Posts from SoD Championship

Pit for LM (red, Rampart, Kyrre, Kyrre) def MatrosOFF+Wic (blue, Tower, Neela, Monere), Jebus, 126.
Since the opponents were quite late, minor sanctions were applied to them, which resulted in me choosing my color after I had already started the reroll. And this color almost ruined me.
Had to restart 3 generations on 111 because they were completely dead, and in two of them Tower had Pikidram, i.e. a very likely restart...
The opponents restarted one decent and one average generation and...
What I got is something I rarely see on Jebus. In short, luck was on my side.
111 - Kyrre has 6 elves, Ivor has 6 elves, centaurs are practically maxed, roads are clear. There's a free external dwelling of elves on the road near the castle, there are also dragons. Money is okay too. Heroes are decent - Fiona, Alamar, Tyraxor. Kyrre gets Offense as first skill - so she should level well.
112 - upgrade elves, a couple of crypts, found a second dragon external dwelling. A couple more Dragon Fly Hives opened up.
113 - scouted Ancient Behemoths - just perfect, since Kyrre got Earth magic. And Pathfinding for a full set. Captured the dragon external dwelling with the gorgons and +3 armor, monsters cast Forgetfulness at a bad time and ate a dozen centaurs. Took the dwelling itself too - speed boost with a dragon. On the other side found two Pandora's Boxes - thinking of splitting up there.
114 - the hero who was supposed to take the town didn't make it. Kyrre's turn was essentially lost. But found two more Pandora's Boxes. And the home town on the opposite side is unguarded.
115 - take the barbarian town, capture a Pandora's Box guarded by a horde of basilisks - 15k gold. Not bad either. In another one behind gargoyles there was 5k experience. Level 9. In the home town I build a guild - and there's Slow right away.
116 - bad turn. Lost a dragon by mistake on minotaurs going for a Pandora's Box, and there was some magic... Found and checked a Griffin Conservatory nearby, 3-4, will take on 121.
117 - Pandora's Box behind greater demons gave some experience. Level 12, expert Logistics, Earth, also got Wisdom. Built unicorns in the castle and elves in the secondary. Tyraxor took the second dragon external dwelling.
121 - buy out most of the troops, transfer to Kyrre, enter the conservatory - it's maxed. Ended fine, lost a dragon, a couple dozen centaurs and ate through the dwarves and dendroids. Visited the stables, split into secondary, learned Slow.
122 - captured a +2 bubble, entered a hive with Fiona - it's maxed. Ate the dragon, the last one. Kyrre refilled mana at the well, split into the capital and on a greater pegasus ran to Ancient Behemoths.
123 - another Dragon Fly Hive with 8 wyverns, buy out pegasuses and unicorns, beat twenty Ancient Behemoths without trouble. Behind them a Pandora's Box with wood and a prison behind rocs. Decide to start with the prison - it has useless Tant. Center is home, there's an external dragon dwelling near the road.
124 - take the Pandora's Box - all Earth with advanced Wisdom, nice. Take the external dwelling. Then - towards the opponent, break through a Utopia level 3. Lost the last mana, Unicorns, a couple of wyverns, most of the centaurs and pegasuses. Got something mediocre - Gladius, Boots of Levitation and Implosion (KZ) + Ring of Drago. Monere shows weak stats, not very scared even without mana.
125 - they didn't attack. Take the Dragon Fly Hive +8, break through Angels with Gorgons for a chest and an external unicorn dwelling - gives 20k gold. Run to the other side, need to get to the town and refill mana. On the way - a chest for 10k, gives Tactics, and a library.
126 - keep running. Dragon Fly Hive +8. Then I see and take a Conservatory very close to the town - a level 3. And from it Monere is spotted. Army doesn't inspire fear - 100+ blue units, their single units and a pair of Angels, stats too. I attack - the game ends.
Thanks for the game.

That happened.

Having heard about the imposed "penalty", I immediately said - let's play, simply because we were planning to take blue anyway, and on SodJeb with 3 restarts and a couple of mid-to-weak castles (and we only planned to go with those), blue gives more advantage on restarts than it loses on the second turn.

What paid off - Pit restarted two Pikidrams for us, but when he had no resets left and we still had 1, such a rigged generation happened. First day everything was great - a blue cap near the castle behind a horde of greater basilisks, Monere in the tavern, a Pendant of Speed pulled from the first crypt, Spirit of Oppression from the second, a Ring of Speed lying nearby. Also external dwellings of gremlins and mages, tons of gold. That doesn't get restarted.

