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Current version: 1.1 - 04.01.2012
please check the second post for the update log!
Welcome, friend - stay a while and listen!
The internet in general and especially Team Liquid offer a vast majority of guides, builds and strategy discussion. Players of every level try to contribute something to the huge pool of knowledge, branding a baneling bust with their name or stirring up a new discussion over topics like the 1-1-1, 6pools or the strength of marines.
Take a look at those threads – you’ll find giant posts from players that are discussing the pros and cons of small adjustments in builds and most of those posts contain true points and knowledge about the game.
On the other side there are a lot of players from the higher leagues, preaching that the only thing you need to worry about is the clean execution of whatever you like. Where does this disparity come from?
Simple. Knowledge is safety, safety is confidence and confidence is victory.
But, my dear reader, maybe you can relate to a good friend of mine? He picked up SC2 a couple of days ago and after his first few games he got placed in silver, eager to prove his worth he went on to Team Liquid and began to dig through the strategy section – 2,500 threads later he knew basically everything about anything but sadly his head was overflowing with knowledge and he began to overthink anything. Instead of simply going for a nicely executed 1 Gate Expansion in PvT as he used to he tried to correctly identify the opponents’ opener and fire up the correct response. The problems that arose from that were simple – he was too hesitant, thinking far too long instead of doing what’s necessary. This leads to situations where he has maybe (but only maybe) picked the correct opener but the simple fact that he’s not used to it and begins it far too late gets him to a point where he has far too few units, economy and/or tech to handle the situation he wanted to ace.
As a Grandmasters player, an experienced coach (100+ different students, 300+ hours of SC2 coaching) and as a friend who tries to help the guys out that he likes I always wanted to achieve a goal: to simplify the basics and the strategy aspects to a level where they are easy to apply and a useful tool in everyday ladder.
Disclaimer: English is not my first language so it might be a bit bumpy here and there, if there is any grammar or spelling mistake that boggles you then please send me a pm so I can correct it <3!
![[image loading]](http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/7572/victoryexcitesme.jpg) Yay ^_^
We all know it - the feeling when your opponents last base falls and you know that you are only a couple of seconds away from the sweet taste of victory. The enemies army is shattered, his bases crushed and all of his hopes annihilated.
But there are no decisions to be made in these joyful seconds - because of that we have to focus on the time before the score screen, we have to think about what actually leads up to a victory.
When I talk to my students about their games then I often hear some of those quotes:
- “I won this big engagement and decided the game afterwards!”
- “My build simply countered his build”
- “I got caught in a bad position”
- “His Colossi DESTROYED my marines in seconds”
This is a very scientific graph, showcasing something that I realized when I was talking with the players that I coached in my career: the longer a game goes on, the blurrier it gets in regards to the knowledge about why they lost a match.
The reason for that is simple: it's easy to realize that your spawning pool was late when you got tworaxed, the conclusion that a second bunker would have been helpful to hold a rush is easy to make and so on and so forth. Regularly there will be only a handful of mistakes and a very limited amount of possible decisions in a short game. An example? There you go:
I wanted to FFE in PvZ on Tal-Darim Altar.
I sent out one scouting probe that randomly stumbled over 6 zerglings in the middle of the map while it tries to get to the last spawn position. I'm already at 17 supply , forge and pylon at the front, no other buildings started yet.
Deciding that I need to wall-off I try to get enough buildings up to close the wall while cutting probes, but I'm unable to do so, the zerglings get into my base and I lose so many workers and mining time that I have to surrender.
What could I have done differently?
- Send out a second scouting probe to find him earlier
- If I scout him late then a pylon at my main nexus and a cannon there
- If I scout him early then I can cut probes at 14/15, get my wall up and be safe
See? Thats a simple conclusion for a 5 minute game, but now try to imagine such a writeup for a game of 10, 15 or 20 minutes - it quickly gets laaaarge with all the different choices that we can make and that is where the strategy part gets complicated, because the last mistake in a game isn't neccessarily the one that lost us the whole match - if we lose a huge battle and die afterwards then our loss could be caused by unit control, lacking units, the composition being wrong, lacking reinforcements, and so on and so forth - as you can see there are a lot of different possibilites that can be spread out over the course of the whole game.
And this is where it gets complicated. Have you ever read a thread in this forum where somebody wanted his replay analyzed? Take 20 players on the same skilllevel, everybody will point out something different in a 10 minute game, will have another way to approach a certain situation - this is the beauty of a complex game but also something that is frightening when you lack the knowledge and the general idea of how to look at something.
Lets simplify it, shall we?
![[image loading]](http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/4650/mineralpatch.jpg) Minerals, #1 reason for war
(Only rivaled by vespene gas)
Lets face it, Starcraft II is very macro oriented - this translates into the simple fact that harvesting minerals/gas and spending them is the most important fact of the game. Harvesting in itself is more or less easy - you begin the game with 6 workers, build more of them and enjoy automining, the more complex part is spending.
When I say spending then I don't mean the process of pressing a button, placing a building or recruiting a unit, what I mean is making the decision what to spend your hard earned valuables on - and when to buy something.
I am pretty sure that you have seen a game of Starcraft II where it felt as if a player is nigh invincible while setting up a huge timing push - think about White-Ra taking a quick third base against a terran, deflecting his attacks with sweet storms and overwhelming his opponent after 12 minutes with his strong economical advantage. Think about IdrA, building 70 drones in the first minutes of the game just to unleash a storm of Zerg units as soon as his economy is fueled.
What makes this so impressive is not the way how they play the game - sure, their mechanics are good but its not so hard to execute a clean early game with constant injects, steady worker production and not getting supply blocked. What is impressive is the way they assess the situation. IdrA knows with how many workers he gets away, White-Ra knows exactly how many units he needs to deflect attacks and every other good pro-gamer has a general idea of when he needs which things.
And this is the critical point. In a game without an enemy we would spend our first ~8 minutes only developing our economy, expanding aggressively and producing workers as quickly as possible - after that we could tech up to the highest tier in the blink of an eye and begin to muster our army to be maxed with a high tech army shortly thereafter.
This doesn't work because, you might have guessed it, our opponent is also spending his money - probably on things that destroy our peaceful villages before our laid-out plan can fully take off. This alone forces us to make decisions - we have to pull funds away from our economy, need to spend some more on our defenses and suddenly our mapped out timings collapse - we are still at two bases at 8 minutes, our tech comes far to late because we have to get a bunch of sentries to be safe and as a result we are at 120 supply where we intended to be maxed out.
And this is how you win games. You need to know when you can invest all of your money into economy, you have to realize when army is needed and the correct tech structures should be constructed as well. And this makes Starcraft II a game of spending and pacing. The biggest challenges are to know when and how to use your money.
This obviously differs from strategy to strategy and when you read a Guide then there'll be a lot of things covered (i.e.: "How to react to a 3-Rax", "Measures against 1-1-1", "Defending quick Colossi pushes") and a lot of guidelines when to invest in upgrades, how many workers to get and when you need to produce units.
Whats the problem with that? Take a look at this excerpt about chess:
Chess is infinite: There are 400 different positions after each player makes one move apiece. There are 72,084 positions after two moves apiece. There are 9+ million positions after three moves apiece. There are 288+ billion different possible positions after four moves apiece. There are more 40-move games on Level-1 than the number of electrons in our universe. There are more game-trees of Chess than the number of galaxies (100+ billion), and more openings, defences, gambits, etc. than the number of quarks in our universe!
- Chesmayne
- Source
Can you imagine how many possible scenarios there are 10 minutes into a game of Starcraft II? Far too many to cover them with any guide. Its up to the player to make these decisions and even if he has a goal - like tinkering up a timing push at 12 minutes - it is still his duty to get there as efficiently as possible, to squeeze out the extra supply to make the attack as strong as possible or to survive against any onslaught.
Lets conclude this section:
Winning in Starcraft II relates to our ability to pace the spending of our money. We need to stay alive while getting a strong economy and the neccessary tech as quickly as possible.
INTERMISSION
Why mechanics are important![[image loading]](http://img859.imageshack.us/img859/4152/idleworkers.jpg)
Take a look at the picture above - seems to be familiar? As we concluded a few lines ago Starcraft II is all about our ability to spend our money, we need to be able to pay for what we want while also buying enough units to stay alive. This makes it so important to have good mechanics and a good hygiene when it comes to building workers, using them, not getting supplyblocked and so on and so forth.
Whenever you do a small mistake in one of these sections you are gifting a free advantage to your opponent. You either don't get as many minerals as possible, fall behind in economy, don't get as many units, or, to put it simply, get damaged without the need for your opponent to use his own units.
We all know that nobody likes the sentence "macro better" but good mechanics make a holy difference because it's not so important if you deploy the correct strategy - when the damage you are dealing to yourself because of lacking mechanics is huge enough, then not even a counter strategy will cut it.
I made this conclusion back in the day when I was playing Brood War and as I wasn't as involved in the internet or any e-sports community back in the days I had to come up with solutions myself. I quickly realized that I could group my investments into three categories: economy, technology and army.
We have to clarify each of the three categories before we can delve deeper into the theory of this approach, so lets go ahead and take a look at the three ways of spending money.
Economy describes your ability to generate minerals, gas and units.
So, in conclusion, economy is your ability to create and maintain a strong army, consisting of the following tasks:
- Build a strong worker count
- Harvest minerals efficiently (Splitting your workers correctly on different bases)
- Gather Gas
- Expand
- Create enough buildings to produce units/get upgrades
You should immediately realize something important: Yes, all of those tasks actually help you on long terms, but they lack the ability to save you in case of imminent danger. Having buildings that produce units or do research is nice, but the actual usage of those buildings falls into the other categories.
