In the HotA Tasting, I played 2 games on Mininost and in both took the opponent's capital at 126-127. In one game it was an early fly scroll, in the other a level 5 hat. Yes, overall HotA is faster-paced than SoD due to the larger number of artifacts and powerful build-ups. Dragon Utopia 2-3 could possibly even be broken by 125. Rare, but still possible.
And thanks to the greater number of useful objects, the pace is faster by a couple or three days. Practically the same as experience in WT. There, due to leveled-up low-level monsters, Dragon Utopia were broken early

