Wuchao: The Ultimate Backstab?

Sumahi

Guam5609 Posts

November 07 2012 23:50 GMT

When I first started playing SC2 I was always looking for interesting ways to blend together some of my existing interests with this new exciting game. For example, as I am an advocate for the revitalization of my language Chamorro (only 40,000 people speak it), I would use certain words in my language to refer to different strategies or tactics in SC2. So when I would play with friends and we were going to turtle we would say “Nihi ta fanhaggan” or “Let’s turtle” or literally, “Let’s be turtles.”

I would also find ways of connecting my work as a historian into how I understand or enjoyed the game. Often times this means that I don’t see SC2 through its own history or through the history of esports, but I make connections instead to great generals or warriors or battles of the past.

A staple in SC2 tactics, especially for zergs is the backstab or the run-by, where you use a group of units to go behind the battle lines in order to harass their economy or their production and kill undefended workers. This sort of tactic when used very effectively, most recently in my mind by players such as ST_Life, is reminiscent of the Battle of Guandu in the Three Kingdom’s Era of Chinese history. That battle represented one of the most critical uses of the "backstab" in war history.

One thing that separates real war from most RTS games is that you don’t have to feed your troops. If you have a large army, it does not mean that you have to have a large food supply to sustain them or keep them happy. Your mining of minerals or gas does not affect their mood or their morale, it only affects your ability to make more should your troops die. Because of that you can leave a high supply army out in the middle of the map for an hour and the units don’t start to deteriorate or complain about how they miss their families back home.

This is not the case for real armies. In war everything comes with a cost, although every great empire tries to minimize these limitations, to expand or enhance one aspect means to become limited or hampered in another. A large army means that you can crush your opponents in terms of brute strength, but the larger an army the more resources it requires to function. It can be slow to move, cumbersome to command and end up costing you far more in order to sustain.

That was the situation at Guandu. Cao Cao, the Hero of Chaos faced off against Yuan Shao, the great northern warlord. Cao Cao had been solidifying his power in the Emperor’s Court to the point where in the minds of most he was truly in charge and the Emperor his puppet hostage. Yuan Shao raised an army that was twice the size of Cao Cao’s. The fought for several months before they became locked in a stalemate with Yuan Shao laying siege to Cao Cao at Guandu.

Cao Cao was much better versed in tactics and was able to trap Yuan Shao’s troops in several ambushes. He had already started to take advantage of the weakness of Yuan Shao by attacking supply trains and camps. A defection from Yuan Shao’s side gave Cao Cao a key piece of information. The raids had been effective and so Yuan Shao had been forced to bring in a new round of supplies that he was keeping at Wuchao, where it was sparsely defended.

Cao Cao seized the moment and led 5,000 troops in the middle of the night, to go around the field of battle to attack the supple train. They dressed as Yuan Shao’s soldiers coming to reinforce Wuchao and easily overran the defenses. Yuan Shao was faced with a decision to either press on and hit Cao Cao’s base now in hopes of breaking his defenses, or returning to protect his food supply.

This is a common sort of scenario in SC2. Your only mining base, the base that holds the key to sustaining yourself and keeping yourself in the fight is under attack. If you continue forward you leave your supply defenseless you create that ticking clock for your viability. You basically make it so that the army you have at that moment is your last best army, and you may never reach that moment again.

But at the same time, to return and retreat means giving up position, giving your opponent breathing room, giving them time to think, to plot, to plan, to lay more traps.

Given the situation that Yuan Shao was placed in, either response could be reasonable. To push forward and attack or retreat, defend and regroup. Both of these options make sense. But what makes a truly great general and lord of war is also what makes a great SC2 player. It is that ability to play chess with scenarios and to know the game of the chess that your opponent is playing in their head. It is to not just to respond to the context of the moment, as if the universe has held before you two pills and you must choose one. It is to make a choice which will force your opponents choice and push him into a position of weakness, even if he doesn't realize it.

Yuan Shao’s generals were divided over which path to choose.; to return to save his supplies and to push ahead and attack Cao Cao at his base forcing the hero of chaos to retreat to save his main camp. Yuan Shao however did not have the steel resolve of Cao Cao. He decided to try to press the natural advantage he should have with the larger force to attack Cao Cao’s front and take away his base. He sent a small cavalry force to try to help defend Wuchao.

Yuan Shao responded not through an understanding of his weakness but an over-reliance on his strength. He chose his strategy through the obvious advantage he had and did not see the larger context in which he was acting. Cao Cao knew his weaknesses, but gambled that Yuan Shao’s weaknesses were more crippling. He prepared his men for the possibility that they would be fighting to the death and so his defenders at Guandu did not break when they were assaulted by Yuan Shao’s numerically superior force. Cao Cao understood that the burning of the food at Wuchao was not just a single tactical victory, but one that would lead to a multitude of small psychological victories. If Cao Cao succeeded in destroying Yuan Shao’s food supply, he would not only slow down the ability of his enemy to wage war, but he would weaken their resolve and their morale.

Had Yuan Shao chosen to defend Wuchao and try to neutralize his primary weakness he would have most likely won. Instead his attack on Cao Cao’s main camp failed, his defense of Wuchao failed and his army’s morale disintegrated once they realized their food supply was gone. Cao Cao launched a counter attack and Yuan Shao was forced to flee.

Just to ensure that Cao Cao gained the psychological advantage during this battle he also cut the noses off of the men he killed at Wuchao and then mixed them with animals parts and had them delivered to Yuan Shao and his men. Needless to say, Yuan Shao’s troops did not like the prospect of fighting against someone who had just torched their food, killed their comrades and then mutilated their corpses and sent them as gifts.