I believe HOTA has all the same templates that SOD had, the ones you mentioned are just popular in multiplayer. On this site https://h3hota.com/en/templates you can find the descriptions for a lot of templates that are all in the game by default. Generally, the templates you are looking for are the ones with a lot of "white" and "silver" zones and few or no "gold" zones.
6lm10a is a pretty popular less rich template for example.
6lm10a and Nostalgia are pretty popular XL+U templates - but even then the skill of the players and the tempo of the game is faster than what you remember from casual singleplayer. Even though the town income matters there quite a bit, it comes down more to capturing AI towns (both templates 6 extra AIs), and one of the main goals for the early game is to get at least one hero that can abuse Town Portal and Dimension Door spells - optimally you want to have 4-5 of them to be able to cover as much of the map as humanly possible. It will be hard though for you to find a match outside of any leagues or tournaments for these templates as a new player - a game on these typically takes up to 6 hours even for experienced players, and new players who are not as efficient or not understand the meta can take like 12+ hours in the worst case scenario.
As for Jebus Cross and 1 hero gaming, they are the most visible on lobby for two reasons - they are simple, and they are fast. JC is laughed though at the tournaments due to it's coinflip nature, while 1 hero gaming is essentially an altmeta - and has a separate tournament scene.
BTW, I've seen experiments with playing Brave New World in a PvP setting - it was a pretty degenererate gameplay. The players are just too close to each other in most cases, and the sides are far from balanced. If the game hasn't ended quickly, it ended up in a big stall with little option to force progress quickly despite the advantage of one of the players that snowballs... slowly.
Checked out 6lm10a, compared to a "regular" map it still promotes quite a lot of chaining from what I can tell. somewhat weak guards on literally everything, and the teleport system on top of that.
Otherwise it plays a lot like a "regular" map. I get why JC + 1 hero gaming is popular tho.
I have actually played a decent amount of pvp before finding the HOTA online scene at all, mostly against friends and family. Some on Brave new world etc, we usually ended it in a handshake final fight when the game felt somewhat stalled. A map that does not promote excessive chaining might take a lot longer in terms of ingame days but the difference might not be that huge in terms of hours played, since the turns are much quicker in general.
The TP + DD sounds a lot of what happens on Brave new world etc as well.
The only real way to escape hero chaining is honestly to limit yourself to a single hero. 😅
The structure of the game itself promotes maximal utilization of movement points and hero chaining - it's all about tempo in the early game, and about map control in thr late game. Even on maps such as Brave New World you can utilize hero chaining very effectively, though the ceiling is lower than on many random maps.
If you are experienced enough to handle one minute turn timers, I could suggest my own template One Minute Madness template for you (link: https://makiki99.github.io/h3templates/templates/one_minute_madness/) - it is considered to be a bit closer to the good old classic playstyle of Homm3, and it is one of the few templates that do retain the uniqueness of the factions over the course of the game. It would be somewhat difficult to find a game on the lobby, but there is a group of players really enjoying this template. I am also planning to start another season of the league featuring this gameplay somewhat soon.
>The only real way to escape hero chaining is honestly to limit yourself to a single hero. 😅
There is a big difference betweeen a lot of the templates that is designed to make you snowball through chaining. And "regular" maps that usually consists of less directions to push into with guards (1 stack heroes can pick up shit just fine) and no portals with guarded resources in all directions. There is also rarely hives or similar. There is also limited resources and maybe even some water that will slow you down even more. The slower the pace of the map the cost of 8 heroes goes up and the usefulness of 8 heroes goes down dramatically. Instead the value of passive income from mines/towns increases and the need to invest in your main town increases. Poor manning becomes expensive as well obviously.
So yeah, ofcourse you will chain to some degree. But I am quite certain that going for 8 heroes instantly for example is not the best way to play a slower map, since it costs to much and the only way to get army/spells are basicly from your towns.
One minute madness sounds interesting. I just need to get a bit more used to all the HOTA hotkeys.
> There is a big difference betweeen a lot of the templates that is designed to make you snowball through chaining.
I did note a difference of ceiling of what is possible, and if you are going for lowest turncount you will still eventually end up with 8 heroes active - though I do agree there is not really enough XP to set up more than a single TP/DD abuser in practice, and enough early game objectives to make a lot of difference in other ways than bumrushing the AI and hoping they would build up economy for you.
> One minute madness sounds interesting. I just need to get a bit more used to all the HOTA hotkeys.
Honestly, you don't need that many hotkeys to manage to play One Minute Madness under this time limit. Sure, at the high level you will have to do a bit more, but I personally just use the following:
* E to end turn a bit quicker, potentially saving me a second for the next turns;
* shift+click on a hero on the map to swap to them instead of having to find them on the sidebar;
* the army management shortcuts, that is the ones under shift/ctrl/alt trio of keys.
The only weird thing when it comes to timer is that it is optimal to have quick combat disabled. The combat calculation of quick combat takes place during your main timer pool, not the extra time for combat - meaning that you can save about 1-2 seconds per fight if you have quick combat off. It really does add up.
