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"sorry for being premature, that's a bob thing" - CrackHeadJeb Small Divide: Advantage Terran View or Add Comments (# of comments thus far: 49) Author: plus2longsword IP: asc3-ip3XXXX Date: 05/10/02 05:05 Game Type: Starcraft Labels: none Categorize this report Report Rating: 8.0, # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8 Lifetime Rating for plus2longsword: 7.2143 I know how difficult it can be to improve at Starcraft. However, there have been some important resources developed. Battlereports.com for one. But you have to be careful what you choose to buy into here, as it may not be 100%reliable. Another is the addition of the Replay function. It is a good idea to look at games and see the way other people play. Even better is to examine your own games. When I first started we didn't have this feature. It was a long time coming, missed some great games I would have liked to save too. Hacking was all the rage back then, just like today. I know not why these poor souls crave victory so much as to actually cheat to do so. Such empty victories could provide little in the way of satisfaction. Sometimes, during a chess game over the net, I might become suspicions that my opponent is computer assisted. Despite this though, I'm never as worried about someone cheating against me in Chess as I am in Starcraft. I have drawn with Chess computers before, albeit rarely. Starcraft hackers are a much greater threat, however. It is not difficult to see what your opponent is doing and then simply building the counter. There is no magical catch-all unit. Someone here once told me that Dancing Goons beat Zealots (One of those instances of not 100% reliability). I wonder how he came by such information? The Ask Drefsab forum likely. That technique is useful for small skirmishes perhaps, and not at all if Leg Enhancement technology has been researched. Even if you were the Greek God of microing, it would still be foolhardy to rely on such tactics considering one special element in the gam: time. Not only is the Zealot cheaper, but it takes far longer to create a Dragoon than it does a Zealot(note, those bastards at Blizzard never bothered to update their compendium after 1.08, so it still has these two units listed as having the same build time). No, even with the element of dancing in the Dragoon arsenal, it is still not enough to overcome a sheer Zealot force of power. We interrupt this report to bring you a message from Rook, our Mascot. Hey all, Rook here, I'm fed up with Battlereports.com; the slave wages, zero benefits, no retirement, not even a 401k plan. Now they want to sell a statue of my ass and who do they ask? The readers! WTF I thought, how about asking me for permission first? Sons of bitches. I'm out. -Rook The real advantage of this unit over the Zealot is not active, but passive. The Zealot has no ability whatsoever to attack into the air or at a distance. The Dragoon is a versatile weapon, it can be combined with other units to greater effect, also it is a well rounded defensive unit. What I am really trying to say, is that anyone possessing a hack should have little trouble defeating pretty much..anyone, anyone who isn't hacking themselves that is. The bulk of my playing occurred previous to the replay add-on. Usually in sporadic bursts, I would play a great deal, just enough to take the rust off, and then fall back into dormancy. In the beginning I felt (wrongly) that going through the whole game first would help to improve my chances on battle.net. What it really did was impair my view on resource gathering (my first few games on battle.net featured me trying to keep four! SCV's mining at all times) and give me a severe dislike of the Zerg race. I liked the Terrans, and the Protoss were kinda cool. One of the most popular maps back then, just like now, was Lost Temple. I think my line of thought back then, was that I should play other people mostly on Lost Temple, because it would be good practice for the day when I could play on Ladder. That day seemed like a far way off. To get to play on Ladder I would need the pre-requisite ten wins. After I learned to make tons of SCV's/Probes, and to make a wall-in, I usually found myself able to defend against the waves of Zerg forces. Long enough for them to take on several expansions, while I remained holed up in my main, and then it would be a simple matter of time. Another thing I disliked, was the Zerg ability to expand to their natural with impunity. It wasn't long before I realized I would need to look for another map. I was very impressed with the formulaic approach the Zerg player's would take to what seemed almost an assured victory. But since I didn't like playing with Zerg, and I did like Terrans, I decided to find a map that was geared more toward Terrans, and less towards the Zerg. Enter:Small Divide Beating the Zerg One of the first things you will notice about this map is the large ravine streaking through the middle of the map.