"Mark4 is just very happy that he got the race he picked before the game started."
-YourRoleModel
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| OMG the best island play I had played ever on DIRE! | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 05/16/99 05:05 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Famous Reporter(1), Starcraft(1), Old Classic(1), Text Only(2) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for [FLS]prozerran: 9.0833 |  | Whoops! No images for this one. Too busy.
Anyways, I met Old~El~Paso at channel nohunters and wait until he finished his businesses, then created "2 on 2 Time to Die!" on Dire. He chose Terrans as usual, and I decide to command to protoss since I had not played island for a long while. I warped in top right, and Old~El in bottom right. Our opponent went random, one drew terrans on top left, and another zerg on bottom left.
In the beginning I decided to do a early but sizable drop of 2 reaver and 4 zealots. Old~El went for mass wraiths instead. We denied their expansion twice while we expanded ourselves. I took the top island while El taking the left middle island. At this time, our Zerg opponent did the best thing to counter the mass wraith: Hydra drop. The first drop was successful in taking out several scv until they are elminated by wraiths and marines; however, the second drop, with a much bigger hydra force and several lurkers, arrived at El's base, I dropped all my dragoons and reavers to help him, but when the double team of m&m/hydra/lurker drop came in for the third time, El's main finally fell.
At this time I was not idle, but hitting all the expansion attempts that our opponents possibly had. With about 5 shuttles, my dragoons/zealot force was flying all across the map. However, both of their main was well protected with anti-air units and structures: spores, hydras, marines, goliaths. I started my templar archive and expanded. I also had my observtory going.
With muta/wraith distraction, our opponents were finally able to expand: zerg to middle bottom, terran to middle left, and I responded with the same, at the middle right island between El and my main. And at this unforunate time, El's expansion was discovered, and sure enough, a dozen hydras were dropped in 10 sec. He flied his only left-over building: the Sci-Facility, to my middle island, which was well defended with cannon/ templar/ zealot/ dragoon force. Nonetheless, during the flight, about 8 wraiths caught sight of the escaping building, and fired their strong anti-air missles at the defenseless building, reducing it to a burning 50hp structure until my dragoons chase the wraiths away. Unfortunately, just as the nature of all terran buildings, it slowly burned down and self-destructed in a minute.
Now I am facing 2 on 1.
When my main was mined out, I expanded further once more to the right island below my main. I caught sight of about 5 overlords heading my main from below: El's old base. With this distraction, I was not able to see the terrans dropping 6+ tanks and marines at my main!! I immediately pulled back my dragoons on the island I had just expanded, but my force was not strong enough to take down the tanks while having the zerg dropping another dozen of hydras and lurker at my back.
I decided to give up on my main, and rebuilt everything in different islands. I also dropped 6 shuttles of dragoon/zealots/templar with 2 observers at the zerg main. However, 2 of my shuttles of templars was shot down by spores and my drop was only able to destory some of his drones, his spire and some spores colonies tuntil his reinforcing hydras from battlefield destoryed them. At this point, my ground upgrade was 2/1/1. The terrans expanded to the middle right island which was El's expansion before.
Now that my main was gone, I figure my only chance was to constantly hitting their expansions, denying their money source. To make the long story short, I believe I had dropped about 10-12 times in various locations, and only two of them was successful in completely destorying their expansions. The zerg had tried to drop his hydra/lurker at my expansions, but I had even a bigger force on the ground there, thus his drop did not accompluish much except for one: He dropped 6 lurkers at the buttom of my middle island, and a ton of overlords and wraiths to kill any nearby observers. With only 2 templars, I was able to delay his assault until my dragoons drop on terrans middle right expansion forced his wraiths to retreat, thus allowing my observers to spot the lurkers for my awaiting zealots/dragoons.
I also tried to drop the middle island once more, but 6+ goliaths, 12+ hydras 8+ turrets was all around the island.. I cannot drop without lossing half of my force even with halucinations (I researched halucination before psi-storm when I started).
I dropped again with 8 shuttles of dragoon/zealot/templar/archon at the zerg only expansion beside his main, and succesfully eliminate it with 2 dragoon, one archon and 2 templars left. He also took El's main as his expansion, but strangely he had not mined it even when I dropped my goons around 10 minutes after El's elimination.
Shortly after my first expansion (top middle) was mined out, I shuttled all my probes to my 3rd expansion (below my main). About 3 minutes later, 6 muta distracted my cannons while 2 tanks was dropped after the eradication of my only cannon on the north. That was the time when I was killing the zerg expansion, and I didn't want to pull back my force. Therefore, I waited for more zealots to warp in, and dropped to my island those tanks after they killed my nexus. At this point, my ground upgrade was 3/2/2.
Finally, the terran was able to reclaim his expansion below his main (middle left). Shortly afterwards, all my expansions was ~70% mined out, and I believe it is the same for the terrans and the zerg. I decided to drop everything that I had so far to the zerg main: 12 shuttles of the same old team: zealot/dragoon/templar/Archon. When I dropped, I found it was almost empty, since he had no money to build any force to defend. Several sunkens are no match for 14 dragoons and 8 zealots, along with 6 templars, which "cheappy" psi-storm the terran rsecue attempt of 2-3 loads of infantry without loss.
At this point, zerg, who had just lost his expansion, declared "GG" when his main was falling. I did not know whether he had a hatchery in the middle right island or not (it was packed with hydras and tanks and golaiths), so I continued to destory all the zerg buildings until he was eliminated. With a very small amount of resources, the terran also conceded shortly after the zerg quitted.
YES!! This was the best island game I had ever played. For many times (especially when my drop failed) I thought I would've lost. My last massive drop was really a gamble, since most my mineral resources were mined out. I believe I had done the most drops in this game among all the games that I'd played. About every 2-3 minutes, there was at least a drop from either side. I built my ground forces like on land maps: I built a total of 10 gateways, and 6 robotics. About one third of them was destoryed in my main, but fortunately, mass production and expansion denial saved my day.
Lessons learned:
- Never give up even if my partner was killed. 2 on 1 isn't fun, but don't ever give up.
- Mass ground force is also an option in island map. I didn't even build a single starport.
- Archon is a most to drop a zerg base. Muta=byebye.
- Toss ownz island. =P |
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