"Oh, yes. I'm 16 and a hermit living in the mountains of Tibet giving credence to the tales of Yeti."
-Mr.Merf
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| Struggling as Zerg vs Protoss | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 10/17/99 10:10 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 4, Max: 9, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for SnowSquall: 7.4828 |   | Pre-Game
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I'm looking for a Brood War ladder game, eager to build upon my stellar 1-0 record and 1024 rating. I wander into a couple games and promptly get banned. Finally I find a 1000+++ with no funny characters -- and lo and behold, an actual English speaker! We had a brief conversation in which he told me that I'd probably totally own him and wanted advice at the end of the game. He selected Protoss and I decided to stay with the ubitiqious Random. This leads into.....
Game Setup
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Map: Lost Temple (what else?)
SnowSquall: Randomed to Zerg at 3:00
darkstrife12: Selected Protoss at 9:00
Containment, Eh?
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I start with a 10/9 hatch build, but I place my 2nd hatch right next to my 1st one. I can't defend my ramp with sunkens if I take my natural when I have the 3:00 or the 12:00 starting position, so I just won't risk it. My first overlord scouts counterclockwise, so I find that 12:00 is empty, and start heading southwest toward 9:00. I stop when I reach the 9:00's natural ledge - if he's there, I can monitor any troops coming out. I send a drone down to 6:00 to investigate, and my 2nd overlord goes to the extreme northwest corner of my natural's ledge so I can see anything coming in. As it turns out, my drone finds nothing at 6:00, and my overlord at 9:00 sees 3 zealots stroll out heading toward me. Apparently he scouted me with a probe earlier and I missed it. At this point I had 2 hatches, a spawning pool, I had just started gas, and one creep colony at the southern end of my minerals.
I immediately throw up another colony to the left of the first one, but close enough to where they cover each other, and morph them both in to sunkens, and then I hatch 6 lings. I then return to drone production as I see his zealots come up my ramp and are ready to pick a fight. Seeing my defense, he retreats them a bit, but probes around looking for a weakness -- which there isn't.
Smartly, he just keeps them back by my ramp. He's got me contained for the time being. 2-3 zealots at a time keep coming over, reinforcing his group. Meanwhile I have morphed a hydra den and a lair, and start researching lurker aspect. I've also added a 3rd colony slightly farther out, in a triangle pattern.. making him retreat a bit more.
One thing that worries me though, if if he brings a probe over and starts warping cannons on my plateau.. but no probes appear to be forthcoming. Therefore I decided to break out with lurkers, instead of morphing double lairs and going for a drop, or going for mutas.
At this point his zealots number a baker's dozen, but he still doesn't attack. I have about 24 lings with the 3 sunkens. We've each tried the standard baiting tactic, but neither falls for it.
I hatch 3 hydras, and just as they hatch, lurker aspect finishes researching. Time to turn the tables! I morph all 3 into lurkers, and wait for them to hatch.
While those are morphing, I hatch 3 more hydras.. the lurkers pop out looking all cute and fuzzy, and I put my plan into motion. One lurker runs down the far east side, and manages to burrow near my ramp, out of range of any zealots. My other 2 come out escorted by my 24 lings, and I have the lings start to engage the zealots as I burrow the lurkers. As the spines start ripping into the warriors from Aiur, he wisely retreats them.. back to my ramp where the other lurker gets quite a few free shots. He loses about 9 of the 13 zealots, and the other 4, heavily damaged, run back to his base. I unburrow the lurkers, and what's left of my lings (maybe 6), and give chase. I stop at his choke, because he's got a pylon and 2 cannons that have just warped in. (my overlord above the ledge saw that)
Whatever you do, I can do better!
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My turn to contain. I burrow all 3 lurkers out of the range of the cannons, but far enough apart where 1 psi storm cannot kill 2 lurkers at once.
I immediately take my natural, needing to up my resource intake. I throw up 2 evolution chambers and start researching carapace and missile upgrades. I also research range and speed for my hydras, and research speed for my overlords. As soon as speed completes for the overlords, I send one into his main as a sacrifice. My recon finds a templar archives, but no robotics facility yet, and no stargates. He's also taken his natural, but has not put an assilimator up.. apprently fearing a lurker drop on his ledge? I don't know.
My drone at 6 is still sitting around doing nothing.. but I decide that's too close to him to risk expanding again. So I send a drone to 12, and start one there. I also start a spire, and a queen's nest. I add a 3rd and a 4th hatchery to my main, while gradually hatching more hydras. I realize as I'm expanding to 12 that I have 36 hydras just sitting around, and I should do something with them. With that in mind, I head over to his natural, and attack...
Psi storm > Hydras.
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He's not a dummy though, and has a couple high templar on his main's ledge overlooking his natural. As I start ripping down his pair of cannons, the air crackles with psi storm, and hydras start dropping everywhere. I quickly see over half my force decimated, but I'm able to run through the storm, and get right into his peon line, where I hit hold position, and start ripping into his probes. I kill almost all of them before he's able to react and run them away.. fearful of storming while I was standing in his peon line. I then focus fire on his nexus, and I manage to kill it just before my last few hydras die to dragoons. I had thought about trying to press up his ramp, but he had 3 cannons there, and undoubtably more high templar.
Right during this attack, he reaver drops my main, and kills about half my drones before I run them to my natural.
I'm able to kill the reaver off with hydralisks sent in one at a time from different directions.
Did I say it's all about Recon?
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Sometimes I need to follow my own advice. After that little skirmish was complete, I'm concentrating on getting my 12 online, with 3 hatcheries there. I hatch a dozen mutalisks from my main, and fly over to the 12.. and get hit with cannon fire? Doh!! He's got a base at the 12 natural that I never noticed! It's protected by about 7 cannons.. and of course, 3 high templar. This is not good.. if he knows I'm at 12, he could just walk in with a few templar and storm my drones.
