"You know what, vram, you're right. It's not like I won with any actual skill on my part...."
-Omnipresent
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| Popular Demand(Yeah, Right) | | | Author: | | | IP: | 24.67.14XXXX | | Date: | 03/30/00 12:03 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 7, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for Fractal_Wave: 8.2537 |  |
This Isn't in my contract...
Seems like reporting is a vicous cycle. Post one game of a series, and the crowd clamours for more. And, lord knows, one can't dissapoint one's fans. It is all about the fans, after all. So, with my public in mind, I begin this battlereport.
The Map in question: Dire Straights
The map with the best music in StarCraft, Dire is usually either loved or hated by players of the game. It boasts four large starting islands in the four corners, each with lots of minerals, and lots of room to land on. There are 4 expansion isles at 12, 3, 6 and 9. These are much smaller in size, which makes them harder to drop.
Finally, in the center, there are two islands that are fairly small, and very mineral heavy. The game often rests on who can control these two key points.
The Players, in very much question:
Team Wave
Fractal_Wave: Selects Yellow Terran in Top-Right.
That Fractal guy is known for pulling weird stuff out of his ass. Shame he can only make it work 50% of the time. Other than that, he's an average player.
Shockwave[xpow]: Selects Red Protoss in Bottom-Left.
My blood brother is, simply put, da bomb. A good player (better than me), and a great partner. Always willing to back you up.
Team Still Those Other Guys
SoundScientist: Randoms to Purple Terran in Bottom-Right.
Don't know much about him, but he got Purple Terran, so everyone should run in fear.
Inadequate: Selects Teal Protoss in Top-Left.
Know less about him that I know about SoundScientist.
The game begins with me asking Shock if I should try to rax float whoever is in top-left.
ummmmmm NO
-Shockwave[xpow]
With that comment, I forgoe my wonderful rax float (Read 'Just The Facts' if you don't know why I like rax floats so much. And I'm aware that that was a shameless plug for an old BR of mine. I'm cryin' on the inside. Honest) Me and Shock discuss more, and I decide to go for power drops. The "build" goes something like:
8-Depot
10-Rax
11-Gas
13-Rax
15-Depot
19-Acadamy
21-E. Bay
-->Bunker and two turrets around my mineral line
After there I don't recall the numbers. But, Factory, Starport, Factory, Armory, StarPort is a fair approximation.
About now Shock asks where the heck my factory is, and I respond "acad" and scan Bottom-Right with my spanking-new Comsat, to see SoundScientist, our Purple(ohgodrunaway!) Terran friend with two Starports, a 3rd starport building, and a control tower attached to the first port.
Wraiths, anyone?
I begin the natural Terran counter to the wraith. The Goliath. For such a formidable name, they're really not that useful...except on Dire, where the small islands and long goliath range can make any goliath-held island simply a bitch to take.
A scouting purple wraith comes crusing casually over my island, gets a 4-pack of Hellfire Missiles, now complete with Charon Boosters(Purchase yours today! only $149.99!), up the keister, and wisely turns tail and runs. I continue building up my happy fun base, foolishly ignorant of those nasty wraiths and their nasty cloak.
Meantime, Shock has produced a goodly number of Corsair, as well as a shuttle and a reaver. We decide to hit Inadequate, our teal protoss friend. I send a drop-ship of infantry, and Shock sends his reaver with a dragoon to keep it company. Through a remarkable lack of timing, my infantry are cut down like rabbit by zealots and a photon cannon. I curse in disgust and re-fill my drop-ship with an scv and two marines. With this mighty force, I will take and hold the 12:00 island. Stop laughing out there.
The reason I can make this rather stupid claim is because Shock's drop (oo, that rhymes, sorta) just hit teal, and as I take a quick look, I see a large number of "those little robotics basterds" as Mark4 puts it, go up in so much smoke and shards of heated metal. I know that Inadequate won't bother me for a while. I begin turtling up my island, with a turret and a bunker with more to follow. When that joyful sound "Your forces are under attack!" reaches my ears. I slam the space bar and see a cloak-shadow, a rather large one, poking holes in my goliaths with it's "burst lasers" (actually de-comissioned knitting needles). I scan and my 3 marines and 3 goliaths rip into the offending wraiths. SoundScientist runs his wraiths away from my avenging comsat scan, but doubles back as soon as the scan has worn off. I wait until the wraiths are right over my forces, then scan again. But by now I’ve lost all my marines. This will be close. And Sound’s reinforcing his wraith with each run.
Because Shock is so damn cool, his corsair are already ½ way to my base by the time I get around to saying “help”. His token 3 ‘sairs go up against about 8 wraith, and actually force the wraith to run in fear (with help from my last goliath. ).
However, that was my last scan. Oh poop. I begin building a missile turret to cover my production facility, but the brave scv is blown away by wraiths before he gets it to 50 hitpoints. Most aggravating. I continue building goliaths and marines, and watch them get molested by wraiths as they finish….35……36….37…38…more wraith abuse…come onnnnnn….42…43…that one must have hurt….46…almost…
now.
