Lizards 34
We move forces towards the dwarves.

Yeah? Could be.

One way or the other, we were at ~3 times the level of the others.

I never saw the dwarf leader, but the one or two times I saw the human leader leads me to believe you are entirely correct.

When I saw just how far in the hole my two sub-casters were for skill points, they went to the absolute bottom of XP priority, even below normal units.

Lich King of the Dwarves

I have one way to stalemate, two ways to stall, but the path to victory is long and treacherous.

TS

On further reflection, I think I will edit the map to remove air spheres, and grant the most noteworthy air spells (Haste, WW, Chain Lightning, Air Elemental) via towers.

Lol, the dungeons were actually set to always give three items.

Lizards, 35

With 10 heroes at my command, of which 5 are spellcasters, I move farther in the dwarven tunnels. Careful now...

Lizards 37

We keep encircling the dwarves and moving closer. Surprisingly there are still neutral cities in the dwarven lands, not even with a huge garrison, I wonder what the leader's been doing...

Lich King of the Dwarves

The outer defences crumble like a deck of cards, but surely the winding tunnels will slow this foe down.

TS

Lizards 38

Aided by enchanted big beetles we cut through the mud to reach the first of the inner dwarf cities through an unforeseeable path. Our advanced hero posse easily kills the meager defences, then I town portal most of my heroes there, to prepare for the final push.

Lizards 39

The dwarves are using party tricks to try and distract us. That won't work. We push on, single mindedly, as only reptiles could.
We dig some more opening the path to more dwarf territory. We capture other two dwarven cities, spend a lot of time sorting out equipment, teleport the heroes to the city closest to the dwarves and move our frankly ridiculous stack of heroes on...

The count is now 8 combat heroes and 8 spellcasters, on top of the leader.

LIch King of the Dwarves

Out of mana, out in the open. This might be it.

TS

Lizards, final battle?

Through careful town portalling of both the heroes gang and a ship we manage to reach all of the visible dwarven heroes, accumulating yet another pile of ancient artefacts.
Alas what we thought might be the last day of the dwarves is not! Lord Sassoun wore a possessed ring with the results that his body, after his demise, becomes a dark elf incarnate! My heroes easily dispatch the monster but afterwards the match continues... Is Lord Sassoun back to life somewhere on this world??

Haha did you know this Thereunto? I suspect a bugged item... The possessed ability is probably only meant for incarnates.

Lich King of Khazlkound

The lizards witness my true form! I am the spirit of Khazlkound. These dwarves have served their purpose... now to slumber and await of a new body.

GG


OOC:

Haha, yes. I used the concept in my single player map "Cursed Shadow". You can still kill the other player but you have to hunt down all of their units. I'll spare you the effort and surrender (seeing the initial shock value was well worth the wait).

There is a design flaw in the map. The starting dwarven 3 block can be used to towngate to the adjacent tower. The tower that is surrounded by stone and completely inaccessible. You could towngate a leader or heroes in there and no one could touch them until they warped out.

Evil races can abuse it by animating a dead hero, giving the hero the ring, killing the hero (possess something else, the item drops), rinse and repeat.

I agree that it is a design flaw. It can't force a stalemate though, unless you manage to get immunity to all storm spells the enemy may be able to cast.

GG guys. Well played all.

Here's the turn if anyone's curious - https://gofile.io/?c=l4pfge - check out the ridiculous heroes stack. Air lol. Are there any limits to call hero? And what about animate?

Southern, I've noticed that the SE corner of the deep is very remote and basically useless in its current form. Could it be the place where the wizard towers are? With some teleporters that bring there from places at equal distance from the starting locations.