The War Of The Sore Throat
"Konie is convinced that he will conquer the North just like Alexander conquered the East"
Color Code :
Us in Red
Them in Yellow
Purple for Pictures
Context
If you're asking yourself why you never heard of this war , the answer is simple : it's because it happened yesterday.
-so green , would be a shame if it turned RED
There's something great nowadays called RTS games , which stands for "Real time strategy games" , like "War selection" , "Age of Empires" or the famous old "Red Alert"
Basically in the game that i played "War Selection" , the player founds , rules , protects and fights for his city.
The match contains 16 cities controlled by players , 8 of them are against this particular player and the rest are with him.
The terrain and the environment are randomly generated , and all of your allies spawn near you. You have to collect resources , build cities , protect yourself and your friends and go conquer, in this particular game you also have to upgrade from one age to another, meaning, you start at the stone age and you finish at the industrial age. After the iron age many things change , you get to train new units , build new things and upgrade the looks of your city.
This game demands you to rule and it is not an easy feat especially when you have 8 other players who are willing to obliterate you and everything you stand for. (in the game ofc).
-Humble beginnings
Table of Contents :
1-The Ass Is Lost
2-Wall de Guerre
3-Bricks , Rocks and Fire
4-Blood for Iron
5-Time and IRONy (get it?)
-Russians , Nopes and .... what?
1-The Ass is Lost
"You should have sent more men" said the chieftain of "Drakor" the first city to fall to the hands of the southern monarchies.
Here's the thing, early on in the game no-one really is very comfy when it comes to resources. Quite the contrary, so everyone needs to invest in their personal priorities. Drakor had the toughest spot in the whole Map because they had enemy neighbors and so he was our Frontline , so a military was invested early , and skirmishes did too.
However the game is harsh when it comes into investing only in the military, it is costly and usually when you do have a military priority it means that you want to use it , either to defend or to conquer and sometimes it fails your expectations.
I on the other hand I saw a selfish opportunity, I was far from all those problems of fighting but I started to contemplate for the future.
Our side which I will call , " The North" is divided into the cities beyond the "Throat" and the cities behind it , and the "Throat" is actually a very strategic Territory.
why?
because it's small , and narrow , and both sides are protected by water. What does this scream to you?
A wall.
-first draft of the Wall
A wall here would be ideal , first , it wouldn't be too long , but also should fighting happen in this narrow space, the fortified side will be the Victor.
Soooo for my part ,I invested in protecting 5 people, and well , as for the ones beyond the "Throat" I didn't leave them to die in the cold , many players sent soldiers down to the Frontlines.
But it wasn't enough, the resources were split on defense and interior affairs of the cities early on and so when the decisive battle of 'Borondis" came , our legions were no more. The south had an invasion army so strong that it managed to eat every Northern player outside our walls , which were 3. All of them fell , like dominos, in matters of minutes. we should have sent more men...
-Stone over wood , and blood over Food
2-Wall De Guerre
Rams , catapults and soldiers were marching towards the "Throat".
And well , This early the wall was complete , however not all the city defenses were put in place. The wall was compromised into three different parts .
the Frontline was the first wall , it had towers and trebuchets , it had also some troops and workers to build ,repair and never come back home.
the second line was very narrow, an army passing here would be coming to a antioxygen concert , this line also had towers and trebuchets .
-Tower MANIA
and finally the last line , was also protected with the same techniques although, if this would be breached the doors of the north would be open , we had our cities and citizens there. We would have been torn apart , just like the honorable men who died before.
-The "Throat" Sultan
what is important to mention is that one of the Northern city states was actually a literal part of the wall, on the Eastern Side , Flume was a city that knew how to train Knights , pin that.
3- Bricks , Rocks and Fire
-do you like geopolitics?
Bricks for Walls , rocks thrown and fire torn across the battlefield. The arrows broke their ranks the Trebuchets were scaring enough on the moral side and the Cavaliers of Flume shredded anyone who dared to stand.
They tried more then once , and more then once our walls colored red .
But there was a problem... We were sitting ducks , we managed to take down two enemy cities perhaps with Flume. But we didn't conquer them, we Just killed everyone and couldn't stay, we didn't gain any new territory. And slowly but surely resources were becoming scarce.
-Struggle for Power
4-Blood for Iron
However something came to save us :
it was a rich Neighboring continent. And no , no natives were there already. Allegedly.
