Pre-Game Warmup

Two years ago, a very small group of people got together and decided they wanted to make a videogame. But this would not just be any videogame. No, the creaters of this game had a far more powerful plan in mind: to enhance the best parts and eliminate the worst parts of the greatest rts game ever made (starcraft, idiot). They would use methods described many times over again on their website and shown in many battle reports here at battlereports.com, such as side and rear attack bonuses, and the elimination of the need to continuously produce peons. These people have thrived in the face of vocalized doubts from many of their colleagues, and have ultimately created a truly enjoyable game that is currently in its second phase of beta testing. Of course, the group I am referring to is the Ethermoon team, and the game I am referring to is Strifeshadow.

About three months ago, phase 1 of the beta began. I recall vividly the excitement that I felt when I read the email saying I was selected as a beta tester. I remember forcing Fractal_Wave at gunpoint to log onto gamespy to join me for my first game of Strifeshadow. Unfortunately, I did not waste any time on the single player "experiment mode" that was available, so I did not realize that aether towers were supposed to be placed adjacent to aether pools. Needless to say, that first game was one I quickly forgot =P In the first few weeks following the beginning of phase 1, there was a rush of Strifeshadow brs, and I really wanted to contribute to that rush. Unfortunately, schoolwork became more and more difficult and time-consuming, and I never had the chance to do a br.

Eventually, I finally finished my last final, and the school year was officially over. I made several attempts at getting good replays, but when the rare occurrence of someone posting a good replay happened, it always seemed like a new patch was released that contained several changes that I wanted to include in my br, so I would update with the patch, and then discard the old replay. Nevertheless, I continued to search for a good replay. My search became much easier when Battlereports.com 3.0 was released, which contained a new section for replays. It was not long before someone posted a really nice replay, and I finally had what I needed: a game worthy of a battle report.

The Players, The Map

The game, posted by Blank, is a 2v2 involving IG_ Parchandri (IGP), Diogenes Dog (Dio) [under the aka EurotrashGirl], Planetkilr, and Blank. IGP finds his Sylvan Village is created in the top left corner and is teamed with Dio, whose Fortress of Despair spawns in the top right corner. Making up the other team are Blank and Planetkilr who take the bottom left and right corners, respectively. And the map is, of course, The Lost Temp-- oh wait, that's right, this game doesn't have The Lost Temple. *Sigh* This means I have to describe the map. Aptly named, Crossroads is a flat map that is divided into four triangular sections by two roads which meet in the middle of the map. The map is divided into two halves by a dirt road that zig zags from the top of the map down to the bottom. Varying terrain (as can be seen on the minimap) compensates for the flatness of the map, since slower terrain is much easier to defend, while normal terrain is open to attack. Fierce battles tend to erupt over the middle area, while the side aether pools can provide the added juice necessary to swing the momentum in one side's favor (similar to an island expansion).

Dio is widely regarded as one of the best beta players, and has been around since the inception of Strifeshadow. Blank is a relative newcomer, coming into the fold with the second phase of the beta, but his skill has quickly surpassed that of most of the phase 1'ers. Unfortunately, I do not know very much about IGP or Planetkilr, but from the way they played in the game, I can say for sure that they are competent players. As is necessary for any team to succeed, Blank and Planetkilr begin communicating their strategies to each other. Needless to say, I was very impressed.

