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rkiga
United States44 Posts
First of all, I think it's a lot more helpful to express things in Game-Time not Real-Time, so that's what I'm going to do. When looking at replays, playing the game, looking at charts/graphs, reading BO here on the forum, or testing builds in YABOT, it's always expressed in game time. Did you confuse real time (as in your watch) with "faster" game time?
Reasons your build is not good:
1) 8:00 real time is about 11:15 game time. You said that is the point where your army size will have caught up, but that you'll still be behind in tech. That's a LONG time to be waiting for you stuff to pay for itself. If you opponent scouts you and sees you have two CCs without having taken your expansion, he'll know you're behind and will be able to immediately expand. If that player early expanded already, he can probably go directly to 3-base safely, or at least hard tech safely.
2) Look at the blue line on this graph. Assuming 6 on gas in each of your YABOT times, 29 scvs is not much more mineral income than 21. It'll take a long time to just pay back the cost of those extra scvs before they start making money (about 5 minutes just for the scvs). You already know how long it takes because you tested it and did the math, but it should be something that you can just think about and know that it's wrong to oversaturate your main for that long. I don't think you realize how much 11 game minutes is! Also note how much more efficient it is to have two bases undersaturated than 1 base oversaturated.
3) Go rewatch that TLO vs Nony game you linked and listen to the commentators. TLO did NOT do a similar build to what you're proposing. TLO builds the CC at his ramp and the OC, then waits. This is the standard way to early expand as T, go download any replay pack and see for yourself. The reason he is waiting is because he knows his army size and composition is poor. He's waiting for his barracks to scout Nony's base so he knows what is coming. He sees fast fast Colossi, so taking the island expansion is much safer than his natural. You probably know this, but your way is SOOOOO much more passive. Also, note that the only way TLO defends against the first Colossi push is that 2 vikings come out RIGHT when the thermal lance upgrade finishes and the Protoss push comes. But with your build, you are short on gas, and late on tech, so you'd be dead right there. And this is happening much before 8 minutes of real time, so your army would be much smaller than TLO. If you have instead gone more of a mech build with thors/tanks, the P will just scout you and make immortals and tech to zealot charge, etc. It's an easy transition for him and remember that your tech is slow. And that is all assuming you didn't already die to his timing attack.
4) Trading 200 gas to get 200 minerals is a bad trade. Having an instantly saturated expansion does not make up for the expansion being so late by itself. AND add in being more vulnerable for the first 11 minutes of a game AND slowing down your tech because your gas is late? No thanks.
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On July 06 2010 18:03 rkiga wrote:First of all, I think it's a lot more helpful to express things in Game-Time not Real-Time, so that's what I'm going to do. When looking at replays, playing the game, looking at charts/graphs, reading BO here on the forum, or testing builds in YABOT, it's always expressed in game time. Did you confuse real time (as in your watch) with "faster" game time? Reasons your build is not good:1) 8:00 real time is about 11:15 game time. You said that is the point where your army size will have caught up, but that you'll still be behind in tech. That's a LONG time to be waiting for you stuff to pay for itself. If you opponent scouts you and sees you have two CCs without having taken your expansion, he'll know you're behind and will be able to immediately expand. If that player early expanded already, he can probably go directly to 3-base safely, or at least hard tech safely. 2) Look at the blue line on this graph. Assuming 6 on gas in each of your YABOT times, 29 scvs is not much more mineral income than 21. It'll take a long time to just pay back the cost of those extra scvs before they start making money (about 5 minutes just for the scvs). You already know how long it takes because you tested it and did the math, but it should be something that you can just think about and know that it's wrong to oversaturate your main for that long. I don't think you realize how much 11 game minutes is! Also note how much more efficient it is to have two bases undersaturated than 1 base oversaturated. 3) Go rewatch that TLO vs Nony game you linked and listen to the commentators. TLO did NOT do a similar build to what you're proposing. TLO builds the CC at his ramp and the OC, then waits. This is the standard way to early expand as T, go download any replay pack and see for yourself. The reason he is waiting is because he knows his army size and composition is poor. He's waiting for his barracks to scout Nony's base so he knows what is coming. He sees fast fast Colossi, so taking the island expansion is much safer than his natural. You probably know this, but your way is SOOOOO much more passive. Also, note that the only way TLO defends against the first Colossi push is that 2 vikings come out RIGHT when the thermal lance upgrade finishes and the Protoss push comes. But with your build, you are short on gas, and late on tech, so you'd be dead right there. And this is happening much before 8 minutes of real time, so your army would be much smaller than TLO. If you have instead gone more of a mech build with thors/tanks, the P will just scout you and make immortals and tech to zealot charge, etc. It's an easy transition for him and remember that your tech is slow. And that is all assuming you didn't already die to his timing attack. 4) Trading 200 gas to get 200 minerals is a bad trade. Having an instantly saturated expansion does not make up for the expansion being so late by itself. AND add in being more vulnerable for the first 11 minutes of a game AND slowing down your tech because your gas is late? No thanks.
Thanks for your reply. You bring up valid concerns initially but you seem to end your post with hostility and complete falacies about this build. I want to address your critique the best that I can. This build is untested in ladder, and may very well be unviable due to something I overlooked. However, from my current tests against the AI and comparisons on YABOT I can completely defend this build specifically from the points you make, including the lies.
1) At 7:00 real time your military is roughly equal to an opponent who has not expanded. At 8:00 real time you are slightly ahead of an opponent who has not expanded. HOWEVER, if your opponent plays exactly as you said and expands in response to your double CC, your military will catch up to the strength of his extremely rapidly considering that he just dumped 400 minerals himself, and surpass it even sooner. His fast expand will not yield a stronger military for several minutes, meaning you can lift off and expand yourself. Thus, you maintain your lead because you had your expansion already built and more scv's because of it.
2)You are completely correct in your analysis but you forgot one huge factor: Mules. The oversaturation of SCV's is primarily in order to be able to quickly fully saturate your expansion when you do expand. The big thing you are overlooking here is mules. Your analysis also neglects SCV's who are building or scouting. Saturation has no effect on mules, and you are able to call in double the mules as you normally would, thus rapidly spiking your mineral income. The Yabot numbers do not lie, at the 7:00 real time mark you have +1000 minerals and -200 gas compared to a standard terran build.
3)What TLO did is very similar to this build, but less effective. The main difference is he neglects gas and tech for much longer than this build and instead goes heavy minerals into mass infantry. His expansion does not even start mining until 6:30 real time and with no SCV saturation whatsoever due to being on an island. My build has you expand at either the 8:00 RT mark, or exactly 1 min after your opponent begins construction on his own expansion (which can be very early). You get gas MUCH faster with my build than TLO's and are also much faster in tech than TLO, and would have those vikings much sooner than he did. This is the part I'm not following you because your critique was intelligent at first but now is just an outright attack with falacies thrown in. And if you rewatch the first big battle in that match, it occurs at 7:00 real time which is exactly where this build begins to shine.
4) Who says you are trading 200 minerals for 200 gas? That is only at the 7 minute mark, by the 8 minute mark you have over a thousand mineral advantage, entirely due to mules. Also the expansion is not late, you expand as early as safely possible. 8:00 is when you expand if your opponent has not expanded, but if he has expanded then you expand earlier yourself. Have you forgotten that Terran buildings can fly and you can expand as early as you deem safe...
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I've been doing a variation of this against Toss. The concept is good, but IMO your build order is not optimized very well. Your first OC is way too late and your bunker is too late.
This is what I do that I believe is much more optimized and safer:
10depot
12rax
16OC + marine
Bunker
1 more marine
2nd Command center as soon as bunker completes, use CC to wall off with bunker.
2nd depot
Gas
Gas
2nd Rax
3rd Rax
Then transition to more Bio/Ghost army or a Bio/Mech army
Expand
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On July 06 2010 18:51 link0 wrote:
I've been doing a variation of this against Toss and Zerg. The concept is good, but I don't think your build order is very efficient at all for maximizing economy while staying relatively safe. Your first OC is way too late and your bunker is too late.
I have tested getting the orbital command sooner and the second command center a tad later, but YABOT showed this build to have the strongest economy. I can try both in YABOT again to confirm. As for the bunker being late, you can build it whenever you want or not build it at all. It is not a major part of this build order.
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You'll die to the first timing push / drop once they scout you, which will come at around 5 mins real time or 7-8 mins game time. A Terran can drop a Thor or a dozen of Marines + some Hellions inside your base around 7:20 game time, a Protoss can have ~10-12 blinking Stalkers at like 8 minutes or so (game time), you're going to be miles behind both in tech and unit count at this point still.
Four massive reasons why a normal expo build works better:
Your second CC is built later, so you have a better idea of what's your opponent doing while they have to commit resources to something, and you can plan and react accordingly to that.
Your second CC yields much better income as soon as it's completed, AND you're not draining your mains' resources as fast - so you will have double income for longer.
