"What I'm saying is, no screenshots."
-.Praetor
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| 3 way FFA on Space Debris | | | Author: | | | IP: | 63-204-1XXXX | | Date: | 02/02/01 03:02 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 6, Min: 6
Lifetime Rating for Not.2.Good: 5.5000 |  | My routine on B.net lately has been to create 2v2 or 3v3 games on random, never seen, maps from either my Brood War folder or from my collection of downloaded Maps of the Week. Sometimes the map fills quick, and I’m a happy man, occasionally the map won’t fill, and I’m stuck waiting all alone for several minutes before I have to recreate in frustration, most often though, I fill to just one less than is desired. This is an account of one such time.
I created “2v2 try a new map” on Space Debris. It’s located in your brood wars folder, it’s a four player map (128 x 128) using the space tile set. The mains are located in all the corners with gas and mineral naturals towards the map center. The center also contains some smaller mineral deposits. There are also patches of “space” (black stuff ground units can’t move on) at various locations, breaking up the mostly flat ground. The chokes leading to each main are pretty wide.
We quickly filled to three players, and I was initially very happy since the first player to join had a name consisting entirely of various punctuation marks. I’ve played before with players having similar names, and they invariably rock. Since I generally go TvB, I felt this confident in my partner to be. I’ll refer to him as green, since that was his color in the game. The second person to join had a more conventional name, In$ane~ something.. .I forget exactly what the rest of his name was, he will be referred to as red, since the received that color for the game. Red’s record looked good, so there was potential for a close game here, if we filled. It was not to be, we never got passed the three person mark.
Green suggested an FFA, and Red seconded the suggestion. I agreed and off we went. Green picked zerg, while I randomed. I didn’t notice what Red did, though I anticipated Green to be the bigger threat anyway.
I ended up with Yellow, also as zerg, in the bottom right corner. I sent my first lord scouting towards the bottom left corner and began a lord on 9, hatch and pool on 11 build. My second lord was sent towards the top right area. I’d never played this map before, so I wasn’t sure even whether it was land or islands, I was confident in the starting locations though, since Blizzard maps are usually somewhat symmetrical. I figured if I was in one corner, the other three mains would have to be in the other corners.
My lord reached bottom left to find it empty, except for a green zergling heading into it from the north…. Ok, this is definitely a land map, and Green’s rushing. I had saved larvae after my pool and morphed 8 zerglings of my own, hoping that Greens rush had found Red.
Well, fate favors the fool they say…. in any case, fate didn’t favor me. As my lings were about half done, I was visited by a green ling who promptly began beating upon my spawning pool. My 8 lings came to life just as the rest of Greens 6 showed up and they battled it out. I was fortunate here, timing had allowed me to kill the first green ling before the other 5 had gotten into position, and the battle ended with me having 6 lings left over. I immediately sent them towards top left and began working on more lings and one drone, while starting a third hatchery with one of my mining drones. I also started my overlord from bottom left towards the north, hoping to get an eyeball on my enemy. If green had gone rush to tech… I’d have him. He didn’t, my stream of lings had encountered a green stream about dead center of the map, and they pretty much mutually annihilated each other. I made some more lings, and began a creep colony which soon became a sunken. Generally in a 3 way, the last person to engage, especially if one of the three’s rushing, will win unless he sucks, I didn’t want to bank on Red sucking. I soon got the “your forces are under attack” message and discovered that my overlord heading top right had found Red.
He was also zerg… and he’d gone quick gas. He had a Den, a evo chamber, 2 sunkens, and I think a second hatch. I didn’t get that close of a look at his main though, as his first hydra was busily attacking my lord. I was at approx. 23 of 25 supply with a lord about complete, so I started another lord. I retreated the one under fire to the closest patch of “space” that I could find, not fast enough but I tried, and I’m pretty sure I saw his first hatch begin to morph as my vision darkened. This was bad, I had been making mostly lings with the plan to run over Green and had just gotten gas myself, but had already committed my first 100 on ling speed. I quickly morphed an evo chamber and pumped some more lords and lings. I noticed that my lord had traversed Greens main and he was just starting to get gas, with 2 known sunkens and a cluster of lings running around his base, I think he had 3 hatches also. About then another small stream of about 10 Green lings entered my creep.
I battled them off with minimal damage, since I had a sunken and about 24 lings myself. I decided to counter. My speed was complete and I was about half way through the melee attack upgrade, I sent 2 groups of lings to wait outside greens base, snuck a drone to bottom left, spread my lords around the map (especially on likely red approach routes) and morphed another creep colony.
Unfortunately, Green had staged his lings a little too far outside of his base. My lings and his lings met and fought, he was smart and pulled his guys back so we were fighting just within range of one of his sunkens, but my guys were fast and had flanked his group well. This battle also resulted in joint ling destruction. I had a little over a control’s worth of lings I’d grown back home, but was reluctant to send them to finish green while red remained a threat. I had started my lair as soon as I had 100 gas after my attack upgrade, and it was nearing completion. I also noticed that no one had harassed my morphing expansion site at bottom left yet. I sent a lord that way as well, to make sure that I had warning of any impending attacks.
All was quiet for a few seconds, then I once again received the message that I was under attack. Hitting the space bar centered on my lord orbiting the green base. Apparently Red had chosen to attack Green instead of me. There were about 12-15 hydras engaging the soft backside of Greens main, while I had just wiped out most of Greens lings. This was bad, I couldn’t afford to have Green out of the game just yet. My expansion was just completed and wasn’t on line yet, and I didn’t think I had nearly enough lings to confidently run red over, especially if he already had lurkers. I started morphing some queens and researching broodling. While morphing some more lings and sending about 24 lings to see what I could do about prolonging Greens involvement.
