"These rule. It's like a sitcom, where Aldo is the straight guy and Fox is the street-wise black lesbian with funny lookin' clothes."
- DivvyO
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| A Little Payback | | | Author: | | | IP: | pool0075XXXX | | Date: | 05/09/00 04:05 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 8, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for Slayangel: 7.5000 |   | A LITTLE PAYBACK...
Hello ladies and gentleman, this is a text only report as I was playing for fun and captured no screen shots and had no idea what interesting twists this game would take. But I had to write it down because it was so unusual and so thrilling that I simply couldn't let the experience fade. So without further ado...
Late night, just a nobody in nohunters where no one will give me a break so I make my usual "1v1 ya game?" on Temple and see what the cat will drag in. A few seconds pass and a seasoned Joe shows up sporting a 400 n' something and 100 n' something record which, for you math wizes out there, means he wins 4 out of 5 games which is a hell of a lot more than I do. Just a month ago I would have looked on the match with trepidation, perhaps grovelled a bit to see if he would give me an ally at the end, and then proceeded to take my spanking with as much dignity as I could muster. Over the past week however I've had a revelation. I have seen the light and I now walk the path to the promised land! Actually some 1200 player finally gave me some basic builds, demonstrated them so I could understand exactly what "13/17 pylon" actually means, and removed my head from its intimate contact with my ass.
So, back to the game. I forget my opponents name but you can't get more generic then Joe so we'll just call him that which is easier to type then =-.{!!ScHmUcKaTeLly!!}.-= anyway. Joe spawns at 12:00 (Red) as I was soon to discover and I popped out at 3:00 (Brown). Since I'm working on my Toss game that was my race and I was happy to see him choose Toss as well. Let out that big groan now, "not another toss v toss!" But read on, brothers, because its not the races that matter in this game, no. Its that payback that's coming that counts! I use my newly mastered 4 probe quick start, pylon at 7, scout at 8 and since he's close, just as my little mechanical wonder (that's a vibrator to you young virgins out there) sees his gas, he lays down an assimilator on it and it looks like he has only one gateway warping in. Going for gas already? Let me guess... Reaver drop? D.T.'s mayhap? Don't matter to me cuz my new basic Protoss build covers that. You see, I warp in an assimilator at 14 and as soon as its done 4 vibrators, I mean probes, are working it, which means as soon as the cyber core I have warping in is finished I can lay down a robot fac. And since he may be a little ahead of me on tech as soon as I've got that fac I put down an observatory and pump out a couple of flying vibrators, I mean observers, in case he goes D.T.'s while simultaneously cranking out goons and giving them the range upgrade. By the time I'm finished with my early game strat I've got 3 gateways blazing away, my forge giving me an attack bump, about 8 goons and 5 or 6 zealots, the observers scouting my enemy and guarding my main and a whole throng of probes mining away like the mad little automatons they are.
Well what's he doing? How the hell should I know I playing him and I aint got no god vision hack! Still I'm keeping my goons in my main and my zealies down at my natural's choke. My observer tells me he hasn't tried for an early expansion and that he's cannoned his ramp which gives me the first clue that I might have a chance in this game. As you experts out there know, cannons are gay, especially early game, and sure enough his defensive build will cost him. I know the mentality cuz I used to share it. "I'll just turtle up a bit and out tech him and then bamboozle him with my amazing micro skills!" Yeah, right. Sure enough a lone shuttle swoops in over my peon line. I run my nice little probes away to the bottom of my plateau and unleash the goons. Joe's present to me is a single reaver. Perhaps he had some premonition that all was not well and he really needed to disrupt my mining asap. So, the reaver cracks open one goon, vaporizes a few probes I think, and is picked up by the shuttle and since goons move around like old ladies in wheelchairs both escape with naught but carbon scoring on their hulls. The probes go back to work and since I've got some extra cash I lay down a couple of cannons north of my mineral line in the hopes that their deterrent will keep me free of constant peon micro. This was my first mistake. If I was going to warp in cannons I should have at least warped 'em in on either side of my nexus. Cuz all the way up there they didn't do squat and soon enough good old Joe would exploit my poor cannon placement.
Now, during the reaver attack I had ran my zealots up to the line and since they missed all the action they sat down, broke out a deck of cards and started passing around a malt liquor 40 oz. This was the perfect opportunity for Joe to run the 12 legged zealots he'd amassed into my natural and wipe out my brand new expansion I had started - seeing as he still hadn't expanded yet himself. Good tactics on his part. So I run my slow zealots down there but I had never stopped warping in goons so when he tries to climb my ramp my zealots stop him there and my 1/0 goons start taking pot shots at his force. He eventually cleans out my zealots but never even makes it up the ramp as my goons take his bad boys apart without a loss. Joe's an aggressive little sucker aint he?
Its getting to that point where one of us had best take control of the map and hold an expansion or two. My observers were telling me that he hadn't gone for his near island, his natural, or anywhere along the 9:00 main. Meanwhile I was staring at the ashes of a nexus at my natural and my mineral piles were starting to shrink. Well maybe he was doing some observer scouting of his own or maybe he just figured, "last time I dropped north so this time I'll drop south," cuz I notice a little red dot on the mini-map hovering over the bottom of my mineral line. Run in the goons! There's his shuttle and as my probes start to flee out flies a reaver, gracefully turning a somersault and a half-gainer as it descends onto the field! Well, his shuttle is slow and I'm not sure he had the Zileas-like micro to take on my goons plus both were damaged. It seems this was the same duo he used to drop before. They expire quickly and I start patting myself on the back with both hands until I notice that during this little diversion he's started mining his natural. Well, bully for him! I had put up another nexus at mine, my upgrades were 1/1 which I thought was good considering the battles that had taken place and I had a reaver of my own now. In fact my archives was up and I was starting a force of legged zealots as well to which I was going to add a peppering of dark templars. What do you think of that! Well, if nothing else Joe knew how to keep the pressure on and sure enough a mini-horde of zealots on crack came rushing in to my natural, scrapped that lone reaver I had sent as a guard while my goons awaited the next drop on my main. I would really like to counter-attack, I really would, but he just won't lay off me!
