"Oh, you need to have 1800+ ladder, and two penises. Mmmm, balls are optional."
- WaxAngel, on what's neccesary to be a battlereporter.
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| It ain't over until fat lady sings. | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 05/20/99 08:05 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Famous Reporter(1), Starcraft(1), Old Classic(1), Great Writing(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 9, Min: 9
Lifetime Rating for .Praetor: 8.2987 |  | You know, BR's are only really good if they are about awesome games. Unfortunately, you don't always know what games are going to be awsome, and still, sometimes it's close and you don't have much time to pay attention. What I'm saying is no screenshots. Sorry.
Things are going slowly in NoHunters, so I figure I'll go out and play a ladder match. I do, but then I lose my connection to b.net. I hate winning games and losing points. So I say to my self, "fine, I'll just do a little 1on1 (I'm an ffa man) to get myself back above 1200" (it's a psychological thing). Not finding anything, I start my own game.
Lo and behold, my war-mongering enemy has arrived. I don't remember his name, so I'll refer to him with similar meaningless platitudes from now on. We chat, something like "Wanna start?" "Ok."
I pick Protoss, since I'm best with them even if I like playing Terran better, The Evil One goes random. Now, I'd noticed a thing about the NoHunters people that impressed me. They always seemed to kill me with a swarm of Protoss units, just a bunch of zeal and dragoon, come up and rip up my teched and upgraded units. So I figured, I'll try it this time. So....
Map: Proving Grounds (a good map for open battles and such).
I was bottom left
Nemesis was top left, also Protoss.
I got three gates when his first zealot arrived, he had 2 gateways. My one zeal and his newly warped buddy dispatched the the offending unit. (My units like to use the buddy system). I figure the opponent must think I'm going to zeal rush, so I get a cyber core, and start pumping goons. When I have 4 goons and 4 zeal, I go and attack, making 3 zeal retreat before me. I've also started upgrading, and I made 2 cannons to cover detection in my base. I go up to his units, and a good battle ensues, in which his over zealoted forces goes down, but I have only 2 goons left. I start to move towards his probes, when 2 zeal rush in from Aiur and finish off my attack. I think, cool. I continue to pump forces and upgrade until I have 5 zealots and 9 goons. I'm maxed on support, but instead of building pylons, I start a citadel and move to start an expansion at the lower right starting position. To free up supply, I attack. My units now have one attack one armour upgrade.
The attack goes well, again he has more zeal than I, but my goons make up the difference. When the last of his standing forces falls, I have 4 goons left, 2 damaged. Those zeals sure can take a pounding. So I move up to his gas line, and out comes a zealot. I think to quickly dispatch it, but it goes and attacks my weakest dragoon, killing it, and severly wounding the other damaged goon before it falls. Stupid basic units. My opponent has 3 gateways now, which should have been a warning to me that I was going to start losing on unit production, but I wasnt too worried at the time. 2 more zeal pop out of the other two gateways, and suddenly I'm down to 1 goon. This terrorizes the gas line peons for awhile, before another goon comes out and smacks my poor cripple warrior around.
By this time, I have started my expansion a going, and I start a templar archives. When I have 6 goons, I go and attack again. My upgrades are now 2 attack, 2 armour. His are still just 1 attack. I go with my goons, and for the first time, there are no troops waiting for me in his defensive position. I think cool, and sneak up behind his minerals. Just then my range upgrade finishes. Unfortunately, He Who Is Most Wicked, is on the ball and retreats his probes. My forces are then whittled down, as he attacks with 3 goons at a time, and I let 3 of my goons handle them, losing about 2 and 12 (upgrades) each time. The other goons I foolishly let pound on his various buildings in range at the time. Feeling rather good, and having mined a lot of gas at my expansion, I start on getting probes for minerals.
