EPT\\\\\
Author's notes:
this is definitely a WIP - Work In Progress
3/16/2011 - hid author's notes, reformatted table of contents, finished lesson 3+4, scrapped lessons 5-8, lesson 9 will now be 5, lessons 5-8 will be incorporated somehow, blink stalker video added, unsure how far past Lesson 8 i should go hmm...
additional topics needed: scouting, growing and keeping up with your economy, cost efficiency, unit countering (not exactly sure how i'm going to do this since it can get pretty complicated the farther you go)
3/13/2011 - first try at it, finished lesson 1+2
+ Show Spoiler +
old table of contents:
Ground Zero
Lesson 1: Mindset
Lesson 2: Units and Purpose
Lesson 3: Commands
Lesson 4: Hotkeys
Boot Camp: Basic Training
Lesson 5: Mechanics vs Strategy
Lesson 6: Attention and APM
Lesson 7: Micro vs Macro
Lesson 8: Additional Starcraft Lingo
Deployment: Onto the Battlefield
Lesson 9: What is a Build Order?
Lesson 10: Armchair General, What is you Goal?
Lesson 11: Thus Begins the Cold War, The Arms Race for Expansions and Tech
Lesson 12: Aggression Management, or How to Strategically Analyze An In-Game Scenario
Why I'm writing this:
This is something that is missing from every Starcraft website on the internet: a proper intro to the game for newbies or people who think they know the game, but don't. This is especially important for TL with the influx of all the new members because of SC2. Most of the discussion on TL actually flies right over the heads of many. And so, for the first time, I've decided to finally get off my ass and contribute to my beloved TL, which has provided me with so much entertainment over the years. All comments, criticisms, suggestions, and general feedback welcome!
To the mods:
I wasn't actually sure if this belonged in SC2 Strategy or in SC2 General, but I figured if someone was looking for a guide like this, they would go look at the Strategy section first.
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I. INTRO
Welcome to the beginner's guide to multiplayer Starcraft 2.
This guide is aimed at those who have just picked up Starcraft 2, are curious about the famous (or infamous) competitive multiplayer, but have no idea what to do. This guide will give you the basic foundations of Stacraft-IQ so that you can understand what you're supposed to do, what you're doing wrong, and what people are saying when they talk about Starcraft so you can join in on the discussion.
II. PURPOSE
I have created this thread due to 2 reasons:
1) A lot of people, even people who have played RTS for years, who consider themselves experienced fans of the genre, still fail to grasp the inner workings of multiplayer Starcraft. There is simply too much information for a newcomer to even want to learn. Many times, they learn wrongly or skip over very basic things. They end up having a wrong picture of the game and depressingly go on to become people described in reason #2.
2) A lot of the exact same people, some who might even work for major game companies or maybe had to review Starcraft 2 for certain famous publications, look down on multiplayer Starcraft. An RTS without the S. Rock, paper, scissors with better graphics. Mindless unit spam. A contest to see who can click the fastest. Uninnovative, stale, commercial RTS made for the masses. Have you ever said, heard, or read any of these phrases? This guide will hopefully explain why there is actually strategy behind the "Zerg Rush."
III. TABLE OF CONTENTS
For those of you who have already started padding your Starcraft IQ, click the links below to jump over to the sections you want to see.
Ground Zero
Lesson 1: Mindset
Lesson 2: Units and Purpose
Boot Camp: Basic Training
Lesson 3: Commands
Lesson 4: Hotkeys
Deployment: Onto the Battlefield
Lesson 5: What is a Build Order?
Lesson 6: Armchair General, What is your Goal?
Rank and File: Rise of a Battlefield Commander
Lesson 7: Thus Begins the Cold War, the Arms Race for Expansions and Tech
Lesson 8: Aggression Management, or How to Strategically Analyze an In-Game Scenario
Medals of Honor: Your Starcraft Career, Advanced
Lesson 9: The Concept of Timing, or How to Strike Before Your Opponent Can Block
Lesson 10: Positional Warfare, or How to Checkmate your Starcraft Opponent
Lesson 11: Hitchhiker's Guide to Drawing a Gameplan and Using Your Race to the Fullest
Lesson 12: Propaganda, Intelligence Gathering, and the Art of Psycological Warfare
Red Badge of Courage: The Rules of Engagement
Lesson 13: Strategy vs Tactics
Lesson 14: Making Your Moves - Attack Paths and Troop Movement
Lesson 15: Painting the Battlefield - Controlling Space and As a Result, Your Opponent
Lesson 16: The Positional Counter - The Mysteries of Micro-Management
IV. THE GUIDE: THE JOURNEY INTO MULTIPLAYER
Ground Zero
Lesson 1: Mindset
Fear.
