This is Gnoll Wood. It's a 6-player map, which makes it pretty much wide-open spaces for a 1v1 game. As we'll see, two noobs can wander around this thing for twenty minutes and never even come close to each other's armies.







If you are unfamiliar with Gnoll Wood, here's a brief (and, sadly, unsophisticated) glimpse of what it offers.

MAIN FEATURES:

This is site A, a Fountain of (randomly) Health or Mana in the approximate center of the map. This game it refills mana.

That's a level 6 Drake, and some (surprise!) gnolls.

This is one of the B sites. Gnoll Wood does not have a natural expansion for each player--there are three towards the middle of the map for people to fight over.

The four inner shops are all Goblin Merchants (Sites C, C, C, and C). They look like this, until you kill the creeps. (Note to newbies: the middle gnoll with the shiny headknocker will abolish your summoned critters in about 5 seconds. Your Archmage or Far Seer will hate this.)

Positioned around the outside of the map, so that each one sits about halfway between a different pair of starting sites (see the D's) are three Mercenary Camps, with many bad guys standing guard. In the game, Yellow demonstrates how not to micro an attack on one of these sites using a Level 2 AM and a Level 1 MK--it costs him a Health Potion, but at least Shorty survives.

Here's what the base sites look like if no player starts there.
The Shadow Priest casts Abolish Magic.
 

Each starting position is close to one of each of these: a cluster of golems and a cluster of gnolls.

The golems are indicated on the map with !'s. They greatly affect play on this map--sometimes in, um, strange ways. The gnolls are interesting because, as on some other maps with similar clusters, the middle gnoll drops a Tome, which can be a Tome of Experience. They're not marked on the map, because it's too cluttered already.
 

RED:
Starting play in the southwest corner of the map, wearing the red trunks, is d1ckhunter. He plays Random, and draws the Humans. He begins this game with a record of 2 wins and 1 loss (Level 3). I could go to the trouble of cutting and pasting a peon icon here, but you've seen it before.

This player's name raises some interesting questions. Is that "d1ckhunter" as in "hunter of d1cks"? Or as in a guy named D1ck Hunter? I'm not sure I want to know.

YELLOW:
Beginning the game in the southeast corner of the map, wearing the yellow trunks, is 1959. He plays Human. Gnoll Wood is thumbs-down on his map selections, and he has never played on it before, though he has seen a couple of replays. (His ignorance will be a factor throughout the contest.) He begins this game with a record of 5 wins and 2 losses. He, too, is a total noob, and is represented by a peon.

This player's name is an obvious reference to his birth year. The dude is ancient. No wonder he can't play.
 

d1ckhunter's game begins in unusual fashion, as his five peasants stand around and scratch themselves for the first 25 seconds of the game. There is no "Waiting for Player" message to indicate lag. This will probably remain a mystery forever--perhaps he has to flip through his Big Book of Build Orders to find "Human vs. Human".

1959's game begins somewhat more conventionally, but doesn't stay that way for very long. He builds an Altar, then a Farm--then a Lumber Mill and a Farm and where the hell is the Barracks? It turns out he never builds one the entire game, eschewing mere land-based firepower for the wonders of air power.

At least when he does finally get going, d1ckhunter does a normal Altar, Farm, Barracks build. He gets an Archmage first out of the Altar, gathers up a few footmen, and heads out to engage the nearest trio of gnolls. From there, he moves on to the western expansion site. Here, d1ckhunter incurs another delay of game penalty, as his troops stand around for a full minute while he diddles with his peasants and waits for his Paladin to pop out of the Altar. Overall, though, things go smoothly: by the ninth minute, Red has upgraded to Castle, built two Arcane Sanctums, and is building two Gryphon Aviaries. He has also upgraded his building armor by one level--a somewhat unusual (though not crazy) move for a player who never builds a tower the entire game.

Then things go a bit awry. At 8:45 into the game, d1ckhunter attacks the northernmost golems, with his 2 Heroes and 4 footmen. At 9:05, he portals his decimated ass back home. Observe his technique:

At last, the big guns arrive--uh, this isn't going so well, is it Pally?.

Five seconds later, d1ckhunter's out of there.

Meanwhile, 1959 has been,um, negotiating the south and east sides of this previously unseen map. As soon as his first hero (also AM) emerges from the Altar, he gathers up 5 militia and a peasant (conscientious objector?) and races to the SE expansion (which is, um, NW of his base--consult map if unfamiliar). He never considers that it might not be his for the taking, having never played ANY 6-player map before, but luck is with him--it's in the clear. It's not an easy victory, however: only 2 peasants survive. One builds a tower, and one builds a Town Hall.

