"The zealots spot the pimp squad about two-thirds of the way to the Terran Main, and like the zealous warriors that they are, the zealots run like heck."
-YourRoleModel
|
| When FFA's go wrong..... | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 07/15/99 04:07 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Starcraft(1), Text Only(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 6, Min: 5
Lifetime Rating for CaptainCapsLock: 5.6667 |   | Hi -
This is my first BR, at least on this site, so humor me if I don't take it too seriously. I should say right here that this game was one of the funniest I've played in a while. This was back before I got BW, on original SC. Also, in the preview there were a bunch of slashes everywhere. I hope this doesn't carry over to the actual report.
Ok, so I'm in the join screen, around midnight. Searching... searching... searching. I start to get desperate. ANYTHING not on Big Game Hunters! Anything! When suddenly "4 PPL FFA" pops up. I check the map name: "Blood Bath Mucho Money version 783612036429.7", or something like that. It's just a cash-enhanced Blood Bath map.
It's well known fact between me and about 4 other people I know that I hate rushing. It's not that I can't beat it, it's not that I can't do it myself. It's just that Starcraft is a game. You don't play to win, you play to have fun. Rushing is just another way to win, it isn't fun at all (somebody tell me one amusing story about a game that was 5 minutes long).
So anyway, I'm wary of Blood Bath, because it is practically a spawning ground for rushers. I sit there, mulling it over, when a score of BGH games appear. I immediately scroll upwards and double click it.
I go in, and there's two people there already. One is :+:Pain:+:, I remember that vividly, for reasons I'll explain later. I don't remember the other guy's name (he didn't have anything like ":+:") so I'll just call him Frank. I go in and download the map. By the time I'm done, nobody else has come in. So they say "let's do 3 people". I say fine. The guy hits start, and we begin.
I chose Protoss, my best race. Another guy chose Protoss also (don't know who). The last guy picked Random, which turned out to be Protoss. I'm in lower right, they're in the top two slots. The bottom left slot is empty.
So, I start my standard build, which tends to vary from game to game. I try to play the field and try interesting things. It usually goes something like 7-Pylon, 8-Gateway-Pylon, 9-Pylon. Then Zealots and I just wing it from there, depending on what they have.
So I search the golf-ball sized portion of my brain that I like to call a memory, and recall that one guy was Protoss and the other was random. I assume the worst, because the worst usually happens to me. I suspect that the random guy is Zerg, and I suspect that he'll do a really early Zling rush. Of course, since they're both Protoss, there are no Zerg in the game. But I don't know that. Once it's apparent that I am not being rushed, at least not yet, I tuck the Zealots back in my base for safekeeping.
So, I'm built up to where I have enough of a force so that I think I can hold off any immediate attacks. So I start to crank out Observers. They discover the opponent's races, and also that there's an open slot at bottom left, untouched. Most people don't go for extra slots on "Mucho Money" maps, because they figure that they aren't going to run out of minerals at their base. No, but they'll run out of minerals in their storage. So I snatch up the bottom left, for three reasons.
1. More resources coming in more quickly.
2. A better place to stage attacks on the guy at top left.
3. Above all, MORE BUILDING ROOM.
The Nexus has just popped up and Probes are just starting to come out (should have put up cannons first, I know...) when my observer sees another observer fly into the base. It sits a while, and I don't notice it until I spot an enemy color in my territory on the minimap. No sooner do I know it, however, than 5 Scouts fly over and decimate the place. I haven't made any Scouts yet, and the cannons at my choke are too packed together to let any dragoons out (although probes can slip through splendidly). So I sneak another Observer over there, and call it a "Delayed project" until I have the troops to adequately defend it.
That's when my observer in the middle of the map shows me something weird. Frank has about 4 Carriers in the center, which I see have a full load of Interceptors. Yet Frank's Carriers are close enough to actually be attacking Pain's cannons, and vice versa. I say:
Alazhi: Hey, how come those Carriers are so close to the cannons but the cannons aren't firing?
Did I tell you my name back then was Alazhi?
:+:Pain:+:: They're just out of my range.
They are obviously within his range. I am all prepared to make a scene about this. But I've done this same thing before, ranting about two people being allied. But those two people actually aren't allied. After I start hurling accusations at them they decide to actually BE allied against me.
So right now I say nothing.
Alazhi: Nothing
No, seriously, I don't say anything.
Soon I complete the tech tree and then attempt one of the most entertaining and most useful tactics in Starcraft. I make 12 Observers, group them together, and send them all kamikaze into the opponent's base. Very rarely can they destroy all of them before I get a good look at their base. Unless they're willing to throw up a Psi Storm, and risk hitting their own units. So it's usually a lose-lose :)
So, I get 12 Observers together and move them into :+:Pain:+:'s base (top left). I also get a pretty good look at what Frank has on the side of his base facing Pain.
I'll give you three guesses as to what I saw. Go ahead, guess.
Nope.
No.
Close, but you're way off.
There was a sparse amount of Pylons in their bases, mostly to power their buildings. That's when I found a whole lot of pylons crammed into the top left parts of their bases. I mean, about 15 of then for each of the two. They were all on the very edge, at the very top left, all about 3 squares away from the other players'. On this particular map, the maker had felt that since there were a whole lot of minerals at the corner, they didn't need any more near the edges).
So, in short, these guys had the clear ability to at least halve each other's supply limit. But they didn't. Now THIS was incriminating. Yet, I said nothing. Why? Well, together, they had more than enough carriers to wipe me out. I didn't want to provoke them until I could handle them.
So they were going mass Carriers. What beats Carriers? Anything that hits air! No, that's the joke answer.
I had two options, basically.
