Oelm
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Dubrovin Pavel (Red, Castle, Valeska, Kyr) def Oelm (Blue, Fortress, Tazar, Alkin), 2sm4d(3), 1.4.7
Confirmed. Thanks to my opponent for a great game! Personally, it gave me a lot of insight into Heroes.
So: On 112 there are five heroes, the external dwelling of hydras and dragonflies is revealed. I go to the adjacent respawn, clear 30 earth elementals and 13 gold golems with Tazar, and run into a horde of lizards guarding an artifact :eek: I take another road and kill 96 golems for Pandora with Tazar, losing 2 dragonflies and 2 dogs! :smile19:
And then a global blunder happened, or just a low level of play: on the adjacent Tower respawn, I spotted 2 external dwellings of griffins and intended to upgrade them after taking the castle, but the road turned out to be blocked. Instead of taking these dwellings and upgrading everyone on the second day, I sent them to the meat grinder :smile48:
Well, that basically decided the outcome of the match. To win the game, I needed to make several decisions that were not obvious to me: make Alkin the main hero (I eventually did, but lost a day), not build hydras, and instead build wyverns in the castle or even 1-6 with the citadel. I did that too. And finally, ignore the external dwelling of hydras—but I couldn't bring myself to do it. All this was necessary to take the adjacent respawn from Pasha and get a 3 vs 3 castles situation, but it turned out to be 2 vs 4. Also, I didn't take Archery with Alkin, even though I had seen the Golden Bow by then; for some reason, I upgraded Earth—what the hell is Earth for on the 2nd day?
Despite all that, after losing the griffins, everything else became a matter of "dragging out the game," otherwise, on the 2nd day I would have had: Advanced Archery, Advanced Earth, 34 lizards, 68 caps, and about 20 gr dragonflies! That would have been stronger than Castle's. Moreover, on the third day there would be another 3 external dwellings of caps (5 total), 2 cons, finally the Golden Bow, and if I had built with cows (since it's Alkin), then upgraded cows too. In principle, after the third day all the trump cards are with the opponent, since he had three Dragon Utopia while I had one behind the keymaster's tent :mad: (although Pasha didn't find the Dragon Utopia).
Thanks for a great game!!
P.S. And finally. WHY DO I PLAY ON 6 MINUTES?
I've only recently started playing online. And today I decided that I will play only on 6 min in SoD and no less (except for tournaments, where 4 is the regulation)! Objections like "4 is the standard" are dismissed. I don't have enough time to do 100% of what I planned in 4 minutes. 4 min control is either for the truly elite who do everything on autopilot (I can't do that), or for people who play HoMM3 very poorly.
Accordingly, I would lose to the first group and win against the second without getting much joy from the game. With factions that have great breakthrough power from the start (Rampart, Castle, Dungeon), you can manage in 4. But with Swamp (imho 3rd-4th place in strength), Inferno, or Conclave, it's unreal. I don't want to turn Heroes into a real-time strategy. For own lovers of real-time, there is Dota.
Let me explain what the difference of these 2 min provides. Firstly, I can't build chains so that moves are passed cell by cell. Secondly, when the map opens up, I often have to change the game plan, and that also needs to be thought through. And most importantly, when I transfer troops, transferring and splitting them takes about a third of all the time when there is a long chain.
P.P.S. When I master TE, I will play with different control.