"But he lags like a government worker"
-VRAM1974
|
| Moon vs Hotdog, game 1 of 7 | | | Author: | | | IP: | marx.ti.XXXX | | Date: | 08/08/01 05:08 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Gorgeous(1), Series(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 4, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for (...Blaze...): 8.8750 |   |
BattleReports.com
The following
is the introduction, if you want pure, hard-core action
and no pre-game bullshit, just skip the following
paragraph.
This is the story about two
friends, both totally addicted to sc, who decides to
duke it out for a best of 7 at a LAN. Or well, if I
manage to make this any good, it will become a best of
7:)
So, about now you are probably thinking something
like; woha, another bgh gang, or another lost temple
boredom. Sorry, wrong place. All games are on non-lt
maps, 6 different maps to be accurate. And now
you are probably thinking..."wow, who cares, I've heard
this crap before, the players probably suck
anyway".
Well, I'm not gonna say that the players are
the world's greatest, but let me give you their story:
Back in 95-96 or something, there was a little game
called Warcraft II:Tides of darkness. There was an
operating system called DOS. And there was two guys who
was addicted to wc2. I mean seriosly, they just kept
playing it again and again. They never got really good,
since they only played vs comp and each other a few
times. But then, after a year or two, this weird game
called Starcraft showed up in the store. Well, these two
guys had never heard of it before, but hey, it had this
cute little blue "blizzard" sign on it, and "craft" in
the name. They bought it, and well, been playing it
since. They got online about bw season two, like, 1999
or something. And well, still playing sc a lot, they
should be kinda good now, right?
In their world,
matrixed marine tricks is as common as stim pack, or
well, they don't really work due to lurker control,
micromanagement is more heavily involved than micro wars
vs POA, macromanagement is better than on BGH. A mistake
is dangerous - two is crippling - three is
death.
Addendium; both guys picked their races
shortly after playing the game for the first time; thus;
..()HotDog[5] is really terran only player, while
[Moon~cia] is really zerg only player.
Pre-game bullshit done, report starts
here:) Also note that english is not my natural
language, my photoshop reg is not Testosterone, and my
3dsMAX version is not stored on
\\Breeze\c\3dsmax.
Player info:
Hotdog without doubt the most serious
player, he usually picks his favourite race, and plays
in kor-namomo or on gamei, he tries his best all his
games. He is very quick, and I mean seriously very
quick. I watched Slayer play, and Hotdog is just as
quick, if not quicker. He also has a very good
micro/macro game, and personally I think if he put a few
hours daily into the game, he would be pro in a
month.
Moon, on the other hand, is just as good, but
he plays less serious. He randoms, do stupid strats, and
he plays in a belgian clan (cia), just because it's fun.
He takes the game in good fun, but when he puts some
efforts in it, he also is a very skilled player. Moon is
getting quicker, he cannot match Hotdog yet, but he is
comming there. He also has very good micro and
macro.
Overall, both these guys are very skilled
players, clearly among the higher level on battle.net
generally. Also, both players promised to do their best
for these games.
G a m e I : the first
encounter
Map : rivalery
 Hotdog landed as chosen
terran top left, while Moon
spawned chosen zerg bottom left. Both players performed
a perfect clone, and Moon sendt his initial
overlord against the bottom right main. Hotdog started of with a pretty
standard supply-rax-rax-supply build, going for the
strong m&m opening, while Moon wanted some early speedling,
and did a pool-gas-lings-hatch in main build. Hotdog did some weird scouting, he
sendt his scv against Moon's
main, but upon finding the expansion empty, he sendt the
scv to check the two other positions, and then finally
sending it to the right spot again.
