A Casual Game:
Skyscraper vs. Pezeater

on the Elders (www.theelders.org) server.

The Setup....

Players: Skyscraper (Sky) and Pezeater (Pez)

The Map: Proving Grounds

Skyscraper selects random, draws Terran, and lands his teal Command Center in the Southwest corner.

Pezeater selects random, draws Zerg, and plants his red hatchery in the Northwest corner.

I. A New Home.

A young Cerebrate in the Zerg swarm, Pezeater, searches for a colony world for his small brood. They are tired and hungry, their numbers diminished and resources nearly spent after their last battle. Exhausted, they come upon a blue-green planet. At last, a place with plenty of fresh water, clean air, and abundant resources. Pez sends down an overlord to investigate. The overlord has a look around and quickly finds a site suitable for colonization. It drops off some drones. A new hatchery sprouts and the Cerebrate arrives to take command. The overlord goes south for further reconnaisance, and more drones are hatched. When their number reaches eight, Pez orders one of them to mutate into a spawning pool, providing genetic material for an early defense force. A second overlord is morphed when the first reaches its control limit. When it emerges, three larvae form eggs, which quickly hatch into the first six zergling warriors. Pez's brood is beginning to flourish.

Unbeknowest to Pez, the terran band Skyscraper's Sinners use this world as a base of operations. They aren't happy to see the Zerg attempting to colonize their world and steal their resources. Seeing the puny size of the Zerg invasion force, the overconfident Sky considers it a minor threat. He sends merely a command center and four SCVs to exterminate the Zerg. The CC lands at a site with plentiful minerals and a geyser, and Sky orders the construction of a base of operations. He builds a supply depot at 8, and a barracks at 10. He sends an SCV northward on a scouting mission as the barracks is being built. The SCV operator, Bob (who's never seen a Zerg in his life), reports back. "There's some kind of weird flying gasbag floating down to our base... Now I'm entering the creeped over area... looks like a big pile of flesh -- is that a Zerg hatchery? -- and a pool of dirty water with some gross critters spawning in it. Also three eggs growing next to the hatchery... Going in for a closer look."

Sky radios back, "Bob, I want you to get the heck out of there and stand on the bridge to your south. Wait and see what, if anything, comes out of there."

"Yes, sir," says the unsuspecting Bob.

Knowing very well what's coming, Sky throws down a bunker above his CC to protect his base.

Pez sees Bob approach, have a look around, and leave. Worried, he knows he's not alone on this world.

When his first six zerglings hatch, Pez sends them south to check out the terrans and see if there's anything good to eat. They see Bob the SCV sitting on the bridge and pounce. Bob jumps five feet into the air (jamming his finger too far up his nose, causing blood to spurt), screams like a girl, and runs away. "Holy S^%&! Holy F*@#!" is all the warning he manages to give. The zerglings chase him all the way home, then see the bunker with a lone marine inside. As you might already know, zerglings like the taste of marine, so they go for the bunker. They slash it with their razor claws, trying to get to the fresh meat inside. Bob, ashamed of his prior cowardice, tries to redeem himself by repairing the bunker in the midst of battle, but the zerglings turn and eat him. So much for Bob. Then the zerglings retreat as a second marine enters the bunker. Frustrated, they try to find a chink in Sky's defenses. The zerglings run around the perimeter of the Sinners' base and attack from below. Another new recruit jumps out of the barracks, and the three marines drive away the zerglings, killing half. Pez orders them to retreat and watch several likely expansion sites.

II. Moves, Counter-moves, Counter-counter-moves, and Etcetera.

Sky and Pez take time to tech and build up their forces. Pez morphs an extractor, a second hatchery, a sunken colony, a hydralisk den, and a lair, and researches lurkers. He also makes a bold move: he expands to the plateau northeast of Sky's base (what would normally be Sky's natural!) He puts eight zerglings on guard at the ramp, but doesn't produce any drones there for awhile, as he's busy building up his army and planning a second attack.

The current mini-map:

The chutzpah! Taking the other player's natural...
AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT!

Meanwhile, Sky constructs a second barracks, refinery, and an academy. He then builds a factory, comsat, machine shop, researches siege mode, and starts on a starport.

