Posts from "The Art of Strategy," a section for reports.

Bridiaga (Red, Inferno, Nibros) loses to Xodyn (Blue, Fortress, Inga) - 2-3-7

Thanks for the game!

BOLIVAR (blue, Necromancer Zoltán) defeated Lok1978 (red, Elf Ilfina) 2-4-7.

At first, things were going well for me, but then it became apparent that I was playing on this map for the first time (as were many others, for that matter), and I headed in the wrong direction. In the center, I encountered an elf and thought I could take him by surprise... Ha... He passed troops along the chain and unleashed a devastating attack. I was level 22, and he was around level 24.
I bought my way out as soon as I could – I would have escaped earlier otherwise – and also pulled troops along the chain towards me, but I didn't manage to do it in time. Initially, I wanted to surrender, but then I decided to continue. Naturally, I started to fall behind in development. But gradually, I gathered troops, and again, I developed the skills I wanted. And then, an elf with a full set of equipment came to visit my city. I used a scout with the "Reveal Secret" ability and saw his artifacts – just one complete dwarven armor set is worth mentioning, a complete unicorn bow artifact, a ring of +10 initiative, and I won't even list the rest. Not to mention the advantage his army had in terms of raw power. Plus, he had "Death Stride," teleport, and mass rebuke (my mass slow was blocked by his artifacts). He was level 31, and I was level 27 or 28, I don't remember. In general, I'm telling you all this in detail not to brag about myself, but about my hero – Zoltán. If it had been another necromancer, there probably would have been no chance of winning. But Zoltán blocked his spells after each use, and that made the difference. My main goal was to hold out until the middle of the game. Then, the "Enslave" spell worked – I got lucky – he had magic resistance and boots. Before that, there was mass confusion. Then, a Phoenix, then 2 wasp nests – because he was moving his hero around the map very quickly with his "Empathy" skill (by the way, this nest consumes a lot of mana). In general, it turned out that I gradually started to gain the upper hand, and then he was forced to buy his way out – because the elf was left without spells and a lot of mana. We moved the game to the 3rd day – it was already 4 a.m., and I was supposed to go to work. On the 3rd day, everyone was tired, and he suggested meeting in the center, and I agreed (besides, this was added to the rules, and I was already heading towards his city – I had more troops now). We met, and again, I got lucky – the "Enslave" spell worked. Then, I removed his antimagic with messengers. And then, everything would have gone according to the previous scenario. The elf surrendered.
Lok1978 is a good, skilled player, but he was very unlucky in the final. In theory, he should have won.

P.S. Damn, the game crashed 4-5 times due to an error. 3-4 times during my opponent's turn, and once during mine. Before, crashes happened maybe once a month, or twice. But 5 times in one game... I don't know what could be causing this.

TwoEP (red, Inferno, Deleb) defeated denden (blue, Barbarian, Goshak) 2-3-6

They were battling each other near the Barbarian's castle, using elementals and level 2 units.