AoH – Disaster Recovery Plan into City of Glory

After an amazing AC season where N0X landed that UC qualification for the 3rd consecutive time, leadership started planning the UC slots and match timings. That means it's finally time for a more "relaxed" event experience with AoH.

But of course, nothing in my life ever works out smoothly, does it? Here's an example of what I mean.

My cable provider, which also handles my internet, had issues all weekend. Cable going out for a few hours isn't the end of the world... but this time, my internet dies too, right when AoH registration starts, so 30 minutes before the map opens. Just great!

I immediately inform the team so they can prepare a contingency plan while I start figuring out my personal "disaster recovery plan".

Living my life has trained me well for this. Power cuts, internet outages, even water maintenance... when you work from home long enough, you learn to improvise. So it was time to apply my enterprise grade disaster recovery procedure... this time to GoTWiC.

Step 1: Switch to my laptop. It's not exactly a high end build, but good enough for emergency situations. I mostly use it for movies when traveling, but today it gets promoted to my main battle station rig.

Step 2: mobile hotspot from my phone. I'm on an unlimited mobile data plan. Speeds slow down after the guaranteed GB are used, but hopefully enough to finish this AoH match.

Step 2.5: Phone battery is a bit low. Thankfully I also have a power bank... because I know from experience they come in handy.

Step 3: Discord on the phone with wireless headphones. No chance I'm stressing the laptop further with voice chat. I mute my mic on my phone and just listen to instructions.

End everything comes together just in time for me to hit Ready😀

The gang is already assembled and we quickly go over assignments and win conditions. The mood is optimistic, and thankfully this doesn't look like one of those impossible matches where every second needs 3 actions. My poor laptop probably wouldn't survive that anyway.

The 1st row of Strongholds goes really well, maybe even better than usual, and we build Spear Camps to counter the Cav defenders around center so we get those valuable first capture points.

Since our roster changed and we're now playing with a power Inf account, I can no longer reliably hold the NPC House because clone-power-inf-account can easily kick me out. So Hotep takes over that House Holder role because his Cav setup is much better suited for it.

That does save me from rushing there with my lord march, but I'm still assigned as one of the defenders, meaning I need to send troops over. So I still need to recall from the Strongholds before wave 2 opens.

Just like AC, AoH feels insanely intense during the first half.

We build the 2nd row of Strongholds to Inf, completing a balanced troop setup. With the 2nd House already secured, we're pulling ahead nicely. So far, so good, let's hope it holds.

I even notice a brand new icon flashing on my screen. For one terrifying second I think we're losing the 2nd House... only to realize it's just one of the camps. A slightly different icon would have probably been better here, lol.

The NPC House looks stable and even my NPC clone tries taking it back. Funny enough, the lineup my clone uses is absolutely terrible.

My main lineup isn't great, but clone me lineup is even worse😂

Since my lord march is free, I grab an almost fully upgraded Trading Post in the NPC zone. Free points are free points, and more importantly, "static" objectives are easier to get while my laptop is fighting for its life.

I also help defend a few buildings, but once the Septs open, things start getting uncomfortable.

We've slipped from 1st place all the way down to 3rd, and that's effectively last.

Looks like our lazy troops forgot that first capture points actually matter and we've built them for nothing this round.

I try helping wherever possible, including parking my lord march inside the NPC Sept for additional points while we discuss how to recover the match.

At this stage we really only have two viable win conditions:

1. Hold Center.
2. Play a near perfect small mines phase later.

Since our troop camp setup already lost the early capture race, the decision becomes pretty obvious. We're going all-in on Center.

Bold strategy... especially considering some of the accounts on this map are no pushovers. We probably have enough strength to stop others from holding Center, but actually holding it ourselves is going to be hard.

Right now I'm more worried about my laptop exploding than the enemy team at this point😅If Center turns into nonstop healing and reinforcement spam, this thing may actually melt.

And as I worry about my laptop surviving the game, center opens and we rush it. We take it and need to reinforce before we start tanking hits.

It doesn't take long for a huge hit lands and most of us get sent home.

I immediately speed back, heal and reinforce... while still praying my laptop doesn't blue screen itself into another dimension.

Thankfully, it was only a single major hit with no follow up. We recover fast enough to stay inside City of Glory.

Then comes the first massive relief of the game when we hold long enough for the bubble. Now we finally have a little breathing room.

Before the bubble expires, we're already back inside preparing for the next waves of rallies.

This time Dakarshur lands a monstrous rally and absolutely shreds most of our troops despite us having 9 or 10 defenders reinforcing.

But we still hold. Even if it's with 2 accounts left inside, the City of Glory is still ours!

Now it's just a matter of healing and speeding back in. While hoping nobody chains another rally immediately after Dakarshur. If they don't synchronize properly, we can hold.

Small mines are approaching, but, as agreed, they aren't our main priority. Center is!

We're basically calling mines "best effort" while everyone focuses on holding the City of Glory.

So I grab one mine and hope for the best.

Thankfully I almost fully deplete it before getting kicked out, and several teammates manage to get some mines too. Considering our attention is split almost entirely toward Center defense, that's honestly a decent outcome.

Still, we're leaking Altars and need to pull it back together.

But as soon as we recover the Altars... we're losing Dragonpits. At this point even the NPCs are joining the bullying session. How rude!

Meanwhile the game apparently decides I'm AFK despite actively playing and takes over to launch one of the worst attacks I've ever seen before I regain control and can recall it. Apparently even the game itself doubts my setup.

But what happens next is scary. Six minutes remain. And because buildings lock after four minutes, we only need to hold Center for two more minutes to secure the win. That's it. Just two minutes!

I realize I'm not inside Center and immediately race back before the big rallies land, because this time... it's serious.

You read that right, this time it's two rallies incoming.😱Dakarshur plus another RRH player.

The danger is real this time. If Dakarshur wipes out 80% of our defenders, like last time, and the second rally cleans up the survivors, we lose the game in the final possible moment.

So we heal, refresh our troops and brace for impact. We've stolen games like this ourselves before. We know exactly how dangerous these final seconds can be.

The first rally lands. And honestly... I think RRH sent them wrong?

Because the weaker rally hits 1st, despite countering our Spear defenders with Inf, and the damage simply isn't enough.

Then Dakarshur lands the devastating 2nd strike. Massive losses, but it's not enough. We survive!

I genuinely think if Dakarshur had landed 1st, the 2nd rally would've cleaned us out. But I'm about to teach RRH how to play AoH.😅

I'm just extremely happy we're still standing.

At that point it's over. No time remains for another rally cycle and we still have 10/10 defenders in Center. The game is ours! And it feels amazing!

Not just because we won, but because the entire time I was balancing gameplay, emergency internet solutions, overheating lappy, Discord audio without being able to speak, and enough backup systems to qualify as a small IT department.😏

And the really funniest part? My internet connection came back about 10 minutes before the match ended. The outage mostly overlapped my AoH and that was it!

Curtain falls and we're in 1st place. Beautiful icon showing we ended while holding Center too.

Looking at the score, I think we could've won even without Center if we played secondary objectives a bit cleaner and prevented RRH (Targaryen) from holding mid. But no complaints here, it worked out for the best.

Time to shut down the disaster recovery setup, let the hero laptop rest before it explodes, and move back to my main gaming PC😊