I learned a hard lesson during Enemy Buster this week. A 27 from another server invaded our hive. All the other R4s were offline after the earlier State Ruler event, so I felt it my responsibility to step up and defend the hive.
I scanned him. Yeah, he was a 27, but his structure was pretty weak. His tech was 2K lower than mine. He did have stronger heroes and a higher vehicle level. But I still thought I could take him — or at least show him that K1M wouldn’t go down without a fight. And I was gaining ground. Took a few waves of tanks, but I was on my way to burning him… until his buddy showed up.
You see, my new friend from DFcf was playing a smart game. He was hunting in parties, which is exactly what we all advise every day. In fact, I’d written an email to everybody saying exactly that. Play smart, I wrote.
But me, on the other hand…
I wasn’t so smart today.
Maybe I was drunk off the adrenaline from our Capital victory earlier today. But instead of acknowledging my defeat and accepting the consequences of that, I decided to up the ante with some trash talk. The Big Bad 27 couldn’t vanish little ol me without help… Well, that got me in trouble.
He was like “Oh yeah, come on back and I’ll show you. One on One.”
But I was still furiously burning through diamonds and speedups trying to recover heroes and repair structure from the first battle. Going back now would have insane — and I told him that, but not in a nice respectful way.
I could have been contrite. I could have tipped my hat to him and said “Good game, sir.”… But noooo. I had to sarcastically blast his offer to fight again as being dishonorable because of my now-weakened state.
Well, that went over like a lead balloon. Next thing I know, three of his buddies have surrounded me. Massive attack.
I teleported. They found me and did it again. I teleported again.
I complimented him, again sarcastically, his ability to find burning bases all over the map. I quipped derisively that he must do this a lot. And then came the damning reply:
“You showed up red.”
I showed up red.
Of course I showed up red. All active combatants show up red on the map. It would have been child’s play to find a player like that. I had a giant spotlight pointing right at me. A beacon announcing my location to everybody who wanted it. And somehow I’d forgotten. How silly of me!
The realization of that restored my mind. And with sanity returning, I surrendered. I surrendered to the logic of the situation, and to my opponent’s correctness.
“Cheers, man,” I told him. “I have some recovering to do now. It was fun.”
Unlike me, he showed some class and replied, “Good game, sir.” And just like that, the contest was over.
So I learned a hard lesson this week. A costly lesson that reduced my overall power by 55M, and a bunch of wood and food that I was saving to level my HQ. And because I trash talked somebody’s farm account. I’m not really an emoji guy, but this one deserves a giant facepalm. 🤦♂️
To CoopssFarm, I say this now:
Thank you for a good match, and thank you for reminding me of my own advice. I look forward to our next encounter.