The results of tonight's gaming?
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Fuck.....
The thing is - 5 of those games were against cheese. For 4 of them, I did a traditional 10 depot 12 rax 13 gas 15 oc opening, and got rolled (one game was an early pool, and he guessed the right direction for lings )..... For the fifth one, I actually did my normal 10 rax 10 depot 11 gas opening (with a delayed OC), which was the game I ended up winning (tried to pylon block my choke and cannon a T, LAWL). That opening hurts my economy, but it stops almost any cheese dead in its tracks.
The other 4 games were standard macro games. And, of course, for all 4 of those, I opted for the 10 rax 10 depot 11 gas opening..... One of them went for a 4 gate build (which I scouted), but put down an expansion instead of attacking as soon as possible..... I was confused why his push was so late, and by the time I noticed he expanded, the expansion had paid off for him, and it was gg..... Even then, these games were generally pretty close..... If I had the better economy from the more traditional opening, I probably would have won 2 of these. One was a big fuckup by me, I was caught out of position, the other was bad scouting. 2 were straight-up macro games where I was barely beaten.
Out of 9 games, I picked the wrong opening 8 times..... Pretty unlucky, but I guess it happens.
I thought I was going to be leaving all this bullshit cheesing behind when I got to Diamond..... When 800-1000 pt diamonds do it to you half the time, it gets annoying..... I mean, in BW, every opening had pros and cons, but depending on what your opponent did, you would usually have different timings where you would be at an advantage, and could exploit it. In SC2, this type of thing seems to be nonexistent..... Some openings seriously hard-counter other openings, mainly because of how much certain units hard-counter other in this game..... At least, that's how it seems to be.....
Also, I played a game as Z tonight (custom game). ZvT, on one of the ICCUP maps. The map was huge (Clone of Peaks of Beakdu). I easily exploited the mobility of Mutas and speedlings long enough to get 5 bases up and running smoothly before he could expand to take his 3rd. At that point, I just rallied shit into his base after attacking him, and won it. It felt, I dunno, easy? I had tons of cash to put down defensive structures everywhere (although I didn't, cause I kept him contained pretty well). I was able to expand, and backstab whenever he tried to move out, and he was forced to put up a lot of missile turrets. Eventually, he had to push out, and I crushed it (not in the first try, it took a 3rd wave or so to mop it up). I think large maps favor Z more than T, because the person I was facing is a random player, who is probably better than me, and I didn't even use queens (just used 2 hatches at each base). I had 200 food for a lot of the game, whereas he was stuck with ~140 at highest.....
And it made me wonder - why, exactly, is there a supply cap at 200? I mean, I've got the resources to make more guys, but I magically can't? It seems kinda dumb, and really punishes macro-play (which is essentially the only way to beat a turtle). It's limiting a player from using an advantage to gain more of an advantage..... I also felt the same in BW, but I didn't get to 200 food very often as Z. And, even then, it didn't seem to be that big of a deal in BW - I played as T as well as Z in BW, and I can't remember ever pushing out in a TvP (while on 3 bases) with more than 170 food..... And tank fights in TvT are so quick.....
It's late, I'm sick, and I'm tired. I'm off to bed.