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On February 12 2011 13:39 ionlyplayPROtoss wrote:
3400 master
1gate robo (g-r-g-g)
7min
33 probes
2obs
4 stalker
2zealots
3 sentries
53 supply
could have started expand w/o making stalkers but made sentries.
a few minor errors as i was chatting but the gist is there i think
Would you mind posting a replay? I am looking into trying to switch from Z to P and looking for good expansion builds I can try to learn.
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Hi,
I am a silver league player and here is my 7:00 minute status. Playing Protoss I went for 3 Gate -> Expand:
31 probes
48/50 food
1 zealot
6 stalker
1 sentry
expansion 37 % done,
2nd gas 50 % done
I was also sending a scout probe away after building the 9/10 pylon.
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On February 11 2011 03:47 OnlineHero wrote:
3 gate expand
57/58
32 probes
7 zealots
4 stalkers
1 sentry
I had about 300 minerals saved up here for the nexus. I was really suprised how much difference perfect timing makes...
I was trying to figure out why you are 10 food ahead of me, until I realized that you haven't put down your nexus for a very very long time. I think this is mis representing it. For instance, I can manage about 48-50 food using my 3 gate expo build that puts down the nex right after the first warp in.
However, this is 2 supply ahead of what I saw Huk get in this game:
+ Show Spoiler +
As we can see, Huk manages 40 supply (probe in production), having lost 4-5 supply beforehand, making a grand total of 45 supply. I'll post the summaries from one of my games and Huk's game below.
Huk
45/42
29 probes*
7 sentries*
1 zealot*
Nexus @2/3 completed
2 gateways just put down
* he lost one of these beforehand, but I included it in the final food tally
Me
47/50
31 probes
3 sentries
4 stalkers (+1 on the way)
1 zealot
Nexus @1/3 completed
Forge completed
I'm a gold 1800 toss, but the expansion timing of a 3 gate expo hugely influences your food at the 7 min mark, because no matter what, you HAVE to cut probes and/or units in order to bank up enough minerals to expand. Please post your expansion completion for reference 
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Arisen wanted a "FE" build. This is what I use against most zerg:
2Rax Expand
7:00 minute mark:
Try 1
46/62
27 scvs
16 marine
2 marines building
Factory 44/60
Expo's OC 31/35
Stim 60/140
Try 2
45/70
26 scvs
16 marines
2 marines building
Factory completed / Tech 11/25
Expo floating to Nat
Terran just promoted into Platinum, but believe that I am more of a high gold player.
I would like to thank you for this thread. It gives me a different insight into how to look at my builds. I know that I can cut some gas once I get the factory up.
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This is a really fantastic idea! It's exactly what i've been looking for to solve the massive headache i've had against 1base Terran plays.
If anyone has time could they do some later push times (like 8-10mins)? I find this is quite a common time for Terran to push with MM because the bio ball seems to get exponentially stronger the bigger it gets, so hitting just before the Protoss can possibly get splash damage seems to be a great timing.
These are the builds I would love to see 8min and 10min unit compositions for:
Terran 3rax (1 reactor 2 techlab)
Any Protoss FE (1gate FE, 3gate FE, gate robo FE etc)
Protoss 4gate
Protoss 3gate robo
Anyone keen?
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On February 14 2011 11:42 Balinor wrote:
This is a really fantastic idea! It's exactly what i've been looking for to solve the massive headache i've had against 1base Terran plays.
If anyone has time could they do some later push times (like 8-10mins)? I find this is quite a common time for Terran to push with MM because the bio ball seems to get exponentially stronger the bigger it gets, so hitting just before the Protoss can possibly get splash damage seems to be a great timing.
These are the builds I would love to see 8min and 10min unit compositions for:
Terran 3rax (1 reactor 2 techlab)
Any Protoss FE (1gate FE, 3gate FE, gate robo FE etc)
Protoss 4gate
Protoss 3gate robo
Anyone keen?
3 Rax and 4 gate's numbers should stay the same fluctuating slightly up and down slightly after they attack, as they are an all-in timing attack, that is to say, either they win the game shortly after the attack, or they trade armies for infrastructure, and deal enough damage to secure equal footing going into the midgame, or fail to do damage and lose very quickly (or should). The army trading aspects of these 2 builds, therefore, is not conducive to this sort of exercise.
