Posts from "Newcomer-2011. Summer"

Paul (Stronghold, Tyraxor) def d-neez (Tower, Nella, Turis), 2SM4d(3), 131.
Thank you for the game.

Juristis (red, Castle, Valeska, Valeska) def Wishmaster (blue, Fortress, Wystan, Wystan) 212, 2sm4d(3)

Paul (Stronghold, Tyraxor) def d-neez (Tower, Nella, Turis), 2SM4d(3), 131.
Thank you for the game.

MeFi (blue, rampart, Kyrre, Kyrre) def Amiloo (red, Castle, Valeska, Galthran) 2sm4d(3) 142

We used all restarts. I got a good draw on the first try, but my opponent had a 112 reroll, and after that only crap was dealt, so I kept restarting my own. In the end - an initially unclear layout turned out, which was more than playable.

111 - Kyrre without elven units, but Ivor was in the tavern with three beauties in green vests! :) The second was Terek. Tactics on the first levels never hurt anyone. In total, 50+ Centaurs and 10 Elves. On the very first day, I find the Gnoll's Flail for 50-99 skeletons, the Shield of the Damned for 20-49 mummies, and the Necromancer's Cloak! The respawn gave decent gold; I see a lumber mill and three roads. 5 heroes - Kyrre, Ivor, Jabarkas, Terek, Axis. Restarts are gone, though I would have played this anyway.
112 - I run Axis to upgrade the elven units, buy Aeris, gather generously scattered treasure chests and gold, hand the upgraded Elves to Kyrre, she shoots the skeletons without issue, takes the Flail, picks up the Necromancer's Cloak. Ivor runs along the path and finds an external dwelling of Elves! Solmyr and Gunnar show up in the tavern, but my opponent revealed Vidomina O_____O I smell trouble, but there are no restarts left :( I find a couple more crypts and a few stat boosters. The other two roads are blocked, so I look for alternate routes.
113 - I find stables, an exit to an underground secondary zone guarded by 20-49 Fire Elementals... they also block the Elven external dwelling. But the Elves have another guard - Greater Lizardmen, also 20-49 :( + there's a pile of resources. I figure this is not good and rush troops toward the Lizardmen and the secondary zone. Kyrre moves toward the stables on a pegasus, Ivor takes out the Fire Elementals with minor losses (5 Centaurs). I send Solmyr against the Lizardmen -_- and the club does chop well, but there are 40 of them :( they manage to take out 10 Centaurs; my stack is already quite small (23). On the bright side, 17 Elves at the first dwelling and a nice growth bonus at the second. The only downside is the guard of the secondary zone from the dungeon side: 50-99 Boars. I'm afraid to make a mistake; beating a scout hero against them is not an option either, especially since all the scouts are very useful and Axis is far away. I decide not to go there, and that was very unwise :/ as it turned out later - there weren't many of them, and the secondary zone was a Dungeon.
114 - With Terek, I find a GO via a bypass on the lower road: 20-49 Devils. I also find an external dwelling of Unicorns guarded by 50-99 Halberdiers xDD There are slow meaty units everywhere along the road. After the stables, Kyrre has 2700 movement points, 6-7 battle stats, Advanced Logistics and Archery, and got Armorer. I plan to take the Unicorns. What more could one want?!
115 - I break through to the grass secondary zone. Gunnar's Crossbowmen fall very easily, thanks to the Pegasi :) But I make a mistake: why not send a scout hero in immediately? Instead, I transfer the army to Kyrre first, and only then check with Axis what the block is... 20-49 Troglodytes :/ There might be some bypass, but it's annoying; I probably won't get the secondary zone by week 2... And that's what happened; I only took the secondary zones on day 124. Kyrre dashes down, gains Archery experience, and sees a 4th road O_o Lots of meat everywhere, lots of gold, the opponent has few heroes and no secondary zone. Bliss :)
116 - Vidomina shows up in the tavern again; looks like the opponent is seriously farming Necromancer spawn :/ What to do?! Panic turns to a smile at the sight of Boots of Speed guarded by 10-19 creatures wearing hats. Kyrre blasts through all the meat, we postpone the Unicorns for a day, open a pre-max crypt and transfer the army to Terek. With Tactics, he easily takes the sneakers from the evil Elves, but they manage to land a stray shot on my elven units :/ Death of a dozen in the final battle is statistics; death of one on week one is a tragedy. And to top it off, I was one step short of the Boots... I find a Pandora's Box guarded by 5-9 Giants, but I never took it the entire game.
