Why hasnt gaming evolved in this Godforsaken Corner of the world.

It was the beginning of May 2008 and I was hellbent on buying a graphic card for my PC. Gotta play Command and Conquer 3 in all its gaudy glory you know.
So I contacted a friend and fellow clan member Deepak to accompany me to SP Verma road Patna in case the Egyptian n00bs try to rush with Elephants. I was so excited on the event and everything was going well.

4:30 PM
We arrived via Auto in SP verma road and entered the IBM Lenovo shop located above Asterix( a reputed shop selling HP Computers).
4:31 PM
The conversation began(translated in English here...)
Siddhant(to shopkeeper) : Do you sell Graphic cards?
Shop guy: Yes
Sid: I am planning to buy one...could you show me a catalog or something?
Shop Guy: You want 256 MB or 512 MB card?
Deepak: What the fuck?(He said this in English)
Sid: What kind of wierd ass question is that?
Shop guy: We have 256, 512 and 1 GB cards.
Sid : Dude just show me the frickin catalog.

4:35PM

[We are seated on a blue leather chair in front of the main card looing at the catalog which had Chola Bhatura stains on the front page]

Deepak: Muhaha Look nVidia Quadro...God bless my Laptop.
Sid:Its your keyboard now.
Deepak: Haha
Shop guy: It is a good card.

[Sid detects something is wrong here. He now points to Geforce 5200 266 Ram]
Shop guy: Ye bhi accha card hai.
Deepak: HAHA!
[Obviously this guy doesnt know a thing about Graphic Cards. I told him we had to buy the XFX nVidia GeForce 8600 GT. The guy was so bewildered, it seems he never heard a human say such a long name before . He said he can get it and called some guy who sounded like a sleep deprived Zombie. I was getting late for NIIT class so I told him I will be back in 2 hrs. He assured me he will get the frickin card by then.]

5:59 PM
[MAN NIIT SUCKS!]

7:25 PM
[At Deepak's House]
Sid:The time of Ragnarok is here....Fang is finally going to aquire an 8 series card. Muhaha!Hey ...Deepak...dont sleep!

We reached the spot again.
7:35 PM[Lenovo shop]

SId: Did you get the card?
Shop guy: Nahin Sir.
Sid: What happened?
Shop guy: The supplier couldnt find it I will give you tomorrow by 12:30PM
Sid: Why dont you take all these Computer's and put TNT in them and stand in the middle so I can blow the fuse?(I didnt really say that heehee.)

[I stormed out of there, totally dissapointed. Deepak suggested that I can check other stores...so we did that.]

7:45 PM
We entered the reputed HP shop and were looking around when someone behind the counter asked us what exactly we were looking for and gave us a look as if we were Iraqui Demolition Squad.

Sid: We want a graphic card.
SHop Guy(HP) : 256 or 512 ?
Sid(to Deepak) : Are these dipshits out of their Freakin minds?
Sid: Well we are looking for GeForce 8600 GT.
[Now another Shop guy comes to us]
Shop guy 2: What do you want?
Sid : Graphic cards. You have them?
Shop guy 2: No

Deepak: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
We went out of that shop too.

8:00 PM
Sid: This is really really sick.
Deepak: Man we oughtta go home.
Sid: Not before I have tried that shop.(I pointed to a shop accross the street which read: Cyber World)

:We enter the shop:

Sid: I want to buy a Geforce 8600 GT NOW!
SHopkeeper: We have very good cards but not that.
Sid: Ok show us the catalog.
Shopkeeper:There is no catalog but we have good cards.
Sid:*sigh* Show us the cards.
Shopkeeper: here.
[ What I see astounds me. The best card they had was a 7200 GS? Who the fuck wants to buy that? That sucky card is not even DX 10 compatible and cant even run games like Crysis properly! High end gaming card my ass!]

Deepak: Looks like there is no hope for Patna.
Sid: Wait I know one more shop.
Deepak: lets go then!

:We entered several shops but to no avail:

Next day we went to the same Lenovo shop and asked for my card. He didnt have it(no surprise there). But the poor guy did manage to get an ATi X1550XT which wasnt DX10 compatible was was no doubt a good card. The price attracted me as it was Dirt cheap at 4100 bucks. Since I wasnt spending a herculean ampont, I bought it and I am satisfied as it can runa ll games with ease save DX10 games.

This is the main problem in the Indian Market. The Shopkeepers have no clue about PC Hardware and a gamer has to run from place to place and get frustrated over simple stuff like Graphic cards.

Recent Victory.

