FFA: Stromguarde

BR number 2... Hope its better than my first. I hadn't planned on making another one so soon, but I played this game and thought it was very fun with many close moments so i couldn't resist. I also needed something to test my fixes... Anywho... I tried to fix the major problems, like background, but it still may not work. I still don't understand the Fileread thing, every time I try to use it it doesn't show the actual report, just the source thing. Anyways... the pics are larger and have more useful content, I tried to give insights into what the player was doing, but as I wasn't them its possible that they didn't try for what I thought they might. Anyways, enjoy!

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The Map

Stromguarde is my favorite FFA map. I like it because the many expo points and strong creeps cause for more teching faster and higher level heroes which in turn leads to better battles. Here's a brief overview for you:

Stromguarde contains 6 starting points: Top-Left, Top-Right, Middle-Left, Middle-Right, Bottom-Left, and Bottom-Right. Each of these starting mines has a small pack of kobolds (not unlike the Gnolls on Plunder Island except that the Geomancer casts spells and there are no Tomes for these that I have seen).

Each start point has a natural on the opposite side of their "islands" off of the city. These nats contain a Kobold Tunneler, a Kobold Taskmaster, and a Kobold Geomancer.

The city portion of the map is where much of the action takes place. The city has four corner expos, four Merchants in between the corner expos, Goblin Labs on opposite ends of the map, and Goblin Merchants on opposite ends of the map (Never next to a lab). There are also two mines in the middle of the city. Every mine, including the main, has 12500 gold in them.

The corner expos are guarded by a Dark Wizard and two Assassins, while the mines in the middle are guarded by a Bandit Lord, two Enforcers, and two Assassins each.

The Merchants each have an Enforcer, a Brigand, and two Assassins, while the Labs each have a Rogue, an Assassin, a Rogue Wizard, and a Renegade Wizard.

The Mercenary camps are guarded by a Dark Wizard and two Rogue Wizards. 

Unused start-points are guarded by two Rock Golems and two Mud Golems.

The Players

Booze- Booze is a Level 13 Team player, but just a level 6 FFA player. He seems to be mainly Random, but is experimenting with Undead. He chose Undead for this match and started in the top right spot.

ideal-fate- ideal-fate is a level 10 FFA player ranked 756th. He is an Undead Player almost exclusively with 194 wins as Undead and the Ghoul icon. He chose Undead for this round and started at the bottom right position.

blizzar89- blizzar89(me) is a level 8 FFA player with the Grunt icon. He likes to go Random for FFAs and did so this time, drawing his favorite race, Orc. He started at the top left point.

Frecka- Frecka is a level 9 FFA player who seems to be exclusively Random, though is also experimenting with Undead. He went Random this time and drew Orc. He started in the middle-right start point.

The Game

ideal-fate starts the game by sending his first three Acolytes to gold and his ghoul on lumber. He then starts to train two more Acolytes. ideal-fate takes an Acolyte from the mine to start an Altar and a Crypt. When his second Acolyte is trained, it builds a Zig and goes back to gold. A second Zig is built as resources permit. As the crypt and Altar are finished, ideal-fate trains four Ghouls and starts building a Dreadlord. At the 2:25 point, ideal-fate starts upgrading to Halls of Dead.

Booze starts off by sending two of his starting Acolytes to gold, and using the third to summon a Crypt, an Altar, and a Zig. The Acolyte then goes to gold as he trains two more Acolytes to mine gold. His ghoul, of course, is chopping lumber. As the Altar and Crypt come up, Booze trains a Dreadlord and a ghoul. He then takes an Acolyte off of gold to summon a Graveyard. The acolyte is quickly sent back to gold. After starting the Graveyard, Booze trains two more ghouls and builds another Zig. At the 3:05 mark, Booze upgrades to Halls of Dead.

blizzar89 begins his game by first sending a peon to build a Burrow, two others to gold, another to build an Altar, and his last to start work on a Barracks. he then trains two peons who go to gold. The peon that built the burrow goes to gold after finishing. blizzar89 trains another peon who goes to lumber with all of the peons that were building. He then proceeds to train a grunt and a Tauren Chieftain. blizzar89 then proceeds to train another peon who makes a Burrow, and ultimately goes to lumber. He then trains another Grunt and upgrades to Stronghold when resources permit (3:17).

