My Last Lan party

I wanted to share my relatively recent AGE2 story,

A few years back it was my 30th birthday, at the time I was a stressed out bank drone with friends in similar office careers. I wanted to do something a little special, more special then just going out and getting drunk, so I invited a bunch of friends over for an old school LAN party. Some had played these games before, some were younger then the games.

On the menu, Broodwar, Red Alert (although this failed to launch), and of course AGE 2. Plus booze, there was booze too and a turkey.

The goal was to start the LAN early in the afternoon and transition into a more formal young adult drink fest by late in the evening, non former gamer friends and women friends were invited later in the evening. Invitations went out on Facebook plenty in advance.

Now, one thing to note about me is that I like to be good at things so I started to prep.

I could never get red alert to work so I quickly gave up on that.

Broodwar, I played plenty of that as a kid no need to train.

But AGE2, well I remember, sucking and other people being great so I had some work to do.

I was turning 30, I was not going to lose at my own LAN party.

One month out I started to train, I would play 2 to 3 hours of games each night after work, study the greatest build orders for a young fast booming Mongol Khan. Studied the tactics of You tubes greatest (hence the focus on Mongols). I refined my micro and mastered the hit and run. (I was to Honorable for siege so I focused on the horse.)

My big day came, and the glory of the Golden Horde was on full display. I might have over prepared. I think I might have lost at most half a dozen Mangudai. One for each of the friends I ruthlessly crushed on my path to conquest.

It was glorious.

They refused to play a second game of AGE2, so we booted up Broodwar.

To fill up the slots we added a couple CPUs... this was my downfall. I then got 6 pooled by the AIs and lost in under 2 minutes, my glorious reign was over. They then spent the next 2 hours impotently throwing single units at each other, before the final victor emerged.

Other highlights, One gamer friend ended up playing world of tanks because his work laptop locked down LANs... but not world of tanks.

Another friend sent his wife on a mission of diplomacy to acquire World of Tanks Friends mouse (he had forgotten his own). Diplomacy failed in a way that only a Russian gamer could end it.

And one more friend ended up trekking up the street to Best Buy to supplement his own missing mouse.

The evening ended with a drunken application of bleach to my new rug to remove the new coffee stains. This also did not add to my glory. Also wine, wine on my chair.

Great Fun, I still plan on running another.