"Why does A-X suck so bad? The world may never know ..."
-Mogalin
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| Perception | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 10/29/99 03:10 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 2, Max: 7, Min: 5
Lifetime Rating for JSH: 7.1000 |   | Most of you on this site know me for my Newbieland reports, where I detail the silly and hilarious things that Starcraft newbies do in games. I've since stopped writing those reports, because I felt I milked that concept enough. However, I still play 1v1 SC on Challenger during periods when NWTR is quiet. By no means am I playing these games to try to get better, but since Challenger is such a newbie magnet, I can often get some entertainment value out of the games. :) In fact, it's often more fun not to kill the newbies right out with a straight zealot or marine rush, and instead just watch them and see what they try to pull. My partner in crime, Flint79, has some excellent methods of frustrating and bewildering newbies for one's own enjoyment.
Anyway, let me relate a game that happened just a little while ago.
I created a 1v1 on Challenger and see which poor schmuck, er, player joins the game. A guy by the name of Natty_Nat enters the room. His record is 8-1-2. This means one of three things: he is either A) good, B) a one-strat wonder (often with a generous helping of cheese), or C) a comp stomper. Most of the time it ends up being B. Comp stompers tend not to play 1v1 melee games, because they're, well, comp stomping. Then they usually progress straight to ladder so they can fall to 900. Also, there are few good people on regular SC. I've been lucky enough to run into some, but they're rare.
Right away he picks Protoss. He hasn't even been in the room for 2 seconds. He also asks "rush or not?" You'll find that many SC newbies ask for "no rush" which I think is secret code for "let me win, please!" I inform him there are no rules. Surprisingly, he says "fuck this then!"
Huh?
I say, "What the hell, I said no rules, you can rush if you want to."
He says, "But I don't want to."
Now some light bulbs immediately went off in my head. He picked Protoss right away, so he probably likes photon cannons. He asked for no rush, which means he probably wants to make lots of photon cannons and then perhaps carriers (a newbie favorite). And, because his record is 8-1, and because defensive people usually lose, he wants to make offensive photon cannons. By saying no rush, he wants to lull me into a false sense of security, where I can skimp on making units. And then, BAM!, before I know it the cannon push is on. I can see how that would work against SC newbies, thus giving him his 8-1 record.
So the game starts, and I expect an offensive cannon attempt.
Just to be nasty, I say to him as my 7th probe pops out of the nexus,
"You're going to cannon me, aren't you?"
I would have liked to see the look on his face. :)
Of course, he says "nope". I said "Just a hunch." And then he says "I won't if you won't." :)
Since I was expecting cannons from the beginning, I did a fast dragoon build of gateway, assimilator, cyber core and also researched dragoon range right away. However, as this build was being carried out, I sent my 8th probe to scout him out.
I find a pylon and early gas. Early gas? What the heck does he need that for? He's cannoning! Isn't he?
He was about to make his first structure when he sees my probe. Knowing that I was talking about cannons before, he probably thought that I'm going to do it to him. So he pulls 6 probes off his mineral line to chase after my probe. I run it around his base and then run to the top left mineral expansion. Still no structure from him yet. His probes go back to mining.
I had stationed one of my probes near my natural gas expansion, but no suspicious activity.
I send my scouting probe back into his base. Guess what's there. Yep.
A forge.
"Aha! I knew it!" I shout with delight.
"What?" he says.
"I knew it was cannons."
"What?"
"Don't play dumb."
"Shut the fuck up."
You know when they start saying things like "shut the fuck up", you're probably right. :)
But that's not all! As my probe entered his base, 2 of his probes were leaving. Perhaps the cannon attempt is going to happen. It might be too late however, since I have 3 dragoons and range is almost done.
One probe goes to the left, and one goes to the right. I follow the one to the left. As my probe catches up to his probe, it sees a strange sight.
He's warping in a nexus at the top left expansion.
But! As soon as he sees my probe he immediately cancels the nexus. I sent my probe back to the right, but his probe stayed where it was. Immediately I send my probe back to that spot to find a nexus warping in AGAIN! And again, he cancels it upon seeing my probe. Those two cancelled nexuses just cost 200 minerals.
"You're pretty funny!" I say. No response however.
I send my probe back to his base to check on things there. My probe sees a single cannon warping in next to his nexus, as well as a gateway, and 4 probes on gas. Notice that he has no way to spend that gas that he's taking in so rapidly.
And again for some odd reason, probes are leaving his base. Four this time. They're all heading somewhere, but they split up in different directions. Something's up here. I realize I have not checked the bottom right mineral expansion. I remember now that there was a probe that went off to the right that I didn't chase. So I send my scouting probe, who's getting a real workout today, down to that expansion.
He finds a fully functional nexus with 8 probes mining minerals. Undefended, too. My 7 dragoons won't stand for this!
They head to the expansion and start killing probes. But the probes run away! They head north, back to his main base. The dragoons are in hot pursuit, knowing that he will probably be trying to make cannons (hehe). The next 2 dragoons that pop out of my gateways go to the bottom right expansion to raze it to the ground.
As my 7 dragoons enter his base they find a warped in cannon and 4 more being warped in a nice neat horizontal line! I'm expecting zealots as well, even just one, but there aren't any.
My 7 dragoons easily dispose of the cannons and begin pounding on stuff.
"Well this was real fun, you fuckhead!" he taunts.
"This is hella entertaining!" I reply.
"I'm going to disc!"
"I don't care."
He doesn't disconnect. I find that if you tell disconnecters that you don't care, they usually don't do it. Kinda odd, huh. :)
But he's not finished yet! His 10 or so probes that are still alive charge out of the base to parts unknown.
1 probe heads down to my choke point where he is destroyed by 4 new dragoons.
1 probe heads to the top left expansion. I send a single dragoon after him and destroy him before it can make a pylon.
The rest of my dragoons that were razing the base had to go all the way to the left to destroy a "hidden" pylon.
And finally, the rest of his probes head back down to the bottom right mineral expansion, where they meet the 2 dragoons that have finished destroying that nexus. He sends 7 probes as a diversion, I guess, and the last one attempts to create a pylon behind the minerals. Just to be cute, I microed the goons to dance away from his probes, since he had them all attack one at a time. :)
And as I'm destroying that last pylon, I say,
"Is it time for Pylons Across America yet?"
"It sure the fuck is you fuck up. I'm going to fucking hack you."
I'm not holding my breath.
Well, that was that. I wonder what might have happened had I let him do his offensive cannoning but destroyed it with goons. I'd probably just say "haha" like I usually do. This was a little more interesting. :)
And let's have some obvious lessons learned:
- If you have a gateway, make something out of it.
- If you're going to make cannons, you don't need gas before your forge.
- If you do get gas, you can't do anything with it unless you have a cyber core.
- Sometimes melee records CAN tell you about your opponent. :)
I don't expect this to be rated very highly, but I hope you at least got a decent laugh out of it.
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