Frecka starts off the game by sending three of his starting five peons to gold, one of the others builds a Burrow, and the other an Altar. He then proceeds to train two more peons who go to gold. Frecka then takes one of his peons from gold to build a Barracks. He then trains two peons from the Great Hall to harvest lumber. The peons working on the Altar and Burrow make their way to the trees and begin to chop them down. Soon, another peon is taken from lumber to build another Burrow, and a Far Seer is trained. The Barracks peon goes to lumber and two grunts are trained. After the second burrow is completed, that peon goes on to build a War Mill and another Grunt is trained. Another lumber peon is taken off to build a second barracks and at 4:05 he upgrades to Stronghold.

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Now that their basic build orders have been introduced, along with the players themselves, lets begin shall we?

As the game begins, each of the players now has heroes and are ready to creep. Blizzar and Frecka have both creeped their kobolds first, and here their paths change. Frecka starts to creep his natural, while bliz tries to creep the top left corner expo. He obviously doesn't remember the Assassins there, and is caught completely off guard when the dark Wizard casts polymorph, making one of his Grunts useless and is forced to retreat with the TC near dead. Bliz is left with two low HP grunts and an almost dead TC. Soon, his force is bolstered to four grunts and a TC. Bliz could've won this battle if his TC wasn't already almost dead and the Dark Wizard didn't focus on him, dealing 40 damage a pop. Bliz is forced to retreat once again. Finally, a Far Seer pops out and bliz is ready to creep again. With the wolves on his side, he finally destroys the wizards. (NOTE: This did not all happen in succession. Bliz waited for the Far Seer into the 9 minute mark. The rest was in succession though.)

As bliz retreats for the first time, ideal starts to creep his Kobolds and nat. As he hits tier two, a Death Knight begins to train, obviously going dual aura. Ideal starts to head out to creep in the city, probably the Goblin Merchant, but funs into Frecka on the way to creep next to an uncreeped Goblin Merchant. through good use of sleep, ideal is able to hold off Frecka's level 2 Far Seer. That battle is even until the Far Seer manages to get off a Chain lightning, which considerably weakens the Ghouls enough for his grunts and headhunters to take the advantage. Ideal is forced to TP home just as his Death Knight is summoned and is on his way.

Meanwhile, Booze creeps the top right city mine, with much better luck than bliz.

Frecka, after beating ideal, takes on the bottom merchant creeps, for a cash boost and a Book of the Dead.

At around the 8 minute mark, both ideal and Frecka expand to their nat while bliz tries to take on the Merc. camp creeps in the top middle (before the final top left corner mine battle) obviously hoping for a good item. However, he is able to demonstrates his complete lack of micro by allowing his TC to be killed. The Far Seer goes up in level however and starts learning Chain Lightning. For quick troops, and a defense against poly, bliz buys himself a shiny new Kobold Geomancer while Frecka creeps the right Mercenary camp.

Booze has begun an expo attempt in the top right city corner expo.

As ideal creeps the city's bottom right mine, bliz now finishes off the creeps in the top left city mine. Also, Frecka launches an attack upon Booze's expo just as Booze is creeping the top Goblin Merchant. Booze rushes to his expo's defense after defeating the creeps and quickly quells the threat because of the multitude of towers he has.

Bliz has starting churning Master Witch Doctors while researching Shaman back at home base and decides to creep the middle mines. On the way, bliz finds a useful Potion of Invulnerability by the Goblin Merchant that Booze must've forgotten to pick up. He steals it and keeps heading to the middle. Ideal also creeps middle. For a while they creep the two opposite mines until both creeps are defeated and they want to go to the next mine. They run into each transferring to the next mine. There is a short battle where ideal easily has the upper hand by paralyzing bliz's TC with sleep and coiling the Far Seer. Bliz quickly TPs away, but not before both of his heroes go up in level.

After rebounding from ideal's attack, bliz finally decides to creep his nat.

