"Slings: I found God for you. he's hiding behind these brass knuckles"
-CynicalMagician and Fox^1
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| Shaking off the rust and cleaning out the cobwebs | | | Author: | | | IP: | P124-DelXXXX | | Date: | 07/09/01 01:07 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 5, Min: 5
Lifetime Rating for Syndrome_Zed: 6.0000 |  | Well, it's been months since I played a game. And even more months since I wrote a report on one. I used to write text reports over at Shafe's (if you remember Shafe's, you'll get an idea of how Old Skool I am ;) ) before the Big Remodeling. Now with 1.08 out I decided to try my hand again at both the game and the writing.
So....I log in and amazingly enough, the account is still live, still under .500, and last updated when I was 30. I look around for a non-BGH/SharedBase/Best(Stupidest)MapEver, non-LT game. Again, amazingly I find one - Sherwood Forest. While the staffers will all know this map, for those who don't it's a mid-sized, 5-player map with starts in the top left and right corners, and at 6 oclock, 4 oclock, and 8 oclock. Starts have ramp chokes plus the top corners and the 6 oclock have staired walls for a little extra protection. The 6 doesn't have a ramp, though, so start position on this map makes a big difference. The 4 and 8 starts have high ground single-file paths running to the top corner starts, which are cut off from direct access to the middle of the map except through a bridge for each one. There are low-ground expansions adjacent to each start, although the 6's expansion is a little farther and less easily defended than the others'. There are also 4 other expansions arranged in a box in the center of the map, and a low-ground expansion accessible by a narrow high-ground walkway in the top center.
Too bad most of that info won't matter for this game :). My opponents were going to be b'dragon and some clan guy {clanname}killa and my partner was going to be something-Boy. As you probably can tell from the last sentence, the clan guy and so-and-so Boy left before the game could start, so our 2v2 became 1v1.
In a stroke of luck, both of us spawned into the top corner starts (or so I found out). I was Terran in top right, and as my scout peon finds out, he was zerg. Instead of a wallin I built my depot next to my CC, and the first rax above it in position to block off part of the refinery exits and speed my gas intake - a trick I found out about on this wonderful site (anyone got any chapstick?). I went with 2 rax and gas, then academy. When my scout peon (peon #10) found dragon, he had a single hatch, was halfway into his pool and just starting on an extractor. I put a few marines behind my depot line (now 2 going on 3) which ran just below the 2 rax and got an ebay while the academy built. But no lings arrived to spoil my day.
To keep him from scouting me, I put some marines on either wall to deflect his lords, and planted a couple at the ramp to warn of lings. When I had a dozen marines I went to see what I could do to him. Sneaking the original scout peon back in I found 4 sunkens arranged in a row near his pool and hatch, but his extractor and some of the drones were out of their protective range. I marched the marines into his base, diverting 4 in groups of 2 to hit his 2 overlords that were hovering at his walls. One died but the other managed to get over the water that the bridge ran over and lived with about 8 HP left. The acad had just finished stim, but rather than wait for him to get his peons protected (while I waited for medics to arrive) I stimmed the remaining marines and ran them behind the minerals. Only two lived through the sunken attacks, but they took out about 4 drones before lings managed to get around the minerals to take them out. Meanwhile, I built my comsat, a factory, and sent an SCV to expand to the 4 oclock start, because I'd completely forgotten about the low-ground expansion right next to me :). A quick comsat showed dragon developing a lair. Ah, the infamous lurker "rush" (at this point in the game most of the gosu players wouldn't exactly call it a rush :) ), or so I thought. But no den within comsat range. So even as I built a starport, I threw up a few turrets and got a vulture and some mines to go with the one or two tanks I'd built. He still hadn't scouted me yet, and my expansion at 4 was beginning to ramp up production.
When the expected lurkers never arrived, I comsatted him again. Instead of burrowed lurks, I see a pair of mutas hanging around. Unexpected, yes, but I've got about a dozen marines who've been upgraded to 1-1, and 3 medics just hanging around. Having some extra minerals (Macroing is not exactly my specialty) I threw up a few more turrets, just to distract the mutas. And start scouting for his expansions. I sent out most of the marines to scout the center and the other starts. Sure enough, just as I finish the extra turrets and the marines have left he sends about 8 mutas in to try and raid my peon line. I only had about 5 marines left, but with the loss of 2 turrets and all the marines I fend them off (only one muta survives). He tries one more muta raid, but I'm pumping marines from my barracks and am mining gas and minerals from both my bases. My marine scout force doesn't find him anywhere - because I'd forgotten about the mid-top expansion :). Yes, folks, shaking the rust off can be a good thing :). Since I didn't find him, I sent the marines to attack his main, thinking I'd successfully contained him. He had another dozen mutas at his main, so the poor marines got slaughtered (although economically the lost mutas he suffered were probably a slightly more expensive loss). And I started comsatting again, knowing he had to have at least one expansion running. That's when I discovered the top middle expansion, and it was running full bore, much to my chagrin.
