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

Simply the Greatest Game in terms of tension. Thank you XIII for such a colorful and late-game match :smile20: :smile54: :smile14:

The match started a long time ago, with a big pause. flate wanted to practice with Inferno. Well, I decided to practice Papal Random. We played without restarts. The respawn was poor for week 1. On the positive side, Luna came in, but I never found a use for her, since Xi came and I started necromancing. A hut with a log, an external dwelling of swordsmen behind dendroids - I captured it on the first week. Barely built cavalry, didn't have enough to buy 2 swords. The adjacent zone was nearby and in it were 2 external dwellings of peasants, from which I repeatedly harvested future bones. Sent a scout somewhere through a one-way portal, but there was nothing there except an external dwelling of devils. On week 2, I collected banks on the respawn. Broke through into the treasure zone with a necro town, in which I built a useless Mage Guild and a Converter. Revealed the central zone, where the opponent's heroes appeared. In another treasure zone, an external dwelling of phoenixes. Throughout the entire game, there was only a little Griffin Conservatory, but I was luckier with utopias. So I didn't build a portal, the Mage Guild was a higher priority. Got Town Portal in the main. As a second front, I necromanced with Isra on the Conflux respawn. Started taking utopias (of which there were only 4 in the whole game). Then they took away our necro town. The opponent had full control, while I only got control in month 2, after building a lookout tower near the Inferno computer player, and began capturing towns. Unearthed a magnificently leveled Dessa (level 20) from a prison, who helped me turn the game around. But in a moment of carelessness, I attacked a computer hero with 2 angels, and he had a powerful shooter and high-morale giants. I couldn't handle it... Spent 3 days digging for Dessa and eventually unearthed him, spending over 50000 gold, and took the artifacts back from the computer. The opponent didn't notice Dessa's loss.

Then came the first final, which the opponent wrote about. In which my 3500 (upgraded! not like in the picture) skeletons played no role at all. The opponent got luck about 3 times at key moments, and the skeletons were gone. Even though he only had +1 luck from the devils. There was negative morale, but I don't recall anyone missing a turn. Meanwhile, I had an artifact giving +3 morale/luck, and luck only triggered on the ballista, and not a single morale proc! :smile18:

Then came a game of capturing towns. Mary didn't have great mobility, so the advantage in towns was on our side. There was also a moment when the opponent snatched an utopia right from under my nose, which I thought was already taken. After the game, it turned out the opponent had taken 15 utopias in total. Mary was so spoiled that she didn't even go for 2 libraries. :confused:
Honestly, I was sure there was a Grail in the Tower, which was indirectly confirmed by 2 pits in the snow and Mary's sharply increased stats. Imagine my surprise when, instead of the Grail, I found Aislin sitting on a genie there! Artifacts poured out like a cornucopia, all the spell books in duplicate! Cloak of the Undead King, the chalice, and finally, the gloves! But the happiness didn't last long, although I didn't even think there would be an attack. In any case, I had no movement points, since I didn't have the gloves. And there was already the elixir...
Thank you, flate, for the most interesting and sweaty game! :smile14:
Congratulations on the victory! :smile49: