Here's the story: if you pick up Advanced Diplomacy by the eighth level, which is possible, then 122 Evil Eyes join 39 Harpies and 38 Evil Eyes for free (I had that many, maybe fewer Evil Eyes are enough, but they are necessary). I only crawled out into the light of day so early for this purpose.

Although I didn't send the save, I played only once (as a scouting mission), and put together a rough plan of action (for subsequent games). On the first attempt I gathered about 80k, on the second, knowing how to get 200k + extra turns, I started playing a second time... but got confused with the saves — gave up, and then didn't have time to play.

So I also fought the Elves early and along the way wiped out the Gold Dragons (+2 to all, not just lying around on the road:), I think by 1-2-4 or 1-2-5 I was already sitting in the boat, and I had almost 200 Evil Eyes and 70 Harpies. On the first week I built Harpies and Evil Eyes when I tried to play a second time, while the first time I didn't even have Troglodytes in the first week.