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The Twilight Zone : Episode I
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Author:Bane-The-Feared
IP:209.149.XXXX
Date: 04/30/00 12:04
Game Type: Starcraft
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Report Rating: 8.3, # of Ratings: 3, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Bane-The-Feared: 8.3333






Warning: This GIF will load each picture individually and then replay as it should be seen, so close your eyes. NO PEEKING! There should also be music, if you don't hear it, I'm sorry :(, but it should work. Those of you using Netscape may also be unable to see the text in this report, but of course that's not my fault :P. And now I'm obviously just stalling so I'll shut up. Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy Episode I of..."The Twilight Zone".








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The Twilight Zone:
Episode I


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Being in a particularly psychotic mood, I decided to log onto battle.net and write some form of a battle report. I type what I normally type when I log on "/join nohunters" and find myself in a room with a minimal amount of people and no one I knew really.
Since a lot of people have read my BRs now ^^, I just decided to say come to channel "bane" if you want to play some kind of br game and so they did; with about 6 people showing up. I just said, "ok we'll make it a 2v2" and I went off to make the game. Since I particularly like this map, and it's underused IMO, I chose Polaris Prime.
Now, without further "adeue?" (one of the French guys gotta tell me if that's right :) I present...The Twilight Zone.



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Let's all sit back and enjoy our wonderful lives as we know everything around us is running smoothly... Everybody is the same when we wake up and you are living in the same year you know it to be...


[ground shakes]


Oh my God, we're going into The Twilight Zone! I hope the sheer detail and graphics of this report won't scare you. (Those of you that are under the age of 13 may be required to stop reading. Also those with bad backs, heart problems, recent surgies, and those of you that are pregnant may have to leave the screen now). For the rest of you, let's enjoy the awesome mind-interfering powers of The Twilight Zone...


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RedFox`)0( (Zerg, top-right)

enforce (Terran, mid-left)
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++Swinger++ (Zerg, mid-right)

AzureHeart (Protoss, top-left)


As a fair warning, I must say that some decisions made in this game may make you want to kill yourself, but just remember, you're in The Twilight Zone so if you can get through it, you'll get your certificate of survival.



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OK, I was able to suppress the Twilight Zone demons and bribe them to let us out..for now. So, in turn, all of the players have fairly standard build orders.
All of the players get gas first, excluding Azure's pylon. OK, now time for a detailed and very interesting description of what each player was going for:

enforce: He seemed to be going for...everything (I dunno). He builds gas, barracks, and factory. Early in the game he is building wraiths, marines, tanks, goliaths, and pretty much every Terran unit that is comprehensible to the human mind.

Redfox(not his Red color so he's jinxed): His strategy is barely on the outer edge of The Twilight Zone, but not quite there. He builds gas, pool, lair, and then a hydralisk den (no second lair or hatchery). He begins to build hydralisks from 1 hatch...(I think that demon screwed me on that out of the Twilight Zone deal, eh whatever). He seems to be going for a hydralisk drop but I really couldn't tell.

AzureHeart: He builds gas, gateway, cybernetics core. He also builds a robo bay and a robo support bay. A fairly sane strat w/ his partner being Zerg and giving him air support. He defends his base with 3 zealots...

Swinger: He builds gas, pool, lair, and then a spire. He seems to be going for mutalisks; assumingly going to use them for mobility.

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The most thrilling part of the game as of now is when Swinger and RedFox's overlords find eachother's bases...


[ground shakes]


Damnit! I knew he would backstab me on that deal! OK, we're gonna have to survive on our own through this part of the Twilight Zone. So take your Mood Assist pills because you're about to get pissed.
After finding Swinger's spire and his strategy of quick mutas, RedFox builds 1 spore colony out of range of most of his base for defense, while constantly pumping out the hydralisks from his 1 hatch and building a sunken behind his mineral field for additional mutalisk defense.

