NOT ANOTHER STALEMATE STORY (that's right, it's NOT)
At last, I have been part of one of those legenday 8 player epics that go down in history. 8 players at the start that is, I don't think a REAL 8 player game has yet happened... I joined what looked like an ordinary open game that vitor was starting on castle, and for some reason loads of other people joined. The slots just filled up, hardly any drops, it was weird. The map was High Seas, Medium resources, and the layout was this:
RED JEFFDACE BLUE Me AQUA Vitor PURPLE Riva ORANGE Demonlord BLACK Sputnik WHITE Coldblood YELLOW Elminster
We were all really surprised at the beginning when no one dropped straight away. The screen was full of messages saying "wow! 8 players! no-one dropped!" etc. It was fairly playable too, slow, but hey - 8 players! Anyway, as soon as the town halls finished and everyone started on their first farm it broke and both red and white dropped. This was good news for me cos it meant I could sapper through to red's spot and get his mine quite easily :). The game speeded up a bit after that and it was quite ok. I decided to go for the early transport full of grunts strategy, so I built up my town, quite quicky, and got about 3 grunts into a transport and sent it up to aqua (vitor) right above me. Unfortunately he had 3 footmen ready, which finished upgrading to level 2 halfway through the fight, so my guys got wasted :(. I sent a few more in, and got a jugg ready too, but the early grunts tactic had failed, so I concentrated on development instead. Meanwhile Vitor was complaining that 5 people were attacking him, hahaha.
At this point I hit a problem... having built a transport and a jugg as soon as possible, I had no oil to upgrade my hall, AAARGH! This slowed me down quite badly cos I had only just started my oil platform. While this was going on, Vitor got some guys into my town and hassled me a bit, killed a few peons, but I fended him off without too much trouble. I got a couple of catapaults out and sent them up to the top of my area... vitor had built about 8 farms in a block below his mine, so I set my cats to blowing them up, and getting rid of the archers he was hassling my flyer with. My first ogres had to stop another of his anti-peon raids, no problem there. While I wasn't looking, he got my cats with some of his own, but I replaced them and carried on razing :).
Vitor mentioned that he was being attacked again, and then next time I looked up to his base, there was nothing there except some puple knights! Riva brought down a few mages as well, and was happily cleaning up vitor's stuff, so I sent in a few fat boys and took them from behind, muahahahaha. Vitor said thanks for saving my last 3 farms and 1 peon, so I assumed he was well out of it (BIG mistake...see later).
Just after I got a fortress, my mine ran out, and (BASTARD!) I hit the unit limit. This really is a major bummer: even if people drop I think the limit is still what it was set to at the start of the game, which isn't much for 8 players. It took ages to sapper through the rock to red's spot, cos my sappers kept being cancelled by the limit (AFTER they've taken all that time to build). I was running out of wood too, blue has hardly any on that map, and when I got through the first thing I had to do was build a lumber mill and get some wood in, before eventually I set up a new hall... JEFFDACE had build his hall MILES away from the mine, I don't know what he was playing at. Sometime about then Sputnik and Demonlord both dropped too. I'm not sure if Riva killed Demonlord first or not, but Sputnik had loads and loads of stuff in his base, he had started on white's mine too.
So, at this point: aqua was dead (I thought), purple was doing well, had 2 mines, I was in a fairly messy situation with the unit limit cropping up a lot even though I never had more than about 8 ogres at that time (it was all my peons I think...I had maybe 30-35), but I got my altar and temple up and had everything upgraded, and some juggs defending my bay. I hadn't seen anything of yellow so far, but just then I saw him: he had build his foundry across the river so that his peon came out on red's side. He sent his peon down towards the mine, probably feeling quite clever and pleased with himself, hahaharrrr, when he saw my hall with 20 or so peons buzzing around it :)).
I killed that peon with 2 of mine, and started building towers next to the mine. I grabbed about 4 spare grunts I had standing around and sent them over to protect, and sure enough a yellow transport turned up, but only with maybe 3 ogres and 2 axemen! Plus he landed them in such a position that only 1 at a time could fight my 4 level 5 grunts, hardehar! Even better, the transport then got stuck in the river and couldn't move.
Just after the first 2 guard towers were ready he sent one dragon along to attack them. Mad. I don't know Elminster, but I think he must be quite new. He build a shipyard in the river too... why?? Eventually I put up a cannon tower, and that and a little death and decay took out the lot, and one of his cannon towers. He had a ring of cannon towers around his coast, until I sent 4 juggs in and creamed them. He managed to get 1 of my juggs with another dragon, but by that time it had followed them all the way back to my base where it got deathcoiled in 3 seconds ;). At 2500 a piece, if you're not going to cast haste and bloodlust on them, or even attack in groups, WHY BOTHER building dragons?? I sent a load of ogres in and did some damage, and one of the others finished him off later I think.
