This game is a 4 player FFA on Lost Temple

Written by Persian-POW



2Inadequate - (Protoss) 12:00
Papa'Smurf - (Terran) 3:00
The--Dude - (Protoss) 6:00
Leoric2 - (Protoss) 9:00

Soon after the game started it became clear that all of the players were taking separate paths on the tech tree while preparing for a long game. 2Inadequate opened with a gateway followed by a forge and assimilator. When the forge was complete he immediately placed two photons and a zealot at his ramp and began teching quickly, building a cybernetics core then a robotics facility and citadel of adun simultaneously. Papa'Smurf begins by building a supply depot on 8 then two barracks and a refinery. He appears to be going mass infantry as he builds an academy as soon as the second barracks is completed. The--Dude and Leoric2
both open with double gateways and begin zealot production, building assimilators only after each had produced 6-8 of the fierce protoss warriors.

Peons begin to scour the map to discover enemy locations/species and several die to provide their commanders with this valuable information.

Everyone seems more interested in increasing their resource flow via expansions rather than attacking this early in the game, Smurf, Dude, and Leoric expand to their naturals, while 2Inadequate
decides to take control of the island in the top left corner of the map.

Bunkers and photons spring up at choke points around the map trying to deter any assault that might be headed their way. A second wave of scouting begins, this time the units assigned to gather information are a generation ahead of there predeccesors, zealots, vultures laying spider mines, and observers all make their battlefield debuts. Leoric2
decides to break the ice and sends his first two dark templars up to 2Inadequate's
base to cause some trouble. Of course this attack failed miserably as Inadequate still has photons and zealots/dragoons blocking the ramp.

Apparently 2Inadequate was unsure of his ability to defeat this massive attack force.

2Inadequate now decides to set up a second expansion, again snubbing his natural and opting to take the remaining island. This is probably a bad move because this island is smack on the other side of the map from his main making reinforcing the island in the
event of an attack difficult.  He is able to get the base up and running without interference from the other players as they have not yet discovered his island expansions.

The--Dude chooses to send a small force of 8 zealots and 7 dragoons up to 2Inadequate's base, which was the farthest away, hoping to break through the choke defense.
I don't know what he was thinking because he got really got owned. The whole attack was screwed from the start. On the way out of his base he was hit by a couple of spider mines, severally damaging several of his units. After recharging his shields, he again began the journey up through
the center of the map. On the approach to 2Inadequate's base he was hit by multiple seige blasts courtesy of tanks Papa'Smurf
had placed on the edge of his plateau overlooking 2Inadequate's
choke point. Multiple storms were cast and in a few seconds all that remained of The--Dude's once formidable attack force
was a puddle of blue goon soup.

The--Dude is not done with 2Inadequate
yet though. During the one-sided slaughter he had been secretly producing a drop squad of four reavers in his base. He loaded the 4 reavers in the shuttles and headed up to the area next to 2Inadequate's assimilator. Unfortunately an observer spots the incoming shuttles and
goons are sent to eliminate the threat. One of the shuttles is destroyed before it can unload its deadly cargo and the remaining too reavers are destroyed before too much damage can be done.

During the recent skirmishes Papa'Smurf has begun building at his mineral only expansion. He uses the double bunker,
tank, and turret defense, while also constructing a barracks at the site so additional troops will not have to be brought in from elsewhere.

2Inadequate having faired well in the recent attacks on his base attempts to expand to his natural, but Papa'Smurf,
catching sight of this expansion attempt with a patrolling vulture, decides that this expansion must not be aloud to live dispatches a force of 8 marines + 3 medics to the area. Surprisingly no storms go off before the nexus
is destroyed and the marines leave victorious. To make sure he does not try and rebuild at the site smurf drops a force of tanks and marines on the ledge overlooking the natural and sets up camp.

The--Dude has now mined out his main base, and is having a problem finding jobs for his horde of unemployed probes.
He decides the best solution is to start a second expansion and fortify it with, well, um...cannons, and lots of them.

Up to this point all the players have played rather conservatively, but now each of them has secured multiple bases and the game begins to heat up.

Leoric2 finally ventures out of his base with a fleet of 10 scouts and proceeds to harass 2Inadequate
and Papa'Smurf, but is more of a nuisance than anything and didn't manage to cause much damage. While these raids were being carried out Leoric2 was secretly constructing a carrier fleet back at his base, of which none of his enemies
were yet aware.

Papa'Smurf already has completed one successful drop, and is now constantly producing seige tanks, goliaths, and shuttles
out of multiple factories and starports. He decides it is time to flex his muscles further and drops 2 seige tanks a shuttle full of marines and medics on the ledge above The--Dude's natural expansion. The--Dude has a small scout fleet
of about seven, but not enough to take out the enemy marines. Here he makes a good move and hallucinates several of his scouts, until his forces appear to be double their actual number. He sends in the the fleet and is killing
the marines quickly. The drop looks like a failure, but just before the last marine dies two shuttles unload goliaths from their cargo bays and the scouts are forced to retreat. The--Dude
is forced to stop mining and now is down to one functioning expansion.