-BY RIGHT IT IS OURS (pic of the foreign continent)
The continent was full of Iron , trees and rocks , resources that are a must to fuel this war. In the early Ages we already invested in it but then the southerners wanted a piece of that cake. Many battles were fought for territory. Even if the population there was small.
Sailing soldiers to the new continent is costly so we started making infantry and war machines on the continent itself.
Funnily enough, it became more and more silent with time (the dead don't speak), it's like there was mutual respect....either that , or both sides were actually tired of this back and forth on a foreign continent. Which is weird because the need for resources Is never one sided.
speaking of another continent , did you fathom the idea of "why didn't the southerners just attack from the water?"
Well they did , but we just had a better navy and sank every ship who tried to play smarty pants with us.
it was a formidable defense and , a greatly constructed prison for us.
-A soon to be Catapult graveyard
5-Time and Irony
We felt powerful and safe when they couldn't overwhelm us , they kept losing at our doorstep and perhaps it's that feeling who made us loose.
here's the thing, we weren't united on the feeling to make a great powerful Army to conquer, for instance i Just wanted enough soldiers and resources to protect our walls. Avenging the friends who were lost was kinda already done as well , we took down two cities .. Right?
-Enemy Pov , Green conquered area , Yellow is disputed , red is for us
However time was running out and something I didn't mention for this game was that at the late industrial age , if you are super rich you can make something called a "Wonder" (it's a special building) , if you make it, a timer will appear for you and the enemy alongside with the exact location of the "Wonder", usually that timer is around 30-45min it depends really.
And you would have guessed correctly if you thought that if the timer runs out , the enemy loses.
AND WELL
-RETREAT AND MORALS and AAAAH
THE ENNMY DID THE THING THAT WE DIDN'T WANT.
Someone made a wonder in the deep South.
So . Great news. For 5 generals sitting behind their great walls ...
We started attacking but the copycats built walls as well (the fog of war didn't show us that these were being constructed).
So we send our soldiers , and they sent theirs and the world was set on fire once again.
Time was running, taking them head on would result in a defeat in the long term.
There was an idea however.
Tiking in the mind of a certain northern ruler...
-SUNKEN SHIPS AND BEATEN HIPS (us in red , them in yellow)
There was the shores of the deep South who were left , isolated , and breakable.
The plan was to take our soldiers and just take on their Wonder to stop the timer by invading this shore.
But the plan was never executed due to lack of resources, time and effort. I felt there was a lack of communication with the other generals , for instance i was in great need of Iron , but then again , Iron wasn't flowing like water at that time.
The defensive side of the North left us safe from the Outside, so the outside played the same game we did.
-"We don't like tanks"
It's ironic because we didn't want to play the aggressive game and played on our own rules. So they just said "okay" , and played along.
There are always lessons to learn. And our mistake was that we felt safe and strong behind our grand fortified walls. At least for me.
whereas the outside lost so many times to us and then choose to be like us with a twist , using their resources the right way.
Whereas us , had a shortage of iron and wood and eventually for me Food as well.
We kept them out and we locked ourselves in. we didn't have a single metal or stone pile to mine , and not a single tree was standing in our native continent. Sending people abroad was an idea , but costly.
-What's harder to get , a Gf or Resources ?
The moral of this story, is that , protect yourself, just don't always do it , if you don't get hurt , humiliated, shamed , outsmarted how would you make yourself better ?
I don't want to say that getting hurt will always teach you , No , God no , but i say , experience , adventure and change can teach you things.
-The late Game "Throat Wall"
We learned when we lost our 3 friends outside the walls that if we play army vs army we would get slaughtered. So we adapted and twisted the game and threw the ball back to the enemy. But we didn't play as a good team when the enemy did the same and threw the ball back to us. And it costed us our victory.
-Stand off
-Results of the Standoff :) it's US
This war was fun , it shows that if you want to be a strategist , you have to change your war method at the right moment. We tried attacking them with ships , airplanes, soldiers and tanks , and they failed. But i am sure , if we all just united into a common cause , helped one another with resources more , we would have invaded this shore , and nuked their Wonder.
-The shore in question
-thank you Konie and GG
If someone ever read this , thank you for giving me your time , i hope you enjoyed it , clearly , i love talking about things i am passionate about , and yesterday's game was pretty nice that i had to talk about it.
Whoever you are , thank you so much for reading . You can send me a text saying you read it , i would truly be happy hearing this . Thank You.
ps: i allowed myself to give fictional names , quotes and a couple of other things to make it more fun to read and write!
btw the article main picture was made with Dalle-E , it's an amazing AI
