Chp 642. Age of Empires - Burmese campaign

Growing up, many of us had fond memories of playing many computer games. All the hours we spent immersed in a game and the overflowing satisfaction of having completed it.

For me, one such game was Age of Empires. Classic RTS game, the mother of all strategy games. And the beauty of AoE is that, they are still active even today!

Though this popular franchise had many series and expansions, the most popular was AoE II, which was first released in 1999 as "Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings". This was followed by the much awaited expansion "Age of Empires II: The Conquerors" the next year. This was during my engineering college days, and I missed many classes because of this game (and Diablo II). I barely managed to scrape through on attendance requirement.

AoE II came to Steam gaming platform in 2013 as "Age of Empires II: HD edition" along with a new expansion "The Forgotten" introducing us to new civilizations - the Italians, Indians, Slavs, Magyars and Incas, along with many new units, techs, maps etc. Two years later, the third expansion set "The African Kingdoms" was released, which had new civs - the Berbers, Ethiopians, Malians, and the Portuguese.

I bought all the games above on Steam, not just because I wanted to relive fond memories again, but mainly to pay back the developers for having downloaded their pirated games years ago. Those were the days when it was either really difficult to buy a game because of no online payment access or they were too expensive at Landmark, which was the only outlet back then that sold PC game CDs here in India.

Last week, Age of Empires II released their fourth expansion set "The Rise of the Rajas" featuring four new civilizations - the Burmese, Malays, Khmer, and Vietnamese. I pre-purchased the DLC  immediately the moment they announced it. Though I have bought many games on Steam, this was the first time I had pre-purchased a game!

I was sooo looking forward to it, mainly because of the Burmese civilization. I know, we had the Indian civilization in "The Forgotten" expansion, but it was about Prithviraj Chauhan's campaign, featuring battles among the Rajput clans and against the Sultanate invaders. While it was cool to charge into battles with Elite Elephant Archers and Imperial Camels, as a Northeasterner, all that didn't quite hit close to home for us. I mean, the present day NE wasn't a part of any of the ancient Indian dynasties, whereas Burmese civilization felt more of home to us.

I took two days leave from office the moment the game was available for download, and I played the Burmese Bayinnaung campaign immediately. Two days of bliss (and frustration) but I was finally able to complete the campaign. And when I did that, it was my first zero percenter achievement!

As of today, only 0.02% of AoE players on Steam have earned this particular achievement so far! :)

There are five missions in the Bayinnaung campaign.

The first one is The Burmese Tiger where we must fight against the Khmer, Chinese and Indians, with an option to become an ally with the Portuguese (by paying a tribute). The objective of the mission is to kill King Takayutpi of Hanthawaddy and capture the monument in Prome.

Quite an easy campaign. The secondary objective is to kill King Takayutpi within 5 minutes, but I said screw it, I like to play slow and steady. I took my own time building up my resources and techs and slowly invaded each empire one by one. Your base will also be rarely attacked by the enemies, so just put a couple of watch towers and that's enough. But stones are hard to find, so be smart where you place your towers.

Once you come across the Portuguese on the western part of the map, for just 500 gold, they'll become your ally (I guess if you don't agree to pay that tribute, they'll attack you?). And after that, for another 500 gold, you can control their entire unit. But of course by then I had already wiped out all the empires and the only objective left was to capture the monument in the center, so I had a super army storming Prome. :) Fun mission.

Mission 2: The Mandalay Cobra. In this campaign, we must fight another Burmese king Ava, and there are two other enemies as well, the Chinese and Malays. Challenging campaign because the map was in a pilgrim city, so we could not build any walls. So I had this huge open space where attack could come from anywhere. I failed a couple of times in the beginning.

The main objective of the game is to accumulate 4000 gold. You cannot build mines and there are no gold deposits, but you have a couple of monasteries with relics in them that generate gold. Enemies will keep coming, trying to destroy the monasteries and you have to protect them with your scattered forces. There are Burmese allies too who will join your army once reach them. Since the population limit is set to just 100 for this map, I best advice you max up your pop first before getting these new recruits.

Mission 3: The Royal Peacock. Another extremely fun mission. I read online that people found this mission tough, but I got lucky because in the beginning, instead of reaching my force directly, I explored around a bit and found a priest who joined my force. And using him, I was able to convert all the Ballista Elephants my Khmer enemy was sending in the early part of the game.

