Favorites in battle! - 5 The Battle of Favorites! - 5

Alone (blue, Castle, Valeska, Valeska) def numone (red, Inferno, Calh, Vedomina), 2sm4d, 135.

A frustrating defeat.:o I got outscouted, as Alone said, by about 2 days. I had one last town, spawned up top - good, but the road was long and took a winding detour somewhere far off (I could see it going behind the mountains, but couldn't see the fork), so I thought, I won't take the last resource, since I had scouted an external dwelling of efreets, and if there was only one road to the general area, I could safely take the tech rest. But it wasn't meant to be; the passage was blocked by diamond golems, meaning the general area wasn't along the road - hello to a quick encounter I absolutely didn't need. One consolation: the passage to the opponent was guarded by 50+ archers, so he probably wouldn't rush on the first week, but I couldn't set up a rest from the other side either after the encounter. I had to improvise. I painted the swamp, had absolutely no money, built hell hounds and gogs, and passed them to Vedomina (whom I had designated as my secondary hero). She barely took a max skeleton crypt, then I needed to take the external efreet dwelling; I built horns of the Abyss and pit fiends and attacked - they got morale boosts and punished my screeners thoroughly. I bought out the efreets and decided to break through the stone golems to another passage leading to the snow (the road went through the swamp) - to let a secondary hero gather some gold and paint a secondary town if possible, since things were going terribly. My army consisted of 22 gogs, 2 efreets, 1 demon, 1 pit fiend, 5 hell hounds... the golems were on the snow. I thought long and hard about whether to attack, finally decided to go for it; there were nearly 50 of them, they barely fell, and all I had left were gogs and efreets. I sent the secondary hero in, but it was a dead end - almost immediately a block of 50+ mages, most likely the treasure zone was generated this way, with the road, and I couldn't even pick up a single pile. So I was cut off: on one side these mages, on the other the opponent; there was a descent to the treasure zone, but it made no sense to go there now. All that was left was my own respawn, which had been dealt to me as a huge area with lots of small guards - just right for Vedomina. I built level 1-6 units in the fort, with a trade, and sent one secondary hero deep into the respawn. I prayed the opponent wouldn't rush, but apparently no one heard my prayers, and on day 117 Valeska appeared from the side with the archers, an angel, and gremlins in hand :smile11:. Panic.
By day 121 it was just a matter of technique for him to kill me; I was clutching at straws - no money, sold everything down to the last, but couldn't even buy back half. Naturally, I couldn't build a Castle, and the opponent wiped me out in the capital. Vedomina already had a necromancy artifact, scouted 3 conclaves, a beehive, and much more, all in my own respawn; she had gathered a hundred skeletons, hoping to find a passage somewhere and try to capture another secondary town, but I only found the passage at the very last moment and it led to the snow - too late... 7 days. GG
Thanks for the game!