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United States4883 Posts
I was talking with a fellow TL member and we began to delve into what a "macro game" was exactly. He talked to me for nearly an hour and told me his experiences with progaming (music games) and how he applied similar ideas and thoughts to Starcraft, but most importantly, left with me a really memorable story. He said:
I used to have a Korean Starcraft practice partner. One day he asked me, "Why do you think Koreans are so cheesy when they're learning to play?" I don't remember exactly what I replied, but it was probably something along the lines of: "They've got better micro, macro, etc., so they can win early." He took a moment, then responded, "No, it's because the goal of the game is much simpler."
"What is a cheese? What the hell is a macro game?" When he asked me how I defined a macro game, I felt ready for the question and immediately typed in my answer: "I see a macro game as any game which has a clear goal in mind from start to finish." And then I realized that every strategy has a clear goal in mind, including cheeses and 1-2 base all-ins. As long as you have a plan, a clear goal in mind, you're officially playing a "macro game". That said, we can define the strategy in SC2 as a clearly defined game plan from start to finish with which to decide the outcome in a game.
He also asked me how I studied games. "Well, I look through the replay, take some notes on the build, how the player managed to make it to the mid game, then I make some conclusions and see how they tie back to the original opening." He told me I was half right. He said, "To me, build orders are a way to solve problems. You have a goal and then you create the build around that goal. When you study a replay or a pro game, you should watch all the way through to the end, then work your way backwards on how Player X got to the end of the game.
Unnecessary rant: + Show Spoiler +There's this big misconception that cheeses and 2-base all-ins are somehow "no skill" or noob builds or "the wrong way to play the game". People play against opponents on ladder who do a proxy 2-gate or pull SCVs or open with speedling rushes every game, and there's the tendency to feel belittled or dumbed down by losing to a well-executed cheese; naturally this excites them and makes them feel like they should have won if they had just scouted better/controlled better, etc. And that's true. All cheeses are beatable at the top levels of play as long as you scout, continue to macro, and control well; when you lose to a cheese or some kind of all-in build, you were lacking in one of these areas, not because the cheese is "no skill OP".
While it is true that there are mechanically better players that lose to people performing cheeses and 2-base all-ins in masters and GM leagues (even on the pro level), this doesn't change the fact that one player simply executed a strategy better than the other. There are a lot of players who don't have a set goal in mind when they ladder; with my definition of macro, you could argue that a dedicated cheeser is technically a better "macro" player than their opponent who just builds whatever works without a clearly defined goal, even if the dedicated cheeser is not mechanically as good.
There's also the flawed school of thought that somehow playing only cheeses and 2-base all-ins is detrimental to your SC2 growth and makes you a "bad macro player". The truth is that there is plenty to learn about the early and mid games through these shorter-term game plans, things you wouldn't necessarily learn by just sitting back, taking 3 bases, and "macroing". If you play only cheese and mid game attacks, you miss out on learning the late game, but it's actually a great stepping stone into what is considered "true macro play".
Let's apply this definition and plan a strategy!
Strategy #1 (the cheese): In PvP, I want to overwhelm my opponent with zealots before he can get stalkers out.
Step 1: How do we overwhelm our opponent with zealots before 4:20? Obviously no warp gate attack will work, so we'll have to use gateways. In order to hit early enough, we're going to have to proxy the gateway(s).
Step 2: How many gateways can we support? What is the most efficient build order? We can go 6 pylon, 6 gateway, but will that be enough to support it? We can place down two gateways around 13; will that be too late? If neither work, we're looking for a sweet spot somewhere in the middle. After some testing, building two gateways on 10 is the most efficient way to do this build.
Step 3: What maps will this work on? Where should I place my gateways to be most effective? It seems like this strategy won't work on 4-player maps because I don't have time to scout, so I can only do it on 2-player maps. We also need to see if there are particularly good hiding spots where our opponent is least likely to scout on each map.
Conclusion: At the beginning of the game, I need to send a probe immediately to my opponent's base (to a predetermined location), build a pylon as soon as possible and 2 gateways on 10 food. I will chronoboost zealots constantly when my gateways finish and push into my opponent's mineral line with 3 zealots and one probe. I can only do this on 2-player maps, but Akilon Wastes and Yeonsu seem best for this. (Luckily, all this was figured out in the WoL beta, so we don't need to plan out this strategy very hard; broken apart, however, this strategy looks like this.)
Strategy #2 (the timing attack): In PvZ, I want to hit my opponent before he has optimal saturation on 3 bases using some kind of robo-based build.
Step 1: How quickly can the zerg player reach 3-base saturation? If we can't run tests, we can just play a couple of games or watch a few pro VoDs to get a good idea of when the zerg player generally reaches 3-base saturation. Most zergs, when doing macro play, usually don't go up to ~70 drones until around 11:00, so our attack must hit before 11:00.
Step 2: What composition will we attack with? What units can the zerg player use to counter aggression? If we want to do a robo-based build, our primary damage-dealers are going to be the immortal and the colossus. We can either rush out several immortals and attack or we can rush colossus and attack. Or we can get a combination of both. Let's choose the combination. Our opponent will probably defend with lings, roaches, or hydras (but swarm hosts and mutas are another option to keep in mind). We'll probably want a lot of sentries and, depending on the army composition, either a lot of zealots or a lot of stalkers. In the end, our army composition should look something like colossus/immortal/sentry/stalker/zealot with varying ratios of stalkers to zealots.
Step 3: How do we get to our composition? What is the most efficient build to get there? We can either go forge fast expansion or gateway expand. We might experiment with this step a bit to get a good idea of the strength and weaknesses of each build. We might try interesting insertions like phoenix or 3-gate pressure before the actual push. This is also a time for us to figure out exactly how much of each unit we can make and still hit before the allotted time. All in all, our goal in this step is to come up with a clearly defined pathway to get to our planned composition. For the sake of this analysis, let's choose the simplest one: FFE into a push with 2 immortals and 2 colossus behind 7 gates.
Step 4: Which maps will this work on? Maps with plenty of chokes are going to make forcefields strong and this push more effective. Smaller maps with less walking distance from base to base are also going to give us an advantage by allowing us to attack sooner. The inverse of this is true: open maps and maps with long rush distances will be detrimental to our attack. Using this information, we can conclude that maps like Bel'Shir Vestige and Yeonsu are prime candidates for this strategy while maps like Whirlwind and Derelict Watcher aren't as good.
Step 5: We now have a strategy, how can we refine it? How do we deal with early pressure and stay alive into the mid game? After formulating the plan and developing the build, we should test it extensively on ladder and make small tweaks and adjustments based on our games. This is the prime opportunity to learn how to deal with things that mess with our otherwise optimal build: what happens if our opponent hatch blocks? What happens if he attacks with early roaches? Will we die to an early speedling attack? What happens if our opponent just goes for mutas? What happens if the zerg just doesn't take an early 3rd base? There are several questions to be answered; tons of time should be spent on this step refining our strategy and gameplay to the point of perfection.
Conclusion: I want to do a forge fast expand (nexus first) while scouting with a probe and zealot for any potential threats and deflecting them as necessary. I will get up a robo and a robo bay as soon as economically possible, chronoboosting out 2 immortals followed by 2 colossus and a warp prism, amassing sentries (and getting +1 attack) behind this. When I reach 2-base saturation, I will add on additional gateways for a total of 7 while denying scouting overlords the best I can. At 10:00, I will move out with 2 colossus, 2 immortals, 8 sentries, and a handful of zealots and stalkers, primarily targeting the zerg player's 3rd base. If he has mass spines at his third, I will just walk straight into his natural. After several ladder games of testing, I will make improvements and adjustments wherever necessary in the strategy.
Strategy #3 (the "macro" build): In PvT, I want to slowly starve out my opponent by denying outer bases and always staying one base ahead.
Step 1: How can we deny our opponent's bases continually while keeping our own secure? We're probably going to need a lot of mobility and a cheap way to both attack and defend. For offense, late game zealots and DTs are pretty powerful, cost-effective units for denying bases and controlling space. For defense, a cannon/HT wall seems to be fairly unbreakable by most bio forces. However, we're probably still going to need a large main army in order to stop the terran player from just walking into our main or overwhelming our bases with sheer numbers.
Step 2: What kind of late game army are we shooting for? What is the terran players likely late game army? Again, these may not be things we know off the top of your head, but studying a few VoDs will give us a pretty good clue. Obviously, our army should be fairly mobile; the late game terran army will probably be primarily ghost/viking with a few marines and marauders for support. When thinking about what army is not only mobile but also counters ghost/viking well, we can come to the conclusion that stalker/colossus with HT support is the best overall composition for our lategame army. If we reach a split map position, we'll have to transition into tempests in order to beat the ghost/viking army; however, this is not our game plan, so it appears we'll have to be very active and constantly trying to trade armies and kill our opponent's economy in the late game.
Step 3: How do we get to that late game army and 4+ bases? What does our mid game look like? We need forge upgrades, blink, charge, colossus, high templar, dark templar, and a high gateway count. We need to figure out if we're going to do double forge or single forge (or single forge into double forge). We know we'll need splash damage in the mid game (something we learned from watching VoDs) so we need to choose either colossus or HT first and choose the best order of twilight council upgrades to support our initial AoE choice. If we go for double forge with a blink/colossus army, we can secure a 3rd base relatively early and transition into HT. When we hit +3/+3, we should take a 4th while attacking to deny our opponent's 4th and kill some economy and production in his main with warp prism drops.
Step 4: How can we refine the mid game? Is there a better way to economically take a 3rd? If our opponent goes for an early 3rd, how should we respond? How do we beat an SCV pull attack? How do we deal with multiple drops effectively? After testing some different tactics on ladder, we should make conclusions about how to more effectively play the mid game based on scouting and positioning. We can establish rules of when to apply pressure, when to play passively, when to take our 3rd base more quickly, when to scout, etc., etc.
Step 5: How can we most efficiently reach the mid game safely? Going all the way back to the beginning of the game, we want to formulate how we're going to get to the double forge, stalker/colossus mid game. After watching several VoDs, we can conclude that we need at least one colossus by 10:00 to fend off any early medivac pressure. Other than that, we need to figure out our gateway timings, our gas timings, when to get blink, how many sentries we should get, etc., all revolving around the central idea that we need to have a colossus out at 10:00. After some experimentation, it seems we can do a MSC expand into 3 gates + a robo and then add on two forges followed by the robotics facility and a twilight. In the end, we can have double upgrades going, blink on the way, 6 gateways, and a colossus out before 10:00. During this time, we should also give thought to map choices; colossus/stalker isn't as good at defending drops as a templar-based build, so maps like Polar Night or Whirlwind can be a nightmare to defend on. Some maps such as Yeonsu and Bel'Shir Vestige have rather short rush distances, making early terran pressure stronger.
Step 6: In what ways can we refine the early game? Can we safely eke out an advantage by doing something like cutting a sentry or getting our forges before our 2nd and 3rd gates? This should be an area of exploration in which we focus on perfecting our general macro and learning subtle scouting tells and how to respond to them. After extensive ladder experience, we can learn how to stop any early pressure or how to hold early all-ins. This stage is all about refining the build going into the mid game to perfection.
Conclusion: I want to open with a MSC expand into a robo and double forge before additional gateways. If I scout early pressure based on my probe scout and map vision, I will throw a cannon in my main base and rely on photon overcharge to keep my natural safe. When I can afford it, I will put down a robo bay and a twilight council and transition into blink/colossus, making sure I have a colossus out by 10:00. Once I am able to take a 3rd base and I have 3 colossus, I will begin a tech switch to HT while defending drops and doing my own warp prism harassment. Once I hit +3/+3 and am fully saturated on 3 bases, I will attempt to take a 4th while pressuring my opponent. As the game progresses, my goal is to stay active on the map denying my opponent's bases as much as possible (specifically, pressuring one base with my army while using a warp prism/warpins to pressure other places) and taking my own bases, securing them with cannons and HT. After extensively playing on the ladder, I will make slight adjustments to my strategy.
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Here is a good synopsis of what I'm trying to say:
We want to break out of this flawed thinking that somehow you have to take a fast expansion or go double upgrades or not attack until 10:00 in order to play a "macro game". If we want to play a "lategame-focused game", we'll probably end up doing some of these things, but that doesn't mean that we HAVE to go CC first or some kind of safe, conservative opening. When you start fitting yourself into a mold and making up imaginary rules ("seeing ghosts" as Day9 puts it), you start to slowly narrow your vision and your problem-solving ability until you cease to actually improve. We want to form our strategy around our goal, not around our opening.
Older Day9 Podcasts (highly recommended):
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Day9/Day[9]0013-SideStepping.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Day9/Day[9]0014-HOP3-AGoodMindset.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/SonuvBob/podcasts/Day[9]0010-NewLookAtBuilds.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/intrigue/Day90011RelativeTimings.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/RaGe/Day90005HOP2RedundancyAndPur.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/zatic/Day[9]0002-BuildingTriggers.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/intrigue/Day90006PlayAgainstWorsePlay.mp3
On playing to practice vs. playing to win:
It's important to note the difference between playing to practice and playing to win. In terms of practice, you should generally follow through with whatever strategy you had planned, despite the opponent's build and adjustments. This is so that you can test your build thoroughly and refine it against everything. When you're playing to win, you want to have an arsenal of already refined strategies at your disposal. Don't get confused and think you have to adjust your strategy and play "reactively" against your ladder opponents during a game.
Also well worth its weight it gold:
On October 27 2013 17:48 vaderseven wrote:Show nested quote +When thinking about what army is not only mobile but also counters ghost/viking well, we can come to the conclusion that stalker/colossus with HT support is the best overall composition for our lategame army. If we reach a split map position, we'll have to transition into tempests in order to beat the ghost/viking army; however, this is not our game plan, so it appears we'll have to be very active and constantly trying to trade armies and kill our opponent's economy in the late game. [It is extremely strong to think like this.] For one, it teaches us if our game plan is a good solid one. If we find situations that no amount of tweaking to timings or corrections to micro and macro are working then we know that we have reached a point where the decision to go for a large army to hold pushes, DT and zealots to harass and deny bases, and a cannon and HT wall to control parts of the map is not a valid way to accomplish the goal of: In PvT, I want to slowly starve out my opponent by denying outer bases and always staying one base ahead. As such, we can explore another way to accomplish that goal and modify our play up to that point to fit the new step that leads to the goal of staying one base ahead and starving out the enemy.
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People are encouraged to post about game plans they have seen or used or to ask game plan related questions in this thread! VaderSeven and I would love to discuss game plans and how they relate to your perception of the game and the way that you play  .
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Hey that guy sounds smart you were talking to <3
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I wouldn´t call a cheese or an allin a "macro game". The difference is just, that the goal of a macro game lies in the later stages of the game, while allins or cheeses want to avoid these stages and end the game before a certain stage. The goal of a macro game always has something to do with expansion management. ,,How can I get 1 base ahead of my opponent?", ,,How can I deny my opponent´s base x?", ,,How can I defend my bases?", ,,How can I apply pressure to my opponent´s economy?". The goal of a macro game is to get and stay ahead in economy and use this extra ressources to first: prevent your opponent from getting his additional base and second: trade units until he has no more money to build new units. The difference between a "macro game" and a cheese or allin lies within the definition of the goal.
Cheeses and allins are much simplier to execute, because you play a "shorter" game with less information than a longer game. Also the goal is much simplier: ,,Kill your opponent with x units at time y". The goals of a macro game changes from map to map as the layout of expansions are different and the important moves by pro gamers are harder to notice, because the goals are different from player to player and from matchup to matchup. On some maps it´s quite easy to take a 3rd base, so players tend to focus and deny his opponent´s 4th base for example. As such it´s harder to discover, how you should play a "macro game" and which build order is best suited to reach your goals in the mid and late game on a certain map.
Day9 did a few dailies in the past, where he explained expansion management and army movement in the mid and lategame, which are the two key skills for a macro player. I don´t know the number of the daily anymore.
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Ok Imma comment on this part here as I feel like it is a great starting point for extending this conversation:
Conclusion: I want to open with a MSC expand into a robo and double forge before additional gateways. If I scout early pressure based on my probe scout and map vision, I will throw a cannon in my main base and rely on photon overcharge to keep my natural safe. When I can afford it, I will put down a robo bay and a twilight council and transition into blink/colossus, making sure I have a colossus out by 10:00. Once I am able to take a 3rd base and I have 3 colossus, I will begin a tech switch to HT while defending drops and doing my own warp prism harassment. Once I hit +3/+3 and am fully saturated on 3 bases, I will attempt to take a 4th while pressuring my opponent. As the game progresses, my goal is to stay active on the map denying my opponent's bases as much as possible (specifically, pressuring one base with my army while using a warp prism/warpins to pressure other places) and taking my own bases, securing them with cannons and HT. After extensively playing on the ladder, I will make slight adjustments to my strategy.
#1. I love the basic build idea and how you have strong assumptions (important to have part of any plan) that are based on watching pro play and you have specifics built in. I love that. It creates a starting point for tweaking (if you have a specific timing or relative relation ship goal you can learn if it is good or bad and then change it to a new one instead of having a vague freestyle-ish goal). This is exemplified by how you say this:
When I can afford it, I will put down a robo bay and a twilight council and transition into blink/colossus, making sure I have a colossus out by 10:00.
I know you based that timing of 10:00 for one colossus off of VODs and pro play but if you hadn't based it off pro play I would still love that statement. If you had choosen 10:00 as just a assumptive starting point and found yourself dieing at about 10:15 or 10:30 to frontal pushes you would KNOW that one colossus at 10:00 is not enough and you can adjust to having one colossus at 9:30. If you had choosen 10:00 as just a assumptive starting point and found yourself dieing at 9:30 you would know that getting one colossus at 10:00 is too greedy and that you need more stuff available pre colossus tech and can adjust your first colosuss timing to 10:30. If either situation happened and tweaking the colossus timing did not work you would know that a colossus timing on two base can not hold vs common Terran plays!
(disclaimer: again, we all know that 10:00 is a very solid one colossus timing but I wanted to make a point about how to mentally approach the game and usuing specific assumptive timings like this is a very strong way to quickly find VERY strong timings)
[/B][/U]#2.[/B][/U]It is extremely strong to think like this:
When thinking about what army is not only mobile but also counters ghost/viking well, we can come to the conclusion that stalker/colossus with HT support is the best overall composition for our lategame army. If we reach a split map position, we'll have to transition into tempests in order to beat the ghost/viking army; however, this is not our game plan, so it appears we'll have to be very active and constantly trying to trade armies and kill our opponent's economy in the late game.
For one, it teaches us if our game plan is a good solid one. If we find situations that no amount of tweaking to timings or corrections to micro and macro are working then we know that we have reached a point where the decision to go for a large army to hold pushes, DT and zealots to harass and deny bases, and a cannon and HT wall to control parts of the map is not a valid way to accomplish the goal of: In PvT, I want to slowly starve out my opponent by denying outer bases and always staying one base ahead. As such, we can explore another way to accomplish that goal and modify our play up to that point to fit the new step that leads to the goal of staying one base ahead and starving out the enemy.
#3. This is the point that is the culmination of the first two AND a main point that could have been stated by itself. You are playing in such a stronger fashion by having the first point of you strategy be the end game goal and having everything else planed out as steps towards that in a reverse fashion. Always have a plan. That phrase refers to this type of thinking and this approach to the game.
#4. I am going to quote alot of day9 from his earlier days of super genius game theory here. This stuff predates sc2 and, honestly, comes from the time period where day9 was making content intended for player of his skill level and players wanting to play at his skill level (and, at the time, that skill level was of top 5 non korean player in the world).
+ Show Spoiler +if there is one thing you remember from this entire recording, let it be this—I never stopped to question whether my play was right or wrong. That is, I never said, "Should I be going Guardians?" I never stopped to do that; I never stopped to question whether I should be going hydralisk/lurker or anything like that. Rather, I said, "I am going hydralisk/lurker on this map, it feels like I need to go Guardians, when do I get those Guardians?" and I tried only to answer the question when. That is it. That is so important in the improvement of your play: to focus on a question and work on that. There are countless players in StarCraft who think the goal is to find "the right build". You see these players all the time: they're 2-gate rushing, you know, one week and then the next week they're going early-expand, Bisu-style, and then the next week they're just doing whatever the current trend in Proleague is. They keep changing and changing and changing. That is not your goal. Your goal in StarCraft is not to try to find "the right build" and (from a bit earlier in the podcast but on a similar point) At this point, a critical mistake that so, so, so many players make is to think that when late-game rolls around they can just feel it out: they'll be able somehow to "feel" when Terran has too many tanks and then they'll get the Hive. That logic does not work and you should avoid this at all costs. -Day9 podcast on Building Triggers (which means MAKING a trigger not triggers for a build etc)
+ Show Spoiler +I’m sure everyone has heard of the story of the kid who sleeps all the way through high school because when he gets home at 3 pm he does nothing but play StarCraft till 5 in the morning because he wants to be the best. However after a year and half of doing this, that kid is still C- and can not seem to get any aspect of his play better no mater what. So, though practice is very important, many people such as the kid I just mentioned will not improve based upon the huge amount of hours they play simply because they have the wrong mindset. These are the players that cannot reflect upon their game and analyze it properly and as a result stagnate for very long periods of time. Naturally, with an introduction like that, I’d like to present on how to have a good mindset when approaching the game. I want to provide a structure to your thought process so that way you don’t end up in any sort mental prison that will prevent you from improving. Since, having a right mindset is sort of a vague broad term that encompasses a huge aspect of play, what I’m going to do is present 5 ideas, each of which can only help to improve your play, and hopefully other areas of your life too. ... Number 1: Always have a plan.Note that I did not say always have a build order. Those are two very different things. A build order is just a set of instructions that you follow to optimize something. The plan is generally what that something is. You always need to know what your plan is first. ... Number 2: Don't see ghosts.This is another way of saying: don't convince yourself that things are true when really they only exist in your own head. You'll see this a lot of times when an intermediate player starts moving up the ranks on [ladder]. Let's say he's hit B- for his first time ever, and he's playing against an other B or B- player. In his head, he'll say: "Oh no, I'm worried that I'm playing against a better player" and he'll modify his play purely because his opponent is "better". ... Number 3: Trust your own logic over whatever trends you might see in the strategy forums or the Proleague matches. More importantly, throw away all vocabulary and thought-process used on a lot of these community sites. So many words are tossed around freely, like counter, or standard or unorthodox or cheesy. These words are useful for discussion, you know, giving the people a sense of what's going on. I can say "oh, he played a standard terran vs zerg", and immediately the listener has much clearer idea of what's going on. However, in terms of analysis, it doesnt mean anything for something to be standard or not standard. Why is it that medic&marine is the standard in terran vs zerg? In fact, controlling a mech army is way easier than controlling a m&m army, so why isn't mech standard? The answer is that: none of it matters. You should only be looking for what is clearly correct for you. This means that if you're having much more comfort sticking to lair and going hydra-lurk for a long time instead of getting really fast defilers, then by all means you should continue going delayed hive. You should continue doing whatever feels comfortable for you. What every player should always be doing at all points in time is snacking around on various strategies, just making sure you are aware of what all the possibilities of all the other races are. And then, when you find a strategy you like, you should dig deeply into that and find all the possible nuances and variations and solutions that you can in that style of play. Never ever ever think that you should play standard because it is standard in any sense of the word. ... Number 4: Keep a very strong awareness of your mental state throughout the entire game.This includes things like panicking when something bad happens or getting a flood of adrenaline when you think you're at an advantage, or even when you get to that relaxed state where you think "oh yeah, I've won, there's no way I could possibly lose". All of these should be slowly weeded out so that way your brain is actually focusing on the game at all points in time. ... Number 5: And finally, number 5, which is somewhat of a culmination of everything I've said so far: Have confidence in your execution, and skepticism and doubt in your analysis. When you're playing the game, you should be convinced that what you're doing is absolutely correct, so that way you can maximize your efficiency with whatever you're doing. Whether it'd be a really strong play or an absolutely flawed play. After the game is when you should look at your play and say "mhm, what did I do right and wrong here, what's a way that I could improve? What's a build that he could have done that would have crushed this a 100% of the time?" That is when you think of what adjustments you want to make for the next game. And of course, in that next game, you'll play with 100% confidence as though everything you're doing is absolutely correct. A huge issue that a lot of players deal with is that when they are in the game, and they get thrown off just a little bit - maybe they get storm-dropped or maybe they see a strategy they havent seen before -, that's when they start to analyze their play and to make these huge, large-scale adjustments. Unless making that adjustment was part of your plan, don't do it! -Day9 podcast on Having a Good Mindset
I think these parts of sc2 are missed so much. Many people just work on builds and grind out micro and fix macro problems and then never play a single set of 10 games where they are fixing a problem in their plan so that it works better. Most people dont even have a plan they just have a build.
In all honesty, I win vs better players of the physical game alot simply because I have a better plan that I made outside of the game.
I encourage everyone to listen to the following day9 podcasts (ordered in my recommended listening order):
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Day9/Day[9]0013-SideStepping.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Day9/Day[9]0014-HOP3-AGoodMindset.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/SonuvBob/podcasts/Day[9]0010-NewLookAtBuilds.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/intrigue/Day90011RelativeTimings.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/RaGe/Day90005HOP2RedundancyAndPur.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/zatic/Day[9]0002-BuildingTriggers.mp3
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/intrigue/Day90006PlayAgainstWorsePlay.mp3
Day9 caters to a lower level audience than he used to and the reason the sc2 world listened to him when he started in the beta of WoL was in a great part due to the amazing amount of pure and solid RTS theory he had shown the community with works such as these. There is higher level concepts within those podcasts than can be found in most forums about RTS and even in most featured threads on TL (I say that as a writter of such threads so, again, I mean no insult I am just trying to say that these contain litterally the best high level thoughts really produced to date on general RTS theory).
