"The observers are always the master tacticians :)"
-~CattleBruiser~
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| Day of the Golaith | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 08/17/99 12:08 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 4, Max: 9, Min: 7
Lifetime Rating for .Praetor: 8.2987 |    | This report was going to be my first one with pictures. Honest. I had two ready. Then I realized I'd have to do fancy stuff like CROP them and all to fit them under the 50k limit, so I figured, nah...
Sue me.
Anyway, I'm sitting around NoHunters and I have the urge for a FFA (big surprise there, me writing a report on a Free For All). So I go to the ladder listings and there's a nice 1:1:1:1 followed by ASCII characters. I join up. The map is temple. I deal with it because it is FFA.
Players:lee (my mortal enemy. He lived but to destroy me. Korean)
something^^ (Uh, yeah. I did kill him though. Sorta. Korean)
Fritzl (A very, very good Protoss player. Tyrolean.)
.Praetor (Our hero. American from California.)
Well, lee, Fritz, and I are waiting for a third, when I decide to see if Fritz speaks German (with a name like Fritz....) (Wie geht's) (Gut, dir?) This is fun, because I had some high school German. I learn he is from the Tyrol in Austria. Unfortunately, Fritz is unable to tell me how to do the neat umlaut ascii vowel. I think it is easy to do on German keyboards.
Oh. Right. The game. So anyway, ^^ (there was a beginning part, I don't remember it) joins, and the game gets underway. ^^ picks Zerg and winds up in the east. lee and Fritz pick protoss and lee is in the west, fritz is in the south. I pick terran (on accident, it carries over from my game with WP), and start in the north.
"Gut glueck." That is me, the e replaces the umlaut when for some reason you can't put one there. Like having an American keyboard. I find out Fritz is from Austria, and being a geography freak, ask whether or not it is Vienna or the Tyrol. It's the Tyrol (Alpine country). His english is worse than my German.
I'm not feeling too exited, so there is no way I was on top of my game. I do a lackluster start, and get two bunkers defending my base off two barracks. Throw in a few supply depots an academy and a refinery and you have my base. When I start my Factory I decide I really don't want to go any farther up the tech tree, and so make the decision to just pump hordes of Factory units.
When I have two sieged tanks protecting my main base, next to the bunkers, I start up my natural with a bunker and a cc. Starting a starport for transports, and an two armouries for golaiths, upgrades, I run into some supply problems but eventually work past them and get a tank and a golaith in a transport.
Comsatting the northwest island, I look and curse. White (lee) has taken the island already, and cannoned up. There isn't an open spot to land the tank, but I do so anyway,
just to draw fire off my transport. The tank and golaith drop, the tank sieging after one normal shot. They do remarkably well, destroying a cannon and a goon before dying.
Forgetting to put a tank at my natural (it never matters anyway), I get another tank and golaith in my transport and take them over to white's natural. There are no defenses there, and the nexus is just warping in. I siege up the tank, and go to get my next load, stopping to drop an scv on the cliff overlooking my natural, where I eventaully have an engineering bay, four turrets, and three supply depots. I'm already researching weapons and armour for
vehicles. I get U-238 and marine attack for safety.
My next load of stuff goes to white's island again, I drop off a tank and two golaiths. I find one spot out of cannon range, because he has not fully built up a southern wall. My tank takes out a cannon before two carriers appear. He loses a carrier to the golaiths, which have charon boosters, and the other one is damaged.
I start on level 2 upgrades, and start on supply problems. For kicks, I add a covert ops to my science facility. I also research cloaking and start making wraiths out of one starport. I have five tanks and six golaiths, just having built three more factories to get a total of four, and move out to create havoc. I know white has two cannons at the top of his ramp from my first scouting SCV. As I drive up, I also find that he is building cannons at the choke. There is a goon too. I siege up and destroy the choke defense, as well as comsatting and killing the ramp defense. Meanwhile, three carriers come and kill my golaith and tank on the ledge. They run from my five golaiths with my tanks though.
I send in reinforcements, four tanks and more golaiths, and switch over to pure golaiths, having comsatted the southeast island. This island is owned by blue, who barely repelled a zerg assult. When I comat the area, there are razed cannons (I assume) all over the place, as well as one mutalisk dying to one carrier with three interceptors and one burning cannon. I decide I need more expansions and, knowing I can't take white's island, I decide his main and natural will do fine. For some odd reason, I take the time to complete all the science vessel upgrades, as well as
vulture upgrades and level three on factory stuff.
