"Par-a-sites... are watching you....watching your every-move"
-YourRoleModel
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| 1200 Terran uses his heavy metal on me. | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 10/19/99 09:10 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 4, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for AQD3: 7.6184 |  | Introduction
I’ve gotten some really good games since my last report. I got to play vrs Silent-Strike, his zerg vrs my protoss on Temple. That game really showed the timing of when the cost of protoss production facilities started being balanced out by the efficiency of psi storm. I also got to play a 2v2 with my hero Whoop on my team. That man has some truly impressive macro ability. He can overrun just about anybody.
I’ve played two ladder games with disappointing results. The first was against Tmac. We played a relatively even game; I had one more expansion than he did, but he managed to cannon my cliff. After a few skirmishes he disconnected. The score was just about dead even. He refused to give me a win after, citing the closeness of the game and the disconnect=loss setting. I believe that since he disconnected in a close game, he still owes me a win. If I had disconnect=no penalty and he refused to give me a win I’d say he is dishonorable, but under the circumstances I can see his point of view. Either way, I didn’t get a win from my game with him. Lesson learned for me, when playing Tmac set disc=no penalty and agree on what happens if someone discs.
The second ladder game is the one this report is about. I have had very little luck getting a 1200+ ladder game in the open games list. The Brood War Ladder channel was filled with people spamming ASCII, but I persevered until I got a challenge from a player sOnAta’. With his 11-3-0 record and 1200 rating I had no problem accepting his challenge. He looked like a legitimate 1200 player who wasn’t going to disconnect, and was probably within 50 points of his true skill level. I created the game on Lost Temple:
Lets see what you have
In the game selection screen Sonata insisted that I pick a race and not go random. Not that I was going to try and random, but it sort of pissed me off that he tried to dictate my selection. I picked protoss to his terran and we began. I got the left start and he got the top. Against a terran player I like to go for a quick tech option. Even the fastest zealot rush is pretty much useless against a good terran player who knows how to do a wall in. With that in mind, I started a build order that looked like this:
8: Pylon
11: Gateway
12: Assimilator
14: Cybernetics Core
16: Pylon
17: Gateway
19: Dragoon
This build order looks pretty risky, but at any time you can alter it based on your recon. The build order was interrupted around the 7th probe by really horrible lag, the kind you get when someone starts running scandisk in the background. Sonata accused me of being the lagger, which upset me a bit. His english skills left something to be desired, so it was basically him yelling “it you” at me for five minutes. I scouted with my 12th probe and found an interesting situation at the ramp to the top start. Sonata had started a wall in with a depot and a barracks, which meant to me that I could probably expect to see a heavy metal variant strat. I used my probe to attack the SCV making the depot despite the flashing lights on the barracks indicating I would soon be facing a marine. The SCV finished it’s task before taking fatal damage and started moving towards my base, probe in hot pursuit. It arrived a second or two before the dragoon popped out, just as I was about to get my first tech tree. I waited until the dragoon had finished off the SCV before making a citadel of Adun. I wanted to go for the templar tech tree because of the versatility. Going for reavers against a terran who gets heavy metal is a hit or miss proposition. If you play a newbie who forgets the tanks/spider mine/turret combo around the command center you get a quick win. But reavers quickly lose their usefulness as the numbers of tanks increase, while templar actually gain usefulness.
As I started up the tech tree to templar I was making dragoons from both gateways, and I sent a probe to the bottom expansion. I rallied my dragoons to just outside his choke. Once the probe reached the bottom I held off on units for twenty seconds and established an expansion there. Early expanding is a risk, but I was pretty sure that I could defend his choke until it paid off. I turned out to be wrong. At his choke I was greeted with the sight of vultures happily laying mines. I started using my dragoons to harass his vultures and we started playing micro games with him trying to lure my dragoons near the mines. He had four vultures sparring with me when he got lucky and I tripped two spider mines. Two of my dragoons took plash damage and then he sent in six marines. Damnit, heavy metal players aren’t supposed to make marines! I focused fire and took out a marine and two vultures before my forces went down. This didn’t look all that great… I dropped a cannon at the bottom expansion and looked at my main. A beautiful sight of my templar archives finishing warping in greeted my eyes. I ordered up two dark templar and sent my lone dragoon to my ramp. It was the only military force I had and I was a good eight minutes into the game… Well, you can generally pick two of three things. Expansion, tech, or mass units. You know which two I picked. I was pretty sure he picked tech and mass units from his vultures. I just had to survive the next two minutes and my choices would start to pay off.
My macro starts kicking in.
