"Newcomer-2011. Summer"

gende (Blue, Necro, Claudius, Galtran) def Tomash (Red, Dungeon, Shakti, Shakti) 2sm4d(3) 217

confirmed

a very long game; we went pretty evenly until the 3rd week. He was building up skeletons, and my external dwelling of minotaurs allowed me to have some hopeful plans. Then suddenly the opponent got a Dragon Utopia right next to them, and it spawned so many artifacts that all stats shot up to 20, while I couldn't quite figure out where the treasure zone was. At first, I went one way through the swamp, realized it wasn't the treasure zone, then struggled to search another passage; there was a swamp there too. I crawled like a worm and only found the Dragon Utopia on the 4th week, by which time the opponent had already cleared a couple more Dragon Utopias and stats were nearly 30. I take my Dragon Utopia, upon which all my thoughts and hopes for leveling the playing field rested, and they give me the Captain's Hat....
at the end of the month, I make it to an Inferno treasure zone; out of 2 cans—2 minimums :( in the end, they are already taking my main town, I see Dimension Door, flight, stats approaching 40, while I still have my native 14 8 8 5 and practically nothing in terms of troops besides 45 minotaurs and 30 ducks...
I move through the treasure zone, I see a kettle lying there, I fight through the guards and I'm short by 1 move to take it, as a final mockery, because the opponent is standing right there and picks up the kettle.... the finale was hopeless: wild advantage in parameters, magic, 1800 skeletons...

what decided it was that almost the entire map was swamp-snow-rocks, and while I was barely crawling along, the opponent got wings in the first Dragon Utopia and devoured the map at a pace inaccessible to me