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| My first, a tale of the second. | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 08/11/99 10:08 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 7, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for Mr. Merf: 7.0000 |  | Intro
Alright, I decided enough was enough. I had been fighting 4 on 2 comp games long enough. I had just started reading this page in the last week and thought, “Hey, I guess it’s alright to lose a lot. I might as well just let go of my ‘I can’t stand to lose’ complex. So I tried it for the second time ever. I * gasp * decided to play against a human.;-) (Note: The ‘first time ever’ I lost right away to M & Ms on Challenger. Never really liked the mineral setup there.) So I joined up with someone who was going to play Lost Temple. That probably should have been a warning sign right there. All the crappy players use BGH. So I joined, using my brand new smurf BadgerLord. I made him specifically for getting kicked around so I could get better without having 300 losses on my other record. Thus I didn’t really mind playing against someone 40 times better than I.
Anyway, it came to pass that I was playing .PoohBear. I thought I had heard that before, but I wasn’t sure. We both took random races and descended to the hotly contested Lost Temple.
Let the games begin:
I got the 6:00 spot with Yellow (I think) Protoss. I soon learned that .PoohBear. had 12:00 with Blue Zerg. I went with a standard build, my hand shaking on the mouse as I had some stupid jitters thing. Pylon on 7, Gateway on 8. Then another pylon on 10 and scout with my probe. Little Timmy began making his rounds counterclockwise with a shift command sequence. I started a second zealot and made another Gateway on 11.
Timmy found their base! Oh, I guess it wasn’t cause for joy. He got mauled by several ‘lings. We’re gonna need another Timmy! I went back to making zealots and getting gas, lamenting over the death of poor Timmy. I would have vowed revenge, but I don’t like breaking vows. I greeted an Overlord that stopped by for tea. The Cybercore I was about to lay down decided to warp in with my 7 or 8 Zealots by the choke instead of right under the Overlord. Cybercores don’t make good tables for tea time. A shield battery suddenly made its presence known in a blue ball of pure energy nearby. The Overlord cursed at me, “You fool, I can’t drink tea if you don’t serve it to me! I have no hands!” and started to leave in a huff, inspecting my Cybercore as he went. “That’s a mighty fine ball of blue energy ya got there,” commented the Overlord. “What is it?” The Overmind chose that moment to mentally whip the Overlord, saying, “No communication with our enemy. By the way, that’s a Cybernetics Core, you moron. It means you die if you don’t get back here right now!” Grumbling, the Overlord left. It didn’t even thank me for my hospitality.
I laid down a Forge as my Cybercore warped in and I queued a Dragoon in each of my Gateways. A Zealot was just finishing in one. The two dragoons sped off across the middle of the field to find the cumbersome Overlord. They searched a little while, but I’m not good at multitasking. They came back so I could concentrate on my tech tree. As I started to upgrade at my Forge, I sent off my zealots to the enemy base to see what resistance they would encounter. I was spending all my money on dragoons anyway, and a photon cannon by my peon lines to distract drops. (Note: my Dragoons cost 150 min 50gas. I thought it got changed to 25 gas. What’s up with that?)
The Zealots, without any upgrades, closed on the enemy base, psi blades humming menacingly. Suddenly, from .PoohBear.’s natural expansion up ahead, a strange sound was heard. It was a zergling, talking to its companions. “What an odd humming noise,” he said thoughtfully. “It sounds kind of peaceful.” Another zergling bit him in the eye. “Shut up! Zealots coming!.” And the glorious foot troops of Aiur descended upon the hapless horde of Zerglings. Uh oh. A HORDE of Zerglings, most likely 24. Concern reflected in one Zealots eyes, but a splatter of Zergling blood osbcured it. I decided not to micro the fight, because my zealots were suddenly surrounded by zerglings, and I would only mess them up. Adding insult to injury, about 6 Mutalisks arrived, eager to get in on the action. A dying ‘ling weakly shook it’s head-like projection and noted wistfully, “That weird humming noise is gone. Too bad…”
Back home, I decided to tech to Reavers, my hands shaking worse than before. I added another couple cannons for good measure and made both a Robotics Facility and a Citadel of Adun. When the facility came in, I ordered a cheeseburger with pickles and a Shuttle. I instantly started a couple more Pylons and both a Robotics Support Bay and an Observatory, decorating my base with more pretty glowing lights. I had slackened Dragoon production to pay for this and some upgrades. I also began a Stargate and a Templar Archives as my Citadel finished.
