"I give my word as a battlereporter. /me puts hand on Rook"
-Drefsab
|
| < ---- I'm With Stupid!! | | | Author: | | | IP: | px2cl.gvXXXX | | Date: | 10/04/00 08:10 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 3, Max: 10, Min: 10
Lifetime Rating for CynicalMagician: 8.7556 |  |
BattleReports.com
Hi there kids, I
just want to ask you a question... Have you ever crossed the
street? You know, just gone to the crosswalk, looked both
ways, and went across the road? I can see all of you nodding..
Maybe you crossed the street to go to the candy store
yesterday evening. Maybe you were going to your little friend
Johnny's house. Maybe you had to cross the road to get to
school today. You didn't think anything of it until just now,
did you?
Well let me tell you about a child I know that
wasn't so lucky. His name was Billy Robinson, and he was a
grade 6 student, just like you guys. One day Billy decided
that he was going to go across the street to buy some crack
cocaine. He went up to the crosswalk, looked both ways, made
sure his safety helmet was on securely, and walked across. But
unfortunately for Billy, he didn't see the cement truck that
was barreling down the hill at 45 miles per hour.
The
driver tried to slow down, but when he hit Billy he was still
going 35 miles per hour. Billy's torso was struck full on by
the upper left corner of the bumper of the truck, and it broke
6 of his ribs. He then flew 21 feet in the air, landed on his
right shoulder, and fractured his arm in 3 places. He
proceeded to roll and skid for another 10 feet causing
abrasions, cuts and bruises that he still has scars from
today. Billy spent almost 3 weeks in the hospital, and even
today he carries a crutch. Why? It was all because he wanted
some crack cocaine and some hypodermic needles.
You
know what children, Billy is me. 12 years ago I went to cross
the street for some crack cocaine laced with pornography and
dead puppies, and I got hit by a cement truck. I still regret
it today, so I've devoted my life to trying to prevent the
same thing from happening to you.
Don't do drugs, stay
in school. Learn to read, and get an education. It's the most
valuable thing you'll ever get. And always wear a helmet when
you're crossing the street.
Alright, I am back! Westsidee
forevah. Except that this time I'm acknowledging my roots and
I'm NOT going to try and be a rapper (so you can put the gun
down in other words). Because I am a BR-a-holic and I have to
have something on the go all the time or I feel naked (meaning
I am emotionally as well as literally naked), shortly after
Slings and I posted this, it was a choice between
waiting 2 weeks for the finals of the DSC tourney to be
played, or starting a new BR. As you may or may not have
guessed, I chose to start something new. This is it.
Huk.
"So Cynic," you're thinking, "Why did you decide
to do a 2v2v2? And why Nightshade? Weird map." Well, I'll tell
you why. About 2 or 3 months ago I was playing a game with a
few people on Nightshade. We were playing Race Wars 2000 (the
difference from regular Race Wars being that you go random,
and you have to find the people of your race before you ally
them) on Nightshade, and it ended up being a 2v2v2. After
almost a 2 hour game, the team I was on (Zerg) won, and I
vowed that someday during my BR'ing career I would do a 2v2v2
BR on this map. And lo and behold, it's here.
One final
word of warning before I dive into player introductions, I had
to choose a theme for this BR. In the past I've chosen the
theme BEFORE the game, but this time I was somewhat off guard,
and so I was been forced to choose after watching it. Because
I got nervous and couldn't pick a concrete mold to pour my
efforts into, I decided to just go off in every direction.
Basically what I'm saying is that this BR is exactly like all
my others in that it is very random, but this time it's
official. Enjoy.
Player
Introductions
(Editor's Note:
Teams were tvmvb as I recall. Don't put any faith in my names
for them.)
Team "Hey I know
you!!"
 Activus! - He
hardly needs an introduction, but as per my style, I'll give
him one. He's been around SC/bnet/Kali (I think) since the
Reagan adminstration, and he's got skillZzzZZzz to prove it. A
nice guy at the worst of times, Acti has many admirers. He's
joining us today because I said 'come to channel phunk for a
2v2v2 BR' and he came. True story, I swear.
 SailrPengn - After
growing up constantly on the run from the Polish Secret Police
for crimes ranging from arson to regicide, SailrPengn hopped aboard a merchant
vessel and ended up in the vast jungles of southern Manitoba.
He lives there to this day in a large and complex tree fort a
la Swiss Family Robinson. The internet is linked to his house
through a bamboo satellite dish, and his computer is made
entirely from palm tree bark. I must admit that I'm impressed
too.
Team "Hey I
don't know you!!"
 znzf - An
upstanding member of the New York Society for the Preservation
of Gummi Bears for over 75 years, znzf is older than time itself. His
name is unpronouncable due to the Australian outback dialect
it comes from, so don't even try. He favours red wine to
white.
69alphaq69 - All I have to say is
that he's gotta be friggin' cool, he's got 69 on either side
of his name. Keep the dream alive man!!
