What does ‘good manner’ really mean?

This is my third report, it’s on a different note to my first two as this was a very controversial series of games played. I managed to lose all the screen shots, as they were saved in an unzip file instead of the normal starcraft file, so when I hit 99 (halfway through game two) I was unable to go back and transfer them to another file! This is all WinZip’s fault, so if you don’t like the lack of pictures at the end, then go to www.winzip.com and sabotage the site and destroy everyone (legal disclaimer, I don’t care if the above is carried out).

Anyway, with minimal further ado, let the games commence. In ~nohunters, at about 10am Eastern American time (eg Ohio), four in the afternoon over in good old Blightey, there was practically nobody. The only two people there started a game, and being the rude little scum-head that I am I decided to go and observe, and make narky comments throughout. I asked for obs and got granted it, so thanx guys, then I was asked if I was planning on BR-ing the game. I had NO intention of doing so but the channel was empty and I decided that say that “if its gg then br” or something to that effect. I’m a good mannered observer and upon saying that I’d BR it, I had obliged myself to at least note what was going on.

Some advice for new BR-ers, if you spend all the time watching a game taking notes, then you’ll miss some of the best action, and the flow of the game. Personally I just take loads of screen shots and write the BR very shortly afterwards just by memory and ss’s (maybe write down initial BO’s though). The ss’s are for your writing, the pics you can get off them are a bonus for me.

So, I give you ANOTHER TvP match up, and I promise you that it is a good laugh. The game was very funny, but I am sceptical about my ability to capture this in a BR, so please try and understand that when you read it. The map was of course Lost temple (NO!!!! you CAN’T have a minimap, look at one later in the report..!), and the sparring partners were random_digit and Strider_28, ready for a clash of blades.

random_digit received a murky green command centre on the southern plateau, and opened with the standard wall-in to tech build of depot-barracks-refinery-depot-factory-factory build, but initially surprised me by getting a few infantry, delaying the construction of his second factory. This would probably have been because they both took forever to find each other’s races, and early infantry can easily own a 9-pool. His tech choice looked to be heavy metal, with a splattering of infantry support.

Strider_28 received a yellow nexus in a convenient position next to some blue candy at the northern plateau. He quickly started hoarding this candy to stop it getting wet and sticky in the rain, but after all that work, he just spent it on warp rifts….. I mean, what a waste of perfectly good candy! Anyway, he warps in an unusual anti-random build and gets pylon-gate-gate-pylon-core-gas-citadel-robo bay (core was introduced as soon as he spotted the Terran wall-in, he already had two zealots on hold at the top of the ramp at this point. He then switches to goon production as their extra armour helps them own vultures and marines.

Upon having two zealots and two dragoons, Strider_28 goes ahead and runs across the map to assault the random_digit’s base. He does, however, stop to go and murder my last surviving SCV which I hid from him behind the bush in the 12:00 gully bit to the left of the main (that, by the way, is the most gosu place to hide your SCV that there is, and if you do it, you StarCraft skill will increase 10-fold…...honestly…...). Erm, ok.. well anyway, the assault is a bit lame to begin with, as one zealot is lose killing my SCV, the other is far slower than the two goons and there are several defending marines, so after falling back to the bottom of the ramp, the Protoss army re-groups, now having been reinforced by 2 more goons. They then decide that it is incredibly rude loiter and so they rush up the ramp to assault the wall-in again.

What they found must have amazed them, the barracks marking the wall-in had been lifted off, and moved aside…… an open door is not something to ignore in this game, and so the Protoss units scaled the ramp and flew into battle. Sadly, attack-move is NOT micro, and although a robotic support bay was being added back at home, two goons shooting at a depot in the middle of an assault is totally pointless. The Strider_28 warriors broke through, but constant vulture re-enforcements kept popping out of the factories, and eventually (and to the pleasure of all) the last vulture and the last goon killed each other with their respective last shots…… I guess you had to be there really; ANYWAY, here’s a big collage to help you see what the hell that stuff you just read actually meant:

So the Terrans kept the Protoss out, despite losing ALL of their combat units and getting a damaged depot for their silly open-door debacle. Now random_digit went on a counter-offensive with about 3 vultures, but after they sowed the seeds of a minefield in the northern valley, they continued on up the ramp to promptly get nailed two goons and a cannon….ouch! Strider_28 had added a forge for his cannons, and a 3rd gateway, and he had a shuttle hovering over his robotics facility. The support bay had been there for some time, so the result was obvious: a mass speeded-shuttle assault.

