"I can't help it Praetor, something triggers in my brain when dark templar are swiping on both my bases and I have no detection! "
"Besides I said "gg", I wasn't a sore loser. If I had said "God damn it, Dtemps are gay! I hate you!" then I woulda been a sore loser. =]"
-Johnny_vegas
|
| Battle of Wills part One | | | Author: | | | IP: | adsl-63-XXXX | | Date: | 05/22/00 03:05 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for Baxter-O'Bixby: |  |
Battle of Wills part One
|
A few notes about this BR. First, it will kill your 14.4 modem. Don’t even bother trying unless you plan on leaving it on overnight. Second, some of the pics are blurry because I accidentally used JPEG format. I eventually correct this problem, so just stick with it. Third, I’m still using Word, and every time I try to wrap the text around the pictures, I’m unhappy with the results, so the layout isn’t too spectacular. I did spend a lot more time on the pics, though, so I hope that shows. J
On to the report!
It all started late one night in nohunters. Like so many BRs. I had finished the majority of my homework, and I needed some method of distraction. Fortunately for me, WilliamWC3 (one of my personal heroes) and ::nobody:: (another of my personal heroes) were there. ::nobody:: was smurfing under the name WilliamWD40, and they decided it would be humorous to have a battle of the Wills (pun very much intended). WD40 (as he shall be called for the remainder of this BR) knows I BR a bit better than a play, so he harangued me into observing and reporting. And thus the saga begins….
I volunteered to create, and WD40 told me to choose an unusual map (his term might have been "weird-ass," I forget). So I closed my eyes, scrolled the mouse for a Math.random() interval, and hit on… Hellfire.
Hellfire is a strange map… eight starting positions (we needed a large map because quite a few people were interested in observing), each with a natural expansion that’s not too easy to defend, and a few high-ground island expansions. Like a double-sized Ashrigo. Well, not really. Anyway….
There was the usual inane pre-game chatter. Eventually the game started with 6 observers: myself, Tagusian, ~LeLa~, The-Lakers, +AnathemA+, and Casper…
And the combatants were:
WilliamWC3 |
– purple Zerg, 11:00
WilliamWD40 [::nobody::] – blue Terran, 3:00
WC3 , like any good Zerg, goes for an early expansion. Will it work? Or will he get hosed? Read on….
WD40 is a bit more conservative, preferring to amass some troops and tech. He gets a couple of rax and a factory as WC3 morphs a pool, sunken at the expansion, an extra hatchery, and gas. WC3 also sends an overlord to loom over WD40’s main, right over the cliff to avoid gauss fire. At this time, WD40 still has not found WC3’s base, as he sent his scouting SCV on a counterclockwise route.
I should mention that during the early builds, we observers were having a field day with our SCVs. I didn’t take any screen shots of the carnage, but it’s worth noting that ~LeLa~ has godly SCV micro. We charged our SCVs at each other, and she somehow managed to slaughter all of mine without losing ONE of hers.
Back to the real game. WD40’s SCV finally discovered the Zerg main at about the time a den was morphing in. We won’t dwell on the fate of that brave soul.
Back at home, WD40 was putting up a starport and another barracks. Science vessels and marines? That would be my guess. He also decided to go expand, to somewhere around 7:00. A rax went up at the expansion, making four in all…. Not to be outdone, WC3 begins a hatchery at top right at roughly the same time; he also has upgrade to a lair and added an evolution chamber. He was also producing troops: a mix of hydras and lings, emphasis on hydras.
A pair of those lings scampered over to WD40’s main, and was greeted by a platoon of M&M. They managed to relay scouting information to the Overmind a fraction of a second before being perforated.
Now, what do you think WC3’s reaction is? Infantry… hydralisks… lair…. Ummm….
Yup.
The Zerg swarm made a beeline for the Terran main. A wandering SCV just barely missed seeing the advancing troops, and as a result the attack caught WD40 somewhat by surprise. Zerglings, hydralisks, and lurkers tore into the Terran troops; lurkers burrowed next to the mineral line and began laying waste to the economy. The bunker and tanks a bit farther back tried bravely to hold back the attack, but in the end the base fell. One wraith popped out of the starport and, uncloaked, tried to fight off about 3 hydralisks. I would have taken a screenshot of this brave pilot’s glorious death if I hadn’t been laughing too hard to find the Print Screen key.
WD40 wasn’t licked yet, though. He had rebuilt at his first expansion, while simultaneously beginning two more expansions elsewhere on the map. A barracks, science facility, academy, and factory remained viable.
And just as we all were thinking that WD40 would pull it together and take control… the swarm got tired of stomping on the rubble of his main, and decided to continue its bloody rampage. From here, the game degenerates into anal rape.
WD40 , knowing it’s all over, starts flying his buildings everywhere. Fortunately, WC3 has obtained a few mutalisks, and thus has the means to chase them around. WD40 is also trying frantically to build new raxes and amass a force of M&M. We salute him for his persistence, but in the end it just isn’t enough to win the game.