A 3 gate robo is highly variable. A 3 gate robo opening aims to do one of two thigs. The first is to hit a timing window to deal major damage (immortal and/or colossus timing attacks), and expanding behind that or all-ining at that point, which would fall under the previous category (army trading). The other would be to play defensively getting an eventual expansion by cutting production of either probes, pylons (by attacking and losing units), or units. 3 gate robo would be what I call a defensive 1 base play. The build is very good at defending early pressure, but given that you constantly produce probes, pylons, and units from all your facilities, you will not have the money for an expo for a very long time, if at all (perhaps if you produce a ton of sentries you'll eventually have the money, but producing stalkers and zealots, all of your money will be eaten up), thus you cut production in order to secure an expansion, which allows increased production capablities. When you cut production will be a major factor in what your build looks like at a certain time. An earlier unit cut would have a lower number @ 8 but a higher number @ 10. A later cut would be the opposite.
My Advise is to use the timings at 7:00, and then watch those reps and find out exactly where you missed production, and learning what it looks like to have good macro. The point of the exercise is less to see what you can do in 7 minutes, but more about trying to hit that and noticing when/what your mistakes are, and applying those to all of your replays. After you're comfortable with the 7:00 approach, you'll have enough knowledge to look at a long game of yourself playing and instinctively know "this is a period where my macro faultered for this reason" and be able to fix it. I would like to oblige all these kinds of requests, but eventually, things will just become cluttered into
This is what a 3 gate robo looks like @ 7,8,9,10, 11, 12, 13....
Hope that helps, if not, post again and I'll see if I can help out
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On February 14 2011 16:45 Arisen wrote:
My Advise is to use the timings at 7:00, and then watch those reps and find out exactly where you missed production, and learning what it looks like to have good macro. The point of the exercise is less to see what you can do in 7 minutes, but more about trying to hit that and noticing when/what your mistakes are, and applying those to all of your replays. After you're comfortable with the 7:00 approach, you'll have enough knowledge to look at a long game of yourself playing and instinctively know "this is a period where my macro faultered for this reason" and be able to fix it. I would like to oblige all these kinds of requests, but eventually, things will just become cluttered into
This is what a 3 gate robo looks like @ 7,8,9,10, 11, 12, 13....
Hope that helps, if not, post again and I'll see if I can help out
You can not see what it looks like to have good macro if you don't know what to look for. So even with replays if you don't know what you are watching it does not help.
For Example:
Building a supply depot at 10 for Terran. You can do it right when you have 100 minerals or you can do it at ~160 minerals and still be at 10 supply. Until you understand that good macro says that you build it at 100 minerals Exactly you can not see it in a replay. Then they need to further understand that you don't want your worker to arrive where they are going to build it until you have exactly those minerals.
Without understanding things like this watching a optimized replay does not help someone with poor macro.
Furthermore, you can see the requests for every build under the sun with every timing. It should further show that people don't want to adjust what they are doing to practice and learn how to understand macro and how to value their mistakes.
Those that do really want to improve have already, learned macro concepts through study and have posted a replay of an actual game where they thought they macro'd well and got a personalized response of all their macro bumps.
The instinctive part you speak of is only there if they really have the macro concepts burned into their head and are just missing the concept of how to value their mistakes properly.
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High gold Zerg.
Tried what I do in ZvT, 11 pool, 18 hatch going for muta ling bling, these are the results at 7minutes:
Practice:
44/44 food
29 Drones
5 Overlords with one more about to pop
16 Speedlings with more 6 1/2 done
2 queens, 2 expos running
baneling nest ready
lair just started
This is when I expect an attack at 7 minute mark, I pump drones until around 30 supply and then some lings to defend if necessary, ready to become blings.
I just watched a replay of me playing ZvT where I was supposed to do exactly this and, well, this is how it looked at the 7 minute mark:
Replay:
36/36 food
23 Drones
4 overlords with 3 almost complete
17 Zeglings (Speed 1/3 done) with more 2 killed in action (scouting)
2 queens, 2 running expos but very few drones
no baneling nest yet
lair already started, 1/3 complete.
By the 8 minute I get 31 drones but even so it's disturbing the difference in the test and in the real game. Gotta practice more, I wasn't aware of this. Thanks to the OP, nice idea, man.
