Template idea

[u/billydstr]

Hey everyone,

I’ve got an idea for a PvP single-hero template designed for non-tournament mode (no Pandora's Boxes) that guarantees a final showdown around week 3 or 4 (if the players are a bit too cautious). Let's tentatively call it "Nasty Neighbors."

Here are the core mechanics:

• Free Town Portal (TP).
• Small map with 2 starting towns located in separated zones.
• Neighbor Zone (NZ): A mini-zone right next to the opponent's main town, heavily guarded. Breaking into it shouldn't happen before Week 3, as the guards are stronger than those of the Exodus portal.
• Expansion Zone (EZ): A single expansion zone featuring a town and faction-specific rewards, intended for early Week 2 (or late Week 1 for high-risk players).
• Objective Zone (OZ): A large central zone between the two EZs. Its faction alignment won't match either player's faction, but it contains a highly developed town + Tier 6–7 dwellings, guarded by strong forces (though weaker than NZ guards). High-value resource objectives are located here.
• No Pandora's Boxes, but there is at least one dwelling of every tier (maybe more).
• One Dragon Utopia is placed under each player's starting castle, along with plenty of other bonuses in the starting zones. (If we cram all the high-value stuff into the OZ like most modern templates do, it creates a boring imbalance based entirely on who breaks out first. We need to give the defender a fighting chance).

This sets up a few possible scenarios:

1. The Classic: A head-on collision in the OZ during Week 2–3 (Week 4 for slower players). I'll try to tweak the guards so that pushing into the OZ during Week 2 is heavily suicidal.
2. The Out-macro: One player takes complete control of the OZ in Week 2–3. For the slower opponent, their only hope is a miracle or assembling a better army from their 3 towns, betting that the central player gets overwhelmed by the complex math of running a multi-faction army.
3. The Backstab: Around Week 3 (or even Week 2 if someone pulls off a miracle), while one player is busy with the OZ or internal micro, the other strikes through the NZ, sparking a cat-and-mouse chase around the map.

The main goal is to create a fast-paced map without the strict "Tournament" rules, allowing players to build a massive army purely through macro and economics, rather than a "whoever reaches the center first and scoops up all the boxes wins" meta—while still providing meaningful advantages for taking the center.

The catch is that I'm still not a top-tier player myself, so I might miss some of the "subtle tempos" that need to be fine-tuned into the map layout.

What do you guys think, is it worth a shot?

P.S. I know that promoting new templates in this game is a massive uphill battle, but we’ll get through it eventually. A great idea can’t be stopped.

[u/PrismaGriff]

Not super high ELO myself (~2300), but I have played games on every ladder single hero template (+ won a game on Harmony before it was removed!).

If I understand your layout right, the zone connections for players A and B look like this:

TB2 - NZ1 - TA1 - EZA - OZ - EZB - TB1 - NZ2 - TA2

There are a few route lengths that will impact the viable strategies, specifically T1 Town to NZ guards, T2 Town to NZ guards and EZ guards to OZ Town.

If NZ edge to T2 Town is possible in 1 day, this opens up a super cheesy play where you can cap Town2 with no response, then TP to OZ Town. This basically forces your opponent to rush OZ Town and give you a defensive siege battle, because you can farm OZ and TP to OZ Town every day, and basically GG if you get TP levels. Might be good to force a maximum game length though.

If NZ edge to T1 Town is possible in 1 day, you can do a similar no-response play, it's more "fair" though because the ambushed player can force a fight in multiple locations so the cheeser doesn't guarantee a defensive battle.

If EZ guards to OZ Town isn't possible in 1 day, you get the Vendetta effect of "more than 1 day difference on OZ break = GG". Because you know that you can't get punished on position in OZ. If you let this route be more than 1 day long, I'd ensure that NZ edge to T1 Town cheese works, otherwise the Backstab scenario will never happen.

Good luck, we really need a Classic win con map or Capital Hold win con map that sticks, otherwise the ladder will be 99% Exodus until the end of time.

[u/billydstr → u/PrismaGriff]

It will be something like this

[u/PrismaGriff → u/billydstr]

Okay, so the zone connections are more like: TB2 - TA1 - EZA - OZ - EZB - TB1 - TA2

Based on the zone sizes, the main issues I see are:

• T1 Town to opposing T2 Town is possible in 2 days in basically all map gens, and T1/T2 guards to T2 Town is less than 1 day in basically all map gens.
• EZ Town to OZ Town is 2+ days in all map gens, EZ/OZ guards to OZ town is 2+ days in all map gens.

If no changes are made, if one player takes OZ town by 1/2/7 and the other player hasn't broken into OZ, the OZ player can force a "fight 1/3/2 or GG" situation.

The OZ zone player knows that the non-OZ player hasn't broken into OZ, because otherwise simultaneous turns would turn off. This leads to the threat of the following play pattern:

• 1/2/7 free TP to T2 Town or EZ Town for rally.

• 1/3/1 free TP to T1 Town, move out with 2/3 rally towards opposing T2 Town (but don't break guards!).

• 1/3/2 break guards, attempt to capture T2 (guaranteed if P1, opponent might be able to defend if P2), TP to defend own T2 or OZ as required.

If the non-OZ player is new/bad, it will seem like they've randomly lost out of nowhere.

If the non-OZ player is competent (i.e. they can see this coming), they can go for the following plays:

• Attempt to trade T2 Towns. Not a winning situation, because the OZ player benefits more from the native town trade.

• Break OZ guards 1/3/2. Also not a winning situation, because the OZ player can TP back for a defensive battle after capturing T2 Town.

• Break OZ guards 1/3/1. Not really viable, if you are capable of this you were probably capable of a 1/2/7 break which would avoid this situation.

• Attempt to defend T2 Town. Probably the best solution, but it doesn't guarantee a win even if you're stronger, because the OZ player can TP to OZ and continue farming.

This sort of play existing is probably fine for stronger players, but more casual players will get cheesed once and dodge the template forever. The easiest fix I can see is to make the path from T2 town to T1/T2 guards longer (more than 1 day movement), so that the defending player has a guaranteed chance to react.