“Two Seasons: Winter-Spring 2016” Tournament. Online games for rating (reports, discussions).

It was a crazy game – in the final, we were practically fighting with our own troops. I spent all my remaining resources on minor skirmishes, even though I was in a losing position. I got another one and a half stacks of troops, and by the end of the week, I only had one stack within a two-day march distance, but I did find a hidden stash of giants, which was a good find in this situation. I decided that if the 122-range scouting spell didn’t reveal anything, I would concede. Nothing was revealed, but just then, my opponent rushed past with almost no troops, only his own units. I went to check it out, and there it was – a Castle! Grinding with Oil easily defeats 80 Djinns; I messed up here. I should have taken the nearby mine as my main target and used the money to send scouts after the enemy’s main force, but I got fixated on training a slow-moving Mephala with experience-granting terrain (which required several risky maneuvers) and was confident that my opponent had protected against this. As a result, I didn’t catch his main force with my scout and instead chased after a treasure chest worth 10,000 experience and mana. On the next turn, my opponent eliminated my scouts and, for some reason, hid in a nearby town – where 200+ Gremlins (which weren’t dismissed during the upgrade), 5 Nagas, and 2 Giants under a 15th-level Mephala with Mass Shield and Leather Armor left no chance for my 7 Griffin Riders, 5 Gorgons, and 60 Lizardmen. We agreed to write a report with the loser, but I didn’t wait.