Game Stories: Age of Empires 3

So, I was planning to do something of a once off regarding how games are a rich breeding ground for stories, and their creation is what drives a lot of people to gaming, but that sort of fell apart as I was writing it, so I think that I’m going to just do a series on stories I’ve come across in games. I’m not sure how this is going to work, whether I’ll just drop it, or whether it’ll be just like everything else on the site and I sometimes update, while a tiny crowd consisting of nobody at all watches on an cheers. Anyway, first story!

Lets set the scene. This is occurring at a LAN party being hosted by my friend Mannion, and it’s some time in the morning whilst we all recover from what was a fairly late night. Seeing as how we’re all tactical geniuses after zero sleep, we decided now would be a good time to fight against two hard enemies on Age Of Empires 3, a feat that it would be hard for us to do fully awake, even with our 2-1 numbers advantage. The game got off to it’s predictable start of a whole lot of faffing about by three of us and some concentrated work by the only actual RTS player among us, Pat.

After 10 or so minutes, the first attacks started, and we immediately had to defend ourselves. Pat rolled in and saved our arses, and this continued for about half an hour with the rest of us peons struggling to get any kind of economy going. At around the 45 minute mark, an attack that could quite easily have wiped us all out was held back by a concerted attempt by Pat, Mannion and I, but unfortunately Rohan, the person who was arguably the worst at the game, had suffered the brunt of the attack, and his base, which was at best a few houses and some elderly sheep, was now just an elderly sheep standing around. This scared the living crap through us. The entire point of Rohan was to act as cannon fodder whilst we farted around behind him with guns and artillery, and now our precious, ludicrously expensive units were going to be exposed to the legions of men with pointed sticks and guns.

Shit.

Mannion and I weathered several more minutes of heavy attack, swearing profusely and requesting help faster than anyone could provide it. Our forces and economies were taking a battering, and as the last of my already pathetic army was wiped out, I saw an entire friggin column of cavalry roll around the corner and into my base. Turning to Mannion, I looked to him just as the hundred archers ran into his base, and watching his face fall said everything I needed to know how much help he’d be. I prepared myself for the end of the game, and just as I began to really panic, in came Pat.

Artillery boomed, gunfire roared, and arrows zipped through the sky, as the two invading forces were torn apart by a brutal wave of fire from Pats defensive forces. The battle couldn’t have lasted any more than a minute, and as I watched, he destroyed the final vestiges of the attack. Standing triumphant over the remains of hundreds of the enemies men, he flipped the computer screen the bird and headed back to base.

However much morale was restored by the epic battle fought for our lives, Mannion and I were defeated. Both of us were hovering above the resign button, when Pat suggested that we should throw our last few meagre forces into the enemy base, just to make it easier for him when we died. We took a bit of convincing, but figuring it was the least we could do after he saved our asses, we pooled our remaining resources, and managed to scrounge together a respectable force each.

Now, let me just say, this is the very definition of a last stand attack. Our economies were shot, our men were dead, we were just splattering our last men in the vain hope that it might make things easier for someone else, although it almost certainly wouldn’t. With a massed cry of “oh fuck it!”, we charged into the enemy base, expecting at any time to be cut down by a barrage of every type of death that was locally available, as well as some that had be specially imported.

However, after running through the outlying areas, we just kept on running through. And kept running, all the way to the very centre of the first enemy base. Zero resistance. By what can only be described as divine intervention, they’d completely wiped out their economy AND their army after attacking us! Being the merciful, honour-bound people we were, we absolutely destroyed the base, massacring everyone around and exploding every single thing we could find, laughing and yelling out in disbelief every time we found a new hidden area of villagers, or an undefended town centre. Before long vengeance was fully repaid upon the purple bastards, with all of their units dead, buildings destroyed, and I think someone spelled out LOL in archers on the spot where their base was.

Around here, we were flying high. Someone suggested that we attack the other base, and they were greeted with cries of “FUCK YEAH” and “LETS KILL EVERYTHING” and “LOL”. We ran straight into their base, with nary a thought in the world as to how we were going to deal with anyone fighting back. The result? Pure. Fucking. Carnage.

I lost count of how many villagers I killed, how many houses I exploded, how many times I laughed at the sheer absurdity of us simply charging blindly into the enemy base and winning. Never before have I been handed such an unexpected bonus from the gods of gaming, and I’ve never received such a gift since. The game soon ended, and as one, we pushed back from the desk, and looked at each other.

Rather than the usual excited chattering that follows a tight win, this was almost respectful. We worked hard, and we pushed at exactly the right time. We had crushing lows, dizzying highs, and coming out of it we were the ultimate victors. We deserved that win, goddamnit, and nothing was going to cheapen it.

SO. There’s the first one of hopefully a few. Comments? Thoughts? Indignation? All welcome.