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GunnerJ posted:"Where's the lie" - teen me "Select all units. Attack move." - Me (kid, teen, adult, whatever)
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Oct 12, 2023 03:54
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I’ve posted this before, but I first played StarCraft on the N64. Controls were obviously worse, they mitigated that with larger control groups of 18, having just one caster among a group firing targeted spells when you pushed the button, and mapping spells to the C buttons so I wouldn’t have to memorize hotkeys. I beat all the campaigns, got the secret mission in Brood War in which you do by beating a later mission quickly, and got the secret cheat options, which are earned by doing things in missions and block progress if you actually use them. So when I got the game (after a couple birthday/Christmas miscommunications leading to me just having Brood War for a long time. Once I specified it on a list only for my sister to say “No he has that” while shopping with my parents) I was actually so used to those workarounds that I found the “better” ones janky. When I found from playing base SC on PC at a friend’s house that there were more cutscenes than the ones translated into slideshows for the N64, I just used cheats to blow through. I somehow had the patience to creep through missions with siege tanks, guardians/mutalisk balls or mass battle cruisers/carriers on the N64, but it kind of ran out by Terran mission 5 on the PC. Even though I was used to the controller, I did realize I had technically already beaten in with a hand tied behind my back and so I felt I’d earned it. There was a time after 2000 where we had a computer in my room and the family computer in the basement. The better computer was in my room, but our cable internet didn’t reach there, so I downloaded StarCraft from Kazaa just to watch Brood War cutscenes. I don’t know if it was playable, but it was enough to allow me to install Brood War! My silly kid RTS quirk was being super precious about my units. It felt wrong when I couldn’t keep their health topped off. Like I mentioned, very slow creeping with long-ranged units supported by anti-air. Only engage base defenses with units that could use out-range them or couldn’t be targeted by them if possible. Only move my ball of siege tanks/guardians/reavers once units stopped trickling in. I think I once ran out of minerals on the second Protoss Brood War mission just from Reaver scarabs.
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Oct 12, 2023 06:35
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anilEhilated posted:Any chance of linking those matches? Admittedly, I only watch Stacraft sporadically, but I don't think I've ever seen ZvZ go to tier 3. "Professional" StarCraft Brood War- The Once and Future E-sport That said, here’s the timestamped videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taPP871w6NM&t=2803s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nqOJlWGXpI&t=920s The second video has an interesting showcase for the Zerg Broodwar unit spotlight.
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Oct 12, 2023 07:00
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Dr Christmas posted:I’ve posted this before, but I first played StarCraft on the N64. Controls were obviously worse, they mitigated that with larger control groups of 18, having just one caster among a group firing targeted spells when you pushed the button, and mapping spells to the C buttons so I wouldn’t have to memorize hotkeys. I beat all the campaigns, got the secret mission in Brood War in which you do by beating a later mission quickly, and got the secret cheat options, which are earned by doing things in missions and block progress if you actually use them. I got so used to casters behaving like this in SC2 that when I tried to replay SC1, I just stopped using casters completely 
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Oct 12, 2023 11:05
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redleader posted:what are the other "bad manners" units? If you're playing Zerg you can crush a Terran's spirit by infesting one of their Command Centers and probably get them to stop playing for the day if you actually manage to blow something up with an Infested Terran
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Oct 12, 2023 11:46
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Grand Fromage posted:That was the game I played as a non-competitive. I think I saw a Defiler when it came up in the campaign, said oh okay, and never built another one the entire time I played Starcraft. anxiously awaiting the unit spotlight for this, so i can learn (1) "why did they do this?" and (2) "what were they thinking?" maybe (3) "what should they have designed instead?"
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Oct 12, 2023 11:46
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Dr Christmas posted:I’ve posted this before, but I first played StarCraft on the N64. Controls were obviously worse, they mitigated that with larger control groups of 18, having just one caster among a group firing targeted spells when you pushed the button, and mapping spells to the C buttons so I wouldn’t have to memorize hotkeys. I beat all the campaigns, got the secret mission in Brood War in which you do by beating a later mission quickly, and got the secret cheat options, which are earned by doing things in missions and block progress if you actually use them. I knew someone who had the German version of the N64 game. Even with the Quality of Life improvements, I can't even imagine...
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Oct 12, 2023 16:02
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painedforever posted:"Select all units. Attack move." - Me (kid, teen, adult, whatever) somehow I managed to beat Mass Recall using that "tactics".
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Oct 12, 2023 17:39
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DTurtle posted:There’s a thread in retro games 
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Oct 12, 2023 23:44
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StarCraft came out in the late 90s. It's been retro since SC2 came out. Now, let me tell you how old Kingdom Hearts is 
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Oct 13, 2023 00:29
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Aces High posted:StarCraft came out in the late 90s. It's been retro since SC2 came out. Now, let me tell you how old Kingdom Hearts is i refuse to acknowledge this
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Oct 13, 2023 00:35
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It should be noted the Starcraft 2 thread is also in Retro Games
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Oct 13, 2023 01:09
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retro games are what i was playing when i was a kid, and nothing more recent than that 
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Oct 13, 2023 02:01
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Tenebrais posted:It should be noted the Starcraft 2 thread is also in Retro Games If SC and SC2 are retro games, then what isn't a retro game?