Ah, the shuttle, right on time! My waiting Probe was whisked off to the expansion on the 4:00 side of the center, to hide it a bit. I started a Pylon, Nexus and Assimilator. I didn’t think I had the spare forces to defend it, so I unhappily left a single cannon as defense.
Back home, my Stargate finished and I started a Corsair and a Reaver. I also researched Psi Storm (a must, even I could see that) and started two HTs. I was getting worried by my lack of defense. Any child who had never played before could have overrun my base with its measly 11 Dragoons. All my money had been flowing into teching and upgrades.
My Corsair finished and I started a Fleet Beacon. The Corsair went out to explore. It ran into many, many Zerglings and Mutas, but stayed mostly out of range. I made another Reaver and began a shuttle upgrade. I made a couple more Templar and made sure my expansion was coming along OK in its infant stages and made another Corsair, having just researched Disruption Web. The two intrepid explorers went off doing what Corsairs do, cracking jokes about Scouts the way people crack jokes about Irish and nuns. They seemed to care little about the fact that Scouts had more hit points than they.
I finished upgrading the extra scarabs for Reavers as I made a Scout, and the ugly, mechanical bugs loaded themselves up with small, ugly, mechanical bugs. My lone Shuttle picked them up and left for the known expansion. It paused a bit to allow the Corsairs, swaying in the air and singing drinking songs, to catch up. The Corsairs drew straws, and one d- webbed the Spore Colony guarding the gas and minerals line. In went the Reavers in my first ever Reaver Drop. They didn’t do well. They fell behind the gas, so their scarabs hardly hit any Drones. As a a side benefit, the scarabs also spend several seconds hovering before they selected their targets. About a second and a half after landing, the Reavers clicked in alarm as a swarm of cracklings unburrowed, laughing uproariously at the foolish Protoss machines. One Reaver died instantly, almost releasing one of its 10 explosives. The other got off two shots, killing maybe six units before a swarm of Mutas finished it off. I went back to base for a moment and started a couple more High Templar. Returning, I found that my shuttle had fled as I’d told it too and so had one Corsair. The other, having had even more drinks than I’d realized had engaged the Mutas. Not clever, buddy. Too late for him.
My shuttle went straight home, but the other Corsair went off carousing again and inadvertantly stumbled upon another fledgling expansion. My jittery mind started to work even more poorly at this point. It may have had something to do with the fact that my one expansion had been found by a queen and was being overrun by a great deal of cracklings. I had forgotten to send backup. Oops… (Note: The destruction of my expansion may have occurred shortly before the miserably executed Reaver drop. I was all worked up about playing a real, live, PERSON ((Wow!!!)) and wasn’t concentrating well.)
To deny .PoohBear. resources, I cleverly put a single High Templar in my only shuttle and sent him off to wreak havoc on the growing expansion at 2:00. I swung around to the top and, not knowing the meaning of the word ‘Quit,’ dropped him near the workers as a great many cracklings and Mutas approached. My hand blurring into invisibility in my nervousness, I psi stormed wildly and created a mass slaughter of ‘prox six zerg units. The HT resigned his august position in a fit of rage over my ineptness as masses of glaves worms assaulted his fragile hide. The universe didn’t care.
