"Greetings, and welcome to my crappy BR. Another exciting 2v2 with lotsa gory pics, coming your way. If anything at all in this BR displeases you, I assure you, it is entirely Fractal_Wave's fault."
-Bob_The_Newt
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| Writing BR's at work is bad for you... | | | Author: | | | IP: | netcacheXXXX | | Date: | 02/28/00 08:02 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Great Writing(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for dislekcia: 8.4286 |  | Welcome to another waste of time. Please insert yourselves in position A for best results and wipe the seat when you're done. Thankyou.
I'm writing these reports from work, so don't expect them to be particularly good, image intensive or even at all coherent...
| | Les Backstory | Sunday rolled around, and in an effort to further procrastinate writing the picture rich BR I've been putting off for a week, I logged onto the local FSGS server (kalahari.mweb.co.za as always, drop round if the Koreans invade Kali) only to discover via 7.2 billion simultaneous whispers that my site (www.starcraft.co.za - don't bother going there. No really, don't bother.) had been hacked by some faceless bastard. AARGH!
After finding a way to delete the replacement index.htm file that had been created by a super-user, I eventually got the page back to its usual semi-functional state. Unfortunately I couldn't do anything about the server security problems because I'm only hosted on it, not physically sitting next to the server... It's an NT box for crying out loud, my pet gerbil could make it crash.
A few pointless and highly frustrating phonecalls later ("Yes, I've been hacked ... No I don't want to go to hospital ... Look, can I talk to someone who actually touches a computer? ... No I won't hold - Argh, bitch *click*.) I decided to vent my anger by locating the asshole responsible for it all. Unfortunately God wasn't available, so I made do with finding the hacker.
More phonecalls. This time to a couple of friends in the hacker community. Usually I wouldn't even bother trying to track down a hacker, but this one wasn't particularly bright and had let slip that he lived in the same town as I do. *Insert evil cackle here* VENGEANCE WILL BE MINE! Time to log onto B.net while waiting for my minions to finish their investigations, I was just about to launch into another evil laugh and maybe even rub my liver-spotted pale hands together when my evil contemplations were rudely interrupted:
*Ring Ring!* Eh? That was fast.
*Ring Ri-*
"Hello? ... What?! ... Of course I hung up: I said I wouldn't hold ... Yes, I do realise that ... NO! I will not hold again! *click*"
Well, THAT spoiled the mood.
| | Anyway... | Kalahari.mweb.co.za proved to be phenominally boring, the only people on kept spamming me for entrance into oW (The clan I run in my spare time... Ok, the clan I fail to run in my spare time) and I didn't particularly feel like dealing with their constant pleas for tutoring. Off to B.net I go!
Deciding that my normal account (dislekcia) was too dismal to even attempt to ladder with (as the evil K factor was approaching fast), I logged on as SaintlyJim. Having already amassed 12 wins beforehand against random opponents, I was ready to leap straight into a ladder game...
But first: Nohunters! Y'know, they should call nohunters nopeople instead... There's absolutely nobody interesting there anymore, everyone's always away :(
Oh well... Pubbie game hopping time. After the usual "You no play random!" bannings and general incoherent spam, I managed to stay in a game for more than 20 seconds, yay! While waiting for the counter to hit 0 and the game to launch, my opponent must have either gotten bored or had an epileptic fit, seeing as he banned me with 2 seconds left in the countdown. The strange thing was that the game still loaded and I promptly lost my battle.net connection. *Sigh* Taking the fact that I didn't get a disc as an omen (of what I'm still not sure), I leapt wholeheartedly into the next game...
| | Game 1: Sacrifice | This time the counter managed to get all the way down to 0 without any erratic mouse fidgeting by my opponent, some guy going by the spiffy handle of !!!!!.:.!!!!! hereafter reffered to as Punctuation-Man. I had stayed with my customary random (I'm too lazy to pick a race, and when I do I'm paralyzed with indecision over possible strats) and been given protoss in response to his picked protoss on the much maligned lost temple. Stop yawning, it gets better... Promise!
"We're all individuals!" Shouts the crowd.
Yeah, right. Goons it is...
