Offline tournament "Evil Lands".

The day the Boat arrives and you board it, I already have a Hero (Socress) in the boat near the Yellow Castle... so, the Yellow Castle is ALREADY mine.

You are IronAxe, and you seem like an experienced player to me, although I haven't met you anywhere - and it seemed STRANGE to me that you waited a whole week to start acting!
WHY, because 1 week was lost? - and that was half of my time.
And I don't understand why you rejected your second option - because it was faster!?:)

Did I understand correctly that you captured the Yellow Castle on day 1-2-1 (and the Yellow player hadn't moved yet)? I have no doubt that this is possible. Because I managed to capture it even on 1-1-7. At that time, the Yellow Castle didn't have a hero defending it, but there were 10 sprites, 2 gnomes, and 1 elf, against my 3 gargoyles, 44 thieves, 38 green creatures, and 3 pigs. However, when I looked inside the fortress, I saw that there was no level 2 magic, no Stonehenge, and no horses. Also, the Yellow Castle didn't have a boat. I didn't even consider this run as a valid option. And in my officially first attempt, I started taking the Yellow Castle slowly on the first days of the second week, on 1-2-2 or 1-2-3, when, in my opinion, everything would definitely be built there. However, even in this case, the Yellow Castle didn't have a boat. Then I started looking for a save where the boat arrived to me. It was a save where my main hero was standing in front of the gargoyles on the border of the Yellow Castle (day 1-1-7). In order for me to board the boat on my shore, I had to spend two more turns (I tried to replay to avoid wasting extra turns boarding the boat, but then, seeing my hero one turn away from the shore, even without troops, the Yellow player didn't disembark :) The boat arrived on 1-1-7, and I boarded it on 1-2-2, giving up on attacking the Yellow Castle by land. And from that moment on, I decided who would be better to attack from the sea - the Blue or the Yellow. In this attempt, it turned out that it was better to attack the Blue, which I wrote about. I stopped looking for other options.
After reading your description, I tried again to go through the first week in the same way as I tried my zero attempt, which I didn't even consider a valid option. I found something interesting! By the way, both times I had to defeat the gargoyle on the border of the Yellow Castle myself. And I was shocked when, after taking the Yellow Castle again on 1-1-7, I saw level 2 magic and Stonehenge there. However, there was still no boat at the Yellow Castle.
I tried to replay, slowing down the hero a bit, and took the Yellow Castle on 1-2-1. The same buildings remained. I searched for that first save where I first took the Yellow Castle on 1-1-7. I couldn't find it, I must have deleted it or not saved it. So you will have to believe me about this trick with the buildings in other people's castles, maybe you will notice it yourself someday.
After that, no matter how I reloaded, every time I take it on 1-1-7, those buildings are there. If this had happened in that zero attempt, I wouldn't have replayed with an attack on the Blue. I could have tried to build a boat myself, there was a port there. But I wouldn't be able to spend money on a boat, magic, and Stonehenge. Yes, I still don't understand at what point in this game the randomness breaks and what it depends on.

I would like to hear your logic, which you used when rejecting your second option - maybe it really was faster, it just wasn't fully implemented!

I don't understand what you're talking about, the second option? My first option was to take the Yellow Castle, but on 1-2-2 or 1-2-3, there was no boat, there was a hero in the castle, and there were big losses when taking it, then they attacked in a group from two sides, the Blue and the Yellow and the Red on that central castle, and enemies were also coming from the sea and by land to my home castle. The second option - I replayed from the end of the 7th day from the first option. I boarded the boat at my place and sailed to the Blue. And in this case, the Yellow Castle captured a village in the winter, which greatly prolonged the playthrough in the option of taking the Blue first. Of course, you can say that I was unlucky, that you were luckier with the boats. I come to the conclusion that in Heroes, that's how it is. It depends a lot on luck. But that's what the game is for, and all sorts of situations happen. But it's not the case that nothing depends on the player, and everything depends only on luck :) So, congratulations on the victory, you made good use of your luck :)

I would gladly provide any of my saves to ANYONE who wants it!
Only, I warn you in advance that if you want me to reveal my secrets, then I WILL UPLOAD the save for everyone to see, FOR EVERYONE, and not for someone individually (i.e., directly in this thread)

Well, I would like to see a set of saves: at the end of the days:
1-1-5, 1-1-6, 1-1-7, 1-2-1 and also the one when you just landed on the shore of the Blue to attack its castle.
These saves are interesting to study, at least to try to understand how the computer players act and try to play these turns from your saves. Are there no other people who want to learn? I think these saves would be good to put in this thread or create a special thread for this.

I HAVE ALREADY APOLOGIZED!

Okay, it's accepted.

Added 15 minutes ago

Good job, guys!
You will enrich the game discussion portal, and not just argue.

Well, I wouldn't say that cool saves and detailed or brief descriptions of playthroughs are completely useless for the portal and its participants.

To put a fat period - there is a tournament for the second Heroes.
Whoever wins is right!
This is the Heroic portal, not a philosophical one.

What does it mean to be right? And it's not a fact that the one who wins is right :) I refuse to play the second game, and I already wrote why. By the way, we need to find out a couple more things about the third game. So let's go there :)
We are not going to figure out who is cooler, but we just want to play in tournaments, and if we are lucky to win, share with the other participants how the leaders do it. Otherwise, if it turns out that we are going to figure out who is cooler, then there will be only 2-3 people participating in the tournaments and sorting out their relationships with each other :)