"Do not fear DTs. Cure them"
-Heartcutter
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| A Journey to the Abattoir... | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 08/07/99 12:08 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 4, Max: 7, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for AngeLife: 7.4286 |  | For a version with pictures, check out my site at
at http://go.to/angelife.
This is an experiment -- to see how well a battle report I did, intending to have it shown with pictures, fares in text only form on this forum. Be forewarned, this battle report is humorous in intent, and shows more what NOT to do that what to do :)
OK, so you've all seen Blizzard's silly new map of last week, Abattoir?
I thought I had seen the dumbest map.
I thought I had seen the face of the ultimate SCV rush
I thought I would escape BloodBath forever...
But then they created the Abattoir.
- Diary of a Seasoned Battle Reporter.
For those of you who have no clue what the map looks like, it's basically an 8 player 64x64 twilight tileset version of BloodBath. Hardly a map of great genius; quite silly really. Note that unlike BloodBath, there are no real chokes... making it just a little messier.
The Folly Begins...
So SoylentRed and I are sitting around Idle on Sunday... he's been at the beer, and I'm just as bad, operating on only 3 hours of sleep. We get to talking about how nice err... silly err... stupid it would be to do a 4v4 on Abattoir. So we create it. And no one joins. And then Pheylo suggests hey, play 4 or 5 comps, you two, and I'll watch. We're just stupid enough to do this...
At this point in my sleep deprivation, I barely remembered how to turn on the camera, much less how many computers I'd made. (4 as it turned out). Pheylo agreed to lift off and not share vision; I went toss and Soylent went terran. We left the races of the comp to providence. With our luck we'd get 4 5 pooling zerg.
Soylent attempts to negotiate an alliance with the comps against me, but is soundly rebuffed. Reluctantly, he allies and shares vision. Even more reluctantly, I do the same, having been beaten in my attempt to ally the comps as well.
I of course spawn near upper right , and Soylent at bottom left (blue). Good players always like to be maximally far apart so they can blame their ally's failing to help them rapidly enough for a loss.
I decide to turtle and go pylon gateway forge. This will ensure that I have neither enough forces to rush with, nor enough to assist SoylentRed if he is attacked, nor enough to defend myself properly. Also, because cannons are not mobile, and the map has limited resources I will be sure to regret this expenditure in late game when I actually want to attack. Such are the strategies of we veteran pros. I also encourage Soylent to build lots of marines, so he can come to my help, and not to waste much on bunkers.
From the my mineral patch, I can see the neighboring zerg, mining away industrially at HIS mineral patch. I wonder briefly about going goons with range and cannons and siegeing him in from my own mineral patch. I realize he can do horrible things to me with sunkens as well. Of more immediate concern though, is a fast ling rush. As soon as my gateway is finished I cook a zealot, to beat this off, should it come.
Cowardly Soylent ignores my helpful advice and bunkers himself in. What a typical wussy terran. Not even thinking of his ally's needs, either.
The Rushes Commence
Soylent does the super-duper marine/killer robo scv rush with extracheese on the orange terran comp at bottom right, and I send in my mighty zealot force (of one) to mop up. How typical. The wimpy terrans take on too big a job and come crying to the toss for help. That's the whole story of StarCraft, really. Oh well, never send a man to do a woman's job.
Soylent tries another scv rush, but for some reason, red's zealots pop out of the woodwork. I urge him to come to my (closer) base with its mighty cannons where he will be 'safe'. Here, I am clearly using safe in a relative, rather than absolute sense and white terran and red toss descend, determined to eliminate Soylent's forces and anyone fool enough to shelter his marauding scv's.
Soylents SCV's, unfortunately, have quite a phobia of my photon cannons (left), so they are staying carefully out of range. This is helpful as it ensures that the computer can pick off all my defending zealots without ever coming under supporting cannon fire. Veteran players like us are skilled at these types of winning tactics.
Somehow, two of my zealots live. Above, my first zealot continues his task of eliminating orange's base, one SCV at a time. Strangely, none of the other comps are helping it. I imagine the conversation went something like this:
Orange Comp: Help I'm being attacked!
Teal Comp: Hey, I'm far away and I'm teching to hydras. It sucks to be you.
White Comp: That lone zealot scares me. I better get some bats.
Red Comp: Hey, I'd help but I'm version 1.03 of the AI. I don't help.
Soylent: You could have allied with me. Too bad, you loser.
I get attacked by half of teal's zerglings and then red's zealots. Through nice micro I lose only one of my then four zealots. Through some fit of genius, the red comp divides its forces, attacking soylent with 2 zealots, and me with two. I wonder if it might in fact be a Beta AI. The White terran comp helpfully assists with ONE marine.
The AI Smartens up!
