EPT[G] Beginners Guide to Understanding "Just Macro" - Page 2
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falstag
United States55 Posts
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Cyclone999
Canada331 Posts
I'm mid-silver, and yet my macro slips up, a lot. When your opponent is turtling and hands map control to you, I would say just starve him out. By the time you have multiple bases and he's turtling in his one (wait outside his base), and you have a army superior to him, just attack. You can easily remake your army because of your expansions and income; he can't, because he's just on one base. | ||
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Torte de Lini
Germany38463 Posts
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Malystryx
China12 Posts
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Arolis
United States496 Posts
On January 08 2011 11:53 Eeryck wrote: @hammerwing - The thing about benchmarks past a certain level is they are limiting. After Platinum you need to start learning to scout and adapt because macro will be getting better. Also you need to learn to use your units constantly to try and give an advantage, it is why you don't see high diamond or pros just sitting in their bases making stuff. They are constantly using strategy for calculated risks. So a static benchmark for anyone past Gold or maybe Platinum is useless because you will never see that number of food army at that time. It is only helpful to us scrubs who don't really understand what good macro is. @ all the zerg advice - I see this will be the toughest part of sorting this all out. I really do understand the 14hatch 14 pool idea and starting them off on the right foot. I will work out some replays and post them in the guide and then take more feedback from there. I wanted to stick with 1-base standards first before moving on to expo's but I see this is perhaps too far from how zerg should play on an econ build. I will try and work through all the one base builds this weekend and start getting some replays, build orders and prelim food number up. There is a very big reason most zerg are proponents of learning 2 base play immediately. As Terran and Protoss the easiest way to transition your 1 base play into 2 base play is by eliminating 1 unit producing structure and using those extra resources to expand. Because of larvae mechanics zerg can't get away with this. If you build an army off 1 base except a little smaller then expand, you are exponentially hurting your economy compared to Protoss and Terran. There is no such thing as a slow expansion in ZvT or ZvP. You either do tons of damage with 1 base play that cripples your opponent or you expand as fast as you can. Learning to 1 base Zerg has no long term potential for teaching you how to play a macro game as Zerg. Doing it this way almost feels like learning 2 different races. And it teaches you bad habits like wanting to build too many units just to "feel safe" before droning. In my 2 weeks of playing Zerg (lol, I know) I feel like larvae management, constant larvae injects, and not getting supply stuck are more important than blindly trying to "keep your money low" like Terran and Protoss. A good example is if you are going for mutalisks you want to stockpile 500+ gas before your spire finishes to immediately get 5-7 mutas. At no point in the early and mid game as Terran or Protoss do you ever want to consciously stockpile that much gas. | ||
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Umpteen
United Kingdom1570 Posts
Also, I don't know as it's possible to have useful Zerg benchmarks, given the nigh infinite spectrum of econ / unit production possibilities. An example to illustrate: I was recently stomped in a custom game by a rank 2 diamond protoss who forge fast expanded into a +1+1 six-gate. After the match I went through the replay noting down timings and then set about seeing what I COULD have done. Turns out that at the point he had 10 stalkers, a zealot, two sentries and a half built immortal I could have rammed THIRTY FIVE roaches down his throat, had I properly scouted what he was doing, known a decent response, and focused on economy and units at the right time. That's me, with silver-level mechanics. With the exception of ZvZ and cheesey all-ins, at least half of learning to play Zerg seems to be learning how other people play T and P. | ||
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-Xios
England79 Posts
--EDIT-- After reading a few more replies i have to pipe in with my opinion about the zerg point. One base play is only ever really viable if you have scouted some super greedy build early on (vs t/p) and you know you can punish them safely, even then its more often than not an all in. Quite often vZ is more classed a 'delayed expand' than 1 base play aswell. Zerg mechanics tend to be quite different than T/P in allot of respects. I only ever play Zerg and have done from day 1 and i've come to the understanding that FEing is a must for 99% of matchups (bar most ZvZ) be that as it may i've found 30 drones to be an optimal number to hard press to early game, then its mainly just a matter of keeping cap up and pumping lings till early-mid/mid when roaches come out, dropping 2/3 drones into the larva round each time along with 2 OVs (off 2 base). When i discovered this my w/l ratio shot right up, i win 4/5 games since reaching this brainwave. I've taken a build from a coaching session, I'll post it here as it represents imo an important macro fundemental to zerg. 9 OV 14 pool 16 hatch 15 OV 15 Queen - (2nd inject as tumor, make 2nd queen near 1st pop, send 2nd to nat) @ Nat pop 2x lings + spine at nat, maynard 5 drones 21 gas 24 OV 30 OV - Stop hard droneing, pump lings + 2/3x drones + 2x OV a round - (@ 30 drones at each base stop droneing all together, keep up 2x OV a round) @ 100 gas Ling Speed + drop second gas @ 100 gas (2nd time) lair @ 20% lair drop warren + 2 gas at nat @ roach warren - Roach speed + Burrow (warren and lair should pop at the same time if done right) - Pump roaches @ Speed finish - Be agressive with roaches, Take 3rd + 2 gas there, Drop Hydra Den. @ Hydra Den - Hydra Range - Pump Hydra (aim for 50/50 army comp roach/hydra) @ 3rd pop - Maynard 3 drones from each base, set drone rally to 3rd and hard pump drones till 3rd is saturated + 2x gas at 3rd + Queen for 3rd + take 4th @ Gas pop - 2x evo @ 4th pop - (same as third) @evo - range/armor 1/1 + drop spire (for corruptors(Blords)/muta for harass soon) @ 1/1 - 2/2 + Festor pit (in time for 2/2 complete to go into 3/3 straight away) @ 200/200 ATTACK! works like a charm. hope its of help | ||
