Yesterday I talked about how I identify and record my knowledge and decision errors. I marked for each game whichever of these was the mistake. If mistakes weren't made with either of these, then the game would be marked as an execution error (everyone is always making execution errors). The primary difference between execution and the other two areas is that many more execution mistakes can and will be made in any one game. This allows us to very quickly and easily get a good picture of how well we are executing if we simply record what mistakes are made and to what severity for about a quarter of our games each week. This is easier than recording knowledge or decision errors because each and every game we can only find one or two (as most other errors are rendered moot by the first) and each of those must be recorded and fixed, as they may only come around once every hundred games. This is great, because what it means is that as we get better and make fewer and fewer knowledge/decision mistakes we can spend significantly less time reviewing our play and finding problems, which obviously can become time we use for actually improving.

Here I'll outline some basic execution errors that I record for Terran micro and macro.

I have macro mistakes divided into five basic categories. These are SCV production, avoiding supply blocks, unit production, infrastructure development and tech development.

SCV production, avoiding supply blocks and unit production are relatively straightforward for Terran. SCV production is simply making SCVs whenever you should be. For most players, this means always making SCVs. However, I have recently discovered through personal experience that a terran player really should stop making workers before hitting something ridiculous like 90. So be sure to stop once you're properly saturated, most of the time this will mean an absolute maximum of 78 (This is 20 on min and 6 on gas per base for 3 base). I feel like this is still a bit excessive, so I try to stay in the 66-72 range, as mules will allow a terran to maintain a solid economy with fewer workers, and workers become less efficient past 66 on 3 bases (22 per base). Anything outside of this range or any interruptions before it is reached should be considered an error and recorded.

Avoiding supply blocks (times when you are not allowed to build units because you have not unlocked enough maximum supply) will most of the time mean simply keeping a depot or two building at all times until you reach 200 max supply. More specifically though, the goal is to spend as few resources as possible on depots while ensuring that supply blocks are not happening. There are exceptions when a temporary supply block is acceptable; the primary one that comes to mind being when holding a baneling bust early. This is because if you are supply blocked afterwards, you likely traded very efficiently against the bust, and do not need to be constantly making units to hold the next wave. Even though in this case being supply blocked is not necessarily a mistake, it is never ideal. Along with this exception, having many more supply depots than you need is often a mistake, but not always. The most obvious example is when you begin to trade armies and end up with far more supply than you need after the fight. You needed to spend that money before, so the ridiculous amount of extra supply you have now is not an error. So as an easy rule of thumb for this particular mistake, record whenever you are either unable to make units due to supply or have far too many supply depots down before making units, and you will be able to easily identify if this is an area you need to improve.

The last simple macro mistake for Terran is in unit production. Unlike Zerg and Protoss, Terran needs to almost always be making something from a production structure they have down. So simply make sure of two things for this mistake. First, you are always making something from a building until you are at 200/200. Second, make sure it is the right thing from the right building. Queuing up a marine at a tech labbed rax when trying to make a marine/marauder/medivac composition is not helpful and a waste of that building's potential. Just make sure to record this area as a mistake if your buildings are either making the wrong thing or not making anything.

There is a lot more to cover from here, likely spanning a few days as I cover more macro mistakes, micro mistakes, and how to convert the record of mistakes into more wins (which is really why anyone would try to get better, right?). So watch for further entries like this in the days and weeks to come.

Daily Replays:
Zultar vs TurtleBeast on Cloud Kingdom LE
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Zultar vs CoupDeGrace on Cloud Kingdom LE
Zultar vs Flash on Cloud Kingdom LE
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