3rd offline tournament

Since the deadline for submitting saves has come to an end, LET'S ALL TOGETHER share our impressions. Even if they might seem silly to some, they will teach both newcomers and veterans a lot.

Maybe let's start with who started with which Castle? Only with an explanation of the reasons, all the pros and cons.

Just a few words:
1. I started with exploring the map. 5 exit points. What immediately catches the eye: the swamp is in the swamp, the Titans are in the snow, the dungeon is underground... well, in general, everything as usual, but Castle has a lot of space, resources, and dwellings. Mage has 2 external Titan dwelling huts right away. In the Dungeon, there are no dragons at all. There are several Castle-type towns on the map. In short, initially you should play either as Mage (2 Titan manufactories + 2 towns close by) or as Castle (one Angel manufactory, but no snow at all and lots of space + it's much easier to start developing with an Angel than with a Giant).
2. Let's look at artifacts. In the Dungeon and near one of the exits, there is a Necromancer's Cloak: awesome! How to get it - either play as Dungeon, or as Castle (another plus in Castle's favor). It would seem that playing as the others, you could also quickly assemble this artifact, but you need to account for the long detour through the Dungeon + the good guard of the boots. That's where I started. 100 skeletons + wyverns were successfully spent. Also, while going for the cloak in the Dungeon, you can collect parts of the Legion, the Water Book, and parts of the Angelic Alliance. (in general, a decent plan - go right to left through the Dungeon). The remaining artifacts are in Utopias. I tried in the first attempt to take them with 1K skeletons without the Water Book - a complete fiasco. A good scheme worked when cloning 400 liches, using tactics (defending them with skeletons) for almost 20000 damage per shot across 4 tiles.
3. Hero. Since we are collecting skeletons - the best breakthrough machine is Galthran. The main hero is Crag Hack (heh-heh, I just like him). On SoD, various bonuses are absent, but I still level up Defense, Wisdom, Tactics, Earth Magic, Logistics. I persistently kept getting offered Fire Magic. Because of this, I had to take Resistance (probably not needed here). The other heroes on SoD - out of the available ones - are only powerhouses, specialists in Attack or Defense. So, I chose my main ones, the rest are gold specialists.
(I just never understood, at the start of the tournament everyone said the main tactic was hero selection, and again everyone claimed the hero should be a monster specialist. Which monster? With 60 (let alone 100) Archangels, a hero's bonus for Liches or Cavalry will be negligible compared to the Defense or Attack bonus for Archs! A movement bonus - THAT would be something!!!, but it doesn't participate in the arena :( That's my IMHO)
4. Tactics:
As I already said - one (Galthran) moves through the Dungeon with a horde of Skeletons and collects the Cloak. He should emerge on the surface near the drawbridge area. The second (Crag Hack) goes around the stat booster locations, takes out Rampart, and waits for the path to the drawbridge to open. Additional heroes - one follows Galthran, picking up loot, one circles the entire north-eastern area, one the south-eastern, southern.

5.
Result (bad, I am not satisfied - I screwed up a lot): by the middle of the second month, the Dungeon is entirely mine, Galthran (having only 500 Liches) goes for the Titans, Crag Hack should get Town Portal now (not finished yet, should finish today). Unfortunately, the Utopias are still with the Azure Dragons.
I plan to enter the arena with Titans, Behemoths, Black Dragons, Archangels, Cavalry, Fanatics, and Liches.