Initial Strats

Eventually, Blank tells Planetkilr that they should go for a 4 tower rush strat, which means they will make a slight sacrifice in economy in an attempt at catching their enemies over-powering. After the initial scouting, Blank and Planetkilr decide to rush IGP, the sylvan, as they reason that Dio will be slightly slower with Accursed. In what proves to be a costly gamble, IGP upgrades his defense center before making a ranger, so he is left with only two faeries to try and stall as two rangers from Blank charge in to attack, with a single ranger and fairy from white not far behind. As soon as Dio notices the double on his ally, he sends his three skeletons out to help out IGP. However, it is a long trip; in the meantime, Planetkilr uses the fairy that he brought along to lay a gas blossom trap at the foot of IGP's ramp. It is placed such that, should Dio wish to enter IGP's main to assist, he will be forced to take damage from the trap. Unfortunately for IGP, his rangers still pop out one at a time, in spite of the fact that he upgraded his defense center, so the combined power of the blue and white rangers are able to maintain superiority for a significant time. This allows Blank and Planetkilr to destroy one tower that was drawing aether from a nearby pool as well as acting as a conduit for a new tower IGP had built just outside his ramp.

Finally, the skeletons arrive, take damage from the trap, and rush up the ramp to tackle the three rangers in IGP's main. However, three skeletons against three rangers is a heavy mismatch in favor of the rangers, who cost nearly twice as much as the skeletons. Only one of the rangers is destroyed at the hands of all three of the skeletons, and the two remaining enemy rangers are joined by two of their brethren, one from Blank and one from Planetkilr. These four rangers begin to attack the lower tower that is currently cut off from the aether network. However, IGP's upgraded defense center begins to pay dividends, and reinforcements from Dio cause the opposing rangers to pull off the tower and engage their attackers in combat. Blank and Planetkilr attempt to micro their rangers so as to have IGP's and Dio's units walk over gas blossoms and take damage, but it ends up hurting themselves more than it does their opponents. This enables IGP and Dio to take out all but one of the four enemy rangers. This last ranger is left to pound on the aether tower below IGP's ramp. In a few seconds, IGP has two more rangers pop out of his defense center and attack the last enemy ranger. At this point, the tower is down to 2/575 health: one more swipe from the ranger, and the tower will be destroyed. But Blank was not paying attention to that, and so his ranger stops attacking the tower to fight IGP's rangers. Blank even runs around with that ranger, trying to cause as much distraction as he can, but he does not realize he can cause much more damage by making a kamikaze run at the lower aether tower. Eventually IGP corners Blank's ranger and finishes it off. IGP then created a new tower where his first one had been destroyed, and ordered his fairy to repair the tower that had been at 2/575 health.

Harrassment

There is a brief break in the action where each player builds a mine and begins to mine from it, except for Dio, who had started a mine much earlier and already has over 300 ikon and 200 arikon. Planetkilr then scouts Dio, notices that he has attempted to expand like a wildman with aether towers all the way to the middle of the map, and tells Blank that he will attempt to harrass Dio. Dio is expecting some pressure, so he builds a Babbling Inferno as static defense to prevent harrassment from rangers, which are speedier than their accursed counterpart, skeletons. Unfortunately, the white rangers arrive just after Dio started the babbling inferno, so the building is only 10% finished when it is destroyed by Planetkilr's rangers. However, it does provide just enough time for Dio's sizable force of six skeletons to approach the rangers in battle before they can destroy any towers. Planetkilr pulls a fast one though, and moves his rangers north just as Dio moves his skeletons south. Sadly for Dio, his skeletons passed by the rangers just as one of the rangers tripped a trap, and, due to the delayed effects of traps, nearly all of Dio's troops lose at least 100 hit points, or at least a third of their life while Planetkilr escapes virtually scotch-free. Planetkilr then makes a beeline for a crucial aether tower that provides a link to 4 other aether towers. If that tower goes down, Dio will lose a huge amount of potential aether, and would be in a dire spot indeed. However, the tower is reduced to 100 hit points before two more skeletons pop out of their respective blightstones and Planetkilr decides to bail as a zombie thrall finally arrives on the scene to repair the tower. Or at least, Planetkilr makes an initial move to bail on the attack. For some reason, Dio's zombie thrall stops repairing the tower, and so the white rangers resume their attack on the crucial aether tower. Despite having 8 skeletons beating on their backs, the three rangers are able to take out the tower and run away at the cost of only one of the ranger's life.