While all this is going on, though, 1959 has been doing something very un-nooblike--he sends out a scout. Only one, of course, since it never occurs to him that there are 6 base sites on Gnoll Wood, instead of the four he is accustomed to. The lonely militia hustles to the NE base to see if anybody is home. He is ignored by his peerless leader long enough to revert to peasantry, then pays the usual price for being under the command of a dimwit. Here is his story:

Nuthin' here...

Nuthin' here, either...

Oh, here they are.

Piss.

After this debacle, 1959 returns his attention to creeping. For the next several minutes, the Archmage must try to creep alone on a strange map. Let's follow his progress:

• 04:27--AM checks creeps at eastern Mercenary Camp. Yikes! AM leaves.
• 04:40--AM rides right by trio of gnolls; never sees them. In fact, Yellow never kills any of the Tome-yielding gnome trios the entire game, because he NEVER sees them.
• 05:02--AM picks a fight at the Goblin Merchant. He kills the center gnoll, and takes a Healing Scroll, which he hangs onto for the rest of the game.
• 05:41--AM finally finishes off the last of the Goblin Merchant gnolls. He's down to half-health, has no idea where to creep next, and--oops!--it's too early to buy a Healing Potion.
• 06:34--Having concluded two minutes before that the eastern Merc Camp presented too strong a challenge to take on alone, the half-dead AM proceeds to attack the southern Merc Camp. Same creeps.
• 06:52--AM leaves Merc Camp at a run; now down to one-quarter health, and still Level 2.
• 07:36--Healing Potions finally come available. AM heals self and buys a Wand of Negation. He hold this item, unused, the rest of the game.
• 08:00--Mountain King is born. Thank God.
• 08:22--AM and MK, now united, assault gnolls at the Goblin Merchant north of Yellow's expansion. MK buys a Healing Potion, which comes in handy real soon. He also buys a Healing Scroll, which he hold onto for the rest of the game.
• 09:09--Level 2 AM and Level 1 MK assault eastern Merc Camp. New depths of mediocrity are reached as we enter the...
  
  
  

 
Meanwhile, back on d1ckhunter's side of the map, the Red player has just portalled home from his unfortunate attack on the golems. He proceeds to not proceed, taking almost a minute to gather up stray units and get some things started building. Finally, he gathers up his troops and heads out--footmen still set to Defend, just to make sure he doesn't get to the creeps too fast. As the army is pulling out of camp, d1ckhunter starts training his first Gryphon Rider. It takes his resources down to 893 Gold--and 21 Lumber. Perhaps a few more peasants chopping wood would help?

At just about this time, 1959's Heroes have finally finished off the hordes at the Mercenary Camp. Lacking gosu microing skills, Yellow has been forced to burn a Healing Potion to keep the MK alive. Thrilled to have survived sorry leadership, the Mountain King demonstrates his Dwarven exhuberance by Thunder Clapping absolutely nothing:

Yellow has a brain spasm and Thunder Claps dirt.

On a more positive note, 1959 has seen fit to send out another scout. Completely overlooking the (nearer) southernmost base site, a peasant is sent to the SW site--and right into d1ckhunter 's base. Pathetically, neither player notices this for seventeen seconds, and the peasant is forced to stand around nervously in the middle of the enemy's camp (see title screenshot at top of page). Finally, Yellow notices the situation, and extracts his stealth peasant just out of sight to the east. There, the staunch worker-bee begins construction of a Scout Tower.

This looks like a good spot for this.















Once again free to focus on his creeping, 1959 executes what must surely be the most boneheaded move of the game. Just before he started construction of his cheese tower, Yellow hired a Troll Shadow Priest at the Merc Camp. Then, after starting the tower, he sends his newly-trained Paladin to join the other two Heroes. Pally heals his buddy, the Mountain King, and in a rush of enthusiasm, the Three Amigos race off to find fresh meat--leaving the Shadow Priest standing all alone.

"Uh, guys?"

At this point, inexplicably, the game enters a period of relative sanity. For the next few minutes, both players creep merrily along, apparently unburdened by thoughts of their opponent or what he might be up to:

<<<<Red creeps the NW main site.

          Yellow creeps the NE starting site.>>>>

<<<<Red creeps the northern Merchant.
And the northern Merc Camp

Yellow, still feeling his way around the unfamiliar map, decides to see what's in the middle. He finds a mana pool and some creeps, which he manages to kill.
It's after this little struggle, when he's wishing that he had some good way to heal his Paladin, that 1959 finally remembers the Troll Priest he bought. He calls him to the Mana Pool to assist.

Red takes on a few gnolls, and comes up with a Tome of Experience.>>>>

Yellow, meanwhile, continues to build a little stand of towers outside the Red base.
<<<<

Red takes his army to the northern base site to creep.>>>>

From here he decides to have another crack at the northernmost golems, seeking to avenge his humiliating defeat earlier in the game.