The comp's nefarious plan becomes clear as my lone zealot beating up orange is finally overwhelmed by a pair of marines and a few zerglings. Still, all of orange's scv's are gone, and his cc is in flames. It's a good start. Knowing I have to minimize use of resources, I cook up a shield bay to try to extend the lives of my units. While I'd probably be better off with high templar for mass unit kills (once constructed they take no more resources other than time), I decide to go for reavers, fearing cracklings, and knowing I'm going to need to have some siege method as Soylent seems fixated on marine/SCV rushes.
Sure enough, I find out the hard way that sunkens work across water(above). Who at Blizzard decided these things should outrange photons, anyway? As this is happening, I get rushed by teals hydras, white's bats and marines, and red's zealots. Thankfully, they each come in in separate waves and I survive.
I imagine the conversation between the computers as something like this:
Teal Comp: I've got a lot of hydras now. Let's attack her.
White Comp: I've got marines. Go ahead, I'll get there soon.
Red Comp: Yeah!! I've got zealots! This Rocks!
Orange Comp: Shouldn't you guys like... coordinate or something?
Other Comps: (STACK OVERFLOW) NAH!!! These humans aren't; why should we?
Then, they get semi-smart. They start coming together, and in mass groups. My new reaver and my shield battery work overtime along with the trusty zealots, but my battery runs dry, my zealots die, my reaver runs out of scarabs and it does not look good...
Two batteries would have been smarter... as would have protecting the reaver more. Fortunately my cannons and lone zealot hold them off. I lose another cannon.
Now, the AI seems to get even smarter. I think Pheylo's been giving it hints and tips in exchange for shared vision, personally. Through design or happenstance, they throw up a blockade, preventing SoylentRed from reinforcing me.
Fortunately the comp gets dumb, and it's REAVER Time again!
Then, just when I thought they were getting smart the comps demonstrate their awesome strategic skill. With my forces left with 2 good cannons and one nearly dead one and a zealot, red and teal decide to hit Soylent(SnagglePuss, remember?).
White helps out the cause by keeping me busy, but the whole thing gives me time to get another reaver. This assault works as well as most light infantry assaults do on a terran. Two zealots live long enough to reach the bunker which is being feverishly repaired with Bunker~Boy's SCVs. Orange gets back in the game and attacks as well, but dies to the "cheese-ola" bunker.
Now I'm back in business thanks to their attack on Soylent. Anything that attacks from the south gets suckered into my cannon trap; anything that attacks from the north gets hit by the reaver who stands ready to retreat. Shield battery is down to 3 points again :( I compute that these are winning tactics; even if the reaver's shot kills only one marine, it costs me 15, and costs the computer 50. Now, really since we face two comps each, it costs me 30 considering I can only mine half as much as the comp; still a victory. Most of the time I kill 2-3 units at a time with careful micro.
Suyicidal Thinige Time
Running low on resources I decide to try a "suyicidal thinige" I think at this stage, due to pronounced sleep deprivation I have lapsed into Olde Englishe. Pheylo doesn't like this. My approach is going to be to do a non-speed upgraded reaver drop with his lord viewing everything Im doing in plenty of time, and hope all his units are on the way to my base. Oh and that he doesn't have any lurkers, since I haven't bothered deploying an observer. At this time, with red, teal, and white busy continuing to try to keep my reavers well fed, Soylent counters on Orange and wipes that comp out, finally.
OK, so the reaver drop was a little late in the game. You weren't being attacked 3on1 all the time. Sue me. At this point I'm really sleepy and only barely register that all the other comps have run out of resource, and are falling to Soylent's incredibly silly scv/medics (ok with marines) combos. My reavers continue their work and my few lone zealots roam the map, finishing off the opposition, along with Soylent's mass marines.
Only once all the enemy units are eliminated, does Soylent build some bats. This ensures minimal effectiveness against the enemy buildings, and maximal splash damage for my zealots. It also has the side benefit of ensuring many bats will die to splash damage from my reavers as they all attack buildings together. Again, it takes months of practice to learn how to coordinate like this with your partner, you readers out there can't expect to do this overnight!
Hey! Where'd my zealots go??? Taste the reaver, you stupid bats!!!
And thus the game ends, neither with a bang, nor a whimper. Score ends up with Soylent having about 58500 points to my 55000. I win on kills and resources, he wins massively on razings. We impress PaperCut (Pheylo) and leave, ready to do battle another day. I go off to sleep and forget to turn the camera off and thereby record another 1.4 GB before running out of hard drive space, but that's another story.
My useful function in the game was essentially as a punching bag. I helped take out orange, and I took out zerg, but Soylent did the majority of the demolition work I could have, and should have done some more drops earlier. I'll plead fatigue, rather than incompetence on that one.
Now, to all doubters who wonder whether or not the comp can be beaten, seeing the terrifying example of CannonBalls... at Agent911's site, fear not. For aka AngeLife and SoylentRed stand ready. Indeed, we will give lessons for FAR less than the $78.00 Kain is charging :) Any Bids?
Contents Copyright 1999 Angelife.
All Rights Reserved, save that battlereports.com has an unlimited royalty free licence to reproduce and or modify this for any purposes whatsoever, on any media.
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