Prelude: The Setting of the Stage

Everyone gets the probes mining away, and set up their respective first pylons at around the same time. Mercury and Phong scout each other, and Mercury goes on to scout Mommy. Mommy and myself do no scouting, trusting to luck and that one tried and (usually) true FFA strategy: if you don't bother others, they're less likely to bother you.

But build orders begin to diverge right off the bat. Phong and I follow up our pylons with the customary gateway. (at twelve and ten psi, respectively) Mercury and Mommy have something else in mind.

Is it just me, or are people more likely to take excessive risks in a free for all? I suppose it's understandable -- sound play doesn't really apply when the odds are three to one against you -- but still. Anyway, both Mercury and Mommy expand right off the bat, immediately following their first pylons. In doing so they are both consigning themselves to helplessness in the very early game. If the keep-to-yourself strategy is established on the part of all players, the gamble will pay off as the increased income begins to pour in. If things start getting dicey, though, it could be a very different story, especially if their expansions are noticed. (which they were within minutes -- by everyone except me, anyway)

I follow my initial gateway up with another pylon and an assimilator (I usually put off my second gateway until I have enough income to support production from both without stunting my tech), while Phong buids a second gateway immediately. We both begin building zealots. Mercury, trying to get his defense up before anyone can take advantage of his naked expansion, also gets two gateways running. He has paid a price in probes for this, however, with only 13 to his name. Mommy starts his own gateway quite late, beginning it just as Mercury's finishes, and just as Phong and I disgorge our first zealots.

Phong and Mercury both tried to scout me after this; their probes duked it out for a few seconds just outside my ramp, then disengaged and headed in. They were summarily executed for insubordination by one of my shiny-new zealots.

Mommy and Mercury's respective expansions come on-line unmolested. Mercury maynards a few probes down from his main; Mommy doesn't, but does take the time to build an assimilator and cybernetics core in his main. He does not yet have a single military unit, and appears to be trying to rapidly tech. A second assimilator goes up at his natural.

Mercury begins to fortify his natural, and I move four zealots to my center choke in preparation to take my own. Everyone except Mommy has a forge now, and cannon defense won't be far behind on anyone's part.

Meanwhile, the direction of Mommy's seemingly insane build begins to take shape. A stargate begins forming at his main, and is quickly followed by two others. I take a different tack at my own main, going for a robotics facility and the all-holy observer in my customary obsession with recon. Mercury, far behind on tech, has finally started a cycore. And last but not least, Phong expands. Curiously, he expands not to his natural, but to his mineral-only.

The set is now complete, and the stage crew may withdraw.

Update:

Before moving on to first blood, a quick synopsis of where the players all stand. Both Mercury and Mommy have half-functioning expansions. Mercury's is fairly well defended with three zealots and two cannons; it will not be easy to dislodge. His early risk appears to have paid off. Mommy's expansion, on the other hand, is still naked. It survives only on the mercy of his opponents. But his three stargates are nearly finished, and if they complete, he will have air units at his disposal against enemies ill-equiped to deal with them.

Phong has a well-defended ramp and an expansion starting at his mineral only. Other than that, his position is unremarkable.

I myself have medium tech and currently the most substantial ground force: five zealots, and two goons in production. I have no expansion.

Act 1: First Blood

At around the same time Mommy's stargates finish, my first scouting probe runs headlong into his defenseless expansion. Taking my first gamble of the game, I leave my base defenseless and send my five zealots and one dragoon to destroy the expansion before it can be fortified. I order my probe into Mommy's main to look for defenses just in case; I'd rather retreat than face a pyrric victory.

It finds nothing.

I can't believe my luck, and send my probe on a slightly wider search for defenses. I find Mommy's three stargates, and beside them the purpose of his rapid build: a fleet beacon. I thank whatever deity told me to scout here first -- before the inevitable carriers had a chance to arrive on my doorstep, as his main is right next to mine -- and proceed to burn Mommy's expansion to the ground.

As his expansion falls, Mommy finally deigns to start building zealots at his main. He has two by the time I chew through his natural, and pulls his probes off to aid the defense as I mount the ramp to finish him.

In an astounding act of tactical stupidity on my part, I allow my zealots to get tangled up in his probes during the battle. Naturally, they try to go after Mommy's zealots, totally uncomprehending of the fact that there are eighty billion probes in the way.

I lose my small army to the resultant pathing stupidity, but not before causing some damage to his economy courtesy of destroyed probes. Unbeknownst to me, Mommy's first carrier arrives shortly after my last zealot falls.

Still, things are looking good at home. My two gateways have been steadily producing during the battle, and my natural is guarded by several zealots and goons. I finally decide to take the jump. I throw up a third gateway, then expand, making me the last player to do so.