________________________________________________________
Extreme Twilight Zoneage

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Here comes the first..well second to the overlord finding..action of the game.


Azure loads a shuttle with a reaver and a zealot (the combination of champions) and Swinger sends his 5 mutalisks up to provide...support?..to that massive fleet.
They position the mutas and shuttle just to the left of RedFox's main base. They sit there for a while debating whether or not they should drop the bottom way or not. But in the end, they aparently decide to send the shuttle the top way and the mutas..kind of the side way. The shuttle is shot at several times by a spore colony.


[bricks fall from the ceiling and walls]



Man, there's really no turning back now...we're too deep into the Twilight Zone. Azure, instead of turning his shuttle away and dropping his "army" right there continues to move directly over the spore colony and drop behind the drones next to a sunken colony.
The reaver is barely in range of the sunken, which fires away freely at the reaver. The zealot moves around trying to face the sunken 1v1 as the reaver just seems to be sitting there. It's almost as if Azure forgot to build scarabs or something (maybe he did, we are in The Twilight Zone after all).
Anyway, Swinger's mutalisks are pushed away by ... 4?... of RedFox's hydralisks.
RedFox doesn't lose a single drone or building.. or unit for that matter. The reaver was destroyed before it could let out a single scarab (if it had any), and the zealot is easily destroyed by the sunken colony.
While this action is raging on, enforce is building his army of 1 of every unit known to Terran and also constructing a command center in the middle of his base (hopefully in preparation to expand).
Over to the middle-right part of the map, Swinger is building a second Lair and a queen's nest in preparation for a deadly mass queen strat (thank God I'm just kidding or we wouldn't make it out of here alive).
Azure begins to build up an army of dragoons (5) and gets a citadel of adun in preparation for a templar archives.


After this portion of extreme boringness passes, RedFox decides to be the first to expand in the game. He loads a few hydras and a drone into an o/l and sends them to the 12 o'clock expansion. After Swinger's scouting mutalisks find it and fail to destroy it because of the extremely numerous 5 hydralisks, Azure decides he needs to take some action. He loads up a few shuttles and drops dragoons next to the expansion. He moves them in and completely destroys the defending hydralisks and spore colony.
After his victorious attack, Azure expands to the expo below his main base at about 10 o'clock. While Azure is expanding, enforce sends his now built cc to the expansion below him and lands it in the mineral field. He also decides to finally build an academy.


Now, Swinger makes a sane move with the situation he's in, double expanding to the expo right under him and the bottom-right main base. This would actually put him in the category of a sane person..as of this point. He also builds a hive and a greater spire! (The Twilight Zone is having mercy on us). He begins to build mass zerglings as well from his main island base instead of a mainland base though :( (so close).
What is Azure doing this whole time you ask? He's building a forge, a second robo fac, an observatory, and a templar archives.
During this time, enforce has been producing a fleet of about 7 wraiths which he now sends up to Azure's base.


When the wraiths arrive, passing Azure's expansion, they begin to destroy a few of Azure's shuttles along with a few zealots before they are stormed by a templar that had been sitting there waiting for action.

[a wall next to you collapses under pressure]

The psi storm hits dead on, right over enforce's wraiths. Deciding to use the gosu maneuver know as "leaving your units in the middle of the psi storm", enfore lets his wraiths sit there, their armor moving down from yellow to red and then to nothing.
After his partner's failure of a 7 wraith attack, RedFox realizes it's time to act with his army. He loads up lurkers and hydras into his o/l's and sends them down to Swinger's main base.


RedFox successfully destroys all of the lings Swinger sends at him. He also destroys a queen's nest and a greater spire, as they happened to be close to him. Luckily for Swinger, however, he was able to start morphing 4 guardians before the greater spire was destroyed.

[My God think of the children!]

