[Tournaments-SoD+FreshMod] Favorites, to battle! - 12 - The Battle of Favorites! - 12

A very pleasant start with a max crypt, stables nearby, and hidden treasures. I also got lucky with an unguarded village, thanks to which I routed Luna in the treasure zone on 117, positioning by a Pandora's box. On 121 I burn 20 horses, and anticipating 15k experience, I check the tavern and see a Green Dragon recruit, who levels up nicely through a log on the next turn. Luna burns the pre-mini Dragon Fly Hives and a split forms for the Green Dragon, which becomes level 14 on 122 – I found two more Pandora's boxes in the continuation, totaling 15k. Meanwhile, on the other front, the main army fights under Bogarus's leadership, breaking the first Griffin Conservatory. At that timing, everything seemed wonderful – resources, a split, I started building the mage guild on 117. Then progress slowed down relatively – Town Portal from the penultimate town was the cause. On 125 I risked like crazy, leaving the enemy's castle unguarded and a Green Dragon near a centaur. Survived by a miracle. The roads turned out not to be the best; I decided to take the enemy's 3k through an off-road passage over snow. However, I got lucky with a 0-alignment portal, which had a resource collector: it led right to the purple player's adjacent territory, which I took, and through that little portal I managed to take a castle on 131. In general, if not for the resource wealth and the early construction of control, I would have been very disheartened: Dimension Door was given from the last town, on 133. But while the map was rich in resources, in terms of objects for meat and artifacts everything was very scarce – only one Scholar was revealed, which gave me a "useless" Sword of the Berserker, Blackshard of the Dead Knight, and a 4/4 Helm. The split was killed on 132 with Dimension Door, which seemed like a joke of the game: how come, I've been building like crazy since the beginning, and the opponent still gets it before me and uses it so skillfully. The thing is, the distances between towns were quite long, and it's clear that in such a situation, SoD logistics heroes realize their potential best. In short, out of desperation, I jumped on the turn of gaining control into a Dragon Utopia to get something – and a miracle unexpectedly happened: Ribs! The last artifact for Armor of the Damned, and with the Sword of the Berserker that's the old, good combo, especially without other stats, it gave hope. On 134 I attempted to take the castle where someone (Dessa) was staying overnight in the fort; I didn't think through the attack option, although, honestly, maybe it turned out well: there could have been a 20+ all Gunnar with all combat skills and an Angelic Ally staying there, and it's not certain that a 10 all Green Dragon with Armor of the Damned would have handled that. In the end, the result was: after 12 hours of play, I fly into a Dragon Utopia with Luna, hoping to find Dragon Fly Hives there, leave heroes unprotected, ultimately losing a valuable support. Fortunately, the opponent stays in the village, sensing his dominance on all fronts. Luna returns from the Dragon Utopia empty-handed (I must say, the map was generally poor: upon revealing it turned out we had already eaten almost everything valuable by that time) and army-gets-wiped, while the Green Dragon finishes with the old, good combo.

 

A sweaty match, thanks for the game!

1-1