theorycraft (n) - the exchange and debate of strategies on a forum without visual proof of the validity or invalidity of them

(Tiamat) suggested a standard terran build on Shockwave's forum that consisted of building a second command center in your main at supply level 14. Personally, I thought (Tiamat)'s balls were bigger than his brain. When he arrived in ~nohunters Monday night, I suggested that he try this strategy against Testosterone.

Oh, the map? The Lost Temple_Game-Q. The definitive map for putting theorycraft into practice.

Testosterone goes for the typical dragoon rush versus his terran opponent: Pylon, Gateway, Assimilator, Cybernetics Core, Pylon, Gateway, Pylon, Dragoon Range.

(Tiamat) attempts a quick economy build: Supply Depot at top of ramp, Barracks at top of ramp, Refinery, temporarily cease SCV production, Command Center adjacent to his Command Center in his main, Factory, Supply Depot, Factory, resume SCV production.

Testosterone's 8th probe scouts counterclockwise and penetrates (Tiamat)'s main before it is walled-off. In fact, it is free to periodically scout his main, since (Tiamat) made no marines at all. When the probe spots the second command center, it gets very confused and scans the SCVs more closely. These.... can't be human..

Yes, (Tiamat) hired the help of the Warcraft 2 Orcs. This is the only explanation for the double hall.... er, double Command Center in his main.

Testosterone decides to waste no time in eliminating the orc infestation. His first dragoon arrives at (Tiamat)'s wallin when the first factory completes.

(Tiamat) expected this and did not panic. He calmly began a machine shop addon for the factory while the dragoon fired at the supply depot in the wallin. Over the next 90 seconds, a pitched battle occured at the top of the ramp. SCVs repair the depot. The dragoon reacts by moving up the ramp, firing at the SCVs. Two more dragoons arrive. Fresh SCVs arrive to repair the depot and each other. Finally, finally, (Tiamat)'s first tank rolls off the production line and drives away the dragoons.

(Tiamat) starts to produce SCVs, tanks, and vultures en masse while Testosterone began to warp in a Citadel of Adun to get speedy zealots for the inevitable tank push. He also warped in a Robotics Facility.

(Tiamat) began construction of another Command Center in his base and he floated his second one to the northwestern island expansion. Just before the Command Center clears (Tiamat)'s plateau, Testosterone's initial scouting probe moves from the southern area of the 12 o' clock plateau and scouts (Tiamat)'s main for the 8th time. This, however, would be the last free recon that Testosterone gets as vultures and tanks quickly destroy it. (Tiamat) then makes the gully in between his main and Testosterone's main a hazardous minefield.

Testosterone had been gathering a containment force of dragoons south of the 12 o' clock plateau. They were pushed back when a surprisingly large number of vultures attempted to lay mines next to them. (Tiamat)'s econ advantage was showing now, and he attempted to shoot ahead in the resource war by driving 4 vultures past the containment force and to Testosterone's probe line. Testosterone reacted quickly; however, and blocked off his ramp with zealots and dragoons before the vultures arrive.

Testosterone obtained a shuttle, and he parked it at the mineral-only expansion south of the 12 o' clock plateau. He moved his containment force of dragoons there, and proceeded to ferry eight dragoons onto (Tiamat)'s plateau. While Testosterone was doing this, his Observatory warped in and he started to warp in two Forges and an expansion Nexus at his 3 o' clock natural.

(Tiamat) finally noticed the dragoons being dropped on his plateau, and reacted by moving 6 tanks to the area. Sieging behind buildings, They have excellent position and quickly eliminate the dragoons. Testosterone knew that he wasn't going to do any damage with the attack, and picked up two dragoons in his shuttle. The shuttle is sent to the northwestern island and finds (Tiamat)'s defenseless expansion. The dragoons kill the three SCVs there and force the lifting off of the Command Center, since (Tiamat) did not have a Dropship, yet.

In a humorous scene, the Command Center nearly is put into red hitpoints when he floated it back to his main. A group of dragoons were waiting for it, and forced it to hover over the water for awhile.

(Tiamat) is still in great shape, though. When Testosterone ferried the eight dragoons on (Tiamat)'s plateau, he already floated a command center to his 12 o' clock natural. So (Tiamat) had an expansion earlier than Testosterone and a higher peon count.