If you need help learning how to play a strategy game, listen to these. Carefully. And take them to heart.
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On October 27 2013 17:36 Sianos wrote:
I wouldn´t call a cheese or an allin a "macro game". The difference is just, that the goal of a macro game lies in the later stages of the game, while allins or cheeses want to avoid these stages and end the game before a certain stage. The goal of a macro game always has something to do with expansion management. ,,How can I get 1 base ahead of my opponent?", ,,How can I deny my opponent´s base x?", ,,How can I defend my bases?", ,,How can I apply pressure to my opponent´s economy?". The goal of a macro game is to get and stay ahead in economy and use this extra ressources to first: prevent your opponent from getting his additional base and second: trade units until he has no more money to build new units. The difference between a "macro game" and a cheese or allin lies within the definition of the goal.
Cheeses and allins are much simplier to execute, because you play a "shorter" game with less information than a longer game. Also the goal is much simplier: ,,Kill your opponent with x units at time y". The goals of a macro game changes from map to map as the layout of expansions are different and the important moves by pro gamers are harder to notice, because the goals are different from player to player and from matchup to matchup. On some maps it´s quite easy to take a 3rd base, so players tend to focus and deny his opponent´s 4th base for example. As such it´s harder to discover, how you should play a "macro game" and which build order is best suited to reach your goals in the mid and late game on a certain map.
Day9 did a few dailies in the past, where he explained expansion management and army movement in the mid and lategame, which are the two key skills for a macro player. I don´t know the number of the daily anymore.
Gonna be mean and simple and just say WRONG though I dont mean it in a mean way.
What the OP is talking about is breaking down some assumptions that are getting in the way of real strategy formation. Words like cheese and macro game are weird and thrown around alot and create prejudice that guides players in their learning. By saying a macro game is how you define and cheese is how you define it you have labeled things that suggest good and bad. You also assume alot about how a macro game is about being ahead in resources.
The bottom line is every GOOD strategy has a goal of winning via some piece of logic and has steps to reaching it. By looking at very short game plans you can see very similar trends to longer games in that good players, no matter of their choice of long or short game plan, have the same logical steps in place in how they form a strategy. Saying that macro and cheese are bad words is simply a way to help break a mental set of prejudices that is VERY common even among masters and gm level players that is holding them back mentally from understanding the idea of a good game plan.
The difference between a "macro game" and a cheese or allin lies within the definition of the goal.
I just think that is the core problem with your post. A macro game by your definition is an open ended game plan that is based vaguely off of winning with alot of stuff and a cheese or allin game is about winning before you have alot of stuff? I cant even figure out fully what you (or everyone else) REALLY means about specifics in the difference. If you cant state specific differences, you don't really have a logical case.
I can comment on cheese at least. Cheese is a game plan based upon winning via a bad decision making on the enemies's part or on winning via a risk that has not been logically planned out as sound.
Anything that is based on solid logic that the player feels can win through actions that they take in game is not cheese.
Therefor, cheese is the lack of a plan beyond a single path goal straight to a win that relies on assuming sub optimal play out of the enemy player.
There are alot of all in plays that are not cheese and there is alot of 'longer games with the player getting alot of stuff via solid mechanics' that are cheese.
Therefor Macro and Cheese are not a ying and yang.
Jeeze, even bronze players play 'macro games.' They build stuff and make their economy get bigger over time (at least they intend for it to grow). The only game plan that involves no macro is a 6 worker rush. I hate vague non logic based terms like Macro build.
+ Show Spoiler +btw I did not mean to pick on the poster I quoted I knew SOMEONE would post a similar post pretty quick as it is the common accepted way of thinking in the community
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On October 27 2013 17:59 vaderseven wrote:By saying a macro game is how you define and cheese is how you define it you have labeled things that suggest good and bad. Show nested quote +The difference between a "macro game" and a cheese or allin lies within the definition of the goal. I just think that is the core problem with your post. A macro game by your definition is an open ended game plan that is based vaguely off of winning with alot of stuff and a cheese or allin game is about winning before you have alot of stuff? I cant even figure out fully what you (or everyone else) REALLY means about specifics in the difference. If you cant state specific differences, you don't really have a logical case. I can comment on cheese at least. Cheese is a game plan based upon winning via a bad decision making on the enemies's part or on winning via a risk that has not been logically planned out as sound. Anything that is based on solid logic that the player feels can win through actions that they take in game is not cheese. Therefor, cheese is the lack of a plan beyond a single path goal straight to a win that relies on assuming sub optimal play out of the enemy player. There are alot of all in plays that are not cheese and there is alot of 'longer games with the player getting alot of stuff via solid mechanics' that are cheese. Therefor Macro and Cheese are not a ying and yang. Jeeze, even bronze players play 'macro games.' They build stuff and make their economy get bigger over time (at least they intend for it to grow). The only game plan that involves no macro is a 6 worker rush. I hate vague non logic based terms like Macro build. + Show Spoiler +btw I did not mean to pick on the poster I quoted I knew SOMEONE would post a similar post pretty quick as it is the common accepted way of thinking in the community
I never said allin or cheese is bad. I just stated the difference between cheeses and allins and a macro game. A cheese is a strategy, which relies on your opponent not scouting it (this can be an offensive move like proxy buildings or a defensive move like double upgrades or a hidden expansion), while an allin can still be successful even if the opponent scouts it against certain builds. Of course both are "valid" strategies, which can lead towards victory. I only wanted to state the difference between cheeses, allins and a macro game, because the OP mentioned that cheeses and allins are a "macro game". For me the difference between a macro game and cheese or allins lies within the definition of the goal, where allins or cheeses want to end the game before a certain stage is reached and the macro game is about controlling expansions.
An allin is used to avoid a certain stage in the game, because either the players executing is doesn´t feel comfortable in that stage or the player just don´t want to hit that stage against the actual opponent. Another goal of using allins is to punish greedy play as allins are designed to work against certain builds.
A cheese is used to get an advantage over your opponent by hiding a certain strategy, so that your opponent isn´t really prepared for it. This can be offensive proxy buildings to quickly surprise your opponent with units or it can be a hidden expansion or hidden tech. Normaly you wouldn´t get away with it, but when your opponent does not scout it and or react to it properbly, you´ll get an advantage, you normaly "shouldn´t" have in a "normal" game in order to deal better with specific situations.
Both are tools, which can lead towards victoroy and require a good insight about maps and the opponent to use effectively in a tournament. But the important part of it is, that the goals are different from a "normal" macro game.
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Italy12246 Posts
I approve of this thread. Actually, i think it'll go in the recommended section. Nice work yo, blue poster bro high five.
edit: just to chip in the discussion. No matter how you define a game, a sound strategy knows when you WIN. Wether that's when you get 4 zealots out and kill all his shit, or when you're maxed on the sickest templest/colossus/templar army, you have to be able to arrive at a moment in time when you win. You don't necessarily take more bases all the time either.
Take the old double forge builds. They are clearly a macro build, yet when you executed them you KNEW you would WIN when you hit 3/3, 3 colo, charge, blink, archons and amoved the terran with better upgrades. There's a specific point in time when you know, more often than not, you will win. If you don't of course you can transition, but that always has a price. Taking double forge templar-less armies, that's of course less and later storms.
The differences between cheese, allin, timing and macro builds are simply in the price paid to transition out of them. For instance, it's obviously simpler to transition out of a 4gate pressure than a 7gate allin. This also means that all those terms aren't well defined. Many builds need to do some sort of damage to pay off in investments (say, DT's). If you do x amount of damage you're ahead, otherwise you're behind, which is true for, well, everything, from a cheesy mantrain to a simpel stargate opener. The question then becomes "how much damage to i need to deal with build x to be able to transition?" If that's a lot you can call a build cheese or allin, otherwise you don't, but it's important to keep in mind that this is true for basically every build by every race in sc2 and bw. All those definitions are subjective, so some people might call proxy oracle or dt's cheesy are allins while others don't.
Finally, regarding how you learn the game, i have always been a proponent of learning simpler builds first. I personally never, ever microed a single battle until i got to diamond, and as a result to this day, 3 years later, my micro is the weakest spot in my game. I was all about "macro macro macro", and that left me with pretty glaring holes in gameplay. I think that if i had started with simpler builds (read: various all-ins, going from easy ones like 4gate to trickier ones like soultrain or 2base colo) i might be a more complete player today. Additionally, at first the information required to play a macro game correctly is overwheling, so it helps to start out in simpler situations.
Oh i forgot, saying "cheese and allins can be countered, but macro builds can't" is also somewhat incorrect. No matter what, you always have the wheel of aggression>greedy>safety>aggression. Assuming you are both playing in a macro game, sometimes it's possible to scout the particular "brand" of macro build the opponent is using and immediately switching into the style that will counter it. The best example i can come up with right now was a WoL GSTL match where the P went fast 3nex, the T instantly scouted it thanks to a lucky scv, went 5rax marine and won. If he had gone for the standard 2medivac push he wouldn't have been able to punish his opponent as heavily. At the end of the day, every sc2 build has some kind of "counter", or, another build that does extremely well against it.
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On October 27 2013 18:23 Teoita wrote:
Finally, regarding how you learn the game, i have always been a proponent of learning simpler builds first. I personally never, ever microed a single battle until i got to diamond, and as a result to this day, 3 years later, my micro is the weakest spot in my game. I was all about "macro macro macro", and that left me with pretty glaring holes in gameplay. I think that if i had started with simpler builds (read: various all-ins, going from easy ones like 4gate to trickier ones like soultrain or 2base colo) i might be a more complete player today. Additionally, at first the information required to play a macro game correctly is overwheling, so it helps to start out in simpler situations.
That´s what most masters or higher say to newer players: ,, Keep it simple and learn the basics first". It doesn´t matter if you have polt like micro, when your opponent just has more stuff than you. So doing allins for example can be a good start, because you play shorter games and have less information to worry about. However at the same time you can just macro up and hit 200 supply faster than your opponent and a-move to victory. This alone basically get´s you into diamond or faster. By learning and improving you have to divide the game into simple parts and then decide on which part you want to focus on while basically ignoring the other.
That´s also why the best way to learn your macro and mechanics is to grind games against an easy ai, which does not attack you. This way you know exactly what will happen during the game and you can focus only on your macro and your mechanics. Of course it´s another story when you are inside a "real" game with lot´s of hidden information and when your opponent applies heavy pressure, but the more "repetition" you have, the easier you can deal with pressure or unorthodox builds and fall back on what you have already learned instead of trying to learn something and getting disturbed by something else. This will slow down your learn process.
In short: Keep it simple and know what skills you want to improve on and find the best way to practice these skills one by one.
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Macro is always to me defined as economy and infrastructure:
Economy: Proper saturation, constant worker production, securing expansions, and spending your money.
Infrastructure: Adding production, getting upgrades, building placement, avoiding supply blocks, and walling off (sim city).
So in summary, securing and protecting your income, whilst spending it efficiently and correctly is in my view the purest definition of Macro. And although I feel the terms macro and strategy are used loosely and interchangeably, my above definition I think will feel right for a lot of people.
All other aspects of the game such as map control, scouting, harassment, timing attacks, compositions etc are in my view 'Strategical'. Whereas Macro is about the ability to power your Strategy with money (economy), whilst being able to spend your money properly (infrastructure).
TL;DR (Anything below is extra you need not read)
To further make a clear distinction, I have an example that we all know well; the TvZ matchup. For purposes of simplicity I'll note some real basic timings:
(1) 11:30 - 4M creep clearing push.
(2) Continue to rally on 3 bases, with 8 barracks, 2 factories and 1 starport.
Very basic strategy, with the goal to kill the zerg player with constant aggression, before they can kick their economy and tech into high gear. Obviously a lot is missing, but the point I'm making is that the above is a 'Strategy', and is clearly defined outside of 'Macro'. 'Macro' in this case would getting 1-1 upgrades going whilst constantly producing units and securing your 3rd. Macro is the ability to spend your money where it's needed in order to power your economy, which in turn powers your strategy. Strong macro requires strong multi-tasking, in the case of certain strategies, as you usually need to perform 'Macro' whilst composing your attack.
That being said, I think that a "Macro Strategy" would be one where you focus on macro, and play re-actively whilst attempting to get a stronger economy into the mid-game. Which is a great plan because you don't rely on harassment or timing attacks.
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United States4883 Posts
On October 27 2013 17:36 Sianos wrote:
I wouldn´t call a cheese or an allin a "macro game". The difference is just, that the goal of a macro game lies in the later stages of the game, while allins or cheeses want to avoid these stages and end the game before a certain stage. The goal of a macro game always has something to do with expansion management. ,,How can I get 1 base ahead of my opponent?", ,,How can I deny my opponent´s base x?", ,,How can I defend my bases?", ,,How can I apply pressure to my opponent´s economy?". The goal of a macro game is to get and stay ahead in economy and use this extra ressources to first: prevent your opponent from getting his additional base and second: trade units until he has no more money to build new units. The difference between a "macro game" and a cheese or allin lies within the definition of the goal.
Cheeses and allins are much simplier to execute, because you play a "shorter" game with less information than a longer game. Also the goal is much simplier: ,,Kill your opponent with x units at time y". The goals of a macro game changes from map to map as the layout of expansions are different and the important moves by pro gamers are harder to notice, because the goals are different from player to player and from matchup to matchup. On some maps it´s quite easy to take a 3rd base, so players tend to focus and deny his opponent´s 4th base for example. As such it´s harder to discover, how you should play a "macro game" and which build order is best suited to reach your goals in the mid and late game on a certain map.
Day9 did a few dailies in the past, where he explained expansion management and army movement in the mid and lategame, which are the two key skills for a macro player. I don´t know the number of the daily anymore.
I think I understand what you're saying, but I think it's also important to not focus on flawed thinking that "a macro game is one that is based off of expansion management and making sure you have more bases than your opponent." That can be your game plan or goal, but that doesn't necessarily make it the ONLY way to play macro. For instance, if you take any PvZ or PvT game from late 2012, you can clearly see that the game is designed to end ~15:00-16:00. In PvZ, everything led up to a huge 15-minute attack before broodlords. In PvT, everything led up to the moment when Protoss had +3/+3 and both tech trees and could just attack into the terran and win. But no one would consider these dedicated 3-base pressure attacks a "cheese" or "cheap timing attacks". They would call them "macro" games.
On October 27 2013 19:59 Dan26 wrote:
Macro is always to me defined as economy and infrastructure:
Economy: Proper saturation, constant worker production, securing expansions, and spending your money.
Infrastructure: Adding production, getting upgrades, building placement, avoiding supply blocks, and walling off (sim city).
So in summary, securing and protecting your income, whilst spending it efficiently and correctly is in my view the purest definition of Macro. And although I feel the terms macro and strategy are used loosely and interchangeably, my above definition I think will feel right for a lot of people.
All other aspects of the game such as map control, scouting, harassment, timing attacks, compositions etc are in my view 'Strategical'. Whereas Macro is about the ability to power your Strategy with money (economy), whilst being able to spend your money properly (infrastructure).
TL;DR (Anything below is extra you need not read)
To further make a clear distinction, I have an example that we all know well; the TvZ matchup. For purposes of simplicity I'll note some real basic timings:
(1) 11:30 - 4M creep clearing push.
(2) Continue to rally on 3 bases, with 8 barracks, 2 factories and 1 starport.
Very basic strategy, with the goal to kill the zerg player with constant aggression, before they can kick their economy and tech into high gear. Obviously a lot is missing, but the point I'm making is that the above is a 'Strategy', and is clearly defined outside of 'Macro'. 'Macro' in this case would getting 1-1 upgrades going whilst constantly producing units and securing your 3rd. Macro is the ability to spend your money where it's needed in order to power your economy, which in turn powers your strategy. Strong macro requires strong multi-tasking, in the case of certain strategies, as you usually need to perform 'Macro' whilst composing your attack.
That being said, I think that a "Macro Strategy" would be one where you focus on macro, and play re-actively whilst attempting to get a stronger economy into the mid-game. Which is a great plan because you don't rely on harassment or timing attacks.
I think you're missing the point of my post. Macro, in your definition, is simply a tool to support your strategy. In just the same way, aggression, composition, and hiding information are also tools to support your strategy. A "macro game" or "macro strategy", though, is simply a game based around a plan (according to my definition). If you goal is to win with an attack, the timing of it doesn't actually change the goal; it just changes the way you get there. Whether you attack at 4:00, 10:00, 14:00, or 20:00 for the win, the game goal is still the same.
What if starting with an aggressive play gives you a stronger economy going into the mid game? What if, 3 months ago, doing a hellbat drop was the BEST POSSIBLE WAY to get a stronger economy in the mid game? When you start thinking like that, you see that your definition of "macro strategy" is inherently flawed. If your focus is to use a greedy, safe play to get a strong mid-game advantage, so be it. But that doesn't mean that an aggressive play is somehow subpar or not as "macro-oriented" as a more passive play. They are both means to an end: getting a better mid game economy.
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I hate when people use the word macro to hide behind a style that lacks a plan for winning.
A good goal can be to stay one base ahead and deny the enemy 4th with a certain comp and tactic.
A bad goal is to Fast Expand and hit standard timings and play a macro game if the game goes long.
Macro is not a plan, it is a set of mechanics. I think people would do better to get away from playing macro games as their overall mental goal and to playing out strategies to win. The longer a strategy plans out the harder it is to beat. That doesn't mean MACRO though...
edit:
An example of two players trying to do the same concept, one does it REALLY well and one does it REALLY poorly.
Good: On Bel'Shir Vestige vs Zerg I want to have a perfect unit composition based around bio vs the enemy hive composition and to hit a good timing of drops as hive kicks in and a 3/3 timing before hive kicks in. I will be greedy and get to three bases and a good production level as soon as possible to hit those attacks and then when I do those attacks I will even up or even take a lead in base count by killing bases of his and taking a 4th base of my own. I will then focus on the advantage in economy and unit composition I have and use those advantages in order to deny bases (especially whichever of the five bases he takes last) and defend my economy until I have snowballed to a point where I can win a straight up fight or he is starved out.
- Perfect Unit comp vs Hive Tech (Marauders and Vikings as appropriate with big bio ball back bone)
- Drop multi bases as his Hive morphs
- Hit a +3/+3 attack timing to punish his transition towards Hive
- Stay ahead or even in bases post Hive and especially deny his 5th and defend my 4th
- Get to a three base production level asap
Why is that a good plan? It has a clear set of steps that are based in logic I believe in that should produce a win. It offers clear goals that can motivate decision making. I can use these goals when looking at a lose in order to determine exactly what needs to be fixed in order to achieve my end game goal of being on four bases vs a four base Zerg. The steps and goals in this plan motivate everything including choice of opening, mid game, army position at different times, aggression and defensive timings, and even scouting.
Bad: On Bel'Shir Vestige vs Zerg I want to play a solid macro game. I will open with Innovations 3CC double eng build and focus on hitting every single macro benchmark that I have researched. I will parade push into the Zerg and hit a 3/3 timing that abuses the power of 4M and should allow me to win the game or get into at least an even game vs a late game Zerg. In the late game, I will look to be on the five bases on my side of the map and to destroy any base of the Zerg that I feel is either unsafe for him to take or under defended.
- Get a large army and take every base on my side of the map
- 3/3 timing attack
- Parade push after 3 bases until 3/3 timing attack
- Open with Innovations 3 CC Double Eng build stolen from replay/vod
- Abuse power of 4M
Why is that a bad plan? This plan lacks clear paths to winning and banks on a vague romantic notion of winning via macro or winning via better mechanics. The unspoken part of those ideas is that the player will try to win via macro with no set idea on how that win will occur or winning via better mechanics though there is no clear way that those mechanics will be used to win. The plan assumes that the player with worse mechanics will automatically lose and ignores any semblance of striking at weakness or defending with strength. Furthermore, this plan seems implies an element of free style in game thinking will be employed in order to determine how the actual win will occur. Essentially, this plan relies on having better mechanics and on the fly the thinking that surpass any and all out of game plans that the other player might bring to the table. This plan motivates only a inward look during lose analysis and will blame most if not all loses on what will be come increasingly smaller mistakes in mechanics. The plan has no underlining trends that will lead the player to stronger decision making or to learn new concepts about the match up beyond those of the most basic enemy timings and friendly mechanics.
One VERY interesting thing that I have noticed in RTS is that good game plans are based upon knowing alot about the enemy and bad game plans are based upon trying to know alot about your own play. Good plans are fundamentally outward focused and bad plans are inward focused.
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United Kingdom20278 Posts
This thread is gold already <3
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Brilliant thread thank you so much OP. In the 3 years I've been coming to TL I've never read anything that describes how to plan a strategy so eloquently.
After recently switching to Zerg I will be writing down my plan before writing my build order in future.
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On October 28 2013 03:02 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2013 19:59 Dan26 wrote:
Macro is always to me defined as economy and infrastructure:
Economy: Proper saturation, constant worker production, securing expansions, and spending your money.
Infrastructure: Adding production, getting upgrades, building placement, avoiding supply blocks, and walling off (sim city).
So in summary, securing and protecting your income, whilst spending it efficiently and correctly is in my view the purest definition of Macro. And although I feel the terms macro and strategy are used loosely and interchangeably, my above definition I think will feel right for a lot of people.
All other aspects of the game such as map control, scouting, harassment, timing attacks, compositions etc are in my view 'Strategical'. Whereas Macro is about the ability to power your Strategy with money (economy), whilst being able to spend your money properly (infrastructure).
TL;DR (Anything below is extra you need not read)
To further make a clear distinction, I have an example that we all know well; the TvZ matchup. For purposes of simplicity I'll note some real basic timings:
(1) 11:30 - 4M creep clearing push.
(2) Continue to rally on 3 bases, with 8 barracks, 2 factories and 1 starport.
Very basic strategy, with the goal to kill the zerg player with constant aggression, before they can kick their economy and tech into high gear. Obviously a lot is missing, but the point I'm making is that the above is a 'Strategy', and is clearly defined outside of 'Macro'. 'Macro' in this case would getting 1-1 upgrades going whilst constantly producing units and securing your 3rd. Macro is the ability to spend your money where it's needed in order to power your economy, which in turn powers your strategy. Strong macro requires strong multi-tasking, in the case of certain strategies, as you usually need to perform 'Macro' whilst composing your attack.
That being said, I think that a "Macro Strategy" would be one where you focus on macro, and play re-actively whilst attempting to get a stronger economy into the mid-game. Which is a great plan because you don't rely on harassment or timing attacks.
I think you're missing the point of my post. Macro, in your definition, is simply a tool to support your strategy. In just the same way, aggression, composition, and hiding information are also tools to support your strategy. A "macro game" or "macro strategy", though, is simply a game based around a plan (according to my definition). If you goal is to win with an attack, the timing of it doesn't actually change the goal; it just changes the way you get there. Whether you attack at 4:00, 10:00, 14:00, or 20:00 for the win, the game goal is still the same. What if starting with an aggressive play gives you a stronger economy going into the mid game? What if, 3 months ago, doing a hellbat drop was the BEST POSSIBLE WAY to get a stronger economy in the mid game? When you start thinking like that, you see that your definition of "macro strategy" is inherently flawed. If your focus is to use a greedy, safe play to get a strong mid-game advantage, so be it. But that doesn't mean that an aggressive play is somehow subpar or not as "macro-oriented" as a more passive play. They are both means to an end: getting a better mid game economy.
Yes but as you said in your original OP, you actually have a "macro build" which is correct. Everything from early game to late game is focused on denying bases, getting ahead, opening up with macro (e.g. CC first), having map control, and killing workers. Whereas the other strategies you pointed out are designed to kill. So a "hellbat drop" entails macro of course it does. But there are many different types of "Hell-bat drop" strategies. Some delay the expansion in order to follow up with some early timing attack with tanks. Some are greedy behind it in order to get an economical advantage, so they can defeat their opponent in the mid-late game stages. So yes, a "Hell-bat drop" can be defined as "Macro orientated". However a 6 pool, cheese, or 10-min one base timing attack are not macro orientated. They become macro orientated should the attack fail. A strategy you have to "macro out of" is not macro orientated.
I feel like there is a meter bar with a slider, at one end is aggression/defense, and at the other end is macro. You can have both to varying degrees, but never both at equal strength, having one weakens the other to some extent. So when you open CC first against someone who opens up 1-1-1 first on a large map, you can prepare adequate defenses in time to defend it, then you'll be way ahead because your economy is superior.
The difference is that your have prioritized macro over aggression, hence it's a "Macro orientated strategy" with other elements mixed in order to not die early on. In the above case, getting 1-1-1 after CC first is your defense mechanic. Some keywords here: Passivity, macro, scouting, and defense. This could quickly turn into an aggressive strategy if you scout your opponent has been far more greedier than you, and you have to punish it or fall way behind. Otherwise you can just be as greedy, and get early upgrades while building your 3rd. So it's still macro orientated. Eventually you move out at maximum supply and hope to win by "having more stuff" faster than your opponent. A "Macro stress test" if you will. Good for Diamond and below to win by pure macro and mechanics. So a macro build can net many wins in the lower leagues, if your mechanics and scouting (game reading) are up to speed.
