My Brief Romance with Protoss

Coming Clean

Haven't posted in a while and that is because I was engaging in a secret relationship with Protoss. After a particularly grueling spat with Terran (detailed below), I decided we were through! It was time to try something new! This is my confession...

If you can't beat them...

...join them, right? Many of you reading are going to go, "What? You have trouble beating Protoss as Terran? What are you, a noob?!" To which I will politely respond, "Yes I am!" After suffering yet another loss to a Protoss Deathball (Archon/Colossi/Zealot/Stalker/High Templar), I decided it might be time to give in. I harassed, attacked, dropped, split units, teched and did everything I knew how to do and simply couldn't seem to break through the Protoss. I had tasted the power of the First Born and it was time to give in. 

So, I've been playing Protoss for about a week and guess what I discovered last night! I discovered that I really don't like the Protoss. I love them from a lore and visual perspective (they have some very awesome looking units), but I simply don't like the way they handle. The ability to build units with one Probe is pretty nifty and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy Force Field and Graviton Beam but when it comes down to it, the Protoss don't have Siege Tanks or Ghosts. 

The break up...

After my brief (and now, not-so-secret) affair with Protoss, I decided to play Terran again just before finishing for the night yesterday. I found myself locked into a 30 minute TvT against a Platinum player (I'm still Silver). The game opened with me deciding to take a 1 Barracks, fast expansion build while my opponent stayed on one base and teched into 1-1-1. (1 Barracks, 1 Factory, 1 Starport). I quickly took both gas after my natural Command Center was down and dropped a Factory as soon as I could. I scanned my opponent in time to see him preparing for a drop and positioned my (two) tanks in my main to gun down his forces as they dropped (I had lined a few turrets around my minerals and upper edge of the base so he could only really (safely) drop in one area). After repelling his drop with minor damage, I decided to counter drop with a couple tanks of my own. I managed to kill a couple of SCVs and a few Marines before he destroyed my drop. 

I then decided to drop again, this time at his natural expansion (which he had built up after his first drop). I managed to kill quite a few SCVs but the drop was ultimately repelled. Looking back, I don't think either drop was a very good return for me. Finally, I dropped a third time in his main with a few Marines, upgraded Hellions (blue flame) and tanks. I killed most of his Marines and a good portion of his SCVs before he managed to beat me back (finally, a good trade!). At this point, I had built a third base and was preparing to take a fourth as I moved across the map with my superior force of tanks and Vikings. I quickly destroyed the third base that he had established and set up a small contain. 

After a few minutes of being contained, my opponent decided it was time to bust out of prison and sacrificed the lives of countless Marines to beat back my tank wall. It was at this point that I realized...I had 13,000 minerals!!! I couldn't believe it, what was I doing?! That's way too much money, I could have crushed this guy if I was putting that money to use! UGH!!!

Panic Mode: Engaged

So, at this point I started panicking. Here I was completely in control of the game and I stopped spending and now look at me! He's literally banging on the front door!!! So I quickly built five more factories, three more starports and a fusion core. Tanks, Thors, Battlecruisers and Vikings - GO! After a few very explosive exchanges in the middle of the map, I broke through his contain with a line of Thors, four Battlecruisers and about fifteen Siege Tanks. I destroyed his third base (again) while taking my fifth and sixth. I then moved up and set up an offensive siege of his natural. After destroying his mass of Marines, he left without saying "gg." 

I think I made too many...

I watched the replay to find out exactly when and where my money got out of hand. It was basically right as I took my third, I didn't build any extra production facilities and so my money started building up. Since I was winning, I didn't really think about the fact that I might need more units at some point in the game. Of course, the fact that I had built ninety-three SCVs might have also contributed to it. Yes, 93. Almost half of my maxed out supply was in SCVs. I'm pretty sure that's a lot more SCVs than I needed. 

What I learned..

Losing consistently to something doesn't mean you give up, it means that you adjust your play style to try and overcome the obstacle. 

Building 100 SCVs is WAY too many, you only need about 18 SCVs for each base to mine minerals and 6 for gas. 

Just because you're winning doesn't mean you stop spending, always assume you're going to need more units and need them quickly.

Training Night One

Ever had a job or a volunteer position or even a classroom where you had an authority figure (boss, teacher) standing over your shoulder and supervising everything you do?

Not a pleasant feeling, usually.

Atlas Gaming, the gaming community that I'm in, hosts weekly training nights in which a bunch of low-league players (Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze) play 1v1 obs games while trainers observe. When each match begins, the players are moved to separate lobbies on the TeamSpeak and assigned a trainer to help them as they play.

It's actually in ingenious set up! Now, the trainer doesn't tell you HOW to play. For example, a nightmare conversation would be:

Trainer: "Alright, he's Protoss and you're Terran so you need to one Barracks, fast expand into five Barracks Marine/Marauder, heavier on the Marauder with Stim Pack and Concussion Shells while aiming for a seven minute timing push!"

Trainee: "Uh..."

Trainer: "Alright, start with your Supply Depot at 10, Barracks at 12, Command Center at 16, make sure you get another Supply Depot at 17..."

That would be worthless. One, you wouldn't actually learn much because you're being controlled by a puppeteer rather than taught why you're doing what you're being told to do. Two, it's been proven time and again that people learn more when they're taught to think for themselves rather than told what and how to think. Finally, you'll never actually be as fast as you need to be because the Trainer is going to tell you what to do and when to do it and you're going to have to keep up, which is really, really difficult for lower league players (that's why we're in the lower leagues).

