EPTEarn nothing less than total victory in the Gamestop Halo Wars tournament.
The Research
One warehouse brings in 235 supply per minute.
One blessed warehouse brings in 320 supply per minute.
Three warehouses costs 300 supply, but you must build them one by one for a per minute intake of 705 when all three are done.
Three blessed warehouses costs 975 supply, but you can bless as you build another warehouse for a per minute intake of 960 when all three are blessed. Also note that blessing an existing warehouse is much faster than building a new one. You also have to take into account that, while a warehouse is building, you are unable to add unit production facilities. Blessed warehouses also take up less room in your limited number of base slots. It's not possible to draw any firm conclusions about how to proceed resource-wise without scouting your opponent thoroughly.
Grunt/Jackal/Ghost have an 8 second build time – 7.5 per minute from one facility, 750 supply per minute intake necessary to sustain production.
Hunter/Vampire/Engineer have a 20 second build time – 3 per minute from one facility, 750 supply per minute intake necessary to sustain production.
Banshee have a 15 second build time – 4 per minute from one facility, 800 supply per minute intake necessary to sustain production.
Wraith have a 26 second build time – 2.3 per minute from one facility, 805 supply per minute intake necessary to sustain production.
Locust have a 23 second build time – 26 per minute from one facility, 780 supply per minute intake necessary to sustain production.
Elite have a 20 second build time – 3 per minute from one base, 375 supply per minute intake necessary to sustain production.
Realistically, you're going to have five warehouses, your temple, and one production facility on your main base, producing Elites from your main building and constant units from your production facility. The remaining cash gets spent on tech, expansions, hero attacks, and static defense.
*None of this research was necessary or relevant, because we were playing idiotic, skill-free Deathmatch instead of awesome, standard Skirmish.
The Training
I played the Halo Wars demo for a few hours.
The Diet
The night before the tournament, I went out to the bars and drank a mixture of Guinness and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Then I ate an entire bag of Goldfish crackers and passed out.
The Result
I arrived a few minutes early at the tournament in order to scout the opposition, bringing my roommate along for moral support. The tournament was capped at 32 players; I was expecting a diverse crowd. When I checked the sign up list, however, I noticed that only three other people were foolish enough to face me: a boy of maybe ten years old, a talkative young man with denim shorts, and his friend, a quiet college freshman with greasy hair and a blue flannel shirt. I listened to the two friends chat.
“Yeah, I have a ton of experience with the RTS genre,” Denim Shorts said. “Mostly Starcraft and Warcraft. I always make dark archons and mind control the other guy's units. Oh man, it's so awesome. No one ever sees it coming.” One thing was for sure: I could not lose to this kid. It was victory or seppuku. There was no middle ground.
After watching me warm up, Denim Shorts approached me. “You're going to play Covenant?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “I haven't decided yet.” This was an outright lie. All of my intense training had been done with the Prophet of Regret, mostly against the UNSC. I had assumed any proper Halo fan would want to live out his fantasies of commanding Master Chief.
“I call Captain Cutter,” Denim Shorts said.
“Alright.”
“Alright,” he smirked.
The first game was between Little Kid and Flannel Shirt. I watched Flannel Shirt play and was unconcerned. His entire strategy revolved around dropping in marines to supplement his fighting force. In my experience, jackals and the Prophet of Regret could kill an infinite amount of marines with minimal losses. Little Kid had never played the game before, but he put up an admirable fight as his father looked on.
“Is that your son?” my roommate asked.
“Yeah.”
“We're rooting for him,” I said.
“Why?” the man asked. I motioned to Denim Shorts in response.
“Oh, right,” the man said, understanding immediately. He lowered his voice. “Yeah, I think someone needs to get a job.”
Flannel Shirt won the match after 20 minutes of back and forth action, none of which was very interesting. It was time for my first round match against Denim Shorts. In the game lobby, he switched from Captain Cutter to Sergeant Forge just before I started the game. I sighed. Victory or seppuku—nothing else would suffice. I hated this kid.
I started the game with my hero and immediately moved to take my natural expansion. Denim Shorts did the same, and not long after, he pushed into my natural with a sizable army. I returned to my main to macro and reinforce, assuming that my advantage was in multitasking. I was right. My troops slowly began to overwhelm his army, but he had managed to snipe my hero. My natural was not in good shape. I watched its health bar drain and drain, much in the same way that I've watched with horror as a group of zerglings took down my nexus even as they were surrounded by a superior force. My natural exploded just as I finished off Denim Shorts' last unit, Sergeant Forge.
“Son of a bitch,” I thought. I heard my roommate suck in his breath.
Denim Shorts' natural was online, and if it was heavily-turreted, I was screwed. My only chance was to attack before he could resurrect his hero. I moved into his natural with a force of jackals, elites, hunters, and my resurrected hero, the Prophet of Regret.
In Deathmatch mode, players start with 15,000 supply and full upgrades. This is important to note; the Prophet of Regret has three cleansing beam upgrades, and using the cleansing beam costs supply on a per second basis. I could use my fully-upgraded beam indefinitely.
And so I did. I nuked his natural. I blanketed the landscape with that fucking beam. The earth itself bled as I heaped punishment upon it. I heard Denim Shorts whisper something to Flannel Shirt, but I couldn't make out what he had said.
“I think he just pushed back,” Flannel Shirt replied in a low voice.
A single vulture, the UNSC uber unit, appeared in the sky. I reduced it to rubble in seconds. When Denim Shorts' natural expansion fell, I quickly moved back to my own to rebuild. But there was a UNSC base there, just coming online. Denim Shorts had snuck a single unit behind my lines in order to establish a base there.
"Son of a bitch," I thought for a second time.
It didn't matter. I crushed the base, stuck around long enough to build one of my own, and moved back towards Denim Shorts' natural. Two more vultures were hovering above his new, largely-undefended base. I... cleansed them, taking down his natural a second time. This time, however, I built a base of my own in its place and frantically began to produce warehouses. Using the cleansing beam with such gusto had completely drained my resources. I was running on warehouses alone, whereas it was quite possible that Denim Shorts still had several thousand supply at hand.
When I repelled his attack on his own natural, however, I knew it was over. I walked into his main and secured the win.
Denim Shorts seemed baffled as to what had just transpired. He began pacing back and forth around the consoles, tugging at the hair on the back of his head. He looked at the Gamestop manager for support. “The Prophet is really overpowered,” Denim Shorts said.
“Oh,” the manager said. “Bummer.”
My match against Flannel Shirt is hardly worth mentioning. I crushed him in seven minutes flat, sealing the deal with the Covenant uber unit, the mighty scarab. Flannel Shirt smiled after our game and shook my hand. “Great push, man,” he said. Denim Shorts was still pacing. When the manager handed him a Halo Wars t-shirt, he seemed to come out of his defeat-induced trance. “Well, I guess I won't be getting this game,” he said, with an awkward giggle as he left the store. I couldn't help but smile.
Questions for the Champ?
