herolwy
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The opponent asked me to write up a report because the Russian-language save didn't let him review the game:
So, we started by taking all the restarts, the deals for both of us were mediocre, once I got a conflict but the opp restarted there, then some junk showed up like a PieDrake with 5 gargoyles and the like...
In the end a deal came my way. A loser hero with 3 grandlies showed up, all the heroes were weak but there was one necro, so I decided to level him; after a while I dug up a couple more necros, the main one became Clavius, I unearthed him on 113 and he leveled on the first day so-so.
I was very unlucky that my zone, where the exit to the treasure and to the AI was, got flooded. I ran the other way, there was a portal, on day 2 I popped out into the treasure and started stacking bones... as it turned out, necromancy saved the situation, because across all the territory I scouted there were only 2 dwellings of 10 pixies and 1 mini conlux. With what I'd stacked I started climbing into 3 maxi cyclops caves, where they beat me up pretty good, but on the plus side I built 4 GMs on 125 or so, where the TP was.
The roads were middling and the tempo really suffered, then for the whole third week I started hitting utopias, of which there were 3, and inside them was wild bad luck - out of 3 utopias (3, 1, 1) the only useful thing was the red orb.
I had to break the 3rd utopia with a loser hero because the main hero was 100mp short of reaching it while the opp was right there... in the end after 3 utopias the army I had left was 130 skeletons and 3 red dragons (I'd stacked the dragons in 2 stashes and a portal) and I rebuilt a Dungeon from scratch all the way up to dragons!
On 141 the opp finishes off the remnants of my army and I buy myself off... then again misfortune: my super-treasure turns out to be the size of one straker move, with 1 dwelling))) and 3 caves)) guarded by crowds :D
There's nowhere to run, so I decide to take a risk: I run, capture the opp's village, and from there into his treasure... there I necroed nicely and found the long-awaited control!!! Besides the main hero there are 2 well-leveled necros - Tamika and Sandro.
With their help I stacked 1400+ skeletons by the time of the FB, assembled the Armor of the Damned, and good chances to win the game emerged. But probably already out of fatigue I made a big mistake - namely I left 200 mp to break home when I needed 300, because my Clavius hadn't leveled Earth. As a result the army got split in two - one part with the Dungeon shooters (pixies) and the dragons (12 of them), and on Clavius 20 cerberi, 5 angels, and 1400+ skeletons... The opp reaches the Dungeon with his full might, kills one of my good necros, the second one with the dragons fought back - I lost 10 reds but killed 4 firebirds and 56 air elementals... then Tamika attacks Clavius and walks into the Armor of the Damned... the big problem became the Vial of Life... Tamika had 3 birds, 4 angels, 40 water elementals, 14 psychics, 1900+ skeletons, 6 mages... I took down everything except the angels and the skeletons, I had 3 angels left and started chopping through the enemy skeletons, but the advantage in stats, the vial, and a 500-skeleton lead decided it. I surrendered!
The opponent did great, good luck in the final!!!
The starting area was very poor; building stopped at 111, and in the first week I abandoned the main town's troop reserve and built a council. Fortunately, in the first week I captured the Conflux town, and then luck kept coming: in the second week I got a scroll of Skeleton-transforming magic, reducing skeleton losses and letting me quickly clear the passages guarded by strong neutrals.
Development went as planned - in the second week I built firebirds, and in the third week a level-5 mage guild came up. Too bad the level-5 spell was Sacrifice, but level 4 had Armageddon. Firebirds + Armageddon was supposed to be a perfect combo, but on 136, due to my own mistake, Gomunguls snatched a utopia that had a red orb in it, which meant I could never pull this tactic off, and the game dragged on because of it.
I leveled a lot of strong heroes - dessa and gunar and several others with Logistics - so my expansion was very fast. The 5 AIs were wiped out quickly, and as a result my economy was extremely strong, peaking at 18000g/Day. This powerful economy went almost entirely into strategy execution and map expansion, so I held a huge amount of map information and effectively limited Gomunguls's room to maneuver.
But I only ever found two utopias, and Gomunguls stole one of them. The one I did get gave me an Air magic book, an Earth magic book, and a 5lv cap (though I already had TP, and with my resources being very plentiful, a few towns would surely give me Fly or Jump).
Because Gomunguls had a red orb, I needed a powerful army to defeat him, so mid-game I paid close attention to stacking skeletons, eventually reaching 1700+, which laid the foundation for victory. But Gomunguls was also extremely tough - not only did he have the Skeleton artifact, he could also recruit all the Necropolis heroes, so the skeleton specialty, the necromancy specialty, and so on all worked for him. So in this battle, every Necropolis hero made an appearance. In the end Gomunguls's skeleton count reached 1300+, and his army was very strong, because he had two red dragon dwellings and built red dragons and a summoning portal.
Both sides' armies stayed balanced throughout; the tavern showed each side as stronger or weaker at different times, and neither exposed the whereabouts of their army. But Gomunguls, after all, controlled a small area, and his main hero had no Air magic and was eager to learn it in my Conflux town, so in the end he tried to force his way into my territory!
Ambush! On the final turn, I pulled off a very beautiful but also extremely risky ambush!
Grabbing the treasure: I took life+2 and successfully assembled the Vial of Life.
The attack: a secondary hero took the troops and flew to his Dungeon, wearing a Cape of Silence, with 3 angels and 5 firebirds plus Air and Water elementals, and attacked his powerful second hero who had 10+ red dragons. This fight was extremely dangerous - my hero had no Air magic, and the terrain was split in the middle. Luckily it was dirt, so skeletons got +1 speed; otherwise the outcome would definitely have been Gomunguls burning through 200+ mana and my entire army except skeletons dying!
Disintegration: Gomunguls's ability to develop heroes was also astonishing - several of his Necropolis heroes could town-gate, fly and jump and had Logistics - but on the final turn they were all wiped out by me, and on the last day, two of the slain Necropolis heroes popped up in my tavern!
The final battle: a perilous final battle. Attacking recklessly without scouting the opponent first almost made me collapse:
His main army, while only 1300+ skeletons, 5 angels, and 20+ split cerberi, was actually equipped with a red orb and a Cursed Armor (though it also dropped his main hero's attack/defense substantially). My army was 4 angels, 4 firebirds, 30+ water elementals split into 3 stacks, 3 mages, and 1700+ skeletons.
The battle: all my troops got cursed by the armor, my shooters and firebirds died one after another at the hands of his angels. My skeletons had speed 2, his had 5, but my last 3 angels had speed 6, and his skeleton stack couldn't attack my angels either. His remaining 3 angels and 7 cerberi couldn't kill a single 250-life, self-healing angel of mine either, so the battlefield stalemated. Because I was the attacker, a prolonged stalemate would rule me as having fled and lost. So both sides paused - Gomunguls must have asked about the rules and confirmed that the Cursed Armor's effect lasts 50 turns, after which its mana wears off and his entire army would die. In the end his angels proactively attacked my skeleton stack to bait the retaliation, and his skeleton stack followed up, but only chipped 200+ off me; sensing that the tide of battle had turned, and with the off-field position being even worse - fewer towns, fewer troops, fewer generals - he laid down his arms and surrendered!
Still, had I lost this final battle, with his 1300+ skeletons still around, I'd have had full confidence in slowly gathering strength and beating him again, because I had a powerful economy, 8+ fast Logistics heroes (5 of them Necropolis), and a vast territory that Gomunguls simply couldn't occupy. Besides, I had already visited more than half the Obelisks on the map and was confident I could dig up the ultimate artifact within 3 days!
thx for good game!