I had guys across setting up town hall and barracks next to the mine on the left side empty position. I made the mistake however of not making any grunts first (I underestimated my opponent). He knew where I had to go, and had grunts (level 2) there before my barracks were even done. He wiped that out. I started to make a few juggs, but on that map (narrow rivers) catapults can just destroy any ships cus ships have nowhere to run, while the catapults can move out of reach. After losing shipyards on both left and right sides of my island, I was trapped. I upgraded to get goblin zepps, and went scouting. He was draining 3 mines.

Knowing that I was beat, I remembered a story I read on your page about someone you and Gotcha played who made griffins - lots of griffins. Instead of surrendering, I hit the sencond mine on my starting island with a vengeance. I made six berzerkers (upgraded damage only) with a couple of ogres to bloodlust them. They were positioned to take out any of his zepplins. I took out three of them before he gave up and sent the message "ok. whatever, I don't need to see you. You know I already won right? Just surrender." I replied "yea, but I'm going to make you finish me off - I'm ready for your invasion." He replied "towers and death knights huh? whatever, I'll destroy you!!!"

Other than the six archers and two ogres for taking out his zepps, I had no ground forces and no towers. After that round of messages, I was just about finished with the other mine on my island. I immediately made 4 roosts, and started pumping dragons like crazy. Now ordinarily, I never ever make dragons cus they suck. I was playing someone that I played many times before, so he knew that. I had four zepps which I used to scope him out totally. He had mostly ogres with four barracks pumping (he was building up to really pound me) He had 1 lumber mill and 2 temples with one castle. As my dragons were coming out I made 2 death knights and researched one spell - Haste. He was still building tons and tons of ogres and had started on 2 shipyards and one foundry for transports. He still had made no more zepplins.

When my money ran out, I had 23 dragons - he had six transports and more ogres than I could guess. Since he figured he had already won, he was going to try to embarrass me. I hasted and bloodlusted as many dragons as I could, and sent them straight for his castle. He messaged "You've got to be kidding" I ignored it, and put 13 dragons on his castle, six on one temple that he had near his castle, and 5 chasing after his death knights.

I saw that he immediatly started loading his men onto his transports and sending them across. While he had the ogres waiting on my shore for his transports to make another trip, I attacked them, just to make it look like I cared about my home base. He started attacking, and I never looked at my home base again. I lost a few dragons to his death knights before I took down his castle and temple. After that I sent 9 dragons after his second temple and 6 dragons after his lumber mill, and the rest to support the dragons on the temple by attacking any death knights that approached (the whole time I was ignoring the sounds of my entire city being decimated).

After he lost his only remaining temple and lumber mill, I went after the other lumber mill that he was putting up while sending most of my dragons to his city halls. One by one I destroyed all his city halls, and went looking for any new ones. I took out two new city halls and took out one destroyer that he made as a silly last ditch effort (four dragons took care of it real quick).

By this time I had lost my last farm; I had no buildings left and no troops except for 6 dragons - my last units. I had destroyed all his town halls, and all the peons that I could see when I noticed a little red dot moving down the screen next to one of my zepps. It was a peon carrying wood! I followed it. The little guy got on a transport. I followed that until it came to the little island on the lower left of the screen. He had a town hall there! Not for long... ;) After I took out that town hall, and his last peon, he surrendered. He still had about 70+ ogres but no peons and no town halls. We talked in the chat room, and he kept repeating "I should have made more zepplins!" Yep, if he knew I was making dragons, he could have easily beat me. I had zepps and knew exactly where his lumber mill and 2 temples were.

The moral of this story I guess is 'surveillance is everything'! I got that idea from your story about how much trouble you guys had with the guy who made nothing but tons of griffins.

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Anand Ramakrishnan