"Science Vessel is my flying templar! =) D-matrix is my halucination while irradiate is my psi-storm."
-[FLS]Prozerran
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| Three Player FFA at BGH | | | Author: | | | IP: | we-24-12XXXX | | Date: | 11/24/01 10:11 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 5, Min: 5
Lifetime Rating for ChessShark: 5.0000 |  | Three Player FFA at BGH:
Ya ya ya, over played, get over it. Welcome one and all to my very first BR! Text only because my mad skillz don’t apply to print shop, though I wish I’d have caught a screenshot or two of the in-game banter. It’s a long game, be prepared, but was definitely fun to play. Without further chat, let me introduce our players…
ChessShark, a decent player, not very gosu, but a regular player of SC. He has a great zerg game and a decent toss game, but his terran sucks. ChessShark is a timid player, usually staying defensive, but when in his element can be a strong attacking player, especially when rushing. Motto, “Terran Sucks”.
Laoguyjack, a pretty good player, again, better with zerg or toss than terran, but still a strong player with all three races. Decent micro and macro. He goes all out in some games, sending every unit he’s got into the fray. Motto, “Rush softly but carry a big frickin group of hydras”.
StriderIsHere, a very strong player, but with some flawed game plans. He manages to win games even while using the worst micro possible and having a sucky game plan. He always goes for DT when toss, he always gets nukes when terran, he always gets lurkers with zerg. He will tech like a madman, usually not building any units until he has at least a Lair or Factory or Citadel of Adun. Literally, I watched this guy for three games, he was being rushed, and he decided instead of building defenses, to tech. We were there on the sidelines, “Build a cannon! Get zeals! No! No! What are you doing? NO! Do not build a fleet beacon, build some type of unit!! AAAAAAAAAAH…” Motto, “20 probes can beat 12 zealots any day. You just gotta give em a little love.”
Anyways, so me (Chess), Jack, and Strider arguing over whether 12 BC could REALLY beat 12 carriers, when one of us said, “3 player ffa?”. Now, none of has played an ffa game for probably our whole lives, and this was definitely out of the question. But realizing that no one else was coming, we decided to at least give it a try. We all chose random and we were off.
Chess got terran, his fourth time in a row getting terran after choosing random, at 3 o’clock. He went after his standard build, Depot, Gas, Rax walling in his choke, Bunker, Depot, Factory. He wasn’t teching very fast, most of his resources were being put towards his economy.
Jack got the 1 o’clock right above Chess and went for a similar build, Depot, Rax (not walling in however), Gas, and Bunker, Depot, and then Factory, after sending an SCV to scout going counter clockwise.
Strider was in no mood to go for a standard build. After whining about his placement at 6 o’clock, for some reason calling it a dead position, he went teched straight for Templar Archives, getting them while he was still on his 12th probe. DT anyone?
Strider got out his first DT at around the time he got out his 16th probe, and after scouting his two opponents, sent 2 DT to harass Jack. But Jack had already gotten an ebay, so the DT only managed to kill one tank. Next, he loaded 4 DT in a shuttle and dropped Chess, but since Chess already had an ebay also, only a turret was lost. Strider cursed and began expanding to the 7 o’clock.
Jack too had plans for expanding. He sent an SCV to the 12 o’clock and began building a base, but a scouting dragoon found him and his expansion was soon razed. Jack muttered something about getting even as all three player continued to tech and stockpile.
At around 14 minutes, Jack sent a large force of Gols, Vultures, and Tanks to Strider, and after a brief fight, was able to gain control of Strider’s choke point. Poor ChessShark had no idea what was going on, because he still had no idea where the other players were.
By the 15 minute mark, things were shaping up. Jack had 3 Factories, 3 CC, two starports, and had teched to ghost, all the while upgrading his men. He has little defense, but has a large group waiting outside of Strider’s main, still oblivious however to the fledgling expansion at the 7 o’clock.
Strider has his expansion at 7 and a large force of goons and templar with an arbiter and a dark archon standing by.
