lessons from starcraft

i'll admit i'm a very late bloomer. i actually attempted to play starcraft once a few years ago, and as i was happily building my little buildings and having my little worker people gather minerals, suddenly a huge horde of computer enemies came at me and raped me. since that day i had an aversion to starcraft, dota, world of warcraft, anything where obviously more 1337 gamers than me would sit at their desks all day. (i know dota and wow are different)

but yesterday after a few burgers and beers, chris, arpun and i decided to play starcraft as a drinking game. (well it became a drinking game later) and i only succumbed because i had two 22 oz beers in me, and also it would be the three of us v 3 computers, and the goal would be to "protect bobby."

i did get the hang of the game, especially after another glass or two of drambuie and tonic. alcohol makes gaming into a parabolic curve of easiness and an exponential curve of enjoyment. one strategy we decided was to zealot rush one or two computer players initially, exactly what had happened to me years earlier. and somehow i picked up on the importance of manic mouse clicks and hotkeys, and when i matched chris and arpun's speed in building my first units, i had a great sense of pride. later, when hyon joined us, i was able to pick up on a little more strategy. in my alcohol induced state of l33tn355, i felt i was able to pick up not the exact details, but an overall strategic sense of how to pwn.

but this morning i thought about the overall lessons one can learn from this small episode.

1) it's better to have played and lost than to have never played at all.
2) know when to retreat back to your base where your photon cannons are waiting.
3) if life gives you an opportunity, it's often good to jump on it, and rush early. then there's usually a binomial distribution, because the next good opportunity will involve a longterm strategy.

maybe tonight i will install starcraft on my computer. or maybe i'll revert back to oblivion drinking games.