Taking a quick look at the minimap, we see that Dio and Blank are matching each other, aether tower for aether tower (Blank has a few more towers to the right of his base while Dio has expanded more towards the middle), just as IGP and Planetkilr are matching each other as far as towers go. All players are still producing infantry units as their only troop at the moment, but Dio will soon have ranged units, most notably the bone juggernaut.

Counters

Although this was a successful move on Planetkilr's part, it leaves him open to a counterattack. And indeed, seven red rangers are already in position to attack Planetkilr, who only has one ranger at home and two very weakened rangers returning home. Blank notices the red rangers about to attack and quickly urges Planetkilr to make as many traps as he can and use what few rangers he has to stall as Blank brings his five rangers to assist in Planetkilr's defense. Things start off bad for Planetkilr as a fairy of his quickly dies to the blades of IGP's rangers. However, IGP makes a mistake by attacking a couple of outlying towers of white, rather than simply moving in and trying to hold the ramp. In fact, it turns out that in trying to attack one of Planetkilr's towers, IGP bunches up his troops and so is not in position when Blank's rangers arrive. This allows Blank to gain the upper hand in the ensuing battle, and ultimately prevail with all but one of his ranger's still alive.

I had been expecting Dio to send his skeletons down to assist IGP in his assault on white, but I soon realized that Dio had something else in mind: he sent nine skeletons and a bone juggernaut southwest to attack Blank's defenseless base. Blank's outermost tower almost immediately dies to the skellies, but then a wyvern pops out of his treetop sanctuary, and his rangers from Planetkilr's base finally arrive just as the second tower outside Blank's base is destroyed. The battle between the rangers and skeletons is fierce, and at first appears to be in favor of the accursed, thanks to the explosive firepower of the bone juggernaut. But neither Dio nor IGP have made any anti-air units, so Blank takes his wyvern and is accompanied by another wyvern from Planetkilr in a direct attack on the juggie. A few more volleys from the juggernaut take out a couple of rangers, but its destruction is inevitable. As soon as it dies, the tide of the battle turns, and even a few reinforcement rangers from IGP cannot do any more damage to Blank.

Having just beat back a couple of offensives from Dio and IGP, Blank and Planetkilr decide they will make a move on Dio, figuring that the ikon he will have put into juggernauts will have made it harder for him to create spectral archers. Their guess is a good one, and they are able to catch Dio with no archers and only one babbling inferno as anti-air defense. Four wyverns (two each from white and blue) immediately target and destroy the babbling inferno before a zombie can come to repair it. Dio starts another babbling inferno nearer to his base and qeues up a spectral archer in each of his blightstones, but the wyverns choose to attack the sole juggernaut that Dio has. Although the juggie plays a critical role in any attack Dio plans to make, he is willing to sacrifice it to buy some time. And buy some time it does. Just as the juggernaut explodes in a red flame, two archers emerge from Dio's blightstones, and begin attacking the wyverns. Although they are unable to kill any of the wyverns, the archers accomplish their task of causing significant damage to two of the wyverns, but most importantly stalling long enough for two more archers to come out of the blightstones. With two more archers to contend with as well as a babbling inferno about to come online, Blank calls off the attack.

Chat

Blank and Planetkilr take their wyverns over to red to try and harrass him, but well placed weatherstones providing strong static defense, and two scouts giving the strong mobile anti-air, IGP's defense is air tight. It is at this point that Planetkilr asks his ally if they have a plan, to which Blank responds with the inspirational words, "try not to die." Apparently, the game to this point had been slightly laggy, so Blank tried to fix it by setting the latency up to 650, from 600. Now, to you, me, and Dio, that extra 50 ain't gonna do too much. But Blank claims that "every little bit helps." To which the ever-clever Dio reponds, "I bet you give the same excuse for your penis size." At least Blank had the decency to own up and admit his own shortcomings.

