"Some day there will be little CynicalMagicianettes, casting spells randomly on 30 year old women. Will they steal your wife? Probably."
-SlingsNArrows
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| 1183 Terran takes me for a ride | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 09/30/99 11:09 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 8, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for AQD3: 7.6184 |   | Introduction
I played only two games last night, but both were very challenging. The first one was against ko[b]old. He is a very skilled protoss player. We played on rivalry where he played a skilled protoss vrs protoss game that was a lot more challenging than any of my ladder games to that point. I only gained the advantage through an extensive use of psi storm and several flanking attacks on positions he did not defend as hard as he could have. It was a good thing I had such a challenging early game because I needed the preparation for the ladder game that followed. I joined a game 1183+%$#@%%#. The player waiting for me was [o.t.g]shin. After the preliminary cursing was over Shin said “GL” and started the game as random. The thing about random players is they are either easy kills or very very good. The easy ones get the race they are not as good at and just picked random in the hopes they would get their good race. These are the ones that usually leave the game in the first two minutes if they are smart. Since Shin had a good ladder record which got him to 1183 without any signs of being a newbie killer, and he didn’t quit, I had a feeling this was going to be an interesting game. The map was the Lost Temple:
Let’s do this
I started the game with a reliable anti random build at the top position. Around probe number twelve I was scouted by a zippy yellow SCV. Instead of taking a good look and running, Shin queued his SCV to make continuos loops around my base. He knew that nothing I had at this point could kill the SCV. It could outrun probes and zealots. He got a good two minutes of free recon with an even greater annoyance factor than an overlord before his attention flagged and my zealot lit into his SCV with his Psi blades. My own scouting probe found him at the left start but was destroyed by a marine at his ramp due to his wall in building configuration. Shin got a perfect view of my build order which went like this:
8: Pylon
12: 2 Gateways
13: Pylon
15: Zealot
17: Assimilator
21: Cybernetics Core
23: Pylon
23: Zealot
After the SCV was finally dispatched I started making dragoons and got a Citadel of Adun. Dark templar containment is not a bad strat even at higher levels. The first dragoons went with the zealots and set up camp outside his mineral natural. I probed his base with a zealot which was hit by tank fire. It looked like I might be dealing with a quick tech strategy that was based on tanks. I happily teched up to templar and produced two dark templar as soon as the archive warped in. I had two zealots and four dragoons already at my opponent’s choke. Setting up at his choke would prevent him from establishing map control and recon with spider mines and vultures. One dark templar wandered into his natural to see what was going on but took an arclite blast from a siege tank when it moved too close to a turret he had placed on his ridge. I sent a zealot in and had him hug the cliff away from the tanks, then wait by the minerals in his natural to let me know when he tried to expand.
Imagine my surprise
Back at home I was working on the +1 weapons and singularity charge upgrade. I had a single cannon on the left side of my probe line to discourage drops long enough for me to move troops into position. Satisfied with my containment I decided to take advantage of my map control and expand to the right start. A few more dragoons trickled down to the containment and I researched psi storm. Just as I was starting to feel confident six wraiths flew into my base. All my air defense forces were at my choke. They flew to the right side of my probe line away from the cannon and started chipping away at my innocent workers. With a sinking feeling I ordered a newly warped dragoon to attack them and sent all the probes on the right of the minerals to mine on the left. I also made another cannon towards the right of the minerals. I started moving six dragoon back from my choke to deal with the threat. Then the wraiths cloaked… No detection, no templar…things were not looking good. The probes AI started them mining the right side again and I again ordered them to the left. The wraiths attacked the warping cannon, killing it, but one of them wandered in detection range of the other cannon while doing so and was destroyed. I contemplated moving my probes to the right start where I had just expanded, but I had no cannons there yet and they would be even more vulnerable. I warped another cannon that would cover the right but placed it closer to my existing cannon. One of the wraiths fell out of cloak and was ripped apart by my dragoons. The other ones took off too, obviously due to low cloak energy. I had lost about eight to ten probes and the initiative… Shortly after my watching zealot at his natural died a few moments after seeing a command center floating into the natural.
At least I hadn’t lost troop count. I started producing probes at my main and my expansion in the hopes of catching up. I also sent my dragoons back to the containment site at the mineral natural for my enemy. I followed them with three templar in short order. The next major conflict came as Shin tried to break my containment. Facing my two zealots, dark templar, ten goons, and three templar was fourteen tanks and a science vessel. Shin didn’t even siege his tanks, just attacked my ranks. The repetitive boom of cannon fire echoed across the field of battle as my goons returned fire. I started controlling my templar and hit over half of his tanks with my first three storms. I was losing troops faster than I thought I should and I realized I was being hit by cloaked wraiths also. I had about four goons left to his six tanks when I turned the battle with two quick storms. He moved back his remaining tanks and one of my goons was lured in range of the tanks on his cliff. I started trying for wraiths with my templar, getting only one kill at the cost of the rest of the energy. He sieged his last two tanks just outside his natural and I pulled back my forces to the mid point of the map. He had broken the containment at the cost of most of both of our forces.
