Posts from Reports on online games and their confirmations (Winter 2009 season).

bRitvo4kA (red, swamp, Tazar, Tazar) def KostyaN (blue, tower, Neela, Neela), 2SM4d(3), 212

I confirm!

The setup was, to be honest, winning for me — the huge difference in class with the opponent showed:(.

111. Two native dwellings in the tavern (no Pikeman:), external dwelling of gremlins (total: 140 caps turned blue:eek: — I don't remember such luck before), external dwelling of giants revealed, but: firstly, this dwelling is behind naga queens (sp. 8 on snow) — and there's no one to properly cover the gremlins (only 6 gargoyles, not upgraded), and secondly, on both sides the road was simply blocked by not the weakest shooters (20-49 beholders and the same number of lizardmen).
112. Intuitively went for the beholders (as it turned out — correctly), for 31 of them gave 40 of mine + all gargoyles; +1 hero to the first three; and — :smile44: — the spires of the native secondary town are visible!
113. Native town taken.
114. As has happened before, I blundered:o — forgot to take Neela off the momentum and ran with 4 gargoyles into a horde of gnolls — those 2500 in the first week probably became key:( (although the opponent apparently had something similar happen to his scout hero — well, it's just a scout hero, you don't even have to buy him back)...
115. Neela already with advanced logistics!
117. In the capital, nagas in fort, another key mistake — in the secondary town I shoved a citadel for some reason with only tier 1-2:confused:, well +1000 of course.
123. Lizardmen broken through from the other side of the road, gave Earth.
124. Minimal crypt.
125. I see GO (10-19 hydras) and on the sides — just not very heavily guarded passages to the opponent's respawn (100+ zombies and 20-49 storm elementals).
127. Only added genies in the citadel in the capital and +1000 (really no money — even bought only 2 nagas).
131. Bought 2 more nagas, ~190 blue units — and here's another huge mistake: I should have boldly taken the external dwelling of giants with 5th-9th nagas with this army, but I passed it by:smile33: :smile33: :smile33: !!!
133. Neela already with 225 caps and 12 mages, goes to explore off-road...
135. Took the first useful artifact found on the respawn — Centaur's Axe:) (nothing else spotted yet:smile26: ).
136. Inferno dwelling and for some reason stuck a castle in the capital, although I could have — giants, but here I don't know what would have been correct.
137. Gnoll's King Shield (at least something:D) and nagas in castle in the secondary town.
145. Neela already with 9 regular and 4 naga queens, Dwarf Cottage with the loss of 1 gargoyle:) and passage to the local treasure zone.
146. Through the storm elementals, a cavalcade of blues led by the daddy appears, Tazar's stats with a horde of yellow flies, lizards, and other vermin are horrifying, the enemies are a little short of reaching the capital, allowing me to take a Pandora's box on the treasure zone for 15000 gold with 20+ champions and buy all remaining units in the capital.
147. The capital fell, taking only about 10 flies somewhere; I hurry to speed up the game and move towards some kind of finale; the opponent takes that very external dwelling of giants and builds them — by the next morning he already has 6 of them...
212. Neela heroically attacks, but is unable to kill even a single enemy angel, and I'm already silent about the rest of the army:smile05: .

Thanks for the game!

SEM_56 (blue, Dungeon, Shakti, Shakti) def Hermit (red, Inferno, Marius, Marius) 2sm4d(3), 127
Everything was going well, but on turn 127, Vova lost twice and didn't want to continue. Thanks for the game!

Yes. Playing as Inferno allows you to move quickly, but it always takes a long time to prepare... especially on poor resource locations... I like this town!.. but...
It's a pity I couldn't play, and after looking at the map, it turned out that the main town was not located on the road.

Thanks for the game.

