Spiel #1250 Turnierspiel#55 | Round 6 : 2019 PBEM Duel Tournament #55

Congratz Sauna! Was interesting to see you both picked Orc Theo. ^^

I missed your report, I could have started round 7 one week earlier. :o So time to start now! Sauna, you're facing SpiritSeeker, waiting for your class/race!

Was writing a longer report but I guess xlnt reported meanwhile so it failed. :p copied it to notepad just in case so will post it now anyway.

A fairly long, 52-turn duel. Wasn't happy with my starting area, vassal was on an island to the south so couldn't conquer or do any quests for it. My route in the south (and a good expansion spot) was also blocked by a spider camp that I couldn't risk fighting since I always predict (usually correctly) a 100% succes rate for enemy webs. Only good thing was the 3 ancient ruins relatively nearby. At the start I played relatively passively just consolidating my surroundings and going for evangelists ASAP, and seems like xlnt did the same. His scouting was much faster than mine though.
Annoying camp blocking a mountain pass

Eventually (and after some early morning drunken misclicks with army movement...) I started heading towards the enemy and saw that his army was much stronger than mine. I had failed all my T3 converts and charms so the core of my army was just my leader, a rogue hero, a black knight and two ogres I got from a quest on my way. xlnt had made crusaders, had some evangelists (mine were still at home) and had cleared a dungeon near his lands and managed to MC a human warbreed. I didn't want to fight that so I decided to be annoying and go to the south of his strong eco via a sea route.
Scary army (he also had an invisible lvl 7 sorc around, and more evangelists inc)
Bullying xlnts strong eco

I didn't want to risk getting my stack stuck on his lands having to face his armies, so after inflicting some eco dmg I retreated to the rich uncleared arctic lands to the south, leaving h im in an uncomfortable position to either follow me while I clear and convert, stay and defend his lands, or continue his clearing plans to the east and leave his lands undefended. He chose to leave his crusaders to defend and went east with his heroes and other troops. Around this time I also started heading west with a goblin warlord and three evangelists.

The arctic had a lot of stuff for me to clear, including a dungeon and two halls of forefathers (sp?, the ice castles). Converts were pretty unlucky but managed to get some t2's and a yeti at least. Also took a frostling town which was nice, since I only had my throne and a single fort for an eco. The goblin warlord also rushed in from the east to meet my leader stacks and MC'd some node serpents. Meanwhile xlnt harassed my giant vassal at top middle, but I had two cherubs next to it and he only managed to kill one with a suicide rush from a boar rider (or maybe there was some miscliking involved), so he let the vassal be and went for my capital, while I circled back up and went for his, killing his defender stack on the way with no casualties taken(had divine justicars).
xlnt harassing my vassal

The ensuing base trade heavily favored me, since I had scorched earth on my throne and his eco was much stronger than mine. I took all of his cities and of course kept them and started pumping out exalteds, while he only got my orc vassal on the island. After this I split my armies, taking the goblin + evangelists + ogres underground to clear. I assumed he would go north of my capital or underground to clear some more, but instead he rushed back west to the arctic lands really quickly, which caught me by surprise. I took my leader stack to defend via sea, clearing a lost city on the way which gave me a kraken and Summon Spirit Elemental. He grabbed the undefended frostling city with his high lvl sorc, leaving her split from his stack, trusting her invisibility I guess. My kraken with true sight saw it though, and I sniped the sorcerer with two node serpents, and took the city back. This was the second and last "real fight" of the game.

I was in no rush to catch him since I wa s clearing and pumping out troops with good eco. I expected him to try to regain his main eco (I think his armies had arctic concealment from a shrine so I lost them completely, and was paranoid about them coming north) but he didn't, choosing instead to try to go clear a few remaining tough sites mid map for money to keep himself afloat (he had "treasury emptied" -malus on quite a few turns). Then at turn 52 he had lost his leader and the game. I'm assuming he went to clear the lich castle near my giant vassal and got unlucky with invoke death or something.

Good game strategic ally, even though there were no major army fights. When I first saw his armies I thought I was at a major disadvantage.
Flying leader stack going to keep an eye on him and clear in the east
Exalted pumping city
Goblin stack returning from UG (these units were like champion 4-5)
The small stack sent to take his last city if possible
Final Score
Military score

Thanks xlnt for the game! If your evangelists were slow, then so were mine. :^)

Hi! Can you please update the status to "Ongoing" on the BF?

What turn have you reached so far?

Settings look good, you can start!

Good luck & have fun!

Game hosted

Hi guys! We've got both your class/race. Sauna, please post screenshots of the settings and use the main branch of the balance mod: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=661597466

Then after green light, you'll be good to go.