Taking a Brief Break

These last 2 weeks have been quite busy for me Starcraft-wise. From Saturday January 14 to Friday January 27, I recorded 11 videos and published 11 blog posts.

Two weekends ago, I started work on a computer program to help me create the summary and intro clips for my upcoming CSL casts. Last week, I tried to start interacting with subscribers and commenters on YouTube. And a few days ago, I got permission from Blizzard to use assets from the game and soundtrack in my videos (with some qualifications of course)!

Last week was also an adventure on the daddy side of things!

My daughter started potty training, we confirmed that we had at least one raccoon living in our attic, and apparently my hefty son has lost a pound since his last pediatrician appointment. So we now have a one-way door installed on the roof (thanks to a wildlife control company) and my son now has full snacking privileges for the next six weeks!

So as you might guess, by last Friday evening, I was ready for a break from the 1v1 ladder!

CmdrTallon had been bemoaning losses to the Protoss Four-Gate, so I offered to do some practice games with him. I believe this is the first time I've done this sort of thing - played custom games with someone to work on a specific part of the game.

We did 4 games of four-gate, once on Shattered Temple, and three games on Tal'Darim Altar. By the last one, he did an excellent job of shutting down my proxy pylon before it even finished.


Time: 6:48 - Two marauders and one marine kite my two advance zealots, and I'm forced to cancel my pylon and pull back.

At this point, I changed my focus to expanding - which I suppose was against the rules for a practice session focused on 4-gate... and ten minutes later, we had a large engagement which characterized the rest of the game.


Time: 16:48 - This large force of marauders struggles to push up the ramp against charge-lots, guardian shield, stalkers, and immortals.

After that, it was time for something less, um, intense. So we played two 2 vs. AI co-op matches, and won :)

Then, I'm not sure how this happened, but we rounded off the night with my first ever custom map game (the mod style of custom map) - Blizzard's "Left 2 Die"!


The basic concept is that play is divided into timed Day and Night modes. During the day, you take your forces out to kill infested terran buildings and earn points for enabling new units. During the night, you run back to your base to defend against a steady stream of infested units and large mutated zerg units!


Time: 4:07 - Night 1, 2:27 left - Our first night, and you can see why a Nazi zombie fan would like this custom map!


Time: 4:35 - Night 1, 1:59 left - The zombies (er, infested Terrans) are in the base! Here, one of the mutated Zerg units is leaping from his previous kill to slice up a marine. Who says SC2 isn't dramatic?


Time: 6:33 - Night 1, 0:01 left - With infested Terrans all over the base, these two marines are about to bite the dust.


Time: 6:36 - Day 1, 3:58 left - Moments later, they are saved! Daytime starts, and the infested Terrans explode into flames! Time to rebuild the base!


Time: 11:54 - Night 2, 2:40 left - The second night begins, and we encounter some nasty mutated Zerg units - this one explodes into a massive ball of acid when killed!


Time: 13:49 - Night 2, 0:45 left - The night is almost over, but the infested Terrans break through a wall of debris, entering an undefended area of the base! Thankfully, my vultures had carpeted the area with spider mines. Since I haven't played the SC2 single-player yet, I had never played with vultures in SC2 to this point - they are wicked awesome!


Time: 26:07 - Day 3, 0:27 left - The next night is about to start, and my infantry are healing up. That's right, that white infantry unit is healing a marauder! Meet another cool unit not available in standard multiplayer, the medic!


Time: 28:21 - Night 4, 2:14 left - Another massive mutated zerg unit, the Stank - basically a huge ultralisk, but not the balanced version from multiplayer! See the little swirlies on some of the units (even the bunker!)? It's a status effect placed on units that are THROWN by one of the Stank's attacks. And yes, that's a TON of defensive units :)

As you can tell, this was SUPER fun!

So much so, that I played a round on Saturday night, a round on Sunday night, and a few half-played rounds in between. Is this as addicting as Nazi zombies? Close, but not quite. Now had Blizzard tied more achievements to it (like for finishing X games per difficulty like they do for normal Custom games) or some sort of high score system, I would find it a huge distraction from playing competitive 1v1 ;-)

So I had a nice break over the weekend, and now it's time to get back into casting and preparing content for the CSL!

Back in Business!