Edit: Now I know why. In the replay I've made the lings too soon, it screwed with my drone count and I forgot speed and to do my 3rd queen imediattly after the second... Now I see, I did think that my macro was decent but it's terrible. I feel almost sad. 
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Canada13386 Posts
On February 10 2011 07:48 `chain wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2011 07:19 Arisen wrote:
I refuse to believe that the Team Liquid Community doesn't care enough to give back to it's newer members. Cheers everyone. Very true. However, I do believe that there is one problem with the TL community - the players in plat-master don't really understand how hard it is to get out of bronze once you've screwed up. I've been stuck at Bronze 1 for about a month because I dropped ~15 games due to my stupid internet T~T - or maybe I just don't play enough. As for myself, I've been working on my macro a lot - I stopped 4gating after I realized it would get me to perhaps mid-diamond, but I would eventually have to work on macro. At first, I was sure I could climb the ladder quickly and get to silver/gold, but it turns out it's actually a lot more work than I first thought. However, I'm working on it- and I'm hovering at about 50/50 win ratio. Looks like I need more work. Now, I have a question. I saw the diamond on macro only thread, and I want to try that. However, I'm hovering around 100W/80L, so I'm probably not going anywhere soon. Even though you probably wouldn't care about my rank, I've been dying to know how long it would take me to get to at least gold. Would anyone care to help?
Sorry android app posted before I could type lol. Be prepared my friend I had the same problem as you and made it to diamond 50 games ago. I've played at least 700 games with a 54% wlr. Not easy to move up when you have so many games at a particular level and a very stable mmr. You need to do a lot to get the mmr back up.
In addition I may try a 2 gate tivo opening later today and see what my supply is at. Don't usually forget pylons until 80 food to 100 food that's my pylon block zone
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If you win 20 - 30 games in a row, you will advance a league I am pretty sure.
The thing is, if you win 60% of your games ... it will take some time.
But if anyone in masters league took over a bronze account with no bonus pool, I am fairly sure that it would be diamond within 100-150 games. It wouldn't take the system many games to realize your rating is no longer valid and start matching you against higher rated players.
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On February 15 2011 00:12 Eeryck wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2011 16:45 Arisen wrote:
My Advise is to use the timings at 7:00, and then watch those reps and find out exactly where you missed production, and learning what it looks like to have good macro. The point of the exercise is less to see what you can do in 7 minutes, but more about trying to hit that and noticing when/what your mistakes are, and applying those to all of your replays. After you're comfortable with the 7:00 approach, you'll have enough knowledge to look at a long game of yourself playing and instinctively know "this is a period where my macro faultered for this reason" and be able to fix it. I would like to oblige all these kinds of requests, but eventually, things will just become cluttered into
This is what a 3 gate robo looks like @ 7,8,9,10, 11, 12, 13....
Hope that helps, if not, post again and I'll see if I can help out
You can not see what it looks like to have good macro if you don't know what to look for. So even with replays if you don't know what you are watching it does not help. For Example: Building a supply depot at 10 for Terran. You can do it right when you have 100 minerals or you can do it at ~160 minerals and still be at 10 supply. Until you understand that good macro says that you build it at 100 minerals Exactly you can not see it in a replay. Then they need to further understand that you don't want your worker to arrive where they are going to build it until you have exactly those minerals. Without understanding things like this watching a optimized replay does not help someone with poor macro. Furthermore, you can see the requests for every build under the sun with every timing. It should further show that people don't want to adjust what they are doing to practice and learn how to understand macro and how to value their mistakes. Those that do really want to improve have already, learned macro concepts through study and have posted a replay of an actual game where they thought they macro'd well and got a personalized response of all their macro bumps. The instinctive part you speak of is only there if they really have the macro concepts burned into their head and are just missing the concept of how to value their mistakes properly.
That's why this method is helpful. When you have a definite benchmark of what is possible compared to your current game, you can fiddle with things until you are at that level of the benchmark. It can be hard, but after a while, you'll end up staring at your base and noticing, "oh, I have 200 minerals when I place down that baracks, I could do that at 150, and lets see what happens". Then that player will find he ends up with 1 more marine, and 1 more SCV because his OC timing is dead on the money, then he makes another little adjustment and then another, and he figures out for himself how to get to that benchmark and he'll feel like a baller. Then when he watches his replays, he'll know JUST what to look for to see if he slipped up in his macro. Too many people look at their money, and if it's low, they think they're playing great, and they need to know that more is possible. When you know more is possible, you can look for mistakes, and when you do that, you'll find where the problems in your play lie.
