After losing about 5 out of my first 6 games of AoK I realized how much the British infantry appealed to me, due to the fact that I lose an entire town composed mostly of villagers, several bombard towers and Teutonic Knights to a force of 5-6 capped rams and several groups of Pikemen, Champions, Assorted Calvary and the British elite unit, the Longbowmen (I actually lost a few trebs to a couple of these when sieging a building a little bit behind the shoreline from the otherside. The archers fired ACROSS the river to it out before I could pack up and get out.

Anyway, today, I bring you my last report of the millennium (For those of you who are impatient and don't care about all those Biblical things) Age Of Kings: How Hard Is Yours? High Heat Battle

Also, to get you to read this, you get free porn if you type in the password I have hidden SOMEWHERE among the battlereport. Go to the URL at the end to get it.

TheRubberDucky : Blue Britons, 11:00 starting location              Dartagnant: Red Franks, 4:00 starting location                        WierdBeo: Green Persians, 7:00 starting location.

     Ah, good old Britons. Actually this was my first time to play the Brit's, but I knew that they definitely had a very powerful infantry force, at the cost of the high end siege weapons such as a heavy scorpion. Fortunately, that isn't a big deal because I rarely see the use for Scorpions, because I find that even a normal battering ram with 2 trebs plenty to take out a wall before the enemy can react. Anyway, on with the game.

Objectives

Build Up

    On the map type fortress you start out with normal amounts of villagers, 4 farms next to your Town Center, 3 houses, a pre-built Barracks, and of course the normal Scout Calvary. Using my fancy schmancy mouse, (I have one of the buttons configured for Idle Peon, one for Idle Military unit, and one for double click so I don't have to waste time double clicking) I got all of my villagers doing something, and my town center with 3 queued up villagers. Following that, I sent my Scout Calvary to find information on the land around me such as resources, relics, cliffs, useful places to put outposts, and of course, enemies. Dartagnant also did this, however his scout died about 3 hours before mine. WierdBeo did not do anything, but rather put all of his villagers on his farms, and upgraded to the Feudal Age when he only had about 8 villagers.

     At the time of the game, I was unaware that he had such a poor economy, and was anxious to catch up to him, for we all know the British fail horribly when their opponents have siege engines firing on their walls when they do not have anything to counter with. I cancelled the 2 villagers of mine building, and started on Feudal age, while adding 3 farms to the area around my Town Center, and putting 7 villagers on the berries within my walls.

    WierdBeo added a few more villagers to his group, bringing his total eventually to 20. Dartagnant, still twiddling his thumbs in the Dark Ages, started mining gold and berries at the southern most part of his base, and had several villagers begin hacking away at the wood near the top of his base. About the same time I finished upgrading to the Feudal Age, he had gotten to the 30% mark on the same upgrade.

   WierdBeo did not do much after upgrading to Feudal, except upgrade to the Castle Age and then leave the game un-expectedly at the 48 minute mark, 35 minutes later.

   Both of us now in the Feudal Age, (13 minutes) we started on our respective strategies. I put up an Archery Range, while he put up a single Stable, and started building a wall to extend the entire 3:00 corner of the map. We continued gathering resources, while I took over both the stone mine and the gold mine in my base. In his single Stable, after upgrading to Castle at 25 minutes, he queued up 15 Knights. I started producing a combination of Man-At-Arms/Archers/(Longbowmen when I got my castle) out of 2 Barracks and my Archery range, and also put about 3 archers into my towers around the base.

     My wood supply at my main was running low (I didn't feel like taking the forest at the bottom, because it created an un-destroyable barrier which I preferred over a wall. I sent 4 villagers to the farside of a forest to the west of my main base.

      As soon as my wood caught up and I had all of my dead farms rebuilt, I added a Town Center so that I could produce Villagers more quickly.

       Dartagnant wasn't low on anything, but had failed to build a Siege Workshop upon entering the Castle age, but instead built a Monastery outside of his base, in the area protected from the north by his wall extending towards the edge of the map.

     With his monastery, he built a Monk. At that time, I was building what I thought was a monastery, but I had accidentally built a 2nd university. (I had built one right after entering the Castle Age)     

    His Scout Calvary had found 3 of the 5 relics on the map, and was actively scouting for the 5th. (He never found it, neither did I) Since he only built one monk, it took him time to get any, and by the time he had one of them, I had two monks going for the other two known ones, and my first Scout Calvary (w/ 12 hp) searching the map for the other 3 (I didn't know he had any)

      I sent a Long Swordsman out to add additional scouting power, and at the same time one of his Scout's got into my base, and started whacking at my Gold Miners. Thankfully, a few Long Swordsmen were nearby, and took out the horse rider before he could do any serious damage to my Villagers. Right after he left, my upgrade to the Imperial Age and my Castle was completed.

