"I'm enjoying my medic. Mmmm smells good, looks good, tastes good, feels good. Jacked up and good to go."
-Casper...
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| 1v1 on Ruins Of The Ancients | | | Author: | | | IP: | proxy8.sXXXX | | Date: | 06/22/01 06:06 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for [SM]Strega~F: 7.2000 |  |
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Well, this report has been a lot easier to do than my last one, and for good reason. Rather than 69 pictures (hehe), this report contains only 21. Also, at the request of DrAwesome, I have attempted to take much larger screen captures of selected screen shots, rather than small parts of every screen shot. If you have a complaint, see him.
This game is going back to my old style of writing. That style being (drumroll) "First Person." Yes, I played in this game against a friend of mine through the modem selection. My modem name (well, one of them) is Xrytizah. Don't worry, any references to myself will not contain that word, so pronunciation of it will not cause your head to explode (Not, in any way, a guarantee).
For those of you who are wondering, it is pronounced "Bob," which you all would've known had you read my previous BR recently. Now, my opponents name is Tal Rasha. I am told that this is a character in Diablo or something, but I'm not 100% sure.
Also, before I get into the actual game itself, here's a little something I noticed on B.net. In light blue is my smurf name (Xrytizah) where I typed "WTF" in order to prove that it was me. On the name list is my regular name, [SM]Strega~F. Not only that, but a win that I had on the ladder the previous day had been removed. I think 1.08 is a compensation for the lack of effect of Y2K or something...
Well, through a visual aid such as my grainy, ill-made minimap, you can see that the map is not Lost Temple! Yes, it is Ruins Of The Ancients. Open up Campaign Editor if the minimap is too complicated for you. Actually, you'd better get a dictionary and a thesaurus while you're at it if that map confuses you...
It is a 4 player map, with the starting positions in much the same place as on Temple, but there is a big difference. There's no ramp, no choke. A short walking distance (you'll see what I mean later) between the 2 sets of bases. The only chokes present in the layout of the map are at the natural expansions, and also along the 2 bridges that are the sole means of travel to and fro each side of the map.
I was protoss, my opponent, random.
Anybody who knows me can verify that I suck as protoss, and winning is a rare thing in such a case. It is also worth a mention that neither of us had played/viewed this map before this game. In fact, my friend created the game under "1on1", which meant that I had no idea how many starting slots there were.
So, taking this into account, I started scouting anti-clockwise all over the map, not just at the start spots. While this was happening I dropped down a gateway, an assimilator and then a cybernetics core, taking advantage of the low probability of a rush.
While the core was building, I warped in a zealot. My scouting probe had nearly traced out the entire edge of the map (finding plenty of expansion spots, yay!) when I finally came across my venerable opponent. Terran. Quick action must be taken!
Seeing the chance to cause some damage, I sent my just-finished zealot along to Tal Rasha's base. My probe was going to help out, but I decided against this idea. I did manage to kill 2 SCVs and 1 marine, while also disrupting his entire mining operation, so I felt that the sacrifice was worth it.
Soon after my zealot died (only moments) I had my first dragoon. I decided that he would surrender his life in order for my win to be as possible as, erm, possible(?). Also, as he was a ranged unit, my probe seemed a nice choice as backup. Together they killed all of about 5 marines (2 at first, then 1 at a time) before being dispatched. I also killed another SCV. The bad news, however, was that I suddenly realised I was an idiot.
Yes, I still only had 1 gateway, with more minerals than I could spend. After smacking myself in the head with my physics textbook (trust me, it's big), I quickly threw down a second gate and a robotics facility. The robo facility was because of the cliff behind each start position. Sure, it's not big enough to do all the classy moves of Temple, but it's better than nothing. As far as I could tell, my opponent had hit on the gas, and was pumping marines out of 2 barracks'.
I quickly sent down my 2 dragoons that I had, while I was awaiting the completion of my shuttle. After all, stalling tactics have worked for me before. Upon arriving I see 6 marines. D'oh. Through some nifty micromanagement techniques and dancing like a monkey on heat, I managed to lose both goons without doing much damage whatsoever! I awaited the inevitable. A follow-up attack. It never came, for I had my shuttle now, along with 2 more goons, and I was getting range.