I'd started at 6 o'clock and didn't scout early beacuse I wanted Punctuation-Boy to carry on with an anti-random build order for as long as possible before getting his own goons. Eventually though, he found me and watched his probe die to goon fire, thankfully his probe expired just before I warped in my robotics facility.
Reasoning that he couldn't be at 12 o'clock because of the time his probe took to reach me (of course, he could just plain suck), I sent a lone scout to the south and discovered Punctuation-Freak trying to cannon in his natural, my scout made it past the horrifying half-complete cannon and saw 1 gateway, an assimilator and a cybernetics core under construction. On the way out my probe spotted a nexus underway at his natural. Hmmm... Wonder how many cannons he'll put up?
I couldn't afford to let that expansion get online, so I teched up to reavers as fast as I possibly could, producing goons non-stop from a measly two gates. I also took the time to get an observatory incase of DT's and to watch for any further expansions Punctuation-Person might try to establish.
Eventually my second reaver finished, I now had around 8 goons, 4 zealots, 2 reavers (didn't I mention that already?) and a shuttle. Wow. Loading up, I shuttled the reavers around to the 4 o'clock main whilst sending my goons/zeals to just outside his natural. The plan was to drop the reavers and destroy as many probes as possible and evacuate once the resistance got too heavy, then use the reavers to crack his cannon wall guarding his natural. Goon production continued at my main.
The reaver drop wasn't a complete failiure: I did manage to get at least 1 scarab into his probes (wasting about 4-5 of them) but Punctuation-Man already had goons... Lots of them. Thankfully I'd landed behind his base, so they were only able to arrive in single file, allowing my reavers to kill 5 of them before the damage started adding up. Figuring it was time to get the hell out of dodge when one of my reavers exploded in a particularly korean way (he disced just before he blew up, the bastard) I flew my remaining reaver back around to his natural and laid waste to 3 cannons before his forces arrived. Warcries sounded, tribal rythms boomed over the psionic airwaves, and protoss charged protoss. The carnage was terrible... Too bad I don't have any screen shots to show you. Oh well, imagine lots of dead goons and some zealots and stuff prodding each other. Now imagine things exploding, then think of large vats of ink spilling everywhe - Oh forget it!
When the dust settled, 4 of my goons stood victorious over the remains of his natural. The battle weary goons headed up his ramp in high spirits expecting to find only token resistance, only to be smacked back down by 4 fresh goons from 4 gateways... 4 gateways?! Oh shit, Run away! Flee!!
Luckily I'd been producing goons and the odd reaver back at my main, so off they marched to Punctuation-Girl's natural once again. Hopefully I could intercept his forces en-route to my main, on a battleground of my chosing where I would have an advantage (goons on the move to somewhere are without question the stupidest units in SC, even on attack move it's possible to win 2-1 battles simply because they have such trouble moving around each other). Unfortunately things did not go as planned: His 16 goons were all stationed at his natural and had range, while mine were still waiting for the vital upgrade to complete. I managed to reduce his troop count to 4 goons, but he could still produce units twice as fast as I could...
More goons back at my main and 2 scouting zealots, 1 was sent off to check for expansions (which resulted in me expanding to the 12 o'clock main) and another to sit outside his natural and alert me of any hostile troop movements. He died a few seconds later as 12 goons moved with decidedly unfriendly intent towards my main... Oh crap! I only had 8 goons myself, with no reavers for support any time soon. Thankfully I was only 2 goons short of 12 by the time he attacked me, then my micro broke down... While I was trying to pick up the fragments of my lost micro techniques, his goons made it up my ramp and almost got into my mineral line. I pulled through by simply flinging pairs of goons at them until I dealt enough damage for my newly completed reaver to kill them all in 1 shot, MUHAHAHA! *Froth froth*
The reaver was quickly loaded into a shuttle and sent to scout Punctuation's natural to see if he was attempting to mine there without my permission again. He was, but not for very long. Strangely, he had very few goons for someone with 4 gates... The reason for this soon became clear as 6 goons ran into my 12 o'clock exp and razed it and the defending photon cannon with only 2 losses. I had 8 goons of my own at this point, but I decided to let my expansion die while re-inforcing my main with cannons at my choke and expanding to my natural, the main reason for letting it die was to keep his troops occupied though, because I'd moved all 8 of my goons to his ex-natural.
