"The thing is, StarCraft > sex."
-WarLeaderJustin
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| Something New Never Hurts | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 08/28/99 12:08 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Thyroid-Storm: 7.2500 |  | This is more for the intermediate toss player.
With a little break in schoolwork, I am now writing what is my first and likely last battle report. Tonight I played a pickup which enticed me with "NEW MAP." Feeling I might as well give it a shot, I joined up--the map was "Mountainside," the new Blizzard release. I saw my opponents were either friends/clan members; [LoC]. I make it a rule to try and not play clan members--they usually have their team games fine-tuned. I don't mind losing, really, but getting squished in the first 15 minutes by a well-coordinated double rush is never very much fun. But--it can't hurt to try something new.
Well, this is a 4v4, but I never thought a 4th would show up. Finally one did, but he might as well not have, really. I chose 'toss, my partner Terran. One of the [LoC] claimed their name meant something to the effect of "lock-down carriers," which provided a clue for the rest of the game.
Mountainside, for those who don't know, is something like 128x196, so is a fairly large map for 4 players. I spawned as yellow toss in upper right, my partner as purple terran in upper left.
For the intermediate toss player out there (myself being average)--I've decided that on any map that is larger than 128x128, it is to your advantage to hop up the tech tree. On maps like this one and Arctic Station, there's simply too much distance between bases for a rush to be effective. Enough defensive units will always be able to trickle in, and now you have the advantage tech-wise. Knowing one of the [LoC] (green) was Terran, I opted to go straight for goons.
Being on b-net for nearly two years now, I can almost always tell if my partner is going to suck. If my partner is toss and he goes forge first I always get a bad feeling. When he's zerg and never gets a 2nd hatchery, I always get a bad feeling. Similarly, when I was 11 probes going and my partner only had 5--I got a baaaaad feeling.
But again--don't be afraid to try something new :).
I did the recommended 8-pylon build order, instead of the 7-pylon I favor for smaller maps. 9 slapped down a gateway and assimilator, and I sent 10 out as a scout to learn more about the map.
Another tip for the intermediate toss player. I always hotkey my first scout to 1. Scouting turned out to be key in this map. Once you hotkey to 1, just hit 1 and click on some dark spot on the map. If you lose your scouting probe, make another and assign it to 1. Until you get observers, 1 is going to tell you everything about the map. At first I scouted all these expansion slots, wondering where my opponent was. Then I remembered the map was 4 player, so they had to be in the bottom corners, duh. :) So I quit looking for them and started scouting juicy spots to start expansions at. Somewhere around this time, green terran snooped into my base, but was made short work of by 2 goons. By now I was working on the range upgrade. In short order I had six at the choke in front of my base.
My scout crossed an expansion north of the left starting position and found a green SCV. The SCV attacked, but my probe withdrew. I sent my first 6 goons to the expand while taking one to my south (my partner, purple was still quiet).
The goons found the CC uncompleted and began their attack. There were only a handful of marines there, and they fell to my goons (no casualties on my part). At home, a robotics was finishing completion, and I warped in a shuttle, thinking reaver drop. Then I switched and warped in an observatory--I thought recon would give me map control better.
I sent my 1st observer to where green had tried to expand. The next I sent to find out what the other [LoC] dude was up to. At this point my expand was complete and my goon squad was growing in number. The 2nd observer stumbled across my last opponent, he was brown, and zerg. In general, I think goons suck against zerg, so I started to sweat. Things got worse when I saw a tank roll into green's old stomping grounds and transform. At this point I slapped down a citadel, getting ready to diversify.
I sent my goon squad to brown's new expansion. There were only 2 sunkens to defend, and they died quickly. Before I could make strawberry jam out of the hatchery, brown unloaded his plan on me: a bunch of lurkers rolled right towards my goon squad.
This is worth a smile :).