So in a way this works like a bank account - you invest money for later on, sacrificing imminent strength (like early harassment) for a much stronger situation in a couple of minutes. This makes it obvious that we'd actually want to invest as much and as quickly into this category as possible to get a strong lead in the first minutes.
But the downfall of this is already woven into the last paragraph: "they lack the ability to save you in case of actual and imminent danger". When we're playing on a map on our own, only building workers and expansions, Pokebunnystyle, then its quite simple to max out in 10-11 minutes, but if you'd do something like this in a real game, your opponent would probably show up at some point and kill you.
Technology describes your ability to unlock high tier units and research upgrades.
![[image loading]](http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5346/hightier.jpg) Someone called for a gamechanger?
One of the most important tasks in Starcraft II is choosing the correct techpath and following it through as quickly as neccessary. One of the most fun examples of this would be a 4vs4, where you defeat two of the four opponents just to get overrun by mass marines + medivacs because your basic units army lacks splash damage to deal with the strong terran force.
This can lead up to the point where one single unit decides if you are winning or losing (One Infestor with full energy to kill a large bunch of marines, two good storms, a well placed siege tank).
And, again, this leads us to a point where we have to decide to draw funds away from our army to strengthen our position later on. Infestors can be quite costly, a factory with a techlab and siege mode are huge investments for the early stages of the game but the trade-off can be quite significant if we manage to survive and one of those high tier units can heavily outperform a basic unit in cost efficiency to make up for the spent money (Wasn't there a 50-kill cloaked banshee in a GSL TvZ?).
Upgrades are a simple and straightforward way to enhance your army. For a set amount x your whole army gains strength. There is a sweet overview for the critical strength of upgrades which should open your eyes on why it's a great idea to invest in them.
Another important point with upgrades is the simple fact that they take a long time to be researched. This leads us to the point that we want to invest in them as quickly as possible, even when we don't have a way to profit off of them in the moment we begin our upgrades (best example would be Liquid'HerOs FFE, which begins +1 Attack when there's no zealot on the field to ensure that it finishes as soon as the own timing attack is supposed to hit).
Army describes your ability to muster up an army and use it.
Okay, so, you have a strong economy, enough buildings to pump out units and even your first upgrades are started - what to do with the leftover money?
Units! After all, this is war, isn't it?
Army behaves slightly differently than the other two pillars in the sense that an army's worth is nearly immediate (except for Ultralisks) - building a unit is a quick process and your building capacity is only limited by your economy, remember?
The approach on how much money is neccessary to spend on army highly depends on your overall strategy. If you are playing a timing push or an all-in then you obviously need to maximize your army value at the time of the timing push, which often revolves around the early production of units.
When you are simply trying to play a macro game then your goal is to keep the value of your army as small as possible to make sure, that you can spend the larger amount of your money on technology and economy.
But your army does more than only consuming your money and winning battles for you, take a look at this:
![[image loading]](http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/9867/xnte.jpg) funny subtitle
Your army, which includes all non-worker-units that you can build, has also the important task of scouting for you - It increases your out-of-game ressources (Which means ressources that you need but that aren't tracked by the game interface) like map awareness, informations about the plans of your opponents and how many automatons run around the map.
In case of a fight it's also your duty to maximize its efficiency which means that you need a good position to fight in, should use all your abilities as well as possible and generally do everything possible to make sure that you get the better end of the battle. As fighting a good battle is a guide on its own I won't touch that topic here. If anybody has a good link to include, then please pass it on to me - if there's nothing showing up then I will try to write my own article about at at some point in the future.
All of this seems pretty simple and straightforward, right? Good! It is very important that we have a clear idea on how the different aspects of our financial plan work. This will enable us to easily map our gameplan and alternate it depending on the things we scout - lets take a look at some simple examples!
Why fast expansions work
Allright, so, lets approach this with our ETA-Concept. Whats the actual idea that we want to realize with a fast expansion?
Economy - Invest a lot
Technology - Unlock a key technology
Army - Invest as much as neccessary
We can translate this into something like this:
E +++
T ++
A +
As we can see, we have to invest a lot of money in our economy (350 - 400 on the Hatch/Nexus/CC) and, more importantly, a crazy amount of money on workers (16-22 x 50 = 800 - 1100 minerals).
After that has happened we most regularly want to invest into one key technology and use our strong economy to use this one technology to the max (2 Colossi Push, a strong MMM-Attack, quickly building up a muta flock).
This already leads us to the point that all this crazy teching and investing into a lot of workers will strongly diminish our ability to build a fearsome army. Because of that we need to make certain trade-offs to be able to still have enough to hold on to our lives.
Examples of this include:
- White-Ras famous HT-Expansion where he uses High Templars to quickly grab a third base while still being able to handle bio attacks exceptionally well. This works because the initial investment in technology may be high but as soon as he's established the templar archive and researched storm he'll be able to produce 50/150 units that nearly always kill far more than their own worth, enabling him to close the gap in army value.
- Utilizing a lot of spine crawlers - they can barely walk and only attack a player when Nestea has them but they are insanely cost effective because of their large pool of HP and their relatively high damage.
- Using Bunkers and repair to bolster the strength of a small army while we build up all the neccessary tech and production buildings (Terran production is special in the sense that it needs a lot more time to be set up compared to Protoss and Zerg, mainly because their building time is Building time of the building + building time of the addon)
As you can see we are either using a strong tech (high templars) or our defenders advantage with units that excel when holding a position but which are unable to be thrown at our opponent at any given point (spine crawlers and bunkers). Apart from that, every race has several defensive perks that they can deploy to further strengthen their resilience (sentries, transfuse on spine crawlers, repair on bunkers).
Now, lets turn the board and take a look at the options of our opponent:
As soon as he scouts the fast expansion he'll be able to conclude the course of the next few minutes. He obviously has no clue which technology will be deployed or whats the exact goal of the opponent in terms of army compositions or timing attacks but he knows that he has at least a margin of 5-6 minutes in which he will not be attacked.
With this knowledge he can adjust his own ETA, depending on how he wants to approach the situation - offensive or defensive.
Offensive:
Economy - Only get a basic economy going (16 workers on minerals, 3-6 on gas)
Technology - Only unlock the neccessary units for the attack
Army - As much as possible
Following this he can tinker up a strong timing attack that should hit at a time where our opponent is still busy to pump all of his funds in the long term parts of his plan. This will result in a weak army and only a couple of the advantages we discussed above to keep him alive - So, simply put, we need a crowbar to disable our opponents defenses and a gun to kill him.
Examples? There you go:
- Ghost pushes, designed to render sentries useless and then bumrush a weak protoss army with a huge ball of marines and marauders to secure early victory. This is especially popular on maps like Shakuras Plateau and Antiga Shipyard where a lot of protosses try to use the ramp for defensive maneuvers.
- Infestor-Ling-Timing-Attacks that hit before the first colossi are out, designed to overcome the sentry defense with infested terrans and using any breach to stream zerglings in that can quickly dispatch the common Sentry-Stalker-Composition as soon as a favourable position is no longer a given fact.
- Warpgate-All-Ins, often coupled with either a smart proxy pylon or a warp prism to render static defenses useless and overwhelm the opponent at a position where his defensive measures are worthless (i.e.: streaming units in a terrans main who only has a bunker and four marines in front to defend against small stalker forces)
Defensive:
This is where the fun begins. Regularly you want something like this:
Economy - Invest a lot
Technology - Unlock a key technology
Army - Invest as much as neccessary
As you can see, this is an exact mirror of the opponents ideas but he obviously has a head start on this when you try to simply react to what he saw after beginning with, say, a 3-gate expansion.
Because of that we have to hold true to our own ideas. He wants to expand quickly, tech up as soon as possible and skip defenses? Then you should do your small army investment as early as possible so you can apply some pressure with a small army of units.
We regularly said that you want to prolong army investments as long as possible but in this special case we are switching things up, getting our army quickly, trying to force our opponent to a reaction - because he cannot know if we are going to follow up a small set of units with more units, he simply has to react, get more bunkers/spines/cannons or other things that will slow down his tech.
This will give you the edge in the sense that you can try to get back into the macro affairs - while he struggles to get his defenses up, which slows down his overall process, you can quickly pump as much into your own economy to catch up to him.
So when you had an offensive opening in mind either follow through with it or apply some soft pressure while expanding for yourself.
If you had a defensive opening in mind then you obviously simply can follow through with it while trying to figure out the exact plan of your opponent (So you don't get stuck with a marauder/hellion push against a lot of void rays).
What scouting has to offer with the ETA-Concept
When I scout an opponent then I'm always using my ETA to conclude what I should do to react to it in the bounds of my options. Let me try to explain:
Lets say I have played a FFE (No Stargate, just a Forge, a Gateway and a cannon, starting quick +1 weapons) against a Zerg player, its 6 minutes into the game and I try to figure out what hes doing. Up to this point my ETA looks like this:
With that in mind I try to figure out his own ideas, for the sake of pacing in the guide lets limit it to two different scenarios:
Roach-Ling-All-In:
When I send a first zealot out and let it walk directly into his main base then I regularly stumble either over a lot of workers which lets me conclude that we are going to enjoy a macro dance or I'm actually seeing a couple of roaches, happily marching towards me. If I see the roaches then his ETA looks like this:
As we can see I'm ahead in economy by a huge, huge margin but he has a slight technology advantage as he has unlocked roaches, which are really strong in this situation and he has mustered up quite a lot of roaches and will shortly thereafter build a lot of speedlings to follow this up. Because of this I know that I have to adjust my own ETA to something like this:
If I had started with a stargate then this would be easy, thicken up my wall, chronoboosting void rays and holding it like this but as he's already marching towards me I need short term solutions and, as we remember, there is only one pillar that offers short-term-solutions: army. Because of that I begin to use the only tech thats useful to me and spam cannons + sentries to muster up a quick defense.