Shin takes over the war
I knew that being outresourced would result in my defeat against a terran in a ground war. I sent a probe to the bottom start and began another base there. I increased my gateway to two at the right expansion and three at my main. I also put down another forge and started double upgrading. A key part of my strategy at this point was to get speed upgraded zealots to combat the tanks. My base at the bottom was going nicely in a minute or two and I set down another two gateways there. I like to avoid using the natural expansions against a terran because of the difficulty in defending against tank sieges on the cliffs. I also got a robotics bay and dropped a probe at the upper left island. While I was doing all this I kept up a steady troop flow which I sent to the right half of the center. Shin wasn’t idle during the three or four minutes this took. He had been systematically covering his half of the middle with tanks. They were perfectly spaced so they supported one another but not close enough that I could catch two in the same psi storm.
Shin made his move just as the minerals in my main ran out. I sent all the mineral probes to the bottom expansion except for one that I expanded to my main’s natural with. His tanks had crept close enough that I had to either attack or surrender the middle. With the probes in transit to the bottom expansion I would be having a very bad time if I lost the middle. I sent in all my available troops in the middle to crash against the wall of his siege tanks. I had about fourteen dragoons, ten zealots, and five templar. They ran head on into his massive force of tanks and a support element of infantry. I spent most of my storms on the infantry, killing about eighteen or so in total. My forces didn’t fare too well vrs the tanks with his mutually supporting tank fire. I killed the first row of eight or so tanks, but saw my forces vaporized by the second and third ranks. I pushed him back enough that my probes made it by, but depleted my forces in the effort. I had given up the center.
This gave Shin free reign. He could dictate where the attacks went and I was forced in a reactionary mode. I upped my gateway count to three at all three of my bases. I used the probe on the top left island to set up a nexus and a few pylons and cannons to defend. I stopped using dragoons and mostly made both kinds of templar and speed zealots. Shin wasn’t about to let me keep raking in the resources he sent a force of a dozen marines, a few tanks, and some vultures to the bottom expansion. I held them off at the ramp to buy some time with two dragoons and a dark templar. I then took a control group of zealots and dark templar from each of my other bases and patrolled them to the bottom. My forces luckily caught about eight tanks in transit and made short work of them with little losses. I came in behind the initial group of enemy tanks just as they sieged with my speed zealots and ended the problem.
I started up a stargate and fleet beacon at the upper left island. I continued making troops with about one dragoon for every two dark templar and four zealots. My upgrades hit 2/2/1 when Shin made his next move. My observers caught him moving tanks through the middle. I was pretty sure they were heading to my main. I tried to hit him in transit with a group of zealots from my main, only to be greeted at the right mineral natural with over ten perfectly set up tanks. This was looking bad. We dueled back and forth with dark templar and comsat for a bit, with me losing. I took my troops from the right and went down to hit his tanks from behind. He dealt with the attack pretty easily, losing only a few marines and two tanks to a control group of my troops. He must have comsated the right at that point because he took his forces from the right mineral natural and moved into the right which I had essentially left naked. The lone templar I had posted at the right got off a good storm killing most of his marines before being eliminated by the ten or so tanks he set up. I lost the cannons quickly and was starting to lose probes. This was directly hurting my resource flow… I took all the troops from the bottom and the top, about 20 zealots and dark templar and attacked. Luckily he only had two tanks still outside my main which were easily run over. My forces closed in and destroyed his tanks at the right with close range attacks.
Desperate times…
So far most of the game had been me reacting to him. Reacting to his wraith rush, his tank push in the middle, the attacks on the bottom, my main, and the right. I needed to take back the initiative. The only comfort I had was he had not expanded yet. I started making a carrier at the island. If I made 12 carriers and tried to run him over he would have my head on a stick before I got the first 6. But if I made 4 and raided with them he would have to counter them and that would take away his maniacal tank production and hopefully the initiative. In the wake of his attack I knew I needed resources worse than ever. I started making probes at the top natural and the island, as well as replenishing probes at the right. I also expanded to the bottom natural.
Shin was going to go for broke. He started another tank attack on the bottom, forcing me to cancel the warping nexus. I hit panic mode once more and sent my available troops to counter. His first few tanks got taken down by the four zealots and four dark templar fresh from the gateways of the bottom. His tanks started seiging as the rest of my forces hit the natural, peppering the zealots with arclight fire as they raced to engage. I lost the first three before they hit the enemy, but after that the splash of the tanks started working against them to help kill their friends. I cleared his forces out with the loss of about six zealots.
A sigh of relief
In a bid to slow down the pressure of the constant attack I sent in my first carrier over his natural. The eight interceptors took down a turret guarding his SCV line. And with that he surrendered. I was a bit surprised, but I knew he had nothing to combat air power, he had just lost a rather big attack, and his natural was about to be mined out. Shin gets my respect for being the hardest ladder game I have played yet, bringing me to 9-1 and 1198.
Thank you for reading my report. Please comment on the strategies and tactics I and my opponent used.
You can find the record of my ladder game here.
AQD3
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