Mercury chooses this point to make his first agressive move of the game. He loads a shuttle up with several probes and sends it north to the northeast plateu, above Phong's natural. He drops one or two, and several pylons begin warping in. He takes the shuttle and sends it in an arc to the south, where it eventually reaches me.

The shuttle overshoots my natural's ledge and is seen; I start to sweat. I don't know what Mercury has in mind, but if I'm forced to cancel my nexus, I'm going to have a serious economy problem before too long. I check my robotics facility and start building a shuttle, praying to heathen gods that it finishes quickly.

He drops a probe on my cliff, and starts getting pylons up. The first cannons begin warping in, and a few seconds afterward my shuttle pops out. I propel its sorry, sluggish, annoyingly non-upgraded ass in the general direction of my forces and load up four zealots. They drop right on top of a just-started cannon and quickly finish it. I kill the probe, then head south along my cliff, taking out several finished cannons. A second drop of two zealots and a dragoon takes out the last two. Satisfied that my natural is secure, I begin probe production and maynard a few probes over.

Act 2: The "Great" Fleet

Meanwhile, Mercury has sent the shuttle onward and begun the same setup above Mommy's natural. Not knowing this, Mommy tries to expand there again, his nexus going up at about the same time as Mercury's pylons. Mercury has also set up cannons above Phong's natural, but they have nothing to fire at. Phong's choice of expansion points begins to seem somewhat less illogical, as he doesn't need to try and retake the cliff yet. The cannons do, however, prevent a zealot-carrying shuttle from making it to Mercury's main peon line.

The cannons above Mommy's natural finish, but the nexus there isn't quite in range. The peon line is, though, and Mercury plays cannon tag with Mommy's probes for a couple of minutes. The game is short-lived, however, as Mommy's tech choice is finally starting to pay off. Four carriers make their slow way northward and reduce Mercury's cannons to rubble.

As far as I know, this was the first Mercury knew of the carriers, and he immediately starts building a Citadel of Adun; presumably teching to Dark Archons. He also began a second expansion at the southeast island. My own observer has already witnessed the carriers, and with Mommy practically on my doorstep, I am understandably worried. I move the majority of my dragoon force to the west side of my main and begin building my own DAs just as Mercury's offensive cannons fall. I also prepare to expand to my mineral-only, and quietly do so during the battle.

Mommy isn't quite ready to make his move against me yet. He sends his carriers northward instead of coming in my direction. Somewhere along the line Phong has dropped a token force on the northwest island. In a stroke of bad luck, he starts building a nexus there just as Mommy's carriers arrive. As carriers > zealots, Phong's fledgeling expansion rapidly becomes a crematorium.

...but if you took a look at the minimap to the right, you'll note that Phong has a little payback in mind. He has not been significantly harassed at all so far, and hasn't bothered anyone else either. He's had plenty of time to get up to no good. And no good it is: as his new expansion breathes its last gasp, a long string of speed-upgraded zealots with token dragoon support makes its way across the map and storms into Mommy's natural like a drunken horde of biker punks. Ignoring the pea shooters of Mommy's new, half-full carriers, they gangrape the expansion for the second time this game and head full tilt for Mommy's main. Mommy turns his outlying fleet around and sends it back home, but the carriers are pitifully slow about it.

With the carriers nipping at their heels, Phong's zealots go about the dirty business of ripping into Mommy's main. They don't seem particularly coordinated about it, though, with several small groups of two or three attacking several different buildings. In all, not much of Mommy's main goes down before the carriers manage to pick Phong's force apart, but his economy is completely destroyed. Mommy is left with a grand total of six hundred minerals and five probes. And, of course, his carrier fleet.

A single blue corsair arrives on the scene, perhaps angry at the slaying of its comrades, and begins taking potshots at one carrier before being informed of that eternal inequasion, 8 carriers > 1 corsair.

With everything lost but honor, Lookatmemommy turns his fleet southerly and prepares to smash me to rubble. I have an observer watching; I know it's coming. On the other side of the map, a large army consisting mainly of dragoons leaves Mercury's natural and heads for the center. Once again I start to sweat. My main force is pinned to my left flank by the carrier threat and cannot move. If Mercury's army heads my direction, I'm finished. I brace for impact and pray.

Someone out there must have answered, because just as the carriers slam into my main, Mercury's force moves to attack...Phong! Yes, in true kick-a-man-while-he's-down fasion, Mercury moves in to Phong's mineral-only and obliterates it.

I'm unaware of this at the time, of course. I'm nervously watching my mineral-only for incursions when Mommy's nine fully-loaded carriers arrive, and I meet them with about twenty dragoons...and three Dark Archons. I back the archons off slightly and try to clone mind control on three carriers. Naturally, since the carriers are just on the other side of the cliff, my archons head for my ramp and try to go around. I spare a few seconds to swear at the pathing routines as my dragoons start to fall and quickly move my DAs back toward the battle. Once I'm in range I do the mind control thing the old fasioned way. A third of Mommy's fleet is now mine.