The Enemy soon finishes off my attack, and I rebuild my forces. The next time I attack I take 2 archons and 7 goons. I march up to his base, and this time he is waiting for me again. There are about 6 zealots and 2 goons. I think "cool" and attack. It soon becomes clear to me that there is also a dark templar. I don't worry too much, figuring on killing off his units I can battle with then retreating. Unfortunately, his zeal and concentrated fire from his goons finish off my archons. I suddenly remember how badly my goons will do against his zeal, so I finish off those that are in the red, and retreat, brining 4 goons back to my base. By this time I have 2 armour 2 attack and I start on the next attack upgrade. He has one armour, one attack, and will soon have 1 sheild which is the end of his upgrading. Feeling rather confident, I set up a robotics facility at my expansion, and make more probes. Finding myself low on minerals, I make mostly templar, merging them into archons. I also throw out some goons. He sends an observer down to check out my base, and it quickly dies to cannon and goon fire. This is when the bastard attacks my expansion.
He comes in with like 6 zealots and 3 goons, and I realize that I had only 2 cannons, since I was having mineral problems before. This really pisses me off, because he takes out my observatory before it warps in, and I dont have an observer to go take out his base with. I retreat my probes to the top right starting location, where I find a probe of his and a pylon. I kill his probe and start working on the pylon. Feeling rather annoyed, I build another robotics facility at my main. I then send a probe out to the expansion location, where it is promply killed. His forces then go back to the top right and kill my 6 probes or whatever is left. I just missed killing the pylon.
When my observer finally warps in, I take 3 archons, 6 goons, and 2 zeals up to teach the Offender that I've been controlling the game up till now, and I'm damn well going to keep controlling it. He taught me other wise. I did fine taking out troops of his, but he just overmassed me, and archon splash just isn't as effective vs zeals at it is vs lings. He had about 3 goons and 3 zeal left when I finished. He came down to my base for like the 3rd time in the game, and I drove him off with my cannon and 5 goons that were sitting there. Another attempt at expanding to the lower right is cut off, so I set up and my mineral-only spot on my island, sending probes over as my main starts to run out of money. Now is when I start thinking cannily, deciding to go attack his expansion, and not his main for once. My observer tells me that it has one cannon and a zealot for defense, so I take my dinger back to my troops and head over with 6 goons 2 archons and a zealot. Well this guy must have esp, because his forces arrived at his expansion just before mine. I swear, kill some stuff, and retreat with an archon that has almost depleted sheilds and 4 goons. The other guy sets up a few more cannons. When my forces get back to my main, I now have 3 archons, 7 goons, and 2 zealots. I start researching psi-storm, and I make a probe. I send my stuff at the enemy main agian, keeping an observer in tow, and start an expansion at the middle left spot. Well, apparently, the enemy is going to attack too, because, for the first time, we meet on a bridge. I start out mostly across it, where my zeal and one archon meet their demise because of limited goon support. I then retreat back across the bridge, and kill a bunch of his zeal, with my 2 archons and concentrated goon fire. Now I move my goons up and force my way across the bridge, he convienently retreated to allow me to do so. I set up an assimilator and a pylon at my new expansion.