Clash of the mighty titans is what I should use to describe what happened in the last match! We were playing 3 vs 2 Titan opponents on River nile map. One thing was certain. If they had the control over navy, we would be SO fucked! So something had to be donewhich gives me the opportunity to crib about here....and crib I WILL!
It was the basic teams for us, Deepak , ayush and I took Zeus, Isis and Loki (yeah bitch...all civs in oneunholy combo!) Each of the civ has crucial elements which are also the weakness of each race.I figure the Greeks to be expensive so massing up huge armies instantly is tough. Egyptian army is cheap but have few counters to wave after wave of mythic units....and as for Norse... they are VERY fragile early game and cant effectively counte aerial rushes , also Norse units cant get favour fast and myth units are VERY expensive read:Fire giant costs a whopping 38 favour! Alone we have weaknesses but together we ownZ j()() f()()!

Chapter 1: Hunting high and low
So this match had a regular start but was a little slow because Nile map has less hunting and more fishing...even though the map has enomous gold reserves, for 5 greedy teams, there still isnt enough. late game the gold was dissapearing faster than Metalheads fom Himesh reshamiya concert (ok maybe not THAT fast).
We were forced to farm and fish as we slowly destroyed the Greek Navy and then the Norse navy(long boats of Odin have fast firing rate as the bitch took Hemidall and I am sure he researched the Dock upgrades). Norse longboats were a threat due to two docks and a third one later but we managed the navy quite well. The posiedon team doesnt have Apollo so the threat of an underworld passage was not there. AND without a Dock the norse cant come to our side. All was Happy-Happy for my base untill a Fimbulwinter caused my Farming to collapse(I HATE THIS GODPOWER). Now we HAD to attack so we massed our armies.Ayush needs no Navy as his Roc drops are effective as well as very fast. We tried a covert(retarded) strike as we built our forts on the shore and thought the bitch wont notice.First target was posiedon ( we thought it will be easy) and was the hardest one too(we thought wrong). Our First attack was Wipedout(tm) and we had to get more. Finally we built up a forward base. Ayush=2 barracks,1 midgol(Rocs were doing most stuff) YnC 6(yes 6!) Barracks and 2 temples and I 1 Hillfort and 3 longhouse.My soldiers were fully teched so I was spawning Throwing axemen and Ulsfarks. Deepak did an awesome job with his Hoplites and Tox. Basically, Ulsfark,Hoplite,Throwing Axemen, Tox and Phoenix can own any army! We moved into the base and Deepak offered some superb resistance to their attacks...not fogetting the meteor which took out 2 forts. I tried to rush them and build a settlement after demolishing their TC. Now everything was fine until one unholy event. Left unmanaged, Ayush's Catapult blasted a nearby gatherer of Odin.

Chapter 2: Waves of terror
The Norse are quick to anger and quicker to attack, as we saw at least 50 LEGENDARY Jarl heading our way. Byebye Myth units. That is Exactly what happened as Deepak was forced to switch to champ Tox and Hoplites who basically stopped the rushes and my Giants aided them as well(Retad AI shifts to giants and let tox claim prize). Meanwhie I destroyed another settlement BEHIND the base and Ayush came there too...We massed an awesome Seige while Deepak handled all the units. Our seige finished off the entire base and the game was won!

NOW I WILL DISCUSS THE PROs ND CONs OF THIS STRAT
Pros
1)The Navy domination rocks.
2)Going Mythic and setting up caravans for high gold
3)All Resource techs
4)Farming and Fishing was TOTALLY ours
5)Attack in Mythic was good as our army was on peak of technology
6)Seige units
7)Hoplites fucking rule!
8)Insane RAW battle ability totally shatters the enemy base...

Cons
1)We lucked out....BECAUSE>
a) No Earthquake
b)No Norse myth units
c)Norse and Greeks were not battling us as a team.
d)If they tried, they could have killed our navy in a flash !

Hey! Hard opponents in AOM are not hard at all!

Just another AOM day for the 3 Heroes.Today we decided a 5 vs 3 is Hard difficulty.I was expecting some serious rushes and counter attacks. What I found was TOTAL disappointment.The so called Hard difficulty offers us nothing. No challenge.In one vs one I can end the game in 15 mins. Thats sad.

In this game, Deepak being a better player, massed his army + hero faster and was standing in my base read: I made all my structures in his base. So we waited for like 15 minutes in front of the Norse base but no rush no assault. I forgot to mention I did a fast navy rush in 5 mins from game start. Perhaps they were helpless without fishing ships but I think otherwise because they had about 10 farms which i scouted from my ravens(I decided to take Odin). We rushed him and cleared all the opponents one by one! It was a breeze! We do a 3 vs 11 tomorrow!