Ok,

This will be more lengthy and involved than my normal post, so skip to the parts you want.

Anyone who could care less – great, find something better to do.

1. Pregame

After a little bit of hashing around about settings, Sam and I agreed to the week 4 tourney settings. As some may know, I’d practiced (not perfected) a suicidal Sumerian 8 peon/4 clubber villager rush. Bottom line – only the initial 500 food is spent, all on the villie – clubber combo, and it hits your opponent before he can do ANYTHING about it.

See the post "Week 4, a week spent out of the box." for a rundown on the strategy and Sam’s response.

2. The map.

Check out this image for a good overview of the map – we started dead opposite each other, Sam at 2:00 with phoenies, me at 7:30 Both of us had some shorefish by our TC, a gold pile in tight, gold pile in between, near 4:30 (My blue complex in minimap). The last goldpile was nearly untouched at 10:00.


3. My start (the rush)

Got 2 shorefish by my Town Center, so I knew I would have extra food for clubbers for the rush. So, after the initial house, I had villager 5-6 build two more houses, then to shorefish.

Villagers 1-4 were sent scouting.

**(Mistake 1) Rather than concentrate them, and gamble on an opponent directly across the map – I spread them out and explored damn near all of the map.

This slowed the rush down – as my initial 4 warriors run to Sam’s homeland to build barracks, late. Slow, but sure, this time. My two barracks were snug up to Sam’s town – no walking time there.

2 clubbers and 8 villagers run into Sam’s Stonemining?????? Operation. That is quickly shut down – and I jump into his berries.

2 more clubmen join the fray, and his berry gatherers take off towards 10:00 – an incredible walling spot, as I well know- already scouting there, and finding that gold. (Just look at that narrow peninsula!)



2 clubmen run in pursuit (one from the screenshot loses the trail), and my next 4 clubbers and villagers begin tearing Sam’s town down.

He turns to fight, and kills off those 2 clubmen, with some losses. I quickly check population, and Woohoo! He is down to 4 villagers! I have 6 clubbers and 8 villagers ready to whoop up on him.

He completes the tool upgrade as I bang on the TC, with his villagers no where in sight.

**(Mistake 2) I am afraid that he will wall in at 10:00 (the smart thing to do), and my entire clubber contingent rushes off to prevent this. The peons continue banging – bringing down his granary.

Surprisingly, no walls are in evidence at 10:00, the last peon sighted spot. I scout it thoroughly, just to make sure.

Meanwhile my peons wander up to polish off his storage pit – noting that no wood has yet to be harvested.

To my utter, jaw dropping shock, I see WATCH towers there. How utterly idiotic! Rather than 60 wall sections with a combined hp of 12000, Sam has chosen to spend 300 stone on two 100 hp watch towers – with exactly 25 more hp than the houses that stood all of 15 seconds against me. After some quick banging on those towers with my villagers, I realize that I may need those villagers for production, so I scamper off to 3:00 to start shorefishing, probably leaving 2 dead behind me.

My clubbers complete the long trek back from 10:00, and hit him again. By this time, Sam is laying a foundation – checking it out I see ANOTHER watch tower! 450 stone! 90 wall sections wasted!

**(Mistake 3) With the 6 clubbers, I should have simply hunted his villagers – suiciding to kill them, as he has no town center at this point. OR, I should have assembled ALL of the troops for a joint attack.

Instead, with some bad unit control, I only damage one tower, kill one villager, and retreat again with 2 clubbers.

4. The economic rush.

Burning through shorefish like no tomorrow, I race to tool. Again, the smart thing for sam to do is to counterattack. 2 archers with +2 armor would devastate me (and only 315 wood/180 food)

I sacrifice my tiny economy to the altar of the quick tool rush – the entire time expecting SOME sort of counterattack.

Tooled, still no sam – plenty of food pouring in, my wayward villagers at 3:00 shift to wood.

I take the time to partially wall them off and prevent the forward assault on my woodies. I also wall off a healthy chunk of real estate near my base.

Nearly walled off – 600 food or so – hell, let’s get into bronze. I ALMOST drop a barracks- haha, but catch myself in time.

My economy is still far too weak to bronze, still no fishing, only 12 peasants or so, but I am fairly close to it.

** Mistake 4 and 5. I bronze and bring my long range woodies back into town, completing the wall-in as I come.

Sam had villager / fishing boat boomed during this time frame, still in tool, another plan that dropped my jaw. The potential for a counterattack was SO devastating, and required so little, I still cannot believe he did not build a single tool unit.

5. The long haul.

Bronzed, I quickly begin righting my stagnant economy. At this point, I do not realize just how badly the quick bronze has hurt, but I gamely press the attack.

**Mistake 6 Still with Sam in tool – I go for the siege workshop units over the Chariot archers. The lack of ballistics is devastating, as I lose 2 stone throwers to villagers, in spite of the best efforts of my clubbers.

Still, some damage done, I press on, with axers and more stone throwers. Unfortunately, my snail like economy cannot support my 2 barracks, 2 siege workshops and archery.

