"Hey, Jiu Wei!"
It had been a couple of weeks since I had left the army, and I had spent most of it gaming (of course). It took me a while, but I had finally managed to regain most of my skills and knowledge. That said, I discovered quite a lot of new things about Spacecraft. Evidently Hailstorm had implemented new units and mechanics over the last two years when I was stuck in the military. I was aware of the changes because I kept up on news whenever I booked out for the weekend, but I wasn't able to experience them in great detail since I had very limited time outside training camp.
Right after one of those sessions, I received a call from Harry. With one hand moving the mouse, and one hand on my keyboard, I was almost unable to answer the call. My fingers flew furiously, tapping out commands and hitting shortcuts to maintain production while leading my various control groups into positions. I could only spare a second to swipe at the screen of my smartphone. Fortunately, I had my phone on speaker mode, so I didn't need to bring it up to my ear. After a hasty swipe, I returned to sieging up my Panzer tanks atop the high ground to lay down fire upon an approaching cavalry of Dragoons and Disciples, accompanied by spell slinging High Priests. Maelstroms boomed across the battlefield, tearing into my tanks, but they were durable enough to survive despite the devastating destruction wrought upon them. Even so, I knew they couldn't stand a further round of punishment, and I had them launch salvos into the Psidork lines while dredging up my Salamanders to protect them from the charging Disciples.
Best to leave both my hands free to play the game.
"Harry? What's up?"
"Are you free today?" he asked cheerfully, clearly not noticing the tension in my voice.
"Not really," I grumbled. As if to punctuate my words, the resounding boom of my tanks firing a concussive volley at the approaching Dragoons, High Priests and Enlightened. The spell casters threw a cloak of illusions to cause the sensors of my attacking units to go awry – which in gaming sense, meant a 50% reduction in accuracy – but with the massive radius of splash damage from the tanks' artillery shells, the lack of accuracy didn't matter. The poor High Priests and Enlightened were flattened alongside crumpled shells of obliterated Dragoons and slaughtered corpses of Disciples.
The infantry units continued on their personal flying saucers, soaring across the terrain to charge at my mechanized units, but my Salamanders formed a wall of titanium before incinerating the approaching Disciples. They never stood a chance.
This was why nobody went spell-caster route against Terran mech. The disadvantage of relying on extremely fragile units that relied more on area of effect spells and trickery was too massive, and while theoretically they could still do enough damage to destroy my Salamanders while the Disciples overwhelmed my tank columns, in practical terms the immense firepower and sheer durability of Terran mech units was way too much for them. My opponent would be better off using Psidork mechanical units or going Sky Dorks.
Oh well…I guess the opposing player was trying to be fancy.
While I navigated my units across the thick lines of Psidork infantry, Harry continued speaking from the other side of my smartphone.
"Is that Spacecraft? You're playing right now?"
"Yeah. Practicing. I need to get back to shape in time for the tournament next month. I don't have a lot of time."
There was a small, local tournament next month, held in my country. Though it wasn't as prestigious as premier tournaments, and foreign players and teams weren't invited (mostly because they wouldn't be interested in such minor events), it was necessary as a first step for me to get back to the pro-gaming scene. Team recruiters would be present, and winning it would be a massive statement of intent on my part to force my way back to the top.
If I couldn't even win a minor local tournament, then what hope did I have of making it back to the pro scene?
"Good. That's exactly what I'm calling you for. I'm wondering if you would like to have some practice games in Dhoby Ghaut. You know, our usual haunt in the net café? The LAN shop?"
"Uh huh." I knew exactly where he was referring to. The net café that ran as a front for the local pro gaming team in our country. Team Solid's HQ. "Sounds good to me."
After all, if I had the opportunity to play more games, I would jump at it. And honestly, it was much better to play against Harry or other people from Team Solid. At least they wouldn't be as incompetent as players on ladder, who somehow thought it was a good idea to build spell casters against a Terran mech army.
Even so, as expected of a Diamond League player, he was tenacious. Despite me obliterating his army, he had yet to surrender. I wasn't stupid enough to underestimate him and leave him alone, though. pushing my army forward, I sought to finish him off once and for all, aware that if I left him be, he would rebuild his forces quickly and attempt to swamp me once more. And since this was a Diamond League player we were talking about here, I was sure he would tech switch and transition into something that would counter my army. Right now I had very little anti-air, so no doubt he was hastily throwing down Stargates in an attempt to pump out Aurora gunships. I didn't build any Raiders in this game, having completely ditched the air route to produce more Factory units. I did have a couple of Titans escorting the tanks, but they would be eventually overwhelmed by whole squadrons of Aurora gunships if I wasn't careful.
"Great! I'll see you in…an hour or so, then?"
"Two hours," I replied, intending to finish this game first. It took me forty minutes to get to the net café from my home, despite the sheer convenience of the local Mass Rapid Transit. "Let me get some stuff done first."
"Okay! See you then!"
He hung up, and I spared a millisecond to swipe at my screen to end the call. Then I refocused to directing my troops toward the enemy base.
Resistance intensified, and I wasn't surprised when I saw several massive spirits hovering toward my army. On first impression, they resembled gigantic balls of crackling psionic energy, their spherical forms wreathed by blue lightning. At their core was a single ethereal figure of a ghostly Psidork, his webbed legs now wisps of energy rather than actual physical limbs.
