Greatest moments in YOUR gaming history!

[frogbeastegg]

In X-Wing: Alliance I once took down an Imperial class star destroyer on my own. In an A-wing. I had to shoot out its engines because it tried to escape me once its shields failed.

[TinCow]

Oh my god, I had forgotten about the X-Wing games. TIE fighter had some absurd missions, but few were as bad as the one where you had to clear the minefield in a T/I. The only consolation was that they really were trying to get you killed. Playing that without dropping the difficulty level down was extraordinarily frustrating.

[caravel]

TIE fighter had some absurd missions, but few were as bad as the one where you had to clear the minefield in a T/I. The only consolation was that they really were trying to get you killed. Playing that without dropping the difficulty level down was extraordinarily frustrating.

Been there and done it - without dropping the difficulty level down - don't intend to try again. That was in the days when I still, just about, had the reflxes of a hyperactive teenager.

As for greatest gaming moments I'd have to go with my first few campaigns in STW or any of those early MTW1 campaigns as the Turks defending Georgia/Armenia/Khazaar against the Mongols.

[econ21]

I'd also pick MTW for my greatest moments - it's funny how so many people pick that game. It really had that phenomenon of the AI going for your jugular that subsequent TW games have sadly lost.

One MTW PBM in particular stood out - when I inherited a mid-game Almohad faction:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...20&postcount=5

For some reason, I think my King started out of communication with most of the Empire, so there were mass rebellions and faction respawns all over the place. It was hair raising trying to keep on top of them.

But the most memorable feature was that the map was half orange and half purple[1], so that ten years later a similar thing happened but this time prompted by the Byzantines surging east (their navies messing up my lines of communication). I was caught unprepared and for some turns, their massed heavy cavalry led by an eight star general simply overran my AUMs and weak spears. I only gradually clawed back victory by attrition - trading losses until they had little heavy cavalry left. It was like playing the Soviets in a grand strategic WW2 game and having to wear down the German panzer thrusts.

[1]I suspect that is a large part of the problem with subsequent TW games - slothful campaign AI means that no AI faction emerges mid-game as a superpower to rival the player.

[pevergreen]

I have the ability to quickly forget moments of triumph.

I do remember 2 good parts to Medieval 2: Total War and RTW though.

1. Britain, defending a castle. I had just gotten Feudal Knights on foot, so I put them in the front line, my longbows on the wall. Repulsed the attack, had about half the force. Get them retraining, but get sieged with another group same size. Just manage to get that one off, holding in the square and just breaking them before I lost all my troops.

Then sieged for a third time. I had about 40 men left. (medium sizes) and I somehow held off a third set of attackers. It was an epic 3 hour long set of battles.

The other one was playing an Invasion of China mod. I was holding an Egyptian city, when I was besieged by 4000 egyptians. I had 120 militia, 120 base infantry, 200 crosbows and 40 chariots. I thought "bugger it, im going away" so i left it on AI.

The ai smashed the egyptians.

[Vladimir]

Oh my god, I had forgotten about the X-Wing games. TIE fighter had some absurd missions, but few were as bad as the one where you had to clear the minefield in a T/I. The only consolation was that they really were trying to get you killed. Playing that without dropping the difficulty level down was extraordinarily frustrating.

I don't want to think about that whole game. Too much fun.

[Togakure]

For me, Shogun MP, of course. It was a rare 4v4 that didn't lag, a lightly foggy battle on the Horselands map, with talented players on both sides, and two of my 47Ronin buddies teaming with me. I managed over 1500 kills, the most I ever got in a MP game, as we repulsed a very nasty attack which caught us off guard in the fog, and turned it around. I think I had less than 200 men left at the end. It was an extremely exciting game; at several points it seemed one side would win, but then someone would do something epic and the tide would turn. Ah, the glory days.

