#sc2 strategy

[sc2maps-blog]

This build is definitely worth checking out.  It's very micro-intensive, but I think it's a great departure from traditional WoL strats into more HotS-oriented strats.

[sc2maps-blog]

The 10 Things You Need to Learn in SC2: No. 3 - Use Your Control Groups

See the above graph?  It's from a study called Skillcraft on what sort of traits separate players of different skill levels.  The number one difference was either APM (actions per minute) or Action Latency, neither of which is really useful since they're just fancy ways of saying play faster.  "Gap between PACs" and "Number of PACs" are unique metrics incorporated into the study.  PAC stands for perception action cycle, and long-story short, it's just another fancy way of saying play faster; again, not very useful.  But the 2nd and 3rd biggest difference between diamonds and professionals were metrics called "Select by hotkeys" and "Assign to hotkeys".  Now that is useful because it's a very specific thing that you can work on during your games.  The reason control groups are so critical is because they turn a 3-mouse click action into a single keystroke action.  Without a control group for an object, you have to first find the object, then position your screen over the object, select it, perform your action, and then move your screen back to wherever you were originally.  If you already have a control group for it, you just have to hit your control group and perform the action.  It dramatically simplifies everything.  The two most critical control groups are for your bases and for your production facilities.  You'll be using those two to build workers and army units.  Later on, you can add in control groups for your main army, harass units, scouting units, and specialty units.  While you're at it, you can also practice cycling subgroups (the tab button in standard hotkeys), which lets you use abilities from multiple units from the same control group.

[sc2maps-blog]

The 10 Things You Need to Learn in SC2: No. 2 - Don't Get Supply Blocked

When you get supply blocked everything stops until you unblock your supply.  It's a critical component for following rule number 1, constant worker production, but it also prevents you from building up your army, sometimes at key moments like when you're about to be attacked.  Keep a constant eye on your supply, so that you're always upping it at the right times, not too early and not too late.  It's also handy because it's right next to your money, something we'll talk about later.  So you can glance at that at the same time.

[sc2maps-blog]

The 10 Things You Need to Learn in SC2: No. 1 - Constant Worker Production

1) Constant Worker Production

It's just the most important thing you could be doing, almost always.  Whenever you want to know why you lost, the first thing you should look at is whether you maintained constant worker production throughout the game until you reached at least 70 workers.  If there was ever a time when you cut workers, you better have a good reason for it.

Don't believe me?  Let me throw out some numbers.

Let's say at 4:30, you forget to build 1 worker for 5 game seconds.

Then, at 5:20, you forget to build a worker again, this time for 8 game seconds.

At 6:00, your expansion finishes, and you forget to build 2 workers for 15 game seconds.

At 7:30, you forget 2 workers for 6 seconds.

At 8:45, you forget 2 workers for 4 seconds.

At 10:00, 2 workers, 12 seconds.

At 11:00, your third finishes, and you immediately get 3 workers.

But then at 11:17, you forget to do the 2nd round of 3 workers for 22 seconds.

You maintain constant worker production for the rest of the game.  This is fairly typical of a gold league player.

Just how much have you hurt yourself?  Well...

5+8+2x15+2x6+2x4+2x12+3x22=153

A worker takes 17 seconds to build, so 153/17 = 9

You're roughly 9 workers behind where you're supposed to be.  A worker mines about 40 minerals or gas per minute, so 9x40=360 minerals lost per minute or 1,800 in 5 minutes.  That's around 20 units.

So, after watching several of your own replays, ask yourself, was there a certain time in the game where you consistently forgot to make workers.  If so, what were you doing that distracted you?  In the future, focus on making sure you maintain worker production whenever that happens.  That is always your number one goal. This is part of a series of blog posts I'm going to be doing.  You can guess how many posts there will be based on the title.