It was tough game that was supposed to be turned into attrition war which I should lose, but mahimka made a mistake and so lost it.
It was hard start for me. Literally every gold source site near my throne (except 1-2 sites) was defended by multiple fire based range units - draconian flamers, elders, hatchlings, fire elementals, so it was very hard to win battles without taking much damage even using splitting. My progress was slow and after few turns I could fight only one battle per turn, sometimes I even had to hesitate one more turn just to heal my heavily wounded troops a bit. Funny thing that before I realized all situation, I produced settler and had to settle city without cleared sites in the domain. Situation was so bad that I decided to research combat spell as my second research just to be able to win fights with my deadly wounded units, but still I lost two raiders in risky fights and mammoth rider because of miscalculation.
Everything started to get better when I bought two elves archers from the inn.
I researched bards quite late (on turn 12-13) and produced only. With archers, bard and newly converted mammoth rider I started clearing Halls of the Forefathers and took three of them. With 2 converts, ghoul strike and inflicting despair and curse on my necro hero I managed to convert 3 yeti, 2 ice queens and some other t1-t2 units from the map and gathered 2.5 stacks in total.
With this army I went to opponent's cities and at the same time was exploring rest of the my resp with second hero.
I tried to scout mahimka's main stack with crows, but without success. At some point I found his secondary stacks with hero, summons, evolved spiders and some converted units, and after a few turns it was obvious that he is planning to attack my cities. My army near throne was much weaker, so I decided to produce royal guards as much as I can and hold defence in my throne while my main stacks capturing his cities.
Finally I scouted mahimka's main stack with elite king shock serpent and elite hunters which were close to my cities as well. We attacked ours cities at the same time, I took his natural vassal and secondary city and I expected to lose two my cities on next turn.
I had 1.5 stacks with my hero running to the throne and 4 more units in the throne. I thought that I have time to join my armies and sit in the throne, but mahimka very surprised me and attacked throne before I did this.
His stack was quite far two turns before and I didn't expect that at all.
I think it was very greedy move from his side to blindly attack throne and expose leader knowing that his throne could be captured in a few turns. He saw my hero's stack, but he didn't see additional 4-5 units because of arctic concealment and so I was able to attack his army 11 vs 6.
It was very tough battle, he had 40% frost protection from "warm at night" skill and also there was "Omen of the Dove" cosmic event which I think was worse for me, because my units were weak and were doing very little damage vs his high defense units.
Despite of this I won the fight and even last man standing king of the battle fell.
My main stacks were two turns far from his throne and his leader was in void, so he surrendered.
I think if he would not attack imme diately, and wait for his secondary stacks, we just exchange our cities and most likely I would lose this game because of high upkeep and low mobility.
mahimka
Confirmed by keika
It was tough game that was supposed to be turned into attrition war which I should lose, but mahimka made a mistake and so lost it.
It was hard start for me. Literally every gold source site near my throne (except 1-2 sites) was defended by multiple fire based range units - draconian flamers, elders, hatchlings, fire elementals, so it was very hard to win battles without taking much damage even using splitting. My progress was slow and after few turns I could fight only one battle per turn, sometimes I even had to hesitate one more turn just to heal my heavily wounded troops a bit.
Funny thing that before I realized all situation, I produced settler and had to settle city without cleared sites in the domain.
Situation was so bad that I decided to research combat spell as my second research just to be able to win fights with my deadly wounded units, but still I lost two raiders in risky fights and mammoth rider because of miscalculation.
Everything started to get better when I bought two elves archers from the inn.
I researched bards quite late (on turn 12-13) and produced only.
With archers, bard and newly converted mammoth rider I started clearing Halls of the Forefathers and took three of them.
With 2 converts, ghoul strike and inflicting despair and curse on my necro hero I managed to convert 3 yeti, 2 ice queens and some other t1-t2 units from the map and gathered 2.5 stacks in total.
With this army I went to opponent's cities and at the same time was exploring rest of the my resp with second hero.
I tried to scout mahimka's main stack with crows, but without success. At some point I found his secondary stacks with hero, summons, evolved spiders and some converted units, and after a few turns it was obvious that he is planning to attack my cities.
My army near throne was much weaker, so I decided to produce royal guards as much as I can and hold defence in my throne while my main stacks capturing his cities.
Finally I scouted mahimka's main stack with elite king shock serpent and elite hunters which were close to my cities as well.
We attacked ours cities at the same time, I took his natural vassal and secondary city and I expected to lose two my cities on next turn.
I had 1.5 stacks with my hero running to the throne and 4 more units in the throne. I thought that I have time to join my armies and sit in the throne, but mahimka very surprised me and attacked throne before I did this.
His stack was quite far two turns before and I didn't expect that at all.
I think it was very greedy move from his side to blindly attack throne and expose leader knowing that his throne could be captured in a few turns.
He saw my hero's stack, but he didn't see additional 4-5 units because of arctic concealment and so I was able to attack his army 11 vs 6.
It was very tough battle, he had 40% frost protection from "warm at night" skill and also there was "Omen of the Dove" cosmic event which I think was worse for me, because my units were weak and were doing very little damage vs his high defense units.
Despite of this I won the fight and even last man standing king of the battle fell.
My main stacks were two turns far from his throne and his leader was in void, so he surrendered.
I think if he would not attack imme diately, and wait for his secondary stacks, we just exchange our cities and most likely I would lose this game because of high upkeep and low mobility.
Knowledge score:
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