(It would crack me up when people say no rush, I would say "OK, I don't know if you know this, but we don't have much of a choice, but OK!) This stops all that four-pool crap, which you don't see on Lost Temple much nowadays. I think the reason we don't see it anymore, and why I saw it a lot back then, is people really didn't expect it when I would take Protoss on Lost Temple. Everybody was going Zerg, so I imagine most encounters were Zerg vs. Zerg(another reason I loathed to try and adopt Zerg). Now Zerg definitely had a huge advantage over the Toss on Lost Temple back then, but four-pool definitely wasn't the reason why. Those little Zerglings would run into my base, and I would soberly pull a few Probes off mining to help my Zealot finish them off, perhaps I would lose a few in the process, but I felt it kind of equaled out in the end, considering the delayed development of the Zerg economy. Since the balance changes, and the Replay mod., more people feel comfortable playing with other races on Lost Temple, and those that stuck to the Zerg, when faced with these new opponents, probably realized,"hey, four-pool really isn't the best thing to do." Resource Comparisons Minerals patches Tot. Minerals Vespene Geysers Tot. Vespene Gas Small Divide 4 30,000 4 20,000 Lost Temple 14 159,000 10 50,000 Other than stopping the annoying if ineffective 4-pool, Small Divide also has but two Mineral patches and two Vespene Geysers per player. This was certainly a benefit for the Terran player, who generally has a good turtle, whereas the Zerg would be denied the possibility of expanding all over the map to make up for their suicide attacks. Another positive aspect for Terrans, is the ability to lift off their buildings. This in fact gives the Terrans two interesting approaches. build extra CommandCenter quickly and expand first float main CommandCenter over when minerals run out and save cash I've experimented with both, and have had good results with both, I think I prefer the first one now, although minerals do tend to run a bit tight. Depending upon what my opponent does, and if I think I can get away with it, I might choose the second option. However in a Terran-Terran match up I would always expand quickly because of the possibility of your opponent teching to Dropships and Tanks and putting a Tank(s) in the gorge to prevent my expanding. The Turret Wall I can fully recommend building a turret wall now, for anyone who wants to try this. When I first used this layout for my base, Turret costs were at 100 minerals, so it was expensive. I don't know who authored the Turret Wall, I can tell you I developed this idea independently, but I noticed that other people who used the Terrans on this map sometimes built up a long line of Turrets as well. My reasons for doing this probably varied somewhat from their reasons, though. In addition to keeping your opponents scouts/units out of your base it also; acts as a kind of unit filter, you can be fairly sure what to expect from your opponent once he sees your wall =) lets you see half the map! helps to put you closer to even footing with the map hackers, by combining Com-sats with the above list item. After a Supply Depot, an Engineering Bay is the first thing I make, followed by roughly 13 Turrets(more against the fast dropping Zerg), 11 along the cliff wall, and two by my CommandCenter. I first started putting two Turrets near my CC when someone got a couple Ovies through a chink in my Turret wall and dropped some Lurkers in my peon line. I'm not sure how he knew I had no detection, or about the hole (very small hole, the Ovies still took hits, but were able to survive) in my defenses, but after I started putting a couple Turrets close to my CC, I never saw anyone try anything similar again. Also these two Turrets can be useful if your opponent tries to charge some Mutalisks past your wall of Turrets. Once I completed my line of Turrets, I needed to think of a good unit compliment. See a big line of Turrets isn't enough. Eventually your average witty Zerg opponent will get smart and go with a giant force of Gaurdians. In the pre-Broodwar days I tried building a force of Wraiths to stop this. However this tactic seemed to fail just as often if not more than it succeeded. The Wraiths took a long time to build, and they were expensive. The Zerg player would have a big nest of Hydras and Spore Colonies in his expansion for his Guardians to run to. Also the Zerg player could make feints at my northern and southern defenses, often knocking enough Turrets out to pave the road for devastating drop attacks. Hardly a map you could call advantageous for Terrans. Then I tried Goliaths. These seemed to do a bit better job but still fell short of the mark of assured victory. The Zerg player still had an easier time attacking than I did defending. Plus repairing stuff costs minerals/vespene. Zerg regeneration doesn't. Battlecruisers would seem like a good choice against Guardians, and I usually built up a few-even in the Wraith and Gollie days. but they are very expensive and take a very long time to build. Often my Battlecruisers would come a day late and a dollar short(remember, I built an Engineering Bay first, not a