"Hey, what the hell, I might as well expand here too."
-[JC]JonaGoo
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| The Art of Deception | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 12/08/99 11:12 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 8, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for SnowSquall: 7.4828 |   | Introduction
With the NWTR league starting up this week, I realized I sorely needed some 1v1 practice as I had mostly been playing in 2v2s. So I turned to the arena where quality(?) play reigns: ladder!
My first game back laddering was against a fellow named Wezcraven. I had created the map, Winter Conquest, and was mildly shocked when someone had joined quickly. As it turned out it was my selected terran vs his random terran, and it was a long, protracted game that lasted 1 hour and 51 minutes... but I came out on top despite getting outresourced. I had said a little prayer to JV before the game and he inspired me to start nuking which eventually had swung the momentum in my favor.
A day passed, I suffered my humilating defeat to Grunt in week 1 of the league, and feeling rather angry, I proceeded to take it out on a bunch of various public games.
Today I decided to jump into another ladder game, and started searching. With any luck, my quest to get over 1100 (which I had never done on BW before, only regular SC) would be achieved today. I quickly found a game advertised as 1067++. Since I was at 1094, it was close enough. Entering, I statted my adversery, hang 27, and his record was 67-58-2. At least I shouldn't have to worry about discs, right?
The map, of course, was Lost Temple. I certainly hope you don't need an imagemap of it!
SnowSquall: Selected Terran at 6:00
hang27: Randomed Terran at 9:00
Yay! Another TvT game..um...er..*yawn*
I keep running into players who random. This probably means that he feels equally comfortable with all 3 races, AND it also means he can have a specific build order while I'm in the dark. With that in mind, my anti-random build order means I scout on my 7th SCV. Once again, I scouted in the wrong direction, travelling counterclockwise. When I finally got to his base, 1 barracks was complete, a 2nd was almost done, and no refinery was present.
I almost leaped for joy. You see, I was already collecting gas at this point. Due to a phone call, I had screwed up my early build order and didnt get my first depot down until 9, which meant I had extra minerals to burn. Well burn them I did. I was about to construct a 2nd rax, but I quickly negated that idea as a factory immediately started. When the factory finished, the first in a pair of starports was started. I had one bunker at my choke filled with 4 marines. I had also completed an academy and obtained a comsat.
I remembered just why I was so angry when I lost to Grunt -- no scouting! I pulled an SCV away, and scouted the other 2 starts. 3 was empty, but I ran into a depot, a rax, and another rax being built at 12. I quickly comsatted inside and saw the CC was still under construction.. I didn't think he could have had one operational yet but I wanted to make sure.
At this point he also comsatted me, and barely saw my starports I think which were on the east side of my base.
Considering I had just popped a wraith out and I was researching cloak -- I tried to put myself in his position.. what would I be worried about?
Wraith rush.
Of course, that IS what I was planning. Time to toss a curveball though.
I continued with wraith production out of the 2nd starport, but paused to get a dropship out of the first. Scanning his main saw several missle turrets around his CC, and scouting his choke saw all his forces were there.
At this point if I had charged in with 6 wraiths blindly, the turrets would have ate me for lunch.
Instead a tank, 3 marines and a medic got into the dropship, which s-l-o-w-l-y (have I mentioned dropships are slow?) flew over to the south end of his base, just out of turret range. I unloaded, seiged up, stimmed my 3 marines, and proceeded to disassemble his turrets.
One can only imagine what he was thinking at this time.
Lets play Drop Wars!
My dropship ferried another tank over shortly, and I really got down to work -- forcing his CC to float away to his natural, and tearing down depots, and an academy and getting a fair amount of SCVs as well. Hang brought over tanks and seiged them just out of range of mine.. but then I brought in my 6 wraiths (remember them?) and started pecking away. He then retreated the damaged tank back to another pair of turrets and fortified that position.
But I wasn't worried. He was back down to one base, and a base whose economy was nowhere near as healthy as mine.
My whole plan now was to drop him. Whenever, wherever. I loaded up another tank/3 marines/medic combo, and went to his base at 12. Scanning saw most of his forces this time protecting his workers, so I simply ignored that and dropped near his barracks at the south end. More tasty action ensued, and he was forced to bring all his forces across to fight it off.
While I was prepping this drop, a CC had floated into my natural and immediately had it add on a comsat - as I maynard transferred SCV's from my main. When I scanned his 12, I had still seen no sign of a starport yet.. only a factory. Feeling safe, I started yet another CC, intending on floating this one to the southeast island.
As I got my second gesyer online, I added 2 more starports, bringing my total to 4. I also constucted 2 armories and started on my flyer upgrades.
I hadn't forgotten about his natural, and my turbo newbie was en route. I put down the bunker, seiged the tank up, and again, hang was forced to spend a considerable amount of time microing in order to finally get my tank off the ledge.
Me? I hardly paid attention to it, except to repair my tank halfway through, as I was starting yet another CC for my mineral only natural. My CC had landed at the southeast island and I went straight for the geyser.
Another drop was executed at his 12 base.. but this time it didn't meet with much success with my forces pretty much being vaporized as they exited the dropship. Oh well. I'm keeping him honest.
Rollin' in the dough
When hang had finally evicted my turbo newbie off his ledge, I had remembered to pick the SCV back up and it was constructing a CC at the northwest island. Needless to say, with 4 geysers and 5 bases, the resources were really racking up. 4 starports were now pumping cruisers, and I had teched to ghosts and had lockdown researched.
I had set up shop in the middle of the map and detached a small squadron of a tank, a goliath, 9 marines and a medic to deal with his natural at 9. I stayed out his tank range, and destroyed everything that was within sight. I probably could have just killed the turrets at this point with my 2/2 wraiths but why waste units? :) My first 4 bc's were summoned to the scene to remove the offending tanks, and soon that base was just a smoking pile of rubble.
Hang was persistant however, and wasn't giving up. He had taken the natural at 12 sometime ago and had finally got into the air war, as a squadron of 5 cruisers, 2 valkyries, and 2 sci vessles were seen hovering over his choke.
Before I started in, I looked at my mineral count and was startled at how quickly I had gone from consistently staying under 1000 the whole game to a whopping 10000 in the bank. I would have spent more but I was at 200/200. :)
I was ready to end the game, and some nice lockdown practice coupled with my standing army rolled over his pair of bases and he called it a gg. He was also slightly stunned as I managed to lockdown 4 cruisers, both sci vessels, and the offending tanks on his ramp as well.
After the game, my rating had gone up to 1117. A new high for me!
Wrap Up/Lessons
The key to this game obviously was my deception of going hard wraiths. He was perfectly protected against a cloaked wraith strike -- but was unprepared for the drop which came instead. It's tough to blame him for thinking that too, considering I embellished the deception by making sure I was researching cloak.
An interesting strategy trying to expand quickly against another terran. Again, it had to be someone smart and not take a natural first so I couldn't turbo newbie it. Maybe he read my previous report here and thought I wouldn't scout it.
Keep the pressure on. I realized that he had 2 bases, but also he had to be spread pretty thin and as long as I kept dropping him, he would never have the chance to organize a strike against me as I was able to rapid expand myself.
The only other thing I couldn't figure out is why he didn't have a refinery early. TvT is all about early gas, and I selected terran -- unless he had missed that part, which would explain it. | | Battle Shots! | 
Package for Mr. Hang!
I like you so much, here's another...
And another. Merry Christmas!
I'm sorry, you will NOT be using those cruisers.
It feels good to be on the other side once in a while.
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