"The thing is, StarCraft > sex."
-WarLeaderJustin
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| Terran Nukefest | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 07/07/99 07:07 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Problem: Broken Images(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for MikeyMonty: 7.8571 |   | Terran Nukefest! The Players
Myself: Terran(Random), Orange, Bottom Start
Ancient_Mariner: Terran, Purple, Top Start
Challenger
Scrolling through the public games list I found a one on one Challenger game and joined. I randomed, and sighed when I saw I had drawn Terran, my least used race. I started with a standard 8 depot 10 rax 11 rax build. My scouting SCV saw that my opponent seemed to be going for a hard tech strat, with only one rax, 2 marines, and a factory halfway built. I started assembling a strike force of 12 marines, hoping to nail this techer before he could come at me with early tanks or some kind of cliff drop. When I arrived I found that my opponent had put up a bunker and had a few marines in it, and had an unsieged tank behind that. I brought my marines in to attack, but as they got close his machine shop stopped spinning and his tank sieged up. His bunker and tank were positioned well, so I could not get past his wallin to hit his refinery or peons with impunity. I focused fire and destroyed the tank, but lost 5 marines and pulled back to my main to avoid facing his bunker and reinforcing marines.
Knowing I was now behind in the tech race I quicklly made a factory, academy, and engineering bay for tanks and upgrades. I also expanded to my gas only natural to fuel my ever more high-tech war machine. I researched siege and rolled out a few tanks to bolster my defensive bunker and marines. Expecting a tank push, I made an extra engineering bay in case I had to spot for my tanks, and made three starports, hoping to catch my opponent unprepared for a wraith rush. I made nine wraiths and put one on patrol across the various expansion spots. I comsatted his main and saw no turrets near his mineral line. Assuming the coast was clear for a crippling wraith attack, I had my wraiths swoop into his mineral line and focus fire on his comsat. However, I was in for a rude surprise. For those of you unfamiliar to Challenger, Behind the minerals is a small cliff, only large enough for a bunker or a few troops. Or in this case, a pair of turrets my comsat had failed to pick up. I tried to retreat my wraiths, but his turrets did significant damage, and he cut off my escape with a cluster of marines. It was ugly, and I lost my entire squadron.
Cursing this disaster I loaded up a dropship with six marines and two scvs, hoping to expand to the island near my main. I unloaded the ship only to find my opponent's half built command center, bunker, turret, and tank. I retreated my ship after losing two marines to the tanks blasts. I loaded up a second dropship with 3 marines, an scv, and a tank and dropped it on a somewhat more remote part of the island. I seieged up my tank and built a bunker, loading my marines in it. I started building a bunker and used comsat to spot the opposing tank, destroying it. However, I should have waited for the turret to finish before spotting for the tank, as a flight of cloaked wraiths soared by and picked off the scv building the turret, then razed my outpost. Cursing I expanded to a mineral only expansion and put up a sci facility, hoping to exterminate this wraith threat early. I constructed a sci vessel as soon as possible and sent it along with 3 dozen 2/2 marines with range and stim to my opponents base. Unfortunately, I grouped my marines and put them on attack move, then looking back to my main to manage troopproduction. By the time I noticed the spider mines popping up in clusters of three and four, half my squad was dead. I continued on more cautiosly and managed to make it almost to my opponents base when my scivessel was popped by a handful of cloaked wraiths, and my marines were butchered.
The wraiths continued on to my main and began to assault my peon line. However, my marines were able to handle the threat.
My marines fend off the wraiths with a little help from stimpack.
I put a Covert Ops lab on my Sci Facility. Getting frustrated I put a nuke silo on my min only expansion, expanded to a min only island, and put a silo on that CC too. I scanned his island expansion and saw he had expanded there, but had no turrets in the back of his base. I gathered a cluster of wraiths, cloaked them, and managed to kill of a large cluster of his scvs before a vastly superior amount of wraiths killed my strike force off. Feeling bad that I had allowed my opponent to expand twice, I loaded up two dropships with tanks, scvs, marines, and one precloaked ghosts. At this point, I heard the sweet sound of Nu-Nuclear Missile Ready. I dropped all my forces on the island expansion near my main, set up a siege of the opponents base, and nuked his peon line. His scvs could stay in the nuke blast and die, or try and run and be wasted my tanks and marines. At this point a comsat sparkled over my siege and 8 cloaked wraiths ran at my ghost khamikaze like. I had one of my scivessels dmatrix it, however, and it lasted just long enough to drop its nuke before dying. Unfortunately I don't have a screenshot of this, I must have hit the scroll lock key or something instead of print screen. After the nuke I moved my troops in to mop up and claim the expansion, but another horde of cloaked wraiths and marines took out my force, leaving my opponent with a badly damaged CC and a few turrets and SCVs.
