Posts from [Tournaments-SoD+FreshMod] Favorites, to battle! - 12 - The Battle of Favorites! - 12

A fat start in terms of money and army: an external dwelling of minors, a maxed hive, and a level 3 consulate in the first week.
There were some struggles with GM5, but I got lucky with КВ in the second Dragon Utopia. After that, I went on the attack against the cities.

Thank you for the game!

Played terribly, but got lucky.
Thanks for the game.

We played without any pauses. Hive +3 on day 2. Then, consecutive turns with 1+3.
On turn 116, I went for the Rampart with blue. On turn 117, the opponent decided to attack with Aislin, 8 Spells, and 40 mana, but I had too many troops.
Thank you for the game!

There were external dwellings of birds – but considering their growth is cut by 2 times, building them or chasing them too hard is not very profitable. I decided to hit the Mage Guild: I got some hope for the game in the form of resources and rain. In the end, I spent the entire timer wondering how to take the console with Moon; eventually, I figured out the force-take, which was made possible by a native village, an external dwelling of psychs, and a gladius found on the last turn. I managed to break through go on 121, but because I spent the whole timer on that, I didn't have enough move on the next turn to reach the prison, from which one could take the city via another prison. But as the autopsy showed, this would hardly have solved anything: Vitalya had already received kz and was sitting calmly in his native dungeon with 3.3k Gunnar. Essentially, on 122 I was crushed by a recanter, because of which I couldn't even use the imp found on 117. Then I tried to rebuild the Town Portal, while picking up home Dragon Utopia – TP was given from the second to last one, and there was nothing in the utopias, although even with кв the chances were ghostly: the opponent completely occupied the center and was powering up heavily with TP.

Thanks for the game!

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A very pleasant start with a max crypt, stables nearby, and hidden treasures. I also got lucky with an unguarded village, thanks to which I routed Luna in the treasure zone on 117, positioning by a Pandora's box. On 121 I burn 20 horses, and anticipating 15k experience, I check the tavern and see a Green Dragon recruit, who levels up nicely through a log on the next turn. Luna burns the pre-mini Dragon Fly Hives and a split forms for the Green Dragon, which becomes level 14 on 122 – I found two more Pandora's boxes in the continuation, totaling 15k. Meanwhile, on the other front, the main army fights under Bogarus's leadership, breaking the first Griffin Conservatory. At that timing, everything seemed wonderful – resources, a split, I started building the mage guild on 117. Then progress slowed down relatively – Town Portal from the penultimate town was the cause. On 125 I risked like crazy, leaving the enemy's castle unguarded and a Green Dragon near a centaur. Survived by a miracle. The roads turned out not to be the best; I decided to take the enemy's 3k through an off-road passage over snow. However, I got lucky with a 0-alignment portal, which had a resource collector: it led right to the purple player's adjacent territory, which I took, and through that little portal I managed to take a castle on 131. In general, if not for the resource wealth and the early construction of control, I would have been very disheartened: Dimension Door was given from the last town, on 133. But while the map was rich in resources, in terms of objects for meat and artifacts everything was very scarce – only one Scholar was revealed, which gave me a "useless" Sword of the Berserker, Blackshard of the Dead Knight, and a 4/4 Helm. The split was killed on 132 with Dimension Door, which seemed like a joke of the game: how come, I've been building like crazy since the beginning, and the opponent still gets it before me and uses it so skillfully. The thing is, the distances between towns were quite long, and it's clear that in such a situation, SoD logistics heroes realize their potential best. In short, out of desperation, I jumped on the turn of gaining control into a Dragon Utopia to get something – and a miracle unexpectedly happened: Ribs! The last artifact for Armor of the Damned, and with the Sword of the Berserker that's the old, good combo, especially without other stats, it gave hope. On 134 I attempted to take the castle where someone (Dessa) was staying overnight in the fort; I didn't think through the attack option, although, honestly, maybe it turned out well: there could have been a 20+ all Gunnar with all combat skills and an Angelic Ally staying there, and it's not certain that a 10 all Green Dragon with Armor of the Damned would have handled that. In the end, the result was: after 12 hours of play, I fly into a Dragon Utopia with Luna, hoping to find Dragon Fly Hives there, leave heroes unprotected, ultimately losing a valuable support. Fortunately, the opponent stays in the village, sensing his dominance on all fronts. Luna returns from the Dragon Utopia empty-handed (I must say, the map was generally poor: upon revealing it turned out we had already eaten almost everything valuable by that time) and army-gets-wiped, while the Green Dragon finishes with the old, good combo.

 

A sweaty match, thanks for the game!

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Again, a good, rich start: I clear the external dwelling of phoenixes on day 115, burn the ogres for +2 speed, AI... I do something stupid on nerves (God knows why), losing a couple turns of tempo. I place a wall wrong in the maze, I don't leave the cloak and the chest for the moon for the Griffin Conservatory on days 3-4 with Town Portal (+2 speed gives the 'elementals' priority). Then a split with 18 Storms dies on a miner with a cloak because of blocks, the computer drives off Adrian on a bird with 5 cats on day 121 who hadn't reached the castle yet. Reluctantly, I buy back all the negligent ones with artifacts and take a max Griffin Conservatory on 5 birds, and slowly try to make up for lost ground. In terms of expansion, I was solidly behind until about day 125, when I took 3 castles at once, and the next turn I capture 2 more villages, life improves. I get Town Portal from the last one on day 127 (a berserker from the 3rd rebuild bugged out and stayed in the Fortress), but overall, it wasn't critical: because of the burnt expansion, and due to the lack of other heroes with earth magic except for the moon, I could only use it from day 126. The only annoying thing is that I didn't get any resources during all this time; the bug with the stuck berserker might have somehow affected it. On the other hand, Dimension Door was given immediately this time, i.e., from the first rebuild. I was also lucky that without the University, the heroes leveled up decently, and the moon caught air magic itself. In HotA, you can build something in parallel while rebuilding control, but here the rebuild takes a turn of construction, so as much as I wanted to pop a University or Market – I couldn't.

As a result, Gunnar jumps/flies in on day 133, with a Chaos Hydra in full battle readiness. I lose Conflux and the Monere with Armorer and Wisdom, who was left there just for the University the next turn.

This was very unpleasant and unexpected. In the only Dragon Utopia that I had taken by that point, there was Crystal Ore. Clearly not great against a Chaos Hydra. Plus, now I can't leave Sappers on a bird everywhere. Well, this is often the strength of logisticians. Without Conflux, I'm helpless: I can't buy the elemental I wanted, the upgrade for Psychics and Birds is cancelled. I have to take a 2-minute AFK break to think about how to proceed: finalizing is clearly not in my interest, and I still have to try to reach Conflux (2 full turns with 2 Dimension Doors). I make a decision to urgently scout something, and, by the grace of Baratorch: near the villages there are 2 Dragon Utopias with hefty stats, which gives my thin army hope. I set up for an attack. The next turn, Gunnar stays in a dungeon, Adrian checks him for a Recanter's Cloak and Orb of the Firmament: all empty. It turned out the opponent was very unlucky with earth magic; this probably caused such a fast rush on Conflux.

Thanks for the games!

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