Ye Olde Pubb (Last/Previous match general)

RA did this last week:

 

So, do we call it the Eragon Ploy?

 

Modding privileges hereby revoked

 

Having now spent an afternoon trying to turn a buck in the wonderful world of KAG, I deeply sympathise with @Fellere825's attempts to show entrepreneurial spirit. It's a hard thing to make money; something KAG only makes even harder when there are savage warriors trying to rip you into tiny pieces. True fact.

Figuring that I would turn my trials into gold (haha!) I decided to start a construction company. After all, I said to myself, what kind of besieged army doesn't need a humongous castle to help keep the raving hoards at bay?

Sadly, what with delays from suppliers and fights breaking out among members of the workcrew (pretty sure the unions were behind it all); it wasn't long until we were luffing at the wind and only a large rabbit's breadth away from going into receivership.

But lo-- all of a sudden there was this contract sitting on my desk. A large contract sitting on my desk. A large eight figure contract sitting on my desk...

I took it without even pausing to read the fine print. This would save the company!

Or so I thought.

You see, inside the fine print was a clause stating that the structure must be built out of all natural materials. Apparently the hippy commune paying for the castle didn't want anything with a "high level of embodied energy" used in the construction process. So that meant no concrete, no steel, and no, underline no unexplodium. We'll get to that last part later.

Well, they were the clients paying a whopping eight figure sum; and I was just a guy in desperate need of a way to claw my way back from the brink of bankruptcy. Who was I to argue? After we complete this job; everything will be alright. Things'll pick up. We just need this win...

Fool.

How can you build safe, practical, attractive buildings when you've no legs to stand on and the bastards swinging the money know it? You can't. That's how.

And that's how I lost my workcrew. All two of them.

You see, the leaf-eaters had this inane "no scaffolds" policy. Which wouldn't have been so bad, really, except they also complained about the ankh's my boys were wearing to allow them to reincarnate after a work-related death. And so, ofc, the boys simply downed tools, said they were sorry, and left.

I couldn't blame them. No really.

I mean, working in hazardous conditions (like, say, where a flying medieval killer armed to the teeth with explosive devices might suddenly fall out of the sky and gib you) is all very well and good when you know they can't actually kill you (well, not dead dead, that is). But working and knowing that each moment could be your last? With no safety tramps or scaffolding or ankh to ensure you'll be going home to your loved one of an evening? Bugger that for a game for mad bastards who wear blu/redh and charge around with swords and arrows and hammers and stuff!

I worked on alone. Bloody tree-huggers. Won't even let me build a saw mill to ease up the supply chain. Seems there's afraid someone will re-purpose the saws into a chipping mill when I'm done. Too bloody right I would. Chip every single last one of you veggie-juice swilling bastards into low grade salami...

I might seem like I'm a bit upset here. A little too... overwrought?

Well, that's only because you've not heard the worst part. Which I get to telling you about now. It happened like so:

I was sweating away, working as fast as I could without any labourers to mine or cut for me, when the cry went up: BLU! THE BLU ARE COMING!

Fuck.

I looked up from the meditation rooms I'd been asked to build out the back and, with horror, realised that some silly earth-friend had removed the temporary wall I had constructed and replaced it with a vegan restaurant. I kid you not.

Swearing, I leaped into action and, given the meagre flow of resources I saw able to smuggle out of the elves' "workshop" (never once saw any of the poncy bastards ever touch a hammer the whole time I was there) decided on the most expedient and effective defence I could muster without violating my contract to use "all natural materials": I built a DOOR FORT!

It was glorious!

Using a new cancer-engendering technique I saw at a trade fair last year (which, by virtue of the spacing it created, helped to reduce the effectiveness of hand-held explosives & detonating devices) I quickly created a monstrosity that was 20 tiles thick and over 40 tiles high. Using a laminating process my father taught me when I was but a lad I fire-proofed the entire structure, ensuring that only a tiny part could ever burn at any one time. It was a wonder of ingenuity if I say so myself. Particularly seeing as I built it under a slew of constant Blu attacks; with each attack blunted by my fort I would leap out and repair and then add to the work--trusting in the regenerative powers of my magical bear-skin hat to keep me safe.

But then...

The ballistas.

Remember how I said we'd come back to the "no unexplodium in our building" clause in the contract? Yeah. This is that part.

Despite my insistence that they all make a point of carefully read & follow the instructions laid out in the homeowner's manual... the hippies ignored me. Which is why, when the blu barbarians built a ballista and started strapping mini-kegs to their bolts, my clients were alarmed to find their castle starting to look somewhat, ahem, worse for wear.

So they decided to scream at me to fix it.

I calmly pointed out that, if they were to follow the guidelines on page 114 of their manual ("ballista pruning & removal") everything would be alright.

They screamed at me some more, and then promptly ignored me again and returned to rushing heedlessly to their deaths. Over and over and over again. Hot damn. I just realised! I thought they said they didn't like reincarnation because it interfered with the natural order of things! Those bastards! Those stupid, fucking, two-faced, double-standard-holding, hypocritical bastards!

I'm glad their all dead.

I'm glad the blu came in and took their stupid pointy flags.

I'm glad every single one of them who wasn't gibbed into pieces got stabbed and then dry humped by blu warriors for hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, and hours...

...

Here is a picture shortly before the blu hoard came back for seconds. Note the absence of anything (anything at all) resembling a mighty door fort? Well, that's because of the ballistas. All 12 of them. Yes, I'm not even kidding, you can see their flags all clustered on the left side of the minimap.


I don't know if I have the heart to try again. I managed to sell the ailing business to a passing merchantmen and thus avoided having to file for bankruptcy, but I fear I will forever be haunted by what damage can be wrought by a collection of monied fools asking foolish things from a foolishly desperate man.

I think I need a hug.