Posts from HeroesWorld.ru vs GamerHome.net 2011

Pit for LM (orange, Dungeon, random Malekith, Sorscha) lose Lowk (blue, Dungeon, random Shakti, Shakti), balance, 143.
Things didn't go my way, though by and large it was my own fault.

In the second game everything was fine, except for my opponent's GO — he had Faerie Dragons, which I couldn't break through at the start of day three, so I went for the treasure. I gathered 50 Behemoths, 50 Minotaurs, 5 Angels, 60+ Harpy Hags, plus some Medusas, a hundred Troglodytes and the Eyes. Meanwhile my opponent had 1 Angel, 70 Trolls and 5 Scorpicores.
But you can't push against 4 DD on balance even without logistics...

W1
Bringing the main force Shakti was a must; since I didn't deliver a second hero, I had to upgrade the Troglodytes, so on W1 I chose not to build the Capitol in the main town.
Late in W1 I still hadn't seen a dwelling; at that point there were two routes of advance — one upward through the lava, one to the left through the grassland. Judging by the terrain, the secondary hero on the left route pushed toward the center of the map, which should have been a small secondary that could quickly reach the middle, while the lava route was a complete unknown, so I preferred to give up the Stables on the upper route and go left. Along the way there was an A2P2K1 stat bonus, which was also a major factor in the choice.
I made a mistake on D7: the lead secondary on the left route didn't move first (in fact if the D6 movement had gone one step further he would have seen the MM dwelling), but instead I moved the secondary only after the main had finished moving, which meant I couldn't take the MM dwelling on W1. This was a key mistake for the whole game.
A small detail of W1: after Shakti came out I specifically hired a level-6 H6 Hack.

W2
The overall idea was to fight with upgraded Champions.
On D3 I took the secondary; the grave I cleared after taking it gave 5k, a huge boost to the economy. Since when I took the secondary my main was just barely at Advanced Earth, considering my skills at the time were Advanced Offense, Earth, Expert Logistics and Tactics, I went straight to the University and bought Air. This choice was a big bright spot of the whole game; Shakti's skill tree was flawless, and the guerrilla warfare later was a huge advantage because of it.
Before entering the middle, when merging forces, since the Gargoyles didn't affect the secondary's movement efficiency (the Troglodytes and Eyes were around), I didn't disband those two Gargoyles; in the actual battle I ran into a central snowfield, which had a big effect. Having Gargoyles was also a main reason I made up my mind to push for the center.
After entering the middle I was overjoyed at first, because the watchtower revealed two 49-castles + 3 Naga dwellings, plus a Stables. But then my opponent popped out on the very same turn, with a force of few Angels and lots of Gorgons, and stats of P2K3 (AD ignored). Right next to the Stables there was a well; from that moment the fight for the center was completely hopeless, and I had to pull out. My main at that point had four Expert skills + Basic Air; I thought about it for a long time, and seeing the huge amount of resources in the wild, I decided to go all-in on magic.

W3
All of W3 was the process of furiously grabbing resources and desperately upgrading the main and the resurrection-specialty hero.
When my opponent flew home on W3D1 I already knew he was planning to push the main route — the correct choice — and on W3D2 he cleared the entrance to his main route, which worried me a lot. But then inexplicably he ran up to the treasure area, showing that the opponent completely didn't understand the key point of the Chinese rules. Under Russian rules, with Fly and Dimension Door banned and HR banned, maxing out reinforcements is victory. But the Chinese rules preserve multiple options, and once your army is strong enough, piling on more is just gilding the lily.
The first magic town was all junk, with only level-2 Lightning and Blind bringing a few new tactical options.
The second magic town gave Armageddon on W3D4; at that point there were two choices — go for Black Dragons or keep going for level 5. Looking at my barren economy, I decided the main would continue from the third secondary into the middle to see whether there was a Phoenix town in the center to produce Firebirds, and on the other hand I decided to go for level 5.
On D6 — Dimension Door at level 5! The entire strategy completely changed; from that moment on the outcome was decided.
After that it was just a formality; under Dimension Door I had multiple options every turn, none of the actual choices were the only one, but the outcome of victory was the only certainty. Over.

Javdet, enable Chinese font support in Windows, then instead of squares, you'll see hieroglyphs - Google will help you with that.

Thanks, but first I'll install Arabic and Mongolian fonts – it's been bothering me for a while. As soon as I deal with that, I'll definitely start learning Chinese, and to a reasonable extent, Japanese as well.

This summary doesn't have much to say. The starting skills and artifacts are decent. Luna had a tough time, leveling up her intelligence twice. The key D4 gave 2 experience artifacts, which meant I had to send out dwarves before I could leave. On the same day, I scouted P4. When the small celestial dragon arrived, I thought its 14-5 damage could be withstood, and I could deal 1 damage and heal 15 HP each turn. In reality, it was constantly poisoned, and the second half of the game didn't have much to offer. Luna couldn't find a path and couldn't create many opportunities. Except for W2D7, where the opponent had 5 birds, which allowed me to use speed and special attack to deal damage, but he had S2, so I couldn't kill him in one turn. So, that's how it went.

waiting......