Jiao Ao's build order was all over the place. I wasn't sure what he was trying to do, but he was just rushing out hellhounds and throwing them against my wall of Salamanders. I watched as the critters were incinerated by the fast-moving buggies. I had the Salamander scout buggies scout ahead, gaining map control.
"What the hell is he doing?"
Honestly, if I had went bio instead of the much slower mech, I would have overrun him long ago. No, that was not technically true. As I fended off yet another hellhound run-by, I realized that he was actually applying a lot of pressure on me, slowing down my expansions and keeping me contained. Back at his base, he countered my Salamanders with sheer numbers of hellhounds. Upon the corrupted terrain, the demons moved faster and could perform a faster surround, cutting off my Salamanders' escape and tearing them apart with their claws. Of course, they lost a lot more than they gained, but Jiao Ao's unnatural aggression allowed him to expand faster and thus harvest more resources.
In other words, he could afford such inefficient trades, and throwing expendable units away. I was forced to defend my base from the constant aggression, a never-ending torrent of hellhounds trickling from his base and attacking multiple locations at once, harassing my Engineers and disrupting my harvesting. I had to park tanks and morph my headquarters into fortresses in order to deal with the threat, along with Salamanders.
I also threw down an Armory, which was a prerequisite structure for me to upgrade the weapons and armor of my vehicles, as well as unlock the Salamanders' ability to transform from their scout buggy versions to bipedal battle armor with more health at the cost of speed. Adding science labs to my Factories, I upgraded their flamethrower, which was indicated visually by the color change from orange to blue. That would deal additional damage to biological units, which made my Salamanders particularly effective against the hellhounds.
"But he can't be building just hellhounds all game," I muttered with a frown. No one won the game with just tier one units alone. He must be gathering enough resources to build Mastodons. Thankfully, I already had a bunch of Panzer tanks and a couple of Titans for single-target burst damage and anti-air, just in case. Despite the constant harassment, I was able to build up a significant force, even though I was contained to four bases, in contrast to Jiao Ao's six or seven.
He definitely had an economic lead over me.
"Newb."
In the other booth, Jiao Ao was scoffing at me, pleased at how he was dominating the map. Glancing at the mini-map at the bottom left of my screen, I saw that a good two-thirds of the map had been covered in corruption. Sending my Salamanders to scout around, I had managed to lift the fog of war, but they were often caught and destroyed by patrolling hellhounds, which ravenously tore them apart at the cost of their brethren.
Even so, it was quite the grim picture. There were hellgates opened up, spawning monstrosities into reality and allowing a layer of empyreal corruption to slowly creep across the material world. If I didn't exterminate them, I would be overwhelmed by a massive host of gibbering monsters. Hellfire blazed in sections of the map, emanating an unearthly light that doused the atmosphere in an ominous gloom. Demons continued to prowl around the area, and skirmishes occurred between patrolling hellhounds and roaming Salamanders.
I couldn't sit back and turtle forever. At some point I had to move out, or he would just wear me down in a battle of attrition.
"Ha ha ha ha! Newb! Don't dare to attack, is it?!"
Jiao Ao was guffawing in the booth next to mine, already triumphantly thinking that he had won. I ignored him. Being an ex-pro, I was aware of the mind games that players loved to indulge in, and I had to get used to them. Otherwise I would fall apart like the infamous Kevin Keegan and start jabbing my finger about, ranting, "I'd love it if we beat them! Love it!"
So instead, I gathered my tanks, Salamanders and Titans and made a push, trusting in the command fortresses, point defense turrets and missile turrets to defend my bases.
"How should I do this?"
Even as I asked myself that question, I already had an idea. I moved to one area by one area, wrecking the enemy's base, destroying the hellgate and spawning pools while moving my Engineers in to quickly construct a new base, along with turrets and other defenses. The expanding fortress strategy, where I slowly conquered an area, one at a time, with overwhelming force, and quickly erect a formidable fortress over it to maintain my control. If the enemy attacked another of my bases, the defenses there would hold out long enough for my army to lumber across the map and catch them in a pincer maneuver.