Team Wang
 ..(Louder).. -
I'm assuming this is the crazy imp also known as
LouderThanLove, so in that case, this is the Prime Minister of
the small island nation of Nilbognia. With a population of
over 9200, Nilbognia boasts sandy beaches, tropical jungles,
and the largest amount of pornography exported per capita,
beating out even those lusty Italians. Watch out for their
national guard, they are armed with maces. Not mace, maces. As
in big clubs. Ow.
Wangsonn - If you haven't heard of
him and his quasi-Druidic cult, I'm really surprised. He
maintains to this day that he is the reincarnation of the
great Monk 'Korna', but I personally think that Shirley Temple
is more suited to his demeanour. But who knows, I'm no expert
on assology.
(Editor's
Note: I made all of these up. Except Activus!, but even
his was slightly made up. God only knows if he played on
Kali.)
Team L33T
Hax0r Ph34r M3 D00d PuNc]-[ WareZ
Man
CynicalMagician - The Deity
of Dumbass, God of Gutsy, Lord of Laxitives, Ruler of Random,
Hero of Horniness, Knight of Knives (and other pointy
objects), the Avatar of Alliteration, the holder of a thousand
titles, the player with a million names, yes, it's me. I have
my own team because everyone that was on my team got scared
when I whipped out my Brady Bunch lunch box. Stupid bitches.
Also I'm the observer, in case you hadn't guessed that before
hand.
So on with the game already!
Activus! (Activus) - Brown Zerg // SailrPengn (Sailr) - Red
Terran
vs
znzf
- Yellow Protoss // 69alphaq69 (alpha) - Purple
Terran
vs
..(Louder).. (Louder) - Orange Protoss // Wangsonn (Wang) - White
Protoss
(Editor's Note: The blue dots on the
minimap indicate expansion sites.)
Early Game Builds and Apparent Goals of
Units
 Activus - Our
slimey and wet and sticky mandatory zerg player, after being
granted control of the 10 o'clock spot, has gone for a second
hatch, then a pool, then gas, and finally a third hatch and
lair. After making a fair number of lings, he appears to be
going for a lurker ling combo. Both players beside him are
protoss.
Sailr - I'm not
really sure what he had in mind, but his build of
depot-rax-gas-depot-factory-starport-starport with constant
marine production suggested that he was going for wraith
action. He too is pinchered by protoss players.
znzf - He looks to be going for a
decent defense against early rushers, and so goes
pylon-gate-gate-pylon along with a slow tech to High Templar
and the inevitable storm that accompanies them. He keeps probe
and zealot production up throughout his build. He is in
between his ally, alpha, and
Activus.
alpha - Our good friend alpha (Editor's Note: Is
he the same guy from Power Rangers?) has been busy on his
end of the map as well, going for a pseudo wallin with his
depot-rax-gas-depot-fac build, and has also produced a couple
bunkers. He is going for some hardcore tech action, and
doesn't want to be disturbed. In other words, he is turtling.
His position is in between his ally znzf, and the blank spot previously
home to my CC, which is now floating.
Wang - The ever excitable Wang has been doing an rush build as
well, going pylon-gate-gate-pylon-forge-cannon, and this is
probably not a bad idea, as he is in between Activus and Sailr, who are on the same team. One
note: The cannon is to get the OL that Activus sent scouting away from his
base.
Louder - Finally
we have Louder, who is doing
a hardcore tech build, going pylon-gate-gas-core-gate. He is
doing a tech rush build of some sort, but whether it is for
reavers, templar or an air force, we have no indication yet.
Even though he seems to be doing an island build order on a
land map, he has a very small risk factor, as he has an ally
to his north and an empty main to his south.
So there
is the stage of the game roughly 2 minutes in. By this time
all of the players have scouted at least their immediate
neighbours, and so they have a general idea what they are up
against. Never one to waste information like this, Louder decides that it is time to
play it loud and has set his sights on the poor unforunate
Terran between him and Wang
that is Sailr. He makes a
resolution to spank some bare flesh with DT's, and begins his
citadel and shortly thereafter his archives. Wang giggles like a school girl when
he hears his partner's proposition, as Wang is prone to do whenever he
hears any sentence containing a noun.
 Soon enough, 2 DT's appear, flashing their shiny
and somewhat seductive capes around, and Louder commands his warriors onto
the road to the pretend wallin that Sailr has set up. Sailr has just started his engineering
bay, and so if he had had another minute or 2 he would've had
SOME detection, but unfortunately as we all know, one
uncompleted eng bay is equal to terran getting owned by
everything, and so his marines start getting slaughtered. And
soon after, they finish getting slaughtered. And then 1 of the
3 tanks that popped out of the factory starts and finishes
getting slaughtered while the other two run for the hills. And
then the SCV's start getting slaughtered. It's as though Sgt.
Slaughter himself is watching over the battle. Sailr tries to put off the inevitable
by making his SCVs move around in a little circle, but
unfortunately even ballroom dancing can't get him outta this
one. He is forced to lift his buildings off and fly for the
center to build anew. He escapes with 2 starports, 1 factory,
1 barracks, and 1 CC. All of these fly for the center resource
node that is at roughly 12:30 and eventually land. He begins
the labourious process of rebuilding an economy and base on
only 5 mineral patches.
