Games

I just got back from a lan at Steve's place, and I'm wiped. It was a bit unusual because it started on Thursday and finished today, but most people couldn't make it on the weekend.

It started with the acquisition of a new game: FlatOut. In one play mode it's a fairly crappy racing game with a gimmick where the driver gets hurled from the car if you crash. In another game mode, it's the most fun I've ever had.

FlatOut's demolition mode is incredible. You and 7 other cars are plunked into an arena and the last one moving wins. Anything goes, and you're not defeated until your driver is launched out the windshield. We played for hours on end and nobody got tired of it.

We also played the usual allotment of CounterStrike, and I still sucked at it (but I was slightly better than normal). I managed to get a kill with the grenade, and I made a few good shots with the AK-47. Hitting a sniper before they can get you is a great feeling, especially when you can hear their shout of disbelief.

We did something a bit different and played Age of Empires 2 for a while. This was a good thing for me because I'm actually good at that game. Greg and I used to have marathon sessions where we'd play 1 on 1 on the biggest map possible, expand for as long as we could, then have an all-out war. These games usually lasted around 3 hours, but once it went to 6. Yes, 6 hours to beat 1 person. The balance of power shifted several times, and I think I finally won by building a wonder. Or maybe he built one and then I crushed him, I don't really remember.

Anyway, we had 6 players, so we did 3 teams of 2. We wound up with the type of map with rivers running through it, which was good because the marshlands that cross the rivers are easy to wall off. I was the Turks, and I took good advantage over their gunpowder units (lots of cannons, bombard towers, and gunmen). I had 2 full groups of elite gunners for my main attacking/defending corps, and my multitude of cannoneers turned out to save the day.

As soon as I got the marshlands to my island walled off, they started getting destroyed by cannon boats. The boats have better range than the bombard towers, so they were defenceless. A few attacks on my outlying mines made me decide that winning this battle through force was a bad idea, so I built a wonder. If the wonder stays up for 350 years (about 10 minutes), you automatically win, so it's the easiest way of beating your enemies as long as you can defend it. The cannon boats made their way around to where they could hit the wonder, and easily took out the trebuchets I had put up for defense. I forgot that they only automatically target buildings, so they just stood there and got shot. Fortunately the boats had to come closer to hit the wonder, and my bombard cannons took them to school.

That attack repeated itself a few times with a rush of the teammate's ground forces, but I managed to completely block off the marshland with my own ground units, and it became a bloodbath.

The wonder stayed up and my team won. Hooray!

Some Starcraft and a bit of Warcraft 3 filled out the rest of the gaming activity, and I did badly at both, as I tend to do. I didn't get the long period of inactivity I need to be an effective Starcraft player, and as a result I couldn't get the war of attrition started. If you let me, I'll establish bases everywhere I can and consume every available resource, then send wave after wave of whatever's cheap until you can't defend yourself anymore. Then, and only then, I bring the heavy artillery and mop up. It works astoundingly well when I have the chance to set it up, but if I get rushed it's hopeless.

In both Starcraft games we played the same map and I was the Terrans both times. I set up a very effective chokepoint the first time, and I easily defended 3 or 4 waves of attacks, both Zerg and Protoss. Then someone figured out that I hadn't quite finished building my air defenses, and it was all over before I could even blink. I have no idea what units they were using, but they attacked from outside of missile range and my marines couldn't stay alive long enough to shoot them. The second time the ground defences were less extesive and I started pumping out anti-air units as fast as I could, and that time I got swarmed by Protoss carriers. That in and of itself wouldn't be too bad if the defences would focus on the carier and not the fighters it launches, but there isn't much you can do about that. A short period of mopping up and I was done for, yet again.

Last thing we did was a game of poker. Actually two games, one before dinner and one after. Most people had left the lan at this point so computer games would be mostly pointless, and we wanted to get in some poker anyway. In the first game we had 7 people, Steve went out first (as he always does no matter how well he actually finishes), and I lost a lot of money to Mat on a bad call. I don't remember what I had, but the only thing that could beat me was a flush. He had the flush. Afterwards I went all in on something else and lost to something just slightly better, and my night was over. I finished in 3rd place, so not good enough to win my money back. Steve and Mat went heads up, and that only lasted 1 hand before Steve was defeated.

The second game was much worse for me. I consistently lost money, and finished 4th out of 5. I went all in with a short stack on kings and 5s, and Cid beat me with kings and 6s. Heartbreaking, really.

I think Mat won that game too, but I wasn't paying attention.