By now, Moon had about 10 speedling ready,
and he wasted no time in sending them against Hotdog's main. Unfortunately for
Moon, Hotdog was more than ready with his
4 marines and 2 scv defence, and after one ling died,
they went into "containment" at Hotdogs exp. After a few second,
Moon thought about it, and
left one ling outside the chocke, while the rest moved
to the top middle exp. Moon
also started a hatch at his natural, but this was kinda
late, all troops Moon had was
the few lings, and Hotdog's
academy just finished, was researching stim, and the
first two medics arived. After another two medics arrive
and stim is nearly complete, Hotdog moves out with a strong
m&m force, while Moon's
hatch is still 300 hp away from being finished. It's
time for some Moon micro
here:)
When the little zergling Moon placed to warn about enemy
forces, is hit by marine fire, Moon react quicly and moves the
little bugger a bit away. Since none of the marines is
hit or stimmed, the medics does that stupid thing and
leaves their friends the marines. So Moon's zergling take some hits at
the medics, then run when the marines come. This works
for a few seconds, but then Hotdog's stim upgrade is done, and,
sadly, 1 ling does bad against 12 stimmed rines. Now
Hotdog moves his army against
Moon's expansion, but Moon takes the few remaining
zerglings and sends them into Hotdog's main, forcing Hotdog to stim and run back. The
'lings prove to be very cost effective, killing 5-6
stray marines before dying to stimmed rines. But now
Moon is happy, his exp is
well defended with 3 sunkens, his hydra den is complete,
and the first hydras are just spawning. He also kills
three stupid medics who thought his base would be a nice
place to chill.
Moon's small ling strike. *math* 6
lings kills 4 marines. Thats +50$ for Moon:)
So
everything seems happy in Moon world. But hey, Hotdog is far from out of the game.
He kept the macro up during the ling battle in his main,
and even added a 3rd barracks and a factory. Shortly
after, he moves out with a large m&m&f force
(~20), and starts an expansion at his natural, maybe to
combat Moon's newly started
2nd exp at middle bottom. The marines walk down against
Moon's expansion, taking the
left side of the map. At the zerg expansion, there are
~12 hydralisks patiently waiting, and when a little ling
force is killed by marine fire, they form a semi-circle
in front of the bridge. This seems like a good idea, but
Hotdog controlls a superior
force, and the hydralisks is soon called back to the
relatievly safety of the sunken colonies. Hotdog just places his marines in
front of the bridge, easily blocking zerg movements
above the two upper bridges. Moon can not choose to flank him,
because without the hydralisk support at the expansion,
the marines will decimate it in seconds, and both
players know it.
Moon
told me he felt kinda good about the game at this
moment, his economy was constantly increasing due to his
new 6 bottom middle expansion, and he was morphing 3
hatch hydras to battle the contstantly reinforced
marines. There was a few skirmishes, where a few hydras
died, then pulled back. But the stalemate wouldn't last
long, Hotdog's first siege
tank was on its way, his expansion was finished, and
Moon was still producing mass
hydras, outproducing Hotdog's
3 barracks marines. The stalemate would break, very
soon.
And it did. Hotdog moved a large reinforcement
force consisting of 2 tanks and ~10 m&m down against
the siege. Combined with the existing marines, this
would own any medium-sized hydralisk force badly. But
Moon saw this with a scouting
ling, and send a few (~10) ling, flanking the force just
as it passed Hotdog's
expansion. Hotdog microed out
of this little strike with a few marine losses, but at
the same time Moon launched a
attack with ~20 hydras against Hotdog's dwindling containment
force.
Hotdog gets his first tank, but
Moon pushes him back across
the bridge.
The terran troops
retreated back across the bridge, where they were
finally reinforced with tanks and more marines. Moon realized that the bridge
adventage was to great, and fell back a bit, while
starting on lurker tech. Hotdog added a science vessel to
his forces, along with more barracks and dual enginering
bays at home.
Now a minor battle occured, Hotdog tried to push against Moon's expansion again, but now
Moon had the bridge on his
side, and ~15 hydras sendt the marine/tank force back
across the bridge pretty fast. So now we have a new
stalemate, Hotdog can't come
over the bridge, and neither can Moon. They can't go around the map
and flank either, because then the opposite force will
attck their main. So Hotdog
justs starts a nude expansion at the middle left exp,
while Moon start one at the
bottom right main, where a scv, property of Hotdog, starts a bunker, and
another scv, also property of Hotdog, starts a
barrack.
Shortly after, Hotdog pushes across the bridge,
but only controls 3 marines, a vessel, a tank and 5-6
medics when he has scared away the hydra force. Moon realizes this, and kills the
small force before reinforcements arrive. And again,
both parts is stuck on opposite sides of a bridge. But
Moon, getting sick of this,
takes ~12 hydras and moves against Hotdog's base, following the left
path. He finds Hotdogs' still
nude expansion, and destroys the command center quickly.