While this attack is taking place 2Inadequate
finally manages to take back the ledge above his natural by throwing down a few disruption webs and then storming the terran force to hell. As soon as Smurf's forces were removed from his cliff he immediately builds a nexus
and two photon cannons for defense. Papa'Smurf
is not deterred, however, so he quickly loads up 2 more shuttles and sends them south to the isolated island expansion.

They encounter little resistance and the tanks quickly seige up and start to take out the defending photon cannons. The distance between 2Inadequate's main and the island prove to be a problem as he attempts to shuttle reinforcements through the middle of the map which is filled with scattered enemy goons and marines.

Papa'Smurf is really in control of the game right now as none of the other players are able to challenge his control of the map. It's really looking good for him right now. All he has to do now is continue to deny enemy expansions and and begin the dreaded tank push across the map, but all that is about to change.

Don't forget about Leoric2...

After being quiet for most of the game and continuing to mine out of
just 2 bases, he utters a few words.



The other players were wondering, "What the hell does that mean?" Well they would soon find out.

Leoric decides that now is the time to bust out of his base with the carrier/scout fleet and do some damage.

He makes a beeline accross the map directly towards Papa'Smurf's
base. Smurf is already fighting on 2 fronts right now and his forces are stretched pretty thin. At his main for defense he has several control groups of M&M's and some scattered goliaths, wraiths, and ghosts. This proves
not to be enough as Leoric2 smashes through Smurf's choke defenses and begins destroying his factories and starports.

Leoric2's forces prove to be too much for Papa'Smurf and he is forced to concede the game.

While the carrier battle was raging The--Dude and 2Inadequate had fought several skirmishes at 2Inadequate's mineral only expansion without even knowing about the fighting at 9:00. Check out the mini-map, you can see the carriers laying waste to Smurf's base.

After Smurf leaves Leoric2 retreats the carriers back to his base and starts another attack on The--Dude's base from the southwest corner of the map. After being hit by a few psi storms he retreats the carriers and uses shield batteries to instantly recharge their shields. Instead of heading back to Dude's base he decides upon a new target:
2Inadequate's mined out island expansion. He is able to destroy this without much resistance.

Here's a look at 2Inadequate's natural.

Wow, he's had that base up for a good 5-10 minutes and still only 1 probe on minerals. I looked into it further and found that he had pulled his probes off mining and thrown them at the attacking carriers. Players of lesser skill, such as myself, might question the usefulness of such
a tactic, but 2Inadequate kindly explained this to me in terms I could understand.

"Peons own carriers."

Now that that was cleared up 2Inadequate decided to take the fight to Leoric's base. He attacked with his victory
force of 9 dragoons, but Leoric2's reserve garrison was there waiting for him.

2Inadequate finally decided that he was tired of getting his ass kicked and actually started to use some of the 20+ High Templar he had produced. Psionic waves began to fill the sky and
Leoric2's zealots and dragoons were destroyed, but the carriers were on there way back and hungry for goon soup. After his attack failed and carriers began ripping on the buildings at his main base 2Inadequate admmitted defeat and left
the game. Now the game was a 1 vs 1 between Leoric2 and The--Dude. Dude had by no means slacked off during the fighting. He had set up a nexus to mine out the remaining minerals on the bottom right island. This gave him four bases, two of which still had minerals, to Leoric's two, none of which had minerals. He had
been producing dragoons and archons from 7 gateways non-stop. These forces were augmented by a handful of scouts and 4 reavers.

The--Dude decides that it is time to move out and gathers his forces in the middle of the map just outside of Leorc2's
base.

He orders his goons/archons to attack the front of Leorc's base while simultaneously landing reavers and sending scouts to the back. Dude's forces make quick work of the carriers and both players congratulate each other
on a game well played.

Lessons learned

1. Once you have an advantage, don't back down. Keep the pressure up. If Leoric2 had kept pushing into The--Dude's base he could have eliminated his base with minimal casualties, but instead backed away loosing his main
advantage, surprise. As soon as The--Dude knew that Leoric was going for carriers he had a number of options he could pursue to counter them.

2. Do not take expansions you will not be able to defend. In this game 2Inadequate was lucky because he was able to mine out most of the minerals on the bottom right island before he lost it, but in most cases this would
be a bad move.

3. Keep up constant recon. In this game Smurf could have avoided defeat if he would have known about Leoric's fleet before it was on his doorstep.

4. FFA's are awesome, play them.