Yesterday Stardock and PC Gamer played a best of 3 series of Demigod where PC Gamer trounced us both games. The video above was taken at the Stardock offices so you could see what was happening on our end.
So what happened?
The PC Gamer team, made up of editor Dan Stapleton, Evan Lahti, and Norman Chan (also at Maximum PC) displayed a level of expertise that I must confess blew us away.
Their strategy was to control the map from the outset through flag locks. This requires spending money on flag locks early but allows them to use teamwork (with teleportation scrolls) to pick the place and time of any serious confrontation.
Our counter-strategy,which failed, was to try to control the life flag with 2 Demigods with our third protecting the tower on the other side while we slowly built up. Our strategy was predicated on not getting killed and staying conservative for the early part.
But here’s where things fell apart for us: The PC Gamer team, with Dan as the Vampire Lord, Norman as Unclean Best and Evan as Oak worked as a single tactical unit which was far more flexible than our brute force strategy. Because they controlled the flags, any time we thought we had one of them on the run, the other two would quickly teleport in. One in front of us and one behind us. Then, Erebus, using his teleportation, would position himself to do a stun, Unclean beast could suck out the life, and then Oak would do the same.
A typical example would be where our 2-man team pushing on the life flag side would belief we had Unclean Beast cornered. He would begin to back off and our 20 man team would go to follow for the kill. Erebus and Oak would teleport in with Oak shielding Unclean beast, Erebus stunning us and Unclean best turning around and starting to do serious damage. then Oak and Erebus would cut off our escape. If we were lucky, we would escape the field to recharge ceding control of the map for crucial moments. All too often, however, one of us would die.
The number of times the PC Gamer team was able to coordinate a tactical push was impressive. By contrast, our team was focused on a global strategy. My Erebus was focused not on stun but bite and minions and thus not much of an asset on team-based tactical exchanges.
The result were 2 losses to the PC Gamer team. It was a total blast though and a lot of fun was had by all.
