An interesting game turned out, with a lot of nerves, failures, and plenty of luck.
My opponent respawned, I got Necropolis with Vidomina, but only 7 players were created because one respawn zone was flooded; we decided this game would be played without rules, though even when I play by the rules, disagreements arise about whether something is a reset or not.
At the respawn there were two big Griffin Conservatories; on the second week I checked them with two heroes — both turned out to be level 3. Imagine my surprise when the second Griffin Conservatory turned out to be level 2 — apparently I checked the same conservatory both times )). At the start of the third week I took a level 2 Dragon Utopia and got Wings; with them I found a Dimension Door scroll, went to pressure my opponent with a superior army, and ran into Eleshar with 300+ mana. I got scared he would crush me with magic, but after 2 days I found the Magic Resistance Cloak, felt calm, and attacked again. Here I was supposed to cover the opponent's army on his scout hero with my own scout hero, and my opponent didn't have money to buy back. But since I hadn't upgraded my scout hero, I decided not to attack — the opponent couldn't do anything anyway. However, very unexpectedly, after 2 days the opponent's stats rose and he diplomacied quite well; he attacked me and I had to buy back, luckily there were no Shackles. My hope was to find the missing Necromancer Boots, or at least somehow survive until the second month when they might appear in the refreshed artifact market. Then it turned out the opponent only had one Dimension Door in his arsenal, and I just found КЗ, so a good option appeared to demonize — especially since Vidomina was a diplomat. I just had to not mess up the timing. And on that same day I made a timing mistake and sacrificed my scout hero with artifacts and army, but again my opponent didn't have Shackles, so I bought back. The next day a new month began, and the Necromancer Boots appeared in the market :), so there were no more options after that.
Thanks for the game.
Yeah, an epic game it was. I respawned with completely unplayable setups and ended up playing against Necropolis with a Vidomina that was shining by the first week. On the first week I scouted all the available treasure zones and found nothing interesting except 3 Dragon Fly Hives. For about a week and a half after that I just collected everything I could; I didn't have enough army or stats for Dragon Utopias. In the middle of week 3 I freed a prison with Elshar at level 20 with Diplomacy, but my opponent had already come to kill me a bit. Vidomina galloped out of the darkness and captured my main town; they killed Papa Monere with Expert Air Magic, Armorer, etc., and I had no choice but to throw Elshar into a Dragon Utopia with mediocre power. I got the Book of Air Magic and immediately jumped into the darkness, and the next day I bought back from my opponent's scout, bought myself out into a treasure zone, took another Dragon Utopia with some junk, and started joining creatures. I recruited 9 Phoenixes for free, 40 Gorgons, 50 Dendroids, 115 Pegasi, and another 138! Beasts with all my money. Plus my own 24 Dragon Flies and 5 Fire Birds. At that point my opponent started running from me, but I severely lacked Air Magic and Town Portal, and there were few options to develop against full control. The final blow to the game's intrigue came when my opponent assembled the Cloak of the Undead King. Thanks for the game!