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Oct 13, 2023 02:10
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Kanthulhu posted:If SC and SC2 are retro games, then what isn't a retro game? Counter-Strike, ironically.
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Oct 13, 2023 03:49
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Kanthulhu posted:If SC and SC2 are retro games, then what isn't a retro game? Sc2 released in 09, 14 years ago. Soon it will be able to vote. Sc1 released in 1998, 25 years ago. It is pondering if it will ever be able to afford a home.
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Oct 13, 2023 03:50
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Metal Gear Rising, Batman Arkham City, Halo 3 and Forza Horizon all came out two console generations ago and are now retro games. There is now roughly as much time between the present and the release of the Xbox 360 as there was between the then-present and the release of the Sega Genesis (2023 - 2005 = 18 years, 2005 - 1988 = 17 years) Did someone let Yahtzee design this thread because It Hurts. ...wait, Five Days a Stranger came out in 2003. That's twenty frigging years old. Make it stop.
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Oct 13, 2023 04:17
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Starcraft 1's definitely retro, Starcraft 2's old enough to be but I don't think it really is. The main thing for me is if a game feels like it could be released today without feeling like a callback. If Starcraft 2 had released today instead of way back when, I don't think anyone would bat an eye, while if starcraft 1 came out for the first time today, people would definitely notice the sprites and mechanical jank. Some of that could just be seen as stagnation in the gaming industry. The pace of graphical advancement has slowed down a ton compared to the leaps made in the old playstation days and with digital distribution there's a lot more non-AAA graphical powerhouses out there getting released new. There also just hasn't been much of a more modern RTS genre for it to stand in contrast to and it's not so old as to lack the general stuff we take for granted like autosave or objective markers. Edit: there's games out there that intentionally use pixelated graphics and are retro even if their release date was last week. Things like boltgun, ion fury, or turbo overkill. yook fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Oct 13, 2023 |
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Oct 13, 2023 05:59
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Aces High posted:StarCraft came out in the late 90s. It's been retro since SC2 came out. Now, let me tell you how old Kingdom Hearts is I am 30 or 40 years old and I do not need this.
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Oct 13, 2023 08:47
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FoolyCharged posted:Sc2 released in 09, 14 years ago. Soon it will be able to vote. Why would you do this to me 
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Oct 13, 2023 13:00
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bladededge posted:There is now roughly as much time between the present and the release of the Xbox 360 as there was between the then-present and the release of the Sega Genesis (2023 - 2005 = 18 years, 2005 - 1988 = 17 years) Ouch. Like, ouch. By the way, thanks for LPing starcraft, haven't played it since I was a kid and just like with warcraft, I didn't understand english good enough to know what it was about. Here's to hoping my imagination and memories don't get trampled like they were in the warcraft thread.
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Oct 13, 2023 13:32
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Raerlynn posted:I am 30 or 40 years old and I do not need this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0jDUY-iloY
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Oct 13, 2023 15:07
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redleader posted:i refuse to acknowledge this over the summer I was working alongside someone that brought up KH and we got to talking and I found her reactions were very similar to what I had the first time I played the game...in 2009, when the game was already almost 10 years old
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Oct 13, 2023 19:57
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I'm very grateful for this LP. I really don't like video LPs, which is what this game naturally lends itself to, and few people would have been brave enough to SS it.FoolyCharged posted:Sc1 released in 1998, 25 years ago. It is pondering if it will ever be able to afford a home. Tell it not to worry; the answer is 'no'. Serfdom is the new freedom.
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Oct 14, 2023 02:07
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JustJeff88 posted:Tell it not to worry; the answer is 'no'. Serfdom is the new freedom. Say what you will about having your flesh and free will forcibly stripped from you by Zerg biomass, at least the Overmind provides guaranteed free housing.
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Oct 15, 2023 01:49
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bladededge posted:Say what you will about having your flesh and free will forcibly stripped from you by Zerg biomass, at least the Overmind provides guaranteed free housing. Not to mention incredible social integration... I'll take being forced into the hive mind and plurality of consciousness over Twitter any day.
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Oct 15, 2023 02:44
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JustJeff88 posted:Not to mention incredible social integration... I'll take being forced into the hive mind and plurality of consciousness over Twitter any day. Isn't that what twitter tries to do anyway? It just happens to be a hive mind with Tourette's syndrome is all.
