"Finally, Jpaikman is left with one solitary outpost, much like Berlin at the close of the Second World War. Sadly, Berlin gets hopelessly raped by Guardians from the South and white cruisers from the North."
-|]agomar
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| Awesome Snowbound FFA | | | Author: | | | IP: | spider-tXXXX | | Date: | 01/08/00 09:01 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 7, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for MikeyMonty: 7.8571 |  | __________Last night I had the pleasure of watching an amazing FFA. Unfortunately (and I apologize to all the players for my blatant stupidity), after 100 pictures Hypercam deletes the first one taken and replaces it with the 101st, etc., and since I took well over 200 pictures I only have pictures of the last half of the game or so. Dissapointing, I know, because the first half of the game had some really cool action. Oh well, I'll do my best to describe it, just don't worry about the picture dry spell earlier in the report, it is more than made up for later.
The Map (Winter Conquest)
The Players
Naughty Mice randomed to red Terran at the 2 o'clock start position.
GameOverZ randomed to green Protoss at the 4 o'clock start position.
MikeyMonty selected teal Terran and observed from a Command Center floated away from the 6 o'clock position.
Addity-X randomed to brown Zerg at the 10 o'clock position.
T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. randomed to purple protoss at the 12 o'clock start position.
__________Naughty Mice began the game by building a Command Center just below the southernmost island and floating it up to the resource node. He then built a depot and barracks to wall in his ramp, a refinery, and an engineering bay next to his geyser. I noticed that even at this early stage of the game the engineering bay was flashing, indicating that Naughty Mice was upgrading his infantry. He either floated a rax to his island expansion, or built one there; I believe it was the latter. He soon built a second barracks and academy in his main, and accumulated several marines behind his wall in. He followed this up with a third rax and a factory, and then began bunkering and turreting in his island to secure it from his enemies.
__________GameOverZ began by building a pylon, a pair of gateways, and then getting an assimilator and forge. He made a shield battery at his ramp and stationed some zealots there to secure his main. When his forge finished he placed a few cannons there for added security. He finally teched by adding a cybernetics core to the mix.
__________Addity-X began by recklessly powering. He built 2 hatcheries at his natural expansion before even starting a spawning pool. T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. attempted to stop this, first with a probe, and then with a zealot, both of which were fought off by drones. He finally ran up Addity-X's ramp with a pair of zealots and began whacking at the spawning pool, but Addity-X had already morphed a creep colony before his pool completed, and as soon as the pool was finished he morphed the colony into a sunken and hatched some lings to drive off the invaders. He then began making drones and zerglings out of his three hatcheries, and also got early gas. As soon as he could he began morphing a lair. My intuition told me mutas would be on the menu.
__________T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. got a pylon, two gateways, an assimilator, and a forge. Addity-X had his overlord hanging over T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N.'s base, so T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. warped a lone cannon to dispell the pesky spy. It was around this time that he sent the probes and zealots to harass Addity-X. T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. then got a cybernetics core, though it was delayed because he stopped to build the forge to shoo off the overlord. He built a Nexus at his natural and cannoned it in, with his cannons on the low ground. He then built a citadel of Adun.
__________If you are still awake, the sim-city is finally almost over. Early games in FFAs are long. But don't worry, the action is soon to come. Addity-X began morphing a Queen's nest and dual evolution chambers. A spire was noticeably absent. I was at first puzzled by this, but then I realized that mass cracklings, possibly dark swarmed, would be his weapon of choice. Sure enough, Addity-X just kept piling up the lings at his front door until he had a huge swarm. All players continued teching, with T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. and GameOverZ teching towards templar and securing their naturals, and Naughty Mice fortifying his first island with tanks and also securing the second island and getting starports and a science facility.
