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Hey guys, it's been awhile since I've posted here on TL. I used to be part of the TL Strategy team during HotS and while I've been away from the game for about a year and a half now, I've been brought back to the game I played for 4 years due to an essay I must write for school. I am now at University of California, San Diego (2.5 hours away from my hometown in Northeastern Los Angeles) studying Linguistics and I am taking a Linguistic Anthropology class in my first semester.
The essay I have to write is about lexical categories in human language. For example, if we take everything in the universe, we can put them into certain categories. For this example, let us use the words "living" and "dead". Within the "living" category, we can further separate them into subcategories such as "human", "plant", and "animal". A tree would look like this:
The goal of my essay is to take something like this and translate it into Starcraft terms. The first aspect I want to explain is the categories that starcraft strategies fall into. This is where I need your guys' help. I just want to throw some ideas around with you guys and see what insights I can get from the viewpoints. There are no wrong answers in this case because everyone has different categories in their head and I am just looking for things to think about.
Is a cheese and a rush the same thing? Is a cannon rush still a cheese even though it has the word rush in it? Is there some sort of requirement for something to be cheese?
Additionally, what is the difference between a 2-base push and an all-in? Is something like the soul train from WoL an all-in, a push, or both?
Any other questions of the same sort are welcomed as well.
Once I have this essay done, I think I'll post another blog talking about what's been going on in my life since I stopped playing Starcraft and stopped being active in the community. It involves a trip to Europe and moving to a new city 
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I think I would choose less subjective categories than build types. Something like units: range or melee, land or air, aoe or single attack etc. It is more boring, but seems much more in line with the 'living or dead' example, and easier to justify without contradicting yourself.
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I would say that a rush is a kind of timing and a cheese is a kind of rush. I would say the categories are based on the amount of risk involved as well as the intention. All of the above would be attempts to control your opponent through damage or responses while balancing the internal vulnerabilities inflected upon yourself. A cheese creates a lot of internal vulnerabilities, a rush creates slightly fewer, and some timings have very little risk. For instance, going full upgrades might create pockets of time where your upgrades are superior and you would want to "control" your opponent by collapsing that difference by engaging properly.
A cheese aims to end the game while creating alternative timings where your opponent can end the game. A rush might just be a timing that intends to disrupt your opponents timings at the cost of some efficiency in other, say, economic categories, ie, the 7 roach rush.
I don't think it's too complicated to create a consistent vocabulary, but it is probably a considerable amount of work :D Naming the objects or interactions and etc is probably easier than the strategical dynamics that emerge from the known history of such interactions etc.
A 2 base push can be any variety of things, where a 2base all in essentially requires a substantial amount of damage to be done in order to not be so far behind that the next several minutes are a clear open time where your opponent only has to cross the map for you to leave the game etc. A 2base timing where you expand behind, or even just contain your opponent on 1 base is certainly not "all in" etc.
edit: And of course this is a vast oversimplification leaving out innumerable gradations of interactions etc.
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I think the breakdown of StarCraft strategies is attack, defend, or economy. There is a minor rock-paper-scissors game as defending is favorable over attacking, building economy is favorable over a defending opponent, and attacking is favorable over an opponent building economy.
Within attack, you have all-in, timing, harass, or mass. An all-in means you intend to fight with everything and win or lose the army and likely the game depending on the result. Timing means finding a specific time to attack, which can be broken down to either your own timing (e.g. after an upgrade finishes or at 15 minutes) or your opponent's timing (e.g. as they expand or tries to tech switch). Harass means attacking specifically the opponent's economy or buildings. Mass is just moving your army around and seeking a fight when the conditions favor.
Cheese would be an all-in while rushing is a kind of timing attack. Cheese is distinguished from other all-ins in that you are dedicated to it from the beginning, i.e. you can't decide to cheese 10 minutes into the game. The best example is cannon rushing, where there is no intention of doing anything other than attacking. I think it gets confused with rushing because early game rushes also require dedication to it from the beginning, but I don't think it necessarily has to be all-in and rushing seeks to punish an opponent trying to expand or tech too early. So a cannon rush traditionally is a cheese because the protoss player wants to win with it rather than stop at a predefined time, although it could be a rush if the player only intends to build one cannon to punish a fast expansion.
