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Commander Hartfield
Friday night. Matt sat at his desk, the laptop screen angled away from the overhead light. His right hand rested on the trackball, his left on the keyboard.
Danny’s voice came through the phone speaker, already mid-complaint.
“You’re walling off the gold pile again.”
“It’s my gold pile.”
“It’s the team’s gold pile. We’re on the same side.”
Matt queued another section of stone wall. “And as your teammate, I’m protecting our shared investment.”
“By locking me out of it!”
“You have your own gold.”
“I spent my gold!”
“Sounds like you should’ve built a wall around it.”
Danny made a noise like a teakettle. Matt placed a second layer of wall around the gold, just because, then started on a tower behind his castle to cover the gap between two cliff faces.
“What are you building?”
“Perimeter.”
“For what? Nothing’s coming from that side. The AI base is northeast.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I scouted it! I literally told you five minutes ago!”
“You lost four Mangudai scouting it.”
A strangled noise through the speaker. “They were harassing, not scouting. That’s the whole point of Mangudai. You ride in, you shoot stuff, you ride out.”
“You rode in. How’s the riding out going?”
“Shut up.”
Matt placed a monastery inside his wall line. Then a second monastery, because one was never enough. He started queuing monks.
On his side of the map, the base was taking shape. Three layers of stone wall around his town center. A castle covering the only land approach, with towers staggered behind it at angles that created overlapping fields of fire. Murder holes researched. Another castle going up on the ridge to the south.
He’d looked up none of this. The Teutons had cheap farms, strong walls, and infantry that could eat a cavalry charge without flinching. The rest was just structural logic. Chokepoints. Redundancy. Layers.
Meanwhile, Danny’s Mangudai flickered across the minimap in erratic clusters. Darting into the AI’s woodline, loosing a volley, pulling back if he remembered.
“I just killed eight villagers,” he announced.
“How many Mangudai did that cost?”
Silence.
“Danny.”
“Six. But the trade ratio—”
“You’re losing units faster than you’re replacing them.”
“That’s a tempo thing, it’ll even out.”
“It absolutely will not even out.”
“You don’t know that!”
“I can count.”
Matt rolled the trackball to center his view on the monastery. Three monks stood idle outside. He garrisoned them inside the castle at the main chokepoint and waited.
“Matt.”
“What.”
“You have five monks.”
“Six.”
“Why do you have six monks?”
“Psychological operations.”
“That’s not a thing in Age of Empires!”
“It is now. Watch.”
The AI sent a column of knights up the main approach. Matt ungarrisoned his monks behind the castle and set three of them converting the lead knight. The others he spread across the chokepoint, each targeting a different unit.
Danny’s voice went up an octave. “Oh my god.”
The first knight turned blue. Matt garrisoned it inside the castle and moved on to the next one.
“You’re stealing their army.”
“Recruiting. Big difference.”
“They’re going to kill your monks!”
“Not behind a castle they won’t.”
Two more knights converted before the rest of the column broke against the walls. His towers cut down the stragglers. One monk died. He queued another.
“You are the most annoying person to play with.”
“Thank you.”
Fifteen minutes in and Danny‘s raiding had done real damage. The AI‘s villagers had stopped working, huddled behind the town center. But Danny‘s army was also down to scraps.
“I need gold. I’m going to hit their mining camp in the south.”
“Don’t bother with the south. Hit the east instead, I saw them pull defenders from there.”
“Yeah?”
“Wide open. Go before they rotate back.”
Danny’s Mangudai swept east. Matt watched the minimap.
The east was not wide open. He just saw the AI rotate a mass of pikemen there two minutes ago. Pikemen shredded cavalry archers.
“WHAT THE—THERE’S LIKE TWENTY PIKES HERE!”
“Hm. Must’ve just moved them.”
“You said it was clear!”
“I said I saw them pull defenders. I didn’t say they stayed pulled.”
“MATT!”
“Retreat south. Their mining camp is actually undefended now.”
“How do you—” Danny’s voice cut off. A pause. “You wanted them to chase me east. You used me to pull the pikes.”
“Did it work?”
“I lost nine Mangudai!”
“But is the south open?”
Another pause. Matt could hear Danny clicking.
“…It’s open.”
“You’re welcome.”
“We are on the SAME TEAM!”
Matt was grinning. He hadn’t had this much fun in a long time.
“Take the mining camp. Then send whatever you have left further south along the treeline.”
“Why? So you can feed me to more pikemen?”
“Would I do that twice?”
“YES. Literally yes.”
“Just do it, Danny.”
Danny grumbled but complied. His surviving Mangudai pushed south, and the AI’s remaining cavalry peeled off to chase. The approach to the AI’s base opened up. The one Matt had been watching all game.
Matt clicked. A mass of Teutonic Knights began their slow march out of the southern castle toward the gap.
“You had an army this whole time?!”
“Yep.”
“This whole time, while I was out there dying—”
“You weren’t dying. You were creating a diversion.”
“I didn’t know I was creating a diversion!”
“Best diversions are the ones that don’t know they’re diversions.”
The Teutonic Knights hit the AI’s base. They moved like a glacier with swords. Pikemen bounced off them. The converted knights rode ahead, clearing the approach, while his infantry walked through the town center and started flattening production buildings.
Danny’s remaining Mangudai circled back and started picking off fleeing villagers. The AI was collapsing inward, pulling units back to defend nothing.
“Oh, that’s filthy.”
He deleted the AI’s last barracks. Then the siege workshop.
“You don’t need to kill the blacksmith, Matt.”
“Yes I do.”
The AI resigned. Victory flashed across the screen.
Matt leaned back. His right hand ached. His shoulders were stiff. He stretched his fingers against the table edge and rolled his neck.
“Good game.”
“Good game? You used me as bait!”
“Worked, didn’t it.”
“I hate you,” Danny said, laughing. “I hate you so much.”
The screen still showed the victory screen, the map littered with wreckage and walls.
“You up for another one?” he said.
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Coach Warren