This blog contains spoilers for SlayerS vs NSHS, 28/05/2012
Intro To skip to the bit about ICCUP feel free to go down quite far. Turns out i got quite misled from this blog's original purpose. I'm okay with that, reminiscing is always fun.
So. This will be my blog for my BW games. I have just finished my university exams, but i am still at university, so i can't play starcraft 2 at the moment due to leaving my desktop at home. My laptop doesn't run starcraft 2 (intentionally to stop me playing and make me work), but now that i am finished, and still gonna be here for a little while, i thought i might as well play some Broodwar.
My Gaming History Let me give you my Starcraft history: Starcraft was my first real game, back in about 1999. My brother Nick and I were given two games by our mum's friend's son. The first was Starcraft, and the second was Alpha Centauri. At first we were scared of Starcraft, so we tried out AC. To give you some idea, we had no idea how games worked. Mouse AND keyboard? Keep dreaming.
VS
Well it turned out, alpha centauri is very hard for a pair of ~8 year olds. So we switched to starcraft.
- - - - Stops writing because the GSTL is crazy right now. I never thought i would suggest that Crank leaves a collosus behind to defend from the infested terrans. Glad to see that maxing out on fully carriers still wins vs everything. - - - -
Where was I? Oh yeah, turns out, starcraft, known as the (second) hardest game of all time (after dwarf fortress) ^^ was considered simple for two kids who wanted to play a game.
- - - - Jjakji playing next? My favourite Terran? Dammit, this blog is gonna go slooooow. I'll keep you updated on how SlayerS vs NSHS goes in these asides - - - -
Why I love Strategy Games So my brother and I like strategy games. Probably the game we played most of all when we were young was Age of Empires 2. Man, i can remember having to uninstall Sim City so that Age of Empires would fit on my mum's laptop. The fact that my shitty phone has 4 times as much hard drive space as that laptop did still blows my mind.
- - - - Jjakji was too good for Crank. Game was pretty standard TvP on antiga. Nothing special. Puma out next. I am not a massive EG fan (not an anti fan either though), but it is good to see him in the GSL studio. PS: Wolf. Seriously. IT IS ONLY HAIR. Dead bits of stuff that sticks out of your head (mostly) and you can do entirely without, as the guy sat next to you is living proof of. - - - -
Anyway, a big part of the reason that my brother and I love strategy games must be because our father was a professional chess player. He died when we were young, but it still remains that the only photo i have of the three of us is me as a baby being taught how to play chess.
Left to Right: Me, someone, probably one of my half siblings, i fail for not knowing who, my father, and my brother Nick.
Starcraft is absolutely the Chess of the 21st century. And i love it. So it turned out that we didn't understand alpha centauri at all, having to right click to open a menu and/or hold the mouse button in order to just move was too complicated for us to fully enjoy at that time.
My time with Starcraft in the 20th century So we played Starcraft, did the campaign mostly with cheats, and spend a lot of time playing UMS maps on battlenet using a 56k modem. Which was badass, because i lot of people were using 28k, and they downloaded things so slowly. Frikkin Noobs.
I'd like to take moment to comment on how gamers are basically the most superstitious group in modern society. If you didn't know, back then, if someone was downloading a map slowly, they would be told to hit F4 in order to make it download faster. (Smart alecs would of course tell them to hit ALT F4.)
WHERE DID THIS RUBBISH COME FROM? Don't get me wrong, we were among those who said this, but it blows my mind.
Later on in my gaming life when i was playing CS1.6 in little lan tournaments, people started obsessing over what was known was "rate hacking", which people claimed lowered the size of hitboxes. Which i was 99.999999% sure was completely wrong. I am not gonna go into what rate actually mean in CS 1.6, and whether it could actually affect game play to a noticeable degree, because i don't know much about it.
- - - - By the by, Jjakji outplayed Puma as well, but i wasn't fully concentrating on the game so i can't say much i'm afraid. Puzzle is up next, who i have been hearing really good things about in interv- NO SURILI! BAD! WRITE THE DAMN BLOG! FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED! - - - -
Sorry about that. I'll stop watching the GSTL (Puzzle vs Jjakji was pretty good to be honest, although there were quite a few mistakes from both sides.) No moar! Sorry again. Where were we? Oh yes. Starcraft. So we would play some, have some fun in custom games, but the only game i ever remember playing 1v1 was against someone who i seem to recall being called Hunter66, and he was dutch. He built lots of Hydras and we were dead in minutes, not understanding how it had happened.
