"Might vs. Magic"

KostyaN (red, Tower, Solmyr, Thiris/Solmyr)draw Erdem (blue, Swamp, Tazar, Gunnar/Tazar), 215, 2sm4d(3).

Phew.... That was a long game. I already felt like surrendering just because of my noobish play:smile48: . We played in about 5 sessions, several hours each:eek:! Even with an insanely good start I couldn't quickly gather everything and execute, so that's how it turned out:( . I don't know how to play double-build properly - I've never won with it, that's just how it is:rolleyes: ... I don't remember everything from the beginning, so just a brief week-by-week breakdown.

Week 1: 8 heroes, I don't think I've ever seen so much free money lying around on SM yet... found a couple of experience crystals, cleared 2 crypts without any losses, not even gargoyles, both seemed to give 5 rags each, took the native secondary — it had a thousand with upgraded gargoyles, built nagas in the Citadel at home, Solmyr — level 4, Thiris — level 5, didn't have enough movement to take the external dwelling of genies and only revealed another one at the very end of 117 — huge open spaces, very hard to cover everything even with a chain, saw the Griffin Conservatory and an Air Boost...

Week 2: the stalemate intensifies:o , various ATG and Stingers (forgive the word "various":)) — normally at this point GO would already be breaking something weak, but we never touched it the whole game:D , although it turned out we both had double... we were probably afraid of each other:D , I took both external dwellings, the second one exactly on the last movement point like a fool, though if I hadn't been stingy with splitting stacks I could have done it with the main hero, Dwarf Cottage 20, Medusa Nest 40 with upgrade (lost about 20 caps to morale there:mad: ), set up near the two-level Griffin Conservatory, but didn't manage to enter on 127:), built genies at home and a Castle with a thousand, in the secondary just genies without nagas, also left the boost lying around:D , since a rush wasn't planned anyway, I decided to out-mosh:rolleyes:. Solmyr picked up Archery and Logistics:eek:, Thiris got advanced Earth, has Slow.

Week 3: Thiris took the Griffin Conservatory on 131 without reinforcement, Solmyr took the boost, he also broke another passage on a single angel — to the rocks — for 22 pegasi with stats 1-0 without using Cepovuha or any battle magic or healing:eek: , everyone I told was shocked:D , but it was simple: he stood in a corner:smile47: , found a stable there, Mama-Warrior took out a chest with upgraded gargoyles and a level 10 Tana (a genie specialist, by the way:smile13: ), there I start working on eating up a fat chunk of the respawn for money buildings — the decoys handle it fine, but why is there still no money:( ? I killed a max Medusa Nest without shooters and seemingly without any losses at all using 1 angel + a backup dance of genies and nagas, Solmyr on his angel just destroys everything mostly without battle magic, including hordes of various zombies, captured a Citadel, there I revealed a mini Griffin Conservatory, on 141 I'm thinking how to take it with 1 angel:rolleyes: , he's only level 10, Thiris is level 11, it's hard to level everyone at once and I never found a single exp chest the whole game... at home — giants (for some reason:confused:??), in the 2nd Tower — a Citadel.

Week 4: with 17 wolves and singles I broke the Griffin Conservatory with Solmyr on the angel, and 7 wolves even survived:smile08: ; finally got my hands on the treasure zone:D :D :D , it's almost funny — I haven't played like this in about a year I think — a new record for anti-tempo probably:smile49: , there was some junk right away: 45 pokemons, a bunch of colored balls, but mostly well-guarded by proper guardians:) , finally Mama saw the Tree:eek: :rolleyes: and met the flies — terrible, I was about to just surrender, but at the end of the week I revealed the edge of a Cauldron guarded by Efreeti, freed a very proper Necro (where was he earlier?:mad:) — with Logistics and Offense, level 10, captured a Dimension Door scroll and finally built the magic:) .

Week 5: actually took the Cauldron and right next to it a Cloak +2, with my Ring +1 — they won't catch us now, dammit:smile13: , Solmyr was running around the back areas of the snow respawn uncleaned with 2 Masters and 1 giant, managing to pick up Necromancy from a Scholar, yeah... stupidly forgot to clear the Tree that those Efreeti on the Cauldron were still half-guarding — seriously, does that happen:rolleyes: :D ... saw Gunya clearly intending to run from his native secondary and sit in my capital, thought it was all over — he'd reach it, but no! he was 5-6 moves short:) , which gave me time to break Mama, even though I didn't intentionally keep the chain — built it on autopilot I guess:eek: ... he didn't attack the castle, circled around a bit, bullied some decoys and Town Portal'd. I couldn't take it anymore — how long, I said, just sign a peace treaty already:) . Then we fought for fun: a nontrivial battle, in the castle my Thiris saved a little over half the genies and some odds and ends, we never tried in the field. I won't list the stats and troops, to avoid extra laughter:o — it turned out how it turned out... (during the plague week I lost a frankly indecent number of unrecruited units:smile06: ...).

Thanks for finally finishing the game!;) I think a draw is a perfectly adequate result. Though a loss purely for educational purposes wouldn't have hurt me:smile42:!...