Shockwave's "How Not to Win a Battle"
Series #1

Map: Lost Temple Shockwave[xpow] (chosen Protoss, 12 o'clock) versus Win-A-Tron2000 (random Terran, 6 o'clock)

I start with the usual 8th->pylon, but elect to follow with forge->first. I scout with 8th and 9th peon hoping to find him early, but unfortunately he's in the 2nd place I look. My "normal" strategy is to offensive assimilator him, this is for the purpose of 1) setting him back in tech a bit, and 2) focusing his attention on his refinary while I offensive cannon him. Seeing that he had a refinary building already, I started a pylon in the north corner of his base within sight range, and started one below his ramp beyond sight range. He was doing rax/gas/rax and had put his 2nd rax at his choke, so there was no chance of starting at his choke. Well, there was also no chance of this offensive cannoning accomplishing anything practical really, but we'll get to that later.

He's busy killing my pylon in his base with his marines, so I warp in a few cannons. After those succeed, I know I'm not in danger of an early rush so I expand two times. Yep, you heard right, two times: Once to my natural, once to another start at 6 o'clock, and I leave a probe at the 4th start to expand there later. It's also critical that you let him know where your own start is, since this makes it less likely that he'll actually scout the other expansions. After all, when he comsats you, all he sees are tons of cannons at the entrance, a cyber core and forge spinning (more on that later), and an undefended backside, so it's all ripe for a quick-kill drop, right?

Cannons are set up, I build a couple at home just to show that I'm *really* turtling, and Win-A-Tron2000 humbly offers, "All cannons, that's real bad for you". What he does NOT know is that I've chosen an obscure corner and built a citadel and templar archives. And I have 3 gates. And I'm getting triple gas since my expansions are now online. Meanwhile, he sets up a massive force of M&M's&tanks at his chokes and takes out my cannons & pylon. I have another one a little further behind with another cannon just to delay him a bit longer.

Cannons are set up, I build a couple at home just to show that I'm *really* turtling, and Win-A-Tron2000 humbly offers, "All cannons, that's real bad for you". What he does NOT know is that I've chosen an obscure corner and built a citadel and templar archives. And I have 3 gates. And I'm getting triple gas since my expansions are now online. Meanwhile, he sets up a massive force of M&M's&tanks at his chokes and takes out my cannons & pylon. I have another one a little further behind with another cannon just to delay him a bit longer.

Here's a pic of my archives/citadel. Now this is risky since it's actually at my natural, and one misplaced scan from him would reveal my tech. Fortunately he was busy scanning the interior of my base; after all, he had removed the fog of war from his early scouting so chances are that his scan would center on my Nexus at to see what kind of defenses I'd have set up in preparation for his drop. Note the two fully functional expansions and the set of cannons outside his choke.

After taking those out, he promptly drops me with 3 dropships full of tanks, firebats, marines, and meds. First he comsats ahead of the drop, smart but it leaves him with no detection energy and I'm hiding my DTs at some obscure corner of my base (in this case, the top right) so tha t the comsat won't reveal them prior to his drop. I send in my DTs, slaughter everything, the dropships go home (boy I wish I had a screenshot of that...). I then send the DTs to outside his choke so that he's back to focusing on breaking his way out.

At this point, having massively outexpanded him, I could have won the game any number of ways (such as a drop in his own mineral line); but for arguments sake, assume that I did lose my main or at least my natural, which is what happened in the previous game when the tank push came much earlier and his scouting stopped at least one of my expansions.

Meanwhile in another obscure corner, I'm warping in a bunch of stargates. Remember the spinning cyber core? Most players will think that you're upgrading goon range, but I'm actually working on air attack. And the forge is of course to upgrade on carrier shields. Next I build a fleet beacon, and...you know what comes next. I station my DTs outside his choke so that he still has to break out in order to get to me, this usually prompts a Terran player to build sci vessels as a response. After I have a few carriers built, I add on a robotics & observatory in case there are wraiths. In said game, I maxed out supply in carriers.

From here, it's all cleanup. Here's me laying waste to his base. I was fighting wraiths, but they died before I could screen capture :-(.

He promptly called me a loser and a newbie and told me that he should have taken me out a long time ago :-).