Me and other games Time passes, we played lots of AoE2, even using hotkeys sometimes, pausing the game at the start so we could give commands to each worker separately and then unpausing and letting them work with a smile. I am now gonna skip the next 10 years or so, which was dominated by the following games in more or less chronological order. I have bolded the ones that i loved/still love the most:
By the way, i have only ever owned a PC, so these are all the PC versions.
Counter Strike 1.6 Red Alert 2 Medieval Total War Natural Selection Call of Duty and later United Offensive Dawn of War Command and Conquer Generals Call of Duty 2 World of Warcraft Warcraft 3 (almost uniquely customs, specifically dota, which i have played since a short time before icefrog took over and turned it into dota allstars) Medieval 2 Total War Heroes of Newerth
I played all of the above games pretty much throughout the period of 2002-2010. But i never stopped being excited for Starcraft 2. When Age of Empires 3 came out, i played it for a bit, then decided the 2nd AoE (and even the 1st one) was about 10 times better and lent it to a friend never to see it again.
During all this time, i had vaguely heard that people played starcraft somewhere, but i had never looked into it unfortunately. I really wish i had.
So i signed up to the Beta years ago, and when i was invited to the first test i was so excited. But i still had never played any game seriously online except dota/hon, so i never thought that it would be played competitively. I was such an e-sports scrub.
So SC2 didn't enthrall me straight away, because i didn't realise people could actually be GOOD at this game. So i went back to playing HoN, because i had slowly over the years built a community worth of names on skype that i could talk to/play with.
Getting into Starcraft 2 Then in my first semester of university, watching HoN vods, i heard Breakycpk (number 1 HoN commentator and all around cool/nice guy) mention doing a "Day9 style daily show" for HoN instead of starcraft. Who? I went and checked him out. Fell in love immediately. My favourite ever daily was with HuK, in one of the earlier ones, and HuK said something like:
"All commentators try to give you advice before tournaments, and i nod and listen and shrug it off, but when day9 comes, i sit up and listen, because his advice is gold."
Just found the Daily. October 2010. Huk went carriers in PvT. How times change.
Then Dreamhack Winter happened. It was the first SC2 tournament i ever watched, and the finals were unbelievably tense. If you never saw them, go check them out. At least game 3, Mana down 2-0 to Naama, and turns it into a magic final, all the way from the open bracket.
Since then, i have been in love with this game. Unfortunately, as i said at the start, i don't bring my PC with me to university, so that i cannot play SC2 or HoN. My laptop which I got for free is suitably rubbish for typing this drivel and watching streams. Not enough to run SC2.
But i'm finished now with my second year! Waheeey! But i am not going back home for a few weeks, so still no sc2. Sad face. I also don't have a proper mouse. I am using this to play BW:
Cos i'm hardcore. And i barely have enough money for food/subscriber passes for sc2/beer (in that order) let alone new mice.
SOOOOOOOO.
Hoy En Día (Today in the day in spanish, which i think is a much better expression than saying "present day") On to the reason i was originally wanted to write a blog. I am playing BW! Yay! I just installed ICCUP a few hours ago, and i still have a copy of BW on my Battle.net account (and i have bought maybe 10 copies of the battlechest over the years, so blizzard owes me), so lets play!
I looked up a few general ideas of what to do in BW, and started playing terran.
I do have a slight confession to make. I played a couple of games of BW already this year, with my brother. I played Terran, he played Protoss. We were awful. Tanks are fun. That is about how those games went.
But the fact is, my brother had even less idea what to do then i did. So now i head to the ICCUP. And as i stare into its abyss, (as someone on TL's signiture states) the ICCUP is staring back.
Frankly. I was pleasantly surprised by my play. I played 2 TvTs, lost both (obviously) to D level ranked opponents, but i don't think i looked god awful. I also left them both as soon as i could see that there was no way i was gonna come back, so they were quite short.
I want to upload the replays, but i don't know a good site for BW replays. Any help?
One thing that annoyed me was that i could find no way of checking to see if i built enough workers or anything. Basically the economy screen in the post game screen in SC2 is very useful for measuring skill level. In BW, not so much.
I was hoping some people could give me some kind of game plan for each match up, that involved a very early push off two base. Like the equivalent of a 4-5 gate pressure after a 1 gate expand in PvT in SC2. Because i want to attack, but i am oh so scared
PS micro so hard with thumb ball ^^
I would like to thank anyone who made it all the way to the bottom of this. I don't understand how this happened, i just started playing BW and it made me think about all the time that i have spent playing games, and it took me back to my childhood. I don't watch that much BW, but i really, really, hope it doesn't die.
