"only XL-5"

Despite the reset, the start turned out rather poor, but 2 Necro towns came in, and I also scouted 2 roads from the spawn area using the overview, one of which led to a 3k with a Crystal Mine (at first I thought it generated 6lm). I decided to play without rests.
The Necro heroes leveled up quickly and by week 1, day 15 I came across a level 1 Griffin Conservatory. Life became more fun with an Angel, since at home I couldn't build anything except Wood.
I ended the week with 200+ Skeletons and a captured village, but the best part was that one of the looted scrolls contained Town Portal)
On week 2, day 5 I built the 4th level and took out the nearby Fortress town opponent, advanced Xsi's Earth magic, and finally no longer needed to maintain an ultra-long chain across "half the map."
On the second attempt I got Dimension Door and started hopping around the map with three heroes, meanwhile taking 2 level 1 Dragon Utopias, in which I got 3 Helmets))
In the end, at the moment of first contact, the armies were at parity, but the opponent was inferior in stats and also very far behind in map exploration.
Left with 2 towns and no visible prospects, the opponent decided to surrender

TFP :)