Well, it’s been a minute, hasn’t it? Hello everyone, Merry Christmas to all and Happy Holidays. Since you all are on the nice list this year, I am presenting the people of ESOC with another recap! As the Autumn tournament enters the home stretch, game recaps return with the best game of the tournament’s first half. In the round of 64,Duo- duckl- duorckl- daclr- Duck took on Risi123 in a highly volatile, action-packed second game where the battle began before even the Colonial Age. Yeah, you read that right.
This should be fun.
Background
Duck lost game 1 and fell back to the ever-versatile French civilization to get him back into the series. Risi123 elected to go for the upset with France’s polar opposite, Russia. This is a matchup that seems to tilt back in forth in public opinion. Some days it seems France’s early game resilience and tougher units are unsurmountable for Russia. Others, that Russia’s early swarm comes too quick, their capabilities in a slugfest too strong. In essence, it is a Colonial Age battle of quality over quantity.
In the previous installment of this series, Russia got licked against an unconventional enemy. The French, however, are the flagship civ for the standard player. Surely they won’t lose twice in a row? But then again would CurassierAndCurassier showcase a game where his own chosen civ loses? Will anyone tell me how to pronounce Duck’s actual username? Time to find out.
Openings
Surprise surprise, Duck opts for a cavalry start as France, and Risi123 plops down a forward blockhouse to begin a contain strategy. A showcase of non-standard strategy this game is not. But rest assured, that’s where the formalities end. It’s nothing but war from here on out.
A Surprise Attack
So Risi123 places his forward blockhouse in an off-center location foregoing map control in the hopes of catching Duck by surprise. But he’s playing against a French player, and Duck’s native scout snuffs the plan out. As the poor villager begins his work on the blockhouse, Duck makes a snap decision, one that will set the stage for the way this game will unfold.
He calls Minutemen.
“(joyous giggling)” - Mitoe
The French irregulars execute the villager at the blockhouse like he was a monarch. They then pull out the torches Age of Empires units seem to store in their butts and begin to, slowly, siege it down. Very, very slowly.
So it turns out, unfortunately for Duck, Minutemen are awful siege units, and despite the thing being still under construction it is nowhere near destruction when the Russian explorer wanders in, presumably just to check on how his villager is doing, only to find green-coated Frenchmen ineffectively throwing torches at the blockhouse. He chases them down, runs them all through with his sword one by one, and avenges the fallen villager. Risi123 sends a backup to finish its construction and the blockhouse does go up, but far later than he’d hoped.
I’m not nearly good enough to judge who came out of this exchange ahead. The minutemen pop certainly caught Risi123 by surprise, but he (unlike me, I’m sure) did not panic, shooed the pesky units away, and got his contain in place. Of course, that unorthodox Minutemen pop put a hole in his plans to pressure the French base, but Duck knows he hasn’t fully thwarted Risi123 yet.
The pressure will come.
Raidin’ and Tradin’
I want to call this next part an “interlude,” but that would be disingenuous. The skirmish at the blockhouse kicks off a sequence where both players scramble in a chaotic rush to cause the bigger mismatch to each others’ army. There’s not a whole lot in the way of players trying to win the game outright, it’s more maneuvering for map control, securing a position for the long game. Risi123’s gambit at the beginning, putting the blockhouse off-center to try and get his rush in undetected, has backfired. His next resources, save for one mine near his blockhouse, are unprotected. French cavalry swoops in to pick off Russian villagers and straggling musketeers. Russian forces push French infantry back in a fight alongside a native trading post. There are more trades than baseball in August.
This right here is Russia’s wheelhouse. They like a good knock down, drag out brawl in late Colonial. And Risi123 slowly seizes back the initiative. Duck overcommits and takes a bad fight in the center, forcing him to fall back. It’s not clear whether he scouted a stable Risi123 had built near his blockhouse, but in either event he did not prepare for the swarm of cossacks he was about to face. His crossbowmen get ritually sacrificed to the cossacks, and Duck only avoids total disaster with a timely pop of musketeers. He forces Risi123 away but overcommits again, allowing his force to get swarmed in the open field by a Russian counter attack. Momentum now swings fully into Risi123’s favor.
Duck On the Offensive
When the dust settles, the trade in front of Duck’s base looks even. Both players entered with an army, neither had one when the battle ended. But this is exactly how Russia likes to play. There will always be more poor saps to pluck from Siberia and press into service. Meanwhile, the faster training Russian settlers move the econ game into a dead heat, with Risi looking to slowly climb ahead. The clock is on for Duck to make something happen. Both players take a moment to re-macro as their hunts and mines run out. Then Duck makes his move.