Anyway: although I was coping with yellow without difficulty, I was in a shitty situation. I had loads of money and wood, but I couldn't build any more stuff because of the unit limit. About then I sent a flyer over white's old base, and what did I find? Why a teaming little aqua-coloured town with barracks and everything. The dead had risen from the grave! Vitor didn't bother pretending to be gone any more after that. Meanwhile the shit had hit the fan. Riva got together a big group of stuff, knights, dragons, mages and sappers, and hit my main town. I had only 6-8 ogres and a few death knights there, that was all I could build. Some cleverly cast death and decay bought me some time, but I couldn't stop him from building a barracks at the top of my town. Slowly and surely my town got wiped out and I considered myself gone. I sent my last ogres up to riva's base in a transport and they killed a bunch of stuff, couple of mages, but didn't last too long.
I could have left then, but I had so much money and wood left which I hadn't been able to use before that I thought what the hell, I'll start building a new city and see how long it takes him to destroy it. So I upgraded my town hall in red's spot, already had a barracks there, and started building away. Pretty soon, as my final farms were disappearing back in the old town, I realised I had enough resources to rebuild an entire city, all the necessary buildings, and a load of troops as well! No need to worry about the limit either.
I stuck some peons in the hole I had made earlier in the rock, so I would have some warning when the rush came, and managed to get altogether about 10 ogres, 4 death knights, 4 dragons and 5 juggs before my cash ran out. He sent in a few knights, managed to exorcise one of my dks, but didn't do any real damage. At that point I was coming to the end of my cash flow, so I said "let's see if I can spend all my money before Riva finishes me off". He replied "What with? I'm done"....!!!!!!!! WHAT? I couldn't believe this, so I sent a flyer over his base, and lo and behold it was full of aqua knights. Vitor was just wiping him out. When I checked out Vitor's base there was hardly anything in it, but he had 2 transports and some mages, and barracks of course and shipyard & foundry. I don't know whether it was Riva or Vitor who had finished off Elminster, but he was gone by this time.
Rubbing my hands together with glee I bloodlusted up my dragons and sent them up to get rid of those transports. Narrowly avoiding several blizzards, they did this and returned home, a little weaker. I asked vitor if he had any more or could make them, but soon I saw one pop out of the shipyard. Off went the dragons again and destroyed it. Unfortunately my juggs got killed in a fight with Riva before so I had no ships at all and no money to build them. I had 2 zepps left, which Vitor kept hassling with archers and fireballs, but I always managed to keep one near his shipyard to watch for transports.
The next one filled up with sappers, eek! I put the dragons just offshore to wait for it, cos they're not fast enough to get it on the way, and had peons round my coastline and 3 deathknights waiting. As soon as the transport came near, I set the dragons on it, then cast death and decay all along the bit of coast it was heading for. If it had only landed it would have been dead for sure, and the sappers too, but he turned it round and it got away with a little health left and went for another stretch of coast. Hmm, no mana left to d&d with... Desperately I got a bunch of ogres ready to strike when it landed, but just as it did the dragons hit and took it out, sappers and all.
YESSSSSSSSSSSS!
This was getting tense. I sent my drags up after the next transport, but all but 1 got blizzarded/shot, and then he put out a destroyer, oh no. The destroyer somehow managed to get both my zepps and my dragon, and then I was in the crap. Riva was still around with a couple of flyers, and he had been chatting away about seeing if it would be stalemate (Vitor claimed he was broke, so he can't have had many more transports coming) and around then he said something about wanting to see the "30 sappers" in Vitor's base get into my city... Oh fuck!
Well with no air recon available, or sea attack, I was more or less done for, but I hung around a little while to see when the attack would come, but it didn't really. Vitor pissed around landing knights in my old spot and trying to clear a path through my peons, presumably so he could land all those sappers there and run them in before I killed them. I saw some of his gryphons sitting around, and he had plenty of knights about the place too, so he could have just attacked: I figured I wasn't going to stay around just so he could have some fun with his sappers when he had the forces to finish me straight away, so I left in the end. Just shows how important it is to finish people off properly. Hell of a game, must have been at least 2 hours. One day I will be in an 8 player that actually lasts the whole game...one day...
Hope you like it...
Enrique