The PiG Daily - Thinking critically about SC - Page 18

MACRO 1

Unit control, spell casting and knowing your opponent’s plans and strategy are obviously extremely important to winning a game of Starcraft II. However quite often, victory is determined by the amount of resources you harvest and mine, the units you produce and the upgrades you research.

Hi guys welcome to the PiG Daily. This is the first topic in my “how to improve at Starcraft” playlist. In each section I’ll cover an important area of Starcraft, and show you some of the best techniques to help you improve.

Today we’re looking at that most important aspect of Starcraft - macro. That is, your the ability to get a lot of money, and to spend that money efficiently. Alright let’s dive straight into game.

MACRO 2

Mid-tier game (ICYFAR?)
The most important part of finding where to improve in SC2 is being able to find your mistakes so you have areas to focus on to improve.
We’ll start off looking at a mid-tier game, if you’re M/GM you might want to skip the next 7 minutes as this is stuff you already know. We’ll be looking for mis-macro. Mis-macro is just a general term we use for any time you make macro errors.
The first and most obvious things beginners should look at is their money and supply
You should constantly be spending your money - because sitting in the bank it does nothing. If you get more workers earlier you can mine more with them. If you get more army out you can defend or attack better. If you get upgrades faster they kick in earlier.
FF 4x and watch money + supply blocks
Money should be low
Supply blocks should never happen

Terran /23 supply blocked

Zerg /36 supply blocked

4:00 Zerg /44 supply block

As the game goes on it’s more natural to have money build up a bit more. Sitting on 1000 minerals in the early-game is massive. However once you’re on 4-5 bases 1000 minerals isn’t that big - even pros floating this much isn’t a huge error.
Difference between floating 2k minerals once off and then spending it all, vs constantly floating 2k minerals (much bigger problem).

MACRO 3

4:30 resume

“Ok so I can find mistakes? But How do I fix them?”

There’s two important things to focus on. Number one is what we touched on before with the supply blocks. Your opening build orders being refined helps you avoid mis-macroing. Know your depot and overlord timings for the first 4:00, know exactly when you’re meant to do everything and you’ll improve a lot.

Now onto the other way to boost your macro, we’re about to see Bulya with a bad habit.

Zerg 5:20-6:00 money floating, no clean macro cycle - narrate bulya’s actions

Let me show you what the macro should look like

MACRO 4

1 minute VoD showing + explaining zerg macro cycle + the whole idea of the macro cycle

MACRO 5
30 seconds showing Terran
MACRO 6
30 seconds showing Protoss

For beginners it’s just about:
getting a consistent Macro cycle down

Macro Cycle
Inject
Units
Supply











Pt 2 advanced stuff


MACRO ADV1

PvZ vs Silky

Start at 4:00 from silkys view

Identifying Macro Blockages
Units Tabx4 speed (larva stoppages)
T/P
Production tab (worker production)
Unit Production for T/P

Finding the areas where you screw up and then going back and watching from your camera for the previous 30 seconds and try to see what distracts or pre-occupies you.

Macro ADV 1.5

5:45 - 650 minerals

Look for solutions - maybe there’s a SUPER important bit of micro that needs to be done. Ok sure - but you can memorise “Ok as soon as I pull back with archon drops first attack, que it to a new location and drop 2nd robo, gates + forge. Know that exact transition so it kicks in like muscle memory the moment you look away from your micro
You might be over-microing certain things
Remind yourself to not overcommit unless it’s really worth it. Keep balance between micro/macro


MACRO ADV2

PREPARING FOR ATTACKS - Story of always dying whilst supply blocked and unable to spend money cos I’d panic whenever I saw an attack coming
Build supply buildings
Build Units
Don’t waste time watching/positioning your army any more than is necessary
Macro ADV 2.5
9:00 - 1400 minerals chasing mutas - split stalkers and add more cannons so don’t rely on prism archon so much!
MACRO ADV3

TvZ vs Ddolkki
8:20 1000 minerals! - just defended counter AND i push onto creep!
You might be throwing your own macro rhythm off by attacking when your macro isn’t at order
Essentially not giving yourself time to “catch up” on your backlog of actions.
I always see this with zergs defending a terran attack, and rather than re-spreading creep and injecting, spending larva, they just put all their focus into countering as hard as they can.
If I just needed to micro really hard = OK I NEED TO FOCUS ON MACRO - move units to middle of the map ready to counter, but don’t go in with them until you have the apm to focus on it - that 10 second counter won’t kill you
NEVER click into the enemy base until you’re there, with the apm ready to give the fight the attention it needs
The moment you attack without finishing macroing you mess up your rhythm


Some more advanced ways to improve macro

MACRO ADV4

Terran - PiG vs Ddolkki
Never queing up extra units for the first few minutes of the game, just 1 scv, 1 unit at a time so you can be as crisp as possible
As the game goes on or harassment starts up - you have more actions so you que up more units

MACRO ADV5

Zerg - me vs Silky
Constantly tapping your hatcheries and spending your larva as its popping out to get drones out those few seconds earlier
Same for T/P, just checking to que up units constantly when you have spare apm, get that immortal started a few seconds before your macro cycle etc.

Macro ADV6

Protoss - Me vs Silky 6:00
Powering
Learning when you’re not under threat and you don’t need gateway units - so you can get more infrastructure: tech, more upgrades and more gates. THEN explode into production a little bit later
This is an essential part of Protoss play as you get to the higher levels of ladder. Especially around diamond league onwards you want to learn to understand your opponents builds very well.
This can be very useful as Terran also

MACRO ADV 7

Ok guys that sums up this topic, I hope you learnt something new! Don’t forget to “Tag Your Territory!” on ladder this week by using the worker “spraypaint” in front of your attacks and submit the replays to be cast by me in next week’s ICYFAR show!


That’s all for now, don’t forget to hug a watermelon, kick a cactus and of course punch a garden gnome in the gonads! I’ll see you guys next time, goodbye and goodnight!