Replay of the Week #4

The game commences with Fanta at the top right, and DDONG at the bottom left. Fanta takes his gas early, starting his refinery before his supply finishes in a 10 gas 11 rak build, cutting SCV production a little. DDONG meanwhile goes for a standard 12gas/12rak, choosing to scout straight away. Fanta begins his factory a little earlier than his opponent, and makes a marine to get rid of DDONG's scout SCV. Although Fanta is 150 ahead in gas, he is suffering a bit for his fast gas build; his supply is at 18/18, and he has no depots or SCVs in production.

Starting his depot, Fanta attempts to take out DDONG's scout scv by trapping it behind his mineral line, but it escapes through a hole only to be cornered by a second marine from Fanta's now lifted barracks. DDONG starts constructing a second factory and gets a machine shop, whereas Fanta has just begun two starports. His rather late scout is stopped by two marines at DDONG's ramp; Fanta builds a tank and two wraiths, with DDONG pumping out vultures and speed research.

DDONG's first vulture runs towards Fanta's base, but runs off after finding a tank and two marines stationed in the natural. Waiting for a larger number of wraiths before revealing his tech, Fanta sends his tank towards DDONG's base, retreating his two marines back to his ramp. However, four of DDONG's vults, now with speed and soon to have mines, make their way right and go up towards Fanta's main, missing the tank altogether. Fanta's two marines go to the 3 o'clock expansion, leaving the vultures free to go straight up the ramp, where Fanta's four wraith army flies straight above their heads before turning around and defending the mineral line. DDONG's vultures kill five or six SCVs, but do no fatal damage before being shot dead.

DDONG's vultures get into Fanta's main.
In the meantime, DDONG has built a starport of his own, and Fanta's rather brave tank is chased back home by three vultures. They attempt to mine the tank dead in Fanta's natural, but are trapped between the tank and Fanta's wraiths, and are all killed. An engineering bay is half finished for DDONG, although Fanta now has six wraiths without cloak and is only just building his first control tower. DDONG on the other hand has started researching cloak, although he has a significantly smaller group of wraiths.

Although DDONG's mineral line is undefended, Fanta's wraiths go for his control tower, which is almost done researching cloak. Unfortunately for Fanta, the control tower finishes the research at 40 hp, allowing DDONG to chase him off with his two cloaked wraiths. An academy finishes for Fanta, though it is somewhat late to save his wraiths, which are being picked off as they retreat home; the surprise is enough for DDONG to build a turret in his natural in preparation to expand.

Fanta's barrack lands in DDONG's main and churns out a marine, which harasses his starport for a short while before being killed off. DDONG starts his expansion earlier than Fanta, and also kills off Fanta's building SCV with some of his vultures, further delaying his opponent's expansion; DDONG's CC finishes with Fanta's only being half completed.

Some harassment attempts by DDONG go awry as his wraiths are scanned and killed by Fanta's much bigger army; said army proceeds to terrorise DDONG's expansion, killing off the vultures stationed there, though the other half of them are busy killing off Fanta's building SCV again. With his academy not yet finished, DDONG is powerless to stop Fanta's wraiths attacking his expansion CC, though he eventually manages to make an extra turret and force him out.

Fanta no longer has supreme control over the sky, with DDONG now producing wraiths from 2 starports, and Fanta completing a second factory invalidating DDONG's ground control for the time being. The air war is set to escalate; Fanta puts down an extra two starports, and DDONG builds a third one along with an armory. One of Fanta's tanks dies to a vulture attack, but his large wraith army sends them fleeing.

DDONG's vultures try to get some kills, but ultimately fail.
DDONG is now pumping out goliaths from his factories, and Fanta has chosen to switch to producing mainly tanks, with a turret in his natural preventing any further vulture containment, given that both players have run out of scans. Fanta expands in his mineral only, and also starts an exp at 4 o'clock and drops an SCV at the island at 12. DDONG is expanding at 9, with turrets already in place there and a sizeable mine army outside.

Fanta's 4 o'clock expansion is disrupted by a single vulture, though he has expansions coming up at 12 and 3 which are less easily stopped. DDONG's giant goliath/wraith army slaughters Fanta's remaining wraiths, though he sneaks a dropship to 6 o'clock in the chaos and promptly starts work on three turrets there. one of DDONG's goliaths keeps Fanta's 4 o'clock expansion shut down as he moves into the middle of the map.

Fanta's wraiths are taken out of service.

The upgrades refer to Ground and Air respectively. Fanta is rather short on gas, with only two of his bases practically functioning, though he has three expansions currently doing nothing as they have only just finished. However, he does have an impressive line of sieged tanks preventing any form of direct land assault on his main expansions... or so it would seem:

Fanta's 3 o'clock expansion gets disabled.
Fanta's 3 o'clock CC is forced to lift off, and DDONG's sieged tanks and large wraith army prevents him retaking that expansion for the time being. Having not lost his island expansions yet, Fanta builds giant numbers of turrets at 12 and 6, these being the only expansions that keep him level at the moment.

DDONG has finished an expansion at 10, giving him quite a lot of resources to spend, though Fanta's islands are beginning to take effect. DDONG's force at 3 has not been reinforced, and Fanta unsieges, steamrolling it and retaking his expansion, even though he is behind on supply. However, he loses his island expansion at 6 to a drop from DDONG, so he is no better off than before, though he soon begins another expansion at the natural at 4.

