when to expand?

darkevilxe

Canada346 Posts

January 08 2011 07:20 GMT

as a p player, i think i have a pretty good grasp on when it's good to expand. i usually make it a goal to expand around the 40-50 food mark, anything earlier than that is a FE to me, and anything later is a denied expansion (which is a sad me

). after that, i read somewhere that you should be looking to expand every 4-5 minutes, which i've been maintaining pretty well. my question is, is this a good way to go about expanding when i start to reach higher levels? right now i'm in plat, i've been playing 2000+ diamonds since gold though and it seemed to work well. also, around what times do you guys usually set yourselves a goal to expand at?

thanks

Zephan

Canada29 Posts

January 08 2011 07:30 GMT

Hey, I'm happy to see that you're playing against mid leveled diamonds (means that you might get promoted because that's who I played against before I got promoted!) Personally, I find that expanding to say a 3rd or 4th should NEVER be based on a set time. NOTHING in starcraft should be based on a clock, but instead, based on how the game is going. Taking your 3rd and on should be when you feel comfortable.

An example of this, is if your opponent has a very mobile force. It's much better to stay on 2-3 bases and be able to defend against your opponent, rather than having 4-5 bases and "hoping" your opponent doesn't scout them or having to make a lot of static D.

HardCorey

United States709 Posts

January 09 2011 00:55 GMT

expand whenever you have the money. This works when you have been 1. constantly producing workers and 2. maintaining good production out of all producing structures. clearly it is not always that cut and dry but really expanding is one of the best ways to spend money as an investment into the late game. Another good rule of thumb is to expand when you push out your army for a big timing attack or any time you see your opponent expanding.

Foxt

Belize181 Posts

January 09 2011 00:56 GMT

"expand every 4-5 minutes" sounds like day9's funday monday which is not meant to be taken seriously.

Carras

Argentina860 Posts

January 09 2011 00:59 GMT

expand when your oponent cant punish you for doing so

esp

Australia109 Posts

January 09 2011 01:07 GMT

When you expand, try to make it an earned expansion. For example, you're on one base, he pushes and you hold it, killing all his forces. Expand right now because he's not coming back to attack at least for a little bit.

It's also safe to expand at the same time as him, because you'll both have the money downtime at the same time. And lastly, whenever possible, bring a fight to his front door, or harass his mineral lines a lot, while you're getting your expo up. It'll keep him distracted and make it a lot harder for him to move out and attack your expo.

Eventually you learn when and why it's safe to expand naturally, and you'll start using builds like PvT DT Expand; taking advantage of the fact that Terran can't safely push out without a raven or some saved up scans (which you deplete by sending single DTs to his base).

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