A brief period of peace ensues, as both sides elect to build up their forces and attempt to capitalize on any dumb mistakes their enemies might make. Soon enough, Blank makes a stake in the middle by building a mine just below where the two roads cross. Dio and IGP decide that they cannot allow Blank to have this mine and assemble their large force consisting of several scouts/spectral archers, skeletons, a couple of dire changelings in the middle, just above Blank's newly formed mine. Fortunately for Blank, he had placed two spirit eyes in the middle of the map to watch for just such an occurrence, so Blank and Planetkilr quickly prepare their own ranger/scout/wyvern combination just below Blank's mine as a fairy of Blank's begins construction of a weatherstone for added defense.

Let it Begin

The battle begins well for red and teal, as the skeletons are able to tangle with Blank's rangers long enough to let the combined power of both the scouts and the archers take its toll. However, Dio's skeletons soon come under fire of Blank's scouts, so he splits his force in half, one to continue to clash with the rangers, another to deal with the blue scouts. Unfortunately, as this second group moves south, it runs into what can only be described as "big hail of acid goup" produced by several wyverns from both blue and white. Meanwhile, white's reinfocements arrive in the form of a small group of rangers and wyverns, which immediately head for IGP's scouts. Knowing that without a wall of infantry in front to battle the rangers, scouts die quickly to infantry, IGP pulls his archers up and to the left. As this is happening, the first volleys from incoming juggernauts are fired from the upper left, while a forest nymph casts purify on some rangers at the front lines in an effort to heal their injuries, thus prolonging their lifespan..

As the battle progresses, a shade tyrant ominously hovers ever nearer to the battlefield. As soon as it gets in range, it unleashes leaping blight, which sends a crackling ball of fire towards one of the few remaining wyverns of white. Already in a weakened state, the wyvern explodes as soon as the fireball hits it. But the spell does not stop there. Splitting into two weaker fireballs, two rangers are also greatly weakened by the blight. Again, the spell splits and causes significant damage to four more rangers before finally dieing out. This process is repeated twice more when another shade tyrant appears on the scene. However, since Dio is spending so much time casting leaping blight, he neglects protection of his juggernauts, and so two rangers from Planetkilr are able to slip through and attack each juggie unabated. Dio's troops are too slow to respond, and the juggies are destroyed at the hands of a measly two rangers. This ultimately proves to be the stopper of the offensive, as the weatherstones Blank initially constructed have finally finished; without the seige capability of the juggernauts, Dio and IGP are forced to charge and hope for the best.

Even without the benefit of the juggernauts, Dio and IGP still outnumber their opposition and have high hopes as they charge southward. However, both Blank and Planetkilr have been using good macro, and they have reinforcement units ready to greet the red/teal force, which is composed mainly of archers/scouts. Realizing the futility of continuing an attack without a frontline of infantry, the attack is called off, and both sides separate for a few brief seconds. Blank continues to produce ranger/scout/wyvern while his ally Planetkilr is making ranger/wyvern with the occasional treant and wisp. On the upper half of the map, IGP makes rangers and scouts, while Dio keeps making skeleton/juggie/tyrant with a few archers tossed in.

As it stands now, three red scouts are accompanied by a hefty group of skeletons and one shade tyrant in the middle. Just as a lone bone juggernaut rolls up to the middle, a rather brave, yet foolhardy, scout ventures too close to the blue/white encampment and is immediately attacked by some nearby rangers. Since the rangers have the engage upgrade, it is a horribly painful experience to watch the scout attempt to stumble back towards the middle as several ranger's blades beat down on its back. Besides being brave, it also appears this scout is a determined one, because she is just barely able to struggle back within range of the juggernaut. Even though the scout is unable to save herself, she does succeed in drawing the fire of the juggie onto the rangers who are chasing her. And this triggers a whole new battle, as Blank and Planetkilr decide they are ready to try and take the middle.

