BW is for Newbs Pt 1

Falling

Canada11349 Posts

October 05 2013 10:10 GMT

I've made enough arguments. Here is a story about the Battle of Seven Armies, The Mexican Standoff, or The Three-way Battle in the Multi-front War.

I was introduced to BW via LAN parties and to this day, that is my favourite thing about BW. Last July was our last large LAN at my house.

The Players

Lord Bryon- My brother and fellow house mate. Doesn't enjoy 1v1's, but has always enjoyed team alliances in both BW and SC2. He macros fairly well for his speed and understand the need to not let me macro quietly in the corner and often pushes his allies to help attack.

Jdog- Also my brother. He is very new to the game. I think he's played at most four times, but I have become very efficient in teaching BW and he can macro very well. He uses both army hotkeys and hotkeys to jump to nexus' and gateway. New tactics throw him off and he is fairly passive in attacking.

Mike- Friend from university and former housemate who now lives in a nearby city. He is also new to the game, perhaps playing six games. He can macro quite well although this game he was short on gas. Admits he doesn't know when or what to attack.

eScapegoat- My cousin and my biggest threat. I recruited him to SC2 and he went on to ladder up to Diamond before switching to LoL. Of everyone else, he has the best game sense and has the best macro and tactics. He, LordB and I have played tons of RTS's going back to C&C, Age of Empires/ Mythology and before that turn-based strategy games such as Civilization, Imperial Conquest 2, and Space Empires 2.

DJB- friend from college and uni and former housemate for four years. He introduced me to BW back in 2007, but relies heavily on micro and sneak attacks rather than macro.

zac- DJB's young brother-in-law. Zac is still in school (large family) and has only just started playing SC, but is very excited about the strategy involved.

Passafist- yours truly. The only one that ladders in BW. In LAN games, I usually play with serious handicaps (Terran no tank) or play on my own team and off-race to balance out my skill. Whatever team I am on, I tend to win and so I have become the biggest target to attack. (The exception is my 1v1v1 games with eScapegoat and LordB. I have lost when they gang up on me, but if they ever forget about me in a corner, I will quietly remacro up to fight again.)

The Teams

I am the most experienced and I am paired with zac, the least experienced. In addition, I am offracing Zerg- although that is partially because no-one else is playing Zerg. I have no further restrictions this game (yay.)

Jdog and Mike are the next newest. Their macro is stronger than DJB and zac and on par with LordByron, but they lack game experience so LordB is added to their number to help coordinate attacks.

eScapegoat is the strongest player after me (he laddered in SC2 much more than I ever did so he has semi-transferable macro skills) and is paired with DJB who has been playing the longest of us, but is better at special tactics than massing giant armies.

Simply having more than two sides also helps balance out the teams.

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Battleground- Map

Our group (and particularly DJB) has never liked 8 player maps that have the allies spawn separately. For that reason I have always made maps for the group. I have tried to move away from 1 base, big money maps, but I try to keep shared entrances. Each time I make a new map, I try to make it more and more like pro-league maps to transition away. This is my newest map and the only compromise I really have is the mains have 10K minerals. Gas is normal and all naturals are normal. For the last couple years, my maps have the option to be played 4v4 or 2v2v2v2.

Map with Player locations
+ Show Spoiler +

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

The first minutes of the game started off pretty slow as everyone macroed up. However, my MO in LAN games is to throw people off their game and cause trouble to the player that are my biggest threat. Unfortunately for eScapegoat, it is almost always him. So I sent two waves of zerglings at eScapegoat & DJB's choke off of two bases while I teched to muta.

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First attack...

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...Ends in failure

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Second was a runby

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and wasn't much more successful, putting me rather behind in macro.

Supply at 8:30 min
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At 8:40, my mutalisks attacked and began cleaning out eScapegoat's main despite some poor muta micro on my part.
[image loading]

Twice more I cleaned out his main and cleared turrets, leaving his economy in shambles. Unfortunately, I had not properly expanded behind 2 base muta and the other players caught up as I scrambled to expo.

[image loading]

I now have 80 Supply & eScape reduced to 40 supply.

BUT DJB 80 supply, Jdog & Mike 90 Supply, LordB 70 supply.

[image loading]

At 14:00 DJB clashed with Jdog in the North for the first time.

Having damaged eScapegoat sufficiently for the time being (I thought), I unleashed my mutas on my next biggest threat: Lord Bryon.

[image loading]

My mutalisks were not nearly so successful as he caught them in between groups of Goliaths in his main.