Barracks). Possibly Science Vessels could help. I never got around to trying anything with that strategy, because then came: Broodwar ...and with their Charon Boosters, Goliaths became once again a reality in the defense against all things nasty, long-range, and air-borne. Watch out for enemy Mutalisks, with all the Turrets you have around to help, they shouldn't cause much of a problem, but you might want to make some Marines with Stim-packs just to help out). None to bad against enemy ground units either, especially after their auto-cannons range got upgraded in 1.08. Of course, enemy Battlecruisers Yamato and Tanks were still a problem..more on that later. Another way the Zerg players liked to cause no end to my headaches, and tincture my Maginot Line of Turrets, was to drop some Hydras on either one of the large plateaus that lie in between the ravine and the canyon edge of my base. After a few easy defeats this way, I got smart and started putting Tanks on my northern and southern ends. These Tanks also turned out to be a wonderful defense against drops on my expansion. On any other map I would heartily encourage any and all forms of upgrades. On this one you have to be a bit more discriminating. In my Armory, since I had to build one for Goliaths anyway, I would limit myself to one, possibly two upgrades. I would always pick ground weapons for the simple reason it gave me plus five to my Siege Tank damage, and plus four to my Goliath airborne attack, and the majority of my units consisted of a few Tanks and a ton of Goliaths. There was one other upgrade that was key in my entire strategy: The Yamato Gun I figured once I countered all of the possible threats to my own base, I could just sit back and Yamato his structures at my leisure. Another unit that could also cause the Zerg a lot of discomfort, and compliment Battlecruisers nicely, is the Science Vessel. Most liked the Zerg, even on this somewhat imbalanced map, however, a few times they randomed(or picked) and I faced Terrans and even Protoss, two races that should have more or less equal chances against my strategy. Some things to watch out for against the Terrans. Battlecruisers Tanks Floating Barracks/Factories,etc. Nukes A good way to counter Battlecruisers, and cut down on mineral costs, is to make a few Ghosts. Then place them strategically about the map and try to lock them down. Another good option, is to research the EMP device for your Science Vessels, and then knock out their Mana Supply. Tanks can be tricky. If placed properly you can deny your opponent a Refinery at his expansion. Just as he can deny you your Refinery. If you have a Ghost or Medic with the proper upgrades, you can cast Lock-down or Optic flare on such Tanks. Of course, he can research Restoration, so the best way, might be to just be the first one there. Otherwise you will probably have to wait for your Battlecruisers to get on the scene. The best way to defend against a player who wants float a bunch of Barracks over to your side of the map is get your Turrets up quick. It's the first thing I make and the surest way to stop such cheese strats. If he floats Barracks and or Factories to you expansion in an effort to secure both expansions, then use your Tanks to destroy these buildings. With the high ground, you shouldn't have much trouble. Another option might be to counter-attack his main with some troops of your own, since he probably doesn't have a lot of defense there if all his building are sitting in your expansion. Nukes can be a real problem on this map. Since you are so close together he can even nuke you from his own expansion. The instant you here Nuclear Launch Detected, look for the telltale red dot in your mineral line, upon seeing it run your SCV's away and scan your opponents ledge and hopefully you can pick off the little bastard with your Tanks(..which you er um, sieged up there earlier). Another crafty opponent might even prepare a large drop and then bring a nuke down at either end of your island, and then things can get ugly. Hopefully you can get a few tanks to your vulnerable north and south ends. Try a few scans in areas you don't think your Turrets can see, since Siege Tanks have a longer range than Turrets. Failing that, prepare for the worst. Try to rebuild Turrets and augment your forces in that sector. Never give up! A few times I've been dropped like this and had to take refuge on my expansion. At least half the time I still won, because my opponent burnt himself out on that one colossal drop! A few things to watch out for against the Protoss Carriers Corsairs High Templar Dark Archons Arbitors Back in those days, another part of the Zerg strategy on Lost Temple, I believe, was one of propaganda. They would go on all the sites and say how much Carriers sucked, and how they so wished that their opponents would opt for Carriers, because they found them such easy prey. While I agree to some extent that it is bad to build nothing but Carriers/Arbitors/Observers, a few carriers mixed with other units besides those listed is an almost indispensable and strong route to take. It must have been