dkhodz in the Black Forest

Stryker927 had a great idea last week to resurrect an old PC classic for some online gaming action... Age of Empires II: Age of Kings (the Conquerors expansion). Now, I have never played this game online, but I have spent many, many, many hours playing against computer opponents (well, like 7 years ago that is). I usually play a random map against medium to difficult foes and usually win.

Anyway, as I mentioned I have never played online against human opponents. Stryker927, AnotherJay, and I agreed to a match last night. I set up a medium-sized map with one computer opponent in the Black Forest. Stryker and I were chatting over Xbox Live during the game.  All three of us humans chose the Teutons as our tribe. With that, I bring you...

The Story of dkhodz in the Black Forest...

Our civilization was planted in the northwest corner of a mighty black forest with nary but a town center and a few villagers. I, dkhodz, began ordering my loyal subjects to gather wood and slaughter a few sheep we found. The scout was sent out to a few random points to scope out the lay of the land.

I decided we needed a couple more villagers, so I urged my population to, uh, reproduce and we built a series of houses to accomodate future growth. I thought a sawmill would be nice as well, so I tucked a lumber yard back in the back of the town center area and also another one further away from the camp where it would be safe from any hostiles. My peeps got busy and soon I had a bunch of resource-gathering villagers. The berry bushes got picked clean, as well as the delicious sheep. The wood just kept coming and coming.

Well, with all that wood and not enough food, I ordered us to build a mill. I hired some farmers from the general populace and kept it close and tight to the town center for their protection. I also expanded into mining after my scout found some gold and stone in the area.

After my scout's third trip around our half of the map, I knew the basic locations of my enemies, although I had set them all to neutral by this time in the diplomacy settings. I was in the northwest, Lord Stryker was in the southwest, AnotherJay was in the northeast, and a villainous scum named Robert the Bruce was occupying the southeast. Unfortunately, with the black forest map, I had no route to get to Robert except by passing by the sheer, imposing walls of Lord Stryker's domain to the south. I blocked off the narrow passage to the northeast and AnotherJay's domain with a stone wall and put a tower there to be my lookout. It was never needed as AnotherJay completely ignored me for the rest of the game.

Well, I built a military, advanced a couple ages (after my opponents typically) and had a very strong economy. Super-strong. I mean, I literally couldn't use all this wood, stone, food and gold fast enough. I built about 6 mines, 6 lumber camps, 2 mills, and had walled off my entire operation with stone walls and just one gate to the south facing Lord Stryker. I built a couple monasteries, a couple castles, and had my population maxed out with paladins, mounted archers, elite teutonic knights, monks, and whatever guys of Robert the Bruce wandered toward me that I converted. All the while, I was upgrading, researching, etc. like crazy. I actually had the most technology at the end of the game and I think most resources too.

Finally, the call went out to eradicate Mr. the Bruce. Stryker and I became allies temporarily and I sent out a force of about 20 soldiers of varying ability to the south and through a narrow passage straight to Robert's lair. I took down a wall, killed a few soldiers, and soon learned of the Bruce-ish one's total capitulation. During this skirmish, I lined my walls with trebuchets and monks and a few towers.

Stryker soon ended our temporary truce, so I thought it better for my army to remain near the old ruins of Robert the Bruce's empire and build a presence there. I converted one of AnotherJay's resource gatherers, destroyed his mine and built a town center there. That lasted about 3 minutes until AnotherJay took down my weakened and far-from-home-cooking force.

No problem, let's see what's going on back home while I was distracted... dude, where's my gate? Stryker took it out with trebuchets and was mounting an army to invade me!!!!

Well, I pretty much knew it was over at this point. Earlier, I had sent a small force to Stryker's castle just to see what he was doing and I got slaughtered. I figured he knew what he was doing, but I was gonna go down swinging! I queued up about 30 paladins and elite teutonic knights but my one or two at a time army was quickly wiped out by trebuchets set up inside my own walls and a bunch of mounted baddies. Stryker wiped out one of my castles and one of my monasteries and even a mill I believe.

But by this time, AnotherJay was building a wonder. When it was complete, we had to act quickly. Well, I didn't. I don't know what Stryker was doing, but I was just trying to recover from being attacked. I finally sent out a few troops and trebuchets to take down AnotherJay from the north, but it was too late. He was ready for me with two rows of walls, towers, and trebuchets of his own. Stryker fared no better as the wonder stood for 100 years and AnotherJay won.

Seeing as this was a 2-hour+ game by this time, I was glad to be done finally! Next game should be a cooperative effort against several computer opponents!