Quote Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul
...
I've watched the replays of the three games I had and it wasn't as bad as I first thought. Of course, I faced you three times and I lost three times but I know what I did wrong and that's most important to me.
Next time I'll crush you. I hope you don't mind being my personal nemesis? (you devil ) ...



R'as

P.S.: Anyway.....my taisho won that 4v4 after single handedly killing Yuuki's taisho and hatamoto. Noobs!
Now That's the spirit!

You give me a good game every time R'as, and have knocked me off my horse on several occasions, and will again many times, I'm sure. Remember the week before? That was a great back and forth cat-n-mouse exchange, and you ended up chasing me off the field.

I know how you feel--my nemesis is this Sashimi Kojiro guy. You want to get frustrated? Play that ... in ten 1v1s in a row, and see how you feel afterward. I would get SO FRUSTRATED. But I learned a lot playing against him. I had to get very creative to achieve much of anything. He knew responses to all the "normal" things and could execute them near-perfectly with consistency--and did so with this casual matter-of-fact indifference that drove me frikkin' bonkers. I had to come up with unexpected things, and ones that worked. He must have thought I was insane given some of the things I tried. When I did manage to win a game against him--as much as I hate to admit it--it made me feel really good. That insufferably excellent dweeb gets my MP Nemesis of the First TW Decade award, hands down. But you know ... for every good player out there, there's another who's better.

The replays reveal so much that I don't notice in game. Yes indeed, anything could have happened in a great many situations. Any one of them could have easily gone the other way. Little things can make big differences.

When I find myself cranky after a game because of my perceived crappy performance, I remind myself that this is team play in MP--it isn't all up to me. I can do all the "right" things; it doesn't mean squat if my opponents team better than we do, or my team doesn't gel well in a particular game. If I made mistakes, well, so does everyone else at one point or another. It happens. So I just shrug it off and focus on the next game. Sucks a bit when it happens in a bunch of games in one day. But, it happens. There are some really good days too.

I think several of the victories happened because I was correctly guessing what CBR would do in response to what I did, and AsanoRin too (as team mates). In the game with Fool, I didn't do as well because I hesitated, not sure what Fool would do with all those cav, and with his infantry, which was still way behind us. In a complete attack like that, cav is not enough. Success rides on the correct timing of attack waves, unit match-ups, and how well or not the opponents respond, etc.. I've noticed even the Great Yuuki-sama holding units back, or withdrawing from a risky charge, when in my mind, had he followed through. and committed those reserves, the results would have made a big difference. I say if you're going to attack, GO FOR IT. I've seen other teams in 4v4 absolutely CRUSH (and I mean CRUSH) opponents in such a superb coordinated attack that two attacked players were out within a few minutes--attacking and defending (when the defenders chose to attack as their initial strategy). It's a huge glory feeling to pull this off, and a week-long sulk to be hit by it. Had a number of those.

Earlier I did a lot of ribbing about those who emphasize the numbers. I didn't do that just to annoy peeps. It drew out responses that clarified much more specifically why they felt how they did. I consider and adjust. Changes in unit choices has resulted in a dramatic increase in average kills for me over the last couple of sessions. Yuuki made a simple but oh-so-true point that each player really needs to achieve a certain number of kills or it becomes difficult for his team to make up the deficit and win the game. In most of the battles last weekend, I had very little left during End Game--but I felt I'd done a decent job, damaging and perhaps demoralizing opponents. I had my hata left in some of them, and so could run around with the other generals during the final mop up. That was fun.

Your respect and candor honor me, thank you . Please crush me as best you can; I ever desire an opponent's best game. You can count on me to give you mine. I do enjoy teaming with you too ... I like having lots of cav on my side

In an ideal TW MP team game, I don't want to have to discuss much strategy at the onset--just a general intent, subject to change at any time given unexpected developments, and perhaps some stated projections of what might happen and how we adjust if such events occur. I want to achieve "no mind" partnership with good players on the battlefield, where talk is rarely needed; where familiarity, intuition, and coordinated action is such that the left hand knows what the right, and feet, will do--more "reflex" than action--where we don't really think about it, just do it. I have had moments like this in STW MP with my wingm8 Anskar, and man ... do I hunger for it again. This particular TW "high" satisfies like no other MP game. A distant second is, of course, collecting as many enemy heads as possible.