Spanked another human terran with the same tactics (1 on 1).

About half way into the game I took paradropped on one of his expansions and raided the other one with 3 cruisers. He then decided to hole up, sit back and barricade his main base with a shitload of AA towers and defenses. So I gladly upped my battlecruiser production. During which time, he tried to raid my bases a couple of times, but my upgraded marines were there to stop them. He also tried to counter my cruisers with Vikings a few times, which would have worked cos they're fast and good at harassing and out range my cruisers. Unfortunately for him, I had Yamato cannons, which as soon as theyre locked on, the range it unlimited, SO YOU CANT AVOID IT BITCH!!!!

Once I got about 25 battlecruisers ready, I launched the attack. He quit as I broke his first line of defense

We played more yesterday night when I got home, and we won a few more and then lost pretty hard to two dudes who were clearly just too much for us to handle. Not because they were exceptionally gifited tactically, but because they just piled on the pressure and we couldn't cope. It was pretty lame. SC2 in its worst form, as it has no longer anything to do with strategy or clever plans. They just have some uber build orders they downloaded from the web and carry it out meticulously, set some waypoints to our base and then bring in unit batch after unit batch which they then micro the shit out of so we have to spend our time focusing on them. It's really rather dull.

In a conversation yesterday we pretty much figured out what the difference is between us and these guys. Yes, we smother our opponents with larger armies too and sometimes just outproduce them. But it's not like that is ALL we do. We scout, we coordinate, we make sure we have counters for units they make, we put up ambushes (with banelings etc) we actively seek out expansions and destroy them (mostly me because zerglings are fast as shit) and we try surprise tactics like Derf's marine paradrop into the enemies' workers, our scan + nydus worm base rape, or even like last night where one guy had a HUGE fleet and we had a respectable number of battle cruisers (Derf) and air superiority fighters (me). I let Derf go in first so the guy would engage him thinking he could take him, then when the battle broke out I moved into sight and started helping to demolish the enemy's fleet. It was a pretty epic sight. But the point is that we're using tricks and trying to counter our enemies.

These guys we play, who clearly are better at winning the game, just make an initial rush and then keep on bringing in units from all over the map to wear you down. Eventually they break you. Their only real strength is their early economy. Which also brings up the fact that they seem to have magic fingers or some sort of assistance, because even though Derf is an extremely autistic (haha) base building whore, these guys manage to outproduce him by a mile (and me by many more). Sometimes I simply am baffled by the amount of units they can bring in AND expand (costly) AND produce tier 2-3 buildings and units at the same time in their base as they are microing near our bases.

Perhaps the best criticism of these types of players with build order sheets is that they have never really surprised me. The only thing that ever surprised me about them is how big their army was. So much for strategy.

Yeah, at a certain level of "skill" the strategy goes out of the window. It becomes a battle of actions-per-minute.

I personally think the economy is decided by those early split seconds of "idleness" of gatherers. If you have a perfect early build queue, compared to someone who is sloppy or not perfect, those benefits are exponential as time goes on.

E.g. sometimes I find it hard to time the first Supply Depot for Terrans. There will sometimes be 10-20 seconds of time where I have to wait for it to build before the next SCV can train. Sometimes I get it right, but other times not. I bet these guys have those things nailed down all game long.

They have entire "ideal" build order lists for the first minutes of a game memorized or printed out. They 'know' exactly what to build and when. I'm not gonna bother with that...the fun is out of a game when you can't organically learn what to do. That is why these guys are capable of swamping us in myriads of units but have no tactical clue whatsoever - it's like taking an exam by reading the answers from your book. it'll help you pass, but you won't have learned or understood anything.

Played one game last night (wanted to go to bed early) and we whomped our opponents. Some hilarious moments in there, like the ultralisks pouring into the enemy Terran's base and Derf yamato-ing the lone chopper the poor chump had left.

I'm going to be realistic and say that although I would kill to play SC tonight, chances are after footieball, i'll need to get back into the office.

Haha, LAME! Not it's ok really, I hope Mafia 2 will finally arrive today so I may be busy with that anyway!

You still don't have that game?!

Yeah fucking postal services...I don't get it, OPF2 arrived 2 days after being shipped, Mafia 2 is taking a week or more.

RAAGH STILL NO MAFIA I HATE YOU POSTAL SERVICESSSS

(translates as: not gonna bother leaving work a little early tomorrow to check my mailbox)

won a few games yesterday, lost a few. One of them was just plain bad luck because I think we could have taken them if my army hadn't been holed up in that Nydus Worm.

