I got back about an hour and a half ago. I'll write a report as soon as I can...:)

The draw was cool, without any "fucking" crumpled pieces of paper from a cap:p. Pyotr came up with a trick with cards: he took 4 aces and 4 kings and wrote each participant's nickname on each card with a marker (and out of modesty, he didn't include himself among the aces;) ). In short, he separated the favorites from the less favored in his opinion... I drew a convinced SoD player and HD-mod user Andrey a.k.a. Rebellious. And then the confusion began: according to the rules, there was a vote on the game version from 3 options; I naturally crossed out SoD:D, but Andrey said he couldn't and wouldn't play anything except SoD:smile32:. I thought it over and decided not to be stubborn and cause a stink over nothing (especially since I came without any claims on the finals, because financially I simply couldn't make it 95% of the time anyway...). I just asked for a favor to re-choose the Cita I had marked (since on SoD I really don't know how to spin Jebus Cross with those Crag Hacks using 50 goblins and 20 meat-wolves, and I was counting on Tyras, it's different - Tower is clear how to play there, at least that's how it seems to ME...:o ).

I don't remember the restarts, even if you kill me. But the final generation was fabulous: meaning so fucking bad that it can't be described in a fairy tale or described on a decent forum (after the game, assessing my setup and my opponent's on a 10-point scale, I must say he had a solid 7, and I had about 3-4, and on top of that I played, falling into a sort of stupor from the first days - terribly sluggish). On day 1, I found absolutely all the roads blocked after half a day of running: a big stack of monks with moral bonuses (this is SoD, dammit:smile08:) on one side and a bunch of crimson cats on the other, and the main thing is both were sitting on useless junk:mad:. If on day 112 or 113 I hadn't taken 35 gargoyles from a box behind a horde of white kents, I would have surrendered on day 1 for sure, but I still did some noobish rotation somehow... I killed 35 gold golems, almost without losses (without town portal!), a tomb of 1 or 2 liches, leveled Alkin to 6th I think and started Terek (he got the Loga skill!), but the chain to take the only correct external dwelling on the last day just didn't work out (and it's a good thing it didn't! :D ) - the nagas for 5-9 again crimson cats:smile16:!.. On day 2 I still took it, then a box for all Earth magic (with only Advanced Wisdom:smile23:), then a Shield +12, 35 basic golems, a few other small things and... the week ended:D. I need to reveal some details of my setup:smile08:: besides those 1 nagas, there were 4 monk dwellings, but even from 2 of those I couldn't deliver - they were so far away:( - and THAT'S IT. From Griffin Conservatories - "0", from Hives - "0", I see such bullshit for the first time, honestly:cool:. Ah, and GO - it's the coffin lid for monks: Arch Devils:) . On day 131 I killed about 21-22 of them, losing half of the nagas (and what did you expect?:smile32:), the other half was finished off by 60 horses on slag and a passage (there was no proper magic at all, Earth magic wasn't offered on level up:smile15:). In short, some kind of complete chaos:smile41:! Tant was from that prison for horses in the treasure zone, level 20, I gave him the main army for show and combat reconnaissance and sent him as far as possible along the path into the treasure zone, where he was met (and 300 Spartans didn't work out of the monks, no matter how much the unlucky necromancer shouted: This is Sparta!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111:smile15:... ). In short, a strange, incomprehensible game, where one should have surrendered as early as possible, but I'd have been ashamed in front of Forrest:o ...

In the evening we stocked up on beer (so much that there was even some left for the 3rd day:D!), and went home to consume it with Tolya's fish (he specially caught it the day before for this occasion!:cool: ). The fisherman himself was definitely the life of the party, we learned a lot of new things about him and some of his fellow Heroes players: Papik, the very one with the longest and best... report of all time!;) :D and Andreas (a regular in the WT chat I think) - Papik's kum. In general, Forrest is definitely the most respected guy in our community (no offense to other TOP players:o): in his time he was the CIS karate champion, now he has a prestigious job he loves and 2 favorite hobbies in which he succeeds better than anyone! (Heroes and fishing), well, and father of three children, and just a good person in life. Then, on Zhavdet's suggestion, we tried to play TK3 "3 on 3" on one laptop:D - and it turned out: Volodymyr, Zhavdet, and Medium against one Forrest (since I was already asleep on my feet, and Psykh_7 didn't really interfere...:rolleyes: ). It turned out that even one man can be an army, and that killer cows are not an obstacle to titans:).

