"I spiked the water supply with faggot"
- CynicalMagician
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| Why not to go mass (insert unit here) on FFA's | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 08/09/99 11:08 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for SnowSquall: 7.4828 |  | Brood War.
Map: Proving Grounds. (hey, no Lost Temple! Yay!)
Our participants:
SnowSquall: Blue Terran, Bottom Right Corner
Unknown #1: White Zerg, Bottom Left Corner
Unknown #2: Brown Protoss, Top Left Corner
Unknown #3: Purple Protoss, Top Right Corner
I'm still strictly taking terran when I play on ladder. My record going into this game was 5-7-2, with a rating of 937. Not really that great. :)
The game was advertisted as 900-950, but after getting in, he indicated he wanted a FFA. Normally I would have left, and I might have if it was Lost Temple.. but for whatever reason a FFA seemed appealing to me. So all 4 of us were rated around the same level. Everyone ended up picking their respective race.
Now normally on Proving Grounds, I tend to build units early in anticipation of a rush.. but with it being a FFA, I figured that to be highly unlikely, as it would leave them exposed to someone else. I only slightly modified my build order, making a rax at 8, a depot at 9, and another rax at 13. Gas and an academy followed shortly after, with a comsat going up. I figured the units of choice would probably be lurkers and dark temps.
But I should have expected that no attacks came. Once I had got my comsat up, I had a CC ready to float to the bottom middle island plateau, and got it up and running full steam pretty quickly. By this time I had an engineering bay, and had turrets protecting my main, so I started comsatting freely, and I picked up the following:
--White seemed to be going hard mutas.
--Brown seemed to be going hard cannons.(eh?)
--Purple was going hard goons and also had a generous
amount of cannons.
Brown had already expanded to his natural AND purple's
natural as well, and purple had taken the top island. At this point, I took my natural as well. My marines were up to 1/1, and coupled with a few turrets, I could handle mutalisks just fine. White had managed to sneak a drone past me and took the right edge expansion.
I had not been idle during this build up time, and had 3 starports up, which cranked out 3 science vessels, and then 3 wraiths. With about 15-20 M&M's, I went with the sci vessels and took out white's expansion above me. 12 mutas were the defense, and 3 irradiates spaced out nicely softened them up for my marines to take them out.
I didn't bother taking this expansion, as I decided to secure the bridge below it leading to my base instead, in case purple decided to bring all the goons down. 2 bunkers, set slightly back so 2 depots could be in front was the initial defense, and then I rolled up 4 tanks and seiged them up behind the bunkers a bit. (enough to where there was no way the goons would be able to hit them)
I continued to comsat liberally (I had 3 comsats now), and still nobody was making a move. Here's what I saw:
--White was still going hard mutas, and probably had at least 36 of them in his main base, the only base he had.
--Brown had finally decided to build something besides 20 cannons at each of his bases. A fleet of 12 scouts was seen.
--Purple was still going mass goons and probably had at least 48 2/2 goons, just standing around, with long lines of cannons protecting his base.
I had 5 sci vessels out, and I didn't make any more, as I was planning on eradicating the zerg infestation now with what I had. I had started to pump valks though, and I had about 8 of those, plus about 4 BC's at this point, with yamato and the energy upgrade. They were 1/1.
I gathered my group over my bottom center expansion, and sent the 5 sci vessels out to irradiate the big pack of mutas. I scanned, and then went to work. Obviously I got their attention really fast, and they came after me with a vengence. My sci vessels fled back to my expansion, leading about 36 glowing angry mutas into...
My 8 valks, 4 bc's, 2 turrets, and about 20 2/2 marines.
About 15 seconds later when the pack was dead, he quit, knowing that he was a goner.
I ignored his main base, since it appeared to be mined out.
The money was really flowing in at this point, and I had
just about reached the supply limit. At this point I had a group of 8 BC's, and 8 valks, which were at 2/2. I had 5 sci vessels trailing those.
I scanned the former zerg's natural, and brown had taken it. He had proceeded to erect his normal clump of cannons everywhere, probably 15 or so, and 12 scouts were sitting there.
Big deal.
I defensive matrixed each of my bc's, and sent them off. I yamato'ed a few outlying cannons to get his attention, and in came the scouts, which promptly were engaged by the bc's. Now that he had committed to the bc's, my valks, waiting behind, moved up and ripped into them.
I lost 1 bc to the 12 scouts, and then proceeded to yamato the hell out of his expansion, which I promptly took for my own.
Scanning again, I noted that brown was producing more stuff out of his stargates, which I surmised to be carriers this time. I very well couldn't let him get mass carriers, so up I went to his natural, where I offed it, and then to his main, where I shut down the starports which were supported by 1 measly pylon.
I was keeping an eye on purple during this time, and he had NO air units that I could see, besides shuttles. Just a huge huge mass of dragoons, probably 60 or so. It seemed like he was waiting for someone to attack.
Since I had already built my anti-goon defense in the name of tanks (which at this point I had upgraded to 2/2), I continued to ignore purple. I however started thinking of a really wicked idea to try, so I started another sci facility and got a covert ops, got a nuclear missle, and got a few ghosts.
Meanwhile, I had effectively knocked brown out of the game. He still had a shitload of cannons, but they weren't suddenly going to pull up their roots and come attack me. :P
A ghost slithered up the right side of the map, and snuck up close enough to see the huge mass of goons...
....Nuclear Launch Detected.
He noticed the red dot fairly soon, I must say, since he said "SHIT!"
Have you ever seen 60 or dragoons clumped up in a square try to go anywhere?
15 seconds later, there was enough blue soup to feed a Third World Country. No soup for you?
He quit right after that. Gee, I wonder why.
I went back to work on the tedious task of taking out about 100 cannons or so, during which I endured the normal taunts from brown:
"Come on, attack me like a man"
(Pray tell, 10 BC's aren't intimidating enough?)
"dick"
"You can't beat me if you just come straight into my base"
(Sure. I'll run my whole fleet into your 40 clumped cannons)
About halfway through he finally realizes that I don't care and I'm going to practice my yamato'ing skill, so he leaves.
Gotta love games that boost your rating by 36, though. :)
Lessons Illustrated:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--It's tempting to sit back and build up a mass force in FFA's, but that's dangerous if your opponent sees it and knows the counter. Yes, I did have mass BC's, but note that they were supported by both valks AND sci vessels.
His mass goons weren't going to get through my choke
that had 4 (eventualy 3/3) tanks behind it.
--It's important to play defense, but dont go overboard. Sheesh, I'd never seen so many cannons in my life. White, although making the mistake of going strictly with mass mutas, at least had the right idea with a moderate defense, and going on the attack. I had just enough defense so that I could hold any attack off long enough to get my real force back to deal with it.
--I'm starting to really like valks. They ate those scouts for breakfast.
--Powering can win a lot of FFA's, if you dont get gangbanged by the others. I had 2 expansions in almost no time, and I was doing a good job of pumping out units to where I never had my usual 3000 in the bank.
--I can't say this enough to protoss players... Don't power buildings with only one pylon!! You should make it so they have to knock out at least 2, or 3, to shut down a building.
--Nuking a group of 60 dragoons is fun. :P
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