Wlk777 (red, Fortress, Tazar, Tazar) def Hermit (blue, Castle, Turis, Turis) 2sm4d(3) 216. My development was so-so; I took 3 Dragon Utopia where the only useful things were the earth book and titan armor. The opponent was unlucky with the layout, as it seems, because I wiped out 50-60% of his poorly grouped troops with a single meteor shower. As for the "no magic" scenario, as they told me, it would have been different—I wouldn't have even attacked with 30 wyverns and other same own if I hadn't seen the opponent hero's weak stats; the only thing I feared was the cloak of denial or sphere of prohibition, but I got lucky. Thanks for the game.
P.S. confirmation a bit later, the forum just came back to life.
I confirm. I somehow didn't notice Tazar's spell power, which was 20 and 400 mana points, and he grouped all troops in one corner, so the meteor shower decided everything in the first round. :( :( :( :( :( :( :( I had no secondary towns because the only road led to the opponent, and through underground treasure at that!!! I thought that after defeating many wyvern monarchs I'd at least come out to a secondary town on the fourth one, but I ended up almost at the enemy respawn! The earth book and titan armor... the combination of these two things is always unpleasant, especially at the beginning of the second month... and my total stats were almost the same as Tazar's.

Thanks for the game.

Dubrovin Pavel (Red, Fortress, Tazar, Tazar) def LeBron (Blue, Castle, Valeska, Valeska), 2sm4d(3), 1.4.7.
yes :) I was a little short on mana
Thanks for the game.

KostyaN (Red, Castle, Valeska, Valeska) def Kash (Blue, Stronghold, Tyraxor, Tyraxor), 2sm4d(3), 2.2.2

Confirmed. That's how it was.

117. Respawn so-so, little gold, from the external dwellings – medusa huts at 4. From the lookout and after wandering, I see grass to the northeast and also to the south behind a couple of crystal dragons. On Saturday and Sunday I keep myself entertained watching the enemy's warriors frolicking on the grass behind the dragons. Birds in the castle, not enough to scratch together for bears.
127. I decide to go the long way around, fortunately the opponent isn't rushing and lets me play. On Sunday, secondary Castle, I dump resources at the markets, finally install bears into the castle. As a result, I have a decent army in the castle, but still a severe gold shortage. A crisis, as Kostya says.
137. Minor skirmishes, slowly leveling the main hero, losing the army. One minimal crypt. External dwelling of swordsmen, I put them and the archers in the Citadel. I go down into the underground.
147. On Monday, secondary Necro. Around it, I beat imps, gather gold for the army, start buying it out and bringing it up. While waiting for reinforcements, I pop out of the treasure zone onto the opponent's respawn, kill the guard (11 monks and fanatics each), scout the castle, and hide back. Two days before the army arrives, Tyraxor attacks up to 50 vampire lords guarding a breastplate out of boredom. Turned out there were 49 against 5 bears (the number 70 in Kostya's report is slightly exaggerated;)). The bears fought bravely, but inept leadership + a stupid mistake = loss of the main hero.
217 and onwards. I rapidly level Zhabarkas and Gunnisson, who turned up at the tavern, start taking risks and sometimes panicking. In the end, I surrender on 222.

Thanks to the opponent for the game and congratulations on the first victory.
Waiting for a rematch

Dubrovin Pavel (Red, Castle, Valeska, Kyr) def Oelm (Blue, Fortress, Tazar, Alkin), 2sm4d(3), 1.4.7

Confirmed. Thanks to my opponent for a great game! Personally, it gave me a lot of insight into Heroes.

So: On 112 there are five heroes, the external dwelling of hydras and dragonflies is revealed. I go to the adjacent respawn, clear 30 earth elementals and 13 gold golems with Tazar, and run into a horde of lizards guarding an artifact :eek: I take another road and kill 96 golems for Pandora with Tazar, losing 2 dragonflies and 2 dogs! :smile19:

And then a global blunder happened, or just a low level of play: on the adjacent Tower respawn, I spotted 2 external dwellings of griffins and intended to upgrade them after taking the castle, but the road turned out to be blocked. Instead of taking these dwellings and upgrading everyone on the second day, I sent them to the meat grinder :smile48:

Well, that basically decided the outcome of the match. To win the game, I needed to make several decisions that were not obvious to me: make Alkin the main hero (I eventually did, but lost a day), not build hydras, and instead build wyverns in the castle or even 1-6 with the citadel. I did that too. And finally, ignore the external dwelling of hydras—but I couldn't bring myself to do it. All this was necessary to take the adjacent respawn from Pasha and get a 3 vs 3 castles situation, but it turned out to be 2 vs 4. Also, I didn't take Archery with Alkin, even though I had seen the Golden Bow by then; for some reason, I upgraded Earth—what the hell is Earth for on the 2nd day?

