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| Thread: Waiting for "Midnight" (for template theory) |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 · NEXT» |
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arteman
Adventuring Hero
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posted January 15, 2002 02:11 PM |
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Waiting for "Midnight" (for template theory)
Since we live very far from each other and it might be hard to get him from game with Rych or other random fellow. i will place here this topic in hope, that he will find it or someone told him about it!
The meaning of this topic is his theory of random map templates.
So, Mighnight, would you be so kind and post here all known templates with their simple description.
Thx be4hand. 
(the reason, why i use board instead of mail is because i think that "Template theory" might be intresting for each fan of random")
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Anyway the wind blows...
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MidnightWraith
Adventuring Hero
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posted January 15, 2002 03:12 PM |
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Random Templates Revealed
Templates r a base that the random generator uses to make a map. originally i looked at template info cuz rych said "Dragons" template sucked, was the one with almost no creatures. So i took note of the others as i played and noticed some properties of each template. Note that at the micro level, the terrain is random but some templates (prolly 1/2) have a fairly fixed macro structure. I compiled a list of about 20 templates on xl. Some templates r unique to the size of map, or if there is water.
To learn about templates quickly, just generate a random map, note the template, then use a cheat code to view the map, or look in editor. Look at the amount of gold, towns, blockages, dwellings, hives, conserves etc. Anything which can make a significant difference to game play. I play so many games i never needed to do that, but if u wanna get up 2 speed quickly, that is the best way. The flavour of each template is fairly consistent.
I had an advantage for a few months near end of last season partly cuz of template knowledge (and got nice shiny azure drag). Now it is part of common random map culture to know each of the templates.
Ring: Heaps of gold. if have underground, the above ground is split into half, and the smaller under area is the only access to each side, so very strategic. No 2 way doors. Utopia's r rare, only a few around, can make all the difference to get one. Usually had 7 or 8 heroes up asap, even on 200% difficulty.
8xm8: Also known as The Hive map. Almost no gold. Big blockages. Hives galore. Need a tough might hero that can take a flogging in hive after hive to build up an army. Lots of relics and utopias. Sometimes played "the hero" in week 1 to save gold for build.
Meeting in Muzgob: Usually grass terrain regardless of town. Average to poor amount of gold. Usually a few dwellings. Always has 1 gold mine in area. Breakout is often blocked my massive stacks. Usually need to breakout to get any resource mines. If play with under, then the under is the link between all the above ground areas, therefore strategic. Since a breakout is hard, is important to try and guess size of area b4 buying lots of heroes. Enjoyable, but can be doomed if u get a heavy blocker when trying to get out of area. Find that damn gold mine fast!
Dwarven Tunnels: No fort prebuilt. Is always a 2nd town of same type nearby. 2nd town has lvl 1 and 2 creatures prebuilt, so best place to build fort (usually). Plenty of gold and resources (just as well). Lots of relics and utopias on map. Will have 1 of each type of mine. When u breakout the roads r loooong. Recommend a restart if u cant get to 2nd town in week 1.
Anyway they r some of the best templates cuz u dont meet in week 1, so less restarts.
The sucky restart templates are:
Dragons Boring cuz almost no creatures.
Worlds at War Whole areas of unguarded stuff.
Newcomers Crazy amount of resources, boring.
Ready or Not Always fortress vs. inferno. Fortress wins.
That'll do for now
Midnight
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Hexa
Responsible
Legendary Hero
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posted January 15, 2002 05:13 PM |
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Thnkx for the info .. this will help newbies a great deal I think!@
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If you want to realize your dreams >>> you have to wake up!@
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rychenroller
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted January 15, 2002 10:19 PM |
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Hehe A fun topic right up my alley..
8XM12...Long long road on this template, with very few towns. Resources are normally very good, but usually you can see opponent coming from a long way off. D/D or town portal is a game winner on this, and usually so is a double build, because you will have a lot of time.
6LM10...The monolith template, usually you will start in a small area with a subgate or a monolith out of area. Sometimes you get unfortunate and your road leads to a one way exit or entrance, but usually a bit of cross country work will find you an exit. Lots of towns and small areas to get into, TP works very nicely. Resource level is average. Many many monoliths and subgates.
