New interportal.

15.04.10. Pit for LM (red, Rampart, Kairi, Kairi) def Deep Mike (blue, Conflux, random Tunar, Erdamon), 2sm4d(3), 127.

The setup was certainly good on my side, but not that sweet after all. In terms of gold, it was rather mediocre, so I had to spend all my tempo again on fights with Erdamon's weak army (there was no better hero) for every resource on the respawn; at least there were 2 weak crypts on the secondary, but Erdamon got bogged down in the respawn thickets and didn't have much leveling since all fights were low-level. A huge plus was the market — thanks to it, I didn't worry about birds and even bought them via exchange right on day 7. I had practically no second secondary in the grass, since the path to it was blocked by as many as 2 hordes of Pegasi and Evil Eyes, so it went to the opponent along with all the artifacts; I only collected resources there on the second by clearing a path through rough terrain near the edge. I only took 1 Efreet external dwelling; the rest were unrealistic in terms of speed and gold. I built Phoenixes in the citadel on my first town. But of course, despite the sticky start, the prospects were excellent — if I had survived until the third week, the opponent would have had little chance. By the end of the second week, I was supposed to fully build both castles and take at least 1 Griffin Conservatory, plus 2 more at the start of the third. However, the opponent assessed the situation very accurately, chose the only correct tactic, and executed it brilliantly. Even with not the fastest first days after the start, starting from the second half of the first week, he developed incredible tempo, managing to visit the Barbarians, return home for Pandora's Boxes, grab the Golden Bow in the treasure zone, capture the grass secondary through rough terrain, and then come to me, it seems, on 1-2-5, decked out in artifacts from head to toe with level 14 and stats 3 times higher than mine. At that time, my Erdamon was only level 6, and I hadn't found a single even useless artifact all game; the only shield was lying on my native respawn behind the Ogres, but off to the side, and I didn't have time to get it. My main was standing at the secondary's respawn, waiting to transfer the army with which I was supposed to take a couple of Dwarves and, after building Phoenixes on the secondary, the Griffin Conservatory and a level 2 dwelling next to it. Instead, without taking anything, I had to disband immediately and head home, since near my capital there was an untaken Conservatory 2 and a Hive — I couldn't give those up. After disbanding, I exchanged all resources at the market, bought the army in the capital — quite weak without a citadel on the first town — and with losses of air elementals, earth elementals, and other small units, I took the Conservatory on 2, headed to the Hive, took 8 Wyverns there, then disbanded again in the capital, spending all my gold. But even here, the opponent played absolutely accurately, showing iron composure: he leisurely went for my shield, didn't attack the castle, forcing me to sit in it, and later headed to my secondary, putting me in a hopeless situation given its 2 Conservatories. I had to attack myself, but with my weak stats against 15 defense and expert Armorer, there was no chance, and when the Elves were unblocked from the Phoenixes, they swept everything with the Golden Bow. As it turned out, the opponent also had a DR that day, so in any case, I had no right to win that day :). Thanks for the game.