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I've been wanting to try to learn broodwar for a long time. I'm not a skilled player even in starcraft 2 (platinum) and I don't play that much so I know it's going to be a challenge. But I did not expect it to be as frustrating.
I decided to learn to play protoss (since it's supposed to be the easiest race :p) and tried to focus on macro. I playedgames against the AI to get familiar with hotkeys until I was able to beat 3 computers without any problem.
I knew that I was going to loose all my games, but didn't know that it would be that hard to find games. 80% of the games in the lobby are already full, or their ping is too high, and when I'm lucky enough to find a game 50% of the time the opponent uses extra high latency which is unplayable.
I also tried to find people to play on the ladder D chat. A guy told me he would play with me(i told him I was a noob beforehand), and said that i should join "22/22". I had no idea what he meant and when I asked for help he called me stupid and left >_<. Hopefully some guy on op teamliquid explained to me what I meant but that was really frustrating.
I really think that as a new player the difficulty to find games really adds to the frustration, because you can potentially spend 30 minutes looking for a game to get desperately crushed.
Now concerning the games themselves:against zerg I was trying to do a +1 speedlot two base timing. Unfortunately I don't know my sim city yet and I keep changing maps so I die a lot to speedling runbys (don't have any choice, it's so hard to find a game already).
So far it was not really sucessfull, I was never able to do a lot of damage. I oftendied to speedlings or even 1 time i got attacked by quick lurkers that were able to deny my expand and kill it because my obs was late  .
So my first question is: is it worth it in PvZ as an extremely low level player to try to do FE builds or should I use older builds like 2 gate?
Against terrans and protoss I do a gate/core/gate/dragoon range. I don't even know if it's a decent build but I had decent success with it.
However my problem is that I oftent get a big supply lead in the early game ( I expand before my opponent, have more probes etc) but I have no idea of how to play in the late game and get completly destroyed..
For example I was in a really good position against a zerg player but he had sunkens with lurkers behind his base that I couldn't break. He on the other hand completly annihilated my minings bases with speedling runbys, and in a matter of second I was dead... I tried to counter but the lurkers destroyed my army easily.
So my second question is: when I get ahead I know that the best thing to do is expand, but what is the army composition that I should aim for in the late game? I think one of the reason I loose so much in the late game is that I am way to heavy on dragoons. In this game I had cannons in my expand, should I add a couple reavers behind them to really be safe?
I went something like 0-7 which was expected... it's true that this game is hard.
edit: I really suck with technology, the title is a bit misleading and I don't know how to change it ^^. I guess it should be first experience with broodwar.
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If you can host, it's a lot easier to get games on iccup. I haven't played in a few months, but when I did someone would always join within a minute or so of me creating the game. That way you get to play the same map too, which is much easier when you're starting out.
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On December 22 2011 17:38 Gann1 wrote:
If you can host, it's a lot easier to get games on iccup. I haven't played in a few months, but when I did someone would always join within a minute or so of me creating the game. That way you get to play the same map too, which is much easier when you're starting out.
I tried to host but nobody would join :s.
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You should stick to the FE in pvz and just practice perfecting that by playing over and over. You should also play someone similar in your skill in the practice partners thread so you guys can grow together. It's true you get better quicker if you play somoene better than you but when you don't even have basic build orders down yet, it's best to first learn that before you worry about anything else. Also, you should play on one map only..like you said you didn't know the sim city for whatever map u were playing on so you need to make sure to learn every sim city for every spot on the one map u choose. I recommend fighting spirit as it's the most standard and "balanced" map as of late. Learn all the sim city for every spot on that map.
In lategame pvz, to be very general, u gotta have splash damage units(archons,reavers,templars) along with ur dragoon and zealots. You should watch both games of stats vs sOo here on teamliquid's tpld for a great example of this.
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when they say something like 22//22 it means game name is 22 and password is 22
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I used to be a Protoss player, so let me give you a few tips:
1. PvZ:
Don't give up on FE builds!
Firstly,train only on one map, and I suggest to try the building placement beforehand in single player(against computer or I used custom maps with infinite money, some zerglings to actually test it and no opponent).
General rules that i remember are that you need to place gateway above forge to make it impassable or place them left or right to the cliffside(I suggest to test on your own).
Note that protoss actually don't have a unit of zergling size(probe/zealot is bigger) so the best is to make a custom map and give yourself a handful of lings.
+1 speedlot rush is actually a great way to learn build timings and if you do it properly it should give you a good amount of wins.
2. PvT:
Well if you go gate core gate the build should be:
12 gate
13(or 14) core
15 gate (and you cut probes)
15 pylon
After core finishes you go immedatelly range, cut probes further in favor of constant goons.
This build is agressive it needs to do damage otherwise you are behind.
The most common build is:
12 gate
13(or 14) core
15(or 16) pylon
Goon, then range, non stop goons afterwards.
