Excellent experiment. Just a little more, and to pass the selection, you'll simply have to endure until the end.

Is this really bad? I remember that many (including you) promoted gaming universalism.

Because it's one thing to criticize from a position of strength, that is, the rules by which you know how to play and win, and another thing to criticize from a position of weakness; this often looks like an excuse.

P.S. For SoD, of course, additional restarts are needed. I remember that in Anarchy 2, there was a scheme of "4 restarts in 8 days in total, each restart no later than 114," and this was with 2500 starting gold. You should have explained this to your opponent and agreed on a normal restart scheme.

P.P.S. An army of 30 gnolls is like Bronze without crocodiles coming? Or did you just not have enough "brains" to start with Tazar?