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I searched for this and found one result that was posted this time last year, so i thought it would be best to resurrect with new replays then trying to revive that thread.
This has always been an issue for me, partly because quite a few of my practice partners play random, and one of them loves to cheese us, such as 6 pools, delayed 7 pools and the like. I always scout on 9, but on four player maps if we spawn close by air for instance on metalopolis i will not have had a chance to see his base until pretty much the lings are on their way. This combined with using a drone to block cyber core position and then using a drone to attack the zealot from behind and such has lost me quite a few games and i am tiring of it. This is heaped on top of the fact that against random players it is very dangerous to wall in, especially if they do some sort of medivac play as terran, as they can just pick off the Cyber core from the low ground, or they float a factory, etc.
The icing on the cake was this game, (see the replay at the end if you need further understanding) where my opponent placed a changeling in my wall off, then told it to hold, and when my men were running back through to deal with the drop, they were stuck, and it took me a little while to understand why. That is on top of the natural problem with defending drops when one has walled off which is that the single file line that units make in an attempt to get through is so slow.
As such, i have taken to never walling off at all, and instead playing by sim city. For anyone who doesn't know what it is or how to do it, here is a screen shot of what one might look like:
That is the finished sim city, of course, by that point lings would have already arrived in one's base. the core and the gateway, plus a few pylons would already be down, plus, one would have scouted the 6 pool coming, even on larger maps if scouted last. As soon as one sees the 6 pool you can throw down any extra pylons needed, in gaps of the mineral line etc, and start chrono boosting the zealot and stalker. Using the probe collision trick to get surrounds on zerglings and defend the zealot is more than enough to hold it off from here. Often one needs not use probes at all, it is entirely dependant on the map, ie: the position of the minerals and how late one scouted the opponent.
The roach ling all in is also easily defendable using this system. See the replay below if necessary.
Is there another reason i should wall off instead of sim city based on these points?
Edits: Structure, replays, etc. Replays: Currently uploading to SC2 rep. This will be updated shortly. Changeling walling. Sim city vs Roach Ling all in
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While I agree on some maps Simcitying can be better, the disadvantage is that your opponent is going to be able to scout you easily, all of the time. Good luck trying to 4gate if you simcity.
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Good point. Lucky i do not 4 gate. I suppose that is true very early, but after the first zealot-stalker-sentry etc scouting is no more easy than usual. terrans can still scan or scout rax, observers can still walk in and overlords can still suicide. However by the time i have chosen a tech path i will have taken my ramp. I am tempted to start doing partial wall offs after that, for instance with a single gateway, simply to constrict space, but not so much that drops become hard to deal with.
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i only always wall off against zerg, agains terran i think it isnt even neccesary to play this sim city like. i just prefer to wall off against zerg cause of ling attacks, and imo when you dont block the choke they can just stay with maybe 10-15 lings in your base and run around cause they are much quicker than you and you wont be able to get them out fast so he can do what he wants while you cant move out off your base.
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As for your first point about only against zerg, it seems you didn't properly read my post because as i pointed out you cannot know which race they are if they random. What's more, a good 6 pooler will have blocked your core positioning with a drone for long enough to annoy you greatly.
As for whether he can use his lings in your base and expand, that is true up to a point., as long as you have continued to build probes you can simply keep building zealots and sentries, build more gateways and then just 1 base push him. I have held it many times, and i feel completely safe. In fact, sometimes i pray for a 6 pool for laughs
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As a Zerg i can say you are giving away so much by doing this instead of walling, the main purpose of the walling, besides preventing zergling rush/runbys, is to deny scouting. With the sim city stuff i can just run a zergling in and see everything which is pretty hudge.
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I just find it easier to wall off. I'm much more comfortable with it as if the pylon is placed near the ramp and you scout a six pool you can put down a forge and gateway without waiting for a pylon to finish so you can place them at all.
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I think that although simcity has merits, it could be difficult to be aggressive without a wall. For example the Zerg can rule out 4gate builds since he can easily run-by into the mineral lines should you attempt one. The Zerg can also easily punish any 3gate aggression by once again running straight into your mineral line.
It also grants a lot less peace of mind, as speedlings run up ramps much faster than stimmed marines. One misplaced forcefield and it's over in the early game.
Wouldn't it be safer just to kill off once of your own gateways once two bases are established? 150 minerals for peace of mind, without having to sacrifice all the advantages of an early game wall-off
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All good points. So what do i do about players who send a drone to stop the wall off? Simply send two probes and waste the minerals?
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Against Zerg i think you always need to wall off. THe threat of a 6 pool and any early pressure is too great not to wall off. Also, if you push out when you are on 2 base with your relatively slow army, there is also the possibility of a zergling counter attack, and if you wall off, its easy just to warp in a zealot at the choke and maybe a stalker or two behind the wall, possibly even a sentry if the Zerg isn't paying attention and you can trap the zerglings with FF.
Against Terran, a "simcity" like the one pictured above is perfect i think. With a wall off, the Cybernetics Core, and your gateway are in danger from stimmed marauders, or even siege tanks. Also, with a simcity any reapers early game will be made less effective as they wont be able to micro properly or even find a way to the mineral line before your stalkers finish them off. In the mid game, if the Terran goes hellion drops, the hellions will also have a hard time finding a way into your mineral line.
Against Protoss, i would always go for a simcity, more pylons will be powering the gateways, which means if an opponent is on your base he cant unpower the gateways, and if colossus are out, they could snipe the cyber core and your gateway with thermal lance.
I know that you didn't ask for advice on Terran and Protoss but i thought it would be good to add if you ever needed help with it.
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Besides the fact that it's actually quite complicated to simcity properly in a way that makes you safe to a 7RR...as already mentioned, your opponent gets literally free scouting. He can run a speedling inside your base at pretty much any point in the early game. If you sentry-expo you can't engage, or he will trade lings for sentries (lol). You can't go 4gate, you can't go stargate, you can't go DTs. While this may not be that bad in itself, what's bad is, that your opponent KNOWS this and can play really comfortable. And despite many zergs QQing about the oh so imbalanced protoss ball, there's nothing more dangerous than a zerg who can play comfortably from the very beginning.
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Hmmm, you can run a ling past? What about on (for sake of argument) metalopolis, where, after a fast expand i throw down two more gates to form a wall with the nexus, and then leave my men by the gases at the top. In fact, exactly as the buildings are pictured in the changeling screen shot. How is he supposed to run a ling by for scouting? Maybe it is true during an attack, although having the semi-obligatory 1-2 cannons in case of burrowed roaches would kill it long before the ling gets into my base.
Also my problem with not being able to place the cyber core due to the drone blocking i would still like some advice on.
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It's really the most useful against zerg because of the run-by threat. which primarily is aiming to damage your mineral line. A *GOOD* sim-city completely nullifies this attack. It also defends hellion drops quite well.
The changeling is annoying as hell, but that's just a lapse in concentration. If it happens enough times you'll learn to check for it and it wont happen anymore.
My problem with the replays is they show the extremes. Zerg completely all-ins and then loses in the second. Not necessarily because of the sim-city, but because he kept throwing more and more units at you. You didn't scout the roaches, saw a flood of lings at your door and didn't really respond that much except to forcefield when they moved.
No in-game decision was made for a forge or cancelling the robo or anything like that in response to what you saw. Without that next step, it's a lot harder to justify wall vs sim city without just saying its personal preference.
I don't wall against terran. Free tank shots, hellions generally cant run-by, and get met by the sim if they do. I semi wall against protoss to constrict space for the inevitable 4-gate. However, I 2/3-gate robo and hold with sentry immortal so I need to limit the opposing player's range and abuse high-ground as much as possible. If you are offensively 4-gating then quite frankly it doesnt matter what building defense you go for. I almost always wall against zerg. The only threat is an early roach warren push to break the wall. Actively scouting for it and counting drones will warn you its coming. From there, forge+cannon and you win the game.
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On April 13 2011 21:12 Surili wrote: Hmmm, you can run a ling past? What about on (for sake of argument) metalopolis, where, after a fast expand i throw down two more gates to form a wall with the nexus, and then leave my men by the gases at the top.