By this time, we're fifteen minutes into the game. While all that we've seen has been going on, 1959's peasants have been hard a work at his base, cutting and hauling lumber--from the wrong damn place.

Can anyone tell the class what this player is doing wrong?
<<<<


Thirty seconds after this shot, just as he is about to assault the southern Merc Camp, the Yellow player hears a message: "Our forces are under attack!" A click on the mini-map reveals the horrible truth--he has made a famous blunder, and now his golem neighbors are rampaging through his base. He portals his three Heroes and their Troll assistant back home to fend off the attackers.

As if their cosmic incompetence has somehow caused their destinies to be linked, Red and Yellow find themselves fighting golems simultaneously. These shots are of the same instant in time:

Red fights golems...
<<<<

...while Yellow fights golems.
>>>>

Red wins without major difficulties, and gets a Demoinic Figurine(!) for his trouble. Yellow eventually kills his golems too--but it's not pretty. No buildings are lost, but everyone dies except the Archmage and some militia/peasants--and four Gryphon Riders hovering unused at the expansion. To add insult to injury, the item he gets is a Scroll of Resurrection--for a guy whose strat is to mass gryphons (chortle chortle--irony is fun).

One loss Red does suffer is his priest--so he trains another one. When it pops out of the Sanctum some twenty seconds later, a funny thing happens to Red's minimap: it picks up few yellow dots.

Red's priest rallies to his Hero, exposing something wicked in his own back yard.

But Red isn't looking at his minimap. He is marching to the NE expansion to creep. From there, he marches toward the NE base site. Finally, at 18:10 into the game, and only about two steps from revealing Yellow's eight-second-old second expansion, d1ckhunter notices the yellow intruders near his base. He portals home and counter-attacks the yellow hordes without mercy. Not wanting to take a chance of losing the battle, and not content with four footies, four casters, two Heroes, and nine gryphs, Red throws down the Doom Guard.

Red pounds Yellow's "offensive" towers.

When the last tower collapses, d1ckhunter hurries off to find 1959's base, hoping to get some more use out of his Doom Guard. Hurries, that is, as fast as one can go with four footies still set to Defend. Unfortunately, the closest unexplored starting site is the southernmost site, and it's not the right one (note to d1ckhunter: scout the fucking map).

Yellow, in all the time since his base was attacked by golems, has done nothing but build forces, while his Heroes stand around and wait for inspiration. He starts off in a rather leisurely mode, but when he sees the size of Red's army during the Great Tower Massacre, he begins to move with a bit more haste. Finally, five minutes after the golem incident, the Yellow army finally moves out-- just as Red's army leaves the southern base site and heads for Yellow's base.

The climactic battle is, unfortunately, anticlimactic. There's not a hint of the comedic genius these players have shown heretofore, only a sad lack of micromanagement. d1ckhunter is even more clueless than his opponent in this, however, allowing his units to get tied up attacking meaningless buildings while 1959's forces concentrate their fire on a succession of Red units, starting with the Doom Guard (who, in a final irony, runs out of hit points and time at exactly the same instant).

Red and Yellow face off at 1959's base.

Red's Paladin goes up to Heaven.

After the big battle, it's all but over. Red has already used one Scroll of Town Portal running away from creeps, and another hurrying back to attack Yellow's towers. He has one more, which he picked up creeping, but it's on the Paladin. The Paladin is, unfortunately, dead. Therefore, the Red army must walk/fly home, harrassed the whole way by Yellow.

Red is mostly out of money, out of units, and never had any towers. A few stray gryphs, and eventually the Paladin, pop out of their respective buildings, but it makes no difference. Even the valiant militia are no match for a high-level Mountain King.

Thunder Clap knocks 'em dead.

That's the show, folks. It's unfortunate that this game was played under version 1.03, as it's pretty funny to watch the replay, but since so few people seem to have their computer set up to view different versions that I'm not even going to bother posting it.

I hope you've found this little repost amusing. It's my first Battle Report (I'm sure that goes without saying), and I basically ripped the html off from ~CattleBruiser~ without even as a bit of courtesy obfuscation. Thanks, ~CB~, and keep up the Reports--they're great.

As for the players in this game, if I seem to be a bit hard on them for their noobness, I am exactly half-entitled to be. I am 1959. I've learned a few things the hard way since I played this game, but basically I still suck. d1ckhunter I have never talked to since the game. He seemed like a decent sort while we were playing. After I killed all his shit at my base, he said simply, "nice". d1ckhunter, if you happen to see this, it's all a joke, dude ;) No offense. gg.