The Lesser-known Wars of Heroes - ESOC Winter Championship 2020 First Matches Review

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The Lesser-known Wars of Heroes - ESOC Winter Championship 2020 First Matches Review

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The Lesser-known Wars of Heroes
ESOC Winter Championship 2020 First Matches Review
I am about to share the story of two matches that took place in the first stage of this year’s ESOC Winter Championship. These two matches both featured iconic people from the Age of Empire 3 community, and by coincidence, they were undeservingly ignored by stream management not lucky enough to get into the spotlight of the official stream. “Which two matches were they?”, you might ask. Well, just hang on, you will learn about them one at a time.


The Clash of the Sacred ESOC Animals – @Vinyanyérë (Duck) vs @EAGLEMUT (Eagle)

The first person entering the show was @Vinyanyérë, also known as the Duck, one of the longest-serving ESOC moderators known for making dinner and his quackening calm voice on stream. For the first match of the tournament, he had been told to face the mighty @EAGLEMUT, also known as the EagleGod of ESOC for his development skills. Duck was clearly not in shape after his return from a long period of exile, but he practised for a few games on stream to warm up himself one day in advance instead of relying on a hairdryer to do the job. He claimed that this was all for Eagle to prepare for the counters, but no one would ever know other than Duck himself what his plans were for his opponent – maybe they have been playing mind games all along.

In less than twenty-four hours after the warmup, the clash of the sacred animals took place. As the first loading screen of the match unfolded before our eyes, duck famously said, “we got them, boys; Captain against First Lieutenant, easiest match in my life.” Maybe he was just relieving the stress, or maybe it was part of his habit of warming up his fingers while he was loading into the game. But little did he know that the clash would last for over an hour.

The first game finally started. It was Duck’s China versus Eagle’s India in Arkansas. The first few minutes was as normal as one could get. Duck got a bit of unlucky though and had a coin start as China. Although with a free coin treasure nearby, he did not go for a market start and instead simply built a village. He had been working on the assumption that his opponent was not going to rush, but as soon as he spotted the Agra Fort in the middle of the map, he knew that his assumption was not holding too well. In an effort to delay his demise of getting rushed and to give him the time he needed for a naked FF, he tasked the Chinese explorer and his small gang to punch up the lonely Indian villager in the middle of the map. His initial plan succeeded, fast-aging all the way to Fortress by the 7.30-minute mark with the help of the 700-coin shipment. However, he did not know that his 700-coin shipment was a timed loan borrowed from India. As soon as he aged up, a small band of sepoys came knocking on his doorsteps. As Duck had nothing to offer other than the village up front, the sepoys decided to raze the village to the ground. In panic, Duck offered up another two villages out of three that were still under construction. His initial assumption began to bite him back. The call for sentries and the shipment of 10 arquebusiers were just there to delay the inevitable destruction. The game was called very soon, and at least it was swift and without much pain.