The dragoon performed admirably at the choke, killing a vulture and a marine before going down. Sonata let his forces attack the pylon I had at my choke for a few seconds, then started sending them in. The first marine to step towards my base got cut in half by a warp blade, then the second. Sonata took the better part of valor and retreated his forces towards his heavily mined choke. I followed closely with my dark templar, setting off one mine in the process, but losing mainly shields. I parked my dark templar just before where I knew the minefield started. A few seconds later a vulture started poking around the bottom start, but was killed by the cannon I had set up there.
It was time to get serious about this game. I made another gateway at my main and two gates at the bottom expansion. I also got another forge to start doubling up on the upgrades. I kept sending the units I produced to my opponent’s choke to try and keep him contained. I took one of the dark templar at his choke and carefully hugged the edge of the cliff , sneaking him around to the terran natural. It was empty so I posted him on guard there to alert me as to when my enemy chose to expand. I was forced to move back a little from the choke by a science vessel and a tank firing from the edge of his plateau.
The dreaded four vulture drop!
The next move caught me by surprise. I’ve only seen one other terran pull off this move, Johnny_Vegas. I caught a glimpse of a dropship moving towards my main. I had about four dark templar, two templar, and two dragoons at Sonata’s choke, but only two dragoons at home. Sonata dropped his cargo on the edge of my plateau. Yes, you guessed it folks. I was the victim of the dreaded four vulture drop. On a land map no less. At least Johnny usually tries it on islands. The nasty part about this was it bypassed my choke where I had finally given in and put up a cannon. I didn’t have any static defense around my probes and no mobile detection. Sonata started laying down mines and my two dragoons couldn’t kill them as fast as they were planted. Luckily he planted the mines around the perimeter of my base rather than my probe line as a better player might have done to ensure a little uninterrupted probe killing. He did some nice micro tricks involving hitting and running with three of the vultures while planting mines with the fourth. I was out microed and took two spider mine hits on my dragoons, leaving me with one badly damaged dragoon when he sent his remaining three vultures to my probe line. I followed with my dragoon and got there in time to draw their fire rather than letting them slaughter probes. The dragoon range upgrade kicked in right as my dragoons got in range. Just then the three dragoons queued up in my gateways popped out and started laying down the law, quickly ending the copyright infringement of Johnny_Vegas’s strat with their singularity charges.
While I had been microing the battle at my base Sonata had engaged my forces at his choke. I had lost a few dark templar that were lured in to the mine field by tank fire, and gotten both my templar killed by vulture raids. I withdrew my dragoons to a safer location farther back towards my base, along with the last dark templar. I started pumping ground units as the dark templar I had posted at Sonata’s natural died to a science vessel and tank fire. I sent a probe over to the right start location. You guessed it, naked expanding was the order of the day. I decided I had enough troops to enforce my control over the enemy choke and started sending troops there. I also began a robotics facility at the bottom location.
Sonata had been aggressive the whole game up to this point and didn’t stop now. The troops from the bottom location I sent to the middle ran smack into a vulture/tank/science vessel force at the bottom of their ramp. I moved back the four dragoons, losing one to a mine and tank blast on the way. I wanted to keep control of the ramp and began a cat and mouse game with his vultures. As they came up to mine I would dart in my dragoons and attack them, hopefully killing the mines also. I managed to kill four vultures at the cost of three dragoons to tank fire and mines. I had kept up production at my gates through this time. I had also gotten an observatory as soon as the robotics facility finished and gotten the zealot speed upgrade. I realized I couldn’t hold the ramp anymore and ordered the seven dragoon three zealot combination in the middle to attack the forces at my ramp from the rear. I got an observer just as they were about to hit so I sent it to spot for mines, then hit the front with two dragoons and two zealots. I lost another two dragoons to the tanks but finished the attack.
Jut then I spotted a drop ship hovering menacingly above the right expansion I had just created. I only had a nexus and a few pylons at that point, but I still wanted to keep it. I sent the bottom forces over to the right to prevent any attack. The dropship left without leaving any cargo. I quickly reinforced that expansion with a few cannons and three gates. I didn’t have control of the map at this point but I knew I would in a minute after my economy started really kicking in. I started a shuttle at the robotics facility and kept cranking units and upgrading. I sent the forces I had built up at my main to the middle to start establishing firm map control.
Another tank push? @##$@!!
