EPTApologies for the very long delay. My comp, as you know if you read my last post, went down and took about two weeks to fix. After that, the heat sink fell off my sound card, and I didn't get around to ordering glue for it until about a week afterward, so while I have been back playing SC2 for about a week and a half now, I haven't had sound and haven't been able to record sound on Fraps.
Until now.
For this episode of SC2n, I wanted to do something related to the new ladder maps, and it just so happens that I had a textbook loss on Tal’Darim Altar. I rolled Terran against Protoss, and with the long rush distance, I knew I was probably safe from any super early push play. So, I built a command center at 14 supply (probably should have stuck with 13) and went from there.
I got the expansion up fine (though it did get scouted), and though I was naturally choked for resources for the short time afterward, things started to pick up economy-wise. I set up a bunker or two, got some siege tanks set up at that natural choke … and then didn’t really know what to do. I continued to pump out units, but something just didn’t feel right.
As my minerals begin to skyrocket, I tried harder and harder to get units out quickly, but it wasn’t going smoothly. I should have realized at that point (well, actually I should have realized it beforehand as a matter of logic) what I didn’t realize until after the match was over: When you expand early, you have to build extra production facilities to keep up with the economic boost you’re going to have later on. I’m used to expanding early only as Zerg, in which case expanding early inherently gives you the ability to boost production (with more larvae), so this was an unusual case for me. I kind of got stuck in “For now, I’m behind economically, so I only need a handful of barracks and one factory until I catch up”-mode, so even after my economy picked up and, I assume, surpassed that of my opponent, I couldn’t keep up with production. In the meantime, the other guy had been building units and teching the whole time.
Ironically, because of this, my opponent actually ended up taking his second expansion before I did. Why was he able to do this? Because I was stuck in my base trying to catch up with unit production while I left him free to do whatever he felt like. A medivac drop or two while I massed my army (with added production facilities) would have kept him confined to his bases a little more tightly, but, again, I was so far behind on unit production that I didn’t feel confident that I had enough units to leave my base.
Check out the replay with commentary (now with better video and sound quality — standalone mic and 1080p, woohoo!):
1. When fast expanding as Terran, you have to build plenty of extra production facilities in order to take advantage of your mid-game economic lead.
2. Also when fast expanding as Terran, you probably need to be dropping on the opponent’s mineral line(s) from time to time, or else they’re just free to expand all over the place.
3. A small point but worth noting: For the few scenarios in which it is appropriate to fast expand as Terran, build the command center on 13 supply, not 14. It takes so long to get up to 400 minerals already, that 14th SCV just delays the expansion a tad too much.