On the 2nd day I drew to play with the organizer, who for some reason marked the Smurf kingdom map:( ... We played Full-WT with trading. I gave away Brogha for something completely laughable and symbolic, thinking that on the Smurf map he's not that great, but as it turned out the Smurf map, though not bad - was mine, and Petya, with all due respect, had a typical average Jebus Cross map:) , in short he took 3 Dragon Utopias on day 2:D, while I had an external dwelling of bone dragons, 2 Griffin Conservatories 3+3 and a bunch of directions - nothing else, I took everything more or less on time, but Roma-Zhavdet was sitting next to me and constantly bugging me: "why so slow", "very slow":smile16: etc... Plus there was the trademark "KostyaN" mistakes that I made regularly: either the pope with zombies would remain, even though there's a tactic to hide him, or the chain to break through to the treasure zone wouldn't work out, or I'd just stupidly go the wrong way, and this mess was capped off by a completely noobish move - leaving the entire main army near a scout right next to the GO on day 131:eek: !

Afterwards we went to try the local pizza. Meanwhile, during the argument "which is more balanced: WT or SoD" I successfully dozed off:) . Oh, and I must say that Tolya actually convinced Rebellious to play WT:eek: (he said later he had to use all his knowledge of Carnegie:smile47:!). And on the 3rd day, Andrey, although he was a bit "spitting", already played the unfamiliar version more cheerfully and was interested in various guild rebuilds, reserve stack, and other WT features, looking, it seemed, like a gourmet who had already tried a new strange dish and was getting into the taste:rolleyes: ...

With Zhavdet, my setup was seemingly more or less decent and I played more or less decently, but something just slightly didn't work out, somewhere I lacked experience, character, or God knows what else... Well, IMHO, out of 3 games, this was my best. I started as blue Turis against Monter-the-crazy-bird-burner. There were 2 Griffin Conservatories 1 and 3, 2 Hives 6 and 8, external dwellings of pokemons, griffins, and on day 116 I sensed an external Portal of Glory somewhere-God-knows-where, which he took on day 117 on the last cell and "barely" (19 marks from the start and all week:smile32:)... At home, the birds self-produced in the Citadel, Tyras level 10 with Wisdom taken from some source instead of maxing out Pathfinding (didn't even end up needing it, dammit!:mad: :mad: :mad: ). The main thing is I NEVER take this damn Wisdom on Jebus Cross, but here I thought: why Expert Pathfinding if Advanced is enough?:rolleyes: (but then they gave me Scouting!:eek:).
On day 2 I took the library, then the artifact for 6 guests, I split up and went through the 3-unit Griffin Conservatory towards GO with 100+ fucking Harry Potters (who killed 2 of my 8 boys in the first round:mad:), the scouts meanwhile cleared the Hives and brought a +5 shield. From day 124 at the center (without mana:o :smile32: :smile16:): I kept spinning around there, took a Tome of Water magic for my skill (basic was still a long way off, damn:confused:), for some reason picked up a 5-capacity hat (well, obviously so they wouldn't pick it up against us:) ), finally took the Dragon Utopia 2-pack, got something decent, don't remember now, then another library for about 35-40 giants, 8 nagas and some useful artifact, dug up 20 magi somewhere, and in a box behind a pack of arch devils on some useless junk like a wagon of wood - 100 basic gremlins!:mad: :eek: :smile23: . Roma's scout came running, killed someone of mine and ran off again, and if I had followed him, I would have just been catching Monter on 3 angels (or at least driven him away from the center...). Instead, I split up for the archs and mana - which apparently decided the whole game:smile32:... Then at the start of day 3, another Dragon Utopia, Gladius for gold dragons, I took back the central Tower (there was a funny moment: I put 100 monks there, upgraded them, split off singles - Roma's scout 0022 came galloping with 1 stack of ravens and 6+1+1+... storm elementals, all upgraded, but my upgraded monks destroyed them:D and about 65-70 survived, cruelly killing everyone:smile24:!..). I started jumping and flying like crazy, consumed a huge amount of stuff with my main and a bit with scouts, but in terms of stats I was still constantly behind, and in terms of army strength too (from the information from the inn). Then, he with his mega-armada came to take my table area, and I was in such a shitty part of the treasure zone and without Town Portal that naturally there was no chain to speak of:o. I gave him the archs, but I jumped to his starting area myself and stole a Hive and 2 Dragon Utopias:p, I thought about countering by taking his main area, but I lacked about a day to reach it:confused:... FB without mana=GG... (there was about 1500 mana plus expert Water magic all spells, and some small stuff...).

Thanks everyone for the games, guys! I think the tournament was a success!;)