[image loading]

At the same time Mike sent his first group of marines and tanks towards eScapegoat & DJB's choke where they were wiped out by the massed defensive force.

[image loading]

At 17:20 DJB sent a commando squad of 5 DTs into Jdogs' natural.

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Jdog had forgotten to make detection at his natural and DJB slaughters two control groups of zealots and dragoons.

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Plus workers and so Jdog's supply dropped from 140 to 82.

This evened the supply for DJB who had begun the attack with only 98 supply.

19:20, Jdog began making an observatory, but DJB helps him out by suiciding his DTs on the cannons in the main. His remaining DTs camped outside Mike's base to snipe reinforcements. Meanwhile Mike sent a wraith south to scout around.

[image loading]

I caught LordB's tanks transferring to help Jdog & Mike, but I needed to quickly run away from Goliaths.

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DJB's DTs outside Mike's base

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...and my mutas flew straight into more of LordB's goliaths.

22:30 zac & I pushed out with the intention of fighting eScapegoat's growing tank lines. In the north, LordB consolidated his forces with Mike and Jdog.

23:00 I sent two control group of zerglings to flank eScapegoat's tanks.

[image loading]

My flank ran into LordB's attacking forces that ran into DJB's DT squad.

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A three way battle broke out, wiping out tanks and zerglings alike.

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At that exact same time, I had sent the bulk of my army with zac's zealots into eScapegoat's army. LordB's tanks were destroyed by DJB's DTs, but my entire army was lost to eScape's Terran deathball.

[image loading]

Those two extra control groups and defiler might not have won the battle, but it couldn't have hurt

26:00 Mike sends some late arrival marines into eScape & DJB's massive army.

[image loading]

With my army cleared out, eScape began his relentless push across the map to my base, building turrets to protect his giant tank army. His maxed 200/200 army sat just out of range of my 3rd.

[image loading]

After that disastorous assualt, I remassed to 160 supply with ultras, lings and defilers with Dark Swarm and readied for the oncoming Terran army.

In the north, the Triple Alliance of Jdog, Mike, and LordB had gathered up their armies and fleets and were now ready roll down into the south.

Supply at 27 min
[image loading]

Who will win the multi-front war?

Tune in next time for the continuing story.
BW is for Newbs Part 2
BW is for Newbs Part 3

(Sorry, I am trying to keep my word count down and this is a long game.)

Birdie

New Zealand4438 Posts

October 05 2013 10:17 GMT

SICK SKILLS SO EXCITE CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT RELEASE

Triple alliance is looking scary but I believe in the power of the only Stealth Bunny playing, you can do it Passafist!

[]Phase[]

Belgium927 Posts

October 05 2013 10:47 GMT

hehe this looks pretty fun. Wish I had people like that to play broodwar with, but all my friends think it 'looks crappy'

Shock710

Australia6097 Posts

October 05 2013 10:49 GMT

hmm...what a nice coincidence ur passafist? i think i saw ur name in op teamliquid a few hours ago

peidongyang

Canada2084 Posts

October 05 2013 11:11 GMT

what a fun game every time my friends and I do this its always 4 pool, dts, or something else stupid and nothing fun

don_kyuhote

3006 Posts

October 05 2013 11:46 GMT

Man I miss playing 3, 4 team wars in BW. Those were always fun.

vndestiny

Singapore3440 Posts

October 05 2013 12:19 GMT

You have no idea how much I am jealous of you right now. I tried to organize sth like this w my friends bu fail every time. No matter how hard I tried I couldnt get them to enjoy the game

fusefuse

Estonia4644 Posts

October 05 2013 12:19 GMT

this is great, pls do continue :D!

shaftofpleasure

Korea (North)1375 Posts

October 05 2013 13:47 GMT

DTs are always imba in games such as these .. they rape-face so hard

quirinus

Croatia2489 Posts

October 05 2013 15:54 GMT

#10

jhahahaha this is awesome! Reminds me of the good old times when I and my friends were noobs. The games were so much fun. :D

Ettick

United States2434 Posts

October 05 2013 15:58 GMT

#11

Byron has such a huge plot of land, no wonder he's called "Lord"

Iplaythings

Denmark9110 Posts

October 05 2013 15:59 GMT

#12

this just makes me sojelly that someone has IRL friends who play BW and I don't

HereBeDragons

1429 Posts

October 05 2013 16:03 GMT

#13

5/5, This looks super fun!! Also, would it ruin the suspense if you display the bank of all players as well?