2SM4d(2)...A funny map, usually you get it on XL no under. You and opponent are separated by one or two big stacks. Recently in a game with Andi, we were only 1 or 2 days apart, but separated by lots of giants and lots of devils. Needless to say, if someone gets fly or D/D early, you will get a surprise at your doorstep.
Sorry, couldnt help it 
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Myctteakyshd
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Phantom1500
Adventuring Hero
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posted January 16, 2002 05:08 AM |
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Good info guys.
I just wanted to add that people shouldn't be obsessed with studying templates. This really won't help you that much at all. Your best bet is to just remember the bad templates and if they come up just don't play. The fun of random map is that it is random, i never even looked at the template we are playing all of season 3 and yet people start saying randomers have unfair advantages with their template knowledge. Random maps are all about development at super fast paces, not about knowledge of map. If you think about it, even knowing the macro of the map exactly, the only advantage that would give you is perhaps a might vs magic hero choice.
Remember the bad ones and don't play em, but remember the maps are still meant to be random, so if you obsess with knowing every generated map, go play Midnight or FC and you will see that you just wasted your time .
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Titan_888
Known Hero
Wind of Change
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posted January 16, 2002 12:15 PM |
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hehe Phantom
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arteman
Adventuring Hero
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posted January 16, 2002 03:53 PM |
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:)
Thx midnight and rychen.
I hope information you provide here will be useful and make games much easy to agreed, cos common knowledge about templates is growing on.
 -> Phantom
Kogda mozgi est', lyubaya infa - polezna, i ne tol'ko po voprosam vibora geroya.
Chto kasaetsya Kostayna, to esli nepruha - i on zalivaet.
(Ravno kak i vse mi)
(excuse me others, for using native language )
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Anyway the wind blows...
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Phantom1500
Adventuring Hero
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posted January 16, 2002 10:05 PM |
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Ya koneshno eto imel vvidu tem u kogo mozgov malo a ne vam I koneshno vse inogda zalivayut. A znaniye template seryozno pochti sovsem ne pomogayet.
Sorry everyone
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MidnightWraith
Adventuring Hero
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posted January 19, 2002 10:00 PM |
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re. phantom, the obsession is with heroes from which all other obsessions with the game follow, but i shouldnt have to tell u that If i play a hundred random maps (which i have this season), i'm playing the same 15 templates over and over and over and over and over again, so the lack of randomness at macro level is patently obvious and u learn about templates whether u call them by name or not... but i will pretend they really r random if that makes u happy
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eliogabalus
Hired Hero
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posted February 04, 2002 12:42 AM |
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Just want to bring this to the top again, useful thread for us random newbies.
Also I wish more players could fill in their knowledge, especially when to restart. I learned recently from The Vinz that if you got no road from town you cant get out of your area, and might as well restart. Wish I knew that before I had a game to week2 only to restart
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pandora
Honorable
Legendary Hero
The Chosen One
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posted February 04, 2002 01:02 AM |
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another random newbie
I think this is a good thread, i like to keep the randoms random, so don't study them - but i do like being able to check if its a bad one to save myself the restarts
ps to elioblabla, i didn't know that about no roads meaning you're penned, thanks for posting that!
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"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
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JTL
Hired Hero
King of Tossers
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posted February 04, 2002 10:32 AM |
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Since I probably have played the most random maps of anyone...I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.
Midnight: good assesment of maps (for the most part), although I must disagree with you in two cases:
(1) Meeting in muzgob: While it is true it is always grass, 1 gold mine, and tough break-out guards I wouldn't catagorize this one as a 'good' map. Invariably, once you get past the "tough break out guards" (often week 1) you enter an area of severe guards with relics etc. Unfortunately, you opponent 'breaks' out into the same area. If you take a look at these maps 50-80% of the map is unaccessible, so it turns a XL w/ under into a M map.
(2) Ready or Not: not always fortress v. inferno. True not a 'great' map, but often playable (but a bit easy and boring)
In general: Templates with names are piss poor, Numbered/Lettered templates are much better. I agree with phantom here in that: if I see a numbered template, I don't make special note of the number to try and figure out 'macro' similarities. I just see that it is numbered and say "cool, not some crappy 'newcomers' or the like template". Try and keep the 'randomness' fresh.
