EPT
I can no longer go and play multiplayer on StarCraft BW, or any other video game for whatever reason. I've tried everything from trying to fix up my firewall to reinstalling. I can still connect to the internet, so I'm thinking there's something wrong with the computer itself. When I was trying to look for a solution, I stumbled upon a forum thread where the problem was that some internet station blah blah blah was down so multiple people in the same area couldn't play multiplayer anything. That's my current, but unlikely theory so I'm just relying on the problem to fix itself with the remedy of time.
Even sadder is I can't watch any of the teamliquid live streams for whatever reason. I'm missing out on some Jaedong action! Speaking of pro gamers, I'm a very big fan of Julyzerg, but I see him frequently fall into the ptifall where a Zerg attacks a defending Protoss or Terran, loses a game far favoring him and you can clearly see large amounts of BW leaking out of his play onto Sc2 which does not mix well. He always goes aggressive most of the time which more often than not does not work out since in Sc2, in general, I think defending is most optimal which is why we see so many maxed macro games. I still love how he goes roach, ling, baneling all ins, refreshing, but sometimes it ends up failing. He also makes frequent use of burrowed roaches which by the way can go past sentry force fields. He always goes down that aggressive pitfall where he tries to go aggressive and loses....so often.
I'm thinking to myself this is some sort of sign telling me to not play StarCraft during the summer, but I was hoping to play SC especially during the summer since I have the theory that there will be more people playing the game during their summer vacation. Right now I'm starting to busy myself with catching up on some Naruto and playing the Rome Total War single player campaign which by the way is sensationally fun that I'll be talking about it.
The amount of time on the Rome Total War campaign and new challenges I was to face called for again tapping my hidden RTW knowledge sealed away within me in the deepest and darkest slums within my brain. What an amazing game I feel, how could the single player be this entertaining when the only opponents I'm up against are computers? Well, there's the idea knowing that something like 18 factions are doing things that you're unaware of, the sense of finally crushing a faction, expanding your empire, using cunning tactics despite the computer being easily manipulated, but still a challenge. The whole diplomacy thing of making alliances, starting trades, managing settlements individually which is always fun.
In the imperial campaign where you select one of the many factions available to you I decided to choose the Seleucid Empire, mostly because they had primarily phalanx infantry which is incredibly overpowered when it comes to defending bridges, or when defending a sieged city since the enemy is forced into narrow chokes when they want to invade a city where they will meet your row of deathly spears. You can literally hold off armies twice the size of you like this depending on their armor/weapons stats. Cataphracts are the tank of ancient Rome. They're basically heavily armored horses with lancers that will bulldoze all who oppose. They're just that much fun to use and are arguably the strongest cavalry unit in the game. You only get these much, much more later sadly.
The struggles of being a Seleucid though aren't as breezy as one might think. It took me 6 tries to get it finally right. Only one of them was partially successful at first. You literally have 4 different nations who border you, all of which will create an alliance and try to suck away at your soul. I must tell you, that I cranked up the game difficulty to the highest settings, but I doubt even if I put them to the lowest I wouldn't be attacked by all 4 bordering nations.
The trick to win this war of multiple fronts is to be aggressive first, pick off any units, and not defend defend defend. Just like Robert E. Lee did in the Civil War he did not simply defend all day long like president of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis suggested, no, he focused concentrated parts of his force on weaker, more vulnerable parts of the enemy. With shocking speed, I took down armies while they were weak, took neutral territories to increase my own income, and defended when I had to which 9 times out of 10 would end up being cost effective for myself. Most importantly is going cavalry based armies which allows your army to be far more flexible, diverse in possible tactics, and more easily able to pick off infantry units and bowmen. The missile units will absolutely dominate you if you decide to go all infantry, so don't. Always go cavalry and more military based cities rather than economic.That ends my explanation of the struggles of playing RTW.
Another video game I spent some time on was Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. What en enlightening, fantastic game with vast worlds to explore with charming cel shaded graphics. I thought about getting all of the treasures in the temples, but quickly grew frustrated since most of them were filled with rupees, and I'd be frequently maxing my rupee bank which is only 200 rupees. I can't get to the fairy that increases your rupee maximum capacity yet, so that can be slightly annoying. I was thinking about how long it took me to finish the game originally, and all of a sudden I don't feel like playing it anymore especially because of the 4 hour long triforce shard hunt where you have to painstakingly find 8 shards of the triforce from the sea, get sea scrolls to locate these triforces from even more temples, it really slows the game down. I hear they're doing an HD remake of it on the Wii U so hopefully they tweaked that part.
I had alot on my mind today, and I thought I'd share it with you. I'll probably have to fix the multiplayer problem, but for now, my primary aim is to become the ruler of ancient Rome and dominate the pesky eastern faction as the one and true ruler of the east. Watching Naruto, catch up on some anime, whatever.
Edit: I can go on Starcraft again after tinkering with the firewall settings.