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United States4883 Posts
On October 28 2013 12:33 Dan26 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2013 03:02 SC2John wrote:On October 27 2013 19:59 Dan26 wrote:
Macro is always to me defined as economy and infrastructure:
Economy: Proper saturation, constant worker production, securing expansions, and spending your money.
Infrastructure: Adding production, getting upgrades, building placement, avoiding supply blocks, and walling off (sim city).
So in summary, securing and protecting your income, whilst spending it efficiently and correctly is in my view the purest definition of Macro. And although I feel the terms macro and strategy are used loosely and interchangeably, my above definition I think will feel right for a lot of people.
All other aspects of the game such as map control, scouting, harassment, timing attacks, compositions etc are in my view 'Strategical'. Whereas Macro is about the ability to power your Strategy with money (economy), whilst being able to spend your money properly (infrastructure).
TL;DR (Anything below is extra you need not read)
To further make a clear distinction, I have an example that we all know well; the TvZ matchup. For purposes of simplicity I'll note some real basic timings:
(1) 11:30 - 4M creep clearing push.
(2) Continue to rally on 3 bases, with 8 barracks, 2 factories and 1 starport.
Very basic strategy, with the goal to kill the zerg player with constant aggression, before they can kick their economy and tech into high gear. Obviously a lot is missing, but the point I'm making is that the above is a 'Strategy', and is clearly defined outside of 'Macro'. 'Macro' in this case would getting 1-1 upgrades going whilst constantly producing units and securing your 3rd. Macro is the ability to spend your money where it's needed in order to power your economy, which in turn powers your strategy. Strong macro requires strong multi-tasking, in the case of certain strategies, as you usually need to perform 'Macro' whilst composing your attack.
That being said, I think that a "Macro Strategy" would be one where you focus on macro, and play re-actively whilst attempting to get a stronger economy into the mid-game. Which is a great plan because you don't rely on harassment or timing attacks.
I think you're missing the point of my post. Macro, in your definition, is simply a tool to support your strategy. In just the same way, aggression, composition, and hiding information are also tools to support your strategy. A "macro game" or "macro strategy", though, is simply a game based around a plan (according to my definition). If you goal is to win with an attack, the timing of it doesn't actually change the goal; it just changes the way you get there. Whether you attack at 4:00, 10:00, 14:00, or 20:00 for the win, the game goal is still the same. What if starting with an aggressive play gives you a stronger economy going into the mid game? What if, 3 months ago, doing a hellbat drop was the BEST POSSIBLE WAY to get a stronger economy in the mid game? When you start thinking like that, you see that your definition of "macro strategy" is inherently flawed. If your focus is to use a greedy, safe play to get a strong mid-game advantage, so be it. But that doesn't mean that an aggressive play is somehow subpar or not as "macro-oriented" as a more passive play. They are both means to an end: getting a better mid game economy. Yes but as you said in your original OP, you actually have a "macro build" which is correct. Everything from early game to late game is focused on denying bases, getting ahead, opening up with macro (e.g. CC first), having map control, and killing workers. Whereas the other strategies you pointed out are designed to kill. So a "hellbat drop" entails macro of course it does. But there are many different types of "Hell-bat drop" strategies. Some delay the expansion in order to follow up with some early timing attack with tanks. Some are greedy behind it in order to get an economical advantage, so they can defeat their opponent in the mid-late game stages. So yes, a "Hell-bat drop" can be defined as "Macro orientated". However a 6 pool, cheese, or 10-min one base timing attack are not macro orientated. They become macro orientated should the attack fail. A strategy you have to "macro out of" is not macro orientated. I feel like there is a meter bar with a slider, at one end is aggression/defense, and at the other end is macro. You can have both to varying degrees, but never both at equal strength, having one weakens the other to some extent. So when you open CC first against someone who opens up 1-1-1 first on a large map, you can prepare adequate defenses in time to defend it, then you'll be way ahead because your economy is superior. The difference is that your have prioritized macro over aggression, hence it's a "Macro orientated strategy" with other elements mixed in order to not die early on. In the above case, getting 1-1-1 after CC first is your defense mechanic. Some keywords here: Passivity, macro, scouting, and defense. This could quickly turn into an aggressive strategy if you scout your opponent has been far more greedier than you, and you have to punish it or fall way behind. Otherwise you can just be as greedy, and get early upgrades while building your 3rd. So it's still macro orientated. Eventually you move out at maximum supply and hope to win by "having more stuff" faster than your opponent. A "Macro stress test" if you will. Good for Diamond and below to win by pure macro and mechanics. So a macro build can net many wins in the lower leagues, if your mechanics and scouting (game reading) are up to speed.
I think we're just getting into semantics here. I prefer to think of the sliding meter bar as "extremely early aggression to lategame focus". In my 3rd example, I use the term "macro" to make the strategy more easily recognizable and understandable. In conversation, I'm okay with using the term "macro game" to describe a long game, but I think "lategame-focused game" is a better way to look at a game when analyzing it.
At some point in WoL, 6pool was beginning to be a viable opening against protoss players due to its ability to punish the ever-increasing nexus first play. Behind this, the zerg would take an expansion, get a gas up, and pull ahead economically. Does this make the 6pool a cheesy strategy? No, because the strategy for the player focuses on a later period of time, the 6pool is just something the player does to get ahead economically. Another example: in the finals of IEM NY, Life opened with a 15 hatch block against Naniwa into a double expand with gas and still played the game out all the way into queen/SH/hydra/infestor. Even though he opened with a "cheesy" play, his focus was on the late game.
We want to break out of this flawed thinking that somehow you have to take a fast expansion or go double upgrades or not attack until 10:00 in order to play a "macro game". If we want to play a "lategame-focused game", we'll probably end up doing some of these things, but that doesn't mean that we HAVE to go CC first or some kind of safe, conservative opening. When you start fitting yourself into a mold and making up imaginary rules ("seeing ghosts" as Day9 puts it), you start to slowly narrow your vision and your problem-solving ability until you cease to actually improve.
Seriously, listen to this podcast and all the other ones VaderSeven posted: http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Day9/Day[9]0014-HOP3-AGoodMindset.mp3
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Get cheese builds and macro builds OUT of this thread lol. They are just silly concepts and if posters can't get past that then they should just refrain from posting.
I encourage people to post about game plans they have seen or used or to ask game plan related questions in this thread.
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On October 28 2013 12:33 Dan26 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2013 03:02 SC2John wrote:On October 27 2013 19:59 Dan26 wrote:
Macro is always to me defined as economy and infrastructure:
Economy: Proper saturation, constant worker production, securing expansions, and spending your money.
Infrastructure: Adding production, getting upgrades, building placement, avoiding supply blocks, and walling off (sim city).
So in summary, securing and protecting your income, whilst spending it efficiently and correctly is in my view the purest definition of Macro. And although I feel the terms macro and strategy are used loosely and interchangeably, my above definition I think will feel right for a lot of people.
All other aspects of the game such as map control, scouting, harassment, timing attacks, compositions etc are in my view 'Strategical'. Whereas Macro is about the ability to power your Strategy with money (economy), whilst being able to spend your money properly (infrastructure).
TL;DR (Anything below is extra you need not read)
To further make a clear distinction, I have an example that we all know well; the TvZ matchup. For purposes of simplicity I'll note some real basic timings:
(1) 11:30 - 4M creep clearing push.
(2) Continue to rally on 3 bases, with 8 barracks, 2 factories and 1 starport.
Very basic strategy, with the goal to kill the zerg player with constant aggression, before they can kick their economy and tech into high gear. Obviously a lot is missing, but the point I'm making is that the above is a 'Strategy', and is clearly defined outside of 'Macro'. 'Macro' in this case would getting 1-1 upgrades going whilst constantly producing units and securing your 3rd. Macro is the ability to spend your money where it's needed in order to power your economy, which in turn powers your strategy. Strong macro requires strong multi-tasking, in the case of certain strategies, as you usually need to perform 'Macro' whilst composing your attack.
That being said, I think that a "Macro Strategy" would be one where you focus on macro, and play re-actively whilst attempting to get a stronger economy into the mid-game. Which is a great plan because you don't rely on harassment or timing attacks.
I think you're missing the point of my post. Macro, in your definition, is simply a tool to support your strategy. In just the same way, aggression, composition, and hiding information are also tools to support your strategy. A "macro game" or "macro strategy", though, is simply a game based around a plan (according to my definition). If you goal is to win with an attack, the timing of it doesn't actually change the goal; it just changes the way you get there. Whether you attack at 4:00, 10:00, 14:00, or 20:00 for the win, the game goal is still the same. What if starting with an aggressive play gives you a stronger economy going into the mid game? What if, 3 months ago, doing a hellbat drop was the BEST POSSIBLE WAY to get a stronger economy in the mid game? When you start thinking like that, you see that your definition of "macro strategy" is inherently flawed. If your focus is to use a greedy, safe play to get a strong mid-game advantage, so be it. But that doesn't mean that an aggressive play is somehow subpar or not as "macro-oriented" as a more passive play. They are both means to an end: getting a better mid game economy. However a 6 pool, cheese, or 10-min one base timing attack are not macro orientated. They become macro orientated should the attack fail. A strategy you have to "macro out of" is not macro orientated. I feel like there is a meter bar with a slider, at one end is aggression/defense, and at the other end is macro. You can have both to varying degrees, but never both at equal strength, having one weakens the other to some extent. So when you open CC first against someone who opens up 1-1-1 first on a large map, you can prepare adequate defenses in time to defend it, then you'll be way ahead because your economy is superior.
Your meter bar with a slider is bad mindset. Focus only on the plan you have made for winning the game and you will realize that this slider bar is just a framework to describe the natural decision making that needs to happen in order to reach the end plan that the player wanted to get.
I think you are trying to separate openings/builds/strats into camps and really that is a flawed way to view the game. Your viewpoint fails to create understanding or to outline logic behind plays and, as such, will only hide knowledge from you in the long run. Simply look at the game as a template in which to execute a plan. Your plan is like an argument. It is a theory you have on what is a logical way to win the game. You then use mechanics in game in an effort to prove your point. The example SC2John gave about 6 pool when it was semi common and your reaction to it is a perfect example of how your mindset is limiting your understanding.
If you see aggression, of what you label cheesy, and then see a followup you give in to confirmation bias and simply call it macro-ing out of a cheese. Putting aside that I dislike the way you use both cheese and macro in that sentence, you cant make an argument like that. It literally is confirmation bias and is VERY strong evidence of a flaw in your logical model for labeling strategy. Also, the strategy he was talking about with the 6 pool won more games in the late game than with the 6 pool timing. It was an optimal opening in many eyes on some maps for creating a mid game game state that could lead an end game that had the Zerg as the winner. It was part of a plan. It wasnt a macro play or a cheese. It was an opening.
I hate how the best advice that is traditionally given to someone learning is to focus on Macro and not to Cheese. It creates a focus on mindless mechanics, not aim to win, and a black and white view of aggression and greed. Starcraft 2 does not work like that at all. Starcraft 2 works much closer to a chess game than some kind of game of chicken. You have to develop a position, have a plan of attack (be it to attack first or second!), and be able to keep your desired end game (be it a 9:00, 12:00, or 25:00 end game) in mind so that you can continuously bend your play back towards your plan while still reacting to and reading your opponent.
Read this quote again from the OP:
[Back when I was playing on iCCup] I used to have a Korean Starcraft practice partner. One day he asked me, "Why do you think Koreans are so 'cheesy' when they're learning to play?" I don't remember exactly what I replied, but it was probably something along the lines of: "They've got better micro, macro, etc., so they can win early." He took a moment, then responded, "No, it's because the goal of the game is much simpler."
My practice partner was telling me that when they are learning the game (when they are new) they tend to favor game plans that win the game much sooner and with less steps. By doing that they practice the concept of playing out a game plan instead of blindly playing for a vague later game state.
As our convo went on, my friend (his name was HyeongJu Ban or simply Ban) explained that as a player becomes better and their understanding of the game increases, they naturally go for later and later wins. You see, as they get better mechanically they can handle more macro and micro actions and as their understanding expands they can formulate more and more complex game plans.
I really see this lack of mindset in the foreign scene as a critical problem holding back the average player and honestly is one of the biggest contributing factors to the difference in average skill between Korea and the rest of the world. The two other large factors (having the strongest professional scene and having the highest density of players in a small physical area) actually help to ensure that the average new player is exposed to someone at the local PC bang that will set them on the right path and mindset.
Most of the very best players clearly subscribed to this mindset and a bit of research into their playstyle progressions provide strong support to what Ban passed onto me and I onto SC2John. Look at Flash, MVP, MKP, JulyZerg, iloveoov, Jaedong, Maru, Losira, Bisu, Naniwa, and others (MANY more). All of these players had a reputation among forum posters that speak English as being "very cheesy" and each slowly became known as "macro" players. WATCH a cross section of their games. They didn't change their approach to the game. They simply were executing plans they knew inside and out and as time went on and they played more and more they became familiar with more and more plans of increasing complexity. They were masters of excellent game plans from the start of their careers onward and nothing about their approach to strategy ever changed yet so many people that speak English feel like they went through mysterious transformations from cheesy players to macro gods.
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On October 28 2013 14:04 vaderseven wrote:
Get cheese builds and macro builds OUT of this thread lol. They are just silly concepts and if posters can't get past that then they should just refrain from posting.
I encourage people to post about game plans they have seen or used or to ask game plan related questions in this thread.
I'd be happy to...
After reading this thread I feel inspired to develop a game plan for each of my 3 MU's so I can tweak and improve it over time.
I recently switched to Zerg and feel extremely lost in the zvz match up.
I want to develop a game plan around the Gasless ZvZ +1/+1 roach timing
1. Get to 2 base via either pool first or hatch first. Scout opponents natural with overlord to identify early pool so we don't die. Rush out 4 queens and sim city with evo chambers/roach warren. Block the entrance with 2 queens and save energy to transfuse if opponent decides to put on ling/bling aggression.
2. Drone up to ~50 drones, take a 3rd base and start producing roaches. (Use overseers to scout if Z elected for roach or muta composition and how heavily they are droning their 3rd. Depending on opponents choice, keep producing roaches and attack or drone up the 3rd base.
3. Defend until 3 bases are saturated and then move out for an attack when 2+/2+ is nearing completion.
Other than this I am really not sure... Do I add in hydras for the 2+/2+ timing attack? if so when do I add the hydra den? Should I have infestors in the 2+/2+ timing window? If so when? What happens if I cannot engage efficiently at the 2+/+2 timing window or if the engagement goes relatively evenly... What is my follow up? How do I deny expansions while keeping my own safe? What end game unit composition should i be shooting for?
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On October 28 2013 15:19 Vies wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2013 14:04 vaderseven wrote:
Get cheese builds and macro builds OUT of this thread lol. They are just silly concepts and if posters can't get past that then they should just refrain from posting.
I encourage people to post about game plans they have seen or used or to ask game plan related questions in this thread. I'd be happy to... After reading this thread I feel inspired to develop a game plan for each of my 3 MU's so I can tweak and improve it over time. I recently switched to Zerg and feel extremely lost in the zvz match up. I want to develop a game plan around the Gasless ZvZ +1/+1 roach timing 1. Get to 2 base via either pool first or hatch first. Scout opponents natural with overlord to identify early pool so we don't die. Rush out 4 queens and sim city with evo chambers/roach warren. Block the entrance with 2 queens and save energy to transfuse if opponent decides to put on ling/bling aggression.
I suggest choosing an opening based on the map and mid game choice. In this case you know the mid game choice of roach with ups so make sure your opening flows well into that. The only remaining factor is map so choose pool first or hatch first based on which is better for getting to that roach mid game when taking into account the map.
On October 28 2013 15:19 Vies wrote:2. Drone up to ~50 drones, take a 3rd base and start producing roaches. (Use overseers to scout if Z elected for roach or muta composition and how heavily they are droning their 3rd. Depending on opponents choice, keep producing roaches and attack or drone up the 3rd base.
This is going to be the part of your play that generates the most loses at first but dont let that get you down. Save every replay and name them based on the enemy strategy and when you have a bunch of vs one strat watch them all in a row and look for the trends in their movements and build. Find times where you have units that can stop some of the trends (queens to deny ovi or a few lings to control a key tower etc etc) to gain small advantages. Then once you really know that enemy style decide on any decision making type changes you will need to make and what you see in game should trigger them and then go test those ideas out. Repeat until you feel like you know the right way to play vs every style at this stage.
(note: this stage is the main powering stage of this Zerg's plan and scouting and reacting during moments of powering is something that thoughtful and logical decision making creates amazingly smart looking plays out of. if this zerg is able to successfully ID the enemies plan for this stage of the game and maintain some kind of advantage into the next stage he should be set to win or gain a very large advantage.)
On October 28 2013 15:19 Vies wrote:3. Defend until 3 bases are saturated and then move out for an attack when 2+/2+ is nearing completion.
I love it. You clearly havent mapped out an entire game plan yet but THIS is how you handle the fact that you dont have a game plan mapped 100% yet. You go into the game with a logical idea and execute it with confidence. If you do that, you will have invaluable wins and loses as replays that will help to answer the next questions you have.
On October 28 2013 15:19 Vies wrote:Other than this I am really not sure... Do I add in hydras for the 2+/2+ timing attack? if so when do I add the hydra den? Should I have infestors in the 2+/2+ timing window? If so when? What happens if I cannot engage efficiently at the 2+/+2 timing window or if the engagement goes relatively evenly... What is my follow up? How do I deny expansions while keeping my own safe? What end game unit composition should i be shooting for?
Step 1, go and do this build ALOT on ladder or with practice partners.
Step 2, save every single win and lose and keep them in some kind of ogranized way that allows you to quickly watch every lose vs one style or every win vs one style.
Step 3, ask yourself is this winning every game? If yes, you have done it. GG go win gsl! If no, ensure that significant macro mistakes are not the main contributing factor to the +2/+2 timing window failing (to do this, ensure that you know when you get +2/+2 and know the roach count you should have at that time; if you are hitting the benchmarks for your build then its likely not a macro error) and if its not a macro error go to step 4.
Step 4, look at exactly what is happening and ask yourself are you dieng to something or are you failing to kill something. If you are failing to kill something, decide on a logical change that you feel will allow you kill something that is needed to claim the win. If you are dieing to something (such as a counter attack or a unit comp or a timing attack that comes before or after your timing or a tech choice that comes before or after your timing), then come up with a logical idea on how go from the +2/+2 timing game state and to keep the game going longer.
Step 5, Test your logical idea in real games. If you idea requires additional tweaking (I need Hydras to kill this player that has mutas, but when do I get them) simply pick a timing and try it out with 100% confidence. After a good number of games where you use that timing look at all the replays where you use the timing and see if it is working or not and if not then decide on a logical way to change the timing (I dont have enough hydras when I get the den at 50% of +2, obv I need to get the den sooner; if I get the den as I start +2 I dont have enough units at the +2 timing so I need it later... GREAT you know its somewhere between +2 starting and 50% completion of +2).
As for the end game unit composition, expansion control, and what is your follow up? Your plan right now lacks those things. These are things that you will have to provide some confident self thought up logic to. Since you are basing your planning off of the roach +1 and +2 timings which is a mid game set of timings I will recommend two concepts (normally it is STRONGEST to base your plan on as late a part of the game as you can imagine a winning game state for but naturally that is something that does not always occur when making a plan):
Try to make the +2 timing your game winner. This will aid you in making all the decision leading to the +2 timing stronger but will not be as strong in theory as a plan that goes for an even later goal. The later the goal, the easier it is to account for enemy plans that try to win before the goal occurs (this is the reason why 'standard' styles or the styles we see alot of tend to become later and later game focused as the game ages). Planting an extra hatchery for additional larva that can be in play as you switch to full army production makes sense with this in mind.
Try to come up with a logical next punch that follows up on the strs of the +2 timing. The strengths are obviously the upgrades and the army size. I would logically suggest going for +3 and some kind of support unit that has synergy with the roach or roach/hydra army. Going for +3 and infestors seems logical with that in mind. If you can not come up with a valid next punch then you know that you have reached the skill ceiling of this plan and you can either try to refine an earlier part of it or put it in your back pocket for future use and begin work on another game plan!
Please note that I do not know if any of this plan I outlined in this post is GOOD or BAD I just know that I (and the zerg that posted) used some logic and we now have a VERY testable good concept that can teach us alot about the game and make us better at ZvZ.
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On October 28 2013 16:09 vaderseven wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2013 15:19 Vies wrote:On October 28 2013 14:04 vaderseven wrote:
Get cheese builds and macro builds OUT of this thread lol. They are just silly concepts and if posters can't get past that then they should just refrain from posting.
I encourage people to post about game plans they have seen or used or to ask game plan related questions in this thread. I'd be happy to... After reading this thread I feel inspired to develop a game plan for each of my 3 MU's so I can tweak and improve it over time. I recently switched to Zerg and feel extremely lost in the zvz match up. I want to develop a game plan around the Gasless ZvZ +1/+1 roach timing 1. Get to 2 base via either pool first or hatch first. Scout opponents natural with overlord to identify early pool so we don't die. Rush out 4 queens and sim city with evo chambers/roach warren. Block the entrance with 2 queens and save energy to transfuse if opponent decides to put on ling/bling aggression. I suggest choosing an opening based on the map and mid game choice. In this case you know the mid game choice of roach with ups so make sure your opening flows well into that. The only remaining factor is map so choose pool first or hatch first based on which is better for getting to that roach mid game when taking into account the map. Show nested quote +On October 28 2013 15:19 Vies wrote:2. Drone up to ~50 drones, take a 3rd base and start producing roaches. (Use overseers to scout if Z elected for roach or muta composition and how heavily they are droning their 3rd. Depending on opponents choice, keep producing roaches and attack or drone up the 3rd base. This is going to be the part of your play that generates the most loses at first but dont let that get you down. Save every replay and name them based on the enemy strategy and when you have a bunch of vs one strat watch them all in a row and look for the trends in their movements and build. Find times where you have units that can stop some of the trends (queens to deny ovi or a few lings to control a key tower etc etc) to gain small advantages. Then once you really know that enemy style decide on any decision making type changes you will need to make and what you see in game should trigger them and then go test those ideas out. Repeat until you feel like you know the right way to play vs every style at this stage. (note: this stage is the main powering stage of this Zerg's plan and scouting and reacting during moments of powering is something that thoughtful and logical decision making creates amazingly smart looking plays out of. if this zerg is able to successfully ID the enemies plan for this stage of the game and maintain some kind of advantage into the next stage he should be set to win or gain a very large advantage.) Show nested quote +On October 28 2013 15:19 Vies wrote:3. Defend until 3 bases are saturated and then move out for an attack when 2+/2+ is nearing completion. I love it. You clearly havent mapped out an entire game plan yet but THIS is how you handle the fact that you dont have a game plan mapped 100% yet. You go into the game with a logical idea and execute it with confidence. If you do that, you will have invaluable wins and loses as replays that will help to answer the next questions you have. Show nested quote +On October 28 2013 15:19 Vies wrote:Other than this I am really not sure... Do I add in hydras for the 2+/2+ timing attack? if so when do I add the hydra den? Should I have infestors in the 2+/2+ timing window? If so when? What happens if I cannot engage efficiently at the 2+/+2 timing window or if the engagement goes relatively evenly... What is my follow up? How do I deny expansions while keeping my own safe? What end game unit composition should i be shooting for? Step 1, go and do this build ALOT on ladder or with practice partners. Step 2, save every single win and lose and keep them in some kind of ogranized way that allows you to quickly watch every lose vs one style or every win vs one style. Step 3, ask yourself is this winning every game? If yes, you have done it. GG go win gsl! If no, ensure that significant macro mistakes are not the main contributing factor to the +2/+2 timing window failing (to do this, ensure that you know when you get +2/+2 and know the roach count you should have at that time; if you are hitting the benchmarks for your build then its likely not a macro error) and if its not a macro error go to step 4. Step 4, look at exactly what is happening and ask yourself are you dieng to something or are you failing to kill something. If you are failing to kill something, decide on a logical change that you feel will allow you kill something that is needed to claim the win. If you are dieing to something (such as a counter attack or a unit comp or a timing attack that comes before or after your timing or a tech choice that comes before or after your timing), then come up with a logical idea on how go from the +2/+2 timing game state and to keep the game going longer. Step 5, Test your logical idea in real games. If you idea requires additional tweaking (I need Hydras to kill this player that has mutas, but when do I get them) simply pick a timing and try it out with 100% confidence. After a good number of games where you use that timing look at all the replays where you use the timing and see if it is working or not and if not then decide on a logical way to change the timing (I dont have enough hydras when I get the den at 50% of +2, obv I need to get the den sooner; if I get the den as I start +2 I dont have enough units at the +2 timing so I need it later... GREAT you know its somewhere between +2 starting and 50% completion of +2). As for the end game unit composition, expansion control, and what is your follow up? Your plan right now lacks those things. These are things that you will have to provide some confident self thought up logic to. Since you are basing your planning off of the roach +1 and +2 timings which is a mid game set of timings I will recommend two concepts (normally it is STRONGEST to base your plan on as late a part of the game as you can imagine a winning game state for but naturally that is something that does not always occur when making a plan): Try to make the +2 timing your game winner. This will aid you in making all the decision leading to the +2 timing stronger but will not be as strong in theory as a plan that goes for an even later goal. The later the goal, the easier it is to account for enemy plans that try to win before the goal occurs (this is the reason why 'standard' styles or the styles we see alot of tend to become later and later game focused as the game ages). Planting an extra hatchery for additional larva that can be in play as you switch to full army production makes sense with this in mind. Try to come up with a logical next punch that follows up on the strs of the +2 timing. The strengths are obviously the upgrades and the army size. I would logically suggest going for +3 and some kind of support unit that has synergy with the roach or roach/hydra army. Going for +3 and infestors seems logical with that in mind. If you can not come up with a valid next punch then you know that you have reached the skill ceiling of this plan and you can either try to refine an earlier part of it or put it in your back pocket for future use and begin work on another game plan! Please note that I do not know if any of this plan I outlined in this post is GOOD or BAD I just know that I (and the zerg that posted) used some logic and we now have a VERY testable good concept that can teach us alot about the game and make us better at ZvZ.