Chess has a booming economy with 2 factories and 2 ports pumping out men. He’s teched to BC and already has two hovering above his large force of sieged tanks, complemented by a tangle of bunkers, marines, and turrets.
Right after the 15 minute mark, Strider sets out to destroy the containment force outside, but Goons against tanks is not a pretty sight. He manages to kill off some, but his main force is wasted by the long range of the tanks. Jack quickly sends in more reinforcements. A little while later, he sends the rest of his armies to Strider’s choke, just as Chess puts tanks on his north perimeter, killing a nearby nuclear silo of Jacks.
At this time, Jack finally notices the strengthening expansion at 7. He unsieges his tanks and moves in on it, destroying many cannons before Strider sends in troops and sandwiches Jacks hapless vehicles. After destroying the containment force, Strider begins cannoning he center. At this time, its pretty easy to find out who is getting what.
Jack = Goliaths and Ghosts
Chess = BC and Tanks
Strider = Goons, Templar, and Arbiters
While yet untouched, Chess is also yet to scout at all, He’s found Jack by putting tanks on his north side, but he still has no idea where Strider’s brown forces are, as Strider continues to dominate the map by expanding to the 9 o’clock.
As Strider reinforces, Chess does one of his quirky terran tactics and loads up a dropship with an SCV and sends it to the 11 o’clock, and starts to build a barracks.
Jack decides he’s had enough of the tanks hitting him from below, and he pumps out a ghost and starts a cat and mouse game of nuking. Chess has adequate detection however, and until Jack can find a decent spot to nuke from and not be killed, Chess is safe.
But nukes should be the least of Chess’s worries. Strider by this time has reached supply limit with about 15 templar, 20 zealots, 10 goons, and a few arbiter, his ground forces upgraded to 2 for both armor and weapons. Chess has about 20 tanks, 20 turrets, and 6 BC with some bunkers spread out through his base. Jack has now built 10 CC, 5 science vessels, and a large group of Gols and M&M.
As Jack continues his nuking attempts, Strider goes on the move. He clones his arbiters and goons and combines his templar into mighty archons. He sends his group of arbiters straight into Chess’s base and starts recalling his troops to the battlefield. As the battle rages, He tries to grab a worker from Chess’s supply line, but his dark archon is targeted and brought down by tanks. It is here that Strider’s horrible micro comes into play. He has just unloaded a huge group of goons, zealots, and archons into his enemies’s economy, but manages to lose them all to tanks and BC, managing to kill off only 4 BC, two tanks, a few SCV’s, and some random bunkers and turrets.
Chess is angry at this point. He is being hit from both sides from an enemy he doesn’t see, and as soon as he has rebuilt his defenses, he scans and finds Strider’s two expansions and his main. But in the heat of the battle at home, Chess has taken his attention away from the north, and Jack manages to get in a nuke and send in defense matrixed tanks to the south part of his base. Chess only barely manages to regain his side with some matrixed BC.
Only a little while later, Strider has amassed a similar drop force and clones his arbiters and sends them into Chess’s base. But, upon noticing the reinforcements of tanks and BC, he decides not to go through with the drop and withdraws uneventfully, muttering something about carriers.
However, Strider has noticed something else of importance. He finds the barracks and marines of Chess’s in the top left corner and sends in some zealots and a Dark Archon, mind controlling the defenseless SCV and finally achieving his dream of owning two races at once. He quickly goes to work making a terran base.
Meanwhile, Jack manages to regain his south perimeter and begins going to work on Chess’s nearby buildings. But while Jack’s forces at his south side, Strider is able to attack with some zealots and raze some buildings. Noting the little resistance, he sends an all out attack against Jack. But alas, his awful micro lets Jack pick off all his troops with a few tanks and some EMP.
Strider’s army is gone, and from the Blue Chess Base, a fleet of BC floats to the 7 o.clock. Time for a brief overlook as we hit the all important 38 minute mark.
Chess has a well defended base with a strong economy, and 12 BC enroute to Strider’s main. He has a whole lot of tanks and defense, and is looking quite solid, even with a circle missing from his north side from nukes and tanks. He is finally upgrading and things don’t look so bad.
