Posts from Interportal 2011

Kapper (Nature) loose Shnurov (Order), Lezkandra, 2.1.4
We played randomly. He played very slowly. He got stuck twice.
The last time was a complete disaster. He poured all the artifacts into his hero in the dungeon while passing through. He tried to get the artifacts back four times. He only succeeded on the fourth try.
In the end, he brought 6 heroes of levels 16-20 and 5 Dragon Golems.
He played as a Master of Stealth. It wasn't all fun, and it took a very long time in the end....

Havr(Death) def CavalierGard(Death), Plains of Despair, 1.3.6

We started randomly. He started off not very well, and he managed to bring Venom to the encounter with the Mantis, and he managed to lose one Venom. He also combined the common group of Imps with the hero who arrived, which ultimately prevented him from putting several Imps with the hero on the boat on the 2nd day. He had to settle for skeletons. This cost him the fact that the skeletons didn't have enough money and resources to build Devils on the 4th day. He stalled on the 5th day. He wandered around the respawn point, waiting for the Tactician with boots and heroes from the castle and tavern, and then went to the 2nd castle. He decided to develop this group: Ninja, Tactician, 2 Order Mages, and Necromancer. The passages were very unpleasant - 36 Crossbowmen on one, 54 Fire Elementals and 24 Earth Elementals on the other. He decided to go through the Crossbowmen. The heroes were accompanied by 2 Devils and 3 Venoms. The Order heroes knew Illusions, and the Necromancers knew Raise Dead. The battle was unpleasant, but it was successful. The major artifact behind the passage was the Great Crown of the Mage, which didn't seem great at first, but turned out to be very useful. On the way to the 2nd castle, he messed up, deciding to buy Combat skills for a couple of heroes in the non-magical school, but ended up buying Nobility - he just didn't switch the skill. He took the second castle one day later than his opponent, but he was already ahead in the mines. The dwelling turned out to be Champions, and the battle for it was perhaps the second most difficult in the game. It was guarded by 64 Fire Elementals and 48 Tigers, and the large mana reserve of the Order hero helped. Then he bought 2 more Champions and, together with a couple of Devils, leveled up the heroes to Master of Order. The plan for the Town Portal was overfulfilled - he was in both castles, so he didn't have 4th level Battle Magic of Order. He took perhaps the second normal artifact at the respawn point - the Armor of Regeneration, there was nothing else worthwhile at all. He decided to go to the Tower of the Mage, just in case. They gave him a Berserk Scroll, which was something. He decided not to go to the Illusionist (because there wasn't even a simple slow, let alone a mass slow), and went straight to his opponent. Fatigue, Blindness, Phantoms, and occasional freezing from the Ice helped him break through the Pyromancer, losing about 3 Imps. After the battle, the runner finally leveled up his speed. This time, he decided to take Stealth as well, remembering the last game with Shnurov. In the end, he had 5503 and still became a Grand Master at about the same time.
He leveled up the Necromancer to Grand Master on the ring in front of his opponent's castle. He ran into the castle empty, and there was no Spellcraft branch (he hoped to train the Order heroes). And he had spent all his money on purchases. Never mind, he went back to the dwelling, learned the Necromancer's spell and Mass Cancel, and returned.
His opponent attacked him at the castle.
He has - 5 Devils, 2 Champions, a General (Tactician 5441, Combat 3101, Armor of Regeneration), a Grand Master of Death (he didn't have time to make an Assassin, but the speed of 12 was still higher than the opponent's Devils), 2 Order Mages.
He has - 4 Devils, 2 Colossus, 10 Vampires, a Chaos Mage, a Ninja - a Death Mage, a Tactician, a Necromancer Advanced.
He performed poorly in the arena (he didn't put the Berserk on the Devils, for example), and the cloak with 30% resistance also worked and reflected the spell on the Devils, which ultimately helped his Devils and Vampires kill a couple of his heroes, but the advantage was large.

Pashagreen (Death) def Draniki (Life) IronMan 116
Random map, no Barbarians. On day 6, he had 2 towns, a mine, gauntlets, and a lord. He didn't have a level 4 creature yet. Then Draniki wrote that everything was over... he was losing on the town. They were overwhelmed, but he still couldn't take it and decided to end the game.

Draniki(Haven) loose Havr(Chaos), Circle of Life, 1.4.3

Good starting conditions: dragon dwell right next door, a level 4 book with a protection ring in the corner, death in the witch's hut. Yet, a terrible start. I rescued the Lord, headed for the castle and decided not to bypass the minotaurs and thieves, but to wipe them out. There turned out to be way too many of them - I got melted down to a sliver. Then I repeated the feat at the castle - ran out of mana, but at least managed to escape this time. In the end, I took the castle on day 7. Later, I somehow scraped together enough for CDs, which I placed properly on day 6, and generally things started moving. Because there were good artifacts for a tank (agility sword, health ring, club from a rescued hero), I decided to level him up. Though for some reason I decided to do this with a necromancer (even though both melee and resist were sold at the non-magical university), whereas it should have been done with an archer. And if I really wanted an assassin, there was the witch... Also, a tactician could have been made from that same archer using the altar... Oh well. The runner categorically refused to level up; I sent both available altars into stealth. In the end, I entered the metro at the start of week 3, when it's usually time to start (or even finish) poking around the edges. When I got a runner with 434 in the metro, I decided to try and force the game (I really didn't want to drag myself across the whole map) and slip through the portal. I struggled to get him the necessary levels (since at that moment he decided to finish leveling running), the last one being on the Dragon Utopia guard. I didn't take the same utopia, as it would be a waste of a day to resurrect a couple of dead heroes, and without them it would be difficult. I killed off the remaining heroes, except for the thief, at the portal guard, and resurrected them in the sanctuary already on the other side. Raised levels at the tree, didn't go for the utopia - my immunity reserve was small, so I held back. I managed to sneak through the "backyards" all the way to the opponent's castle, which I captured, and then ran to the 2nd one. Here I messed up as usual, a couple of times even. The necromancer bought from the opponent could have easily reached the empty second castle. Instead, I raised a level on the ring, learned raise dead in the castle, and joyfully joined the army. And the second mistake - on the last step, I reached the magic school and didn't notice that I had no money for purchases. Now, I had a chaos unit 3330 in my army; he could have raised his level and gained ownership of the book, since the main chaos hero knew some things from the castle. That's where they got me.
So, the opponent had:
6 titans, 28 djinn, Haven Mage Guild, Life M, runner - advanced Haven, tactician (Mage Guild tactics).
I had:
Assassin (combat 5413, advanced death), chaos Mage Guild (though only knows M, but the full set), chaos expert (but only level 1 from the book available: chaos, death, and haven), tactician (which kind - not very important, since there was no army anyway), ninja (advanced death) and one more advanced death.
The ninja and assassin had cancel, morale +5.
On the first turn, I moved almost everyone before the opponent's turn (only titans shot, to prevent the djinn from getting in, I grounded them with a high-morale tactician), removed immunity from the priest and launched an inferno into him, catching the djinn as well. Priest is dead, my necromancer raised one djinn, who then "song-mirrored" the titans, not letting them really move.
After that, I basically controlled the battle and didn't let them do anything, even though the assassin was hanging by a thread for one turn.

Thanks for the game!