The 1.2 patch had recently come out, and it was spreading like wildfire, in part because players with the patch would only play in games that used the patch. So it ended up that CON$P!R@T0R and I were teamed up on spiral against Backlash and Gregor. The patch was in effect, and who knew where the extra island was? The resources were map default.

So the game starts up. I'm at Blue's spot in the nw corner, and Conspirator is in the sw corner. Since we are adjacent, I tell him to grab the oil to his north, figuring that way he will at least get some oil. So I start building up, get myself a shipyard, and find my oil patch on the east coast. I set my tanker on that oil patch and build a few more tankers.

Conspirator has told me he is a newbie, and so I expect to have a hardfought sea battle, so I think about the problem for a minute.

Now I do something nasty. I send each new tanker, as soon as I get it, to another oil patch, and set it down on it, so nobody else can get any oil. Now, they can get the oil by building a destroyer for 700 oil, but they only start with 1000. As I am sending in a tanker to the last spot (besides my partner's and the center), I just barely beat Gregor's oil tanker to the place, and start an oil rig there (I had an oil rig building at my oil spot too.) Soon thereafter, I build oil rigs at EVERY oil spot but the center and the one between my partner and myself.

Our opponents, unless they can get the oil, have really only 2 options: They can get a keep, or they can get a transport. Hee hee. I really don't mind if they only get a transport, level 5 grunts (they barely have the oil for the blacksmith) don't scare me much, and all I have to do is sink that one transport. I've got a decent fleet, and I manage to keep them from getting any oil the rest of the game. Gregor does manage to nab 400 when I let my attention slip, but since he wasted 700 on a destroyer, I'm not worried.

Conspirator provides some catapult support to protect that oil rig (he may be a newbie, but he was clueful, and learned). Backlash was rather annoyed and left in disgust, gregor held on until we eliminated him. Hee hee... that was fun.

The title should give some of this story away. Azure and I were sitting in kchat talking to *Mage* and we set up a game. 2 on 2, *Mage* and {{TaiwanJK}} vs. Azure and myself. The map was Death in the Middle, the resources low. Azure got stuck in red's position, so he set up near his 40k mine, not his 60k (the right move, but it does have problems). I'm in the Ne corner, *Mage* is sw, Taiwan is nw.

Anyway, we both decide to build ogres quickly, skipping grunts. This was a stupid move, and we began to pay later. So Taiwan rushes in a bunch of grunts to my camp. I manage to wall in, but he kills my barracks before I can finish that ogre mound and build an ogre. So I let my peons chop lumber, but stop them before they get all the way through, and put up a tower. Azure sends his ogres to help, and drives Taiwan off mostly, at least enough that I can do the rest of the job myself. Then Azure starts to get hit. He is doing ok, but he suddenly runs out of money, since he used the 40k mine at red instead of the 60k. Red's position there really does suck.

Anyway, Mage sends a large force down to Azure's expansion, Azure traps them next to the mine, walls them in, and builds towers. Now Mage's troops are trapped, but Azure's peons can't get in to harvest gold. The game is over at this point, I've managed to break free, but since I had to constrain my lumber harvesting attempts, I have 25000 spare gold and almost no lumber, and no gold mine, unless I expand. I have enough lumber to expand and build a few ogres, so I do. Just then, Taiwan hangs. I wait for 30 seconds or so, maybe a minute, and then he gets dropped. I may have dropped him, but I don't remember. I figure, what the hey, Mage probably has this won, but I've got 25000 gold in my bank, I don't want to die with that much spare gold. So I build about 4 more barracks, and start pumping out ogres as quickly as possible. Our ogres fight back and forth, killing each other's expansions. Mage tries to rescue his troop from Azure's trap, but loses them all. Azure starts rebuilding, but we agree that he really shouldn't come back in the game, it should just be Mage vs. me.

Anyway, the state of the game gets to: I have 2 half dead ogres, no peons, 412 (or something like that) gold. Mage has no ogres, a few more peons, no expansion town hall. His ogres would have bloodlust, mine wouldn't. We both start building up, and I manage to run him out of money by killing all his peons. He really should have won, but he made one mistake in defending an expansion mine and that cost him too much money. Also, I was really careful to conserve peons and money so as not to get taken out.

It was a hardfought battle and it was a LOT of fun.

After I killed Mage, Azure started trashing my city with his 50 or so rebuilt ogres. Damn him :) Then he re-allied me and we went to the victory screen.

So I get in a 3-way FFA on plains of snow, high resources. No patch. The players are Kheldar, Rai, and myself. Now, when I think I am playing newbies on 3-ways on high resources, I like to gratuitously expand and build 2 or 3 second town halls at other mines. Well, I had laundry to finish, so I told Azure to make the first few buildings for me. When I got back from moving my laundry to the dryer, I see Azure has set up buildings for a different strategy. He really hates it when I expand early, because he thinks it is a waste of time. In general, he is right. Both of them are on the west side of the map, so the east side is MINE. Muahahaha.

So I manage to expand to 2 other mines anyway using my remaining resources, and I start pumping out the peons. Rai, meanwhile, has been asking a lot of newbie questions, and Kheldar and I have been answering them. Then Rai says "so, after I lose everything, do I get kicked out of the game?" I respond "yes". At which point he says "well, I'm dead", and leaves.

Kheldar apologizes to me but says he really didn't want to keep answering questions. By this time, I have about 5 barracks going strong with level 5 ogres, and lots of income. I start pumping out the ogres. I send a strike force over to Kheldar, running by his grunts going for my expansion. (He did have a flying machine check me out right beforehand). My building ogres at my expansion kill the grunts. I lose a few peons, but I can afford the loss. So anyway, I get about 40 ogres running around his camp and toast him. I've got a screenshot, I just need to convert it to .gif or .jpeg and upload it.

At this point he says "Marshall, this is really *********" (note, the number of *'s have absolutely nothing to do with the number of characters in the name. In reality, there were fewer characters in the name than 10, or however many stars there are there.) He was a little annoyed that I had done this to him. But hey, I was playing under my real name. I even used a slow strategy. After verifying his identiy, or at least that he actually knew me (I asked him a couple of questions, and he reminded me that he had often complained about his calculus tests), Azure started laughing, and agreed that it had in fact been worth it to expand and use so many troops.

I met him in kchat on starlink and yes, he was who he claimed to be. I /offered my screenshot, and he told me that if I posted the story, he would deny that he had actually been smurfing as Kheldar. (Btw, there is a real kheldar, when I pointed this out to him, he decided to use a new name). The player is someone good, but he is also a friend of mine, and so I'm not going to post his name.... mainly because it is so much more fun to leave that question unanswered.

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Marshall

I bet it was Shoey in the last story.
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Shlonglor