EPTSo I went with a shovel and found my box containing a single USB drive and a single earthworm.
Took the earthworm home with me. I shall figure out what he eats and adopt him as a pet. His name shall be Horatio. It is only logical that Horatio is his name. He now lives in a bottle until I find more suitable quarters.
Then I played my first game of Brood War in over a year.
Now I'm not new to Brood War in any regard. I played all three races at some point or another, peaked with an iCCup rating of 5100 as Zerg in 2009, and played Protoss consistently throughout 2010-11. I still remember most of the micro tricks I did although as it was my first game in over a year so I wasn't expecting to micro much.
But there's always a day to start your journey back. And today was my day. Since 2010 I have been trying to get back to my 5100 rating to no avail. But this year is different. I will make it. I just know I will. Not anytime soon, but I'll make it eventually.
Here are my handicaps in these early days:
- Don't know any Protoss builds so I have to do my best at freestyling
- T/P/Z metagame has evolved, so a lot of my expectation comes from what I watch on TLS
- Two years of consistent SC2 means I have to relearn the lack of MBS, automine, worker counters, idle workers, retrain my 3a4a5a6a instinct (never have I used 1 and 2 for control groups, I hate twisting my hand like that), and through trial and error figure out what mix of units I should have and how many gateways X bases can support with the various mixes
- Can't macro too well because all of the above
- Have to check every 30 minutes or so to make sure Horatio isn't dead
Our battlefield:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/P8GDYFM.png)
+ Show Spoiler [the game, 12 screenshots inside] +
And so it begins. He opens 12 hatch 12 pool, and I... get my prob lost.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Fu7lIbM.png)
Handicap #6: I forgot the exact spawn positions on freaking Python.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aRxOpta.png)
After orienting himself properly, my scouting prob sees this. The third hatchery makes me say wut, but otherwise all of my mental faculties are preoccupied with fast expanding. Which I do immediately. So ends any semblance of precision. All I know from here is to get corsairs, harass, and then slam down a fuckton of gateways to make units and outmacro him because I sure as hell can't outmicro or counter him.
I've never seen a hatch go down at 3:00 that wasn't at someone's third. But I digress.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ryEgq51.png)
Prob transfer and subsequent macro is okay, although now I have 800 gas. My cybercore is building to just underneath the screen. I have no idea how to spend this much gas so I take 2 off of my gas. Then I realize that I'll probably forget to put them back on, so now I have 3 on gas again. I decide to keep on playing as normal, and if I have spare gas afterwards I'll sink it into more goons or a few extra HT's or something.
Archons. I don't want my forced micro to overtake my macro so I just merge the spare HT's into archons anyway.
Also an ovin shows up but I kill him with my goons. Me: 1. Not Me: 0.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2QvVpgb.png)
Around this time I plan to go harass with my corsair. As soon as my corsair leaves my base, I promptly forget he exists. My counterpart chuckles to himself, brings his 3 hatch hydra army over, and shoots the sair. I feel a bit bad for him because he has to chuckle to himself. When I have a small triumph over Not Me, I can chuckle to Horatio. Not Me does not have an earthworm to chuckle to and must chuckle to himself instead.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YENYyjO.png)
Christ I miss warpgates.
I stay at 6 gates for a while because
1. I saw dRaW do it once
2. 6 goes into 12 so I can figure out how many units I have
3. 30% of my APM is going into ordering my control groups because I am spoiled
4. I don't want 30 to become 50 by having 7 gates and making my ordering even more hectic
This is when I figure out a great asset to my play.
I can keep my money low much more easily but not having any money to start with.
Thus I shall stay on 2 bases until I find somewhere nice to put down more gateways, upon which I may take some more bases.
I believe I am on 9 gates at this point so I go and take a 3rd in preparation to double-expand to the 3-oclock and 2-oclock.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZHu6h5e.png)
Except the expanding prob is quickly picked off my Not Me's scouting hydralisk force. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I take what army I have and use it to escort the new prob to the 2-oclock.
This is the point where I start forgetting to macro. I'm actually pained by the amount of money I have on 2 bases.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YMrHe0e.png)
As my prob valiantly tries to expand against the army moving in the opposite direction... why is it doing that? Well as soon as I try to put down a new Nexus, Not Me brings his hydralurk forces over to attack. But I have zealots, goons, archons, 2 obses, everything I need.
My numbers begin to run thin for some reason. I'm contained away from my production, what do I do?
But it's ok! My vanguard can come in and help out! Wait, who did I leave behind to guard my base again?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WpzTqVB.png)
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/u6pDyq9.png)
A fresh supply of goons arrives to save the day and do battle!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/f1ASJIk.png)
Yes! I chuckle tomyself Horatio. Opponent gg's and leaves!
