Friday, January 19, 2007

The 5th game: The Jack of Clubs (Part I)

In Sun Tzu's art of war, Sun Tzu actually goes through the tactics employed by famous tacticians and generals to display how well one could turn the tides of war. In his 33rd tactics in the Art of War, Sun Tzu explains:-

"He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponents and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heavenly-born captain"

-Sun Tzu, Art of War, the 33rd verse, Changing one's strategy-

In today's modern life, a Jack - of - all trades is normally known as a person who can practically do anything. Be it the lack of resources, the lack of troops or the unfavourable conditions one is placed in, a Jack-of-all trades can normally change the tides of war. Commanders and generals in today's modern society have infused Sun Tzu teachings with characters and figures associated with your normal gambling deck of cards. The Jack of Clubs represents the following:-


But, enough of the crap already....the 5th game shows the Heavenly Born Captain of 419: AkiraMike ("HBC") in his magnificent play against the evil forces of Pip and Druggy through superb maneouverability and careful steps. What makes this post interesting also is that you see a lot of reanimation of famous Chinese culture, landmarks and tactics.

The First Stage - Pip = Raz; Raz = Pip?.

The game starts of with Pip at 12 (Zerg), Raz at 1 (Zerg), Druggy at 3 (Protoss) and the Heavenly- Born Captain at 7 (Terran) in Lost Temple. Both Pip and Raz were stuck in a stalemate with each mimicing each other strategy (Pip and Raz seem to share same sentiments about each other playing style). The only way to break such a stalemate was to of course, ask for help.




Authors note: Notice the same built order, the building arrangement and the number of troops both Raz and Pip has.

Being the spiteful person I was, I met up with Pip in the middle of Hunters, with the intention to ambushing Raz or HBC. My teammate thought this was a good idea too, as we could easily prevent the HBC from reinforcing Raz and at the same time, eliminate Raz altogether. So we met up:-


The Second Stage - Ambush!

We were most fortunate when one of Pip's zergling saw HBC's squad of marines heading to reinforce Raz. Quickly, we sent the full force of our troops and unleashed our entire level of spitefulness on the squadran. Needless to say, we were victorious.....


Authors note: By performing a "Pincer" attack, the marines didn't stand a chance against the dual force of Pip-Druggy.


However, Pip and I were hungry for more spitefulness. Thinking that we wiped out the majority of HBC's troops, we proceeded to his base at 7. What fools we were.....

The 3rd stage - The Great Wall of Starcraft

Charging through HBC's base, Pip and I couldn't believe what we saw: A line of barracks, equivalent to the greatest wonder ever known to man, The Great Wall of China:-

We were SLAUGHTERED by HBC's units.....the line of Barracks served as an almighty impregnable defence wall thanks to its 1,500 hit points, plus, having a natural barrier with Bunkers supporting the marines, it was just all too easy for HBC to defeat us completely. Oh the pain, Pip and I felt while our troops were being slaughtered by a fortress of death. But the HBC did not stop there, as the Barracks were still producing tons and tons of marines to prepare for a counter attack (see above pic).

(Next: The Tactician....)

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