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ZeroTalent
United States297 Posts
I want to point out the flip side of what people have said about blindly shooting for army targets using build orders vs. getting a broader understanding of the game. In the lower levels you can win games by expanding earlier, controlling an uncontested map, understanding what the counters are, scouting, etc. But it's easy against 1-base or 2-base turtlers to let your macro slip. As people have pointed out, once you get at least to high bronze/silver there are a lot of hardcore 1-basers who have their build order down and try to come kill you off of one base. If their macro was at 75% efficiency and you were at 60, so you floated minerals and built an EBay or a CC, you are going to die. Keeping track of your army size at the 7 minute mark is a great way to double-check your macro. Just reading this thread pushed me up from 65-70% efficiency to 80-85%. TL/DR; yes, understanding broader concepts than macro is important, but if you don't macro well, all that understanding may be meaningless against all the high bronze-through-low diamond players who have a set build order down to a tee. | ||
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LtLolburger
New Zealand365 Posts
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SnuggleZhenya
596 Posts
On January 11 2011 11:55 LtLolburger wrote: This is the funny thing about macro... it is essential, yes. But poor scouting, a misclick, poor unit control, poor composition, poor positioning, and general poor decision making can cost you games against opponents who macro worse than you. So while I think this topic is good, macro alone should not be too overly emphasised as the key to getting better in this game. Its all just practice. And its no good just playing games, you have to TRY to get better. People get frustrated because they play 50 games and see no improvement... you need to stop making the same mistakes. While this is true in a general, is DRASTICALLY slanted the other way at the lower levels. In Diamond league now, I can very much lose a game to a single misclick (especially true with early forcefields in builds designed to survive on them as specific timings). In Bronze, I can honestly say that I don't think I ever lost a game I had the better macro in simply because the differences are much bigger at that level and really up until upper platinum on the cusp of being promoted to diamond did I really need to start learning to control my units well as a win or lose level of important play. | ||
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Shikyo
Finland33997 Posts
On January 11 2011 11:55 LtLolburger wrote: This is the funny thing about macro... it is essential, yes. But poor scouting, a misclick, poor unit control, poor composition, poor positioning, and general poor decision making can cost you games against opponents who macro worse than you. So while I think this topic is good, macro alone should not be too overly emphasised as the key to getting better in this game. Its all just practice. And its no good just playing games, you have to TRY to get better. People get frustrated because they play 50 games and see no improvement... you need to stop making the same mistakes. Actually just after I got the game and was just playing off my SCBW "skills", all I did was make SCVs, Barracks, and Marines and research stim and combat shield, and then a-move and rally and stim marines and that got me to Diamond. You seriously need nothing but macro. It might be more difficult with the other races, like with Z you probably need to know something basic about compositions, and with P... well Stalkers kind of do the same thing. Some basic skills are of course necessary like knowing the hotkeys and some very simple micro, but in the end if you have 50 Marines vs his 30 Marines, his fancy micro isn't going to do anything. | ||
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Eeryck
United States184 Posts
On January 11 2011 12:04 SnuggleZhenya wrote: While this is true in a general, is DRASTICALLY slanted the other way at the lower levels. In Diamond league now, I can very much lose a game to a single misclick (especially true with early forcefields in builds designed to survive on them as specific timings). In Bronze, I can honestly say that I don't think I ever lost a game I had the better macro in simply because the differences are much bigger at that level and really up until upper platinum on the cusp of being promoted to diamond did I really need to start learning to control my units well as a win or lose level of important play. This is absolutely true and the real reason why I started to write this. Not only do they/we have much less stuff at all given times in bronze. We have no idea how much stuff we could have if we were macro'ing better. For me realizing what I could have at 7-minutes then making sure I had it at that time was the last bit I needed to GTFO of bronze. I seriously could not believe how easy it was to win by just having enough stuff at the right time. I can now see why so many people get sick of the threads how do i beat xyz strat in bronze. It really is you need to have more stuff because that xyz does not exist really in the higher leagues or if it does you have enough stuff that it is not a problem. For the low league players, I hope that knowing how much you could have off a basic build helps them understand better the fundamentals of playing this game against other real people. Also, finally posted the first 2 replays for terran 3-rax and 1-1-1 builds. I am sure they can be better but it is a start and the best I can do ATM. | ||
