Why are certain strategies called cheese's

I've played many Rts games and i've never heard of the 'cheese' untill starcraft 2, can someone please explain what people mean by this because im sure that units are put in the game to be experemented with and that a strategy that the oppenent doesn't expect is always a better strat then a basic strat because it catches the opponent off gaurd

 

cheese imo is a strat that requires no skill to pull off, like cannon rushing, theres nothing worse than wasteing 10 mins of ure game to see 20 cannons in ure fog, tbh when i first started i hated it alot more these days i dont get rushed like that, but cheese just means strats that once done are stupidly hard to counter, like DT rushing could be called cheese if you dont have any cloak protection, its basically GG. another one is containing, its a good strat but so cheesy, locking someone in there base waiting for there econemy collapse while u expand all over the place.

cheese is beatable once uve lost to it tho.

 

Cheese is one of those things that it kinda depends who you ask. I believe the generally accepted definition is that its an "all or nothing" kinda thing.

Basically, if you base your entire strategy around getting lucky then its cheese.

Examples

Zerg: 6 pool is cheese. If they defend your rush, or scout then you lose because your economy is trash. By the same token 8 pool and up isn't really cheesy since even if your rush fails your not too far behind in economy.

Protoss: Photon cannon rushing is cheese since if detected you have nothing really to fall back on. By the same token a proxy pylon while "cheesy" isn't an all in strategy either, so it cant really be qualified as "cheese".

Terran: The only thing kinda cheesy that the terrans can do are an all in reaper rush, or fast cloaked banshees. The reason is of course if either are countered you are drastically behind in economy, however the fact of the matter is that terrans can still transition from either of these strategies into a more conventional one if they fail to pan out.

Once again this is only my opinion, but I think it works fairly well.... Of course there are also proxy barracks and mass marines, and planetary fortress assault but neither of these really see much use.

 

Containment itself is not cheese imo, I guess you're talking about early containment like bunkers or photon cannons infront of your base, but that's not all in, so I wouldn't call it cheese.

 

its not cheese by itself, im talking all in tho, the players who send a probe build pylon forge cannons with no units to back them up, you cant go out with 1 zeal/probes and therefore ure contained from the beginning, its not really cheese tho, if u send that zeal out and kill the forge/pylon/probe u can just rush with 3 zeals and win the game, so thats how i consider it all in, alltho late contains arnt at all, infact there actually quite smart.

 

Ah so there what people class as cheese because i mix my armys up abit for fun and get called cheesy even though it's none of the following you said

 

Alltho we all hate it if it wins you the game who cares if how you do it? when i first started every cheese strat to date beat me, now i know how to counter them all its not really a big deal.

 

Cloaked banshees/ reaper rush aren't cheese. A cheese is an all-in. If your all-in fails, you basically lose the game. Some people would call a move that isn't a ffecting your economy at all cheese but i dont see why. There was a thread few days ago about someone double gas steal on terrans to prevent reaper rushes. That is not a cheese. He isn't going all-in.

Reaper rush: IT is not cheese because you can very smoothly transition into bio after your reaper rush and it dosen't afect your economy... So I don't see why it is cheese. Really, give me one reason why it affects your economy?

Cloaked banshees: Since when in cloaked banshees your going all-in? Let's say your cloaked banshees build is 1/1/1 and your making cloaked banshees vs protoss. If your cloaked banshee is dead, your not gonna die or something, your just gonna continue macro/expand and upgrade your units.

Photon canon rush is a cheese because it affects your ecnonomy, basically if the ennemy counters the photon canon, your pretty much dead.

6 pool is of course cheese because your not even making any drones, you just go for fast pool and then make 6 zerglings when it is over.


One thing that could be cheese in terrans would be proxy rax with only marines non stop or planetary fortress rush. A cheese is where you go all-in, if you lose your chese(all-in) attempt then you can already say gg. But reaper rush and cloaked banshees aren't chese.

 

I think you missed my point,

I said the only thing "kind of cheesy" they can do. The reason is both these strategies if noticed are easily countered, and DO put you behind in economy. However I also said that it is fairly easy to transition from either strat to a more conventional one which really takes them out of the realm of "cheese"

I also DID point out that marine proxies, and planetary fortress assaults exist. However whereas other cheeses can be seen all the way into diamond those 2 are pretty limited to the lower leagues.

 

Good cheese does require skill, i doubt noobs can pull off a 2min reaper bunker rush which requires a lot of micro