Swinger pulls a "Twilight Zone" when he uses absolutely no micromanagement when his guardians warp in. He practically sends them over RedFox's hydralisks. The greater power of the lings/guards combo destroys the hydralisks, however. But not after many main buildings are destroyed (queeen's nest, greater spire) and also many drones.
Using his noodle, enforce sees that Swinger has absolutely no air defense. He sends his cloaked wraiths and a valkary and begins to destroy overlords one by one. Before he can do any real damage, Azure's force of dragoons arrive in shuttles and force the wraiths to retreat.


enforce pulls a sane move and expands to the bottom-left main base with another command center he constructed at his expansion.
During the period deemed enforce's sane period, RedFox loads up his o/l's again with hydralisks and sends them down for a second attempt at Swinger's main base.
The hydralisks meet up with Azure's army of dragoons who are still sitting there from defending him the last time. RedFox also makes a brief attempt to expand to the base right under him but that was almost too brief to mention as Azure destroys it the second it is made.
Before dropping on Swinger's main, however, he destroys what's left of Azure's dragoons that destroyed his expo.


After finishing off Azure's dragoons, RedFox sends his hydras down to Swinger's main base. The hydralisks level off Swinger's base almost completely. They are stopped by zerglings right before they destroy 2 evo chambers, a lair, and an extractor. But the damage is done. It's almost looking like we're out of the Twilight Zone...must be some kind of a trick...


[lightning strikes and you hear thunder]


Ah! I knew it was a trick. Stupid demons get us thinking we're almost out and then throw us farther in than we've ever been!
RedFox now has absolute, positively, NO mineral income. Sheesh :( This is pretty bad, think you can keep going?
OK, on a lighter note, Azure expands to one of the middle bases.
Over at the middle-left part of the map, enforce, who has done absolutely nothing and had been attacked by absolutely nothing the whole game is building his little attack force. He is building...everything (I'm too lazy to type it all). He also begins to build 2 nuclear silos (I find myself with the biggest grin on my face I've ever had).
Having nothing better to do, RedFox re-expands to the base directly under his main base in hopes of actually having a mineral income and pulling us a little closer to being out of the Twilight Zone.


[lightning strikes the ceiling]

Ah! We were so close :(. Unfortunately, enforce decides to load the forces he's been building up all game on Azure's expansion directly above him. When he unloads the forces, he leaves them in a gigantic clump (while attacking a Protoss base), and lets them get demolished by a few psi storms as they just sit there not moving out of the psi storm's way; and now, what enforce had been doing the whole game is lying in pieces on the space platform floor.
As a further hit, Azure drops a few zealots off at enforce's bottom-left expansion and destroys it.


Refusing to give up on his quest to destroy Azure's expansion, enforce drops a ghost off on a mission to nuke it! How fun. The nuke, luckily hits home and destroys every one of the happily mining probes. I'll save the nuke gif for later because I'm running out of website space and don't want to make another one :( too lazy.
Anyway, after nuking the base, and thinking that it will be undefended, enforce drops off another attacking force at the expansion in hopes of finishing it off. Luckily for Azure, he had loaded up some shuttles full of troops and sent them to his expansion. When he sees the incoming dropships he moves his shuttles over to them as they have a "who can unload faster?" war.


enforce tries to EMP the opposing force but that isn't enough to turn the tides of the battle. Azure's dragoons level the attack Terran forces.
RedFox, trying to expand to the 12 o'clock expansion, leaves a minimal amount of defense. Because of this mistake, he doesn't keep the expansion for very long.
Swinger sends a force of hydralisks, zerglings, and lurkers up to attack the expansion. The forces level it in a few seconds. After this, Swinger expands to the middle of the map with a hatchery. Swinger is now once again becoming a dominating force in the game after rebuilding most of his tech buildings.


RedFox then loads up some hydras in overlords and sends them down to Azure's middle expansion. The hydras proceed to destroy a lot of pylons, gateways, and photon cannons before reinforcements arrive in dropships. The goons level the hydralisk 1 by 1 leaving them a puddle of blood on the ground.


