EPTOn August 03 2012 13:15 ninazerg wrote:
After 10 minutes:
- Protoss will have a difficult time securing bases; the "normal" third base with gas is completely open on all sides for vulture harassment, which makes it difficult to defend. Taking a fourth gas is even more problematic, because the distance of the fourth base from the other bases make it easy to isolate and kill for the Terran player.
- The map's layout is deceptive. It looks "wide open", which typically favors Protoss armies during engagements, but there are a lot of narrow chokes at the bridges and entrances, which means the Terran player can secure a bridge area pretty easily, and take their third base.
- I would say the best option for Protoss to open is with 2-Base Arbiter with 4-6 gateways before expanding to get some map control, because the vultures are very annoying when they're free to use all the roundabout routes to hit that exposed Protoss third base. This also threatens the Terran with a recall, however, being forced to go 2-Base Arbiter doesn't exactly make a map flexible in terms of strategy.
- Those cliffs, dude.
Protoss also faces similar problems against Zerg, but with the added threat of massive drops in their main. I'm not saying the map is unplayable, but it's not very practical for modern play.
After 10 minutes:
- Protoss will have a difficult time securing bases; the "normal" third base with gas is completely open on all sides for vulture harassment, which makes it difficult to defend. Taking a fourth gas is even more problematic, because the distance of the fourth base from the other bases make it easy to isolate and kill for the Terran player.
- The map's layout is deceptive. It looks "wide open", which typically favors Protoss armies during engagements, but there are a lot of narrow chokes at the bridges and entrances, which means the Terran player can secure a bridge area pretty easily, and take their third base.
- I would say the best option for Protoss to open is with 2-Base Arbiter with 4-6 gateways before expanding to get some map control, because the vultures are very annoying when they're free to use all the roundabout routes to hit that exposed Protoss third base. This also threatens the Terran with a recall, however, being forced to go 2-Base Arbiter doesn't exactly make a map flexible in terms of strategy.
- Those cliffs, dude.
Protoss also faces similar problems against Zerg, but with the added threat of massive drops in their main. I'm not saying the map is unplayable, but it's not very practical for modern play.
It's not as obvious as it looks,
When protoss getting 3rd base is a huge factor, when toss gets it early it's because they know that terran is going to get their 3rd base fast too and camp till 200 before moving out. As a result terran will not have many vultures, they might only harrass with 3-4 vults at a time which doesn't make it too hard to get a 3rd. If toss doesn't scout that terran is going to camp, but instead with 5-6 factories waiting to push out, toss will not get 3rd as easily and will get about 6-8 gateways with shuttle with zealots before getting their 3rd, and as a result, if terran deicdes to harrass they'll be losing vulture count which will defeats the purpose of his main timing push.
The small chokes do favor terran if the protoss is dumb and decides to engage at such spots. But most competent protoss will know not to engage terran at those spots. They will go around the map and hit their 3rd while terran is just moving out. They will play hit and run until they get 4-5 bases with massive gateways before attempting to engage. The map layout isn't usually an issue. Plus those small chokes makes statis a bitch, oh and recall.
Most maps makes does allow an fairly easy 3rd base, but in late games the accessibility of the 4th base is a MAJOR factor of game outcomes. The 4th base is definitly not as easy to get for terran, because of the map layout and the bridges.
I beileve tau is a fairly balanced map in terms of TvP, but it is out-dated but not imbalanced. I think it favors terran slightly in TvZ but that's a different story.
