I’ll write about my games.
First one was against Zadir on SoD, me playing Conflux against his Rampart. The generation was very bad; I immediately used a restart on 113 without leaving the respawn. After that, my opponent started taking restarts despite having a good position, seeing an external dwelling of horses at 1 day's march... Then there was a restart due to an encounter. In short, by the time we started, Dust had already finished. In the end, the generation turned out normal — no bonuses, but birds on the first easily stood up. My opponent miscalculated his strength in real life, having had several sleepless nights, and in the end couldn't take it, went to sleep and surrendered the game )).
The second was against Dust; he described his side. I’ll add mine. Even before the tournament I had a feeling that I wouldn’t win this time, and specifically that I’d lose to Alexey — "his premonitions did not deceive him" (C). At first, there was no reason to complain about the layout: a very big money respawn, a secondary dungeon in the underground, later a secondary in a huge swamp. But there were no external dwellings. In short, territory covering half the map plus the underground, easy building with tons of gold, plus I freed Locus from prison at level 10 with expert Logistics and Armorer skill. As a result, I never decided who was the main hero — Kiril or Locus — and never seriously leveled either of them, though as it turned out there was nothing to level them on. After the first week, everything seemed fine — each respawn had a Griffin Conservatory scouted, though very far apart, and a Dragon Utopia in the underground. After the game, it became clear that having taken 3 angels from two Cons, I should have immediately used the secondary to find a passage to the opponent (the Novosibirsk players said I should have hit a GO with 3–4 crystal dragons, but they’re clearly optimists — going with a two-week Rampart army plus 3 angels on a weak hero into relics; even if I’d managed it, I wouldn’t have been in any state to attack). But on one hand, there was still stuff to clear — 2 Hives and a Con in the swamp and the Utopia — and on the other, I didn’t know what my opponent had; from conversations it was clear he had a great roll, and the passage wasn’t scouted. In a Castle I definitely couldn’t have killed him even if I’d passed through — I could only have pressured him. In the end, I started gathering whatever I had. Due to huge distances and the swamp, it wasn’t very fast despite having two Logistics expert main heroes. And I got a complete bust — the last Con was minimal, the Utopia was also minimal, giving a worthless artifact +4+4 to spell power and that’s it. After that, I rode straight through two underground treasure zones, just wasting two weeks. I can’t recall such worthless treasure zones — I didn’t find a single Hive in them, let alone new Utopias. There were a couple of weak artifacts and useless Pandora’s Boxes; they gave no magic, nor did the mage guild I built at home — complete junk everywhere. So when the game crashed, I decided not to continue. Crag Hack had a huge advantage in both army and stats; my 5 gold dragons and the Vivi from the secondary weren’t going to change anything.
In the third game against Wan, at first I thought I’d just gotten lucky — I very quickly grabbed two secondaries, both native, and Kiril on top of that! I was playing Castle against his Fortress. But it turned out even if there had been four of them, it wouldn’t have mattered much. The respawns were small and poor, with no external Hives and only one Con on the outskirts. In the end, I built Angels in the Castle on my home turf, and on the second week somehow built cavalry in the Citadel on one of the secondaries. I went for the Con — of course it was minimal. There were two Naga Banks — both minimal too. In the underground, I scouted a super treasure zone with 4 Utopias, but I had nothing to go there with. On one of the secondaries, though, I got lucky — for 4 gold and 4 green dragons, I took a Pandora’s Box with level 4 magic, but at that point I didn’t even have Earth skill. Later I did get lucky, got the skill, and gained Resurrection and TP. My opponent, as it turned out, had 7!! Cons, not strong ones, totaling 12 angels, but that was more than enough. On top of that, he had an external dwelling of Hydras almost from the first week. In short, if he’d come to me in the third week, I probably wouldn’t even have put up a fight — I’d have had to go into the treasure zone without leveled Earth magic and with a weak army, and how do you take Utopias, especially one next to which a +4 all stats shield was guarded by 12 black dragons... But Tazar only came at the very end of the third week and didn’t manage to capture my dwelling spawn. A couple of days earlier and I’d have been done. Also, my opponent was running low on time and started making blunders under pressure. So I managed to buy all the spawn with a banner from all resources and flee into the underground for the Utopias. There I also found 3 Hives with 8 Vivi each. Mana was scarce, though, and I could only resurrect the most important things, saving enough mana to restore for TP. The Utopias were compact; I managed to clear all 4 and TP to the last remaining secondary just before it was captured by my opponent's troops. The Utopias were good — helmet +6 all stats, Tome of Earth, Titan’s Cuirass, sandals +2 all stats, I already mentioned the +4 all stats shield. Only I didn’t have a single sword, not even the weakest one. After restoring mana, Kiril took back his castles. Tazar apparently left to clear some treasure zone — luckily not an Inferno one, where I still had a Utopia and Hives scouted. Kiril went there, finally got a Titan’s Sword for stat boost from the Utopia, boots, and found Air magic for control in a Pandora’s Box. The Hives gave a decent number of Vivi. The finale was in the swamp: Tazar sat in the castle with 16 Hydras, 12 Angels, 48 upgraded Hydras, plus black cows and chaff. Kiril had 46 basic Vivi, 134 shooters, 27 Champions, plus Swordsmen and Griffin. Tazar’s army was certainly bigger, but Kiril’s stats were higher, and Tazar had no magic resistance. With expert Tactics and Mass Haste on the first turn, I took heavy losses, but a 2500-damage Explosion decided it. I had enough meat to survive until the opponent’s striking stacks were wiped out. If needed, I planned to summon Earth Elementals.