I was now resigned to sucking this game up and sent my 11 Dragoons up to take care of the base. My mouse hand didn’t seem to notice that I was resigned to my fate, lessening it’s fevered vibration not one bit. I queued up a few Dragoons to replace the old ones, as well as another HT and some Reavers. It was at about this point that I noticed I had no minerals left in my base. None. My workers were sitting idle. Luckily, I was unskilled at staying broke (case in point: I had 5 unit producing structures. They were: 2 Gateways, 1Robotics Facility, 1 Stargate, 1 Nexus.) and had just enough money to buy a Nexus, Pylon, and Assimilator at my natural. I moved 2 HT’s near the edge of my plateau, to psi storm in defense of the expansion, if need be. I made a couple Dark Temps for defense as well. I heard a Queen parasite one of my Reavers and went to investigate as the renegade monarch fled in fear of dreadful retribution. Or maybe not, considering she immediately returned and parasited a HT. I concentrated on fleshing out my expansion with a full complement of glorious probes as the queen left. Suddenly, I noticed another by one of my HTs at the edge of the plateau. She was just barely sitting in the edge of the fog and I desperately clicked on my templar and reached for the ‘T’ key. The queen turned as I began to aim my psi storm and made what once was one, two. Damn, damn, and triple damn! A nearby Dragoon cleaned up the Broodlings as the Queen fled. I sent a mild curse over the modem as I queued up another HT and tried to focus on a winning strategy.
A blue stain manifested itself on my radar. Oh, dear. A large mass of cracklings swarmed over my expansion before I could blink. I quickly told my HT at the bluff to rain psionic destruction down upon them. Shit, shit, shit. Out of freakin’ range. What a moron I am. It was too far away and the expansion was definitely lost. I sent my DTs to help slim down the ‘ling horde, but turned my HT around quickly. The lings were a diversion! How stupid could I get? .PoohBear. flew nearly unopposed into the midst of my tech buildings and wiped out my meager cannon defense. I got all my HTs concentrated on this zone, but several were already dead. A large portion of my visible screen was blue with heaving zerg bodies, I was displeased to note. Only two psi storms went off and they damaged a great many Mutas, but what good was that? They were all moving right through the storm to murder my Templar before they could get off another shot. The cracklings were swarming into the east side of my base as DTs picked away at them. All my other defenders were now dead. I hadn’t been able to save a single Probe.
Desperately, I built one and moved my miraculously unharmed Shuttle in for the pickup. The pilot was screaming obscenities in Protoss and offering his soul up for Adun, but he obeyed. As my main fell in about my ears, I brought a probe to safety, speeding him to the 11:00 main. The Shuttle stopped on a dime and the pilot began really cursing in earnest. There was a reserve group of Mutas hanging around there. My shuttle turned on the point micrometers from attracting their attention and sped to the opposite corner to start a new base in a last desperate gamble.
I had neglected to check on my shattered shell of a main, though. The only building left standing was a Pylon that had been overlooked. The Mutas returned for it as I quickly unloaded my probe to build a delaying Pylon. No chance. The probe shut down as the last building evaporated in blue smoke. The ‘gg’ I had given as my base was decimated seemed pretty worthless, considering I’d fallen to the first attack of the game.
General Disclaimer: I actually play a little better than this normally. I was unreasonably nervous about it, plus I’m sure I’ve heard of .Pooh Bear. before. I also had not planned on writing a battle report. But hey, I figure maybe someone would enjoy hearing about my humiliating loss, and anyway, I didn’t feel like playing anymore. This means that I neither took screen shots, nor ever noted my opponents upgrade progress, as the point was academic once I had a real opportunity.
Lessons Learned: Total Time Invested in this report: 1: 53
1. Scout! I had Observers but never used them because I had Corsairs. This was stupid.
2. Keep a real standing army, your upgrades are worthless if theirs nothing to take advantage of them. This one’s obvious, I usually abide by it. Incidentally, .PoohBear. had felt no necessity to bring detection to my base, so all of his perhaps 48 cracklings perished, either to a single psi storm I used or to my two DTs.
3. It’s just a game. My unwarranted nervous energy probably reduced my effectiveness, though I still would have been very hard pressed to win.
4. HTs alone will not defeat an attacking army, because they become the only focus of the attack if there are no other defenders.
5. Protect your expansions well, their your investment in the future, so to speak.
6. If you’re going to write a BR, come prepared. Observe and take screen shots, even if you don’t use them. Also, make the game interesting. This one probably isn’t.
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