But it turned out that the wealth of the spawn was almost exhausted with that - until the end of the week we only found a level 3 conservatory, a mini Dragon Fly Hive, and one more external dwelling each for mages and gremlins. No senior external dwellings, no Pandora's Boxes, no money either - even had trouble buying out on 121 (with Nagas in the Citadel on Jeb :smile11:).

Dad had nowhere to level, had to eat chests for experience. But the leveling didn't go well either - got only Pathfinding, Water and Fire magic :vomiting smiley:. Had to build Blind and break through with it.

On 123, by a hair's breadth on the verge of a loss, Dad finally breaks through to the center, having spent the Ogre Mage stack and a couple of Nagas, but preserving mana for DD. And there's already Kyrre standing with tons of cash.

We run into the desert, there we dump the remaining mana and half the army on a pack of Devils for an empty chest and a horde of Dreads for Wings (we thought it'd be a total wipe), fly over the cliffs to the central Rampart, there are a few goodies nearby, but next turn Kyrre catches up.

Thanks for the game!

The last round, only two pairs of players remain.

Pit for LM (blue, Dungeon, Shakti) - vitalic (red, Tower, Nila), 2sm4d(3)

MatrosOFF+Wic (team, Stronghold, Kreg Hex) - Favio (team, Inferno, Peer), Jebus

We are watching the live stream of Pit and Vitalic's game.

m29-266-434
Jebus vs Wicc

About my game with Vitalik. I'm blue Fortress - main hero Alkin, he's red Castle - boss Valeska. We used all restarts, that's what playing till the end gets you. I discovered a road blocked by a horde of Earth Elementals (guarding a Hive). I ran for a long time along a side corridor, an external dwelling of Gnolls and that's it. I found an entrance to the underground, ran through it back to the main road, placed all my heroes in a chain, on week 2 transferred the army, on 123 broke through the Elementals and took the Hive on week 8. The respawn turned out to be good, found an external dwelling of Gorgons and a Dragon Utopia, the main hero - Alkin started leveling up like crazy, better late than never.
Already on 132 I break the Dragon Utopia with 3 Dimension Doors, Gorgons rule. Book of Earth, sword +12 - 3, hat +6.
The scouts found 2 more Dragon Utopias, Alkin runs to them, on week 4 takes them (lots of artifacts for stats), as well as the green bot's Conflux, I buy and level up Earth and Air magic.
Here I make a mistake. It's clear the game is dragging on and that control of the map should decide things. There is neither Fly nor Dimension Door. Clearly I needed to take the army from Flax, give it to a secondary hero and fight for resources to build the mage guild. I don't do this. Neither of us had Logistics or movement spells, at least that was the impression - the main heroes could barely drag themselves across the map.
Then I send Alkin into what seemed like a promising passage, I pick up Boots of Speed, some minor stuff here and there. Here's the second mistake - intuition failed me - I decide there's nothing good there and Town Portal back to the castle. But on the very next turn a scout discovers a Dragon Utopia, a Pandora's Box, and a Griffin Conservatory on a tiny patch of land. Sadness.((

Everything within reach has been devoured, I decide to go to the promising Dragon Utopia, next to it a Sphere of Earth Magic, Pandora's Box... combat stats 22,30, magic power of 24 was nice, with Expert Summon Elementals and Implosion.

At this point the club time is up, we've been playing for more than 10 hours, clearly not finishing quickly. Two options: play until morning till the very end or concede on points. I conceded the victory to Vitalik.)

So that the intrigue is preserved in the last round, so that Vitalik has strength left, Pete and Vitalik's game - I'm sure many will want to watch it.
Thank you to all partners for the long, interesting games, I got great pleasure. I recalled a lot along the way, there were some hints given to me, especially Vic giving tips. I wanted to disqualify myself, but everyone unanimously talked me out of it.
Had some nice cognac and whatnot, today after the round we're holding the awards ceremony and getting ready to go home.