Fanta retakes his expansion by force.


An attempt by Fanta to steamroll DDONG again fails, and he is forced back with only a handful of tanks of his attempt remaining. A clash in the middle sees Fanta pushed back again, though he loses little in comparison to DDONG, whose dropships were all killed and most of his army destroyed as well, though he has a large number of factories running. With a newfound dominance, Fanta's expansion at 4 remains running, and he also takes the main expansion there. More sinister things are happening in Fanta's main, though, as a covert ops addon finishes.

A large drop from DDONG hits down Fanta's natural at 4 o'clock, though the CC remains and the SCVs soon transfer to the minonly expansion there, though he still is one gas down. The use of his covert ops addon is unclear; he has not researched anything from it, and his only barracks is slowly being killed in DDONG's main, with no nuclear addons in sight. DDONG takes the island exp at 6, and Fanta is building a CC near the middle in preparation to take the middle expansion.

Both players are now at the supply limit, with Fanta having an absurdly large number of minerals and DDONG having a more balanced bankbook. A clash in the middle sees DDONG prevent Fanta's middle expansion at a cost, losing all his dropships once again. However, in DDONG's base, a physics lab has added onto his science facility, with production starting at the top left.

Fanta's science facility lifts off, adding on a physics labs at its new location. He attempts to drop a sizeable army at DDONG's top left expansion, but is completely destroyed by the battlecruisers, though he manages to injure one of them to 100 hp. Though Fanta has battlecruisers of his own, DDONG uses his advantage to secure the middle expansion with a group of tanks, though it lasts for little longer than a minute as Fanta's army crushes it down without effort.

In their ambitions of gaining the better battlecruiser fleet, both players start killing off their tanks and some SCVs to free up supply, pacing back and forth with their armies. Many of the map's expansions have been mined out, with only a handful of them remaining. At last, the battle begins, and Fanta gets off to a bad start as some of his fleet is hit by an EMP, and DDONG begins firing away with his yamato guns. It doesn't look good, but somehow Fanta pulls through and wins the fight, flying home victorious with four BCs and two vessels left.

DDONG's EMP doesn't seem to be making much difference here...

Fanta takes the time to repair his BCs; every geyser on the map, save the middle expansion, has been depleted, and as such both players have run out of gas in rebuilding and have little opportunity left to recover if they lose their fleet. Both players opt for some extra goliaths this time, Fanta taking the opportunity to destroy DDONG's remaining turrets in the middle expansion.

Given the lack of gas available, Fanta makes a group of vultures and faces DDONG in battle again, but his ground force caves in and his battlecruisers are all shot down in the face of a large goliath army with full attack upgrades.

Fanta amasses quite an impressive land army, shooting down DDONG's remaining air force and leveling the armies on each side, with his three vessels from earlier on helping out quite a lot. The game has reverted back to tank/gol fighting, with neither side having sufficient gas to play effectively with BCs. Both players are fighting off a low economy with only a few mineral lines intact, save the middle which has yet to be taken for any significant length of time.

DDONG moves right and sieges up outside Fanta's 4 o'clock base, but Fanta's vessels are ever useful; applying defensive matrix to his tanks, Fanta sieges up and picks off most of DDONG's tanks without a single casualty, forcing him to back off although he does lose some of his SCVs to DDONG's goliaths there.

From there, the fight for the middle continues with Fanta's CC promptly forced to lift off after DDONG's army arrives. With his tanks sieged up on the right hand mineral line in the middle, Fanta makes the most of the situation at hand and lands his CC near the minerals, mining a small amount from them while DDONG remains on the left hand side, with no CC nearby.

Fanta, with a superior tank army in the middle, drops DDONG's six o'clock island expansion, taking out most of his economy; the only minerals he has left are at the minonly at the topleft, though he does have two thousand minerals in the bank. One of Fanta's spare CCs promptly lands on the island and begins pumping SCVs, though his CC in the middle is forced to lift by a successful tank push from DDONG, giving him enough space to fire at the right hand minerals. As such, he starts mining from the left hand side minerals of the middle expansion.

Both armies are now sitting in stalemate. Though Fanta is ahead on income and supply, his army in the middle is no better than DDONG's as some of his army is guarding his 6 o'clock expansion. Fanta has managed to buy himself four battlecruisers, and starts harassing DDONG's tanks, sniping some of them from out of goliath range and killing one with a yamato gun, though one of DDONG's vessels triggers an EMP on the other three.

Fanta now has five battlecruisers, and is one-shotting tanks from DDONG, who is now 50 behind in supply. DDONG unsieges, and goes straight to Fanta's four o'clock expansion, shutting down the natural and threatening the main. A small tank/goliath force of Fanta's goes to DDONG's mineral only at the top left, destroying his only source of income. Fanta's BCs take out some of DDONG's remaining tanks, and in a final attempt DDONG unsieges and attacks Fanta head on, but is ultimately routed by the strong battlecruiser and tank army. With no way left to recover and no units left, DDONG finally holds up the white flag after a long struggle. GG.

Finally, Fanta's army triumphs.
Do you have a replay you think is worthy of this feature? If so, send it to djurgarden21[-at-]gmail.com and perhaps it will be seen here in the near future!