Now in this build you should build probes non stop(no probe cutting).
You may then decide whether to go nexus right away, another gate or even robotics.
My personal preference is:
- If my opponent is near and the map is good for early pressure I use the gate+core+gate aggressive build.
- If my opponent is far I use gate+core+pylon build, usually followed by 1 goon range and gate.
However after that I usually go expand right away or 2 more goons expand(you build probes nonstop, but you delay goon production).
Reason for building 2nd gate is for your opponent to think you are going to get more aggressive and also for you to resume nonstop 2-gate goon production right after you expand(in case of 2 factory pressure builds).
3. Lategame
In PvT your lategame should incorporate units like arbiters, templars or carriers.
Usually arbiters are you first goal, then you add templars to the mix and if the game goes too long then switch to carriers(don't forget to upgrade them!).
In PvZ lategame is your enemy - zerg has better units in lategame.
Try to stay as long as you can in midgame, if you opponent prefers to camp with sunken+lurker+spore use speed shuttles with templar/dark templar. They do wonders.
4. Having an advantage
Now I say it depends on how big your advnatage is.
For example if you get a fairly big advantage in PvT you may go straight 2 stargate carriers. However if you overestimate yourself or don't micro properly you may get crush right there.
Otherwise in PvT expanding going for arbiters and building up you 200/200 army is the right way to go.
In PvZ you always need to pressure your opponent, even after you gained an advantage. Best way to do this is is to attack while setting up your 2nd/3rd expansion(leave only a few zealots/dt to defend against ling runbys).
If you're already on 3 base and you think you have an advantage, you may try to build a ball of units - usually many dragoons, some templars and a bunch of zealots - and crush your enemy right there. Keep a stream of zealots as reinforcements for your "ball" army.
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On December 22 2011 18:24 Jetaap wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2011 17:38 Gann1 wrote:
If you can host, it's a lot easier to get games on iccup. I haven't played in a few months, but when I did someone would always join within a minute or so of me creating the game. That way you get to play the same map too, which is much easier when you're starting out. I tried to host but nobody would join :s.
You can host on ICCup, but unless you forward your ports, nobody will be able to join because the latency will be too high. A TL search for port forwarding should tell you how to do it. Once you've done it, hop on the TL channel and ask for someone to join your game just to test if they can. I never got it to work myself, but you might have more luck.
Good luck!
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Thanks a lot for the advice LastWish!
I think I really need to figure out the way to host on Iccup because I really feel that unless I focus on a specific map and matchup I will never improve .
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I won my first game on ICCUP today!! It was a 40 minute PvZ game, we both played terrible but that was extremely entertaining.
It was on a map I had never played before Heartbreak Ridge, so I was trying to find the guide to FE on this map. It took a little bit longer than expected and the game started while I was searching for it so the game was definitely not starting well ^^. However apparently the game didn't run for too long without me so the disavantage was not that bad.
I then proceeded to put the pylon in my expand and scouted with my probe, but I slightly misplaced the pylon... when I scouted him I saw that he had a pool almost done so I panicked a little bit and added 3 canons. My wall was of course messed up because of the poor pylon placement, and I realized shortly after that one of my canons was preventing me from putting the nexus down >_<.
I started to build the nexus anyway in a suboptimal position, but then I changed my mind (i saw with a probe that he had expanded) canceled the nexus, killed the canon that was blocking it and put the nexus down... Of course during that time I managed to get supply blocked at 17/17.
I decided to pretend that none of that had happen, and go for my "+1 speedlot timing" anyway. Needless to say that was a little bit late, but thankfully my opponent was also terrible and I managed to do a little of damage. By the way I should remember next time that the best thing to do when there are sunkens in the expand is to ignore them and go for the probes... I hesitated too much but had I done that and I would have been able to kill either a lot of drone or even kill his spire (weirdly enough he made some scourges the he used to scout instead of mutas ... I guess that was good for me :p.)
The rest is history: during this attack I transitionned into high templars with storm, archons , dragoon and zelotes. I had no idea at this point that he had 5 bases ( he even took one of my expands I guess I should scout more but not knowing the map doesn't help ) and the game went into macro mode. However for some reason eventhough he had a much better economy he was not spending efficiently at all and I managed to keep a big supply advantage all game long. I continued to fail briliantly at macro (7 gates only while on 4 bases), micro ( storming my own observers, making perfect lines for lurkers etc) but I really really had a lot of fun ^^. Having small fights all over the map is really amazing, and you really get the feeling that with good control even if you have half the supply of your opponent you can outplay him and win the game (in my case I was afraid to get outplayed and loose the game ^^)
TL DR: Even if you are a noob you can enjoy broodwar a lot: this is an amazing game.
PS: is there a way to upload a replay easily on TL if some people want to watch 2 amazingly bad players play.? ^^
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EPT