Moon also kills Hotdog's empty bunker and the
barracks next to his 5 o'clock hatchery with two
hydras.
Note: even thought
neither player has the firepower to cross the bridge,
they kept running back and forth, testing their
opponent's forces. One mistake and the game can end in
seconds.
The small hydra force that
destroyed the 9 o'clock command center tries to assault
Hotdog's natural, but
unfortunately, 12 hydras don't stand much chance against
~30 m&m, the result of a six barracks pump. Hotdog, realizing he has the
temporarly adventage, starts a command center at the
upper right main.
 |
|
0. Hola senõr, map
update!
1. Moon's hydras destroying
Hotdog's nude command
center.
2. Two of Moon's hydras killing Hotdog's bunker.
3. Hotdog's just started top
right expansion
4. Hydras and marines fighting
over the
bridge
|
Sadly,
the building scv is killed by a zergling, who continue
to hit on the command center. Moon starts a hatchery at the
middle right expansion, and also morphs 4 lurkers at his
natural expansion.
By now, Hotdog decides he don't need more
of this sim city game, and moves out with ~30 m&m,
twin vessels, and a siege tank. Thus, the first really
large battle is about to take place. Hotdog gathers his troops at the
bridge that has been fought so hard over, and he is
happy to notice that his 1/1 upgrades kick in, while
Moon's hydralisks/lurkers is
still 0/0.
Now a lot of things happend. Hotdog does a small mistake and
moves his only tank first across the bridge, where it is
killed by hydras. Then the lurkers burrow at the bridge,
and Hotdog realizes that the
bridge is uncrossable with only m&m. He instead
takes all his marines and moves them down to the zerg
hatchery at the 6 o'clock position. This is lightly
defended by two sunkens, both are moved down
immediately. Moon, realizing
the importance of that expansion, moves his large hydra
force down to defend the expansion. He also uses his
drones to fight. For what seems like an eternity, two
large lines of m&m on one side, and hydras on the
other, are standing against each other, fighting
desperately for that oh'so'important expansion. The
battle seems to last forever, but finally, Hotdog casts matrix on two marines,
and with the medics franatically healing the marines,
the hydra line slowly crumble, decend, and
die.
Moon losing his army and his
expansion
A few hydras limp
away, while some heroic drones is left, spitting their
little acid stuff at the marines. When I now pause the
replay, and check the map, I am impressed to see that
while this heated battle was going on, a few scv's had
killed the zergling that was hitting on the top right
command center, 2/2 grades was started in Hotdog's base,the two hydras
guarding the bottom right hatchery had turned into
lurker eggs, a few drones was working on the middle
right minerals. Moon morped
the few surviving hydras from the huge battle into
lurkers, while Hotdog
eradicated every trace of the zerg expansion. (not the
creep of course)
The action is far from over,
both players knows the importance of momentium, and
Hotdog moves his
m&m/vessel force against Moon's bottom right expansion,
where 3 sunkens are morphing, and 2 lurkers burrow,
Moon strike the 2 o'clock
main command center with 8 hydras, which he morphs in to
lurkers when marine reinforcements arrive. At the exact
same time, Hotdog does the
"matrixed marine fool lurkers" thingy, and Moon's attention is elsewhere, so
before he can react, one of his lurkers is dead, and the
other wounded. I notice Moon
telling the last lurker to attack the marine group, but
sadly, it is badly wounded, and dies to fast from the
marine fire. Now Hotdog kills
of that exp too, and Moon is
left with his natural and the 3 o'clock expansion, which
is not yet operational.
Hotdog, also only controlling his
natural, starts a new expansion at the top middle
position, and uses his excess scv's from his main for
some long range mining. This expansion won't last long,
because Moon moves the
lurkers that destroyed the top right expansion here, and
burrows them next to the building command center. At the
same time, he makes his first serious attack, moving a
~20 hydra with 6 lurkers against Hotdog's natural. Hotdog has only m&m to defend,
but he has bridge adventage, and a bunker is covering
the bridge Moon has to cross.
Hotdog's marines has also
reaced 2/2 upgrades, while Moon is still at 0/0.
 |
|
0. Hola senõrita, map update
again!
1. Moon's former bottom middle
exp, just destroyed.