117 - The opponent still has fewer heroes. I capture the Unicorn external dwelling; at home, weeks 1-6 without Dwarves in Castle (a stupid move - I had 600 gold left, and I still needed to buy all the good units from dwellings), I hoped to escape the crisis using tasty buildings on the respawn, but there were none left, and new ones were either far away or very expensive :( I spread my heroes to all corners for control points; Kyrre is on sprint, and the fourth road led to 20-49 Greater Serpents. I thought if there were many of them, I wouldn't break through without losses... I never found out where that path led until the end. Later I realized I shouldn't have hesitated and just charged in with Terek to use Tactics on the poor Serpents, but it was too late.
121 - I don't have gold to buy troops from the dwellings :/ I make my first mistake and build a market, exchange half my resources for cash, and barely buy the Elves and Unicorns. The Centaurs have outlived their usefulness; I'm running around with 6 Unicorns and 16 Elves; full unbought growth + 7 Elves are idling in the castle; Kyrre is headed for the castle, closer to the stables. I decide to wipe out 50-99 Greater Centaurs and take the Tree of Knowledge with a Scholar. 2 expert skills, Advanced Armorer, but they give all sorts of junk. In short: failday.
122 - Kyrre runs with 3500+ movement points; stables+boots+logistics do their dirty work :) I only managed to buy 13 Elves, another 9 are idling in the castle; the day turned out fun: I found a second Unicorn external dwelling (with a Necklace of Swiftness +1), but the guard is 50-99 Ice Elementals :/ impossible without Tactics, and the stubborn skill still won't appear... I found my first Griffin Conservatory guarded by Air Elementals; my smile is growing. The pre-max crypt partially solved the gold issue; Solmyr beats the Boars and heads to the secondary zone in the underground.
123 - Griffin Conservatory #1; Kyrre is on sprint with 4000+ movement points; I give the main army to Gunnar and he charges down the road to the grass secondary zone... he also has a decent turn. I traded almost all my resources. I only managed to buy 3 Unicorns; no gold for the rest, but the stack of elven units hits hard -_- I lose 3 elven units due to Crossbowmen's morale; I go into mourning and press E.
124 - By my estimate, the respawn takes up at least 1/3 of the map xD At the grass secondary zone, I take a Castle; I spot lots of tasty things beyond the mountains and a nearby Dragon Utopia right next to the secondary zone! Gold everywhere; I collected 7.5k in one turn; underground, Kyrre reaches the Dungeon, and her stats are 8-11-3-1! In my head: WHERE TO GET MANA FOR THE DRAGON UTOPIA!?!? I run to the stat boosters, scouting the underground area along the way. Near the Castle, no one could keep up with Gunnar; everyone is gathering gold en masse along the roads... the opponent seems to be in deep financial crisis, since he still doesn't have an 8th hero O_o only 1 castle. Even though I'm crawling like a turtle, I'm still ahead of him. There's still hope to beat the skeletons.
125 - I find another "conservatory" (Griffin Conservatory) in the farrrr bottom end of the respawn, and almost in the very corner, a strategic View from Above xDDD I see there are 2 more GOs off-road (Arch Devils and 50-99 Cavaliers). I gave Kyrre +2 Knowledge; Gunnar found an exit to the treasure zone. In the Dungeon: Shield and Slow. What else is needed? Plan: double the mana on day 126, take the second external dwelling of horses, pray for Earth magic, upgrade and buy all the horses (20 in total), on day 131-132 take the Dragon Utopia with all the trees and 2 weeks' growth of Centaurs.

But... everything starts to fall apart.
Off-topic: I hadn't slept for over 24 hours by that point. The game dragged on: I woke up at 12 noon on Sunday, played with fadeincom (we'll finish that game soon), went to play billiards, back and forth, and suddenly it's 4 AM. Amiloo offered to play at 8 AM, said we need to take the game seriously and must finish it because he planned to stream and didn't want to let the viewers down, so I decided not to sleep at all to avoid oversleeping :) I strategically watched his VODs against other players, analyzed them, saw his game with AlexLion, drew some conclusions, and we sat down to play. And we played almost until 4 PM O_O My state - was completely wiped out, no other way to put it...