The first order of business for Blank and Planetkilr is to eliminate the juggernaut, which will allow their rangers to go into battle without having huge bombs flung at them from afar. In order to achieve this goal, Blank first uses a new Chronomancer to cast expedience on three of his scouts which will effectively increase their speed and attack rate. These three scouts are then sent on a suicide mission to try and take out the juggernaut. Alone, they would not be enough to take out the massive bone vehicle, but three blue rangers also accompany the scouts and they too are given the kamikaze mission objectives. Dio is just slightly too slow to react, and the last blue ranger deals the death blow to the juggernaut with a mere 10 hit points remaining. With the juggernaut gone, phase two of the plan goes into motion: the elimination of the shade tyrant. Using the spell called unleash aether, the wisp is able to siphon off most of the tyrant's mana while simultaneously channeling that energy into an attack on the tyrant. Although the spell does not rob the tyrant of all its mana, the goal is achieved: the tyrant is forced to retreat back to the middle (since it no longer has enough magic to cast leaping blight), along with the rest of Dio's large skeleton force. Unfortunately, it appears that IGP and Dio are not quite on the same page, since two rangers stick around, even after the shade tyrant is back in the middle of the map, to attack a weatherstone. Although they are able to do some damage to the building, there are two more weatherstones in the vicinity, and the combined power of three weatherstones is more than enough to stop the rangers. For the moment, Blank and Planetkilr are content to sit back and build up.

Big Bait

But it is only a moment, because three white rangers wanders out into the middle of the map as bait, where they are promptly set upon by numerous skeletons and red rangers. However, the white rangers immediately pull back towards the safety of Blank's weatherstones. These rangers are chased by several of both IGP's and Dio's infantry, as well as a single shade tyrant that is about 20 mp short of casting a leaping blight. A couple of the skeletons break off from the group and attack the outermost weatherstone to assist a new juggernaut in taking down a crucial part of the static d. Meanwhile, the rest of the skeletons and a handful of IGP's rangers take on some of Planetkilr's rangers while one of his unicorns fires shots from a distance. Just as the shade tyrant is about to near 50 mana, another wisp comes flying in and casts unleash aether just in time, not just siphoning off some of the tyrant's mana, but in fact destroying the tyrant. This proves to be the deciding factor in the battle, as the remaining skeletons and rangers cannot compete against an even number of rangers without the support of leaping blight. As soon as the last skeleton dies, Dio's juggernaut is assaulted by a good number of rangers. The juggie is only able to launch a couple more volleys before being destroyed, and so another offensive is stopped, this time at the cost of only one weatherstone.

A Very Short Breather

It is worthwhile at this point to take a quick break and examine the current status of everyone in the game. Nearly all of the aether pools have been taken, with only the isolated pools at the right and left sides of the map untaken, although Dio is setting up towers on the right side to begin gathering aether from there. Meanwhile, Blank now has two chronomancers, is working on a third, and is also researching chronomancy, a ritual that can be cast with three chronomancers on a small group of units, allowing only those units to move and attack while the rest of the game action is suspended for a brief moment in time.

Back in the middle, reinforcement skeletons from Dio, along with support from IGP's scouts, begin another battle to retake control from five of Blank's rangers. At first, it seems like Blank's rangers are going to be destroyed with ease, but after a purify spell is cast by a forest nymph and a chronomancer casts expedience on four of the rangers, the tide quickly turns. Reinforcements pour in from all sides, and another large battle starts. A juggernaut from Dio once again strikes fear into Blank and Planetkilr's hearts, and their attention is immediately diverted away from the skeletons in the middle. Five blue rangers and a white treant race towards the juggernaut while several skeletons from Dio's base rush southwest in a struggle to save the juggie. Although a wisp does cast restrain on the juggernaut, thus preventing the juggernaut from attacking anything, the effect is nominal as the major battle is occurring within the minimum radius of the juggernaut. Nevertheless, the rangers and treant are successful in destroying the juggernaut. Yet the cost is high, as most of the troops in the attack died, while only a handful of skeletons were destroyed in the battle. Planetkilr's wisps prove extremely useful, restraining another juggie that comes into the battle late, and also casting unleash aether on a shade tyrant to weaken it enough to make it an easy kill for a ranger. Even so, Blank and Planetkilr have hardly any troops guarding their vital middle section that they have had to fight so dearly for up to now.