Now, Joe must really have a grudge against the nexus. He must have experienced some terrible abuse there as a young executor cuz he likes to burn those puppies down like they were Catholic foster homes run by Father Alfonzo the pederast and Sister Grizelda the sadist. Oh I have a few probes mining my second attempt at an expansion but I don't even have an assimilator up and running there yet, but does he take out those probes? No. Does he try to run up into my main and rape my line there again even though all I have are my trustworthy goons and those two cannons way up at the top looking like giant sunflowers buried in the ground? No. He goes for the nexus and he tears it down to the foundation. And even though with my burgeoning force of zealots and goons I fight off his latest invasion at least he got the nexus! And don't you think he doesn't have his eye on the nexus in my main either. No sir, as he rubs his greedy little rat claws together, that nexus will be his, yes it will be his!
I lay down a third nexus at my natural wondering if I shouldn't in fact be looking at another piece of real estate some where further away like, say, at the 6:00 mineral or something when I see another little red dot on the mini-map, this time over on the far left of my plateau. Like faithful hounds my goons respond to the call but the shuttle just seems to be sitting there. So attack it you idiots! The shuttle escapes on its souped up turbo jets and meanwhile I'm left wondering what the hell it was doing there. Scouting? Dropping off a pizza? Wait a minute... What's that blurry stuff slithering by my gateways? Dark Temps! So reavers and dark temps, huh! Well we can take care of that. My main is just about mined out so I send all the probes I have left there to my natural which has its new nexus. Apparently that shuttle had made a few runs cuz by the time my goons walk around all my buildings both my cannons are gone. Several probes are neatly sliced in half and my nexus main is in flames. I had attached an observer to my control group of goons but I still seemed to have some problems finding all those D.T.'s. They took down my nexus and when I thought all my work was done I see a flash on my mini-map showing an anouncement at my natural. Did I tell you I don't have speakers, my brothers? Yes I play the game without speakers. My speakers are in storage in Florida and until I can get them here in California I play blissfully on as nukes drop on my expansions and D.T.'s attack my nexus. I see that mini-map flash in my nightmares and I hear, "you're forces are under attack, nuclear launch detected, and buy blizzard t-shirts!" In my sleep. Down the ramp run my zealots and D.T.'s. Down the ramp crawl my goons but too late to save my last nexus. I have a few probes left and only 346 min. No new nexus for me. The horror of it all, the horror...
A lesser mortal would give up the ghost at this point. GG and all that. But as I assessed the situation I saw that I had in fact completely mined out my main so who cares that its nexus is gone? I had 6 legged zealots and 3 D.T.'s and about 8 goons all upgraded to 1/1 and a shuttle and 2 observers plus 2 more goons that I had patrolling the cliff above my natural. Well damn it lets see what he's got! On an intelligence gathering mission away flies my observer. It navigates the path to his natural and finds it bare. At his natural he has maybe a dozen probes lightly mining gas and minerals. Can this be? Can he yet be weak? Spent from his incessant attacks on my poor defenseless nexuses? Avaunt good Horace, noble Remus! (I had named my goons at this point still having a few of the very first ones I made) Smite him! Thrash him! Pulverize him! TEAR HIM A NEW ONE! Off my army went, careful to steer clear of the cannons above his ramp, and down went his natural, nexus and all! He did try to stop me with a few zealots and a D.T. or two but he was obviously in a very sorry state. In fact, I left my observer there to keep an eye on it and after my forces left he continued to mine the natural long distance. Well, now what! If I do have the advantage in troops I could very quickly loose that advantage if I try to climb his ramp through those damn cannons while my goons dance the polka. This was the time I produced the giant set of brass balls needed to pull victory out of the jaws of certain defeat. I grabbed up my own special delivery shuttle and sent an observer to scout out the bottom of his plateau. Nothing there but a goon in the distance and a bad smell. First the D.T.'s then, lets see if he's got any observers around! One load at a time I ferried my troops onto his plateau and he did have an observer and he caught me in the act and boy did he do his darndest to stop me! But no I would not be denied! Fate could not carry me this far only to hand me cold defeat! I believe I had the advantage in upgrades and down went his goons, a reaver he had around with maybe one scarrab, plus his initial wave of 2-3 zealots and D.T.'s. His main was mine! With the joy a 6 year old feels dismantling his little sister's dollhouse I razed his buildings one by one. He had some cannons centrally located but they didn't cover each other and fell quickly. Down went his last nexus and as I proceeded onto victory I noticed that little red dot again floating in my main. He had taking up his last 7 probes and managed to pull the little used but greatly feared PROBE DROP! And sure enough his little vibrators, I mean probes, went to work busily mining away at my gateways. This prompted the only exchange of dialogue between us during the game.
"That'll take awhile." I said.
"Duty," was his only reply.
By the time I cleared out his main and took out the one pylon powering the three cannons at his ramp he had actually destroyed two gateways with those probes.
I had 7 goons left. Never were the words, "Joe has been eliminated," more satisfying.
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