 
Note:
This whole sequence of Sailr's
base getting blown up takes place over the next few minutes. I
just finished the entire story of it all at once for the ease
of readers.
And so ends the mandatory "some guy
getting rocked really hard by DT's" which seems to come near
the beginning of every FFA report I do. But enough about DT
deep throating (Editor's Note: Coincidence about the
acronyms for each? I think not.), lets talk about love-- I
mean, the rest of the game.
alpha has built a couple factories
in behind his mineral line and has started building vultures
like a maniac. Also a starport has appeared, and he is one
step closer to his tech of choice. Louder has continued to groove by
adding a 3rd gate, and Wang
has decided that he doesn't want to be the recipient of some
back door action there's a change...
and so places 2 or 3 cannons behind his mineral line. And
speaking of mineral lines, znzf decides that he needs a new
one, so he starts a nexus and a couple cannons at the mineral
only base to the north west of him, the one that is at about 9
o'clock on the very outer ring of the map. I thought it was
odd that a Protoss player was the first expander as opposed to
the lone zerg, Activus, but
when I looked back at Activus'
base, I saw that he had not been idle in the
least.
 The lurker aspect was on the research, and there
were about 16-24 lings mulling about in front of his 3
hatcheries. As he sees that his partner is dying he decides to
send roughly a control group of lings to try and help Sailr out, but unfortunately his OL
still has slow speed, even if it is researching. Eventually,
long after Sailr has floated to
a safer locale, Activus
manages to clear out the 5 dt's that were still around. I
honestly didn't think that 16 lings would stand a chance
against 5 DT's, but through some neat 'get the wounded DT
first' tricks, Activus kills
all 5 at the cost of all but a couple of his adorable hivemind
puppy dogs.
 But that's not all Activus has been doing. Because his
lurkers have just finished morphing and burrow has just
finished researching, he decides to send 2 lurkers and about 8
lings down at znzf's main.
znzf doesn't have any obs or
temps out yet, but his archives is in the building process.
Unfortunately for Activus a
couple cannons prevent him from pushing too far in, but he
does manage to hit on a couple outlying gates and pylons.
Through some neat hit and run with his lings he also manages
to kill a total of a goon, a couple zealots, and 2 high
templar (after they finished building). He did end up bringing
a couple replacement/reinforcement lurkers down, but for the
most part, his entire harassment squad consisted of the troops
he sent down in the first place.
 But like all good harassment tactics, they have to
come to an end, and this comes for Activus when znzf has enough energy for a couple
storms. Good bye lurkers, thanks for coming out. znzf ends up rebuilding his lost
gateways just south of their original position (This is a
factoid for the two of you who like continuity. Hey wait, if
you like continuity, wtf are you doing in a CM
BR?!).
 While this little adventure was happening, Team
Wang decides to expand, with Wang going for the upper left corner
mineral only base with 2 cannons and a couple gates, and Louder going to the 3 patch 1 vent
node directly clockwise from his main. Shortly after this,
Wang continues teching by
building a stargate and robotics factory. After building a
shuttle and a couple corsairs as escort, Wang flies a probe to the 5 o'clock
middle resource node, and also manages to tag a nearby OL with
hot neutron lovin'. To put these events in timeframe
perspective, Sailr has just
landed his CC at his new home in the middle.
 And what has alpha been doing all this time? We
haven't heard from him at all. Oh wait, I see what he's doing,
he's executing a 4 vulture drop on Louder's exp, after he saw that it
was fully operational. Unfortunately for alpha though, these vultures are on
the cliff above the exp, and so the number of probes they can
reach is severely limited. Nevertheless, this does hurt Louder's economy a bit, even if it
wasn't quite devastating. A funny moment of this occured when
alpha pulled his vultures out
to lay mines in the area, but couldn't manuever them back into
a position such that they could hit the probes. Therefore the
peons that Louder had only
moments ago taken off mining went back to work. Louder also thought it would be
prudent to get rid of the vultures somehow, but instead of
sending a small army to deal with them, he instead reacts by
building cannons below the cliff. 3 in fact. Eventually they
warp in and kill the vultures, but it certainly took a long
time.
In
retaliation Louder decides to
send his entire love machine squad of John Travolta wannabes,
that is, his 8 DT's, to alpha's main, and only, base. Sadly
though, these DT's are unable to do any more damage than
killing a machine shop due to the scattered turrets and tanks
in his base. They soon retreat without losing any of their
number.
 On the other end of the map, Activus has rebuilt a few lurkers
and lings, and has gone after his protoss opponent to the
north, Wang. He arrives on the
scene with about 4 lurkers and starts pounding on outlying
gateways and pylons, and soon has support from Sailr, who's two tanks that fled like
Spaniards earlier are back. They don't have seige, but even
unseiged tanks can deal out a fair amount of damage. Seeing
the bind his partner is in,  who is notably lacking detection, Louder sends an army of about 8
goons and 6 zealots to the rescue. Because of the long travel
time, Team "Hey I know you!" is able to destroy several
buildings, and some of Wang's
standing army, but in due time Louder arrives, and because by this
time there is a Team Wang observer on the scene, the attack is
shut down. While this is happening, Activus expands to the 3 patch 1
vent node below him, and sets up a couple sunkens as defence.
