EPTSo how is this supposed to work exactly?
Sim city, particularly in the PvZ matchup, is very useful. A lot of builds become much stronger when proper building placement is utilized. 1 gate expand in particular almost is impossible to execute without having a wall to your natural. So with this thread, I don't intend to teach you every possible useful building placement location (I will show a few though), but more so provide a basis that you can use to construct walls accordingly.
What is the build grid?:
Basically it is a feature within starcraft two that adds basically a grid to the playable area so you can see how buildings interact.Having this enabled allows for a much easier time to construct building layout that is without holes.
If you don't have this featured enabled, here is a short explanation of how to do so and what you should see.
How to enable:
+ Show Spoiler +
If you open up the options menu and click on the Gameplay tab, you will see an option to enable the build grid.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/XhsSD.jpg)
Now if you go back into the game and try to make a building, you will notice that your buildings are outlined with a light brown grid when you try to place another building.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tjfw4.jpg)
The building you are intending to place, is surrounded by a white grid.
Now if you go back into the game and try to make a building, you will notice that your buildings are outlined with a light brown grid when you try to place another building.
The building you are intending to place, is surrounded by a white grid. Now that we have that enabled, lets go over how the grid itself works exactly.
What do all these lines mean?
So using another screenshot of the grid in action, let me explain what this does for you:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GeHOx.jpg)
- Brown Squares: These squares indicate locations where you cannot place buildings. Ramps, non-buildable/pathable terrain, places with buildings there already, areas with creep, for expansions that are too close to minerals.
- Green Squares: These show the amount of space that your building is going to take up. For our purposes, our buildings will be usually 2x2 or 3x3 in terms of size though obviously bases would be much larger than this.
- Clear Squares: These are areas where you can place your buildings. Empty space.
Cool, so with that information in hand, lets focus on how we can use this to our advantage.
What to do about buildings?
So the way the build grid works is that buildings that are touching sides in the build grid prevent unit movement through them. For example:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wQpvM.jpg)
The white circles show where the buildings are connected by the sides of the hexes, which prevent units from moving through them. This is important because in many cases, an attempted sim city will end up not working due to a mistake in placement. Also note that the build grid's brown hexes provide a reference point on where to place my first building. Parts of the terran that are not buildable on, are often areas that are not pathable in terms of being able to run through.
Buildings connected by corners will not prevent all units from moving through them. When this happens, units that are 1x1 in size will still be able to pass through, larger however units will not. Shown below:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/riKkN.jpg)
The red circle shows where the mistake in the placement was. It is highly important that if you wish to leave a gap in your wall so you can leave a zealot there or move around more quickly. Leave a full one hex gap. DO NOT connect buildings by corners. This small space allows for zerglings to easily run by unmolested, and nobody likes unmolested zerglings.
So keep in mind that the buildings need to be connected by their sides in the build grid in order to provide a good seal.
How to secure your ramp using buildings:
So basically, in PvZ, you want to be able to secure your ramp in such a way that you can wall off using a zealot and use it as a gate. Cool, there are a couple ways to do this. The first and most common kind is using 2 3x3 buildings to leave a one hex gap at your ramp. Here's an example of that:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MWqfg.jpg)
The white circle indicates where the two buildings are connected by the hex sides, allowing for a seal. Keep in mind when doing this wall at your ramp, your buildings should only be touching by one hex side. The thing regarding hex corners I mentioned earlier is an easy mistake to make here, be careful!
Another wall off that is pretty common is the pylon/gate(or gates) wall. This requires just a pylon and a gate to create. Shown below:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Jzctb.jpg)
In this situation, both the pylon and the gate should be hugging the ramp. Also, placing the zealot properly with this wall is a real pain, so keep that in mind. I added in an optional point in this placement style that I think is kind of important. When constructing a wall, if your zealot is flanked by two buildings instead of a building and unpathable terrain, it prevents an extra zergling from hitting him. The bottom right setup in the above example is one way to achieve this kind of wall. You can achieve the same thing using a standard wall off as well by placing another pylon a hex away from your building that is not touching your ramp and moving your zealot back to block it. The build grid should be intuitive enough to figure it out without a screenshot
.Now that our ramp is secure, we can start to focus on securing our natural.
The great wall of nexus:
So you've decided to not carrier rush the zerg and would like to secure your natural. Let's see what building placements can help with that. Generally speaking most maps have a natural that is close enough to your ramp so that you can setup a sim city from your ramp to your expo nexus. This forces zerglings to run around your wall and nexus to swing into your main. This is really useful since your stalkers and sentries can sit behind the wall and take pot shots at the lings while they are trying to close the gap. This is fairly straightforward on most maps. Basically you want a pylon in such a position so that within its radius, a straight line can be formed from the outer edge of your ramp, to your nexus. Seen below:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3Npjw.jpg)
In this particular sim city, I did not leave a gap for my zealot. Had I wanted to do so all I would need to do is shift my second gate down by one hex. The build grid is really helpful in terms of being able to achieve the preferred building placement. I would also like to comment that it is best to keep your pylon as far back from potential attackers as possible most of the time. If you would like to use a pylon instead of a gateway in a sim city, make sure that you have another pylon to power the structures in case the one that is part of the wall goes down. I do this on metal in the pictures, but these ideas can be applied to all maps, give it a shot!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/sjs1r.jpg)
Note the stargate in production, this is a normal part of a nexus cancel carrier rush build. Oh, and the lings are being shot at from safety thanks to the wall.
I'd also like to state that these concepts also apply to forge expands. Here is an example of what I consider the most optimal building placement with Nexus First/Forge expand:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hY9K6.jpg)
Note that the plyon is safe and further back. The cannon could be moved back further as well if desired, but keeping it forward is better imo. The key point is to avoid using a pylon as a part of your wall when doing a forge expand.
Now that you've got a few basic ideas, go apply them!
Building placement on a City-Scale:
With the build grid enabled and a basic understanding of sim city, you can use this to shut down movement in parts of the map and force engagements out of your opponents. Here are just a few examples, if you have any that pop out, feel free to share them and I will add the screenshots to the OP:
+ Show Spoiler +
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/AtOjS.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/kIMP6.jpg)
These kinds of sim cities limit zerg army movement. You can force engagements or create chokes for better ones. It also can prevent the zerg from just retreating if you catch his army on the other side of the sim city.
Anyway, that's all I have for tonight, going to update this a bit tomorrow.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JG0eeh.jpg)