Just to add a template that I've found that pops up infrequently: "monk's retreat". This one is super challengeing, but fun. Your terrain is random (necro on snow...sure!), there are 2 gold mines in your area and the guards are usually in the lvl3 to lvl5 range for most everything.
Hmmm....anything else? Oh, worlds at war. You know, that template irked me for the longest time too, until I started looking at "man-made map" in which they give you relics or whatever outside your door. So I figure, what the heck, the game is supposed to be fun anyway so I was playing worlds at war at the end of my TOH tenure there.
PS: I think I made a thread like this long ago where I named the "good/bad and the ugly" templates....hmmm..maybe I didn't, oh well
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Wow...it says I could use BB code here..but not HTML... I got no clue what that means
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jiels
Adventuring Hero
LFM C'thun, pst.
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posted February 04, 2002 10:41 AM |
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JTL, I'm happy to see you around again. I hope your doing ok (when your not laughing at what an idiot I am making of myself)
I was thinking of posting what you taught me about the Sod generator making better randoms. But if your here maybe you could? I would no doubt screw it up somehow.
jiels (hmmmm)
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MidnightWraith
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 04, 2002 02:41 PM |
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and there's more...
arteman who requested this thread to find out about templates is already a good random map player, but there may be some other less experienced players who need a "leg up". Thus here is some more basic advice... and maybe joe can help with this as well.
* usually a lot less gold than TOH maps. manage ur gold carefully, dont buy any more heroes than u need. Look for crypts that u can hit at the start of week 2. See if any easy prisons around, can save u gold and might give u a lvl 5 hero. btw imp caches can be nasty in week 2 if u get 300 little buggers in them, check 'em first. Pity u cant check crypts.
* use the roads and 2 way doors where possible, that is how u will expand on the map. All the towns r connected by roads, so get them! Only go off road with main army if there is a very good reason eg. u see boots of speed, or can go 1 hex off road to kill an army guarding some gold.
* one way of coping with the lack of creatures cuz of gold and resource difficulty is to get free ones by hitting hives and conservatories. Keep note of all that u see and work out a plan to hit them all by the end of week 3, maybe even with more than 1 hero to get the job done quicker.
* pick ur main hero well. generally might heroes r better in the final battle(s). A magic hero can give u a flying start early in game by smacking down blockages to get more towns, but by about week 4 at the latest u want to have a good might hero developing.
* like in any map, relics and utopias can make all the difference, but on randoms they can be anywhere, so it is important to keep scouting the map through the whole game.
* another good reason to keep scouting is u might stumble upon ur enemy, better that a scout does this than ur main hero unprepared.
* after all this advice, still develop a game that suits u. Some random players r very conservative in week 1 to get best build they can then expand week 2 with a big army. Others buy lots of heroes and try to get more territory and resources to compensate for the extra they spent on heroes and often have a smaller week 2 army, but perhaps more options cuz they see more.
any more tips on randoms joe, rych, tim, kuma, vinz etc.? keep it coming....
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andiangelsla...
Disgraceful
Famous Hero
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posted February 04, 2002 02:45 PM |
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was there a idea yet to make something like a random map store, where rdms from the good templates are edited by someone, taking out the too unbalancing things and making sure it is ok to play for both sides, who offers those maps than to others that want them?
between guys who trust each other and well known rdm players they could be used for toh games, if not for fun
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MidnightWraith
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 04, 2002 03:02 PM |
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interesting idea andi, i think some ppl in the past like jb have edited randoms in an attempt to balance them, but never in an organised way like u suggest. I think there would be a place for "new improved" randoms cuz many players wont touch randoms cuz of the perceived and often real balance issues. Only down side i can think of is the number of maps that would need to be generated to keep the fresh maps coming. Would need 1-1 L maps, 1-1 XL maps, ffa XL maps.
