"It's over, Harry!" I shouted, safely ensconced within the cockpit of my Titan. "I have the high ground."
All around me, Panzer tanks tracked the enemies below with their turrets, blasting Loyalist Titans to scrap with massive explosions and shrapnel, despite their cannons being slowed down by electromagnetic pulses. In front of my column of tanks and my Titan, rows of Salamanders stood at the top of the ramp, blockading a chokepoint toward my latest expansion.
Harry rocked atop his flying saucer, grasping his staff as psionic energies ran through his figure. Apparently he was a High Priest now, gathering etheric energy and casting all sorts of destructive psychic spells. Many a Salamander had been wrecked by psionic lightning, their blackened bodies lying around in heaps.
"You underestimate my power!" Harry sneered. I shook my head slowly.
"Don't try it."
With a gibberish yell, Harry had his army charge up the ramp, the front wave of Disciples climbing upslope. They crashed into the lines of surviving Salamander battle armor, who proceeded to clamp their shields together and bath the screaming zealots in napalm. The entire hill turned into an inferno, the weird scent of charred alien corpses getting past the filters of my robot.
Dragoons and Loyalists clambered forward, only to be blasted to bits by the tanks before they could get within range. The few Loyalists that did get within range were only able to strike the front line of my tanks, whereas almost all of my tanks were neatly positioned to rain down death upon their tightly clumped up lines. The massive Ascended hovered above the ground, but found their way blocked by the mass of Disciples clogging up the ramp. Possessing very short range, despite their ability to do tremendous splash damage, the Ascended were clumped up uselessly at the bottom of the hill while taking heavy firepower, unable to retaliate at the Salamanders that were just out of reach. Despite their immense health and formidable shields, without cover or any form of protection, they were just sitting ducks for my tanks and Titans. Indeed, I raked my charged particle beam cannons across the helpless, clumped up Ascended that continually bumped into each other or the charred Disciples in front of them, never quite getting within range of their psychic attacks.
The single Dorklord that trucked behind his army was vaporized by a concentrated volley of charged particle beams from my six Titans. It wasn't even able to get within range of my tanks, its hull denting from the numerous colossal impacts from their formidable artillery shells.
Harry had made the mistake of rushing his army up into a chokepoint, where my mechanical units could destroy whole chunks of his military forces with their devastating firepower while minimizing their casualties. The terrain favored me a little too much. I was channeling his forces up a chokepoint and denying him full advantage of his army, and they were getting obliterated by the overwhelming firepower of my army, who had better range. Honestly, in a head-to-head fight, there was no telling who would win – if Harry was able to bring the full potential of his high-health and extremely damaging Ascended into play, he might have overrun my Salamanders and wreck my tanks.
My tanks might be unrivaled in long range, but in a straight-up fight, they were helpless. The Disciples would swarm and demolish them, and the Ascended would absorb most of their punishing power, their massive sizes soaking up most of the splash damage, before closing in and tearing them apart.
However, rushing up a ramp and getting stuck at a chokepoint? That was a completely different story.
As my forces dealt with the dying psychic alien horde, I turned my charged particle beams to Harry and blew his flying saucer out under him. His tall, limber form spilled over from the exploding shrapnel and crashed into an undignified heap on the scorched ground. Another charged particle beam blew off the left side of his body before he could rise, causing him to scream in both pain.
Groaning, Harry writhed on the ground, his blackened eyes almost glowing with psychic rage as he glared up at me.
"You were the chosen one!" I shouted, throwing my hands up in annoyance. "You were supposed to be a pro gamer, not a noob!"
Harry continued to glower at me, and I gestured wildly while my Salamanders set the surroundings on fire with their flamethrowers.
"Curbstomp newbies like me, not get owned in a net café!"
While I continued moving my mouse and directed my forces onward, to rout the rest of Harry's destroyed forces, he clawed his way toward me.
"I hate you!" he bellowed resentfully.
"You were my brother, Harry," I told him, a tinge of sadness in my voice. "I loved you."
He stared at me in disbelief, before his broken body was immolated by the flames of my Salamander battle armor. I turned away, unable to watch.
Within seconds, the death of the enemy Commander unit signaled the end of the match, and the victory screen appeared. Sliding my chair out of the booth, I turned to stare at Harry, who was tearing his headphones off and also retreating.
"…seriously?"
"What?" He grinned at me, showing no sign of the hatred and fury from earlier.
"Did you just…let me win?"
Harry shrugged, and then shook his head. "No, of course not. I did my best, you know. The map favored your playstyle, that's all."
"Dude, you wouldn't have lost if you didn't have your army do suicidal charge up a ramp. That was reckless."
"Then how do you suggest I win the game, Mr. Turtle Terran?"
Ah…so that was the problem. Many games detested the turtle strategy – which was what I basically just did. Take a base atop a high ground, position my tanks strategically at the top of the ramp, and control the chokepoint. Unless my opponent had an armada of aircraft and gunships, they would never be able to assault my position – not unless they were willing to throw away their entire army by charging up the ramp…which was what Harry just did.