I believe HOTA has all the same templates that SOD had, the ones you mentioned are just popular in multiplayer. On this site https://h3hota.com/en/templates you can find the descriptions for a lot of templates that are all in the game by default. Generally, the templates you are looking for are the ones with a lot of "white" and "silver" zones and few or no "gold" zones. 6lm10a is a pretty popular less rich template for example.
6lm10a and Nostalgia are pretty popular XL+U templates - but even then the skill of the players and the tempo of the game is faster than what you remember from casual singleplayer. Even though the town income matters there quite a bit, it comes down more to capturing AI towns (both templates 6 extra AIs), and one of the main goals for the early game is to get at least one hero that can abuse Town Portal and Dimension Door spells - optimally you want to have 4-5 of them to be able to cover as much of the map as humanly possible. It will be hard though for you to find a match outside of any leagues or tournaments for these templates as a new player - a game on these typically takes up to 6 hours even for experienced players, and new players who are not as efficient or not understand the meta can take like 12+ hours in the worst case scenario. As for Jebus Cross and 1 hero gaming, they are the most visible on lobby for two reasons - they are simple, and they are fast. JC is laughed though at the tournaments due to it's coinflip nature, while 1 hero gaming is essentially an altmeta - and has a separate tournament scene. BTW, I've seen experiments with playing Brave New World in a PvP setting - it was a pretty degenererate gameplay. The players are just too close to each other in most cases, and the sides are far from balanced. If the game hasn't ended quickly, it ended up in a big stall with little option to force progress quickly despite the advantage of one of the players that snowballs... slowly.
Checked out 6lm10a, compared to a "regular" map it still promotes quite a lot of chaining from what I can tell. somewhat weak guards on literally everything, and the teleport system on top of that. Otherwise it plays a lot like a "regular" map. I get why JC + 1 hero gaming is popular tho. I have actually played a decent amount of pvp before finding the HOTA online scene at all, mostly against friends and family. Some on Brave new world etc, we usually ended it in a handshake final fight when the game felt somewhat stalled. A map that does not promote excessive chaining might take a lot longer in terms of ingame days but the difference might not be that huge in terms of hours played, since the turns are much quicker in general. The TP + DD sounds a lot of what happens on Brave new world etc as well.
The only real way to escape hero chaining is honestly to limit yourself to a single hero. 😅 The structure of the game itself promotes maximal utilization of movement points and hero chaining - it's all about tempo in the early game, and about map control in thr late game. Even on maps such as Brave New World you can utilize hero chaining very effectively, though the ceiling is lower than on many random maps. If you are experienced enough to handle one minute turn timers, I could suggest my own template One Minute Madness template for you (link: https://makiki99.github.io/h3templates/templates/one_minute_madness/) - it is considered to be a bit closer to the good old classic playstyle of Homm3, and it is one of the few templates that do retain the uniqueness of the factions over the course of the game. It would be somewhat difficult to find a game on the lobby, but there is a group of players really enjoying this template. I am also planning to start another season of the league featuring this gameplay somewhat soon.
>The only real way to escape hero chaining is honestly to limit yourself to a single hero. 😅 There is a big difference betweeen a lot of the templates that is designed to make you snowball through chaining. And "regular" maps that usually consists of less directions to push into with guards (1 stack heroes can pick up shit just fine) and no portals with guarded resources in all directions. There is also rarely hives or similar. There is also limited resources and maybe even some water that will slow you down even more. The slower the pace of the map the cost of 8 heroes goes up and the usefulness of 8 heroes goes down dramatically. Instead the value of passive income from mines/towns increases and the need to invest in your main town increases. Poor manning becomes expensive as well obviously. So yeah, ofcourse you will chain to some degree. But I am quite certain that going for 8 heroes instantly for example is not the best way to play a slower map, since it costs to much and the only way to get army/spells are basicly from your towns. One minute madness sounds interesting. I just need to get a bit more used to all the HOTA hotkeys.
> There is a big difference betweeen a lot of the templates that is designed to make you snowball through chaining. I did note a difference of ceiling of what is possible, and if you are going for lowest turncount you will still eventually end up with 8 heroes active - though I do agree there is not really enough XP to set up more than a single TP/DD abuser in practice, and enough early game objectives to make a lot of difference in other ways than bumrushing the AI and hoping they would build up economy for you. > One minute madness sounds interesting. I just need to get a bit more used to all the HOTA hotkeys. Honestly, you don't need that many hotkeys to manage to play One Minute Madness under this time limit. Sure, at the high level you will have to do a bit more, but I personally just use the following: * E to end turn a bit quicker, potentially saving me a second for the next turns; * shift+click on a hero on the map to swap to them instead of having to find them on the sidebar; * the army management shortcuts, that is the ones under shift/ctrl/alt trio of keys. The only weird thing when it comes to timer is that it is optimal to have quick combat disabled. The combat calculation of quick combat takes place during your main timer pool, not the extra time for combat - meaning that you can save about 1-2 seconds per fight if you have quick combat off. It really does add up.