White's main falls easily. I lose one tank being too close to a cannon, and a few golaiths to zealots. Sending over two SCV's I create a command center at both spots. At this time, I have the brilliant idea of assaulting blue's mineral only expansion, which he has just recently taken. The campaign does not start out well, as psi storm and cannons kill six golaiths, and dark templar in the middle of the map kill another before I can comsat. Luckily, my tanks siege up unharmed, and proceed to take out three cannons, a pylon, and a templar before they are stormed. They are pounding on the nexus when six carriers come
out and kill them, then retreating after losing two of their number to golaiths. Another psi-storm and a zealot clear out the remaining golaiths.
White decides to remind me he is in the game by attacking my natural with six carriers of his own. Goody. What he is kind enough to show me when I bring up the golaiths from
the reinforcments aiding the destruction of his main is that he has cannons on the ledge too. Several. I bring in my four tanks from the same group, and kill about half the cannons before my troops are dead, though six golaith still reside in his former main base. I get a refinery going at his main base (which was almost mined out), and start up a cc at my own mineral only natural, sending the scv's from my main there. Making four more tanks at my main, plus several golaiths, I head on down to do some havoc, and slowly clear the ridge of cannons with tanks, comsat and the occasional wraith spotter. The wraith were especially handy in driving off the carriers, felling three with golaith fire aiding them. I take an SCV from white's old main and make a cc, at his natural, as well as repairing all my golaiths and wraiths that had been damaged.
I get the brilliant idea of loading up four golaiths and two tanks, then heading to blue's cliff by his natural. I lose those transports to corsair. Bad sign for my wraith. What those transports also spot is a single hatchery with an overlord and approximately thrity zerglings at ^^'s mineral only natural.
I smack my lips and assault with my eight wraith, killing the overlord and several lings. Unfortunately, wraith don't kill that many lings very fast, and orange uses them to attack my mineral only natural. I worry, because that is my
main source of minerals, but kill the lings there fast enough with wraith and SCV's, suffering only moderate damage. I send my wraith back, which are promptly chased by
twenty scourge or so. I cloak them when I get to my min-only expansion, and kill most the scourge, as well as a few more zerglings. Deciding to take off the kid gloves, I send in twelve golaith that I had sitting around my base.
The golaith massacre the few mutis in the air, but are swarmed with a large number of zerglings. I wince, for it looks like the lings have the adrenal gland upgrade. It looks like certain doom for my golaiths. But wait! Does the lead golaith have a d-matrix that I can't see? No, my golaiths are fully upgraded, and the lings have neither armour nor attack upgrades. Even with adrenal glands, the zerglings can still do only two damage a shot to my golaith. I laugh, losing only two golaith, with one more at moderate damage. When his mineral only natural was razed, ^^ left the game.
A quick scan showed that his natural was dry. One can assume his main was also. The zerg did have a large number of spore and sunken colonies, but no army. Presumably the
zerg and blue had been fighting. I use a vulture to set a mine at ^^'s natural, as well as his main. Good thing there are nothing but drones and buildings.
I had just positioned my golaiths at the top of the ramp at 9:00, when White reminds me is very much in the game. Down comes his carrier fleet, at least eight strong. Up struggle my golaiths, hoping to get some good shots off. Down come my wraiths who now number eleven (out of one starport). My wraiths cloak and head in. The carriers decide to stay in the fight, having two observers to aid them. I decide to let my wraith continue the fight, knowing they are the counter to carriers even uncloaked.
Want to know the great thing about Golaiths? The targeting AI will always go for interceptors UNLESS the carrier itself is also in range. With Golaiths, the carrier is always in range. I am just starting to worry about my wraiths when my golaiths come up, without micro from myself, and pound on the carriers. Yay. I'm left with four wraith, two damaged, and all my golaiths, which I put back on the high ground. White loses all but two of his carriers. Suddenly being rich, I start both air upgrades, and transfer my SCV's idle at my natural to the 9:00 natural to ensure my financial health. Comsatting the southeast island, I find that Fritz (blue) only has one odd cannon protecting the island, in yet another place (probably due to attacks from the Zerg).
Smelling an easy wraith raid, I gather up my five wraith, tag along another from my starport, and head on down to the island. The cannon falls with resistance, taking two injured wraith with it. Shortly afterwards, almost all the probes are dead. Blue, however, does not want to lose that base, and sends in an observer with six corsair.
I stifle my instinct to run, run, run, from the corsair, and comsat instead. I manage to kill the observer, and two corsair after that. Unfortunately, Fritz has a backup plan, and two photon cannons are being built underneath my wraith. I order the two fighters left to attack the two budding defense emplacements, and take my attention elsewhere. Later, when I look back in fog of war, there are two cannons, one burning, and another warping in.