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Oct 15, 2023 17:38
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Sorry, everyone. I've been doing some work in Central America for the last... Three weeks? Four weeks? Time kinda lost all meaning haha. I'd been planning to get work done on this LP while I was there, thought it would be a fun way to unwind in the evenings, even bought an eSim and data package and everything, but as it turns out I a) grossly overestimated how much free time I would have, and b) grossly underestimated how remote the place we'd be working is - eSims don't do much good if you've got no service. Anyway, I'm back to a place with wifi and should be returning to the Great White North within the week so expect updates to resume shortly. Apologies again.
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Nov 6, 2023 16:53
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Eh you've been out for over a year before and the thread did just fine. Don't be hard on yourself.
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Nov 6, 2023 19:45
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I just posted this in the ASL/competitive thread and was suggested to post it here also: https://youtu.be/hKX7eTzr-y4 E: spoiler for last few protoss and brood war missions obviously. It gets a bit goofy sometimes when rewriting the story doesnt make sense, but the modder changed up some of the missions to make them interesting/balanced at least. No indoor base assault missions though Fellis fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Nov 9, 2023 |
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Nov 9, 2023 22:06
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Protoss 09: Shadow Hunters  En Taro Adun, Executor! My gratitude to you, for having secured my release, knows no bounds. By all the gods, we may win yet! The time has come to let loose the fury of the Dark Templar. Zeratul, perhaps the time has come to tell our friends of the for we face. Indeed. When I slew the Cerebrate on Char, I touched briefly with the essence of the Overmind. In that instant, my mind was filled with its thoughts, and I tell you our worst fears have come true. The Zerg were indeed created by the ancient Xel'Naga, the same beings that empowered us in our infancy. But the Overmind grew beyond their constraints, and has at last come to finish the experiments they began long ago. Impossible! This must not come to pass. So you see my friends, we fight not only to save Aiur, but all creation! If we fall to the Zerg, then the Overmind will run rampant through the stars, consuming all sentience - all life. It is up to us to put an end to this madness, once and for all. Our forces shall engage the primary Zerg Hive clusters in an attempt to weaken their defenses. Once their numbers have thinned out, Zeratul and his companions can infiltrate the clusters and assassinate the Cerebrates. Adun willing, the Cerebrates’ deaths will distract the Overmind long enough for us to assault it directly.This isn't the first time Zeratul touching brains with the Overmind has come up. If you remember Zerg 8, this instance was also how the Overmind plucked the location of Aiur out of Zeratul's brain. So, uh, the Zerg got the secret location of the Protoss' hidden homeworld, and the Protoss got… the knowledge that the Zerg aim to consume literally all life rather than figuratively all life. Kind of a one-sided trade, if you ask me. Also it's kind of a funny side effect of the campaigns being successive: we as Artanis are all "What? No! This is beyond belief," whereas we as the player are all "Yeah yeah, purity of form, purity of essence, perfection, look, we've covered this. This is all review." It also means that if you'll remember Zerg 7, if we succeed in killing these Cerebrates it'll do a whole lot more than just distracting the Overmind. Our start:  So, Judicator, still you persist! I would have hoped you and your ilk had learned that we are not so easily balked. Hold! I would not be your enemy. Not all of our caste is as slavishly devoted to the Conclave as Aldaris. We have heard your words, and they resonate with concerns that some of us share. If you can truly halt the doom that has befallen Aiur, then we are at your disposal. We accept, and gladly! Prepare your mighty warships, Judicator. We will have need of them before the end. Yes, we finally have the Arbiter in our possession and, as the In game there's no explanation given for why we suddenly have Arbiters, as we're still on the outs with the Conclave, but it seems plausible to me that we're not the only ones fed up with their nonsense. Also, look at those stats! 200 HP and 150 shields, that is one beefy-rear end spellcaster. Anyway, on to more general things about our start, we have no base. We do have Probes, so this isn't some sort of baseless "infiltrate with Zeratul and kill Cerebrates" mission. We just need to find a base. Let's try, uh, going left, I guess?   Oooh, that's a pretty sizeable geyser. Well, okay, it's a pretty standard geyser, but in the campaigns that's less common than you'd think.  And a huge chunk of minerals further to the left. Also note that all our units are transparent - they're in the Arbiter's cloaking field. Let's set up shop:  This one isn't a choice - the distance between the minerals and Vespene is way too big for one Nexus to handle it all. We're just going to have to forego gas until we can afford a second Nexus. Meanwhile, out here…  We've got a nice chokepoint where our army can camp out. If you can't tell from the screenshots, the part we just explored is a little canyon with this mouth here as the only point of entry. This is good, because for the first time we're going to be facing off against Zerg in all their glory and having to defend a wide open space would not be pleasant. Speaking of which…    The Arbiter cloaking means the Zerglings don't even know our forces are there so they run past to harmlessly munch on a Pylon instead. This is where we're definitely going to want to get some Cannons up to give the Zerg a nice, obvious target to focus on while our invisible garrison tears them to shreds. Actually, in retrospect, where they're cheaper and much tankier and we're relying on units for damage, I wonder if maybe a Pylon wall would have been better than Cannons. Oh well. At any rate, once we get that set up, we'll be impervious.  …oh. Right.  That's actually almost a kind move on the game's part - we're going to see sizeable squads of Mutas and Guardians as the game progresses, so it's handy that they hit us with a single Muta at the start to remind us that not everything gets caught in our chokepoint. With that in mind, let's also get some Cannons along the canyon walls:  Meanwhile, our canyon defenses get tested:   But Invisible Zealots save the day. Arbiters, man.  …seriously? Ugh. Plague Sieges are a big pain and make defending more difficult. Fortunately the AI isn't very smart about it, it kinda just drops a Plague on whatever's nearby when a Defiler has energy. Otherwise they could use it to simultaneously nuke our units' HP and negate the Arbiter's cloaking (Plague, if you'll recall, is a goop-y effect that reveals cloaked units - as does the Ensnare spell currently on our troops). Instead it's more of an irritant than a threat, but that's still not ideal. Observe:   Our Plague'd Cannons are easy pickings for these two Mutas.  …though fortunately they aren't able to handle the rest of the Cannons (note the Ensnare spell keeping our Dragoons from reaching the battle quickly). Oh, and guess what happens when we go to replace that Cannon.  Plague'd before it can even finish production. As usual for this stage of the campaign, this is still quite early on in the mission. We're still getting set up - you can see in the one picture there that we've only just gotten our Vespene Nexus up and running while we're being pelted by Zerglings, Hydras, Mutas, Queens, and Defilers. We finally get an Observer out:  See those two holes in the ground there? Those are the burrowed Defilers causing us grief. Fortunately…  The first one gets blasted and killed by our Cannon. The second one is out of range, so…   Zeratul goes out to one-shot it. With the Defilers dealt with (...for now. They'll be back) our Observer can do some recon. We see that to the north, there's…  …Sunkens. Red Sunkens. Astute observers will note that makes three colours, red, white, and brown. Just about every square inch of the map north of our little canyon here is firmly in the hands of one of these three broods. Also, quick refresher: Red is the Tiamat brood, controlled by Daggoth. White is the Baelrog brood, controlled by Gorn. And brown… have we seen brown Zerg before this mission? I don't think so. Brown is the Grendel brood, and their Cerebrate is unnamed. And speaking of Daggoth…    An Ultra already, eh? Well that's okay. We lose a couple of Cannons but our units don't receive a scratch thanks to our Arbiter. They brought along an Overlord this time but it was too far to really make a difference and even if it were closer we could just shoo it away. Now's a good a time as any to talk about my Theory of Arbiters: Arbiters have an attack, and it's utterly pitiful. It does 10 damage very slowly. It has the lowest DPS in the game (okay, fine, second lowest - the lowest is actually the Interceptor, but that's different) - yep, even lower than the Broodling. It's also Explosive damage, so it's not even doing its full damage to some units. An Arbiter trying to snipe a Marine or Zergling is a truly pitiful sight. So why have an attack at all? My theory is that it has nothing to do with unit balance or function and instead is entirely about QoL. See, any time a unit gets attacked by something it can't retaliate against, it runs away (except workers who have their own Ride Or Die protocol when they're mining, repairing, building, or otherwise occupied). So, for example, that's what I mean by shooing away Overlords - just have Dragoons lob a couple Phase Disruptor shots at it and it'll decide it'd rather be floating somewhere less dangerous. Same deal with, say, if our Zealots got attacked by Mutas - the Zealots would start to run away. Only the ones that got hit, mind you. The rest I guess are standing around all like "Huh. Those fleshbirds are crapping acid on that guy's head. You don't see that everyday. Well, like, I guess you do, lately, but you know, like, in general." Anyway, the point is that by giving Arbiters an attack that can hit both land and air, it means an Arbiter that gets hit by enemy attacks will move in to engage that enemy, staying in the general area instead of running, so your cloaking field isn't getting disrupted by your Arbiter pulling a Sir Robin every time someone starts taking pot shots at it. So my Grand Theory is that it has nothing to do with damage output or giving the unit something to do to the enemy before you research its spells or even making it easier to A-move with. It's just about having the guy stay more or less where you want it to keep your other guys invisible. Anyway. Scout time. Uh, like, recon time. Not the unit Scout.  A nice, juicy-looking geyser on the ridge above us.  