The Impending Wave of Doom?

Right now, things look pretty grim for Blank and Planetkilr. Dio has three fully healthy juggernauts, a large army of skeletons, a couple of tyrants, and IGP has anti-air support in scouts, plus anti-infantry support in spiders. Things get even worse for Blank when he casts expedience on six of his rangers and tries another suicide attack on Dio's juggies. Even in spite of a purify spell, the rangers get completely trashed by the skellie/spider combo. Add in a leaping blight cast by one of the shade tyrants, and all of the rangers die after killing only one of the juggernauts.

The Power of Chronomancy

As soon as the juggernaut goes down, both Blank and Planetkilr pull all their forces back from the middle, thinking they will need the support of their weatherstones if they are to have any chance at surviving the next assault. Three rangers pop out of Blank's defense center and head as fast as they can for the battlefield, while three rangers, a wyvern, and two unicorns from Planetkilr engage some of the intruders in combat. However, the relentless grind of the two juggernauts seems synonomous with the sound of death, as it will be almost impossible to overcome the attack if the juggernauts are still remaining. Having already tried and failed with the kamikaze technique, Blank was desperate. He turned to his last, best hope: chronomancy. In what must have felt like an eternity to Blank, the chronomancers performed their ritual to halt time except for a small group of selected wyverns. But finally, the ritual is successful, and the wyverns have a preciously small amount of time to take out the juggernauts.

And indeed, the three wyverns are successful. Much to the frustration of Dio, who can do nothing but type random letters and tell Blank how rude he is, the wyverns are able to destroy both juggernauts before time becomes unfrozen.

In the same manner that a two out, over the head, diving catch to stop a bases-clearing triple can inject new life into a dead team, Blank's amazing ritual has completely changed the complexion of the game. All of a sudden, the massive behemoths that had been thundering volleys of destruction down upon Blank's and Planetkilr's troops have vanished. And the tides turn, in a big way. After the smoke clears, Blank has a handful of wyverns and rangers left, while Planetkilr has a few each of rangers, wyverns, and unicorns. Meanwhile, it is now Dio and IGP that have low troop counts, having just lost a very cost-inefficient battle.

The victory also allows Blank to expand safely to the left side aether pools. Although Dio has had towers up on the right side of the map for quite some time now, they are doing absolutely nothing for him because they are stuck in a feedback loop and so are not producing any aether whatsoever.

Blank in Control

Blank, sensing he has an opportunity to capitlize on an advantage, sends six wyverns into IGP's base to see what damage he can cause. Since IGP spent nearly all of his resources on the major attack in the middle, he only has weatherstones as anti-air defense. And since, the wyverns are able to take them on one at a time, each weatherstone goes down in turn without killing a single wyvern. Finally, Dio arrives with archers who force the wyverns to run away, but only after much damage has been caused. Dio realizes that he cannot allow Blank to retain the left side aether pools, because IGP is going to need some recovery time before he can be an effective force again. And so, Dio collects a medium sized group of skeletons and archers and brings them to the section of the road that is closest to Blank's outpost on the left edge of the map. Unfortunately, the battle turns into a rout when some unicorns of Planetkilr's turn up just as the rangers engage the skeletons in combat. Even a leaping blight cast by a shade tyrant cannot turn the tide of the battle, and Blank holds his outpost with relative ease.

Fell Dragons Suck (apparently)

Again, Blank and Planetkilr build on their victory by pushing into IGP's territory and begin to destory some of his outlying aether towers when Dio's last real attempt at winning the game comes in the form of two fell dragons and several skeletons. Head to head, the two fell dragons might well have been enough to save IGP, at least temporarily. Unfortunately, Planetkilr used restrain and unleash aether to its full potential against the dragons, and Blank used expedience and purify on his wyverns to pound the matter home.

