"this is so fucking bad I want to kill myself and then in my will leave a request to have you banned from the internet."
-Fox^1
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| Nuclear winter | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 11/22/99 09:11 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 8, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for Moros: 6.7500 |   | Monday morning. It's snowing. Accident alerts and school delays. All's quiet on the Western frontier. Nothing like Saturday night.
I got a call from my partner, Sporkle. He finally got the cast removed from his mouse wrist, and was looking to get back in the action. I hadn't been on lag.net for six weeks. So, we were both a little rusty. We did a couple of warm ups against the comp just to remember the hot keys and get used to the speed of the game. I had forgotten how long it takes to build things. This would be a problem later.
I set up a game on Winter Conquest, non-ladder. A couple of guys joined who we thought were newbies. I, Moros, was yellow terran at 12:00 o'clock, Sporkle, orange protoss at 9, Kimyun638, teal terran at 3, and Jinjin_tiger, brown zerg at 6. I hope our opponents will forgive me if I don't get their names right.
We scouted fast to find that this was effectively an island map, with a very interesting ridge running the length of the map, with access to all of the expansions from the center ridge. I started a haphazard terran build to get tanks and turrets up asap. Sporkle guarded his cliffs with cannons.
Teal terran went for a fast marine drop on my base. Not fast enough. My turrets intercepted two drop ships, and my tanks blasted several marines before he beat a hasty retreat. I felt good. Stupid newbie.
Not as stupid as I thought. Brown zerg dumped a truck load of hydras on the west side of my plateau and commenced to gnaw his way into my base. Some quick rearrangements of my tanks held him off. But I had some rebuilding to do. And some rethinking.
These guys were good enough to pull off a fairly early drop. What else might they be up to? Some scanning told the story. They had expanded all over the board. Quick drops and quick expansions usually mean no army left to defend the expansions. I threw together a tank, marine, medic strike team, jammed them into three drop ships and headed for the expansion directly north of teal terran. It was over in an instant. I zipped some scv's over and put bunkers and turrets in key locations. Teal terran had no clue what to do about this. Valks and wraiths were the wrong answer.
By now, Sporkle and brown zerg were mixing it up pretty good in the middle of the map. Repeated drops on Sporkle's base were repulsed. But brown zerg had taken three expansions to Sporkle's none. You can guess what happened.
After taking the first expansion away from teal terran, and seeing that he and brown zerg did not support each other in his counter attack, and considering the terrain features of this map, I decided to skip battle cruisers and go for the nuke wave. With three silos and some hot keys, terran can keep an unending nuke attack going against any enemy. I built four silos, two at my expansion and two at my main. I thought to myself that the forth is just a waste of time. But, considering that Sporkle may not be any help in the long run, I needed insurance. Better to buy it when you're rich. You'll sure wish you had it when you're poor.
Teal terran had taken the expansion directly south of my base, and the other one directly north of Sporkle's base. I thought it would be a good idea to disinfect these two expansions. It became mandatory when Sporkle announced that we was out of resources, and still didn't have a shuttle. He and brown zerg had been bashing each other pretty hard. Twelve scouts and a couple of carriers went head to head with mutas and devourers in an attempt to take an expansion away from zerg. They fought each other to a stand still, with the edge going to zerg. All Sporkle could do now was place his few observers around the map. The one over the north-center expansion proved to be key.
I turned my attention to teal at the expansion directly south of my base. Nuke, nuke. Who's there? Kiloton. Kiloton who? I kiloton of you with my little red dot.
Instead of trying to hold this expansion, I turned my attention to the one just north of Sporkle's base. With teal terran, I figured it was better to starve him out than to slug it out. Nuke, nuke again. No joke this time. I moved in some marines and scv's to set up a defense. Teal fought back with wraiths and goliaths. He erased my gains, my marines and two of my drop ships. I built a couple of barracks at my first expansion, and sent marines over to take the west expansion again. They got mowed down. Okay. Fine.
Mess with the best. Die like the rest. By now, my main was mined out. So I sent my scv's over to my expansion. I took a couple of ghosts over to teal's main, and gave him Exedrine headache number 47,927,375. One more nuke at the west expansion cleared out the cloaked wraiths, and I set up shop for keeps.