pretty funny for those Zerg players to watch their Protoss opponents try to clumsily fend off their attacks with nothing but Dragoons and Zealots(the supposed good way to play..I'm assuming). In fact Carriers are quite an acceptable choice and asset to have, especially for an island map such as this one. Just as with the Battlecruisers, use the Ghost's ability to try and lock-down, and use the Science Vessels EMP blast. I imagine a few Valkyries would make short work of those Interceptors, try to micro some SCV's to repair your Valks. Corsairs should be a cause for concern, a few well placed D-Webs will render your defenses nil. The Protoss will be able to send in their attack force with zero consequences. It might be a good idea to have a strike force of Wraiths(Ghosts too) for just such an occurrence, since the Toss will need to bring along Observer(s) for support, simply Com-sat the area to find the Observer, destroy it, and then take out those enemy forces, before they take out you! High Templar could be annoying, they might try to Storm the SCV's mining your expansion. Com-sat their area, after Storms to try and take out High Templar with a Tank or Battlecruiser. If your planning to move in with Battlecruisers, be on the look out for Dark Archons, you might find yourself facing your own Battlecruisers, also they can cast Feedback and rob you of your energy while simultaneously damaging your craft. Destwoi, Destwoi, Destwoi these suckas at all costs. Arbitors can sit behind some Cannons and still provide cloaking for their agents that are attacking you..maybe D-Matrix a couple Wraiths to go in and take em out. There are some other maps that belong to the same "family" as this one. They are Midnight Lagoon (for Broodwar) and Space Madness. All of these maps have the same basic concept with some slight differences. And if you feel ready to graduate to a slightly more complex map, try Pridelands. This guide was in no way intended to be all-inclusive. I've only touched upon the surface of possibilities inherent to this map and to Terrans. Not to mention new ideas for the Zerg and Protoss. Also if your looking for a battle to report on, why not give one of these maps a try? I would love to have feedback on anything you find wrong/good in this report. Please e-mail me with your comments, concerns, praise, etc. On a side note though, talk is cheap, and actions do speak louder than words, so please, anything you find here that you disagree with, test out first to verify if this is actually the case before sending it to me, or posting it in the comments section, thanks. Now for some actual Battle Reports! To demonstrate the effectiveness of the Strategy outlined above I played these two games recently. One against the Protoss, and one against the Terrans. Both were played on Broodwar. I loaded up Starcraft and logged on to Battle.net. I was greeted by the following... Joining channel:Brood War USA-16 <Marine-Commando> ============================================= Join clan M today! You don't need much to join, atleast 10 wins or more. Connect to channel: ClanM ============================================= Sweet I thought, all I had to do was get ten wins and I could try out for clan M! I hadn't played much recently and so had to start a new account. At first I played just Vanilla SC, and had gotten to three and one(The one is from playing a two vs. two on Lost Temple and then my partner leaving early so it could be a two vs. one). I wondered if Clan M counted victories from plain SC over to Broodwar SC. Well, even so, I would still need seven more wins, so I didn't bother asking. On to the map Small Divide for some one on one action! Small Divide plus2longsword Terran krazykid871 Protoss I took a yellow Terran army at the bottom right, while my opponent went random and got a Red Protoss army at the top left. I went with my standard Engineering Bay before Barracks, followed by Turrets. As soon as my Bay finished I sent two SCV's out on Turret construction orders, one to the the top and one to the left. They started their Turrets at the extreme ends of their corners and worked their way towards each other (being careful, sometimes they get stuck). Supply Depot's were constructed along the bottom of my base(makes drops a little bit harder) I also got started on a Refinery. My opponents build was a bit puzzling, two Pylons and two Gateways, and then he built eight Zealots. He also wandered his Probe all over so I think he was under the impression that this was not an island map. During my Turret building I managed to scrape up enough resources for a Barracks. Once that finished I got to work on my Factory. Somewhere in there my Turrets got finished. After a long think (it must have been) he had decided that an Assimilator would also be needed. He had also made a Forge and later a single Photon Cannon, but then much to my bemusement he had built about six Pylons!? This was in addition to a couple he had already built. His troop count stood at 28/73, while mine was at 25/34. I'm not sure what he had intended to build for that extra Supply, since it never