2. Another former Moon exp
3. New Moon expansion, 3 sunkens
morphing
4. Restarted Hotdog expansion, destroyed
by lurker earlier.
5. New Hotdog expansion.
6. The
setting for the large battle to come, Moon's forces on the
bridge.
|
Moon creeps over the bridge with
his lurkers, while Hotdog is
patiently waiting, he also has two tanks rolling in his
factory, he just need to hold back the swarm a little
longer. He kills a few hydras that wanted to follow
their friends the lurkers, and he takes potshots at the
lurkers whenever he has the chance. I noticed something
that I found very impressive with Hotdog's hit and run. He waited for
the lurker to hit on a supply depot, then he run stimmed
marines forward, and takes a few shots at the lurker,
then he run back when the spine cooldown is done, thus,
he don't lose a single marine. Moon's 4 lurker strike force who
killed most of the long range mining scv's at the top
middle position, is ordered to abandon the destroy
command center mission, and instead run right into Hotdog's natural, and burrow right
in front of a newly made tank.
Hotdog reacts quicly, and moves his
m&m force to combat the lurkers. The marines and the
lone tank kills of the lurkers without heavy losses, but
the last spine from the last lurker killed the
oh-so-needed tank. Down at the bridge, the situation has
changed. A lurker died from the bunker, but the hydras
has crossed the bridge, and the bunker is long gone. The
lurkers follow, and when the m&m force engage, most
of the marines die, and Hotdog is left with 1 bunker, a few
marines, and a lone tank to defend. Moon is also sending reinforcement
hydras, while Hotdog sends
back the marine force that killed the bottom right
expansion. Hotdog microes his
ass of, and with a matrixed tank, the reinforcing
marines, and a few produced marines, he manage to beat
back a much larger attack force. But the battle is not
over, Moon still has 4
lurkers and some hydras at Hotdog's natural, and he pushes
against Hotdog's chocke.
Hotdog is delaying his with
some marine micro, and finally, a tank arrive. Moon runs the 5 hydras across the
bridge to the top middle expansion, where Hotdog has finished his expansion
and started mining. Hotdog
tries to use the matrix trick to kill the lurkers
without losses, but Moon is
ready and manually controls the lurkers.
this is the largest
picture, I promise:)
Hotdog has his marines nicely
spread, so the lurkers die anyway. If you watch the
replay, you can clearly see that the lurkers attack the
marines not dmatrixed. The small zerg reinforcement
force (4 lurk/6 hydras), is chased away after two
lurkers dies to marine fire. Hotdog displayed great
micromanagement in the battle, where he was largely
outnumbered. Thus, he beat back the zerg menace, and
finally, 20 min into the game, for the first time, there
is no units fighting, no action going on, both players
takes some time to rebuild.
During the battle at
Hotdog's natural, Hotdog started and finished a
expansion at the top right position, and Moon rebuildt his middle bottom
expansion. The hydras sendt to top middle destroyed the
expansion there, and stayed there to interrupt an
assload of scv's, heading for the top right expansion.
Nedless to say, Hotdog
quickly killed them off with some marines, and soon got
his expansion running. Moon,
with only one depleted gas source, expanded agressivly,
taking bottom left and bottom left natural in short
order. Hotdog kills a few
drones at the middle rigth expansion with some marines,
but can't do more due to Moon's heavy 5 sunken
defence.
Now two tings happends at once. Hotdog moves a tank/marine/vessel
force and attacks Moon's
middle right expansion, while Moon send a large hydra/ling force
across the map to hit Hotdog's top right expansion. Hotdog quickly reinforces the
expansion with marines, and kills of the hydra/ling.
Unfortunately, Moon morphed 4
lurkers, and even worse, the hydras took the command
center with them to the grave. Hotdog kills one of the lurkers
before they burrow, then does some matrix fun again, and
despite Moon manually
controlling his lurkers, the lurkers are to few, and
die, taking most of the marines with them. During this,
Moon's middle right hatchery
is gone due to siege tank fire, but he got his 3 new
bottom expansions going, and is now producing units
hardcore.
 |
|
0. Hola senõra, another map
update!
1. Moon's small containment
force
2. Hotdog's
destroyed expansion
3. Also Hotdog's destroyed
expansion
4. Moon's
former expansion, under siege from Hotdog's troops.