+ Show Spoiler [bugged replay says this happened ;)] +
Wait, what the hell is that?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/jaz45MT.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HCMqc06.png)
nope.avi
Handicap #6: I forgot the exact spawn positions on freaking Python.
After orienting himself properly, my scouting prob sees this. The third hatchery makes me say wut, but otherwise all of my mental faculties are preoccupied with fast expanding. Which I do immediately. So ends any semblance of precision. All I know from here is to get corsairs, harass, and then slam down a fuckton of gateways to make units and outmacro him because I sure as hell can't outmicro or counter him.
I've never seen a hatch go down at 3:00 that wasn't at someone's third. But I digress.
Prob transfer and subsequent macro is okay, although now I have 800 gas. My cybercore is building to just underneath the screen. I have no idea how to spend this much gas so I take 2 off of my gas. Then I realize that I'll probably forget to put them back on, so now I have 3 on gas again. I decide to keep on playing as normal, and if I have spare gas afterwards I'll sink it into more goons or a few extra HT's or something.
Archons. I don't want my forced micro to overtake my macro so I just merge the spare HT's into archons anyway.
Also an ovin shows up but I kill him with my goons. Me: 1. Not Me: 0.
Around this time I plan to go harass with my corsair. As soon as my corsair leaves my base, I promptly forget he exists. My counterpart chuckles to himself, brings his 3 hatch hydra army over, and shoots the sair. I feel a bit bad for him because he has to chuckle to himself. When I have a small triumph over Not Me, I can chuckle to Horatio. Not Me does not have an earthworm to chuckle to and must chuckle to himself instead.
Christ I miss warpgates.
I stay at 6 gates for a while because
1. I saw dRaW do it once
2. 6 goes into 12 so I can figure out how many units I have
3. 30% of my APM is going into ordering my control groups because I am spoiled
4. I don't want 30 to become 50 by having 7 gates and making my ordering even more hectic
This is when I figure out a great asset to my play.
I can keep my money low much more easily but not having any money to start with.
Thus I shall stay on 2 bases until I find somewhere nice to put down more gateways, upon which I may take some more bases.
I believe I am on 9 gates at this point so I go and take a 3rd in preparation to double-expand to the 3-oclock and 2-oclock.
Except the expanding prob is quickly picked off my Not Me's scouting hydralisk force. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I take what army I have and use it to escort the new prob to the 2-oclock.
This is the point where I start forgetting to macro. I'm actually pained by the amount of money I have on 2 bases.
As my prob valiantly tries to expand against the army moving in the opposite direction... why is it doing that? Well as soon as I try to put down a new Nexus, Not Me brings his hydralurk forces over to attack. But I have zealots, goons, archons, 2 obses, everything I need.
My numbers begin to run thin for some reason. I'm contained away from my production, what do I do?
But it's ok! My vanguard can come in and help out! Wait, who did I leave behind to guard my base again?
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
A fresh supply of goons arrives to save the day and do battle!
Yes! I chuckle to
+ Show Spoiler [bugged replay says this happened ;)] +
Wait, what the hell is that?
nope.avi
What I learned today is I suck. I suck compared to my olden days, that is. However, this game was closer than it seems.
For about 5 seconds I seriously thought I'd won this game because no matter how bad I was, my macro was still acceptable for D-level. And I'm not embellishing. In the engagement where I fought his hydralurk at my potential third, I had 121 population to his 111, which made him slightly ahead since Zerg is meant to be a bit behind in supply.
So if I did have my observers with me and fought above the ramp instead of meeting him in the natural space, I probably could have pulled off a victory there, continued to macro, and fought off his incoming army with a larger complement. I would have maybe lost my natural due to him getting there early, but I would have had my third, could have taken a fourth and reinforced with cannons, and continued to pump out of 9 gates since I had the money to absorb the loss of the nat.
My first step towards my dusty dominion is going to be spend less time ordering control groups like an OCD victim and more time clicking the gates and pushing the unit buttons.
The good thing about relearning BW is that you already remember everything, just have to warm your fingers up again. My second game was on BGH where off of the same economy, I was throwing complements of 16-24 zealots/goons like wildfire and had 5 patrolling sairs for air support.
But most importantly...
I WILL GET HORATIO OUT OF HIS BOTTLE SO I CAN MAKE PICTURES OF HIM ON HERE, IT WILL BE DONE
![[image loading]](http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/6127/187806-earthwormjim.jpg)
. You better deliver some fucking epic worm pic by now, ITS BEEN A WHOLE DAY