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Arisen, thank you for this wonderful thread. (And many others actually...)
Is there a way we get these added to every BO in liquipedia? Obviously timings will change for specific games based on earlier harasses/etc, but it would be great to have a number to compare with.
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THE KEY TO MACRO MECHANICS:- by CyberD
Use The Process: CAP -- TAP -- MAP (this is how i remember it in the correct order).
Now before telling you the process, you must understand this is something that has to be done constantly, NOT every minute or 30 seconds, BUT between most of your actions and most definitely when you are idle. This is the main mechanic of macro; to be constantly building whatever is available to you, with the given time, without the need of queuing. :D
Applying The Mental Process
CAP -- Pop CAP/Income -- Info Gathering/Building Macro -- Eye Location: Top-Right
This is merely your first action that you will be doing in the cycle, the entire purpose of this is to keep yourself up to date on your population cap and income, and therefore be able to base decisions on what to spend your money on (supply/units etc). This is also where you BUILD STRUCTURES/SUPPLY if necessary. This may sound self explanatory, but it is merely the process of constantly looking at you CAP and building SUPPLY that ensures good macro and keeps your money down. and you'd be surprised how often you don't look at your CAP... does "build more supply" sound familiar  (Tip: if your minerals are getting high in the early stages of the game, you may find you need to build supply)
TAP -- "The Tap" -- The Unit Macro -- Eye Location: Bottom-Centre
So you may be asking what the hell is "The Tap", well ill tell you... Just make sure that you are competent with hot keys and that you are selecting buildings via hot key NOT clicking them ... now for this example I will be using Terran & assuming I have the hot keys:-
1. Command Centre (Nexus/Queens)
2. Barracks (Gateway/Hatch)
3. Factory (Robotics/Lair)
4. Starport (Stargate/Hive)
5. Engineering Bay (Forge/Evolution Chamber)
Now "The Tap" is merely the process of taping each number hot key and LOOKING at the bottom of the screen to see the building's current status and deciding there and then whether anything needs to be built, then moving on to the next hot key. This ensures you know the current status of all your buildings and are constantly building from your production structures, here is an example of a cycle of TAP using the designated hot keys:-
TAP "1" -- Command Centre -- SCV at 80% -- Build SCV -- TAP "S"
TAP "2" -- Barracks -- No Production -- Build Marine -- TAP "A"
TAP "3" -- Factory -- Siege Tank at 30% -- **Skip**
TAP "4" -- Starport -- Reactor Still Building -- **Skip**
TAP "5" -- Engineering Bay -- Just Finished Building -- Upgrade Weapons -- TAP "E"
It is as simple as that. However, it takes quite a bit of practice to implement since you will keep forgetting at first, but forcing yourself to do it again and again will make it pretty much an automatic reaction, which is what you want when you begin to start focusing on strategies. The only problem is that this relies on the fact that you should constantly be hot keying buildings/units, again this is a learned process that will become more natural in time, but you will also find as you initiate the TAP that you will notice something is missing and then add the appropriate hot key, the more things you have hot keyed in your TAP cycle the better. Finally and most importantly it allows you to macro while NOT focusing on your base, allowing you to macro in battle or elsewhere you are looking & remember it's not set in stone, there is no use cycling through buildings if they are redundant (i.e the factory in marine/medivac)
MAP -- MiniMap -- Info Gathering/Army Decisions -- Eye Location: Bottom-Left
The minimap not exactly key to macro, but key to VICTORY. This screen provides you the most IMPORTANT information available to you and gives you the means to travel anywhere on the map via instantaneous click. It lets you know where your troops are, and where their troops are. What decisions you should make and so on... It is critical that you spend MORE time looking at the minimap than the main screen. But why is the mini map MORE IMPORTANT than the main screen? :-
When not in battle
1. The minimap shows you everything that is going on via the combined sight radius of ALL your structures and units.
2. It shows you an enemy army before they attack your base (yes, that's right folks ), allowing you to move to defend before they attack (not at the time there is an audio announcement and its too late!)