At 15:29, Booze, who has mainly stayed hidden, starts to build two Boneyards, which present a threat to the Orc's lack of AA. Bliz, who doesn't know about the yards, merrily creeps the left Lab and Merc. Camp.

During Bliz's creeping, Frecka discovers one of the unused start points on the map. Needless to say, he creeped it and started to set up an expo there.

Bliz finally gets Bloodlust and is ready to creep the start point that he just found by scouting with the wolf. He also starts to set up a base camp there.

Meanwhile, Booze has started to expand to the middle two mines, hoping for the gobs of gold he'll receive if he controls both. Ideal also expands to the bottom left mine in the city.

Frecka, who is wandering after securing the bottom-left start point, runs into Booze's expo in the middle and starts attacking. Booze's measly force of four Necros and his Dreadlord is no match for Frecka's force, but his many towers save him again, forcing Frecka out of there.

Bliz, who is also wandering the map looking for creeps, stumbles upon Frecka's wounded army from the expo. There is a very short battle, with bliz obviously ahead, and Frecka TPs out  quickly.

At this time, ideal has found the expo at bottom left start point that Frecka has been building, and brings in his force to destroy it. Frecka then tries to expand to the bottom right city corner expo, but bliz is creeping there because that mine had never been creeped yet, and Frecka is forced to pull back or else be squashed. Bliz ponders attacking Frecka's base, but is stalled at the thought that Frecka is orc, thus likely to have towers. So leaves Frecka alone

Booze, who has been in hiding now has six Frost Wyrms, and is now a threat to the orcs.

Bliz, who has been making use of the Goblin Merchant, discovers the other unused starting point that ideal recently destroyed. Bliz decides not to expand right away. He probably doesn't because of ideal's troops who are positioned near the entrance of the bridge. Bliz sizes up the troops and attacks, however he fails to see ideal's now three Frost Wyrms and gets owned due to lack of AA. Nothing is able to save bliz as he retreats with barely any of his army left.

Unfortunately, Bliz's army was not cheap at all. This defeat costs bliz a lot of money, bringing him down from the multiple thousands to just over 500 gold. Fortunately, he still has two expos and the natural he never expanded to.

Frecka, meanwhile, has re-expanded at the bottom-left start point. However, Ideal first decides to attack Booze's new expo in the bottom-right corner of the city. After easily destroying Booze's expo, which wasn't up yet, ideal moves on to attack Frecka's base with a newly trained Lich. Unfortunately for Frecka, his Far Seer is away from his army so can't TP to his base. His Seer rushes back to the army in time to fight ideal. Frecka is able to hold off ideal, but that's only because he forgot his ghouls and fiends! However, the ghouls steadily arrive and the battle quickly shifts from even, to lopsided, to total and complete ownage by ideal. making use of sleep and coil, ideal is able to quell the Far Seer threat while Frecka focuses on the Dreadlord, who is being constantly healed with coil. Even Frecka's good Ensnare skills can't stop the Wyrms, as they are still has dangerous on that ground as in the air.

However, all is not a victory for ideal as Booze destroys his last remaining expo, forcing ideal to retreat and regroup. During the battle, bliz has now expanded to the top left mine in the city.

Ideal soon rebounds and starts massing by Booze's middle expo. However, a wandering shade has scouted a new Booze expansion and ideal hurries over to stop it before much gold is mined.

Booze tries to save his expo, but ideal's forces are far to powerful as Booze's mostly Frost Wyrm force is brought to ground by fiends and then pummeled from all sides.

]Bliz finally decides to expand to his nat, while Booze tries to rebuild his forces. He even makes a third Yard to help speed up production.

Bliz is on the move again as the nat expo goes up. He decides to check out the bottom left start point which is known to all except Booze as a viable expo site. Bliz finds Frecka there and starts to wipe out his main gold source. Once again, Frecka's Far Seer is absent, but this time its flying in a Zeppelin. The Zeppelin rushes back to the army and deposits the Far Seer who TPs in just as the Great Hall goes down. However, Frecka loses once again as Stasis Trap abuse and superior heroes and upgrades take their toll on Frecka.