Sam bronzes, and assumes control of that area with Chariots, his first military units. And, for future reference, his only land military. No, I did not stutter. That was all he built. The whole game. Really.

Sam’s economy allows him to pump out chariots until the population limit is reached. He destroys my forward base, and comes over to bang on my walls. A solitary Chariot Archer holds him off while my peons work unmolested, repairing away.

Even more chariots fall to my stone throwers. I race gleefully back and forth, repairing wall after wall, when, unfortunately sam discovers an end-around one tile wide, where a forest that was part of my wall-in did not touch the side of the map.

His forward contingent pours in, and I run 1 peon past him to close the gap. Of course, he didn’t think to stop this.

I saw the attack coming, and, dropping everything to get stone, lay towers all over my production areas.

His chariots drop soon enough, and I resume my march to Iron.

**Mistake 7 Worried that he will bring archers to my forests – I inefficiently gather straggler wood throughout my town, rather than just chopping at my walls.

A good player would have put towers or archers at my wooden walls to prevent me from harvesting that wood. Probably would have beaten me there.

f. Iron, and the endgame

Sam for some reason, puts in a big effort into the 4:30 gold pile, dropping 4- 5 towers to guard it, and finally getting through my walls there. (I had used the pile as part of the wall).

Unfortunately, I had just ironed, and had little to fight this forward push. My ST- now upgraded to cats, were basically unprotected from his Chariots (Little resources to spare for archers).

So, after running my cats up to fire, then back to my towers, I finally walled in a "Forward fire corridor" for my cats to sit in unmolested, while they plinked down his towers and Town center.

Moving back under the cover of my towers, I began assembling what I had lacked the entire game. A critical mass of archers to cover my cats.

Further, I also finally managed to get ballistics. GAME OVER. Even though I had no idea of Sam’s power, renewed confidence surged through me. I can take any mass of elephants he may have assembled.

About 6 cats and 8-10 CA move out. Meeting practically NO resistance, they move through all of the land, in a wide counterclockwise circle, destroying all the chariots in their path.

Sam’s first confident charge is crushed under the ballistics laden fire of the cats. Everything is laid waste, as I roll up to 10:00 and the last gold pile on the map.

Sam’s last charge up Sam Juan Hill (With trireme support) is unsuccessful, as 1 cat and 3 CA survive.

I play "Hide the cat on the other side of the hill" and destroy 3 or 4 triremes as they savagely shoot into the grass.

I kill the last 2 peasants working the gold pile, and the game is over.

Oh yeah – sam had the sea most of the game, and spent a large portion in Iron destroying the dead wood of my original town.

6. The alamo.

I take my CA and scatter them in zig zags across the map – looking for any remaining vestiges of Sam. He has chosen to take refuge in my old base, by the only remaining stone pile on the map.

Not wishing to play "hide the peon", I wall his peons in, using 2 towers as part of the wall. They complete, and sam drops 3 towers of his own.

4 cats roll in, and even davy crockett cannot save the Alamo.

Sam resigns.

To Sam’s credit, he hung around to discuss the game. And he is strong at what he does, pump stable units. Antagonistic, and often wrong, he still discussed some of the strategies in the game we played.

Now that I am done with the compliments . . .

I am not the best in 1v1 – I simply prefer to play team games. Further, I am a counterpuncher. I will anticipate what the enemy will do, then make small sacrifices to reap large rewards later.

At every turn, what Sam did was so staggeringly wrong, my anticipatory moves left me wildly off balance.

I hurt myself far more than Sam did.

I give him no credit for any move which correctly countered me. He only had 3 moves, which were.

1. Build Chariots
2. Build towers on land he wanted to hold.
3. Build lots of ships to control the sea.

1 and 3 are appropriate for the game type, in certain time periods. 2 is just silly versus a Sumerian.

Moves that turned this into much more of a game than really needed.

1. The initial "slow but sure" attack instead of the "Kamikaze" faith in my scouting ability attack.
2. Not abandoning ship, and towering up. My god is this one easy to counter, if expected.
3. Not attacking in tool, when he had a CLEAR advantage. Had I not been so intent on walling him out, I could have easily taken over 80-90% of the map with walls.
4. No Chariot archers. The game would have been over in early bronze, except for the Chariots. I fully expected to see a peon killer like a Chariot archer, so I gambled on ST.
5. Follow up to that – I spent quite a bit on towers at my tree-line to allow myself guaranteed wood. Of course, he never built an archer to threaten them.

Aftermath

I’m done with Deathwalker. One game is little to draw conclusions from, I know.

But he showed so little diversity, so little thought, I have solidified my conclusion that he is not even capable of a serious discussion on this game.

And, in the discussions here, as well as the dummy post, he shows no comprehension of what actually happened.

He is so staggeringly one dimensional, it was scary.

He’s welcome to play me in the future under another name. If we meet in the tourney, so be it. But, as far as the forum is concerned, he’s back on the ignore list.

-Copper