Thanks vaderseven! Lots of golden nuggets in here. I never thought of saving each replay so I can watch them all consectuively later. This will no doubt grant ALOT of insight.
I
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On October 28 2013 13:14 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2013 12:33 Dan26 wrote:On October 28 2013 03:02 SC2John wrote:On October 27 2013 19:59 Dan26 wrote:
Macro is always to me defined as economy and infrastructure:
Economy: Proper saturation, constant worker production, securing expansions, and spending your money.
Infrastructure: Adding production, getting upgrades, building placement, avoiding supply blocks, and walling off (sim city).
So in summary, securing and protecting your income, whilst spending it efficiently and correctly is in my view the purest definition of Macro. And although I feel the terms macro and strategy are used loosely and interchangeably, my above definition I think will feel right for a lot of people.
All other aspects of the game such as map control, scouting, harassment, timing attacks, compositions etc are in my view 'Strategical'. Whereas Macro is about the ability to power your Strategy with money (economy), whilst being able to spend your money properly (infrastructure).
TL;DR (Anything below is extra you need not read)
To further make a clear distinction, I have an example that we all know well; the TvZ matchup. For purposes of simplicity I'll note some real basic timings:
(1) 11:30 - 4M creep clearing push.
(2) Continue to rally on 3 bases, with 8 barracks, 2 factories and 1 starport.
Very basic strategy, with the goal to kill the zerg player with constant aggression, before they can kick their economy and tech into high gear. Obviously a lot is missing, but the point I'm making is that the above is a 'Strategy', and is clearly defined outside of 'Macro'. 'Macro' in this case would getting 1-1 upgrades going whilst constantly producing units and securing your 3rd. Macro is the ability to spend your money where it's needed in order to power your economy, which in turn powers your strategy. Strong macro requires strong multi-tasking, in the case of certain strategies, as you usually need to perform 'Macro' whilst composing your attack.
That being said, I think that a "Macro Strategy" would be one where you focus on macro, and play re-actively whilst attempting to get a stronger economy into the mid-game. Which is a great plan because you don't rely on harassment or timing attacks.
I think you're missing the point of my post. Macro, in your definition, is simply a tool to support your strategy. In just the same way, aggression, composition, and hiding information are also tools to support your strategy. A "macro game" or "macro strategy", though, is simply a game based around a plan (according to my definition). If you goal is to win with an attack, the timing of it doesn't actually change the goal; it just changes the way you get there. Whether you attack at 4:00, 10:00, 14:00, or 20:00 for the win, the game goal is still the same. What if starting with an aggressive play gives you a stronger economy going into the mid game? What if, 3 months ago, doing a hellbat drop was the BEST POSSIBLE WAY to get a stronger economy in the mid game? When you start thinking like that, you see that your definition of "macro strategy" is inherently flawed. If your focus is to use a greedy, safe play to get a strong mid-game advantage, so be it. But that doesn't mean that an aggressive play is somehow subpar or not as "macro-oriented" as a more passive play. They are both means to an end: getting a better mid game economy. Yes but as you said in your original OP, you actually have a "macro build" which is correct. Everything from early game to late game is focused on denying bases, getting ahead, opening up with macro (e.g. CC first), having map control, and killing workers. Whereas the other strategies you pointed out are designed to kill. So a "hellbat drop" entails macro of course it does. But there are many different types of "Hell-bat drop" strategies. Some delay the expansion in order to follow up with some early timing attack with tanks. Some are greedy behind it in order to get an economical advantage, so they can defeat their opponent in the mid-late game stages. So yes, a "Hell-bat drop" can be defined as "Macro orientated". However a 6 pool, cheese, or 10-min one base timing attack are not macro orientated. They become macro orientated should the attack fail. A strategy you have to "macro out of" is not macro orientated. I feel like there is a meter bar with a slider, at one end is aggression/defense, and at the other end is macro. You can have both to varying degrees, but never both at equal strength, having one weakens the other to some extent. So when you open CC first against someone who opens up 1-1-1 first on a large map, you can prepare adequate defenses in time to defend it, then you'll be way ahead because your economy is superior. The difference is that your have prioritized macro over aggression, hence it's a "Macro orientated strategy" with other elements mixed in order to not die early on. In the above case, getting 1-1-1 after CC first is your defense mechanic. Some keywords here: Passivity, macro, scouting, and defense. This could quickly turn into an aggressive strategy if you scout your opponent has been far more greedier than you, and you have to punish it or fall way behind. Otherwise you can just be as greedy, and get early upgrades while building your 3rd. So it's still macro orientated. Eventually you move out at maximum supply and hope to win by "having more stuff" faster than your opponent. A "Macro stress test" if you will. Good for Diamond and below to win by pure macro and mechanics. So a macro build can net many wins in the lower leagues, if your mechanics and scouting (game reading) are up to speed. I think we're just getting into semantics here. I prefer to think of the sliding meter bar as "extremely early aggression to lategame focus". In my 3rd example, I use the term "macro" to make the strategy more easily recognizable and understandable. In conversation, I'm okay with using the term "macro game" to describe a long game, but I think "lategame-focused game" is a better way to look at a game when analyzing it. At some point in WoL, 6pool was beginning to be a viable opening against protoss players due to its ability to punish the ever-increasing nexus first play. Behind this, the zerg would take an expansion, get a gas up, and pull ahead economically. Does this make the 6pool a cheesy strategy? No, because the strategy for the player focuses on a later period of time, the 6pool is just something the player does to get ahead economically. Another example: in the finals of IEM NY, Life opened with a 15 hatch block against Naniwa into a double expand with gas and still played the game out all the way into queen/SH/hydra/infestor. Even though he opened with a "cheesy" play, his focus was on the late game. We want to break out of this flawed thinking that somehow you have to take a fast expansion or go double upgrades or not attack until 10:00 in order to play a "macro game". If we want to play a "lategame-focused game", we'll probably end up doing some of these things, but that doesn't mean that we HAVE to go CC first or some kind of safe, conservative opening. When you start fitting yourself into a mold and making up imaginary rules ("seeing ghosts" as Day9 puts it), you start to slowly narrow your vision and your problem-solving ability until you cease to actually improve.Seriously, listen to this podcast and all the other ones VaderSeven posted: http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Day9/Day[9]0014-HOP3-AGoodMindset.mp3
Hhhmm I agree, I think I got a little obsessed with semantics there. Everything I have said was to do with the definition of Macro but I want to point out to all that have read my posts, that anything written there is not how I plan, or play a game of Starcraft. I've always had a clear strategy from start to end in any matchup. As I'm currently working into Diamond league again, I would say I'm playing a "Macro" game. But the meaning behind saying this is: "I'm not trying to kill my opponent quickly, I want to play a solid strategy, with no mechanical mistakes, in order to power an efficient timing and/or harassment that may or may not yield me a strong advantage in the mid-game". So that's what Macro really means to me.
For example, in TvT, I always open 12/12 reaper expand (build CC in main). Then I'll get my factory and add a second gas, followed by my Starport. Depending on what I scout I'll go straight to cloak banshee, or I'll pump out some mines and a medivac if I think a certain type of aggression is coming. After this I make sure my SCV's are in constant production, and that I build a 3rd CC in my main base before my natural is saturated. Long term the goal is to have a solid marine-tank composition with crisp upgrade timings and an appropriate medivac count. To win I want to damage his economy in the early game as much as possible whilst expanding myself and continuing to expand and spend my money properly. From here I put down a sensor tower in a strategic location whilst maintaining map control to posture my army in a favourable position.
I've been playing a while now, so I also have the ability to spot certain timing attacks such as the marine tank banshee push, or marine hellion elevator etc. So having this knowledge and experience allows me to adjust my strategy slightly in order to adapt to scouting information.
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On October 28 2013 14:57 vaderseven wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2013 12:33 Dan26 wrote:On October 28 2013 03:02 SC2John wrote:On October 27 2013 19:59 Dan26 wrote:
Macro is always to me defined as economy and infrastructure:
Economy: Proper saturation, constant worker production, securing expansions, and spending your money.
Infrastructure: Adding production, getting upgrades, building placement, avoiding supply blocks, and walling off (sim city).
So in summary, securing and protecting your income, whilst spending it efficiently and correctly is in my view the purest definition of Macro. And although I feel the terms macro and strategy are used loosely and interchangeably, my above definition I think will feel right for a lot of people.
All other aspects of the game such as map control, scouting, harassment, timing attacks, compositions etc are in my view 'Strategical'. Whereas Macro is about the ability to power your Strategy with money (economy), whilst being able to spend your money properly (infrastructure).
TL;DR (Anything below is extra you need not read)
To further make a clear distinction, I have an example that we all know well; the TvZ matchup. For purposes of simplicity I'll note some real basic timings:
(1) 11:30 - 4M creep clearing push.
(2) Continue to rally on 3 bases, with 8 barracks, 2 factories and 1 starport.
Very basic strategy, with the goal to kill the zerg player with constant aggression, before they can kick their economy and tech into high gear. Obviously a lot is missing, but the point I'm making is that the above is a 'Strategy', and is clearly defined outside of 'Macro'. 'Macro' in this case would getting 1-1 upgrades going whilst constantly producing units and securing your 3rd. Macro is the ability to spend your money where it's needed in order to power your economy, which in turn powers your strategy. Strong macro requires strong multi-tasking, in the case of certain strategies, as you usually need to perform 'Macro' whilst composing your attack.
That being said, I think that a "Macro Strategy" would be one where you focus on macro, and play re-actively whilst attempting to get a stronger economy into the mid-game. Which is a great plan because you don't rely on harassment or timing attacks.
I think you're missing the point of my post. Macro, in your definition, is simply a tool to support your strategy. In just the same way, aggression, composition, and hiding information are also tools to support your strategy. A "macro game" or "macro strategy", though, is simply a game based around a plan (according to my definition). If you goal is to win with an attack, the timing of it doesn't actually change the goal; it just changes the way you get there. Whether you attack at 4:00, 10:00, 14:00, or 20:00 for the win, the game goal is still the same. What if starting with an aggressive play gives you a stronger economy going into the mid game? What if, 3 months ago, doing a hellbat drop was the BEST POSSIBLE WAY to get a stronger economy in the mid game? When you start thinking like that, you see that your definition of "macro strategy" is inherently flawed. If your focus is to use a greedy, safe play to get a strong mid-game advantage, so be it. But that doesn't mean that an aggressive play is somehow subpar or not as "macro-oriented" as a more passive play. They are both means to an end: getting a better mid game economy. However a 6 pool, cheese, or 10-min one base timing attack are not macro orientated. They become macro orientated should the attack fail. A strategy you have to "macro out of" is not macro orientated. I feel like there is a meter bar with a slider, at one end is aggression/defense, and at the other end is macro. You can have both to varying degrees, but never both at equal strength, having one weakens the other to some extent. So when you open CC first against someone who opens up 1-1-1 first on a large map, you can prepare adequate defenses in time to defend it, then you'll be way ahead because your economy is superior. Your meter bar with a slider is bad mindset. Focus only on the plan you have made for winning the game and you will realize that this slider bar is just a framework to describe the natural decision making that needs to happen in order to reach the end plan that the player wanted to get. I think you are trying to separate openings/builds/strats into camps and really that is a flawed way to view the game. Your viewpoint fails to create understanding or to outline logic behind plays and, as such, will only hide knowledge from you in the long run. Simply look at the game as a template in which to execute a plan. Your plan is like an argument. It is a theory you have on what is a logical way to win the game. You then use mechanics in game in an effort to prove your point. The example SC2John gave about 6 pool when it was semi common and your reaction to it is a perfect example of how your mindset is limiting your understanding. If you see aggression, of what you label cheesy, and then see a followup you give in to confirmation bias and simply call it macro-ing out of a cheese. Putting aside that I dislike the way you use both cheese and macro in that sentence, you cant make an argument like that. It literally is confirmation bias and is VERY strong evidence of a flaw in your logical model for labeling strategy. Also, the strategy he was talking about with the 6 pool won more games in the late game than with the 6 pool timing. It was an optimal opening in many eyes on some maps for creating a mid game game state that could lead an end game that had the Zerg as the winner. It was part of a plan. It wasnt a macro play or a cheese. It was an opening. I hate how the best advice that is traditionally given to someone learning is to focus on Macro and not to Cheese. It creates a focus on mindless mechanics, not aim to win, and a black and white view of aggression and greed. Starcraft 2 does not work like that at all. Starcraft 2 works much closer to a chess game than some kind of game of chicken. You have to develop a position, have a plan of attack (be it to attack first or second!), and be able to keep your desired end game (be it a 9:00, 12:00, or 25:00 end game) in mind so that you can continuously bend your play back towards your plan while still reacting to and reading your opponent. Read this quote again from the OP: Show nested quote +[Back when I was playing on iCCup] I used to have a Korean Starcraft practice partner. One day he asked me, "Why do you think Koreans are so 'cheesy' when they're learning to play?" I don't remember exactly what I replied, but it was probably something along the lines of: "They've got better micro, macro, etc., so they can win early." He took a moment, then responded, "No, it's because the goal of the game is much simpler." My practice partner was telling me that when they are learning the game (when they are new) they tend to favor game plans that win the game much sooner and with less steps. By doing that they practice the concept of playing out a game plan instead of blindly playing for a vague later game state.As our convo went on, my friend (his name was HyeongJu Ban or simply Ban) explained that as a player becomes better and their understanding of the game increases, they naturally go for later and later wins. You see, as they get better mechanically they can handle more macro and micro actions and as their understanding expands they can formulate more and more complex game plans. I really see this lack of mindset in the foreign scene as a critical problem holding back the average player and honestly is one of the biggest contributing factors to the difference in average skill between Korea and the rest of the world. The two other large factors (having the strongest professional scene and having the highest density of players in a small physical area) actually help to ensure that the average new player is exposed to someone at the local PC bang that will set them on the right path and mindset. Most of the very best players clearly subscribed to this mindset and a bit of research into their playstyle progressions provide strong support to what Ban passed onto me and I onto SC2John. Look at Flash, MVP, MKP, JulyZerg, iloveoov, Jaedong, Maru, Losira, Bisu, Naniwa, and others (MANY more). All of these players had a reputation among forum posters that speak English as being "very cheesy" and each slowly became known as "macro" players. WATCH a cross section of their games. They didn't change their approach to the game. They simply were executing plans they knew inside and out and as time went on and they played more and more they became familiar with more and more plans of increasing complexity. They were masters of excellent game plans from the start of their careers onward and nothing about their approach to strategy ever changed yet so many people that speak English feel like they went through mysterious transformations from cheesy players to macro gods.
Ok I don't subscribe to any mindset that puts strats/builds into one camp... I was merely making an attempt to define macro and I've kind of failed on that part... That's all fine.
But I sure as hell don't have a bad mindset, and I sure as hell don't use a sliding bar to formulate my strategies. I was merely theorizing and using an idea to make a point about macro. Which has just caused a lot of confusion and yes It kind of went off topic and I apologize for that.
I want to point out I spend a lot of time watching pros stream, and have and do watch Day9 regularly as well as all of the Sean "Apollo" Clark tutorial videos on youtube. Not to mention my constant perusal of these forums for fresh ideas and insights. Generally my strategies involve a safe economic opener (usually 12/12 reaper), with the intent of making no mechanical mistakes and ensuring my victory is from "having more stuff". Of course I pick an early game composition such as marine tank banshee, then transition into upgraded marine tank medivac for mid-late game. I'm comfortable with this composition in TvT and love the mobility and positional strength of marine tank that most Terrans will go for.
I do like to use the term cheese for strategies such as a Protoss player putting his first gateway in your base. It's funny, silly, and yet can kill an unsuspecting player who doesn't scout. Hence I never blame cheese for losses. I only blame myself for losing. Using the term cheese is just an easy way to quickly refer to strange funky builds that can kill you quickly very early in the game. I never categorize and dumb down strategies into "cheese" or "all-ins" or "macro builds", but the terms do have a time and purpose e.g. "I got all-ined by a Terran after my harass put him way behind".
Today I played a game vs a Terran upon where I defeated him from simply having stronger mechanics and a better economy. I ended up watching the replay with the guy afterwards because he wanted to improve so I obliged and I pointed out some errors in his play. It was really refreshing, because I also benefited from it (When you want to learn, teach). For example he forgot to add production, also forgot to re-saturate his natural after an attack, picked bad engagements, and his attempts at counter attacks were quickly snuffed out from solid map control and vision.
So vaderseven, I totally agree with everything you've said. I also like how you pointed out that as a player gains experience, they tend to focus on a later game win. In hindsight, this is very true for me, as I love big engagements and have become more and more comfortable in late game situations. Also as a player progresses, their ability to read their opponent improves dramatically. Such as recognizing a common timing or composition, or deflecting an attack when all you saw was what was revealed when you poked up the ramp etc. Experience, reflection, deliberate practice and involvement with the community is a very sound approach to improving your game.
Anyway I just didn't want to come off as someone with a poor mindset, in my attempt to define macro. : ) .
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Honestly we all use those words like that. The danger is when you allow that to enter any part of the analysis part of your thinking. That as guy just cheesed me with roaches is a normal no thought required statement. That guy planned to kill me as I was building my 3rd OC and my 2nd through 5th rax and getting 1/1 is what I must think when reflecting on my play. I wanted to hit a 3/3 anti hive timing and he wanted to hit a roach timing when I was investing a lot into infrastructure needed for my plan. Thinking in terms of actual plans helps hugely in finding solutions to problems. If I just left it mentally as cheese I might just think scout better and defend a tiny bit more. When I realize and respect his plan I can begin to appreciate many of the smaller variables in his play that reveal his plan to me earlier on which will allow me to power alot slower because I know that if he is planning on that timing then my plan has a much longer clock on it than if I was playing a muta/ling/bling player.
Think about how often people ask for the counter to a cheese and how no one ever asks for advise on how to use a longer term 'macro style' to actually close a game out. Simply knowing my plan of a 3/3 anti hive timing helps me to be able to watch a lose vs a roach timing and easily intuit several ways to deal with his plan.
On a direct note to your tvt plan: I recommend strongly having a more defined win goal. A reasonable example would be to say that vs mech you will transition to sky terran on 4 or 5 bases and use your mid game marine tank to delay his push until you have the better comp and vs marine tank you will deny X map specific base that would normally be his 4th or 5th. If you don't want to sky terran vs mech as your post might indicate then go for getting to 5 or 6 bases quickly behind your first max army and then trading units to keep him from maxing too soon. You can then use your huge economy to through cost ineffective trades when he eventually does push. There is a million different plans you can go for. Make sure they define how to win and use some kind of logic that you personally can feel.
By adding that final layer of planning to win you have a huge increase in motivation for how to exactly position your army, expand, and attack. You will also see your win rate go way up. It's not that you lack a plan it's just it is a bit vague in what it wants to do to win. There is an art in being able to declare how the game will be won. When you master that art phrases like winning on your own terms begin to apply to all of your games and early and mid game decisions that could be handled several ways become very obvious choices as they are leading to a much more refined goal.
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Legend tells of a legendary thread of legend...
Seriously love you TL strategy guys. Especially my protoss heroes Teoita and SC2John, but also vaderseven and crew Every time you guys write something here it makes me get noticeably better at the game. So thank you all. A ton.
Developing my game plan has been something I've worked on for years now since I started watching day9 pre-SC2. But because I always played BW casually as a child it never really hit home how important these things are until well into my SC2 career. PvT has remained one of my best matchups through WoL and HotS due to my mindset and gamelan. I really need to work on developing that part of my game in the other matchups. Especially PvP, as this season I'm sitting at a sexy 30~40% win rate 
I don't have very much to contribute to the discussion here just yet as I'm at work and don't have access to my replays and such that I'd want to be able to look over, but believe me I'll be back. probably tonight. SC2John and Teoita for executors 2014.
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Northern Ireland461 Posts
This thread is absolutely one of the best threads I have ever read on SC2, massive kudos to all the contributors, all these posts are worth their weight in gold.
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On October 28 2013 21:16 Dan26 wrote:
Anyway I just didn't want to come off as someone with a poor mindset, in my attempt to define macro. : ) .
I think that was in part the OP's point, unless I'm failing at reading comprehension today: if you spend all of your time trying to 'define' something, then you're focusing on stuff that doesn't actually help you win games. If you want to be ultra-blunt about it: a win has no 'qualifiers'. I got 15 ladder points, you lost 15 ladder points. End of story. Whether or not you are labeling it as 'cheese' or 'macro' or 'standard' actually has zero relevance to the improvement of your game, or your strategic approach to the game. They're words that someone who is casting or describing the overall flow of the game can use.
From a strategy and improvement mindset, the question should not be "did I achieve my goal of a macro game?" but instead "My plan was to do X (specific thing)... what stopped X from happening? Why did my opponent's plan stop mine? Was it a flaw in execution, or is the plan itself not equipped to deal with that particular case? How can I alter my plan to account for that particular case?" As soon as you start throwing phrases like "Well, this type of cheesy play is a blind counter", I believe you close off a great deal of learning avenues.
Slight tangent: I wrote the TL guide on CC-first in TvP. Regularly when I write guides, I have questions pop up in comments or PMs about "Isn't X a build-order counter/autowin?" I don't believe I've ever answered that question with a 'yes'. Not because there aren't builds that are very, very good against things like CC-first in TvP, but because saying "Well, if my opponent does X I'm dead" doesn't do anything for your game. 4-gate Warp Prism is super deadly versus CC-first, but I've spent MANY occasions watching replays and practicing techniques to hold against it because I'm not thinking about "cheese beats macro" or "my plan is to play a macro game", I'm thinking "my plan is to take a fast expo, prevent a Protoss from comfortably securing an early third with 10 minute pressure, and then transitioning to a strong high-tech army via a third base behind my 10 minute pressure. 4-gate Prism strikes at this time in my plan; what are the tools I can try to defend?" All specific statements, all specific questions, all with possibly very specific answers. Nowhere would the discussion be improved by using the terms macro or cheese or standard when I can have crystal clear explanations that don't carry assumptions implied (like 'cheese' does - the danger being that everyone's heard implications with that word are different).
Thumbs up, guys, great topic!
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United States4883 Posts
On October 28 2013 15:19 Vies wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2013 14:04 vaderseven wrote:
Get cheese builds and macro builds OUT of this thread lol. They are just silly concepts and if posters can't get past that then they should just refrain from posting.
I encourage people to post about game plans they have seen or used or to ask game plan related questions in this thread. I'd be happy to... After reading this thread I feel inspired to develop a game plan for each of my 3 MU's so I can tweak and improve it over time. I recently switched to Zerg and feel extremely lost in the zvz match up. I want to develop a game plan around the Gasless ZvZ +1/+1 roach timing 1. Get to 2 base via either pool first or hatch first. Scout opponents natural with overlord to identify early pool so we don't die. Rush out 4 queens and sim city with evo chambers/roach warren. Block the entrance with 2 queens and save energy to transfuse if opponent decides to put on ling/bling aggression. 2. Drone up to ~50 drones, take a 3rd base and start producing roaches. (Use overseers to scout if Z elected for roach or muta composition and how heavily they are droning their 3rd. Depending on opponents choice, keep producing roaches and attack or drone up the 3rd base. 3. Defend until 3 bases are saturated and then move out for an attack when 2+/2+ is nearing completion. Other than this I am really not sure... Do I add in hydras for the 2+/2+ timing attack? if so when do I add the hydra den? Should I have infestors in the 2+/2+ timing window? If so when? What happens if I cannot engage efficiently at the 2+/+2 timing window or if the engagement goes relatively evenly... What is my follow up? How do I deny expansions while keeping my own safe? What end game unit composition should i be shooting for?
I just wanted to throw my take on this out there:
First thing, remember that my analysis begins with how you win and recreates the steps on how to get to that winning position. You don't want to focus on the process, you want to focus on the goal. So in this case, you need to define how you're going to win FIRST. Looking at your post, maybe we can say something like "I want to win with a maxed out roach push with +2/+2" and then work our way back from there.
Strategy goal: I want to win with a maxed out roach push with +2/+2 (ranged)
Step 1: What ingredients are necessary for our goal? We're probably going to need 3 bases, 3-4 hatches, and double evo chambers. We're probably going to have to secure a rather early 3rd, and we probably need to hit before our opponent gets out higher tech. A maxed out roach push against ultras or broodlords is an instalose situation, so we're probably going to have to hit rather early in the game or force a lot of pressure on our opponent to keep him from teching up. Let's choose a random time for the maxed out roach push...how about 15:00? If we look at some pro VoDs, we can get an even better indication of WHEN we're supposed to hit maxed roaches and +2/+2.