And the defense here seems pretty light. A good spot for an expansion. (Spoiler: I will grab all the expansion spots except this one. No, I don't know why). Here we're exploring to the right:   This is the other direction we could have gone at the start. It's very similar, another highly defensible canyon snaking off to the side, only the resources are a bit more modest and the placement of the minerals and Vespene is reversed. This is going to be our actual first expansion spot. Now, I know what you're thinking: "Wait, what? Three whole screenshots without an enemy attack? Is this even a real late game StarCraft mission?" Don't worry, I was just doing things out of order. We're still getting hit. By this, for example:    You can generally assume that every, let's say every 90 seconds or so we're getting jumped by something like this. Here it was worse than it should have been because the Arbiter was out of position, so those Zealots were fighting on their own for a bit. I think we might even have lost one? But yeah, there's gonna be a whole bunch of these attacks, most of them offscreen unless they're particularly interesting. Lots of Zerglings and Hydras and sometimes a few Ultras just ripping things up. Anyway, we should maybe take that expa-  No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no n  They got all our Zealots. Every one. They got the Arbiter. They got Zeratul. Okay, actually Zeratul isn't that bad because as you can see he's mostly Shields. Zealots and Arbiters, on the other hand, are over half HP. Those Zealots in particular are kinda just eating up supply now. That's - what, that's 1360 points of damage with a single spell? Absolutely brutal. Wait, 1347, I guess, cause it's 13 units and they'd each be left with 1 HP. That's the real reason for the Cannons: they're there to bait Defilers into chucking Plague on things we don't mind getting damaged. So what do we do with our Zealots now? Well, I mean, what can we do?   Kill the Defiler, for one - and also some Broodlings courtesy of a Queen deciding to put one Zealous Boi out of his misery. Is the screenshot hard to make out? Brown Zerg against brown dirt is not the most visually clear thing in the world. But after that:     It is a sad day indeed when brave warriors are sent to their deaths. Their fate was sealed the moment the Zerg abomination embedded them with its flesh-eating pestilence. I merely gave them a warrior's death, worthy of the Khala. It was not an easy decision, but it is one I stand by. Well do I know the burdens of leadership. I do not question your choice, old friend. But I mourn its necessity. As do I.Oh hey, guess what was happening while that was going on?  See anything? Like, for example, the ruins of what was a Photon Cannon? And the big floating white crab there?   Easily dealt with, but a grim reminder: Cannons aren't gonna do anything against Guardians, we're going to need some more dedicated anti-air. Can you imagine if the AI had been a bit smarter, and pulled that Guardian back over the ridge, out of range of our Dragoons but still able to rain death on our base? Not much we could do in that case. Well, okay, actually our Arbiter could have gone over and plunked away at it. But that would have been painfully slow. Anyway, let's see how our expansion is doing:   Hahaha. Welp. Okay, okay, yes, I'll admit it. I got greedy and decided to expand without committing to a defense force for the expansion. I tried to have my cake and eat it too, and Daggoth is punishing me for it. One of the core aspects of StarCraft is that tension: you need resources to get more units, but you also need units to get more resources. …okay, that tension is one of the core aspects of almost every strategy game ever made. But Brood War has less margin for error than most. …not that any of them have much margin for error on this. But you know what I mean. In any case, this situations is salvageable:    And we have not even begun to see the raw power of Dragoons with Arbiter support. Let's get some Delaying Cannons up to try and minimize the odds of this happening again:  They come back. Well, this time it's Mysterious Brown Cerebrate, but still:  However, as you can see, this time we're ready. Our Cannons are in place, yes, but more importantly…   …we've teched up. I know that at this point I could probably rename the thread to "Gushing About Casters Ad Nauseum: A Space Magic SSLP" but for real, it's absolutely crazy how much easier a defensive Templar or two makes your life in this game. You will face very few incursions that can't be stymied or outright eliminated by a well-placed Storm. Of course, that's not to discount the power of…  Defensive Reavers. Particularly a treat against Ultras. And speaking of teching up…   There it is. The last building in the game. The Arbiter Tribunal. The Arbiter doesn't need a Fleet Beacon - size-wise, it's something the Stargate can handle comfortably on its own. Or that is, it would be. As we'll see in the spotlight, the Arbiter is kind of a mobile reality-distortion device, and unfortunately this makes it incredibly unsafe to warp. The Arbiter Tribunal isn't there to strengthen the Stargate, it's there to literally strengthen local space-time itself so that Arbiter ships can be warped in without incident. Presumably if you tried to warp one without a Tribunal it would cause some sort of singularity event. It also requires a Stargate and a Templar Archives, meaning if Arbiters are all you want you can bypass the incredibly pricey Fleet Beacon entirely. The Arbiter Tribunal itself is a much more reasonable 200 minerals and 150 Vespene. Anyway. Now that we've at least got the means of replacing our Arbiter, let's move out:  12 Zealots, 12 Dragoons, 1 Templar, 1 Arbiter, 1 Observer. Kind of a small force compared to what we've been using in the past, but, uh, again: Arbiters, man. Case in point:  See how this Sunken is defenseless against our invisible Zealots.  …of course, Zealots also move considerably faster than Arbiters. As do Dragoons. So some micro is necessary. But…  It only takes a couple seconds for the Arbiter to catch up, and even if it didn't - a stack each of Dragoons and Zealots is a real force of nature, even this late in the campaign. Astute observers may have noticed the different colour on the one Dragoon - Fenix is along for the ride. "Really? After what happened in mission 7 and everything?" Yep. I'm not too concerned for Fenix's well-being. Zerg can dish out more damage faster than arguably any other race, but they lack the Protoss flair for dumping four Reavers or Templar in front of your hero. Our heroes are maybe technically in greater danger of dying in this mission, but they're at a much lower danger of getting magically deleted when I look away for two seconds. Pushing further on:   "Wow, popping that Overlord sure produced a lot of blood!" Haha no. Sadly that is not Overlord blood. Or, at least, not all of it.  