At this point, the game is pretty much over. There is certainly nothing IGP can do to prevent the destruction of his base, and the very best Dio can hope for is to turtle up and pray that Blank and Planetkilr suddenly have heart attacks and drop dead (or something to that effect). Nevertheless, he perserveres and gives me a few more chances at screenshots :P Dio tries to clog up his ramp with skeletons while a juggernaut launches bombs from a safe perch above the ramp. However, wisps again interfere, casting restrain on both the juggernaut and the babbling inferno. There is one lone tyrant left, but even if it had unlimited mana it would probably die to the masses of troops gathering outside Dio's ramp.

Eventually Blank and Planetkilr penetrate Dio's turtle defense and begin to raze his main. A bold attempt at trickery by Dio is somehow ineffective against the iron will that must be present in both Blank's and Planetkilr's minds. At the end of the game, all the players agree they would love to see the scores, but since this is a beta, that is one thing that is not available. One thing that is available (as always!) is the animated minimap:

What could have changed things...

• Well, the main difference was that both Blank and Planetkilr made effective use of magic spells, while only Dio made good use of the spells available to him. Had IGP made his own chronomancers or nymphs, he could have helped out his own troops as well as those of his ally's.
• Also, Dio's failure to realize that his towers on the right side of the map were not transmitting aether caused him to have a slight dropoff in troops that might have tipped the balance, especially in those close battles for the middle.
• On a related note, one of IGP's main conduit aether towers was placed at such a distance from the next closest tower that it was only delivering at 94% efficiency. Ordinarily, this is ok, but in this instance that tower was connected to virtually every other tower in IGP's base, which meant that all those towers were delivering at 94% efficiency, and believe me, that adds up.
• I think both sides could have scouted better, perhaps leaving spirit eyes at each of the side aether pools to know if/when their enemy expanded there.

End Stuff

I have been really working hard on this br to get it out at this point in time. The reason is because I want to take this opportunity to tell you guys about the upcoming total Solar Eclipse of the Sun on June 21st (that's this Thursday!). Some of you may remember the images from my last report that I took of the partial eclipse of the Sun on Christmas Day. Well, a total Solar Eclipse is far and away more entertaining than a partial Eclipse, and you have the opportunity to see the eclipse live, even though it is only visible in Africa. By going to the Exploratorium's Eclipse website on the day of the eclipse (that's June 21st, this Thursday) you can watch an internet webcast of the Eclipse. For the past few total eclipses, the Exploratorium has sent a small crew out to wherever the Eclipse is occurring to do a webcast of the Eclipse, so they have a lot of experience with this stuff. Now, the tricky part about this is that the webcast will start at 5:30 AM, and continue till 6:30 AM pacific time. I realize that for many of you ignorant sloths, this is too early for you to wake up, even if it is to watch one of the most thrilling naturally occuring events there is. So, for people like you, you can always wait an hour after the webcast is over, and by then the Exploratorium will likely have the webcast archived on their eclipse website, and you can watch it as many times as you want. Nevertheless, I believe that the feeling of seeing it live is well worth the struggle of waking up early. I myself am waking up at 3:30 AM to get to the Exploratorium at 4:30 AM to help them set up their program. I really encourage you to at least go to the Exploratorium's eclipse website and check out what they have set up for their program, so you can make an informed decision about whether to watch it or not. So that's my little plug. =)

Next, a big thanks to Ethermoon for making a really fun game to play. Also, thanks to Blank, Dio, Planetkilr, and IGP for playing such a great game and letting me do a battle report on it.

Any complaints on grammar or spelling can be sent to King-Lewis, since everyone knows he is a world renowned expert in English.

And that's it. Comment please.

-Gamma Ray Burst