"I may be in the minority here but the thought of Heartcutter in a tub of chlorinated water splashing about with some moistened tarts trying to (apparentely) gain some sort of sexual favor in order to procreate truly frightens me. Little Heartcutters....((shivers)) makes Blair witch look like disney."
-Thundercracker
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| Drops keep falling on his head | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 10/25/99 06:10 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 7, Min: 6
Lifetime Rating for Judge~Holden: 6.5882 |   | Well all you picture hungry people, here is another report without any. If you dont like that, I can only offer up my own massive absent-mindedness as an excuse. As an alternative, I can offer some terran and protoss island strategies in this report however... so read on. And, I can also offer some protoss don'ts... again!
Continuing with my ladder antics, I actually found a game on Dire Straits! And, with a player rated in the 1130s no less. Although this is probably my favorite ladder map, it is very tough to get a game on. Even tougher to find an opponent that isnt like 932 or something equally bad. And, although protoss should own in a big way on this map, I still like the challenge. So, I happily joined the game, and was happier when my opponent, =nataku=, picked protoss. He spawned at bottom right, I spawned terran at top right.
My bo for dire is:
8: depot
10: rax
11: gas
14: depot
15: factory
16: ebay at edge of island
Then, starport as soon as factory is done, and dont start marines until 2nd depot is complete.
I have no idea what my opponent's build order was... as I didnt scan him till very late. I built my academy later than usual (around 25?). However, to better your chances of finding the enemy, float the ebay at the edge of your island to the nearest start point. Even if this gives away your location, at least you know his. And the next scan can tell you exactly what is going on.
I also built a turret at each of the 2 points of the island, and kept pumping tanks out of 2 factories. Out of the port came a wraith first, then I added a control tower for dropship capability.
His first drop happened in the corner of my island, and consisted of 3 dark templar. I sent my wraith after the shuttle (but he somehow missed it). The three templar moved into my base... but I make it standard practice to build a turret at each end of my mineral line, and a bunker at the gap in the middle. This provides cloak protection, and some amount of drop protection. Combined with two tanks in the mineral line, it is pretty tough for a quick drop to do any real damage. And that was certainly the case this time: the dark templar were vaporized by arclite cannon fire in no time. (In keeping with my practice of sniping at my opponents tactics... dark templar drops against terran are usually pretty dumb... the reaver/zealot or reaver/DT combo is usually much more effective, and produces much higher peon kills when microed properly.)
The wraith that I had sent chasing after that shuttle flew straight south, and although he missed the shuttle, he uncovered an expansion attempt at the 6 o'clock small island. =nataku= had built a few cannons, and a nexus, but the southern side of the island was wide open... So I loaded two dropships with 3 tanks, 1 scv, and 3 marines. The marines are, literally, cannon fodder: they take hits from photon cannons while i move my tanks out of range. The tanks slowly destroyed the island expansion, and 2 wraiths were sent as insurance that no shuttle could come to the rescue.
Once the expansion attempt was dead, I proceded to turret up the island... no point in letting him retake it easily. (And thanks to shockwave and d22-soso, both of whom advocate "whoring" your opponents expansion in this way.) I also built two CCs on my main, one at each point of the island where I had previously built turrets (you can be relatively free from observer snooping this way). Back at home, I researched mines for vultures, built another two dropships, and 4 vultures.
The CC on the western part of my island I floated to the 12 o'clock expansion, and loaded up 4 vultures, 8 scvs (Maynard transfers are just as important on islands as land), and mined and turreted the island. I then picked up the vultures, and dropped them at each of the other two start locations, and 2 expansion islands, for better recon.
As soon as I lifted off the CC on the southern tip of my island, it saw a major expansion attempt by =nataku= at the 3 o'clock island. This time there were so many cannons that I couldn't sneak a dropship in. So, I moved three tanks south, used the CC for sight, and seiged from across the water. Once the northern defenses were blasted away, I dropped four tanks on the island, and made short work of the rest of the structures there. Then, I took another 8 scvs and turreted up the island, and moved all the rest of my scvs from my main (which was now mined out). I also started a cc at 9. His only defense against this was another DT drop... Hmmm.
=nataku='s last effort was to expand to the bottom left start. My vulture detected the effort however, and killed several probes before dying to cannons that had warped in. I scanned =nataku='s main, saw that it was mined out, and knew that things were in control. So, the final push consisted of 6 tanks, 4 goliaths. As this force destroyed the expansion, =nataku= quit, and the victory was mine.
Lessons Learned:
- Recon is everything. It is tougher on islands, but little tricks like the floating ebay can make it easier, and save you valuable scan energy.
- It is better to counter-punch than take the first punch. I like to wait for his drop (the DTs), own it, then strike back when his forces are diminished. This works against zerg and protoss very well on islands. In this case, I struck his expansion rather than his main because: he had spent a lot of money there, and I knew I could destroy it; and because I had still not scanned his main, so I didnt know what I would face in the way of defense.
- Air control is super important. I didnt see a single corsair from him in this game! Corsairs are critical to the toss in trying to establish control of the skies. Although you can drop around them (using goliaths and dmatrix) it sure makes things a lot tougher for the terran.
- Taking his expansions and using them for your own is the best way to ensure you don't have to re-take them.
- Turret every place you are building something important! Observers are a pain in the ass, and if you keep him in the dark about what you have, you have a big advantage.
- The other big mistake he made is only expanding to one location at a time. My unit and resource scores for this game were low, because I was so involved in micro-ing my drops and attacks. The best way for the protoss to succeed is to make me pay for all this micro by giving me too many things to do at once.
You can find the record of my game here. This victory takes me too 10/3, and a rating of 1168. Please feel free to comment on the strategies and tactics of me and my opponent.
Judge~Holden |
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