At first everything was fine, I played through Necropolis. But on the third week, on the way to the Drowned, I captured the opponent's village, and they had the missing Dimension Door there; I stayed in the village for the night, decided not to garrison because I was sure I was stronger, and I was punished. We traded armies fairly evenly, but I lost my main hero with artifacts, only the starting Elshar with Earth and a +4 cap remained, since the opponent's stats were around 10, I decided to continue. We ran around for about another week, and then I attacked with a ton of mana, hoping to kill or trim the army and retreat, but there were Shackles of War. Again two armies perished, and also two heroes, since I didn't have Resurrection.
After that, my income of 8K per day played a huge role, while the opponent had 2K. True, no one dug up the dead main heroes until the end of the game, but I leveled several heroes for full control; luckily there was a Conflux village. At the end of the game, I made mistakes due to the timer, and besides, it was already morning. But still, the opponent's new main hero couldn't stand up to my income and several good heroes.
Thanks for the game.
From my side, it turned out to be less of a battle of mages and more of a brawl between paupers.
Though the start wasn't bad: two roads, a Tower village nearby, a portal further on. I took the Conflux computer player, grabbed an external dwelling of air elementals and portal-linked them; at home, Medusas (didn't build anything else there for the rest of the game).
On week 1, day 2 in the village, I already had Mage Guild level 4; to get Dimension Door and Town Portal, I needed to build Mage Guild level 5, a Library, and rebuild Mage Guild level 4 once. I collected two Griffin Conservatories (2+1) and three Dragon Fly Hives (4+12+12); Dimer had decent leveling, but no Logistics. Then suddenly my village was taken from me, forcing a battle. Storm Elementals under Anti-Magic shot down the Skeletons and Wraiths, protected by a Force Field; I exited the fight with 44 Storm Elementals and 2 Angels, but I didn't have enough movement to get back into the village, so I stayed nearby without mana and the Angels were killed. We continued playing; I didn't have enough of anything to build Griffins on week 3, so I settled for two external dwellings of Storm Elementals through the portal and another Conflux village. By the end of the week, I recouped the gold and took another Griffin Conservatory for 2.
On week 4, day 1, I took the Shackles of War, one Dragon Fly Hive, and without buying the growth, I entered a village just in case — and then they attacked. The most annoying part was that I was two steps away from a pile of fabulous riches: the next turn I planned to sell a couple dozen scrolls at the Black Market. The battle played out the same as the first fight: Storm Elementals under Anti-Magic shot down Wraiths from behind a Force Field, but I lost the mana war and had to die. There was a real chance to win: I needed to knock out 14 Iron Golems with 50 Storm Elementals using direct arrow in two shots, but fate said no — average damage rolled, and one and a half Golems survived.
After that, there weren't many chances left, despite managing to go on the offensive a bit and capture a few towns. But the low income, worse road network than the opponent's, my lack of Logistics, and the opponent having Logistics — resistance was pointless. Thanks for the game.