Step 2: How do we get to 3 bases with double evos? We need to find a way to safely and quickly secure our third base; what MID GAME unit composition are we shooting for? It seems obvious that if we want to hit a roach max timing, we should probably secure it with plain roaches. That's not our only option, but it seems to make the most sense right now. We can deflect any kinds of ground attacks in the mid game by having a lot of roaches with +1/+1 and speed and we can deflect mutas with queens and spores. If we get into particular trouble, we can rely on counterattacks and spine crawlers to buy us enough time to get the forces we need out.
Step 3: How can we refine the mid game? Are there ways we can improve our situation heading into the late game? We could try doing a roach attack with +1/+1 and see if that puts us in a better position later. We can try going burrow and doing roach harass every time our opponent moves out. We can try other little moves like faking a queen/roach all-in or doing speedling counterattacks, etc., etc. In this stage of the game, we want to ask ourselves: "What is the best way to play the mid game that will get me to my winning moment with +2/+2 maxed roaches?"
Step 4: How do we get to the stage where we're producing roaches? What is the best early game to get us to our mid game? Well, we kind of mentioned we wanted double evos and we know a gasless, double evo -> roach opening, so we can try that. It's important to note that this isn't our only choice of a build order. If we come across a better build to lead us into the mid game, we shouldn't be afraid to ditch this one. For the moment, however, we can try out this build and find it's strengths and weaknesses and how to hold certain pressures, etc., etc. Our goal in this stage is to get a working model that allows us to get to the mid game in the best possible scenario.
Step 5: In what ways can we refine the early game? Can we safely eke out an advantage by doing something like cutting an early queen or getting our evo chambers up earlier? This should be an area of exploration in which we focus on perfecting our general macro and learning subtle scouting tells and how to respond to them. After extensive ladder experience, we can learn how to stop any early pressure or how to hold early all-ins. Once we get a good idea of how we're going to open, we refine it until it leads us into the mid game seamlessly.
Step 5: Which maps work well for this strategy? After doing this strategy many times on the ladder against different opponents on different maps, you can start to get a good feel for whether or not it's a working strategy. For instance, this style might not work in cross positions on Frost or more choky maps like Bel'Shir. It seems to work out well on more open maps, though, like Derelict or Whirlwind. On maps where this strategy doesn't work well, maybe we can make some slight adjustments to make it hit sooner or maybe add in hydras for our +2/+2 push; our goal won't change drastically, but we can take the general idea of our strategy and mold it a little bit into a strategy that's perfect for THAT map.
Conclusion: I want to open with a gasless FE into double evo chambers and roaches. To defend against early speedling/baneling pressure, I'll produce several early queens and make a good sim city. After I secure my 3rd base, I will produce roaches non stop and do a +1/+1 speedroach timing and drone up my 3rd expansion behind it. If I am losing the battle, I will fall back and attempt to buy enough time to translate my superior economy into a maxed roach timing. Shortly before +2/+2 finishes and I'm approaching a maxed out army, I will move out with my roaches and constantly rally roaches to the front.
I hope this lays things out in an way that's easier to understand. I cannot stress enough that the goal of strategy is the most important thing. When you sit down to think out a strategy, you should be focused on making sure everything in the game goes to support your ultimate goal, even if you have to discard a build or mid game attack that you originally really liked. Don't get overly attached to ideas like "I always go hatch first" or "I always go early speed to make sure I survive the early game" but instead use them to support your goal: "I go hatch first with this strategy to make sure I can get 4 early queens and creep at my natural to defend any kind of early aggression and lead me into an economically superior mid game." Everything needs to connect from beginning to end.
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John, it makes me tickled pink how you were able to completely understand my points that night. This is my favorite thread on TL right now.
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On October 29 2013 14:38 SC2John wrote:
I hope this lays things out in an way that's easier to understand. I cannot stress enough that the goal of strategy is the most important thing. When you sit down to think out a strategy, you should be focused on making sure everything in the game goes to support your ultimate goal, even if you have to discard a build or mid game attack that you originally really liked. Don't get overly attached to ideas like "I always go hatch first" or "I always go early speed to make sure I survive the early game" but instead use them to support your goal: "I go hatch first with this strategy to make sure I can get 4 early queens and creep at my natural to defend any kind of early aggression and lead me into an economically superior mid game." Everything needs to connect from beginning to end.
This is a much better way to think about strategy.
My question is: how far do you play this out? I'll illustrate with an example to communicate what I'm thinking.
Matchup: TvP, map = Frost, Whirlwind, or Akilon (easier to get lots of bases)
Goal: delay the Protoss third and deny his fourth long enough to amass a versatile high-tech Bio/Viking army with at least 12-15 Ghosts and a similar number of Vikings which can dictate the terms of any Protoss engagement in my favour.
Let's say I open CC-first, he goes super economic 1-gate FE, and we both reach a very normal midgame where he manages to deflect pressure and get up a third at about 13:00. Furthermore, I succeed in delaying his fourth with non-committal engagements and minor drop harassment until I have a 180-160 supply advantage and my Viking/Ghost count is starting to rise on four bases. I'm posturing on the map, and have the ability to force any engagement he tries to be favourable for me. I have reached my goal, confident that my decision-making and positioning are better than my opponent's.
Now what? If the Protoss refuses to come out and just sits there, not engaging, and impossible to attack into, how many 'extra' goals should I come up with to deal with this situation?
Should I implement a goal along the lines of: I will trade off most of my Marine/Marauder force via multiple Medivac drops to bleed him out? I will transition to 3/3 Battlecruisers slowly as I maintain a lockdown on the center of the map? What sorts of corner cases should I have a pre-planned adaptation for, and if I can't, how do I effectively create goals on the fly?
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United States4883 Posts
On October 30 2013 00:46 Jazzman88 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2013 14:38 SC2John wrote:
I hope this lays things out in an way that's easier to understand. I cannot stress enough that the goal of strategy is the most important thing. When you sit down to think out a strategy, you should be focused on making sure everything in the game goes to support your ultimate goal, even if you have to discard a build or mid game attack that you originally really liked. Don't get overly attached to ideas like "I always go hatch first" or "I always go early speed to make sure I survive the early game" but instead use them to support your goal: "I go hatch first with this strategy to make sure I can get 4 early queens and creep at my natural to defend any kind of early aggression and lead me into an economically superior mid game." Everything needs to connect from beginning to end.
This is a much better way to think about strategy. My question is: how far do you play this out? I'll illustrate with an example to communicate what I'm thinking. Matchup: TvP, map = Frost, Whirlwind, or Akilon (easier to get lots of bases) Goal: delay the Protoss third and deny his fourth long enough to amass a versatile high-tech Bio/Viking army with at least 12-15 Ghosts and a similar number of Vikings which can dictate the terms of any Protoss engagement in my favour. Let's say I open CC-first, he goes super economic 1-gate FE, and we both reach a very normal midgame where he manages to deflect pressure and get up a third at about 13:00. Furthermore, I succeed in delaying his fourth with non-committal engagements and minor drop harassment until I have a 180-160 supply advantage and my Viking/Ghost count is starting to rise on four bases. I'm posturing on the map, and have the ability to force any engagement he tries to be favourable for me. I have reached my goal, confident that my decision-making and positioning are better than my opponent's. Now what? If the Protoss refuses to come out and just sits there, not engaging, and impossible to attack into, how many 'extra' goals should I come up with to deal with this situation? Should I implement a goal along the lines of: I will trade off most of my Marine/Marauder force via multiple Medivac drops to bleed him out? I will transition to 3/3 Battlecruisers slowly as I maintain a lockdown on the center of the map? What sorts of corner cases should I have a pre-planned adaptation for, and if I can't, how do I effectively create goals on the fly?
I think maybe the issue is that your goal should state how you want to win. Saying that you want to reach a certain composition or take a certain amount of bases is a good goal, but it doesn't state how you're going to win. If the goal is: "I want to deny my opponent's fourth long enough to amass an unbeatable ghost/viking army and then faceroll him," suddenly you have a concrete way to win and a goal to shoot for. If you try this out several times and feel like no matter how you refine the earlier stages of the game, you still can't make it happen, you might try to change your goal to something more sensible or add an additional statement to your original goal: "if my opponent turtles and refuses to attack, I will secure center map control and start a BC transition."
I think, at the highest levels of play (this is a bit of theorycrafting), no strategy is not pre-planned. On any given map, you might have a range of strategies you've developed. Depending on the situation, your original goal might shift to another goal which is better suited for that particular game, but you're never actually "making up goals on the fly."
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On October 29 2013 01:57 mau5mat wrote:
This thread is absolutely one of the best threads I have ever read on SC2, massive kudos to all the contributors, all these posts are worth their weight in gold.
#That. Could we get a sticky?
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Well you shouldn't be making up goals on the fly but if you are inexperienced in a particular situation always watch the replay and think of strategies you could have done then have a friend play the opposing side assume the position you realized that they are doing something you have never faced before and try to play it out with your new strategy to see if its viable in the situation you were in
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If you are inexperienced in a situation you should have a plan made pregame still on how you want to win. Try 100% to execute that plan. Confidence in your plan in game and out of game skepticism and considering of other options. Never the other way around.
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Canada8157 Posts
When I see macro game as oppose to a short/cheese game, I think of the amount of multitasking, unit control, map awareness and army composition you have to have compared to the early game.
Say for example a cannon rush in PvP on Yeonsu. In my books it's definitely not a macro game, but still has the clear goal in mind and requires good execution to reach that goal. So I guess I am drawing an arbitrary line when I separate the macro game from the cheese game. I guess I put it somewhere along the lines of hitting a timing attack with tier 2 units and not be in terrible shape if it doesn't go as well as planned, or something around there
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There is a lot of great information in this thread, easily one of my favorites.
A key point about the "having a goal" mentality is that starcraft is way too fast and way too attention intensive for anyone to efficiently think about goals on the fly. If you have a pre-game mental map about what you are trying to accomplish and how to deviate/react, that's a lot of mental resources you are saving yourself during the actual game.
That said, I am not sure that the goal must necessarily be how to kill the opponent. The more laid out your game plan is, the more it would converge, ideally, to just being a complex map on how to gain incremental advantages, and then you win with... whatever. The important part is knowing beforehand what "advantage" to persue at a given stage of the game.
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United States4883 Posts
On October 30 2013 11:04 bertu wrote:
There is a lot of great information in this thread, easily one of my favorites.
A key point about the "having a goal" mentality is that starcraft is way too fast and way too attention intensive for anyone to efficiently think about goals on the fly. If you have a pre-game mental map about what you are trying to accomplish and how to deviate/react, that's a lot of mental resources you are saving yourself during the actual game.
I agree. One of the biggest issues with "APM" I face is that often times my macro falls apart simply because I don't know where I'm headed. When you have a fully mapped-out game plan, your APM becomes a lot more effective because you just know exactly what to do at all times.
That said, I am not sure that the goal must necessarily be how to kill the opponent. The more laid out your game plan is, the more it would converge, ideally, to just being a complex map on how to gain incremental advantages, and then you win with... whatever. The important part is knowing beforehand what "advantage" to persue at a given stage of the game.
I disagree. Stating a goal like: "I want to have a superior late game economy of 4 bases while denying my opponent's 4th" is exactly the same as "I want to have a superior mid game economy by powering hard and lightly harassing my opponent". Both of them are PARTS of a game plan, but they don't actually point anywhere.
A good game plan would look something like: "In TvZ, I want to step into the mid game with a superior economy by doing hellion/banshee harassment and powering hard (double ups, 3CC). Once I get my tech and production up, I want to focus on denying my opponent's 4th base with 4M for as long as possible while taking my own. Once I take my 4th base, I will drill his newly-created 4th base with constant pressure until my opponent is no longer able to defend and crumbles to my aggression." As you can see, I took the two concepts I mentioned earlier and formed them into a solid game plan that, most importantly, explained how I would win. There are a ton of variations on how I could get from early game -> hellion/banshee -> 3-base 4M, so I still maintain those as convergence points. But now I have a working guideline of what I actually want to do in the game. I know there will be a definite point where I either win or lose.
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I want to add that the BEST game plans combine two concepts: not dieing and snowballing an advantage to a win.
Innovations 4M TvZ plays are great examples as he uses hellions to deny creep for a bit, then a 1/1 force to either hold back larger mineral based ling armies OR to push back larger creep based queen openings, then doing a 2/2 parade push into a base that has been made more vulnerable due to a lack of enough creep (this push leapfrogs and kills creep OR if it gets to a base REALLY fast kills a base which can be almost impossible to come back from) OR uses a 2/2 4M army to hold his third vs aggressive ground based plays such as roach bane or hydra roach, then a hard hitting 3/3 timing to deny one of the Zerg's four bases.
He continues the plan past that but vs all but the best his game plan wins there. He has a GOAL here of having cleared creep vs greedy players (denying an advantage of map control vs players cutting corners) or not dieing vs other things that cant afford to get that creep and then snowballing the lack of mapcontrol/creep into a very strong push of 3/3 bio.
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On October 30 2013 11:04 bertu wrote:
That said, I am not sure that the goal must necessarily be how to kill the opponent. The more laid out your game plan is, the more it would converge, ideally, to just being a complex map on how to gain incremental advantages, and then you win with... whatever. The important part is knowing beforehand what "advantage" to persue at a given stage of the game.
On October 30 2013 15:12 vaderseven wrote:
I want to add that the BEST game plans combine two concepts: not dieing and snowballing an advantage to a win.
Vanderseven made a a great statement that better conceives what I was trying to say.
For anyone familar with the card game magic: the gathering, I just made a blog post inspired by this thread, describing how most of sc2 game plans would correlate to mtg's deck archetypes of control, aggro, combo and aggo-control.
+ Show Spoiler +http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=433935#1
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This is a fantastic thread and discussion. Thank you.
I have a question, however. This is all quite interesting information, but a little over my head as an inexperienced/bad player. I can't really conceive of a "plan" that I want to pursue. Maybe I'm too inexperienced/bad to be using this information?
More to the point: How does someone (either in general or like me) come up with a plan? What is the source for the fabrication of your end goal?
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On October 31 2013 10:33 Millicant wrote:
This is a fantastic thread and discussion. Thank you.
I have a question, however. This is all quite interesting information, but a little over my head as an inexperienced/bad player. I can't really conceive of a "plan" that I want to pursue. Maybe I'm too inexperienced/bad to be using this information?
More to the point: How does someone (either in general or like me) come up with a plan? What is the source for the fabrication of your end goal?
How new are you?
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Hey vaderseven, thanks for taking an interest!
I'm not very new... I've been playing since the beta, though I've been away from the game for a bit (over a year). I'm only just now playing HotS and all my old builds/game plans (not to mention skills) are outdated.
More than anything, I'm not a terribly creative player. Additionally, it seems that most players I'm up against don't really follow exact timings or even strategies. Doesn't this sort of depend on your opponent playing, uh, well? 
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On October 31 2013 12:19 Millicant wrote:Hey vaderseven, thanks for taking an interest! I'm not very new... I've been playing since the beta, though I've been away from the game for a bit (over a year). I'm only just now playing HotS and all my old builds/game plans (not to mention skills) are outdated. More than anything, I'm not a terribly creative player. Additionally, it seems that most players I'm up against don't really follow exact timings or even strategies. Doesn't this sort of depend on your opponent playing, uh, well?
I'm not vaderseven but i'll try to answer some of your questions.
First of all, the idea that your old builds/plans are outdated isn't completely right. Some of them might still work with a few small adjustments. If you do want to play the more newer styles and you need inspiration, just watch some proffesional games and search for a style you like (it's important that you pick something that you think will work for you, don't pick a style just because you believe it has the most succes). Then you want to come up with a plan around that style. For instance i like to play mutas in zvz because of the map control it gives. Then my plan with mutas is to delay/deny his 3rd for as long as possible after which i switch into a roach +1/+1 timing which should give me the win if i managed to delay his 3rd long enough. It's not a perfect plan, but it works for me.
Notice that my zvz plan doesn't rely on my opponent playing well. If he doesn't play well, it just makes it easier for me to execute.
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United States4883 Posts
On October 31 2013 19:49 dis4ster wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2013 12:19 Millicant wrote:Hey vaderseven, thanks for taking an interest! I'm not very new... I've been playing since the beta, though I've been away from the game for a bit (over a year). I'm only just now playing HotS and all my old builds/game plans (not to mention skills) are outdated. More than anything, I'm not a terribly creative player. Additionally, it seems that most players I'm up against don't really follow exact timings or even strategies. Doesn't this sort of depend on your opponent playing, uh, well? I'm not vaderseven but i'll try to answer some of your questions. First of all, the idea that your old builds/plans are outdated isn't completely right. Some of them might still work with a few small adjustments. If you do want to play the more newer styles and you need inspiration, just watch some proffesional games and search for a style you like (it's important that you pick something that you think will work for you, don't pick a style just because you believe it has the most succes). Then you want to come up with a plan around that style. For instance i like to play mutas in zvz because of the map control it gives. Then my plan with mutas is to delay/deny his 3rd for as long as possible after which i switch into a roach +1/+1 timing which should give me the win if i managed to delay his 3rd long enough. It's not a perfect plan, but it works for me. Notice that my zvz plan doesn't rely on my opponent playing well. If he doesn't play well, it just makes it easier for me to execute.
I was going to mention this. The best place to look for a template is pro replays/VoDs. If you're not sure how to play or how to map out a strategy, just look at a professional game and try to identify the series of goals that make up the strategy. Then just copy the same strategy and see if it works for you. The BEST games for this kind of thing are good timing attacks that are one-sided stompings; this is because there is an obvious, short-term goal, and it was probably executed to near perfection.
For instance: + Show Spoiler +http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=430061 (abbreviated) Goals: - 1-gate FE (+ don't die to cheesy stuff)
- 3-gate zealot pressure
- Immortal/sentry push
In the end, you get a strategy that looks something like this: "I will expand early off of 1 gateway, using a zealot cancel to prevent 6pool pressure. I will have a wall and a sentry up by 5:20 to prevent speedling attacks. Once warp gate finishes, I will pressure with my MSC and 6 zealots while constantly chronoboosting out immortals. When I reach 3 immortals, I will push out of my base - leaving my MSC at home to defend against counterattacks - and target the third base of the zerg. If the zerg puts up spine crawlers at the third pre-emptively, I will walk directly into the natural."
Also, yes, if you have a solid plan and good mechanics, you should be able to crush anyone trying to do "unorthodox" things or playing badly (for the most part, nothing like a probe scout on 9 into a super delayed proxy stargate into 2 oracles hitting 3 minutes later -_-).
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I want to piggy back on Millicant's post. This has been an excellent thread.
I've been playing on and off for a bit over a year now, sinking the vast majority of time into 2v2s and 3v3s with my buddies because I was scared of proper laddering.
I've recently made a switch from Terran to Protoss and I'm trying to do some 1v1s finally and slowly working my way past Bronze league foes whenever I get the courage to ladder.
I'm struggling with the gameplan aspect, as the wealth of information out there is supremely overwhelming and just figuring out what to do against each race has become a stumbling block. I'd like to figure out something appropriate to my skill level but I am not sure how.
This has become a bit meandering so I'll just end it here and say thanks again for an interesting read.
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United States4883 Posts
On November 01 2013 00:38 BigSolar wrote:
I want to piggy back on Millicant's post. This has been an excellent thread.
I've been playing on and off for a bit over a year now, sinking the vast majority of time into 2v2s and 3v3s with my buddies because I was scared of proper laddering.
I've recently made a switch from Terran to Protoss and I'm trying to do some 1v1s finally and slowly working my way past Bronze league foes whenever I get the courage to ladder.
I'm struggling with the gameplan aspect, as the wealth of information out there is supremely overwhelming and just figuring out what to do against each race has become a stumbling block. I'd like to figure out something appropriate to my skill level but I am not sure how.
This has become a bit meandering so I'll just end it here and say thanks again for an interesting read.
Nono, it's quite understandable. If you go back to the OP, you'll see the anecdote about my friend's conversation with his Korean practice partner:
I used to have a Korean Starcraft practice partner. One day he asked me, "Why do you think Koreans are so cheesy when they're learning to play?" I don't remember exactly what I replied, but it was probably something along the lines of: "They've got better micro, macro, etc., so they can win early." He took a moment, then responded, "No, it's because the goal of the game is much simpler."
At your level, you should work on playing games with very simple goals and a short-term game plan, such as basic cheeses and 1- or 2-base timing attacks. I know there are a lot of people who are against playing "non-macro" styles and who think it just makes you a "cheesy player"...but the fact of the matter is that easier game plans are easier to execute and thus are easier to learn. Trying to copy Bomber's TvP is mind-bogglingly borderline impossible while performing a proxy 2-gate or a banshee into marine/tank TvT build is totally doable. Learning how to do a 2-base immortal push in PvZ perfectly is much easier than trying to learn a long, drawn-out, lategame-focused strategy perfectly. EDIT: That is not to say that you don't want to get to that point some day. You just don't want to throw yourself into the deep end without learning how to swim first.
Don't worry about mechanics or that you're not playing a "macro" game. If you're hitting all your timings correctly and successfully winning with well-executed, short-term strategies, you'll get better a lot faster (and you'll probably win a lot more). Again, if you're unsure of the correct direction, look to professional games. The best types of games to learn from are one-sided stompings with well-executed attacks. If you practice learning even a basic strategy EXACTLY as good as a professional - hitting every timing, making sure you're hitting benchmarks - then you'll learn and get better in no time and be able to start learning more complex strategies.
List of some good strategies to learn: + Show Spoiler +- Proxy 2-gate (all matchups)
- Delayed 4-gate (all matchups)
- 10-gate into 3-gate (PvP)
- 3-gate blink stalker all-in (PvP, PvT)
- DT rush into 4-gate/archon bust (all matchups)
- +1 7-gate all-in (PvZ off of FFE)
- Cannon rush (Yeonsu only)
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Wow, thanks for the detailed reply. I'll definitely try to work on these "cheeses" that I've avoided for whatever reason, even in team games.
Once I work a couple of these out against the AI I'll take it to ladder. Question: let's say my opponent holds my attack. Should I just declare it a loss and gg, or attempt to play the game out, even though I currently only want to work on these short term games? I suppose in theory the games will end shortly thereafter due to a counter-push, but there are an awful lot of turtlers in low leagues.
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Hi guys,
First thing i want to say is that it's a great topic, very interesting.
Second, i'm sorry for my english, i probably make a lot of error, i'm a french guy and i try to make progress in english but for the time being i'm not really good... So i hope i will be understandable.
I've read this post since it's start and i was very interest. Indeed i'm exactly in same position than BigSolar and i wanted for some times ask exaclty the same question.
But i have 3 questions to ask about the list of strategies to learn :
1) I've found a post in which they give a PDF of 15 protoss' all-ins : http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=426907
I just wanted to now if you recommend us to learn those all-ins to start ?
2) About the strategies you recommend : the proxy 2-gate and the cannon rush. I quite don't understand how these strategies could be interesting for us to learn. Because these are just 2 binary strategies : either you win either you lose. I quite don't understand their purpose if we want to improve our game.
3) It's maybe me who don't understand, but what do you want to say with the "Delayed 4-gate" ?
I hope you will understand my english.
Thank you for your answers.
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On November 01 2013 01:47 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2013 00:38 BigSolar wrote:
I want to piggy back on Millicant's post. This has been an excellent thread.
I've been playing on and off for a bit over a year now, sinking the vast majority of time into 2v2s and 3v3s with my buddies because I was scared of proper laddering.
I've recently made a switch from Terran to Protoss and I'm trying to do some 1v1s finally and slowly working my way past Bronze league foes whenever I get the courage to ladder.
I'm struggling with the gameplan aspect, as the wealth of information out there is supremely overwhelming and just figuring out what to do against each race has become a stumbling block. I'd like to figure out something appropriate to my skill level but I am not sure how.
This has become a bit meandering so I'll just end it here and say thanks again for an interesting read.
Nono, it's quite understandable. If you go back to the OP, you'll see the anecdote about my friend's conversation with his Korean practice partner: Show nested quote +I used to have a Korean Starcraft practice partner. One day he asked me, "Why do you think Koreans are so cheesy when they're learning to play?" I don't remember exactly what I replied, but it was probably something along the lines of: "They've got better micro, macro, etc., so they can win early." He took a moment, then responded, "No, it's because the goal of the game is much simpler." At your level, you should work on playing games with very simple goals and a short-term game plan, such as basic cheeses and 1- or 2-base timing attacks. I know there are a lot of people who are against playing "non-macro" styles and who think it just makes you a "cheesy player"...but the fact of the matter is that easier game plans are easier to execute and thus are easier to learn. Trying to copy Bomber's TvP is mind-bogglingly borderline impossible while performing a proxy 2-gate or a banshee into marine/tank TvT build is totally doable. Learning how to do a 2-base immortal push in PvZ perfectly is much easier than trying to learn a long, drawn-out, lategame-focused strategy perfectly. EDIT: That is not to say that you don't want to get to that point some day. You just don't want to throw yourself into the deep end without learning how to swim first.Don't worry about mechanics or that you're not playing a "macro" game. If you're hitting all your timings correctly and successfully winning with well-executed, short-term strategies, you'll get better a lot faster (and you'll probably win a lot more). Again, if you're unsure of the correct direction, look to professional games. The best types of games to learn from are one-sided stompings with well-executed attacks. If you practice learning even a basic strategy EXACTLY as good as a professional - hitting every timing, making sure you're hitting benchmarks - then you'll learn and get better in no time and be able to start learning more complex strategies. List of some good strategies to learn: + Show Spoiler +- Proxy 2-gate (all matchups)
- Delayed 4-gate (all matchups)
- 10-gate into 3-gate (PvP)
- 3-gate blink stalker all-in (PvP, PvT)
- DT rush into 4-gate/archon bust (all matchups)
- +1 7-gate all-in (PvZ off of FFE)
- Cannon rush (Yeonsu only)
This is fantastic. While I certainly want to continue improving my mechanics (the staircase maybe?) you've just provided a clear path. Learn the short game first, learn the long game once you're able. That makes so much sense, yet the clamor of "cheese is bad" has overshadowed the common sense of learning to play short, tightly focused games before you dive into long, sprawling, and for a less experienced player, unmanageable games.