As I frantically tried to remember just exactly what I was doing, I threw down another gateway to keep myself amused. Ah yes, the cliff drop. I snuck around the back way, over his natural (scouting is obsolete now, hooray for laziness!) and dropped my payload on the unsuspecting SCVs' cliff. I eagerly awaited the sound of death and destruction, when I suddenly realised the sheer depth of my stupidity. Range! I started it too late, oh no!
Well, what a shame. That royally sucked. Before range had finished I figured that my base was probably pretty important, and kept up my macroing (out of 2 gates) techniques. I thought I saw a little speckling of Tal Rasha's troops, but before I could realise what was happening, my saviour arrived. Range was complete.
The ensuing chaos was only matched by my previous experience at school, where I had yelled out of the bus window "Griffiths is a fuckhead!" right at him. By the way, quotations shouldn't be tampered with, hence the non-existence of censorship. Quite hilariously, however, is that I got away with a simple warning from a different teacher the next day. And do you know why? I have the highest score out of my entire year level, so I am considered an asset to the school!
I abuse power as if it's a disobedient curtain rod! (Hey, gotta stay politically correct, right?) Now, back to the main event. Before Tal Rasha managed to kill either of the 2 dragoons, I picked them back up and ran. The damage had been done, as he lost many an SCV (2 or 3) and a horde of marines (6 or 7). Also, I noted that he did, in fact, have a gas supply.
While I appear to be stupid, I am only insane. As such, rather than stare at the screen wondering where the other 18451416419265 mineral patches were, I made a gutsy move. Well, not really. I had chucked down a templar archives, as well as expand to my natural. Just as my templar (2 of them) had come out of my gateways, I was attacked. Apparently this was the first time that Tal Rasha had seen my base. Tch tch, poor scouting.
Seeing as this was basically a rough scouting party consisting of a scattering of M&M, I had no troubles repelling this incursion, especially as my templar had just enough energy to unleash a nice storm overhead. Bravo!
Let's take a little check-up on the map situation, shall we?
My enemy, I had noted as my shuttle fled the scene, was just starting up his natural expansion. I, on the other hand, had my natural up and running at least 1 minute prior. Not much else has happened in terms of mappage(?), so that's it for now.
During the short period in between the action, I chucked down another gateway, and ordered up more templar. I smell a storm raid coming on... Stupidly, my troop count was at my supply limit, so I could only push out 1 templar to be added with my other 2. Oh well, rather than wait for more to come, I decided to take the chance while it still presented itself.
As I flew over my opponents expansion, I realised my err. He had been amassing M&M since the start, probably teching up towards tanks or the such. Now, in case you didn't know, marines > shuttles. Managing to get past them with 8 health left on my shuttle, I dropped off my 3 storm-mongers and let loose, well, 3 storms in total. Hmm. Energy levels are low. Dang. Yes, dang sums that up quite adequately.
As I ran off for cover from the marines, my templar came under a different sort of fire. Tanks. Crap. Not wanting to lose my expensive units, I pressed forward. The bastard would pay for nearly killing one of my units!
With a reasonable army of ~9 dragoons and ~4 zealots, I plunged head first into my opponent. As a side note, my shuttle (after watching the replay) moved away from Tal Rasha's base just as a turret came online, a short distance of where it had been, and also a turret further up intended to trap my shuttle missed out on letting off any shots by the smallest of margines. Hooray for me!
Really only a diversionary force, I never intended this attack to get far. I only wanted safe passage for my templar, and also to stall the short time so that they could unleash some more storms onto his worker line. What happened was quite unusual. While fleeing the peon line, one of my templar died to arclite fire, while the other 2 managed to run a decent distance. My attack force also managed to accomplish something good. His entire force of marines died horribly (well, nearly all of them) at the hands of my zealots/storms.
