What? A two on two Brood War battle to end all battles.
When? Friday, Oct 23, 1998
Who? BobF(T) and EnoYls(P) allied in a TVB against _Cain(P) and SiliconWafer(P)
Where? Forsaken Valley, barren deserts somewhere in the galaxy.

Forsaken Valley

BobF: Yes indeed. When playing allied games I usually scout with my first attack unit, and I only do it to see what the enemy races are. When I saw the enemy probes looking around it answered my question, so I didn't even bother to scout yet. Also, seeing two Protoss made me worry about Reavers and Dark Templars. I set about making my defenses.

_Cain: My ally didn't say much, but implied he was going for Dark Templars. I figured that if I could successfully Reaver-drop one or both of them, shutting down their economy, the game was ours. Boy was I wrong. Once I got a Reaver and a Dragoon ready I flew down to the lower left. Wam Bam no more workers.

EnoYls: Actually, I saw the Reaver coming so I loaded 8 Probes onto a Shuttle and flew them to safety. I gathered some Zealots to defend.

_Cain: He managed to kill off my Reaver and Dragoon, but my Shuttle escaped to pick up some new troops.

BobF: I saw the attack and decided I was too far to help much, but that a counter attack on _Cain might draw the Reaver away. I sent 12 Marines and 2 Medics to attack. It was then that I learned just how powerful the newly balanced Photon Cannons were. I did insufficient damage to draw _Cain away.

_Cain: I returned to EnoYls and took out a few key structures and Pylons. I told my ally to clean up the rest while I tried to Reaver Bob's workers. I'm not sure what my ally was doing, but somehow Eno lived.

EnoYls: I told Bob that some of my Probes had escaped, but I needed some troops to defend while I rebuilt. The only surprise I had for them was one Dark Templar sitting half-built in an unpowered Gateway. _Cain had left behind one Dragoon to pester me. I had one Dragoon of my own. I knew I couldn't lose this battle, so I unloaded two Probes and used the three units to kill his Dragoon. I unloaded the rest and restarted my economy.



BobF: I sent a batch of Marines and Medics to defend Eno. Now we're up to 24 Marines that have left my base. I kept making more, so when _Cain came for me I had not gotten to tanks yet. That's bad news vs. Reavers. He unloaded two just south of my peons. I knew I was in trouble, so I told Eno I thought it was over. He said, "Hold tight. It's not over." I sent two Marines in, separated, to attack the Reavers. I stimmed them and arranged for the 1st Marine to take both hits. The second Marine was able to attack until the Reavers fired again. However, just before they fired I stimmed and sent one more Marine to attack. In this way I always had one Marine firing at the Reavers. I did this until the 1st Reaver was dead. However, this drained all three of my bunkers. If it took 12 Marines to kill one Reaver in this way, it would take 12 to kill another. That was 12 Marines too many for me. I was toast. The Reaver killed all but three SCVs and I was forced to lift off. He had Dragoons to help by now so I sent my factory toward them to draw fire while the rest flew in different direction where they'd hopefully survive.

BobF: My Command Center flew to the mineral expansion node just to the southwest of my base. My Engineering Bay flew toward the lower right, and the two remaining Barracks took different paths toward the middle. Actually, I never did land the Bay. I used way-points to put it on a patrol over all the resource spots. It would slowly roam around checking to see if any had been taken. When it stopped moving I queued 9 move way-pointed moves over the resources. This went on until it did fly over a base once. They shot it down, but we knew where they were.

_Cain: My partner flew in four Dark Templars and we started making minced meat of what was left on the ground in Bob's main base.

BobF: Actually, at first I thought they were all enemy Dark Templars. I almost attacked it! I could see them because Eno had an Observer over my base. It's a good thing I didn't attack them directly. I helped kill the four enemy ones, and with Eno's help I was able to save several Depots and my Academy. All enemy troops were banished. Those buildings lasted there, alone and unprotected, for another 10 to 15 minutes at least.

EnoYls: So, at this point Bob has three SCVs and a few buildings, most of them floating through the air. I have my economy going again, but few buildings and few troops. Bob landed his Command Center near his original base, so it was unlikely to live there long.

BobF: That was a certainty to me. I didn't invest much in it. I didn't think I'd be able to. Instead I used one of my three SCVs to start a second Command Center at the mineral-only expansion to the upper right of Eno's base. To my surprise I didn't lose the 1st expansion. Being close to Eno better protected my second one. Soon I had two very productive mineral-only bases operating, and when I was forced to leave my home I did so with 2000 gas in the bank.

EnoYls: I expanded to the right, in the valley.

_Cain: I believed both our enemy had expanded and it was time for me to do the same. This is where it all falls apart. I managed to secure an expansion on the island at 9 o'clock, and the mineral-only expansion outside my base. I decide to go for Scouts and attempt to rule the skies.

EnoYls: I knew we'd have to attack to win, so I sent twelve Zealots against Wafer to see how they'd do. This gave me enough of a breather to start Scout and Corsair production.