Unfortunately
for Activus though, znzf has been boiling up an army of
zealots and goons with a heavy bias to zealots, and is running
over Activus brand new
expansion. The sunkens and lings offer minimal resistance, the
disadvantage of their small numbers exponentially increased
due to znzf's 1:1:3
upgrades.
As if this was not enough, Louder's army of 0:0:3 goons, DTs
and zealots has pushed on by Wang's base, and is coming for a
counterattack. Aided by Wang's
observer, the force decimates Activus' troop count, but at the
cost of every protoss troop in the regiment. Activus is hanging on by a
thread.
 And here come the scissors. Fresh from smashing
Activus' first and only
expansion, znzf plows into
the south side of Activus'
base with an army of almost two control groups of zealots, 4
or 5 dragoons, as well as a templar or two. Hit one after
another by two sizeable protoss armies, both of which are
outupgrading you is not a good position for anyone to be in,
but least of all a zerg player who is being outresourced to
boot. Activus gets run over
rather quickly by this latest ground force of znzf, and after a GG like a real
gentleman, leaves the game, leaving Sailr alone on his little rock in the
middle. It is now a 2 v 2 v 0.5 folks.
But
alpha cares not for the woes
of Sailr, he cares about 1
thing, and 1 thing only. Money. He needs more of it. So he
starts a CC at the bottom left corner mineral only expansion.
His partner, znzf, decides to
expand as well, and takes the node he just recently released
from Activus. In fact, with
the assault force that rammed violence down the ex-expansion's
throat was a probe. He had been planning this folks. It was
pre-meditated expansion I tell you.
With a scouting
observer, Wang discovers this
budding expansion, and decides that he has to do something to
even the odds. He plunks down a couple more gates at his main,
another at his upper left expansion, and starts raising the
bar of troop production. Also during this time Sailr, the man in the middle, has
decided to expand to another center node, and does so,
travelling to the node directly counter-clockwise from
him.
 Now I'm sure all of you remember the crack squad
of elite warriors that took down Activus, right? Well, they are
continuing on their rounds, and have just discovered Wang's corner expansion. Because 2
cannons and 1 templar that forgets to storm is NOT enough to
hold off ~20 zealots, the expansion dies in record time. The
probes of the base make a break for it out the back door
towards Wang's main, and they
are the only units that survive the great blitz of '84.
About now I noticed a curious detail about this
expansion. It has a citadel and a templar archives stored near
the back of it. "Why," I thought to myself, "Would Wang have 2 archives? Perhaps this
is a backup..." So I checked his main, and discovered no
archives there. My thinking cap on high, my brain soon reached
a conclusion. Wang was losing
his templar tech!! Hahaha, go Wang. He did soon rebuild it all in
his main, but I still thought it was damn funny. It was a good
thing for him that he built those 6 or 7 DT's in his main
while he still had the tech for them.
 And why was it a good thing? Well, about now znzf has started a massive attack
on Wang's main base. All of
the troops leftover from killing Wang's upper left expansion pour
down the ramp and into Wang's
backyard, and a slightly smaller number of troops flow in
through the front choke. The defending troops and cannons are
destroyed very quickly, and soon the troops start pounding on
random buildings. But for some reason they are still dying at
a rather alarming rate... How can this be? They've killed all
of the defenders... Hmm, I know, maybe it's those ~8 DTs that
Louder and Wang have been storing that are
killing zealots faster than an Irishman knocks back shots.
Unfortunately for znzf, he
doesn't have any cloak detection either. After chastising his
partner and getting him to scan, znzf does manage to kill a couple
DTs, but there were just too many for him, and therefore Wang manages to retake his
main.
 After driving the offenders off, Louder decides that it is time for
a counterattack. Therefore he selects 12 of his best speed
upgraded 0:0:3 zealots, and goes for the first expansion that
znzf took, the mineral only
one. He manages to arrive and kill a couple cannons, but soon
afterwards znzf had some
garrison troops on the scene, and the attack went down.
 Seeing this attack fail, Louder decides that instead of
trying to get rid of znzf, he
will try and get rid of Sailr.
After loading up 2 shuttles of 8 zealots, he flies directly
into Sailr's "main" and unloads,
taking the turrets in stride. The 8 zealot squad is too much
for Sailr as he has only a few
fighting troops (including the AWESOME artillery power of 2
wraiths), and so Sailr's "main"
explodes in a fiery mess. The only reminder that Sailr ever had a base there is a lone
wraith unleashing his fury on a slightly threatened wraith.
Fortunately for Sailr, he does
make it out with his floatable buildings, so his rax, a CC,
and his factory survive.
 In these few short minutes between znzf's last attack on Wang and now, he has already built
up another rather large army of zealots, dragoons, and DTs.
