Day One Hundred-two: evening of November 12th 2009

I had to wait for deliveries today, and I had to make sure that I could hear the doorbell. So after the morning chores, I settled in for an afternoon of Dragon Age: Origins. I started trying out some the tips from the Xbox Live video. I used the group ‘Hold’ command to set up and ambush. . .well sort of an ambush. I tried to guess the range of the mage in the enemy group, which had destroyed my group a number of times as I experimented with . different approaches, and issued the hold command. I approached the bounty hunters slowly, trying to trigger one or two of the villains. As soon as one broke towards me (the bait), I retreated toward my group (the ambush) where the rogue was vanquished. Another trip triggered two blaggards, which the four in our group could handle, and they were dispatched. Now there were only two of the original five left - a mage and an archer. I released the band of adventurers and we charged. I took on the archer and the group went after the more powerful mage. Victory allowed us to move through the pass and toward the dwarfen gate.

The strategy here was different because the group facing us were all heavily armored. The ambush strategy wouldn’t work. It couldn’t be set up. So I had to change the make up of the group to all heavy weights, or ‘tanks’ as they are called in role playing games (RPGs).

To clarify the situation, I tried a number of attacks that all failed. So, what is the old adage, “Fight fire with fire.” They have ‘tanks’ in their group and now we have ‘tanks’ in our group. My group went from a balance team, rogue, mage, golem (tank), and warrior (me) to golem, attack dog, and me (three tanks and a warrior). The fight was free form, and it was over in about thirty seconds. After spending about fifteen minutes battling with my balanced team, I’m glad that I decided to flip the team after I found out that I could do that kind of thing at that time. Up until that time, I thought that I could only change my group in camp, but I was checking out using potions when I noticed that the change members was active. What I had was a ‘happy accident’ and I put that experience to use in this current situation.

So that was how I spent the afternoon. Now, I have to experiment with other formations and tactics. Hopefully, I’ll have another ‘happy accident’ but in case I don’t I’ll continue to try to tailor the group and their behavior to the situation.