! [Q] Countering Turtle + Dropship Terran, PvT - Page 3

On March 18 2005 08:14 m3th wrote:
Hmm... Fighting a terran like this is definitely difficult as Protoss. But I think the difficulty is really in restraining yourself. When you fight a turtle you have to somewhat act similar to a turtle. Don't get too worked up. Play the game you always do, but remember to be conservative in your play. I personally wouldn't throw down that second forge too early into the game because upgrades really won't help you as much in the early game as getting ahead in tech/containment. Though I've yet to play any seriously good Terran players that use this strategy (Thank God...), I've found a healthy amount of cannons to be the ultimate solution to impeding drops in my base. I'm not a terribly good player, but this is sort've how I play against and turtling dropship terran.

First of all, scouting is extremely important because you don't want him to take any expansions and if he does, you don't want him to be able to hold it without a significant investment which somewhat diminishes the value of the expansion. After fending off the initial drop (which is something everyone does his own way), keep a good amount of observers in the air to scout out what your opponent is doing. The point is to take over the map while containing him in his main and possibly his natural. Don't use excessive units for defense because you need to be harrassing him (even though it will cost you a couple of units to do so). Keep some Templar on cliffs and at your base to prevent from drops and use cannons at vital locations such as chokes, cliffs, and ideal drop locations. Templars can deal massive damage for little cost with their psi storm and cannons are just extremely effective at deterring dropships or at least making them alter their course. The general idea is, take your time, build a few nexuses, be a cannon-whore to discourage drops and set him back. I generally build about 6 cannons at each of my expansions and 1/2 cannon(s) or at least an observer at each location my opponent can possibly expand to. Many lower skilled terrans tend to panick when they find that drops will be ineffective so they either invest in costly wraiths, hoping that maybe it will help them bypass the cannons, or get careless and start neglecting their base defenses to invest in a more significant ground army and expansion attempts. As long as you have expansions and he doesn't, that gives you a definite production advantage and then you should be in more of a better situation to out-upgrade him and essentially, out-turtle him. You want him to waste an excessive amount of money both taking and holding every expansion he has. Be sure to attack any expansion attempts right away and prevent him from being able to just run one or two SCVs to build an expansion by keeping either cannons or military units at each expansion. Force him to spend money on a small army to fight his way through to each expansion and you should be fine. Play a solid, timed, and conservative game and you should win.

It's a mistake to rush things and risk spreading your forces too thin. Remember that if he's a turtle, he's stressing defense (as long as you're either attacking or making him know that you're in a position to), not taking over the whole map. Take your time. I know, it's a really long route and I personally hate having to wait till a guy starves himself out of minerals and leaves the game, but I've really found no other really effective option vs. a turtle terran simply because terrans make the absolute best turtles... =T

Oh, and you might want to try out some stuff with Arbiters (Stasis/Recall) and Dark Archon (Maelstrom) later in the game. It'll hamper any attack attempts by effectively dividing his force into two different attacks.

On March 18 2005 21:21 FroZZoR wrote:
If you have no idea what you are talking about please STFU.

On March 18 2005 22:20 m3th wrote:
I only suggest turtling with shit like 6 cannons at a base because beating a good Terran (even a turtling Terran) at speed is very difficult as Toss...

Maybe my Toss just sucks, but Terrans can just turtle so effectively with such little investment... I think DAs are fine against Terrans. I don't know how effective Maelstrom is (I've seen it used quite effectively vs. me when I was zerg...),

but mind controlling a critical unit or two never brought me any bad results.... I think DAs are underused and underrated which is why I noted that he should "try some stuff" with them... even though I have a personal preference for arbiters (a little less godly than defilers).

You make it sound like the Terran will do nothing except just turtle in his base and wait for his dropships. I suggested what I did because I know any good terran will put a shitload of pressure on you all throughout the game.

You can't just quick tech without adequate defense because any good terran will abuse that fact. What's wrong with putting down a couple of cannons? 2 bunkers near your minerals and a turret wil run you 675 min.

4 cannons run you 600 + the 100 for the pylon if you don't already have one nearby to feed of of... Against someone that's going to drop on you, I don't think a little investment in static defense is a bad thing unless of course you're totally confident in your ability to guard every possible route to all of your bases and expansions... Hell, static defense is never a bad thing because it gives you defense without wasting supply.

IMHO, fast-teching to carriers is a brilliant way to make yourself look like a total retard should he not play exactly as you want him to play... I say this because I've personally experienced the adverse results of fast teching because I thought the guy was going to turtle... Which brings me to what I was originally going to say.

"How on earth would you know that he's definitely going to turtle and go dropships?"

I suppose you can SUSPECT that he might if he's totally sealed off his base and stuff early game, but that doesn't necessarily make it reality...

On March 18 2005 22:20 m3th wrote:
I only suggest turtling with shit like 6 cannons at a base because beating a good Terran (even a turtling Terran) at speed is very difficult as Toss... Maybe my Toss just sucks, but Terrans can just turtle so effectively with such little investment... I think DAs are fine against Terrans. I don't know how effective Maelstrom is (I've seen it used quite effectively vs. me when I was zerg...), but mind controlling a critical unit or two never brought me any bad results.... I think DAs are underused and underrated which is why I noted that he should "try some stuff" with them... even though I have a personal preference for arbiters (a little less godly than defilers). You make it sound like the Terran will do nothing except just turtle in his base and wait for his dropships. I suggested what I did because I know any good terran will put a shitload of pressure on you all throughout the game. You can't just quick tech without adequate defense because any good terran will abuse that fact. What's wrong with putting down a couple of cannons? 2 bunkers near your minerals and a turret wil run you 675 min. 4 cannons run you 600 + the 100 for the pylon if you don't already have one nearby to feed of of... Against someone that's going to drop on you, I don't think a little investment in static defense is a bad thing unless of course you're totally confident in your ability to guard every possible route to all of your bases and expansions... Hell, static defense is never a bad thing because it gives you defense without wasting supply. IMHO, fast-teching to carriers is a brilliant way to make yourself look like a total retard should he not play exactly as you want him to play... I say this because I've personally experienced the adverse results of fast teching because I thought the guy was going to turtle... Which brings me to what I was originally going to say.

"How on earth would you know that he's definitely going to turtle and go dropships?"

I suppose you can SUSPECT that he might if he's totally sealed off his base and stuff early game, but that doesn't necessarily make it reality...

I'd also like to add that building a good number of cannons vs. a turtler is not retarded at all... If it were T vs. T, you'd build turrets and bunkers, wouldn't you? What's the difference with building cannons at various places in the map? Defense is defense, even with the best offense, it's not something you can ignore because shit happens and your army might not get there in time. I can tell you first hand that I've caught plenty of people off guard with drops simply because of unlucky timing on their part and their lack of proper static defense let me decimate at least half their base (if not their entire base) before their units even got back. For me personally, 6 cannons in my main is an assurance that such a drop will never happen and even if it did, 6 cannons and a HT is more than enough to fend off most drops and would buy me time to get my units back to my bsae if I felt they couldn't. And of course I don't mean to build 6 cannons right away, that would be retarded, but increasing your defense little by little throughout the game as you find yourself with some minerals to spare is always a good thing in my opinion. But whatever, that's just the way I play and you can call me paranoid as hell for building excessive static defense, but I've just been caught with my pants down far, far, too many times...

On March 19 2005 08:28 Empyrean wrote:
Maybe in some of your losses, the loss was due to your WASTEFULNESS in your making static defense instead of units. WIth 900 minerals for six cannons, you could make 9 reavers or expand twice or make six gates instead.

I'd suggest you get out of this topic.