For the second question, a 2-base push is also a kind of timing attack. A Soul Train is interesting because it hybridizes a timing attack and an all-in, where the protoss attacks at a predefined time but it is all in because the player will not retreat and will lose if the attack fails.
This is all somewhat hard because StarCraft is a game of imperfect information and deception.
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On October 24 2016 05:45 Starlightsun wrote:
I think I would choose less subjective categories than build types. Something like units: range or melee, land or air, aoe or single attack etc. It is more boring, but seems much more in line with the 'living or dead' example, and easier to justify without contradicting yourself.
I agree with your point but I feel like your example of units does not fit as well due to the fact that the unit names and their categories are things that are simply made by Blizzard, unlike names of strategies which are organically made by the community and the pro players. But thank you for your suggestion!
Thanks for your other responses guys! I talked to my friend who also played SC for the same amount of time as me and the conclusions that we came to agreed heavily with what you guys wrote.
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TL;DR: to ME a rush is a kind of cheese IF the strategy is not down more than 10-20 times out of 100.
An all-in is a timing push, BUT I don't know if we can call something an all-in BEFORE the attack (maybe we should create a sub category an "almost" all-in [ would be a stategy that is all-in-ish but given the fact it is gonna do damage and force your opponent to rebuild stuff, we can say it as a back-up option, hence not a complete all-in]).
I might be out of the question, but it wmight be interesting to look at the korean translation of those terms (I have this theory deep down that at least 1% of the korean success is due to their language).
A bit more about your question npw.
Is a cheese and a rush the same thing? Is a cannon rush still a cheese even though it has the word rush in it? Is there some sort of requirement for something to be cheese?
I think it is up to interpretation and what people imply BUT it could also be related to the "common-ity" of the strategies. Like a banshee rush back in the day was called "cheese" by sore loser, but it was just a rush, fast teching into one unit, it would have been a cheese if only 1/100 would do it, but it was more like 1/4 (the numbers are incorrect, just for example sake).
This is of course an interpretation in itself, maybe a cheese and a rush are the same thing, maybe a rush is more specific, a cheese is an unusual strategies, a rush is an unusual strategies aiming a doing something fast (either a specific tech, or a speficif amount of units, or a building [cannon/bunker]).
Additionally, what is the difference between a 2-base push and an all-in? Is something like the soul train from WoL an all-in, a push, or both?
Here, I think it's again about what you imply, an all-in is a push but it implies bad things.
An example thanks to my high knowledge of twitch chat we would often say "this is not an all-in, this is a 'timing-push' ". While in fact, a timing push was often close to being an all-in or a 3/4-in if you want,
IMO (again, all of what I say is IMO of course, I don't pretend to know anything): A push has an eventual follow up, and a "I did enough damage" philosophy. Whereas a all-in, is not supposed to have a follow up.
BitByBit was doing all-ins, stephano 200 roaches was more of a timing.
There is a last "little" thing I'd like to point-ou (which is gonna sound obvious I apologize in advance): our language evolve, and we live in a world where we tend to "neglect" the meaning of things.
We say "everyone is/thinkd/do.... XXXXX", while of course no one means "everyone" we mean "most of people" or "most of people I know" or "it looks/seems sometimes that everyone".
Also starcraft is a game or sport, which tend to neglect even further the language and you have to add others factors such as : fast pace action, foreign language, "hype".
Do we really have time in a 6 hours day tournament to say "So dear sir co caster of the day, do you believe this is more of an all-in or a push, do you think the amount of damage and blind counter nature of the push is what is gonna define wether we shoudl say all-in or push, or is an intrasect nature? I am not sure wether this is an scv-pull all-in or a timing push, he still got mule and he is gonna do damage whatever the outcome is." "Well dear sir co caster of the day, it is a timing-push with an all-in nature, if he doesn't do any damage he is gonna fall too far behind"
And of course the fact that not everyone speak english. Add to that that some terms might have been widely accepeted by non english speaker, or within a context and you got a whole good amount of "neglect" as I dearly call them.