Pez sends a control group of zerglings to watch the bridge north of Sky's base. They burrow into the ground, ready to pop up and eat any terrans that might want to cross. Back at his base, Pez's first pair of lurkers hatch and he sends them south. They step over their zergling brethren, sneak around the left edge of the Terran base, and burrow down next to the unwary SCVs. Lurkers are very crafty, and have even more voracious appetites than zerglings. Spines come out and start chopping SCVs to pieces, and the late Bob's two brothers, several cousins and in-laws are dragged, screaming, underground into the waiting lurkers' maws. Sky scans, then sends in the marines, which do some damage. But his satellite time expires, and the marines are sucked under by the greedy lurkers. At last, a tank rolls up, sieges, another scan is ordered, and the tank starts blasting away. Pez calls his lurkers back. They un-burrow and try to get away, but are cut down by long-range tank fire. Grisly bits of chewed up terran and random SCV parts pour onto the ground along with the lurkers' entrails. Perhaps as an afterthought, Pez, brings down the twelve zerglings that were burrowed in the bridge, but they're quickly dispatched by tank and marine fire. Sky's surviving SCVs, a bit shaken but still slaves to their wages, return to mining duty.

Sky immediately orders a counterattack. He unsieges his tank and loads it, an SCV, two marines, and a medic into his newly produced dropship. Still, he hasn't detected the Zerg expansion right next to his base. He instead sends the dropship north to Pez's main, where Pez is rebuilding his forces and morphing a spire and queens' nest. (Pez finally starts mining his expansion at this point.) The dropship flies past some hydralisks, just out of range. It tickles an overlord's tentacles, swoops up to the ledge behind Pez's minerals, and drops off its cargo. Seeing this threat (a bit too late), Pez evacuates his main, sending his hydras and zerglings south, and his drones east. The tank sieges up and goes foom, blowing a big hole in the spawning pool. Icky liquid flows into the ground, and helpless Zergling tadpoles are incinerated by the relentless fire.

Not wanting to lose zergling-production ability, Pez begins a new pool at his expansion, and hurriedly hatches some mutas to try to save his main. He also makes another lurker. He sends his zerglings, hydras, and lurker to counter-counterattack at Sky's main. A nasty fight ensues, as both players try to micro on two fronts and produce troops simultaneously. At Pez's main, mutalisks fly in, take some losses, retreat, are joined by their sisters, then fly in again, finally clearing off the ledge. Back at Sky's base, marines and tanks fight it out with zerglings and hydras, and Sky scans to eradicate the lurker.

The outcome: Pez's main is completely razed, but he has two expansions and is quickly rebuilding his tech. While, after a very bloody battle, Sky manages to save his main and only base, with heavy damage to his infrastructure. Most importantly, he loses his machine shop, so tank production halts for a while.

Mini-Map Update:

Things aren't lookin' too good for Sky!

Pez has expanded again, to 3:00. Sky scans the northeast start, and finds Pez's expansion there. His victorious M&M's and tanks are still at Pez's old main, having a little party and bragging about how much Zerg blood they got splattered over their uniforms. Sky orders them back to the warpath, to hit Pez's new main. Unfortunately, they're stopped by Zerglings at the bridge west of the Zerg base, and forced to retreat when tanks begin to die to more hungry lurkers and zerglings. Meanwhile Pez is massing an army just to the east of Sky's base, and expands yet again, to the NE natural. His expansion in Sky's natural still remains undetected.

III. Sky gets a rude awakening.

Loading up three dropships with assorted tanks, marines, medics, and an SCV or two, Sky launches an assault for the Zerg base he does know about, the NE starting point. (He also starts a command center at 9:00.) Sky's lack of reconnaissance at his own natural proves to be his undoing. Here's an excerpt from a downed dropship's cockpit voice recorder, recovered after the battle:

"...In the pipe, five by five. Engaging autopilot. Command, there's something up ahead, right outside of base's radar range. What the.. Three mutalisks inbound. Looks like a large group of zerglings down on the ground. We're under fire! [Sound of impacts on armored hull] Roger Command, returning to base. [A short time passes.] Thanks for the covering fire. New flight plan logged, over the plateau, and hopefully the Zerg forces won't see us this time. Engaging autopilot. [Murmured] Dunno if I can take many more surprises. [A short while later] Command, patch into our video. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Yes, there's an unidentified Zerg base right below us. Hydras.. Spores.. [More impacts] Taking heavy damage! Emergency landing procedures... Tanks away! [Sounds of tank and marine fire, zerglings chomping, mutas screeching] My God, they're getting slaughtered out there. Going... [Explosions] [Screams] Aaaiieeee!!!! [Static]"

Smelling blood, Pez moves in for the kill, sending in the zerglings and mutas that have been waiting just outside Sky's base. This time, they go the distance, devouring the entire Terran base, and have the 9:00 expansion for dessert. GGs are exchanged. Sky's Sinners underestimated their foe, and lost the battle. Will they lose the entire planet? Stay tuned...