Gud operational security
In more thread related news; me and me m8s were playing Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth II. An abandonware game EA lost the license to, it's still pretty fun to this day. Real time strategy game with lord of the rings armies spread out over the regions of middle earth, like the GW tabletop game but without costing more than a heroin addiction. We did a 3vs3 with a twist.
The three of us were playing triple Mordor against Men of the West, the Dwarves and the Elves. With three mordor players we could build all nine Nazgul and have the black riders roam across the map with maximum a e s t h e t i c value. We all agreed on a simple rule. All units could be built, but only the nine ringwraiths could leave our home base, leaving the forces of mordor in mordor for defence. Our win condition was to find gollum and take the one ring to summon the cute bby mairon dark lord Sauron and bring shadows over Middle Earth.
Player Bossman was our defence, who took on the brunt of the coalition attacks. Player Doctorman was our tower man, who built watchtowers around the map to control territory / start locking down territory to try and find gollum. Then there was me, who was the hunter-seeker and mobile defence force, reinforcing where needed, building towers where needed, whilst roaming the map for sneaky hobbitses.
All nine nazgul on horseback stormed the Prancing Pony Inn at Bree, but were disappointed by the complete lack of hobbits with rings. From there Bossman sent his three to assault the Dwarves, Doctorman sent his three to deal with the elves, whilst I sent my three to kill faramir and the men. With the eye of Sauron Doctorman and I scanned the map high and low searching for gollum - gollum is normally invisible and only detectable by special units, watchtowers or abilities like the eye. The nine very quickly lose their dominance on the field as good heroes start coming out and the forces available to them start growing in quantity and quality. This means we have to start choosing our battles carefully, and all the battles we engage in cuts into nazgul patrolling time we could be spending searching for the One Ring.
Bossman sends his Nazgul home to help defend the black gates, built by Doctorman. Doctorman keeps his Nazgul roaming around the Prancing Pony, searching for reinforcements to ambush. This frees up my three to keep scouring all of the map for gollum, expanding our influence with each tunnel, farm or mallorn tree razed to the ground to be replaced with the GLORY OF MORDOR.
This goes on for fourty minutes until things start getting dire. The good factions are unleashing their heroes in force, their armies with full upgrades, and whilst it's clear we can hold on - Bossman is stressing like hell under the sheer weight of powerful invasions. Doctorman is struggling to build watchtowers and micro his heroes so I take over watchtower business. I train an elite force of easterlings, orcs and haradrim to bolster Bossman's troll army. With things this desperate we all conclude we just have to have Bossman hold out long enough to find the ring. Doctorman swaps out his three Nazgul on horseback with two nazgul on fellbeasts and THE Witch King of Angmar on fellbeast, giving us 6 nazgul on horseback and 3 in the sky.
With eyes in the sky and hooves on the ground, Doctorman and I scour from West to East, razing the outskirts of the good faction's bases whilst using watchtowers, barricades and the eye of sauron to cover all the ground possible. At 12:30 A.M. we can't let the game go on longer because we all have work in the morning, so we summon the Nine, Boss's troll army, Doc's special forces and my elite humans of the east, and we assault them all one by one. Sorcerous magic tore the elven base apart. The trolls, humans and orcs overran the humans. Traitor Dwarves & the Balrogs led the way against the Dwarves, closing the game.
Afterwards I checked the replay. In the replay you can see invisible and stealthed units, as you have a God's eye view. I wanted to see how close we were to finding gollum.
I discovered Docman, who had been hosting the game, had accidentally unchecked the Ring Hero option when he started the game. There was no gollum on the map. We spent more than an hour in a Kafkaesque nightmare searching for something we'd never find. In doing so we realised we accidentally did a perfect roleplay of Sauron focusing all of his energies and resources into finding the ring amongst his enemies, unaware that the ring was heading to Mordor in the hands of a sneaky hobbitses. Docman agreed with us that this was easily the worst thing he had done to us in game, and we all left with mixed blessings. It was one of the funnest games we had, it was one of the most painful games we had, and the knowledge there never was a ring scarred our hearts