Yep, another stack of Zealots has been Plague'd. Might as well just send them out, since the goop disease will keep them from cloaking anyway. I'm pretty sure that hole in the ground they're stabbing is the Defiler responsible - I think Defilers are the only units that the AI won't automatically unburrow when they're being attacked.  Kind of a chaotic shot but the Defiler won't be a problem anymore. At least, in the short term.    Our Zealots are just about gone at this point but fortunately there's very little that a Templar, an Arbiter, and 12 Dragoons can't handle.    Of course, you can always count on the AI for a drive-by Queening to goop you up and make you visible again. At the same time, though…  …twelve decloaked, slowed Dragoons…  …are still twelve Dragoons. Some helpful recon from our Observer…  …Shows us our path, and so it's time to push in:       With this attack we're really illustrating the power of the Arbiter's cloaking field. See, as a kid, I thought this was the biggest disappointment. I was all excited to exploit the Arbiter so that any unit could be used for cloaked harassment and surgical strikes. Kind of a "What if you could make your whole race Wraiths" button. Of course, that didn't work at all. The Arbiter would just get sniped and the attack would fail. I turned my back on the Arbiter in disgust. But I was missing its true power. The Arbiter's cloaking field isn't about launching sneak attacks, it's about creating a sort of obscuring wave over your main force(s). Even with Detection in play it likely won't overlap perfectly with your Arbiter field, making it difficult for the enemy to focus-fire you and easier for you to micro your injured units out of harm's way. And because it's over your main army, your troops will be strong enough to foil most attempts to snipe the Arbiter. It's generally stronger against human players as they're more likely to focus-fire intelligently, but as you can see it's still quite effective against the AI. The end result is much more subtle but much more effective than the "Haha invisible Reavers!" my younger self had envisioned. We've gotten a ton of mileage out of our Arbiter and we don't even have any of its spells online yet. Or at least, we didn't. It's time for us to reinforce, and what do you know, Recall just finished researching. We just look for a likely army… …target the spell…    …and boom. Instant Zealots. We'll get more into this spell with the Spotlight, but for now I'll just mention that it costs 150 energy, which makes it tied for the most expensive spell in the base game. But given how powerful instant teleporting is, it's no wonder. And the ability to immediately warp reinforcements to the front lines is, like, its least powerful application (though probably the most practical in the campaign). Anyway, we've dealt Daggoth a blow, but…  Our faithful Observer shows that he's still far from beaten. The problem, though, is that the canyons really narrow here. Furthermore…  The high ground is lined with Spore Colonies, making progress difficult for our Observers and Arbiter, and as you can see, also provide a spot for Guardians to bombard us with impunity, the Spore Colonies also providing detection to the ground below. Well, there's nothing for it.  We'll just have to take our lumps and charge through. Some Overlords come over to spot our cloaked units now that they're far from the Spores, but…  And the ones already there are easy pickings for our Dragoons:   …Ah crap. I guess I should have seen this coming - really it's the payoff from that Plague spell way back. Our poor Arbiter's been barely hanging on ever since. We're going to be significantly weakened until we can get a replacement (and Arbiters are very slow to build and not all that much faster to move). But the thing is, when you take away the Arbiter…       …we've still got plenty of Zealots, Dragoons, and a High Templar. It also helps that, as we've seen, the AI is a firm believer in the Also, quick aside, Dragoons are so satisfying to use. It takes a bit to get over their abysmal pathfinding, but once you get the hang of it, their speed and range makes them just a joy to command. Dancing a stack of Dragoons around and one-shotting whatever threats appear isn't quite as fun as a Magic Box'd flock of Mutas, but it's close. But hmm, no Cerebrate. No, Daggoth himself isn't here. He may even still be on Char. Either way, he will escape this battle unscathed. So we're no closer to our objective, but easing the pressure will help a lot. Gorn's Baelrog Brood is very air focused, focusing on Mutas and Guardians, whereas the Mysterious Grendel Brood has been more dedicated to Lings, Hydras, and Queens. It's the Tiamat Brood that's been most of the heavy-hitting high tech, so with them crippled we can expect the amount of Ultras and Defilers we're facing to diminish significantly. Not entirely, because I do think Brown also does at least some Defilers (hard to tell the colour since they're always burrowed) but it's gonna give us some breathing space. And also…  More Arbiters! I hotkeyed it so we don't get to see the price tag, but it's wild - 100/350. Very competitive mineral cost, but that's the single highest Vespene expense in the game. Easily worth it, but it still hurts a little. Also I find it oddly pleasing that pre-expansion Protoss have symmetrical production centers: Gateways, Robotics Facilities, and Stargates all produce three units each, and that's satisfying for some reason. Anyway. Daggoth's brood is mostly dealt with (I think he's still got a base somewhere? But he's not going to be a significant force in this mission anymore), but our mineral situation is getting pretty dicey - we're all mined out. As you can see we've got three grand banked (because floating resources = campaign.txt), but we don't have any income. We'll need another expansion. And this:  Looks promising. Loads of mineral patches, only guarded by a few turrets. We should be able to take that no problem.  