in the path "_HD3_Data\Templates\Jebus Cross\". Everything is fine. The only thing is that when generating the map, it stubbornly doesn't create the elevator, and as a result, you lose the ability to get to the Dungeon or the surface :(
Please tell me which buttons to press to fix this, the template is really great.

So, you thought that simply changing the number of players to 8 would make everything work? Look at Vik, he's been working on templates for years to make them playable. You need to add 4 more zones in the dungeon and connect them only to the upper zones. The road system will immediately break down if you make 3 elevators. If you use one elevator, the main thing will be who gets it and how close it is to the road. In my opinion, it's a bad idea. What's the point of making it for 8 players? To play against AI? They won't even pass the Grand Order on 311. With people, it's an endless game.

:D After all, everyone has their own vision of gameplay.
You can't force everyone into one template :rolleyes:
Some want Jebus Cross on 4 players, some on 8. Seriously!!! It would be mega cool on 16 :D
After all, that's where progress lies — in constant innovations, even if not always good ones. Though of course the "veterans" know better :smile26:
But there are also newbies who don't have time for gatherings and tournaments and just want to sometimes play a good 6-hour game against the computer at least :smile01:

Is there a playable template (preferably a mirrored one) for G+U? In the only existing template, Nostalgia, the zones with rough terrain are too large.

No, we haven't created anything for multiplayer above HL+U. And even with HL+U, you'll get tired of playing it, let alone more...

There is, however, an idea that H-U is smaller than HL+U, so it might be possible to create a decent ground map template for it, but we haven't looked into that yet.

I made a map for those who like the G size and tested it.



mirror Clovers G

Each zone has three paths and a village; inter-level transitions are marked with dotted lines.
P.S. I couldn't remove the XH generation; it's too cramped.

Template 8mm6a with predefined roads.

A version where roads exist in all connections (except for dead-end areas without cities: 17, 18, 23, 24):


A version with a mandatory ring of roads around the central zones 19-11-22-12, and mandatory roads in the blue and red passages leading to the central area: 1-19 and 6-22; the remaining roads are random:



Template 6lm10a with predefined roads.

Jubi-Juby version. All roads to zone 23 are prohibited, as are roads through unprotected passages 21-22 and 24-25, and roads in passages 9-21, 10-22, 13-24, 14-25, as well as roads to super-areas (17, 18, 19, 20). Roads must be present in all other passages.

Due to the fact that the road network is rigidly fixed, an increased number of situations with long roads has been observed. However, the question of how much this affects generation still requires testing.

A version with mandatory chains of roads 9-1-21-3 and 14-6-25-4, the remaining roads are random: