Cheesy Strategies

[Reaper Zwei]

I'm curious what people consider a cheese strat and why. I personally think everything is fair game. The object of the game is to kill the enemy ACU but, I know some people don't do certain strats even though they could because they consider it cheesy. I also doubt that I know all the strats that people consider cheesy. For example I won a game just now on high noon as UEF with 3 riptides and my ACU in 6 min. 34 sec.(against someone of similar rating) Is that cheesy?

[Joly]

Cheesy victories generally involve some sort of sneaky tactic like a snipe (with air,TML,firebeetles,etc..) that a player uses to win "quickly" a game that he is not ahead. Some players also consider tactics like abusing ACU TML or triple bomber drop like cheese. And what you describe is not cheese its just the other player being careless with acu

[Reaper Zwei]

to me this:

just the other player being careless with acu

applies to this too:

Cheesy victories generally involve some sort of sneaky tactic like a snipe (with air,TML,firebeetles,etc..)

and this:

that a player uses to win "quickly" a game that he is not ahead.

is why some people call some strats cheesy, they think they are ahead.(doesn't really matter if you have the best eco in the game if your ACU gets killed)

Ive recently won a number of games in which my base has totally been destroyed(or close to it) but I take a few units and my ACU and go kill his ACU before he can get to mine. I suppose that's not really cheesy either (I don't think it is) just people being careless. I don't think anything is cheesy I'm just curious what other people think is and why.

[Plasma_Wolf]

I've tried the strat snipe several times and I can understand why it's frustrating, but the early upgrade to t3 air and the construction of 5 bombers takes so much mass that I could've spent it on a proper land army to actually win the ground I've slowly been losing.

The reason to go for these tactics aren't always related to losing in therms of mass. In my. Ask, it's always that I've been losing in terms of paying attention: I sometimes fail horribly at the macro scale, then I start to lose an army because my opponent has a larger one, or can perform an attack at two fronts while I can't, or because he has a t3 artillery and I've got jn shielded auroras. I still have the mass for some good things though, so the next thing I'd then do is find out where the ACU is (under the protection of one shield, only flak), build the strat bombers and keep them hidden (that worked) and perform the attack.

[Blodir]

Cheese is simply a risky strategy, often relying on secrets (for example if mercies get scouted they are useless). These strategies are gamble at best, but they are part of the game as it is so better learn to live with them.

[Ithilis_Quo]

cheesy strategy is Bektors strategy, so everthying is fine, live with it or die, (die is better)

[sasin]

Cheese is simply a risky strategy, often relying on secrets (for example if mercies get scouted they are useless). These strategies are gamble at best, but they are part of the game as it is so better learn to live with them.

I would just add that I think cheese is more specifically a high-risk high-reward strategy that relies on your opponents inability or lack of knowledge. It's basically making a big wager hoping your opponent messes up. If your opponent does, you can win quickly, but if they don't mess up, you've probably lost. In starcraft, this can take the from of relying on your opponent not scouting, because in that game scouting, especially in the beginning, is trivial and any competent player should do it.

Here's a related definition from a veteran starcraft player who doesn't believe in cheese: "A "cheese" strategy is one that has a low percentage chance of working, but is fatal if pulled off successfully. Normally, these strategies are not used since, by definition, they don't usually work. However, certain circumstances increase the success percentage of "cheese" strategies, making them not so cheesy and causing victims to cry foul. In reality, there is no such thing as a cheese strategy. Everything is fair.

http://www.blizzardguides.com/starcraft ... egies.html
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Cheese



By doing a starcraft cheese strategy, you're going all-in and just hoping that your opponent doesn't know how to play (doesn't scout) or otherwise doesn't know what to do about it.

Another example in my opinion can be found in chess. Most people if you've played just a little chess are familiar with the scholar's mate. It's a really quick checkmate that can sometimes fool beginner players. From some chess website: "The Scholar’s mate is a devious tactic used by some beginners to exploit their unprepared opponents. You should NOT play the Scholar’s mate as White since, as we shall see, if Black knows what to do it can backfire badly."

