AOE3's Greatest Games Episode 3: LordRaphael (France) vs GoonGoon (Spain)

Hello again reddit, last week we learned that you can play the game of your life against Iroquois and you will still lose because Iroquois are OP pls nerf. This week, a brutal, high-stakes battle with one of the most intense desperation pushes ever.

This was game 3 of the quarter-finals of last Autumn's ESOC tournament. Awaiting the winner of the tournament is $1000. This is no casual Saturday Smackdown.

GoonGoon entered this game up 2-0, needing two more to take the best of 7 and earn his spot in the semi-finals. LordRaphael, staring down the possibility of an almost unsurmountable 0-3 deficit, turns to his favorite civ: The French. GoonGoon replies with Spain, a civ which, as WickedCossack points out, had been enjoying something of a resurgence in popularity lately.

Openings

LordRaphael, seeing a 100w, 100c start, places a market, intending to mine 25 coin and buy 100 wood for a house, a pretty standard start for France. However, he spots a wood treasure nearby, which would allow him to instead put up an early trading post. He goes for the treasure and tries to delete the market to get the wood back except...

He deletes the villager building it.

At this level, losing one villager like that is GG. He resigns.

Openings, Take Two

LordRaphael probably assumed that he was going to take an admin loss and go down 0-3. But GoonGoon, being a nice guy, agrees to redo the game. We're less than a minute in, after all, and I'm sure as Spain he also would have preferred a 200 wood start. So we go again.

Again it's a 100 wood start, so LordRaphael goes for the early market and buys the wood for his house. Both players collect plenty of treasures, LordRaphael stealing a food treasure and adding a second scout, GoonGoon finding 200 coin.

LordRaphael opts for a Musketeer semi-FF, a strategy he is very comfortable with, though it's one usually used against Germany. He knows that he will be the defender in this fight and does not want to lose villagers.

GoonGoon goes to age 2 with The Governor, providing 200 coin and an outpost. The standard for Spain, he collects the coin en route to a fast fortress, and places the outpost in a commanding forward location. His message is clear: Beat me at this location or starve.

Or... maybe not.

A Little Too Easy

The forward outpost provokes LordRaphael into sending his two falconet shipment. He knows that typically, the next move from a Spanish player is to ship 2 falconets of his own to the forward outpost to apply tough early pressure and if he can take out the outpost, he releases a lot of tension. The French falconets arrive and bombard the outpost. He keeps dragoons in the wings, waiting for the enemy falconets to arrive.

And he waits... and waits...

The outpost goes down without a fight. Spain's second trading post follows soon after. Perhaps a bit surprised, LordRaphael returns to his base, satisfied with removing the immediate threat. Unbeknownst to him, the outpost was a feint. GoonGoon ships 5 villagers and 1k wood to his main base, building up a very strong economy while LordRaphael wastes experience on his cannons. And as the French army returns home from sieging the trading post, the Spanish army catches them. The battle is small in number but incredibly complex, showing off highi-level AOE3 at its best. GoonGoon puts his skirmishers into stagger mode to minimize the falconets' effectiveness. LordRaphael puts his musketeers into melee mode to bodyblock the vulnerable guns. GoonGoon smashes his heavy cavalry into the mass of muskets. The Spanish lancers just annihilate the French infantry, and soon they move on to the falconets. LordRaphael calls his minutemen and is able to use them in tandem with his dragoons to kill off the lancers, but his cannons are gone. The trade is even in number but a lopsided victory for Spain in terms of resources.

And now Spain has cannons of their own on the way.

GoonGoon Pushed Back

LordRaphael does not stay in his base and wait to be attacked, he takes most of his dragoons up to the north of the map to carry out a villager raid. They're quite successful, but once GoonGoon sees that LordRaphael's cavalry have strayed away from his base, he pushes in.