The Ascended.
Even though I said that the spell caster route was impractical for Psidorks, it wasn't as if they were completely helpless against Terran mech. The spell casters could still deal massive damage with their spells, but the deadliest of their units came in the form of these colossal Ascended – massive beings of powerful psionic energies. While they didn't actually have spells, they were the counterparts of my Titans – beefy, covered in powerful, defensive shields of psionic energies, and capable of launching devastating psychic attacks that dealt splash damage. My tanks fired a coordinated salvo at the approaching Ascended, but the shells disintegrated harmlessly against their gleaming psionic shields. With massive health and impenetrable shields, they could shrug off a colossal amount of firepower and wade into my lines, annihilating my tank squadrons. Even my Salamanders couldn't stand up to their tremendous strength, the battle armor annihilated by the blue lightning that the Ascended almost casually threw across their lines.
"Damn," I cursed.
The Ascended certainly were powerful, but they came at a cost. To produce them, the Psidork player had to sacrifice units. To be more specific, he had two High Priests, or two Enlightened, or one High Priest and one Enlightened fuse together. Kind of like Dragonball, where you had the Fusion sequence. In any event, the High Priests and/or Enlightened combined to create the insanely powerful Ascended, giving up their lives for the Greater Good. The result was that you replaced your expensive spell casters with a single behemoth that was, according to lore, completely composed of psionic energy.
Fortunately, as all games went, the Ascended were not invincible. Even though they had a massive amount of health, the relentless bombardment from my tanks was enough to wear them down eventually. At the great cost of my Salamanders, and after losing half of my tank, I managed to take out the six Ascended and a swarm of escorting Disciples. Even then, it was close run. My only two Titans lumbered forward and blasted the final Ascended apart with their charged particle cannons, and it took two consecutive volleys before the psionic being collapsed and dispersed into harmless sparks.
My Field Engineers hastily made their way forward, repairing as many damaged tanks and Salamanders as possible. I didn't waste too much time on field repairs, though, and had my surviving forces march straight for the enemy base, which was by now a short distance away. My slow, almost immobile army rolled or trekked forward implacably, determined to finish this once and for all.
As I suspected, he had thrown down three Stargates in an attempt to tech-switch, and his earlier sacrifice of his ground army, particularly the use of his highly dangerous Ascended, was merely a ruse to buy himself enough time to transition toward an air army that could completely counter my largely tank and Salamander based composition.
Like hell I would let him. I didn't even bother to siege up my tanks and allowed them to pummel the Stargates with their normal cannons. While their siege mode dealt out massive splash damage, the firing rate was very slow. Their tank mode allowed them to shoot incredibly quickly, and while their attacks in this mode were only against single targets, the damage per second was much higher. Good for dealing with individual units with high health, but not exactly practical against horde armies with waves and waves of infantry and vehicles.
The other player attempted to resist with what few ground forces he had, but they ran into my wall of Salamanders. A few psychic storms and other offensive spells blew out huge chunks in my armor – even though I had accompanying Field Engineers to repair my vehicles, not all of them had been fully restored to green health – but it was too little, too late. A trio of Aurora gunships warped in before I could destroy the Stargates, but my Titans were already moving forward, firing their punisher missiles into the reeling aircraft. The three Aurora gunships spun away from my tanks and focused fire on one of my Titans, but his shimmering personal shield absorbed most of the punishment before a second salvo knocked one of the Auroras out of the sky for good. The other two continued circling the two Titans, bringing the first to yellow health, but concerted fire ensured that they were destroyed before they could dish out any further damage. Their wreckage slowly spun about in the air before crashing into the ground and flaring up in colossal conflagrations.
With his final hopes of making a comeback extinguished, my opponent surrendered. I exhaled in relief and leaned back in my chair, clicking the Okay button and allowing my PC to bring me to the score screen.
"What the heck was he doing?" I murmured to myself, perplexed by his strategy. Perhaps he was like me someone who stubbornly stuck to his very tech path, regardless of how impractical it was. Well, I couldn't blame him for that. I was exactly the same – only playing mech and refusing to ever go bio, regardless of how my opponent completely countered me. In that regard, I admired him and felt as if we could be friends. Additionally, his use of Ascended almost threw me off, and if I hadn't stubbornly pushed on with my ravaged forces, he would have produced enough Aurora gunships to counter me. Of course, I would have also produced an adequate number of Titans to defend myself, but there was the possibility that the gunships would tear through my few super-heavy walkers by virtue of having sheer numbers.
There was no guarantee in Spacecraft. Anybody could beat anybody. That was the beauty of the game.
"Speaking of which, will I be able to challenge Harry on an equal footing today?"
Standing up, I stretched myself as I closed the game and prepared to leave. Most likely Harry called me over to practice a few matches with him, and I was more than happy to oblige him. Even if he was doing it so that he could crush me and vent, I would learn invaluable lessons from such a session. As a pro gamer, I knew I couldn't just focus on the victories. Each defeat was just as important, if not more vital than the victories – I would discover what worked and what didn't, and I would be forced to develop various countermeasures against all the different playstyles rather than get a rude shock when I found my build countered by an opponent out of the blue one day.
Especially for someone like me who insisted on playing mech…
"Well, I had better get going then."
Closing my eyes, I stifled a yawn, shut down my computer and prepared to change into more formal clothes.