Well, after some testing, I confirmed that the microphone on my headset is completely dead - I'm pretty sure it was the cord being rolled over by the office chair too many times.

I tried using our webcam to cast, but besides picking up everything else in the room (including whatever show my wife was watching on Netflix), it also over-emphasized my S's when used with Fraps. I could try to use Audacity to edit the audio after recording - but I didn't want to add more time to my video production process.

So I started looking for a new headset.

After some online research and a personal recommendation from CmdrTallon, I settled on a Tritton AX180 headset. It's "universal" and will work with my PC, XB360 and PS3.

There have been reports of it breaking above the earphones, so I'm eager to cast a lot over the next few weeks - hopefully if it's going to break, it'll happen before my return period ends.

I've only had it a couple of days now and it seems to work well - I'm so excited to get back into the casting seat!

Improving From a Replay: CmdrTallon's Banshee Rush

After posting CmdrTallon's replay, I was intrigued with his build and whether I could put into practice some of the things mentioned in the review and actually improve upon the banshee timing.

CmdrTallon's example was pretty good. 4 cloaked banshees by 10 minutes 35 seconds (10:35), and the first volley of missiles hitting the opponent's base at 12:55.

Here's my attempt recorded live:



So in my first attempt, by moving the order of some buildings, I was able to build the 4 banshees and research Cloak by 9:09, shaving 1:26 off the original time. And by scouting, the first banshee missiles were flying by 10:18, 2:37 sooner than in CmdrTallon's game.

So in comparison at the 10:35 mark:

	CmdrTallon	StarcraftDad
Banshee	4	6
Marine	17	13 (3 were killed earlier by an attack)
Marauder	1
SCV	22	19
Minerals	195	680
Gas	84	358
Supply / Supply Cap	59/75	50/51

Although I had a significant amount of resources left at that point, CmdrTallon had built an Engineering Bay, a few Turrets, more units, and had more supply available. So he was doing a great job of spending his resources - while I let that slip behind as I was so focused on the banshees that I was getting supply blocked and not macro-ing back at my base.

More interesting than that though, is that I later made more attempts to beat that 9:09 timing - and only succeeded on the 9th try: 8:56.

At my skill level, I'm guessing I'm reaching the point of diminishing returns. 9 minutes is pretty good for having 4 banshees with cloak.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be ready for them if they showed up in my base at the 10 minute mark ;-)

Why don't you give it a whirl? Terran vs. Zerg (any AI level) on The Shattered Temple, how fast can you get 4 cloaked banshees into the opponent's main? And how large was your defending force? Post your time and unit count in the comments!

Don't forget, you need to build 2 barracks and marines for defense, and don't forget to scout to reduce the flying time to the opponent's base!

Update 11/1/2011: I updated the video to point to my new YouTube channel.

Replay Review: CmdrTallon's Banshee Rush

For today's StarClass, I did a review of a replay sent to me by my best friend, CmdrTallon. He is qualifying for Season 3 and looking for ideas on how to improve his play.

Apologies for sounding tired - I casted this before midnight after a long day (and previously long night!) - and it took me a few false starts before I got the "nerves" settled down to cast! And sorry for it going so long - I slowed the game speed down at one point... and forgot to speed it back up!


Don't forget to watch these fullscreen - and if your bandwidth allows, in HD :-)

For those that just want the bullet points:

• Have a basic plan for what your first goal is when the game starts. This will help you make decisions about timing trade-offs between different buildings or units.
• Scout! All but one of the 1v1 maps on the Blizzard ladder are 4-player maps, and some of them are very large. For many strategies (such as this one), knowing where your opponent's base is can dramatically affect the impact of your attacks.
• Have a plan for expanding to your natural expansion. Even if your plan focuses on a 1-base timing (such as this one), you need to be prepared mentally for the next step, should your opponent survive your attack. If they have expanded ahead of you, you'll need to catch up in the macro (economy) game. If they haven't, you'll want to press your advantage, and enter the mid-game ahead of them.

And a special point for you blog readers:

• Know the timing of your units, buildings, and upgrades - and when you'll need them. You may be able to build buildings a bit sooner, or train a few more workers or army units. You'd be surprised how these decisions can add up to shave minutes off the timing of your goals, or give you the few more units needed to survive an attack.

Update 11/1/2011: I updated the video to point to my new YouTube channel.