Let's get Vitalik to play, we'll do a two-way stream, otherwise it's boring to wait for his turn :)

Nagan-4 (к, Dungeon, Shakti) def nik312 (с, Castle, Valeska), 8mm6, 144

Generated at the top, big but dreary respawn, no money, on week 1 medusas with citadel. But Shakti has 3 stacks, and the 4th hero came - Galtran. Decided to play by leveling necro.
The respawn made a big circle and returned almost to the castle, there was a teleport, no other exits from the respawn. Manticores with castle on 127, Galtran has nearly 200 skeletons, found an external dwelling of minotaurs.
Only at the beginning of the third managed to get out of the respawn, found an external dwelling of red dragons, on 136 with 400 skeletons broke a big Dragon Utopia, got wings, earth book, hat +6 to all, on 141 - another Dragon Utopia - with fire book and hat with 5th level. Galtran (19,25, 13,13).
On 144 opponent surrendered.

exclamation on 113: "well if I throw away a setup like this..." *laughter*

Valya came with a normal amount of archers, second hero in the tavern - Straker right away... No question, there's necro on HL - we play.

First couple of days Straker collected chests, got 2 levels from 3 chests and advanced necromancy. Valya was busy taking crypts off the path, because there was a block on the path - a pack of swords. On 113 the block was finally broken and what do we see?... 2 external dwellings of archers right by the path...

And right after exiting the zone - a Pandora's box for gremlins. Straker experts necromancy, grabs the Pandora's box, and there.... Well when I saw it, it took my breath away. 330 peasants + an external dwelling of them visible in the same zone. Quickly look at the template, trying to figure out how to get to the necro's computer... In my head the familiar images of Dragon Utopia on the second, max Griffin Conservatory on the first are already spinning...

Two equal passages are visible - behind zombies and behind gremlins. BUT the passage to gremlins is blocked by a stack of snipers. Praying for the generator's mercy - we break through the zombies. Behind them immediately a block on the road to a stack of unicorns. SHIT! Nothing to be done, we break through to the native computer. Time 116, Straker has already advanced earth, but of spells only haste... Not even view anywhere.

116 - suddenly I realize that since the start of the game I haven't found a single pile of ore :eek:. And the mine is far away and blocked... For cavalry I'm missing 1 wood, and for the citadel 5 stone.... Fuck, well at least the cavalry will stand in the fort - I think and I build..... Town Hall.... :mad:

117 - still no ore, Straker ran away from everyone along a huge long road, which supposedly leads to the native computer's castle... He's been running for the second day, skipping a lot of goodies around... No castle in sight. Hoping for slow and mana replenishment, I keep running...
Suddenly I realize that for cavalry I'm missing 300 gold (!) :smile11:
Why the hell did I build Town Hall instead of marketplace? :smile27:
Hopes of breaking through for free on the second crumble like a house of cards.

121-122 - 70+ marksmen is certainly powerful, but when there are neither cavalry nor oil, even 130 chopped skeletons don't save the situation much. Third day I run as Straker along the road, find a mini-Griffin Conservatory, grab expert earth, collecting all scrolls in sight I find view earth. No slow... No computer's castle either.

123 Dad is in such a *hole that it's scary to think how he'll get out of there. Splitting is not an option, the native castle is not much closer to the passages to the center than Straker himself. In the end I give up on the idea of reaching the computer's castle, grab the mini-Griffin Conservatory and run back. Along the way I also leveled necromancy with Tant, started helping a bit with necrification. From view I understand the party is going to hell, because the necro's zone turned out to be right behind the block of snipers.

127 - max Dragon Fly Hive taken, slow still not found, I go at the unicorns with 12 wyverns, 1 angel, 70+ marksmen and 200+ skeletons. I fall short of the unicorns by a couple of cells, decide to break a prison on the way for a pack of psychos..... Was in such a hurry to attack that I didn't even split... Result - 9 psychos 8 mages, the archers get demoralized on the first turn, wyverns don't fly up from below to cover them, mages aren't withdrawn and run straight to the skeleton-archers. Next turn mages immediately cover the archers, incidentally hit the angel, psychos hit the angel and skeletons - angel died. (there was a choice - to test the angel's durability or let both crash into the archers... :smile35: ). From a battle that promised nothing, I end up without 30 marksmen, wyverns, 50+ skeletons and the angel. :smile11:

131 - with a delivery of 5 cavalry I hit the unicorns, leaving 3 cavalry and a wyvern. The now small number of marksmen is taking its toll (no money to buy them from the castle). Behind the unicorns immediately a block of a pack of monks. I spit on it, turn around to grab a far-off Griffin Conservatory visible in the middle of nowhere, and do a bit of necrification on the side.