came. He also built a Cybernetics Core, Robotics Facility, and a Stargate, all in a big tight pretty looking cluster in the center of his base. In fact it looked like if an emergency ever arose, he might have had some trouble getting his forces back to the other side of his base where his Probes and Nexus were. Back in my own base, once my Factory completed I commenced building an Armory and an Academy to be followed by a Com-sat. I had my Factory create a Machine Shop as well. I also had another Factory half way done. About the same time he had his Robotics Facility warping in, I started building a Command Center near the top of my base. Once it finished I lifted it off and headed for my expansion. I felt pretty confident at this point as I hadn't heard much from him and I had Tanks sieged up along the line ready to go. I also had Goliaths pumping out and the Charon Boosters upgrade researched. Back at hotel Krazykid, I got my first scan of his base. I saw his Robotics Facility, Forge, Assimilator and maybe his Stargate and one of the Gateways, but none of his troops, nor the Shuttle that was about to pop out of the Facility. Once that shuttle did pop out, it went over and loaded up a couple of Dragoons. He also had begun construction of a Scout somewhere around here. The Shuttle carefully zig-zagged its way towards my base. It stopped briefly to take note of my Command Center landing at my expansion, but did not deliver its deadly cargo. Instead the shuttle started inching its way closer to my row of Turrets. First one, then another, and then suddenly several Turrets were shooting off guided missiles into the Shuttles shields and Hull. Poof, not enough zig and not enough zag and the Shuttle disappeared in a cloud of blue fire! Not to be perturbed by these events, KrazyKid maneuvered his newly made Scout over to my southern expanse. This pilot must have been related to the one in the Shuttle, because once he saw my Turrets, he put his ship tat full throttle and was promptly blown to smithereens by an assortment of Hellfire and Longbolt missiles. Diligent as ever, Krazykid, ordered up some more shuttles and another Scout. Also four more Dragoons were made. Once the Shuttles completed their warp, they flew over and loaded up a compliment of troops, which until then were just standing about, not doing much. Around that point I had a shuttle full of heavy metal, a few more Tanks, lotsa Goliaths, a few Marines ready to check into a bunker, and straight off the assembly line, a brand new Valkyrie. I decided to send the Valkyrie off to see what damage she could do. The Valk flew over, first my expansion, and then his, which I had noted was empty. Then, paydirt!, four Shuttles were just floating there, with no Dragoons in sight. Just when I had started lobbing Halo Rockets into the carefree Shuttles I noticed a Scout. I turned my gun sights on the Scout. I knocked out half the enemy fighter's shields before he could even react. Piece of cake I had thought. The Scout had casually turned his fighter and had begun firing. And to my horror I realized that the Scout's Anti-Matter missiles were ripping huge gouts out of my Valkyries hit points. Then just as suddenly as it had started, it was over and my Valkyrie was raining debris over the field of battle. That bastard!! Actually I think the sound of my rockets going off had scared him, because he moved them north and then unloaded all the units he put inside them. But after the brief Skirmish between our opposing air forces, he beamed the Zealots and Dragoons back up and with his victorious Scout leading the way headed for my expansion. The Scout had came over and immediately opened fire upon an SCV building a Turret. I had just recently unloaded two Goliaths, and one Tank, which had sieged next to a Bunker, and was about to go pick up some Marines for loading into the Bunker, but had neglected to do so, because I was so engrossed in my aerial battle with the Scout. The Scout by the way, was down to 64/150 hit points and was killed very quickly by Goliath missile fire. I had now sent my Dropship to collect those four Marines. Despite my empty Bunker, KrazyKid's whole force was decimated, mostly by Arclite shells from the sieged Tanks on the overlooking bluff. The last few Zealots were rounded off by my now bunkered Marines. And with another Valkyrie on the way to eliminate some Shuttles, Krazykid871 left the game. Scores Units Buildings Resources Total 7400 2050 8762 18,212 12,600 3265 12,930 28,795 Now I had my first win, and was all the more closer to the coveted ten wins that would be sure to get all the clan leaders a knocking. I felt kind of tired and logged off battle.net, and Starcraft. I then went over to Battlereports.com, to see if there was another Andy/Titans/Thesoby report for me to flame. But there wasn't so I just logged off and went to bed. The next day I logged on for another example to put into this report and was greeted by this: Joining channel:Brood War USA-4 <s)T-Ownz[2]All> Join Clan S]T-For GAMES BOTS TOURNIES MEMBERSHIP, Must have atleast 10 wins to even be considered for membership.

