The throw was successful, except for the fact that I play poorly with Conflux in SoD.
And Fire surprised me — managing to farm half a thousand skeletons for Fortress in less than 3 weeks is quite a feat)) And his layout was one of those that absolutely must be rerolled.
At first, I planned to level Green and pick up the angels from 2 conservatories and switch to Clavius. But Goshan appeared in the tavern, I didn't want to delay, and I had to go through GO.
In general, the situation is similar to Pete's in our last game. Going somewhere unknown, and playing "who can farm more" is disadvantageous. I was about to place at 124 for a speed boost near the champions when I get Expert Scouting; it reveals 2 shield guards near GO. I had to split up to defend my fortress. But it was a false alarm; on the next turn, I still stand at GO. It's clear that the opponent sees perfectly well what I'm going to do and will prepare, but 240 mana and roughly equal fighter stats give a chance to lock him behind the walls and pelt him with lightning. However, on the next turn, 2 big fails happen, which wouldn't have affected the outcome anyway. First, in the fight with the champions, I missed my own morale on the phoenixes and double-attacked thinking I was hitting with Wight. Also, the unicorns got morale, then I lost focus and instead of Mass Haste, I went into melee. A fight that was winnable without losses cost me 2 birds, 3 berserkers, and some other minor units. And then I guessed wrong at a fork, had to backtrack, and was 3 tiles short of the capital. On his turn, Gosha accepted with 500+ skeletons (with and without helmets), 4 ghost dragons (from a quest), 14 upgraded vampires, and 19 wyverns. After the Wights, the skeletons moved forward; I had to Slow, in response Mass Haste.
Thanks for the game.
Today is the 2nd game. Approximately at 6-7 PM Moscow time
Зима 2011-12.