Not really competitive, but I once had a game, where I found 50 mighty gorgons and went on to defeat the main army of a friend, but the issue was, that he had town portal and I did not. So he could scratch together armies from every single castle he had and defeat me in the second battle.
After that, I saw clearly, how pointless it is, when you don't get important spells like that. But then playing against 6 bots on "king" or similar in a team became a great fun. Oh how they cheat ... or are "lucky". I swear, every single time I play the swamp folk, the computer players end up having more wyverns then I have, because they get all the neutral buildings around their castles. Infuriating!
Yeah, the existence of town pornhole is so important that either you need to guarantee starting towns get it, or you need to ban it outright. I believe most competitive play has it banned because of how powerful it is - but sometimes a scroll of town portal still appears ... or a shrine.
That was always one of the balance problems; the spells are either insanely powerful or absolutely useless. Summons boat
After that, I saw clearly, how pointless it is, when you don't get important spells like that. But then playing against 6 bots on "king" or similar in a team became a great fun. Oh how they cheat ... or are "lucky". I swear, every single time I play the swamp folk, the computer players end up having more wyverns then I have, because they get all the neutral buildings around their castles. Infuriating!