After I've done that my opponent will regularly try to macro up behind it if he realized that I scouted it - if I don't scout it then I regularly just die unless I'm lucky.
And this is where the factor comes in that we discussed earlier. I have no clue if he will build 3, 5 or 15 roaches to bust me, this means that I have to take the gamble and invest a lot of money into cannons and other defensive measures and if I do that then he has the simple option to double expand behind that and up his worker count which will give him the option to close the economy gap to me thanks to the pressure he has applied.
Macro - Quick third
When I see a quick third on his part then his ETA will look like this:
and it will gradually get more and more pluses in the E-section, barely none in the T-section and, when neccessary a lot of pluses in the army section to throw back my attacks.
This has some serious implications on my own strategy: I either need to quickly expand again on my own, utilizing a lot of defensive measures to be safe against his waves of low-tier-units that he can deploy when neccessary or I try to apply enough pressure to cancel his third. In this special case that is simply doable because of the way his ETA is mapped out.
We all know that +1/+0 Zealots quickly dispatch of large +0/+0 zergling groups because of the critical upgrade advantage which reduces the amount of swings a zealot needs to kill a zergling from 3 to 2, reducing kill time by 33%. This means that my army will be perfectly fine to kill his low tier army, which means that I can modify my ETA in a fashion like this:
Everything I do is to build more and more workers and warping in zealots as soon as possible, which will a.) strongly hurt his economy and will make it unable for him to invest more into that sector but also b.) slows down my own technological advance.
Fighting the turtle
![[image loading]](http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/8772/macrooverflow.jpg) No major attacks happened up to this point
Here's a riddle - is this a good situation for the green player?
+ Show Spoiler [Solution] +No, probably not. Try to think about it like this - the ETA of the green player looks like this: while the terrans ETA looks like this: From the terrans perspective there is no use in trying to take a macro game and because of that he's simply trying to tinker up the strongest all-in-attack that he can muster up which will result in a strong push with a technology of his choice (As it is TvP it would probably something along the lines of MMMG) - if you, as the green player, now invest so much into economy then you take the danger of getting overrun because yes, you are in general more minerals and gas worth than him, but his army is still superior. When you already are ahead in one aspect then its often times a good idea to dump some money into other aspects. - You control the map? Grab another base to strengthen your economic part
- You are already one base up on a player thats caged in on two bases? start to get army and tech, you don't need 2+ bases over him, as soon as you are economically ahead, you are fine.
- You have unlocked critical tech? Either use it offensively and spend your whole money on army for a timing attack or hold your ground with those high-tier-units while expanding agressively.
As you can see its rarely adviceable to push one of your advantages further and further, instead you should try to gain an advantage in one section and then use this advantage to push ahead of your opponent in a second sector of the game.
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Conclusion
All of this basically comes down to the ETA-thought, it reveals weak spots of my opponent (I can outlast him if his economy is weak, use technological advantages (like critical upgrades or hier tier units) against someone relying on basic units or overwhelm/outexpand someone who lacks the punch to hurt me - and I can make all of these conclusions quickly, on the spot and without the necessity to plan out every little option my opponent can do.
This section will be expanded further and further so if there are questions from your side or scenarios that you would like me to explain, then please go ahead and shoot the question, I'd be glad to help out!
Well, this is it. I took a long time to write this while lying in hospital and I really hope that the time paid off. I haven't achieved anything I wanted to achieve but I'm confident that this is a good start.
I will probably revamp this whole blob of text a couple of times as I've already done before - if there is anything that you would like to be cleared up or changed then please let me know and I will try to work it into one of my revisions! 
I'm grateful for the time you've invested to read this and I sincerely hope that it has helped you with your endeavours to be a better gamer.
Huge shoutouts to Neoreon, who made all the sweet headers and to Shiona, who took her time to correct a lot of my silly english mistakes.
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Changelog:
04.01.2012 - 1.1 Added in several corrections pointed out by Buddhist and groms - Thank you <3!
03.01.2012 - 1.0 Posted the Guide
So excited that I've posted this.
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Wow great write-up, will post more feedback when i've got time to read it all
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very well written guide i like pictures and clearness of the ETA concept to explain certain situations, thank you
yes i read it all
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Fantastic guide, really gives a lot of perspective on the "core" of the game, without getting into the ultra specific details like maps/spawn locations/openers.
A must read!
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i love this guide it really applies to everyone the way you talk
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This guide is fantastic.
A friend of mine was having a really hard time analyzing his games and getting a winning attitude; will definitely be showing this to him!
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I like the guide in general. The concepts are obviously relevant and it is good to think in the terms of Economy (Infrastructure/Facilities), Technology, and Army. The scoring system confused me a little and I'm not sure if I find it directly applicable. But that's probably just me.
Nice write-up!
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Awesome read. Wish you to get out of the hospital soon
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This is really really straightfoward and a good way of looking at it, I'm going to make all the people I'm helping to improve in this game read this
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Good read. Probably gonna make some of my lesser skilled friends read this
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On some real talk, this is an epic, well put together, easy to understand guide that I think everybody can get something out of.
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Awesome write-up. Shared with my friends & on twitter, because this totally deserves a read, so please don't be shy and keep your guides coming
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Great article!
This is really the foundation for macro decision making.
Now if only someone wrote a good guide on micro/engagement decision making thats all you need to go far in sc2. If you ever watch DeMuslim streaming (who imo has top notch decision making both macro/micro) he wins games without the opponent making any "big" mistakes.
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This. Is. So. Good.
I feel like it has been discussed a lot, though. Day[9] already made those points a long time ago, and recently he resumed taliking a lot about it (main theme in his rapid reads for protoss). You put a lot of effort, though, and it is very well written and I loved your examples.
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Great Read! Applies to all players :D
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On January 04 2012 02:32 ShaneFeit wrote:
Great article!
This is really the foundation for macro decision making.
Now if only someone wrote a good guide on micro/engagement decision making thats all you need to go far in sc2. If you ever watch DeMuslim streaming (who imo has top notch decision making both macro/micro) he wins games without the opponent making any "big" mistakes.
I totally agree with you. If we had a guide about Micro/Engagement like this, everyone would be Master Leage LOL.
Thank you a lot for your effort it really helped me understanding the game better and why i lost some games in the past.
It was a really nice read and even if it was such a big guide i read it complete, but the +++ confused me alot. Do you have a specific concept about how many + you wrote or did you just pick a random count to demonstrate your theory better?
Vote for a pin at the top of the Strategy Forum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Great stuff. At least some real high level thoughts unveiling the abstract principles SC2 builds on ..
Some constructive critics:
I'd add Production as a separate building block. So ETPA instead of ETA. Production allows to produce an army in case and defines how fast you can switch from E+++++ to A+++++. Maybe rename to Income-Production-Tech-Army.
Additional one might think about adding "Information" as a separate investment category, as gaining information about your opponent frequently needs an investment (sac'ing probes, ovies, getting pure scouting "pokes") especially early on. Also some army units are built mostly because of their scouting abilities (e.g. early air).
EDIT: Most tech (upgrades) can be seen as a (future) Army+Production investment as you get more army power with same production and economy later on. Which leads to the question when it makes sense to sacrifice economy investments for tech investments.
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I really like this post so far. I'll be back with some edits on it as soon as I can finish it all up. Just going to say before I go that you should look at Day[9]'s recent dailies where he looks at the principle of attack, expand, tech, and defend. Those are the possible reactions to anything your opponent does, and it fits nicely with your ETA principle. Might be cool to link it. I'll have more about that later. 
EDIT: Okay I believe that this is part one of the daily I was talking about. This is done from Protoss perspective, but Day[9]'s going to do more and it's also still applicable to your ETA philosophy.
I disagree with one point. You were talking about how, if your opponent fast expands, you should push them. I think that this undermines your ETA philosophy. Pushing is a possibility, yes, but that only puts you ahead in the A. Why not cut your army and expand ASAP to get a better economy? Why not cut army and go for large amounts of tech? You ignore your own points on ETA by demanding an attack in this situation, because the beauty of your three pillars (basically Day[9]'s attack, tech, expand, defend) is that you can chose any one of them to get ahead. You are NOT held to one or the other.
Anyways, I really like this guide and I recommend to any level player. Thanks man.
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you took my words out of my mouth,
exactly this concept was something i had in mind to put into a guide.
Because understanding this is so crucial.
but i think there another factor that you need to add in and that are the Production capabilties.
Economy
Army
Tech
Production
are the 4 important factors in strategy games.
i will just make some ingame examples to make Production point clear.
often players (even at highest levels) will make the mistake that they overcomitt into harassment or the objective to kill an expansion thus lose army (speaking: Trading the enemies economy against his own army value.)
(most basic example are worker pulls during early game to deflect early game aggression)
This can reach moments if you are not aware of production capabilities, that your opponent despite having less economy than you (because of the harass you did to him) can outproduce you in the army department, which will in the end win him the game.
another example is the 4 gate that can only win games because of superior production (not army)
That why you often see good players build up during mid / lategame additional production facilities before army engagement/harass if they know they can fight cost efficiently, because you need the additional production to benefit from the economic lead.
Because your opponent will be forced to spend into army and neither on economy, tech or production.
or the reason why hatch first (Fast 3 hatches) are such a good opening, because of superior production capabilities.
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@anastacia - Thanks, I hope you can stick to that statement after reading it all :-P
@SMMN - Wow, you are a quick reader, thanks for your feedback <3
@Mielius - Thank you! I always had the feeling that a simple way to explain how winning actually works was always missing. And whenever I tried to explain that concept to my students I was searching for words so I guessed it would be a good investment to clarify this for myself ^^
@EU.Pink - Thank you, I'm honored <3!