The rest of the battle is academic. A second wing of dragoons worms its way to the scene, and the remainder of Mommy's fleet is destroyed. For maximum irony, I take the one remaining stolen carrier and patrol it into Mommy's base, where it takes random potshots at the buildings for the next ten minutes.

Meanwhile, to the north, Phong takes a hastily rebuilt zealot force and rear-ends Mercury's army just after his mineral-only falls. They aren't numerous enough to do more than minor damage, though, and Mercury mops up the expansion, then withdraws. Phong also has about ten corsairs, but with no fleet beacon in sight and the only other air units having just been annaihilated, the corsairs are essentially worthless.

Act 3: The Secret of Blue Ooze

Mommy's evil carriers of doom have been destroyed. Battered but unbowed, he quietly begins yet another nexus at his natural. He also noisily informs everyone else that I stole all nine of his carriers and exhorts them to attack me. No one buys it, of course, and a bit of laughter is had by all, including Mommy himself. (these pictures were all taken from the replay, so I have no shots of this, but he said something along the lines of "well, I have to get something out of my miserable death.")

Phong has had his economy crippled, but isn't giving up. He re-expands to his mineral-only. Neither he nor Mommy have any real prospects of affecting the game anymore, though; it's clear that any further action will be between Mercury and myself.

That action isn't long in coming. Mercury moves his force to the center again, where it is joined by more goons and about half a dozen dark archons. I scramble my defenses and try to cram my own goons down my ramp and out to my mineral only. The two forces collide at the southern edge of the temple, and within moments a river of that magic blue goo begins to flow. Surprisingly, Mercury doesn't make much use of his DAs; I think he believed I still had several of Mommy's carriers and was waiting for them to show up. In spite of that, superior numbers force me to back off, and my goons retreat to my cramped cannon line. Mercury follows, and goons on both sides continue to drop. Eventually the forces are reduced to the point where focus-firing is viable, and I take advantage of that and an upgrade advantage to overpower the last of his army. Five battered dragoons stand victorious in a sea of cybernetic semen.

A collective repositioning follows. Most of Mercury's DAs have survived, and they join his fresh reinforcements at home. He maynards probes to his mineral only and begins a nexus there. Meanwhile the long-distance mining probes get tangled up in the reinforcements that are moving to protect the fresh expansion.

As for me, I throw up three extra gateways at my mineral-only so I don't have to cram new units down my ramp and across my natural. I also send a single dark templar to check on Mommy. It stumbles across his new, and again undefended natural. My dark templar does what dark templar in peon lines usually do, and ends any hope of Mommy getting back into the game. With only a single probe at home and not enough minerals to build a new nexus at his natural, he's finished.

...Naturally, he stays to comment on the remainder of the battle anyway, and my DT hangs around his natural because I can't be bothered to send it into his main. (which the lone carrier from earlier is still slowly trashing, BTW.)

Meanwhile, Phong has his mineral only up and running again, but with Mercury's force right on his doorstep, he knows it won't last. In a last desperate strike, he sends about a dozen zealots in to try and take out Mercury's still forming mineral-only.

Those zealots proceed to run like hell as soon as he realizes that 1. there are at least a dozen and a half goons defending, and 2. four cannons just finished warping in at the base. There appears to be some confusion, though. Phong's zealots retreat only about half a screen and mill around aimlessly while Mercury's dragoons sit there taking free shots. The zealots are rapidly, as some Christian once put it, "promoted to glory." Or, more likely to anti-glory. I'm sure the protoss god wasn't exactly impressed by that display of intelligence.

Mercury follows up by crushing Phong's mineral-only -- again -- and brings in several shuttles to ship forces up the cliff. He is forced to abort the mission, though, as I choose this moment to try and dislodge him from his own mineral-only. Again, this is mostly a dragoon battle, and again there is plenty of blue goo coating the ground. I gain an early advantage, as Mercury has lost time and units razing Phong's expansion. The advantage doesn't last long, though. This time, Mercury actually &ltgasp> makes use of his dark archons; and when a second wing of goons arrive I am forced to retreat back across the center. Mercury doesn't follow, and I breathe a sigh of relief, seeing as I don't have any reinforcements yet.

While this is going on, Phong decides to make use of his ten worthless corsairs to destroy the only remaining military air unit on the board, the carrier that's been pounding on Mommy for the last ten minutes. It seems that while 8 carriers > 1 corsair, as the class learned earlier, the opposite is also true: 8 corsairs > 1 carrier. The corsairs' former comrade is thus avenged. I hold a funeral for the lost carrier crew and bury them in my main...well, the bits and pieces that fall from the carrier, anyway.