My attention is turned to my depleted gas expansion at white's old main, where blue is attacking with an ugly amount of carriers, at least 10. My eight golaith there shoot down a leading corsair, and I queue up attacks on the carriers.
Assuming that battle will be a failure, I send in the attack I had been massing for blue's mineral only expansion, after queuing up two transports. Six golaith come in from the left side, killing a templar, getting stormed twice, and killing another templar. This clears the area of storm for my main force, twelve golaiths attacking from the middle area. I advance them forward under fire until they are all in range, and slaughter the three cannons there. Most of the probes are dead, and my cc is burning, when blue sends his carriers back. Wisely using his cliff, he manages to kill all my golaiths using storm, dark templar, and his carriers, but loses several dark templar and three carriers.
I send twelve golaith from my base out to white's old main, intent on defending that area. My next eight golaith (I'm fighting out of four factories now) go into the transports and head down to blue's island for another strike. Due to mismanagement on my part, they land right next to a cannon, but manage to destroy all the defenses on the island anyway. I pull my transports back. The four golaith left raze everything but the nexus and the assimilator before carriers arrive to kill them off. Blue loses another carrier.
White attacks me again with seven carriers, killing several SCV's and my CC at the 9:00 natural. I pull back my twelve golaith from the main, and drive the carriers off, killing three before they retreat. Annoyed, I decide to set up a command center at the Zerg's mineral only natural. This proves to be a good decision very soon, as a five-carrier attack by white on my mineral only natural results in the death of the command center. Most of my SCV's retreat to the former Zerg mineral only natural. I do have five new wraiths at the time, and send them over to do battle with the carriers, which have decided to advance on my main. They cloak, and white is caught without detectors. Little in my main is lost, except for one missile turret, and I kill all but two of white's carriers.
I start another command center at the 9:00 natural, and pray that it holds. I am currently in a dangerous position, because map control has passed out of my hands and into a state of flux. I take twelve golaiths to attempt to reclaim the middle, as well as starting two more factories at 9:00's natural. My golaiths skirmish with several dark templar, and kill a roaming pack of about three corsair. I come up with the brilliant idea of attacking blue's mineral only natual after offing four dark templar, and advance in, only to be psi-stormed. I lost my golaiths, but kill everything minus one zealot, the nexus, and six probes.
Blue's carriers have not been idle, however, and advance to the mineral only natural near the zerg (3:00) base. I immediatly retreat my SCVs to the new command center at my mineral only natural, and let the Command center die. I have a ton of minerals, but little gas to fuel the war, so I don't worry too much about the loss. Eight new golaiths advance down from my main, and meet blue's carriers en route to my mineral only natural. I pick off one corsair before blue begins to retreat. I do not force the battle, because I don't think I would have won. I move my golaiths to the high ground at white's old main, just in time, as blue's carriers advance on the base. Unfortunatly, he sticks it out this time, and destroys my eight golaith that came at him in formation. He loses two of his eight carriers. White's former main falls, and blue advances on the natural.
Two Golaiths from the factories there meet up with another eight reinforcing from my main. Blue retreats from this force, heading back to his base with six carriers. Taking another two from the factories there, I head out to take control of the middle. Unfortunately, I run into dark templar. They flee from the first scan, but come back, where I find a horrifying fact. I have no scan because all my detection and recon was being provided out of two scanners, one at my main, and another at white's main (now lost). I frantically put up a scanner at white's former natural, and retreat my golaiths there.
The dark templar stop to destroy the two factories before the base (one of which is at half strength from the previoius attack), which is fine with me, as I don't have the gas to use them and I need the time. Once they get past those, they are easy prey for my golaiths armed with a new scanner.
Noticing my mineral only natural now only has one pile working, I transfer my SCV's to the 3:00 mineral only natural, which I had formerly held. I also lift the command center from my min only natural and transfer it, giving the command for a third comsat.
I load up my two transports, and head on down to blue's island again. The transports get caught on the way, but manage to unload five golaith, who get the chance to kill four corsair who chase down my transports. I consider it an even trade. My golaiths destroy three more cannons, being whittled down to two of their number. Carriers clean up again, but more probes die. I take eight golaith from white's former natural, and four from my main, and head on down to attack blue's natural. They are distracted by two templar and four! dark archons.
In a strange battle of chase-down-the-spellcasters, I lose my force, while destroying two of the templar and two cannons at blue's natural, plus the pylon at his mineral-only natural. Despite several semi-successful raids on the base, the nexus has yet to fall. One of my golaiths turned to the other side, and had to be put down as well.