_Cain: They attacked Wafer's well-defended main base. "Help!" he cried. I looked over at him and noticed he had from 6 to 10 Cannons plus Zealots himself. I assured him that he could handle it, but he had his doubts. He hadn't expanded yet, and I'm pretty sure BobF and EnoYls have about two bases each. I mentioned our opponents worked for Blizzard and I think he then convinced himself we had no chance. Now remember the double Reaver drops, the fact that the game was won, that we only needed to finish them. I decided to try some hit-and-run Scout tactics.

EnoYls: I was almost out of resource in my main base. I had one expansion, but knew I'd need two bases, so I expanded to a third in the valley, to the north of Bob's new "main" base. That's when some Scouts and Dragoons hit my first one. We had nothing to defend, so I lost it.

BobF: I saw Eno lose his expansion. I saw that we had no defenses at two of our other expansions. I saw speed upgraded Scouts terrorizing the stratosphere. I saw us about to lose the game (yet again). I knew to get more gas I'd have to expand into the valley, and there were no ramps to the valley. I needed a Dropship. I built two Starports and Control Towers. Since I had to rebuild my Factory I made an Armory as well, for the Goliaths. When I saw the Scouts start into Eno's expansions I started some Missile Frigates. Luckily I had the infrastructure established to see the Scouts and start the Frigates right away. Before Eno's base was completely gone I already had four. When he came back again, I was ready for him.

_Cain: I flew to attack one of Bob's bases and was greeted by Valkyries. "Shait!" I yell. I threw up a few more gateways and started pumping Dragoons. When I had a huge mass of them I attacked Bob's base from the other side.

BobF: I saw a huge mass of Dragoons coming for the left edge of my new main base. Once again we had insufficient troops to handle it. Once again the game was over. The only chance I saw was the six Templars sitting just to the south of my base. However, when the Dragoons were in the perfect positions, nothing happened. Ug! We're dead!

BobF: Once again we were saved for a few moments more. Still, by this point I had lost my far right builds and the far right expansion. I was down to one mineral-only base. Eno was down to one productive base. I was sure _Cain was spreading like wildfire across to the top, and SiliconWafer was surely all across the right. I kept my Frigates roaming from place to place, defending the skies. _Cain seemed interested in Scouts, so I stuck with Frigates. I made more Goliaths and got their new range upgrade. I tell you, enemy Scouts would just try to fly BY my base and get pelted from afar. That was very nice.

_Cain: I had not expanded as far as Bob thought. For the next 10 to 20 minutes I struggled to get another base or two while keeping Bob and Eno contained. My partner was expanding to the 3 o'clock position.

EnoYls: Cain and myself had many battles during this part of the game as I tried to build up a significant air force. Every time I was able to get a mixed group of six to eight Scouts and Corsairs, I would end up in a fight with Cain that would reduce me to one or two. So, I would have to build my air force again from scratch. Many of these battles were decided by whomever had the closest shield battery. One time he tried to get me with Zealots. I used to my Corsairs to cast Disruption web on my OWN Nexus. They could not attack the Nexus, meanwhile I killed them all with my scouts.

BobF: I unloaded my Dropship in the valley and started expansions in two places at once hoping that if one was found the other would survive. I had the resources to defend only one of them. I kept all my troops in a central location, away from all my bases, but capable of reacting to attacks on any of them. Fortunately I was able to keep both expansion, plus my main base.

EnoYls: I was still struggling to keep expansions alive as well, but my income was much greater than earlier in the game. A good supply of resources was going to be the key to any chance of victory. So many times we'd expanded only to lose the bases.

_Cain: The rest of the game is a blur. I remember using an Arbiter to recall about 20 Zealots into a base, and wiping out two Command Centers. I called on my ally to help and noticed he had several Carriers. He sent them out and found one of BobF's expansions.

BobF: That expansion was destroyed very quickly, but that didn't bother me in the slightest. He attacked with six Carriers and one Scout. To me, that was a GREAT sign. I had six Valkyrie Missile Frigates defending me against _Cain's Scout attacks. While that was a close battle, against unprotected Carriers I'd do great. I sent them Carrier hunting! I found them huddled in SiliconWafer's main base. I told them to attack the Carriers one by one. There were no Dragoons to protect them. There was just the one Scout. No Psi Storms went off. The Carriers went down without losing a Frigate. Eno sent in ground troops and started tearing his main base apart. He quit the game.

BobF: By now I had cloakable Wraiths, Marines, Medics, Frigates, range-upgraded Goliaths, and Vultures with Spider Mines. I started hunting _Cain's expansions.

EnoYls: I had Corsairs with Disruption Web, Scouts and plenty of Zealots. When we found an expansion I'd web the Photon Cannons and we'd attack with all we had.

_Cain: At this point I typed, "I can't believe we lost this game."

BobF: Eno and I could not believe what we just read. It was over? We exploited that sign of weakness by attacking with all we had.

BobF: Eno and I had been down to almost nothing, yet we came back to win. At least four times I was almost ready to beg for mercy. Each time we somehow held on by our fingernails. It was the greates game of StarCraft I've EVER played. (Sorry, Ahzrei, our game is now second to this one.)

EnoYls: Every time we were attack, either I would have a counter ready or BobF would have a counter ready. For at least 70 minutes we scratched and clawed just to stay alive. After about 75 minutes we felt the tables turn, and 15 later it was all over.