The second battle took place in the trading posts of Colorado, between Duck’s byzantine Ottomans and Eagle’s China. Making the brave and hasty assumption that Eagle was not watching him nor all-knowing, he told everyone that he would not be rushing with Janissaries. Credits where credits due, even with a food start, Duck went for an unlikely domination of trading posts instead by chopping extra wood in the beginning. He followed up by sending the 700-coin shipment again and proceeded to fast-fortressing again. This time, however, he made certain that the coin shipment was not in fact a loan borrowed from China. The land of Colorado had been relatively peaceful, with just small raids and skirmishes along the now-prospering trade routes. Only until after eleven minutes of relative peacefulness did the first big fight between the two ancient empires begin, struggling for the control over trading posts. The Chinese army was from old Han and the steppes and had not been reformed, while the Ottomans had janissaries and hussars, backed up by the spahis summoned from their homeland by Duck. It was a landslide victory for the Ottomans, but the war was far from over. The Ottomans proceeded to raid the newly-established Chinese town centre, but the Manchus had been called by Eagle to defend the Chinese influence on the map. Duck decided it was too risky and pulled back from the fight. Both sides started staring at each other as their armies grew bigger like snowballs. Eventually, Duck lost his patience and decided to take down that town centre after a six-minute truce. With his utmost determination and the late arrival of the Chinese army, he eventually took it down, but a big brawl soon took place between Duck’s and Eagle’s armies. The now-reformed Chinese army with its Manchus, arquebusiers and changdaos put on a great show, forcing the Ottomans to tactically advance in another direction and gaining back some dominance along the trade routes again. However, the peace was short-lived this time. With the help of new industrial technology, Duck called in two Great Bombards. The Ottomans were on the advance again, this time besieging the main Chinese settlement. The Chinese town centre was reportedly damaged and the British consulate collapsed under heavy bombardment, but the now-technologically-inferior Chinese army once again sent the Ottomans packing. Duck and Eagle had been going back and forth in an intense arm-wrestling, but Eagle’s glory with his comebacks did not last for long. Duck knew that he had to win a big fight for him to have a chance in the tournament, so he called in for more reinforcements from the Ottoman barracks and artillery foundries for the last time and went for another push. Coincidentally, Eagle sent most of his cavalry on a raiding mission somewhere else. The timing could not have been worse for Eagle – his main army was defeated, his raid party was neutralised and his only remaining town centre was burnt down. With the Chinese wonders coming under siege, he decided to honourably resigned as the Chinese emperor and lived for another fight.

The third and final war took place in Hudson Bay during the summer season as the German colonies found themselves in a civil war. Both players reportedly had been tipped off by a certain player that knows the German civilisation inside out. They knew they should do things a bit differently. With a coin start, Duck decided to go for a market start and transitioned into a uhlan-semi-FF with a trade post. The raid parties were set for both players, but Duck being the quackening Captain gained a slight upper-hand in the raid mini-game and had the second trade post established before aging into Fortress. As both players aged up to Fortress, their armies snowballed in size quickly, with uhlans being the backbone. The internal German conflict continued along the trade route just like the last game, but Eagle had a smaller army mass than Duck’s. In an attempt to equalise the situation, Eagle decided to pull back his entire army after revealing it to Duck, tricking the latter to push his army consisted mainly of uhlans into Eagle’s settlement. Eagle’s army immediately turned back to fight, with minutemen, war wagons and black riders popping from the buildings. The timing for Eagle was not perfect, but Duck had to pull back as he was not given any other options by the anti-uhlan mass. With the recent humiliating retreat, skirmishers were back on Duck’s dinner menu. Trained and shipped, Duck’s skirmishers successfully fended off the push from the black riders that followed. A while later, Duck decided to summon his own black riders and pushed into Eagle’s town again. The big fight took place in the outskirts of Eagle’s settlement. It looked like an equal fight, but Duck had the advantage of a slightly bigger mass. Eagle’s German army was brutally crushed, but at least it was a quick death. With all hopes lost, Eagle decided to resign and step down from German colonial management.

At the end, Duck won 2-1. Surprisingly however, Duck did not use one of his strongest civilisations – Japan. But like he said before on the stream, it might be mind games all along. “Ask not the duck how the eagle soars,” but the eagle had definitely crash-landed into beginners’ division. :hmm:


The Civil Wars of ssMgc – @Zutazuta vs @Victor_swe

On one side, we have @Zutazuta the great patron of ESOC, well-known for his Saturday Smackdown streams/videos with @Interjection. On the other, we have the famous @Victor_swe, the master of clan ssMgc. Both participants have been respectable high-calibre players since a long time ago, and they have known each other for many years. Just before the civil wars were announced, there was reportedly a friendly match between the two that just took place, so this was more like the rematch of two heroes, or was it the rematch of the rematch of the rematch? We may never know…

