[M] (2) ESV Cloud Kingdom - Page 7

Obvious FFE map, plenty of places to sneak out probes and hide pylons if you want to go for a +1 zealot timing. Zerg have to be extremely active with his lings if he wants to be 100% safe. Even so, you can push out with a one or two zealots to make way for your probe(s). Clearing Xel'Naga towers is very important, as it will keep Zerg on his toes as he'll have a harder time spotting any pushes coming, and especially, it can hide your Void Rays and Phoenixes until they arrive at his potential 3rd.

If the Zerg decides to go for an early 3rd, a +1 Zealot/SG timing can be very effective as the distance between natural and 3rd for zerg is quite long, so by the time your timing attack hits, he shouldn't be able to have gotten creep connected between the hatches. This means that it takes ages for his Queens to move between bases, and the funny thing here, is that the air distance between his 3rd and his main is extremely short, so if he brings over a lot of Queens to his third, you might be able to do a lot of damage by quickly swooping into his main.

When you decide to take your 3rd base, I'd really advice leaving a Sentry or two at the ramp by your natural, as it's only 1 FF wide before rocks are destroyed. Meanwhile you should be walling the ramp at your 3rd. I wouldn't invest too much into the wall to the side of your 3rd, unless you are powering up with Gateways anyway. I generally like to just wall off with mostly pylons, as proper scouting should be enough to spot a runby (obs, spotter pylons/probes, hallu).

When it comes to walling at your 4th/5th bases, you should have sufficient means to have almost complete map awareness, so spotting his main army shouldn't be too hard. if you see his army moving, your army will move accordingly. While ling runbys seem like a nice way of harassing, this isn't the only (or even the most effective) way of harassment at this stage of the game. Far more devastating tactics include Muta harass, Roach drops, Baneling drops and burrowed infestors. So I'd rather just plant down pylons and lots of cannons hugging your Nexus, as they deal with all those kinds of harrassment, instead of just ling runbys. If you see his army moving, your army will move accordingly. While ling runbys seem like a nice way of harassing, this isn't the only (or even the most effective) way of harassment at this stage of the game. Far more devastating tactics include Muta harass, Roach drops, Baneling drops and burrowed Infestors. So I'd rather just plant down pylons and lots of cannons hugging your Nexus, as they deal with all those kinds of harrassment (or at the very least buys you time to get some units over there), instead of just ling runbys. Also one HT with high energy at each vulnerable base can be very useful, if you're playing versus a very harass oriented Zerg.

I'd also advice getting the bases that leads to you having to move your army as short distances as possible, and with as few attack routes as possible.

For your own late-game harass, I would definitely recommend DT, as there are so many paths for them to take while going unnoticed (It's not like Shakuras, where a spore in the middle denies any DT tactics unless you use Warp Prism or some hidden pylon shenanigans), and with the distances between bases + multipe options for 4th/5th/6th bases, you can often deny building Hatches and even get away with the DT(s) before Overseers arrives.

General army composition favours Colossus rather than HT, as there are just so many chokes to FF which makes it easy to get into a nice position with your army. The map also discourages Muta play, because of how the first 3 bases are laid out, so Robo should be way safer than templar tech. All the various cliffs also favours Colossus because of their mobility with cliff walking and their huge range. Combined with Blink and Sentries for FF, I think this will be the obvious choice for most Protosses on this map.

Feel free to agree/disagree with me, and add your thoughts to the thread.

This seems like a good map for a 1 Gate expand. I'd advice against Nexus first as you have no reliable ramp(another entrance + rocks) to defend against very early aggression like Marine/SCVs, but most importantly, because the natural is a heaven for Bunker rushes, as there are many good spots for placing the Bunkers where SCVs can keep slipping away, and your Probes will just be moving around trying to hit the SCV. Like for example, dropping down a Bunker between the Vespene Geyser and the close by wall can be pretty effective.

Anyways, not going to go further into that.

As I said, 1 Gate expand seems safe, as there's a ramp where you can FF to buy time for when bio pressure hits, and stim timing pushes can be FFd in the narrow choke at your natural (or at the ramp with the rocks), while you have high ground units to attack for a greater concave. Also, if you have the two Xel'Naga towers they'll give you plenty of time to prepare for any pressure coming at you, as moving across the relatively big map takes quite a while.

Another thing is that gas less expand and 1 Rax expand is very safe because of the narrow entrance to the natural, so Terrans will most likely favour doing that.

After a 1 Gate expand, the safest approach is to get 2 more gates, your Robo and your second gas (unless you took your second gas before the expand, for faster tech).

So now that we have a good opening settled, let's look at possible followups, and things to look out for. I'm assuming by now that you're both on 2 base. Let's start by ruling out threats.

Fast Medivacs? Not very likely, the distance they have to travel is huge, and it doesn't matter if you're on two or three bases, as you have only TWO (!) locations you need to defend, because of the lack of space "outside" the ground of the map. Stalkers (and eventually towards the late game Cannons/HT) behind your minerals at your nat, and at the side with Vespene Geysers in your main OR towards the same direction if you've taken a third, are the only possible routes a Medivac could take. This means that you don't have to worry too much about getting fast Blink. I would still advice to spread pylons around and about as soon as you gain some map control, as dropping will usually occur to some extent in any game. A Medivac flying over a pylon usually results in an Unload, pylon kill, Load up and move back home. I'd say that's worth it.

