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

Oelm (red, Inferno, Pyre, Marius) def Hermit (blue, Castle, Turis, Turis) 2.2.6. 2 cm3

I scribed Inferno against Castle, it spawned one Efreet dwelling, but a lot of gold and mercury. On the first week I didn't take the dwelling, the guard was a horde of Lizardmen. At the start of the second week I attack in the last seconds with a scout hero on a Dwarf Cottage, without archers, maximum roll, darn, 4 Efreeti survived, tempo lost, now I can't take the Griffin Conservatory, I decide to go for Arch Devils, especially since I scouted their dwelling in the treasure zone. GO — Arch Devils, I want to hit on the third week, but I can't finish the turn in two days, so on 137 I only stand at the Dragon Utopia, check it, maximum roll. I wait for growth. I take the Dragon Utopia, there's a hat for level 5, I set Arch Devils. Now I get distracted by the Book of Earth, then the Earth Sphere, and then red. Finally on 212 I reach the GO and break it. The next day I capture the main castle, upgrade Angels, and now I don't rush too much, I capture all of the opponent's castles while he walks through the treasure zone. And I cut down Demons. I realize that with Orba's Forbidden spell, the game is already mine.

PB — Marius level 21 — 26-21 exp attack, defense
10 Archangels, 15 Arch Devils, 34 Greater Efreeti, 22 Pit Fiends, 26 Wyverns, 174 Greater Demons. The Demons didn't even have time to approach before the opponent's army fell.

Thanks for the game!

Yeah... Only now I found out that the opponent could have come as early as the third week, and on that week I only built Angels, and on the fourth I took the Conservatory for three Angels. At the very end I slipped into the treasure zone and took 5 Hives, three Dragon Utopias, and several Pandora's Boxes. I managed to achieve a slight advantage in total stats and hero level, but the red sphere nullified everything, and even without it it wouldn't have been better — Marius knew Berserk and was an expert in Fire Magic... In terms of troops I was heavily behind: he even had 10 Archangels, while I only had 9 :( I should have gone into that treasure zone earlier, but I spent a whole week dawdling in some underground corridor ending in a dead end with a market :(

What were the reasons for my defeat when playing Castle against Inferno? I actually thought that in the early stages Castle is easier to play than Inferno, but that's with upgrading archers, and if you don't upgrade them but try to build Cavalry in the castle, then basic archers lose to Gogs in stats — Gogs have 2-4 damage, while archers only have 2-3, though Halberdiers protect archers much better than Imps do. But Hounds in Inferno appear as early as the first week, while in Castle there might not be Griffins. In general, accumulating Demons for Inferno also gives decent results in a long game. Also, I lost on the first week because of Crusaders, who got morale boosts as if they knew Leadership instead of Turis, and struck twice at the Cavalrymen, killing both, and I had to run :( Of course, the Angels from the Conservatory were my native troops, but still I only had a level 5 external dwelling :(

Thanks for the game!