This is the first hurdle. It is the biggest challenge for newbies to come to terms with when they first enter multiplayer. It's no wonder. Starcraft has a reputation for being one of the most cutthroat and self-esteem-shattering experiences in existence. Unfortunately there is no magical way to counteract this fear. You just have to do it.
It's like the first time you ever tried to ride a bicycle. It was hard, wasn't it? You had to go fast to keep your balance, but how could you go fast if you didn't know how to ride a bike? You just had to do it.
This is an ongoing theme in Starcraft: nothing is handed to you for free. When you win, you have to earn your win. When you lose, the only person to blame is yourself. That is a hard pill to swallow for many people, but that also makes winning, and improving yourself, even sweeter.
A lot of newbies feel the same incoming anxiety attack before starting a game. Find the strength to click the Find Match button each and every time. It is literally the hardest thing to do at this stage. It's just a button.
Courage.
The second hurdle, and the opposite of fear. Courage, in this case, does not mean the absence of fear. It means the willingness to try anything, experiment, and learn as a result, even if it means losing horribly.
Too often do newer players lack one of the fundamental keys to successful improvement: aggression. This is what allows you to be out and about on the battlefield. Learn by doing. As a guideline, if you are sitting behind a wall of defense, you are doing it wrong. You can theorycraft all you want behind that perfect formation of bunkers, but you will never get better unless you apply what you're thinking. There is no substitute for experience.
When things go wrong, have the courage to ask yourself, "Why did it go wrong?" If you have no experience ice skating, and you step onto a ice skating rink, you are going to fall on your ass. It's going to hurt, but it shouldn't also surprise you. Unlike ice skating however, if you are unsure how everything went wrong, Starcraft grants you the power to time travel and watch an instant replay. The replay system, with all its numbers and graphs, is there for a reason. Never be afraid to watch yourself lose.
Have Fun.
Simple. If you're not having fun, take a break. Stand up and go do something else.
Starcraft is not an easy game, but if you stick with it, you will be rewarded with much more than just your normal game experience and a greater sense of pride and accomplishment than you might ever have expected from "just a video game."
Lesson 2: Units and Purpose
I need a hammer, not a screwdriver!
So what happens now that you decided to dive in? First, you have to know what tools you have in that toolkit of yours, what they are good for and more importantly, what they are bad for.
Take a quick look at these pages here:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/race/terran/techtree
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/race/zerg/techtree
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/race/protoss/techtree
No need to go anywhere near memorizing it, but do yourself a favor and start to get familiar with it. Note what buildings are required for each unit; which units are melee, which are ranged; which can attack only air, which can attack only ground, and which can actually do both; and which units might have some dangerous abilities. The more you know, the less time you will spend yelling at your screen with hands in the air, "They can do that?!?!" And eventually the better strategic decisions you will be able to make.
Now you need some hands-on experience. Play a few games where you just try out different units and abilities to see how they work. You may not want to play a live opponent. Set up a game versus an easy computer. It will give you ample time to safely mess around with whichever units you want, however long you want.
However, don't spend more than a handful of games against the computer. Playing against live opponents is where the real learning begins. There are a lot of uses for many of the different units and abilities. As you play more, you are sometimes going to have your eyes opened by people using them in ways you never thought possible.
My kingdom for a horse!
Sometimes in life, a situation just calls for something you don't have. You never want to let this happen in Starcraft. But the problem for newbies isn't knowing how to get a certain unit for the situation, it's knowing what to get.
Let's take an example ---
You are playing as Terran. You march out with a group of marines to your Terran opponent's side of the map. You see a defensive line of bunkers. You want to attack but attacking into that fortified position would probably be a bad idea. How do you take care of this situation?
The easiest answer would probably to get a few siege tanks. Their long range allows them to destroy bunkers at a distance, and once those are gone you can try to make an attack. That is the purpose of getting siege tanks.
What is your purpose?
Most of the time, when newbies come up against a problem, they look to a unit to solve the problem. What you ought to be looking for is not a unit, but a purpose. When you think about it this way, more options will open up for you.