The whole point is instead of playing a normal game of chess, you change the game to a wager about if your opponent knows about the trick or not. You could probably win a lot of games with a scholar's mate strategy against new players, but once you start playing against better players you will find yourself outmatched by someone who, rather than doing scholar's mate over and over, earned their rating by playing "legitimate" strategy. Furthermore, any of your real wins are arguably less "legitimate" if you achieved them using this trick. You're definitely missing out on the beauty/appeal of chess if you follow an algorithm and hope you're opponent doesn't understand it. I'd say you're missing the point of the game, and it doesn't sound fun to me, although others clearly do enjoy it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholar%27s_mate
http://www.wesdel.com/FarragutCC/Lesson ... rsMate.pdf

So, this is my definition/understanding of cheese, and I do think it should be discouraged. Do I think the rules of chess should be changed to ban someone from doing the scholar's mate? Not really. Do I think it'd be stupid for someone to go for it? Yes.

That said, I do agree with the starcraft article above that people may cry foul too often. It's a slippery slope, and although I feel like it's a clear definition, sometimes I'm arguing something is cheesy and sometimes I'm arguing something isn't.

Applying all this to sup com, the strategy I find most cheesy, as you may have seen on the "help I'm a noob" thread, is a TML snipe. You're wagering that your opponents don't scout or the scouts flight path misses your tml etc. and that they doesn't just build tmd to be safe, and then you're wagering that the one you target is zoomed in at that moment when you fire and none of his teammates ping him or he doesn't respond to the ping etc. It may work, but it's a kind of all in strategy hoping your opponent sucks or messes up. You may catch a good player zoomed in at that moment, but your chances are low. If you kill him, to me that seems hollow. Rather than playing the game of reading and reacting etc. you just decided to play the hopefully my opponent is zoomed in game.

There are probably other cheesy strategies out there, but often people cry foul when things don't fall into these categories. For example, as much as I hate mercies and think they're stupid (they're kind of inconsistent and weird... sometimes your aa seems like it fails), if someone is bearing down on your side with his acu and you build a bunch of mercies that isn't particularly cheesy... it's not a precanned decision to follow some strategy that you can do everytime and hope your opponent doesn't understand it. It's reacting to your opponent. Similarly, plasma's t3 strat bomber kill as you're surrendering map control is clearly legitimate.

Sorry for essay.

EDIT: Famous anticheese article that interested people should read:

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing- ... art-1.html

starcraft thread in which people yell at each other:

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/8517452690

[errorblankfield]

Cheese strats are as mentioned high-risk, high-rewards. You can debate on if they are good/bad or should be called 'cheesey' or something else, but that's what they are -very risky but very reward...y.

The risk is normally always awareness which means the counter is trivial to pull off. See mercies. One AA and 90% of mercy attacks no longer work.

Now there are many ways that cheese strats are viable- one of which leaves a sore taste for the loser resulting in the stigma.

The 'okay' version of a cheese strat transcends it's easy counter. I.E. if someone is dominating you on the ground and is agressively using ground AA to deny air... a mercy strike is 'fair game'. Why? Cause he's fought to remove that weakness and done so successfully. Now losing still sucks, but you have to give him credit for minimizing risk.

Another (more common) way to remove the weakness is to just make a million of something. While one AA kills 20 mercies, I made 100 so I win. In this case, you really have to give it to the winner for making THAT many mercies uncontested...

Tangent aside, the other cheese that leave a stigma is when you pull it off from behind. After you've 'lost' the game, the 'high risk' part goes out the window. You've lost, there is no risk in anything you do. Might as well Crl+k. But then you do a cheese tactic -and win. That just sucks as the loser. You beat the guy, but cause you forgot that minor thing (to scout or build X defense), now you lost. You pulled of feats comparable to gods, but you where bested by a cheese.

It sucks. But you have to roll it off and keep going.

So yea, that's cheese.

[The Hoff]

would you say building 9 tmls in a pattern that when launched looks like the below in order to focus defenses on lead missiles and leaves a concentrated blast of kick ass on the back end is cheese or smart use of tmls?

/0
/0
/0
/0
000
000

[Exotic_Retard]

definitely not cheese. its not even a strategy as such - its tactical placement of your tml.
the strategy is to use tml to kill something important..
eh thats not exactly cheese either

cheese is only when you are risking an awful lot for some crazy strat

if you were to absolutely rush those tml and get them at min 5-10 then that would be cheese, because it was planned before the game (probably) and has a huge risk/reward tied to it

to that end, nothing is cheese unless you are risking a lot by doing it; sniping is not cheese if you won the game already and just want to finish it. but it is cheese if you rush it.

in short, whether something is cheese or not also depends on the situation its used in, not just what it is.