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Each week, I will take a hard look into the world of Battle.Net's forums and I will post
one or two posts that seem worthy enough to be talked about.
This One's For The Protoss:
Author: WildGordita
URL: http://www.battle.net/forums/starcraft-strategy/posts/tx/45233.shtml
Last night, I went out and looked around for high rated players who
claimed they could play terran very well. I find a guy and I host a
game on Lost Temple and intentionally choose Protoss. And then the game begins...
I start at 3:00 and he starts at 12:00. Once again I assumed he would go Heavy Metal
(mainly because I have not played a single decent person who did not go HM). I went Pylon
(8), Assimilator (9), Gateway (11), Core (14), and then a Pylon (15) for super quick tech.
And I scouted after starting my gateway and found the terran starting his happy little
wallin. Then the terran sent out an SCV to scout, but I didn't have any zealots yet to
block my ramp, so I stuck a probe in the middle of my ramp. The SCV tried to kill my
probe, but all scared when I brought another probe to fight it off (fear the probes
muahahhah =). After I saw the terran start his factory, I tried to run my probe back, but
the wallin was already complete, so I just mined some of the terran's minerals and then
let my probe die.
A couple seconds later, my Core finished, and then I decided to do
something totally unorthodoxed. Not a Robo Facility, nor a Citadel, I built a Stargate!
Yes, a Stargate and a Zealot. When my zealot
finished, I queued up a Dragoon, and had my zealot start pounding
away at the terran's supply depot. As I expected (and wanted), the
terran sent over an SCV to waste minerals repairing the depot. When my Stargate finished,
I queued up the long ignored Scout! Yes, a Scout! I queued up another Dragoon, and then I
sent a probe down to the 6:00 starting position to start an expansion.
When my first Scout came out, I sent it right over to the terran's
minerals and started harassing his SCVs. His first tank came out at that point too, so I
retreated my zealot out of his sight and left my dragoon pounding at his depot. Sadly,
Scouts do so little ground damage that he just repaired his SCVs without losing any. I
didn't expect to kill anything, but as I DID expect, he immediately started an Engineering
Bay. And when that finished, he started putting up 3 turrets around his minerals. So I
just took my 3 scouts and attacked his tanks. Although I didn't kill anything because of
the repairing SCVs, but I did manage to annoy the hell out of him =)
I built a few more zealots and transfered some probes to my new
expansion. And then I started another nexus at my expansion. By the time the terran got
enough turrets up to stop my Scout harassment, I had about 5 scouts, 4 zealots, and 2
dragoons while the terran had about 5 tanks and 4 vultures. I sat my scouts over the cliff
of his expansion to catch any "brave" dropships, and then I plopped down a Fleet
Beacon right next to my main nexus. I wanted to make sure he saw it when he scanned me =)
I then layed down 4 gateways at my 6:00 expansion along with a forge. When my 2nd
expansion became operational, and then I layed down another Stargate and started
researching DWeb while building corsairs.
At about this time, the terran scanned my nexus, but I guess he
didn't try to drop anything at my main because he didn't see many
probes, so I moved my Scouts to the cliff of my 2nd expansion. And then THE TERRAN MADE A
MOVE. He lifted his barracks and moved out with about 10 tanks, 6 vultures, and 6 goliaths
(w/ range as I found out the hard way). I harassed his tanks a little bit as they were
trekking to my base and managed to kill the leading one before he got his goliaths almost
killed a scout. And he was heading straight for my base.
When he got to my expansion, he tore down the one defending cannon. But his units paused
in the really narrow area of the 3:00 expansion area, so I sent all my probes at his units
(futile of course). And kept them in that little area until my corsairs got there to DWeb
the tanks. And then my 12+ zealots and 12 dragoons finished them up with a nice
two-pronged attack from my base and my 6:00 expansion.
I took 2 more expansions, and then the terran surrendered.
Morals of the Story:
"Scouts DON'T suck if you use them CORRECTLY"
"Heavy Metal doesn't always work"
"Imbalances don't matter, it's the Strategies that matter"
"Don't be mindless and predictable either"
For the whole game, I was not only in control, I was guiding the
terran's movements too.
1) My initial scouts forced him to get anti-air, which slowed down
the terran for getting an expansion, more ground units, and possibly dropships.
2) By laying down a fleat beacon and another stargate right next to
my nexus, I lead the terran to believe that I was going air when in
fact I was going mainly ground at my expansion. As a result, the
Terran shifted to goliaths instead of building more tanks and
vultures.
3) By not seeing any significant ground force, I lead the terran to
believe that he had a "window" of opportunity to attack me
before I got a decent amount of air power out.
All of this was intentional. I hope it shows you that unit imbalances
don't matter, and it's HOW you use the units. And I hope people
realize that there is a great psychological aspect to this game to.
If you can guide your opponent's strategic decisions, it becomes a
lot easier to develop a counter-strategy.
My Comments:
This post brings up some interesting concepts for the Protoss player and
the Starcraft Player to think about. Any tactics that are done early on in a game of
Starcraft will usually effect the moves of another player. Against the common-folk on
B.Net, doing something such as our friend here did with the scout will be efficient.
Leading a player off track by forcing them to adapt to you is outstanding.
The other thing that was clearly noticable in this report is the very powerful
usage of Deception. When you can build units and buildings to totally decieve an opponents
opinion of how to act against you, that's outstanding. Controlling the manuevers of your
opponent is one way that will win you a game of Starcraft.
To Control an opponent is difficult, since in most situations your opponent has
their own opinion and tactic. One way to do this is by attacking them with something that
you 100% expect to fail. For example, let us assume that you are going for a Reaver Drop
but you don't want your opponents to understand this thought. Try rushing your opponent
early on in the game. Give them a false-sense of security when they defeated you and then
bombard them with your Reaver Drop. The key is you are trying to shock an opponent.
To comment on his second point, that imbalances don't matter,
strategies do, is fairly interesting. Most players look at the imbalances as a means of
excuse. I find that it isn't necessarily the strategies that are executed, but how the
strategy IS executed. There is a huge difference. Any strategy in most cases will work
against most other strategies.
The reason I selected this document was very simple. I wanted
you to get a feel for the concept of a typical game of Starcraft that is documented.
Through analyzing the game, you can learn some more things about it then you might not of
realized. Respond to his post and give him some opinions about how he could have improved
his tactic? How the Terran player should of played differently? Perhaps, you know
something totally better.
-SpaceDominator |
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