Let's use the previous example. It may not matter what unit you get, as long as it fulfills the purpose you want: clearing out the bunkers so you can attack. Besides the siege tank, what are some other ways to fulfill this purpose? How about some cloaked banshees? If your enemy has little or no units that can detect cloaked banshees, you can break the bunker line even though banshees aren't usually considered a siege unit. How about a few battlecruisers for Yamato Cannons? That could wipe the bunkers off the map in an instant. You might say that's a little far fetched and would take too much time to get, and you're right. So how about we use a simpler answer, the simplest of all answers: just run it over with more stuff. Does it matter what unit you use? Not really. You can use anything, as long you just have enough stuff to plow through those bunkers and kill everything.
Suddenly, picking the right unit isn't even part of the problem anymore, but it still fulfills the same purpose: running over your poor opponent's bunker line and crushing his base.
Ahhh, the feeling of victory.
Thinking with Portals... in Starcraft?
Now let's look at things from a different angle. Imagine you are in a game and the exact scenario we just described comes up. You get to your opponent's base, and they have fortified their front with a number of bunkers. So, we just described a couple ways to take that on. No problem, right?
Freeze frame. Hold on. Step back for a moment.
What is your ultimate purpose from what we just described? Destroy his base, right? But do we have to take on those bunkers right now? What if we just... go around the bunkers?
If our ultimate goal is the kill off his base, let's start with the easier and more vulnerable parts first, then come back for the bunkers later. If we had a giant portal gun, we could open up one portal where our army is, and another one at the back of our opponent's base where his bunkers aren't. Too bad we can't, but we do have some other tools at our disposal.
Medivacs would be a great choice for moving our army around to the back of his base. If we're playing zerg, nydus worms or overlord drop research could prove valuable. Similarly, we could build a small air force and that would also fulfill the same purpose.
Can't Crack that Shell
Okay so, we poke at the front and his bunkers are too much. We try some medivac drops, but maybe he has bunkers and turrets there too. Now what?
Your opponent is doing something very common in RTS games: turtling. Yes, we turned "turtle" into a verb. Like its namesake, a player who turtles is a player who tries to build a near impenetrable defense and may never leave his base until he has a ridiculously huge army.
Something like this can't be dealt with cutesy moves like a little drop into the back of his base. Some problems you solve with a damn sledgehammer. Remember the easiest way to destroy an opponent? Just have a ton of stuff.
What does this mean? It means that while he's holed up behind those pretty walls of defense, you proceed to engulf the entire map in your color. As a general goal, double his number of bases if you can.
- He's on 1 base? Go up to 2.
- He's on 2 bases? Go up to 4.
- (Anything past 4 bases should be overkill for now. Make sure you have some workers at each of your bases!)
- Double everything you've got. More production facilities - more barracks and factories and starports. More upgrades - get attack and armor upgrades, and whatever else you might want.
- Cover all your bases - is he making dark templars? He might. Get some detection. Is he going air? He might. Make a few turrets at your bases.
If you're not playing Terran, do whatever you need to do to get extra bases up for your respective race.
The goal is this: no matter what he's doing, you just have more stuff. Your roaring economy will win the day. This is why the game was designed without an infinite amount of resources. Just like in a real war, your resources are the backbone of your entire war effort. And if you run up against an enemy with more resources, or if you get starved out, you're dead.
Now that's Starcraft.
Boot Camp: Basic Training
Lesson 3: Commands
That an order!
Here I will give you a brief rundown on helpful commands you can issue and what they do on the battlefield. You will understand best if you have Starcraft 2 up and running so you can test things out as I give examples. A lot of this will seem extremely basic, but there may be some things in this section you haven't realized on your own yet.
A word of warning: some of this might be very dry and technical, but believe me when I say mastering Lessons 3 & 4 will help you improve by leaps and bounds. I'm not joking about this. Don't be that person who never properly learned how to ride a bike, wobbling around, looking like they still need training wheels. Be the one sitting sideways, leaning through a corner, with only one hand steering. Maybe you can't do that on a bike, but I'll teach you how to do it in Starcraft.
The "A-Move"
One of the first commands you ever learn is the move command, but in reality 90% of the time you will never use it. Whenever you need to move troops around, that move command should almost always be replaced by an attack-move command, done by issuing an attack command on the ground where you want your units to go. This way, your troops never give up the opportunity at firing the first shot and never evaporate into a group of enemy units without doing anything.
Only when you have a specific task for your selected units will you use the normal move command. One very common example is when you are retreating from a battle. Another example is when you are sneaking a few cloaked units around, and you don't want them to give away their position by attacking anything while they travel.