Tech/Production building status:
(Tiamat): Science Facility with Covert Ops addon, active Armory, 4 Factories, Starport, Barracks.
Testosterone: Templar Archives, Citadel of Adun, Robotics Facility, Observatory, two active Forges, 6 Gateways.

Upgrade status:
(Tiamat): Factory units: 0/1 (weapons)
Testosterone: none

Testosterone begins to warp in an expansion at the 6 o' clock natural. Somewhere, I can sense that livingexception is smiling.

(Tiamat) begins to take control of the gully in between his main and Testosterone's. Tanks are sieged in the low area, and a dropship gives them vision on Testosterone's plateau. They start to fire on gateways at the 3 o' clock main.

That was the extent to the gully push; however, as three dragoons and sixteen speedy zealots bull their way through the minefield and engulf the tanks right when thet get +1 armor and attack upgrades. Afterwards, the zealots split up, 5 go to the 12 o' clock expansion while 5 go to the 12 o' clock main. The zealots that ascended the ramp were killed by fresh tanks and vultures, but that bought time for the zealots at the 12 o' clock expansion to kill about ten SCVs before reinforcement tanks and vultures eliminate them.

Testosterone expands again to the 6 o' clock main and brings his gateway count to eleven. He underestimated (Tiamat)'s ability to bounce back from his last attack, though, and (Tiamat) quickly takes control of the gully again with two tanks and twelve vultures. The tanks start to fire on and eventually destroy two gateways and one pylon at the western edge of Testosterone's main. They were damaged tanks from earlier skirmishes, though, so one Psi-Storm destroys the tanks.

Meanwhile, the twelve vultures easily eliminate the half-dozen zealots sent to regain control of the gully and proceed to Testosterone's 3 o' clock natural expansion. They meet up with no resistance, and the probes are forced to go to the 6 o' clock natural expansion. When zealots and dragoons arrive from Testosterone's main, the vultures simply leave and go to the 6 o' clock natural.

(Tiamat) moves the vultures past the one photon cannon there and proceed to decimate the probes there. Over twelve probes are destroyed before Testosterone's pursuing zealots surround and destroy the vultures.

During the vulture raid, (Tiamat) took his idle Command Center that was hovering above the water near the northwestern corner of the map and landed it at the mineral-only expansion directly below the 12 o' clock plateau. (Tiamat) placed mines just about everywhere near his new expansion and the middle of the map to discourage pure zealot attacks.

So what does Testosterone do? Attack (Tiamat)'s new expansion with about 18 zealots. They soak up just about every mine, and are reduced to six in number. Those try to destroy the 2 newly-built factories at (Tiamat)'s mineral-only, but reinforcement tanks prevent them from doing that. While they were distracted with the zealots, though, Testosterone threw a high templar into the fray and it stormed the whole group of tanks. This storm was especially sweet, as (Tiamat) moved the tanks back into the storm as they were just about to leave it.

Testosterone put these templar on the ridge overlooking the 12 o' clock natural awhile ago. As shown here, they've been periodically storming the gas SCVs. (Tiamat) is content with replacing the old SCVs, though, instead of doing anything about the templar.

(Tiamat) begins to creep south with a mine/tank/turret network. He neglected to leave any sieged tanks near his mineral-only expansion, though, and Testosterone performed a storming raid on defenseless SCVs.

Upgrade status:
(Tiamat): Factory units: 1/2 (armor/weapons)
Testosterone: Ground units: 1/2 (armor/weapons)

(Tiamat) gathers 13 vultures outside of Testosterone's 6 o' clock natural and charges in with them. They meet up with a cannon and 3 zealots and dragoons and attempt to move past them and go to the 6 o' clock main. They get bottled up horribly, though, and only 4 vultures make it past.

These vultures do make this attack worthwhile, however. They leave mines at the top of the ramp and proceed to destroy probes at Testosterone's expansion at the 6 o' clock main. Twelve probes were destroyed before reinforcements put down the vulture raid. Also, (Tiamat) expanded to the 9 o' clock natural during this.