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thenexusp
United States3721 Posts
On January 11 2011 12:04 SnuggleZhenya wrote: While this is true in a general, is DRASTICALLY slanted the other way at the lower levels. In Diamond league now, I can very much lose a game to a single misclick (especially true with early forcefields in builds designed to survive on them as specific timings). In Bronze, I can honestly say that I don't think I ever lost a game I had the better macro in simply because the differences are much bigger at that level and really up until upper platinum on the cusp of being promoted to diamond did I really need to start learning to control my units well as a win or lose level of important play. This is so true. In lower plat, I had a zerg complain that stalkers were "uncounterable" (lol) even though it was just better macro and me getting just a lot of stuff. | ||
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OriginalBeast
United States709 Posts
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Ryuu314
United States12679 Posts
What people say about macro not being all there is, is true. However, macro is still easily the most important thing to be able to grasp at lower levels of play. It really doesn't matter if the opponent has a beautiful unit composition while you're only massing T1 units (insert Terran joke here) but 70 marines will beat a pretty composition of 2 sentries 3 zealots and a couple stalkers any day no matter how nice their micro may or may not be. That said, I'm not completely convinced that you should encourage 1-base play at any level. But hey, if it works, why not? x] | ||
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anathema
Poland20 Posts
I might add some reps if/when I find some time to actually play the game... | ||
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philphilphil
Germany16 Posts
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TheMightyLeChuck
Germany10 Posts
This post is an absolute eye opener - or so it should be - for people (I'm not saying me, but maybe me) thinking "man i watch day[9] every day, i understand the game mechanics so well, i already have decent micro in certain situations, and..." here comes the catch "...i always understand why i lost a particular game when i watch my replays but still i cannot seem to do anything about it and get stuck at bronze #1. I need a better tactic. I have to read up on how to counter the exact same thing that just keeps killing me every time". If you want to become a better gamer you have to learn the basics, not "fancy up" while still pooing in your pants. If you think in "high level" terms considering the countering system and superfancy micro, you have to come back to the ground level and realize this first: Sure, I could have put some patrolling marines on the edge of my base to stop those reapers from coming in... but really I was already dead at the 7 minute mark. Yes, a little earlier scout, a single turret, a single patrolling viking, a single sieged up tank close to my mineral line, any of this could have completely annihilated his drop and I would have had the upper hand and definetely won this game... but really I was already dead at the 7 minute mark. If you're 10-12 food ahead with the most important upgrades ready, while he doesn't there is no scissor, no paper, no rocks. You just go and fucking kill him. I actually believe this is how the "overpowered" and all of the lower leagues' structure comes into being. First of all playing Terran with the 3 rax, 1reactor, 2techlabs is the easiest and most obvious way to start playing multiplayer, especially to people finishing the campaign first. And without realizing they practice exactly what is described in this thread to perfection (well, I think 80% efficiency according to the OP's definition is more than enough) and suddenly they beat "everyone" in less than 10 minutes and their opponents - conviced they do "just (good) macro" themselves cannot seem to do anything about it. Then those really good "just macro" players start dying to "cheesers" because they never learn how to handle super-early pressure. After all they seem to have figured out how to beat anything "normal", so why worry, right? So an enourmous mass both aspiring macro players and die-hard cheesers keep themselves in a deadlock at bronze #1. Nevertheless there are die-hard-cheesers in the lower diamond leagues as well. You almost never see replays and never hear of them, because who wants to up a replay where you (a decent diamond player yourself) died to bronze-level stuff. And on the other side nobody really wants to brag with cheese. Oh, the smell alone... yuck. This is why the "bronze to lower diamond" players are considered just the same bunch of, well "ambitious" players in top-level terms. To "become a better player" with exact game plans and crisp executed strategies you have to stop being a noob first - and THIS is how to do it. Forgive my long-ish post, but this is awesome work and should be considered the real 101 for everyone below the 90th percentile of Starcraft 2 Players. Who - after weeks and weeks of learning what workers, resources, production and research facilities, units and hotkeys are - are ready to become a "valid" gamer, before trying to go and become a better one. So please all you savvy Protoss and Zerg Players out there: All you have to do is take a simple build, execute it to absolute perfection - maybe on normal speed without any opponent? - and look at the units tab at 7 minutes into the replay. Takes 15 minutes out of your day and will be a real valuable contribution to the community. PS. The idea is to create a macro-benchmark, not encouraging/propagating 1base-play or certain strategies. If a benchmark for 1base-play as zerg does not make sense, it can easily be a simple 2-base build. This does not break the idea of the OP imo - if you are able to create a basic army close to the theoretical maximum size at any given time, you've mastered the "just macro" idea. Balancing drones vs. army according to the current situation will be part of your task in fancying up. good luck and have fun! | ||