Shock’s last 2 corsairs mission in, and my marine and goliath actually drive Sound off of my back. And the goliaths that just popped out of my three factories didn’t hurt, I’m certain. I get my last turret build, covering my base almost completely, and begin goliath production in earnest. I also ship 3 goliaths and 2 marines over to my 12:00 island and begin turtling it in earnest. 4-5 missile turrets, a bunker, and 4 goliaths should stop anything & everything short of the unstoppable. (I’ll explain that later). A 2nd comsat here should offer me protection from most things cloakable.
Around the same time, Shock expands to the 6:00 island, and notices that Inadequate has taken 9:00. Shock prepares a quick drop to stop him, but is repulsed. A scan of mine notices that SoundScientist has taken the 3:00 island, but has yet to fortify it. How jolly. I move to stop him, with corsair support from Shock.
We drop the north-west edge of the island, Shock providing air cover with 5 corsair, and me dropping 1 marine, a medic, 9 goliaths, and a tank. My ground forces rip through the lone completed turret, blast all the scvs to kingdom-come, and Shock’s corsair take up position over my goliaths. Sound comes a calling with his wraiths, but turns tail and runs after feeling some red-hot-goliath-love.
I dropship in an scv and some more goliaths, and begin claming the island as my own. Sound has been probing with cloaked wraiths, and I don’t want to run out of scans. After a funny little episode involving an scv repairing an scv building a missile turret & both scvs being healed by my local medic, Sound is forced to concede the island to me. Happy-happy.
Meanwhile, Shock has made another abortive drop on 9:00. Inadequate simply refuses to lose this base to Shockwave. I scan the protoss main, and see a fair number of zealots. I surmise a zealot drop, to own my Goliaths, and begin buidling firebats. I also, finally, build a science facility and a covert ops add-on. I build a nuke silo at my brand-new 3:00 Command Center, and begin training ghosts.
One of Shock’s observers that has been patrolling the two center expansions reveals a teal base warping in on the western island. I load up those same three dropships, with 8 goliaths and random infantry and hammer the expansion to the ground. Then that same observer sees that Sound is trying to take the eastern island. I load up, drop, and kick bum. Sound’s had a chance to fortify the island a but, so things get rather ugly, but I boot him off of it. Poor Sound must be veeery resource-starved now. A shame, really.
Inadequate though, has other ideas.
zeals help
-Shockwave[xpow]
Inad has teched to arbiters and recalled 12+ slavering, zealous warriors into my partner’s main. I load up 12 goliaths in my dropships, and move to the rescue. Of course, given that these are the Terran dropships, Shock’s killed all but 3 zeals by the time I get there, although blue flame is all over his base. I drop 4 and save him, then pull the restto fortify the east-middle island. I also conjure a few science vessels & reasearch EMP.
Somewhere in here, I think Shock carrier-ed? SoundScientist, and he left the game. All I know is that I went with 2 ghosts and 1 science vessel to nuke him, he left the game. Being rather annoyed at losing a chance to nuke, I cloak my ghosts, and move my drop-ship out to Inadequate’s base.
While I’m enroute, Inadequate magicks another round of zealots to shock’s base. I again am forced to com to the rescue with a drop-ship of goliaths and one of random infantry. Back home, I load up everything else in to three dropships, and move them out to land after the nuke.
My ninja dropship o’ death slids in with all the subtly of a D-matrix’d dropship. That is to say, none. Luckily, both my ghosts are pre-cloaked. I order one to nuke a cluster of tech buildings (Cybernetics Core, Observatroy, etc), and thrown an EMP on the area right after the nuke is aimed.
I take my other ghost, and walk him to photon cannon range. Then I decloak.
DAMNMYGHOST!!
-Fractal_Wave
I shout, as said ghost dies to zealots & photon cannons. I then laugh, as my nuke-aiming ghost goes unnoticed and lands the nuke, blowing the core of Inadequate’s base to hell & back.
boom
-Fractal_Wave
At the same time, Shock drags up a few carriers that had been razing the 9:00 base, and we’ve got the game in the proverbial bag. I foolishly lose my two dropships worth of troops due to the cloaking effects of Inad’s last arbiter, but Shock’s carriers(NO idea where he got them from) run clean-up just fine.
My apologies for a rather sketchy BR. I missed lots cause I was too busy playing & I forgot stuff. (Played the game over a week ago)
Lessons!
1.) The power-drop build I did works great…so long as you expand proactivly. You cannot break a turtled island with it, so make sure you hit islands before they’re fully turtled.
2.) By the same coin, when you take an island on Dire, take it to HOLD it. After I dropped 3:00, I noticed that I had a great island-holding force there, I just needed an scv. I brought one, and the island was mine. Note to Terrans: drop with Scv
3.) Note though, that turling will not stop an unstoppable force. 12 BCs + 6 SVs >>>> most any passive defense.
4.) Dire games go like this: Kill the peon line at main fast--à expand, & kill expansions--à hit the main with a dooooom drop. The main, in late game is very, very vulneralbe, because the island is large enough to be dropped.
5.) Shock’s the man
Hope you like it kids
PLUR
All the best,
Fractal_Wave
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