The first match took place in Arkansas between Zuta’s Japan and Victor’s Spain. With buffs given to Spain on ESOC patch, it became a bit of an uphill battle for Japan to fight Spain, especially against something like lancers. It was a wood start for the players, so naturally Zuta went for a consulate while Victor immediately built a trading post out of it. There was not really anything special for the first five minutes to write home about, but then things started to go for a more interesting turn for Spain. Naturally, with a very heavy fortress-focus deck, one would expect a Spanish naked FF from Victor there, but that was not the case at all. 700 wood arrived, and shortly followed by 5 and 4 villagers as Spanish shipments. A barrack was built and 10 musketeers were trained to siege down Japanese shrines across the map. With the Spanish ongoing rampage, Zuta responded naturally with a quite strong ashigaru, besteiro and naginata push across the map, sieging down Victor’s forward bases. Victor’s aggression had been put on hold as his Spanish army had been vastly outnumbered whilst he was attempting for a late age-up to Fortress. Two falconets eventually arrived and only then was Victor able to start pushing back Zuta’s Japanese mass. But the Spanish army did not venture that far from home before it was stopped by Japanese reinforcements. A big fight then took place in the centre of the map. The Spanish musketeers and falconets were face to face against Japanese infantry mass. The first few volleys from the falconets were very well-placed, but little did they know those were the few shots they were ever going to fire, as they got outflanked by the Japanese naginatas. All of a sudden, it seemed like Victor’s Spanish army was getting destroyed, like the defeat of the Spanish Armada in the English Channel in 1588. But the plot twisted again as the lancers arrived the battlefield from their homes in Spain. Both sides suffered heavy casualties and they eventually decided to disengage for a while to rebuild their armies again, but the tug of war continued in a smaller scale. It had been indecisive so far, but something different happened after twenty minutes of struggle – Zuta decided to click up to Fortress. Victor probably saw it coming miles away, and decided to commit to a final push. Pikemen and rodeleros coming from the top of the map, while lancers and a huge mass of infantry pushed through the centre from the right, sandwiching Zuta’s Japanese army that consisted of mostly naginatas and yumis at this point. In first glance, both sides were equal in material, but the positioning was absolutely brutal for Zuta. Naginatas were taken down one by one under heavy fire from the Spanish infantry, and as soon as the cavalry mass diminished for Zuta and there was zero presence of effective anti-cavalry, the lancers took down the yumi archers with ease. Suddenly there was nothing left for Zuta’s Japan. It was a very decisive landslide victory for Victor, and Zuta knowing that he was unable to recover from the fight decided to abdicate and move onto the next game.

The second civil war of ssMgc took place in the fields of Colorado again, this time with Zuta’s Japan against Victor’s Ottomans. It was a food start, but the players still went for a consulate and a trade post for Japan and the Ottomans respectively, regardless of the starting crates. For an interesting turn of events, Victor decided to ship 300 wood and silk road, and went for another two trade posts instead of the regular 3 settlers as the Ottomans has often been regarded as a civilisation that is a bit lacking in economic population. Even more intriguing was that as soon as Victor hit Colonial, he built a forward barracks in the middle of the map. It was certainly an interesting mix of economic and military options there to say the least, though it might have been just as confusing for both players and the caster. Five janissaries soon came out from the Ottoman barracks and Victor went for a small raid just as Zuta aged up with a rather late timing. To make things even more interesting, a Japanese villager was killed by a stray bullet just as he came out from the other side of the town centre. Soon after the first batch of yumis came out for Japan, the raid from Victor stopped as he continued to build up the Ottoman army. With the clear dominance in trade – a four-trade-post stagecoach economy, his economy was actually in a very good shape and comparable to Japan’s shrine-booming. After a few minutes of very dull peacefulness, Victor came knocking at Zuta’s doorsteps again, and this time with a sizeable army of janissaries and abus guns, against Japan’s small army of yumi archers. It was a brutal one minute of housekeeping from Victor. After flexing his muscles, Victor decided not to overstay his welcome under Japan’s heavy fire from the town centre and pulled back his army which has since diminished in size. It was definitely a decisive victory for Victor, but it was not the end of the ssMgc civil war. At least not yet while Victor decided to build up his economy further and tech up his army by advancing to Fortress Age. For the next seven minutes, as Zuta was given a chance to rebuild, it became a tug of war between the two players, with skirmishes and economic sieging going on across the plains of Colorado. In fact, it ended with what was initially a skirmish between the two players at the centre of the map, as Zuta attempted to siege down Victor’s forward base. At first, the infantry masses between the two players had a surprisingly equal chance of winning the skirmish, and both sides kept dancing around the centre; but just like in chess, at the very end it came down to positioning and reinforcements. As Zuta over-committed his yumi archers, now reinforced by a few naginatas, his army became surrounded by waves of seemingly immortal janissaries and abus guns from Victor, reinforced by a few minutemen. Zuta’s army was annihilated and was never heard back again. At this point, realising that the final defeat was imminent, just like Napoleon after the Waterloo campaign, Zuta resigned for the second time.