Wow, atleast(sic, this was the second time I had seen at and least connected this way, I was familiar with people making this mistake with a lot, but at and least?!) ten wins to even be considered! That must be a really gosu clan I had thought, with those kinds of requirements. Well, no point thinking about that right now, I thought, I had some more gaming to do!!

My next opponent had a somewhat disappointing record, with about 20 wins and three times as many losses.(the first guy was 2-0) I had hoped to get a game against some really good players to show off how good my strat was. But on the bright side he probably didn't hack and he didn't have very many disconnects, so I could probably expect one of those good manner games that all the Koreans love rave about. Ke ke ke and all that jazz. It is interesting to note that Firebold picked Zerg first, and I had yet to pick Terrans, so when I did, he changed his selection to Protoss, and then kind of oscillated between Terran and Protoss, finally ending up with Terran

Anyway, I did my usual. And Firebold sent four SCV's straight to one mineral patch(the hallmark of any newbie). After his first Supply Depot on eight, he waited on eight until he could build a Barracks, before moving on with SCV production. Then he created a Refinery and another Barracks!? He probably could have done without the second Barracks because I think he built about nine Marines, a couple Ghosts, and one Medic out of them the whole game. It left me wondering if he too, was also unawares that this was an island map. The next buildings were an Academy, Factory, Machine-shop, two Starports, an Engineering Bay, some Turrets in a line(although much later than I would recommend, although it didn't matter much since he was playing me!), and a Science Facility with a Physics Lab add-on. With his Factory add-on he had begun research on the Arclite Shock Cannon, even though he had not a single Tank for some time. Later he increased his Goliaths range as well.