Also, those damn tanks got damaged enough so that I could sit easy for a little while longer. Alas, even the morphing of an archon couldn't help my cause enough. I had, indeed, weakened my nemesis quite a bit, and his workers had suffered a little bit of a beating. It wasn't enough, though. I needed more.
Back home, seeing that Tal Rasha had a few tanks left (2 really damaged, 1 on full health) and a handful of M&M (with 3 barracks' pumping them), I decided to play it slightly safe. A cannon went up at my natural, while, as I had surplus of minerals, 3 more gateways went up at my main base.
My fears came true, soon after this. Too soon, in fact. I was caught with my pants down. My macro hadn't stopped during the battle, but with 3 gates versus 3 barracks' and 2 factories, I was kind of in the bad end of the scale.
4 tanks sieged up with 2 marines, 5 medics bringing up the rear. I had all of 3 templar (not enough energy for storm at that point) and 3 zealots. Both of out forces were dramatically smaller than our previous encounter (20 seconds earlier) but this battle held more importance. If those tanks managed to survive, along with the fact that reinforcements were only a very short distance away, I would've been screwed. As soon as they had sieged, they reclaimed back the lives of the SCVs that I had killed in only 1 volley.
Seeing the danger that I was in, I reacted rather calmly. I only got yelled at to stop swearing and throwing things at the wall twice, which is a vast improvement from the normal routine.
Bringing my zealots up to the marines (just plural) while I ran my templar at the tanks, my plan went into action. I morphed an archon right next to the tanks, while my other templar waited anxiously just to the left of them. It was testing time, for my zealots had died (tank fire) while 1 marine still remained. My archon stalled them (they unsieged) when my templar saw his chance. Running in at 0.005 metres per second, he unleashed his "Good Vibrations" brand psi storm onto the now unsieged tanks.
2 tanks died while my archon's health reached critical point. That damned marine! Just as he finished the morphing process, he exploded into his constituent atoms. Strange. Whenever a fusion process between 2 atoms cannot keep them together, they break back up into their originals properties. So, the question I put forward to you is, where the hell is my refund on those 2 slackass templars?!?
Fortunately, my dangers were put aside, as my 3 gateways warped in at the same time as 3 more zealots arrived on the scene. These 3 zealots managed to kill off the 2 (weakened) tanks remaining, along with that bastard marine. The medics, of course, were raped multiple times by the battle-horny zealots (well, they are a warring race!) before being slaughtered and eaten. Not exactly what they had in mind when the zealots asked them out for dinner...
As soon as this attack was over and done with, I quickly expanded to the mid left starting position in order to accomodate for more gateways. I also built 2 gateways at my natural, for an exclusive purpose. You'll just have to wait to find out what...
Time for another update. My expansion at mid left has just gotten into gear (nexus is nearly done, probes are on their way there) and my natural is still mining happily. My main is, however, dry. Tal Rasha has been puffing along quite well for the entire game. He started his natural expansion a little bit after mine, so that is without a doubt still mining. I'd assume that his main is either dry or nearly there. Either way, if my expansion can go un-noticed, I will have a major advantage.
Playing against a terran with 2 bases who's been going heavy M&M for most of the game and hoping for a base to go un-noticed has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever done. I attempted to bring up a couple cannons to defend it, but as my pylon finished, the wraiths hit. There was only 6 of them, but it showed that Tal Rasha had taken to the air. He could pull anything out of his ass now. My probes tried to run, but died anyway. Only 1 or 2 survived the trek back to base. At this moment, I was really hurting.
Also, the reason why my dragoons didn't go down to help my expansion was quite simple. A frontal assault distracted me. From my 6 gateways I had managed to amass a fair amount of units. Just as I was preparing to attack, I saw a glimmer on my minimap. I clicked to investigate it, and then saw what I had been fearing all game. A head-on tank push. 7 tanks, accompanied with 2 dozen M&M started ripping into me like crabs on a sex worker. The first blast killed a templar and 2 dragoons, but Tal Rasha was not alone.