(Tiamat) dropped two tanks on the ridge overlooking Testosterone's 9 o' clock natural. Testosterone doesn't quash this threat right away. He reacted by performing a suicide storming raid on (Tiamat)'s 12 o' clock mineral-only expansion, and he also sent a half-dozen number of dragoons to (Tiamat)'s new 9 o' clock natural expansion.

Testosterone eliminates the tank infestation on the cliff overlooking the 6 o' clock natural (with a shuttle of dragoons), while (Tiamat) sent 9 tanks to the 9 o' clock natural to eliminate the dragoon infestation. (Tiamat) also attempted to destroy Testosterone's 6 o' clock natural expansion with another group of 9 tanks. The tanks destroy the gateways there, but are unable to destroy the nexus before reinforcement zealots arrive and stop the assault.

(Tiamat) cleared out the 9 o' clock natural, and he began constructing Command Centers at the 9 o' clock main and natural. Testosterone monitored this with his observer network, and he was going to brutally put down these expansion attempts.

Testosterone noticed that (Tiamat) had no mobile cloak detection. Twelve dark templar are summoned from Testosterone's gateways and half move toward (Tiamat)'s 9 o' clock expansion attempts, while the other half pushed into (Tiamat)'s tank network north of the center of the map.

With judicious use of comsat, (Tiamat) was able to eliminate the dark templar that pushed north. The dark templar that headed west to 9 o' clock had much more success. They met up with no resistance, and (Tiamat) was forced to cancel a constructing command center at the 9 o' clock natural. The dark templar move to the 9 o' clock main and start hacking away at a completed command center there. It goes from 1500 hp's....1000....500....200....100........ and is destroyed before (Tiamat) had an opportunity to lift it off.

Upgrade status:
(Tiamat): Factory units: 1/2 (armor/weapons)
Testosterone: Ground units: 1/3 (armor/weapons)

(Tiamat) sent a pack of 6 vultures to deal with the dark templar at the 9 o' clock main. Testosterone simply walked his dark templar past the vultures. (Tiamat) didn't spot them, though, because Testosterone distracted him with another dark templar attack. There wasn't much of a minefield left in the northern part of the map, so about 9 dark templar attacked any targets of opportunity. And hoh, boy, there were a lot of targets of opportunity. Most of the front-line tanks fell to the invisible dark templar blades. Many SCVs at (Tiamat)'s 12 o' clock mineral only expansion die before (Tiamat)'s first science vessel arrives. The vultures at the 9 o' clock main were unable to help because Testosterone blocked off the 9 o' clock ramp with the passing dark templar.

(Tiamat) built another command center near the 3 o' clock mineral only expansion. Testosterone was starting to pull away in the resource war, and (Tiamat) was desperately trying to obtain any source of income that he could.

Testosterone warped in 6 stargates at his 6 o' clock main expansion. Carriers, maybe? (Tiamat) did have ghosts, so maybe, if he had good recon, he would be able to stop them.

(Tiamat) once again trys to tank push from the gully between his main and Testosterone's main. Testosterone is tired of this and attempts to take control of the gully once and for all. Two hotkeys of random protoss units charge in and meet up with perfectly spaced tanks and heavy vulture harassment. The protoss forces are obliterated, but the tanks in the gully and south of the gully are destroyed. The next units Testosterone makes are sent to suicide the command center at the 3 o' clock mineral-only natural.

Testosterone's 6 stargates warp in........ scouts. They proved to be just as destructive as carriers in this instance. They eliminate the turret at the 12 o' clock mineral-only natural and proceed to destroy every SCV there with their BB guns. Desperate for resources, (Tiamat) drops two matrixed tanks on the upperleft island, killing the two dragoons that were there since the beginning of the game. A command center floats over there, but things are looking grim for (Tiamat).

Upgrade status:
(Tiamat): Factory units: 1/2 (armor/weapons)
Testosterone: Ground units: 3/1/3 (armor/shields/weapons) Air units: 0/1/1 (armor/shields/weapons)

(Tiamat) makes a desperation attack on Testosterone's 3 o' clock natural expansion. They meet up with no resistance at first, but are quickly swarmed with zealots, dragoons, and templar from all directions.

Without minerals or a way to deal with Testosterone's scouts, (Tiamat) offers a gg.

Winner: Testosterone in 37 minutes, 25 secones.

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