The Civil Wars of ssMgc might not have been put in the official visual records of ESOC, but their significance was enough to be written down in the annals of ESOC Winter Championship 2020, with Victor_Swe being the victor of both civil wars. Witnessing it live was probably once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and being given the chance to write about it was even more so. Who knows, maybe it will even motivate more players to join ssMgc? :P


A Few Final Words From Me

Phew. This has been a very long article at the end, rather unexpectedly.

First of all, my special thanks to @Vinyanyérë, aka the Duck, for streaming in first-person view against @EAGLEMUT, and to @Riotcoke for solo-casting the match between @Zutazuta and @Victor_swe in his own twitch channel. Such invaluable records would have been lost in ESOC history if it were not for their efforts to preserve them at least temporarily.

Anyway, there are probably a ton of grammatical mistakes scattered across the article, but I have done as much purging as humanly possible. I hope you find it interesting to read. This is my first official article on ESOC and also kind of the first for these tournament articles or any form of ‘creative writing’ really. I probably will be writing something else other than match reviews in the next few articles, but only time can tell what I will be up to. I am looking forward to any kind of constructive feedback any of you might have, so that it will be an even better viewing experience for you as readers in the future.

That is about it from me this time. As always, have a great weekend and see you next time. :flowers:

hleung
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Re: aThe Lesser-known Wars of Heroes - ESOC Winter Championship 2020 First Matches Review

Post by sebnan12 »

noo the virgin is back :(
"Why are you trying to lecture me on my own language, no wonder you people shit in the open street."- Riotcoke

''man he's slow rolling him more than a fish on a royal flush'' - Garja

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Re: aThe Lesser-known Wars of Heroes - ESOC Winter Championship 2020 First Matches Review

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sebnan12 wrote:noo the virgin is back :(
set aside the past, realize it was never personal, and appreciate today's contribution
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France iNcog
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Re: The Lesser-known Wars of Heroes - ESOC Winter Championship 2020 First Matches Review

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Post by iNcog »

hleung wrote:
Phew. This has been a very long article at the end, rather unexpectedly.
hleung

Nah, not quite unexpected from you. It's great that you're utilizing your talent of writing walls of text to write nice articles. Kudos! Hope you do some more.
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/incog_aoe
Garja wrote:
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Re: aThe Lesser-known Wars of Heroes - ESOC Winter Championship 2020 First Matches Review

Post by sebnan12 »

Cometk wrote:
sebnan12 wrote:noo the virgin is back :(
set aside the past, realize it was never personal, and appreciate today's contribution
the scars he left are deep :( nontheless i liked his post without having read a word of it. so im willing to make the first step by only calling him a virgin
"Why are you trying to lecture me on my own language, no wonder you people shit in the open street."- Riotcoke

''man he's slow rolling him more than a fish on a royal flush'' - Garja

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