It was something that Jiao Ao learned the hard way, when he threw away an entire horde of hellhounds and Mastodons, along with flocks of gargoyles at one of my base. Admittedly, he did a lot of damage, destroying my fortress and rows of point defense turrets. However, when his demonic forces turned around, they found themselves face to face with a well-positioned army, my tanks sieging up in emplacements and shelling the poor monsters into oblivion. The gargoyles swooped down on what they perceived to be vulnerable tanks, only to be blasted out of the sky by my Titans' anti-air missiles. In less than a minute, I obliterated Jiao Ao's relatively low-tech army, the few Mastodons he sent to accompany his hellhounds also blown apart by my Panzer tanks.
However, Jiao Ao had the economy to sustain such tremendous losses, and he re-maxed his army almost immediately. At least that was what I saw when I counterattacked, only to be driven back by a massive influx of Mastodons and hellhounds. Several of the hellhounds had evolved into Cerberuses, and the gargantuan three-headed dogs pounced upon my tanks with predatory speed, tearing the armor apart with their claws and fangs, before being obliterated by concentrated charged particle cannons from my Titans.
Even so, they did enough damage, taking out a chunk of my army and almost wiping out my tanks. Without much choice, I had my surviving Salamanders and Titans retreat back toward the safety of a newly built fortress and lines of point defense turrets, with hellhounds nipping at their heels the entire way, before being incinerated by swathes of superheated blue flames from the Salamander escort. Returning to my primary base, where all my infrastructure was located, I hastily rebuilt my forces, focusing more on Titans. I also threw down several Airports, getting ready to transition into air. Given the sheer number of Mastodons and Cerberuses, I was sure that switching to a squadron Broadsword gunships would be more appropriate.
"!!!"
A red alert caught my attention, informing me that one of my bases was under attack. I had my Titans and Salamanders muster there, forming a line between my Engineers – who busied themselves with repairs – and the demonic incursion. Packs of hellhounds leaped forward, lunging into fiery deaths at the barrels of my Salamanders. Mastodons charged and crashed, their armored heads blown apart by highly destructive charged particle beams. Cerberuses fell alongside shrieking hellhounds as freshly built tanks rolled out from my Factories, only to take up position on the high ground and unleash a hail of deadly artillery over the swarm.
But they kept coming. And amidst the blossoming infernos of death and destruction, I saw a single figure creep forward.
"That's…"
Jiao Ao. He had taken the form of a winged demon, horns curling out of his head and malefic claws stretching out of muscular arms. He resembled a gargoyle, but was far bigger than them – about the size of a Fallen or Guardian, but for some reason he chose to walk on the ground instead. Malevolent symbols hovered around him, emanating a terrifying aura that sent shivers down my spine. Around his monstrous form, the fallen hellhounds, Cerberuses and Mastodons were invigorated, rising to shrug off normally fatal wounds, and bounded across, their speed more than tripling.
"How?!"
"What, never seen a Demon Lord before?" the demonic Jiao Ao gloated, raising his super-long talons to slash a Titan apart in just a couple of swipes. "Where's your Commander unit?"
Right. This was one of the new changes in the game. The introduction of Commander Units, which was supposed to be the player's avatar within the game. They were not only powerful combat units in their own right, they also possessed auras that buffed their armies significantly. The arcane, demonic sigils that floated around Jiao Ao, for example, increased the movement and attack speed of melee-type demons such as Mastodons, hellhounds and Cerberuses. They also received enhanced regeneration, which granted them more durability, allowing them to shrug off and recover from what would otherwise be killing shots.
My army was being overwhelmed right now, just from the presence of a single Commander Unit (well, one player could only have one Commander Unit per game).
"So that's what he was doing this entire time…and why he stayed on low-tech units for so long. he was allocating all those resources into grooming his Commander!"