I, too, could be cunning. My forces were split up by a little bit, and as my smaller force got decimated, my main force raced in. Zealots and dragoons attacked from above, while the remaining zealots from the first volley struck from the left. Storm erupted overhead and everything seemed to die at once. My zealot force died to the M&M, my dragoons died to the tanks, the tanks died to storm, and the marines remained relatively unharmed, although their numbers had been lessened beforehand.
Wow, a two pronged attack. My hat goes off to y... Wait a minute! What's this?
Unleashing hot fury on my one-cannon defense at my natural, I saw to my dismay that all of my bases were getting hammered. But wait, didn't I say that I was making something special out of those 2 gates at my natural? Ah yes, dark templar! The one advantage of having so much action happening at once is that micro was a hard thing for both of us. As such, before Tal Rasha could do a scanner sweep over my DTs, his attack force had been wiped clean off of the planet.
Through the usage of 6 gateways (god bless macro) my main was in relatively good shape. Just as his previous attempt at killing me had failed (about 30 seconds earlier), we both had new forces. Should I push on and attack him right back? The anticipation was killing me. My sweaty hands adhered to the mouse like glue, my heart was racing faster than an Ethiopian at the Olympics. The time was now. By pressing on, I could leave myself wide open. On the other hand, I might gain an invaluable edge. I decided to go for it.
I figured that he would be pretty screwed seeing as he had done a triple pronged attack. Oh how I was wrong! I had roughly 14 units (zealots and dragoons) with 4 high templar. Pushing at the oppurtunity, I ran into another tank force. He had obviously built another factory. Ho hum.
The remainder of the previous attack (plus some more on the side) of Tal Rasha's M&M forces backed him up, though. Flanking the tanks, they died rather easily. The M&M were a different story, though. Even with storms and throwing everything I had at them, they still remained to harrass my few remaining troops. With no energy left, my 4 templar (along with 2 more that popped out during the course of the battle) merged into archons.
These proved to be the deciding factor in that battle. With my dark templar on the way to Tal Rasha's natural, I had no resevations about heading on into his base with my 3 archons.
While my archons attacked those damn factories, my dark templar, as much as I hate and abbhor the use of them, made their prescence known at Tal Rasha's natural. I was worried. Those wraiths were nowhere to be seen. They could cause all sorts of trouble for me. Sure, my archon/DT combo was working well, but I was not safely out of the woods yet.
Back at base I had not stopped macroing. However, my newly made force of zealots wasn't going to do squat if wraiths attacked, so I sent them on their way. Nothing like a little overkill to put a kick in your evening! Those 6 gates then got into gear and started making dragoons, rather than zealots.
The wraiths, surely enough, did attack. Firstly my natural, which scared them off with the rebuilt single-cannon defense. Then, expecting what would happen next, my 6 fresh dragoons were waiting for them at my ex-mineral line. A keen little observer spelt their doom, as even with cloak, wraiths suck versus ground.
The game was mine. It was fast-paced, intense action on a new map to both of us. My early attacks had paid off well enough to keep Tal Rasha busy and to not push me while I was vulnerable. Quite a few times I thought that it was all over. When those tanks started raining down on my workers in his first real attack, I seriously expected to be on the back foot from then on. The triple pronged attack also scared me, as I would've been done for had he taken a science vessel up with him to my natural.
Of course, that would require him actually having made a science vessel, which he did not do. Looking back on the game, it seems one-sided, but I can assure that from both of our viewpoints, we thought it was very close. At several instances, we both thought that we had it in the bag, or that we were done for. However, it all came down to those DT.
As much as I hate to admit it, dark templar won me this game. If it weren't for them, my natural would've fallen and then, consequently, I would've had tanks from both sides of my base, along with a reasonably large force of M&M, with some wraiths flying about to boot!
So, yes, I would have to say that "Unit Of The Match" goes to 2 units. One is, obviously, the dark templar force. The other is, wait for it, my shuttle. He survived all game, was responsible for 2 major points early on, and also moved dragoons out of a little "pothole" in between my gateways.
Good game? Indeed. Good rating? Hopefully. Good music? Always!
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