My build was similar to the one I used against krazykid871, so around the seven and a half minute mark I finished my CC, although I didn't actually land it and start SCV production until the ten minute mark. By then though, Firebold had a Battlecruiser in his arsenal, although he didn't attack with it right away. Pity, because if he did, he could have at least drove my CC away. Since all I had was a Starport with no add-on. It wasn't until another entire minute passed that I created the Control Tower followed by the Dropship to ferry Goliaths over to my expansion for defense.

Firebold also decided to build a Bunker in the middle southern expanse, leading up to his base, he also had an Armory built, and had completed his Wall-in of Turrets. Somewhere in there we had a little Com-sat war. One thing different I did from before was build two extra Armories. This was probably just a waste of minerals. Just like I said before, anything beyond one or two upgrades is overkill. I tried the Valkyrie out once more, but just like before it proved pretty useless, since he had nothing but Battlecruisers. Once he had three built he attacked to my north. A lone Goliath there tried valiantly to defend but was destroyed. The Cruisers Yamatoed two of my Turrets before reinforcements could arrive to drive them away. I think I lost three Valks in that transaction as well, while all he got was his Battlecruisers hit points in the yellow. I then sent an SCV to rebuild a Turret.

I decided to build another Starport, this one at my expansion. For some reason I built a few more Valkyries as well. Then I had one of my SCV's construct a Science Facility, which I then had add a Physics Lab, which of course researched the Yamato Cannon. He ended up running out of minerals near the 20:00 mark so he finally ended up building and moving a Command Center over to his expansion, I probably would have just lifted off my original one and moved it. I started work on a few Battlecruisers of my own. One of his SCV's in his expansion tried making something near the cliff edge but got shelled by my Tank. I had a few Goliaths around my Tank, but since he had half a dozen Battlecruisers trolling around I figured I'd better do something. I lifted off a Barracks and floated it over the Tank, hopefully that would stop an eventual Yamatoing. This sorta worked out okay, he came over with his little fleet and sent about five Yamato's(you say Yamatoe, I say Yamato) into the Barracks, blowing it up. He even started attacking a little bit, but was frightened away when my troops started sending a variety of anti-air projectiles up at his Battlecruisers. The result: my Tank still sat on its perch overlooking his Vespene Geyser. Well I did lose a Barracks, but I was done making Marines, and I figured it was worth denying him the gas. I was also done making Turrets, so I floated my Engineering Bay over my Tank again. This time, he didn't blow it up. Instead he went South to test the waters there. By now I had three more Valkyries, and all my air power was upgraded to two armor and three attack. I also had a few Goliaths on the scene, and several Battlecruiser on the way. He destroyed one Goliath, but curiously enough, ignored another two, and seemed to concentrating on taking out my Turrets (probably he wanted to get the Ghost he had sitting inside a dropship, into my base to do some nuking). He didn't ignore the Valks though, and blew those up, nor did he ignore the the Battlecruisers when they arrived. At first it looked like my Battlecruisers were winning easily, then he Yamatoed one and destroyed another with laser fire. Fortunately I had plenty of Goliaths on hand to drive his remaining two Battlecruisers away. My last Cruiser followed and was able to destroy one of them, which was in the red, but got destroyed in turn by the other. During all this he had also had made another Science Facility, this one with a Covert Ops added on. Probably I would have just lifted off my other Science Facility, but he may have been planning to build more Battlecruisers, and didn't want to be bothered with all that lifting off/setting down. Actually the situation was looking kind of bleak for me. I had tried putting a couple heavy metal drops into the canyon to do some damage, but they had both failed.

I had also built two Science Vessels, and I tried to do something, just out of curiosity. First, with one Science Vessel, I cast Defensive Matrix and then Irradiate on the other. Then I tried hovering over his workers, but he had four Turrets guarding the area, so the only thing I succeeded in killing were some of my own workers when my Vessel got back. I didn't have very many units either, and no minerals left on the map for me to mine. While my opponent had had an entire expansion to work with, and at least one Battlecruiser. All those upgrades were kind of dumb, and I should have forgone the extra Starport, and built some Ghosts instead. Ghosts are a lot less mineral intensive, and would have been far more effective against his air power than those silly Valkyries. Sorry, got to interrupt for a bit(plus I need more words here to make my pics work!)I was just watching Star Trek in between editing this huge piece of shit, anyway, Spock was onboard a Romulen ship, and they needed to identify which one was Spock in order to beam him aboard. The problem they were having was that since Vulcans and Romulens are related, the scanner was having difficulty telling them apart (hey sounds good, they both got pointy ears, right), and they couldn't get a fix on poor old Spock. My point is, since Spock is supposedly half-human, shouldn't his gay ass stick out like a sore thumb on their stupid life sensing equipment?

I did have enough minerals for another Dropship, so I created one, and loaded six Goliaths and one Tank for one last gamble. While my one Battlecruiser was trying to chase down his two, I noticed that he had left a rather large area unprotected, south of his expansion. I sent my Sci-Vessels in first, followed by my Dropships full of goodies. My troops unloaded, unhindered. So far so good, I thought. My Sci-Vessels had had enough mana to cast D-Matrix on the Tank and on one Goliath. Good thing too, because when he saw my Tank sieging up he came in and Yamatoed it. About all that did was remove the Matrix, and eight hit points though. My Goliaths shot the wounded Cruiser down quickly and proceeded to lay waste to his expansion. I didn't know it at the time, but he had made another Ghost and Dropship. The Dropship picked up the Ghost and dropped him off in the ravine. The hitpoints on the CC with the Silo were counting down as my Goliath fired upon it. He cloaked and ran his Ghost as fast as he could, just to get in one final show of resistance. But sadly, the Ghost ran into the range of one of my Turrets, and the Tank Commander still hidden beneath the floating Engineering Bay aimed his sights on the hapless Ghost, and turned him into strawberry jam. The rest was me toying with him. He tried to make some Tanks, and even a Wraith, but all to no avail. Once I secured the area I floated my Command Center on in, and a little message popped up informing that my opponent, Firebold, had left the game, and that I was victorious. I clicked the victory button.

I got out and went back to the Brood War channel, where I saw this:

I could hardly believe my eyes. Clan 5LL was inviting me into their channel to hang and game with them. Finally I thought, a Clan that had seen the light. But wait...do mine eyes deceive me yet again? Free Wins!? I could use this bot..WINBOT..and get free wins. With enough wins added to my account I could probably get into a really gosu clan. So bewildered was I, by these two new prospects, that I completely forgot to do either, and logged of Battle.net...

