The roads are fast, and one of them goes somewhat awkwardly, but I decided not to take the last rest. After all, on the surface, there’s a 7 speed boost from Moner, and a big respawn.
My native town - Petrovich, already on the third day, thanks to a visited obelisk, I started suspecting that the Grail is buried on his respawn...
On day 5, I reached Zhorik, took his castle, and there was a lookout tower :eek: With the second obelisk from the viewpoint, I spotted potential Grail locations, and then with the third obelisk, I was sure it was exactly there :smile12:
I also saw snow; Moner offered a pastfight and I mechanically accepted it. But a minute later I regretted it and almost until the end of the game))) Moner successfully ran on a mage from the tower, took a Dwarf Cottage, recalled home, and didn’t wander through any more jungles for the rest of the game :D
At home, I built Efreeti and Pit Fiends in the Citadel with a thousand, also on day 7 in the refuge I took gr. flies and on the second week planned to take a couple of Dragon Fly Hives and a couple of Griffin Conservatories on the respawn, while 3 heroes autonomously dug for the Grail in the snow, though it was still a 3-day hike to the dig site...
By 122, I had summoned a few demons (around 25) and planned to take Griffin Conservatories up to tier 3, but a scout hero who recalled managed to shout: “Motherofdear...Maximmmalka!”.
That killed another couple of days in an already slow tempo, and by 123, two groups of archaeologists arrived at the dig site.
Meanwhile, on 125, I went to attack my Conflux town, but a surprise awaited me... I found the Conflux, but it turned out to be a corner village, and on the same turn my town fell to the hands of cruel Tant :eek: Oh well, we’ll build the Grail in the Conflux village :)
On 126, a third group of archaeologists arrived with some army that helped deal with the gray dwarves guarding their treasures, apparently for several decades. And who knows, maybe the very Grail is buried under them?!;)
Also, near the Conflux village, behind a horde of human cavalry antipodes, Moner’s childhood friend was freed, along with his desk neighbor at the Magic University, Mr. Grindan, or as he was called in childhood, simply Grisha.
Grisha excelled in the study of natural earth magic at a young age. In his youth, he was drawn to travel and left his native lands, honing his earth mage skills to the master level, gaining experience and wisdom over the years, and also learning some basics of Logistics. But due to his greedy nature, having encroached upon Enroth’s treasury, he was imprisoned in this valley for many years.
Moner was very happy to meet his old friend, and one evening, over friendly gatherings with a mug of good elven mead, he made his old friend an Archmage and commander of the southern front.
And the primary task of the newly appointed military leader was to deal with the griffins, which Grisha handled brilliantly, and 4 angels joined our valiant army to fight the army of risen undead.
Days passed as usual; the friendship of old comrades was quite mutually educational. Thus, Grisha raised his Logistics knowledge to an extra level, and through self-education became an unsurpassed Air Elementalist, sharing his knowledge with Moner.
Also, thanks to the same magic, we managed to summon genies into service, and then the giants themselves.
134 - captured a Castle village, began to despair of finding the Grail and upgraded the town hall (bibl in the bathhouse) to level 4. Immediately there’s resources and Town Portal :eek: I’m planning to take a Dragon Utopia in the snow. On my turn, Tant kills a scout hero on 2 giants and intends to go into the snow to capture my tower. He has more power and stats, especially magical.
135 - GM5 gives Fly on bad luck :smile12: Thanks to it, from the Tower, Grindan flies to the Dragon Utopia mines and takes it before Tant. The Dragon Utopia is a minimum one with
136 - Earth dwelling in rebuild, I fly Grisha to the dig site in a last hope to dig up the Grail and return to Conflux via Town Portal, since Tant is determined and on his turn with about 2800 movement and pastfight (I calculated it all in the game) captures the Taver.