@Durp - I hope that it'll help him, thanks for your appreciation!
@ShotgunMike - Cool nick! I honestly added in the small thing with the scoring because I felt that the rest of the guide was to confusing - its always interesting to see how much the own thoughts about a guide differs from the readers. I will try to clarify that part in a future revision - Thank you for your feedback
@MegaDancer - Thank you! I'm actually already out of the hospital, I was there around the christmas time and they let me out afterwards. I'm currently regaining my strength, enjoying the medication and so on ^^
@DrKillface - I was scared that its not as to the point as I hoped it would be, glad that you felt this way!
@AceTenRyu - Hope it helps!
@Fleshtiraef - I'm glad! Thanks a lot for reading and providing feedback
@BabyToss! - Thanks as always! I really appreciate it
@ShaneFeit - I'm honored! I feel that good decision making when it comes to micro management and engaging is a lot harder to simplify as the topic of macro management but I have some ideas in mind that I will formulate to an article as soon as I feel ready for it
@TiTanium_ - Glad you liked it! I honestly don't follow Day[9] that much currently because I don't have that much time to spare so I wasn't aware that he explained it as well ^^ Hopefully I can still make some valid points
@merth - I hope so, thank you!
@Sianos - In the hindsight is was a mistake not to explain the score tables more. I will try to clarify it tomorrow, for now lets just say that the number of + follows now scheme, it simply shows who has more in a certain department. I will try to get a simple system to rephrase that, promise!
@Schnullerbacke13 - Thanks a lot! I feel that I've stepped over production a little bit too much, you are absolutely right it is very important. I have briefly mentioned it in my economy section but I have to emphasize it more - I will try to clarify that point more in a future revision that I will probably do tomorrow. I really appreciate your well thought out feedback
(And yes, tech definitely is future armyvalue and this makes it so special - investing a lot of money in, say, early infestors enables you to overpower your enemy with units that are both very cost efficient and powerful, which is one of the foundations to make most early expansion or tech builds work - you sacrifice some early economy to be able to draw funds away from your army later on because you have certain key units that can close the gap in army value. Simply said: you invest 1000 minerals now to kill 3000 minerals in your opponents army later on).
@Nuclease Thanks for going all the way and providing me with the link I will look over it and include a link section for things like this
When it comes to attacking then I was really only providing different scenarios - I'm a very defensive player myself and I wanted to make sure that I'm not only talking about my style of playing. Another problem that arises is the following:
Lets say I begin with a three gate expansion against a terran player who goes for a 1 Rax gasless expansion - in this scenario the terran player already is economically ahead and in a scenario where his macro doesn't slip there is no logical way for me to catch up to his macro level without taking a risk - that can be a quick third base or taunting him. Muster up a small army, kill one of his bunkers with good FFs and draw back - something that will draw funds away from his economy so you have the option to catch up. Against an equally skilled opponent there should be no way for you to win unless you either win the tech-battle or find another way to equalize your economical standing
Your ETA
E ++
T +
A +++
His ETA
E ++++
T +
A +
Its easier for him to pull ahead in E + T because he made no investments that will slow him down while your huge A-Investment won't help you with anything else until you use it to scare him. The same rule applies that is also useful for going to bars: "If you've paid for something, enjoy its benefits" 
So as you said - basically every path is open but in this scenario you are on the move as his long term plans will work better than you own.
@freetgy - Glad you like it thus far
I have to reply the same as I replied to Schnullerbacke - I will try to give production the spotlight that it deserves as I wasn't really giving it the credit it is worth - I will insert it in the next revision. I really liked your example of the hatch first opening, I will use that <3!
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this helped me alot to look at things in a different perspective.I think im not thinking enough while i play , it feels like when i react to something i do something that might be right but not something that i thought of enough.the guideline with the eta concept helps me to cover my eco my tech and my army alot easier. i didnt try it in a game but i will for sure.
thanks for the guide ! :>
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really good guide as allways great to see some quality guides in english of you
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I haven't actually read the OP yet, but I wanted you to know that I totally lost it at the Charlie Sheen header. Well done.
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Alright I see your point. Yeah I just thought you were restricting the ETA paths to attacking in the event that your opponent was early expanding. But if you were just making an example, then that's cool. Just trying to think of something productive to say, you know what I mean? Hahaha anyways, great guide.
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Excellent write up, definitely helped me as a mid-diamond Zerg whose win ratio is directly proportional to game length! I live in constant fear of the 4raxing mass marine early game Terran.
I also want to second how awesome the Charlie Sheen header is.
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This definitely explains why some people cheese, since shorter games means less decisions have to be made and executed.
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Waow there is a lot of stuff to read through, though I am currently high masters I am sure there is a lot of things to learn from this lengthy write-up. I am already liking it, - good work!
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This should be featured. It's awesome
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AWESOME read man, really like the way you put things and its a very clear and concise way of thinking about the game, mucho helpful!
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Wow, amazing guide.
Great write up, this looks very professional.
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Great guide! Cleared up a lot of blurry parts for me as a starting player!
Thanks alot!
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this should be featured on TL
great guide! i've picked up a lot of things i could work on ^^
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Awesome guide, recently demoted from diamond to platinum after a long break from playing, been looking for some good new thoughts to enter into my gameplay.
Most appropriate to put in a picture of Charlie Sheen on winning because there is no one in the world who thinks that they are a winner like Charlie Sheen thinks he is. :D
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First things first, good writeup.
I think that this concept is inherently inside every player, but you've managed to put it into good words.
The easiest situation I can think of is a PvT scenario where you are against a 1/1/1, or any sort of 1 base play against an expanding opponent.
Typically, when your enemy is going for 1 base play and you opted to fast expand, you probably won't be able to fully saturate your natural by the time he engages you, with that being said, through proper scouting and general game sense, you would need to increase your army value (and production capability) to a point where it can at the very least, put up a fight and stall until your extra production kicks in. I mean, this is pretty "standard" in today's starcraft.
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The "Fighting the turtle" part needs to give an idea of the time at the clock. If it's 11:00 then yeah, green dude is going to get stomped. But if it's 36:00 then we're watching a bronze match where one player isn't aware you're allowed to take more than one expansion.
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Very well put, and concise too; also your English is excellent.
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epic, thanks for the effort
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Great great great. I read all the way up to the ETA section (which I know is the meat of the thing) I'll post more once i've read it :
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Thanks for this man! A great read!
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really good simple put out guide. most people in higher leagues already know this, but they just didn't put it into an easy to read format, or just cbb to put the time and effort in. Great guide, now get better and go out of hospital soon
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Looks like an awesome guide. I'll have to finish it tomorrow when i've had sleep and I'm not an add child ^^.
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Great guide! I really liked the first half, breaking things down to Economy Technology and Army was really well done. Adding intangible resources like scouting information, map vision, and positioning into Army was especially eye-opening.
However I thought the second half (Examples) was wishy-washy. It feels like you tried to force those 3 principles into rock-paper-scissors. (Army beats Economy beats Technology beats Army) I think thats a really bad application, because it ignores skill differentials.
For example, I'm Terran playing against Protoss. I decide to open with 1 Rax FE, because I feel most comfortable in the lategame. I see my opponent going Nexus first. What should I do?
According to the last half of your guide, I should punish the Protoss for being more greedy by pumping up Army. What your guide fails to consider is my unique weakness, which is that I'm bad when it comes to early pushes. It also fails to consider my unique strength, which is a really strong lategame (relative to others in my league).
So in my case, it actually makes more sense for me to allow the Protoss to get away with his Nexus first, than it is to punish it. Yes, my opponent will end up with a small economic advantage over me. But I will pay that price 100% of the time in order to ensure that we move to the lategame where I can outclass him.
I suppose you *could* argue that I should try to punish with Army even though terrible at it, in order to improve my weakness. But there's a huge difference between playing to improve and playing to win. (and this is a thread on how to win)
This is especially true on the ladder, where you do not know the individual strengths and weaknesses of your opponents. In my previous example, the Protoss will probably THINK he's ahead by comparing the ETA between us. He'll definitely have more stuff than me. But what he cannot realize is that by moving towards the lategame he's also moving us towards a gamestate where I will overwhelm the small advantage I intentional gave him with my stronger relative skill.
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awesome awesome post!!
only thing i'd like to see included is production capability, macro hatches, extra warpgates, barracks starports etc. its an important thing to manage for late game and timing pushes. i guess id put it in the technology area, but i think its important to note
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What a fantastic read! Thank you for giving me new insights :D
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Really great writeup, only skimmed so far, but will read the rest later. So far really useful!
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This is unbelievable, thank you for sharing it I am going to be referring to it a lot as the knowledge and advice is great. I think it applies to all kinds of players and its extremely useful. Thank you for your time and effort.
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this is really good, thanks.
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Intriguing writeup, though the race blending gets a bit complicated between races. Protoss/Terran sort of mix Technology/Army, and Zerg mixes Economy with Army (building a hatch provides production)
Overall, very nice guide
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This is an excellent approach to the game and I'll be recommending this to lots of my SC2 friends. Thanks!
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Canada5155 Posts
Wow, I haven't seen a guide this well written in a long time. Well done. This will definitely be a reference to point newer players to for a long time.
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On January 04 2012 00:01 Felo wrote:
Changelog:
04.01.2012 - 1.1 Added in several corrections pointed out by Buddhist and groms - Thank you <3!
03.01.2012 - 1.0 Posted the Guide
So excited that I've posted this.
Buddhist? THE buddhist? The one button, flying, frozen, shiving, dancing, Ming killing, Master of Shunpo rogue? I love this guy's movies. If it's him i'm glad he came to SC2.
