EPTFor example, I understand the elements of timing in TvZ and TvP - the windows to hit, the way different openings stack up against each other. I was wondering if someone could explain how the TvT openings match up against each other and what sorts of windows exist in the mid-game.
[Q] TvT Basics and Concepts
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marquis
United States109 Posts
For example, I understand the elements of timing in TvZ and TvP - the windows to hit, the way different openings stack up against each other. I was wondering if someone could explain how the TvT openings match up against each other and what sorts of windows exist in the mid-game. | ||
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xmShake
United States1100 Posts
Windows are usually created when your expansion economy kicks in or whenever your opponent makes a bad attack and you can go in and contain his base. Likewise, breaking a contain with scvs can also create an opening where you can set up a contain at his base or attack. TvT is very much a feel and get to know it kinda matchup and thats probably why DaZe's guide is kinda vague since its more about tank positioning and map control then anything else. | ||
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Caller
Poland8075 Posts
A) Tanks. They let you keep territory that you have, because they're awesome at destroying enemy pushes. Place them about the range of a golaith away from each other. Clumping them together makes them vulnurable to splash/the single scv drop. Put them on the high ground if possible, that makes them rape that much harder. B) Wraiths: They give you not only vision, but a way to harass and to intercept dropships. One or two wraiths can delay tank production long enough for you to break as they will need golaiths to shoot them down. Plus they're useful for scouting and killing drops. C) Golaiths/Vultures/Missile Turrets: These are going to be half of your mineral sinks. Use Goliaths to secure your position and kill wraiths/dropships-try to focus fire on a dropship as they come towards you-thats 4 gols/2 tanks that won't be landing. Missile Turrets have the same purpose. Vultures are primarily used for mining/harass. Don't expect them to do much against Gols and Tanks, unless your mine laying is ridiculous. D) SCVs and Command Centers: Plant down Command Centers whenever your mineral count goes up. You need lots of scvs, and you neeeed gas. Skipping your min only for your 2nd nat is probably a good idea if you have map control, as you'll get more gas for gols and tanks and wraiths and BCs. E) Endgame: Battlecruisers vs. Cloaked Wraiths Assuming you haven't rolled into his/her base yet, or vice versa, bcs and wraiths are useful to spend your money. | ||
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t_co
United States702 Posts
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GeneralZap
United States172 Posts
Also, Battlecruisers can yamato dropships. If a dropships is full of tanks, you just caused 400 minerals, and 300 vespene gas in damage, basically paying off your Battlecruiser. Or if it is filled with four goliaths and you used yamato, caused 500 mineral damage, and 300 vespene damage. You might want to remember that before you start blasting turrets, it's more profitable. | ||
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naventus
United States1337 Posts
I would also be interested in understanding any sort of explanation of the most common game development scenarios (I see a lot of 2 fact vult into midgame). | ||
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Caller
Poland8075 Posts
1 Fact-Shop FE This revolves around FEing and building a choke with a tank to prevent vulture harassment. In the midgame, it tends to go into many factory some dropship expand, with the FE giving extra resources to go into tanks and dropships. However, if your tank/goliath count is low, vultures will be able to wreck havoc with your SCVs. 2 Fact Vult Harass build. Designed to be able to continually pressure while expanding. Continued effective harass will prevent a counter-attack, allowing the 2 Fact vult player to expand. A mostly safe build. 1 Fact Starport Harass build. Can go into either Wraiths or early Dropships. If it goes into a Wraith Build, it is generally hidden. Unfortunately, this build is not too effective unless the enemy is completely off-guard, i.e. no armory or turrets or even marines + scan. It is more effective with dropships and vulture harass. 2 Fact Armory AND/OR Shop The safest build of them all. However, this build tends to be very slow in economy. It gets an early armory for quick Golaiths and +1 Weapons/Armor, and protects against Wraith/Vult harass. However, it is very sluggish, effectively neutralizing any economic disadvantage a harasser may have. Needless to say, a FE build has a large advantage over this one. What generally happens is one of four situations: A) One player goes harass, one player goes FE. The FE player needs to get siege mode/turrets/scan/goliaths in time before the harass hits. The harasser needs to hide his/her type of harass and needs to do so effectively while expanding him/herself. B) Both players go harass. Vulture harass is superior to Wraith harass generally in this regard, UNLESS the opponent has blocked the choke, in which case Wraiths would have the advantage of mobility. What can also happen is a massive vulture battle with tanks and mines and gols added in. Generally, Wraith battles are limited because it is an all-in to devote that many resources towards Wraiths when turrets are an easy counter. C) One player does a contain on the other player. This usually consists of turrets, tanks, bunker, and mines. That player then tends to expand rapidly. The contained player needs to break the contain either while it is being constructed or by using a combined scv-tank-gol attack. D) Both players go for economy builds and they gradually split the map in two in a stalemate. If both players are more or less even, they go into dropship chess mode. This is when both sides have a fleet of dropships full of troops. The purpose of the drop is to destroy enemy expansions. Normally, a dropped force will be abandoned, allowing the other player to drop on top of the force and destroy it. However, sometimes the dropped force will be able to smash the expo before reinforcements can arrive, or maybe there will be a surprise awaiting the drop in the form of turrets/gols/wraiths, or maybe the defending player's drop fails to take out the attack...anything can happen, depending on how the units are setup and controlled. The reason it is chess is because dropships give the mobility that tanks and gols normally don't have, and by taking out the mobility, one is reducing the ability of the other player to do anything. | ||
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xmShake
United States1100 Posts
On February 09 2008 12:05 Caller wrote: C) One player does a contain on the other player. This usually consists of turrets, tanks, bunker, and mines. That player then tends to expand rapidly. The contained player needs to break the contain either while it is being constructed or by using a combined scv-tank-gol attack. lol. | ||
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Caller
Poland8075 Posts
hey it does happen. boxer did it before on several occasions. That bunker is also really annoying when you're trying to lay mines. | ||
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Ilikestarcraft
Korea (South)17726 Posts
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1t2t3t4t5taw
Andorra173 Posts
My favorite build on maps like Python is 1 fac 1 port, where I make tanks constantly from 1 fac, wraiths from the other (no cloak), and then use my wraith to harass a bit and see what they're doing; if a contain is possible, I send out 3-4 marines with 3-4 tanks and set up a contain while expanding myself. After that you can make the judgment call to add more facs or get cloak and more wraiths. If you're noobier, it's better to add more facs; if you're confident in being able to intercept drops and have fast reactions, wraiths are ok. The cloak does wonders to delay a Terran if they haven't got a scanner yet. This build works best vs very fast expansions. What you should do in a TvT after you've put your first 3-4 tanks in an arc around their choke exit is to send 3-4 scvs out and begin making turrets all around the base so that dropships can't get out without significant damage. You want to get turrets in the areas that are harder for you to reach first, i.e. if you are at 3 on python and they are at 6, you want turrets on the 9 main fastest. Watch for a very fast early 2-3 dropship drop before your turrets are all up and most of your units are at your contain; this can do a lot of damage. You want to keep idle units that you are keeping for when they try to drop or break around the middle of your contain, closer to the side you think they are most likely to try to break out of/get dropships through. They're contained so it's important to use all your scans to see what they are doing and keep track of their dropships. Other than that, just expand when you feel it's safe and never let the dropships he has out of your sight. Before I got better at TvT I lost a lot of games wherein I contained, expanded too much, and got dropped at a critical point by a large number of units eliminating most of my depots and factories, so that even though my economy was far far larger I would still lose. | ||
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