Deciding I needed some real power to break blue's defenses, I lifted off my command center at my main, and moved it north to make a nuclear silo (remember that covert ops?). I also started up a ghost, researched cloaking, and later built two transports. I had alot of money, so I built another CC at the comsat.
In a final display of power, white attacks me again with six carriers at his former natural. His forces overwhlem my four defenders, and kill six more golaiths of eight reinforcing. Finally, his last carrier goes down, after the base has been completely razed. I set the last two golaith to patrol between white's former main and his mineral only natural, and turn my attention elsewhere.
I load up the last four golaith in my base (six still reside in the middle of the map) into a trasport, accompanyed by another transport with eight marines from my bunkers built at the beginning of the game. I send them down towards blue's island, and pass a shuttle on the way. Shuttle?
The Protoss transport heads to the Zerg main. I ignore it for now, and start my nuke. Noticing no gas, I start up ten marines in my two barracks.
My transports land successfully, again inbetween the northern minerals and Blue's nexus on the island, again right next to a cannon. Again, my forces manage to raze the area, defended only by two cannons. This time, the entire base goes down, defended now by three Golaith and six marines. When I have six marines at my home base, I head on over to the Zerg main to see what trouble is being caused there. My biggest fear is that the Protoss has transported over a few Dark Archons, and is mind-controlling some guardians I had not noticed from my comsats of the area.
Frankly, I could care less if he took a drone. He doesn't have the money to make it worth his while. It was not that however, and he storms my SCV's from the ledge. Argh.
My six marines arrive, and put an end to the templar menace. Another storm reduces their number to one, but that marine kills the templar, and I order him to destroy the Zerg base. He stays there for the rest of the game.
Starting more SCV's, and a few more Golaith now that I have gas, I send my ghost down to nuke the blue mineral-only base. He comes in from the left, which has no cannons, and walks close to the nexus before nuking. Blue accurately judges a ghost's sight range before casting two storms, but moving the ghost into the blast radius turns out to be a good idea. The second storm misses him by a pixel, the graphics look like he is just on the edge, and might get damaged, but is safe. A slow third storm (two points of mana short?) gets him, but not before the nuke is dropping. Blue loses two templar, two cannons, and five or six probes that didn't manage to retreat in time.
Feeling that this is my time, I send down all my forces, consisting of eight golaiths and twelve marines. A reinforcement squad of four more golaiths and six marines follows shortly after. Blue's mineral only nexus is razed to the ground, never to rise again. Unfortunatly, his carriers come to intervene. Missiles and bullets fill the sky, but the deciding factor is my wraiths, which number six, and have level two upgrades. They come in and cloak, catching blue with out an observer. At the same time, six zealots charge in and engage what remains of the attack force.
My wraiths, feeling daring, follow the four carriers left into blue's base, which has never been tread upon by my forces, nor even comsatted. The find no cannons, and destroy the cannons. One psi-storm causes the death of a templar, and I retreat my moderatly damaged wraith. Looking on the mini-map, I find the island is dark again, so I add two wraith to the squadron, and head out to find what's up.
Meanwhile, my reinforcements arrive, and drive off the zealots, and five golaiths plus marines advance on blue's natural. I send reinforcements of four more new golaiths down south, as well as queuing up more marines. To my surprise, they are level three attack and level one armour, I had been periodically upgrading.
Corsair find my wraith going to the island just before the cross the water. the five corsair slaughter my already damaged wraith, with the loss of only one of their number. One of my wraiths does manage to get away, and find a mined-out island with one cannon. I leave that there. My four reinforcement golaiths catch the corsair, and shoot them down. At blue's natural, the two lead golaith are found by six zealots. Retreating, they lead the zealots back into the main force. Blue retreats his zealots, with the loss of one zealot and a golaith. I raze the Protoss natural.
In the meantime, my golaiths patrolling white's former bases catch a blue shuttle, probably just scouting, and are killed by white carriers.
White carriers? Last time I comsatted his island, he had three carriers, one with six interceptors, meaning he should be out of money. He still had only three carriers, but a nexus and two pylons warping into his mineral only natural. I send my next group of troops to attack the place, and simply attack move them. Because most of them are marines, they go for the interceptors, which is what I want, with white low on money. One carrier makes its way home at the end of the battle, with no interceptors at all.
Back at blue's base, I push up his ramp with golaiths and marines, finding cannons warping in at the top. I kill the six defending zealots, and two mid-warp cannons, before more zealots come and a cannon begins firing. Having but a few troops left, I retreat. Blue steals another golaith.
