I don't play computer games very often (despite what some may think) but I like to keep up with the latest graphics state-of-the-art. I downloaded the Age of Empires III Demo and its really quite impressive (and addictive). There are only a few games I've really gotten "in to" and Age of Empires II was one of them. I remember playing it the first time and being hooked almost straight away.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the game, you are a settler on some land and you have to build up a community and defend your community against your opponents, computer or human. You can start the game at various levels but the most fun is when you start with just yourself in some pre-industrial era. You take on the characteristics of a particular race and I always enjoyed being the Britons against the Persians.

The game comes with a simple tutorial to get you started and then you're on your own. I started with one little man whom I had build a Town Centre. You need a TC in order to do anything, and the first thing you need to do is "build" some villagers, who in turn build farms, mills, mines, barracks, forts and so on. You need to farm the land for food, cut down trees for wood and dig mines for stone and gold. As you progress, you can advance your technology, build up an army and fortify your town. I had just gotten my town thriving for the first time with 50 villagers, chopping, ploughing, digging and generally being very happy and content, like my own little Amish community, when the bloody Persians came in with an army and looted, pillaged and destroyed everything, the bastards.

I was angry and I wanted revenge. So I found another part of the game where you can "customise" a scenario. So I set up my own scenario with a huge map, thousands of trees, heaps of gold and stone mines and one computer controlled Persian in one corner and my little Briton in the other, both shepherds. Rather than start up with an amount of food, I gave each side 100 sheep to use for food as required. Then the game began.

Given how quickly the Persians attacked me last time, I had my shepherd quickly build a Town Centre and several villagers, expanded my housing facilities (increases your available population), started slaughtering sheep for food and set about mining for stone so I could build a wall across the only path through the mighty forest (I created the map you know). And it was indeed a mighty wall, three layers of solid stone. Even the bloody Persians would have to slow down for that one, or cut their way through the forest to get around it.

Once I knew I was safe, I maximised my workforce. Most games default to allowing 75 people per side but I wanted revenge, remember. I upped the ante to allow 200 per side. I had people building houses, mills, mines, market places, fishing boats, docks, churches and universities. These things might not seem relevent to a plan for revenge but they help advance your technology and I was kicking butt in the research into advanced weaponry stakes.

I had become a mighty nation in just a few short hours and had a HUGE store of food, wood, stone and gold. You need these things when planning to declare war on Persia. You also need barracks to build soldiers, stables to build cavalry and forts to build war machines. I was ready but I had one painful task to complete before my invasion would begin.

I had already max'ed out my population with villagers and couldn't build any soldiers or war units. D'Oh! After a bit of searching I found an ominous skull lurking in the bottom corner of the control panel. It would allow my to kill off my own villagers to make way for soldiers and war units. I was torn, these little pixel people had worked so hard and had paid their taxes and now they were going to die just so I could satisfy my thirst for revenge and go destroy the mighty Persian nation. I figured they would understand and wiped them all out, except for one, who could repair the wall if I needed it.

So my one, lonely little villager stood beside the mightiest of walls, surrounded by 199 angry soldiers, cavalrymen and war machines of every sort. I had machines to fling fire, shoot dozens of bolts of arrows and to crush infantry. I had priests to cast spells at the opposition to turn their own men against each other and cause chaos within the enemy ranks. I had pikemen, swordsmen, guys with clubs, longbows, maces and possibly nun-chuks.

I had only one small problem. I couldn't get through the mightiest of walls.

Again, after some searching, it turned out to be quite lucky I hadn't killed that one villager because he was the only character that could dismantle the wall. So after he did that, I killed him and built another cannon and prepared to charge.

It was a carefully planned attack. I would send in the long range weapons to take out the outlying defenders. They would fall to the Persian defence towers so in went my seige machines, surrounded by infantry to protect them. I would send 50 riflemen to the edge of the Persian town to prevent new soldiers being created while my priests turned the existing enemy soldiers against each other. I would have my pikemen rush in at the cavalry while my swordsmen would rush to the town centre and attack. My cannons would destroy the barracks, stables and forts to prevent any new defenders being built. I charged, not knowing what awaited my battle-hungry troops. I didn't know whether the Persians had focussed on infantry or defences, long range weapons or face-to-face combat. Had they developed their technology or focussed on accumulating wealth? Would they use battle elephants? Whateve they had done in the 200 hundred years that had elapsed so far during the game play, I was confident I had built the best army in the whole land, enough even to defeat the once mighty and overly cocky Persian empire.

Imagine my surprise to find one Persian shepherd and 100 sheep.

It turns out that the lowest difficulty setting, which I had used to "give myself a fighting chance" has the opposition maintain the status quo until attacked. As I hadn't given this one little Persian shepherd anything to fret about for over two hundred years, he hadn't felt the need to evolve. He was also now over two hundred years old. I couldn't kill him. My soldiers only attack other soldiers or war buildings by default, but you can have them attack villagers if you need to. But I couldn't do that to this poor old lonely guy. So I took his sheep and had my priest turn him against himself and won the game.

And that is the story of how I beat the Persian Empire.

Ciao!

Thought for the Day: If we didn't have wars, would we have computers?