The next major conflict in his natural was initiated when 6 goons and 2 archons moved into view of my observer over his cliff, EEEK! Luckily I'd managed to claw together a few scraps of micro and sacrificed 1 goon at the bottom of his ramp to hold up his archons, allowing me to focus-fire and kill them before our main forces engaged. His goons were no match for mine with reaver support and they quickly fell, even his constant re-inforcements from his gateways weren't enough to keep him alive, and when his 4 goons that had killed my expansion suicided themselves without killing my reaver, Punctuation-Kid surrendered.
Yay! 1025.
| | Game 2: Cheese | This game wasn't all that interesting, but I'll cover it anyway because it falls between the other 2 and it's my BR, so hah!
After a quick break to grab some bread out of the oven (Nah, actually I just went and got myself a bowl of icecream), I headed back to the pubbie games, eager to fling myself once more into the fray. Seeing a promising game on dire (Gasp! A non-temple laddergame, wow!) I joined only to find that there were already 2 people in it. Expecting to be booted as usual, I uttered my customary "Bye", but was stopped from leaving by a hasty "WIAT!"... Told you it was hasty.
After various people bounced in and out of the game with the creator seemingly wanting an FFA, we eventually got underway when Sum_Hwung_Else (Sorry, I can't remember his name) decided that he actually didn't want to play dire afterall and leaving for good this time. My opponent, whose name also eludes me at this present moment (It was something like 1luvPvZ_islands~), picked toss and got the 3 o'clock spot. I randomed to toss at 9 o'clock...
Judging by his nickname, I guessed that PvZ would probably be going for early stargates with corsairs in mind. I was partially correct... Deciding to end this quickly, I went for DTs and reavers: pylon on 8; assim on 9; gate 10; core 12 or there abouts; pylon; robo & citadel asap; pylon; gate; archives asap; shuttle and observatory asap.
My shuttle found the PvZ lover at the 3 o'clock start, directly below me, and confirmed that my suspicion of corsairs was partially correct: He had 2 stargates and a fleet beacon. Laughing evilly, for he had no detection, I loaded up 2 DTs and dropped them on the edge of his island. Meanwhile producing goons and shuttles/observers back home from 3 gateways.
The DT's hit paydirt and arrived just as a cannon was about to warp in, it was removed in short order and then 1 of them set about swiping the forge into nothingness while the other hunted Probes and the occasional cannon attempt. That was it really... PvZ did try to attack me with 3 carriers, but they were driven off by 16 goons. About the only thing he did kill with those carriers was a probe that I had intended to expand with.
Annoyingly enough, even though he had 2 DTs running around his main with no means of detecting them and couldn't take me out before he was himself eliminated, PvZ didn't quit. Fine, I admire people that try to stage comebacks, but it's just not possible to expand when you don't even have a robotics facility! Oh well, at least I got to finish my icecream before it melted.
Rating: 1049.
| | Game 3: The Finale | Sensing another opportunity to advance my ladder rating, I joined another game on dire, this time advertised as "1050++ AIR GAME!" Oh well, what's 1 point.
As with the previous game, people kept joining only to leave again when the creator (Some swedish dude, lets call him Rube) asked if we should FFA. Eventually some guy with a 1127 rating joined the game and proceeded to drill Rube about what his rating was. At least, I assume that's what the entire 10 minute long conversation was about seeing as it was all in swedish... 1127-rating-man left just before the game was due to start though, maybe he hadn't gotten enough vowels with little dots on top of them from Rube or something. Luckily another player joined and we began the game: Rube picking zerg and The Other Guy™ (honestly, I have screenshots of these ridiculous names, the only problem is that I'm at work and they're not) chosing toss, 10 points for guessing what I was.
Well done. I got given zerg and immediately set about complaining about the lag: Hey, it's never me, right? RIGHT?! After being bitched at for 3 minutes after they found out I'm from South Africa, I decided to leave... Just before I hit the big red button marked "Do Not Press! Ever!", the korean left, probably muttering evil things about me in high ascii.
The lag immediately improved, much to Rube's delight. See, it wasn't me after all (/me waves 2 meg/sec link around at innocent bystanders) tell that to my 6 red bars :(
Having already decided on hydras, the big question was what was Rube going for: Hydras or mutas? Even though a scouting overlord soon discovered his base, that question was going to take a while to be answered as he had a 3rd hatchery and a pool underway. Hah, I thought to myself: Look self, he has no gas, lets hurt him as soon as we can!