WD40’s last expansion is finally found by a group of hydralisks that, mysteriously, march right past it. After a while they realize their error and do an about-face. And that’s game. There is still the matter of a few flying buildings to chase down, a few observers trying to build up and save the day, and two SCVs trying to procreate, but it is for naught.
GAME 1 VICTOR: WilliamWC3!!!
(anal rape)
But of course, I wouldn’t let it end there. Oh, no. After all, WilliamWC3 is here… what would he think if I only BRd ONE game like a normal person? So we decided to make it a series. Best of three games, to determine whose Will is the mightiest. And somehow I had the eerie premonition that each game would be gayer than the last….
Another game was made, this time on Bridge to Bridge ’98. A nice map, this… eight player, plenty of expansions, some nice ramps and bridges. We had five observers this time, as it was past Anat’s bedtime. I made my customary threats about the fate of laggers, and we began.
GAME 2
WilliamWC3 : Brown Protoss, upper left.
WilliamWD40 : Blue Zerg, upper right.
WD40 went for the quick expansion, to a spot with minerals and gas just a bit south of his main, morphing a pool at his main as the new hatch was still forming. Meanwhile, WC3 was warping in his first gateway, as well as a nexus at a minerals+gas site a bit east of the main. He followed this up with another pylon and gateway, as well as an assimilator.
WD40 sent a drone out to scout as WC3 was warping in a forge; it was at this point that I realized I had failed to clear my pics directory and had to alt-tab out. (D’oh!) I didn’t miss much as I was organizing my pics, though; when I got back, the most exciting event had been the creation of a couple of cannons. WC3’s expansion, being the closest holding of his to WD40, was guarded by one cannon and two zealots at this time.
WD40 had not been idle; he had begun yet another expansion, this one at the 3:00 main, and begun a lair upgrade. What did he have up his sleeve? We could only guess… At this time, Casper was telling some story about a Korean building a nexus on his cc. I’m still not clear on how that was accomplished, but it sounds pretty gosu to me.
WC3 warped in another gateway, and decided to make a bold offensive move, with four zealots and three probes. The lead probe ran into WD40’s newest expansion, at the mineral only just west of his main. Zerglings scrambled to defend, but things looked bleak for that hatchery as zealots and probes tore apart the defending lings and began beating down the hatch. More lings streamed in, and were made into red puddles. Gradually, though, they were taking their toll. The final group of four zerglings was able to take down the last probe and zealot, and the hatchery was saved with under 200 hp left.
WD40 was expanding like a whore; sometime during this battle, he had morphed yet ANOTHER hatchery, just north of the lower right start, but it was discovered soon thereafter by four new zealots. Things were looking bleak at this point for the cerebrate, since his defenses at this point were somewhat paltry compared to the massing Protoss forces. He decided at this point that genetic strains a bit more vigorous than your basic Zergling would be required, and two evolution chambers plus a spire and a queen’s nest were morphed at that first expansion. And soon thereafter, the Lair became a Hive. With every branch of the mighty Zerg tech tree open, what powerful units would come into play, we wondered… Strangely, WD40 seemed to be hatching primarily Zerglings, with a few mutalisks here and there.
Meanwhile, WC3 was going for templar tech, and adding more gateways. Mass archons? Not yet… the only combat units around were those zealots. But what’s this shrieking towards the west…?
I note at this time that the cybernetics core is spinning; presumably goon range, even though I haven’t seen any goons at this point. The zealots are on the move again, towards that same battered mineral only, currently defended by a bunch of lings and a damaged sunken… by the time the expansion falls, I count ten zealots (those gates are really working overtime). Things are definitely NOT looking good for blue as they continue their murderous rampage straight into his main. The lone sunken there falls quickly, and the zealots begin tearing large chunks out of the lair (the hive was formed at the expansion, fortunately) and the pool. At this time, though, the mutalisks have finished making a frantic U-turn, and come in to save the day.
Who’d have known zealots were so tough to kill? Even though they’re helpless against the mutas, they manage to tear down the lair and pool before expiring.
Fortunately, WD40 is such an expansion whore that the loss of his main doesn’t seem to depress him too much. Another Zerg expansion goes up in the vicinity of the lower left start. WD40 has little time to breathe, though, because now an army of goons and templar is building back at the Protoss encampment. In addition, WC3 has realized that he’s being outresourced quite a bit even after that successful attack, and he decides to expand a second time, this time to the 12:00 start; his bases are all fairly close together and easily defensible. It seems that those dual evolution chambers aren’t being wasted, because the zerglings now have armor that outmatches the Protoss weapons, eliminating the "ling killing" phenomenon we see in zealots with superior upgrades.