If you see dangerous pressure building up after you've placed your second CC, you can reinforce your defenses at your natural by going PF rather than OC on it.
If your opponent goes for a heavy econ build before you place your expo, you can scrap it altogether and win the game by a fast Reaper or Marauder attack, or a Tank timing push etc.
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Well you NEED a bunker very very early to stop the first Stalker from ending the game right away.
I'm actually pretty confident that this BO can stop a 4gate rush.
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On July 06 2010 19:00 Sethronu wrote:
You'll die to the first timing push / drop once they scout you, which will come at around 5 mins real time or 7-8 mins game time. A Terran can drop a Thor or a dozen of Marines + some Hellions inside your base around 7:20 game time, a Protoss can have ~10-12 blinking Stalkers at like 8 minutes or so (game time), you're going to be miles behind both in tech and unit count at this point still.
Four massive reasons why a normal expo build works better:
Your second CC is built later, so you have a better idea of what's your opponent doing while they have to commit resources to something, and you can plan and react accordingly to that.
Your second CC yields much better income as soon as it's completed, AND you're not draining your mains' resources as fast - so you will have double income for longer.
If you see dangerous pressure building up after you've placed your second CC, you can reinforce your defenses at your natural by going PF rather than OC on it.
If your opponent goes for a heavy econ build before you place your expo, you can scrap it altogether and win the game by a fast Reaper or Marauder attack, or a Tank timing push etc.
I know that a Thor drop can arrive as early as 5:15 real time. You should have enough marauders to defend it. I highly doubt they can have 12 blink stalkers in my base at 8 min game time. I have been watching pro games and I have never seen 12 blink stalkers at 8 min gametime.
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On July 06 2010 19:00 link0 wrote:
Well you NEED a bunker very very early to stop the first Stalker from ending the game right away.
I'm actually pretty confident that this BO can stop a 4gate rush.
I am testing a variation hybrid of your build, my build, and TLO build that is still useable in TVT and getting the #'s from YABOT right now.
Edit: My original build keeps coming out on top in terms of resources.
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On July 06 2010 19:25 Sabresandiego wrote:
I know that a Thor drop can arrive as early as 5:15 real time. You should have enough marauders to defend it. I highly doubt they can have 12 blink stalkers in my base at 8 min game time. I have been watching pro games and I have never seen 12 blink stalkers at 8 min gametime.
Just went to BO tester to make sure I remember my timings right. 12 Stalkers, Blink researched, proxy Pylon somewhere not too far from your base + 3 Warpgates off cooldown, ~500 minerals to either expand or warp in 3 more Stalkers at 7:49 gametime. Not skipping any Probes either, so my base is fully saturated and I can either continue pushing with more Stalkers, or expand and very quickly saturate my natural as well.
So, I was wrong - I could have 15, not 12 Stalkers with blink before your econ / tech even begins to catch up.
The problem with your build is you invest far too much BEFORE you have any idea of what's going on with your opponent, so you're giving your opponent tons of opportunity to build up any kind of pressure OR econ play, while in the meantime you're stuck to your original BO simply because you've already spent 500 minerals on something you planned before the game started.
How about a Zerg going for fast Muta harass? You wouldn't have the cash to get turrets, nor Thors - and have fun hunting Mutalisks with Marines only, likely unstimmed ones as well. In TvT, you said you'd have enough Marauders to fight a single Thor? Sure, but a Thor + Mediv wouldn't hit your Marauders head on - he'd just oneshot an SCV and get back up into the Mediv, repeat x20. You wouldn't have enough Marines to dispose of the Medivac fast enough - and if you would, you'd not have enough Marauders to kill the Thor. Nevermind that there would be another, and then another Thor coming up to your base every minute while you're stuck scrambling to defend your SCVs with an inferior army - all the while the only advantage you have is that of double MULEs - because my base would be fully saturated or close to it by now anyway.
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12-15 stalkers with blink at 7:49 gametime 5:30 real time would defeat this build. I just don't believe those numbers are possible. As a sample comparison, a terran who goes for a thorship with a standard terran build is going to have 1 thor, a dropship, 4-5 marines and 1 or 2 marauders at this timing, and would just as easily be crushed by 15 blinking stalkers. Something tells me your numbers and timings are exagerrated.
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What do you want me to do, post a replay of me building them? :p
Just load up BO tester yourself, 7:49 isn't even the fastest you could have this kind of push, with some finetuning you could have these numbers up anywhere in the range of 7:30 - 8:30 gametime.