Expansion time
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My overlord on my ledge notices a shuttle going north.. I know where that's headed. I send over 6 moderately damaged mutalisks to see if I can destroy anything he's set up, but alas.. he's brought a probe, a dragoon, and a high templar. Naturally the high templar > mutalisks, especially damaged ones. I try to keep the mutalisks apart, but they clump together anyways. I make a decision right there to conceed the island, it's not worth my time.. and instead I will focus on getting rid of his base at the 12 natural. I try a dual pronged attack with a dozen hydras and a dozen mutalisks -- foiled with almost instantaneous storms. This isn't going to work. I'm going to need bigger tech. Suddenly I slap myself and realize - doh! Queens!
Did someone say higher tech?
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Besides hatching queens and researching broodling, I start morphing both an ultralisk den and a defiler mound. My hydras have improved to 2/2 now, and my mutas are now 1/1. Curiously his ground forces are not upgraded at all. My overlords that I have around the map providing free recon are suddenly rudely harrassed by a half dozen corsairs. I guess that joyride is over. I start substituting burrowed lings.
I was wondering, and you probably were too, if my 3 lurkers were still burrowed outside his choke. Well as I remembered to check that, I was down to one. Shortly after that, the 3rd one dies.. to some dragoons. Obviously he's got observers now.
Time to flex my muscles
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I've got 3 queens ready to broodling, and I've just hatched 3 ultras and the armor upgrade has just finished for them. I also have 2 defilers. I have my queens broodling the 3 high templars at his 12 natural, and then place a darkswarm over most of his cannons.. and then run the 3 ultralisks in followed by 12 hydras. It was pretty fast and ugly for him.
Time for him to flex HIS muscles
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Suddenly I'm being attacked at my 12 main.. by carriers? Oops. Looks like it's about 6 of them too, supported with those same 6 corsairs from earlier. I have one defiler left with energy, so I place a perfect plague on his group, catching almost every single air unit in the red goop. I then quickly hatch 30 scourge, from the 4 hatches at my main and the hatch at my natural, and then move my queen over to ensnare the red-laden group.
Oh lookie.. it's red and green.. must be Christmas! Nice present for my scourge, which take out all 6 carriers, and even have some left over to take out most of his corsairs.
He did manage to raze 2 of my 3 hatches there, and kill off my drones before I got rid of him.
Eh.. time to power and get this over with.
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My hydras are 3/3 now, and I get cracklings for the hell of it as well. I start a base at 6 and the 6 natural, and they quickly come online.. and I take over his half-mined 12 natural as well. I set my rally points on most my hatches to the center of the map, and about 5 minutes later I have a veritable swarm of hydras, cracklings and ultras just waiting to be unleashed. I have a half-dozen queens by his natural.. but I don't see any high templars to broodling... eh? I start parasiting probes, dragoons, anything I can see within range to get a better look. I still don't see any high templars.
Feeling complacent, I just patrol in with my huge attack force....
...and promptly get hit, nay, SPANKED with endless psi-storms. What the hell? Turns out the shuttles he had sitting around, apparently worthless, weren't so worthless after all, with high templar in them. Smart move. But not so smart after I move scourge over to hit them... except the shuttles are behind cannons and guarded by a dozen corsairs. Ouch. Now what do I do? I should also add this guy must have tossed a dozen dwebs up at the SAME TIME he was psi storming.
I said, TIME TO POWER!!!
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Okay fine.. he may be an insane microer but he can't watch 2 places at the same time right? About a half-dozen more ultras and 40+ hydra lisks attempt to go in through the front door while I que up 8 overlords full of hydras to drop in random places in his main base. Amazingly, he's able to keep his concentration fixed in both places to psi storm.. and that's what I was hoping. With all my ultras and hydras taking fire from dragoons and cannons and whatnot, my queens are free to broodling any templar they see. During this fight, he shuts down both of my 6 o'clock bases with dark templar... but it's not like I'm hurting for resources like he certainly must be.
After this fight, where he was able to barely hold me off, I immediately strolled in again with 48 more hydras.. and that ended it for him. He still had a few more templar left, but not enough. He kept it frustrating by dwebbing all over the place. :P I *finally* razed his main, and also shut down an expansion attempt at the 6 base he had just razed from me. He had the northwest island still, and curiously never tried to expand to the southeast island, which I never would have contested anyways. 12 guardians later, I stood a weary victor.
Can we say marathon and slaughter?
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I made over 700 units this game, and damn near lost them all to psi storm. The time of this game was 1 hour and 15 minutes, easily the longest ladder game I've ever played. I told the kid afterwards (he said he was 13, yet was one of the maturest and nicest people I've ever laddered against) that he was going to be an outstanding player as soon as he learned how to macro, and assert map control. His micro was just totally insane. I also told him to upgrade.. when our fighting units did clash, my 3/3 units made quick work of his 0/0 ones.
It was a very enjoyable game though.. not every game where I get to use defilers, queens and ultralisks! There was a time in mid game, when he got rid of my lurkers at his choke, where I felt vulnerable.. because I had just got my expansions online. If he had pressed ahead with an attack force, it would have been a very tight battle.. but apparently me taking the initiative made him spend a lot of money on templars which he left at home instead of merging them into archons and going on the attack. He also had a chance in the very beginning, if he had warped in a few cannons on my main. I would have been forced to get out via air, instead of the easy lurker route I took. I was never able to get good recon on him, so I was always very worried he was about to break out with a winning attack force.
While not a terribly close game, this ranks as one of the most fun games I've ever played.. because while the game itself wasn't too close, the battles themselves were titanic. It's a pity I didn't take screenshots.
SnowSquall |
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