"When in doubt, make more Science Vessels! "
-Macdonough
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| The War of Three Roomates | | | Author: | | | IP: | XXXX | | Date: | 11/19/99 12:11 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 5, Max: 10, Min: 9
Lifetime Rating for ::nobody::: 9.0000 |   |
Prolouge:
It was 12:00 midnight, I hadn’t studied for my chemistry test, and yet I found myself amongst the many bots in nohunters. I, having my priorities quite in line, had forgone schoolwork to waste away in front of my computer, hoping to find a game worth BRing. I had already witnessed two games that were so lame they made my chemistry book look like a party waiting to happen. Just as I was about to succumb to the evil that is homework, some people entered the channel. I asked them if they would be playing a game soon, but it turns out they had just finished a rather long FFA. As luck would have it, however, everyone else in the channel was either a bot… or dead. They had no choice but to start up another FFA with yours truly keeping an eye on the action.  Since everyone hates Lost Temple and would rather stuff beavers in their pants than play on it, we decided on Dark Temple, ‘cause it’s… well… not lost… and darker. As it turns out, these players are also roomates on separate computers. Something told me that the warfare might not take place on just the unlost and slightly darker temple…
Chapter 1: first blood
All three players go random to start. As the fog of war lifts, Julian.Delphiki is yellow zerg at 12:00, Ender_Wiggin. is red zerg at 9:00, and Calvin-Gaidin is brown toss at 3:00. The 6:00 position is open and I expect it to be a center of conflict. Julian starts the game with a spawning pool followed by a hatchery at his natural, while Ender elects to go with a hatch at his natural then a pool. Calvin’s build order is interesting as it goes: pylon, assimilator, gate, pylon, gate. Seeking to cause some quick kills, Calvin sends his first two zealots to Julian’s natural. Two sunkens have started to morph, but Calvin is able to kill a few drones before the sunkens finish and put an end to the zealots rampage. Feeling a bit insecure, yellow morphs 3 sunkens at his main and nervously sits at his comp, rifle in hand. He is also not to pleased with the attack making comments about his gonads.  While Julian is busy having his gonad sucked, Ender takes the opportunity to expand to the 6:00 main. The game has potential to be very short, as Ender has 3 mineral nodes to Julian’s two and Calvin’s one. Both zerg go straight for mutalisks, with Julian stopping only for sunkens and Ender stopping for an evolution chamber and spore colonies (perhaps expecting heavy air attacks). Calvin’s path is a bit uncertain as the two gate is followed by a forge, cybernetics core, and citadel. Perhaps he is going for those pansy-ass, storm-happy, templar freaks =P. The first real attack is instigated by Julian. He sends five mutas to the upper right corner of the map and attempts to bring them down on Calvin’s peon line. But as the saying goes, “Calvin’s mamma didn’t raise no fool.” Two cannons strategically placed at the top of the base stop the muta attack cold. By this time, Ender has an airforce of about 10 mutalisks looking for blood. Bringing the mutas to the upper left corner, Ender plans on attacking Julian’s peon line.  All I can say is “what goes around come around.” Ender’s attack is quite successful due to Julian’s recently failed attack. Julian’s main harvesting line is smacked around like nobody’s business (and yes, it is my business). I wonder if that left gonad is getting any action now? Actually, I’d rather not wonder…
Chapter 2: The Red Tide
…Julian is eventually able to destroy Ender’s mutas, but not without heavy casualties. At this point, Ender makes two (understandable) errors. His first error was: he didn’t follow up his attack on yellow. Ender’s resource advantage allowed him to have another flock (can I call it that?) of mutas ready very quickly. Had he followed up his attack with this air force, Julian would have been royally screwed. Instead, Ender decides to go after Calvin. Calvin has a newly warped nexus and two cannons at his natural when Ender’s mutas arrive. A third cannon is on the cliff above the natural on the main plateau. Ender’s second mistake: he pulls out. Rather than take the heavy muta loss and attacking the cannons, Ender pulls back his mutas for defense. What Ender didn’t know is that Calvin had almost no other defense. A few goons were all that guarded Calvin’s teching to templar and shuttles. Meanwhile, Julian has rebuilt at an incredible pace. Almost simotaneosly, Julian and Calvin expand to the islands; Julian to the top left, Calvin to the bottom right. Ender doesn’t focus on building too many troops and both zerg begin the tech to cracklings, Ender slightly in the lead. At this point, Julian tries a very interesting strategy. As he spies Ender’s lightly defended 6:00 resource node, he tries a mid-game, offensive sunken. The funny thing is that the sunken actually finishes morphing before it is noticed by Ender…and promptly blasted into organic waste by a group of mutas. Nice try…
Chapter 3: Goo Wars
At this point, all three players have 3 resource nodes. Ender still has the upper hand, but his power seems to be slipping. Ender was unable to severely hurt either of his opponents, and now they both wanted his blood. The teching in this game was very rapid and both zerg players are already making devourers. One of the funniest looking fights I have had the pleasure of watching erupts as Ender discovers Julian’s island expansion. Both players send hordes of mutas and devourers to the island, Julian intent on defending, Ender intent on destroying. What erupted can only be described as “Goo Wars”, for every damn thing was covered in purple acid. I couldn’t even tell which side was which because of the devourer’s purple puke which covered the air.