While I was merrily teching my way to drop capabilities, the usual dual lair build, Rube finally put up a hydra den and started a lair just before my sacs upgrade completed. Sniggering to myself, I loaded up 16 hydras as soon as I could and farted off to Rube's base at 3 o'clock (BTW: I had started at the 1 o'clock position) A scouting overlord saw my drop en-route and it was Rube's turn to scoff at me as lings unburrowed underneath my still dropping hydras...
Self, what's wrong with you? I thought as my drop failed dismally... Oh well, time to expand. I dropped a drone off on the 4 o'clock island and started a hatchery there, I also kept pumping hydras and put up dual evolution chambers as I thought this game would become a hydra war rather fast. To confirm that, I sent my scouting overlord back into his base to see how many troops he had: Startlingly enough, my overlord reported that there was only token hydralisk presence, instead a spire was almost complete and 5 sunkens were guarding Rube's tech buildings. It didn't say anything else as it watched 6 lings and 6 mutas hatch, apart from a wistful bellow as it exploded under mutalisk fire.
I again hit the magic number of 16 hydras, only this time a wing of 12 mutas flew in just in time to see my armor upgrade complete. 3 went down before the first hydra died, but I'd heard the telltale squidqy noises of units being deposited by overlords, so I ran my hydras back to the middle of my mineral line as the first lings arrived. Attacking with my drones and hydras, I was able to fend off the 12 lings, 4 hydras and 9 mutes. Of course, the sunken colony provided valuable hitpoints before it died (allowing my hydras many free hits) and the 6 new hydras spawned just in time to slaughter the last surviving mutas. *Phew*
My expansion was now reasonably well defended (2 sunkens and 2 spores with 9 or so hydras) and was being mined for all it was worth while I replaced lost drones at my main. A patrolling overlord spotted a hatchery going up on the 6 o'clock island... Self, you can't allow that! My self said to itself... Umm, hang on...
Anyway, 8 hydras put an end to that expansion attempt as more hydras and a queens nest were produced at my main. The elite 8 hydra crack force of doom™ stayed on the 6 o'clock island to ensure Rube wouldn't try to expand there again.
Rube's next drop came when I had 24 hydras lounging around: 8 lords full of what I presume were lings and 12 mutas floated their way towards my main. I say "presume" and "were" because only 2 overlords survived long enough to deposit anything... The mutas all died instead of bravely running away as they should have, and I siezed the opportunity and deposited the 8 hydra crack force of doom™ behind Rube's geyser and took that and half his drones down before he had enough lings to chase me off. Instead of re-loading though, I morphed some of the hydras into lurkers as they died... Lings are even worse at killing lurker eggs than marines are, so 3 of the 4 I morphed survived to hatch and dispatched the lings and chased Rube's drones away yet again.
Unfortunately mutas fare slightly better against lurkers than lings do, and my lurkers only succeeded in killing a few larvae before they died. But they had served their purpose and delayed Rube long enough for me to get 24 hydras together and onto his island, right where he had run all his drones to during the lurker threat. *Commence evil grin*
With all his drones dead and no forces left apart from a few sunkens which didn't last all that long against 2/2 hydras, Rube graciously left the game.
Yay! Go me! 1070.
| | The Aftermath | Feeling really pleased with myself (Self, I'm pleased with you!) I decided not to tempt fate and play a fourth game. Instead I went back to kalahari.mweb.co.za and was promptly beaten soundly by some guy I'd never seen before called Ap0c... I tried to do some kind of demented reaver/goon combo vs M&M and tanks, which worked reasonably well, until I expanded too far from my base istead of taking my natural on Winter Conquest, split my forces, and lost most of my troops due to bad positioning.
I could really have done with storm that game...
Taking the loss as another omen (take 2 omens and call me in the morning) I chatted for a while longer and logged off to go to sleep.
...
It's now 6:30pm and I've spent an extra hour and a half at work, damn this site!
"I am not an assmaster! I am the Assmaster 2000! Tighten your buns with me!"
-dis |
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