Wicc
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Wic (blue, Dungeon, Gunnar) def Preds (red, Dungeon, Shakti, Tazar) @ 8xm12a, 143, TE-Light
Tests revealed that Gunnar is not just playable on this template, but probably even surpasses Shakti.
This is because the guards on the respawn are weak (about one and a half times weaker than usual guards), so there are no particular issues with breakthrough. Plus, there are no guards on many minor objects (Griffin Conservatories, minor artifacts, level 1 prisons, etc.), meaning you can often run through the entire respawn with weaklings without stumbling into guards. This also results in a lot of money, ease of building, scouting, and capturing external dwellings.
Also, the dense road network favors a runner, especially if you need to drag out the game; situations like on 8mm6, where there's one road to the center and you meet your opponent there in week 2, are quite rare.
So Shakti has an advantage either if he found/took a chain of conservatories, a Dragon Utopia with control in week 2, or if early contact occurred, or if Gunnar didn't get money/external dwellings. All of this doesn't happen very often, and over time the advantage gradually shifts to Gunnar...
111 gave 2+3 stacks to the native heroes, so I upgraded the harpies and off we went. I immediately took a minor gnome dwelling, lots of cash, and plenty of heroes too.
I scouted 3 troglodyte external dwellings, collected them all, and ended up with more than Shakti had :). Then I found cat and minotaur dwellings, things got really sweet...
Gunnar levels up magically - immediately Armorer, Offense, Earth, then Wisdom and Pathfinding later.
I went to the center, crushed a computer Castle, built stables, and scattered weaklings across the numerous lifts and teleporters.
117 entered the central treasure zone, where as usual there were just mines plus a cat dwelling :).
121-122 painted all the mines and the dwelling, started building mage guilds. Went into some treasure zone, there was a level 3 Griffin Conservatory, several beehives and Pandora's Boxes, and a Dragon Utopia. Cleared everything by the end of the week; Kalh from the scout spotted a conservatory on the grass respawn, so I grabbed that too (also level 3). Papa got all of level 4 from a Pandora's Box, heavenly...
131 the Dragon Utopia falls - Pendant of +3 All, Red Orb, Torso of +5. Not bad for SoD :).
Cleared the second treasure zone, there were several beehives and a Dragon Utopia (gave some junk).
I keep running further through the center, taking out 3 computer opponents (Flux, Swamp, Ramp), grab a couple of villages, and from a lookout spot I see a treasure zone where red cockroaches led by Tazar have been lurking for several days.
Built the Dimension Door buildings (got lucky, no rebuild needed), bought Air magic for Papa in Flux as the last slot.
The computer Ramp killed my under-hero Das with Earth and Logistics, who was defending the castle. Sad. Quickly leveled Monere, fed him 4 Pandora's Boxes, 2 of which were for XP. Bought him Earth and Air.
141 Tazar stood on angels within reach. I buy everything up, jump over, there are 1+8+1 angels. I kill 6 of them, lose 3 of my own angels, Taz buys himself out. He has about 350 mana and 20+ SP. But I only have 6 Knowledge, and I also spent a Vortex on gathering power and jumping to Taz.
Completely forget about the Red Orb !!! TE habits...
142 Taz jumps over the rock and takes Flux away from me.
Leveled-up Alamar teaches Monere Portal of Summoning, Monere levels Earth to Expert on various guards. I don't want to fight Taz, so I portal to Swamp, upgrade fifty vives, and from there hop-scotch through systems of one-way teleporters.
What's good about SoD is that there are overviews... in TE you can barely get them, too much hassle, but here it's easy. I'll need to think about bringing them back to the guild, they really help with navigation. I ran to the computer Necro. With ~3500 movement points and Dimension Door, you don't have to run for long; at most, you'll get somewhere by the 2nd turn.
While Papa was replenishing mana, a weakling opened an overview and saw 2 Griffin Conservatories and a beehive. Monere portals into the Necro and clears all that good stuff. Almost caught up to Gunnar in leveling - level 17 vs level 18.
143 And then I remember the Red Orb :).
The game ended instantly - Gunnar galloped to Ramp and took it, revealing the orb. After that, the opponent immediately surrendered - being behind in power, all their hope was in magic.