Since my main was mined out, I assumed his was too and felt that if I could land a major blow on his last running expansion, I had the game won. I researched ocular implants, which would allow my ghost to nuke the islands from the mainland. I cloaked a ghost and dropped him near my opponents island expansion. However, as soon as my ghost left the dropship, a pair of spider mines popped up and killed it. Damn, I had forgotten about those.
I looked back to my main, and felt a more direct kind of strat was in order. I put down four more barracks, two more factories,and another starport, in the hopes of just outmassing him with troops. Unfortunately, my opponent chose to strike as all my unit production facilities were building. Cloaked wraiths darted around my turrets, dropships followed, unloading tanks and vultures. My ghosts valiantly locked down a few dropships in transit, but to no avail. My turrets were blasted by siege tanks, and my opponent cleverly micromanaged hs wraiths, forcing me to waste comsats. My sci vessels were repelled by swarms of the deadly Gemini missiles, and I heard the one of the scariest things a player can hear-"Nuclear-Nuclear launch detected!"
A double nuke. I used my last remaining scan in the midst of the maas of enemy troops, and saw a ghost that I thought was dropping a nuke. My own cloaked ghosts solved that problem. I began then checking the scv lines of my expansions for the little red dot when BOTH nukes dropped on the opposite side of my main from his attack force. He had somehow managed to sneak a pair of ghosts there during the confusion of the battle. The nukes dropped in the midst of clusters of wraiths and marines I had been accumulating to fight off my opponents push. They destroyed huge numbers of troops. Because I was looking at my expansions, I don't have a screen shot of what was sure to have been an incredible conflagration. Damn.
I dmatrixed some of my remaining ghosts and locked down every enemy tank I could. I had constructed a line of turrets to hold back the enemy wraiths, and it was at this last line of defense that I sieged my tanks, using a scivessel to spot. Without the superior range of his own tanks, my opponent's force was decimated. Hoping to press my advantage, I took a ghost, cloaked him, and loaded him in a dropship. I snuck him around the perimiter of the island expansion near my enemies main. I nuked directly in my opponents peon line, but he managed to get many to safety before the nuke landed.
A nuke chews up his peon line.
I sent in a group of cloaked wraiths to finish off the rest of his peons, avoiding the few surviving turrets.
My wraiths finish the leftover scvs and refinery.
Feeling that the end was near, I attempted to rebuild my badly damaged tech tree. My sci facility had been destroyed by my opponents nukes, so I was totally prey to cloaked wraiths until I could get a new one. I put up turrets, but was trapped in my bases. My main was totally mined out, and I had only one gas only expansion and two half mined mineral ones.
At this point my opponent must have sensed I was on the ropes, as a large cluster of wraiths soared in and destroyed the turrets and CC at my gas only expansion. Dropships flew in behind, unloading yet more troops and tanks. I had accumulated a horde of marines because of a mineral surplus and gas shortage and sent them to attack, with comsat and three scivessels as detection. Unfortunately, my marines could not cut it and were destroyed. We were at a standoff, with me unable to counterattack due to lack of gas and detection, and him unable to break through my clusters of turrets and bunkers with his hordes of wraiths and only a few tanks. Unfortunately, here nukes again turned the tide. He obliterated the majority of my turrets and defenses with one well placed nuke, and his forces gradually chewed up my base.
Sensing the match was lost, I expanded to a gas only expansion, layed down turrets everywhere, and started cranking marines. However, my opponent was no slouch and soon another nuke droped on one of my mineral only expansions.
One last nuke to break my defenses, and the game is lost.
Cloaked wraiths took care of the rest of my expansions and pitiful marines. GGs were exchanged, and I congratulated my opponent on a game well played.
Lessons Learned
-Unit management can win you the game. The final score showed that we mined almost the same amount of resources. But he put his to better use. I spent too much time reacting to his strats, rather than executing my own.
-Nuke creatively. Don't just drop them anywhere, go for a peon line, or unit cluster. Provide distractions for your nukes.
-Don't let an expansion go unchallenged. Ever. Even if all you do is scare him and make him overcommit to his defenses, that gives you more room to expand and build your own forces without fear of reprisal.
Sorry that was so long, but it was an intense game, the best I have ever played as terran. Advice and comments are appreciated. |
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