Despite all that, after losing the griffins, everything else became a matter of "dragging out the game," otherwise, on the 2nd day I would have had: Advanced Archery, Advanced Earth, 34 lizards, 68 caps, and about 20 gr dragonflies! That would have been stronger than Castle's. Moreover, on the third day there would be another 3 external dwellings of caps (5 total), 2 cons, finally the Golden Bow, and if I had built with cows (since it's Alkin), then upgraded cows too. In principle, after the third day all the trump cards are with the opponent, since he had three Dragon Utopia while I had one behind the keymaster's tent :mad: (although Pasha didn't find the Dragon Utopia).

Thanks for a great game!!

P.S. And finally. WHY DO I PLAY ON 6 MINUTES?

I've only recently started playing online. And today I decided that I will play only on 6 min in SoD and no less (except for tournaments, where 4 is the regulation)! Objections like "4 is the standard" are dismissed. I don't have enough time to do 100% of what I planned in 4 minutes. 4 min control is either for the truly elite who do everything on autopilot (I can't do that), or for people who play HoMM3 very poorly.
Accordingly, I would lose to the first group and win against the second without getting much joy from the game. With factions that have great breakthrough power from the start (Rampart, Castle, Dungeon), you can manage in 4. But with Swamp (imho 3rd-4th place in strength), Inferno, or Conclave, it's unreal. I don't want to turn Heroes into a real-time strategy. For own lovers of real-time, there is Dota.

Let me explain what the difference of these 2 min provides. Firstly, I can't build chains so that moves are passed cell by cell. Secondly, when the map opens up, I often have to change the game plan, and that also needs to be thought through. And most importantly, when I transfer troops, transferring and splitting them takes about a third of all the time when there is a long chain.

P.P.S. When I master TE, I will play with different control.

Vigo (red, Dungeon, Shakti, Gunnar) def DeathMaster (blue, Castle, Valeska, Moneur), 2sm4d(3), 215

I've never had such a spawn for Dungeon before!
I was born on the surface and near my home 3!!! external dwellings of cats!
So I decided to play it gloriously, clear the whole map, although I could hit the GO (elven horses) already on the third week, but it became uninteresting.
Anyway, Shakti is running around with a log and 5 angels, clearing big money, found a treasure zone with visible hives. So there stands Shakti after another round of nagging, not bothering anyone, about to enter the treasure zone... And then, Moneur flies in on wings over the mountains and attacks! Well, I figure okay, 5 angels with stats over 10 and expert earth/air — I'll rough him up and buy myself out... But he also put on the Shackles!!! Damn, my leveled Shakti fell :(
Then his comrade-in-arms couldn't stand such insolence, Gunnar I mean, sold everything he could, took 55 red kittens :) (didn't have enough money for the rest), about 250 Troglodytes and harpy hags as bait, and went to the enemy through the GO. With such a brood, fighting was hopeless basically :)

Thanks for the game.

Vigo (red, Dungeon, Shakti, Gunnar) def DeathMaster (blue, Fortress, Valeska, Moner), 2sm4d(3), 215

I've never seen such a respawn for Dungeon!
He spawned in the sunlight and near house 3!!! with 3 cat dens!

muHAHA:D well, he should have taken the Utopia on the first turn!! to set records))

муХАХА:D well, you should have taken Utopia on the first map!! to set records))

Show me at least one Utopia on the first map!:D I would gladly!!! ;)

Vigo (red, Dungeon, Shakti, Gunnar) def DeathMaster (blue, Fortress, Valeska, Moner), 2sm4d(3), 215

That was a close one. Looks like a restart was needed.

Pavel Dubrovin (Red, Castle, Valeska, Valeska) def OUTLAW (Blue, Rampart, Kyrr, Kyrr), 2sm4d(3), 2.1.5.

On the first week – Centaurs in Castle, secondary Fortress.

On the second week – Crypts, Dwarf Cottage, Medusa Hovel, Naga Bank allowed to recruit Angels, Minimal Cons on Home.

