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As I sit here craving Burger King and contemplating the implications of Portal 2 releasing in 1 hour, I have a longing to post on TL. However, I also am obligated by myself to make my 2000th post "special," so I might as well make a blog post.
Anyways, my first RTS was Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome trial version, which I first played when I was 5 or 6 after my father downloaded it onto my family's shitty Windows 95 Packard Bell desktop*. Initially, I thought the game was pronounced "Age of Vampires," which confused me as I was thinking "WTF, there are no vampires in this game."
Anyways, my 5 year old mind couldn't wrap around the intricacies of proper RTS mechanics yet, so I proceeded to get rolled once I jumped straight into the 3rd and last mission of that trial version. It was not until over a decade later that I finally beat that damn level. Apparently, macro easily trumps mass hoplites, which could easily be kited by the annoying computer AI.
![[image loading]](http://artho.com/age/pics/hoplite.gif)
It's like trying to use mass Queens off-creep.
After getting hooked on RTS, my next game was none other than Command and Conquer Red Alert. Being the noob that I was, I could only beat the first two missions of the Allied and Soviet campaigns. Mission 3 usually was some sort of random commando-style mission that my poor mind could not contemplate. Furthermore, I kept getting rolled by the AI in skirmish mode, so my only hope was to cheat with map making.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/45pl0.jpg)
The pinnacle of my map-making abilities.
Hiding behind an almost impenetrable wall of trees, I spent hours playing Red Alert as though it was Sim City, massing up lines of base defenses, helipads, air fields, and nuke silos. Unfortunately, it's REALLY hard to kill an enemy without an army, so most of my victories came from building Allied Cruisers to traverse the waterway that wrapped around the map. Of course, my map layout made that a very tedious task...
Obviously, I became very bored of Red Alert quite quickly. I next moved on to various games from the Age of Empires series and derivatives of that franchise, such as Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds and Empire Earth. Since I still could not properly play RTS, I mainly relied on cheats. "simon says," "pow wow," "wuv woo," "o canada," "photon man" all became absolutely unforgettable phrases as I flew through campaigns and skirmishes with some of the most overpowered units known to man. Of course, cheating never helped me learn RTS fundamentals, but it was fun as hell back in elementary school.
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://artho.com/age/pics/newcheats.gif) ![[image loading]](http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/4/43/Simonthekillerewok.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://pnmedia.gamespy.com/planetageofempires.gamespy.com/images/oldsite/cheats_wuv.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://pnmedia.gamespy.com/planetageofempires.gamespy.com/images/oldsite/cheats_canada.jpg) Imba imba imba, but still my friends
Anyways, in middle school I once again delve into the Command and Conquer franchise with my purchase of C&C Generals. By this time, I had mustered up enough RTS skills to boss-mode my way through the campaigns on Easy, though I still sucked. However, most of my hours were not spent getting good but instead playing against an AI on easy and doing the following:
![[image loading]](http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/27/potd/1046081947.jpg)
Acquire funds through Nigerian-style scams.
![[image loading]](http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/27/potd/1045614571.jpg)
Preparing fireworks.
Many hours were spent keeping my money high and making sure my Chinese barracks were fully queued with Hackers. Eventually, my boredom led me to explore the plethora of mods and full-conversions for C&C Generals and C&C Zero Hour. Seriously, the modding community for the C&C games is incredible, and there are tons of amazing mods out there that completely overhaul the entire game and engine. The longevity of my interest in Generals was greatly extended with the insane number of mods available for the game.
Anyways, I spent high school messing around with MMOs and FPSes before settling on Starcraft and eventually TL. Something about beating a Korean friend at a game of BW also was relevant. However, that's a story for a different day.
 
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Generals was soo good. =D So many memories of me playing with my brother, dad, and uncle at various points. Hahaha, all we ended up doing was playing the GLA and massing SCUD missiles... =P
Thanks for reminding me about hackers. Man I loved those guys. xD
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Wait, you think a blog entry is significant as a post count marker? I mean, so much of TL thinks that but, if the Internet has taught me anything, it's that the most valuable post is staking out the front page for a major announcement and then triumphantly posting "FIRST!!!!!11!!!1!" within mere milliseconds of it being posted. Think of the eFame! Think of the Torte De Lini-style ban!