Because he knows that Wang is
hurting for economy right now, he goes on another frontal
attack. Wang, because he has
been expanding to the mineral only base just to the north of
his main, has a lower than usual troop count, and because of
this and the fact that znzf
is heartily out-upgrading him with 2:2:3, Wang is forced to rely on the aid of
his partner to get him out of the situation.
While this
is happening, and putting his intense skills of 'not watching
the pretty attack colours' to work, znzf has expanded to the resource
patch previously owned by Wang, the upper left corner, and has
built a stargate there for unknown reasons. Presumably for
corsairs, but we can only guess at this point.
But Team
Wang has no interest in the guessing game, they want answers.
They want action. They want excitement. Are they going to get
it? You bet your ass they are. With the troops remaining from
the recent defence at Wang's
main base, Louder and Wang load up their techno assault
suits and head on down for a good time at znzf's easternmost node, the one
that he took over from Activus
so many minutes ago. This assault goes well, with the
dragoon/zealot combination destroying many a probe and several
a cannon. Even a couple of units in znzf's rapidly regrowing army fall
prey to the oncoming train that is Team Wang, but eventually
something interesting appears on the horizon.
BCs. 4 of
them, with science vessel support. Yes, it would appear that
the artist formerly known as alpha has reached his tech goal,
and is patrolling it ever so lumberingly overtop of znzf's base in order to save it.
After some short lived right click madness, the attack is put
down.
In the short time of rebuilding for all players,
several things happen. First, Wang expands to the central resource
node to the north of his existing island expansion. Also,
Louder expands three times in
these few minutes, once to Sailr's ex-ex-main (the one that died
to DTs), again to the small resource node just above his main,
and finally to the empty main below him. Also, alpha has built a CC at the 3 patch
1 vent node to the west of his main. Another interesting thing
to note here is that all of the players' principle bases have
been mined out, as well as znzf's first mineral only
expansion. Oh wait, not all of the players' mains have been
mined out. Sailr's hasn't, but
for the purposes of this survey he doesn't really count
because he's been moving around more than a group of gypsies
on the run from the FBI.
By now, because the players
are like 6 year old hyperactive children on speed running
around with dangerous pointy objects (like scissors), the time
of buildup is over. Team "Hey I don't know you!!" is moving
out with a large army of dragoons, zealots and DT's with BC
support, and they are going clockwise around the map at this
point. By accident, I assume, alpha kills a turret of Sailr's that he got a little too close
to, but I made him leave before he got really
dangerous.
What followed that was what the Latin call a
'Battlius Gigantius Enormousii' for Wang's main. About a control group
of zealots, another of dragoons, and a couple token DT's with
4 BC's and an SV pour into Wang's front door, and Wang's standing army crumples like a
paper doll in probe's massive ham like fist. Eventually Louder comes to the rescue and
cleans out znzf's army and
forces alpha's BCs to
retreat, but the damage has been done. Wang has lost everything but his two
island expansions and his mineral only at the top of the
map.
At
this point a rather interesting battle takes place in and
around Louder's base at the
resource patch previously viewed by Sailr. znzf had 3 goons and 1 zealot
patrolling around looking for expansions, and discovered Louder's naked exp. These 4
warriors smash all the probes, and proceed to run by the nexus
without trying to kill it, apparently just trying to do some
damage and get out before the cavalry arrive. Unfortunately
they get a little stuck, as Dragoons are prone to do, and a
Louder force of ~12 goons
charges in single file. 1 of the znzf goons dies quickly, as does
the zealot. In order to cut their losses, znzf retreats his dragoons, and at
the same time, thinking that there are more attackers than
there actually are, Louder
retreats as well. I thought it was funny that 2 goons held off
12.
Just to the northwest things were happening too.
The 2 alpha BCs that were
still alive after the assault on Wang's base pushed farther on to the
mineral only expansion owned by Wang. With 1 science vessel for
support, and a commander that isn't afraid to use yamato on
cannons, the expansion begins to fall. Therefore Wang decides to cut his losses and
flee his probes to Louder's
nearest expansion... that is the one that was under attack as
outlined in the previous paragraph. To make matters worse, 2
znzf DTs snuck through the
lines of the large blockade that was standing guard at the
choke just past Wang's
ex-main, and they started knifing up the ~20 probes that had
escaped. Out of the frying pan, into the fire as they
say.
 But Louder isn't
going to take all of this lying down. When the fact that alpha had BCs first became apparent
to Team Wang, Louder laid
down 4 stargates at his northernmost expansion. With these he
has produced a whopping 3 unupgraded scouts, and they fly
northwest to meet their destiny head on, that is to say, to
fight the 3 vigilant battlecruisers that are in the process of
destroying Wang's nexus. In a
mighty clash involving almost 8 units, these forces square
off, and after reinforcement scouts trickle in 1 by 1,
eventually the battlecruisers die, despite the excessive
dmatrixing.
Assuming
his opponents are off guard due to their recent losses, znzf takes this opportunity to
expand to the small resource node just to the east of Wang's ex-main. He maynards a dozen
or so of his probes over, and also sets an honour guard of 8
or so 2:2:3 dragoons.