5. New
Moon
expansions.
|
By
now the game is tipping in Moon's favour, with Hotdog long range mining, and Moon producing steady from 6
hatches. But Hotdog still
controls a pretty large force, consisting of
m&m/vessel and a few tanks. Combined with his
superior upgrades (2/2>0/0) and his close to godly
micromanagement skills, he still stand a very good
chance in this game. He moves his tank at the middle
right position closer to the 5 sunkens placed there, and
starts killing them. He also kills an annoying lurker
that was in the line of his long-range-mining scv's,
using 4 marines and the matrix trick again. Moon quickly takes control or the
lurker, but it dies before it can kill any of the 2/2
marines. Moon now starts
another expansion, this time at the middle left
position.
Growing tired of the lone tank
hammering on his sunkens, Moon orders his whole army against
the tank and its support force. Aprox ~40 hydra/ling and
two lurkers simply vaporizes the small strike force,
despite Hotdog's best efforts
with dmatrix. Moon's force
continues its push, and after killing most of Hotdog's mining scv's, they take
stand at the top middle expansion. The game is now
clearly in Moon's hands, and
it is only a question of time before Hotdog will be overrun. Hotdog makes a last effort by
killing the 4 lurkers blocking his bridge, then moving
his marines force against Moon's main. But he returns his
force quickly when he realizes that Moon has a ~40 hydra force only a
screen away from his main.
Now Moon is gonna end this, and he
sends his newly produced hydra force against the bottom
bridge of Hotdog's natural
I counted, 55 hydras:), while
he also attacks with the hydras stationed at the top
middle expansion. A grand total of about 100 hydras is
knocking on Hotdog's door,
and with his resources long since dry, his army
dwindling and his mouse arm getting tired, has no hope
of defeating this force, superior upgrades or not. To
make matters worse, Moon
morphs 10 hydras into lurkers in the middle of the
attack.
Well, that's some ownage
for you
Hotdog actually kills all the
hydras that came from the right (top middle expo), but
when he turn around, he faces ~50 hydras from the other
side, and facing such superior numbers, Hotdog promptly surrenders. Moon's zerg swarm is standing
victorious, raging over the creep-infested field of
rivalery.
After game
thoughts, and some stuff from the
players:
I initially
called this just another zerg vs terran game, but after
watching the replay a few times, I was just "hey! This
is one of the best zvt I've seen". This game was
constant fighting from the moment Hotdog moved his
m&m force down against Moon. Even when no major
battles was going on, they were both testing their
opponent's strength, or harassing somewhere, or
expanding or knocking down expansions. After the game, I
asked Moon a few questions, mainly about the lack of
higher tech units and upgrades. He told me that with
only one gas source, it was very hard to have any for
upgrades when he pumped constant hydras. When he got his
second gas, he was really in need of lurkers, so he had
to prioritize.
Also Hotdog could have used more tanks
to deny Moon the adventage hydras have on bridges, but
other than that, this game was very open, and could have
gone either way.
I chosed to not include scores,
because no one read them anyway, and then they just add
to report size.
Micromanagement vs
macromanagement:
Moon
seemed to rely more on large numbers to overrun his
opponent, but we saw some very nice zergling micro in
the beginning, and lurker control later on, to battle
the dmatrixed marine trick. He also knew the importance
of the bridges, and after he pushed Hotdog back across
the bridge, Hotdog never managed to push
back.
Hotdog, with better upgrades and less
resources, microed very well thru the whole game. He
kept pulling back wounded marines, and he used matrix
very well vs lurker and when he was outnumbered. He also
had very good knowledge of the bridge importance, and
exploited it as much as he could.
Both players
macroed very well, even in the most heated battles or
the most intense micro wars. They kept knocking down
important expansions, and setting up new ones for
themselves throughout the whole
game.
Download the replay.
You want this replay, it is constant actoin, and this
report just can't give the game justice. Also, if you
want to see the scored, you'll have to check them
here.
Standings: Moon : 1, Hotdog : 0.
6 games to go...
While
you are waiting, here is a sneak peak at the upcomming
games:
Finally, thank you all for
reading my report, the next game should be done soon,
and hell, give me some comments guys, I need some
feedback on this thing. Gogo comment whores:) Also, who
knows the name of the alt text
song??
(...Blaze...)
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