Favorites, to battle! - 7 - The Battle of Favorites! - 7

At the start I was a bit slow going to the SM, assuming I’d be red, forgetting about the color swap; in short, I got what I deserved, a fun SM.
We picked all Restarts (opponent entered Shaktis twice :eek:). In the end, I got red, with two external dwellings of medusas, a home Dragon Utopia, loads of gold, a Monolith with stables and gloves, all great except for one thing — GO through a no-road zone, secondary zones connected by a simple road through standard guards, the opponent hit the re by meeting me... things were more modest there...
Second game, Gunnar shows up from the start, and well, that’s about it :o, one road who knows where, which even Gunnar has to run and run along, the respawn is cut up by cliffs and mountains, forcing me to take detours for scouting. There’s an external dwelling of cats on the respawn, but guarded by 19 Elementals of Mind (since the Sphere of Permanence is thrown in), and it’s a 4-day trek through mountains to get there — I gave up. I ran down the road, which turned out to be just one, with a tiny branch to the GO underground. The secondary went better, a couple of crypts, gnoll huts, and I found two Griffin Conservatories! With the money earned, I bought up, first broke a level 1 Conservatory, then a level 3 one, at home I grabbed another level 3 with a scout hero, sacrificing an angel and tons of losses. Then I went to the treasure zone. Nothing special there — two Dragon Fly Hives with 12 wyverns, a few stats, and an external dwelling of Azure Dragons in the far corner of the treasure zone, I flagged it only on the third week and immediately portal-summoned an Azure Dragon, the gold crates in the treasure zone really helped. So that’s about it, nowhere much left to run, both of the opponent’s secondary zones, accessible through passable stone barriers — not an option; through mountains and forest, I headed to the gates, which lead who knows where (since generation was already buggy), turned out the gates lead to the treasure zone.. There’s Tamika, who snatches two Dragon Utopias from under my nose, also showing off Fly (I already have one GM5 built — completely empty, a second GM5 under construction). And then I got lucky, in the corner, right under the Utopias, lay KZ, after that Gunnar easily caught up with Tamika even with Fly, her army after the Utopias wasn’t too plentiful, killing one of my Azure Dragons and losing 150 skeletons and 4 angels, Tamika flees. Then I hoarded gold for Azure Dragons, broke through the GO and pushed the opponent’s towns, eventually capturing them all. Through the opponent’s secondary zone (or my buggy secondary, depending on how you see it), I went into the treasure zone where the opponent was heading, there I grabbed a Utopia for +6 all stats and armor +4+4 and junk.
Tamika surprised me in the final battle by bringing 1000+ skeletons and 4 new angels :confused: + nearly 20 wyverns, 15+ unicorns, 45 orcs, in short a mix from all over. Stats were roughly equal, I had literally 2-3 more, Tamika had KSh which was equipped against dragons, but the dragons could somehow cast spells — I was surprised myself, and so was the opponent.
I had 19 wyverns, 6 angels, 4 Azure Dragons, 15 Arch Liches, 4 cats, split into stacks of one, in general, fighting without magic only worked in my favor and victory in the final battle came relatively easily. Most likely, if Tamika hadn’t put on KSh, she could have driven Gunnar away, since she had a bit over 240 mana vs my 200 and higher spell power.
As the saves showed, there were two Griffin Conservatories on each secondary zone, home Dragon Utopias, two fully built Citadels up to bears, a fully built Rampart with an external dwelling up to horses, in short, a full house.
In a nutshell, for anyone who can’t be bothered to read — buy Azure Dragons, even if they don’t carry, they demoralize and overwhelm the opponent. :smile16:
P.S. On week 211 there was a Plague Month, which I think also played a role, since I had virtually no critical growth, and the Plague didn’t particularly hinder portal-summoning dragons or buying them from the external dwelling.

Thanks for the game!