Runner-up was a neighborhood competition among friends, playing the original Soul Calibur on the Sega Dreamcast. There were 16 of us, all caught up in the SC thing that was the craze when it first came out. Most of them hadn't seen me play, but I'd seen most of them play (I'd hang out after work and watch; but often declined to play because I was so tired; I observed closely though ...). Using Mitsurugi, Taki, Siegfried, and Cervantes, I blasted my way into the final match. Then I played my hidden ace, and won the competition with my favorite freak. "VOOOOOLDO WINS!!," heh. It was quite a fun weekend.

***

The most shameful moment was in 6th grade. I had a ~200 wins, 20 losses record on the chess team. Ten of those twenty losses were to one other player, our second ranker. Our school arranged a tournament with a nearby elementary school. I was defeated soundly in two games back to back and eliminated early in the match by an extraordinary player from the other school, their number one. It was so embarrassing. He just stomped me. I didn't play much chess after that.

[Hooahguy]

The most shameful moment was in 6th grade. I had a ~200 wins, 20 losses record on the chess team. Ten of those twenty losses were to one other player, our second ranker. Our school arranged a tournament with a nearby elementary school. I was defeated soundly in two games back to back and eliminated early in the match by an extraordinary player from the other school, their number one. It was so embarrassing. He just stomped me. I didn't play much chess after that.

thats not so bad. i once went on a 12 death streak in BF2142. the worst part about it is the average death streak was 5-6 and the fact that i got the 12 death streak is displayed prominently on my stat page. plus i got 6 purple hearts, which means you got a .25 kdr in a round. shame on me.

[Boohugh]

Hmm quite difficult to say. One of them would probably be killing Kael'Thas for the first time in World of Warcraft. At the time he was the hardest boss in the game and even now is widely considered as one of the most epic fights designed. My guild spent several weeks learning the encounter and killing him was a great feeling of satisfaction, the culmination of months of teamwork.

We did have a movie of it (with ventrilo recorded!) but it seems to have died with Stage6 sadly

[Martok]

The mentions of MTW and of epic battles made me remember about one of my own epic fights in the TW series. It took a long time to track down but i was amazed when i found the post that detailed everything, with screens still intact!

I give you, 13,000 danes vs 26,000 Mongols, the Battle of Khazar, 1231 AD.

I had nearly forgotten about that fight and now that I think of it it's the single longest battle I ever took part in. It's without a doubt a moment that defined the TW genre for me and stands tall as a reason why MTW is and will always be one of my favorite games, all time.

Good grief, that really was a bloody slaughter. Are you serious that only ~300 of your men survived??!

In X-Wing: Alliance I once took down an Imperial class star destroyer on my own. In an A-wing. I had to shoot out its engines because it tried to escape me once its shields failed.

You took down an Imp-class with a single A-wing?? That's incredible -- fast as they are, they're essentially armed with pea-shooters in my experience. That must've been one heck of a ride!

[Monk]

Good grief, that really was a bloody slaughter. Are you serious that only ~300 of your men survived??!

Quit serious! Casualty rates in that battle were absolutely insane, few of my troops actually routed (from what I remember). I had brought such high morale, disciplined troops, and my leader was so good, that many units were utterly destroyed or reduced to ~ten men before I pulled them back or let them die.

I honestly cannot remember what MTW mod that was, it might've been the old XL mod. It's a shame cuz i'd really love to play that again.

[frogbeastegg]

Oh my god, I had forgotten about the X-Wing games. TIE fighter had some absurd missions, but few were as bad as the one where you had to clear the minefield in a T/I. The only consolation was that they really were trying to get you killed. Playing that without dropping the difficulty level down was extraordinarily frustrating.

The betrayal was time based, so you could ignore the mines and still progress. I never knew that until I saw it on the internet, years after I last played the game. I nearly wept - all those deaths for no reason!

The series was brutally hard. That's why I'm not jumping for joy over the hints it will be re-released. I have memories of being an ace pilot; it would be crushing to go back and start again from the bottom of the skill curve. Dearly as I loved the games, I think it would destroy my memories of them. Once upon a time I knew the game so well my friends said I flew like a jedi. Now I'd be a pretty explosion.