Once I get across the bridge the enemy forces and I re-engage. I seem to be getting the better of it until 2 shuttle come along. Out of habit, I took my goons and brought the shuttle down with concentrated fire. Unfortunatly, it managed to set one reaver down. I wonder if it had another. My archon dies to the first scarab and concentrated goon fire, I take my goons, and kill the reaver with concentrated fire. Unfortunately, one last scarab and the rest of his forces take out my goons. I had just started warping in 3 cannons at my new exp, when the enemy's 2 zeal and 3 goons come in when they are about 23 done. I cancel what I can, and begin to fortify my main, building 2 more cannons, 3 templar, an archon, and 3 goons. I also build a shuttle. By now all my mineral workers have been transferred to my still working expansion. The assualt on my main begins. He sends his goons into my fire, to safely offload his reavers. Once they are down, I storm both reavers once, and my temp soon dies to a scarab. I send my archon at the reavers, but it only gets one hit off as two scarabs and goon fire kill it. I frantically order up zealots, noticing that I had about 2000 2000 in the bank. This pisses me off, because I had been unusually good at keeping my money spent and on the battlefield this game. My two new templar finally get 75 energy, so I storm one reaver, killing it. Unfortuanatly, my last cannon falls at the same time. My last storm hurts about 7 goons, stripping them of their sheilds and damaging them. My templar die before they can retreat and merge. I'm feeling good as an odd cannon catches the last reaver by surprise, and my 3 new zealots take his forces down to 2 damaged goons. Unfortunately, that's when 4 goons as reinforcements arrive. Realizing I had lost my main, I picked up my gas probes in my shuttle and moved them off. Not really knowing what to do, I go to the bottom middle expansion, slightly raised land, and start up a new expansion. I quickly throw up about 8 cannons around the edge, figuring that reavers couldn't fire up here so I was safe. Taking the other two probes, I do the same to the top middle expansion, figuring it couldn't hurt to try. I build 2 gateways and a cybercore at my only remaining base in working order. I had 4 cannons previously, and I build 4 goons before the attack commences. The first thing my worthy adversary does is drop two reavers supported by zealots. Of course, zealots don't exactly have range, so I wait until the second scarab wave is off to move up my goons, and I finish the reavers surprisingly quick, losing only one goon and one other damaged. I then retreat behind my remaining 2 cannons, and start pelting zealots. During this time, I also evacuate 6 probes to my lower middle expansion, which has 7 cannons up and running and a pretty good mining operation going on. At my top middle expansion, I start a stargate, and set 6 cannons up, with an assimiator, and start pumping probes. When my cannons at my old expansion fall, I pick up my two dragoons, and take them to the hostile base top right. Correctly guessing his cannon placement, I place the goons on the limited high ground and send my shuttle back to my my dying base. About this time I start a fleet beacon on the top middle island. This left about a two probe space for my mineral miners, and the corner of the nexus of the gas miners.
At my dying base, I pick up my last probes, but the shuttle gets shot down by approaching dragoons once I leave the plateau vicinity. My counterpart then says gg for the second time. This time I don't respond. I should have done what I do most ladder games: go air. Air is what I do best. Ah well. It was time to start over. I queued 3 carriers, and built a few replacement pylons. When my second carrier was about half through, I realized that one stargate wasn't going to cut it. Unfortunately, there was NO WHERE else to place one on either island. Feeling suddenly very claustrophobic in my previously miraculous safe havens, I looked at the south one, which had the least buildings. I figured out a way to place a gateway!!! by splitting my mining probes into two groups. This allowed me to build a cyber core which went behind the refinery. Once that was finished I built a robotics facility on the other side, cutting off a mineral patch. A few minutes later, some dragoons came buy and killed a cannon, losing 3 goons, and being worried, I walled off two more mineral patches building a forge for replacements. At this time I had 2 carriers done, and a third on the way. I went off to attack, my goons on the high ground still keeping mining probes away from the enemy's second base (which was almost depleted anyway, but you do what you can). He started a cannon there which I killed, then brought over mass (aboug 6) goons to take mine out. I got 3.