Yeah right!

After a few seconds a Reaver popped out, and was quickly enveloped by the shuttle. A goon joined the cargo, next to the ugly slug-monster (although the goon is reincarnated, and so is probably a more frightening prospect) and the shuttle went on holiday to the bottom left of the left hand main.

random_digit had obtained scan (via an academy) and scanned the Strider_28 camp, just after the shuttle departed. He MUST have seen the obvious tech route, but had gotten himself an engineering bay for permanent detection, and had put one missile turret at his choke to defend against DTs. He was building a starport deeper within his base, probably with drops in mind.

Here’s what he saw:

Here’s his response:

Well, make your own mind up as to where YOU would have put that turret…..!

Anyway, I bet you all want to know what happened next…..yes? ok, well the shuttle floated over to the TOTALLY UNDEFENDED mineral line and unloaded the reaver and the goon. This was not a brilliant thing for random_digit, but he responded by sending some marines and vultures over. Now I don’t know how many of you are aware of the algorithm for vulture damage against highly armoured units, but it goes something like this:

thus, it wouldn’t take Einstein to work out that a vulture is crap against anything (btw, this calculation is an estimation based on visual evidence). So the reaver rips the crap out of the SCV’s who all think that if they ignore it then it might go away….. how wrong could you be! At the end of the onslaught, there are 3 SCV’s mining the southern mineral plot patches.

Now this was but a minor economical setback for random_digit, who had 3 factories to pump out units with. Sadly, factories DO require money to work… hmm that’s a bit of a bitch really isn’t it! Well a tank put the reaver into seriously low health and the goon died a blue, sticky death. The shuttle then ran smack bang into a hoard of marines (the ones who WEREN’T killed by the reaver) and died promptly. Never one to let his opponent recover, Strider_28 used some dragoons and an observer to clear the mines from below his ramp. He then sent a probe to the Eastern (3:00) starting position to FINALLY expand, and a nexus was warped in along with some pylons at the ramp (for cannons later).

Another reaver crawls into a shuttle and sets off on a similar approach to the last time, at the same time a force of zealots and dragoons make their way to the mineral-only of the Terrans encampment. random_digit scans the Protoss main, and seeing no troops there probably assumed that the macro had been lacking totally since the battle (it had, but not THAT badly). He then moves his troops out to take his natural. At this point the Protoss troops come pouring in and rout the un-prepared Terrans where they stand.

To add insult to injury, another shuttle rolls over to the peon line….. It lands, gets shot, re-loads and is put in-between two seiged tanks. It then abuses the serious shortfall of all siege tanks and proceeds to blast the crap out of them both from within their minimal range. OMG OWNED!!! Well, you get the picture, and if you don’t, here it is:

The reaver then kills all the SCVs and when some last-ditch tanks kill It, they in turn are killed by re-enforcing goons, and the game is over. GG’s are exchanged all round, and I respond to BR requests by saying “no, it wasn’t that good a game”.

So if I didn’t BR it, then what the hell are you reading?!?

Well, they REALLY wanted to be BR stars, and so they agreed to make it the best out of three. I was happy to observe another game, and despite random_digit getting disconnected while downloading the proper obs map I had, we finally managed to get underway, both players finally shut up and game two commenced (j/k). I forgot to get a screen-shot of the scores, but you don’t care really do you! I mean, you have never actually READ them…. So stop moaning!

GAME 2

Some pre-game chitchat, and the dropping:

The map was, as you’d expect the not-so-Lost Temple, here are the build orders:

random_digit received a red Terran faction at the easily defendable 9:00 position, and started out with a wall-in going depot-rax-gas-depot-barracks and then on to factory and academy too. His build was clearly M&M with tank support, a good choice since he quickly found out he was against a Zerg. He wasted no time in securing his ramp with marines and getting stim-packs and medics.

Strider_28 was gifted with a green hatchery at the 6:00 position and sent his overlord to 9:00. He quickly saw he was against a Terran and pooled at 12 followed by gas; before getting a lair and a hatchery above his ramp. He followed this up with a hydralisk den. This is a safe tech to lurkers, a good unit choice against M&M.

