Welcome to a plus2longsword battle report
Lost Temple |
| Lim Yo Whan |
blue protoss |
| plus2longsword |
white protoss |
Psychology can play an important role in a game between two human contestants. Emanuel Lasker, the second World Chess Champion, believed chess was a battle of wills. And so to I believe Starcraft to be such a battle. In my games I usually prefer the unexpected over the orthodox. I make no claim that my strategies are sound. In fact any strategy or approach has its refutation, its built into the game that way. The easiest way for me to illustrate this is to present you with the main units that comprised the battle between myself and LimYoWhan.
- the Zealot
- the Dragoon
- and the Cannon
If you eliminate all of the external factors from these unit confrontations(Dragoons can dance away from Zealots, Zealots can run past cannons), and have per cost equal amounts of each, then we can deduce that Zealots beat Dragoons, Dragoons beat Cannons, and Cannons beat Zealots. Ages old wisdom. However, knowing this I formed a strategy. I wanted to maximize these external factors to my advantage. Instead of a head on confrontation, I wanted units which countered his units. I'm sure your all familiar with the &g and &l signs. In this case it would be Zealots &g Dragoons. Of course he is not going to just sit idly by and allow this type of situation to arise, he has to be "coerced" into it. My plan would be to use the Cannon to encourage the desired unit selection of my opponent.
My opponent had warped to the eastern ledge, and I the northern. Not wishing to get into a 'who can build the most Gateways/Zealots' game I went with a Forge, to build my Cannons, all according to plan. The drawbacks to this approach are many, not the least of which is, slower technology progression. Therefore my scouting probe built an assimilator on his Vespane Geyser, and then returned to my main to mine minerals.
He scouted also, and was well informed of my intent. The Assimilator in fact had a threefold purpose:
- Spy(although the only information I obtained was when he got his gas production going.)
- Slow down dragoon development.
- Slow down initial Zealot wave(if he chooses to attack my rogue assimilator first.)
His first two Zealots(which came from the standard two gateways) destroyed my Assimilator, Then they, along with four more zealots headed to my main. Once there they found I had two pylons, and two cannons, with three more on the way. All of the cannons were close to my nexus. I didn't bother trying to wall them inside other buildings as this would only have been effective against the Zealots, and not the Dragoons which were coming shortly. I had also sent probes to the western and southern mains, and one to his natural. These two probes would be crucial in the development of my Zealot initiative. The probe at his natural created a pylon and two cannons.
The six Zealots wandered around my base a bit, to ensure a backdoor wasn't left open, and then awaited a seventh and eighth Zealot to begin an assault. This may have poor judgment as when number eight arrived my remaining cannons had warped in. They charged and I brought out my probes to hamper their movements and provide additional damage. All of my cannons were destroyed save one, but all of his Zealots were dead. I rebuilt three more.
At that point it was still even, except he was way ahead in tech(he had constructed a cy core during his Zealots visit) and was going for the dreaded Goons.  In answer, I had begun leapfrogging some additional Cannons at his expansion. I'm not sure if this was good or bad, as it compelled him to attack and destroy them first. Another thing it did was alert me to his shiny new Dragoons. While he dismantled the Cannon offensive outside his base I had begun warping Cannons in at my choke.
| casualties thus far |
| plus2longsword |
probes |
2 |
| Cannons |
7 |
| Pylons |
2 |
| Assimilator |
1 |
| LimYoWhan |
| Zealots |
10 |
| Dragoons |
1 |
As is evident from the table, not only had Lim taken a lead in development but in minerals also. He also had researched Sigularity Charge, which gave him increased range for his eight new Goons which headed for my choke. Probably your expecting me to tell you that i've created a Gateway by now. The thought had crossed my mind but it would have only lead to disaster, as he had added an additional two more Gateways to his already formidable arsenal, and I had about nine Cannons stuffing up my choke, so I would have had a bit of a mobility problem to boot. No, my next building was a...
Nexus
...which was created at the south position. My opponent had also started a Nexus at his own expansion, which was about 60% complete when my Nexus finished warping in. I now set about creating probes, while Lim took advantage of the fact that he didn't have about eight Goons sitting outside his base to send the necessary number of probes from his main to mine his expansion. He also had an Assimilator at his natural, ready to go, along with two Forges for upgrades.Just as I was starting my third Nexus at the west resource node, Lim ordered his Goons (numbering ten) to attack. 
I know I said Goons beat Cannons, but not when the Cannons have higher ground, it was a complete route, five Dragoons lay smoldering, while only one Cannon was destroyed.. which I had a probe rebuild. This was the main point really, now he will have to spend more time teching to Shuttles just to utilize his Dragoon over Cannon advantage. He had also begun upgrading his weapons and shields. Reinforcements were sent to my choke in the way of five more Goons and a probe. He was still oblivious of my expansions. My first expansion was doing nicely(my main was still rather spartan, with just a collection of Pylons and Cannons) with four new Gateways and some Photon Cannons at my choke. I had lots of minerals, so I splurged on a Citadel of Adun for Zealot Leg Enhancements, I also added another Gateway. He once again decided to attack my nest of Cannons with the same result of five toasted Goons, and one destroyed Cannon.