Edit: Wow, when did my grammar get so bad? Finding pointless commas everywhere. I need to proof read more often! :/
Thank you for the responses, made me feel like i didn't just waste like 2 hours
Okay, well i just found i could upload reps to ICCUP, so here is my 3rd ever game on ICCUP, a fun TvP that i really think i should have won with improved macro/micro.
For gameplans, go to liquipedia. Dodge TvT (no terran on iccup and they almost all dodge it anyway :p), 3/4/5/6 fact off two base TvP after an opening you feel safe with (fake double ideally). As for TvZ, being aggressive off two base is a good gameplan with almost every bio build^^ Enjoy !
On May 28 2012 23:09 corumjhaelen wrote: For gameplans, go to liquipedia. Dodge TvT (no terran on iccup and they almost all dodge it anyway :p), 3/4/5/6 fact off two base TvP after an opening you feel safe with (fake double ideally). As for TvZ, being aggressive off two base is a good gameplan with almost every bio build^^ Enjoy !
Well i have played 2 TvTs and 2 TvPs so far, although i am finding it hard to get games. :/
I lost my last one to 5 dragoons at my front that outranged the bunker after doing a factory expand in a more or less standard way. Should the first tank with siege mode come out quick enough,(ie i did it too slow) or do i have to get an academy and marine range to hold it off?
Siege is too slow. You also don't need the bunker.
Oh, i'm meant to build the CC on the high ground so that the dragoons can't shoot up so easily. That makes sense.
And i just checked the replay and fac was late.
That was actually the build i was trying to copy already
It's a bit outdated, but very safe if you execute it correctly. As for having difficulty finding game, here's the question : did you port forward so that you can host ?
Siege is too slow. You also don't need the bunker.
Oh, i'm meant to build the CC on the high ground so that the dragoons can't shoot up so easily. That makes sense.
And i just checked the replay and fac was late.
That was actually the build i was trying to copy already
It's a bit outdated, but very safe if you execute it correctly. As for having difficulty finding game, here's the question : did you port forward so that you can host ?
No i did not. But maybe i should
Just played a TvZ which was quite frustrating, i was doing quite well pushing into his base, destroyed his nat, but then he got dark swarm and i transitioned into losing to mass ultra :D
My macro so bad, hard to tell how many buildings i need per base. Starting to think the answer is lots and lots.
Edit Just realised i cannot portforward from here, because my landlord owns the internet, and i have no idea what the router is. (the router is next door).
Siege is too slow. You also don't need the bunker.
Oh, i'm meant to build the CC on the high ground so that the dragoons can't shoot up so easily. That makes sense.
And i just checked the replay and fac was late.
That was actually the build i was trying to copy already
It's a bit outdated, but very safe if you execute it correctly. As for having difficulty finding game, here's the question : did you port forward so that you can host ?
No i did not. But maybe i should
Just played a TvZ which was quite frustrating, i was doing quite well pushing into his base, destroyed his nat, but then he got dark swarm and i transitioned into losing to mass ultra :D
My macro so bad, hard to tell how many buildings i need per base. Starting to think the answer is lots and lots.
At D level it takes 10sec to find an opponent if you host. It might take a lot of time to do and it can be frustrating, but it's worth it =) Macroing bio is hard as hell indeed, TvZ/ZvT is the hardest match up mechanically. I think usual amount of production facility on two bases is 6-7 rax, and then 1-2 fact 1-2 port, but you need to get there progressively... and then there's the mech transition problem etc etc^^ Edit : oh yeah that's a problem, you might want to ask him though. You don't need physical access though, so if he let the default password on, you can still do it.
Siege is too slow. You also don't need the bunker.
Oh, i'm meant to build the CC on the high ground so that the dragoons can't shoot up so easily. That makes sense.
And i just checked the replay and fac was late.
That was actually the build i was trying to copy already
It's a bit outdated, but very safe if you execute it correctly. As for having difficulty finding game, here's the question : did you port forward so that you can host ?
No i did not. But maybe i should
Just played a TvZ which was quite frustrating, i was doing quite well pushing into his base, destroyed his nat, but then he got dark swarm and i transitioned into losing to mass ultra :D
My macro so bad, hard to tell how many buildings i need per base. Starting to think the answer is lots and lots.