Well that's a pain. Or is it…  …an opportunity?    Seriously, if you're not making use of defensive High Templar, you're missing out. Of course, those Mutas were only the vanguard…  That's, uh, a lot of Guardians. But remember the Zerg campaign? And what we learned about Guardians? Insanely powerful units, bombers from hell, but…   …Easily hard-countered. I love you, High Templar <3  You think as I doAnyway. Expansion. I know just how to clear out those colonies:      There we are. Much better. All ready for us to exploit now. Our Observer, however, spots something unusual:   We've talked about this before - in mission 4, I think? Zerg drops always look scarier than they are in the campaign because the AI doesn't quite know how to handle having so many transports. Each of those Overlords has, like, one or two units on it instead of being full, so it's nowhere near as bad as it looks. (I think the scripts we'll face in the BW campaign overcome this problem? I forget. I suppose we'll find out…) Still…   …Dropping an Ultra (and some other guys) in the middle of a base isn't ideal. The good news is that we have the tool to stop that Ultra dead in its tracks to give us time to react!  The bad news (well, “bad” news) is that the Ultra died before we could reach it, so we only froze this one Zergling:  Use our Scouts to mop up and…   …we're good. That may end up being Daggoth's last gasp on this map. Or maybe not. I forget. But it's immediately followed up with an attack from brown:    High Templar, man. This does help to show how unrelenting the pressure is at this point, though. Fortunately we can breathe for a bit, so…  Let's get that expansion happening.  Wait, no! Don't attack here! We're not ready yet! It is just one Hydra, though, so…    Workers of Aiur, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! Granted, you have no sapience or will of your own, so you have nothing to gain, either, but let's not focus on the negatives. We start our defenses there…  …and just in time!    Drop a Storm, splatter some Mutas and Guardians, all good. I know what you're thinking: “...yeah okay you can probably cool it on the defensive Templar footage there eh bud. We get the picture.” I know, I'm sorry. I'll dial it back. Just assume this sort of thing is happening in the background a lot. Our attack force:  They've just been patiently waiting in the ruins of Fort Daggoth while we got them another Arbiter and took care of the home front. Let's send them out.  To the north: more canyon walls lined with Spores. However, we've thinned out Gorn’s Guardians significantly, so…    Easy pickings. This is kind of what the next bit looks like:  We make our way down the canyon, sniping Spores as we go.    That Spore Colony managed to snipe our Observer with its dying shot  While we wait for a new one (I really should have brought spares along but oh well), we've got an interesting battle happening:  I know what you're thinking. But this is different than the other defensive Templar footage! Look! Those are brown Mutas! We haven't seen air attacks from brown yet!  This isn't what it looks like, I swear.    See? The Mutas and Lings dodged the Storm and sniped my Templar. That's different, right? I mean a second Storm killed the Mutas but still! …this is actually a big problem because it means our only base producing minerals is now defenseless against a force of Zerglings and Guardians. Fortunately, I've been working on something for just this sort of situation:     Man. Scouts. How can a unit be so good and so bad at the same time? Well, back on the offense. Our Observer’s finished and en route, and…  …Ohhhkay, looks like we missed a Spore or two. Uh, the next Observer is finished and en route, and we'll be ready to go soon. (“Why worry about an Observer before attacking,” you ask? Because the last thing I want is to be running in blind against burrowed Defilers).  There the guy is. Uh, a little the worse for wear after some Close Encounters of the Spore Kind, but it's alive and that's what matters.  A Sunken! We must be getting close.    Uh, yeah, I'd say we're close, alright. Let's push forward:     Executor, the Cerebrate lies ahead! Indeed, it appears to be the same one that sacked Antioch! We shall bring swift death to its defenders. Hold, Fenix! You and your warriors are out of position! Advance only on the Judicator’s signal! Very well. I shall cover them as they withdraw.  Hold, where is the Judicator?  Uh, yeah. So the downside of the Arbiters having a token attack is that you do have to be careful or they'll rush off on suicide attacks like this. Fortunately…      Just like before, the Arbiter was around to do the heavy lifting, so Gorn still falls easily without it. “But wait, don't we need Zeratul to kill the Cerebrate?”  We do indeed. Fortunately killing a Cerebrate without Zeratul present doesn't result in failure; the Cerebrate is just instantly reincarnated on the spot. We can kill Gorn over…   …and over…   …And over. Poor guy. Anyway…  We have an Arbiter again, we could Recall Zeratul, but let's conserve that space mana, shall we?   You'll note our Shuttle took some damage from stray Spore Colonies. Fortunately not enough to kill it, because man, what a demoralizing way to lose that would be (I can't remember if we've mentioned this but units in a transport die when a transport is blown up).  Your final end has come, Cerebrate.  