Played Against the Most Determined Opponent of All Time, 1v1 Ranked Arabia: The Three-Act Play of "The Hero That Could"

I played a 1v1 ranked arena game (~1100 ELO) that turned into something that it never should have. Rather than being a normal game, it became a 3.5 in-game hour three act play, or rather a three arc anime arc series in which the identity of the protagonist shifts with each each season.

Act I started off like a normal game, me as Vietnamese and opponent as May. Around 35 in-game minutes in, he takes a very bad fight. Around, 5-10 minutes later I was in the middle of destroying his base. It was a total victory and I expected him to resign, but to my dismay he kept walling and retreated south with more castles and defense structures. I asked him why he was still playing to which he responded, "to waste your time..."

Now, normally I would have shrugged off this rude behavior and pressed on, but not today... No, today I thought I would so something a little different. I have hours of lectures to listen to and he seemed so desperate so I thought, why not give him a chance while I do class work? I spend 5-7 minutes setting up an elaborate system of walls, trebuchets, archers, elephants, and bombard towers. I told him that I was going to do hw but that he could keep playing if he wants and then tabbed out.

Thus begins Act II.

The opponent, or rather now the main protagonist of this story, starts Act II with only 10 military units and 45 vils while sandwiched between dozens of trebs/walls and a large wood line. Penned in, he starts playing Forrest Nothing while cutting space for TC's and buildings. After around 40 in game minutes into Act II, he starts assaulting my preset defenses with skirms and trebuchets, getting all of his gold from the market despite the fact I dropped food/wood price to its lowest value. Around 1.3 hours game time He manages to get to 200 consistent population and likely lost ~400-500 units clearing three layers of walls with their regiment of defenders. Hence, he finally reclaimed his homeland and turns his eyes, brimmed with courage and tenacity, to the waste lands between our civilizations.

Our protagonist must now cross an open field filled with 20 trebs, 30 bombmard towers , 5 castles (I bought a lot of stone), archers, and eles with hundreds of units q'd up in case he makes progress. He begins this devilish work with a furor not seen since HD's elo system. It is at this point that I tab back in again from my lectures and compliment him on his success. Without responding, he send hundreds of halbs, skirms, and trebs against my defenses and I watch in fascination as he loses roughly 300 units covering just half a screen's distance. However, I begin to reach a dilemma. While my score was 32,000 he was catching up at 24,000 and counting. Should I be gracious and reward this man's bold sense of determination, or should I play the villain and crush him once again. After a moment of contemplation I decided to do the latter.

Thus begins Act III.

Since my exodus at the end of Act I, I had not been controlling any of my units. I had only set spawn points for new ones, deployed trebs, and built towers. Now however, my units, spread across the map in a web a defensive layers suddenly spring into action. I announce my decision to the now former protagonist (though the title of "protagonist" is now up for debate) and immediately Q-up hundreds of skirms and cav and dozens of oangers from my 60+ production buildings I had built before. Within 1-2 minutes of my declaration my opponent met my forces in the fields and lost all ~ 110 military units he had (mostly from oangers).

However, my opponent is undeterred. Without so much as a 9 or a 11, he spreads his villagers all across the map and builds what I would say was around 60 production building spamming eagles, halbs, skirms,trebs, and rams wherever he could.

I once again begin my dirty work, though with less gold it took some time. Within 15-20 real-time minutes I had cleared all that he had gained since the end of Act I. The ENTIRE time, he looked for ways to escape and rebuild, even trying to oanger through trees (I had already cut a path and put BC's in the trees to stop this). With his wood line cut off he even sells food to buy wood at the worst rate possible in order to make houses for pop. Realizing that this had become madness 2 in-game hours ago, I decide to up the anti and double down. I propose to hosting a vill fight tournament to declare the winner. Met with silence, I patrol my hoard forward, instantly killing all but two vills and the last oanger that he made out of continued desperation.

Finally, he agrees to a 1v1 villager duel. As he doesn't even have enough wood to make a palisade gate, I build the arena and then the battle begins. The fight is neck and neck. My military surrounds the epic battle on no attack stance, fearing for what this fight could mean for their future. I truly contemplate resigning if this man wins. Regretting all of my life choices, I watch in horror as the HP of my vill dips dramatically after a hit, reminded me of a traumatizing time in my youth when a spearow's furry attack critically-killed my starting pikachu in pokemon yellow, but no! It was lag! Finally, after 3.5 in-game hours my, villager finishes her beastly opponent with one-hit HP left. It is finished.

Epilogue:

I killed ~ 2,500+ units despite the fact I only played around 1.5-1.75 in game hours out of the 3.5 ("only"...sigh). I also lost 750 units. The time when I decide to start playing again is visually marked in the timeline by a thin streak in which he goes from ~ 110 military to zero in just 1-2 minutes. Obviously this game was obnoxious and I should have just ended it at the beginning, but I found it comical and it seems like he weirdly enjoyed re-booming against all odds. No harsh words were traded. It's something that I will never do again, but I don't think it was full on toxic from either side.

Hope any of you that decided to read this enjoyed. I have the recorded game, but I doubt anyone wants to watch that long of a match. Even T-90 probably wouldn't touch it.