1. Templar (probably the best choice)
2. Scouts (my favorite unit)
Now, you all know that I don't take these games too seriously, so you know who I'm going to pick. Immediately my 4 Stargates went into overtime. I hadn't even built a Citadel of Adun, and Psi Storm is more micromanagement then I care for. They were starting to mass together their carriers. I originally was going for at least 60, and kill most of my probes if necessary. But the upgrades were going slower then I'd hoped, and they were massing Carriers like there was no tomorrow.
My upgrades (Scout sight, speed, and weapon and armor) completed. I was sure they'ed by attacking on the next minute or so, because Frank's Arbiter Tribunal just finished (A little too close to the outside of his base) and I could tell they were waiting for at least one Arbiter before they attacked.
So, I was ready.
Alazhi: Hey, you two, how come those pylons in the backs of your bases are right next to each other?
Alazhi: I mean, you two could really hurt each other really easy.
:+:Pain:+::Well, I never really noticed those.
All was quiet for about a minute, during which I crammed all the photon cannons I could into every square inch of my base. That had bought me some time, if only a minute or so. I even blew up my Stargates to fit more in. I was just about to see if I could get a couple temps before they attacked, but I was out of time.
And so, that's when I got one of the funniest messages in my life:
Frank: Bad news, Buddy! We're allied!
They were somewhat perplexed by my immediate response:
Alazhi: lol
Alazhi: rofl
Alazhi: That was kind of obvious...
Alazhi: You two need to work on your subtlety
Alazhi: lol
Then, the highlight of my Starcraft playing career, I calmly hit "1" to select my first 12 Scouts, pressed "A", and then left-clicked on the middle of the minimap. I quickly did the same with the other 36, under hot-keys "2", "3" and "4".
Music to my ears: "It will be done", as the Scout pilot flew his squadron on it's first attack mission. Similar statements filled the air from the other three pilots.
And now, the second-funniest message I've seen in my Starcraft career:
Frank: SHIT! ALAZHI HAS 48 SCOUTS!
:+:Pain:+:: SHIT
How they knew I had 48 I don't know. I tend to use units in multiples of 12. It was 12 Zealots that I first built. When I started making Scouts from my four Stargates, I only queued 3 per gate, so exactly 12 were making. If I want to attack the enemy, and I have 17 Scouts, I either wait for 7 more or I just use 12.
Anyway, my 48 Scouts piled into their collective 30-some Carriers, 4-5 Arbiters and 4 or so Observers. I had an observer there too, so the arbiter's effect was practically nil. I concentrated on just a few Carriers at a time. Group 1 attacked this one, group 2 attacked this one, etc. While they did noting to coordinate their Carriers. They didn't have any Templar either.
I had blown up at least half their Carriers by now.
Finally, they came to their senses and did 3 things that severely hurt my attack.
1. They turned their carriers around and headed back to their cannoned in base. My scouts, brave to a fault, auto-attacked the carriers and were ripped up by cannons.
2. They tracked down the only observer I had out there and blew it up. The Carriers were reduced to blurs.
3. The Arbiters cast Stasis on my Scouts. Half of them became encased in blue polygonal sphere-type things. That was the kicker.
After that, my Scouts broke up into pieces like a gerbil in a wind tunnel.
All was quiet for a few seconds. My stargates were gone (thanks to me), they had about 1/3 of their carriers left between them, and I had mostly cannons. So, it was pretty much over for me, and we had this end-of-game exchange.
Alazhi: lol
Alazhi: Well, that was fun.
Frank: ?
Alazhi: I don't need a win. You obviously do.
Alazhi: So I'm just going to leave.
:+:Pain:+:: What?
Alazhi: That could have been a GG.
Alazhi: Bye
Alazhi has left the game
Immediately after, I found myself in Protoss Strategy. I saw a person in there whose name was some word rounded with ":+:" on each side, in the same clan as :+:Pain:+:. I whispered him and tole him about how a guy named :+:Pain:+: had just allied in a free for all game against me. That guy's general attitude was like, "Oh yeah, him".
I retreated to a private channel. Usually, when I want to be alone, I go to the "channel" box and just type a whole lot of gibberish, "snfwkehfyiwdaraid" or something. That guarantees some alone time. Then I did a /whois on both of those players. Frank had logged off. :+:Pain:+: was in some "Starcraft USA-blah" channel. I went in there and found him taunting someone else, apparently because he didn't like Carriers.
Epilogue
I was browsing through the "Join" list the next night. I found something that was "4 PPL FFA". Intrigued, I didn't even look at the map name. I got in, and saw that it was blood bath (normal version). I forget the names of the other two people in there. They both started their name with "T", and for each the "T" was spelled something like this:
']|['
You get the idea. I said "Why don't we wait for one more". They said "No. Go now." The other said "Yeah".
"5 seconds remaining"
I hit "cancel".
-----------------------
Unrelated thoughts:
Predictability gets you killed
Don't bother with /refresh or holding "F4" and all that. If there were a way to decrease lag or download maps more quickly, Blizzard would have it impemented automatically. They wouldn't make a stupid / command you have to type in.
Another funny moment of mine: I was playing with a friend (who I know id real life). We were allied. He was Zerg, I was Protoss. His parasiting Queen was blinded by a medic. He moved it over to my cannons and told me to "Kill it. It's worthless". I MC'ed it with a Dark Archon. He's been pissed at me since.
When in doubt, make Templar. Psi Storm annihilates all units. And when there's only buildings left, it's time for Archons.
Mind Control can be one of the most dangerous, most deadly, and most funny of all special abilities.
My email address is chris@patpack.org
Feedback welcome. Sorry I don't have any pictures. It didn't occur to me. Some screen captures of the messages would have been hilarious, though.
Chris |
|
|
|
Home
Forum
Starcraft Tournaments