One gate FE is not do-able vs speedling expand. You have to 3 gate expo, or do anything else that involves more production structures before the nexus. And that's the thing, he'll see everything at this point. The possibility of a 4 gate, the possibility of a super-fast DT, the possibility of a one gate stargate for a fast voidray or fast 4 phoenixes means, that the zerg has to account for a really vast number of things if he wants to be safe. If you don't wall, then zerg knows you won't do anything of those.
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Sorry, i didn't explain correctly, i am not talking about a 1 gate FE, i am just saying that after a 2 gate robo or a 3 gate sentry expand i throw down two more gates to form the wall. But yes you are right, he knows whether i am 4 gating, (which although i don't do he doesn't know that) and fast DTs etc. grrr, zergs are so annoying :D Admittedly there are other signs he could have scouted for to guess whether i am four gating, for instance taking my second gas relatively early, which i do. I can only get the drone out once i have the stalker, which comes after the zealot and the two together could stop a ling getting in. I suppose if he sent two it wouldn't work.
Hopeless1der i am currently laddering and waiting for a zerg to do a less all in attack, and then i shall upload that. And also say if i managed to defend it of course
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On metal, scout on 9, scout for the overlord coming into your base on 11 then scout cross positions. If you see he's not cross positions and you didn't scout the overlord on 11, then he's likely doing some kind've 6,7,8,9 pool and I will throw down a forge for the 1 hec wall off in my base. I have enough time with the build time on the forge to cancel it if I see standard play at the zergs base. If I see that early pool though my forge is nearly done and I can put a cannon up ezpz.
When you are doing this though I suggest hotkeying the forge, as you will just manage to scout close air positions when the forge is finishing that unless you have it hotkeyed you can screw up the cancel pretty easily.
Btw in that replay PvZ, just a quick look at it shows 184 food to 113. Pretty sure you'd lost at that point already.
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On April 13 2011 21:36 headbus wrote: If you see he's not cross positions and you didn't scout the overlord on 11, then he's likely doing some kind've 6,7,8,9 pool
This is just wrong. I've got a custom game partner (rank 400 sc2ranks btw, no random scrub) who never sends an overlord to be able to get a free 15 hatch down 1/3rd of the time.
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This will not work against a zerg unless he just gave up on ZvP.
So what do I do if I see some kind of simcity like this? Simple, I baneling bust it hard and have a nice and tasty probe meal as they are all trapped in their 'cradle of safety'. Lets say I just play my regular speedling expand. I can constanty scout you and notice when I should drone and when I should make units ( This is actually HUGE in ZvP, if I can see what the opponent does in the early game for a solid few minutes, I win the game right there ).
Even if I let you expand and go for a macro game, your probes will be pretty much trapped if I baneling bomb your mineral line. Sure, they can run away, through a choke, in a single file line, versus my splash unit that one hit kills your probe. But I can assure you that it won't be pretty.
The only benefit of this is that you make sure that lings cant easily reach your probes. But you sacrifice so... so much by doing that. Its easier to just make sure the opponent isn't walling you off with a changeling than it is to accomodate for all the extra work you need to perform to get back into the game versus a zerg.
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I admit defeat. There are too many negatives that people have pointed out. That said, still i get don't know what to do with players who send the early drone to block the cyber core, because i simply cannot hold a 6 pool without either a wall in or sim city.
At least this thread can stand to show anyone who does want to sim city how to sim city.
Thanks for the replies guys
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On April 13 2011 22:00 Surili wrote: I admit defeat. There are too many negatives that people have pointed out. That said, still i get don't know what to do with players who send the early drone to block the cyber core, because i simply cannot hold a 6 pool without either a wall in or sim city.
That's actually really easy - I wanna put down my core on 17, if I see/sense a possible block-attempt I send two probes towards the spot and start attacking the drone on 16. Minor mineral-loss and evenless lost time. This being said, you don't want a cybercore vs a 6-pool anyway. Either forge or 2nd gate.
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