Whale Food

If y'all have been paying attention, a good part of my game time is spent avoiding whales. There is a power gap that ss level luck and RNGesus firmly on your side can’t overcome. They win, the end lol. There are no close fights. A strong account is lucky to scratch one or two troops while losing 75% of their own. They are on another level and I know my place in the GOTWIC ecosystem. I was excited to join GB with BwF. I am a bastard now yall lol. 

We would play on the A maps instead of the whale maps or the b maps we had played on previous seasons. On B maps I definitely am one of the bullies on the map, opponents seeing me as I see the whales. There are a lot of fair fights still, since many players my size and strength all drop to avoid the whales.

I was excited and cautiously optimistic. Most of our blubbery friends would be on the super maps, if we got lucky maybe we only get one in each of the factions… Yall know I don’t get lucky and truth be told I am not sure what I was smoking on, but I need more lol 😂. When matchmaking finished we were assigned to Tempest. We had several really strong accounts. Npw, BwF, GEU if you only looked at our faction, I was happy with where we landed. Especially since the Old Gods didn’t let us pick our allies -.-  Early on, there is the boring phase. Taking buildings with the only fights being NPC’s and the first one in, if strong enough, generally kill them all. If you are smaller or slow this is a genuine snoozefest. It is also the point where you get an idea of how your faction works together. Will the other alliances listen? Inevitably you get some who don't, but my mood was positive. It can't be that bad. Our first orders were to get in and pull out for the earliest targets. Leadership intended us to build slower so more could get in and get those early initial points. It made sense to me but not so much to some others lol. 

Racing day was a bit more high stakes. We were just fighting Npc’s still but at this stage, time is a real factor. Unlike the earlier leisurely seizures, we needed to go fast to declare on the fortress before our neighbors. This means when we get in, stay in and send multiple marches. If they reach the fortress and declare before we do, we would lose. I was a bit nervous. Seeing so many not listening during the easy stuff, I didn’t have much faith. Add to that the frustrations of the smaller accounts were starting to be vocalized. They were reconsidering their life's choices, looking at the stronger players on the map, wondering what is the point. The strong ones would slaughter all the enemies they could kill and they would just feed some of the whales on the map. I understood, I remember being them once. Heck if I am unlucky enough to hit a whale, I am still them lol.

The race began and all three factions began to take their territory. Our leadership was announcing we should stay in till we cap the building. We would push hard against Long Reach and go slower on the Shadow side for now. They even made the announcement in multiple languages trying to make sure all objectives were well communicated in discord, game and within their own alliances. Still too many did not get the memo, pulling their troops out once they got the points for arriving at the building…

Despite all those folks not listening, we had made it to the second building. Literally the one we needed to take and then we could declare on our REAL target, the fortress.  We were ahead of Long Reach but only just ahead. If folks would stay, we just may do this… It was here I got to kill NPC’s and had a nice little 37 kill streak. 

I hoped for more of that against actual enemies. People kept leaving. Our leaders and allies were exasperated as we watched Long Reach overcome the slight time lead we had held. Us more experienced players recognized that If all the people that left had stayed we would still be in the lead. Nothing we said stopped the hemorrhaging of allies leaving the building after arriving, it in fact felt almost contagious. Some doing it led to more doing it. We would lose the race. 

The good news is we were closer to the fights that mattered. Fights against Players, muahaha!

As soon as Long Reach capped the fortress our leaders declared… Confident we could take it back. Just a small hiccup. The fight would be the next day and it was here we would truly get to see our chances on this map as a faction.  As soon as the building started burning, I set off to do battle. This is where I saw the whales. Now, when I send a full march of T4 inf with my best line, I am 75-80 million troop strength. I am not a whale, but I am a decently strong account. There were accounts yall whose troop strength was over 300 million…If a 30 million account would struggle against me despite the debuff I get for being on an A map, what could any of us hope to do against that? There were also a handful of other whales in Long Reach between 200 and 300 million. Our strongest is maybe in the upper 100 millions. It felt like it would be a slaughter. My only hope would be getting in after the enemy whale gets knocked out and before our mini blubbery buds get in and kill everyone else lol. My first march was a disaster. I ran right into Hank Hill. I died but I did kill a few since his resilience was low. It was hard not to be frustrated. 

Vegeta contacted me saying he was done after having a similar experience. What are we just supposed to feed the whales and blow through resources for nothing??? I understood the frustration, but was not ready to give up yet. I sent my troops again. As I was watching the battle unfold waiting for my turn, I spied with my lil eye Vegeta in the fight ahead of me lol. I knew he wasn't gonna quit, he was just frustrated like we all were. 

When it was my turn to fight, I hit another what… OMG this is why we can’t have nice things. We had started out strong, but we were losing ground now. Long Reach had more players inside that would be difficult to remove. We as the players being removed by those players had a long march to get back to the fight.  I did manage a tiny mini streak that cleared my elim tasks, but we lost that war.

Humbled, frustrated and angry, we all dealt with this loss differently but generally we all fell into one or more of these categories. I was frustrated and angry. Our leaders were focused on plotting our revenge. They are far too competitive to give up. Maybe our faction will lose this event, finishing third but what we were not going to do was give up. We will try and improve on our errors, we will play smart and keep coming. This was the first real fight in a long war, we WILL get our revenge. We are more than just whale food… Muahaha