On the third week – Maximum Cons on Home, went off-road into the Underground, took Consa-Treshka there, opened Overview, took Igor's Secondary (Inferno), then Main, then Golden Bow, then GO (around 100 Gr. Minotaurs).

On the fourth week – Dragon Utopia-Treshka (Book of Fire, Speaker's Hat...). Arch.

On the fifth week – Dragon Utopia-Minimalka (Dragon Scale Mail), Igor's capitulation.

Thanks to Igor for the game!

Dubrovin Pavel (Red, Castle, Valeska, Valeska) def OUTLAW (Blue, Rampart, Kirry, Kirry), 2sm4d(3), 2.1.5.

Thanks to Igor for the game![/QUOTE]
I messed up the second week searching for Slow - it wasn't in any of the 3 secondary zones or in the columns ((( (, only found it at the start of the 3rd in the 4th secondary zone, from there I headed into the treasure zone, losing my main town. In 2 treasure zones I managed to get nearly 80 vivs, took two Dragon Utopia (maxi and mini), but didn't find any control - decided not to continue....
Thanks to Pasha for the game.
_

OUTLAW(blue, Castle, Valeska, Tiris) def Dubrovin Pavel(red, Rampart, Kirry, Kirry), 2SM4d(3),126
Kirry appeared from the metro in my secondary zone, Tiris was nearby....I started building up speed in my metro....Pasha rushed toward my secondary zone, stopping 1 cell short...on my turn I attack Kirry, and she's in handcuffs - exp. tactics and covered archers decided in my favor...
Thanks to Pasha for the game.
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How Long Will They Mourn Me? Tupac Amaru Shakur

OUTLAW (blue, Castle, Valeska, Tiris) def Dubrovin Pavel (red, Rampart, Kirr, Kirr), 2SM4d(3), 126
Kirr appeared from the subway on my secondary base, Tiris was nearby... I started accelerating in my subway... Pasha rushed to my secondary base, not reaching it by 1 cell... I attack Kirr with my own forces, and she is in handcuffs - the exp. tactic and the covered archers decided in my favor...
Thank you for the game, Pasha.
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How Long Will They Mourn Me? Tupac Amaru Shakur[/QUOTE]

I confirm!
I saw Igor's Angel build for 20-49 Pr. with Demons and Horse build for 20-49 Nomads in a review, and it made me SAD.

I went to the underground hoping for luck on the rough terrain, and, unfortunately, I didn't have enough cells to reach the shelter from Tiris's Tactics. And in the field, with my striking power of 34 Elvises, I was first hit by 5 Champions, then by the demoralized Core Griffons. And 120 Centaurs and 6 Unicorns could not crush the Archers and Griffin Swordsmen hiding behind the Horsemen.

Thank you, Igor, for the dynamic game!

1) Denis_HoMM (Blue, Castle, Valenska, Valenska) def. smoke_mk (Red, Dungeon, Shakti, Shakti), 2sm4d(3), 2.1.4. Thank you for the game. 2) Denis_HoMM (Red, Castle, Valenska, Valenska) def. SEM_56 (Blue, Ivory, Ivory), 2sm4d(3), 1.4.5. 117. Stable without a Stronghold and Eagles. Found Boots of Swiftness. 127. In the Capital, a Capitol and Castle without Monks and Angels. Took a secondary Inferno, built Magic, and gained +1000 income. Found Artifacts: Boots of Swiftness and Greaves +1 to Strength and +1 to Knowledge. 137. Built Angels in the Capital. Bought 2 Phoenixes from the mercenary camp. 145. I go through the wilderness to a dungeon. I take the opponent's secondary Inferno. Nearby, I find Ivory. I attack. 1. My Hero 6 8 6 5, Water Expert without mana, 2 Upgraded Phoenixes, 3 Angels, 11 Knights, 22 Knights (unupgraded), 23 Upgraded Griffins, 64 Upgraded Archers. 2. Opponent's Hero 6 11 1 3, 5 Upgraded Pegasuses, 51 Upgraded Elves, 85 Upgraded Centaurs. Thank you for the game.

Denis_HoMM (Red, Castle, Valiska, Valiska) def SEM_56 (Blue, Ivor, Ivor), 2sm4d(3), 1.4.5.
I confirm, I played poorly!!!