His probe he had sent, also got started on a Pylon followed by two Robotics Facilities. While it did have the advantage of getting the slow moving Reavers closer to my base, it had also tipped me off to his plans. In fact the Reavers would need to be escorted by Shuttles in any case as my cannons would "see" the Reavers first and blow them up without any trouble, so probably this installation should have been placed somewhere safer and out of sight. Then the probe went to my base in the west, he had 900 plus minerals, so presumably the idea was to expand there. I had had no defenses at that base, and the Goons were dispatched to ..erm dispatch it. After ripping that Nexus down and murdering all the probes there, the Goons headed straight for the south. This time they had met with stiffer resistance in the form of 21 Zealots.  The Goons beat a hasty retreat back toward their Robotics Facilities where four newly made Reavers awaited them. With zeal my warriors followed. He would stop his Dragoons every now and again to fire his singularity charged phase disruptors upon my pursuing Zealots. However, the long cool down time of the Dragoon's weapons, coupled with the close proximity of the Zealots, made this tactic counter-productive, as his warriors took as many hits as mine did. He was down to five Goons, but he had four more inside his main base. Lim's first job for the Robotics Facilities was the creation of several Shuttles. I noticed he also had made two Robotics Support Bays, and a third Robotics Facility, all close to my choke, yet out of Cannon range(boy do I really really really really really reallyreally really really with that they were). Time for another table, here's how things stacked up.
| Time 15:24 |
178 minerals
| 178 gas
| 81/106 supply
| 730 minerals
| 1384 gas
| 70/106 supply |
|
Instead of following his Goons into certain death, I had my Zealots make a stop by his expansion. The Zealots did a lot of plundering, but could only get his Nexus to 72/750 before the Reavers were shuttled over to deal with the pesky Zealots. I'm pretty sure the enemy Protoss were up to +2 on shields now (he couldn't upgrade anything else without a Templar Archive) and he was preparing to drop his deadly Reavers within my main base. But my Zealots saved the day once more. I had created several more and split them up into two groups, one to finish off his expansion and one to harass his exposed buildings outside my choke.  The shuttles canceled their orders to drop the Reavers on my main (and commence to severely own it) and headed back to his expansion to defend. The Nexus fell(as did the Zealots) and I continued to generate troops from my gateways. With his expansion defunct, and our mains beginning to be mined out, well the rest is a foregone conclusion. However, my computer pulled a T-mac on me and a familiar click notified me I was no longer connected to the net. Here are the final scores:
Score
| Units
| Buildings
| Resources
| Total
|
| 21500
| 8250
| 20666
| 50416
| 24200
| 8050
| 18722
| 50972 |
|
Despite both of us making many mistakes, my opponent could have made life much easier for himself if he could only have forestalled his aggression and scouted the map..specificaly the other starting points. I built up a ton of Cannons so it was likely that I wasn't going/teching anywhere soon. Although I am satisfied that I achieved my goal of compelling him to go for Dragoons to counter my Cannons (and then hitting him with Zealots), my technique was rather sloppy . This entailed a great deal of risk as well, as he had other options and tech routes at his disposal. Also his Reavers could have proven deadly, and far more effective if he made wiser choices in their regards. Like taking out my main while I still had some minerals there, he could have accomplished this with probably just one Reaver. Anyway, towards the end, I feel that I was down on the upside.
Special thanks to
Johnny_Vegas for putting up
Drefsab for putting down
Bob_the_Newt for putting out(great stuff at newtdojo)
and last but certainly not least NKOTB
credit to where credit is due
to CrackHeadJeb, who's source code was complex enough to give me what I needed (color in background, everybody else just uses black/white) yet simple enough for me to understand
to Cattlebruiser, Mark4, YourRoleModel, Phiber~Optik and Caught Naked for great guides.
Now for a problem I have with Star Wars, I hope they don't do this kind of thing in Episode II.
I could take the light speed, moon size space stations with the ability to blow up planets(which by the way is insignificant compared to the power of the Force), Wookies (that don't really talk, but Han seems to know what's going on), not seeing Carrie Fisher naked at least once, Jawas, Mark Hamil's whiny ass (although imho the car wreck improved him), not seeing Carrie Fisher naked at least once, the Rebels rather garish "uniforms"(at least the Empire made a pretense at uniformity), the idea of Vader being "forgiving", not seeing Carrie Fisher naked damn it, but what I absolutely can not take, was the idea that it is possible to detect life-forms. I mean the idea is ridiculous. There is no device, nor will there ever be, that will allow its user to detect something based on the constraints of whether it is alive or inanimate, but the real reason that whole thing pisses me right off, is the writers blatant use of artificial creativity. They pulled it right out of their collective asses so they would all seem soooo clever, because Vader would deduce that "the plans were hidden in the escape pod," Therefore when they were all searching around looking for that crap it would be gone, and then bam..more ingenious creativity crap.."look sir, driods,"*storm trooper holds up some popsicle stick piece of crap special effects that came out of C-3P0's metal ass*
You will be happy (or unhappy) to know, that I already have the idea for my next Battle Report. It will be a nostalgic overview of my beginnings in Starcraft, replete with all the usual problems like, hackers and getting your ass kicked a lot. But more than that, I delve into the inner-working of a mind influenced by battle.net and how that mind used Small Divide to overcome many agonizing defeats, and gain victory over the imbalance abusers! So stay tuned!
Battlereports are never finished...just abandoned
plus2longsword
signing off
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