So, at the time of this blog I just lost a few games, so I’m a bit edgy. I apologize if I act irrationally (unless it is within my capabilities to be irrational, in which case I have right to be unapologetic).
Headhunter
I’m not pretty keen on facing non-Terran races, because I’m cautious of what I can and can’t do against them, since I have had little practice against them. Plus, mutalisks can really tick me off when they’re used for harassment.
That said, this Discord IV, 2v2 (two Terrans vs. Terran and Zerg) game seemed doomed from the get-go. A stream of zerglings cut off production for a significant amount of time. Fortunately, that threat soon ceased, allowing me to go on to mass marines as I usually do, followed by a decent group of medivacs. At this point I moved much of my army to my second base, the rich mineral line on our side, when a nydus worm appeared in the main bases. I fought off a first worm before it could be harmful, but this one struck just slightly away from our line of sight. By the time the creep entered the view, the foe had essentially dropped off his entire army into position; he proceeded to gut the bases.
The scenario seemed doomed to recover from, so instead I did something fairly foolish but not too shabby: I base-traded. Now, I had a +2/+1 advantage over all of the enemies’ units, so it was somewhat viable to do. As it turned out, the base was not very fortified; even decent units such as siege tanks succumbed to mass stim-fire before they could siege up. Their base was essentially leveled as well.
By this time, neither four of us had a main base anymore. What could we do? Well, we could seek any hidden and out-of-sight bases that we missed. And that was exactly what we did. My foe had a mix of roaches and hydralisks (who said hydras were out of style?) versus my large contingent of marines and medivacs. We leveled out our respective enemy teammates’ bases and forces, and when it came down to it, it was really just a heads-up confrontation that was lacking. It just wasn’t one that my enemy could win; not only did he have less roaches and hydralisks than I had marines, I had medivacs that had been sitting around for a fair time, so I had the advantage of healing as well as stim.
Long story short, no one had bases anymore, but I emerged victorious nonetheless.
Irritation
There are just… certain circumstances where I tend to fall apart.
The first one was when I unintentionally let in a cannon rush. It was stupid, really, incredibly stupid, but I thought it was a teammate’s pylon at the time (well, I was wrong). While I managed to recover from that humiliating “ambush,” my teammate had left. I had a bit of fun with stalkers, dark templars and high templars. Unfortunately, I wasn’t doing much good with them, which was evident when I let my opponent make 10 void rays. When they’re charged up, wow, they kill FAST.
I despise reapers, I really do. Being a Terran, the missile turret isn’t quite the all-in-one static defense that the Protoss enjoy. So when reapers hop onto the ledge unannounced, they wreak havoc on my mineral line. I especially hate it when there are a half-dozen. Reapers were annoyingly strong against light units, so a few marines here and there did little to stem the tide of damage.
Mutalisks are also a terrible, terrible pain. They’re awesome units, don’t get me wrong. I’d love to take a flock and rip an enemy to shreds with them. Against me, and as a harassing unit… not so much. Because of the abundance of mutalisks that can be formed at one time, there’s no need to shimmy the map like banshees and drops do. They can simply swoop over the base, where the air defenses are likely to be naught, and crush the mineral line to bits from there.
And then there’s siege tanks. Dear god, siege tanks are the most menacing units a Terran can face (ironically). Marines are not terribly fast, so just a single misstep means losing a toe… and then some. When you have a dozen lined up at the front door… jesus, that’s just horrible. Plus, massed marines just aren’t meant to take out massed tanks.
Rage Quitting
In this game, it was a Discord IV, 2v2, Terran/Zerg versus Terran/Protoss. Yay me, right? I get to play with mr. gross, slimy Zerg next to me.
For this game, I decided to try out a new tactic: go for a fast expansion to the rich mineral field. This strategy is really a short-term, fast-paced one at best, because rich mineral fields dry up pretty fast with MULEs. Compounding this with massed marines and medivacs made it terribly dangerous… if it wasn’t found earlier. The other concern is safety; it would be optimal for the command center to be converted into a planetary fortress, then supplement it with a series of missile turrets. While it may seem like a big money sink, I’m not really putting gas into much except upgrades and medivacs, so it may well be worth it.
Anyway, the other team did a bit of poking and prodding here and there with small forces of marines and stalkers. With push came to shove, however, we sure did some serious shoving. My pal saddled up with a roach/zergling mix, a useful complement to my massed marines. We moved out en masse, he ahead of me. When we got to the first chokepoint, we were greeted with a mass of stalkers. While a good lot of his army was decimated, my army had a healthy number to them. I chased down the blinking stalkers, to the last one, before firing upon the expansion nexus (really should have put a forge and cannons up with it).
Pushing up the ramp was easy since it was virtually undefended. Having all of one’s gateways to one or two pylons was also a fast way to lose.
All in all, it was an invariable GG from the opponents. Well played.
Anyway, the weekends are coming up. Which is good, since I don’t have Friday classes; I can finally take a breather. I may or may not be able to use the computer during this time (probably afternoon-evening, EST). Unfortunately, restrictions persist so that I can probably not play more than three games of Starcraft 2 at a time. So, in short, it’ll be a real hit-or-miss to find any of you folks out there.
Alas, poor Yorick, I knew ye well…
3 Comments
I have midterms – if I didn’t I would be on from time to time. :<
I’m always terrified of zerg rushes. I build depots and barracks in the main entry to my base, but you probably knew that already. Helions are good against zerg rushes too.
Something’ll cheer ya up, my latest protoss encounter:
(something is wrong with the image, probably pasted it wrongly. ill fix that later)
he had some fun with me, he attacked and left, attacked and left. killed some of my buildings and retreat. then he sends me these hordes of probes.. he did it to have some slots for the surprise. when I watched the replay I realised he had extended his base to like half of the map.
WOW.
Sadly, I’m the same kind of person likely to allow this sort of abuse to occur. Why, about a week ago I let the opponent build 14 battlecruisers. Well… let’s just say tanks and marines are not the most ideal weapons of choice for a floating starship.