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haha still reminds me of some of my first RTS memories. Playing age of empires.
playing against a friend, when he said "lose the photon man, or i swear ill do a big daddy"
screw him, my flying dutchmen owned his base
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On April 19 2011 13:35 Char711 wrote:
Wait, you think a blog entry is significant as a post count marker? I mean, so much of TL thinks that but, if the Internet has taught me anything, it's that the most valuable post is staking out the front page for a major announcement and then triumphantly posting "FIRST!!!!!11!!!1!" within mere milliseconds of it being posted. Think of the eFame! Think of the Torte De Lini-style ban!
I would rather never get banned during my stay on TL.
I follow the rules.
I strive to be nice and objective.
I thrive off of facts and factual support.
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I loved age of empires!
when i moved out to university my parents took 'the conquerors' for themselves and i was left with rise of rome 
been playing the series since i was like 7 or something, never got through the campaigns cause they were just too hard.
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On April 19 2011 14:07 Roe wrote:I loved age of empires! when i moved out to university my parents took 'the conquerors' for themselves and i was left with rise of rome been playing the series since i was like 7 or something, never got through the campaigns cause they were just too hard.
For themselves? They play? lolol
Anyways, the campaigns indeed were pretty hard. It's difficult managing a low population limit coupled with 4 or 5 different resources, so I mainly just used cheats just to see how the story worked out.
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On April 19 2011 13:39 eviltomahawk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 13:35 Char711 wrote:
Wait, you think a blog entry is significant as a post count marker? I mean, so much of TL thinks that but, if the Internet has taught me anything, it's that the most valuable post is staking out the front page for a major announcement and then triumphantly posting "FIRST!!!!!11!!!1!" within mere milliseconds of it being posted. Think of the eFame! Think of the Torte De Lini-style ban! I would rather never get banned during my stay on TL. I follow the rules. I strive to be nice and objective. I thrive off of facts and factual support.
Unless, like Torte, you all of a sudden decided that it would be an "experience." 
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On April 19 2011 14:20 eviltomahawk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 14:07 Roe wrote:I loved age of empires! when i moved out to university my parents took 'the conquerors' for themselves and i was left with rise of rome been playing the series since i was like 7 or something, never got through the campaigns cause they were just too hard. For themselves? They play? lolol Anyways, the campaigns indeed were pretty hard. It's difficult managing a low population limit coupled with 4 or 5 different resources, so I mainly just used cheats just to see how the story worked out.
yep, lol. 62/60 and playing age of empires  my mom can take on 2v2 on hardest and all the campaigns.
for some reason i just can't win 1v2 hardest in rise of rome. probably since i can't wall up and mass longbowmen
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Congrats on 2000 you magnificent bastard. I loved AOE Rise of Rome. Used to play it all the time when I was in China. Of course I would use cheats like e=mc2 and such to mess around. Quite fun.
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Oh, Red Alert. The memories...
It's like every 10 year old mapmaker thinks exactly the same. The only diffference between my map and yours was that instead of trees, there was a giant river (and by river, i mean line of 1x1 water tiles). Oh, and I was smart enough to give my opnonents an ore field. XD
Every 5 minutes or so they'd attack me with a devestating army of a single tank (chornosphered it to my base).
I really never understood the whole idea behind the super weapons in RA1. They were completely worthless. Teleport ONE unit across the map; make ONE unit invulnerable for like THREE FULL SECONDS!
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Haha, Red Alert was amazing. It's so much more fun when you use micro learned from Starcraft to win.
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Wait, this is not how to play RTS? I always did that, hell, i went through the SC1 campaign in power overwhelming mode. Ok, that was 10 years ago, now i do it a lot less, usually only on games whith an interesting story but annoying/boring combat/gameplay.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://aoe.heavengames.com/siege/MapDesign/SpecialUnits/Pictures/11.jpg)