The objective of the game is to kill the other four Burmese kingdoms, or build a wonder. I allied with the most powerful enemy closest to me by paying a hefty tribute, after that I cordoned off the entire central area, placing Ballista elephants as guards. And I kept mining every resources I could find. I even went to my ally's area, built a wall around the mines so his people couldn't access them :D Soon I had enough resources to build a wonder. The other three Burmese kingdoms attacked me but they were no match for my horde of converted Ballista Elephants, thanx to the Khmer. You win after 200 years once the wonder is completed.

Mission 4: The White Elephant. Really tough mission. You must place a relic in four different Khmer monasteries, all heavily guarded, and you cannot take your own time because you must do that in 695 years. I saved and replayed a lot, because I had to save time and do everything as fast as possible. Even if I managed to place a relic in a monastery, I replayed a saved file again because I took too much time doing it or I lost too many units in the process. There's a population cap of just 40, so yeah, I had to rely on my monks to convert enemies as I progressed.

Mission 5: The Old Tiger. Lolz, one of the toughest AoE campaigns I have ever played! I took more than a day playing this blasted mission. But yeah, it was so much fun. The objective of the game is to bring Bayinnuang to four different Buddhist Temples, all well guarded, where he will meditate for a short while as you protect him from the attackers. He or his son Nanda cannot die. And you have a hell of an army - 171 units to be precise.

You have 10 Battle Elephants, 20 Arambais, 8 Knights, 14 Two-hand swordsmen, 3 Bombard cannons, 3 Monks, 3 Villagers and 2 trebuchets led by Bayinnuang and Nanda from the eastern side. On the western side, you have 18 War Galleys, 4 Cannon Galleons, 3 Demolition Ships, 4 Fire Ships, and 6 Transport Ships carrying 30 Two-hand swordsmen, 12 Pikemen, 8 Arambais, 5 Sunda Royal fighters, 2 Bombard Cannons, 8 Battle Elephants, 2 Monks and 2 villagers led by Thinga Dathta. That's huge.

But hehe, not easy at all! As you move towards your first monastery, you will be attacked by the defender of that empire. Apart from that, you will also be continuously attacked by the Portuguese and Vietnamese from behind! Died so many times. The Portuguese had superior tech, and the Vietnamese archers were deadly too, whereas I didn't have any ranged units. My Arambais, which is the unique Burmese unit, is a ranged cavalry that throws freaking darts at the enemies, and they have extremely low accuracy!  Useless.

Finally, after my 50th retry, I decided to change my tactic. The four defending empires will attack you only after you start attacking them, but the Portuguese and Vietnamese from the north will keep attacking you wave after wave. And so I decided to get rid of those two mofos first :D

From my Eastern army, I ventured out with my Battle Elephants and Arambai units, along with my 3 monks and Bayinnuang (who is also a monk). Instead of marching East towards the 4 monasteries, I assembled to march up North. I placed all my Elephant units on the first line, all in defensive stance. Behind them the monks, and behind them the Arambais, also in defensive stance.

When the Vietnamese archers or Portuguese came down to attack me, the Elephants bore the brunt of the attack, and I quickly healed them while trying to convert as many as I could. They usually attacked in 3-4 units so I ended up converting quite a lot of archers. The Portuguese pikemen dealt more damage to my Elephants than the archers, who were quickly eliminated by my Arambais and converted archers standing behind my monks. I saved my progress many times, as I couldn't afford to lose any monks.

And then I called on my 2 trebuchets and attacked the walls and towers of the Vietnamese empire. They kept attacking, and I kept converting as many as possible. Also it is very important to immediately recall converted enemies to your flank and heal them, and also to change their stance to defensive, because by default, they are offensive and they will rush out to attack enemies on their own. Soon I had a very strong range unit and my total army count crossed 250. After many more saves and replays, I wiped out the Vietnamese and later the Portuguese. I got lucky as I converted 2 monks and 1 trebuchet, making my progress faster.

With the Vietnamese and Portuguese gone, it was much easier attacking the four empires. I mean, that took me quite a while too, but it wasn't as frustrating as attacking them directly.

And with that, I completed the Burmese campaign. What an experience indeed.

The Burmese also have a unique tech upon reaching Imperial Age that gives the Arambai additional +6 damage against buildings. The name of that tech is "Manipur Cavalry" :D

And so that was how I spent my Christmas eve, lolz. Happy holidays everyone.

Chp 641. Northeastern food in Pune

A review on a restaurant I have visited five times the past one month.

