"I didn't expect to be beaten by someone part of "a brand new melee gaming clan" who play "all sorts of maps, preferably LT style", but still, more ridiculous stuff happens every day, I mean, I have a losing record to Keanu_Reaver for crying out loud"
- Ling-erie's A Pubbie Tourney BR
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| It's all about recon! | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 10/14/99 01:10 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 7, Min: 6
Lifetime Rating for SnowSquall: 7.4828 |   | It's been a while since I posted any BR's, because I just haven't felt like I have had much to contribute. While these 2 games I'm going to report on may not be too terribly exciting, I think the message it sends is well worth it. Effective recon has helped improve my game.. and not only reconning effectively, but knowing how to counter. And when you're terran, you're the race that is built perfectly for countering.
I wandered into the StratForumRegs channel tonight to get in on the daily tournament. Well, the default map was Lost Temple, so all the games I played ended up being on LT. My opening rounder I picked random and drew zerg against a protoss. I basically went for map control and just threw random hoards of units against him until he died. >:) Final score showed I had outresourced him by a 2.5:1 ratio.
I should add that this is on Vanilla SC.
Now.. on to my 2nd game.
(names of my opponents have been changed to protect the innocent)
SnowSquall: Random Terran at 9:00
Opponent: Random Zerg at 3:00
It's all about recon, I reminded myself. I went with a depot at 8, and then scouted with that SCV when it completed the depot. I built one rax at 12, another at 13, and then gas at 15. When I did find him, his 2nd hatch was about 1/3rd of the way done at his ramp. Hmmm. I smell a techer, because he's gonna sunken his cliff.
That's fine. Terran tech > zerg tech, to me. And I'm certainly not afraid of a 6 muta rush, either.
So I have my brave little SCV work its fusion cutter funk on the morphing hatching, which it's content to do for a while.. but then once it's done, I pull my scv back to his choke.
Meanwhile, another SCV has already come over and built a bunker at his choke, and I've loaded 4 marines into it. Off bunkering sucks.... if you're the zerg. :)
Meanwhile his initial overlord wanders too close to my base, and my marines kill it. Knowing that I have him contained for the time being, I start a factory, and an academy. An engineering bay is ordered up shortly thereafter. Once my comsat is operational, I scan, and see a lair still morphing. Not bad considering my first starport is already going up.
Meanwhile he's discovered my bunker.. with 12 marines standing around doing what Terrans do best -- defend. I have access to the drugs at this point, and also do a little amusing bait and trap with a pack of 12-18 zerglings at the base of his ramp. About half of them fall to my bunker before he can pull them back.
Good. I have his attention there.
Meanwhile my first wraith pops out, and scouts around looking for stray overlords to smack around. I kill two, and head into his natural.. and find a hatchery there, with 2 colonies forming! Immediately the colonies start to morph into spores, and he starts up a 3rd. So I pick off another overlord and head into his main.. but he's thrown up 3 spores in his main as well.
Good. I have his attention there.
I scan again and see the spire just completing. Oh well, guess the wraith joyride is over. Meanwhile I've taken my natural, and upped my barracks count to 4, and my starport count to 3. I've also rolled 2 tanks over to my little seige outpost at his choke, and have another ebay there floating to spot. But for whatever reason, I dont press my advantage, and instead take my 2nd natural as well, and make another barracks. He's seriously turtled himself in, so if he wants to limit himself to one geyser, that's fine by me.
Wait a minute, I said he started at 3:00 right? Well then what am I waiting for? I drop off a tank, 3 marines, and a SCV on the ledge in the northeast corner, build a turret, and seige the tank up and use a wraith to spot so the tank can hit the geyser. Paydirt. No gas for you!
While I'm patting myself on the back for this, I've neglected my little party at his choke, and I see a bunch of red alert flashing on the minimap there. I center on it... damn! Guardians! 4 of them start bombing my tanks back to the Stone Age, and make some marine sushi. A control group of mutas come along and chase my 5 wraiths away that I send over, but not before I pop 2 guardians. Result is he's broken my little seige.
Meanwhile I have about 48 2/2 marines milling around my 2nd natural, just itching to kill something. I add a SV to the mix, and send them off. He's teched to cracklings, but they're unupgraded, and unfortunately for him 2/2 marines > 0/0 cracklings. The mutas come over, but 2 irradiates promptly put an end to that threat. 4 more guardians dont even phase them much either. Just as this fight is going on, he attempts to expand to the lower island, but 8 wraiths fly over and squash that. The marines quickly level his natural, as only one sunken was there + about 3 or 4 more he tried to morph during the fight.
I've kept dibs on his main via comsat, and know it's mined dry, and while his geyser still has 2500 gas in it, my tank isn't going to let him get it.
At this point he called it a gg, and we stopped. Final score showed I outresourced him 2:1
Lessons illustrated in this game
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--Off bunkering is really a pain for a zerg to break out of.
I don't do this against toss since zeals can pretty much ignore it.