Anyway, the guide is really great for an average player that wants to understand the game better, good job.
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Holy crap. I'm at work and was only able to skim, but I will definitely go through this guide again and again when I get home, seems pretty spot on.
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Interesting way of framing complex ideas.
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Will you bare my love-children, if you are a man that's okay, I will still cum inside of you though this means you will not have to go through pregnancy!
But seriously I love the guide, it is logical yet I did not seem to recognize it myself.
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On January 04 2012 15:40 RoboBob wrote:
Great guide! I really liked the first half, breaking things down to Economy Technology and Army was really well done. Adding intangible resources like scouting information, map vision, and positioning into Army was especially eye-opening.
However I thought the second half (Examples) was wishy-washy. It feels like you tried to force those 3 principles into rock-paper-scissors. (Army beats Economy beats Technology beats Army) I think thats a really bad application, because it ignores skill differentials.
For example, I'm Terran playing against Protoss. I decide to open with 1 Rax FE, because I feel most comfortable in the lategame. I see my opponent going Nexus first. What should I do?
According to the last half of your guide, I should punish the Protoss for being more greedy by pumping up Army. What your guide fails to consider is my unique weakness, which is that I'm bad when it comes to early pushes. It also fails to consider my unique strength, which is a really strong lategame (relative to others in my league).
So in my case, it actually makes more sense for me to allow the Protoss to get away with his Nexus first, than it is to punish it. Yes, my opponent will end up with a small economic advantage over me. But I will pay that price 100% of the time in order to ensure that we move to the lategame where I can outclass him.
I suppose you *could* argue that I should try to punish with Army even though terrible at it, in order to improve my weakness. But there's a huge difference between playing to improve and playing to win. (and this is a thread on how to win)
This is especially true on the ladder, where you do not know the individual strengths and weaknesses of your opponents. In my previous example, the Protoss will probably THINK he's ahead by comparing the ETA between us. He'll definitely have more stuff than me. But what he cannot realize is that by moving towards the lategame he's also moving us towards a gamestate where I will overwhelm the small advantage I intentional gave him with my stronger relative skill.
In defense of the guide, I don't think your example here is applicable. While it's true you do well by letting the protoss keep the nexus since you're better at the late game, you ARE technically doing a worse strategy. If a toss goes nexus first, it's better to punish it than not and a pro would punish it. You, however, consider yourself better in the late game than the opponents you're matched against on ladder, so you do a bad strategy, on purpose, because you have a better chance at winning that way. This situation is not really something any guide can account for, it has to go with what strategies are superior.
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completely disagree your fighting the turtle picture, as well as the basis of your concept, (the idea is you've fully neglected the resource of time), in fact your ETA doesnt even include time in it. But considering you hit so many key areas and used both logic as well as common sense approaches this is a very good guide to basic understanding of the fundamentals of this game that are widely skipped on.
Edit: I guess you did mention time somewhat at the start of your guide. I think since you've already written an excellent guide you should finish it with information on time after the pillars (because otherwise we have another example of newtonian physics -- A generalization of how things work).
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On January 04 2012 18:13 Exempt. wrote:
completely disagree your fighting the turtle picture, as well as the basis of your concept, (the idea is you've fully neglected the resource of time), in fact your ETA doesnt even include time in it. But considering you hit so many key areas and used both logic as well as common sense approaches this is a very good guide to basic understanding of the fundamentals of this game that are widely skipped on.
As I see it, this is not necessarily true. Any sort of ranking like this almost has to be instantaneous, i.e. this is the situation as this particular moment in time. The ranking you have (in case it’s the scoring system you don’t agree with) might be completely different 0.1 second from now. Time can also be seen in a discrete form, i.e. I aim at attacking once I have this or that advantage (i.e. tech/upgrade advantage). In this case the framework described here could also apply as you use it to predict a future scenario.
It is of course possible to describe and reason upon concepts like this in real/continuous time (the game is a Real Time Strategy game). However, it is not really effective as it might change very quickly (e.g. a whole bunch of upgrades kick in at the same time etc) and you also don’t have the complete information (even if you can know your own situation, you can only guesstimate your opponents situation).
My point is (even though the post might seem to be a bit on the rambling side) that time is an important resource in the game but it does not come easily into a framework like this. The OP might benefit from a discussion on the topic but I’m not sure it would change what is already in there.
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Welcome, friend - stay a while and listen!
So nostalgic ^^
The guide is very clean looking and well organized, but as a masters player I can't say I learned anything. I'm sure this will be good for lower level players, to present them to the concepts they need to be aware of, as explored in this guide.
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On January 04 2012 18:33 ShotgunMike wrote:Show nested quote +On January 04 2012 18:13 Exempt. wrote:
completely disagree your fighting the turtle picture, as well as the basis of your concept, (the idea is you've fully neglected the resource of time), in fact your ETA doesnt even include time in it. But considering you hit so many key areas and used both logic as well as common sense approaches this is a very good guide to basic understanding of the fundamentals of this game that are widely skipped on. As I see it, this is not necessarily true. Any sort of ranking like this almost has to be instantaneous, i.e. this is the situation as this particular moment in time. The ranking you have (in case it’s the scoring system you don’t agree with) might be completely different 0.1 second from now. Time can also be seen in a discrete form, i.e. I aim at attacking once I have this or that advantage (i.e. tech/upgrade advantage). In this case the framework described here could also apply as you use it to predict a future scenario. It is of course possible to describe and reason upon concepts like this in real/continuous time (the game is a Real Time Strategy game). However, it is not really effective as it might change very quickly (e.g. a whole bunch of upgrades kick in at the same time etc) and you also don’t have the complete information (even if you can know your own situation, you can only guesstimate your opponents situation). My point is (even though the post might seem to be a bit on the rambling side) that time is an important resource in the game but it does not come easily into a framework like this. The OP might benefit from a discussion on the topic but I’m not sure it would change what is already in there.
Fair enough but isn't your point that continuous time changes the ETA very quickly in support of my conclusions? Hidden information does weaken it like you said though. But in a more idealistic and less perfectionistic world wouldn't gameplay be more dependent on the fluctuations of ETA instead of it in ETA specific situations in itself?
Looking at the game like you guys are in turn-based chesslike fashion definitely is favorable as it allows for logistical rationalizations but at the same time it's making generalizations on gameplay that aren't in support of time constant fluctuations.
Im interested in your guys opinions that explain these ETA fluctuations from continuous time in a manner different than mine because IMO high-fluctuations make the value of time ever more significant. The point im ultimately making is that this game of starcraft II that we play is very complex (which I think just about everyone agrees with) and is much more difficult than just the idea of ETA pillars.
Will check this in the morning for any interesting ideas ~thanks
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this is SOOOOO wierd. Earlier today in the shower for some reason the idea of categorizing builds based on their investments on, word for word, Tech, army and econ. And then analysing some losses and judging both players' econ, army and tech to decide if the push was good at said time or not, and to conclude if, given the same circumstances were observed in another replay, if i should set up the same timing attack, hit later or go allin immediately, based on what was learned from each catagories progression and the effects it has the game overall.
Cool!
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While reading this, I had no clue english was your second language!
Interesting read, an interesting, nicely simplified thought process to go through when making in game decisions.
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well written posts like this are the reason why i check team liquid daily! Thank you!
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awesome writeup ♥
thank you for the effort i think its going to help people a lot
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Now I win here and I win there.
WINNING!
Tnx for this post
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Dude...you can totally speak/type English with a level of competency I rarely even see native speakers implement. Outstanding for someone with multi lingual abilities, of course, you were certainly helped by the fact that English is in part a Germanic language. Nonetheless! Excellent work. I'll be PM'ing you with some suggestions to make it sound even better as there are a few parts that, while being grammatically correct, simply employ word combinations not really used by competent, high-level native speakers.
In regards to the article itself....just wow. A glistening gem of wisdom in a world of knowledge that is truly vast beyond conception. Those numbers regarding Chess are REALLY eye-opening. I mean, if that number of "moves" are possible at such an early point in the game of Chess (4 moves in) just IMAGINE the numbers involved with SC2? My god...the math involved is...staggering to try and imagine.
Well done and keep up the excellent work. You have decidedly expanded my mind and I look forward to any future endeavors of yours.
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Really interesting guide, fun to see how it fits with what's been said by others, for example Day9 talking about starving an opponent and how that red/green example you mentioned can be ideal if you switch to investing in army and outproducing the red to starve him. Some good fundamentals
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Really fantastic read, mate.
I've always liked the approach of identifying the key aspects of a game and try to focus on them(in this: macro and mechanics) instead of going in over my head and spend too much time reading about what fotm-build is considered OP and how to counter it.
Very insightful
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nice guide! and your english is beautiful, more refined than most of my american friends. cheers!
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Woooow, I read 1/3 of this and it has gotten me to think about my games (I am only Gold).
I will read it all when I gett home, looks great, and I can already say that I will learn from this.
Thank you!
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Nice grammar, great wording, will read again! 10/10
This was really what I needed - been losing a lot lately, knew exactly why but was just to upset to figure out what I could have done differently. Especially the part about not needing to be as many bases ahead as possible as that would could into my army-production capabilities.
Danke fuer den Guide, hat mir echt geholfen
Darf man fragen, warum du im Krankenhaus warst?
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Nice writeup, lots of things to learn here.
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Vatican City State334 Posts
I think any ETA concept needs to really be ETATI to succeed in practice, with Time and Information as equally important resources. The turtle example is kind of silly without the inclusion of the time resource for many reasons.
