Confirmed.
I took my native secondary hero, thought it was good, but the respawn turned out to be pretty poor. Had a serious cash crunch; I killed two dwarven dwellings and that was it, nothing else. In short, the second week was dead, I thought about surrendering. But then I looted a Fireball scroll and revealed a treasure zone with hives, so I decided to play on after all.
In the end, the lost tempo clearly took its toll. Thanks for the game, Valentin!!!!!!!!!