3. The minimap is a reminder to expand, if you look and see you have enough minerals an you know you have an advantage already over your opponent... why not?
4. When Zerg the minimap is your BEST indication as to whether to morph drones or not!
When in battle
1. The minimap allows you to co-ordinate your forces and see where they are positioned throughout the map (A good way to pick up stray forces that were neglected to be hot keyed)
2. It shows you if there are multiple points of attack occurring (i.e reapers/mutas at back of base). It is so IMPORTANT that you look at your minimap during a battle, cause if you don't nothing will be there when you return home (Even I have fell victim to this on many an occasion)
3. If you are on the attack it also ensures your reinforcements are not being intercepted
Final Thoughts
So really the mind set you got to have is to always be in macro mode, constantly producing units, and being aware of your money/supply. From applying the process you will come to notice that you are making a clockwise motion with your eyes as you go from CAP to TAP to MAP and over time this becomes natural, you will realise that you already know what your supply is because your eyes have constantly being traversing the screen without you thinking about it. Essentially once you break the habit of staring directly at the centre of the screen, you will become more engaged with the game and start enjoying yourself a bit more. Hope This Helps
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On February 18 2011 10:04 CyberDemon wrote:THE KEY TO MACRO MECHANICS:- by CyberD Use The Process: CAP -- TAP -- MAP (this is how i remember it in the correct order). Now before telling you the process, you must understand this is something that has to be done constantly, NOT every minute or 30 seconds, BUT between most of your actions and most definitely when you are idle. This is the main mechanic of macro; to be constantly building whatever is available to you, with the given time, without the need of queuing. :D Applying The Mental ProcessCAP -- Pop CAP/Income -- Info Gathering/Building Macro -- Eye Location: Top-Right This is merely your first action that you will be doing in the cycle, the entire purpose of this is to keep yourself up to date on your population cap and income, and therefore be able to base decisions on what to spend your money on (supply/units etc). This is also where you BUILD STRUCTURES/SUPPLY if necessary. This may sound self explanatory, but it is merely the process of constantly looking at you CAP and building SUPPLY that ensures good macro and keeps your money down. and you'd be surprised how often you don't look at your CAP... does "build more supply" sound familiar (Tip: if your minerals are getting high in the early stages of the game, you may find you need to build supply)TAP -- "The Tap" -- The Unit Macro -- Eye Location: Bottom-Centre So you may be asking what the hell is "The Tap", well ill tell you... Just make sure that you are competent with hot keys and that you are selecting buildings via hot key NOT clicking them ... now for this example I will be using Terran & assuming I have the hot keys:-
1. Command Centre (Nexus/Queens)
2. Barracks (Gateway/Hatch)
3. Factory (Robotics/Lair)
4. Starport (Stargate/Hive)
5. Engineering Bay (Forge/Evolution Chamber)
Now "The Tap" is merely the process of taping each number hot key and LOOKING at the bottom of the screen to see the building's current status and deciding there and then whether anything needs to be built, then moving on to the next hot key. This ensures you know the current status of all your buildings and are constantly building from your production structures, here is an example of a cycle of TAP using the designated hot keys:-
TAP "1" -- Command Centre -- SCV at 80% -- Build SCV -- TAP "S"
TAP "2" -- Barracks -- No Production -- Build Marine -- TAP "A"
TAP "3" -- Factory -- Siege Tank at 30% -- **Skip**
TAP "4" -- Starport -- Reactor Still Building -- **Skip**
TAP "5" -- Engineering Bay -- Just Finished Building -- Upgrade Weapons -- TAP "E"
It is as simple as that. However, it takes quite a bit of practice to implement since you will keep forgetting at first, but forcing yourself to do it again and again will make it pretty much an automatic reaction, which is what you want when you begin to start focusing on strategies. The only problem is that this relies on the fact that you should constantly be hot keying buildings/units, again this is a learned process that will become more natural in time, but you will also find as you initiate the TAP that you will notice something is missing and then add the appropriate hot key, the more things you have hot keyed in your TAP cycle the better. Finally and most importantly it allows you to macro while NOT focusing on your base, allowing you to macro in battle or elsewhere you are looking & remember it's not set in stone, there is no use cycling through buildings if they are redundant (i.e the factory in marine/medivac)MAP -- MiniMap -- Info Gathering/Army Decisions -- Eye Location: Bottom-Left The minimap not exactly key to macro, but key to VICTORY. This screen provides you the most IMPORTANT information available to you and gives you the means to travel anywhere on the map via instantaneous click. It lets you know where your troops are, and where their troops are. What decisions you should make and so on... It is critical that you spend MORE time looking at the minimap than the main screen. But why is the mini map MORE IMPORTANT than the main screen? :-