Here is why this "works" (well, not really, but read anyway for your amusement):

1. Early offensive assimilator is KEY, it takes his attention off his choke so that you can start your cannons there. Generally he'll use his first military units to take out the assimilator instead of rallying them to his choke and thus won't notice your pylon there. You want to delay your pylon at his choke such that his initial scout has already left the base, and make sure you kill it when it reaches your own base so that it doesn't return and see the pylon there. Just make sure that the scout makes it to your base! If not, you're in deep trouble if he searches later and finds your expansion(s).

2. Cannons are just a delaying tactic. If he's inattentive and lets you push in, then you win. If not, then don't go overboard and just build enough so that he won't be able to take them out without sacrificing lots of marine/meds. 3 or 4 is fine, just add them as you get cash. 2 initially stops early marines, 3-4 later stops marine/meds. The key is to encourage him to go fast tanks to break out of his choke. Build some more cannons in your base, hide your other tech structures so that he thinks you're just cannoning yourself in. You can show him that you have a natural, that gives him even more incentive to come clobber you as fast as possible before your investment pays off. Him going tanks leads to your natural response:

3. Teching immediately to dark templar can sometimes win you the game right here. Once your 2nd expansion is established, you're at 3 gas sources. Again, hide your tech structures so that he doesn't know this is coming. The reason you go dark templar is because once you show cannons, he'll probably go heavy on tanks and be limited in comsat. You're also betting that since he doesn't see the archives, he'll use comsat frequently to check on your main in preparation for his attack. Make sure that if you build gateways in your main, rally your dark templar to some obscure corner where the comsat as recon won't accidentily reveal them.

4. I would go ahead and not defend your 2nd (non-natural) expansion. If he finds it, chances are that you're dead anyway. You're really gambling that all his attention will be focused on taking out your main. Add a 4th expansion somewhere once you have minerals, you can even expose it so that he's more opt to attack it than finding your critical 2nd expansion.

5. Good luck, and don't expect to win very often using this strat :-). BTW: I would not try this against Zerg, since 1) most people send their overlords to starting spots for recon regardless of where their attention is focused, and 2) hydras really rip apart cannons fast and are at a low tech level.

This player was rather good, he was smurfing under the name "DinoDinel" or something similar. Same tactic, I was 3 o'clock and he was 9 o'clock, I did get cannons to his choke and he went mass M&M's, vultures, and tanks immediately. He also mined the expansion spots while he was attacking, so I was restricted to only my main, natural, and another that I held intermittently at the 12 o'clock (it got taken out and rebuilt a few times).

His tank push came early and I only had a few hidden dark templar. Again since he had used comsat to scan my base, he only had enough for one scan and I beat back his assault after he had removed all the peons from my natural. Concurrently, he attacked my 2nd critical expansion and took that out, though I used the same dark templar to drive those guys away too after he had destroyed my Nexus.

The only other unoccupied expansion was the 6 o'clock. I sent my dark templar there and caught a vulture trying to mine for recon. I also saw a marine sitting at the start. This worked to my advantage because I knew that he wouldn't be using comsat (which has a wider site range) to check that spot as long as his marine was there. So I let the marine live, then built a pylon in the upper right corner of that base. I have a fabricated screen shot just to give you an idea:

While I was setting up for the carrier attack, he was again prepared to take out my main and expansions. This next attack constituted of a science vessel supported by tanks and a dozen M&M's and vultures. I believe he had also expanded to his natural. The only way he would have really caught me is if he had tried to expand to the 6 o'clock, since his sight range would have increased toward where my carriers were hiding. He cliff sieged my natural as well and took out all the probes there, then proceeded to lay waste to my 12 o'clock expansion. I still enough cannons (much excess minerals) that it would take him quite some time to break into my main.

After 6 carriers, I proceeded directly to his main and also had plans to start on the 6 o'clock expansion where my carriers resided in case this didn't end the game. There were actually 3 starports worth of battlecruisers there which I guess he was building for fun since from all outward appearances it seemed like he was going to win, but my carriers were 2/0/2 and I was able to use hit-and-runs to take them out without any losses. I then took out his physics lab to delay him from building more. BCs anyway take forever to build, and his force of M&M's was absent from his base so I was able to lay waste.

Dinodinel: "Where the XXXX were those starports? I scanned EVERYWHERE"

I shared vision and we both had a good laugh :-)

Well, sometimes cheapness pays off in mysterious ways :-).

S hckwave ___________XPOW