We also realised that:

- once we survive their initial rush/beat their first big push we'll destroy pretty much every opponent. They often just ouright ragequit after having their mass unit X army destroyed by our defense, which leads me to think they're just kiddies working off some script. They don't seem to know what to do when plan A fails.

- I need backup from Derf's marines in early game. Zerg are so piss poor in the first half of the game it makes you want to cry. In fact they are only really effective in a backup role to a more robust race (Terrans in our case), since they have no great all purpose unit but a few nice expensive specialist units. I usually try getting 2 base defenses up in the first few minutes because I KNOW they'll try to attack me first if they rush (because Derf tends to have walled off his base ramp by then and because they know Zerg are easy pickings) but they are so shit. They took 20 seconds to kill 6 freaking non-upgraded zerglings with two of them yesterday. After I survive the first few mins I can do what I do best: scout, harass, take down expansions, surprise attacks and ambushes. And make corruptors to take down any AA forces that threaten Derf's Battle cruisers.

Highlight of yesterday's games: playing vs Zerg/Protoss team. They throw their huge army against us, the Protoss a shitload of Void Rays and Colossi, the Zerg a ton of Hydralisks. They attack Derf's base head on, taking on his battlecruisers. WHile he keeps them busy I bring in corruptors from the flank, help utterly destroy the airforce/collossi and pop up around 20-30 banelings that I buried near our bases and roll them into the huge pile of Hydralisks. BOOM HEADSHOT!! Wiped out about 70-80% of them in a matter of seconds. 10 seconds later: Zerg player left the game. We laughed our asses off.

Btw Derf, up close comparison of Hydra vs. Marine as all-purpose unit

Hydralisk

Cost: 100 minerals and 50 vespene (:/)
Supply: 2 (:/)
HP: 80
Speed: 2.25
Range: 5 (+1 after researching Grooved Spines)
Damage: 12 (additional +1 per research upgrade level), attack cooldown 0.83
Armor type: light, biological
Build time: 33

Marine

Cost: 50 minerals
Supply: 1
HP: 45 (+10 with combat shield)
Speed: 2.25
Range: 5
Damage: 6 (+1 per research upgrade level)
Armor type: light, biological
Build time: 25 seconds

So basically...Hydralisks will destroy marines easily in single combat, and in small groups. In large groups however (which is most of the battles in MP) they are rather matched, their advantages level out a bit. So their 2 supply and extra cost isn't worth it compared to marines, imho.

/me senses a disturbance in the force, like Derf cried out and was silenced.

Hehehe, we played a few more games last night. Same deal, had a load of fun, lost some, won some.

That loss vs the micro-lamers that rushed and harassed us so they could expand and collect insane amount of resources was... lame. I mean, they bought up a drone to my base within the first few seconds and started micro-harassing my SCV's, so I had to spend time and effort "shoo-ing" it away until i got 1 marine. Those first few lost seconds imo, build up like the butterfly effect and have a massive impact on the game I think, hence how we were soundly beaten.

Anyway, as Ox and I discussed, Zerg seem to be a slight liability in the first half or third of the game. I am perfectly happy with sending marines to help him out, but I dunno, it just seems as though all good human players KNOW zerg are weak early on, and so they rush him and cause him big problems. Sometimes we beat them back, some times we don't.

Anyway, i'm just interested from a tactical perspective, how we'd fare as double Terran. One thing is sure, we should be able to hold off any early rush with marines. We should be able to do ALOT of damage with the marine paradrop. And if all goes well, if I build BC's and you build VIkings in the late game, we'd fare well against anything. Plus, we'd both be able to scan!!

Yeah I'm starting to realise that Zerg is a ticket to the rape train. You hardly ever meet Zerg online either, and there's a reason for that. On the whole I don't really care too much that they aren't the strongest faction, since I can still bring in a lot of endgame support with specialist units for Derf. But the problem is that you'll see that the opponents almost every time will double down on me. They usually let Derf be to some extent (he has a wall and a crapload of marines up by then too) but they come in mixed groups to my base and try to rape me as quickly as possible since they know that my early game is very vulnerable.

Zerg has so many issues. It lacks a good/cheap basic all-purpose unit for the early game, lacks an endgame unit that can hit but air and ground (Zerg's 1337 units are only ground to ground, air to air or air to ground), lacks scouting options, and just requires a crapload of micromanagement overall (like having to spawn larvae with the queens all the time).

The getting pounded over and over again by teams of two players because they see I'm zerg just isn't fun. Not for me, and not for Derf who often has to babysit me in early game. So I'm gonna probably swtch to Terrans until they fix Zerg. I'll familiarise myself a bit first vs AI and then join Derf for max poundings.