Yes, this was a game that was highly anticipated, and with good reason: this was the game that most likely would decide who would come out on top of group D. Or at least be having a great opportunity at doing so. Of course, nothing is given in these days of confusion with Quake4 lurking in the background, trying to lure the quake2 players onto a new playingfield. But, more about that later!

I was minding my own thing when Damiah asked me on IRC who would admin the Finland vs Lithuania game. I wasn't sure at all, I asked in the admin channel but no answer. I was hoping someone would step up, as I sorta wanted to watch some Champion League games this evening (Rosenborg vs Real Madrid for instance ;)). Well, of course it ended up with me volunteering doing some admin work. Damiah said that the server practically was chosen already, and that they were just waiting for all the players to show up. In the meantime, us two being all alone in the game channel, talked loosely about football and chilled a bit. Soon the rest of the Finland team joined us, and we started to wait for the Lithuanian players to show up. Padonkas came into the channel declaring that DM would be 8 minutes late, so we just waited. Neither of the teams had decided the map, or they just refused telling me. Either way is ok with me. Finally, when DM showed up on the sevrer while I was trying to make some popcorn only to realize Gravgon was showing up as well, acting as a very good support game-admin, doing whatever NDML headadmins do (saying things like: "Captains, kick <insert name> from your team" etc). Soon the captains told me their respective maps on IRC. Lithuania picked q2dm2 as expected, but Finland chose q2dm6 and I was a bit suprised. Damiah had earlier told that they were possibly picking q2dm1 or q2dm2. I suspect Dimmo having something with the final decision. Maybe they knew Lithuania wasn't as strong on q2dm6.


First map: Q2DM2 - Lithuania's Choice



After Gravgon had acted firm as an admin, getting the serversetting right and kicking players and stuff, while I almost had the popcorn done, the game started. I decided to do a twist this time around, chasing only one player the entire game. The player in focus was Thaigo, and I'm pretty happy with that choice. It started off with Thaigo getting first quad and I predicted: nice quadrun! But Padonkas' well placed nade just wouldn't fullfill my prediction. It soon became clear that Finland held the RA-lift position, where Foen as usual was placed. A good liftholder by any mean, but everyone knows that holding the lift alone wont get you too many frags. This is where Thaigo comes into the picture. He acted as Foen's extended hand, taking the RA and rail into the fray, and gathering the frags needed to establish a small lead early on. As usual you saw the rocket gathering, the rockets -> rail exchange on top of lift, and how the BFG was used to clear the lower area when being too crowded. Thaigo did look a bit off with the rail early on, but only by surviving attacks and using all the 10 slugs that follows with the railgun, he managed to get a few frags here and there. Of course, Thaigo's trademark, the chaingun, gave him even more frags. This was how the game went for a while, Thaigo getting rockets and running the lower level, then heading for RA and deliver rockets and getting rail and RA in return. Then he went on a fragging spree. What about Lithuania? Well, they were doing a good job putting the RA pos under pressure. Constantly using nades and chain to make life hard for Foen and Thaigo. At times the Lithuanian quadrunner made it to the RA tower, but more often than not, Thaigo or some other Fi player used rail/bfg to demolish the lone blue hero. About halfway through, Lithuania managed to take over the RA lift. And it was intresting to see how Thaigo changed some of his tactis. Instead of going up the RA lift, he just stepped on it, keeping it up. Probably to prevent the Lithuanian players to go up, and that way preventing too many enemy players stacked with armor and rail/bfg. However, the takeover didn't last too long. Foen soon got into position, and then the dominant play of Thaigo was back on track. Most of his frags came in the middle period of the game, where he just controlled that area quite well. Hard to keep track of the quad when speccing someone spending a lot of time in the RA area, but everytime Thaigo went towards the RL tower, Dimmo seemed to be in position. Damiah did his own thing as usual, and the score showed that he did it pretty well :) The Lithuanians were just a bit outskilled on this map, the Fins really showed that they are a top team this season as well. Very solid play. Somewhere in there Foen fell out of the server, and took maybe 30 sec for him to come back. Anyway, was a good game!


Second map: Q2DM6 - Finland's choice



Ok, I was excited about this map too. It is a map I haven't seen Finland play too much on, but the same goes for Lithuania. I wasn't sure which way this would go. As soon as arch came onto the server and marked his presence, the game started. I thought that the success of chasing Thaigo the first game would be repeated this time around. But frankly, no matter how much I enjoy watching Thaigo, the BFG position on q2dm6 isn't very fun to watch, and it's really hard keeping track of what happens elsewhere on the map. But, from what I saw he did a decent job there. Not so much railing, but more BFG'ing and rocketing. I soon got a bit frustrated that the game was oh so tight, but I never saw any action near the quad as Thaigo wisely chose not to go near that area. As that area was filled with chaos throughout the game. Now, prt was a player I chased for quite some time, he did his fair share of railing and making life hard for Damiah at rail. He had an awesome 180 degree flickrail falling down to quad on Foen, and else he seemed confident in his play with good moves and nice aim. A classy player. DM seemed to struggle some, he did suffer from 80 ping, and I must give him props for being a great sport as well as the rest of the LTU team. I could easily see other teams in NDML doing a fair share of whining in his position. He didn't. That being said, the game was extremely close for a really long while. Not sure what happened when both teams had about 50-50, but then suddenly Lithuania just stopped, while Finland decided to step up the pace a bit. Dimmo running quad with Foen might have been the golden duo that turned the game around. Damiah who held rail and RA really well, might have been the same. Or Thaigo who I had abandoned earlier in the game. Either way, the Fins managed to tame the quad. I must credit Foen for good play on this map, he is a player that rarely stands out scorewise, but makes up for it in smartness and teamplay. In this game he also managed to rack up frags like no other. So, while the spectators talked about Quake4 and what q2 players who would own it up, the Fins were busy beating on the Lithuanians. Must admit the convo in amongst spectators (arch, Gravgon and putka) as well as the footballgame on tv, distracted me at times, but I really enjoyed the game too. It started out oh so close, but in the last half the Fins just showed why they are among the favorites. All credit again to Lithuania, for not giving up and pushing the Fins to step up their game.


It was a pleasure adminning this game, no problems as server was picked, and no whining from any player. Only minor problems with players timing out or falling out of the server, but it didnt interfere with the final result. Again, solid play by the fins, but still think the Lithuanians can step up their game even more. Looking forward to either teams' game in the next rounds.

And a big thanks to "sl again, for running the scorebot superbly in the main channel! Much appreciated :D