Since my lord had died in Greens base, I was really coming into it blind. I noticed that red had skirted Greens sunkens leaving them intact, and I directed my lings to avoid them myself and commenced manually attacking Reds hydras. 1/0 speedy lings do well against 0/0 hydras, especially when the hydras are distracted taking down structures. I pretty much stomped Reds force but had to break off when I noticed morphing lurker eggs… I was able to kill one of them before it hatched, but the other burrowed and I was forced to retreat. This was ok though, I’d left red with about 3 hydras and one lurker vs greens rebuilding 3 hatch lings and a couple of (now poorly positioned) sunken colonies.
Red wasted no time crying “Teaming!!!”. I told him that we were not allied but that I couldn’t afford to have him kill Green yet. I don’t think he was completely satisfied with that answer, but that’s the only one I was willing to give him.
My crackling research was starting now and I had thrown up a second evo chamber and was working on armor and melee upgrades while pumping more lords and lings from my main and drones from my expansion. I hadn’t transferred any drones from my main since I didn’t want to reveal the presence of that expand by worker movement. At this point I still had not discovered the location of my natural as the mineral patches were out of sight range of the troops I had moving by it. I was aware of the minerals in the map’s center, but was not confident of my ability to hold a center expansion, though I did have lords near the minerals to watch for enemy expansion attempts.
As soon as my crackling research completes I send 24 more lings up to finish Green. I kinda felt guilty about giving Red the appearance of teaming and figured I’d lay that accusation to rest if I killed Green. This worked out exactly opposite how I’d intended it. My cracklings found about 12 or so Red hydras beating upon the Green entrance. I quickly munched the hydras while sending another 12 reinforcing lings to replace losses. Green left the game at this point, it was Red vs. me. I knew I was kinda out-teched. I had cracklings and broodling capable queens, as well as lord speed. I was working on sight range for lords. I knew he had hydras and lurkers, as well as lings if he chose to build them. I had spore colonies set up at my main and expansion, but that was my only anti-air capability. I offered Red an alliance… admitting that my only army was zerglings and I figured he’d win anyway. He declined and told me that I was lying.
I actually figured I’d have a good shot at wiping him out fast, since cracklings rock and I had about 4 queens and lord speed to take care of lurkers. I began staging lings at the entrance to reds main while closing on it from multiple directions with overlords and queens. One of my overlords flew too close to a group of 12 mutas and I got a wake up call. This game could go downhill fast if I didn’t do something really quickly.
I started to morph a hydra den at my expand while pumping more queens and working on ensnare and the +1 missile attack upgrade. I built a few more lings also, but didn’t think they’d do me much good. I immediately sent my staging group of lings on the attack, while giving all my lings at home the attack move order towards his main.
This worked to distract him for the crucial time I needed to get hydra production started. My lings did only superficial damage to his structures, but they did manage to wipe out his standing ground army of hydras, though the couple lurkers he had surviving and his mutas were able to squash my ling horde. More importantly though, one of my groups had stumbled on his natural expansion and cleaned it of workers. This not only set back his production, it also told me that I’d have a natural in approximately the same spot relative to my main. I took it and transferred some workers from my main to the bottom left expand as the fighting was taking place in Reds main.
At this point, my main was nearly out of minerals. I sent some of my home drones to long distance mine from my natural and kept up hydra production. Reds mutas had stumbled upon one of my queens and killed it, though not before getting ensnared. Once the ensnare had worn off, those mutas visited my main, but retreated when they saw the 10 0/2 hydras with more eggs morphing. As soon as I had an even dozen, I sent them towards Reds natural along with an escorting queen and 2 lords. I arrived to find it defended by 2 sunkens and a couple lurkers. I broodling’d one lurker and while my troops were fighting the other and the sunkens, a control group of Red guardians came lumbering in and shut down my assault. This wasn’t good. I had maybe only 6-8 hydras left at home, and they wouldn’t be much help vs. that many guards, I started making more.
Thankfully Guardians are slow, and by the time Red arrived I had closer to 20 hydras (5 hatches does wonders for unit replacement), as well as half a dozen queens. My first move was to pull my hydras back and let Red clear all the nearby “space” patches and start hitting the buildings in my main. Once he was well over land, I flew in 3 queens and ensnared his entire wing of guardians, then I sent in the hydras while morphing more from my hatches. This effectively decimated Reds air wing. Red reinforced his assault with a stream of hydras, but I ensnared them as well when they began forming up and was able to handle them easily with the remainder of my hydras and some left over cracklings.
Time to regain the offensive. I quickly morphed some cracklings and brought my force of approx. 10 hydras, 18 or so cracklings, 5 queens and 3 lords into Reds natural expand. I pumped hydras from my hatches and streamed them in as reinforcements as they were grown. I leveled Reds natural, using broodling on 2 of his now 3 lurkers and ensnaring reinforcing groups of hydras from his main. I again offered an alliance and this time it was accepted.
Lessons learned:
1. A word on ensnare, that spell rocks. I’d used it in the past and as an experiment, try taking 12 0/0 hydras vs. 12 2/2 hydras, ensnare the upgraded hydras, and look at the results. In fact, I’m tempted to write another report about the game I discovered that tidbit in :).
2. Scouting, scouting, and more scouting. I don’t remember seeing any Red or Green overlords in my bases (though I might’ve missed them due to olord’s sight compared to buildings). They would’ve been killed soon if I had seen them, but 100 minerals is a small price to pay for some intel, even partial intel is much better than none.
3. People will whine. Be it hacking, teaming, etc. Sometimes it’s justified, sometimes it’s not. If you’re being legit about your games, don’t sweat them.
4. Same race match-ups don’t necessarily suck, though they usually do. I don’t really care what “level” you’re talking about, all 3 races are potentially flexible enough that a game can go either way with people using different unit mixes on each other.
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