A sunken colony was added to the top of the ramp at 6:00, and a bunker was put near the mineral line of the 9:00 base, also, a queen’s nest gets a showing. Then, for the second game in a row, an interesting tactic is displayed; some lurkers are morphed at the mouth of the gully and a slow overlord is hovering above them. Once they hatch they load up and get dropped on the edge of the plateau, they then run in towards the mineral line and bury next to the bunker. A quick shoot-out occurs, but eventually scan drives the lurkers away, and they hide behind the minerals, and rack up an impressive number of kills on SCVs. Soon a tank makes it’s prescience known and uses siege and scan to dispose of the subterranean monsters.

This was an especially damaging attack as the SCV’s were not removed from mineral line, and so the casualties were drastically higher. In response to this, random_digit placed a command centre at his natural, and defended it with a bunker, and later a turret. He also began increasing his troop count from an increasing number of raxes. This expansion was matched (after a ling found it) by a hatchery at the 3:00 main. Also, hive level was now ready, and around 3 control groups of cracklings were loitering around in the southern main. Then Strider_28 loaded up several now-speeded overlords with cracklings, and deposited them in much the same place as he had the lurkers. These then assaulted the mineral line again, only to be rebuffed by a tank/bunker combination and a few loose marines.

That was quite a blow for the cerebrate, and Strider_28 now found himself with very few troops and an equal expansion number as a random_digit who was effectively emulating the deep-6 strategy, and was working his was towards massive infantry power with tank support. At this point I reached 99 screen shots, and paused to clear them out, but as fate would have it, they were saved somewhere else, and I couldn’t find them. Therefore I resumed the game and took notes, but there’ll be no pics from now on (Don’t cheer…. Ingrates!!) but the report gets better…. As you’ll see.

A repeat drop is pulled off by, although the landing site is a little different as there’s a turret where the first to drops were made. Numerous cracklings and two lurkers make their way into the Terran main, but all are promptly slaughtered with very little damage resulting. There are now 3 hatcheries at the 3:00 main and they are providing the necessary larvae to keep up this ling production. A couple of scans confirm the suspicions of random_digit that his opponent is low on troops. The Terran army is huge as six raxes and two factories have been constantly producing troops. The M&M and tanks of random_digit move out to the 6:00 natural, and then storm the ramp killing the muta-ling combo that had been resorted to by Strider_28 for defence. The tanks dispose of the defending sunkens with the help of siege and scan, and the medics just generally get funky to the vibe.

Above the hive in the main, 4 guardians are morphing, but upon seeing them, the marines focus-fire and stim. Only 3 hatch, only two get off more than one shot and none survive in the end. At this point the Strider_28 bids a gg to random_digit, who leaves his troops attack-moving through the defenceless hive-cluster. He has the win under his belt and there’ll have to be a third and final decider game to see who is the bett……….. What the fuck is this? Around 8 guards have been morphed from the 3:00 expansion, and they’re tearing into the Teran main. They’re too much for the marines, and despite the gg’s the game seems to be continuing. random_digit has no troops at home because upon hearing gg he knew he’d won and so stopped macro-ing and just messed around waiting for Strider_28 to leave. Then the guards and a few mutas manage to polish off the ENTIRE Trran main, and its over.

There’s a heated debate now for the next 10 minutes at the end of the game and in the channel about whether saying gg is conceding defeat. It was an enjoyable series that I guess Strider_28 won 2-0, but I think honestly that having said gg you are capitulating and its finished.

This is the audience participation bit now. I’d like to know what YOU lot think about this. I agree he’s foolish to stop macro-ing even when it’s nearly won, but does gg mean you concede unless the other person asks you to carry on or there’s mutual consent, OR is it just something you can say to throw people off? And before you ask, I’m talking about non-pubbie games here, its you vs people you know, not random newbs. Is this sort of thing happily acceptable or cursed and damned. Basically, is it bad manner to play on un-invited after gg’s have been exchanged! Please can you al comment because I want to know. As always, thanx to those playing, thanx to those who helped me make the report, thanx to my budgie, it’s pretty cute and cheerful, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. There’ll be no lessons learnt section, I think this debate would be a better use of the time.

Also, before you ask, yes this DID actually happen, it’s not a hypothetical. Hope you enjoyed it all.

Ling-erie