"only XL-5"

I had 1 rest, but 3 experience stones and decent heroes (Moner, Gramotey, Damakon) came in, so I didn't take the rest. And at 112 I regretted it, since the road led to a 6k guard, plus as it turned out later, there was a one-way path there. In week 1, I placed birds and orcs in the Castle; there were also many wolf cubs, which I was lucky not to waste. Scouting also showed a super treasure, and inside were КЗ and clues for 20-49 bears. It became clear that even with only 1 Castle, I was doing more or less okay; the main thing was to find a way to fight back. In week 2, Gundula arrived, and I immediately realized she was the one—true love. Although at first she stubbornly didn't take Earth Magic, she did take Logistics. Then a green castle broke through to me; at the end of the 2nd week, I decided to retake it. Monerka went there and took it, since I had killed off the other heroes. Also with Dessa, I took the 4th Nagash-den without Earth Magic :D (it was an interesting fight, I didn't even lose anyone except a goblin). With gold, I defeated Gundula, bought up the growth, and used Gundula to smash the 2nd conserve. I gave one angel to Monerka, one to Gundula, and moved the army to Dessa, who took the 2nd Nagash-den. In the conserve, Gundula finally took Earth Magic, and КЗ was supposed to drop as soon as Gundula experted it. Fortunately, she took Advanced and Expert Earth in a row, so after the library I took КЗ with Gundula. At the same time, Monerka ran into an opponent, killed Labeta, but then a mean Sephinrot arrived on a snake and killed Monerka. Also from the strategic overview, I saw that the opp broke the first Dragon Utopia at 132. Fortunately, from that same overview, I saw that they didn't get control there. Super. I had time. Then I got lucky with 2 max-clues; in them, I got 24 ducks, and another 4 in one mini-clue, and realized I could take the max-utopia that was in a micro-treasure. I took it with Gundula, losing ogres (which I built knowing I'd need to break the utopia) and orcs, griffins, and swords. I cut off the rest. Portaled back to the Castle. Then Tant-mutant ran at me with high stats, apparently hoping to carry the game with a cloud of mana explosions and animates. But I defeated Dessa, took the recanter in the super treasure by jumping in, and calmly dealt the final blow seeing that the opp had no gold for buyout. Losing 4 angels to bolts, I killed his entire army; he even fled instead of buying out. Then he decided not to surrender; I started leveling Dessa to get Earth Magic. Earth was obtained, and with Gundula, I methodically took his main every turn while leveling Dessa. I also had Halon with Expert Earth for backup, picking up hives, and transport. When Dessa was fully leveled, I started seizing 2 castles per turn; in one such turn, I killed his Tant, whom he left in the castle not thinking I could jump there (and Gundula was 3900). Then he tried to dig up Tant, it didn't work, and he surrendered.

Thanks for the game!