Here are a few tips to help getcha by;

• Scan, Scan, Scan
• Try to always put your Dropships in the same spot so you aren't franticly looking all over for them in the middle of a battle
• Don't waste units carelessly. This is a very resource limited map. This is also one of the reasons, I believe, the Zerg should have difficulties.
• Don't go overboard on a lot of needless upgrades.
• Never give up! The Turrets aren't so much geared to stopping drops as they are to making them costly. If your playing the Zerg and fear an early drop, put a few bunkers near likely drop points and your base.
• Never let up! If you feel victory is assured..then force yourself to become uncomfortable. Keep scanning and trying to cause confusion..it can't hurt.
• Finally, I recommend saving a couple hundred minerals at the end if you can afford to. If you mindlessly spend your remaining money on a tank but don't have a dropship, then it didn't do you much good. Or if you have a couple of Battlecruisers and you have money to make one more..don't. That money could go towards repairing the ones you got...or even a small army of Ghosts if you need them!

I'm including the replays to these games for people who would like to learn my method, you can get the one in which I played krazykid871, here. For the one against Firebold, go here. They have very little entertainment value. In fact you will probably rarely find me writing a report to entertain you. Nor will my games be very entertaining. Mostly I just try to be informative. I think that is the minimum requirement for a decent report here at Battlereports.com. If you want something else, go somewhere else. This isn't "Good" Battlereports.com, nor is it "Entertaining" Battlereports.com. It surprises me when people know the innermost details of my report, yet didn't like it because the battle wasn't good? Like it has to be for them to be entertained. Maybe they should stick to just playing if that's the case. It also cracks me up when people say how gay my strats are, and how easily I could have been beaten if my opponents had only reacted differently. That is all well and good to say in retrospect, but seemingly much harder to make a reality in practice. Being good at Starcraft probably has a lot more to do with how well you know what your opponent is doing. Probably why hackers have such an easy time of it. It's really a lot like an advanced form of rock-paper-scissors. How funny would you sound commenting on my play in a report about that game, for example:

Hey all, plus2longsword here, I played a great game of rock-paper-scissors the other day. First the build orders, I randomed and got blue paper, and my opponent, who's name was {(-IownU@RPS-)}, randomed and got a yellow rock. I enveloped his rock with my paper, I won.

"We won't win because CattleBruiser is good" -KGB #1 ifLAMEu[116212] 64-213-127-149.roc.frontiernet.net HAHAHAHA..1st!..HAHAHAHA now to read <---geddit, my report was three sentences long =) #2 ifLAMEu[116212] 64-213-127-149.roc.frontiernet.net This blows, if I was your opponent I would have just went scissors and cut your silly-ass paper to shreds. #3 madbadNtotalyrad[116215] 192.189.112.134 agree w/ flame, all your opponent had to do was get some scissors, and your paper is OwNeReD! #4 D&Dsux[116217] CPE0080c6f147d4.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com WTF, plus2longsword?, to much D2 for your gay Korean ass? also scissors>paper. PS:u SUX...Fag #5 guessHOOiAM[116219] Sull-07-147.rh.ncsu.edu this reprot was okay, but the game sucked! your oponent could have just wnet sissors, or even paper and drew, also werk on grammer.

I rest my case.

In the world of games, Starcraft has yet to begin in age. I think it is entirely possible for someone to be a genius at Starcraft, as with any game. For the most part people only acknowledge Mathematics as a field that produces geniuses, but Music does also, and this is because of the close relationship of Music and Math. Chess and other games, while not inherently solvable, contain something enough like Math to produce prodigies as well. However, my fear is that we will never discover these prodigies in Starcraft, who can then share their wisdom, because of the rampant cheating that goes on at Battle.net. So please stop if you do, I guarantee it will be worth it. Chess would not be here, in the state that it is, if it wasn't for people like Greco, Philidor, Morphy, people so far beyond the contemporaries of their time, that they were able to fit another piece into the puzzle. Would we have these people of Chess to look up to if someone always cheated against them when they were young, and they gave up because they didn't think they were any good. Starcraft suggests to me something that is at once infinitely more complex, and yet also vastly more simplified than Chess. Or maybe it is just different, we may never know.