I FINALLY did it. You know those come from behind victories? Not the "I'm down, but I perservere, and eventually overcome"-type victories. No no no. I mean the "down to the last villager, who's down to HIS last few HP, w/ no more allies (ed. note: well, not exactly - read on), to rise up, and conquer" victory! Yeee-HAAA!
3v3 large islands (gig. map). crow_mane (blue, greek), dedaleus (orange, yam), & limbic_warrior (brown, roman) vs. cadmanca (yellow, persia), manospap (green, greek) & HeliumKid (daz ME! red, phoe).
Got off to very quick start - nearby forests on BOTH sides of TC. Not a lot of fishies A few lags in villie production, but no worries (yet). Off to promising start... but green says "too slow" (yes, some lag), and drops! arrrggghhhh... 2v3 - but cadmanca & I soldier on. I've got 3 docks even as I hit tool (gotta love dat phoe chopper bonus!) - boats all ova creation. Soon my scout boats are the scourge of the oceans... First error - switched too many villies to stone (wanted towers to protect docks). Lost a bit of the wood production, and w/ all the boats, bldgs were hard to come by. (Doh!) Knew the tides were turning - orange scout ships fought back, and whilst I was busy w/ 'em, blue bronzed. I wound up bronzing 3rd, first on my team (not a good sign). shoulda watched the wood count (phoe can let you get lazy that way). Meanwhile, yellow, who hasn't been very communicative, announces trouble. Oh, yes. Big trouble. He's gone and let orange build right in his town. My galleys arrive too late to salvage - he's hurt bad. He struggled for a while, as I raced to iron (needed tris, and was already in progress), but his villagers got caught in a crossfire trying to escape. Worse still, they bombed his market b4 he could trib. I was screwed - he was DEAD. 3 on 1 - well, I'd been back on wood detail in force, and spreading slowly, but inexorably, out (mostly on green isle & brown territory, tho w/ few casualties on brown isle as yet). Ironed first (don't have the time, but it wasn't spectacular, lemme tellya!), and churned out tris from four or five docks. Next big mistake - although I had some towers, stonies, & priests for defense, I hadn't uncovered all the fog on the island perimeter. Orange & brown landed - cavs, stonies, imps/comps, backed w/ brown galleys, and many orange & blue tris (this, it turned out, was one of only two well-coordinated attacks they threw at me)... things got ugly in a hurry Managed to get many vills to safety, and kept some on home island to grab what they could, and pray. Meanwhile, I was building on green's former home, and on brown isle (until he found me Sorry - draggin' this out. Well, my home isle was a shambles - some escaped, but most paid the ultimate price. Worse - my fishing fleet was found almost everywhere simultaneously - went from probably about 45 boats to 4 in about a 15 minute span! Worse, brown artillery, backed by yam cav and ships, blew out my brown-isle base - only 3 villies survived, and I trannied 'em over to orange isle (ballsy move that saved my ass, as it turned out). I still had an impressive fleet of tris, but almost no gold, and very few troops (some eles, ele archers, ca's, a few priests & stonies, and some converted cav). I mustered what i had, and threw everything at orange - the largest army of my opponents.... Whilst he was busy dealing w/ that unwelcome surprise, my villies snuck in, & popped up a TC, and began rebuilding. Orange repulsed my attack, but jumped ship, and I had another island! This was NOT a permanent situation. All three, now very aware of my location, came back in force (2nd coord. attack). The base was all-but wiped out. I had almost nothing. A few houses, a handful of tris remained. A few ca's (hiding). I looked around. Uh oh. No villagers! Doomed. Blue (crow_mane), asked if we should ally. Actually, he'd been asking for quite a while, bein'sportsmanlike n' all that. Well, up until then, I'd been havin' a ball (despite circumstances), and had resisted his overtures. Now I didn't have much choice, & gladly accepted - right after I located a single (badly wounded) villie hidden in a forest (and just out of sight of an orange cav!) I let him go to it, whilst I rebuilt. Okay - I guess the beginning WAS pretty misleading. Up to this point, I still had quite a bit of food, a healthy stockpile of wood - but hey, I thought I was DEAD! I had just given the 'gg' when I found him! And rebuilt right under orange's nose (i suppose I can't blame him for not scouting - blue surprised 'em both by switchin' sides, especially w/ some of his troops and nearly all his fleet right amongst 'em! and all of 'em probably thot i was completely blown off orange's old island!) Okay... dragged this on long enuf (hell, it's 2 am now!) I used the wood stockpile to rebuild the tris - and managed to crank out some troops (w/ gold from blue). The tide turned so fast, I don't think they had a clue (I still had houses scattered about, and rebuilt the rest quickly). I found orange on green's original island, and my own first isle. Gotta love the sound of dozens of tris blowin' everythin' in sight to smithereenies (and if ya don't have subwoofers, folks - they're WORTH the investment!- my landlord musta called the cops!) Both resigned w/in minutes of each other. I nearly jumped outta my seat! And the moral is - don't ever LOSE to HeliumKid! Everyone will make fun of you! Even your own grandma! Sail on!