HeroesWorld.ru vs GamerHome.net 2011

http://www.gamerhome.net/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=357068&extra=page%3D1

Redwhait is playing 8xm8 against the strongest Chinese player, Hotyun

comments are in English!! Everyone should watch!

I won't record every single move, just the key points.
1. In w1, I calculated the economy and decided to stay home and produce cavalry. I pushed out to a junction, took a look, and came back; going further was meaningless, as there are no free lunches in the treasure areas—it would only waste troops.

2. Dragonflies around 60 were the first hurdle, so I traded all my resources to deal with them. Calculating combat power, it should be slightly over 1x. Based on 3 possible grouping scenarios, 2 of them used 4 groups, so I set my formation against 4 groups:
1 Pike
Swordsman
N Pike
Archer
Cavalry
1 Pike
1 Pike
On the 1st round, groups 1, 3, 5, and 7 were hit. Then the swordsmen moved down to block the archers and pikes, focusing on one group together; cavalry and archers also focused on one group. Losses were minimal. Unfortunately, the tree was too small—only 4 dragons, not very useful.

3. I saw the wings, so my temporary goal was to get more dragons and build a level 5 tower. Due to various reasons later, I never actually took those wings until the end.

4. A small mistake occurred on w2d7. I am blue and often mistakenly think I move second, so I didn't capture the red dragon nest on d7 (just to wait for 2 cannon fodder), resulting in one less red dragon in w3. This made a significant difference in combat power, especially regarding suppressing ranged units.

5. By w3, the economy had improved. My main force was high Earth, so I first built a mage tower and bought a book. With a large discount, I wasn't worried about roadblocks. After clearing a few nearby trees, I found that the Dragon Utopia was P; 32 ducks were enough to take it down. The handcuffs and K10 are both great—no need to worry about mana anymore.

6. Before taking the dragons, I noticed the opponent already had a hero approaching my other tower outpost, then turned back (later Necromancer same-sex appeared in the tavern, confirming that horse head was him). Since there were at least 3 trees between the outpost and my main city, to prevent the opponent from clearing trees and attacking my capital, I flew over and took it down first. If the opponent attacked with a strong army, it wouldn't be too late for me to fly out from the other side.

7. The opponent didn't come; calculating the time, I estimated their main force had moved far away (and they had one more outpost). So, I sent my same-sex general with 1 red dragon to act as a nuisance; unless the opponent has several angels, the general will definitely have no way to deal with the red dragon.

8. As soon as the general with the red dragon crossed the border, he achieved success—not only killing 2 one-off heroes, but I also discovered the opponent's main army (judging by the tavern): less than 500 skeletons and fewer than 28 dragons (P+S). Without a second thought, my main force immediately pursued them.

9. The strength of the Necromancer should not be underestimated. Saying that necromancy is weak in the face of diplomacy is something I've never experienced; some time ago I used it once and by w3 already had 2k+ skeletons, growing at a rate of 200+ per day. At this point, my economy was very strong and I had high diplomacy, so naturally, I wanted to find a way to land one big hit—worst case, surrender and go back to the wings.

10. Another surprise: I caught up with the opponent's general and wiped out his entire army instantly (the handcuffs weren't even noticed). Next, naturally, was striking straight at the opponent's main city. Whether it could be destroyed is one thing; the key was to prevent the opponent from building a mage tower (rules state that even with fly/jump, you must build a level 5 tower to use them), so the opponent would be forced to walk, while I had wings in sight.

11. After taking the opponent's main city, I built a watchtower and found the opponent had left me boots. Ahead was snow + desert; beyond the portal, it was unknown. With the support of the boots, I continued pursuing through the portal to see what the situation was. Meanwhile, my main city's new week troops were preparing to attack the opponent's only remaining outpost.

12. After passing the portal, I found a swamp. Perfect, I had pathfinding; by observing the terrain (not the sky), this swamp area was simply too large. However, a gem mine occupied by the opponent pointed me in the right direction. The horse head facing the other tower's eye was clearly meant to mislead me; I ignored it and chased straight toward the gem mine.

13. A major mistake occurred during the general's siege, leading to failure. This error extended the game time by 2 weeks; otherwise, the opponent would have been kicked from the game for having no city for 7 days. My apologies to the referee.

14. Although the difference in mobility between both sides wasn't great, I was running in a straight line, while the opponent had to fight left and right to increase combat power. Eventually, I caught up, brought over the 25 archers prepared for the other siege via surrender, and entered the final battle with handcuffs on all troops:

Since I have sp1, except for the archers' speed of 7, all other troops are speed 8+, faster than the opponent's dragons. Everyone waited, so the opponent didn't dare charge.
After the dragons and skeletons moved (blinding my dragons), I accelerated everything over to wipe out the opponent's 2 squads of archers and small angels.
On the 2nd round, I moved first and retreated everyone to heal the dragons and maintain deterrence. Surprisingly, they went berserk and killed 33 of their own 38 crawlers.
On the 3rd round, I put everyone on wait. Since all my troops were faster than the opponent's, the berserk state had no opportunity to strike. The opponent cast Armageddon directly; this was very critical—if it had 3 more P, I would have only dragons left (and with only 1 squad, they'd be blinded to death). The surviving 3 squads of cannon fodder allowed me to keep the initiative. This round, the dragons couldn't reach the skeletons, so they moved into attack range and added a small fire resistance.
On the 4th round, to prevent the opponent from continuing Armageddon, I first sent 1 squad of cannon fodder to bait the skeletons' counterattack, while others waited. If the opponent continued Armageddon, I would only have dragons left, but 2 hits would be enough to cripple the skeletons. The opponent helplessly cast a group counterattack to avoid my 64 dragons hitting the 500 skeletons for free. My goal was to destroy the skeletons to prevent further Armageddons, so I used armor break on them.
On the 5th round, I continued using armor break on the skeletons; after one more hit, only 81 were left, while I still had 59 ducks. Without any surprises, I won the battle.