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Arisen
United States2382 Posts
On February 12 2011 17:55 TheMightyLeChuck wrote: Hi folks! Here come my two cents, and I hope i can encourage people contributing to this post, because I think it can change the world. (Sure you could just use a boombox but they are considered hazardous at times). This post is an absolute eye opener - or so it should be - for people (I'm not saying me, but maybe me) thinking "man i watch day[9] every day, i understand the game mechanics so well, i already have decent micro in certain situations, and..." here comes the catch "...i always understand why i lost a particular game when i watch my replays but still i cannot seem to do anything about it and get stuck at bronze #1. I need a better tactic. I have to read up on how to counter the exact same thing that just keeps killing me every time". If you want to become a better gamer you have to learn the basics, not "fancy up" while still pooing in your pants. If you think in "high level" terms considering the countering system and superfancy micro, you have to come back to the ground level and realize this first: Sure, I could have put some patrolling marines on the edge of my base to stop those reapers from coming in... but really I was already dead at the 7 minute mark. Yes, a little earlier scout, a single turret, a single patrolling viking, a single sieged up tank close to my mineral line, any of this could have completely annihilated his drop and I would have had the upper hand and definetely won this game... but really I was already dead at the 7 minute mark. If you're 10-12 food ahead with the most important upgrades ready, while he doesn't there is no scissor, no paper, no rocks. You just go and fucking kill him. I actually believe this is how the "overpowered" and all of the lower leagues' structure comes into being. First of all playing Terran with the 3 rax, 1reactor, 2techlabs is the easiest and most obvious way to start playing multiplayer, especially to people finishing the campaign first. And without realizing they practice exactly what is described in this thread to perfection (well, I think 80% efficiency according to the OP's definition is more than enough) and suddenly they beat "everyone" in less than 10 minutes and their opponents - conviced they do "just (good) macro" themselves cannot seem to do anything about it. Then those really good "just macro" players start dying to "cheesers" because they never learn how to handle super-early pressure. After all they seem to have figured out how to beat anything "normal", so why worry, right? So an enourmous mass both aspiring macro players and die-hard cheesers keep themselves in a deadlock at bronze #1. Nevertheless there are die-hard-cheesers in the lower diamond leagues as well. You almost never see replays and never hear of them, because who wants to up a replay where you (a decent diamond player yourself) died to bronze-level stuff. And on the other side nobody really wants to brag with cheese. Oh, the smell alone... yuck. This is why the "bronze to lower diamond" players are considered just the same bunch of, well "ambitious" players in top-level terms. To "become a better player" with exact game plans and crisp executed strategies you have to stop being a noob first - and THIS is how to do it. Forgive my long-ish post, but this is awesome work and should be considered the real 101 for everyone below the 90th percentile of Starcraft 2 Players. Who - after weeks and weeks of learning what workers, resources, production and research facilities, units and hotkeys are - are ready to become a "valid" gamer, before trying to go and become a better one. So please all you savvy Protoss and Zerg Players out there: All you have to do is take a simple build, execute it to absolute perfection - maybe on normal speed without any opponent? - and look at the units tab at 7 minutes into the replay. Takes 15 minutes out of your day and will be a real valuable contribution to the community. PS. The idea is to create a macro-benchmark, not encouraging/propagating 1base-play or certain strategies. If a benchmark for 1base-play as zerg does not make sense, it can easily be a simple 2-base build. This does not break the idea of the OP imo - if you are able to create a basic army close to the theoretical maximum size at any given time, you've mastered the "just macro" idea. Balancing drones vs. army according to the current situation will be part of your task in fancying up. good luck and have fun! There is a thread with this exact context named "So you think you can macro" still on the front page.... | ||
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Azzur
Australia6253 Posts
Many low-level players simply don't realise what a difference good macro-execution makes. If you're a high-level player, you have already understood this, this may mean nothing much to you, but they can be an eye-opener to those struggling in lower leagues. As for zerg, yes, playing them is a little different. However, if you're in bronze/silver, just getting the macro mechanics is of vital importance. And with any race, sure, you'll lose to cheese now and then because you are practicing proper mechanics. However, the important thing is that it will lead to better results in the long run. Too many players are overtly concerned with the short-run (i.e. what should I do about this?) when in reality, improving your mechanics is the most important thing. | ||
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