__________T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. decides to test the waters at Addity-X's natural with a lone goon, but the metallic Protoss walker is swarmed under by the waiting cracklings. Suddenly, as if provoked by the dragoon, the huge mass of cracklings parked at Addity-X's front door rushed towards T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. at 12. They swarmed into his natural, and despite a well placed psionic storm by a waiting purple templar, shredded everything in their path. Cannons, zealots, and templar all fell before the cracklings. They then moved into T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N.'s main. There they were met with a pair of dark templar, and Addity-X did not have overlord speed yet. Nevertheless, two dark templar take a long time to kill such a massive swarm of zerglings, and the battle ended with T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. having lost almost all his probes and vital tech. Addity-X took advantage of the confusion to take the expansion at 8 o'clock, and also to put up a spire and hydralisk den, and begin morphing the spire into a greater spire.
__________Addity-X was not planning on letting T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. recover. In a moment 12 hydras waltzed into the wreckage of the Protoss main, accompanied by an overlord, and systematically demolished the Nexus and all the probes. Addity-X was kind enough to leave scattered buildings so that T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. could observe, but he apparently did not wish to stick around in a game he wasn't playing in and left. And then there were three.
__________No player was idle during this time. Addity-X expanded thrice more, taking the entire left side, the left-centre gas mine, and T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N.'s old main, thus bringing his hatchery total to a whopping ten! Will anyone be able to stop this powering juggernaut? Only time will tell. GameOverZ accumulated a ton of dark templars and observers and expanded to the six o'clock main. Occasionally he would test the defenses at Naughty Mice's natural with his dark templar. Naughty Mice took his natural's resource node, which, counting his two already secured islands, brought his total number of expansions to four. He had several raxes, factories, and starports pumping upgraded M&M, Sci Vessels, Valkyries, and Tanks. Addity-X marched a massive force of hydralisks to the six o'clock main, taking out a concentrated cluster of GameOverZ' dragoons and zealots along the way. He took heavy losses fighting his way up the ramp against zealots and cannons, but managed to emerge triumphant with about 12-18 hydralisks remaining, which he parked outside the 6 o'clock natural, presumable to foil future expansion attempts.
 __________Addity-X began morphing some of his mutalisks into gaurdians and harrasing Naughty Mice's islands. However, Naughty Mice had accumulated a fairly large fleet of science vessels and would simply irradiate any of the large floating crabs that he saw, then run his science vessels back over his bunkered islands to protect them from scourge. Naughty Mice, tiring of the gaurdians, began marching a large troop of marines and medics towards Addity-X's base. Addity-X threw everything he had at them; hydralisks, zerglings, gaurdians, and mutalisks all met their deaths at the hands of the terran infantry or science vessels.  However, the stiff defense took its toll and reduced the attacking forces severely. Addity-X attempted to bring the 18 or so hydras he had camped outside 6 o'clock to catch the M&M in a pincer maneuver and hopefully destroy them. However, he had neglected to station an overlord near the hydras, and GameOverZ would have his revenge for the loss of the 6 o'clock expansion. A full dozen dark templar tore into the hydras as they attempted to reinforce their Hive cluster, reducing them to nothing but mounds of gore in mere seconds. GameOverZ then retook the six o'clock main.
__________Naughty Mice continued the march into Addity-X's natural. I was honestly feeling bad for Addity-X at this point. Naughty Mice's combination of M&M and science vessels was simply trashing everything Addity-X could put on the field. It is very frustrating as Zerg when you don't have any way to counter such a simple force. Anyway, here are some visuals on the vicious fight in the Zerg natural.
 
__________Addity-X made one last desperate defensive attack with his drones and a few zerglings, but to no avail. The Terran infantry began to lay into the Zerg tech buildings, and with a gracious gg and a warning to Naughty Mice about green's dark templar, Addity-X resigned from the game, leaving but two contestants. GameOverZ, sensing that now might be a good time to strike, attempts to patrol a large force of goons into Naughty Mice's natural expansion. He had not counted on Naughty Mice possesing both islands, though, and cliffed tanks drove him back to his own natural. Silence reigned over the battlefield for a long time as both sides massed forces in preparation for an epic final battle.
