Posts from [TOURNAMENT-SoD] Novice - 2020. Winter

It started off well; thanks to the external dwelling of demons, I killed all the computers in the first week. I found 2 Dragon Fly Hives. I was ahead of the opponent in towns. But as it turned out later, on my respawn and the 3 enemy respawns, there were only these 2 Dragon Fly Hives, plus some single Griffin Conservatory deep in the snow. I started digging up resources for construction in the Tower and gathering demons. On day 126, I dove into Treasure and ran into a "group" of green dragons blocking the passage. Due to a stupid translation issue, I messed up again. "Group" had always been 10-19, so I got scared and pulled back, but it turned out to be 5-9 in my translation. I lost 3 days buying and transporting troops, leveling the hero. In the end, I fell far behind. On day 135, I built full control with the help of the Bible and rebuilding. On day 137, I prepared to attack the opponent; he was ahead in army strength, but the attack went well, and I started capturing towns, while my main was wandering somewhere in Treasure. In terms of main hero skills, I was ahead, and the opponent apparently kept trying to find something in Treasure until the very end, although I would have given battle in his place since he had a larger army. In the end, there was no final fight; the opponent surrendered because, with a huge number of towns, the demon swarm grew faster than skeletons. As the post-game analysis showed, the opponent had a decent advantage in angel respawns (5 against my 1) and in swarms (~24 against my 12), 2 Necromancers, and Jeddite. I liked his setup more, but maybe I'm missing some finer points. Thanks for the game.

Thank you to my opponent for the game! :)

Thanks for the game and good luck in the final!

I gave away the dungeon for 2000, although I kind of lagged. I generally didn't understand how to trade here and for whom. Though of course, it's an easy moneymaker — I think you could trade the dungeon for up to 3000+. I also traded for the blue color and took the Necropolis and Tower comps, opponent conf. Kiri and Müllich in the tavern made the draft work. On day 1-1-3 I took Kiri's comp, it was a bit far away. And then I started hard-papping, I decided to immediately scout more of the comp's territory with troops, maybe grab some chests. I released a hero, he didn't make it to the comp with the troops. I released a second one, he also didn't make it. In the end, the comp killed the already leveled-up Kiri in the town. Essentially, I sank 7500 gold, which really hurt later on. After that, the land didn't level up, but Müllich was more or less wrecking things. And most importantly, the comp built the Necro upgrade + gifted the Necro amulet, but out of about 15 heroes, I never rolled a Necromancer. Overall, the development was so-so; on the second week I grabbed a couple of Griffin Conservatory singles, 2 little Naga Banks. One treasure zone turned out to be kind of empty, with a long road tunnel. On the second week there was a block, couldn't check what was there before day 1-2-1. I started building Town Portal, there were a lot of rebuilds. Loinis went into the treasure zone to level up the land and farm Dragon Fly Hives. By the end of the week I farmed 20 Dragon Flies, leveled Loinis nicely, got Town Portal. I was planning to buy land for Gundula in the treasure village, and meanwhile push Loinis into the center. There was a lot of mana from the chain and its boost, but no Resurrection. Also, the road to my Tower comp didn't generate at all, so on the third week I could only push in the center. Taking Dragon Utopias with the mage, the second with Dragon Flies... no way. Also saw through scouting how the opponent was farming Griffin Conservatories and Dragon Fly Hives; it kind of looked like GG. And then Morgoth sinks about 140 Fanatics. Basically, if he hadn't sunk them, then if I had managed to clear the central treasure zone, I would have had a chance. At that time, the opponent had Dimension Door from the miner, and I had Town Portal. So after the Dragon Fly Hives in the center, I could have farmed Dragon Utopias and leveled Gundula.
Thanks for the game!

