Nothing to Lose at the City of Glory | AoH | Welcome to the Top

With AC just around the corner and a new intense season awaiting me and my friends, this weekend is the last banquet before the war begins. And what better way to spend it than with a fun match of AoH?

With my recent upgrades, I'm starting to take them for granted. I'm already thinking about what else I can improve on my account and forgetting how long these upgrades took, how much planning went into them and how far the account has actually come.

But AoH is starting to feel more rewarding because of that.

Granted, I won't be racing to take the City of Glory anytime soon, but I do feel like I'm making more of an impact in our matches overall.

This round our team is looking good and we're confident going in.

That is... until we see the baby account sitting in House Stark.

Well, this will most likely complicate things significantly, but we won't know until we give it a proper run.

As the gates open and the match starts, we rush the Strongholds, trying to build them up as fast as possible. Not only do we need to defend our Clan Castle, but taking the NPC house to our right early is also important.

We've usually gotten this opening down to an art, so execution now comes down to muscle memory more than anything else.

We do a split build in the first row and switch to bait the NPC houses into building the "wrong" troops.

As soon as the second row opens, we're in a decent position with a good start.

So far, so good. I check the map to see what our competition is doing and I'm surprised to see the Lannisters building Infantry camps.

A bold choice that I don't really understand, but I'm happy to see it because it kind of means we're definitely not going to end up in third place.😅

At the top of the map, however, the Starks are going full Trade.

Now, this wouldn't normally be a problem. Trade is competitive, relatively chill and safe, but it's not particularly strong without the City of Glory.

The problem is that the Starks have some very strong accounts and if they decide to go for center, we can already say goodbye to first place.

As we transition into the altar wars, all three houses are very close in points. We're leading by a small margin, but I expect the Starks to pull ahead once their Trading Posts start producing with the help of a few Maidens.

Meanwhile, I expect the Lannisters to start falling behind.

At this point, if you see the scoreboard, it looks like it could still be anyone's game.

And remember how I was feeling pretty good about my account?

Well, as soon as the fighting starts, I land a nice win against an account that could be considered similar in strength.

Now this is what I like to see. More please!

And more doesn't take long to appear.😏

The Lannisters aren't particularly happy that I'm taking their altar and try to contest me with a decent Cavalry account. Unfortunately for them, bringing Cavalry into a Spear neighborhood isn't exactly a brilliant tactical decision.

They leave without managing to do much and I lock another altar for our house.

But just as I'm starting to build some confidence from my main line hits, the NPC mirror version of myself decides to be a nuisance and kicks me from another altar I was trying to snipe with my second line.

I mean... my second line isn't weak. But it's Cavalry versus a main Spear account. So I guess I lost to myself.😅

Time to get to the Sept and heal up a bit because some of these hits are starting to hurt.

As we approach the middle of the match, the scoreboard is starting to look more or less as expected.

The Starks' trading strategy is taking off, putting them into a comfortable first place, while the Lannisters are in a bit of trouble and starting to fall behind us.

Not long after that, center is about to open. Time to see who actually wants the City of Glory. This is where our biggest concern is.

I doubt the Lannisters have the strength to seriously contest center, but the Starks absolutely do.

We know how important taking the City of Glory is in this game. If we take it, we probably have a shot at first place.

If we don't, we're probably looking at a comfortable second.

And there is very little chance of us dropping all the way to last. So, with nothing to lose, as soon as center opens we race for it.

Naturally, the other houses throw their hats into the ring as well. Sadly for us, the Starks snipe it a fraction of a second before we arrive.

And then we start bouncing... Even after repeated NPC and catapult hits, it's pretty obvious who's sitting inside. The remaining Stark players immediately start running over to reinforce, and before long the City of Glory has become a fortress.

Well... If we want first place, we're going to have to do something stupid.

So we do what we always do when we don't know if something will work. We try it anyway.😅

We put up a volley of rallies against center We're not particularly confident that we can take it, but we want to see just how bad the situation is. Maybe we can start some bleeding. With the towers and catapults under our control, perhaps we can keep applying pressure and eventually, if the Starks aren't paying attention, we might even be able to kick Baby out?

The first attempt doesn't do it. But we're not giving up yet.

We want to try again closer to the four minute lock mark, while stabilizing the rest of the map because, naturally, while we're busy bleeding ourselves against center, House Lannister and the NPCs are busy bleeding us elsewhere.

And then, just as the City of Glory is about to lock... Something strange happens. We take it?

For a second, nobody seems to understand what just happened. It's probably a last second disband that allows our final rally to capture the City of Glory. I'm barely able to say something on Discord before everyone else realizes it too.

We speed to reinforce! This is it. Maybe we actually have a chance. Except...

Before we can even get enough accounts inside, House Stark is already back. They push us out.😭

And this time there is no mistake, no lucky timing and no last second disband.

They sit inside the City of Glory for the full four minutes and lock it permanently under their banner.

That was our shot. And we missed it. At this point, the situation becomes pretty clear.

We've made several proper attempts at center while also controlling the towers and catapults, and we simply don't have the raw power to kick the Starks out.

Our strategy is working.

Our map control is good.

Our execution is good.

But there is a point where strategy can't compensate for the difference in account strength.

The Starks are simply too far ahead, while the Lannisters are too far behind.

Even if we have an amazing mine shaft phase and take control of more altars, there's no realistic way to get back into the fight for first place.

So we kind of start to relax a bit. At this point, the objective is simply to make sure we don't somehow throw away second place.

The mine phase comes around and I grab two mines. Nobody seems particularly interested in them, so I'm able to fully mine them without much trouble. It's not exactly a glorious comeback, but I'll take the free points.

When the game finally ends, the scoreboard looks almost exactly as it did after our failed attempts at center.

Well, not exactly. Because we obviously haven't done much during the second half of the game, and with some unfortunate timing, the Lannisters also managed to take "our" NPC house. But none of that changes the overall placement.

The game ends with a decisive victory for the max account... I mean, House Stark.

And we take a clean second place. Not the result we wanted, but probably the result we deserved.

This season hasn't been easy on us. Ironically, our constant progress and winning streak have pushed our score high enough that we're now getting matched into the range of accounts we simply can't beat yet.

It's a good problem to have, but it's still a problem.😔

We're playing better, we're getting stronger and our strategy is improving, but the matchmaking is slowly taking away the luxury of being the smartest team on the map.

And honestly? That's probably good for us. The season has barely started and we still have plenty of time to experiment, adjust and figure out how to deal with these stronger houses.

We'll get our first places back. The streaks will return!

And eventually, we'll have the account strength to back up the strategy when we run into another baby sitting in the City of Glory.

Until then... I'll keep beating accounts around my level and losing to the NPC version of myself.