At first the push looks really scary. Only a few dragoons stayed behind, not nearly enough to snipe down the falconets. LordRaphael puts his skirmishers in stagger mode, but he's gonna need reinforcements. The Dragoons are hurrying back, but will be a little while. He has a shipment on its way, but will also take some more time before it arrives. He needs to make a move now, or else he runs the risk of his army being taken out, piecemeal.

So he sends in the villagers.

The French Coureur Des Bois are part of what makes them so good. Just ten of them have enough resist and hitpoints to sponge up a lot of the Spanish skirmishers' damage, and they charge the falconets, taking out one. At the same time, reinforcements arrive for the French. The Dragoons come in from the North, Cuirassiers from the town center. The second falconet goes down. GoonGoon retreats.

By now the Spanish economy is miles ahead of the French. GoonGoon has more villagers and aside from one raid they have been able to gather uninterrupted, while half the French villagers have just been fighting rather than gathering. Combined with the fast shipments, GoonGoon is able to recover his army very quickly, and he pushes forward again.

The next battle is over LordRaphael's northern hunt. GoonGoon knows if he can deny the French the ability to hunt he can easily win a war of attrition and starve LordRaphael into submission, and his army is clearly superior. He outnumbers LordRaphael 70 to 60, and is stocked with infantry-hating skirmishers and lancers. Against any other nation, this battle would be a lopsided one. But France has one great hope. Once again, the LordRaphael calls upon his Coureurs Des Bois to fight.

GoonGoon goes for the decisive blow, calling his minutemen into the battle over the hunt. LordRaphael races his cavalry over to the site and a chaotic battle ensues, made even more confusing by a batch of trees in the middle. The French cavalry walk around aimlessly and are ineffective but the Coureurs Des Bois hold their ground. It is a bloody fight, dead even trade in terms of number, but the French hang on to the territory.

LordRaphael knows all he's managed to do is avoid outright losing. His economy is falling further and further behind, and there will only be a small window before the next Spanish reinforcements arrive. He decides to roll the dice and push on, villagers and all. He drives the Spanish army all the way back into its base, using his Coureurs to soak up most of the damage and swing the tide. He forces GoonGoon off of his last hunt, and the surviving French villagers hurry to gather food in the brief lull between battle, trying to salvage any sort of economy. His villager push won't be enough to win the game on its own. He needs to make something else happen.

GoonGoon is in the same position. He hasn't outright lost, but the counterpush has denied him his last food resource. He's ahead in villagers, behind in military. He also needs to make a move. He knows he's killed lots of French villagers, he knows if he can only secure his economy for the late game he will be in a great position. A mill goes up on the northern side of the map, and it will be here, where the final battle is fought.

The Battle for the Mill

This is where we see the true value of each player's Age 1. The scout that LordRaphael gained from a treasure has managed to survive this long, and has been stationed in stealth mode in that corner of the map where the mill goes up. LordRaphael knows where this game will end before GoonGoon. He sends in a cavalry raid. GoonGoon's goons (say that three times) race over to fight it off. As he's distracted by this, LordRaphael's main army engages GoonGoon's main army. Another bloody, indecisive fight.

Somehow, LordRaphael is able to eek out the resources for 5 cuirassiers. LordRaphael sees victory. Only a few pikemen stand between him and the main mass of infantry. He tries to outmaneuver those pikes, but in the ensuing dance GoonGoon is able to prevent disaster for long enough time for reinforcements to come and chase the French army away. But the damage was done to the Spanish economy. The villager count is now even.

The window is closing. LordRaphael knows it. He brings in every unit he's got, including his Coureurs, for one last battle. For control of the mill, the map, and the game.

It's over in seconds.

The few pikemen GoonGoon had were sniped off by the French skirmishers in the last fight. One last batch of Cuirassiers, in addition to the Coureur Des Bois, now fully tanked out with wilderness warfare, are an overwhelming force. The Spanish army is destroyed and LordRaphael takes the game.

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