The final missions of X-Wing Alliance were horrifically difficult. Flying through the second death star's structure under constant fire, slipping through spaces with no margin for error at all. I didn't think they could make anything nastier than the trench run mission in X-Wing; I was wrong, so very wrong.

You took down an Imp-class with a single A-wing?? That's incredible -- fast as they are, they're essentially armed with pea-shooters in my experience. That must've been one heck of a ride!

It took something like 40 minutes. I shot off the shield generators first, then all 6(?) of the engines - it nearly reached the jump point to escape so it was a close call - and finally chipped the hull away. I can't remember why I decided to do this; the mission was successfully completed. Once I knew I could do it, I took down a bunch more in later missions.

[Whacker]

You took down an Imp-class with a single A-wing?? That's incredible -- fast as they are, they're essentially armed with pea-shooters in my experience. That must've been one heck of a ride!

/prideful mode with a dash of bragging on

(I should mention that of all the PC games I've ever played and honestly dedicated myself to mastering, TIE Fighter would be top of that list. I had a Hard-only save that was near perfect, I only missed 1 tertiary objective across all 13 campaigns.)

It's honestly not hard at all. In fact, the only thing that saved cap ships from ME in X-Wing and TF were if A> I didn't have ion cannons and B> they ran like heck once you drop their shields or their hull gets to a certain %.

TIE Fighter was far, far, far easier. The main reason for this was that you could shoot off the missile launchers and turrets. Another thing that helped immensely was you could use the mouse to fly and make very small adjustments for perfect aiming. I flew with a gravis gamepad and a trackball. I ate Calamari Cruisers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

That mission that was just discussed, B5M1, wasn't honestly all that hard. Taking out mines was a science that wasn't hard at all once you get the hang of it, even in an unshielded craft. Also what FBE said was true, you could blow away your wingmen immediately with no repercussions. The rest of the mission was just trying to inspect that shuttle in between blowing away fighters.

/prideful mode with dash of bragging off

It does pain me to admit that I no longer have the same edge I used to. About 2 years ago on a lark, I got into my closet and put together a box that could run DOS from old parts. It was fantastic, I had Mech2, Dark Forces, Doom, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Wacky Wheels, Ultima 7 and 8, and a slew of other games on there. To cut to the chase, those old hard missions kicked my behind thoroughly, I have no idea how I did them back in the day. The one that game me the most trouble by far was the 2nd to last mission in battle 1, where you had to take out the CRL's fighter screen. Several of the wings had adv. missiles which always, always rocked my world. I just couldn't hack it. The other ones that game me trouble where the missions in battle 5 where you were in a gunboat against T/A's with Adv. missiles yet again. Just couldn't hack it anymore.

[johnhughthom]

I have two, the first was the original Medieval. My Spanish Crusade through the Almos territory (did anyone else think that was a slight exploit? You could send a Crusade blitzing through their lands and other armies following behind could claim the region) came up against a massive Egyptian army with the Faction Leader (Sultan?) and three or four princes. The battle came down to the Egyptian FL against my Prince one on one with everybody else either dead or routed and my Prince cut him down. Luckily enough I had an army one region back to reinforce my Crusade.
The other was on Football Manager 2005, soccer not american football. I managed to take Leigh RMI, in the conference at the time, to the FA Cup Final beating Blackburn and Spurs along the way. We lost 1-0 to Liverpool but were in Europe the next year and made millions from the run. I had many tough team selections late that season as we were also pushing for promotion, which we won on the last day of the season, and my star striker (David McNiven, I still check up on his career) was injured for the last month.

[Ramses II CP]

Many, many moons ago I took part in one of the first Myth: The Fallen Lords tournaments. One of the things that made TFL special, IMHO, was that many of the maps were deliberately unbalanced by having five starting positions with one player in the middle. That player generally had to get out and attack one of the other starting positions, which prevented stalemates but also resulted in a tough time for the edge player so attacked.