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pandora
Honorable
Legendary Hero
The Chosen One
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posted February 04, 2002 06:28 PM |
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I've saved some maps that came out really nice and sent them to friends who like randoms, and in the B-Tourney we were talking about posting a few maps each week, but at that time not as many were playing randoms. and to do that fairly we'd likely need to create all the sizes and i only play xl with under hehe.
What i think is likely my favorite thing about playing randoms , is that when i played most ToH maps, the formula was simple enuff week 1 get lev7 built, week 2 grab the 7s and run with just them till its time for main fight - buy whole force have fight(s) game done. In randoms you are making use of all them fun little creatures that got ignored for so long on the ToH maps.
Maye it's cuz Heroes3 is coming to a close and i feel nostalgic about the creatures we'll be saying good-bye to But a great example of what i mean, was my last game i ran aroud with 100 harpy hags and was killing everything with em, or grand elves etc. Its fun to play a not so rich map and really get use of the whole game
On another note, as for templates : i recently played one of them where opp had 2 towns day 1 to my 1, but i decided i didn't feel like a restart and it was a great game, it makes me wonder how many good maps we threw away with restart just because of the 2 town to 1 thing 
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"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
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Phantom1500
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 04, 2002 11:32 PM |
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Good thread guys. Very helpful.
Finally in season 4 randoms getting some love, this is great.
Tips : Expand Expand Expand
Go in all directions, swing your linked army around
Focus on your towns strength, there is no reason to be gluttonous. Randoms actually allow you to use the little creatures like panda said. Harpies and beholders is a formidable early force.
I would really recommed sending assistants to every good hero you have, but i guess that's nothing new.
Blah, I am afraid heroes is starting to leave my memory so I can't be helpful anymore, so I will just ramble.
Gotta make a comeback sometime to see how bad i will get my ass kicked by the random masters. Later everyone
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jtl
Hired Hero
King of Tossers
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posted February 07, 2002 08:33 AM |
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Seems like this thread is expanding beyond "templates" and moving to random map strategies.....fair enuf:
But first, jiels: Yeah the thing about generated maps for SOD (vs. ones generated for RoE) is this:
Maps generated for RoE have two main 'flaws'. First, since there are no such creatures as "ice elementals, rogues, nomads etc etc"...the generator replaces those with "few" or "several" diamond golems (which are usually easy to kill...much more than say "pack of ice elementals").
Secondly, SOD has about 6 more different types of 2 way and 1 way monoliths compared to RoE, so what you end up seeing in RoE generated maps is each of the 2-way monolith have about 6 or 7 exits...so you generally find your opponent day 3 or 4...which makes for a pretty crappy map IMO. And your thumb gets tired from hitting the space bar so damn much.
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Wow...it says I could use BB code here..but not HTML... I got no clue what that means
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jtl
Hired Hero
King of Tossers
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posted February 07, 2002 08:35 AM |
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Decided to split this in two replies, maybe someone will read one of them this way....
Anyway....random map tactics:
Midnight and phant are (as always) 100% correct.
*griffin conservs and dragon fly hives are your friends. If you aren't crusing around with 30-50 wyverns week 4, you are doing something wrong...well...depends on the map I guess.
*if SOD...keep your eyes out for the 'easy' combos...on XL w/ under you might even be able to make one...I've gotten the wizards well several times and the cloak of the undead king once or twice and the other "evil" combo a few times too.
*Stay on the damn road....how hard is that? And don't leave "semi-hard" guarded exits within 1-2 days from your main castle....You do that...you will get caught with your pants down...
*As Phant/Midnight stated: exploration is key. The best way to do this is to play the chain game...where ya have 6-8 heroes passing off troops like rychens mom in a turkish prison fighting anything and everything for gold gold gold so that you get that great build week 1 and explore. BUT...this requires long A_S_S turns and takes away from the 'fun' of the game for your oponent, so I don't play that way ('cept maybe on day 7 where you are just 400 gold away from that level 7...or what not).
Well...this is lengthy and too sanctimonious I'm sure...but hey I'm not play'n anymore so who cares! Gotta do something while my cultures are incubating so BLAH BLAH BLAH on the forum :-)
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Wow...it says I could use BB code here..but not HTML... I got no clue what that means
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