Reinforced with lots of cavalry, he pushes against Risi123’s town for the first time. More Russian units pour across the map to join the fray. The two armies smash into each other in a close quarters fight. Risi123 pushes Duck back, he pushes Risi back. Back towards a gold mine, where several Russian villagers are working.
Knowing losing the villagers would mean losing the game, Risi123 sends them in to fight. CdB’s they are not, but they are enough to, just barely, hold. In the lull between battles, the villagers make a dash for the safer mine by the blockhouse. Meanwhile food starts to grow scarce. Hunts are running out for Risi123. He resorts to berries, beginning two blockhouses in a defensive location, which are immediately picked off mid-construction by Hussars. The armies dance around each other now. Both of them are buying time, waiting on shipments to make their next move. Risi123 waits on Boyars. Duck, on Pioneers. They arrive at the same time.
The finale begins.
“I can’t watch this!” - QueenofDestiny
Never Invade Russia in the Winter
Duck takes two fights by the gold mine, one goes poorly, and he loses much of his cavalry. The second is a lot more in his favor and he takes back a strong advantage in the villager count. But Risi123 has asserted map control, is gathering off of hunts instead of berries like Duck, and has massed a sizable army, considerably larger than Duck’s. Now boosted with Boyars, Risi makes his move. The Russian army pushes across the northern section of the map, looking to provoke the final battle.
The French decide to engage and for a moment all the advantage goes to Risi. His force is larger, and thanks to Boyars, the tech advantage France usually holds is minimal. Digging Duck deeper into a hole, his berries run out and his Coureurs stand around idle.
Or perhaps it is a stroke of luck.
Now free to do what they do better than any other villager, the Coureurs join the battle and swing the tides. Risi123 is forced back, conducting a fighting withdrawal. Duck tries to break off and gather from berries again but Risi123 does not allow him to rest. The Russians push right back and force Duck to continue to fight with his economy.
This is where Age of Empires 3 is at its best. A long term match where map control and resource control become the name of the game. Risi123 makes a risky decision and tries to sneak up to Age 3. Duck, however, is stuck in Colonial. Once he’s out of mines, they’re out of coin. Perhaps to stem the flow of coin he’s spending, Duck invests in crossbowmen again and prays there isn’t another ritual sacrifice to cossacks in his future. He throws up an ironic wall to keep Russia away from his stuff, and as he does this, Risi123’s mines run out. The villagers scramble to get the wood for a plantation and begin a wall of their own, but it never finishes. Once Duck sees his opponent’s aged up, he charges.
Now it’s Risi that’s on a clock. Two falconets are on their way, but he’s got a buzzsaw of a French army at his gates. He delays, delays, delays, falling back to his Town Center with dwindling units. When the falconets arrive, they arrive onto a battlefield. Trees fall, villagers scream, bells ring, all hell breaks loose and it’s total chaos. In the end, Risi123 scores a pyrrhic victory. He holds the immediate pressure, but at a massive cost.
In the end, Duck doesn’t need to take the town.
Risi123 senses that he’s lost. He’s outnumbered 70 to 40 in villager count, 40 to 0 in military. He’s in age 3 but has no capacity to take advantage of it. Rather than watch his town burn, he resigns.
Conclusion
What a game. It’s a great one to watch just because of how constant the action was, and it’s all over the map too. Lots of interesting strategic and positional moments to look at it as well, and if I may offer my PR19 opinion, this whole game happened because of Risi’s initial gambit to place the blockhouse where he did.
It may have been mostly bad luck that allowed the blockhouse to be caught mid-construction, but “gambit” is the perfect word for the strategy. In chess, a gambit sacrifices position for pieces and that’s exactly what Risi was hoping to do here, only he got caught, his progression slowed, and instead of trading subpar position for a decisive battle, he got subpar position and a bunch of indecisive ones. Part of me wonders what would have happened had that containing blockhouse gone down in a central spot, but then we wouldn’t have had this slugfest, wouldn’t we?
Autumn 2017 Second Chance Tournament
As the Autumn Tournament enters it later stages, more and more of us find ourselves relegated to the casting desk. Some of us were eliminated so early on that we've spent the better part of the tournament staring in disbelief as Tedere12 smashes through opponent after opponent. For those of us unfortunate enough to be knocked out before the round of 32, the Autumn Second Chance Tournament is set to commence on Sunday. Now making its third appearance, the Second Chance Tournament gives lower-leveled players a chance to play out more matches in a tournament setting, play against opponents of similar skill levels, and possibly earn themselves the dubious honor of first among trashcans. Sign-ups close on Sunday with the brackets to be generated shortly afterwards, so remember to sign up as soon as possible!
