Redwhait (red, Stronghold, Yog, Grindan) def Mizrael (blue, Castle, Edric, Tyraxor) 8mm6 217

That was a game. Sorry for not posting the report for a long time, but writing just a couple of lines of confirmation for such a game feels wrong in my opinion, and I had neither the time nor the mood for more. So, Stronghold went up against Castle, which I was quite happy about: Stronghold on 8mm6 without a good starting hero risks not clearing their own computer opponent, and Castle is Castle anywhere, its starting hero isn't as critical (by the way, if we're talking about a weak start for Castle, then in my opinion with Rion, you can't really heal pokemons much with the tent;), I've just seen someone give Chris to the opponent :eek:). We re-restarted a bit, and off we went. On day 1, five heroes, Marusya showed up — I decided to level her, but Tyrax is sitting in the tavern... At the external dwelling, there's an archers' external dwelling, a Griffin Conservatory and a couple of crypts — pretty decent. When I broke the crypt with Tyrax and got Logistics at level up, it became clear that Marusya would be twiddling her thumbs :). On day 5, I went down into the underground (supposedly towards the Inferno neighbor), but I didn't check the guard strength — clearly not the passage to the computer opponent (a stack of Diamond Golems, a horde of Harpies on their own territory), and when I broke through, I ran into Hydras guarding the red orb (seems like a freebie, but you can't use it anyway). Week result: Cavalry in the Stronghold, the old man wasted a ton of time in a dead-end corridor. 121 — a scout finally revealed the passage to Inferno with the view spell, and only on 125 I captured it, and even then a hero from the prison helped — Dessa, level 5. On 132, the last green hero was killed by Tyraxor, while the opponent didn't touch their own computer opponent but instead sailed past into other lands; the computer opponent turned out to be Conflux and built Birds in week 1 without any qualms, because they always have tons of money :D. Only on 134 I broke the Griffin Conservatory (regretted not checking earlier, the minimum guard), Air Magic was already Expert long ago, but no Haste anywhere :cool:. Slowly building the Mage Guild in Inferno — level 4 gives Water Walk! (this is in Inferno) and Fire Shield. Out of frustration, I even sent the old man to a Shrine under Inferno, for luck, but Haste wasn't there — it wasn't anywhere on the 2 respawns, although I had already collected enough scrolls for a small library :) On day 7, another Angel :cool:. Tyraxor went into the deserts, which turned out to be decent — a couple of Pandora's Boxes with 10-15k experience each, and now Earth Magic is Expert, Wisdom and Armorer appeared. In Inferno, level 5 gave Fly... Immediately a cunning plan formed to use Dessa to take the Conflux's bird growth and capital. Thanks to building the Mage Guild, Tyraxor with 3 Angels, 10 Cavalry and pokemons on a fat stack breaks a mini-Dragon Utopia (the Resurrection scroll didn't even let me drain all the pokemons), and by the end of the week I finally built Angels at home. On day 7, Dessa flies over the mountains, kills a weakling with a lot of troops from the computer opponent, and sits one day's march from the castle at a Water Wheel. The computer opponent didn't take the defense, and Dessa calmly captures the Conflux; here I made a mistake (misclick) that cost me the game — Tyraxor splits into the Conflux to repel the computer opponent's attack... and ends up back home!! How I missed, I don't understand myself :cool:. The computer opponent didn't attack, but that's not even the point — I had little money anyway, and an extra split by the old man in the Conflux (where Haste was needed, by the way) prevented me from buying a scout to send through the portal (and leaving the castle undefended was absolutely impossible — the computer opponent already had 6-9 Birds with backup) and securing the approaches to the Conflux (this is still the opponent's computer opponent, and they are clearly nearby). In the end, that's exactly what happened — after I finally killed Labetha, Tyraxor got Expert Wisdom, giving access to Fly and effectively the entire map (with Logistics and Air Magic), and on the same day, Grindan from the portal attacked Tyraxor in the castle. Grindan didn't have control, and in Hota with Fly, 2! good heroes can overpower even a double-build ;). That's how one wrong move can cost you the game; of course, I could have tried to recover with Dessa by collecting the map using Fly, but that would have dragged the game on for months, until either Grindan dug up control, or Dessa fattened up to obscene levels and caught Grindan in a Cursed Ground fight or at the castle. There's nothing new or interesting in that, and I have experience of this kind left over from Chaos maps (Scorp and Erik remember ;)), so I decided to surrender. Thanks for the game, it really brought back the old days :).