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To all the positive feedback - thank you <3! It would be too much clutter if I'd name anybody of you, but you know who you are ^.^
I just wanted to mention that I haven't made the Charlie Sheen Header, the awesome Neoreon did it and he's very grateful for all the feedback you give him for that, he's a little genius when it comes to graphics <3
@Zariel - pretty good example. Simply put you only get enough workers to be economically ahead and use this situation to overpower your opponent with basic units
@Lotar - Good point - for this example its meant to be early in the game I hoped that the "No major battle has occured" and the fact that theres no major army blob for green on the minimap should be good pointers, but I guess I have to make that point more clear.
@CrazyF1r3f0x - Thank you! It always feels clumsy to write something lengthy in a foreign language, I'm glad it came out well
@RoboBob - Your point is absolutely valid but your personal preference should already be reflected by your opening choice And there is a huge differenc between 1Rax Expand and 3 Gate Expand vs 1 Rax Expand because the 3 Gate is designed to either hold 2/3Rax-Aggression while expanding or applying pressure yourself so its a situation where you are naturally ahead in a macro game, that doesn't apply for your 1Rax-Expansion
So, yes, please hold on to your personal strenghts ^.^
@dbald27 - will do with the next overhaul <3
@warblob004 - That is true, I should include an example that makes this clear <3
@HawaiianPig - Thanks a lot, I'm glad that you've enjoyed the read!
@Drxz - I'm aroused
@Exempt. - Time is a tricky thing when it comes to this approach I've constructed for myself. My current opinion is that my ETA-system only allows me to create a snapshot of the current state of the game and the ability to foresee a couple of things that will happen in the next minute(s) - I'm not sure how I could implement time in the sense of "keeping track of it in assessing a situation" because both players would always have the same amount of time - I could see some sort of "foreshadowing" in the sen
I will try to muse about this a little bit more to find a way to expand the system on other ways
@Yoshi Kirishima - Glad you liked it! I guess that hugely differs from player to player - I know silverplayers that have easily grasped this concept and I have some buddies in masters league that have never thought about these basic ideas - the beautiful thing about Starcraft is that there are a thousand ways to approach it and be succesful with it
@AnalThermometer - check the answer for Exempt. (and Lotar for the turtle-bit ^^) - I will try to think about expanding the model to implement a couple of other thoughts. For now I'd say that in my current model information isn't valued as something that you need to measure but is more or less a prerequesition to make this kind of assessment - you can't know your opponents ETA without the informations about him.
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Seems like you have invested a lot of time in this thorough writeup, thanks, was a fun read!
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Hello Felo,
Thank you for this brilliant concept of thinking! It is something I'll try and incorporate in my games from now on. The first thought that hit me was, that it also sort of explains in an easy way, how new players should react when scouting, what to look after and why.
However what I like the most about this guide is, that it pure KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. 3 things to keep track on (day9 ref) is the way to go.
Of course this is a way of thinking that can be personalised by, say incorporating time into the equation and other factors (I think someone mentioned Production), but the fundamental trinity of ETA will be, I think, a nice catalyst for new players to become better.
Regards and thanks
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great write-up. wealth of knowledge right there.
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Ah seriously good read 6/5 stars for you my friend! thanks for taking the time for making this. This should maybe be stickied in the strategy section!
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Great guide but I think most of it is rather common sense (although I may be guilty of going 5 base vs 2 in ZvP and ZvT and then I'm angry when I lose :-)).
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I made my relatively new friend read it.
Its that star sense. If you know your opponents ETA you can adjust yours to survive and capitalize.
I liked the part about the billions of possibilities.
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On January 04 2012 22:15 AnalThermometer wrote:
I think any ETA concept needs to really be ETATI to succeed in practice, with Time and Information as equally important resources. The turtle example is kind of silly without the inclusion of the time resource for many reasons.
I don't quite agree with this. ETA is a status at a specific point in time. That means your ETA is constantly changing and time is already being taken into account.
Information is a little tricky. I'd define it as a checkpoint or trigger. When you get information sometimes you have to stop what you're currently doing and adjust to what your opponent is doing while at other times you have to change nothing at all. It depends on your build. If you play blindly you risk investing too much in the wrong department. So information is required before making an investment otherwise it's a risk.
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wow, thats really detailed, great guide
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wow great read this is actually a really good and somehow simple way to explain the core strategic aspect of the game to new players as well without being overly specefic with specefic siturations even though this also applies to those.
thank you for writing this :-)
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Dominican Republic39 Posts
Loved the read! Nice way to explain things.
Keep the good work.
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Sweet post, though I had a hard time not thinking ETA as estimated time of arrival. Either way I liked the way you put things, and I think that the concept that tastosis invented (ie "when ahead get more ahead") can be kind of misleading unless you put it in the way you did. (IE not go for another base if you are a base a head, but go for getting a head in the other aspects as well, because when you are a head in all aspects you are nearly garantueed the win.)
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First, thanks for taking the time to write this up - I think a link to this thread may be a much better response to low level players than the standard "macro better." This thread does a lot of explaining why that's important.
Second, this reminds me a lot of the central concepts of a lot of the day9 dailies, at least the more overview-ey ones rather than the ones where he talks about a specific strategy.
Third, I think you shouldn't worry about the time aspect of strategy that some people were criticizing. Time is just a resource like minerals and gas - or rather, mineral-time and gas-time (having minerals or gas earlier is worth more, since it could be earlier econ, tech, or army). It's just another little plus to be invested in econ, tech, or army and as such is already accounted for in the guide.
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such a smart way of explaining the game
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Your illustration to demonstrate econ advantage (toss 6 base vs terran 2) is extremely misleading for those who take your word. The picture as shown would be a clear win for the toss. Furthermore, it oversimplifies the game, as having lots of bases with no indication of time or when bases were established cannot be blanket statemented as "will have less army". There are PLENTY of times where being multiple bases up also means you have a much higher army
What has happened in the game to allow you to get so far ahead? You FE'd and defended 1 base all in and he stayed? You ninja expod quick and he didn't notice? These are the types of factors that impact such a scenario, just as you say in your graph with "Time vs Understand of why loss"
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Wow, this is brilliant. Great write up.
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This is basicly the best guide on TL.net I have read. Well written, very concise, coherent, concrete, useful and accurate at the same time.
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When thinking about build orders, I feel like mechanics and micro can simply be abstracted or put into the army category. That is to say, if you have excellent micro your army strength is just higher. I think technology too can be put into 'army'. Now you only have two factors to keep in mind: do I spend on something that will help later, or help now.
I think a good approach for creating a generic game plan is to know how your investments will pay off in comparison to your opponent's investments. For instance, investing a lot into economy when your opponent is hardly doing so will be pointless, as you only have to get slightly better economy to gain an advantage. You might have the potential of getting a great advantage, but as you only need a little one, and the game is supposed to be balanced, you can almost count on this being the wrong decision.
If you build a lot of army and your opponent can counter it with almost as much army, but a little bit more economy, you have usually made the wrong decision. This is because economy gives you benefits later on, so it will usually be the case you can have more army than your opponent if from that point on both of you keep investing into army. Maybe your opponent would have been better off simply investing everything into army, nothing into economy, so that with your more 'balanced' approach, you would lose out.
This is a bit of a generic way of thinking about RTS games though. I feel like the only match-up where this really plays out this way is ZvZ and PvP, both match-ups with little defender's advantage. A race like terran can so easily defend a lot of attacks that investing into army is virtually pointless. Unless you use your army investment to secure more economy and prevent third bases. But this is already too specifically about Starcraft 2, not a generic RTS, so the abstraction stops working as well, I feel.
One should consider army investment though. Usually mind games are a lot about: "if I invest a bit more into long-term, I can still hold off his army and gain an advantage later on". And your opponent will think the same, unless he decides to be tricky and make assumptions about his enemy's choices and decides to all-in or go for even more pure economy/tech. But how well this works depends on scouting, on race specifics, and the dynamics of it change wildly with different races/strategies. It's a good perspective to keep in mind though.
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I've explained SC to friends before using the ETA concept; it's quite nice. You can define a lot of the common vocabulary people use to describe SC using it. The ETA allocation space can be viewed as a triangle (or 2-simplex) where at every point in the game you're choosing where to put your money (there are some restrictions on how you can move around inside the triangle there too but we can ignore those). So you could make a cool figure out of those.
Your choice of ETA allocation forms the basis of your strategy. Everything else you do (micro, positioning, expansion placement, even general macro smoothness) can be classified as tactics. Scouting is important so you can pick the right strategy; mechanics are important so you can execute tactics properly.
For the economy vs. army+tech axis, these are "greedy," "safe," and "aggressive." Greedy play emphasizes economy, perhaps even to a fault. Aggressive play (sometimes "cheese") can be low-tech or high-tech aggression, but has very little economy focus and is designed to kill plays that are too greedy. Safe play is somewhere in the middle of the space. All such designations are relative to your opponent; opening forge-nexus PvZ is safe vs. 13pool, but greedy vs. 9pool; doing a 3gate expand is typically a very safe or aggressive build, but against a 1 gas protoss PvP it might be rather greedy.
For the tech vs. no tech axis, the interactions are complex and don't have any real rules to generalize from; tech can generally substitute for army in some situations (if all you have is bio vs. a templar-heavy army, maybe all you need is more bio, not ghost/EMP), and in others you need some lower tech thing to fend of other tech aggression (e.g. detection).
(two axes in the 2-simplex should span the space of possible income allocations :p)
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Very cool thread, I will show this to my newbie friends who are just learning the game.
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Great guide, I love hearing from GM players... I can use this because it makes clear things that I did think about but wasn't sure, didn't think about and never knew, all in a concise manner (even came with a mnemonic!)
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Canada2562 Posts
Great guide. I've been having issues lately where I just straight up lose since my econ is too good and my army is too bad. Will probably start to use an ETA system to figure out when I should be focusing more on army.