For those who don't know, lurkers don't do so hot against toss. This is b/c unlike hydras/marines, who have less range than lurkers, goons have just as much, so their attack are EQUAL (20/20, large/large). But goons don't have to burrow to attack, which gives them the edge. If brown had used hydras instead, he would have won for sure. Instead, he lost all his lurkers, me losing NO goons to his units. I was feeling better, having squashed 2 expands with minimal losses--I may be average and my partner sucked (he hadn't done anything at this point, except for the cursory scans), but my opponents weren't much better off.
At this point, I had a second expand going, and was massing ground troops, which included upgraded zealots. Green harrassed my expands with singular wraiths, which were summarily driven off by cannons. A good lesson--when attacking expands, attack the WARPING CANNONS, not the ASSIMILATOR :).
I massed two control groups, and an observer stumbled across the middle bottom expand of brown. I was starting to sweat again; green had fortified, and brown was getting agressive with his expands.
I massed 2 squads of upgraded goons/zealots and sent them to attack the brown expand. Brown had switched strategies, rather wisely, and his massed hydras were able to send my forces packing. By now I had 2 expands, and so the loss wasn't crippling; I was able to crank out another 2 squads rather quickly.
BTW--another tip for the intermediate toss--I always hotkey shuttles to 0. When you get a new shuttle, shift-hotkey it to 0. This way you will ALWAYS know where all your shuttles are. I attached 0 to my squad and sent them to brown.
While my army massed, they stumbled across green. He wasn't too happy with what I did to him earlier, and he was looking to get my expand. Even until recently, I really never knew how to handle tanks in diverse forces. Their firepower just rips everything up. Then I learned (yup, for the intermediate toss :)--wait on open ground, and wait for the terran to come to YOU. While his tanks are in transit, they are vulnerable.
Another common myth is that reavers suck against tanks. NOT SO! Commence your attack with your ground troops, hopefully while the tanks are transforming and your goons have begun pelting them. Now hit '0' (you hotkeyed your shuttle, right?!) and land your reavers in range. The tanks are fixed on your zs/goons, and your reavers will tear up the marines/firebats. W/o escort, the tanks fell with minimal losses on my part.
Purple was baking his mom banana-bread, I think.
I sent both squads to brown's expand and pasted it. His hydras were getting waxed, so he retreated them through a nydus. Meanwhile, another observer was blown to bits by hydras south of purple.
The bread must've been pretty good--he didn't seem to mind brown zerg expanding at his doorstep. My, "expand NOW!!!" didn't seem to be encouraging him to much. I had to sigh when I found out his plan: nukes! With his starting resources!!!
By this time I had another squad of troops ready, another shuttle, and another 2 reavers.
A nuke went off, purple's fortunately.
I sent all three squads to brown's doorstep, where there was only a single sunken. I slapped 0 right in its face and it was shut down pretty quick. A dozen or so hydras arrived, but they didn't last very long with 4 reavers firing on them. Brown's main fell.
"expand NOW!" turned to "finish brown NOW!!!"
By now I had stargates and I decided to go--yup--carrier. I sent the 3 ground squads to where brown was expanding. Green was awake though, and he was serious with lock-down. He managed to shut down 3 of the 4 reavers, and the goons and zealots fell to mass marines. Purple sent aid in the form of a ghost (yes _a_ ghost) and tried to nuke brown's expand. I didn't know what he planned to do when the nuke hit MY TROOPS, but fortunately brown was able to slay the offender. Unfortunately, w/o reavers, the goons/zs got cut up my mass medarines.
Round this time, purple finished his project--two brand new spanking command centers!!!
They work better built at an expand of course.
At this point, I had two carriers--if either brown or green was serious about an attack, my bases wouldn't last long. Having given away his fetish, I decided it would be best to get an arbiter for cloaking before I sent my babies to do any dirty work. Realizing the futility of buildings CCs in the middle of nowhere, purple promptly quit w/o so much a word to me :(. At this point, I thought I was screwed for sure--but [LoC] promised to ally if they won in the end, and I had worked too hard to quit anyway.
