Adam Drake - Blackout

The tower Keep morphed instantly into a wider version of itself. The walls became thicker and more arrows slots appeared. Not much different.

Then I noticed not one but six Lookouts waving down at me, each armed with a crossbow. The defensive radius also expanded and easily enveloped the banner’s altar.

Nice. I pulled up the command menu and saw the option to hire more workers. Three of ten units currently active.

Sweet! Seven more worker units, here we come!

One hundred gold produced a new unit that stumbled out of the Keep’s door. I sent them to the gold mine. Now I just had to wait for the gold to accumulate and I’d hire the other six.

Things were looking up.

Enemy Spotted!

My eyes flew to the map.

At the middle, enemy units were approaching from both directions. And there were a lot of them.

Four units from the northwest curve, and another four from the northeast. And that was just what my own units could see.

Amara was coming now, and it looked like she intended on seizing the platform back.

I found myself smiling.

Time for war.

I glanced over my unit icons at the middle.

Archers were positioned on the southern side of the platform and along the river. The footmen units were placed side by side on the northern edge with one standing directly on the platform. I also placed Grax next to the altar.

For now, this was as defensive as I could get. Once battle was engaged, I could rely on their strategic positioning to hold the line and, hopefully, repel any attack.

Or so I told myself. How the heck would I even know this would work having never even played the most basic of strategy games beyond chess?

Anyways, with the middle firmly locked for the moment I returned my attention to my base.

With the gold now accumulating faster, I hired another two more worker units and set one each to the woodyard and the gold mine.

The next worker unit I set to building a cavalry grounds which I positioned next to the archery range.

While I waited for them to build it up, I kept a tense eye on the middle.

Amara had moved her armies close but stopped both about twenty paces away from my archer’s maximum range. Both sets had two footmen at the front with two archer units at the back.

I didn’t think she’d attack with these units, yet. She’d wait until reinforcements arrived then hit with overwhelming force.

If I attacked her now, it would only serve to drain my own strength. Had I cavalry up there, then I’d use them to attack immediately, followed up with footmen and archers. This would also allow Grax to become the wandering agent of carnage he craved to be.

But I needed to wait. No doubt Amara was doing similar right now, building up her cavalry, the strongest unit available to us outside of champions.

Cavalry Grounds complete.

A long set of stalls were erected next to a wide field with a small obstacle course.

From the command menu I selected the cavalry unit.

Unit: Cavalry

Race: Human

Hit Points: 120

Speed: 35

Weapon: Sword

Cost: 500 gold

When my gold counter hit that number, I selected to train my first official cavalry unit.

Training time: 7 minutes.

Horses appeared within the stalls, and a rider with a mount ran through the grounds, jumping over obstacles.

Ouch. With their expensive cost and longer training time, it would take awhile to amass a sizable group of them.

With another glance to ensure nothing had changed at the middle, I hired the remainder of my worker units. I reassigned all units of workers to the gold mine, but kept two on lumber duties and one on the quarry.

With the Keep upgraded, I’d now concentrate on training units as fast as possible. The plan was to build another cavalry ground and maybe second barracks, to help with output.

Suddenly, I got a report from the scout, whom I’d completely forgotten about. He was positioned about half way up the northeast approach to Amara’s base, hidden in the trees. He’d snuck past all the enemy units assembled at the middle undetected.

“Incoming cavalry,” he said. From his view point I could see two units of trolls on horseback trotting south.

“Okay,” I said, feeling what optimism I had deflated a little. “Keep heading north and give me a view of Amara’s base.”

“Yes, commander,” the scout said and signed off. This guy wasn’t as cocky as the previous one which made conversation a little more robotic.

There was nothing I could do right now about those cavalry units. I knew they’d be coming, and more would follow.

As I impatiently waited for my own cavalry to finish, I selected another footmen and archer unit to train as the money became available.

The gold was pouring in, for which I was immensely grateful.

By now the enemy cavalry had arrived at the middle and placed themselves to one side of the main force on the northeast approach.

Then from the northwest approach, two other cavalry units appeared.

Okay, things were about to get real, and I’d be more help at the middle than here. Quickly, I assigned two worker units to build another cavalry grounds, which sped up its construction.

As this finished being built the new cavalry unit appeared and formed up next to the stalls. I promptly sent them to the middle at full speed, ensuring they were set to autonomous.

I started training another.

At the middle, the two new enemy cavalry units positioned themselves similarly to the northwest formation. Things were getting cramped up there. Only a matter of time until something snapped.

The second cavalry grounds finished, and I assigned the workers to another barracks. This would be it in terms of buildings for now. I’d considered trying to build barracks closer to the middle, but I just didn’t have time, yet. If I survived the impending battle in the middle, a base near the platform could be considered.

Another archer and footmen unit popped out, and north they went.

As I trained more, I dug into the command menu a little. Surely there was a way to get all this automated, so I didn’t need to keep watching training timers.

Then I found an option to set up a training queue that encompassed all my training buildings, not just individually. Thank the Gaming Gods. No doubt, Amara had been using this since the beginning which helped train units more efficiently, without waiting on a commander to initiate things.

Trying not to get too annoyed with my noob status, I set up a queue that prioritized cavalry training, followed by footmen, then archers. As the required resources became available, the next unit in the queue would be trained. Each unit would then move quickly to the middle area.

Now I placed all ten of my worker units at the gold mine. Without needing to construct more buildings or upgrade the keep, the need for stone was nil. And I had more than enough wood stockpiled for now.

It was all about the gold, and how fast I could get it.

With that taken care of, my attention could be moved to leading an army, rather than building one.

As if on cue, enemy units started to move. All four cavalry units were withdrawing and moving back northwards.

What the heck? There was nowhere else to go but back to their base, and the middle was where the fight was going to be.

Regardless, I had to get up there. With a final look around my base to ensure the lone footman and archer units still guarded my banner’s altar, I summoned Smoke and headed out.

Speeding north, my attention remained glued to the map.

Now all four enemy cavalry units stopped a short distance from the rear of the formations. The two to the northwest then turned around, facing southward, one lined up behind the other. The cavalry units in the northeast did the same.