Human opponents

For years, I've played StarCraft with my brother Phil. We played StarCraft and then Broodwar and, more recently StarCraft II. Early on, we experimented with options and discovered that we really most enjoyed just playing as a team against the computer. Playing against each other -- or against other teams of people -- is just too stressful.

Today, we played a few games against the computer and kept getting beaten. I realized that we were playing on a map that has obstacles that prevent you from getting rushed (attacked) at the very beginning and that the computer opponent was using that opportunity to expand resource gathering and was able to get way ahead of us. Phil suggested using the variant of the map that doesn't have the obstacles to rushing. I suggested that he set up the game and made him team leader.

Suddenly, the game was starting. "What happened? Who are the ops?" I asked. "Sorry -- they're people," he replied. He had inadvertently set us up to play against other humans!

Our opponents were protoss and terran. The protoss op sent a probe into our area to canon rush me. He created photon canons near my base. Luckily, as zerg, I had started building units that could destroy the photon canons and his attempt to achieve early victory failed. I destroyed the canons and the pylons, which probably set him pretty far behind.

The terran opponent was more skilled. He started building a huge force of battlecruisers. When Philip and I attacked the terran expansions, he sent the battlecruisers out and wiped out our force. Once I saw that he was building battlecruisers, I increased my air defenses and started making corrupters -- the zerg unit for air-to-air combat.

The protoss opponent attacked individually and was easily repelled. At that point, we pressed our advantage and attacked the protoss expansion and killed it, but were pushed back when we tried to attack the nearby terran expansion. But soon, we had rebuilt a large force and wiped out the other terran expansions. At the last terran expansion, the main confrontation occurred: a huge force of battlecruisers opposed by hydralisks, corrupters, and Phil's void-rays. The battle was decisive: in just a few moments, the battlecruisers were destroyed and we were left in command of the field. After a few moments, the opponents surrendered.

It was fun to win. Phil and I are pretty good at coordinated teamwork. We're too conservative to ever be top-tier StarCraft players, but we're pretty good. At the same time, it's TOO STRESSFUL to play against human beings. It's a lot more fun to play against the computer. We decided that maybe when we're older, we'll try playing against human being again. Maybe in 10 years or so. Maybe.