Re: STRONGHOLD CRUSADER 2020

Posted by {{DHK}}HolyLord on Feb 06, 2020; 8:54pm
URL: http://the-best-of-crusader.24.s1.nabble.com/STRONGHOLD-CRUSADER-2020-tp7583287p7583450.html

I started typing an answer and then got much more detailed than you asked for, but here's a bit of a story to answer your Q's.  I never actually typed out the story, but I would like to, for myself (before I forget it) and for anyone who wants to read it:

There was a DHK before me, in 2003, made by a guy named Theoden.  It only existed for a few months with a few noob members.  In early 2004, when I was still a new player, I met him and we made DHK (I guess you could say we refounded it).   At the time, Bartholo was in G$F (after a short stint in X2X), and was already an expert, while I was still learning the game.  During 2004, I recruited and trained some of the old experts that later became some of the greatest of all time (much later).   Satdive, Killa, FrozenSlayer (under another name), were amongst those that were in this 2004 DHK.  Around mid 2004, Theoden randomly introduced me to a guy named TheWizardCharles, and told me that Charles was going to be one of the leaders of the clan.  I didn't like it, but didn't want to start a fight at the time.  Not too long afterwards (within a month or so),  Theoden went inactive, and I was left leading the clan with this Charles guy.  I had the loyalty of almost all of the top members and high-ranking members (we had a ranking system at the time, and I was the "M.Gen"), as I had recruited and dedicated my time to training them, and I also had control of the website.  I used that influence to kick WizardCharles from the clan, told him to fuck off, and took sole control myself, with the backing of the majority.

To continue the story:

In late 2004, the "Great War" as we called it, was at its height, between G$F and literally everyone else in SHC.   In 2004 G$F were starting to dominate the game, after their split with X2X, but they were not considered very nice or respectful by much of the community, and many people started to dislike them.  They were also accused of hacking people, although I don't know enough to verify that.  NDR-DRGN_DarkRealms was a recognized leader for many in GSA (not because of his skill, but because of his age, maturity, and the fact that he led the largest clan of both SH1 and SHC at the time, which was NDR).  NDR was also a bit of a "family clan", and they hated the G$F behavior.  Because of this, DarkRealms created the "NWA" (New World Alliance), and invited all major clans to join the 'alliance', with the purpose of dissuading G$F from their behavior or from even playing the game.  To do that, the NWA rules were basically things like "No talking to G$F members", "No playing games with G$F members", "No participating in tournaments with G$F members", etc etc.   This had its advantages and disadvantages.  One downside was that G$F started winning all the tournaments because so many top experts were boycotting them.  This was part of the reason Standard has so many VIPs (but not to detract from his accomplishments, he was an amazing player and was a huge contributor to the community and growth of the game in many ways).  Anyways, NDR, X2X, GoC were the top 3 clans at the time, and they all joined the NWA, along with many smaller clans (including the old noobie DHK, which was now led by me).  This was my first exposure to the 'top experts'.  When G$F saw many of the new little clans joining, they started approaching them trying to convince them to jump ship ("join us, we'll train you and make you great!"   "don't listen to NDR and X2X, they're lying to you about us, we're good and they're jealous!", etc).   This basically started a big proxy war, between the big NWA alliance clans and G$F, where each side was trying to convince the new and rising clans and players to join them, a bit like a "Cold War" where there is no direct fighting, just proxy fighting that rips up all the small nations as victims.  lol.  The hatred, vitriol, and enmity between G$F and the rest of the community became pretty extreme.

Around this time, late 2004, {X2X}FireDragon approached me and Satdive (my right hand general in DHK), and asked us to join X2X.  I was interested, mainly because I always noticed him and FANATICA in the lobby, with their cool {X2X} and {{X2X}} tags (FD used one "{" and Fan used 2 {{'s, lol, remember, i was only 13 years old at the time), and they were kind of like these "silent legends".  FD was the only one that the top G$F players feared.  He was basically the one king of the game that 'protected us all' (literally all of the NWA) from complete G$F conquest.  He also had the privilege (if you can call it that) of claiming himself as the godfather of G$F (because many of them were trained by him in X2X before breaking apart to make G$F after a big disagreement between FD, XX, Fub, MD, etc).  As mentioned on his bio on the Greatest of All Times page, "his banner flew high over our keep, in the face of our enemies".  Nobody could fuck with him, and =G$F=Standard was the only potential rival/competitor.  Because of this, and the fact that he kept X2X (10-15 elite members, and very few trainees), his offer was pretty intriguing to me.  By this time I had been playing for maybe 9-10 months, and I was not a bad player, but I didn't like the "mill trick", as non-experts called it at the time (basically, using mills to store pop for big population, like literally every expert does and has done since 2003, lol).  It seemed unnatural and an unintended aspect of the game, which was to me, a castle builder game.  Because of that, I was a very defensive player, not a noob (I was quite good with army and eco production, etc), but I didn't make huge populations in mills, pots, woodcutters, etc).  Anyways, when FD offered, I asked him to 1v1 me before I decided.  He allowed me to choose everything (map, rules, settings, etc).  I choose my favorite map at the time ("Arrows Point bthal-2" high res version by Standard), 30pt (lol...), 7k, no fire only.  I knew he was good, but I hadn't seen any real experts play before this point, so I didn't know what to expect.  I spent 30 minutes trying to make the strongest possible castle, and then after pt I got fucked.  I accepted his offer to join X2X in late 2004.  I brought many old DHKs with me into X2X.

