Ember, day 20

Estra fell today, but Gotam showed up and we sent Drake to the void.

ts

PS: I feared that you would summon an earth-elemental and kill both heroes with it...

Lord Drake day 20

Finally a day without big mistakes. I've gathered an army in the caves. It's time to try it out soon....

TS

- Charx reported to be absent until the 27th of September -

Ember, day 21

Back to business. Drake has razed the teleporter so that i cant follow him to the caves. The pioneer is being build, and i wonder what he will do... maybe try the center caves?

ts

[This message has been edited by Charx (edited 09-27-2009 @ 06:14 AM).]

Lord Drake day 21

Made an unfortunate misclick.....be my guest

Making this way too easy for you.

TS

Ember, day 22

Today Drake's plans have been revealed. He went into my trap southwest of Hoth (NW corner) when he pursued a Z-bird and a crystal ball. Unfortunately, the trap was not big enough for was coming along.

Drake showed up with a galley, a thunderbird, an ice drake and two succubus, an evil combination because most of my naval army in that area could be seduced. I decided to attack with all whats around and not seducable (galley, thunderbird, Gotam, enchanted knight, penguin and enchanted rogue). We lost the fight, with only the knight and the penguin alive, but we sank the galley, which was the primary objective. Drake's airforce is wounded now and needs healing before moving on to my tower.

We also spotted another force on the land near Hoth, with an impressive gold-medaled Mammoth, but they will need to build another ship before moving on.

Time enough to prepare...

ts

Lord drake day 22

The end is near. I was hoping you'd bring the abominations. You didn't and I lost the galley, so this is pretty much hopeless now. I'll play it till the end though.

TS

[This message has been edited by Troy Locker (edited 09-27-2009 @ 05:45 PM).]

Ember, day 23

Drake has fortified himself within the frostling town. We may not become sloppy now, just focus until its done...

ts

Lord Drake day 23

Still alive. I don't know about tomorrow though.....

TS

Ember, day 24

What do you think! We are civilized human beings and therefore grant our opponent one more day to give a big farewell party.

ts

Lord Drake day 24

Thanks, but I need just one more day .
Couldn't finish the transport in time to have a go at the tower....

If you go for it now....I'll play till I'm dead though; got nothing to lose.

Good game, Charx.

I lost the game when I lost the battles in the north. I was really disapointed with the first one, as I thought I had a fair chance (ended up killing one out of 6 units). The second one was just plain stupid.

Ember, day 25

It is done. In the morning, our frostling hero and his army from the underground sailed to the southeast island and met Uther Pendragon's knights. Together they stormed the last of Drake's fortifications.

Good game, Troy! I really enjoyed it.

I think the most important situation was even some days before the battles in the north. My Z-bird scouted your swimmers that wanted to push through that watergate in the north. I decided to take your windmill to lure you southwards, because in the next turn i had to place my very small army (Uther, canon, witch, small cave thingy and rider) on the road next to the AI-block. If you pushed instead of hunting my bird, then you would have seen it and an attack would have been an option. With a crippled army and stupid use of the ressources (got the wooden wall in the elven outpost... in my testgame it was a town and already had a barrack, so i was hoping for the lvl 2 barrack...) the game could have developed in the other direction...

Maybe i will send an interesting screenshot to Swolte of the day before the battles where you left your army scattered. I figured out that on the first glance this was a mistake, but on a closer look there were so many possible moves with great potential for you, even after loosing the hero, so that the whole situation was a draw in my opinion. I spent nearly 40 minutes evaluating what would be best...

PS: Sorry i had a boat-bug which created a restart-message. But i think you will agree that in the final battle there could not be any other outcome.

[This message has been edited by Charx (edited 09-29-2009 @ 04:16 AM).]

I haven't seen the last day yet, but I'm sure you had overwhelming strenght.

Thanx for the game, Charx. It was a good one. You played efficiantly and precise.

You probably could have caught up with my wiz before I razed the teleporter, but you had no rush since the game allready was won.

After some days of unprecise play by me on the surface I decided to go for the offensive way out of the standoff we had on the northern bridge. I had the chance to divide your army there and move the fight outside the towerwalls. I misjudged the strength of my hydras in autocombat, and what I thought would be a narrow win ended up with me losing my entire army on the surface. The attack hardly weekened your forces at all.

My tactic from here was to leave the surface to you and win your tower in the underground. Hopefully this could get me back in the game with a tiny chance of a late comeback, but I was lacking resources and I had another setback when I lost my first incarnate on day 17. He had an important part in my plans for the underground. I had one more, but still this was a major setback, and it was incredibly unlucky. He died fighting three coreunits. I also made a stupid attack on the underground tower with my galleys bodyguard.(three archers behind walls vs my penguin, slither and abomination all stoneskinned) They never made it through the walls. unbelievable! Well it was not a good decision to attack, but the outcome did not favour me.
I sould have waited for my army to aid the attack, and I should have secured a good bodyguard for my galley if I should stand a chance to win your underground tower.