Excalibur_Z

United States12235 Posts

October 05 2013 16:18 GMT

#14

This is cool, can't wait for the next episode. I've only been lucky enough to play BW at a LAN (and I mean real BW, not custom maps; and I mean a real LAN, with 20+ people) one time. It was in 2001 as I recall and we had set up a LAN party at SJSU and advertised it on sites like Lanparty.com. A group of three guys heard about it, paid entry, and kind of set themselves up near the corner of the room. Those three guys wanted to be on the same team to play a game of 3v3 BW, and only I and a couple of other guys from our group wanted to play -- and those couple of guys weren't very good... they were actually pretty bad.

I randomed Zerg which was my worst race, one of my teammates got rushed down quickly and was eliminated, my other teammate was Terran and bolstered his defenses with tons of bunkers and tanks so they left him alone and came for me instead. I was able to smuggle a drone out and get a hidden expansion going before they left. Starting from scratch, I gradually made it to Mutas which I used to harass pretty well and cripple one of them. Mechanically I was probably the best player in the game so I was able to effectively distract them with Mutas while I teched up to Hive and Lurkers. My remaining teammate had run out of resources and never expanded, and he didn't have much of a standing army to contribute. Eventually I got Dark Swarm and Hydra/Lurker/Ling against their mostly air compositions, and effectively won it 1v3. The only actual LAN BW game I ever played and it was one of my most memorable.

EchOne

United States2906 Posts

October 05 2013 16:24 GMT

#15

5/5

Care to share a link to the map?

konadora

Singapore66156 Posts

October 05 2013 16:28 GMT

#16

man that looks like a pretty crazy fun game, so sad can't find people to have such 2v2v2v2 scenarios anymore :<

DarkNetHunter

1224 Posts

October 05 2013 16:29 GMT

#17

Sounds like the tripple alliance has a decisive lead, but if they lose a ton to Escapegoat you might have a good comeback chance on your own side

Falling

Canada11349 Posts

October 05 2013 16:34 GMT

#18

On October 05 2013 19:49 Shock710 wrote:
hmm...what a nice coincidence ur passafist? i think i saw ur name in op teamliquid a few hours ago

Not a coincidence at all. I used to ladder occaisonally under the name Passafist until sGs started up in 2011 so you will see me laddering as sGs.Passafist. Unless I am playing the DRTL and then I am sb.Passafist.

On October 06 2013 01:24 EchOne wrote:
5/5

Care to share a link to the map?

This is the map as we played it. (Although I changed the alliances back to four teams of two. LordB had a double expansion all to himself.

Upper Kurast alpha

Because I had made a very easy third, I had been considering adding stacked temples and a small ramp up to it. However, I haven't played any games on the beta version, so I am not sure if the stacked temples will screw with pathing. I also changed the centre because I wanted there to be better high ground features rather than just random temples. However, again I haven't tested it with people and so army flow might be too constricted. I have two places where I think I want to add long sets of ramps for better mobility, but I'm not sure yet.

On October 06 2013 01:48 MisterKatosS wrote:
I am also interested in such maps it would be pretty cool if you could share youre collection !

For my other maps, check out this link.
Fun/Casual Map Database
Heights we have played a lot, but after making Kurast, I don't like it so much. The idea behind Heights was a transition point from big money to where you have to expand. But the expansions are too safe with too many of them in the back. I think Kurast forces better positional games.

Dead Marshes, we've never really played, but I've never been happy with 8 player island maps, so I've experimented several times with them. I think it's my best iteration, but it is probably still rubbish.

We played on one other map a lot called Khartoum. The genesis of the idea came from Arakan Citadel in SC2, but I am less happy with the quality now so I had never uploaded it to that thread.

We haven't played for awhile, but also have played Tandem Starcraft (usually with me sitting out.)

My older maps were just 4 shared base vs 4 shared base. But I find double corner expansions gives great flexibility. You can have 4v4 or 2v2v2v2. It's just hard with odd numbers if you need to defend two separate ramps.

MisterKatosS

France352 Posts

October 05 2013 16:48 GMT

#19

I am also interested in such maps it would be pretty cool if you could share youre collection !

Falling

Canada11349 Posts

October 05 2013 17:14 GMT

#20

Incidentally as I was editing the pics for the blog, I discovered when naming Jdog's no observer pics that no Obs is the same as noobs

Eventually I got Dark Swarm and Hydra/Lurker/Ling against their mostly air compositions, and effectively won it 1v3. The only actual LAN BW game I ever played and it was one of my most memorable.

That sounds like such an epic game.

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