I think BigSolar hit more precisely on what I was trying to say: the possibilities and knowledge required are overwhelming. Where do you even begin? The obvious answer - start with a less complicated game plan. Additionally, watching the pros and finding somebody to emulate is a great idea.
Thank you. I will surely be back to ask more inane questions, but this is spectacular.
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Let me start with the caveat that this is a fantastic way to approach the game and even life. However it is not the only effective way to the think about the game.
A major criticism is that this analysis largely ignores the thought process of the opponent. In interviews many players state that they did not come with a build order prepared. Even in important matches pros state that they only come with prepared builds for maybe 2 out of the 5 maps (builds that were probably developed using the mindset you establish here). They frequently say they wanted to play reactively.
Of course you could achieve the same results using this mindset. But as a zerg player who has extensively researched zerg pros, I feel that zergs generally do not approach the game in this direction (I think suppy thinks along these lines though). Personally, I play zerg with the goal of allowing myself to approach the game from this perspective, but with the realization that my opponents will do everything they can to stop me. So yes, I can use this mindset but for me I feel more comfortable approaching this with a loose goal but an emphasis on the game flow and on my opponent's intentions.
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Just wanted to say this is an absolutely great post, and mirrors some of the things I've learned from poker that I'm now applying to learning SC2 from the ground up.
The adherence to the terms "macro" and "cheese" are pretty similar to poker players adherence to the terms "value" and "bluff" in that you can come up with definitions for them, and they may even be mathematically distinct in certain spots, but for the most part they just get in the way of solid strategy formulation.
I'll be attempting to utilize this in my own adventures on the ladder, and can already see how this can help me to more effectively utilize scouting times and information gained.
In the future I'll probably post some of my thoughts on strategies for each matchup in order to get feedback from more experienced players, but for now I'll just say great read and thanks .
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United States4883 Posts
I just want to make this clear before I begin: almost all cheeses and "all-in" attacks are a bit of a coinflip. In the most basic sense, you're sacrificing tech and economy for an early attack that can be defended with proper scouting, preparation, and defense. If you fail to win with your attack, you have relatively no tech or economy at home to compete with your opponent's. However, this doesn't mean that they aren't constructive for learning a game plan or learning how to formulate a strategy. On the right maps with good execution against the right strategies, they can be deadly, and that's what learning strategy is all about. Not only are you learning in bits and pieces, you're also adding to your "toolbox", your arsenal of strategy.
On November 01 2013 02:44 BigSolar wrote:
Wow, thanks for the detailed reply. I'll definitely try to work on these "cheeses" that I've avoided for whatever reason, even in team games.
Once I work a couple of these out against the AI I'll take it to ladder. Question: let's say my opponent holds my attack. Should I just declare it a loss and gg, or attempt to play the game out, even though I currently only want to work on these short term games? I suppose in theory the games will end shortly thereafter due to a counter-push, but there are an awful lot of turtlers in low leagues.
Sometimes you have a plan ready for the game that fails to actually achieve what it was supposed to achieve. When this happens, you have to look a few things before dismissing the strategy:
- Was my timing good? Did I hit the correct timings with the correct numbers of things? Did I hit my benchmarks?
- Was my execution good or bad? Did I control my units well? Was my positioning good or are there better ways of approaching the attack?
- Is this map good for the strategy? Could maybe a more open map improve my execution? A more narrow, choky one?
- Was my opponent blind-countering me? Did he just get lucky?
- Is my strategy based on a gamble or a gimmick? Is there a way I can better control the flow
You want to make sure there wasn't some kind of flaw or outside force that made the strategy not work. If you can rule every single one of these out and say the strategy was executed perfectly but was stopped dead, then you may be working with a bad strategy (or just playing against a really good player). As far as continuing to play the game through, you can if you want to. But from an analysis standpoint, when your strategy fails, the game is essentially over; everything that happens afterwards, whether you win or lose, is not worth inspecting as it relates to your original game plan.
On November 01 2013 03:35 Tonymoi wrote:Hi guys, First thing i want to say is that it's a great topic, very interesting. Second, i'm sorry for my english, i probably make a lot of error, i'm a french guy and i try to make progress in english but for the time being i'm not really good... So i hope i will be understandable. I've read this post since it's start and i was very interest. Indeed i'm exactly in same position than BigSolar and i wanted for some times ask exaclty the same question. But i have 3 questions to ask about the list of strategies to learn : 1) I've found a post in which they give a PDF of 15 protoss' all-ins : http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=426907I just wanted to now if you recommend us to learn those all-ins to start ? 2) About the strategies you recommend : the proxy 2-gate and the cannon rush. I quite don't understand how these strategies could be interesting for us to learn. Because these are just 2 binary strategies : either you win either you lose. I quite don't understand their purpose if we want to improve our game. 3) It's maybe me who don't understand, but what do you want to say with the " Delayed 4-gate" ? I hope you will understand my english. Thank you for your answers.
1) Yeah, sure, they look all right. I can't vouch for all of them, but they're written by GM players, so they're probably pretty good and fairly precise.
2) Doing cheeses generally works your micro really hard while allowing you to ease off the macro a bit; something like a proxy 2-gate or a cannon rush is just the kind of thing you want to do when you're just starting and need to learn some basics. In the higher levels, cheeses are much more refined and require much better control. A masters player doing a proxy 2-gate is infinitely better than a platinum league player doing a proxy 2-gate.
3) A "Korean" 4-gate is a 4-gate with one gas off of a 10-gate; a normal 4-gate is a 12-gate or 13-gate with one gas; and a delayed 4-gate, which is most often used in HotS, is a 13-gate with two gases. If you don't get two gases, you don't have a MSC and your push is severely weakened.
On November 01 2013 05:10 Mauzel wrote:
Let me start with the caveat that this is a fantastic way to approach the game and even life. However it is not the only effective way to the think about the game.
A major criticism is that this analysis largely ignores the thought process of the opponent. In interviews many players state that they did not come with a build order prepared. Even in important matches pros state that they only come with prepared builds for maybe 2 out of the 5 maps (builds that were probably developed using the mindset you establish here). They frequently say they wanted to play reactively.
Of course you could achieve the same results using this mindset. But as a zerg player who has extensively researched zerg pros, I feel that zergs generally do not approach the game in this direction (I think suppy thinks along these lines though). Personally, I play zerg with the goal of allowing myself to approach the game from this perspective, but with the realization that my opponents will do everything they can to stop me. So yes, I can use this mindset but for me I feel more comfortable approaching this with a loose goal but an emphasis on the game flow and on my opponent's intentions.
I disagree with that. Look at my analysis of Life's ZvP against Naniwa. In it, I argue that underneath Life's seemingly crazy and unpredictable playstyle lies a very clear set of transitions which he follows and flows between in order to keep his momentum going in the game. Sure, he definitely breaks from the mold and does things like queen/roach/nydus or fast ultralisks or no early pressure straight into queen/SH/infestor, but these are slight variations based on knowledge and intuition I can't even begin to understand. My point is that even though Life does a bunch of wacky things and seemingly very different builds, there's still a very clear plan underneath it.
Likewise, if we look at Jaedong's ZvP, we can see some very clear patterns that form how he plays. Even though he is known as a "reactive zerg player", he has a plan going into the game. Often times he plays very greedily behind really good reads while poking and prodding the protoss at key times to get additional scouting info. He avoids making units and dumps most of gas into tech. Then, when he gets a good read on the opponent's army, he blasts out the best counter unit. It's reactive, but it's still based on Jaedong's plan.
So, if you will, zerg relies more heavily on a good set of transitions than on specific attack timings. It's not that they're playing purely "reactively" and "non-planned" but that they're playing reactively within a pre-planned guideline.
Also, to everyone else, thank you for your support! Again, vader and I encourage people to post some game plans and specific strategies they have and try to break it down the same way we do!
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Northern Ireland461 Posts
I wrote a response on Reddit to a fellow Terran player who was having trouble in TvZ, I attempted to use what I had learned in this thread to come up with a way to help him improve by looking at using a game plan to steer you to a win, by using a pro game as a reference. For the sake of time, I will paste what I have written, in the hopes that yourself, or Vader, will tell me if I'm on the right track for analysing and constructing game plans from VODs or replays.
''I would also watch some of Flash's games from his streamed ladder session he played a couple of months ago, his gameplan and execution is amazing, anyone could learn from watching it.
http://www.twitch.tv/ktrolsterflash/b/453050408 - Notable TvZ games; 32:18. Watch specifically how he executes his build to lead onto a plan of what to do in the match up.
1. How do I not die and secure an early third to set up my mid game.
2. How do I make my 2/2 parade push stronger and less cost effective for the Zerg, while keeping him honest.
3. How do I stop Zerg getting to Hive.
4. How do I kill him.
These 4 steps are a basic TvZ template, in this video you can see Flash hit all of these as best he can.
1. He uses hellions to scout/threaten runby, but pulls back and uses them in conjunction with mines to protect his third going up.
2. He pushes with medivacs + 1/1 to clear creep and force banelings (gas) from the Zerg.
3. He parades to the Zergs 4th (while taking his own) to trade gas units from the Zerg for more mineral heavy units from the Terran, this constant pressure makes it very hard for the Zerg to tech to Hive without dying.
4. He aims to kill the Zerg at 3/3.''
This is what I generally have in my head when I enter into a TvZ, however in TvP and TvT my game plan is vague and less defined, as a consequence I feel less comfortable and more stressed in those match-ups, if you have any help for me in that regard I would be extremely grateful.
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I love to play mech with Terran, as bio is too difficult for me to control vs. Zerg. I want to analyze Flash's game vs DRG on Derelict Watcher from IEM New York: http://us.esl.tv/video/3dca06cc715c9cdc/
Goal: Move out at +2/+2 with tank, thor, hellion, and banshee when Zerg is transitioning to Hive tech, in order to kill them before Vipers are produced, which would render our mech army useless.
Working backwards: Use constant hellion/banshee production to establish map control, pressure Zerg, and roast drones while setting up a third base, beginning double armory upgrades, and working up to 5 factory mech production. The pressure prevents Zerg from teching up quickly, buying us time to produce an unstoppable mech deathball.
How to open? Use a reaper expand to scout the Zerg's opener while we take our natural and prepare for early game aggression.
Am I getting the concept? Is there something I'm missing? Thanks
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Firstly, much <3 for this post. First time listening to those podcast and quite an eye (ear) opener.
RE: Zerg, there are some strats where you aren't reactive but most of the time I think our composition and tech can vary wildly when reacting.
Case: vs Terran
Non reactive could be Roach Rush, Roach/Bane busts and the like.
However, I have experienced a huge divergence in game plan in a more long term game i.e. Bio/Mine vs Mech scenario. This is completely reactionary I feel.
Vs Bio/Mine
My normal game plan is survive the bio/mine rally-craft, get to 4 bases and deny Terran 4th using Ling/Bane/Muta and starve him out.
Vs Mech
I switch to Roach + mass SH; + some Muta (to still control drops/force THOR & turrets/generally be annoying), saving a small bank for Corruptors if Terran goes mass Ravens or Banshee. The overall goal I suppose is the similar in all macroesque games i.e. (pressure 3rd and deny 4th). But the game is so different that I don't think it's the same game plan at all.
It turns into a very difference game despite my plan.
Appreciate thoughts on strategic planning for zerg.
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United States4883 Posts
On November 01 2013 10:37 Crugio wrote:
Firstly, much <3 for this post. First time listening to those podcast and quite an eye (ear) opener.
RE: Zerg, there are some strats where you aren't reactive but most of the time I think our composition and tech can vary wildly when reacting.
Case: vs Terran
Non reactive could be Roach Rush, Roach/Bane busts and the like.
However, I have experienced a huge divergence in game plan in a more long term game i.e. Bio/Mine vs Mech scenario. This is completely reactionary I feel.
Vs Bio/Mine
My normal game plan is survive the bio/mine rally-craft, get to 4 bases and deny Terran 4th using Ling/Bane/Muta and starve him out.
Vs Mech
I switch to Roach + mass SH; + some Muta (to still control drops/force THOR & turrets/generally be annoying), saving a small bank for Corruptors if Terran goes mass Ravens or Banshee. The overall goal I suppose is the similar in all macroesque games i.e. (pressure 3rd and deny 4th). But the game is so different that I don't think it's the same game plan at all.
It turns into a very difference game despite my plan.
Appreciate thoughts on strategic planning for zerg.
Well, obviously you need to change things up based on scouting your opponent. Honestly, I think it's best to treat mech as an entirely different race. You have 2 game plans there already (although you seem to be a little shaky on the mech gameplan, which is pretty normal lol), you just choose whichever one works best when you get to a divergence point (when you scout mech).
It's important to note the difference between playing to practice and playing to win. In terms of practice, you should generally follow through with whatever strategy you had planned, despite the opponent's build and adjustments. This is so that you can test your build thoroughly and refine it against everything. When you're playing to win, you want to have an arsenal of already refined strategies at your disposal. Don't get confused and think you have to adjust your strategy and play "reactively" against your ladder opponents during a game.
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I have a question.
What is your thought process when dealing with mirror matches where your opponent plays exactly the same as you and tries to achieve the same goals as you? How do you gain an advantage in that situation?
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Scout denying and better execution.
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On November 01 2013 14:48 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2013 10:37 Crugio wrote:
Firstly, much <3 for this post. First time listening to those podcast and quite an eye (ear) opener.
RE: Zerg, there are some strats where you aren't reactive but most of the time I think our composition and tech can vary wildly when reacting.
Case: vs Terran
Non reactive could be Roach Rush, Roach/Bane busts and the like.
However, I have experienced a huge divergence in game plan in a more long term game i.e. Bio/Mine vs Mech scenario. This is completely reactionary I feel.
Vs Bio/Mine
My normal game plan is survive the bio/mine rally-craft, get to 4 bases and deny Terran 4th using Ling/Bane/Muta and starve him out.
Vs Mech
I switch to Roach + mass SH; + some Muta (to still control drops/force THOR & turrets/generally be annoying), saving a small bank for Corruptors if Terran goes mass Ravens or Banshee. The overall goal I suppose is the similar in all macroesque games i.e. (pressure 3rd and deny 4th). But the game is so different that I don't think it's the same game plan at all.
It turns into a very difference game despite my plan.
Appreciate thoughts on strategic planning for zerg.
Well, obviously you need to change things up based on scouting your opponent. Honestly, I think it's best to treat mech as an entirely different race. You have 2 game plans there already (although you seem to be a little shaky on the mech gameplan, which is pretty normal lol), you just choose whichever one works best when you get to a divergence point (when you scout mech). It's important to note the difference between playing to practice and playing to win. In terms of practice, you should generally follow through with whatever strategy you had planned, despite the opponent's build and adjustments. This is so that you can test your build thoroughly and refine it against everything. When you're playing to win, you want to have an arsenal of already refined strategies at your disposal. Don't get confused and think you have to adjust your strategy and play "reactively" against your ladder opponents during a game.
Now, that seems to bring up a great question. With a strict adherence to a "plan" you essentially have two players with two plans, and whichever happens to work better wins. Where does Adaptability/Flexibility come into it? When does a player deviate from his plan to exploit his enemy?
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I'm glad you brought up Life and Jaedong for Zerg but where do you think their "win condition" lies? While Zerg can go for all-ins or aggressive timings like roach/bane and 10p speed on 4 player maps, they still do play around timings (e.g. have lings out around 6:00 to deny/take a 3rd, or scout for a potential immortal/sentry and stop drone production, etc.). Often times they must also alter (and not just re-order) their game-plan depending on what they scout (mid-game all-ins, air compositions, mech, etc.), and while this does NOT mean that they need to be purely reactive with no plan, it does mean that they need to have a variety of "builds" and "transitions" at their disposal.
For both players it does seem like getting into a game-state where mutas are unanswerable by Protoss is the ideal, and the game is a series of checks on the Protoss at certain timings (e.g. when they try to take a 3rd) and transitions based on their unit composition.
It's also worth noting that some players like Life seem to focus on planning a strategy based on their opponent or their race (e.g. hitting 2 base muta timings vs. Terran in WoL, his ZvP nowadays), while some players focus on their opponent's race (Stephano has said in interviews he just plays the race and not the player), while other players tend to play the map more (someone like DRG).
Also, I wrote a post on Life's ZvP which you may want to read:
EDIT:
I forgot to mention that if you do the work backwards method for analyzing the play of a Zerg player like Life (his games vs. HerO at IEM NYC are a great example), we often see instances where he's transitioning behind an attack so it's very clear that he's not trying to win off of an attack (a situation a ladder warrior may easily try to and successfully win off of not transitioning and just spamming units) so it's obvious then that that is not his "win condition". Yet even against top-tier competition it's still possible for him to "win on step 9 out of a 18-step plan". I remember NesTea saying a long time ago (WoL circa late 2010, early 2011) that Zerg couldn't win on its own and it had to prevent the other player from winning, maybe this isn't true now but I do believe there's a lot of strategic maneuvering going on in these plays.
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Thank you SC2John for your answer.
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Just today, I was thinking of trying to learn Terran through cheesing, but didn't have any build orders. I guess this is a perfect opportunity to practice goal-oriented play. Let's give it a try:
In TvZ, I want to kill my opponent with marines and SCV's before he gets enough defenses out to stop me.
Step 1: What is "enough defenses"? Based on what I've seen of VODs, if my opponent has a spine, 2 queens, and a handful of lings out, I have to have either hurt him very badly or have a bunker up that I am able to repair before this happens. So I need to achieve one of these goals. It seems easier to get a bunker at my opponent's natural before X:XX rather than cripple him before X:XX.
Step 2: What is the timing I have to hit?
I remember from my Protoss experience that a 15 hatch goes down at about 2:15. A hatchery, according to the SC2 wiki, takes 100 seconds to build. This means it finishes at 3:55. A queen takes 50 seconds, and a spine takes 50 seconds. Given that you need time for creep to spread and for the main-base queen to move down to the natural, I estimate 4:55 as a timing where I have a repairable bunker up in range of my opponent's natural hatchery, or my attack has failed. This will be refined through testing.
Step 3: How do I get a bunker up before this timing?
4:55 is ridiculously early. It's clear I have to do this off 1 base. I can't hide the bunker and have it in range of my opponent's natural. I probably can't hide it in a way that I can leapfrog over there, either. That means my opponent can and will pull drones to stop me, and zerglings if he has them. Therefore, I need marines and/or SCV's to protect them. Based on this logic, and the VODs I've seen, it's clear I have to proxy-rax. That's what the pros do, and now it's obvious why 2-rax pressure into expand is no longer viable at high levels. 11/11, 11/12, and 12/12 are all options for the proxy. I'm not sure what the relevant differences are between them, so I'll have to test this.
A bunker takes 40 seconds to build, so I'll need to have my defensive forces prepared to stop the bunker being denied at 4:15, 4:05 to be safe. This means I probably need to pull SCV's from my base at about 3:15, estimating a 50-second rush distance. I know to pull 5 SCV's if I'm all-in, because I read it on a forum thread.
A barracks takes 65 seconds to build, and I'd like to have at least 1 marine (25 seconds) from the second barracks at the critical 4:00-4:05 timing. That's likely to be a total of 3 marines. This means my first rax has to start at 2:05-ish, the second rax at 2:30-ish. This means my first SCV should move out to proxy at about 1:25, and the second at about 1:50. This matches up with the timing I saw on a VOD, where the first SCV leaves the base as soon as the Depot it's building finishes/
Step 4: How do I optimise this timing?
Based on VODs and logic from previous steps, I should start with the following build order:
10 Depot, send an SCV out as soon as it finishes. At about 1:45-1:50, send another one.
Two raxxes, proxied, at 2:05ish and 2:30-ish.. Make constant marines.
At 3:15, pull 5 SCV's.
At 4:05, use my 7 SCV's and ideally, 3 marines to buy time for a bunker or two to go up, just off creep. I need one to finish, while retaining at least a couple of SCV's. This puts me in a good position to win the game if the bunker goes up.
And thus, I have a build order! I may have been too focused on the timings and less on the overall strategy, though.
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United States4883 Posts
On November 01 2013 19:04 ApocAlypsE007 wrote:
I have a question.
What is your thought process when dealing with mirror matches where your opponent plays exactly the same as you and tries to achieve the same goals as you? How do you gain an advantage in that situation?
This an older daily, but contains some relevant information regarding mirror matchups and learning to identify your "edge" and use it to your advantage: http://day9.tv/d/Day9/day9-daily-325-pvp-where-is-your-edge/. I want to stress that you shouldn't take the specific details of strategy in this daily to heart (the first example game is a WoL 4-gate vs. 4-gate on Tal'Darim Altar), but there are definitely some good general thoughts about finding your edge and exploiting it in a useful way.
Something Teo mentioned earlier in this thread was the "greed > safety > aggression > greed" wheel:
Oh i forgot, saying "cheese and allins can be countered, but macro builds can't" is also somewhat incorrect. No matter what, you always have the wheel of aggression>greedy>safety>aggression. Assuming you are both playing in a macro game, sometimes it's possible to scout the particular "brand" of macro build the opponent is using and immediately switching into the style that will counter it. The best example i can come up with right now was a WoL GSTL match where the P went fast 3nex, the T instantly scouted it thanks to a lucky scv, went 5rax marine and won. If he had gone for the standard 2medivac push he wouldn't have been able to punish his opponent as heavily. At the end of the day, every sc2 build has some kind of "counter", or, another build that does extremely well against it.
On November 01 2013 22:16 Millicant wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2013 14:48 SC2John wrote:On November 01 2013 10:37 Crugio wrote:
Firstly, much <3 for this post. First time listening to those podcast and quite an eye (ear) opener.
RE: Zerg, there are some strats where you aren't reactive but most of the time I think our composition and tech can vary wildly when reacting.
Case: vs Terran
Non reactive could be Roach Rush, Roach/Bane busts and the like.
However, I have experienced a huge divergence in game plan in a more long term game i.e. Bio/Mine vs Mech scenario. This is completely reactionary I feel.
Vs Bio/Mine
My normal game plan is survive the bio/mine rally-craft, get to 4 bases and deny Terran 4th using Ling/Bane/Muta and starve him out.
Vs Mech
I switch to Roach + mass SH; + some Muta (to still control drops/force THOR & turrets/generally be annoying), saving a small bank for Corruptors if Terran goes mass Ravens or Banshee. The overall goal I suppose is the similar in all macroesque games i.e. (pressure 3rd and deny 4th). But the game is so different that I don't think it's the same game plan at all.
It turns into a very difference game despite my plan.
Appreciate thoughts on strategic planning for zerg.
Well, obviously you need to change things up based on scouting your opponent. Honestly, I think it's best to treat mech as an entirely different race. You have 2 game plans there already (although you seem to be a little shaky on the mech gameplan, which is pretty normal lol), you just choose whichever one works best when you get to a divergence point (when you scout mech). It's important to note the difference between playing to practice and playing to win. In terms of practice, you should generally follow through with whatever strategy you had planned, despite the opponent's build and adjustments. This is so that you can test your build thoroughly and refine it against everything. When you're playing to win, you want to have an arsenal of already refined strategies at your disposal. Don't get confused and think you have to adjust your strategy and play "reactively" against your ladder opponents during a game. Now, that seems to bring up a great question. With a strict adherence to a "plan" you essentially have two players with two plans, and whichever happens to work better wins. Where does Adaptability/Flexibility come into it? When does a player deviate from his plan to exploit his enemy?
Within a perfectly refined strategies, there should be a lot of flexibility and pre-planned adaption available. For instance, in ZvP, if you scout your opponent going for a 7:30 3rd nexus, you know you can cut unit production, get a faster 4th, get extra tech up, and hit with a stronger attack slightly later. This is all because you know your opponent is going for a 3rd base and can't attack you. If he didn't try to go for a fast nexus, you would do your normal game plan: build a swell of units (or at least have gas saved up) around 9:00 to stop any 2-base timings, and then take a 4th and extra tech up.
Protoss can opt to build a 3rd nexus before additional gateways based on scouting. Terran too (barracks and CCs). For zerg, it's a tradeoff between additional units and tech/hatcheries. In this way, it's kind of just a rearrangement of minerals. It doesn't actually change your whole game plan.
Naturally, the amount of variation ("wiggle room") in your strategy is dependent on the game length. In shorter games like cheeses or 2-base all-ins, there's a lot less variation available to you to get ahead and still achieve your goal while in a lategame-focused strategy there are nearly infinite variables. This correlation is the reason why lategame-focused strategies have a higher likelihood of winning. Cheeses and all-ins can still be beaten with good scouting, defense, and decision making. In other words, a godlike macro player is much more likely to win tournaments compared to a "master cheeser".