One of the main turning points in this war was caused by Calvin. Calvin, unaware of the goo war, decides to send a pack of zealots and dark templar to Ender’s 6:00 expansion. (Calvin also had dragoons and a few templar, but kept them at home, should Julian attack). This forces Ender to split his forces. His air force attacking Julian is just barely defeated, leaving Julian with 2 badly damaged mutalisks and a devourer. Ender’s other force arrives too late at 6:00 and his hatchery is destroyed. Suddenly Ender has lost a great deal of his air force and is down to two mineral nodes. Seeking revenge, Ender sends a horde of cracklings to Calvin’s natural. The lings succeed, but then something appears in the sky…at first I didn’t know what it was…I had never seen such a unit in Brood Wars before. It was called a “scout”.
Several of theses “scouts” start to pick off the lings from above to save the day. Calvin now had all three branches of the tech tree, but only two mineral nodes and few troops. Surprisingly, he chose the scouts over corsairs. Perhaps he REALLY wanted the ground attack…I still don’t know. (Scouts still suck =P)
Chapter 4: Calvin teaches Ender some micro lessons
Ender and Calvin are now quite pissed at one another. Ender rebuilds at 6:00 and prepares another arsenal of mutas and devourers. Calvin rebuilds at his natural at the same time. Ender sends 10+ mutas to Calvin’s island expansion which is guarded by two temps and an archon. I wrote down on my notes “brown island gone” but to my surprise, just one temp and the archon shredded the mutas into fun confetti pieces. Ender is now really pissed and sends a second squad of 10+ mutas and 5+ devourers. Yet Calvin brings 3 scouts to help and is able to stop this attack too. Incredible unit control on Calvin’s part.
As Calvin and Ender work to remove each other from the plane of existence, Julian is quietly building up a gigantic force. I can almost see him, still gripping the rifle of insecurity, looking at his roomates, a sinister smile hidden beneath a dark face…
Chapter 5: Terror from above (poor Ender)
Ender has just lost his entire air force to three scouts, two templar, and a partridge in a pear tree (commonly referred to as an archon). He’s feeling pretty crappy now I can imagine. Then he looks over and sees Julian and his crazed smile. I can see Ender’s face as it says nothing but, “Oh poopie.” An insanely large amount of mutas cover the sky above Ender’s natural. Ender sends some lings to Julian’s main, but they are met by Julian’s own cracklings. In a matter of seconds, Ender’s natural and main are torn apart by the massive onslaught of Julian’s mutas.
Julian does not attack Ender’s small 6:00 base and instead decides to attack Calvin. Calvin still has a seemingly small amount of troops. Some goons, scouts, templar, archons, and dark archons. Ha ha, I think, “what’s he gonna do, mind control a muta?” Calvin, however, proceeds to maelstrom a massive group of guardians, devourers, and mutas and then proceeds to storm the absolute crap out of them. Wow.
Calvin did it again. He stopped what was probably one of the largest air forces I have ever seen on a non-BGH map. It wasn’t without losses, however, as a good portion of Calvin’s base was razed in the chaos. About now, it seems to be down to Julian vs. Calvin…
Chapter 6: Exit Ender
…but Ender refuses to die. As Julian rebuilds his troops and Calvin rebuilds his base, Ender has constructed a spire and a fairly large air force at his small 6:00 position. Julian, however, wants to make sure that Ender is dead and attacks. Ender fights like a mean, cornered, dog in heat, but is slowly destroyed. He sends whatever units he has to cripple Julian as much as possible and for Calvin he has a special surprise…the empty overlord rush! As the masses of bloated gas floated over his island expansion, Calvin screamed in terror. It took the micro of a true master to stop the skilled attack, but Calvin escaped. =P
As all hope is lost, Ender concedes. Thus the person I expected to win is the first to leave.
Chapter 7: …and then there was one.
Calvin, throughout all this, is still staying in his base and not attacking. I found out later that he expected Julian’s attack sooner and wanted to defend then counter-attack. Little did he know, but Julian had lost a lot of troops while fighting Ender, and he time to strike was now. I believe that if Calvin had attacked during the two minute window after Ender left, he may have won. Calvin, however, let Julian rebuild. Julian expansions were all completely dry and he was now running on bank money. And bank money = lotsa cracklings. A mass crackling drop was preformed, which Calvin stopped, but his counter-attack was weak and disorganized. The constant stream of lings wore down Calvin’s goons, temps, and archons and finally Calvin was forced to admit defeat.
Lessons Learned:
1. Starcraft is cooler than Chemistry tests.
2. I may criticize some of the players, but they all played very well and could whoop my ass any day.
3. Don’t tech TOO much…Calvin’s downfall was a lack of units.
4. Scouts are cool, but never forget the mighty corsair!
5. Maelstrom is really cool
6. Don’t try and take on all your opponents in a FFA (Ender actually had the most mins harvested)
7. Don’t let one player sit alone for too long.
8. Goo is icky
9. Zerg is imbalanced when facing zerg 
10. Despite the win, Julian’s left gonad is still jealous
Oddities:
Everyone has a “lessons learned” section, so I thought a new tradition could be an oddities section…
1.Scouts
2.Heres a cool screen shot, not only is it a broodling (hard enough to catch them), but it is a ZERO life broodling…is it dead or alive? You decide =)
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