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Whatup guys, my name is Evan "FCsTrYKe" Kim. You probably don't know me since I'm a fairly casual gamer and tend to skirt just below the level of people who are starting to go to competitions (most notably a top 75 Red Alert 3 player for what little it's worth). While for the most part I just lurk and listen, I think that this particular forum could benefit from my expertise, which is maximizing the rate at which you progress given any prior experience or amount of time you have to play the game.
Until the beta starts again (and likely continuing past that) I'll be regularly writing articles about approaching the game, deliberate play, open mindedness, and other such fun topics. For easy access, I'll be archiving the posts on fcstryke.blogspot.com but only because I don't feel like clogging up the forums too much.
It should be a fun journey, if only to burn time until the beta comes back instead of mashing your F5 key out of existence.
Until the beta starts again (and likely continuing past that) I'll be regularly writing articles about approaching the game, deliberate play, open mindedness, and other such fun topics. For easy access, I'll be archiving the posts on fcstryke.blogspot.com but only because I don't feel like clogging up the forums too much.
It should be a fun journey, if only to burn time until the beta comes back instead of mashing your F5 key out of existence.
As a side note, my articles are geared for any player up to the low-mid Diamond level, but should serve as a gentle reminder of good habits for top tier Diamond players.
If you’ve read my last article, you’ll already know that a player’s skill can be divided into three components: Strategy, Tactics, and Mechanics.
For those of you who’ve missed that article, Strategy is essentially the plan you have which guides your actions in game and Mechanics governs the actual execution of said strategy.
You can find the full post here if you feel like reading it: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=131453
Today’s article will discuss the interaction between Strategy and Mechanics. More importantly, we’ll be talking about how focusing your time properly will result in greater improvement as a player.
The Essence of Good Strategy
Every real time strategy game revolves around the following theme: Players are forced to make the best decisions possible given imperfect information.
Now the natural question is, “How can we make good decisions when we don’t know what we’re up against?” The answer to that question is the very nature of good strategy itself.
Without getting overly specific (I’ll probably be writing an article about this in the future) good strategy is at the same time predetermined and flexible. It proceeds to some sort of endgame designed to win outright while at the same time accounting for everything your opponent could do to slow you down.
Just think about how impossible that sounds. For the entire game, whenever you don’t specifically know what’s going on, your strategy needs to account for everything that could possibly be thrown at you at any moment.
Luckily, by playing a lot you can get a good sense of when certain things might happen without even having to scout. Some of that sense comes from correct analysis of the game itself (his banshees are going to be heavily delayed due to the amount of tanks and marauders he made) whereas some of that sense comes from an intimate knowledge of your own build (even if he rushes banshees, the earliest he can have them is when my lair is finishing so I won’t worry about it until then).
And again people, I know some folks are going to comment on this completely undefended definition of good strategy and say I’m wrong or nitpick on something I’ve left out or whatever. Just take my word for it for now, all will be explained in greater detail some other time.
Moving on, there’s another element to strategy which people tend to overlook – your ability to pull of that strategy effectively. In other words, your mechanical skill.
The Role of Mechanics in Strategy
It’s easy to see what the effects of having perfect mechanics are. With perfect mechanics, you can execute your strategies exactly the way you want to execute them. Everything will happen on time and with as much effectiveness as you were planning.
But with imperfect mechanics, your entire strategy suddenly becomes more diluted. Poor mechanics impact every facet of your strategy, making your attacks and defenses either weaker or delayed. In fact, in cases where mere seconds count, poor mechanics can make certain strategies entirely impossible to pull off or defend against.
The lack of mechanical skill is what makes pro strategies impossible to pull off for many players. The strategies are delicately crafted to exploit certain windows of vulnerability in their opponents, and when you lack the mechanics necessary to keep up, the entire strategy falls apart.
It’s possible for a great player to have fantastic mechanics and poor strategy because the player with great mechanics is free to explore all possible strategies until he finds one which suits him.
But it is entirely impossible for a great player to have fantastic strategy and poor mechanics simply because many clever timings are closed off to the player with poor mechanics. Sadly, he might know a lot of awesome things from watching pro replays, but in practice his strategies will feel inadequate.
For that single fact, I believe the mechanical pillar of skill is more important than all others. With a strong mechanical foundation, you open the doors to any number of strategies which you can then use to strengthen your play.
Balancing Strategy and Mechanics
That said, do I think you should focus only on mechanics until they’re perfect? Well, not quite.
For one thing, it’s not really realistic to get perfect mechanics within any realistic time frame. While the mechanical skill cap of Starcraft 2 is much lower than the cap of Starcraft: Brood War, there’s still a lot to do and remember which will take quite a bit of practice for even the most conscientious gamer.
Instead of favoring only one and ignoring the other, use mechanics to drive your growth forward. In your games, try your best to remember to build those workers, not get supply blocked, inject larvae, spend your money, build your buildings at appropriate times, and other such things. As you begin to remember these things, use the ability it gives you to refine the strategies you’re trying to develop and try new strategies that you couldn’t properly pull off before.
As a final note, I want to leave you with the following thought:
Your mechanical skill is not based upon your strategic knowledge. Rather the amount of strategy available to you depends upon your mechanical skill. Practice with that thought in mind and you’ll progress incredibly rapidly.