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United States4883 Posts
On November 02 2013 01:20 Salivanth wrote:
Just today, I was thinking of trying to learn Terran through cheesing, but didn't have any build orders. I guess this is a perfect opportunity to practice goal-oriented play. Let's give it a try:
10 Depot, send an SCV out as soon as it finishes. At about 1:45-1:50, send another one.
Two raxxes, proxied, at 2:05ish and 2:30-ish.. Make constant marines.
At 3:15, pull 5 SCV's.
At 4:05, use my 7 SCV's and ideally, 3 marines to buy time for a bunker or two to go up, just off creep. I need one to finish, while retaining at least a couple of SCV's. This puts me in a good position to win the game if the bunker goes up.
And thus, I have a build order! I may have been too focused on the timings and less on the overall strategy, though.
I think this is a really good strategic breakdown of a very simple strategy. The next big step is trying this out a few dozen times to find out which maps work best for it and where the best proxy locations are. You would probably delve into overlord scouting patterns on each map and how to exploit them.
On November 01 2013 10:34 CakeSauc3 wrote:I love to play mech with Terran, as bio is too difficult for me to control vs. Zerg. I want to analyze Flash's game vs DRG on Derelict Watcher from IEM New York: http://us.esl.tv/video/3dca06cc715c9cdc/Goal: Move out at +2/+2 with tank, thor, hellion, and banshee when Zerg is transitioning to Hive tech, in order to kill them before Vipers are produced, which would render our mech army useless. Working backwards: Use constant hellion/banshee production to establish map control, pressure Zerg, and roast drones while setting up a third base, beginning double armory upgrades, and working up to 5 factory mech production. The pressure prevents Zerg from teching up quickly, buying us time to produce an unstoppable mech deathball. How to open? Use a reaper expand to scout the Zerg's opener while we take our natural and prepare for early game aggression. Am I getting the concept? Is there something I'm missing? Thanks
I think it's a good goal and you've got some good ideas thrown in there. To be honest, my format in the OP can be better revised to read "GOAL -> lategame -> mid game -> early game" instead of all the "steps". Using this type of method, we want to look at:
- LATE GAME What is our end game composition? Like, what the specific ratios? For instance, if we're going for a tank/thor/hellbat/banshee mix, approximately how much of each should we have? We don't need to have perfect numbers, but watching the Flash game can give us a very clear idea of what we want and eventually, through a ton of revision and refinement, we actually WILL have exact numbers.
- Approximately what time is our big attack going to hit? We need to know earliest time a viper switch could come out. We can look at pro VoDs for that number, but in the end, it will probably be adjusted in relation to what our opponent is doing. For instance, if he commits to a big roach attack first, that hive timing will be a minute or two later than "the fastest possible timing"; just the same, we might find out that a greedy opponent can get vipers even faster and we'll need to push even earlier. We want to find a general timing, but we also want to find specific signs that tell us if we need to hit earlier or later.
- MID GAME What does our mid game setup look like? We need to have a clear view of our infrastructure and how it will support our attack. From your analysis, we get 3 bases, 5 factories, double armories, and a starport. How many reactors and techlabs do we need on everything? Do we need missile turrets and sensor towers? When should we get these things and how can we time out our gases correctly? Once we have a generalized view of our mid game, we should play a dozen games to refine our timings and make adjustments to deal with different pressures (i.e., muta harassment, fast roach max, etc.).
- EARLY GAME How do we get our infrastructure up without dying or being completely outdone economically? We need to find a way to safely secure 3 bases, 5 factories, double armories, and a starport without falling behind too much economically. When do we take a 3rd base? How? In your example, you mentioned using hellion/banshee for map control. With good map control, we can shut down vision, keep the zerg pinned back, slow down the creep spread*, and allow us to get a safe 3rd.
- What's the best way to get us into our hellion/banshee harass? Do we want to go CC first? Do we want to use a reaper expand? Do we want to try something like a mine drop before transitioning into hellion/banshee? We can try several different ways and see which one fits the best. (I, personally, like to start with the simplest (CC first straight into hellion/banshee) and work my way into the more complicated ones once I have a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of hellion/banshee as a whole).
- MAP CHOICE What map works best for this? Map choice is very important to strategy. If we're looking at how we've structured this build, we don't need a 4th base so we could potentially do it on any map which can get 3 bases up easily (Akilon, Derelict Watcher, Bel'Shir Vestige, Yeonsu, Whirlwind). Another thing to note is the general terrain of the map. Some maps are smaller and more choky, making them easier to push across like Bel'Shir and Akilon. Others like Derelict or Whirlwind maybe have wider, open areas or long rush distances that will make pushing across the map dangerous or time-consuming.
These are all the kinds of considerations we need to make when just stating a goal as simple as "I want to kill the zerg player with a big mech army before vipers are out." But yeah, essentially you've got it. Just dive right into all the details and focus on trying to make everything as tight and powerful as possible. Again, it's important that every single move should connect from beginning to end; every single thing you do in the game should be working toward the ultimate goal of making the strongest attack possible before vipers are out.
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On November 03 2013 00:19 SC2John wrote:
MAP CHOICE What map works best for this? Map choice is very important to strategy. If we're looking at how we've structured this build, we don't need a 4th base so we could potentially do it on any map which can get 3 bases up easily (Akilon, Derelict Watcher, Bel'Shir Vestige, Yeonsu, Whirlwind). Another thing to note is the general terrain of the map. Some maps are smaller and more choky, making them easier to push across like Bel'Shir and Akilon. Others like Derelict or Whirlwind maybe have wider, open areas or long rush distances that will make pushing across the map dangerous or time-consuming.
These are all the kinds of considerations we need to make when just stating a goal as simple as "I want to kill the zerg player with a big mech army before vipers are out." But yeah, essentially you've got it. Just dive right into all the details and focus on trying to make everything as tight and powerful as possible. Again, it's important that every single move should connect from beginning to end; every single thing you do in the game should be working toward the ultimate goal of making the strongest attack possible before vipers are out.
Huge thanks to you! That's a lot to digest. I have just a few questions:
1.) This is a lot to get down. In order to learn it quickly, do you suggest I practice this build on my own while I refine it before bringing it to the ladder, or do you think it's best just to dive into the ladder with these things in mind and then make adjustments as I observe my opponents' play?
2.) Concerning map choice, I'd always heard that mech was best on maps with tight chokes and nearby locations. However, one reason I got so excited with this build was I saw Flash do this on Derelict Watcher, a map which seems to not favor mech much in the slightest. Do you think that makes it a safe build for any map, or was Flash just pulling a mind game that would only work at the very highest level?
3.) Lastly, what you mentioned at the end concerning every move, every action should go towards making this build as tight and strong as possible... are you mostly talking about just making sure my build order gets refined to the point that my attack hits the soonest possible? Or are there other actions/moves that I need to consider? If you can elaborate on that, that would be awesome. I appreciate your willingness to help!
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So given this post, would you recommend a learning pattern whereby we take the simplest builds (ie. as a bronze player I'm currently practicing and using a 1-base 3-rax early stim/concussive timing) and gradually learning more advanced and possibly divergent builds going forwards ala 'the Steps' learning process?
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United States4883 Posts
On November 03 2013 02:28 CakeSauc3 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2013 00:19 SC2John wrote:
MAP CHOICE What map works best for this? Map choice is very important to strategy. If we're looking at how we've structured this build, we don't need a 4th base so we could potentially do it on any map which can get 3 bases up easily (Akilon, Derelict Watcher, Bel'Shir Vestige, Yeonsu, Whirlwind). Another thing to note is the general terrain of the map. Some maps are smaller and more choky, making them easier to push across like Bel'Shir and Akilon. Others like Derelict or Whirlwind maybe have wider, open areas or long rush distances that will make pushing across the map dangerous or time-consuming.
These are all the kinds of considerations we need to make when just stating a goal as simple as "I want to kill the zerg player with a big mech army before vipers are out." But yeah, essentially you've got it. Just dive right into all the details and focus on trying to make everything as tight and powerful as possible. Again, it's important that every single move should connect from beginning to end; every single thing you do in the game should be working toward the ultimate goal of making the strongest attack possible before vipers are out. Huge thanks to you! That's a lot to digest. I have just a few questions: 1.) This is a lot to get down. In order to learn it quickly, do you suggest I practice this build on my own while I refine it before bringing it to the ladder, or do you think it's best just to dive into the ladder with these things in mind and then make adjustments as I observe my opponents' play? 2.) Concerning map choice, I'd always heard that mech was best on maps with tight chokes and nearby locations. However, one reason I got so excited with this build was I saw Flash do this on Derelict Watcher, a map which seems to not favor mech much in the slightest. Do you think that makes it a safe build for any map, or was Flash just pulling a mind game that would only work at the very highest level? 3.) Lastly, what you mentioned at the end concerning every move, every action should go towards making this build as tight and strong as possible... are you mostly talking about just making sure my build order gets refined to the point that my attack hits the soonest possible? Or are there other actions/moves that I need to consider? If you can elaborate on that, that would be awesome. I appreciate your willingness to help!
1) Absolutely. If you're already quite familiar with a build or the way a particular building grouping works (for instance, 3rax/factory/sp on 2 bases) and your macro is decently strong, you can attempt to do something on the fly. But usually this doesn't happen unless you're in masters. Therefore, I strongly recommend loading up a dozen games against the AI until you have your opening build down perfectly with no hiccups.
2) "Mech" as a whole is based off of the tank, which naturally does well with tight chokes and short walking distances and does horribly when surrounded 360 degrees on open ground. That said, it might be worth looking very closely at the VoD to see what Flash does differently to allow this push to happen. One might say that the hellion/banshee control in the mid game slowed down creep spread significantly and that the major emphasis Flash puts on banshees allows him to have a really high DPS despite the terrain. Also, as pointed out in your goal, he does a good job of hitting a pre-hive timing, which allows him to hit before vipers and blinding cloud. I'm not fully convinced mech can work on this map all the time, but perhaps there are some elements to Flash's play that allowed him to do this. The best way is to just copy Flash's game plan the best way possible and find out for yourself!
3) I mean that all of your timing should be as sharp and crisp as possible. But I also am trying to point out that everything should have a use toward making your attack stronger. For instance, the hellion/banshee harass not only kills off stray drones/queens/units, but also gives you strong map control and slows down the creep spread. It's important to keep your banshees alive as well; each one gives your final hellbat/tank/thor/banshee attack much more force. There are smaller, more subtle things too: does it make sense to do an early marine poke? Possibly, but it slows down our hellion/banshee phase by a lot, which means creep spread will be harder to stop. Does it make sense to try and do a mine drop before hellion/banshee? Not really, it achieves the same kind of goal hellion/banshee harass does. Does it make sense to get factories 4 and 5 before our armories? No, because our +2/+2 timing will be much much later and we probably can't afford to produce off of 5 factories yet anyway. It's important to ask yourself these questions and relate it back to the idea: "does this ultimately help me with my goal?"
I suggest listening to this older Day9 podcast. In it, he talks about "redundancy and purpose" and basically explains that you should iron out your strategy to include only the things necessary and give those things as much purpose [towards your main goal] as possible.
On November 03 2013 04:51 B-rye88 wrote:
So given this post, would you recommend a learning pattern whereby we take the simplest builds (ie. as a bronze player I'm currently practicing and using a 1-base 3-rax early stim/concussive timing) and gradually learning more advanced and possibly divergent builds going forwards ala 'the Steps' learning process?
Definitely! To be honest, the best types of builds are strong 2-base timings. They give you a little taste of "macro" then allow you to win the game early with an attack that relies more on "micro". Just make sure that you're hitting all of your benchmarks and starting your attack on time. I learned almost all of my basic mechanics from practicing things like 2-base muta or 2-base stim timings.
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Northern Ireland461 Posts
Sorry if I sound rude, but I would really appreciate a response from my post on page 3. Great posts and information as usual from this thread!
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United States4883 Posts
On November 03 2013 10:26 mau5mat wrote:
Sorry if I sound rude, but I would really appreciate a response from my post on page 1. Great posts and information as usual from this thread!
I've been meaning to get to it, but my terran knowledge is a little lacking so I was going to pass it off to vader. Vader's been out busy for the past week, but I'll put him on that post as soon as he gets back. In short, though, I really liked your division of the game stages, and I thought it was a good format to put general TvZ into. I'll get vader to guide you better!
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Northern Ireland461 Posts
On November 03 2013 10:41 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2013 10:26 mau5mat wrote:
Sorry if I sound rude, but I would really appreciate a response from my post on page 1. Great posts and information as usual from this thread! I've been meaning to get to it, but my terran knowledge is a little lacking so I was going to pass it off to vader. Vader's been out busy for the past week, but I'll put him on that post as soon as he gets back. In short, though, I really liked your division of the game stages, and I thought it was a good format to put general TvZ into. I'll get vader to guide you better!
Much appreciated!
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Ok, I've been trying to learn solid protoss play lately so i'll give this a try.
PvZ Goal: I want to kill zerg with a colossus-gateway unit based army before hive tech upgrades or units kick in.
Step 1: What is the composition I want to deny? What is the comp i need for myself?
I would ideally like to kill zerg before they get ultras, brood lords, or 3/3 on their units. I want to aim for a composition with colossi, sentries, blink stalkers, and perhaps archons or high templar for feedbacking vipers.
Step 2: What timing do I want to hit?
From watching pro games, i know that the earliest hive finishes at around 13 minutes, but a hive timed for actual hive tech finishes more around 15. (my observations show that the 13 min hive is only for vipers and doesn't allow zerg enough money for much else)
I want to hit a timing with the highest tech i need to get; which in this case is probably archons. I should hit with maybe +3 attack and charge on the zealots, and a high enough number of sentries to prevent roach/hydra from kiting me too hard. I should be able to get all that out by 15 minutes.
Step 3: What do I need to do to get there?
In order to get a large army by 15 minutes, it would probably be advantageous to get an early third; i can take that from an FFE to get earlier upgrades and tech. I want to get colossi first, probably 2 out by 12 minutes because I have seen strong roach or roach hydra pushes that hit around then. I will need somewhere around 6 sentries around that time, maybe more. And when I push I would like a strong infrastructure of 10-12 gateways with a robo.
Step 4: What do I have to do early game to achieve my goals?
I want to open with a forge fast expand to get my +1 started early, and then follow it up with some tech. After a lot of trial and error I have decided that robo first doesn't offer enough map control, so I should probably open up stargate with phoenixes to control the zerg's greed a little and make my midgame defense easier. After that, I can secure a third. To properly secure this third I need somewhere around 4 sentries and a couple zealots, and i need to get 2-3 gateways beforehand to get those units and from there I can make a third with a cannon walled off by more gateways. I should probably follow that up with a twilight and robotics for more upgrades and colossi, and then I can go up to 8 gateways on 3 bases, with thermal lance, blink, sentries, and cannons. I can add on 3 more gateways and a templar archives to finish up when I attack, and then make archons for the actual push.
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On November 03 2013 09:17 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2013 02:28 CakeSauc3 wrote:On November 03 2013 00:19 SC2John wrote:
MAP CHOICE What map works best for this? Map choice is very important to strategy. If we're looking at how we've structured this build, we don't need a 4th base so we could potentially do it on any map which can get 3 bases up easily (Akilon, Derelict Watcher, Bel'Shir Vestige, Yeonsu, Whirlwind). Another thing to note is the general terrain of the map. Some maps are smaller and more choky, making them easier to push across like Bel'Shir and Akilon. Others like Derelict or Whirlwind maybe have wider, open areas or long rush distances that will make pushing across the map dangerous or time-consuming.
These are all the kinds of considerations we need to make when just stating a goal as simple as "I want to kill the zerg player with a big mech army before vipers are out." But yeah, essentially you've got it. Just dive right into all the details and focus on trying to make everything as tight and powerful as possible. Again, it's important that every single move should connect from beginning to end; every single thing you do in the game should be working toward the ultimate goal of making the strongest attack possible before vipers are out. Huge thanks to you! That's a lot to digest. I have just a few questions: 1.) This is a lot to get down. In order to learn it quickly, do you suggest I practice this build on my own while I refine it before bringing it to the ladder, or do you think it's best just to dive into the ladder with these things in mind and then make adjustments as I observe my opponents' play? 2.) Concerning map choice, I'd always heard that mech was best on maps with tight chokes and nearby locations. However, one reason I got so excited with this build was I saw Flash do this on Derelict Watcher, a map which seems to not favor mech much in the slightest. Do you think that makes it a safe build for any map, or was Flash just pulling a mind game that would only work at the very highest level? 3.) Lastly, what you mentioned at the end concerning every move, every action should go towards making this build as tight and strong as possible... are you mostly talking about just making sure my build order gets refined to the point that my attack hits the soonest possible? Or are there other actions/moves that I need to consider? If you can elaborate on that, that would be awesome. I appreciate your willingness to help! 1) Absolutely. If you're already quite familiar with a build or the way a particular building grouping works (for instance, 3rax/factory/sp on 2 bases) and your macro is decently strong, you can attempt to do something on the fly. But usually this doesn't happen unless you're in masters. Therefore, I strongly recommend loading up a dozen games against the AI until you have your opening build down perfectly with no hiccups. 2) "Mech" as a whole is based off of the tank, which naturally does well with tight chokes and short walking distances and does horribly when surrounded 360 degrees on open ground. That said, it might be worth looking very closely at the VoD to see what Flash does differently to allow this push to happen. One might say that the hellion/banshee control in the mid game slowed down creep spread significantly and that the major emphasis Flash puts on banshees allows him to have a really high DPS despite the terrain. Also, as pointed out in your goal, he does a good job of hitting a pre-hive timing, which allows him to hit before vipers and blinding cloud. I'm not fully convinced mech can work on this map all the time, but perhaps there are some elements to Flash's play that allowed him to do this. The best way is to just copy Flash's game plan the best way possible and find out for yourself! 3) I mean that all of your timing should be as sharp and crisp as possible. But I also am trying to point out that everything should have a use toward making your attack stronger. For instance, the hellion/banshee harass not only kills off stray drones/queens/units, but also gives you strong map control and slows down the creep spread. It's important to keep your banshees alive as well; each one gives your final hellbat/tank/thor/banshee attack much more force. There are smaller, more subtle things too: does it make sense to do an early marine poke? Possibly, but it slows down our hellion/banshee phase by a lot, which means creep spread will be harder to stop. Does it make sense to try and do a mine drop before hellion/banshee? Not really, it achieves the same kind of goal hellion/banshee harass does. Does it make sense to get factories 4 and 5 before our armories? No, because our +2/+2 timing will be much much later and we probably can't afford to produce off of 5 factories yet anyway. It's important to ask yourself these questions and relate it back to the idea: "does this ultimately help me with my goal?" I suggest listening to this older Day9 podcast. In it, he talks about "redundancy and purpose" and basically explains that you should iron out your strategy to include only the things necessary and give those things as much purpose [towards your main goal] as possible. .
Thanks for your detailed response! I'll be sure to check out that podcast, and I think I'm going to spend a lot of time on this build. I'm excited to see if I can use it to get a high-percentage win rate vs Zerg on the ladder, something which I've never really been able to do with Terran. Here's hoping!
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1) Absolutely. If you're already quite familiar with a build or the way a particular building grouping works (for instance, 3rax/factory/sp on 2 bases) and your macro is decently strong, you can attempt to do something on the fly. But usually this doesn't happen unless you're in masters.
John, I disagree. Rather strongly to be honest.
I find the very best way to learn the strongest ways to play is to actually play in a very rigid way in game. When I am learning a new style I will come up with I feel is a logical game plan vs the most common thing I face and I will then plan out everything macro and army movement wise. I then will go play that exact plan vs as many people as possible on that map. I will group all the replays (regardless of win or lose) by enemy game plan. Once I have a good group of replays vs a type of enemy play style, I watch them all back to back looking for patterns. Seeing different people do similar styles will often make patterns REALLY jump out as while every player has hugely different takes on styles there is core concepts in every style that carry over from player to player. As such, those core concepts will stick out as very similar actions, timings, movements, etc regardless of the player.
Only once I have seen these patterns emerge do I attempt any type of modification to my play. This keeps my modifications focused on the enemy's plan instead of of cute things that happen in single games. Often, when you have tweaked your play to handle a style in a logical way, small cute things become non factors when they before seemed like huge roadblocked that had to be addressed.
This kind of approach to learning a style leads to a huge number of loses at first due to you blindly following a plan. Your army will be snipped because it was at a dangerous location. Your main will fall because you had no defense to his harass. The game will suddenly end because three DT walk into your main.
Thats PERFECT. If I have 19 replays of my 4M vs two base muta players I can watch them all back to back, find the common part of why I lost to each of them, address that sole factor, and have the smallest and easiest to understand adjustment that works vs all two base muta plays.
This leads to very smart reactions such as burrowing two mines in very specific spots in reply to seeing a late gas opening, no fast third base, and only two queens followed by adding two very specific turrets at two very specific locations once the mutas are seen. The mines will be placed at the only two locations that I have ever seen 2 base muta players send their first mutas in at and the two turrets will be placed at two locations that I have simply never been able to get a marines from my rally to fast enough to defend though they were always just a second too late. This adjustment might allow me to be safe vs the mutas as the two mines buy me just enough safety to get the two turrets up and by the time a muta ball big enough to deal with that is in play my game plan has moved to a point where he has to react to it or die.
On the fly adjustments or even adjustments based on only one reply would have probably led me to scanning at a certain time, spamming 2 turrets at each base, and delaying some timing. The turrets location would be based on fear of where I perceive weakness instead of what the other player has tested vs many Terran players is actually weak. I would end up investing more resources in game to a on the fly reaction that will not possibly contain logic created through pattern observation and will instead contain fear motivated by guesses.
Basically, take huge value in replays where you get completely crushed because you didn't know the enemy would do something. Gather as many as you can and organize them and then apply logic to patterns you see. By keeping your play a constant, you will be able to actually craft exact deviations that require the least investment for the largest payoff.
The more times you have done the exact same thing, the more exactly you know its actual weakness. By knowing your plays actual weakness you can address the real problem. If you freestyle, you practice at guessing and perfecting the art of fear.
I prefer to perfect the art of problem solving. Treat the game like a science experiment, don't let your own play be an un-measurable variable when it could be the ultimate control. A strange and wonderful result of this approach is that what sounds like memorization actually becomes intuition. You just have to separate the active questioning part of the mind from the active playing. Once that is done, the things you decide as logical will be revealed slowly as truths in your play. As that happens, you learn that logic and how to play it at a much deeper level than some kind of written out build order or list of reactions.
For more on this, see
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/zatic/Day[9]0002-BuildingTriggers.mp3 (discusses how getting large sample size of replays where you play the same is trully crucial in developing good decisions)
and read this great wonderful quote:
+ Show Spoiler + Have confidence in your execution, and skepticism and doubt in your analysis. When you're playing the game, you should be convinced that what you're doing is absolutely correct, so that way you can maximize your efficiency with whatever you're doing. Whether it'd be a really strong play or an absolutely flawed play. After the game is when you should look at your play and say "mhm, what did I do right and wrong here, what's a way that I could improve? What's a build that he could have done that would have crushed this a 100% of the time?" That is when you think of what adjustments you want to make for the next game. And of course, in that next game, you'll play with 100% confidence as though everything you're doing is absolutely correct. A huge issue that a lot of players deal with is that when they are in the game, and they get thrown off just a little bit - maybe they get storm-dropped or maybe they see a strategy they havent seen before -, that's when they start to analyze their play and to make these huge, large-scale adjustments. Unless making that adjustment was part of your plan, don't do it! You need to make sure that what you're doing is something you are comfortable and confident with. That is what's going to maximize your chance of winning, not some last minute, second-guessing strategy you pulled out of nowhere.
-day9, podcast on Having a Good Mindset
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On November 03 2013 04:51 B-rye88 wrote:
So given this post, would you recommend a learning pattern whereby we take the simplest builds (ie. as a bronze player I'm currently practicing and using a 1-base 3-rax early stim/concussive timing) and gradually learning more advanced and possibly divergent builds going forwards ala 'the Steps' learning process?
I suggest learning a game plan that you feel you understand the logic behind the winning move OR to blindly play out a macro build you stole from someone very good at the game.
If you choose the latter, pay attention to what you lose and carefully group the replays. Once you have played and lost enough, you can begin to make statements of logic about how you feel the game can be won. Once you have blindly macro'd to a lose vs a maxed protoss army as terran 500 times you start to see the logic in killing the toss before they get to that stage and you even start to see the logic of killing them at specific times.
Personally, I choose the first choice. Find some kind of logic, to hell with WHEN that logic leads to a win, and build a plan based on the logic. Then gather replays and analyze and modify logically while executing confidently.
The blind macro method can be useful for very low level players to jump start their mind with some metagame as you will see a wide variety of enemy styles which will help to motivate logical plans on how to kill said enemies.
I would say, anyone under the rank of Plat can use that method as a valid approach if they wanted too. That's a generalization though. I should say, anyone who is at or below the rank of Plat due to lack of understanding in how are won or how matchups work could benefit from that approach.
Anyone can benefit from the choose a logical way to win and try to make it work approach. It is most likely the overall superior way.
