22.12.13 Toganash (blue, Dungeon, Shakti, Shakti) def Grisha =) (red, Necropolis, Galthran, Galthran), JC, 137
Picked all rests and had to play what was rolled. On 113 I opened almost the entire respawn, interesting things: an external dwelling of Minotaurs (too far), an external dwelling of Scorpicores (awkward ranged guard), 3 Dragon Fly Hives all in different ends of the map, 1 double Griffin Conservatory, 5 external dwellings of Troglodytes, 3 Dragon Utopias and the native Dungeon town. The exit to the center was through Devils and Black Dragons, and I had to beat both guards. I had no idea how to play this, several times I wanted to concede, but decided it wouldn't be fair to my opponent, and there's always hope that the opponent might throw or also have a not-so-great layout since he had no rests either.
Collecting everything on the respawn quickly was impossible, and there wouldn't be a good power stack out of all this anyway. The only power stack is Troglodytes, so I decided not to bother with the external Minotaur and Scorpicore dwellings, but gathered all the external Troglodyte dwellings and put them in the portal. However, since many things were taken by scout heroes, I couldn't really accumulate enough Troglodytes by the time I reached the center, and the dragons bit them there too. On 125 I crawl into the center (luckily the 3 Dragon Fly Hives weren't minimal — 25 Wyverns each).
The red player was already running rampant there, so without much thought (especially since the center wasn't impressive in terms of richness or convenience, and Shakti doesn't have Pathfinding) and after losing the remnants of the Troglodytes, I break through for a Fire book in hopes of Armageddon later, or, if lucky, to level up/free a scout hero from prison to harass the opponent.
At home, I have nothing to take the Dragon Utopias with, so I urgently teach Alamar Literacy, he teaches Shakti "Resurrection" and all three Dragon Utopias fall. There are stat artifacts and wings. On the next turn, I take the Dragon Utopia on the edge of the center.
The opponent's main runs to my respawn. Seeing this, I hire a scout hero in the town where a Mage Guild level 4 with Armageddon is built, the scout hero breaks through home, teaches Alamar. At home, I build the Experience Stone and all the mage scout heroes hired automatically raise Wisdom, learn Armageddon from Alamar, take the +1 spell power ring from the castle, and go do a hara-kiri on the opponent with Armageddon.:smile13:
This repeats about 10 times, I guess, (I can imagine how nervous the opponent was:smile30: ) until only skeletons and up to 10 Liches with Wyverns remain from the opponent's army, but I run out of time (unfortunately not chess time). Alamar with Armageddon still stays home on 500, but the opponent's main decides not to take the castle (and I wouldn't have minded anyway) but teleports to the castle in the center and attacks Shakti, who after taking the Dragon Utopia in the center couldn't get home (no Town Portal). But there, immediately follows a skull on the 2600 skeletons, leaving 8 of them, plus a couple of Liches and Wyverns. GG.
P/S: The opponent apparently didn't find diplomacy or decent magic.
Thanks for the game.