But what has Wang been doing all this time? He's
had 2 islands to himself for quite a while, so he must be up
to something. Of course he is. And that something is carriers.
He has 2 right now, as well as several corsairs. Somehow
sensing this upswing in the number of troops, Sailr decides to float a CC over to
the island expansion just to the south of him. He is still
building wraiths out of two ports, and has about 8, although
he has done nothing with them aside from garrison duty so
far.
Shortly after this, Louder learns a valuable lesson.
Lone scouts are not tough against large groups of fully
upgraded dragoons, even under the best circumstances. I'm
sorry Louder. I really
am.
A dimly lit memorial service follows the death of
this valiant scout, and on both sides of the teams of the
titans, forces build up behind a dam of thinly disguised
diplomacy. Suddenly the wall collapses. A massive clash erupts
at the chokepoint just to the west of Sailr's first main base. Dragoons spit
their firey plasma, DT's leap and attack amongst the warriors,
unseen by most, and storm splits the air in a cacophony of
sound and light. Reinforcements pour in from both sides and
serve to solidify the trench warfare. At first it appears that
znzf has the advantage, but
with a mighty cry Louder's
zealots dig in deeper and force the enemy to retreat long
enough for another wave of fresh fighters to arrive. Again
znzf looks to be able to push
through, but is thrown back by brave zealots. Finally, with a
3rd wave of znzf dragoons,
they make it through the chokepoint and start attacking Louder's stargate base. There are 8
dragoon attackers against only 3 defenders. However, Louder has 2 templar stationed
there, and the storms they unleash turn the tide of the
battle. It eventually comes down to two heavily injured znzf dragoons chipping away at the
stargates, but then they too are cut down by a well placed
cannon. This stretch of the map has truly been a second
Thermopylae, with so few holding off so many.
Note:
This is one of the two coolest pictures in the BR, so get a
good look.
But enough about serious
things, lets go take a look at what Wang and his crazy escapades. In the
top right corner of the map, there is a mineral only
expansion. Wang decided he
wanted it. So he sent his little probe over, layed down 2
pylons, presumably for cannons and gateways, and then put down
a nexus. Well, tried to put down a nexus. He accidentally
blocked the spot for a nexus, and so he couldn't. He actually
couldn't at all. So he abandoned the effort. I laughed.
Hard.
 Another interesting moment came when somewhere,
somehow, a Louder probe came
outta nowhere, made a nexus at the top mineral only expansion
(previously belonging to Wang), and made a nexus. Eventually
znzf discovered this, but
instead of sending a couple goons to take care of it, he
decided it would be infinitely more stylish to build pylons
and cannons on either side of it. So he did, and replaced the
nexus with one of his own. I still say it would've been easier
to just repaint it white, but that's just me. And I don't know
anything.
Back to the real game though. While
znzf was attacking Louder's stargate base, alpha was smashing his way across
the other side of the map with BCs, and attacked Louder's expansion in the
previously empty start position. After destroying all traces
of Louder's prescence at this
base, Wang shows up to save
the day with 6 carriers and as many corsairs. They drive the
BCs back to their homeland, and Louder quickly retakes his
expansion.
 In retaliation, and wanting to take advantage of
his carrier surprise, he quickly heads to alpha's main, swooping in from the
east. He picks off some outlying turrets and a couple lone
gols, but soon the 6 BC doom squad shows up on the doorstep,
and after destroying a couple of them and injuring the rest,
Wang is forced to retreat. It
wasn't a total waste though, because the attack was cost
effective.
On the other side of the map, there's a
doings a transpirin'!! znzf
has just launched yet another attack on Louder's stargate base, this one
consisting of about 12 dragoons or so. The defenders are very
few, only 3 dragoons and a cannon, and some funny looking guys
with big headdresses that kinda float around. There looks to
be about ten of them. Things don't look too good for Louder. And here come the dragoons.
They are picking off the stargates that are out of cannon
range now, and... yes, two stargates are down. They are now
engaging Louder's goons, and
here comes one of the floaty headdress men... He's waving his
hands around... Oh my god! Lightning over the attackers! They
are dying in droves!! More lightning! And more! And now they
are retreating with their large metallic rotating balls
between their legs! Wow! Those 10 lightning guys really helped
out. You say they are what? Templar? You don't
say...
(Editor's Note: Yes, there were 10
templar and 3 dragoons defending. And they weren't
hallucinations. Absolutely fabulous.)
With his now
formidable economy coming from 10 mineral patches and 2 gas
vents, Sailr has been busy in
the middle of the map, and I don't mean that he's been getting
bus-ey. He's been building wraiths in his spare time, using a
mail order kit that he got from the back of a comic book
entitled 'The Adventures of Mephisto Jones - On Mars!'. He has
about 16 of the Memphis Belle wannabes, and they are gathered
in the very center of the map. After discovering that Wang has an expansion on the center
island as well, he decides that it is time to make himself a
factor in the game. He has sat on the sidelines for far too
long, and it's killing time.