Brown was starting to reestablish himself, and I made 2 zs and 2 dts to help my fledgeling fleet route him. Along the way, they stumbled across a mix of tanks/medarines out to do in my expansions. This is the point where green learned that SVs work better when you make them FOLLOW your units, as the 2dts promptly slaughtered the marines and sent the tanks rollin' on home.
When my arbiter rolled in, I realized I'd never gotten the capacity upgrade for my carriers. No wonder the interceptors got built so fast :).
At 8 carriers/1 arbiter, I decided the best thing to do would be go after green's main. His expands were crawling with ghosts, and he was too trigger happy. He begun another attack at my expand, but ran on home when the cloaked carriers came knocking. Brown helped out with scourge, but had no ols nearby, so had to hunt down my arbiter. With some micro, I kept it on the move so the carriers could slaughter the scourge. It took a 2nd wave of them to take out the arbiter and 1 carrier, but by then green's main was now a memory.
"IF" they won indeed :).
Ore I had in abundance, so I decided to make lots of un-lockdownable units, mainly zs and dts, and rely on the carriers for air-support. Wraiths were made in small squads and were promptly butchered by the now fully upgraded carriers. Brown's new main was well-guarded by medarines, but anyone who spent as much gas as he did on scourge had to have sucky ground defense. I was right; when I came knocking the base quickly fell to ground troops supported by carriers and some reavers. Brown wouldn't quit, though; he still had bases somewhere on the map.
Now it became a scramble to see who could raze what first. Green and brown launched combined strikes against my expands to take them out and were crawling towards my main. I had a lot of money in the bank, though, so I wasn't worried.
Brown managed a hydra drop at my main and I lost everything, but my fleet was still intact. This is why I really ended up winning; both brown and green wasted entirely too many troops. My carrier fleet returned home and promptly slaughtered the hydras for their offenses, w/o so much as a lost shield point (I got the 2 ols first). Which goes to show... make your ols FOLLOW your troops!!!
Now the storm gathered at the last expand, which we had traded off. Green had no supply, and brown had no map position. I massed ground troops and 8 carriers/2 arbiters at the expand, where I promptly slapped down a core to tech up again. Across the bridge was green's last troops, which included a fair mix of ghosts. I sent an arbiter on a suicide mission, and sure enough, mass marines and ghosts were put in glass display fit for your X-mas tree. The remainder promptly fell to my cloaked carriers/zs/goons. Then the others came out of stasis. Green wasn't watching, though, and there were no lockdowns.
Being an average player myself, I make it a rule to ally in the end if I win a 2 against 1. Obviously they were beginners.
Final lessons:
Go for nukes as your primary attack mode, end up with 5 kills. Yes JUST FIVE (I had 483 :).
Don't waste troops. Burrowing doesn't protect your units late game!!! Even if you destroy the observatory!!! :)
Lurkers suck vs. goons with an observer! Yes, AN observer! A few hydras and an ol could blow it out of the sky and give you the advantage! Losing 5/6 lurkers to 0 goons is BAD early game!
Tech up on big maps. Don't be afraid to try something new!!! :)
Hotkey your shuttles and scouts!
Don't be afraid to use reavers against tanks with mixed troops! The reavers will give you the advantage (reavers kill marines faster than tanks kill zs)! MIXED troops! Don't send them alone against anything... they'll DIE and YOU will be wasting troops.
If you're terran, tread ye carefully, lest you get caught on the way with your pants down :).
If your suck partner leaves, don't give up. If you're toss and you can gather an 8 carrier fleet unharrassed, you're in good shape :). OTOH, if a huge combined force comes knocking at your door, feel free to 'gg.'
Oh yeah, remember that capacity upgrade. If your carriers build interceptors too quickly, there's a reason :).
--Thyroid-Storm |
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