Sending out the units from my main proved to be a mistake. Sonata slipped a force of four tanks and six vultures by my forces and set up camp at my natural. I sent an observer over, which he must have seen due to the science vessel, but he didn’t have any units capable of air attack. He used the tanks to clear the cannon off my ramp and then the pylon. His vultures set up a minefield outside my natural preventing my troops from reinforcing without getting either hit by tank fire or mines. Sonata then set up another minefield at the top of my ramp. I had produced a few units at my gates while he went through all this set up. I had six dragoons which I attacked the vultures at my choke with. After realizing I was just within tank range I pulled my forces back, having killed three of the vultures. Sonata then moved the tanks to just below my ramp, setting them up so that they were within range of my extractor from the low ground. I couldn’t let him interrupt my resource flow. I used my six dragoons to start pounding on the tanks from the high ground. With the advantage of firing first, the high ground, and focus fire I managed to kill all the tanks at the cost of five dragoons. I started clearing the minefield on the outside with a few dragoons and an observer. Once my forces reinforced my base the vultures were easily dealt with.
You want a little of this? How about you?
So far all the attacks had been my opponent’s. I couldn’t let this continue if I was going to win. I expanded to my natural and then sent my shuttle to the right where it picked up a dragoon and two templar. I massed my forces from all three bases in the middle. I sent in an observer over Sonata’s natural and found it had no real defense. The shuttle followed closely on the heels of the observer, dropping it’s cargo right in the middle of the SCV line. The minerals here were fully saturated with SCVs. Time to implement Whoops’s advice. With a muttered “This one’s for you Whoop” I dropped four perfectly placed psi storms on the busy little workers. His SCV count dropped from forty to about four in the space of two seconds. I picked up the templar and made my escape, leaving the dragoon to duel with the goliath that came a second later.
With that attack under my belt I knew the game should be well in hand. I started trying to calculate my new ladder rating in my head while only paying a little attention to the game. I was going to have to thank Whoop for his psi raid advice. I guess nobody told the plan about my new ladder rating to Sonata. He started pouring troops out of his base, at least a control group of tanks and assorted vultures. They ran into my containment force of two control groups of assorted ground units and our templar. Unfortunately for me, terran siege tanks own protoss ground. My forces started disappearing into blue goon soup and wisps of psi energy. Right up until I cloned four psi storms across the ranks of the tanks. I had lost 75% of my forces but he had lost all of his. I kept pouring troops into the middle, focusing a lot more on dark templar and zealots now that I was sure the main threat was tanks.
Bow down to Whoop!
It was time for a little more of the old Whoop magic. I loaded up another dragoon in my shuttle to keep my templar company and headed off for Sonata’s natural again. A goliath intercepted the shuttle on the ridge above his natural, but I quickly dropped the goon. The duel was abruptly shortened by a psi storm and I loaded up again, moving quickly to the SCV line of Sonata’s natural. Three psi storms later and I was looking at a lot less SCVs. Once more my templar escaped as my dragoon stayed behind to intercept any shuttle killers. Some days it just doesn’t pay to be a dragoon in my army.
I looked at the middle and saw I had about three control groups of ground forces. The observer I had above the enemy choke revealed massed tanks waiting my charge. I’m never one to disappoint. I sent in my zealots, hoping to get some tanks killed with splash damage from the mines. It didn’t work quite as well as I hoped, but I did clear the mines. In went the other two control groups, running over the six remaining tanks. I started charging up the ramp while the dragoon from the templar drop got over his surprise at having been let survive and started pummeling the few SCVs left. I sent all the troops from my bases charging in to help finish off the main, along with a few hapless probes caught up in the excitement. The interior of the base was filled with five factories. I was feeling pretty happy about the game when Sonata started lagging out.
A disappointing ending =[
I started cursing under my breath. “Why do their records all show no disconnects and they start discing when they play me?” I whined plaintively. It must be my abrasive personality. =[. But Sonata didn’t lag out all the way. He would lag for a few seconds, then my zealots would get one swipe of the psi blades, then he would start lagging again. I was obviously the victim of a lag hack. Sonata paused the game to have a little chat. He explained in his broken english that I should disconnect, and offered the code of “18” to explain why. I started on my spiel about ladder.abuse@blizzard.com, and how his mother should be ashamed that her son was no better than Tmac and other things designed to get him to not disc. His response was “kakakkakakakak”, followed shortly by “kekekekkeekekke”. The game continued, lagging forty seconds for every second that was played. I refused to hit “drop player”. Finally, after five minutes of all lag with no further good time, I gave into the inevitable and dropped him. I spent a few minutes composing my letter to blizzard. =[
Thank you for reading my report. You can find the record of my game HERE. I welcome any comments on the tactics my opponent and I used during this game. Also, if 1badassmarine should happen to read this, I have been entered into the BW Forum tourney as dbCAS and you can contact me at AQD3@hotmail.com to set up a match time.
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