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Felo I have a question. Maybe the answer is obvious but I still would like to hear your opinion. What is your reaction if the ETA meter of your enemy looks something like this:
E+++
T+++++++
A+++?
Like a Terran who goes heavy with Banshees and BFH?
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Last little part was golden and illuminates the reason I lose a lot of late game PvT's.
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Great guide for newer players. Thanks!
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Right on! Strip away the glitter, and you're left in an economy-focused game where you must make critical in-game decisions related to economy, technology, and army.
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Fantastic principles!
really like the idea that you can only think about 3 core concepts at the root level. Their is too much to think about otherwise, and it's easy to focus on the wrong thing and make basic mistakes because of it if you don't have some basic core principles to follow.
After reading the points about Production it got me thinking about the Economy Pillar in general. I play Zerg and to me I don't think about Economy as much as I think about Resource. For Zerg in my mind there are three Resources (Minerals, Gas and Larva). I need to make decisions about what I need to invest in, more minerals or more larva production. So from my perspective I naturally tend to think of a Resource Pillar then depending on my strategic choices I can branch out into Minerals, Gas or Production and Map Vision (yes I consider Map Vision a resource too). If I have full Map Vision and you have none then I know a lot more about the overall state of the game.
I think the same concept of Resource applies to the other two races where really their 3rd resource is "Production" (Barracks, Factories, Warp Gates etc). You can choose to invest into building "Resources" which can mean at a strategic level you choose to make 7 Gateway's or it could mean you want more probes on Gas and expansions.
The example I'm thinking of is a 2 Base timing like 7-Gate Blink Stalker. The person will invest in their economy (Minerals) and once that is down they heavily invest in their production facilties to support their switch to Army and aggression.
R++++++
T+
A+
Then once the attack begins it transitions to
R+
T++
A+++++++
I'd like to know your thoughts about Resources including Map Vision and Production. Either way I like that you've kept it simple!
Awesome post!!!
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This is exceptionally well done. Thank you for your great contribution.
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Thanks a ton! This is a frame of mind that everyone should have and will seriously improve my gameplay! This is one of the best written guides on winning for lower level players I have seen in for freaking ever. And to think, just a few moments ago, I was thinking how I knew everything except what is actually practical for me to know. The irony.
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super nice read. i think it will help me a ton with my play.
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On January 05 2012 09:43 XChoke wrote:
The example I'm thinking of is a 2 Base timing like 7-Gate Blink Stalker. The person will invest in their economy (Minerals) and once that is down they heavily invest in their production facilties to support their switch to Army and aggression.
R++++++
T+
A+
Then once the attack begins it transitions to
R+
T++
A+++++++
I'd like to know your thoughts about Resources including Map Vision and Production. Either way I like that you've kept it simple!
Awesome post!!!
I think you misunderstood the concept a little. The pillars the OP describes are not supposed to go down, except for maybe the army one.
As described there, they represent the current situation you are in, which means, that they all should get bigger over time (otherwise you are probably doing something wrong), what you describe seems more like illustrating how much of your income is spent into the different aspects at a given point of time.
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Econ, Tech and Army is a trade off with each other until mid game. Great article.
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Great guide but I disagree with the final pvt example. There is nothing wrong with taking more bases after the 3rd base has paid for itself because by that time, your army will have easily surpassed your opponent's 2 base army. You have to remember that after a certain timing, your 3 base army has surpassed your opponents 2 base army and therefore you are free to take as many bases as you want, because you have a larger army and larger economy. This will allow faster tech switching will will strengthen T hugely.
A good example to illustrate my point is Protoss defending 1/1/1 with a very fast nexus. In this situation, it is clear Protoss is allowed to be greedy because the nexus will pay for itself. If e 1/1/1 doesn't come by the 15 minute mark, there is nothing wrong with expanding again, even vs 1 base Terran.
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Have to offer my compliments for going to the trouble of writing up this knowledge in this way. It's pretty good. ^_^
I think ETA is a great way to simplify for learners.
The interchange between ETA -- how those pillars interrelate on a moment to moment basis and throughout the game, depending on map etc -- offers a lot of fertile space that can be gradually sloped for intermediate learners. Or it could be the subject of very involved and heady discussion on very fine points.
Anyway thanks for your effort, keep it up.
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Thanks for all the feedback!
A lot of correct answers have already been given ot questions asked, so I'll focus on the one question that has not been covered:
On January 05 2012 07:13 ApocAlypsE007 wrote:
Felo I have a question. Maybe the answer is obvious but I still would like to hear your opinion. What is your reaction if the ETA meter of your enemy looks something like this:
E+++
T+++++++
A+++?
Like a Terran who goes heavy with Banshees and BFH?
Doing something like this basically implies a simple idea - he wants to use tech to cut down your economy as this will cut down the value of your army as soon as his attack hits.
There are two key concepts to this:
a.) It is absolutely okay to invest something to deflect the BFHs without damage (Like placing buildings to wall-off without needing them immediately, pumping several observers, spores, etc) - they invest into something to hurt your economy, you pay to safe your economy, nothing happens
b.) Your opponent will try to attack you at a certain point (As in cloaked banshees -> 1/1/1) which means that we should fall back to our ETA-Concept in the sense that we get something like this:
E++++
T+++
A+++++
Note that we slightly edged out an economical lead, only adding enough tech to deter his harrass (the Tech-points could also be invested into E for more structures that form a wall, this really depends on the match-up and the form of harrass) and invest the rest into our army to overpower him - note that we need a lead in army value as our army regularly won't be as advanced as his will be - this is the reason why our economy needs to be superior.
So in conclusion: he invests into T to hurt our E, we invest into T to protect our E and outmatch his army afterwards.
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On January 05 2012 22:53 Felo wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Thanks for all the feedback! A lot of correct answers have already been given ot questions asked, so I'll focus on the one question that has not been covered: On January 05 2012 07:13 ApocAlypsE007 wrote:
Felo I have a question. Maybe the answer is obvious but I still would like to hear your opinion. What is your reaction if the ETA meter of your enemy looks something like this:
E+++
T+++++++
A+++?
Like a Terran who goes heavy with Banshees and BFH?
Doing something like this basically implies a simple idea - he wants to use tech to cut down your economy as this will cut down the value of your army as soon as his attack hits. There are two key concepts to this: a.) It is absolutely okay to invest something to deflect the BFHs without damage (Like placing buildings to wall-off without needing them immediately, pumping several observers, spores, etc) - they invest into something to hurt your economy, you pay to safe your economy, nothing happens b.) Your opponent will try to attack you at a certain point (As in cloaked banshees -> 1/1/1) which means that we should fall back to our ETA-Concept in the sense that we get something like this: E++++ T+++ A+++++ Note that we slightly edged out an economical lead, only adding enough tech to deter his harrass (the Tech-points could also be invested into E for more structures that form a wall, this really depends on the match-up and the form of harrass) and invest the rest into our army to overpower him - note that we need a lead in army value as our army regularly won't be as advanced as his will be - this is the reason why our economy needs to be superior. So in conclusion: he invests into T to hurt our E, we invest into T to protect our E and outmatch his army afterwards.
Thank you for the answer ^_^
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Great guide
Youve made this point, but its just so important. With this you KNOW where your opponent is in army size
The concept, especially one that lowerleague players dont realise is that with equal mechanics , you can always deduct what your opponent can have. This is easyest in mirror MUs.
Example
If you have 0 minerals, havent been pylon blocked and have been making constant probes then things like :
If you have 5 stalkers and your opponent has 8, you should be ahead in a) production buildings or b) Economy (or both)
Your opponent simply cant have been making more stuff than you without cutting it elsewhere.
Or if you scout a terran army as protoss, with enough experience especially to the 10 minute mark, you should always have a feel for the army he has.
If you scout his base, and he has "too little" - scout hidden expo, prepare for drops or huge tech play.
it kinda translates to
There is at most "+++++++" available to players at the 6 minute mark
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Wow, what a fantastic guide. I agree with a lot of your points, and I think it's great that you're quantifying what "macro better" really means on a higher level of thought, since I know so many players in the lower leagues yearn for that sort of approach (I know I did way back in bronze.)
One thing I really do disagree with is your little quiz about the turtle. In a realistic situation, the green player will almost always have the advantage in that situation. Granted, I don't know the race of the green player other than "not Zerg" (though I would extrapolate from his building placement that he is likely Protoss,) but with such an insurmountably massive economy, the green player could stand to lose a couple expansions and still come out strongly on top if he manages to EVENTUALLY stop his opponent's inevitable push.
The point is valid, players who expand more slowly will generally have larger armies and/or better tech, but in a 2 base vs. 6 base situation the advantage of the lower econ player is likely totally null. I'd wager green could put down 20 gateways and just go mass, 100% chargelot and still come out on top based on his behemoth of an economic advantage.
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This is an awesome guide
going to share this with a friend that's having trouble in the ladder, much better than I can explain
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Wow, Felo!!
Again such a great work! Will definitely help to succeed with my New Year resolution!
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On January 06 2012 05:24 weikor wrote:
Great guide
Youve made this point, but its just so important. With this you KNOW where your opponent is in army size
The concept, especially one that lowerleague players dont realise is that with equal mechanics , you can always deduct what your opponent can have. This is easyest in mirror MUs.
Example
If you have 0 minerals, havent been pylon blocked and have been making constant probes then things like :
If you have 5 stalkers and your opponent has 8, you should be ahead in a) production buildings or b) Economy (or both)
Your opponent simply cant have been making more stuff than you without cutting it elsewhere.
Or if you scout a terran army as protoss, with enough experience especially to the 10 minute mark, you should always have a feel for the army he has.