      I started the upgrade to Two Handed swordsmen, and also built a Town Center next to a gold mine to the south east of my base. He extended his wall again, this time so that he had a gold mine right outside his base within the wall, and he immediately built a mining camp there. Upon entering the Imperial age, he finally built a second Stable, and upgraded his 30 something Knights into Cavalier. I added a third barracks to my base, and built a gate in the wall near my castle so that I could pump my Elite Longbowmen directly into the battlefield. He was still pumping a lot of Cavalier from his two stables, and didn't show signs of changing his strategy anytime soon.

Just beyond what would soon be his "Great wall of France" I found a third relic, and stood by hoping he wouldn't notice my scout Calvary.  I sent 12 Elite Longbowmen followed by a single monk to the site (Avoiding contact with the wall, which he was building a section at a time) I did retrieve the relic, but I was distracted by my lack of gold miners, who were building a Town Center at yet another gold site. (I wanted to grab all of the gold sites I could to prevent him from gaining an advantage with siege technology)

     12 Elite Longbowmen in a box formation around the Monk started on the way home. However, for some reason or another, the 12 Longbowmen got sidetracked by Dartagnant's lumberjacks, and started taking them out. The Cavalier were on their way to my base at the time, and sidetracked to take out my Longbowmen. The monk was just crossing the line of sight of the Cavalier, and was killed because he wanted it more than I did. I didn't lose my Scout Calvary, however, because he decided he needed to save his lumberjacks ASAP! I didn't get the relic, and he got his second relic (I thought his first) On the upside he didn't have any more lumberjacks, and I was able to take down a house and a few farmers.  (Note, this game is now 67 minutes old, and my Scout Calvary is still alive, and has scouted most of the map except Green's base and behind Dartagnant's base, where the last relic is)

     By now I had deforested most of the region that I was cutting, and needed more. I put up a Town Center at a spot north of green's base with both Gold and Wood. So far, I hadn't see Dartagnant use any elite units, nor had I seen much of his base. Of course, we only have had one battle, and he completely dominated that with 20 or so Cavalier. (I expected that he must have had a group of archers and champions by now.  With all the walls and such I expected to have to do a heavy siege, which is Briton's weak point. I built a few Trebuchets, some Onagers, and 4 Capped Rams. I rallied all of my production buildings right outside the gate I had built by my castles, and added a fourth barracks to my base.

      He sent a villager out to scout, and found my group of units building up outside my base, and attacked with his Cavalier (Which became paladins approximentaly 75% through the fight) I was suprised to discover he didn't even have any Hand Cannoneers, or any Skirmishers to take out my Longbowmen. (Even though paladins to pretty good, it takes about 60 shots form an Elite Longbowmen to kill a fully upgraded Paladin) I started producing Pikemen and Champions to counter his silly 1 unit strategy. (I guess he thought only Camels countered stable units well, and Briton's don't have Camels) 

     I added a third Castle to my group, and also expanded to another Gold/Wood area, just east of my main. My third castle went right between the two bases, and building it left me low on stone to build towers. Dartagnant was doing markedly better than me, even with his 1 unit strategy. He had taken most of his corner, and was getting stone from 3 places, gold from 3 places (And his relics) and wood from 2 places. He also had about twice as many farms as I did, and only 1-2 Idle peons. (I had about 40 at one point, but that's because I was busy expanding and my farms all went dry, along with a gold mine, a stone mine and my first wood expansion.

      When the gold at my first gold/wood expansion went out, I moved to green's gold expansion (I had to take down the half-built Mining camp because it distracted me =] )

The password is: I can't believe you, you pervert!

      My siege was hopefully going to work. I sent 5 Trebuchet's so that I could take down his castle if possible. (He didn't built one for some reason) I unpacked the trebuchet's, and had them attack the closest gate. As expected, he charged with his 40+ Paladins, and took out a large portion of my siege.

    In the end, I had 3 Trebuchets, a few archers, an Onager, and 1 Pikemen remaining, with several more units queued up in my buildings. Dartagnant put up 3 archery ranges and started building Hand Cannoneers to help his Paladins. (Finally!) A follow up counter, which involved his first 9 hand cannoneers, took out my attack completely. 11 Paladins and 9 hand cannoneers were just too much for my Longbowmen and few Champions. One trebuchet, however, survived and took out the last Cannoneer, leaving me without anything to kill him with, even though I was victorious, technically.

