Those Thiefy
Oil TankersThose Thiefy
Oil TankersLast modified: Friday, April 18, 1997 07:52:34 PM
Alex falls into the category of people on Kali who do not like water as much as land. I like water because of the plethora (look it up!) of strategies you can bash people with. I read water strategy guides (especially Shlonglor's, Shaf's, and Dalaran's) religiously, and have gotten good at some devious human strategies. And I'm dying to try them out :) ...
So, Alex and I are playing another game late at night. I "served", so I get to pick the stage. Wahooooo!!! High Seas on Low!!! Yes! In case you haven't read any of the other stories , I was humans, Alex was orcs, and fog was on and cheats were off.
I was located in the bottom right. And once again I am RED "I hate RED!" I used the lumber bug. Alex said he didn't. That put him behind, and may have cost him the game. My first farm went up in a place to start a partial wallin. I think I'll take a patent on this baby, man can it chew grunts!!!
Here is the wallin or shall I say partitial wallin.
You know the drill. First 2 pheasants on gold, next 3 on lumber. 4th pheasant made a farm near my town hall to try for a Nate™ wallin. I got another farm and a mill, splitting my guys evenly between lumber and gold. I put up a tower behind my now complete partial wallin, but put up a barracks before the shipyard. Stupid me!!! I was kicking myself when I did that, I was trying for a sea dominance ploy not a land ploy.
Well, I made the best of things and put up a smith (Whatcha gonna do? I already had the barracks). My barracks comes up, and I start making that plain tower into a guard tower. Then I notice a peon in my city. Alex has shipyard hopped over to my town! the peon notices my wallin and runs for the hills. He trys to set up a tower, but my first footman takes it down, good thing I got the barracks. The peon then runs into my new guard tower and dies.
Here is another picture of the wallin in its later stage. 
Well, I get my shipyard up. I'm swimming in gold, I had "Mucho Dinero," but little lumber. Several of my pheasants go off of being gold minners to set up farms, then they go to lumber. I get 3 footmen and a foundry. I achieve both attack upgrades to my footmen.
My first tanker goes over to Alex's city (his peon invasion gave it away). Because of the loss of lumber to the bug and the shipyard hopping (he cancelled it), he had a foundry and shipyard but no oil rig. I set up a rig on his own oil. (he later tells me he was really upset when I did that) That knocked him off the sea, almost.
Here is what my ships discovered. 
I then quickly built a foundry and pumped out 2 battleships, with 3 tankers getting me oil. Around the time the second ship was almost done, a transport full of level 1 grunts comes in and crash lands on the shores of my city. Since my first battleship toasted Alex's foundry, and he made a 500 oil transport, He only had 100 oil left. "Wahooo!!"
Where was I, oh, yeah, I was getting invaded. But I set up a 2-1 with my level 3 footmen while the Grunt Chewer™ went to work grunt heads were everywhere it was ugly for him. Although the grunt pack nearly busted through the top, but the cannon there finally got done and slaughtered them "AW it was Beautiful!".
Meanwhile, with the 2-1 working, I was gettting 2 full contact hits on Alex's landed transport with my Battleship!! He noticed this and tried to run, but I got him with a lucky shot. No more oil or transports for him!
He then pumps out an archer to take down my oil rig "What a desperate attempt, he must have been hurting!" My level 2 Juggs just, blow up his 2 barracks. 5 level 4 footmen and 1 pheasant rush into his base. There was no opposition to me setting up a barracks and mowing down his peons. Alex says, "I am dead." I say "I'll believe it when I see the drop screen." I said "He was to crafty and he had pulled the possum strategy one too many times on land." I got all my peons on wood to get enough to upgrade my TH, and had my invasion force move out.
I made 2 foomen from the barracks in his city and send them into his cities heart. I slowly demolish his farms "Should have made more, but it helped a whole lot." My transport with the grunts and peons was ready to invade a new town within a minute. I didn't think I would find one (I had killed his only transport to early for him to ferry peons anywhere), but I was vigilant just in case.