WC3 knows that there’s more than one way to skin a zergling, though, and he melds a couple of archons to supplement his troops. A large detachment of goons gets restless and begins staggering across the map, determined to eradicate some Zerg. As they fry a few wandering zerglings, more lings begin massing at the entrance to the northmost blue expansion, just a few steps away from the primary expansion, which we will now consider to be WD40’s main since it houses all his important tech. The goons march in, fire a few shots, see the zerglings, and decide retreat is the better part of valor. The zerglings pursue, and run straight into another large group of goons, plus an archon or two. They are slaughtered easily, and the Protoss troops scurry back towards the Zerg base, this time with numbers more impressive than before.
The archons lead the charge down the ramp, and begin frying zerglings. We wonder at this time what WD40 is smoking, as we have not seen one hydralisk all game… and lings just don’t fare too well against archons, it seems. Or do they?
The Zergling forces put down their crackpipes and charge. That’s right… these are no longer mere Zerglings. They are the feared beasts known as CRACKLINGS, and they proceed to tear the archons in half. They then go for the goons, and blue goo spills everywhere. The cracklings emerge victorious, albeit with about 95% of their number slaughtered.
Now, riddle me this… what is it that can wreak havoc on a group of overlords, but not be harmed in the slightest by any number of zerglings? You guessed it.
A normal man might get a few hydras at this point. But our friend nobs is not by any means normal. He contents himself with a few spore colonies at his main to give the lords a sanctuary… and then pumping more and more lings in preparation for an attack. They gather just south of WC3’s main, and then start filing into the base, which is defended by zealots, archons, and templar. Zealots die, archons sizzle, storms crackle, and zergling blood coats the ground. And yet… there doesn’t seem to be any end to the stream of scampering creatures. During a brief pause, a shield battery begins warping in order to assist the defending archons. The pause ends, and the archons go down, but the two templar are able to end the threat thanks to some well-placed psi storms.
The counter attack barrels out. Zealots and goons. I display my keen attention to detail with this question:
Yes, I was told, they’d had the Nike Air Shoe upgrade for a long time now. It mattered little though, because the cracklings, which were still gathering at a good speed, destroyed the attack force before it could make it down the ramp. But what’s this we see back at WC3’s base? Could it be…?
Bear in mind, WD40 has nothing in his arsenal at this point that can attack air, nor has he displayed any interest in this manner of tech. Instead, he prepares for a maneuver that I will dub the "double-ended gerbil." Lings (small rodent-like creatures, right?) gather on either side of the Protoss holdings. And at the same time, they stampede in. That’s right, a macro war on two fronts… it’s pretty hard to use psi storm effectively if you’re being hit from two ends, isn’t it? As a result, the templar at the east side are vaporized fairly quickly, as WC3 chooses to focus his micro efforts on the west side. And it certainly is good micro; not one storm is ill-placed, and the shield battery bestows its magic sparkles on the zealots as they hack away at the blue gerbils.
It is for naught. The lings overpower the western defenses, and begin laying waste to large portions of the tech tree. The few remaining defenders manage to do little more than slow the cracklings down. But perhaps all is not lost, for here come…
The poor lings are helpless against the relentless interceptors, and one by one, they are eradicated. It seems, though, that lings have an aerial counterpart, and that maybe that spire wasn’t entirely useless after all.
A corsair attempts to halt the threat. In retaliation, about five scourge detonate on it. Needless to say, it dies. About three times over. More and more of the suicidal flyers hatch and speed toward their ultimate destination, determined to give it all in order to save the brave lings. And lo, a good number of them reach their destination and smash against the lead carrier, blowing it and its evil interceptors into blue smoke. Then, in one of the most stunning displays of scourge micro I have ever seen, the scourges target interceptors. I mean, the precision it must take to clone scourge to attack separate interceptors like that… well, WD40, my hat is off to you.
Eventually, though, WD40 decides that this strat is just too gosu for anyone’s good, and he goes for the more standard method of targetting the carriers themselves. And from there, it’s pretty much cleanup.
GAME 2 VICTOR: WilliamWD40!!!
(forced gerbilling at both ends… I think that beats out the anal rape.)
That means that I’ll be watching and reporting a THIRD game! Control your excitement, please. At this time, it was 1 am, and I tried to persuade the combatants to wait till morning, as I wanted very much to call my girlfriend, finish my homework, and get some sleep. It is the curse of the gosu BR writer, though, to be forever called upon to do one’s job at odd hours of the night, so I made them wait while I made a relatively brief phone call ("you are such a DORK" my girlfriend said lovingly as I explained what I was in the process of doing at 1 am, as Will and Nobs theatened to start the game without me). The game was then created on Showdown, appropriately enough, with me as the sole observer to bear witness to who would be the ultimate victor. But wait, how could ANYTHING be gayer than forced gerbilling? Stop reading right now if you don’t want to find out, gentle reader. Otherwise, go on to the next report, because I'm all out of room. :-P
|
|
|
|
Home
Forum
Starcraft Tournaments