When not in battle
1. The minimap shows you everything that is going on via the combined sight radius of ALL your structures and units.
2. It shows you an enemy army before they attack your base (yes, that's right folks ), allowing you to move to defend before they attack (not at the time there is an audio announcement and its too late!)
3. The minimap is a reminder to expand, if you look and see you have enough minerals an you know you have an advantage already over your opponent... why not?
4. When Zerg the minimap is your BEST indication as to whether to morph drones or not!
When in battle
1. The minimap allows you to co-ordinate your forces and see where they are positioned throughout the map (A good way to pick up stray forces that were neglected to be hot keyed)
2. It shows you if there are multiple points of attack occurring (i.e reapers/mutas at back of base). It is so IMPORTANT that you look at your minimap during a battle, cause if you don't nothing will be there when you return home (Even I have fell victim to this on many an occasion)
3. If you are on the attack it also ensures your reinforcements are not being interceptedFinal ThoughtsSo really the mind set you got to have is to always be in macro mode, constantly producing units, and being aware of your money/supply. From applying the process you will come to notice that you are making a clockwise motion with your eyes as you go from CAP to TAP to MAP and over time this becomes natural, you will realise that you already know what your supply is because your eyes have constantly being traversing the screen without you thinking about it. Essentially once you break the habit of staring directly at the centre of the screen, you will become more engaged with the game and start enjoying yourself a bit more. Hope This Helps
It's cool that you put so much thought into this, but it is not on topic. I'd encourage you to post this as its own thread, though. Thanks.
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On a similar topic, has anyone tried getting to 200 supply in the fastest time to practice their macro??
As a P player, I have been using a basic 2 gate robo build into expand (on 34), and build only zealots/stalkers/sentries...my best is 16:25 which sounds slow to me, so wondering if other ppl out there have done it and can tell me what is an approx good time to aim for?? Like what do Masters/Diamonds do the time at??
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5Z8S Rush
6:00
50/50 Supply
24 Probes
5 Zealots
8 Stalkers
3 Gateways
1 Core
2 Assimilators
That is if you do it perfect. Usually for me i end up like this 20ish seconds later.
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I tried the 3 warp gate and at about 7:45ish I had:
2 bases
31 probes
1 zealot
8 sentries
3 stalkers
3 gates
cyber core
forge
57 supply
I had a slight supply block at 42/42 but only for a few seconds, I missed a probe after I built my c core/zealot(is that normal because I can't find a way to avoid it without delaying my cyber?), and I missed 1 chronoboost on my sentry. Apart from that it was pretty crisp.
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So i decided to just take one of my ladder replays instead of analyzing a vs. AI game.
I am a 3k diamond protoss player
I did a 3 gate sentry expand (PvZ), and at 7:00 I had:
1 Base (1 nexus at 57/100)
28 Probes
1 Zealot
8 Sentries
3 Gateways
forge at 35/45
and 47/50 supply with a pylon at 6/25 and a probe just about to finish (it says 17/17 on the progress bar)
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My timing on a three gate stargate is 6 stalkers, a void ray, and one zealot, along with 22 probes at 6:35. 3 more stalkers/zeals/sentries ready in 30 seconds chronoboosted.