A-Move vs Target Fire/Focus Fire
As another example, let's say you are up against a Protoss army composed of 10 stalkers and 2 colossus. Instead of using the a-move command, it might be more beneficial to kill the 2 colossus first before engaging the stalkers. This isn't limited to army versus army battles.
Let's say you commando-dropped 2 dark templar into a Terran base undetected. You'll definitely want to give them some specific targets instead of letting them pick their own targets. This way, they deal as much damage as possible before getting killed. There is a big difference in results between killing a supply depot and killing a crucial tech structure.
With battlefield experience comes the ability to judge when to target fire and when to a-move.
Stand Your Ground
A much underused command by newcomers, hold position deserves special mention as a fantastic way to prevent units from stupidly running off by themselves. This is especially useful in cases where blocking your front chokepoint with units can prevent a zerg rush from getting in, or when your troops must stay back in order to stay out of enemy fire. Sometimes, having your units in the correct formation and/or position on the map could make or break the game. Hold position makes sure that your army stays the way you want them.
Your To-Do List
It's tiring as hell having to issue so many commands. Ever wonder how the pros always seem to have everything fall into place? One of their secrets is ample use of shift-queuing.
Let's say we're playing Terran again, and we need a supply depot. Select an scv, hold down shift, and then order him to create a supply depot. Without letting go the the shift key, right-click on a mineral patch. What we just did is queue up a series of commands that your trusty scv will follow one after another. He will automatically return to mining resources immediately after finishing the supply depot, leaving you to devote your attention to more important things.
The shift-queue command can save a ridiculous amount of time due to its special properties. It allows you to queue orders for all the units selected, the orders you queue can be anything from construction to movement to special abilities, and most importantly you can come back and add to the list later. Remember that pressing the shift key signals the start of the to-do list, and letting go signals the end.
Here are some good uses of shift-queue:
- Constant supply depots 2 at a time: Select 2 scvs, hold shift, order 2 supply depots. They should each start building a supply depot. Come back any time while the depots are still building, select the scvs, hold shift, order 2 more supply depots, and leave again to go do something else. Rinse and repeat.
Covert ops: Select your secret agent, hold shift, right-click along the path you would like it to take. Allows you to manage other things without having to constantly watch over your commando. Applies to any kind of troop movement as well, especially useful for sneaking air transports around the map for a surprise drop attack.
Tank repositioning: Select a tank, hold shift, unsiege, right-click where you want it to go, siege. This is great to do mid-battle because you won't ever have to painfully wait for the tank to unsiege to give it more orders.
"Smart"-blinking stalkers: Select your stalkers, hold shift, right-click near the edge of a cliff, issue Blink command once targeting the far side of the cliff, right-click (or alternatively a-move) at a spot away from the cliff on the other side, now release shift and watch. Like magic!
Here is a video of it in action: + Show Spoiler +
The Minimap
A special mention needs to be made for that miniature radar on the lower left corner of the screen. All commands not having a specific target (a building, unit, mineral patch, etc.) can be given through this minimap. You can shift-click a flight path around the map for an air unit, or a-move your army to a far away part of the map, saving you the trouble of scrolling the screen long distances. Of course this comes at a cost of reduced precision, but in many cases having a ballpark area for a target is perfectly fine.
Lesson 4: Hotkeys
Running the Shortest Distance
In life there are rarely any shortcuts, but in Starcraft they are everywhere. Efficiency is the name of the game here. Hotkeys are like the oil to your war machine, making it slick and deadly fast. The second you start using hotkeys is the second you start getting good.
Mouse over the icons in the panel on the lower right corner, and you will see every building, unit, ability, and command in the game has a hotkey assigned to it. The way you learn them is simply through using them and building up muscle memory.
Think of it like playing a musical instrument. In the beginning your fingers trip over one another, constantly hit the wrong keys, and you can barely play a tune. As you get used to the feel of it though, your fingers get faster and it becomes almost second nature. Think of your favorite musicians. They barely ever look at the instrument as they play. Your goal in game is to never ever use the bottom right corner of the screen again.
And who knows what will happen when you get good at it. When your friends stare slack-jawed at your sudden prodigy-like piano skills, you can thank Starcraft 2. When they ask how, refer them to your teacher, Jim Raynor of Raynor's Raiders. And when they google it and come back at you with a face full of WTF, well you will have to deal with that on your own. Or you can run away, on a bike, sideways.
