“Newcomer – 2016. Summer”

A sweaty little game. I scouted 3 external bear dwellings from the starting view, so I decided to play. The respawn was small, and in every second cart there were artifacts, and some decent ones at that. I almost messed up the setup by over-tempoing, attacked 19 groups of demons on day 112 for the Hive, and lost my army.
Then I pulled myself together and started capturing external dwellings. I scouted another one deep in the respawn and managed to take it as well, plus a Dungeon village. Besides the external dwellings, there were 3 more small Hives in the respawn. No cons, no water. Also no money in the respawn. Even Luna showed up right away, but I didn't fight with her because there was simply nowhere and no time to level her up. And the Bears only spawned in the citadel.
I exited on day 122 through crystal creatures, although I could have exited a day or even two earlier.
Watching the replay, I see the opponent has a path to me through wasteland in the center. I think it's fine, I have a day or two in reserve. But almost immediately after the GO, on the only road, I run into 5-9 Faerie Dragons guarding a Keymaster's Tent and a Pandora's Box. I realize I can't break through them and didn't know what to do. I lost another day. Then the opponent appears and is a few hundred moves short of reaching my hero with the army. I check. His army has 5 Angels, 43 Wyverns, and stats 14 10 16 with 208 mana. My Crag Hack has stats 18 13 2 with 129 mana, army of 16 not-upgraded Bears, 14 Wyverns, and units. I have Oil and Mass Shield. I don't know what magic the opponent has. I was afraid to attack precisely because of the magic stats and the large amount of mana. I split my army, passed it along the chain, captured the bracers that were between my respawn and the opponent's respawn (bugged passage), and waited to see what the opponent would do. The opponent also didn't dare attack the Faerie Dragons and ran towards me. I split my army again, built Mage Guild level 2 (Blind, Lightning Bolt), grabbed the Hive in the respawn, and attacked in the bracers. The opponent didn't have anything besides level 1 magic, and we both had Oil which we used on each other. After that, the army advantage decided the outcome.


Thanks for the game and good luck further!