[insert Teenage
Rampage, We're Not Gonna Take It, the theme from the Rock (the
Sean Connery movie, not the wrestler) or Slaughterama here in
order to set the mood]
 After grouping his death squad of doom wraiths of
fire and killing, Sailr charges
his boys into Wang's
easternmost island expansion, first destroying the 2 cannons,
and then murdering all the busily mining probes. Without even
a pause, Sailr zips his children
of the night out of the way before Wang can retailate with carriers and
corsairs, and flies up to Wang's northern expansion. He
commands his fearsome fighters to smash through more of the
semi-deadly peons, but must pull back as Wang sends his 6 carriers to deal
with the newfound opposition. But what's this? The carriers
are refusing to attack the wraiths for some reason... Oh I
see. They are cloaked, and the carriers have no observer
support. OOPS!! Wang swears
enough to make a sailor blush (pun intended), and retreats his
big sausages back to his central island expansion.
Unfortunately on the way there they lose 3 of their number to
the grinning gemini missiles. Sailr goes back to the task of
finishing off Wang's northern
island expansion, and smiles, knowing that he has turned the
tide of this game, and has wrought himself cold hard vengeance
in the process.
Now, I'm sure you ALL remember me
mentioning that znzf built a
stargate at his top left hand corner expansion, and it would
appear that we've finally discovered what he is planning on
using it for. Arbiters. Ohhh yeah. About now one lazily drifts
out of its warp cocoon and floats along the air currents
toward alpha's main, nearly
coming in contact with Sailr's
turrets at his principle base. Normally I think that Sailr would've noticed this and taken
some action against it, but unfortunately he is a little tied
up at the moment, what with the 6 carriers bearing down on his
eastern flank.
 Wraiths are cloaking and diving valiantly, but to
the surprise of everyone, wraiths can dish out air to air
damage, but they sure can't take it. It would seem that
because of Wang's observer
hovering around his carriers, the wraiths cloaking ability is
useless. Therefore, although the brazen pilots manage to
destroy 4 of the carriers and heavily damage another, Wang still wins the
battle.
With the 2 still inflated blimps, Wang moves onto Sailr's expansion and starts pounding
on the physics lab and science facility there. (Editor's
Note: Hey Bill Nye!! Where's your inertia now?!)
Eventually though, through sheer use of marines and his 1 BC,
Sailr evicts the naughty protoss
armada and repairs his buildings.
On the other side of
the map, an interesting battle of delusion has been taking
place. Louder is pushing up
the back route and is bearing down on znzf's northernmost mineral only
expansion with roughly 12 dragoons. znzf has only 3 dragoons and 2
cannons defending, but manages to drive off the attackers by
hiding around a cliff and taking pot shots at Louder's goons. Apparently Louder assumed that there were far
more lying in wait, and so decided not to push, thereby not
destroying znzf's exp, even
though he could have easily. I think znzf has been reading the Art of
War or something...
Either
that, or Louder just wants to
kill znzf's OTHER expansion
in that area. Louder has sent
his massive 12 templar pimp squad along with an obs and 6-8
dragoons to the west across the plains where Wang once roamed free, and he has
been wiping out everything he can, as fast as he can. znzf and alpha have been doing the same,
going east from the bottom, wiping out Louder's expansions with a
combination of dragoons, zealots, BC's, and 1 arbiter. The
incredible volume of troops that znzf is attacking with has
basically sealed Louder's
fate, but he refuses to give in. However, another crushing
blow to his morale comes when one of znzf's templar gets off a storm
right in the middle of the 12 templar pimp squad, killing 6
and injuring 3. Talk about mad cost effective... 75 mana being
traded for 300 minerals, 900 gas, and some random damage on
several templar. Nice job.
But even this doesn't
eliminate him completely. Facing off against the 3+ control
groups of znzf's dragoons
pushing towards Louder's main
are about 5 templar and 6 dragoons who are not ready to die
just yet. Through some absolutely massive storm abuse, Louder manages to inflict an insane
amount of casualties on znzf's juggernaut. In all
seriousness, about 15 or 16 dragoons died to a third of that
number in templar. But even so, it is in vain. Louder's forces on the other side
of the map have been routed, and his main is now dying. Louder is, for all intents and
purposes, out of the game. He fought the good fight though,
and his allies and enemies will not soon forget it.
Note:
This is the second really cool looking picture. Unfortunately
this is also the last.
However, there
still is the matter of Wang
and Sailr in the middle. Wang goes down relatively easily, as
his 8 probe economy with no cannons does not hold up well
against 8 of alpha's 3:3
wraiths, but Sailr is somewhat
trickier. It would appear that it is time to pull out the big
guns for this one. So team "Hey I don't know you!"
does.
 Cruising in at wavetop altitude comes a lone
spacecraft. Sleek in it's design and suave in it's grace, it
shimmers overtop the twilight landscape. A gentle ripple in
the air seems to follow it, and a tingle runs through the
spine of the wraith pilots. Looking to the south, they see
this otherworldly craft come to a hovering rest overtop of
some bare ground in the terran encampment. It seems to be
absolutely inert, with no sound accompanying it's enigmatic
visage. Suddenly, without warning, the space below it seems to
split apart, and all at once the ground becomes a blurry
cacophony of plasma. The arbiter has arrived and has spelled
Sailr's doom.
