I just recently played a couple of games with _Number_6, and he is GOOD. It was a highland map, and he took, GREEK! Said he wanted more of a challenge. The funny thing was, he still did good, with greek. I was Minoan, but I wasn't sure how it would turn out since their was no water. It was OK. We won that game. One guy on our team - Widowmaker - tooled enemy red at the beginning. It was funny, I was sauntering about in red's base with a peon, noting the lack of military units, when I see 12 red peons stack up in the fog. I run over to get in on the fun and see waves of widow-makers archers run by. So I head off home to build up my econ, figuring it's OK. There were PLENTy of resources - I got three berries, and three ele pairs. I was gonna get another berry, but #6 took it. Anyway, I bronzed, then put many peons on wood to get farms going. I was brining back some extended forages, when they ran across a ca. I told them to bone it and wall of the archery range, but another popped out and a third appeard. I gave up and scattered. Four vills died, but one wound up near yellows base, where he built a bnuch of archeries, and one wound up back home. I got a bunch of compies, and then followed 6's men to attack the archeries taht yellow had put up near us. Yellow, the enemy, was sumer. My standard procedure was to sweep in with the comps, shoot up all hoppers and slow units, nail the stray stone thrower, and If I ran into more than one I'd flee in terror and scream frantically for Number 6 to support me with his cavalry, which he did. While we took yellow, the strongest enemy, Widowmaker had polished off red and brown. That was a fun game.
I tried to play a nomad with 6, but the oppositon all dropped/ resigned.
So, I found a non-forummer friend on, and started a game with him and two of his friends. One left, and I noticed Kurtiebird sitting around, so I got him in too. It was me and Kurtie against the other two fellas. The first game was neat - I tooled, and put to archeries near red, who was minoan, thinking, I'll nail him with my minoan compies quick. Hahaha. I suddenly noticed a swarm of red dots, and three watch towers popped up and drove off my peon. I was not happy. I scratched that idea and just built up a large slinger/tosser/compie force, which eventually razed all his towers. Meanwhile, Kurtie had ironed and had ballistas, and was taking out blue. I arrived with my cats and alchemy compies and administered the coup de grace. Then we spent 10 minutes playing hide and seek with reds two remaining war galleys. Those guys were smooth. He killed a fishing boat, two vills, and a house, all the while vanishing into the gloom and dodging our trireme bolts. We did ballistics, and soon nailed him. Over yet? Nope... one more galley. This time, I have a fb trail him so I can find him....it worked much better.
The other fellas wanted a rematch, which we were happy to give, and it went much the same way, only this time my forward base worked nicely. The waves of compies and st's wiped out his base, while kurtie hemmed in the other guy on all sides. He eventually resigned. I suddenly noticed that some of blue's houses, which had been in bronze last time I checked, were iron. So, we scoured the map for his last base, and finally found it. OOps, he has about eight phoeny war elephants..we kill them with great trouble, and the game sover.
It sure was fun playing with guys I know and can trust!! See ya on the zone!