My town hall finally got done upgrading. I established a lab and a stable. My blimps circle clockwise around the map. When I get to the place above Alex's town, I find a new base. I said tell him "I hate you!" Here is the picture, along with the reply, he said "Hey, that hurt." I apologized to him and got ready to wup his butt.
I sent a little attack to rile him up. My 5 footmen and a pheasant disembarked. I put up a cannon tower next to 2 of his scout towers. He upgraded them. Unfortunately, my tower shot the mining peons instead of the towers. That attack killed 5 of his peons, but I lost 5 footmen, a pheasant, and a cannon tower. But I could afford to lose some guys after all he was stuck on that little rock till he got some oil.
I decided to keep him off the sea and invade. But the casualty list from a sea-borne invasion would have rivaled Normandy. So I decided to ship my peons up to the nearest island and sapper through.
12 pheasant set up my town hall really quick (my mine had been mined and lumber had been clearcut at my main base). 9 went on gold, 3 went on lumber. I set up 2 inventors, and went to castle. Then I got a barracks and a mage tower. Check out the ambush!
I pumped out 9 knights and a mage. My inventors produced 2 sappers. I got ready to go in . Alex busted out of his own wallin to get cats to harrass my juggs. I parked them near the closest oil spot, making sure he would never take it. I got ready to rumble.
Alex was getting cramped and busted out of his wallin to replace farms my 2 footmen had been constantly leveling at his main base. He had 15 level 5 grunts out there. A conventional invasion would have been suicide. "But I'm not conventional hehe."
My mage hit them with a blizzard and stopped. They charged the rocks. The mage then killed all 15 of them. "Yes!!" My sappers blew through and 9 knights charged his city. I got hung up on all the walls, and 3 cats got 4 of my guys. But I managed to get them. The remaining knights charged and got slaughtered by towers. But his wallin was in tatters.
I rebuilt the force and got ready to do it again. Meanwhile, I made a ballista and a knight on his main island (the now dead on). I demolished 5 farms and a mill with the help of the ballista (they had towers covering them). The battle was definitely favoring me.
Somehow, Alex put up a shipyard without me noticing it. He the got oil from way across the map because I was blocking the convienent oil location with Juggs. He got 300 oil before he got careless and stopped manually moving the tanker. I followed him to the rig and leveled it. I then killed the tanker and jugged and sappered the yard.
Alex now had enough oil to put up a smith and upgrade his TH. That was not good for me, since he could now get ogres. "But a sapper of mine slowed that plan down."
Alex was not happy with that. My juggs had slowed his lumbering to a crawl by shooting at careless peons. Now he was 1,000 lumber in the hole and planning a major ogre strike. Luckily for him his towers covered the shore or I would have given every peon a snowcone, free of charge :) .
Alex got up 4 ogres and 3 grunts. He was out of money and lumber. It was a do or die situation. He had to take over my second base to be able to survive and hopefully retake the sea. So up went his guys along with a peon strike. My knights fought valiantly but did not avail against the ruthlessly killing peons :) . But I put the kibosh on his plan for killing my 3 barracks by sappering his 2 ogres. My knights killed his peons, and set up camp outside the reach of his towers, demolishing a farm.
2 knights escorted a mage forward. The mage got a guard tower, but saw a sapper running forward. Thinking quickly, one of the knights moved. He managed to escape destruction. The other two, alas, did not :) .
I noticed that Alex had built his Ogre Mound, smith, and farms by the other island (his old one). I happened to own that island :) . My ballista shots at his smith KABOOM, depriving him of cats and ogres. Then I razed all the other buildings I could reach. I got one of his barracks and sappered the other. Seeing that he could not build anything without it getting sappered, and how he could only build sappers and peons, he surrendered. It was getting late, anyway.
Ah yes, the Morals