If you scout his base, and he has "too little" - scout hidden expo, prepare for drops or huge tech play.
it kinda translates to
There is at most "+++++++" available to players at the 6 minute mark
I really love your point about the maximum amount of score that a player can have <3 In ladder its hard to use tho because yuo never really know how good your opponent truly is. In games against someone you know its quite useful tho
And thank you for your feedback, UmiNotsuki! I will probably have to rephrase that example and pick another picture to make the case more clear but you can generally say that it is possible to take more bases/bolster your economy more but it is an unneccesary risk when your opponent is trapped like this/plans to do an all-in push.
Sometimes long-term-plans need to be canceled because there will be no long-term, i.e. I had a game before I went to the hospital where I started double upgrades, was on 2/2, had just started 3/3 and suddenly saw that the Terran I was playing against brought all his SCVs for a last attack, so I canceled the upgrades and proceeded to get as many units for that as possible to hold th attack - maybe I would have held without those few zealots and sentries but its a risk that I don't need to take.
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That was so generic it blows my mind, ill summarize: Consider all parts of the game, action => reaction.
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I was wondering if you can make this a PDF file?
great work by the way!
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Superb guide breaking down the fundamentals into easy to read and inter-related categories. I'm going to read it through again. Cheers!
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Felo do you thing it's good to quantify each + on each categories into an actual statements like for example for Protoss each "+" in economy is 10 probes, or a gate, or ++ is a Nexus, or lets say tech each "+" is a key tech like + for cyber core, + for twilight council and + for templar archives? Or is it too specific and hard to scout all of it?
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Really great guide, it helps understand the core of the game in a more global aspect than most other guides out there, this is cool
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On January 06 2012 19:01 ApocAlypsE007 wrote:
Felo do you thing it's good to quantify each + on each categories into an actual statements like for example for Protoss each "+" in economy is 10 probes, or a gate, or ++ is a Nexus, or lets say tech each "+" is a key tech like + for cyber core, + for twilight council and + for templar archives? Or is it too specific and hard to scout all of it?
Hmm, I feel that thats something that is very hard to do, especially as the value isn't static - a Templar Archive is infinetely more worth against a pure Medivac/Marine force than against a mech composition.
I wouldn't focus to much on the actual amount of plusses, just focus on the trend of where the advantages are with a rough estimation of how strong they are.
But if you come up with a system then please let me know and I'd love to discuss it
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WOW great read. thanks so much this is just what i needed to show my girlfriend
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Thanks, just because this guide my winratio increasted by full 10%!
Now I'm going with 70% winratio each day in diamond league!
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So long, and so informative O.O
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On January 07 2012 06:03 Hordeon wrote:
Thanks, just because this guide my winratio increasted by full 10%!
Now I'm going with 70% winratio each day in diamond league!
I'm not entirely sure if you are trying to make fun of me/the guide :>
But thank you as well as to the other two of you ^.^
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Very well put, bookmarked for further reference. Thank you!
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On January 06 2012 23:42 Felo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 19:01 ApocAlypsE007 wrote:
Felo do you thing it's good to quantify each + on each categories into an actual statements like for example for Protoss each "+" in economy is 10 probes, or a gate, or ++ is a Nexus, or lets say tech each "+" is a key tech like + for cyber core, + for twilight council and + for templar archives? Or is it too specific and hard to scout all of it? Hmm, I feel that thats something that is very hard to do, especially as the value isn't static - a Templar Archive is infinetely more worth against a pure Medivac/Marine force than against a mech composition. I wouldn't focus to much on the actual amount of plusses, just focus on the trend of where the advantages are with a rough estimation of how strong they are. But if you come up with a system then please let me know and I'd love to discuss it
I think the only way to give a value to the "+" would be to set a fixed amount overall, e.g.: 9 "+"´s overall, spread over 3 categories
E:+++
T:+++
A:+++
or
E:+++++++
T:+
A:+
It doesnt really matter as the way you did it makes it clear anyway, and even can suggest e.g. an army advantage after an early economic advantage
E:+
T:+++
A:+++++
vs
E:+
T:+++
A:++++++++
One could go and assing mineral/gas values /supply or whatever to them, but it´d never really make sense, you gave a perfect example. The actual worth of those values changes every second, every tech decision and so forth.
As for the whole article, i totally loved it. Finally someone that is able to put it into words for me to show some friends learning the game, while i myself never was smart enough to have the idea to simplify it into such simple terms for myself to be able to use it as a quick ingame decision making tool.
Looking forward to further installments
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On January 09 2012 06:40 Baerinho wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 23:42 Felo wrote:On January 06 2012 19:01 ApocAlypsE007 wrote:
Felo do you thing it's good to quantify each + on each categories into an actual statements like for example for Protoss each "+" in economy is 10 probes, or a gate, or ++ is a Nexus, or lets say tech each "+" is a key tech like + for cyber core, + for twilight council and + for templar archives? Or is it too specific and hard to scout all of it? Hmm, I feel that thats something that is very hard to do, especially as the value isn't static - a Templar Archive is infinetely more worth against a pure Medivac/Marine force than against a mech composition. I wouldn't focus to much on the actual amount of plusses, just focus on the trend of where the advantages are with a rough estimation of how strong they are. But if you come up with a system then please let me know and I'd love to discuss it I think the only way to give a value to the "+" would be to set a fixed amount overall, e.g.: 9 "+"´s overall, spread over 3 categories E:+++ T:+++ A:+++ or E:+++++++ T:+ A:+ It doesnt really matter as the way you did it makes it clear anyway, and even can suggest e.g. an army advantage after an early economic advantage E:+ T:+++ A:+++++ vs E:+ T:+++ A:++++++++ One could go and assing mineral/gas values /supply or whatever to them, but it´d never really make sense, you gave a perfect example. The actual worth of those values changes every second, every tech decision and so forth. As for the whole article, i totally loved it. Finally someone that is able to put it into words for me to show some friends learning the game, while i myself never was smart enough to have the idea to simplify it into such simple terms for myself to be able to use it as a quick ingame decision making tool. Looking forward to further installments
Thank you! ^.^
I personally only use it in the sense of thinking who is ahead in which regard without paying much attention to the number of plusses. So for me it could even work like this
E+
T
A+
As its supposed to be easy and quick there's no room for counting anything on the battlefield to create detailed statistics in my opinion.
Thank you for your feedback, glad you appreciate itt <3!
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The Wall
+ Show Spoiler +
I think an important aspect that needs to be in this guide is the concept of "the wall" that is that any advantage you may gain in E T A will hit a point in the game where they will become less impactful or even negligible.
For example
Scenario 1 Army
+ Show Spoiler +
If you are a zerg player making roaches off 3 base you might have a very big army advantage on a protoss player in the mid game, but as time goes on since there is a "wall" on army advantage 200/200. At this point the zerg player will only be able to lose army advantage
Scenario 2 Economy
+ Show Spoiler +If we take the same example of a zerg playing a protoss, and we see the protoss take a fast third base in respond to your third base. You might respond by double expanding putting you at 5 bases to 3 so you might imagine that your stats look like this + Show Spoiler +And your opponent + Show Spoiler +But in reality the zerg looks more like + Show Spoiler +Why ?? Because after 3 bases with rare exceptions you won’t want to exceed 75 workers otherwise you will not leave enough space for your army. Since the purpose of your economy is to build a strong army this would contradict your goals. Since the number of mining workers is quite comparable. Your effective mining rate will be comparable to your opponent, while having the downside of adding many more points of vulnerability to defend.
Scenario 3 Tech
+ Show Spoiler +
The tech example is simple. In PvT there is often a point where chrono boost will give a protoss a large upgrade advantage, but since upgrades stop at 3/3/3 there is a limit on how long you can maintain this advantage before the terran catches up
Conclusion
+ Show Spoiler +
Basically what needs to be understood is this guide largely describes the mid game. If both players play a macro style then E/T/A changes in priority to army efficiency and expnsion control which includes things like controlling space and worker harassment. Whereas these aspect weren't as highlighted in the guide thus far
I personally believe a very under explored aspect of play is the concept of the late game. Where all the values E/T/A will all slowly equalize
Thanks for reading ♥
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
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On January 06 2012 23:42 Felo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2012 19:01 ApocAlypsE007 wrote:
Felo do you thing it's good to quantify each + on each categories into an actual statements like for example for Protoss each "+" in economy is 10 probes, or a gate, or ++ is a Nexus, or lets say tech each "+" is a key tech like + for cyber core, + for twilight council and + for templar archives? Or is it too specific and hard to scout all of it? Hmm, I feel that thats something that is very hard to do, especially as the value isn't static - a Templar Archive is infinetely more worth against a pure Medivac/Marine force than against a mech composition. I wouldn't focus to much on the actual amount of plusses, just focus on the trend of where the advantages are with a rough estimation of how strong they are. But if you come up with a system then please let me know and I'd love to discuss it
I feel like a terran that went mech would have more ++ to it's tech than one with marine/medivac. It needs to have some sort of gas spent quantifier if this is even possible.
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Woah, just read all of this, I expected this to be really low level based but I learnt a good bit from this, thanks!
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Russian Federation13 Posts
I didn't like the part when "you make your ETA like twice bigger in each aspect", you shouldn't gather so many +'ses from nowhere lol
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.alt-f4-news.net/img/1 Prologue.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.alt-f4-news.net/img/3 Winning.png)
![[image loading]](http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/7481/scientificgraph.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.alt-f4-news.net/img/4 Pillars.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.alt-f4-news.net/img/5 Economy.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.alt-f4-news.net/img/6 Technology.png)
![[image loading]](http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/471/upsei.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.alt-f4-news.net/img/7 Army.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.alt-f4-news.net/img/8 Examples.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.alt-f4-news.net/img/9 Epilogue.png)
