I tried to do a new strategy this game which ended up costing me. I upgraded to a stronghold when I had about 8 peons. I did get ogres fairly quick but Xar-$$ did the same thing. The thing that he did differently was that he didn't make a Mill or as many peons as I did. Sort of like the 7 man Ogre rush in medium resource games. Anyways I beat off his first wave, but his second wave finished my base off. I was able to get about 5 peons out of the base though. I had about 2500-3000 gold and about 1600 wood left. I built a mine at yellow's spot and sealed off my hall. When Xar was mopping up the buildings at my base he asked me if I would give up, I said no. I had about 15-18 peons chopping and hauling gold at my second town with a cannon tower when he found it. So he asked me again if I would give up, and I said no. During this whole time I had a peon on the outside that was secretly rebuilding another base just north of the woods of my original base at red. I made sure to keep it away from any gold mines so that it would lessen the chance of it being discovered. Anyways I knew what was going to happen, Xar-$$ started building demo teams to blow through to my mine. The first team came and blew up my blocking farm so I immediately built another, hahaha. By this time I had another barracks, some farms, and a smith at my 2nd town which he had not discovered. Fact during this whole time I'm positive that he thought the only thing I had was that mine. So quite some time passes and I upgrade to a stronghold and start making an ogre mound. By this time I had two barracks but hadn't made any grunts, since grunts are next to worthless to lvl 5 knights.

All of a sudden he sent in 4 demo teams and destroyed my stronghold. So upon seeing that I immediately built another townhall so he couldn't invade! hahaha. I already had the ogre mound built so I didn't really need the stronghold anymore except for the gold bonus. My hall cost me 1200 gold, 800 wood, his 4 sappers cost 2800 gold, 1000 wood. hahaha.

Then I started training lvl 5 ogres. I had about 15 of them when I decided to bust a move. I wasn't sure how many knights Xar had but I had a feeling he wasn't training them since he thought the only thing I had was that single mine. So I sent 9 ogres to black's mine and sure enough I found his second mine completely undefended. I killed all his peons there and his mine. At this point he finally broke through with knights and multiple demo teams and took my 2nd mine down. If I could have held it would have been over for him right there, since I had more troops than he did and I had destroyed his gold supply. I sent the rest of my ogres to attack his town in hopes of killing his knights with superior numbers as they were being trained. I slowly lost that battle though since he had much more gold than I did even though I had more beginning troops. Anyways I had one peon left and 2000 gold, and 3000 wood. I sent that peon to orange's mine and set camp again with a hall and farms and a cannon tower. Oh yeah, when he wiped out my mine and finished off my ogre offensive he asked me if I would give up again, I said no :)

Mean while I started training more peons at my 3rd mine while he was destroying my barracks, ogre mound, smith and mill AGAIN. I had managed to train a few grunts after my mound was destroyed and stashed them away. When he found my 3rd mine he asked me if I would give up, I said no. With the few grunts that I had, I checked all the possible mines to see if he was mining again, he wasn't. I figured that he was using up his stored gold, but knew that he had to be getting low since he had a castle and a mage tower. Then all of a sudden a mage casts blizzard on my 3rd mine destroying my cannon tower and half my peons hauling gold. I immediately sent a grunt to attack the mage. He had about 5-8 knights there but the grunt was able to kill the mage in time before he was killed. Good thing too, since there would have been nothing I could have done against a mage. Anyways the knights started to beat on my town with my cannon tower gone, I put peons on repair mode and was just able to hold the knights off long enough until I got another cannon tower up. I don't know why but for some reason his knights kept attacking after my cannon tower came on line. Maybe it was a desperate attempt to break through or he forgot I don't know. My tower killed at least 7 knights that were attacking. I held the mine and the gold was rolling in again. During this whole time I have been secretly rebuilding a 3rd town, Muhahaha!! :) I had checked all the mines again and saw that he still didn't have another mine. I knew he didnt have many peons left because I had killed all his gold miners earlier and quite a few of his wood choppers in my Ogre offensive.

So... it was at this point that Xar said that he had to go. Hmmmm. I don't think he had enough gold for another hall or to even make peons to haul more gold with. I'm sure he must have had some peons but not many. I don't know for sure but basically I think that he had no income, few peons, and not enough gold for another hall. After all, if he had more gold wouldn't he have trained another mage to blizzard my hall? He had more knights than I had grunts and I could't have stopped him. It would have taken him forever to get enough gold to build another hall if he only had 2-3 peons. I didn't see any peons anywhere when I scouted the board. I had tons of gold and wood coming in with no way for him to stop it. Plus I was starting to crank out the grunts (I figured they would be worth it since he only had 5-6 knights left). So I think rather than admitting defeat after having me on the run the whole game and destroying two complete towns he said that he had to go. Lame. But the game was fun :) Never, Never, Never give up. I refuse to lose. If i'm down you better keep beating on me to make sure I stay dead :)

{{Megatron}}

PS he didn't admit defeat.