My carriers, taking advantage of the distraction, went over to the new base lower right, and maneuvered onto the high ground, in case of goons. I still had 3 observers, which I slowly lost, looking for expansions. My carriers got about one third of the massive number of probes working at this base, mainly due to the confusion getting out. He must have sent all his main base's probes and his refugee probes here. I then took out 2 cannons and a few goons. Spotting scouts moving down with an observer, I retreated my cannons to my lower mid expansion. He complimented me, saying "tenacious," I thanked him.Now I was really worried. Scouts are a nightmare against carriers. To compensate, I started pumping corsair at my top expansion, moving my carriers up there to join my third one warping in. My second shuttle got done at this time, and I sent it and a probe to the middle of the map, those 4 separated corners that no one ever bothers with on this map. Taking a risk that they wouldn't be discovered, I set up 4 pylons and 4 stargates there. When the first 2 got up, I started carriers. I then warped in more pylons that were needed, and started on more carriers. About this time, 6 corsair were finished, and I thought to start upgrading air weapons at my cyber core. At this time, I found out why the surely annoyed enemy had recently obtained corsair. He came over and d-webbed all but 3 of my cannons on my north base. That being completed, he sent in goons, who got the rest of the cannons. Utilizing d-web, I managed to finish off those goons with my two carriers. I started interceptors on the two carriers that just got finished in the middle. My eighth corsair comes out, and his scouts come in, he had at least 10, maybe 12. The rip into my carriers, bunching up and allowing my 8 corsair to attack them un-opposed. Those scouts died frighteningly fast, but not before they killed my 3 carriers. I think I'm safe from the attack now, but my sneaky opponent manages to drop 2 reavers into my base before I can kill the shuttle. I catch the shuttle too, and a corsair. I move up my 4 carriers from the middle, 2 of which had just started on interceptors, and eventually kill the reavers, but not before losing a pylon, my fleet beacon, my assimilator, and all my probes on the base. I start rebuilding probes.
Feeling good about his loss of scouts, I took my last 2 carriers that had finished in the middle, and started on their interceptors, and moved to attack the top right, which had started mining again. My last observer spots dragoon reinforcements coming up from the south before it gets shot down, and so I bring up my corsair. A goon attack on my south base causes the loss of a few cannons and my cyber core, along with the upgrade I was researching. I ignored the pest. When he landed 4 zealots there, the cannons from the other side of my base finished them off. I am sure glad those weren't reavers. I sent the 3 scouts I had made down, and they finished off the dragoons, losing 2 scouts. I started 2 more, and realizing my new lack of minerals, I started pumping more drones up north, building only 2 cannons for defense. My carriers were successfully attacking, killing one scout and 2 corsair, when the goons arrived. Through judicious use of d-web (where it got down to the point of my searcing for the last corsiar with the neccessary amount of energy) I managed to lose only one carrier and shields on lots of others. Two goons then came to my north base, killed one of the warping cannons, and started pounding what probes they could and my already burning nexus. I sent one of my carriers back, and proceeded to raze his original expansion. Not planning on slowing down, I immediately attack south, regaining my stray carrier, which had taken out his 2 goons. I finished off his south expansion, guarded by four cannons and 3 goons. Two of my carriers were heavily damaged, but I carried the day. To my surprise, he still had not expanded, and surrendered when I killed 6 goons at his main (d-web agin).
Wow. We both had a TON of kills. It was maybe the first real game based upon attrition I have played. For the vast majority of it it was just brutal battle after battle, see-sawing between our bases, with the obliteration of one attack force after another. I'm convinced that it was not his reavers, but his 4th gateway that won the attrtition war for him. An interesting note. Every once in awhile, he would send a zealot past my north or south base (mostly south) to make it most of the way across the island before being shot down by my cannons. Any idea why he did this? Not that it would have been a factor in the game.
Notable Notes:
*Make absolutely sure that you keep spending your money. If it's a close game and you have over 600600 in the bank, you are losing.
*Sometimes, upgrades DON'T count. This runs contrary to my earlier report, but it was true my ground upgrades, and his air upgrades (one attack one armour one shields) didn't affect the battle in any major way.
*It's never, Never, NEVER over until you are eliminated. I learned this lesson dearly, on both sides, on Green Valleys. Believe it or not, I loved that map, even played a few games where all the minerals were mined out on it.
*When going air (toss and terran), it's better to have a two-unit combo. For toss, make it corsair and carrier because of d-web and cheapnessfastbuilding. Yes, of course there are times when this does not apply.
*Control of the map and game tempo is not always everything, especially if you can't or don't take advantage of it. |
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