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I simply do not believe 15 stalkers with blink in your base at 7:30 game time. That would beat almost any strategy a terran could use.
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From a zerg point of view, your just shooting yourself in the foot with this build.
All the early pressure of the terran is gone or his push is way later with this build, and if scouted, you can be sure the zerg can drone whore like theres no tomorrow.
In fact, I dont know what you could do, by the time youd come and harass, Id have my natural and main well saturated with 4 gases and muta tech inc, by the time you push I should probably have my second expo well underway. and a definite army advantage.
W/E advantage you get from that early CC will get negated by the advantage of being left alone for the zerg. You cant outmacro a Zerg, its just simple like that. 2 queens and spawn larva can let me build 15-20 drones in a minute if left alone,while still teching hard, and having any amount of zerglings to face your late harass.
I really dont think this is viable for TvZ, but its all opinion.
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On July 06 2010 20:28 Actua wrote:
From a zerg point of view, your just shooting yourself in the foot with this build.
All the early pressure of the terran is gone or his push is way later with this build, and if scouted, you can be sure the zerg can drone whore like theres no tomorrow.
In fact, I dont know what you could do, by the time youd come and harass, Id have my natural and main well saturated with 4 gases and muta tech inc, by the time you push I should probably have my second expo well underway. and a definite army advantage.
W/E advantage you get from that early CC will get negated by the advantage of being left alone for the zerg. You cant outmacro a Zerg, its just simple like that. 2 queens and spawn larva can let me build 15-20 drones in a minute if left alone,while still teching hard, and having any amount of zerglings to face your late harass.
I really dont think this is viable for TvZ, but its all opinion.
Probably true, but who says that the terran can't push early with this build or simply convert into an early expansion?
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On July 06 2010 20:36 Sabresandiego wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2010 20:28 Actua wrote:
From a zerg point of view, your just shooting yourself in the foot with this build.
All the early pressure of the terran is gone or his push is way later with this build, and if scouted, you can be sure the zerg can drone whore like theres no tomorrow.
In fact, I dont know what you could do, by the time youd come and harass, Id have my natural and main well saturated with 4 gases and muta tech inc, by the time you push I should probably have my second expo well underway. and a definite army advantage.
W/E advantage you get from that early CC will get negated by the advantage of being left alone for the zerg. You cant outmacro a Zerg, its just simple like that. 2 queens and spawn larva can let me build 15-20 drones in a minute if left alone,while still teching hard, and having any amount of zerglings to face your late harass.
I really dont think this is viable for TvZ, but its all opinion. Probably true, but who says that the terran can't push early with this build or simply convert into an early expansion?
because you built a CC? You cant take advantage of the same timing windows with your build, its all being pushed a lil later.
If you still try to push, like I said, and really try to squeeze it in as fast as you can, they can probably get away with around 10 more drones and still defend properly and still get away with better tech than if you hadnt early CCed.
Btw, this is all assuming your opponent is scouting well and sees where you going with this, because I admit, an early CC not going into fast expo can confuse and lead to massing ling or roaches to take out an expansion that wont exist tillw ay later.
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On July 06 2010 20:23 Sethronu wrote:
What do you want me to do, post a replay of me building them? :p
Just load up BO tester yourself, 7:49 isn't even the fastest you could have this kind of push, with some finetuning you could have these numbers up anywhere in the range of 7:30 - 8:30 gametime.
Just found out that your numbers are slightly exaggerated. 12 stalkers with blink at 8:00 GT might be possible, but they are still forced to come through the front door since you need vision to blink. This means they have to face a bunker with 4 marines, 2 more marines outside of bunker, 4 marauders, and 1 thor. The terran force is able to hold
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On July 06 2010 20:06 Sethronu wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2010 19:25 Sabresandiego wrote:
I know that a Thor drop can arrive as early as 5:15 real time. You should have enough marauders to defend it. I highly doubt they can have 12 blink stalkers in my base at 8 min game time. I have been watching pro games and I have never seen 12 blink stalkers at 8 min gametime. Just went to BO tester to make sure I remember my timings right. 12 Stalkers, Blink researched, proxy Pylon somewhere not too far from your base + 3 Warpgates off cooldown, ~500 minerals to either expand or warp in 3 more Stalkers at 7:49 gametime. Not skipping any Probes either, so my base is fully saturated and I can either continue pushing with more Stalkers, or expand and very quickly saturate my natural as well. So, I was wrong - I could have 15, not 12 Stalkers with blink before your econ / tech even begins to catch up. The problem with your build is you invest far too much BEFORE you have any idea of what's going on with your opponent, so you're giving your opponent tons of opportunity to build up any kind of pressure OR econ play, while in the meantime you're stuck to your original BO simply because you've already spent 500 minerals on something you planned before the game started. How about a Zerg going for fast Muta harass? You wouldn't have the cash to get turrets, nor Thors - and have fun hunting Mutalisks with Marines only, likely unstimmed ones as well. In TvT, you said you'd have enough Marauders to fight a single Thor? Sure, but a Thor + Mediv wouldn't hit your Marauders head on - he'd just oneshot an SCV and get back up into the Mediv, repeat x20. You wouldn't have enough Marines to dispose of the Medivac fast enough - and if you would, you'd not have enough Marauders to kill the Thor. Nevermind that there would be another, and then another Thor coming up to your base every minute while you're stuck scrambling to defend your SCVs with an inferior army - all the while the only advantage you have is that of double MULEs - because my base would be fully saturated or close to it by now anyway.
