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Hi everyone I am new to starcraft 2 and i havent played BW before. I've watched numerous replays and commentaries as well as played about 20 games.
I played my placement matches won only 2 matches and got placed into the bronze league. Having played a handful of games, i realised i could play early game pretty easily as there was more or less a fixed build order to follow. However as the game progresses, im starting to lack the ability to manage my resources properly, sometimes even having as much as 9000 minerals.
I really need some help as to what i am supposed to do after getting down my pool, 2nd hatch and some static defense. Should i be producing an army to attack my enemy with the extra resources or should i be using the extra resources to get more expo as well as upgrades for my army before producing my army?
Here's a replay where my resources starts piling up after i got my expo:
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if you find yourself unable to keep up with queen injection, throw down more hatcheries for a passive larva boost. not ideal, obviously, but better than stacking money. If you get to the point where you're constantly producing off of all of your larva and injecting well and still find yourself struggling to keep money low, you might just be saturating your expansions too much (this may be the case anyway - saturating more than you're capable of macroing right now) and if you expand but only transfer drones rather than make new ones you could keep money low. This would also help if you're gas starved but rolling in minerals.
It's quite late right now so I can't watch your replay right now, but I will after some sleep.
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its all about decision making that's pretty much universal in RTSes. For example you don't just randomly throw down static defense, you scout and see that if your opponent is going for some rush build (or if you're forgoing units for fast expansion/tech) then you put down static defense.
As to attack vs expand, again you have to scout. Obviously if he is going for an all-in rush build then don't just expand right before it. Likewise if he is playing greedy then you can get an army to attack and punish him. Also if you get ahead and kill off his units, or if he's putting down a lot of static d, just expand because he won't have units to stop you from doing so anyway.
If you can't spend your resources then it's because your macro is bad, everybody has this issue when they start out and the only way to improve is to just keep on playing. if your resources pile up build more hatcheries, don't forget overlords, etc. Although i would have thought it would be a lot easier to macro in SC2.
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That's a problem that I'm still struggling with well into the diamond league. I find that floating a ton of resources is mostly due to not spawning larvae on time, getting supply blocked, or making a ton of cheap units (roaches, zerglings, and drones will naturally cause you to float).
You have a few choices:
1. More hatcheries. If you don't feel like making 8 creep tumors with your maxed out queens, more hatcheries are good ways to sink your extra energy and provide you with more larvae. I actually like to have 5 hatcheries on 3 bases because I'm bad and forget to inject larvae so frequently >_<
2. Tech. Throw down those evolution chambers, pick up things like drop/burrow/etc, or start proceeding to your ultimate tech (ultralisks or broodlords).
3. Expand. If you're floating a lot, just expand and throw down 3 or 4 spine crawlers.
Don't get too caught up on following exactly what the pros do. The reason they can get away with certain things (no extra hatcheries, etc.) is because they're on top of spawning larvae, etc. Until you're super good, just look for ways to spend your money on just about anything. Having anything is better than having nothing and 5000 minerals in the bank.
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Should i be producing an army to attack my enemy with the extra resources or should i be using the extra resources to get more expo as well as upgrades for my army before producing my army?
Having army units is always a good thing. Without them you cannot attack, and you cannot defend very flexibly.
As Issorlol mentioned, make sure to have your queens puking every chance you get in order to spend those excess minerals.
If you still have excess, get upgrades. Don't wait to produce units until after your upgrades-- the upgrades are automatically and instantly applied to all units they affect.
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I used to be a low lvl diamond terran player, but want to learn all races. So far I have played like 15-20 games of protoss, and like 30-35 games of zerg. With protss macro is really easy, as you dont get punished a lot of not using Chrono boost enough. However zerg I am still bad at using ressources. Its indeed extreme difficult injecting larva all the time, even by using hotkeys.
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Hmm.. im starting to get the logic here. So im supposed to scout the enemy and know what hes doing first and then decide accordingly. If hes gathering a huge army and looks like hes attacking, i will mass produce an army to fight off. Otherwise, i will just keep upgrading my units and expanding. And all these while i will have to keep injecting larvae. Right?