You punished me for my sloppy play and earned yourself a welldeserved win. Good work!

Good luck in the 2nd round!

I will come back in the next tourney and make a better figure then

[This message has been edited by Troy Locker (edited 09-29-2009 @ 07:57 AM).]

Quoted from Troy Locker:

I will come back in the next tourney and make a better figure then

Hey... don't give up yet.... just hope that Black_d1 wins boths his games, OK1 beats Smuki and loses to Morgul and finally have James win as expected and you'll sneak in the back door winning a tiebreak, I think (sounds like material for a Flander Fact )

Great game, I watched with interest... and yes... a screenshot would be fabulous

And it's final! Ladies and gentlemen, this TNS reporting live from the scene where Charx obtained his second, and last, victory of this round. It seemed to have sealed the tournament for Troy this year as well!
Charx, congratulations on reaching the second round! It seems like focusing on this match payed off! Did the extra time help? And... we're waiting for that screenshot!

Thanks for your analysis. Troy, did you think you would have had more chances had you not gone for Hydra's?

[This message has been edited by Swolte (edited 09-29-2009 @ 10:46 AM).]

I'm afraid I had to go for hydras because I made the mistake of capturing the goblin outpost before the resources. It was never in my mind to build the guild after that. I don't think that tipped the battle for me, I played without enough precision when it mattered the most.....and I wasted time when I should push forward.

TY, Enginerd. I'll be more than happy to play.

[This message has been edited by Troy Locker (edited 09-29-2009 @ 10:05 AM).]

The screenshot shows a midgame-situation of my match as Ember vs TroyLocker (Drake). After i opened the turn, i saw that Drake had left a cluttered formation, and i knew that this was the moment to kill his hero. I also expected 3 slithers to be somewhere adjacent or with the hero. First i decided to take the catalyst with minimal wounds, so i moved E3 (Estra, 2 rider, canon) from the herbalist-hex and attacked the snow-troll, which gave me 50 additional casting points. Then i made the screenshot after i realized that this situation won't be solved easily.

First the setup:

E1: Uther (seriously wounded), 3 Penguins (mostly enchanted with EW)
E2: Red knight, manticore
E3: Estra, cannon, rider (mostly enchanted with EW)

D1: Bane, 3 slithers (heavily enchanted)
D2: 2 Hydras (heavily enchanted)
D3: Flamer, ballista and crossbow (but not quite sure)
D4: small dwarf for buying machines

My Problem: Find a way to kill the hero-stack AND secure the cannon at the end of my turn, which was only able to move to hex b, AND secure the hut, where 2 minotaurus were still available AND place herbalist and Uther together at end of turn to heal him.

So first i saw that the slither at the dwarven town was the only unit that would be able to reach the hut, so i attacked it with the manticore. I made sure that the manticore would also be able to move to x and taking part in the later battle. Unfortunately it revealed another slither sitting in the SW-townhex, which would also be able to reach the hut. This time i had to ignore it because of the heavy town defense.

Next, i moved in the Z-bird, the wounded manticore to x. Estra, 1 rider and the red knight got waterwalking and met with the penguins at y. I spent the rest of my mana for disenchants and the battle was won clearly. I only lost 1 rider against Bane and 3 slithers, but my manticore was down to 2 HP and 0 MP, as was the Z-bird. Some of the other units were wounded, too. Now there was the first selfmade trap: Being outside Drake's domain, i knew that waterwalking enchantment could not be dispelled. But leaving the army (Estra, 3 penguins, red knight) at y to protect the manticore on x AND the cannon on b would have ended in a disaster: The manticore was placed on an ice tile, which would offer Drake an attack with all his land-units, which would have won clearly against my army (!).

So i figured out that i had to leave the manticore behind. The next problem was to secure the hut, where Uther was standing alone now. I planned that the herbalist would join to heal him, but i figured out that the 2 Hydras were able to reach an adjacent hex if they could move directly, and the slither from the shadows could made the attack-move. Moreover, i could not reinforce the 2 units anymore because of lack of movement points. So i thought of moving my army from y to c and to place one unit on the bridge. This blocking would have prevented the Hydras to reach the hut and my cannon would have been safe as well. But again, this is a selfmade trap: Drake could have taken the tower and after that an attack against the bridge with even chances was likely to happen. So the bridge was also a deadly tile for me. There was no more way to secure the hut, so i moved all i had from y to c, and Uther and the herbalist joined them there.

I feared what would happen in Drake's turn. The slither could have bought the minotaur to delay the invasion, and maybe even an attack over the bridge was possible. What seemed to be a very promising situation turned out to be more even than i liked it. I killed Bane and 4 slithers, but paid with the manticore, a rider and the Z-bird and some other units were wounded. And of course, leaving the hut to Drake was also a disadvantage.

After all it went totally different. Drake decided to gather his defenses at the dwarven town. I was happy to buy the minotaur, but in the following fight against the tower, i already lost him stupidly...

[This message has been edited by Charx (edited 09-29-2009 @ 04:57 PM).]