__________Let's recap, shall we? After eliminating T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N. with a massive force of cracklings and hydras, Addity-X himself is eliminated, despite a stiff defense of gaurdians, mutalisks, hydralisks, and zerglings, by Naughty Mice. Naughty Mice himself currently controls three expansions: his natural, and both islands. The islands especially are key as they posess both gas and minerals and give him a commanding advantage of the ground trenches that lead between mains. It will be difficult to wage a ground wear without removing those islands. GameOverZ has taken the six o'clock main and natural, in addition to his own natural, also giving himself a grand total of three expansions. However, because his expansion at 6 was initially destroyed by Addity-X and then rebuilt, he is behind in probes mining. Both sides have a good mix of ground forces, shuttles, dropships, and observers. In addition, Naughty Mice has a small fleet of science vessels, valkyries, and wraiths.
 __________Heeding Addity-X's warning about GameOverZ' pack of dark templar, Naughty Mice begins adding a force of mine equipped vultures to his ground force. Unfortunately, he loses them on a scouting foray to GameOverZ' goons and so doesn't have very many when he initially starts his tank push. He attacks with a large pack of M&M, but cannons on GameOverZ' cliff, along with some dark templar, slaughter the infantry. Naughty Mice pulls back what remains. He lines up twelve marines in his natural, and, using his fleet of science vessels, defensive matrixes them all. He charges them in, escorted by the science vessels, and they engage the cannons and dark templar. The twelve marines kill four dark templar, in addition to the three cliffed cannons, before dieing to reinforcing zealots. However, they did their job in that they removed the main defense from GameOverZ' ramp. A larger force, this time escorted by a rebuilt pack of vultures and several tanks, moved into GameOverZ' main. The battle that took place on that snowy plateau was very impressive. Naughty Mice used every aspect of his forces; he layed mines to deal with Protoss infantry, d-matrixed tanks, used vultures to perform hit and runs on dark templars, and emped clusters of protoss to remove their shields. GameOverZ lured marines into cannons, dropped zealots in the midst of dmatrixed tanks to trigger spider mines and destroy them, and hunted down anything that wandered out of science vessel range with dark templar. In the end, however, the terran forces emerged victorious and razed the Protoss main.
 __________GameOverZ is not one to throw in the towel, however, and even as his main was being razed he began warping in gateways in the six o'clock main and building zealots to supplement the dark templar stationed there. A quick comsat by Naughty Mice revealed the expansion, and he sent what was left of his troops to deal with it. The battle that occured there was a smaller version of the one that had been fought moments earlier. The well microed terran troops slowly fought their way up the Protoss ramp with judicious use of spider mines and d-matrix. This time, there was nothing GameOverZ could do to halt the press of the red forces; his tech was gone and he was reduced to one working base and two gateway from which to pump troops. He fought admirably, but was eventually swarmed under, leaving Naughty Mice to stand victorious!
The Score
__________Well, that's it. I tried to do justice to the FFA, though there is no way one observer can see everything. I am sure there were battles I missed, and I may have made some small errors. I believe, however, that my transcription of the events is pretty accurate and stand by it. It was not my intent to make any players look bad; all played well with the hand they were dealt, and could easily kick my ass around the block any day of the week. Even T.I.B.E.R.I.A.N., caught by surprise with a huge wave of cracklings knocking on his door, made admirable use of his troops to attempt to stem the tide. He almost succeeded too, though I don't think there was anything he could have done to stop all those zerglings. The game was well played by all parties and I don't believe it was one sided. Please, comment your little hearts out, and thank you to all four players for allowing me to observe the game, I genuinely enjoyed it. Anyone who wants their game reported in a similar fashion, find me on B.Net, though I am not on too often, and I'll gladly offer my reporting services. Thanks for reading.
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