--By the same token, keep tabs on your choke. In at least 3 other games today, I caught terrans trying to build bunkers near my base and shut them down. I didn't start my bunker until my marines were almost there.
--Recon, recon recon. I had wraiths to counter his guardians before he even had mutas. :P
--Choose the type of battles you want. Make your enemy react to you. I'm good at upgrading and producing marines, so I wanted to force him into mutas. Holding his choke forced him into that.
--In the same light, keep his attention fixed on a certain spot. I had him occupied with that off bunker for a long time, long enough for me to tech to wraiths. Then I had his attention on my wraiths so he was forced to waste a lot of money on spores. Which then gave me time to seige his geyser, and keep his attention off my growing marine force.
--Speaking of upgrades, upgrade. :P Upgrades are soo cheap vis a vis the benefit you get from them, so there's no excuse for not having 2 ebays, 2 forges, 2 evo chambers, 2 armories, or whatever.
Game #2: SFR Daily Tourney Semi-Final.
SnowSquall: Terran at 9:00
Opponent: Protoss at 6:00
I knew my opponent, from prior experience, to be a challenging one for me. Particularly, he macros extremely well, and if I let him expand any more than once, I'm dead.
Once again I went with a depot on 8, 12 rax, 13 rax, 15 ref, with an academy shortly after. When I scouted him, I managed to break through 2 zeals at his ramp and saw 2 gateways with a cyb core already warped in. Hmmm.
Reavers or temps. I'm guessing a reaver drop for now.
2 gateways just isn't enough if he's serious about a ground offensive at my front door.
That's fine, because my ramp is well fortified and I already have a factory completed. I scan his main and his ramp, and note all his forces are holding his ramp.. apparently from his scouting he thought I was going to try an early tank push on him. Not a bad guess, but not this time, and since he can't get back into my base, he doesn't know what's REALLY coming.
When I scanned his main, the support bay was warping in.
At the same time, my control tower is being added to my starport. I wait for 2 dropships, and I load up 2 tanks in one, and 8 marines in the other. I run a marine down to his natural to scout, and still nothing doing there. I run close enough to his ramp to eat some phase disruptors, and hopefully give him the idea that I'm lurking out there.
I'm not worried about his drop. My plan is:
My drop > his drop.
This strategy is also what I tend to use against dt or lurker rushers on Brood War.
I send my pair of dropships off, and drop at the left edge of his mineral line. The 2 tanks seige up, and my marines get stupid with some probes. I can literally hear him going "doh!" at his ramp. By missing a simple step of having one cannon by his minerals, its going to cost him. More specifically, about 90% of his probes, and I tear down his nexus as well. Fortunately for him, his forces at his ramp, consisting of about 8 zeals and 6 goons, are enough to take out my little drop sortie. Oh, and his reaver that he unloaded out of his shuttle that undoubtably was going to head to my main.
I didn't miss my simple tank/bunker/turret by my CC though, so no piddly reaver drop was going to affect me.
At this point, I knew the game was won, it was just a matter of details, and how difficult was he going to make it. As it turned out, it was still a fight for a while. He managed to use one shuttle to unload a sizeable attack force on the right side of my main, but all he could rip down was 1 barracks (out of the 3 that I had now), and one turret. Oh, he killed quite a few marines, but my tank inside my ring of depots punished him.
While this attack was taking place, those 2 dropships were busy again. :) More specifically, it was time to turbo newbie as he'd taken up shop in his natural. He also tried to expand to the upper left island, which I dropped with 8 marines, and to the 12:00, which I attacked with 2 BC's. At this point I'd taken both my natural and the upper left island that I had evicted him from. 6 starports produced 6 more BC's, and I rolled over his well defended choke which had waaaay too many shield batteries for my liking.
Lessons illustrated in this game
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-- Again, recon, recon, recon. I smelled a reaver drop early, and comsat confirmed it. Terran have the best recon IMHO -- so use it! I never would have teched hard for dropships had I not reconned him like I did.. I would have gone for heavy metal with an eye for ghosts later. Sometimes the best counter is to do what they do as well -- but do it better.
-- Always build at least a token drop defense at your main. Even if it's just one cannon, or one sunken.. something to delay is nice to have. Drops just don't phase me anymore unless we're talking doom drops since I make sure to have a comprehensive drop defense in place depending on my recon. (i.e. an extra bunker on the flip side of my CC if I see someone going hard mutas.. I consider mutas like a "drop" since the goal is the same, to kill your peons)
-- Deny expansions.. while it's said that expanding is a science (and it is), it's not difficult to attack a fledgling expansion and shut it down. Once again, recon is key. The best part about denying expansions is it's also the best time for you as well to expand! The other person is too worried about trying to expand themselves to mount an attack on yours.
-- My macro still sucks.. although getting slightly better.
-- Terran rules!
Oh.. and if you're wondering about the finals match.. there wasn't one. The other person had to leave. |
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