1-1-1 or variations of it? I think a push like this will be weak on this map as you can delay with stalkers and/or FF in all the chokes going through the middle of the map, and also because you can the layout of the main and natural makes it hard for the Terran to set up a good contain. You have a large high ground where you can snipe Tanks with Immortal and move back and forth with Stalkers if Banshees are trying to be mean. Also, it's laid out so that you most likely won't have any vulnerable buildings within the reach of the Siege Tanks. Not much space for Banshees to harass earlier on, because of the same reasons as I mentioned about fast Medivacs. And for the same reason, Hellion drops are also not very likely.

Fast Ghost? A possibility, yet you should be able to scout it if you have a reasonably fast Robo and Obs. Since you're likely to be relying at least some Sentries (unless you're planning an all-in, you should have about 4), be sure to spread them out if a Bio+Ghost push is coming, as getting those EMPed can be game ending.

Whatever the case, if you see Ghost with your Obs, be sure to plant a Robo Bay for Colo ASAP.

What you'll most likely see on this map, is an in-base 3rd OC from the Terran. Hard to scout before obs, safe to get as he can easily defend most aggression with the narrow choke at his nat. He might decide to keep the OC in his base for a while, depending on what he scouts from you. But as soon as he decides to move it to his third, it'll take almost no time, as the air distance between the main and the 3rd is very short. Be sure to scout for this, as your 3rd timing is heavily dependent on when he decides to take his 3rd.

This is how I imagine most PvT's on this map will look like. After this point, it might vary a lot depending on the different styles of the players.

One thing I'd advice doing if you're both on 2base, you got your Robo up, some sentries at your nat, and your obs is nearing his base, get a Warp Prism. It takes a long time for it to move across the map, yes, but as long as you know if he's moving out you can safely dedicated a few units to some harass. Take your two sentries with the most energy, 1 Zealot and 1 Stalker and fly them across the map. Preferably you should have the Xel'Naga towers, but if not, just fly around, and make sure to watch the entrance of his nat with either your obs or with a probe. If you're able to get into his main with the drop, try to FF in his mineral line and pick off a few SCVs. If you see him push out while you are moving out with your Warp Prism, simply unload the units and run them back, and send the WP to a location not far from his main, where you can warp in Zealots after or during the incoming push if you feel like you can hold it.

What I think is a strong mid-late game composition here, is rather Templar oriented, rather than Colossus oriented, as Vikings can move pretty freely around because of all the cliffs, getting a good wide concave on a Terran army can be very hard, as both of you will have to move through chokes all the time, which will force you to clump up your armies.

I'm not ruling out going Colossus on this map though, all I'm saying is that Vikings over space that isn't ground can be a bit harder to try to Blink snipe than otherwise.

Whatever the case, having complete control over the location of the Terran bio ball is alpha omega on this map. There are so many routes he could be running by, so being prepared for the stim and run in is extremely important.

The reason I prefeer HT on this map, is because the Terran will be moving up and down those ramps/chokes throughout the entire game, and a few well placed Storms can

work as a form of zone control. He can't move Ghosts down, without taking a slight risk. Your army will be sitting nearby to try to pick them off, and if he decides to try to run through a choke, you just have to be reacting fast enough with your Storm and he has to back off, or take a lot of damage.

This can often turn to stalemates and split map situations, after that it just comes down to the skill of each player, how successful each of you are in your harass, and how you decide to engage the inevitable final battle.

I think this is a great map for Zealot runby's so try to do that every so often without overcommitting. And maybe some HT drops when the game progresses to 4+ bases.

The three first bases are fairly easily protected vs drops, but the more spread out the Terran becomes, the easier it is to drop. Especially with that sexy Speed Prism =)

I won't commment much on PvP, as the matchup is fairly undeveloped as of yet. And the games doesn't vary much depending on map, apart from where there is no ramp at your main.

I think the metagame in PvP right now is mostly centered around Robo/Blink, Blink all-in, Phoenix, Robo Expand, and sometimes 3gate vs 3gate which results in both players taking an expansion. 4 gate is pretty much dead vs anyone who does builds that are safe agains them (You should be doing one of those builds!).

I'm undecided as to what is the best approach on this map, but I see a lot of different terrain attributes that could be used to ones favour. Like for instance the high ground in your main is in such a position that you can place units up there that will hit units on the low ground, if they decide to come in for a push. This is in your favour if you decide to take a fast expansion and try to defend it.

On the other hand, the length of the main-to-low-ground cliff is quite large, which can again be abused by anyone going Robo/Blink.

I can see Phoenix being effecive, as they don't rely on space behind mineral lines in the same way Mutas and Banshees do. There's a pretty long rush distance between the two spawn locations, so if you're harassing with Phoenix, you should be able to get home with the Phoenix before the slower ground units knocks at your front door. Also establishing map control with Phoenix might allow you to get up an expansion, some defense at your choke, be it cannons or immortals and you should be relatively safe, depending on the kind of pressure you're facing. Sounds like fun =)

If both players manage to get up their expansions, it's possible we'll see long macro games here, as it's easy to establish a good defensive position, where attacking usually leads to you being in a worse position and eventually a loss.

That's about it for now, it's getting late and I'm really tired. I hope my posts were enlightening for at least some of you =)