Deep Mike (red, Tower, Nila) lose Arch Stanton (blue, Barbarian, Crag Hack), 8mm6, 2-1-5
Now it's fashionable to bash the 2sm template, but I'll be spitting on 8mm for a long time after this game. The generation was completely idiotic and unbalanced, and there was no restart. For the first 3 days I travelled along the only road (and a fast one at that) to reach the only exit in the form of a teleport. I enter it, the exit is in the underground, and the road ends after 2 tiles, running into the exit of a one-way teleport... I had to wander around the underground off-road. I found 2 teleports there, but both were one-way as well, meaning you go in, and God knows how far you'll have to search for the way back. There were also a couple of passages to treasure zones, but the guards were strong. Overall, superb, I could have surrendered right there; at least on smk you don't encounter such idiotic tricks with passages. Further on, I basically played just to study the opponent, since I knew nothing about him and where strong players come from in Croatia... And the template choice was unexpected too; it's believed that foreigners don't like 8mm, but he was like a fish in water on it, and the generation helped him in every way possible. Still, out of desperation, I went into one of the one-way teleports, picked up a tiny respawn with a village there, and found an exit leading back. At my main town, I built Nagas in the Citadel, but there were practically no prospects. There was only 1 minimal Griffin Conservatory in my homeland, and the only bonus was an external dwelling of Nagas behind strong guards, which you could only tackle on month 2. That's what I did, spending the second week returning home, and a financial crisis set in because there was nothing left to collect and no new territories, and the external dwelling was in the snow. I still took it and 1 Angel by the end of the week, and after exchanging resources, I upgraded the Nagas and prepared to go into the treasure zone. But Nila was only level 9, she had taken Logistics but hadn't leveled it yet, and there was no land yet. For comparison, here's the opponent's situation. Instant easy access to the green computer, which was destroyed without losses by day 3, building a Mage Guild for the opponent in the process. Crag gets Logistics as his first skill, there are passages everywhere, Griffin Conservatories are scattered all over, a couple of Hives to boot, and 4 Dragon Utopias are compactly located in the nearby territories. By the end of the second week, while I was struggling, Crag was already level 16, had collected 8 Angels, owned 4 towns, and at the start of the third week, he took the first Dragon Utopia, which immediately gave him the Book of Air for control and Boots of Speed. Meanwhile, his scouts had already explored a fast road to my respawn, and he could have easily come to me in a couple of days and crushed me with one hand. But he either decided to mock me longer or just run around for his own pleasure—fortunately, there was plenty to do and a ton of stuff left to collect. In short, he didn't touch me. In the end, Nila went on foot into the treasure zone, where she got bogged down for almost 2 weeks because it stretched across half the map in the underground, with no other exits except the way back, and I found no control spells or any Magic above level 2 there. I picked up a couple of Griffin Conservatories there with 3 Angels each, a couple of Hives with 20 Wiverns, and only at the end of week 4 did I find 2 Dragon Utopias. The first one had nothing outstanding; the second at least gave a Sword +5 to all stats and some magic artifacts, but they didn't really matter since I had no strong magic and kept the Cloak of Disavowal on me. Meanwhile, Crag took 3 more Dragon Utopias, found the Boots of Speed, amassed 20 Angels (building them in his secondary town too) and over 60 Wiverns. Crag's total stats were around 100, while mine were still a third lower even after the Dragon Utopias; Nila did find the Gloves and Boots too, but later than Crag. While Nila was in the treasure zone, my scouts miraculously captured the Orange computer's Castle for free right on day of growth and held it; I built magic there, and on floor 4, I got Town Portal. Nila returned on foot, picked up the Shackles of War, my last hope that the opponent would make a mistake and I could catch him with the Shackles somewhere. At the exit of the treasure zone, I took a computer town, where I split off a mage and had Nila learn Town Portal; she jumped to the Elves, where there was another Dragon Utopia. The opponent upgraded his 20 Angels, found another Book of Earth, and with full control and super speed, he kept almost the entire map under control, never leaving a turn without troops, always sleeping with them in castles. The Dragon Utopia gave me nothing again—just a duplicate of some magic artifact and the Book of Water. I had long lost my native castle, only the village and the Elf castle remained, so the very next day Crag easily caught Nila, having superiority in everything by several times. Just a super-balanced template. I only wasted a huge amount of time on this XL. 0-1.