I start pumping goons from my six gateways; Mercury starts pumping from four. We also both send a single DT into Mommy's main to finish him off -- not that it's really necessary. The two DTs start to hack through Mommy's buildings...right next to each other. Neither of them ever saw the other. I didn't even know Mercury had a DT there himself until I watched the replay. O_o

Anyway. Mercury is determined to pick the parasite named Phong off the back of his ass, and ships about ten goons up the cliff to do so. He loses a shuttle on the way in and another on the way out, but the goons are well behind Phong's cannon defenses and quickly begin tearing shit up.

I send about twelve goons en route to Mommy's main to finish him off in much the same manner, but as soon as he sees them he mentions their presense to everyone, ranting about my massive goon force. Needless to say, I turn right around and high tail it before Mercury can take advantage of my missing goons. He seems busy with other things, though -- he expands to what's left of Phong's mineral only, with his nexus placed oddly to the north of the patches. I think this was in the hopes that I wouldn't notice it. Too bad I had an observer sitting right there. Mercury also tries to force Phong's ramp, but it is thoroughly blocked by cannons. He backs off and instead ships six more goons up to the rear of Phong's main. I guess he didn't think he was wrecking it fast enough.

Almost as an afterthought, Mommy finally leaves the game as the two enemy DTs go to work on his last building. Woo! Mercury and I were allies and never even knew it. ;)

In response to Mercury's expansion attempt, I start nexii at Mommy's natural (which he never did manage to mine significantly) and mineral only. I send about twelve goons to guard the mineral only and move the rest of my force to the center. Time to finish this.

I send my twelve goons from Mommy's mineral only to hit Mercury's nexus at Phong's mineral only. (is this confusing enough yet?) I'm going to get flanked; I know I'm going to get flanked. So the rest of my goons stay a bit to the rear, just east of that little peninsula, to prevent Mercury from pinning my force in there.

The first shots are fired at the still-warping nexus. Bang. Flank. Several of my rearguard goons are mind controlled to start off with, and during the resultant disarray Mercury sends in his defenders. The rearguard holds them off while the goons attacking the nexus backpedal furiously to join the fight. I also send the remainder of my troops from home. Mercury's defenses seem somehow weaker than they should be; I overpower them with minimal losses and advance through the 3 o'clock mineral-only. What I don't know at the time is that almost half of his army is in Phong's main. Mercury's persistant attack on Phong proves a fatal mistake. The thirteen wayward dragoons have a defensive value of exactly zero, and with only three shuttles he can't ship them back fast enough to make a difference. Mercury's mineral-only falls in short order.

Mercury now has only one money base remaining -- the southeast island -- and it has only four half-used mineral patches to mine from. Expansion anywhere else is virtually impossible with my army now in full control of the mainland, and it's only a matter of time before a doom drop arrives to overwhelm the island. Knowing this, Mercury capitulates.

Phong and I exchange a few comments on the game, and then he surrenders too. He has an expansion being set up at the northwest island, but without the battle between me and Mercury to consider, there's not much hope of its survival; particularly considering that Mercury did a pretty thorough job of trashing his main.

And that's a wrap. It would probably have lasted longer had Mercury's goons not been out of position, but as it is the elapsed time was 37 minutes.

Player of the Game: Lookatmemommy

Okay, yeah, this is an odd choice. Bad defense, suicidal strat, only one attack all game, which got blasted...but he gets player of the game for sheer tenacity. He never gave up no matter how hopeless his position was, and was still trying to get back into the game long after most people would have surrendered.

Lessons Learned

• BRing takes way more effort than I thought. ;-)
• Bizzare strats aren't necessarily unviable, especially in a free for all when there's a good chance you'll go unnoticed.
• Upgrades are GOOD. In the last few fights my goons were 3/2/3, where Mercury's were 1/1/2. This helped immensely. Triple forging helps a lot once you have the money for it.
• When attacking, either use the minimum necessary force or the maximum possible force. Half measures take too long and takes too much from your main army or fleet.
• On a similar note, don't split your forces unless you're sure you can handle the pressure. It stands to be noted that I made the same "mistake" that Mercury did, except I got away with it. Admittedly I didn't have much choice about it at the time, but that doesn't change the fact that if he'd attacked me instead of Phong, I wouldn't have been there to report on the rest of the battle.
• Air-only attackers are worthless when there's nothing in the air to attack.
• DTs from opposite teams can cooperate if they don't see each other. ;-)
• If the guy who just got killed is ranting about his killer's massive army, he's not necessarily lying.
• Don't do a free for all on Lost Temple as your first battle report.
• Don't make it all-protoss if you do.

And now for the scores.

And that's pretty much it. Comments welcome. If I screwed something up, let me know and I'll correct it.

--

Eyeglazer, Lord of Boredom.