Realization dawned upon me as I watched him slaughter my poor guys. Commander Units could be upgraded, and it was evident that Jiao Ao had kept his avatar back, maxing out on his upgrades through research and other esoteric in-game means. His health and armor had been improved to their highest levels, and he had reached the cap for his attack power, which explained the incredible ease with which he was massacring my high-health Titans.
This was ridiculous. This was no longer a strategy game, but a MOBA. Entire armies were rendered useless by a single Hero character. There was no strategy in building up a god-like avatar, maxing out on all his stats, and then have him wade through army-killing firepower to tear up your forces without even being able to fight back.
"Useless! It's useless, newb! Just surrender!"
Jiao Ao was howling in triumphant laughter, clearly believing that he had won the game. This must be how he won the last game, against his previous victim.
However, if he thought he could take me down with a single Commander Unit, he was dead wrong. I was a former pro. I wasn't going to fall to defeat so easily.
My fingers running across the keyboard, slamming down on my assigned keys with so much force it almost sounded like thunder, I danced my mouse across the pad and clicked incessantly. Titans withdrew to new positions, behind my crumbling fortress. Salamanders transformed back to scout buggies and drove off. I spread out my tanks as much as possible, ensuring that they didn't clump up and present my opponent an enticing target while still ensuring full saturation bombardment as much as possible. Even with increased regeneration, the demons were still not immortal. Hellhounds were pulverized by tank shells or incinerated into ash by retreat Salamanders. Mastodons crumbled under the combined firepower of the fortress, point defense turrets and Titans' charged particle cannons. Cerberuses were pummeled by artillery bombardment or destructive beams. Even Jiao Ao staggered, his avatar weathering an incredibly punishing onslaught of heavy firepower. I could see his health drop significantly.
But it wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. My army was dying much faster than I could drain down his health, and worse, Jiao Ao had a lot more resources to rebuild his army. He could afford to throw his demons away.
I couldn't.
"Ha ha ha ha ha! Just surrender already!"
"Oh, shut up," I muttered, rolling my eyes. Moving my mouse, I clicked on a small area on the mini-map, returning to my primary base. There, an entire squadron of Broadsword gunships awaited, hovering above my Airport. In an act of desperation, I drag-clicked a window over them, put them into a single control group, and then deployed them to my frontier base. The squadron of Broadswords soared across the skies, their plasma jets flaring blue as they defied gravity. They streaked across the map, reaching the frontier in seconds. Ignoring all the other demon units, I unleashed a hail of devastating plasma bolts upon the solitary winged figure of Jiao Ao, the Demon Lord standing in the center of all the carnage, ripping the turret of a Panzer tank off with his claws.
And then his figure was engulfed in a storm of azure plasma bolts.
"Fuck!"
I heard Jiao Ao scream from the next booth, and smiled in satisfaction. If he was cursing at this, then clearly my strategy was working. As powerful as they were, Commander Units were not invincible. Otherwise they would break the game. While the Demon Lord was dominant and unparalleled on the ground, he had little defense against gunships and aircraft…which was ironic, given his huge wings. Maybe those wings were just for show.
With a flap of his wings, he retreated. A flight of gargoyles swooped down upon my gunships, forcing them to break off and defend themselves with their pitiful anti-air. As deadly as they were against ground units, the anti-air railguns mounted on the sides of the Broadswords were…pathetic. They did very little damage, but did offer a meager amount of protection from the flock of gargoyles. By the time they dispatched the low-tier flyers, Jiao Ao was gone. Many of his ground forces lingered around to wreak maximum amount of damage as possible, but the surviving turrets, Salamanders and Titans took care of them.
However, there were so very few of them left. Twelve Salamanders, three Titans and six turrets, plus a fortress in the red (I meant health). I was in no shape to pursue and counterattack. Hell, I was lucky I hadn't lose the game.
I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I managed to survive…for now.