Two Mindless Games

Most people know of Bust-A-Move. It's a classic arcade game. I've always loved it and have played many similar types of games. Two of them stood out the most and it took SO MUCH effort to stop playing them. Dynomite is one, the other is Bubblez (which I think is better). After playing either of these, you'd never go back to bust-a-move.

Eye See See You Pee

I see the truth in that no matter how good I am at this game, lots of things are going to happen that reeeeaally squeezes the tit! The unexpected is probably the worst thing about this game, where experience is the only cure. A Protoss abruptly switches to carriers as I kill all off his ground units. A zerg goes lurkers asap and totally rape me. Many guys rush, fully focused on ending it quickly. If they aren't beating me with good macro and micro, they are beating me with lame tactics that upset me too much for me to admit my own noobyness.

Playing people you are familiar with can be a good thing and a bad thing. If you try to get good ranks on iCCup by rarely playing the same person twice, you'll be in for a lot of surprises. I recommend to not play someone obviously better than you too often.

I've gotten to 2800 points, then it's all losses. Somewhat sucky people still walk up behind me with a kick to the groin. And what if I DID get to C-? I'd just be knocked right back down to D+. If I make it, I want to settle, not visit. I'm pretty sure most C- Protoss players usually have 180 APM, while I merely dance around with 130-140.

But I have a few surprises of my own at times, I have beaten Tosses with 200 APM. Usually when they fail hard or I become aggressive in harassment. If I were to rematch they'd most likely beat me. My latest TvP, our armies went around each other, and I barely managed to hang on for the win. Woo... the intensity.

The Protoss Point of View

Just finished reading this. Looking at PvT from the Toss point of view has even taught me something. I have never known that vultures do full damage to the dragoon's shields, I only knew that it took lots of vulture shots to kill them. It has somewhat perplexed me when I see good players shoot the goons when in for a early push (well... I knew vultures were better in receiving damage, as they are more easily replaced and cheaper). Having many vultures ahead of tanks makes your army even very dangerous.

What about reavers? Do vultures do full damage only to their shields? What about buildings? If I could hazard a guess, I would say yes to both.

Maybe I could start working on having vessels in my attacks. The matrix shield and EMP can be more helpful than I've realized.

Watched a replay of a D Protoss and I. I was vulture harassing and thought it would be better to shift-click each probe so they won't go for a goon or cannon if one is attacking. I noticed that whenever I did it, they'd all shoot at one at the same time, again and again. It was as if there was really only 1 vulture there. And so, if there are no goons or cannons, use stop... sometimes I can be just out of range of the cannon. If there is a cannon thats going to hit no matter what, shift-click. These small things can go a long way :-)

Not Enough Supply Depots

Rarely does a game bring me to such trembling. I went into it knowing I could definitely lose as he was Protoss with little over 2800 points. Man, I was sooo close! I went in with the mentality of spending all my minerals and having enough buildings... didn't do such a bad job of that.

Check it out!!! (Click)

In the end, there was no 'gg'. No big deal, most of my wins don't have a 'gg'.

I haven't looked at the replay, because I already know what I could have done differently. At least, I think so... if I went for another expo as I pushed (the mineral only spot), I would have had a stronger reinforcement. Also, more mine laying would have been helpful.

Hope you like it. If you first look on bwchart, you may think I never had a chance. But I did, oh I did.

Weak MU

Looking into why I'm not C- yet, my TvP doesn't look good at all. I currently have a 27.3% win ratio (6-16) compared to 64% (16-9) in TvZ. It's simple to explain. I've playing almost 100 games straight of TvZ after all. As much as it may pain me to think of, I may have to do the same in TvP's. There's a dark feeling looming in the back of my mind in each game. My army constantly feels so vulnerable. In TvZ, I've gotten used to waiting for the right time. When I finally get a vessel, a tank or two, and explode my way across the map, up their ass. Lots of zergs will be completely overwhelmed, but things are different now. I'm getting out-macroed and out-microed by guys with lower APM and EAPM than me. And it's hard to believe because in 20 minute games I'd have produced almost 300 units.

Dragoons, in mass, are currently giving me reason to become emo. The positioning of my tanks and mines aren't so great. There's one thing I can do about that :-)

Oh, and I've been playing a bit of Python. Most people don't play it on account of it being overplayed, but I've never really played it that much. I've probably played on Destination more than Python by now (just checked my replay folder, and I have). It's a good map for guys like me, nicely balanced and simple.