137 - The Grail was never dug up, so I send all archaeologists away, take a nearby Griffin Conservatory, and return home. Impl in rebuild. And here’s what the end of the dig looked like. The cross marks the unfound Grail, which I was digging for the first time in the entire history of playing online)))
141 - another rebuild wasted, plus Moner has advanced wisdom at level 17.
143 - Got Dimension Door, bought Earth Magic for Moner, advanced it on a tree.
144 - Expertised Earth Magic for Moner on another tree, captured the purple Conflux town, which has stables. At home, I learned Dimension Door for Moner and planned to go to the treasure zone. Also captured the blue Conflux. I have Air Scouting, but still no Earth Scouting!!! :confused: Even rebuilt GM1 twice for this
Power is still laughable: 12 angels, 30 dragons, and almost no demons since there was nothing to summon with all game, and there are already 1000 skeletons and more of everything.
145 - captured another Inferno from Sasha and, in the best traditions of epic fails, crash Moner in a medusa lair underground on imps :confused:
The outcome is clear; the army lost its best commander, the common people lost all hope for salvation, and Grisha, Grisha got sad... :(
146 - Found a good Sephiroth with Earth in the treasure zone, took a tier 3 Dragon Utopia
with
I beg Lucifer to have mercy and release Moner, but only one reply: "Need more gold!"
Well, then just pain... All earned money went into attempts to dig Moner out.
On 147 - Tant spent the night in a barbarian village within reach, and I planned to attack. I upgraded the demons, prepared properly, impl with 3k (boost, magic). But another fail of the year happened, I made an unnecessary extra move off the road for some reason and entered a well before the battle; as a result: I was 25 moves short of reaching Tant.
As autopsy showed, I would have killed him fairly easily: impl killed 500 skeletons, animate resurrected 238
On his turn, Tant ran to the Conflux where Grisha was hiding in the garrison, but didn’t dare attack, and later left Katya in that same village with 2 Dimension Doors
Next, on 213, I almost accidentally captured the blue main; in short, here’s how it went. I was walking from Inferno to a Griffin Conservatory along a path, and a portal blocked the road. I entered it, interesting outcome. Looked around. Exit to grass. Well, there aren't many grassy areas on the map, so I hopped over, and there was the main with Archangels, but since I’d spent all the money from selling artifacts on attempts to free Moner, I only upgraded half the Archangels, and then was left with 100 mana to stay there overnight.
Here, my dear reader, fail of the year No. 3 happened. But this time, not by my hand :smile12:
Tant, having roughly this army (he would have grabbed a bit more)
had a perfect situation for a decisive battle; well, he was actually about to do it, but... the farmer’s greed undid him :smile04: , on the very last minute of the timer, Tant decided to grab an angel from an external dwelling below the main before the fight... Well, as a result, he falls short by those same xx moves to the castle and is left next to it all like :smile20: :eek: :smile04:
214 - here I finish upgrading the Archangels, replenish Mana, and plan to kill Tant near the castle. Or wait, maybe I don’t?! So we continue playing cat and mouse, and this time I was afraid to give battle and stayed in the castle, building the "Brotherhood of the Sword" (brother for brother, little bro bro). :cool:
Tant also got scared and ran off to power up further
215 - Here I discovered that Grisha had learned Earth Scouting in the Castle :eek:
With it, I quickly took a snapshot of the map and jumped into the untouched treasure zone in the underground, because Lucifer is relentless: gold, need more gold!
And essentially the game is down to a single hero, and my castles are being aggressively taken away while Grisha spent a couple of days in the treasure zone, found two Dragon Utopias
Along the way, Sephiroth discovered a shield of all4 in the previous treasure zone on the surface, but to pick it up, I had to set up a tricky chain and take it on 221
221 - after all the manipulations: summoned demons, retrieved the shield
and was about to give battle to Tant on his territory... But the timer was already running out badly, and then I heard a voice: "Wait, don’t rush." Who is it? :confused: (you will find out in the next issue of the magazine "Georgy Petrovich")