Strider has just lost a lot of his forces, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t prepared to defend. He has a lot of cannons and a group of templar just waiting, not to mention the arbiters he still has at his base. He has three expansions and owns the center, its not going to be easy to get rid of him. And even though he’s been saying the whole game that terran sucks, he might be a little hypocritical considering his new terran base that he owns.
And the attack begins…
Chess moves in quickly, yamatoing the cannons and picking off probes. Strider responds, freezing and storming, freezing and storming, until, after suffering some casualties, has managed to kill off 8 BC and frozen the other 4. Chess curses as his remaining BC unfreeze and get stormed over and over, having them all destroyed before they can retreat. Strider quickly counters with a large group of zealots, but nothing much happens.
During his brief vacation from the action, Jack has built up a sizeable force of M&M, Gols, and has more than a dozen dropships filled with Gols and Tanks. After a little scouting, he nukes the center and gathers up his dropships, planning on moving them to attack Strider’s expansion on the opposite side of the map by using undefended back roads.
At the same time, Chess gathers another group of BC and decides to hit Strider’s expansion at 9 o’clock by using undefended backroads.
WTF! Terran??
At nearly the same time, Chess and Jack see the terran expansions of Strider’s, Jack continues on to his target while Chess stops a while to blow away those misguided excuses for terran units. Chess kills 2 of three of the terran bases of Jacks, and obliterates the 9 o’clock expansion. Jack wipes out the 7 o’clock expansion and then continues to take out the third terran expansion and crushes Strider’s main. He launches a nuke at Strider’s base in the center and both he and Chess say GG.
But…
Chess at this moment decides that this is a good time to attack Jack. He destroys Jack’s tanks that are razing whats left of Strider’s main. He decides to be kind. Assuming that the nuke has destroyed whats left of Strider, he allows a couple buildings of Strider’s to live, since he’s a friend. He then sends all his BC at Jack, barely doing anything against the wraiths and turrets.
And Strider…
The nuke didn’t fall. Strider mind controlled the ghost. Jack never heard “Your units are under attack” He assumed Strider was dead, and knew that a couple buildings were left at his old main so he figured the nuke hadn’t completely killed him and was fine with that. But Strider knew differently. He had 68 minerals, a Nexus placed very far from any minerals, some cannons, a Dark archon, a ghost, and a probe. And he began mining…
For the next 20 minutes or so, Jack and Chess went all out. Chess still had two barracks at 11 o’clock, and not wasting a drop ship to ferry units over there, with which he would have found a still living Strider, he pumped out marines and stopped Jack’s expansion attempts, never once seeing the center. Jack was hemmed in, and never got out to see the extent of his nuke’s damage, simply assuming his ghost was killed by Chess. And for the next half hour the battle raged, nukes, BC, wraiths, tanks, Goliaths, Valkyrie, Chess expanded to the 5 o’clock, and the two managed to fight for 20 minutes without actually doing anything. Control of the north and south perimeters changed frequently, a nuke would get Jack in, some Yamato guns would turn it back. One thing that Jack DID do of significance was begin building buildings and floating them above his base. Stupid, but to come in handy.
After thirty minutes of endless, terran vs terran boredom with no real effort on either side to expand or finish it off, both sides were ready to call it a game and go play something ChessShark knew he could win at (Chess!). But Strider knew it not to be so.
WTF!!!! You are an observer! You were dead!
Strider had managed to build a gigantic fleet of carriers and arbiters. He wiped out Chess’s containment force to the side of Jack’s base just as Jack said, “One last attack, and then we’ll go. Jack loaded tons of goliaths and tanks into drop ships and sent them in a nearly suicide attack, losing everything and most of his anti air. And then Strider made it through the containment and began hitting Jack’s base. Oooops…
Jack cursed and whined, Chess scanned and laughed. Strider just grinned and did Kirby dances on the screen as his forces kept plowing forward. Strider by this time has regained everything he once had and was poised to take out everyone and win the game. However, after about 5 minutes of watching Strider waste Jack, Chess realized he had to do something, because not even his troops could contend with that.