So for this round of the tournament one of the maps was called For Carnage Apply Within, and we were playing a game called Flag Rally, in which each start has a flag and the first player to tag all five flags wins. You have to balance protecting your flag with defense against moving offensively to get opponent flags. I decided to be aggressive and moved out of my start towards center, leaving a modest guard of slower troops behind. Immediately I ran into the guy from center coming my way with what looked like his entire force and the high ground. We had a long, drawn out, bloody engagement during which I couldn't micomanage the units I had sent to attempt to tag other flags or follow what else was going on in the game.

Short form: I won the fight, but was losing the battle very badly. All four other players had tagged all four other flags while I had tagged none (Probably they had all noticed center fighting me and left light guards or traded flags deliberately). Which means all remaining troops, except maybe a few guards, were now headed directly for me. At least the center guy was mostly wiped out, but I was at half strength myself and looking at the percentages the others had at least six times my total troop count. I was in danger of a humiliating defeat, and since Myth is a 'you get what you get' game I couldn't build more troops and turtle.

Instead I went on the offensive, setting up a delaying defense at my flag with the idea of keeping it contested as long as possible. In the final two minutes of the game I managed five battles simultaneously at five different positions on the map with wounded troops against difficult odds, flipping the camera between them as fast as possible, and with under 20 seconds to go in the round I captured the last of the other four flags while my enemies were still fighting over, and keeping contested, my own flag.

It was the sweetest four "WTF?!" exclamations I've ever heard. From last place to first with 20 seconds left and 5% of my men remaining.

Single player experiences just don't compare to that kind of rush. I can remember so many great Myth games, especially some of the team games, but that one sticks out in my head because I didn't really believe it was possible for me to win but I was determined to try anyway.

[Motep]

Ah yes. Way back when, in RTW, I was holding out against five or six stacks of egyptians with a couple hundred elite hoplites with silver hued chevrons, one incredibly mediocre general, and two fresh off the line units of cretan archers. This is on normal unit size, one must note, with no time limits and the hardest settings to boot. I figured that my town of Tarsus was doomed to the hordes of egyptian warriors. Steeled in for my last stand, I let the fight begin. It was shaky at first, adn I didnt have enough men to hold the walls they were assaulting. So, I was contented to leave a group of cretans above the gate, and I set their ram on fire. And so that lone group of cretans used about half of their ammo before enough egyptians had reached the walls to retreat more than viable. And so I pulled back to the first gap in the street as the egyptians pulled their force forward, with reinforcements coming to replace their lost ones by the minute. After killing their infantry with my hoplites for a while, they finally had a force set up to go for some flanking. I pulled back quick as I could to defend the square, but lost a unit of hoplites in my struggle. After I had the town sqare firmly blocked from intrusion, I had my cretans use up the last of their ammo aiding the hoplites in thier task of routing any sizable force. I was taking few casualties, what with my general and the now bowless cretans to help out in tense situations, but eventually the battle rose to a cresendo due to the emergence of the egyptian leader, and I was forced to take drastic measures to insure my survival. I lost most of my hoplites in that push of theirs, and all of my cretans, but I was somehow able to hold my formations and watch as my stalwart and ridiculously mediocre general (so many losses against other family members...) slew their leader. After that, their army kinda fell apart, and it only took another 15 minutes for my quickly diminising force to mop up the mess. I think I only had like 60 men left, and I really wish I had a screenie, but I have no idea where it went to. One of my best.

Another time (Ill be brief) I was playing Medieval total war, and I was the Spainish. I Hoisted myself a crusade after a while, and sent it galavanting off towards russia before I turned it around and swooped down to get to the moors. By the time it got to africa, I had about fifty thousand troops at my disposal, adn I unleashed them upon the non christian world like a plague of locusts. And so I avoided the crusade target and devoured everything that was not owned by christians, and was even able to leave a sizable force at each city. And once the crusade was complete, I turned my now ridiculously vast armies homeward, adn no one could stop me...