Reports on online games and their confirmations (Winter 2009 season).

smoke_mk (red, Castle, Valeska, Valeska) def KostaN (blue, Tower, Neela, Ivor) 2sm4d(3) 216

Confirmed!
We picked all the rests (and such layouts are gone!: with Sauurug in the tavern, and with an external dwelling of giants behind not-so-strong slow guards:( ).
Ivor in the tavern! that's where the luck ended... on the entire huge respawn I found only 1 crypt with 5 vamps (the artifact, though, wasn't bad: +1 to health). Other money structures were also scarce. On turn 112, my scout hero ran into a block of 20-49 grand elves; if I had guessed that behind it was my native secondary town, things might have gone differently. But as it was, he went wandering off-road, since on the other side there was only an entrance to the subway guarded by 20-49 water elementals and a GO (horde of cavalry). On turn 114, I hired another hero to join the 4th — and I shouldn't have! There was no money anyway. An external dwelling of genies behind a horde of shooters — that's clearly not for fragile gremlins (who would be left to take the external dwelling after such bombardment?). End of the week: Ivor only has expert archery, nothing else; in the town, I barely squeezed the Nagas into the fort (since I had to build the market). On turn 123, my scout hero (Luna) takes that single crypt with 3 Nagas. On turn 124, Ivor took the "Ribs of the Earth" artifact behind the Cerberi (the Sabbaqs were sleeping on the job! it cost me 23 gremlins and some small fry:( ). On turn 127, after breaking through the Elves (minus 20-something gremlins), I'm a couple of steps short of my native secondary town — what a disappointment! On turn 134, I see Valka in the tavern with roughly the same stats as Ivor — so I'm not losing hope yet:) . On turn 135 — MEGA-blunder! I forgot to take the GG off speed mode and attacked a crowd of Nomads with just 1 Gargoyle, crashing unintentionally:D, and I only had 2000 gold with no one to borrow from, so I had to exchange my last resources and ransom myself. On turn 136, I beat them and the Swordsmen for a mini-Pandora's Box (5000 gold) without losses (Ivor already has Oil;) ) — I was as happy with the money as if it were a miracle:D . There were almost no chances left: my opponent in ICQ predicted Archangels and the broken GO for turn 141:eek: , but he spent another week searching for lost ships and, not finding any, rushed at me on the 5th week. I had just found my first Griffin Conservatory (a two-spot one), not on my own respawn and again with stats roughly equal to Valka's — 6-11-4-3, and I sacrificed myself so as not to drag it out. My pathetic 8+8 Nagas, 2 Angels, and a few Gremlins with Mages clearly didn't decide the outcome — GG.
Thanks for the game!