 And so ends a titanic and epic battle, rivaled only
by the war I had earlier today when I was trying to put on my
pants. Let's check out the scores, shall we? Yes. We
shall.
Post Game Reflections, Meditations, and Lessons
Learned:
1) The only way to beat a
meatgrinder is with a bigger meat grinder. Or storm.
2)
Keep your probes in gear. Never did znzf has an idle probe, and he had
40-50 of the little buggers.
3) As zerg, you need an
expansion, especially against 2 protoss.
4) Cliffs are
for tanks. repeat after me, cliffs are for tanks. (I was
surprised there weren't any cliffings in this game)
5)
Get detection, please?
6) Keep the pressure
on.
7) 90 mineral patches on the map were totally
depleted, meaning 135000 minerals were harvested. That's a
lot. The minimap shows the mined out expansions (in black),
the functional ones, and the 4 that were unclaimed at the end
of the game (they are blue).
8)
Although the game seemed somewhat one sided, I maintain that
if Sailr hadn't been a vengeful bastard and taken Wang out
with wraiths and had instead focused on znzf, thereby leaving
Wang's carrier fleet alive, then the game could've swung the
other way.
9) A lot happened in this game at the same
time, which is why I force my poor old computer to exert
itself long enough to make an animated minimap. 2 or 3 crashes
and reboots later, here it is.
And
one final set of statistics for your reading enjoyment
regarding the clock picture...
Number of hours spent on it: 2
Number of layers involved in it: 15
Number of times Photoshop screwed me over by deciding to
add stupid little lines on magical special 'impossible to
find' layers: 13
Size of the first draft: 4.6 megs
Size of the second draft: 1.2 megs
Number of drafts I made before it became a reasonable size
(330kb): 6
Number of people I bragged and showed it to after it was
finished: 5
How proud of it I am on a scale of 1-10:
Very.
And with that, I shall leave you in
meditation dear reader.
Post Post Game Show
What
follows is a list of all the other Planet of the Apes
bootleg/unofficial movies, shows, and merchandise that was not
listed previously.
Stuck in the Middle With the Planet of the Apes
Stairway to the Planet of the Apes
Smells Like the Planet of the Apes - A Comedy
Planet of the Apes Freedom Concert with the Beastie Boys
Planet of the Apes Medical Tapes for Students - Dr. Xeos
Having a Heart Attack While
Debating the Issue of Evolution
Planet of the Apes - Dr. Xeos Funeral Video - The People's
Ape Doctor
The Planet of the Apes Will Never Die
The Planet of the Apes - We Promise This is the Last One
Planet of the Apes - The Reunion Movie
Planet of the Apes Director Fatally Shot - The Following
Trial - A Video For Law Classes
The Planet of the Apes - A Look Back - A Documentary
A Funny Thing Happend on the way to the Planet of the Apes
Fiddler on the Planet of the Apes
Romeo and the Planet of the Apes
The Planet of the Apes and Juliet
Pirates of the Planet of the Apes
H.M.S. Planet of the Apes
The Three Penny Planet of the Apes
Sherlock Holmes and the Planet of the Apes
Saving Private Planet of the Apes
The Eightfold Path to the Planet of the Apes
The Book of the Planet of the Apes
Kama Sutra (Planet of the Apes Edition)
Moby Ape
Treasure Planet of the Apes
The Lord of the Planet of the Apes
Catcher in the Planet of the Apes
19-Apey-4
So I Married a Planet of the Apes
The Merry Adventures of Robin and the Planet of the Apes
Planet of the Apes: Alpha Centauri
ApeCraft
Planet of the Apes 3: Arena
Planet of the Apes Tournament
Planet of the Apes - Travelling Without Moving
Planet of the Apes and the Bandits
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Planet of the Apes
Anne of Green Planet of the Apes
The Wizard of the Planet of the Apes
Alice in the Planet of the Apes
Snow White and the Seven Planet of the Apes
The Lawnmower Ape
Lionel Hampton and His New York City Planet of the Ape
Band
Fear and Loathing in the Planet of the Apes
Frankenplanet of the Apes
Bill and Ted's Excellent Planet of the Apes
Guiness Book of Planet of the Apes
Ender's Planet of the Apes
Apemopolitan
Rolling Ape
Playape
USA Todape
PC Aper
Weekly World Ape
Thelonius Ape
Charlie "Apeman" Parker
Pikachape
So I Married an Ape Murderer
Apestin Powers
A Tale of Two Planets of the Apes
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Planet of the Apes
Apanity Fair
Dante's Planet of the Apes
"To sleep, perchance to ape."
"Ward, talk to the ape."
"But are you still master of your own ape?"
"But Ralph! I've got the ape!"
"Speak softly, and carry a big ape."
A complete
guide to all of these sayings, movies, television shows,
songs, action figures, and characters can be found in 'The
Planet of the Apes for Dummies'.
And with that, I
disappear for real.
"And
then one day, I came home and found myself with another
hand."
-George Carlin on
Masturbation
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