Instead, the Trainer actually helps you keep track of minor details. Mine asked my game plan at the very start.

Trainer: "Alright, so he's Protoss and you're Terran. What's your game plan?"

Me: "Well, I was thinking of opening with a single Barracks into expansion then getting Marauders and going for a Stim push up the middle."

Trainer: "Alright, solid plan. I'll sit back and let you work on it, I'll keep you focused on things you forget."

What that meant was that he'd warn me when I was getting close to supply blocking myself (not having enough Supply Depots, Overlords or Pylons to keep producing units). He'd remind me when I wasn't upgrading at my Engineering Bays or when my money was getting too high. He wouldn't always tell me what to do with my idle Engineering Bays or my banked money, he'd just point out that it was there.

The result? I learned A LOT! I've gained a better understanding of when I should be considering expanding, how many Barracks I can support on one, two and three bases, how to make better use of the money I have (getting upgrades constantly rather than infrequently), the frequency of which I should be building Supply Depots and how to keep track of all of this at once (or at least I'm much better at it now).

WOW, it's a lot to keep up with! The biggest lesson I learned during training night? I have a LONG way to go and a LOT to learn. In the end though, isn't that the most important lesson?

Day One: Placement!

A quick introduction:

This blog is to be a daily journal of my adventures on the Starcraft 2 ladder system as I attempt to learn to improve my gameplay from Bronze level to as high as I can get. I'm new to Starcraft 2, I played the beta for a bit and then took a two year break and am just now returning and trying to become a decent player!

Now, just as everyone else, I had to start with placement matches! FIVE of them. After a few minutes of hovering my mouse over the "quick match" button and trying to convince myself not to queue up (I think it's called ladder anxiety or something like that), I finally just said "to heck with it" and queued up! It didn't take long for me to get a match and my journey began!

Game One

Game One was me (Terran) against a Protoss player. I'm pretty confident this is my worst matchup, so I immediately decided this was a BRILLIANT start! The game begins and I immediately set my workers to mine and built another and....the game ends. My opponent just up and left! I took it upon myself to inquire about my opponent's inexplicable departure and the only response I got was silence. 

Right. Okay then. I guess we'll move on to game two...

Game Two

Game Two was against a Zerg. Confidence has always been my weak point when it comes to this game. I never feel confident in my units and my play, so I tend to second guess myself a lot and this causes me to hesitate when I shouldn't, withdraw when I should advance and deliberate on courses of action rather than simply do them! I know this about myself and I'm working on it but it becomes extremely apparent when I play against Zerg because I have this NIGHTMARE that every time I leave my base, I'll find a veritable parade of Zerglings tearing through my expansion(s) and base(s) like reckless tourists who know they won't be cleaning up their own mess. 

It was evident during this game too. I spend the majority of my time sitting just outside my main base in my natural expansion, letting my marines chat with one another about guns and women, or smokes...or the consistency of scorpion droppings in the desert or whatever else it is that a bunch of ex-convicts-turned-marines men would talk about when there's nothing to shoot at. Meanwhile my Zerg opponent just happily expands away. By the time I decide to move out, my Marines take five steps out of my base and are met by an avalanche of rolling banelings, marathon running zerglings and brutish roaches. I do what anyone would have done in my shoes, I stimmed and ran like mad in the opposite direction, hoping to let my tanks clear the banelings while my Marines found a bush to hide in or something. 

My operation was more-or-less successful and my Marines emerged from their leafy fortress once the banelings were lying in puddles of their own acid. I managed to clean up most of the attack and decided it was time for a counter assault! 

My push forward was moderately successful as I scanned to clear creep tumors and eventually made my way to my opponent's third base. Tanks SIEGE! Marines STIM! ENGAGE! The hatchery proved a not-so-difficult opponent and crumbled relatively quickly but my tired and (now drugged) units didn't celebrate for long before a similar composition as before came kicking in the back door. A few seconds of dancing, running, shooting, sliding, shooting up and yelling occurred as Zerg and Terran corpses and wreckage began to litter the field. In the end, my opponent vanquished by vanguard force and avenged the death of his hatchery. 

The game went back and forth like this for about twenty minutes until it came down to Broodlords and Infestors against Marines, Tanks and Vikings. I finally decided to throw in the towel when my opponent was cleaning up what remained of my fifth (and only remaining source of minerals) base. So, game two goes down as a hard fought defeat. Bitter.

Games Three, Four and Five

I'm putting these games together for the sake of brevity, as there was nothing overly exciting about them. I beat one Terran opponent who went bio against my tank and viking build, lost to a Protoss player that got extremely fast colossi and overwhelmed my measly viking count and lost to a Terran player who went bio and dropped about every twenty seconds. 

All said and done, I went 2-2 with a free victory at the start. Time to see my placement!!

Silver?!

So, I placed in Silver League (no idea how) as opposed to my expected Bronze League. Well...hm. I guess I should be changing the slogan to "from Silver to Success" or something but...nah, I'll stick with Bronze to brazen, it sounds better and is still probably more accurate. 

I'll eventually get better at the blog editing and you'll see pictures and other pretty things around these pages but for now, that's the end of day one!