My point was that you have changed a (quite important) game mechanic (and it looks to be a forgotten change ;) )and I described how I see it. It's up to you to decide whether to take or ignore the feedback.

Quality of life changes inspired by sequels can only be taken as positive. Experimenting with AI is appreciated as this is the main thing that differentiates your version from the original. Messing with game mechanics, well this is where things become controversial and risky imo.

I'm also not quite sure how to interpret your answer here. You say it is unfair to be able to dig for the artifact early (in the original game the UA was never revealed early, and it allowed you to play fair or cheese it a bit. The changed mechanic does not allow you to play fair in a reasonable way and judging by the examples in your post, does not prevent cheesing) and at the same time you say that players never play fair anyway, and give an example of someone who found the UA after 3 obelisks, making it sound like an accomplishment ;)

I described the way I see it in my previous post. I think it was quite a reasonable take but it is up to the creators of fheroes2 to interpret it. I personally like to play it fair with the UA, as the game is too easy anyway and cheesing it feels like yet another form of cheating. But it is a personal thing, I admit.

Correct me if I'm wrong or failed to understand you correctly, but you claimed, that finding UA now is impossible without revealing the whole puzzle map. But I showed you an example, where a player managed to dig it out just after 3 puzzle pieces were revealed

Yes, the revealing algorithm is a bit different and a subject to change, but you stated, that digging UA is considered as "removed" for you personally, because you have no ability to watch crosshair on 80% revealed puzzle map (same as in the original game happened, but not always and you have to visit all obelisks from time to time).

I agree that algorithm currently used in fheroes2 is slightly different. It could be even easier to dig UA out, comparing to the original game, since the revealing of several pieces located on the edge could bring more clear understanding of the approximate location of the UA. Unlike in the OG, where revealed pieces are distributed more random, including few internal rows and columns. but it's just depends on a chance.
From my point of view here is only one issue. Maybe visual representation of revealed puzzle should be a little more random, than strictly revealing the edges of the hidden unrevealed puzzle that looks like a square, after revealing 24 outer pieces.
I'll discuss it with devs later, if it worth investing time into such cosmetic issue.
But thanks anyway for poinitng that.

Dear fans of Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and fheroes2 project supporters!

The team is excited to announce a new version of the fheroes2 project - 1.0.12 as the first update of this year! The team have made many changes in several aspects of the engine since the last release, and we are happy to share the details with you.

One of the biggest areas where the team has made huge improvements is the AI.
First of all, we have made important adjustments to the AI's performance according to the difficulty level. This is especially noticeable on Easy and Normal difficulties, and this will help players who are struggling with these difficulty levels.
Secondly, the behavior of the AI heroes has been updated for several Adventure Map objects: for most objects the information available to the AI is now much more fair. Additionally, the AI will now expand map territory much more efficiently.
Lastly, the team made significant improvements concerning the AI's defensive battle tactics and surrender logic. The AI will apply more sophisticated tactics during battles, increasing the challenge for players.
Also, now the AI will decide between surrendering or retreating from battles, just like human players do. All of these changes will make the AI a more formidable opponent for many players.

The second biggest area of progress is of course the Editor. The team has finished adding all of the objects present within the game into the Editor. We have also updated the new map format to accommodate for future changes and to expand it with new features. Most of the work is now done, but there are several tasks remaining before releasing the brand-new reworked Editor to players and map makers. The fheroes2 Editor is being built with the aim to be much more accessible and easier to work with compared to the original Editor.

On top of this, the team spent time polishing multiple UI dialogs, improving performance of image and resource loading, fixing logic issues of Adventure Map objects, and updating several translations. In total, more than 50 issues have been fixed in this release.

Thank you so much for your invaluable support, and we hope you will enjoy this release!

You could also support the project development on Patreon.

Thank you so much for this project !

Is there a plan to implement the random map generator in game ?

Edit : I noticed that there is an issue when we use the french version. It seems that the "î" isn't well recognized. For example "Maître" (= 'Master' in english) is sometimes missing the î ("Ma tre") or even display a wrong letter. Not a big deal, but if one day this could be fixed, that would be nice :)

Hi!

Thanks for your interest and feedback!

Random map generator is impossible without the independent map editor, which we're currently working at. If there would be a huge demand from the commuity we can make map generator. It is not an easy task, though, but definitely a possible one.

Could you, please, provide more details on your problem with French?
What version of the original resources are you using? What version of fheroes2 project is installed on your device? Where exactly is issue noticeable? Could you provide screenshot or even make a thread at the project's official github page? I am personally don't experience the issue with any letters. French translation is one of the most updated one and no one reported such problem before.

Dear players of Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and fheroes2 project supporters.

The team is thrilled to announce the release of 1.0.13 version of fheroes2 project! We continue to enhance the engine every month to provide the best experience for you and all players.

Users of touch screen devices will be pleased to learn that we have implemented a slide-to-scroll feature for all in-game lists, enhancing gameplay and intuitiveness. Additionally, we have added a slide-to-attack action during battles, improving playability on small screens such as mobile phones.

Campaigns have received updates as well: we have adjusted difficulties for many scenarios and fixed the logic regarding carry-over troops in campaigns, bringing the Normal difficulty experience even closer to the original game.

As always, we have made graphical improvements to the engine. Many texts have been corrected and translated, application loading times have been reduced, and multiple rendering issues have been fixed to polish the engine even further. Even tiny improvements are significant to make the best possible gameplay experience.

The work on the Editor continues. We have (re)implemented the Eraser tool, which is vastly superior to the one in the original game. Additionally, we have addressed several issues with objects and their rendering, and added logic to load maps for playing.
The team still needs to complete multiple tasks in order to deliver a complete and stable Editor to the public.

In total, more than 30 issues have been fixed in this release.

Thank you so much for supporting the project, and we hope you will enjoy the upgraded version of the engine!