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The part about throwing down extra hatcheries is a good point. You mentioned you watch some high level replays/commentaries which is fantastic! But just because they can spend all their minerals off of 2 hatches or 4 rax, doesn't mean you can. If your going for a 2 hatch hydra build and following a certain build order, but end up with 2k minerals, throw down some more hatcheries.
The other (more proactive) solution is to re-watch all your replays and see where you can improve. Take note at which point you start to stack up on minerals, then try to make a change. For instance, I'm trying this hydra build. But for some reason I had about 1k minerals around the time my hydra den popped. This was waay too many minerals so I tried again and threw down an expansion. This game was a lot better. Keep watching your replays and see what you can do to spend money.
If your rich, your losing!
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Alright thanks all of you for your helpful comments! I shall go and practise more and try to tackle my weaknesses. =)
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Some advice from a player who started a bronze and is now top 5 diamond:
being a good Starcraft player requires mastery and execution of countless skills and over time a keen sense of gameplay mechanics. In fact there are so many things you have to know and do that it is damn near impossible to improve them all at once. What you need to do for your next few games is relax, simplify your goals and focus on a very specific aspect of your gameplay. This of course being the title of your post; spending resources.
The number one issue that occurs in bronze in my opinion is a failure to continue yo produce an army throughout the game. New players are not comfortable controlling an army bigger than 50-60 food. Once they get there they stop producing and move out to do a weak attack. The attack fails and then they realize they have no units and are sitting on a pile of money. Sound familiar?
Try this for a change inyour next games... Ignore the other player and focus all your attention on your base and spending money. Your goal here is not winning the match. Rather, the goal is to extend that early build order you know so well so it serves you deeper into your games. Don't even think about attacking unless he attacks you and just keep pumping units. You will quickly find in just a few games that you have a much better understanding of what the money can buy you. You will be plesantly surprised how many forces you end up with. This skill alone will get you into silver because all your oponents will still be making that small force andstock piling resources.
The best way to advance out of bronze is to have a bigger army than your oponent.
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On June 05 2010 18:44 IceMerlin wrote:
I really need some help as to what i am supposed to do after getting down my pool, 2nd hatch and some static defense. Should i be producing an army to attack my enemy with the extra resources or should i be using the extra resources to get more expo as well as upgrades for my army before producing my army?
You should make an army after securing your natural, and not wait to get the upgrades before producing the units. Also, if you're having trouble keeping your resources spent, overexpanding is probably going to be counterproductive for now (you'll just end up with twice as large a resource stockpile)
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On June 05 2010 19:33 Pabs wrote:
Try this for a change inyour next games... Ignore the other player and focus all your attention on your base and spending money. Your goal here is not winning the match. Rather, the goal is to extend that early build order you know so well so it serves you deeper into your games. Don't even think about attacking unless he attacks you and just keep pumping units. You will quickly find in just a few games that you have a much better understanding of what the money can buy you. You will be plesantly surprised how many forces you end up with. This skill alone will get you into silver because all your oponents will still be making that small force andstock piling resources.
The best way to advance out of bronze is to have a bigger army than your oponent.
This. Don't focus on everything at the beginning, the first step is a basic macro. You should stick to mass roach hydra for 10/20 games and focus on macro.
I throw some advices too:
-At the beginning, make 2 hatch per queen, you will have a lot of more larva (I guess you have trouble with spawn larva). With all those larvas, it's not hard to spend your money (group all your hatcheries in one group).
-You should get into the habit of scout a lot. One important thing to do is to learn the basic builds of the other races. It's maybe not easy on the first games if you didn't play BW before, but this is how you will know what to build. You will learn how this is important on your "train macro" games because you will lose to some rushes, fast air etc.
-If you don't understand why you lose, watch your replay.
-Don't forget to uppgrade your units, it is very important.
-Learn the basic hard counters to units. (For example, baneling hard counter marines).
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This would also help if you're gas starved but rolling in minerals.
If this happens, first make gobs of overlords (to eliminate all chance of getting supply blocked down the road) and larva inject. Then come back after a while when you're still rolling in minerals and the larvae have popped and make twenty million zerglings. Just don't use every single larva to avoid getting larva blocked when you do get more gas.
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EPT