And that's the end of Gorn and the Baelrog Brood. I thought about having Zeratul do like a “Go back to the Shadow, you cannot pass!” thing here but… nah. As an aside, I'm actually not fully sure how this works. I believe Zeratul just needs to be in close proximity to the Cerebrate when it dies, rather than dealing the killing blow. In fact, I don't recall the map editor even having a “Killed by (unit)” condition. If we head to the left, we see…   Brown! In a show of mercy, the game links the two main bases, so once you've cleared the canyons on one side, you can attack the other Cerebrate without having to clear their canyon, too. Or maybe it was designed to make it more challenging by making it easy for one Cerebrate to attack your force that's pushing into the other Cerebrate’s base. Either way, it ends up making life easier. Go, my brethren! The first Cerebrate has fallen and the second awaits our blades! Make short work of these despoilers of Aiur, and reclaim our world for the Firstborn! But you know, it might help to have some heavy artillery. Shame we don't have a quick and convenient way of bringing it here.      There it is. Can you see it? To the left. Our target.  That's Fenix on the front lines there, eating damage from two Ultras. He's in trouble.  But our Arbiter comes in clutch to ease up the pressure. …Okay, so Stasis Field’s value depends on the quantity and quality of the units you're facing, which means here in this mission it's kind of just okay. It'll become a lot stronger in Brood War, and maybe even the next mission. Fortunately we've plenty of footage of the AI dropping it on us to illustrate its power.  Fenix, your walker has sustained considerable damage. I recommend that you withdraw before it becomes unmanageable. Nonsense! There may be some superficial scratches, but I am still more than capable of bringing swift death to these interlopers!      Praetor Fenix! Withdraw immediately! Ah, perhaps your course is wiser after all, Executor.Well that was close. No worries, we've still crippled the Grendel Brood enough to let Zeratul do his thing.    It is done, Executor. Both Cerebrates lie dead. The Zerg are collapsing in disarray as we speak. Also for some reason I remember this mission as being kind of a slog, but I gotta say - it was a complete blast to play. Really fun mission that pits Maximum Protoss against Maximum Zerg. JohnKilltrane fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Nov 15, 2023 |
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Nov 15, 2023 02:45
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Great to have you back.  You only need Zeratul nearby, which I know from GiantGrantGame's Zealots-Only run of this campaign.  If you have something stand where it's supposed to respawn, the game gets angry at you too! Shastahanshah fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Nov 15, 2023 |
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Nov 15, 2023 03:38
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Kinda suprised by the lack of Archons in your army since they are the perfect unit to use against plague.
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Nov 15, 2023 17:15
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Nostalgamus posted:Kinda suprised by the lack of Archons in your army since they are the perfect unit to use against plague. I think I used Archons but no Templars in my playthrough, just for lack of finding joy in spellcasting.
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Nov 15, 2023 18:05
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I do not use defensive spellcasters. The most important trait of my designated defensive units is that I don't need to pay attention to them. I don't care how good psionic storm is, I will just build more dragoons and focus on something else instead.
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Nov 15, 2023 18:14
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Nostalgamus posted:Kinda suprised by the lack of Archons in your army since they are the perfect unit to use against plague. Good call! Archons are quite good on this mission. I mostly didn't use them because I was pumping so much Vespene into Arbiters and their upgrades. Also that one wing of Scouts that I got for whatever reason. Zealots provided a handy mineral dump, albeit a highly Plague-able one. JohnKilltrane fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Nov 15, 2023 |
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Nov 15, 2023 18:18
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Psi Storm is the greatest button in the world and not engaging with it is denying yourself the most fun the game can offer you
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Nov 15, 2023 19:53
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I always figured the Arbiters' Tribunal just contained accommodations befitting what the judicator caste expected. Them stabilising local spacetime to handle the Arbiters is so over-the-top, I love it.
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Nov 16, 2023 01:53
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I think it's specifically warping in the Arbiters that requires the stabilizing assistance of the Tribunal, rather than their mere presence. Though even the Tribunal can't stabilize time & space quite enough to handle one little trick the game won't let you do: An Arbiter cannot be Recalled by another Arbiter, nor can they cloak each other.
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Nov 16, 2023 01:57
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BlazetheInferno posted:An Arbiter cannot be Recalled by another Arbiter, nor can they cloak each other. I did not know about either of these. Undoubtedly a deliberate balance choice. I can't recall trying to recall another Arbiter, but I thought that the cloak had one or the other take precedence. This makes a lot of sense. I also never thought about why the Arbiter has a piss-weak attack, but John's theory makes a lot of sense.
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Nov 16, 2023 02:43
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