However, I knew what he was up to. And he didn't know what I was doing (if you were to watch the game you might wonder if I knew what I was doing ;) ). AND, he didn't attack - I guess my early marine attacks put him in a defensive mindset. Taking advantage of my comsat intel, I started pumping goliaths and getting Charon Boosters, boosted my marine corps, and built 2 more starports, for a total of 3. I had just finished building my science facility and threw on a physics lab. Since my macroing sucked, I once again had extra minerals to burn, so I expanded to the 6 oclock and my just-discovered low-ground expansion (oh, I have an expansion! Shee-it! I can't believe I forgot about it!). Oddly enough, the map would have looked like I was the zerg and he was the terran - since my comsats revealed he'd taken only the top-middle and his low-ground natural expansions. Here was the zerg bottled up in a corner, while I'd overrun 2 edges of the map.
Since he wasn't inclined to attack, I figured I would expand again. I expanded to the 8 oclock start, so I controlled all the starts except his. I built some six turrets at each one, just to delay the attackers until my air force could arrive. An air force which at the time consisted of 6 scivessels with irradiate, 2 valks, 1 BC, and half a dozen wraiths. I had 3 'ports going - one building valks only, one building BC's, and one alternating between BC's and Scivessels. And one armory upgrading my air (currently at 2-1). Let's say it once more - Zed is NOT the macro god :).
Another force of marines get sent out on patrol - I figure as long as I keep him contained I can build my air force in peace. They don't find any other expansions. So I decide to throw them at his main. I move-clicked them towards his main so they could gather together before sending them in, and as they head there some purple boxes go by in the minimap. A quick click, and it's 4 lurkers running by. I get the marines to try and attack them, but only the tailing few are in range and he immediately buries them. Rather than wasting a comsat and the rines on the spines, I try my little end-around trick again to get to his extractor and drones. Now, I've mined out my main at this point, but he's still got about 1/4 of his minerals left at his. Even though 6 marines make it through this time, the mutas take them out before they can kill more than 1 drone. The lurkers meanwhile, continue on to my expansion at 4, which I find out he scouted when he tried to send a drone there to expand.
This expansion had no defense except a couple turrets and 3 valks, but instead of going into the peon line or backing up his lurkers with mutas, he stopped at the edge of the depots I'd built there and started trying to kill the buildings. This gave me enough time to send 4 of my SV's down and irradiate all of his lurks. I lost one depot and a single SCV.
In the meantime, I'd decided to try a raid of my own while I continued to build my air corps - now upped to 3-2 and consisting of 6 BC's, 10 SV's, and 6 valks. So I sent 8 goliaths and 3 SV's to the 8 oclock start (my most recent expansion). In the meantime, I sent an SCV and 8 marines and 3 medics to the top middle expansion. Keeping them out of sight, I built a bunker and turret on the high-ground, at the lower edge of the walkway, which was just in range of the extractor. Sort of a turbo-newbie, but more of a distraction than anything. While the bunker built, I sent 2 SV's to join the marines. As soon as it was done, I stimmed the marines, put 4 in the bunker and put the rest on hold position right next to it. 2 control groups of mutas came over and made short work of the marine group, although between the directed fire of the rines and a few irradiates he lost half his force. My vessels escaped, the marines became part of the illustrious group of men known as Cannon Fodder.
The idea, though, was to draw his forces away from his natural expansion. And it worked for the most part. I D-matrixed 6 of my 8 goliaths and marched into his natural. I managed to kill most of the drones and destroy the extractor before his mutas could return again. And then when they did I still killed off another 6 mutas (he had a couple sunkens which some of the goly's got distracted by). Of course, the SV's escaped again.
By now I had 9 BC's, 12 SV's, and 7 valks. All upped 3-3 and the SV's with energy upgrades. A comsat had revealed a hive, so I knew guards and devos were inevitable, but I thought I was ready. And just in time, too - the "base under attack" signal pops up, and it's the 8 oclock base. About 8-10 guardians had ripped into it. Rather than sending my whole air corps all the way to that base, I sent 2 of the valks, since I didn't see any backup and I had the other 2 expansions going strong. Instead I moved on his top middle expansion. The cry of "motherfucker" appears on the screen when he sees what's coming his way.
All the BC's were Dmatrixed. The valks did an end-around coming up from the south and started hitting his lords, which were clustered behind his mutas/devos/guards. The SV's irradiated anything that was in a cluster. His air force was wiped out in less than a minute, and in a desperate attempt to salvage something he tries to fly his guardians past my air force to hit my main. But there is just too much there for them, and they get picked off as they fly by. The other 8-10 guardians that were hitting 8 had moved south to start attacking 6 oclock, but there were only a couple left of the original group and the valks were about to finish them off. B'dragon immediately conceded. The battle might have been closer if he'd scouted me at all towards the end - he'd turned so many of his mutas into guardians that he left himself vulnerable to a counterattack - a counterattack that I'd had time to prepare because I HAD scouted and known exactly what he was up to.
All of which most of you already know how to do :). But for those of you who have crept over from Battle.net's forum, well, some of this might be new to you ;).
This has been a Syndrome_Zed non-production. |
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