Chess unsieged his tanks and destroyed the buildings turtling him in. He gathered his forces and blitzed Strider’s center base, razing it in less than a minute and then continuing the Strider’s 9 o’clock. Strider realized that if he stayed to kill off Jack, his expansions would be dead within the next 5 minutes. He had to turn around. Chess’s tanks were fast, but not fast enough to escape from more than a dozen carriers. Chess’s attack was halted, and suddenly a game that used to be a terran vs terran standoff had turned into a toss vs terran massacre. Both players assumed Jack was finished.
But it was not so! Those floating buildings? The ones Jack just built, floated and hid? They were definitely useful now, especially since Jack had amassed about 15000 in resources during the standoff. He quickly rebuilt and began an army of goliaths.
Chess in the meanwhile was getting his arse kicked. His wraiths and BC were no match for that many BC. Chess managed to pick off a few Carriers because Strider macros like a blind one winged duck with bladder problems, but his main was razed to the ground, leaving him with an expansion at 5 o’clock and a pretty good sized force of wraiths, but he is losing badly. He does do a couple key things however. He raids the 9’o’clock base and kills off some newly made carriers and destroys the fleet beacon there. Secondly, he swears to die with honor and fight Strider to the death. He is still pretty pissed at having someone he spared destroy his main.
Chess gears up for an anti air battle by bringing in tons of wraiths. Strider falters for a moment as he realizes that not only are his opponents not dead, but their forces are made of pure anti carrier, and also that he has just lost his fleet beacon and cannot reinforce his diminishing supply of carriers. Jack, has surrounded himself with turrets and now has a huge group of Gols and Tanks.
Jack is now confident that he can stop Strider’s carriers and goes out on the attack. Strider’s carriers are sandwiched between Jack’s gols and Chess’s wraiths, and they are slaughtered, hardly delivering any damage. Jack moves on, razes Jack’s expansions, his main, he leaves him with a nexus, a pylon, and two cannons, keeping a few men around to make sure nothing starts getting built. He sends a group to attack Chess’s main, but surprise surprise! Its not there! He surround’s chess’s 5 o’clock, and Chess’s wraiths are no match for the goliaths. Chess makes a few half-hearted attempts and manages to expand to the 11 and 12 o’clock, but it is pointless. He is briefly given shared vision and resigns.
Lessons learned:
You must scout in your games. ChessShark went for about 30 minutes without knowing where the other people were, while Strider just kept on expanding. If Chess had scouted more, maybe he would have noticed Jack’s Goliath strat and would have steered away from building wraiths.
BC altogether, are not a strong anti-terran strategy. Chess was planning on destroying Strider with them, but maybe he should have considered something else.
Never assume that someone is dead. If you think they are wiped out and you allow them to live, at least demand shared vision. Strider is a real bitch when it comes to this, and he usually ignores ultimatums to give vision and is usually killed. Jack decided not to force the issue and it almost cost him.
Never leave your bases undefended. If Strider had left a couple carriers at home, he would have won.
When you have extra resources like Jack, its not a bad idea to start building buildings and floating them. It looks stupid, but you’ll be the one laughing when you start rebuilding and have 10 CC pumping out SCVs.
Never, ever say that Terrans are too slow. I kept this replay just so that when Strider hops up on his soap box to say how slow and sucky terrans are, I can show him where I level his base with tanks in record time.
Also, when playing Strider, rush him. He doesn’t build any defense until he has a Templar archive, even when he notices he is gonna get six-pooled.
Questions of some importance...
What happens if you D-web a ghost while its nuking? Does that stop the nuke? If not, can you D-web and swarm a ghost and make it impervious to attack? (except from some units like reavers and lurkers, I know) I know that stasising a ghost stops the nuke, but i dont know about D-web. Invincible ghosts like that would be pretty hard to get, but maybe can be the subject of UMS maps if it works. Who knows.
Long report, but long game too. Hope you enjoyed.
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