Screaming Eagles, the 101st Airborne
Just like the military splits its forces into different groups to efficiently handle difficult operations, so can you. Select any unit or structure (let's say a zergling), hold down Ctrl, hit any of the numbers 1 through 0 at the top of your keyboard, then release Ctrl. You've just assigned a control group. Press the number key you just assigned to select the zergling again. Double-tap that same number key to select and center your screen on the zergling.
If hotkeys are the oil, then control groups are the whirling gears of you machinery. Assigning a unit to a control group is exactly the same as giving a hotkey to that unit. The difference is that these are hotkeys for structures or groups of units already on the battlefield, and that they are customizable on the fly.
Don't want that zergling in control group 1 anymore? Unfortunately you can't delete a control group, but you can override it with a different assignment.
How to be a Control Freak
Here are some unit selection tricks to help make your life easier when creating or changing control groups:
Hold Ctrl and click a unit either on the screen or in wireframes in the bottom center panel. Doing this on the main screen selects all instances of that unit type on or near your screen. Doing this in the wireframe panel selects all instances of that unit type in the current selection group.
Hold Shift and click a unit the same way to remove or add it to your current selection. Drag-selecting units while Shift is held down also works with this.
Hold Ctrl and Shift together and click a unit to remove or add all units of that type to your current selection. Again, click on the main screen vs. clicking a wireframe works in the same as before.
Remember to reassign your new selection of units by pressing Ctrl + # again afterward. The selection is not automatically saved.
Seasoned veterans of Starcraft understand how important it is to have a stable and efficient control group setup. All of them have a core setup that they use throughout their games, often having a specific setup for each race. It's not actually superhuman DNA that allows the pro's to oversee 2-3 separate battles at once, while managing their base, while scouting the enemy for the next move. It's just good use of control groups and hotkeys.
Since there are only 10 control groups available in total, you'll want to make sure that you get the best use out of each assignment. Giving each of your supply depots a number doesn't make much sense compared to giving your barracks, your factory, your starport, and your army each a number so you can check their status as needed.
Here are some general tips on using control groups:
- It's almost always a good idea to hotkey the main Command Center/Nexus/Hatchery at every base. It allows you to check on worker production with a single tap, or jump your screen to that base with a double-tap.
Hotkey production buildings to build armies without scrolling back to your base. Single tap the assigned number(s) to check production, tap the hotkeys for the units you want made, all without moving your screen away from important places.
Sometimes it's useful to hotkey a building in which a crucial, possibly game-changing upgrade is being researched. It allows you to know when exactly it finishes so you can use it (e.g., stim pack, blink, burrow), or if you can immediately start another one (e.g., level 2 attack right after level 1 finishes).
Multiple hotkeys for your army can be very helpful. If you have one army fighting on the western side of the map, and another fighting on the eastern side, having both armies together on one hotkey makes it difficult to control either group. Similarly, in a big fight, having important units like colossus or high templar on a separate hotkey makes controlling them and using their abilities much easier. For instance, as Protoss try having your main army - including colossus - hotkeyed to one number, and then having just colossus hotkeyed to another.
Whenever performing a sneak attack or drop, always try to give a hotkey to those units for quick access.
Always hotkey your first scout. It could mean the difference between seeing a rush coming and not seeing it, which could lead to all kinds of rage.
Eye in the Sky
There is just one last thing to go over and we're done: location hotkeys.
Scroll your screen to some far off place on the map, hold Ctrl and tap any F-key from F5 through F8. Now scroll your screen away and tap that key again. These location hotkeys aren't actually anywhere near as important as what we've already discussed so far, but their usefulness can't be denied. Common places on the map to hotkey are your production centers (your main mass of barracks/gateways/upgrade buildings/etc), your main rally point (for Shift-adding fresh troops to your main control groups), and places your want to attack or your opponent is attacking (if you want to hit an enemy base from a certain angle, a-moving across the minimap is nowhere near as precise as tapping F5 to that location and a-moving exactly where you want to go).
Here Be Pirates
Thank you for making it this far. You are a true warrior and a scholar.
I regret to inform you that we must now leave safety behind, and set sail into the bloodied waters of Battle.net. I beg of you to have a good night's sleep, and tomorrow I will tell you everything. I will sing you tales of magical water in the six pools, glistening gates at the 4 corners of the world, and ferocious proxies who appear out of the gloom to rob you of everything, even your dignity. In the next few sections, I will talk about strategy and why following a build order doesn't make you a nameless computer bot.
Deployment: Onto the Battlefield
Lesson 5:
