Puzzz0
Again, a good, rich start: I take the external dwelling of phoenixes on 115, burn the ogres for +2 speed, the AI... do something crazy out of nerves (God knows why), losing a couple of turns of tempo. I put a wall in the wrong place in the hive, I don't leave the Cloak and the Breastplate for the moon under the Griffin Conservatory 3-4 with GS (+2 speed just gives priority to the 'Energy' units), then the split with 18 Storms dies on the miner with the Cloak due to blocks, the computer drives away Adrienne on a bird with 5 cats at 121, who hadn't reached the castle. Reluctantly, I buy back all the useless ones with artifacts and take max Griffin Conservatory on 5 birds, and slowly try to make up for lost ground. In expansion, I was solidly behind until about 125, when I took 3 castles at once, and on the next turn I capture 2 more villages, life improves, I get Town Portal with the last one on 127 (the berserker from the 3rd rebuild bugged out and stayed in the tower), but overall, it wasn't critical: due to the burned expansion, and because of the absence of other Earth heroes, except for the moon, I could only use them from 126. The only annoying thing is that I didn't get resources during all this time, the bug with the stuck berserker might have somehow influenced it. On the other hand, Dimension Door was given right away this time, i.e. from the first rebuild. I was also lucky that without the University, the heroes leveled up decently, and the moon caught Air herself. In HotA, you can build something in parallel while rebuilding the control, but here the rebuild takes up the build turn, so as much as I wanted to slam down a University or a Market – it wasn't possible.
As a result, on 133, Gunnar jumps/flies in, with a Death Cloud in full combat readiness. I lose Conflux and the moner with Armor and Wisdom, who was left there just for the University on the next turn.
This was very unpleasant and unexpected. The only Dragon Utopia I had taken by that point had KO. Against Death Cloud, it will clearly not work well. Plus, now you can't leave Sappers on a bird everywhere. Well, this is often the strength of Logisticians. Without Conflux, it's like being without hands: I can't buy the Elemental I wanted for someone, the upgrade for Psychs and Birds is canceled. I have to take an AFK 2 minutes to catch my breath, figure out what to do: going for the finale is clearly not favorable for me, and getting to Conflux is still a challenge (2 full turns with 2 Dimension Doors). I decide to urgently scout something, and, by holy Baratorch: near the villages there are 2 Dragon Utopias with solid stats, which gives my thin army hope. I set up for the attack. On the next turn, Gunnar stays in the dungeon, Adrienne checks him for a Recanter and a Ring of the Magi: all empty. It turned out that the opponent was very unlucky with Earth, which probably explained such a strong rush on Conflux.
Thank you for the games!
2-1.
skype: goshanstop.ru
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