Thanks for the game!
Tests revealed that Gunnar is not just playable on this template, but probably even surpasses Shakti.
This is because the guards on the respawn are weak (about one and a half times weaker than usual guards), so there are no particular issues with breakthrough. Plus, there are no guards on many minor objects (Griffin Conservatories, minor artifacts, level 1 prisons, etc.), meaning you can often run through the entire respawn with weaklings without stumbling into guards. This also results in a lot of money, ease of building, scouting, and capturing external dwellings.
Also, the dense road network favors a runner, especially if you need to drag out the game; situations like on 8mm6, where there's one road to the center and you meet your opponent there in week 2, are quite rare.
So Shakti has an advantage either if he found/took a chain of conservatories, a Dragon Utopia with control in week 2, or if early contact occurred, or if Gunnar didn't get money/external dwellings. All of this doesn't happen very often, and over time the advantage gradually shifts to Gunnar...
111 gave 2+3 stacks to the native heroes, so I upgraded the harpies and off we went. I immediately took a minor gnome dwelling, lots of cash, and plenty of heroes too.
I scouted 3 troglodyte external dwellings, collected them all, and ended up with more than Shakti had :). Then I found cat and minotaur dwellings, things got really sweet...
Gunnar levels up magically - immediately Armorer, Offense, Earth, then Wisdom and Pathfinding later.
I went to the center, crushed a computer Castle, built stables, and scattered weaklings across the numerous lifts and teleporters.
117 entered the central treasure zone, where as usual there were just mines plus a cat dwelling :).
121-122 painted all the mines and the dwelling, started building mage guilds. Went into some treasure zone, there was a level 3 Griffin Conservatory, several beehives and Pandora's Boxes, and a Dragon Utopia. Cleared everything by the end of the week; Kalh from the scout spotted a conservatory on the grass respawn, so I grabbed that too (also level 3). Papa got all of level 4 from a Pandora's Box, heavenly...
131 the Dragon Utopia falls - Pendant of +3 All, Red Orb, Torso of +5. Not bad for SoD :).
Cleared the second treasure zone, there were several beehives and a Dragon Utopia (gave some junk).
I keep running further through the center, taking out 3 computer opponents (Flux, Swamp, Ramp), grab a couple of villages, and from a lookout spot I see a treasure zone where red cockroaches led by Tazar have been lurking for several days.
Built the Dimension Door buildings (got lucky, no rebuild needed), bought Air magic for Papa in Flux as the last slot.
The computer Ramp killed my under-hero Das with Earth and Logistics, who was defending the castle. Sad. Quickly leveled Monere, fed him 4 Pandora's Boxes, 2 of which were for XP. Bought him Earth and Air.
141 Tazar stood on angels within reach. I buy everything up, jump over, there are 1+8+1 angels. I kill 6 of them, lose 3 of my own angels, Taz buys himself out. He has about 350 mana and 20+ SP. But I only have 6 Knowledge, and I also spent a Vortex on gathering power and jumping to Taz.
Completely forget about the Red Orb !!! TE habits...
142 Taz jumps over the rock and takes Flux away from me.
Leveled-up Alamar teaches Monere Portal of Summoning, Monere levels Earth to Expert on various guards. I don't want to fight Taz, so I portal to Swamp, upgrade fifty vives, and from there hop-scotch through systems of one-way teleporters.
What's good about SoD is that there are overviews... in TE you can barely get them, too much hassle, but here it's easy. I'll need to think about bringing them back to the guild, they really help with navigation. I ran to the computer Necro. With ~3500 movement points and Dimension Door, you don't have to run for long; at most, you'll get somewhere by the 2nd turn.
While Papa was replenishing mana, a weakling opened an overview and saw 2 Griffin Conservatories and a beehive. Monere portals into the Necro and clears all that good stuff. Almost caught up to Gunnar in leveling - level 17 vs level 18.
143 And then I remember the Red Orb :).
The game ended instantly - Gunnar galloped to Ramp and took it, revealing the orb. After that, the opponent immediately surrendered - being behind in power, all their hope was in magic.
Thanks for the game!