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I will teach you guys the secret of good "macro". Macro is the latest fashion trend in starcraft 2, it is easy for a player to answer questions and to give advice when all they have to say is macro. However, learning how to do this "macro" is a difficult task, even after thousands and thousands of hours of practice you can be assured that your macro can be better. I believe good macro is not making a lot of units and keeping your minerals low. Good macro is knowing everything. The size of a map and your starting locations will dictate which build orders are ideal, whether you can delay buildings and units in favour of workers, and also tells you which build order is optimal in response to their build order. You can never be supply blocked, always keep your minerals low, always keep producing units and workers, but if you're doing it in the wrong order and you're doing a build and building units that get countered by your opponent's units then everything you've done was futile. Weak players don't seem to understand starcraft 2 at a deep level. This is a strategy forum and while you can boast about how many units you have at 7:00, did you know that at every time up to 7:00 there will be times where you're lower in count and higher in count. There is an optimised build for every time, one that maximises amount of units at every point in time depending on your build. It is therefore imperative that you know the timing and build of your opponent so you can know when you actually need x amount of units at 7:00. Perhaps you never needed 8 sentries and 1 zealot. Perhaps you could have cut those gateways and zealots in favour of a nexus and have more units at 10:00 which is when your opponent attack, and could have never taken advantage of u at 7:00. What I want you people in particular to understand about macro is that there it's something situational and you have to be able to change builds according to the situation. It's easy to say keep producing workers. But there are times you must cut workers to lay down a nexus or 3 simultaneous gateways once your economy is able to support it. There are times where you don't inject larva so you can lay creep or use transfusion for an incoming attack. There are times where you don't spend chrono so you can use it later on tech,production buildings or even later on nexus when you know it'll payoff better considering your supply. This is what separates a good player from an average one. General advice like constantly use your macro mechanics, don't get supply blocked and keep producing units are obvious. But at the deeper strategic level there are times when you have to know when you are able to be supply blocked. say you have a build where u get capped at 42/42 but you know thats your warp gates research is about to be finished, and you're setting up a proxy pylon. And if you had put down an earlier pylon you wouldn't be able to warp in 3 stalkers from your proxy pylon. It's THESE things people have to understand.
THEREFORE, it is pointless to compare how many units you have at 7;xx or 6:xx, since there are builds optimised to maximise units at any point in time. Not to mention that they don't take into account weaknesses. Someone could get more units at 7:30 by going double CC and rax, so they have 2 orbitals. But that just makes u vulnerable to a timing window early on. Also having more units at 7:30 might not matter as long as you capitalise on it. Is it more relative to the opponent? Does it set you up for exploiting your opponent's timing window? or will the opponent just have more units at 8:00 when you reach his base? Or will that no. of units be nullfied by his build that relies on 2 bunkers, whereas if you had less units by teched to blink you could've bypassed his bunker build?
I just think these discussions on macro are pretty shallow and don't consider the real important issues in being good at sc2 strategy. So tell what plan do you have in mind for those units you built at 7:00? What is ur goal by making as many units as u could have made at that time? How does that put you ahead of ur opponent? What if the guy who believed he had good macro, who had little units at 7:00, infact had a lot of units at 3:00 where his opponent was weak? I believe there are peaks at certain times when you have more units.
I will tell you now that I'm master at 1v1,2v2,3v3,4v4. If you want to be good you should watch your own replays, see where you could've exploited his weakness, where he could've explotied your weakness, and just in general analyse your opponents play. You don't get better from saying oh my nexus wasn't pumping 24/7, that must be why I lost. It may very well be the reason you lost but I can assure you there was something deeper. I've played with many players in team games who will 2 gate, have a lot of zealots but don't use them at all, then get overrun by superior units because the enemy they just went for fast multiple production buildlings and workers. The player who massed zealots might think where did i go wrong, i kept my money low and kept producing units. The problem came down to him not knowing the strengths of his own build, and the weaknesses of his opponents build. So just ask yourself. When you say I can make x amount of units at 7:00, ask yourself why you put 7:00 as your goal, what you hope to accomplish with those units.
This is the same reason why there is no one ultimate build. Since every build has its weakness. Infact some good players know their build weaknesses but may proceed anyway, gambling on the fact that the enemy won't exploit it. But I can GUARANTEE you, the best players know these things. They WILL exploit. The best players, don't win just because of their micro abilities, reaction time or great multitasking. They combine their knowledge of builds with their execution. It just gets deeper at this point. The best players in the world will even use the opponent's knowledge against them by purposefully taking odd scouting paths, cancelling tech, executing "fakes" where they know the opponent knows of a strong strategy but they will fake that strategy and just do something completely different. like double expanding while faking an all-in attack by taking advantage of the opponents incomplete knowledge. All I can say is that the starcraft hole goes pretty deep and the BEST place to start isn't looking at how many units you have at what time. Just saying since there are tons of these discussions that won't really improve you in the most meaningful manner.
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EPT
