The curse of dumb friendlies

[Hottentot]

Let's face it: we don't need enemies in games because we already have our lovely "buddies". The friendly troops, both AI in single player and human players online, have an incredible ability to ruin your day completely and make you wish they were instead unfriendly just so you could go and kick them in the nuts. How many of us have cursed in SH3 the ever helpful Luftwaffe for sinking a ship we have been stalking for days? Or how many times have we thought online that there should be a mandatory IQ test before being allowed to participate in a multiplayer match? At least on my case the answer is: "many".

So in short: please share with the rest of us some annoying, humorous or downright frustrating experiences you have had in any game where the so called "friendly" troops have proven to be far worse enemy than anything the opposing side could throw at you. You all know what I'm talking about.

My latest experience is from Mount & Blade: Warband and its AI. I had joined the Sarranid faction as a vassal. We were often at war with our horse shagging subhuman neighbors, the Khergits. In one of those wars I had conquered the city of Halmar from them and got to keep it too. But being the greedy little bugger that I am, I wanted more, so I laid my eyes on the city of Narra that was right next to Halmar. However, I didn't have enough troops to take it, let alone hold it. And of course all the stupid other vassals refused to help me with sieging it, because they were too busy riding in one big formation and using their combined force of over 1000 troops to torment the Khergit yokels and raid their villages over and over again. So I had to wait for peace.

And peace came. I garrisoned the troops I had left to hold Halmar and started recruiting new cannon fodder. The peace lasted long and I managed to raise an army of high level troops (with initial mortality rate of 9/10 before they reached the peak, but who cares), that would cut trough those dirty stinking unwashed Khergit defenders of Narra like an axe trough their soft, undeveloped and mostly empty skulls. Oh how I waited for the new war to come.

Joy and jubilation: after the obligatory truce ended, our faction leader, sultan Hakim, once again remarked that the Khergit faction leader Sanjar Khan had a big nose. And there was war. I quickly assembled the best troops money could buy and marched them towards Narra. I bought the drinks too, just so I could get stinking drunk in Narra's castle the next evening while enjoying the company of any Khergit noble ladies that were left behind by their cowardly soldiers. So we went and knocked their door. And since they didn't open, we decided to knock it in.

The battle...didn't go exactly as I had planned. It was actually three battles, and after them Narra's wall's were painted with the blood of both the Khergits and my cannon fodder troops. The body pile in front of the walls was so high that I could have used it as a ladder to get my horse on the top of the wall (what, why do you think I brought those peasants with us?) I threw literally everything I had at them, including the kitchen sink, but no joy. After the third battle out of my 86 troops approximately 78 were out of action, but fortunately many of them weren't dead, only wounded. Out of Narra's Khergit horde of 350 defenders only 40 were left. I decided to retreat, but only for so long that my wounded troops would be in fighting condition again. There was no way that 40 of those my little pony lovers could stand in the way of me, my mostly Nord troops and a freaking huge axe I had been sharpening just for this occasion.

So I left back to Halmar to rest. After anxiously waiting for a day, I marched my troops again towards Narra and this time I seriously wanted blood. So...we reached Narra...heard its peasants screams of terror...saw its blood stained walls...AND ALSO THAT ABOUT GAZILLION SARRANID TROOPS WERE CAMPING RIGHT OUTSIDE IT AND INTENDING TO CONQUER THE CITY!!!

Yes, you heard it. My lovely AI compatriots had just been passing by on their jolly little yokel raiding trip, saw that Narra was out of defenders and decided to conquer it. 40 Khergits vs 1000 Sarranids. You do the math. And of course Sultan Hakim in his infinite wisdom decided to give the lordship of Narra to that opportunistic bastard vassal of his whose bright idea it had been to steal a siege from right under my nose.

I still wanted blood. Only this time it was that of Sarranid flavor...

[Feuer Frei!]

I play WoW, i do HC's every week, and raid once in a while.
'nuff said.

[seaniam81]

Funny you should say an IQ test. Was playing WoT yesterday and the team agreed there should be an IQ test that needs to be passed before somebody can use gold to buy a tank.

[Hottentot]

The idea has likely been circulating as long as people have been playing games online. Or even longer, I don't know.

Speaking of online, I remember another case, only this time it worked to my advantage (must have been the only time). This was years ago, must have been around 2002 or 2003 if I'm not wrong. Back then I was very active in Day of Defeat, or at least some ancient version of it. There was this map that was (IIRC) divided by a river and on the German side of it there was a tower which could be used by them to snipe the Allies, but could also be climbed by the latter to infiltrate the German side of the map.

I was playing on the German side and decided to go up to the tower and make some snapshots with my rifle. I was happily climbing the stairs, when suddenly I heard someone shouting in English. DoD had (and I'm sure still has) these fancy voice commands that were in English on the Allied side and in German on the German side. Not many people used them, though, because they were clumsy. But this time someone had found them funny and was constantly spamming the "prepare for assault" command. I could hear it vividly.

So counting 1 + 1, I figured there was more than one of them coming down the stairs and retreated. But not before I had dropped a little gift for them. A grenade, that is. Few seconds passed. Then there was a loud "boom" and my kill score went up by 3. The message box was almost instantly filled with comments wondering how did I know and accusing me of cheating. I never bothered to tell them it was their moronic teammate that had given their stealthy infiltration team away by loudly letting everyone know they were coming.