You gravely overestimate the impact getting an early command center has on your military. You do realize that you can have a thor of your own using this build almost as quickly as a terran who was going for a straight thor drop would land in your base? This build doesnt have you as far behind as you imagine.
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On July 06 2010 20:47 Sabresandiego wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2010 20:23 Sethronu wrote:
What do you want me to do, post a replay of me building them? :p
Just load up BO tester yourself, 7:49 isn't even the fastest you could have this kind of push, with some finetuning you could have these numbers up anywhere in the range of 7:30 - 8:30 gametime. Just found out that your numbers are slightly exaggerated. 12 stalkers with blink at 8:00 GT might be possible, but they are still forced to come through the front door since you need vision to blink. This means they have to face a bunker with 4 marines, 2 more marines outside of bunker, 4 marauders, and 1 thor. The terran force is able to hold
You can have more than 12 Stalkers earlier than 8:00GT, with a perfect BO you can have as many as 15 by 7:30ish - you're right about having to come through front door though as you won't have Robo or Hallucination to blink around - but it hardly matters if you have a superior force; blink is enough to cross the choke so all of them will engage with minimal losses during movement.
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On July 06 2010 20:54 Sabresandiego wrote:
You gravely overestimate the impact getting an early command center has on your military. You do realize that you can have a thor of your own using this build almost as quickly as a terran who was going for a straight thor drop would land in your base? This build doesnt have you as far behind as you imagine.
No, you can't. You're both mineral blocked AND gas blocked for lengthy periods of time; your factory comes out a lot later, AND you're not going to have the early defensive units either - unless you opt to delay your Factory even further. The fastest you can have a Thor out with getting a second CC before gas the way you do, is a little past 8 minutes gametime mark, and this is with holding back on Marine production and placing all your buildings next to your base rather than moving SCVs to wall-off spot. It might not look like a big deal, these extra 30-50 seconds, and in many ladder games you'd probably get away with it - but anyone doing a timing push correctly would annihilate you.
Another reason why this build isn't that great is, your main is close to being fully saturated with workers right about the time your second OC is finished - having an extra MULE is nice, but the SCV production isn't all that useful; and with most Terran builds being as gas hungry as they are, the extra MULEs don't really make up for the loss of gas.
Really, it's just not worth it over going for a normal FE build - that you place after scouting and after you're confident you can hold your own.
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On July 06 2010 21:10 Sethronu wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2010 20:47 Sabresandiego wrote:On July 06 2010 20:23 Sethronu wrote:
What do you want me to do, post a replay of me building them? :p
Just load up BO tester yourself, 7:49 isn't even the fastest you could have this kind of push, with some finetuning you could have these numbers up anywhere in the range of 7:30 - 8:30 gametime. Just found out that your numbers are slightly exaggerated. 12 stalkers with blink at 8:00 GT might be possible, but they are still forced to come through the front door since you need vision to blink. This means they have to face a bunker with 4 marines, 2 more marines outside of bunker, 4 marauders, and 1 thor. The terran force is able to hold You can have more than 12 Stalkers earlier than 8:00GT, with a perfect BO you can have as many as 15 by 7:30ish - you're right about having to come through front door though as you won't have Robo or Hallucination to blink around - but it hardly matters if you have a superior force; blink is enough to cross the choke so all of them will engage with minimal losses during movement.
At 8:30 Gametime I have 1 thor, 5-7 marauders, 6 marines and a bunker at my choke. This will hold off 15 stalkers, and I highly, highly doubt 15 stalkers will be at my door before 8:30 gametime.
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EPT