133-134 - the Griffin Conservatory turns out to be cut off by lava :smile35:, need to go around even more.... But a Dragon Fly Hive is found, wyverns become 15, with eating the wyverns and 2 cavalry the monks fall. First castle in the center taken. Tempo is crap, the town is Tower. Had a faint hope for the necro one. 405 peasants in the castle are already an eyesore. Thank god the Mage Guild finally gave slow. A bunch of Dragon Utopias are visible, which I have absolutely nothing to take with.

135 - leveled mass haste, I spit on everything - go to hit the snipers. Break through, run to the necro...

141 - Never made it to the necro, Galtran is spotted in the tavern with Dragon Utopia stats, my Straker has week 1 stats. (didn't find a single artifact except +4 shield) From view I see that to the necro it's still half a week of running, and on 144, tired of the eternal running along endless roads, I surrender. 0 chance.

Now of course it's clear how it should have been carried. On the first, if you don't screw up and actually build cavalry, give them to Valya, who leveled basic tactics, then the snipers fall on 121. After that, even despite the genius roads, by the end of the week you can reach the necro and on the third with 500+ skeletons everything is done easily and simply... But as it is... Thanks for the game :smile43:

About my game with Vitalik. I'm blue Fortress - main hero Alkin, he's red Castle - boss Valeska. Used all the restarts, that's what happens when you push it too far....
Had some cognac and other drinks, today after the tour we are holding the award ceremony and heading home.

Archers aren't built up, wood mine is behind a block. I break through to the next zone and from there is a one-way teleport, which sends Valeska one way and my mage on 1hp another way (so the mage got stuck guarding the teleport). Valeska breaks into a small area with the computer; he didn't even leave the castle, just solid blocks. Killed a couple of heroes and got a Conflux with built-up water dwellings. Then I leveled up four mages, all had a shooter hitting for 50-70 hits for fights with noobs (but they weren't needed). Spent some time at the computer in a dungeon, but there are no caches and no one to summon((. The only tasty thing is wood behind 49 cyclops. I build up the Conflux (not even enough wood for a second market). That's how the first week ended. At the end of the second, I found Pit Lords in the refugee camp and made 60 demons in a week and a half; now it's urgent to go to Dragon Utopia. Took three, got КЗ and not many stats. Then I try to catch Erik on the move or sneak through his lands into the central treasure zone. The latter happened: behind the phoenixes is a prison and a box with 15 wizards, behind 19 black dragons are one-way portals and a prison with a level 20 hero (he wasn't really needed since Valeska is already level 18, Nelka level 15). Well, it's night time now and time for bed...
Thanks for the game.

Added after 25 minutes

Get Vitalik some same-time streams, we'll set up a two-way stream, otherwise it's boring waiting for the turn :)

No mood, start is total crap, broke through to 19 monks, 72 gorgons with upgraded ones, 72 damn things throwing stones and hit a dead block. Should have taken rest 113, but before that Pit, during map generation with water (one respawn completely drowned), said this was my 111 and indeed there is nothing in the rules about map bugs.
So, I'm just sitting here for formality and waiting for when Pit wins (Erik returns, we quickly congratulate Pit and end the Tournaments).

Well, now some good news, Merry Christmas everyone!:smile03:

m77-615-492

During the first week, I managed to build a decent base – a Stronghold with golems and a market (even without a magic tower, as there was no ore), and in the secondary market... Pitik, come sooner, don't waste your time...

Instead of complaining, it would be better to give him a chance. LeBron and Dirty are giving great commentary on Pit's game, it will be much more interesting to watch the two-sided match.

Instead of complaining, I should have offered him a trance track. LeBron and Dirty are giving great commentary on Pit's track, it will be much more interesting to watch the two-sided battle.

I'm not complaining, just shedding a few tears. I offered LeBron a trance track number in a private message, but it seems he's not interested, so I'll focus and take the Utopia track...

I'm not whining, just sobbing a little. I offered the transaction number to Lebron in a private Word message, but it seems he won't be interested; I'll go focus and get Dragon Utopia...

Lebron didn't receive anything in his PMs. The transaction is still needed :rolleyes:

and it's still popular :) I haven't received anything in my inbox, but it would be really cool.

LeBron didn't receive anything in his DMs. Trans is still in demand:rolleyes:

m70-704-349

m12-037-676
Jebus vs MatrosOFF+Wic, continued