As I have mentioned in my previous post about demonetization, I had gone many times to the HDFC bank near our office to withdraw money, only to see a really long queue or "no cash" signboard, and be disappointed and head back to office solemnly.

It was during one such futile attempt to withdraw money that I noticed a new restaurant had opened up right above HDFC bank. I decided to check it out. I love eating at new places, especially the ones near office where I can spare a quick 1-hour lunch break for a fulfilling stomach experience.

The name of the restaurant is "Mineority". A play on the words "Mine" (as in miner, mining) and "minority", I guess.



The first thing I asked as I entered the place was whether debit cards were accepted. The waiter replied, "Yes sir, but only Indian cards, not international". He probably thought I was a foreigner, or maybe it was just a normal formality reply and I was over-thinking much :)

The place was really cool and unique. Very interesting decors and arrangements.





Yuss, those are actual books with a portrait spray painted over them.





A mining themed restaurant, awesome, it was my first. And then when I looked at the menu, I exclaimed in surprise and joy to see a couple of Northeastern dishes! That was when I assumed the restaurant got the "minority" part of its name, because of its minority community indigenous dishes? The menu had a lot of interesting items, ranging from all across India like Bihar and Kalimpong to International destinations like Ethiopia and Kenya!

The waiter told me there was "Happy hours" on the drinks menu, but since it was my lunch break and I had to head back to office, I politely declined (now you don't see me doing that very often :P ).

As I glanced through the menu, mouth watering and stomach pounding, my eyes were locked on the Mizo fish!



"Grilled bhetki fish, miso paste from Mizoram, kuchumber, with steam buns."

I didn't know we Mizos had a miso paste! :D But I was dying to find out. Miso is Japanese stuff, a fermented soybean paste to be precise. But since we Mizos use a lot of fermented soybean in our indigenous dishes, I was assuming that was why they included it in the ingredient. Plus "Mizo" and "Miso" both rhyme pretty sweetly too :D

While my order was being prepared, I was given this cute little side dish to munch on - a mix of muri and chanachur with pudina chutney.



I had written many blog posts in the past where I talked about "bekang" which is our Mizo fermented soybean. It can be made as a side-dish chutney or added to main dishes like our Mizo bai etc. Much as we Mizos love bekang, it also has quite a pungent smell, and my non-Mizo friends would call it "stinky beans" (and an untrained nose might even find it repelling as well). But it is delicious as hell. I was surprised and impressed the restaurant was going to serve me something like that in public :)

But when my dish finally arrived… man it was not what I was expecting at all.



I hardly found any traces of fermented soybean in the dish. Instead, the fish was all buttered up… I mean the amount of butter used was crazy, and that gave it a really awesome taste. The fish melted right in my mouth, it was grilled to perfection. But sadly, no it wasn't an authentic Mizo dish.



We don't eat any of our dishes with "steamed buns" either. Not even chapattis, rotis, naans etc. We just eat everything with rice. And of course in my later visits, I learnt that I could have asked for rice instead of steam buns. *slaps myself with a large trout, a Mizo trout*

It wasn't very filling as well, but I guess the Rs. 550 price tag filled me up :D Plus taxes, don't forget the Service Charge, VAT and Service Tax. The whole thing crossed 700 bucks and the bill was served in a neat contraption –



Overall, was it tasty? Definitely yes. Very tasty, something totally different from the food you'll find in other restaurants. Was it authentic Mizo? Nopes. Was it worth the price? Urrrmmm… hard to say here. If it was any other restaurant, I would say no, but the place kinda gave me this whole "fine dining" vibe, and for such a place, I guess it is ok.



On my second visit to Mineority (which to be honest, I was actually going again to HDFC bank but there was a "no cash" sign and so I decided to go upstairs to the restaurant to vent my frustration), I tried their pork dish.



Guwahati gateway pork - Succulent stir fried pork, onion, Himalayan garlic with buttered kasundi rice.

Now I'm not an Assamese food expert, though I had my fair share of Assamese cuisines cooked by my chef friend Gitika Saikia, and so I was just going to enjoy the pork dish and not judge whether it was authentic or not.

The waiter again told me about the "Happy Hours" on drinks, and again, I had to forcibly decline because I had to get back to office. Yeah it would have been great to gulp down a cold pint or two because I was so frustrated about not being able to withdraw any money.

Finally the dish was served.



The aroma of the stir fried pork was just pure yummm.



The "buttered kasundi rice" was also something I was having for the first time.



