"only XL-3"

I cleared a big respawn, but due to the 3.1k rollback I was severely short on gold, and I also hit a wall of snipers; the tempo was terrible. I couldn't find a village with a 5th hero, so 2 scrolls of Dimension Door were sitting idle. But in the end I got rolling, the opponent came at me with 80 wyverns and 12 bears; I met him with 130 wyverns and better stats. +1 speed and a proc of morale left him no chance in the face-off. Thanks for the game.

I played the early game well - collected 2 external dwellings of bears, an external dwelling of bone dragons; the Dungeon gave Mass Haste (without it breaking the hives was impossible - guards like 35 fanatics or 30 upgraded liches). I started breaking hives, then hit a wall - I wasted a lot of resources on buyouts and chains, didn't build up control, and the artifacts for battle stats and books on the ground didn't drop. I found only one Dragon Utopia, and it was in the middle of nowhere. What also let me down was that Dungeon, without any battle skills, grabbed Offense instead of Expert Wisdom as its penultimate base. As luck would have it, I immediately unlocked a box for all of tier 5. On week 4 I found a Fly scroll and built GM5 on week 5, but it was already too late - the opponent with full control was devouring Dragon Utopias and hives with several heroes. I went to take his main in hopes of a freebie, but naturally got wrecked by Gunnison with a lot of meat and +1 speed. An upgrade of the bears could have saved the situation, but I constantly lacked gold and resources for it, and without the upgrade the brownies got wiped by 120 ducks in one go without even having a chance to strike. And on top of that, Hella's duck morale killed 70 of my ducks. Thanks for the game.