     Frusturated, but not discouraged, (Like when Infested~Nexus! disconnected in a 2v2 on war2bnet before this game, and I still won) I rallied all of my troops to the same spot, and started to try again, this time with more pike men and some skirmishers from my archeries. Dartagnant's gold mines had emptied, and he wanted to keep up his gold surplus, so he placed a Mining Camp next to what he thought was a gold mine, but I had already mined out. He hadn't been their since before I mined there, so he had an excuse. Atleast he found a place that I was using for wood, and quickly destroyed it, and my troops sieging his main with about 40+ Paladins, and 20 Hand Cannoneers. He still needed gold though, and took the one just west of his main instead.

     10 Pikemen and 20 Elite Longbowmen (Now finally fully upgraded except Ballistics, because I'm dumb) were sent to see if they could kill the 11 remaining Paladins. With a little Longbowmen "dancing" I was able to get rid of all of them, with no Longbowmen losses and 2 Pikemen remaining. (The Paladins WERE damaged already, which played an important role)

     Even with that minor victory, I was only mining gold from one spot, while he had 2 and (I thought) the other 3 relics. I sent 30+ villagers down to what I believed to be the last area with gold in it (There were actually 3 others that he could have had very easily, and one which you'll hear about later)   the one at the very bottom point at the map, with only 2 stones at it.

     With every attempt at his main failing, and my resources quickly falling, no stone for another castle near his base to make it easier, but with a huge supply of villagers and Town Centers, I felt defeated. His force, although quite silly, was cost-effectively beating whatever I could build. I had all the upgrades (Ballistics too!) for my units, had about 80 villagers doing everything I needed. (Except stone and gold of course, heh....) While he had two Gold mines under his control (As far as I knew, he really only knew about one) I had almost nothing to do. I said "gg" and was about to click on the "Exit This Game" button, when I thought of something. I had to drag my mouse off of the button and hope that it didn't make me lose, and then quickly build a Trebuchet, and sent it down behind green's base, followed by 20 villagers, hungry to do some mining. I knew (Or thought I knew =]) that this was my last chance, and the alst gold mine on the map. The gold mine in Green's main. For some reason, his towers were shooting at my units, so I sent in my scout calvary first, to see if there were any still there, (He had been completely rejuvinated by my Monk) and found only 1 tower, which was taken out easily by the trebuchet. Do you know how fast 20 villagers build a Mining camp?

I was back in business, and he didn't know it.

   After the mining camp finished, I placed a Town Center also, and started mining what was left of his gold and suprisingly, his berries. I was at the 200 population limit in no time, all my non-farmer idle villagers sent down there, but stupidly, no defenses.

     I couldn't do much but wait, and make Champions. I already had 30 or so Elite Longbowmen, and I wasn't about to waste them. I also had 12 Pikemen, and 3 trebuchets back at my main. They all went to the wood expansion east of my base, where 40 villagers waited for my counter to go over the 1000 stone mark.   Before it could do that, I was lucky, and found yet ANOTHER stone mine in the west corner, just next to the river. Only 1 stone, and it was hidden behind a forest, but I started on it immediately with 6 villagers.

      I as soon as I reached 1900 stone I knew the game was mine. It was 2 1/2 hours old. Several deaths on both sides. Map mined out (As far as I knew) Him turtled with a zillion Paladins and Hand Cannoneers. I built 4 towers, bringing me to 1316 stone. I placed 5 Elite Longbowmen in each. I built 2 towers about 10 squares apart. I put 5 Elite longbowmen, and qued up as many longbowmen as possible. He had discovered my expansion in Green's base, and took it down easily, but I did not worry. I just beefed up my defenses at the site. As soon as I had a messy group of walls, pike men out front, and a jammed tight group of  Elite Longbowmen near the water, I started it.

    It being the British wonder, of course. 11 villagers working on it. All of my military standing guard. Houses blocking the way. Paladins, Battering Rams, and Hand Cannoneers on their way.  Nothing could stop me. Nothing. Right?

  Except maybe another wonder. Mine was at 32% complete with 11 villagers. He started a wonder, and I estimated 35 villagers working on it. Shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I quickly sent 20 Elite Longbowmen (I still had millions at my base) to just run in there and kill villagers. I failed. Miserably.

Fortunately, I still finished before him ( I do NOT know how) and got the countdown done before him, by 17 years. 3 battering rams were all that opposed me. Wheeeeeeeee I won!!!!

As promised, Here is the corn. Just use the password you found about to get it.

I know I didn' t do a very good job at this battlereport, because I just suck at battlereport writing. Isn't that obvious though? If you give me a cookie I'll write better though.

-End-