| Newbies have more fun | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 11/02/99 01:11 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 4, Max: 6, Min: 3
Lifetime Rating for Rumpelstiltskin: 7.4286 |     |
--Prologue--
I admit. I'm the eternal newbie. Not only have I prepared excuses for not having played through the entire Brood War Campaign ("I have work to do.", "It was released a lot later on the Mac, you know." and "Those last Zerg missions are just so danged hard!") – I am probably the oldest player on battle.net… Just the other day I was in a ffa, where I was older than all of my opponents put together! I still play, though; it's just so much fun. In a way, I guess it's even more fun when you're actually a newbie, in that you don't take it all that serious. You know you're up against fairly equal opposition (i.e. they suck too) so basically, anything can happen. Yesterday evening I found myself accepting a 2v2 newbie game on that ole newbie fave Big Game Hunters (sigh). Here's what can happen in the lower divisions…
Map: Big Game Hunters
Players: Ally Yellow Protoss 10:00
Me Red Protoss 12:00
Pl3 Brown Terran 6:00
Pl4 Blue Terran 5:00
--Opening--
Earlier the same day, I'd played a game with a guy called Xuake, who was absolutely great at cranking out a ton of units, full speed ahead. I thought I'd try and emulate his speed in this game, and hoped never to hear the dreaded "You must construct additional pylons." I started out modestly with just one Pylon though, and delayed my Gateway a couple of seconds by sending a lone Probe to scout for opponents. I happened upon Brown as he was completing his Engineering bay, and ducked out back his choke before he could see me.
Me: found brown
Ally: what he got?
Me: terran
Ally: no what buildings
D'uh. Get back in there, you cowardly li'l Probe. Let's see what he has in store. Hmm. It ain't much… An empty bunker (guarded by an idle SCV), an idle Barracks and a fresh E-bay. That's about it. And he doesn't seem to mind my little Probe running around in his SCV line, either. Maybe he thought it was just someone visiting from out of town; which I guess it kind of was. Anyhow, I go just out of his field of vision and start warping in a Pylon. At the same time, I order a Forge in right by the newly constructed Gateway at my Main. I have a soft spot for offensive towering, and often invest that 100 minerals for a gutsy Pylon.
As the Pylon warps in, so does the Forge. I've started getting gas from one of the geysers, and have five Zealots in production. The Core will have to wait while I warp in some photon cannons; two for protection in my Main and two in the outskirts of Browns camp. The hostile cannons complete warping just as Pl3 stuffs two fresh Marines in the bunker. Sadly, he's out of reach. I am not. The bunker and both Marines are laid to waste, and it is clear that my investment has paid off. Big time. Under cover of the cannons, I quickly order in another Pylon by his Refinery, and a cannon as close to his Main as I can come. He's been a busy boy; two Barracks pumping out Marines that quickly set about taking out my buildings-in-progress. But he starts by having them all fire on the Pylon I ordered, while letting the Cannon behind it warp in without a scratch. The Pylon never sees the light of day, but the cannon swiftly avenges its demise by ridding the world of every last one of the aggressive Marines just as my Core warps in back home.
This is where I decide that Pl3 is doomed, and that the game should be ours. Wherever Blue is, he's obviously not coming to the rescue. I warp in another Pylon, two Cannons, and send down my five Zealots to finish up. Meanwhile, back at my Main, I'm pumping out Dragoons and a couple of more Zealots; plus the odd cannon for protection.
Pl3: fghfjfghf
Pl3: jkljkljk
Player 3 has left the game.
The silence is unsettling; where is Blue anyway? And how's my partner doing? Lots of cannons in his base, and a build I can't quite make out.
Me: what are you going for?
Ally: scouts
Me: k
What is there to say? Going for Scouts? Who goes for Scouts? They're by far too expensive to accomplish anything of weight. Sure, as air support they're great, but in his case they wouldn't be supporting anything; they'd be on their own. He sends out a lone probe, and Blue is finally found; 6:00 sharp. The scouting Probe dies immediately; Blues choke is walled off by 2 Depots, behind which fully loaded Barracks, Sieged Tanks and Turrets are doing a fine job keeping everything out. Blue is turtling.
I start warping in dual Stargates, one at the Main and one at what used to be the Brown base. A Carrier rush seems to be in order. Up goes the Fleet Beacon, and another Refinery at my Main to get the gas flow going up to speed. As a precaution, I'm continously pumping Zealots and Dragoons; you never know when to excpect company; a lone SCV may have started an expansion somewhere before Blue walled himself in.
Picture this: four Carriers filling up with Interceptors, two at home and two at 5:00. Both sites have an additional two Carriers on the production line, and an Arbiter Tribunal is warping in. All of a sudden, I see a long yellow trail leave my allys base. When it is halfway down the map, a message appears on my screen.