Morgot gave away the Necro for 4000 and somewhere around 1000 for colors. Well, playing as Necro on the first week is a real pain with rollbacks, of course. But in principle, maybe it's worth limiting yourself to one computer and on the second one, take down the second and go into the treasure zone. In principle, on one hand, Tower gives a good Mage Guild and builds decently with a rollback. But the presence of a tough GO practically eliminates any contacts on 121. Considering even that I had to buy myself off from the computer with 23 skeletons, it was still easy to take the maxi utopia at the beginning of the third week. I think it's worth jacking the Necro price up hard to 8000+ in the bidding. I also noticed that the Mage Guild rebuild here is so-so. Because after developing a bit, there are a lot of Dragon Utopias in the treasure zones, and relics are just lying around, control there is rather just farming.
Anyway, I got into the game because the Citadel was built. Even the presence of a second Castle for the opponent on 112 didn't stop me. I slowly captured the Castle of the Dungeon computer and targeted breaking through to the second one. And then the computer came back to snatch things away. To transfer the army, I decided to take it down in the field, which was a big mistake. 60 skeletons with archery couldn't overcome 60 Troglodytes, 10 Harpies, and 7 Evil Eyes under the Damacon. I had to buy myself off and build the Citadel. I should have just built the Citadel and skipped the turn. There was a Lich dwelling, instead of plans to finish off the second computer, I should have used the Citadel to take the Lich dwelling on 117. Overall, with the remnants of the army, I burst into the second computer's area, having 3 Liches and 20 skeletons, I put a Citadel there already, otherwise it could have easily been game over from the Ramp. Anyway, things looked so-so on 121, but I transferred everything into skeletons, did a bit of Necromancy on the Dwarf Cottage, farmed mana, and went into the Griffin Conservatory. There were already maybe 200+ skeletons, probably could have taken the maxi one with the double. So in general, in terms of priority for buying towns, after Necro, probably Dungeon. And Tower seems to give a good Mage Guild, but the penalty ruins things a lot, and as for relics in treasure zones, unlike 6LM [Sixth Level Magic], getting control there not from the Mage Guild is not rare.
Before taking the Griffin Conservatory, I also put an Intentionally Stupid Righteous Anger there for splitting, and then bam, the opponent covers Isra, with a trained Grindan on 2 Gargoyles. Well, I thought, either he built Flight, or a Flight scroll with 5th level GM. And so it turned out, it was Flight. Another snag, if the Ramp had pushed that to me, I would have been left without a Mage Guild. A mini treasure zone generated from the Ramp at the Tower, he was building the Mage Guild there. In principle, I had chains on defense. I was also a bit lucky that when I was clearing a prison, I cleared a trained Mage and retrained Death Wave on him. Moreover, he was placed under a split. Grindan stood 1600 moves from the Ramp. I generally built Pegasi and with Death Wave killed Grindan on turn 30. And he, it turns out, was just scouting there and thought he'd buy himself off for free in the Castle, and then took Isra as well. Well, I figured as much. Losing such a mage at the start of the second week is just... no comment. It messed up my plans for capturing the Conflux a bit, but maybe it even worked in my favor, the Conflux's Castle was far away, the roads to the Conflux were very slow and long. So I went straight into the treasure zone with 2 Angels and 250 skeletons. Just at the Castle I did some Necromancy and got a mana hat from a fight. I farmed mana, transferred the skeletons, and went to take the Dragon Utopia. The maxi utopia fell easily, gave KVs [Key of Visibility?] and something else useful. Then I gradually started building the Mage Guild further, swapped artifacts for resources. There were also maxi Cyclops in the treasure zone. Town Portal hadn't dropped yet, only dropped maybe from the 4th rebuild. I Town Portaled into the opponent's treasure zone, there were a bunch of Dragon Utopias, in the first Dragon Utopia a KZ. I skipped one Dragon Utopia to run for the villages. Well, by then it was starting to look like game over. In the mini treasure zone near the Ramp, there was a guard of 140 Diamond Golems, I trained Vidomina on them. She, by the way, levels up decently compared to Isra, because she's a Mage. Well, true, I couldn't quite get her to Expert Necromancy in the end. Then I captured the treasure zone directly from my Conflux and farmed the central treasure zone a bit. It ended up 5 treasure zones vs 2.
Thanks for the game!

Thank you for the game! It was a long, difficult, and interesting one!

It could have been an interesting game, but the opponent threw it in Dragon Utopia. THX