Great combination indeed.



My only disappointment was that there was no fat at all. The pork dish was just pure meat. But still, yup it was truly delicious.



On my third visit to Mineority, the waiter didn't even mention about the "Happy Hours" offer. He handed me the food menu and the drinks menu, and I politely returned the drinks menu to him. He smiled.

I went for the "Evergreen chicken" - Assamese green chicken curry made with fresh mint and wild coriander, matchstick yam fries, with aromatic sticky rice.



The so called "aromatic sticky rice" and the "buttered kasundi rice" I had the other day, looked the same, and I think they tasted the same as well :D But it was an awesome combo and I cleaned out the plate like how my dog used to do to his bowl :)





On my fourth visit, the waiter didn't even hand me the drinks menu. He gave me only the food menu :D

I was quite hungry that time. One thing I want to mention - Mineority states on their menu that one main course "serves a minimum of 2 people" - that is completely false. I don't eat much, but one main course is definitely not enough for two people, in fact if you're hungry, one main course may not even be enough for yourself.

And so that day, apart from one main course, I ordered extra chapattis.

The dish that I decided to try out that day was the Shillong mylliem chicken.



Succulent stir fried chicken, khasi pepper, onion, Himalayan garlic, ginger, with garlic pav.

Not to make the same mistake I made with the Mizo fish, I immediately requested for rice instead of the garlic pav, and the waiter noted that down.

My mouth watered. FINALLY, some spicy northeastern dish was on its way, I thought. I was assuming the "khasi pepper" mentioned above was going to be some hybrid version of the "ghost pepper", also known as bhut jolokia, or red naga chilli, or u-morok (known by different names depending on which northeastern state you're from). The world's spiciest chilly at one point of time, currently third or fourth spiciest today.

Sadly, I guess "khasi pepper" is just some normal pepper used by the khasis, because when the dish finally arrived, there was nothing spicy about it :(

But it was tasty nonetheless. It went well with the rice, and also with the extra chapattis I ordered.

The fifth time I went there was this week. Can't believe I've been going there for five times in just one month! I was so comfortable with the people who worked there that I high-fived the valet parking attendant, fist-bumped the doorman, and chest-bumped the waiter. Ok just kidding on all that, but it definitely felt more homely than the first day I went there.

I sat at my favorite table, and ordered the "Arunachali Thukpa" even without glancing at the menu :)

"Chicken or pork?" The waiter asked.

"Pork of course!" I replied.

I love thukpas. I always order one every time I visit a Tibetan restaurant in Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, Shillong etc.

Here's the description of Mineority's thukpa from their Zomato page - "Arunachali Thukpa – Hearty and healthy clear stew, red amaranth dumpling, fresh greens, with choice of chicken or pork".

I was wondering if they were going to put dumplings in it instead of the usual noodles?

I got my answer when my food arrived.

There were neither noodles nor dumplings in the so called thukpa!

I mean… can it still be called a thukpa without that?

Taste wise, it was fine. Not that great. Not bad either. The pork pieces added to it also felt forceful, like they didn't belong there, they just didn't blend with the soup. It was basically just a vegetable clear soup with pieces of pork thrown into it at the last minute.

And how much did this cost?

700 bucks for that single thukpa. The most expensive thukpa I’ve ever had, lolz. VFM? Not worth it at all.

And with that, my five days experiment with Mineority's northeastern food was over. Here's my overall feedback –

1. Mizo miso fish - Try it only if you're looking for something that is different and tastes really good as well. Avoid if you're looking for an authentic Mizo cuisine.

2. Guwahati gateway pork - Very tasty and well prepared. Go for it.

3. Assamese evergreen chicken - Good stuff, but quite common, didn't feel very northeastern to me. Go for it.

4. Shillong mylliem chicken - Not spicy as I assumed it would be. Still, very tasty. Go for it.

5. Arunachali thukpa - Avoid it, unless throwing away 700 bucks for a bowl of veggie clear soup is your thing.

In all my five experiences, the waiter and staff were extremely courteous to me and the service was extremely fast. I received all my orders in under 15 minutes. The place was never crowded, maybe one or two tables occupied in all my visits, probably because it was late lunch hour. And all five times, the main reason I went to this place was to withdraw money from the bank below, which unfortunately I never could.

For more reviews and feedback on Mineority, you can check out their zomato page here. All photos above were taken with my OP3.

Cheers for now, and hope you found this review helpful.