I bring my four golaiths and marines to the other side of blue's base in the small area there. They meet up with the group that destroyed white's attempt to get back in the game. I start a new cc at the area white had attempted to take. Bringing my transport down, I load up four golaith and land them on blue's plateau. Zealots engage, but a Dark Archon does nothing, so I go back for a group of three golaiths and two marines. Once the transport gets over the ridge it promptly disappears, along with its contents. Stupid Dark Archon. Fritz sends me a smiley face. I take my forces over to his natural again, but lose a few to mind control and storm. I do manage to get the two dark archons who controlled, and a templar. I send a ghost to the spot where I attempted a landing, and retreat my forces from Fritz's natural to just north of it.
The ghost sets up next to a templar, and I comsat to find lots of juicy tech buildings, including a core, forge, and three stargates. I launch my nuke, which hits, killing a templar on the high ground. I also kill the templar next to the ghost with the ghost's cannister rifle, but the templar gets off a last second psi-storm, ending the ghosts life.
A second ghost send down there is destroyed by storm as well. I build another to take advantage of the nuke in my silo, and send him down to blue's natural. I move him all the way underneath the ramp so he would be in an unlikely spot. I also scan for observers.
I launch my nuke to take out three cannons and some templar. Unfortunately Fritz must have been watching carefully, because he promptly stormed my ghost. Bringing more marines down from my base, I realize that I am running out of money to fuel this ghastly blood bath.
Deciding to make sure any gains I have now are secured, I start to bunker push down blue's natural. Five bunkers follow several minutes later, from the mouth of the natural all the way down to the gas geyser. I lost several SCV's executing the push, to storm and mind control, and finally a single carrier, but it was worth it, nothing blue had could take out my bunkers.
Remember getting all the science vessel upgrades? I found I had 700 minerals and 250 gas, so I got a science vessel, followed by another, and more marines. With two science vessels, I played tag with templars and Dark Archons. It was funny. Blue would tanatlizingly place a templar in sight of my bunkers, drawing forth a science vessel to irradiate it. If I moved forward (all watched by a carrier with no interceptors situated on the high ground, it had killed two golaiths but interceptors succumbed to bunker fire), the templar would retreat, and a Dark Archon would come up. I would retreat my sci vessel my bunkers, and the DA would turn around. Finally, two templar were irradiated, one DA of three EMP'd, and one of the Sci vessels controlled. Deciding to end this, I bring down two golaiths and two tanks. The tanks were my original base defense tanks, still new to the ways of this war.
I set them up by the geyser bunker, sieged, and comsatted. Yes, I knew very well one of them was getting mind controlled. Didn't even blink an eye when it got killed by my bunker. Thing is, I knew Fritz only had one Dark Archon with energy, so my other tank took out the remaining resistance with judicious comsat. Of my two golaiths, the ran off the carrier on the high ground, and died to storm.
Suicide marines and the golaiths caught the last two templar and killed them, popped a Dark Archon, and destroyed Blue's controlled marines and golaiths. They were destroyed by cannons chasing down the last Dark Archon. I emptyed the two bunkers still full with marines, and sent them in, followed by the tank. The tank sieged up and killed the two cannons in the middle of Fritz's base, and he honorably surrended. We complimented each other on "unsere gut spiel."
Shocked when the game doesn't end, I send four golaiths from my main to check out white, and find one pylon in the middle of nowhere, which I kill, and one transport with probes at his former natural. There must have been a small pile he was harvesting long range from. The golaiths kill the transport and the probes. lee says GG and leaves.
Whoo hooo. I don't have to get one BC and yamato him to death.
Some notes:
I killed probably eight or so observers whenever I spotted them near my golatih, just by comsatting. Annoying to the Protoss players, I'm sure.
Level three golaiths are much better than level zero against whatever else they are fighting even if the other units are fully upgraded too. Possible exception: Zealots.
I couldn't have taken white's island. Too many cannons on the edge for transports with marines and golaiths. It just wasn't an option.
I was fighting out of my base virtually the whole game. Need units, check the factory rally point. That's fun. On the same note, having 9:00 or 6:00 would have been detrimental to me, despite room for addons. The reason is, my Golaiths out of my base would have a much longer way to walk. As it was, the rally point (right next to my factories, but centralized) was RIGHT beside my ramp, which emptied into the middle with ease.
I suspect blue got dark archons to fight with the Zerg, though I never saw maelstrom against my own troops.
I built a lot of CC's that game. Blue built five. That money didn't mean diddly.
Even a 3000 reserve while you're mining and your opponent isnt can be used up fast.
I need to cut down on my notes section.
I hope you like it, and thanks for actually reading the whole thing!
.Praetor |
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