I need to be very very explicit about this.
There is a mannerism I partake in. The sound of understanding, “aaaaah,” with inflection proceeding from low pitch to higher to lower. No, no, not that one, not the one written “ahh!” and takes inflection from higher to low. Listen to me now, “aaaaah.”
This may be enough of a punchline to those who play Age of Empires II, but it is of utmost moral importance that I spend the next length of time explaining to everyone else why I find this exorbitantly funny. You’ll get a brief rundown of the necessary components of the game you will need to understand the context “7.” Then, I will supply an additional anecdote that I specifically imagine every time I invoke aoe2 taunt number seven. That’ll be some useful additional context to Age players as well, so y’all can feel free to skim to the end.
(Also, ignore the depicted transcription, I believe I’ve interpreted the sounds more faithfully in this blog post—the depicted image is the one I write as “aaaaah.”)
age of empires II
It is the year 1999. Multiplayer video games have pause buttons, I can count the number of polygons on any given screen on my fingers and toes, and third pithy remark.
One specific game has been released. A sequel to a pretty cool game called Age of Empires. This series is in the Real Time Strategy genre, which means it’s mostly commonly a top down isometric game your dad plays where people try to control a motley crew of starting units to harvest resources, turn resources into a thriving economy, more units, and so many weapons, and explode the enemy team.
In this series, by typing a message with a corresponding number in it, you can get a helpful narrator voicing a quippy line. There are called taunts, because they can be broadcasted to the entire lobby, and are quite taunting in nature. “Sure, blame your ISP,” and “All hail, king of the losers!”, and so on (man, imagine if this was in League of Legends LOL).
But there are also helpful “taunts” as well. Stuff like “Food please” (you can send surplus resources to starving teammates) or “Enemy sighted!” In newer updates to the game, you can even command allied AI with “Train units which counter the enemy’s army” and “Build a wall between the two flared locations” and such.
“Aaaaah” is one such taunt. So, overall, you can see how this might have many connotations. Maybe someone did something absurd and you have to nod along in bewilderment, or maybe you’re rolling your eyes as some noob says something foolish, or maybe you’re just innocently, simply expressing understanding after all.
Cool. Alright. But why do I use the taunt to invoke, specifically, the funny? It’s a bit amusing that I’m bringing gamer talk to irl, but there’s gotta be more!
the anecdote
There is a gamemode within aoe2 called deathmatch. It’s the classic power fantasy—none of this “building an economy from scratch” nonsense. Every player loads in with one morbillion economic resources and a few builders, and it’s off to the races to frantically construct your military industrial complex and pummel the quick-to-form frontlines with floods upon floods of the best troops money can conscript.
It is perhaps my first game of this mode now, and I am overwhelmed. To the north, the Portugese have drawn a line in the sand with twenty-odd towers manned by soldiers—crack shots, every one of them—itching to flatten heads with cannonballs. The Celts are winding the torsion engines on a full fleet of onagers ready to fill the skies with flaming rocks. The Franks have horsies. They have so, so many horsies. And they. Want. Blood.
I am tucked away in the south, and I quake in my boots. My delicate hands are only attuned to the slower, careful cultivation of agriculture, then defenses against feudal tribes, then raids on small villages under the base of a single castle, before finally progressing to meet the imperial armies that we fight so immediately today—and even then, never in the numbers that shall soon bear upon us.
But I wanted to try out a fun mechanic this game, enabled by the surplus resources of Deathmatch. So I rouse the Lands of the Bohemian Crown together, and I order my conscripted serfs to start constructing what I am completely convinced is a well-thought out and effective strategy.
What does the enemy see at this time? There are miles of dense woodland ahead that block passage of your troops and war machines, but one hundred heavy flying rocks can make mighty quick work of trees. Treading over the last units of cleared lumber, felled oak making way to plains, the fog of war starts clearing. Oh, but you are ready! You have fought countless battles, and you have not died yet. But your people sing songs of the wars you fight. The latest stories are exchanged in campfire gatherings among your closest friends. If you lose, you can die with the happiness that you lived an honorable life serving your country, with a legacy secured. The Bohemian city is on the horizon now, and you raise your sword, ready to concoct a stirring speech or a simple command to charge before you squint and—ok man double take what in the world is this guy cooking kdjfkdjf
I do not know how to tell you I honestly thought it was a good idea, but I made as many monks as I could. Just, like, holy men up the wazoo. Stained glass stocks must’ve been crazy that month, we were constructing monastaries left right and center. It’s the Kowloon Walled City, but every single occupant is trying to convert you to proto-Protestant Hussite Christianity.
To clarify, you can “convert” enemy troops to your side in the middle of battle, leading to orthogonally funny situations like converting elephants and trebuchets to Slavic paganism or whatever. Conversions are, in traditional gameplay, very good. It’s essentially something like killing net-two units instead of one, because you get a proper full unit to use afterwards. But. The issue is, monks are very finicky, and require intense micro-management to make sure everyone is trying to door-to-door campaign distinct people dammit, lest you waste your persuasive power on anything less efficient than one victim per lecturer. (Monks have a looong cooldown between conversions, but can’t convert more than one unit at a time, so you could potentially “use” multiple conversions on one guy.)
All that is to say that my monks kinda just fumbled around and subsequently got stomped to death by a legion of elephants and also more onagers.
My opponent knew monks didn’t work in Deathmatch with so many targets to micro around, so as soon as they broke though the treeline and saw my row of one morbillion monk-spawners, they hit me with the “7, 90,” or, “aaaah, attack the enemy with monks!” The tone of voice of the sound clips together is such a good funny time, it’s like the narrator’s saying, “ah yes! This is a perfect plan with no flaws, and I am dreadfully excited for your imminent success!” It’s truly a miracle the tone was so perfectly ironic. I was genuinely cackling in real life when he hit me with that, I wasn’t expecting to get served a smug ironic line with such a good delivery over canned responses recorded in 1999. This must be like when Dark Souls players see message jokes left by other players.
So, yeah. Really funny situation overall. But, well, the monks half of the double taunt isn’t as catchy in real life, which means I usually leave it out.
And finally, this concludes the explanation. You’ve reached the end: I’m doney with the funny. So the next time you hear me vocalize my agreement in the specific tone of the aoe2 taunt “7,” you now know what I’m reminiscing about in the back of my mind.