I spent the whole first day agonizing over whether to take the restart or not. The resource spawn was terrible, and I had to fight my way to the crossroads through archers, suffering losses. But I got Moner (whom I had to lead far away to reveal the map) and a Necromancer, while my opponent had a 3-hero lead without restarts, plus the branching paths and pleasant guard posts for the future attracted me. I wasted a lot of time and decided to play; everything went according to plan.
I quickly headed towards my home town, but I was greedy and took a detour, which meant I didn't have enough moves to easily capture the town. I had to take it with significant losses the next day because there were no other options. The resource spawn near my home town turned out to be small and mediocre, so there was no question of getting Griffins. I only built Psionicists, even without a Citadel, and created a stack of Golems from two outposts. In the second week, I cleared all the money locations I could find to finally build Griffins. I could have built them in the Castle, but on day 125, my opponent pushed me back while rushing. This was an unnecessary expense, and the timer was running out. I messed up a couple of moves because of this, but I still drove my opponent away, cleared my and his Hive, and then he surrendered.