I spent the next 6 months playing with the best of the best.  FireDragon, Hunter, Warlord, Fanatica, CrescentStar, RedSword.  Satdive trained with me as well, and we became top experts.  Worth noting, around early 2005, Satdive recruited Shazzabog to X2X, and Shazz became his trainee.  Moving on with the story... The Great War was still going on at this point.  Of course, this meant X2X players 'hated' G$F players and avoided them.   In April 2005, I had become one of the top 20 players in the world at the time, and I was next in line to be co-leader of X2X.  Me and X2X Warlord were planning on joining the upcoming 2v2 tournament.  When the tournament day came Warlord didn't show up.   There is a whole story behind why he didn't show up, which is quite an interesting story, but I won't go into that.   So, the tournament was starting and I didn't have a partner.   Coincidentally, =G$F=Bartholo's partner (=G$F=PimpJuice) never showed up either, and Bartholo needed a 2v2 partner as well.   The guy hosting the tournament, [WIZ]Sword (he was an official staff member of GameSpy Arcade / IGN), jokingly said to us "why don't the two of you be partners?"  He was being sarcastic, as he was aware that G$F and X2X were complete enemies, but he didn't know we would take it seriously.  Bartholo, like me, was also just becoming a top 20 player, recognized as a rising star, and we both wanted to win more than we cared about G$F vs X2X.   So, we joined the tournament together as a team.  This was one of the worst things we could have done in the eyes of our clans.  FD was not happy with me, but withheld most of his words.  G$F players wouldn't stop giving bartholo shit for it.  Anyways, even worse was the fact that this 2v2 tournament had both top G$F & X2X teams (the two best teams in the world) in it, =G$F=Standard & =G$F=F_U_B_A_R-NOYC, and {X2X}FireDragon & {{X2X}}FANATICA.  These two teams were recognized as the gods of the game, both for the 1v1 and 2v2 skills of the players.  So, it was assumed one of them would win anyways, and it wouldn't matter that me and Bartholo joined the tournament together.  We went through round 1 & 2 easily, and in round 3 or so we killed {GoC}M.Gen.7WINNER7 & {GoC}WL-Sidehero, the leader and top player of GoC.  Also in round 3, FD and Fan beat Standard and Fubar, which was a huge accomplishment for X2X and the rest of the community.  In the finals, it ended up with me and Bartholo vs FD and Fan.  Not only were we expected to lose, but I knew FD wanted me to lose intentionally because of the symbolism of the match.  A G$F player beating the top X2X team, leader of X2X, and best player of the community NWA alliance, would be terrible for the war effort and the public face of X2X and NWA.  I knew this, but I didn't give a shit.  I wanted to win, and we did.  FD was not happy at all about this, and our relationship was never the same again.  I quickly stopped being next-in-line for co-leader of X2X, and instead was no longer considered a 'close confidant' to him.  Bartholo, on the other hand, won the tournament, but was still completely hated by many G$F members for joining the tournament with an X2X.  I used this to try to 'repair' my relationship with FD a bit, and I convinced bartholo to join X2X, so that by the time we had our VIP status displayed in the lobby, we were both X2X.  This didn't help much with my relationship with FD, and it slowly deteriorated.  It became the worst when I made an alternate account to have some fun with noobs, called {{HELL}}Lucifer{666}, which I used to create the (HELL) clan with DevilSpawn, who FD (and almost everyone else in the community) hated.  Under my real name (X2X HL), I continued my normal course of things, by now recognized as perhaps a top 10 player in the world.  But under my HELL account, I acted like a real baboon with DS, played with noobs only, and said all sorts of crazy shit to people just for fun.  I think that was the end of my relationship with FD, until many years later when time had healed those wounds.

In mid 2005, I left X2X, along with Bartholo, and we made {{DHK}}.

That's the story.


For a little bit of follow-up on what happened afterwards:

When me and Bar left X2X and made {{DHK}}, I brought with me from X2X: Killa, FS, and Sonic (all of whom had followed me from the 2004 DHK, into X2X, and now into the new DHK).  Satdive decided to leave X2X as well, but decided to make his own clan with PJ, called =Pl@yaz=.  X2X Warlord left, and made -]G$W[-, with Razi.  With X2X losing so many of its core members, (Crescent and Rep had gone inactive too), (remember, it was a small clan to begin with, but with elite players), FD was having trouble upkeeping the clan.  He had to find replacements, so he got Meelman (who was a rising star at the time, with his own clan, "JEDI") to come to X2X by offering him leadership of the clan.  Meelman came, and brought Assassina with him.  Making Meelman the leader was good for the clan I think, as it brought new blood and rising stars with passion to the clan.  But it made some of the existing X2X members upset.  That's when {{X2X}}FANATICA left and joined DHK, and Shazzabog made an alternate account, {{DHK}}Slayer, to join DHK with.  Also right at the beginning, K@W Hampton joined DHK, and brought with him Lutel and Falke.  Arma came from X-Con, and brought couple of polish players with him, and =G$F=DeXTeR (Hackett) soon came along.  This basically made DHK one of the top clans immediately after its creation.  We later grew some of our own experts, like LastWish, WarriorWithin, Hellsing, Sanitarium, SpecialOps, Matiking, Likiwink, Tiger, HolyKing, BigDawg, Garnett, SkyDragon, Luis, etc... By early 2006, DHK had become the undisputed kings, and Bartholo and I were recognized as the undisputed best.  So the story goes...




To answer your other question,
Arma and I trained Geralt for a couple of months, he was under the name {{DHK}}Stempel.  He noticeably went from mid-expert to top expert during this time, although I'm sure he may dispute how much we really contributed to his learning, as he had a falling out with us due to the poor relationship with X-CON.