As I said - everything started to fall apart. In the Dungeon, I forgot to buy a spell book; I doubled my mana, but I have neither Slow nor Shield. I take the second external dwelling of horses almost without losses, but the chains break. I buy the horses but don't have time to upgrade them. In my native guild: Bless, Haste, and Cure; no Slow or Shield :(
I can buy the horses, but I can't deliver them from the dwellings in time; Kyrre is idling because of this. 8-14-3-5, 60 mana; finally I get Earth magic and expert Offense. Day 132, I run to the Dragon Utopia. I've already found a second one behind easier guards (one guarded by 50-99 Vampires, the other by 50-99 Golems); I have 23 Unicorns; there's plenty of idle growth in the castle, but I'm catastrophically short on gold. I make a stupid move - exchange all my resources down to zero, I forgot about the Portal in the Dungeon, I build nothing in the Castle because I have no gold, no resources, and no thoughts about it.
And then, on day 133, I see Galthran with 250-499 Skeletons. He's on sprint, but I can't reach him :( He didn't seem to notice me or the Dragon Utopia, but he entered the treasure zone, and that means only one thing: time is now on his side, and I didn't plan on playing a macro game against a Necromancer O_O

Day 134 - the Dragon Utopia turns out to be the minimum version: 1-4 1-4 5-9 5-9 :/ after losing 6 Unicorns, I get complete junk: Shield +12 defense, Sandals of the Saint +2 morale, Bow of Elven Cherrywood +15% damage, Red Ball. Decent enough, but against Galthran - it's nothing. He's in the treasure zone; he probably shouldn't have seen the Dragon Utopia.. I pray the treasure zone has trash. I rush to the Castle for meat + I can afford sprint with Angels and Pegasi in the castle.
Day 135 - his scout hero reveals my stats and disrupts my sprint. Here I make a fatal mistake in the game: I get Expert Earth, but instead of learning at least Stone Skin, I keep the Red Ball equipped :/ And as luck would have it, the Dragon Utopia is MAX! I barely escape with 4 Unicorns and the thought: gg wp, thanks for the game. But from the Dragon Utopia, I get a Book of Air, Shield +4 defense, and... a Captain's Hat and 2 other relics in the same vein. I had an idea: break into the Dungeon, double the mana with decent stats and level 1 Intelligence (19-19-15-14), get a sprint near the devils, resolve them with mass Slow using 57 Elves, and quickly rush to the opponent's castle to cut off his growth. At least I didn't fail here, though I had almost no troops left: 4 Unicorns, 1 Angel, 57 Grands, and a couple of Pegasi..

Day 137 - on my last movement points, I finally reach his castle!!! There are already Angels in the castle; near the castle, Adele is on an Angel o_O I stand, peacefully gathering a sprint; 269 mana, Chain Lightning for 310 damage, the club for 505, mass Slow and mass Shield in my pocket. All I need is to build Archers and victory is mine :) But that's exactly the problem - I sold my resources for pennies, and buying them back turned out extremely expensive. I decided to save my gold.

Day 141 - I dismiss the scouts bringing growth from dwellings; I buy several heroes in the castle and send them to scout. The road is empty; seems there's no chain. Yeah, right - just a flag flickers off-road xD the opponent is hiding, doesn't want to sacrifice his scouts. Little Adele is hiding on an Angel one day's travel away :) Dimension Door to her, then a mini Dragon Fly Hive; sprint with Angels and Pegasi; I still have 25,000 gold, but absolutely no gems.

Day 142 - Galthran runs along the road. Scout skirmishes, but Galthran runs off the road toward a well! I reveal him with Vision - 11-14-16-16, nearly 500 Skeletons, a few Wights, 60+ Crossbowmen... and 2 Spell Points!! O____O I immediately fly to the castle, Dimension Door to him; I still have 150+ mana; 4100 movement points allow me not to worry; I know in advance I'll catch him. I attack him even without reinforcement; he sets up; I cast mass Slow, and he's just a living target for the Grands :) I didn't even need to use the club... though my troops were - 3 Angels, a couple of Unicorns, and Grands :)
EPIC WIN for me, EPIC FAIL with his mana T______________T
By the way, has anyone else had the bug where all of a hero's artifacts fall off before battle? All of mine fell off Kyrre right in the battle against Galthran. And I know for sure I didn't unequip them, but they ALL ended up in the backpack.

GG Amiloo, huge thanks for the game! :) Good luck in the tournament!

Unfortunately, I have to withdraw from the tournament.

but for some, it might be a stroke of luck :) it's a pity, but if he decided to do it, there must be reasons, good luck!