Unfortunately for bliz, ideal had the same idea and arrives just as bliz is trying to run. Bliz's army is quickly destroyed as punishment for not having a TP on them. Only a wounded Tauren and Wyvern escape.

However, bliz has been rebuilding during the battle and is ready to move once his TC pops out of the Altar. However, his start mines have been used up. Time to expand at the nat.

Booze decides its high time he attacks someone, so he attacks ideal. Unfortunately, ideal is able to quickly TP in before any real damage is done. And once again, Web > Air.

Meanwhile, Frecka, who is in serious financial trouble tries to expand to the bottom right city mine.

Bliz, who is trying to ruin ideal the biggest threat, hunts for expos and discovers that ideal has both of the unused start points. Bliz quickly eliminates them and tries to run before ideal can get there. Fortunately, Bliz is able to slip the majority of his army out and only loses about four casters. While running from ideal, Booze attacks bliz's nat, destroying it.

Frecka is in serious trouble now. Ideal has destroyed Frecka's only expansion and is marching towards his base. Ideal destroys Frecka's base forcing Frecka to hide a farm if he wants one last chance at defeating ideal at the least. Frecka attacks ideal's base but is horribly slaughtered and gives everyone a "gg" and leaves the game.

Meanwhile, Booze is still using Frost Wyrms and has attacked bliz again. However, bliz has a TP and is able to save his expansion before taking any serious damage.

Bliz tries once again to expand in the bottom left corner like everyone else has tried to do in the game, except Booze who still doesn't know about it. Unfortunately, ideal sees bliz moving in to take the expo. There is a mad rush to get peasants into the island before ideal's army gets there to make towers. Ideal is able to kill two peons that try to escape into the island. The other three start towering. Ideal advances. The battle is a good one, with two even armies. However, as the first few casualties start to fall, a second army springs up from the dead as ideal's necromancers turn all of the corpses in site into skeletons! Bliz can't remember which hero has a WoN until its to late and there is nothing to do but die. Fortunately, bliz saves his TC, saving about 500 gold.

Things are starting to look grim for ideal. Though he has a superior army and heroes, he has very little money. He is forced to Unsummon some of his buildings just to get enough gold to Haunt a gold mine.

Bliz is also running out of money and realizes that he HAS to take the bottom left start point if he wants to have any chance in that game at all. So bliz rushes his somewhat rebuilt army and peons down to the start point and waits. Fortunately, ideal has decided to attack Booze which keeps his mind off of the start point as he has already expanded there. Bliz on top, ideal on bottom.

When bliz finally does find the expansion in the bottom, he quickly eliminates it and prepares for battle. Though ideal's army is still a bit small, He has far superior hero levels and all three Undead Ultimates. This would prove to be a tough battle.

Ideal begins by Frenzying all of his units, which he did in every battle thus far but this would prove to be the most important. Ideal charges the field. Fortunately, bliz has been able to get a couple of towers going, and with Wards, Chain Lightning and Bloodlust, he is able to quickly dispense the Dreadlord and infernal. The only things keeping bliz from the weak in armor fiends and Lich as the Death Knight was trapped because of the bridge. As the Tauren and grunts and Tauren Chieftain rushed the lines, bliz knew he had this battle, and perhaps the game won. The fiends were quickly disposed of and the Lich and Death Knight were no match for the superior numbers. Soon ideal's whole army was decimated.

Please enjoy this animation of the battle.

After destroying ideal's forces, bliz moves in to destroy ideal's base. There is no resistance except for a couple of ghouls and one Necro that are trained as bliz moves in. Sometimes during the destruction of ideal's base, ideal leaves.

During the time between the end of the battle and ideal leaving, Booze tries one last attack on bliz's base with a Dreadlord, Catapult, and a summoned Infernal. Bliz TPs in as soon as ideal leaves, and drives them off. But not before the Dreadlord and company destroy the Fortress.

Bliz decides to leave nothing to chance and launches an attack ASAP on Booze's base. There is only about the same resistance that bliz got from ideal at Booze's base. The battle is short and the game is quickly ended with bliz the victor!

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Thank you for reading my report. As before, I welcome constructive criticism on my report, and hope that you can help me make an even better report. -b89