At D level it takes 10sec to find an opponent if you host. It might take a lot of time to do and it can be frustrating, but it's worth it =) Macroing bio is hard as hell indeed, TvZ/ZvT is the hardest match up mechanically. I think usual amount of production facility on two bases is 6-7 rax, and then 1-2 fact 1-2 port, but you need to get there progressively... and then there's the mech transition problem etc etc^^ Edit : oh yeah that's a problem, you might want to ask him though. You don't need physical access though, so if he let the default password on, you can still do it.
TvP, lost to mass dragoons again, and i feel it is mostly due to positioning, maybe with better tank positioning and a bit of a wall to constrict space at my nat i would have won.
Siege is too slow. You also don't need the bunker.
Oh, i'm meant to build the CC on the high ground so that the dragoons can't shoot up so easily. That makes sense.
And i just checked the replay and fac was late.
That was actually the build i was trying to copy already
It's a bit outdated, but very safe if you execute it correctly. As for having difficulty finding game, here's the question : did you port forward so that you can host ?
No i did not. But maybe i should
Just played a TvZ which was quite frustrating, i was doing quite well pushing into his base, destroyed his nat, but then he got dark swarm and i transitioned into losing to mass ultra :D
My macro so bad, hard to tell how many buildings i need per base. Starting to think the answer is lots and lots.
At D level it takes 10sec to find an opponent if you host. It might take a lot of time to do and it can be frustrating, but it's worth it =) Macroing bio is hard as hell indeed, TvZ/ZvT is the hardest match up mechanically. I think usual amount of production facility on two bases is 6-7 rax, and then 1-2 fact 1-2 port, but you need to get there progressively... and then there's the mech transition problem etc etc^^ Edit : oh yeah that's a problem, you might want to ask him though. You don't need physical access though, so if he let the default password on, you can still do it.
You can "cheat" your way past bio. Like get 1 rax straight into vessels to defend vs mutas. works great if you wall off nat. And after mutas you can transfer straight to mech and abuse its OP :3
Siege is too slow. You also don't need the bunker.
Oh, i'm meant to build the CC on the high ground so that the dragoons can't shoot up so easily. That makes sense.
And i just checked the replay and fac was late.
That was actually the build i was trying to copy already
It's a bit outdated, but very safe if you execute it correctly. As for having difficulty finding game, here's the question : did you port forward so that you can host ?
No i did not. But maybe i should
Just played a TvZ which was quite frustrating, i was doing quite well pushing into his base, destroyed his nat, but then he got dark swarm and i transitioned into losing to mass ultra :D
My macro so bad, hard to tell how many buildings i need per base. Starting to think the answer is lots and lots.
At D level it takes 10sec to find an opponent if you host. It might take a lot of time to do and it can be frustrating, but it's worth it =) Macroing bio is hard as hell indeed, TvZ/ZvT is the hardest match up mechanically. I think usual amount of production facility on two bases is 6-7 rax, and then 1-2 fact 1-2 port, but you need to get there progressively... and then there's the mech transition problem etc etc^^ Edit : oh yeah that's a problem, you might want to ask him though. You don't need physical access though, so if he let the default password on, you can still do it.
You can "cheat" your way past bio. Like get 1 rax straight into vessels to defend vs mutas. works great if you wall off nat. And after mutas you can transfer straight to mech and abuse its OP :3
Well, i am not really looking to win games, just have fun with Broodwar, and as a Protoss Sc2 player, i am enjoying having stimmed marines :D
How do i know when to transition? Do i need to be scanning for hive tech?
Siege is too slow. You also don't need the bunker.
Oh, i'm meant to build the CC on the high ground so that the dragoons can't shoot up so easily. That makes sense.
And i just checked the replay and fac was late.
That was actually the build i was trying to copy already
It's a bit outdated, but very safe if you execute it correctly. As for having difficulty finding game, here's the question : did you port forward so that you can host ?
No i did not. But maybe i should
Just played a TvZ which was quite frustrating, i was doing quite well pushing into his base, destroyed his nat, but then he got dark swarm and i transitioned into losing to mass ultra :D
My macro so bad, hard to tell how many buildings i need per base. Starting to think the answer is lots and lots.
At D level it takes 10sec to find an opponent if you host. It might take a lot of time to do and it can be frustrating, but it's worth it =) Macroing bio is hard as hell indeed, TvZ/ZvT is the hardest match up mechanically. I think usual amount of production facility on two bases is 6-7 rax, and then 1-2 fact 1-2 port, but you need to get there progressively... and then there's the mech transition problem etc etc^^ Edit : oh yeah that's a problem, you might want to ask him though. You don't need physical access though, so if he let the default password on, you can still do it.