[ground shakes]


Instead of building actual combat units, enforce goes with the "standard" (heh) mass nuke strategy. He double nukes Azure's expansion that is directly above his base leaving it in ruins. (maybe we should adopt mass nukes as a normal strategy).
At that exact instant, Swinger drops off a huge force of hydralisks at enforce's lower-left expansion. It has minimal defense and is destroyed in 2 seconds by the more powerful hydras.


And now, as Swinger's army is destroying enforce's main base, RedFox drops off an army of hydralisks in Swinger's newly made middle expansion and completely destroys it.
The game has definitely taken some game-altering events. Since I know this may be hard to follow, I'll recap what each player has.

Swinger: has 3 bases, is missing his middle expo, has a large army of hydralisks and lurkers at the left side of the map.

enforce: has no expansions after losing both of his bases to the south of his main base. has 2 nuke silos and a small army in his main base (only base)

Azure: has 1 expansion in the middle of the map, is missing his middle-left expo after 2 nukes hit it head on. has a force of goons in dropships hovering around the map wherever they need to be

RedFox: has an expansion directly under his main base. has an army of hydralisks moving around the map mobily in overlords


As the minimap makes obvious, Azure sends a probe down to the 6 o'clock expansion and builds a Nexus.


[thunder rolls and lightning strikes]


In a fairly pathetic attack, Swinger sends a few guardians up from his main base up to RedFox's expansion. RedFox's hydralisks drive the guardians away and force them to retreat to their main base.
After this, RedFox expands to the 12 o'clock expansion (yet again) in an attempt to get a decent mineral flow going. All of the other players either continue to build up their armies or head up the tech tree a little further. Azure builds an arbiter tribunal and continues to build goons.
After a point of boredom, Swinger splits his force of hydras up and attacks both RedFox's 12 o'clock and upper-right expansions.
The 12 o'clock attack is successful because the base has almost no defense and is leveled very easily. The mid-right expansion is harder however, and it withholds the 24 or so hydralisk attack.


Still having no mineral or gas income, enforce loads up a few tanks in dropships and sends them down to Azure's middle expansion. He drops them off on the ledge and they begin to fire away freely on the drones. Luckily, though, Azure has an arbiter handy and uses the recall ability to bring in a couple of dragoons right on top of the siege tanks. The tanks are destroyed in about 20 milleseconds and are no longer a threat to the probes.
enforce realizes that all he has left are the nuke silos and decides to use them on the expansion he's been working all game to destroy. He sends a ghost down to the top ledge of the expo on the opposite side of where his siege tanks used to be and nukes the probe line.


In the instant the probes are hit with the nuke, Swinger's attacking hydralisks arrive and RedFox's mid-right expansion. They proceed to annihilate the expansion leaving nothing but dissolving creep in their path.
Swinger, after his successful attack, expands to the bottom-left main island base for additional resources. He increasingly builds up his empire all over the map.
Deciding to make a final push, Swinger loads some hydralisks into o/l's and brings with them guardians to RedFox's main (and last) base.


When the hydralisks are dropped off, Swinger actually uses good micro and keeps his guardians out of range of RedFox's defending hydras. The superior number of forces overrun RedFox's base and eliminate him.
This proves to be the end of the game as enforce realizes it's completely hopeless because he has no expos and leaves the game.

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[thunder subsides and ground stops shaking]


Well folks! It looks like we made it successfully out of the Twilight Zone. I hope you enjoyed our little journey into the deepest, darkest parts of it. I would like some comments on this as well. Please tell me what you liked and what you didn't like about it. Any constructive criticism would be nice.
Also, I apologize for having this take up so much space on the site and take so much time to d/l hehe.
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Lessons Learned

1) I'm glad I have a cable modem
2) Polaris Prime is an awesome map and you should play it
3) I'm tired but don't want to go to sleep because Monday will come sooner
4) This report was rewarding but a pain in the butt to make so the least you could do is COMMENT!

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This Has Been A

Production




















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