He could have built an army of Aurora gunships, Illuminator superiority fighters and the Goldork. However, I had Titans hiding amidst rows and rows of anti-air turrets that circled my orbital fortress, a heavily armored headquarters structure that sported a macro-cannon. Except for my orbital fortress, the rings of anti-air turrets, supplemented by the heavy firepower of my Titans, would have made mincemeat of whatever air force brave enough to soar over my bases.
Most players hated to play against turtle players because they "unnecessarily dragged the game out" – according to the losers, anyway. In truth, I could see why – it was nigh impossible to engage a turtle player because you were going to suffer tremendous casualties when attacking into his heavily fortified base. In the same way I hated cheese players who strove to end the game as soon as possible before the opponent could build a sizeable army, my goal as the turtle player was to force my opponent into attacking into my well defended positions, lose their army over and over as I slowly expanded toward them, and either tap out from attrition (running out of resources to rebuild their decimated army and thus become vulnerable to a counterattack) or end up being sieged by me and my ever growing circle of fortresses. It was an extremely time-consuming playstyle, and one that undoubtedly caused the other party a lot of frustration and tears.
Harry wasn't just making fun of a certain Sith Lord when he was raging about how he hated me. He really did get exasperated at turtling opponents. Who wouldn't?
Unfortunately, it was the only way for an older, slower and less skilled player like me to win. I had no way of pulling off the skillful micro of my younger opponents, or the fancy control of their individual units and squads. I could only turn this into a battle of attrition via superior positioning and defending. Since I was slow, I had to rely on defense rather than high-speed offense and stylish footwork. Otherwise it was impossible for me to make a return to the pro scene.
"Again?" Harry asked, undaunted. As a pro player, he wasn't one to let a single defeat affect him. All pro players couldn't afford to mope over a loss. The best way to get the defeat out of the system was to play again and again until you finally win. For a pro like Harry, the next win was just around the corner.
Pushing my glasses up, and feeling a little elated at my unexpected victory, I nodded.
"Sure."
Perhaps I could make my strategy work again…
*
Naïve. I was too naive.
We played four matches after that, and I lost all of them. A twenty percent win rate. Harry crushed me convincingly in the other four matches.
"Hey, at least you won the first match," he said, as if trying to comfort me. I tried not to glare at him.
"You let me win, didn't you?"
Harry shrugged. "I'll be honest, I do not want to play against a turtle Terran. The moment you set up all of your bases and tanks like that, I surrendered. I would have surrendered no matter what. There's just no way to break through that."
I had to give him that. In the next four games, Harry played quickly and decisively. One was an Aurora rush where he pumped out a huge squadron of gunships and overwhelmed me while I only had Salamanders and tanks. I didn't have enough resources to set up a ring of anti-air turrets then…
Another game, he had denied me an expansion and relentlessly attacked before I could set up a fortified forward base, his Ascended and Enlightened overrunning my meager number of tanks, Salamanders and single Titan before I could establish a defensive gun line. It was a pretty small map, and disadvantageous to people who favored turtle like me. Which brought me to another point – maps were also a vital factor in Spacecraft. Knowing which map was favorable for which playstyle would more often than not win you the game.
The problem was that I only ever had one playstyle, which was turtle mech. I was pretty bad at everything else, and I swore never to touch bio. Mostly because I didn't have the motor skills and micro to handle bio. To play bio, you needed to be able to split your infantry units, multi-task, launch multi-pronged attacks and drops into an opponent's base, and execute constant hit-and-run tactics. That did not favor my playstyle at all.
In another game, Harry just crushed my army when he lured me out into the open. As I said, the moment he was able to bring the full potential of his Ascended into play, the battle would most likely swing in his favor.
As a result, I won one game and lost four.
"You did well, you did well!" he assured me as I slumped in my chair, feeling dejected. Scratching my head, I sighed wearily.
"Did I really?"
"Yeah! Coming back to the game for only two weeks, and taking a map off me…not many people can do that!"
I appreciated the encouragement, but reality beckoned to me from the far corner of my mind.
"At this rate, I won't be ready for next month's tournament."
"Don't worry. I'm here to help you practice. Come again tomorrow!"
That was when I noticed the time. Oh, right. It had already gotten this late. I had better get going, or my parents would start calling me.
"Thanks. I'll practice some more tonight." I rose from my seat after signing out from the computer. "It has been quite the eye opener today."
"Sure! See you tomorrow!"
Before I could leave, however, I heard a ruckus from the other side of the net café. A luxuriously dressed guy in an expensive branded jacket, polished leather boots, and a silver belt, was lounging over at one of the booths and mocking one of the other customers.
"Newb," he was sneering. "With skills like these, you might as well quit Spacecraft forever."
"Don't look," Harry told me. "That guy's the son of a local tycoon. You do not want to mess with him."
Normally, I would agree, but the guy's next line caught my attention.
"Is there no one who knows how to play Spacecraft in here? I'm tired of crushing noobs. Come on, there can't be nothing but losers in here."
Harry must have caught the expression on my face, for he started shaking his head.
"Oh no. No, no, no. Don't you dare."
"Relax," I assured my friend with a grin. "I think this is the perfect chance to practice."