I apologize for the wall of text and -maybe- the arrogant tone, everything was from a personal point of view.
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A rush is precisely what the name states – rushing towards an advantage (army, tech, specific unit) by sacrificing other opportunities or advantages (econ, scouting, tech) with the goal of catching the enemy unprepared for the advantage one has rushed towards.
Example – a cannon rush is a rush towards building cannons in the opponents base at the cost of regular tech (gateways into cybercore) and at the cost of econ (cutting workers) so that the opponent will not have enough army or tech ready to kill cannons.
A 4 Gate rush is a rush towards maximum army size at the 5-6:30 min mark (WOL timing) at the cost of tech and a second expansion in order to brute force kill your opponent, counting on the fact that the opponent will not be prepared for countering an army of that size.
A cheese is a strategy that banks on winning or gaining an “unfair” advantage through the use of tactics that are unorthodox or “cheap” (ie. Easy to execute but difficult to counter).
This covers things such as proxy oracles which are very meta but still considered cheesy because it is easy to execute, but the opponent must scout, prepare units in the correct position, maintain appropriate anti air numbers in each base etc.
A rush can also be a cheese because a random player getting zerg and 6 pooling (rush component) has the “cheap” advantage of his opponent not knowing his race and thus has to prepare for a wider variety of early game strategies which is more ‘difficult’ (cheese component)..
A cannon rush is also a cheese because it requires much more attention and specific response on the part of the defender vs. the attacker (simply building cannons in a hidden location and moving into range of opponents main base building).
A hidden expansion can also be considered a cheese because it is unorthodox and easily countered through scouting. As such, it banks on the opponent not considering the possibility in order to gain an advantage in the midgame.
A Push is an attack. Pushes can be done on one base, two base, three base, etc. and all through out the game.
A Timing Push is a an attack (or Push) which seeks to exploit a particular timing. These timings are largely dependent on how each player’s strategy interact and the metagame.
Example - This timing can be when a terran pushes out in TvZ the moment 2-2 finishes (HOTS). The timing is good because the zerg’s upgrades are often behind, they are trying to save money for Hive, and are now forced to spend resources on army rather than tech. Thus, this timing exploits the Terrans distinct upgrade advantage over the Zerg and puts pressure on the Zerg so they cannot reach Hive (T3) as quickly while the Terran is on their way to 3-3 bio (terran’s version of T3).
An All-in is a commitment or strategy, which has no transition or a highly difficult transition. I believe this comes from the poker term “going all-in”. This is a going-for-broke type move. Different strategies can have different level’s of “All-in-ness”.
Example: a 4 gate attack is very All-in because it banks on winning in a very small window else the executing player will have a significant tech and/or economic disadvantage. A 10 pool with a drone pull + lings is even more all-in because the player is not only committing to a tech/econ disadvantage, they are also committing their workers to the attack, essentially nullifying any possibility of a transition.
While different strategies can have different level’s of “All-in-ness”, the unifying theme is that they are committed to the point that failure of the All-in often signifies a loss of the game. This last point is what differentiates an All-In vs a rush or vs a cheese.
A proxy oracle is a commitment to a stargate on the otherside of the map (and may even count as a rush) but often times failure of this strategy does not mean a loss for the protoss player, simply a disadvantage. A 3 base Terran parade push (without a fourth base) is not All-In because of their ability to float their CC’s to a new base and ability to continue the game despite the push being held off. As such, these types of plays are not All-ins.
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So now you can see how different categories/labels can be applied to a particular strategy, because that strategy may fall under one or more categorizations.
Example: A 4 gate is a rush, timing, AND all-in.
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EPT![[image loading]](/staff/Corazon/Cognitive_Tree.jpg)