After about an hour, Sporkle quit the game, leaving me to face two good players. Good as individuals. Lousy as a team. Teal terran had moved back into the center expansion. Two nukes. Smoldering ruin. This is where it got a little weird. Brown zerg showed up. Not to help his partner, but to grab the newly opened expansion. This left teal starved out of the game. His buildings were burning. He didn't have enough mins to repair them. He never made another move.
My resources were running low, too. I knew that the final battle, and the game, were going to center on this last expansion. Brown zerg had lots of mutas and a few hydras, with overlords covering every square inch of his terrain. What to do?
What else. Get a brain! Man. When you don't play, you forget things. Little things. Like science vessels. Heh. Heheh. Heheheheh. Science vessels. Oh, yeah.
With constant attack and counter attack at the center expansion, neither of us was able to get the upper hand. I set up a bunker and turret on the ridge beside the ramp leading down to the expansion. I tried some diversions at zerg's other three expansions with nukes. Not a good idea with all the overlords around. A few of them found their mark just as the ghost died.
I filled the bunker with ghosts (longer range, very effective against mutas). I checked my resources. Less than 200 mins. I checked my stock pile. One nuke left. The one I thought I'd never need.
I did the only thing I could do. I emptied the bunkers at my main and my expansions, nuked the center expansion, and charged in with marines and medics. I had enough mins to put one bunker on the north of the expansion. With two bunkers, some medics, some stimmed marines and some ghosts, I was able to hold off the muta and queen attack that followed. My diversionary nuke attacks had paid off. He kept some of his mutas back, instead of throwing everything into the battle. If he had sent everything, he would have won. When the smoke cleared, I had marine parts all over the place, two burning bunkers, one scv, four ghosts and two medics.
I floated my command center over from my now mined out western expansion, and went to work fast. I counted noses. Four nukes, two sci vessels, four tanks, eight marines and four medics. First things first. I landed a strike force on teal's main base. I had to smash him up pretty good before he surrendered. I needed to get him out of the way so that I could move freely along both edges of the map. Starcraft is like chess in more that one way. Controlling the edge of the map means you don't have to watch your back. And, the edge of the map is usually not protected.
I scanned zerg's other three expansions and his main. He was out of minerals, with not much to show for it. I expected a huge army and saw only a few mutas and devourers. He had tangled with Sporkle's air force, and still had some air units left over. His hydras had evaporated with the last nuke on the center expansion.
Sporkle's main was untouched. With no minerals and lots of cannons, they just left him alone.
A scan of brown zerg's main revealed that he was ready for an attack. There was no place I could land troops without being slaughtered on the way in. I stormed his eastern expansion with a nuke, marines and tanks to clear the way to attack his main. Then I nuked the eastern most corner of his main to clear a path for my drop ships. I had also been irradiating overlords and devourers. I had to take out his eyes so I could sneak my ghosts in.
I dropped two tanks, eight marines and four medics on the very edge of his plateau, just out of range of his defenses. To my surprise, there were no defending troops! I demonstrated that I would stand off and pound his sunkens with my tanks instead of rushing in, using marines to fend off mutas and queens. He surrendered. The game took 1:38.
Lessons learned:
Play as a team. Brown zerg snatched an expansion away from his team mate. That probably cost them the game.
Manage your resources. This comes right after "open your eyes" and "use at least one hand to type."
Terran have the greatest potential of all the races. They can adapt and counter punch with extreme effectiveness.
Defenses are best used to slow down an attack until help arrives. The cost of defense is too high to build stone walls. Use your offense as your defense.
Hot key, hot key, hot key. You can't micro if you don't hot key.
Hit them where they're weakest. You can't defend every inch of the map. So look for openings.
Always arrive with overwhelming force. And be prepared for the counter attack.
Have fun. I don't play sc/bw because there was just too much pressure. Now, I play only when someone calls me for a game. And I couldn't care less if I win or lose. I just play like a mad monkey and have a good time.
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