You can "cheat" your way past bio. Like get 1 rax straight into vessels to defend vs mutas. works great if you wall off nat. And after mutas you can transfer straight to mech and abuse its OP :3
Well, i am not really looking to win games, just have fun with Broodwar, and as a Protoss Sc2 player, i am enjoying having stimmed marines :D
How do i know when to transition? Do i need to be scanning for hive tech?
I don't think even Flash has a definite answer to this question. But you definitely need to scan for hive tech to make good decisions^^ A usual timing to attack is to get to the nat right before consume finishes for defilers. (i don't want to give bad advice so I won't say more) And yeah, you could have better results with straight up mech for instance too, but let's be honest, bio tvz is FUN :D
Unless something's changed, this is pretty good for uploading replays: http://repdepot.net (It's getting blocked at work.)
One thing that annoyed me was that i could find no way of checking to see if i built enough workers or anything. Basically the economy screen in the post game screen in SC2 is very useful for measuring skill level. In BW, not so much. For this, might I recommend BW Chart http://bwchart.teamliquid.net/
i want to play more bw but i lack motivation maybe you need a sparing partner i prefer someone to train... laddering only is boring to me just send me a msg if you need one
Here is one that i just played. I lost basically to a reaver drop that i didn't deal with fast enough. And then there was indecision as to whether i should counter or not. Then i got caught unsieged. Basically. Things didn't go so well for me My micro was much better i think in the small engagements though
Ahah, just watched the replay. Apart from the fact that your build execution wasn't very slick I think (I don't play terran, so Ican't really give you precise advice), your tank positionning was a bit suicidal, especially as he was going for a lot of early gateways. You need something to protect your tanks : put some on the cliff in your base : they can defend your nat forever if toss has no shuttle, and make a simcity with your rax (float it at nat) and some depots. And unless you scout touroughly, you need earlier ebay/turrets than that I think. Of yeah, and after put some mines down as soon as you can to protect your nat too (and when you get better, everywhere on the map for scouting/being annoying). You don't really need goliaths that early normally too. Hope this helps ! Edit : and yeah, siege your first tank as soon as you can.
Ahah, just watched the replay. Apart from the fact that your build execution wasn't very slick I think (I don't play terran, so Ican't really give you precise advice), your tank positionning was a bit suicidal, especially as he was going for a lot of early gateways. You need something to protect your tanks : put some on the cliff in your base : they can defend your nat forever if toss has no shuttle, and make a simcity with your rax (float it at nat) and some depots. And unless you scout touroughly, you need earlier ebay/turrets than that I think. Of yeah, and after put some mines down as soon as you can to protect your nat too (and when you get better, everywhere on the map for scouting/being annoying). You don't really need goliaths that early normally too. Hope this helps ! Edit : and yeah, siege your first tank as soon as you can.
Thanks
I have sort of realised that about tanks. I am getting better at spreading them out a bit. If you watch the more recent one i think i am getting slightly better.
You talked about what i scouted from the protoss, but i don't really know what i am meant to see or what it means.
I realise that my macro is still my biggest problem, but while i work on that, i think i'll try to focus on building positioning and getting a turret or two faster. Do i just put the turret in my mineral line?
Edit: Just played quite a long game against someone i have played a few times before. I managed to get up a huge bank that i was unable to spend, but it was a really fun game for me, because i spent the whole thing trying to set up defensive positions, and lots of attempts to micro against dragoons. Got a couple of WC3 surrounds ^^
On May 29 2012 20:50 huehuehuehue wrote: Add me on ICCup, my ID is Nightzr. I play P/T and i am terrible.
I've added you. We can play sometime
If no-one else replies, i'll just keep editing this post and adding the occasional replay
Yet another PvT, against a TLer, i was pretty happy with how the game went, it is getting easier now that i have a rough plan of what to do in that matchup. http://www.mediafire.com/?d8eama147bzof61
For TvP, first build I would learn would be the FD -- relatively easy, allows you to attack toss early. For TvZ, maybe some sort of generic bio build (2 racks?) FOr TvT, there really aren't builds to choose from; you just have to play a lot of it to get good at it.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/FUIgO.jpg)
VS![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0eeRt.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MZiHG.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/AkkDr.png)