Ally: atak
Me: now? I need four minutes
Ally: i gotta go soon
I click on the minimap to get a view of my allys attack. Maybe he can do some serious damage to Blue, while I prepare the final assault. I see 8 scouts leading the brigade, 6-7 Zealots and a couple of goons bringing up the rear. I try to get him to pull back, but he doesn't listen. The Scouts park right over Blues bunkers, in between the turrets. Needless to say, they are promptly torn to shreds. Here come the Zeals and goons. Before they can ever make a dent in the blockading Depots, the Sieged Tanks blow them sky-high. During all of this, I at least tried to make a diversion, by sending one of the Carriers from 5:00 to the side of Blues base, hoping to scout out any secrets he may have, as well as hoping that he wouldn't expect a strike to come from here, the soft underbelly of his position. I set his E-bay on fire, before a truckload of cloaked Wraiths shoot me down. It happened awfully quick (that's Fastest for ya); I was hoping to draw them onto my coast line, where the cannons that tore Brown off the map lied in the waiting, but no such luck.
--Middle game--
This is where my ally disconnects, leaving it a 1v1. I pool eight fully loaded Carriers and an Arbiter right outside his choke, and start moving in… Huh? What's that, you say? Me, forgotten something? Why, what would that be? Oh, right, his cloaked Wraiths… In about twelve seconds, my entire army is dead. "D'uh!" I think to myself, "I forgot to bring an Observer!" So, back to the drawing board we go… Re-start mass-production of Carriers ("He'll never see it coming again!"), building Robotics and leaving a Dark Templar near Blues choke to see when and if he moves. It takes him awhile (until I have eight fully loaden Carriers and a handful of Observers + an Arbiter), but when he does it he moves all out. The gound is shimmering with the distorted imagery of land seen through cloaked Wraiths as he blasts my DT away from its sentry post. Doesn't matter. The more forces he leaves his Main with, the easier it becomes for me to crush. Also, I've never understood why people expand on maps like this… you've got everything you need right at home - order in pizza and stock up on resources…
I want to pool my Carriers again, and send the ones from my Main to go clockwise down to the 5:00 node, hoping not to run into the Wraith pack; my Observers are being produced at 5:00. I do run into them, however, a pack of twelve. 4 Carriers v 12 Wraiths - that had been flying around cloaked for so long they had zero energy left!! I did lose one Carrier though, but it was well worth it to rid the world of the Blue air armada. The remaining 3 Carriers joined up with the6 at 5:00 (2 in production) and I was ready to go.
Micromanaging the Carriers to work with the Arbiter and Observers, I started shredding Blues Main. It was obvious that whatever expansion he was conducting elsewhere, this was where he had his real power. Goliaths, Wraiths, a ton of Marines; and a funny sight indeed: a dozen Tanks that could not get past his own blockade! Armed to the teeth as it was, though, Blues base did not prove much of a match for the mass attack. He did, however, manage top launch a double Nuke attack on my Main while I was pummeling him – getting not only my Nexus, but every single one of my Probes aswell! (Yes, everyone - the 5:00 probe died alongside the DT keeping vigil, as he was trying to set up a line of cannons) This meant I was now unable to reproduce, as it were; and my only chance of winning lay in slaying every last one of my opponents buildings with my existing force. Apart from the Carriers, that force consisted of 8-10 Zealots and as many Dragoons; nothing else had survived the blast. I had enough minerals (700+) to keep the Interceptor count up, and that was a good thing, too: just as Blues Main finally bit the dust, I saw he had expanded at his natural. Needless to say, the ground was littered with Turrets - upwards of twenty, all trying to blockade my brave Carriers. It was to no avail, however. I grinded my way into his struggling community, killing everything in sight.
--Endgame--
Pl4: gg
Me: are you spent?
Pl4: ally me
Pl4 turns on shared vision, and I see he is truly spent. He has two SCV's left, each working on a Command Center on different parts of the map. Things like this always surprise me. Ally? Now? It's like a game of chess, where your opponent blunders away first his Knight, then a Rook, then the Queen, and says: "OK, you beat me fair and square. Now let's call it a draw and put the pieces back up again, and noone will know." I don't get it.
Me: not today…
The Carriers go 3:00 while the ground force goes 7:00. The game lasted almost an hour, and it was, I think, a classiv example of Newbie play, from all sides.
--Lessons--
Ally1:
* Don't let scouting workers go unharassed through your town.
Me:
* Don't mass units. It was just dumb luck that he hadn't researched Lockdown; 3-4 Ghosts and a handful of Wraiths or Goliaths could have really done me in.
* At least get the players names when you write a BR. It sorta stinks not to have that much respect.
Pl3:
* Don't get into a game of BW if you know you have to leave in a matter of minutes. It's not very cool to leave your ally hanging out to dry, even though it worked out alright in this case.
Pl4:
* Block off your choke with mobile buildings, like E-bay. That way you can let your own troops in and out whenever you feel like uit.
* Scout. If you knew what I was up to, you should have won easily.
--Screen shots--
Oh, yeah. I actually have like three of them, on my hard drive at home. I waited for myself to bring them here to work with me, but it hasn't happened yet and I'm starting to think it never will. Oh, well. One of them is of the offensive cannon cheese, another is of a truckfull of Carriers (is that a metaphor or a simily? Either way it's a silly image) and the third is… eh… of the final screen I guess. Not a lot to write home about. But at least I got to submit my first BR. It's nice to give something back to the SC community like this. After all, it's not every day that you guys can read words of wisdom from a 27 year old copywriter with an official ladder rating of 884. (And if you don't say something nice in the comments, you better believe I'll submit detailed reports of every loss that brought me there, too.)
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