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United States4883 Posts
On November 03 2013 18:19 vaderseven wrote:Show nested quote +1) Absolutely. If you're already quite familiar with a build or the way a particular building grouping works (for instance, 3rax/factory/sp on 2 bases) and your macro is decently strong, you can attempt to do something on the fly. But usually this doesn't happen unless you're in masters. John, I disagree. Rather strongly to be honest. I find the very best way to learn the strongest ways to play is to actually play in a very rigid way in game. When I am learning a new style I will come up with I feel is a logical game plan vs the most common thing I face and I will then plan out everything macro and army movement wise. I then will go play that exact plan vs as many people as possible on that map. I will group all the replays (regardless of win or lose) by enemy game plan. Once I have a good group of replays vs a type of enemy play style, I watch them all back to back looking for patterns. Seeing different people do similar styles will often make patterns REALLY jump out as while every player has hugely different takes on styles there is core concepts in every style that carry over from player to player. As such, those core concepts will stick out as very similar actions, timings, movements, etc regardless of the player. Only once I have seen these patterns emerge do I attempt any type of modification to my play. This keeps my modifications focused on the enemy's plan instead of of cute things that happen in single games. Often, when you have tweaked your play to handle a style in a logical way, small cute things become non factors when they before seemed like huge roadblocked that had to be addressed.
I may have been a little unclear when I answered that question. I meant to say "absolutely practice the strategy a dozen times against the AI first". The other part there is when you're making a modification to an already established strategy. For instance, on a high level when you've already had tons of experience with reaper/hellion pressure into 4M pressure, you could modify it to hellion/banshee within a couple of games and experiment with that. It's a minor change for someone who already has the mechanics and the general game plan down.
However, someone trying to learn void ray-based PvZ after they've played exclusively phoenix/colossus is BAD from a learning experience. Even someone who is has good macro and has played phoenix/colossus extensively will need to start from nearly the ground up in order to make it a working strategy and understand it fully.
Also, vader, if you could get to this post, it would be much appreciated:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=433514¤tpage=3#53
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Will do later today err tomorrow.
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On November 03 2013 18:34 vaderseven wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2013 04:51 B-rye88 wrote:
So given this post, would you recommend a learning pattern whereby we take the simplest builds (ie. as a bronze player I'm currently practicing and using a 1-base 3-rax early stim/concussive timing) and gradually learning more advanced and possibly divergent builds going forwards ala 'the Steps' learning process? I suggest learning a game plan that you feel you understand the logic behind the winning move OR to blindly play out a macro build you stole from someone very good at the game. If you choose the latter, pay attention to what you lose and carefully group the replays. Once you have played and lost enough, you can begin to make statements of logic about how you feel the game can be won. Once you have blindly macro'd to a lose vs a maxed protoss army as terran 500 times you start to see the logic in killing the toss before they get to that stage and you even start to see the logic of killing them at specific times. Personally, I choose the first choice. Find some kind of logic, to hell with WHEN that logic leads to a win, and build a plan based on the logic. Then gather replays and analyze and modify logically while executing confidently. The blind macro method can be useful for very low level players to jump start their mind with some metagame as you will see a wide variety of enemy styles which will help to motivate logical plans on how to kill said enemies. I would say, anyone under the rank of Plat can use that method as a valid approach if they wanted too. That's a generalization though. I should say, anyone who is at or below the rank of Plat due to lack of understanding in how are won or how matchups work could benefit from that approach. Anyone can benefit from the choose a logical way to win and try to make it work approach. It is most likely the overall superior way.
Now, this is fascinating. Not to stir up drama, but disagreement between you two really makes for awesome discussion and I (and others like me) benefit greatly from it!
So this re-ignites my earlier question about reacting/responding to your opponent's play. I understand that for the process of developing a strategy or game plan, you are clearly saying "Don't modify it! Look at the replays and make adjustments after many many games!" That makes perfect sense - got it.
However, does this mean that you NEVER react to what your opponent is doing? Even once your plan is developed and solidified, you blindly follow your plan and whichever player's plan comes out on top wins? This seems a little... disappointing.
Lastly, you state "I would say, anyone under the rank of Plat can use that method as a valid approach if they wanted too." That method meaning the blind macro? But to the contrary you are saying that finding the logic behind the plan and executing is superior, yes?
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Now, this is fascinating. Not to stir up drama, but disagreement between you two really makes for awesome discussion and I (and others like me) benefit greatly from it!
So this re-ignites my earlier question about reacting/responding to your opponent's play. I understand that for the process of developing a strategy or game plan, you are clearly saying "Don't modify it! Look at the replays and make adjustments after many many games!" That makes perfect sense - got it.
However, does this mean that you NEVER react to what your opponent is doing? Even once your plan is developed and solidified, you blindly follow your plan and whichever player's plan comes out on top wins? This seems a little... disappointing.
Lastly, you state "I would say, anyone under the rank of Plat can use that method as a valid approach if they wanted too." That method meaning the blind macro? But to the contrary you are saying that finding the logic behind the plan and executing is superior, yes?
My thoughts:
Your plan can include divergent options.
For me, this would be something such as "I will scout my protoss opponent with a reaper before going up the ramp with my 3-rax stim timing; if he is still on one-base, I will set up a light contain to keep him on one-base, and use the reaper / scan to find out whether he's teching or 4-gating, cut a round of production to expand, and either bunker the high & low ground in case of twilight, get missile turrets if we see dark shrine, get 3 bunkers on the low ground if I see immortal play, or tech to starport if I see a robo bay; If i see early tech and little production, I can also go up the ramp and kill the tech structure with my stim".
The game will play out the same way early, with the same build, but I have decided to do various things based on what I find. So long as you have a plan, derived from logic, you can then learn to execute it.
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United States4883 Posts
On November 04 2013 04:48 B-rye88 wrote:Show nested quote +
Now, this is fascinating. Not to stir up drama, but disagreement between you two really makes for awesome discussion and I (and others like me) benefit greatly from it!
So this re-ignites my earlier question about reacting/responding to your opponent's play. I understand that for the process of developing a strategy or game plan, you are clearly saying "Don't modify it! Look at the replays and make adjustments after many many games!" That makes perfect sense - got it.
However, does this mean that you NEVER react to what your opponent is doing? Even once your plan is developed and solidified, you blindly follow your plan and whichever player's plan comes out on top wins? This seems a little... disappointing.
Lastly, you state "I would say, anyone under the rank of Plat can use that method as a valid approach if they wanted too." That method meaning the blind macro? But to the contrary you are saying that finding the logic behind the plan and executing is superior, yes?
My thoughts: Your plan can include divergent options. For me, this would be something such as "I will scout my protoss opponent with a reaper before going up the ramp with my 3-rax stim timing; if he is still on one-base, I will set up a light contain to keep him on one-base, and use the reaper / scan to find out whether he's teching or 4-gating, cut a round of production to expand, and either bunker the high & low ground in case of twilight, get missile turrets if we see dark shrine, get 3 bunkers on the low ground if I see immortal play, or tech to starport if I see a robo bay; If i see early tech and little production, I can also go up the ramp and kill the tech structure with my stim". The game will play out the same way early, with the same build, but I have decided to do various things based on what I find. So long as you have a plan, derived from logic, you can then learn to execute it.
I wrote about this a page ago...I talked about the difference of playing to win vs. playing to practice.It's really important to understand that vader and I are talking about playing to practice. Playing to win means using your refined strategy "toolbox" in order to pick the best strategy and variation in order to best beat your particular opponent while playing to practice is means specifically playing one strategy over and over, changing little to nothing from game to game, in order to refine that strategy and learn the best possible way to play it.
When vader says something like "Do not change your strategy at all during the game," he is not implying that you should ignore what your opponent is doing. What he means is to take a large sample size of the same exact build to see what damage it can do and how it can come crumbling down. After you have this sample size, make minor adjustments or add some considerations to your strategy to fix the weak areas or strengthen the strong areas.
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On November 04 2013 09:52 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 04:48 B-rye88 wrote:
Now, this is fascinating. Not to stir up drama, but disagreement between you two really makes for awesome discussion and I (and others like me) benefit greatly from it!
So this re-ignites my earlier question about reacting/responding to your opponent's play. I understand that for the process of developing a strategy or game plan, you are clearly saying "Don't modify it! Look at the replays and make adjustments after many many games!" That makes perfect sense - got it.
However, does this mean that you NEVER react to what your opponent is doing? Even once your plan is developed and solidified, you blindly follow your plan and whichever player's plan comes out on top wins? This seems a little... disappointing.
Lastly, you state "I would say, anyone under the rank of Plat can use that method as a valid approach if they wanted too." That method meaning the blind macro? But to the contrary you are saying that finding the logic behind the plan and executing is superior, yes?
My thoughts: Your plan can include divergent options. For me, this would be something such as "I will scout my protoss opponent with a reaper before going up the ramp with my 3-rax stim timing; if he is still on one-base, I will set up a light contain to keep him on one-base, and use the reaper / scan to find out whether he's teching or 4-gating, cut a round of production to expand, and either bunker the high & low ground in case of twilight, get missile turrets if we see dark shrine, get 3 bunkers on the low ground if I see immortal play, or tech to starport if I see a robo bay; If i see early tech and little production, I can also go up the ramp and kill the tech structure with my stim". The game will play out the same way early, with the same build, but I have decided to do various things based on what I find. So long as you have a plan, derived from logic, you can then learn to execute it. I wrote about this a page ago...I talked about the difference of playing to win vs. playing to practice. It's really important to understand that vader and I are talking about playing to practice. Playing to win means using your refined strategy "toolbox" in order to pick the best strategy and variation in order to best beat your particular opponent while playing to practice is means specifically playing one strategy over and over, changing little to nothing from game to game, in order to refine that strategy and learn the best possible way to play it. When vader says something like "Do not change your strategy at all during the game," he is not implying that you should ignore what your opponent is doing. What he means is to take a large sample size of the same exact build to see what damage it can do and how it can come crumbling down. After you have this sample size, make minor adjustments or add some considerations to your strategy to fix the weak areas or strengthen the strong areas.
Ah - that definitely clears it up somewhat. Thanks!
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On November 04 2013 10:01 Millicant wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 09:52 SC2John wrote:On November 04 2013 04:48 B-rye88 wrote:
Now, this is fascinating. Not to stir up drama, but disagreement between you two really makes for awesome discussion and I (and others like me) benefit greatly from it!
So this re-ignites my earlier question about reacting/responding to your opponent's play. I understand that for the process of developing a strategy or game plan, you are clearly saying "Don't modify it! Look at the replays and make adjustments after many many games!" That makes perfect sense - got it.
However, does this mean that you NEVER react to what your opponent is doing? Even once your plan is developed and solidified, you blindly follow your plan and whichever player's plan comes out on top wins? This seems a little... disappointing.
Lastly, you state "I would say, anyone under the rank of Plat can use that method as a valid approach if they wanted too." That method meaning the blind macro? But to the contrary you are saying that finding the logic behind the plan and executing is superior, yes?
My thoughts: Your plan can include divergent options. For me, this would be something such as "I will scout my protoss opponent with a reaper before going up the ramp with my 3-rax stim timing; if he is still on one-base, I will set up a light contain to keep him on one-base, and use the reaper / scan to find out whether he's teching or 4-gating, cut a round of production to expand, and either bunker the high & low ground in case of twilight, get missile turrets if we see dark shrine, get 3 bunkers on the low ground if I see immortal play, or tech to starport if I see a robo bay; If i see early tech and little production, I can also go up the ramp and kill the tech structure with my stim". The game will play out the same way early, with the same build, but I have decided to do various things based on what I find. So long as you have a plan, derived from logic, you can then learn to execute it. I wrote about this a page ago...I talked about the difference of playing to win vs. playing to practice. It's really important to understand that vader and I are talking about playing to practice. Playing to win means using your refined strategy "toolbox" in order to pick the best strategy and variation in order to best beat your particular opponent while playing to practice is means specifically playing one strategy over and over, changing little to nothing from game to game, in order to refine that strategy and learn the best possible way to play it. When vader says something like "Do not change your strategy at all during the game," he is not implying that you should ignore what your opponent is doing. What he means is to take a large sample size of the same exact build to see what damage it can do and how it can come crumbling down. After you have this sample size, make minor adjustments or add some considerations to your strategy to fix the weak areas or strengthen the strong areas. Ah - that definitely clears it up somewhat. Thanks!
Ya. The idea is that you are willing to lose in a way that will help give you the needed information in order to play better in the future instead of maybe winning now but getting zero useful information to make you better.
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On November 04 2013 04:22 Millicant wrote:
However, does this mean that you NEVER react to what your opponent is doing? Even once your plan is developed and solidified, you blindly follow your plan and whichever player's plan comes out on top wins? This seems a little... disappointing.
Well yes I am kind of saying that. But thats not saying all of it and it makes it sound dull as hell.
What I am saying is that you follow your plan and stick to it unless you had planned a deviation. You work on playing your style as perfect as you can in game and work on tweaking what that style is out of the game.
And you make it sound like you actually will get a plan to a finished state. That really doesnt happen. If player A solves players B current style then it is up to player B to solve the new game state which pushes the ball back to player A etc. And thats just a two player example.
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Are there any specific Z builds for timings (2base centric) that are good for hots? Most hots Z stuff is purely fast 3 base and out producing enemies for big battles after 12 minutes. Most of the 2-base builds from liquipedia are still from WoL and there has changed much i fear.
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On November 05 2013 04:08 havoc.the.chaos wrote:
Are there any specific Z builds for timings (2base centric) that are good for hots? Most hots Z stuff is purely fast 3 base and out producing enemies for big battles after 12 minutes. Most of the 2-base builds from liquipedia are still from WoL and there has changed much i fear.
Reread thread and then state your Game plan or maybe ask about how a certain plan might work on a map.
Your question is a about build orders which are just tools to accomplish a plan. I can't recommend specific tool options till I know what job the tool is going to be used for.
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I feel like this exercise works MUCH better with Protoss/Terran for several reasons but here goes....
In ZvP, I want to win by staying one base ahead and denying my opponents fourth base with a mass of Roach/Hydra and Viper support.
Step 1: What kind of production and income do we need to execute this strategy? We want a strong 3-base economy and also mine from 8 gas geysers. We also want at least five Hatcheries for production. So we'll take four bases with a Macro hatchery and produce at least 72 Drones for optimal saturation. I will also need Hive tech, Roach and Hydra speed and Evolution Chamber upgrades.
Step 2: How can we safely power? We will need to scout and react appropriately to incoming pressure. In order to do this, we need map control and vision. Zergling Speed, Creep Spread, and good Overlord positioning seem to be the solution. We probably do not need to start Metabolic Boost until his Warpgate Research begins. Nor do we need to see inside of his base until his Cybernetics Core is complete.
Step 3: What am I looking for with my scouting? In addition to spotting key tech structures and production facilities, we should keep track of his Probe saturation and his Gas expendeture.
Step 4: What kind of mid-game army will defend my powering efficiently? From previous experience, I know that I will need to base my composition off of my opponent.
Versus early Gateway armies, I will need to rely on Speedlings. If he has +1 attack, Speedlings won't cut it and I need Roaches.
Versus many Sentries and/or Immortals, I want Hydralisks behind a few Roaches.
Versus mass Blink Stalkers, I need Hydralisks and Zerglings and probably some static defense.
Versus Stargate producing Phoenix, I need to create Spore Crawlers to protect my Drone line and would also like to have Hydralisks.
Versus Stargate producing Voidrays, Hydralisks are a great choice.
Versus a committed Collossi attack, I will need some Corruptors.
Step 5: How can we refine the mid game? When should we take our third and fourth bases? How should we prioritize economy/tech/army? We should take our third base fairly early. In most VODS, the Zerg places his third shortly after the Protoss expands to their natural. In my experience, this is also a good guideline for taking a fourth base. We should scout our opponent to determine whether to invest in E/T/A.
Conclusion:
I want scout my opponents opening with my first Overlord and take a fast 2nd Hatchery and make an Extractor directly after. If I spot a Nexus, I will choose not to mine gas and take my 3rd Hatchery. I will produce three Queens to begin spreading creep and mine just enough Gas for Metabolic Boost. When I know the Cybernetics Core is complete, I will send my Overlord into his main and use Lings to scout his wall. What I see will determine which mid-game army I will choose from "Step 4". When I reach full saturation on two bases, I will resume mining gas whilst saturating my third base. Around this time, I will check his natural gas. If I see no Assimilators or many Gateways at his wall/main, I will make a Roach Warren. Otherwise, I will add more Extractors and begin Lair/Evolution Chamber upgrades. At this point, I will add an additional Hatchery(in my main if he hasnt expanded again). While my Lair is morphing, I need to figure out his tech path and scout his third. I will power to three base saturation on four gas and make a Hydralisk Den for defense. If he has taken his third, I will also take my fourth and add a second Evolution Chamber and Infestation Pit. I'll start Hive ASAP. From here, I will finish powering to my target of 8 gas and at least 72 Drones and control the map with my Roach/Hydra/Viper composition.
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On November 05 2013 14:35 kaos00 wrote:I feel like this exercise works MUCH better with Protoss/Terran for several reasons but here goes.... In ZvP, I want to win by powering my economy and denying my opponents fourth with a mass of Roach/Hydra and Viper support. Step 1: What kind of production and income do we need to execute this strategy? We want a strong 3-base economy and also mine from 8 gas geysers. We also want at least five Hatcheries for production. So we'll take four bases with a Macro hatchery and produce at least 72 Drones for optimal saturation. I will also need Hive tech, Roach and Hydra speed and Evolution Chamber upgrades. Step 2: How can we safely power? We will need to scout and react appropriately to incoming pressure. In order to do this, we need map control and vision. Zergling Speed, Creep Spread, and good Overlord positioning seem to be the solution. We probably do not need to start Metabolic Boost until his Warpgate Research begins. Nor do we need to see inside of his base until his Cybernetics Core is complete. Step 3: What am I looking for with my scouting? In addition to spotting key tech structures and production facilities, we should keep track of his Probe saturation and his Gas expendeture. Step 4: What kind of mid-game army will defend my powering efficiently? From previous experience, I know that I will need to base my composition off of my opponent. Versus early Gateway armies, I will need to rely on Speedlings. If he has +1 attack, Speedlings won't cut it and I need Roaches. Versus many Sentries and/or Immortals, I want Hydralisks behind a few Roaches. Versus mass Blink Stalkers, I need Hydralisks and Zerglings and probably some static defense. Versus Stargate producing Phoenix, I need to create Spore Crawlers to protect my Drone line and would also like to have Hydralisks. Versus Stargate producing Voidrays, Hydralisks are a great choice. Versus a committed Collossi attack, I will need some Corruptors. Step 5: How can we refine the mid game? When should we take our third and fourth bases? How should we prioritize economy/tech/army? We should take our third base fairly early. In most VODS, the Zerg places his third shortly after the Protoss expands to their natural. In my experience, this is also a good guideline for taking a fourth base. We should scout our opponent to determine whether to invest in E/T/A. Conclusion:I want scout my opponents opening with my first Overlord and take a fast 2nd Hatchery and make an Extractor directly after. If I spot a Nexus, I will choose not to mine gas and take my 3rd Hatchery. I will produce three Queens to begin spreading creep and mine just enough Gas for Metabolic Boost. When I know the Cybernetics Core is complete, I will send my Overlord into his main and use Lings to scout his wall. What I see will determine which mid-game army I will choose from "Step 4". When I reach full saturation on two bases, I will resume mining gas whilst saturating my third base. Around this time, I will check his natural gas. If I see no Assimilators or many Gateways at his wall/main, I will make a Roach Warren. Otherwise, I will add more Extractors and begin Lair/Evolution Chamber upgrades. At this point, I will add an additional Hatchery(in my main if he hasnt expanded again). While my Lair is morphing, I need to figure out his tech path and scout his third. I will power to three base saturation on four gas and make a Hydralisk Den for defense. If he has taken his third, I will also take my fourth and add a second Evolution Chamber and Infestation Pit. I'll start Hive ASAP. From here, I will finish powering to my target of 8 gas and at least 72 Drones and control the map with my Roach/Hydra/Viper composition.
I would take the powering my economy out of your main statement. That will help to open up your play in a good direction mindset wise when you run into any issues.
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On November 05 2013 14:46 vaderseven wrote:
I would take the powering my economy out of your main statement. That will help to open up your play in a good direction mindset wise when you run into any issues.
That's all? OK, done. Critique please?
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This thread has been an incredible read. Thanks vaderseven and SC2John! You've really got me focused on the nitty gritty of constructing strategies and keep me locked in on the right mindset.
In particluar, this post by vaderseven encapsulates the core of what I am looking for in this debate and is just what I needed. I dare say it is the best post in the whole damn thread:
+ Show Spoiler +John, I disagree. Rather strongly to be honest. I find the very best way to learn the strongest ways to play is to actually play in a very rigid way in game. When I am learning a new style I will come up with I feel is a logical game plan vs the most common thing I face and I will then plan out everything macro and army movement wise. I then will go play that exact plan vs as many people as possible on that map. I will group all the replays (regardless of win or lose) by enemy game plan. Once I have a good group of replays vs a type of enemy play style, I watch them all back to back looking for patterns. Seeing different people do similar styles will often make patterns REALLY jump out as while every player has hugely different takes on styles there is core concepts in every style that carry over from player to player. As such, those core concepts will stick out as very similar actions, timings, movements, etc regardless of the player. Only once I have seen these patterns emerge do I attempt any type of modification to my play. This keeps my modifications focused on the enemy's plan instead of of cute things that happen in single games. Often, when you have tweaked your play to handle a style in a logical way, small cute things become non factors when they before seemed like huge roadblocked that had to be addressed. This kind of approach to learning a style leads to a huge number of loses at first due to you blindly following a plan. Your army will be snipped because it was at a dangerous location. Your main will fall because you had no defense to his harass. The game will suddenly end because three DT walk into your main. Thats PERFECT. If I have 19 replays of my 4M vs two base muta players I can watch them all back to back, find the common part of why I lost to each of them, address that sole factor, and have the smallest and easiest to understand adjustment that works vs all two base muta plays. This leads to very smart reactions such as burrowing two mines in very specific spots in reply to seeing a late gas opening, no fast third base, and only two queens followed by adding two very specific turrets at two very specific locations once the mutas are seen. The mines will be placed at the only two locations that I have ever seen 2 base muta players send their first mutas in at and the two turrets will be placed at two locations that I have simply never been able to get a marines from my rally to fast enough to defend though they were always just a second too late. This adjustment might allow me to be safe vs the mutas as the two mines buy me just enough safety to get the two turrets up and by the time a muta ball big enough to deal with that is in play my game plan has moved to a point where he has to react to it or die. On the fly adjustments or even adjustments based on only one reply would have probably led me to scanning at a certain time, spamming 2 turrets at each base, and delaying some timing. The turrets location would be based on fear of where I perceive weakness instead of what the other player has tested vs many Terran players is actually weak. I would end up investing more resources in game to a on the fly reaction that will not possibly contain logic created through pattern observation and will instead contain fear motivated by guesses. Basically, take huge value in replays where you get completely crushed because you didn't know the enemy would do something. Gather as many as you can and organize them and then apply logic to patterns you see. By keeping your play a constant, you will be able to actually craft exact deviations that require the least investment for the largest payoff. The more times you have done the exact same thing, the more exactly you know its actual weakness. By knowing your plays actual weakness you can address the real problem. If you freestyle, you practice at guessing and perfecting the art of fear. I prefer to perfect the art of problem solving. Treat the game like a science experiment, don't let your own play be an un-measurable variable when it could be the ultimate control. A strange and wonderful result of this approach is that what sounds like memorization actually becomes intuition. You just have to separate the active questioning part of the mind from the active playing. Once that is done, the things you decide as logical will be revealed slowly as truths in your play. As that happens, you learn that logic and how to play it at a much deeper level than some kind of written out build order or list of reactions. For more on this, see http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/zatic/Day[9]0002-BuildingTriggers.mp3 (discusses how getting large sample size of replays where you play the same is trully crucial in developing good decisions) and read this great wonderful quote: - Hide Spoiler - Have confidence in your execution, and skepticism and doubt in your analysis. When you're playing the game, you should be convinced that what you're doing is absolutely correct, so that way you can maximize your efficiency with whatever you're doing. Whether it'd be a really strong play or an absolutely flawed play. After the game is when you should look at your play and say "mhm, what did I do right and wrong here, what's a way that I could improve? What's a build that he could have done that would have crushed this a 100% of the time?" That is when you think of what adjustments you want to make for the next game. And of course, in that next game, you'll play with 100% confidence as though everything you're doing is absolutely correct. A huge issue that a lot of players deal with is that when they are in the game, and they get thrown off just a little bit - maybe they get storm-dropped or maybe they see a strategy they havent seen before -, that's when they start to analyze their play and to make these huge, large-scale adjustments. Unless making that adjustment was part of your plan, don't do it! You need to make sure that what you're doing is something you are comfortable and confident with. That is what's going to maximize your chance of winning, not some last minute, second-guessing strategy you pulled out of nowhere. -day9, podcast on Having a Good Mindset
I think this topic should be spotlighted. This is a shining example of the sort of material that I would love to see more often in the strategy forum. Incredible shit.
I can't wait to share what I've been working on with you guys! I'll pack in some replays too!
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United States4883 Posts
I wanted to give my own example of a comprehensive game plan. This is just a very rough version that doesn't even include half of what I eventually need to know. Most of this is based off of my previous knowledge and what I know to work so far, but it has a lot of holes in it and needs to be revised several times through practice before it becomes a finished product. You can see that I have a much clearer understanding of the lategame than I do of the mid game or the early game; this is because I have a clear vision of where I want to be, but I'm not sure of all the infinite variables leading up to that point. Yet. This is a work in progress and I will post an update when I have it filled out better so that everyone can see the difference.
Rough Draft PvT: + Show Spoiler +
GOAL: (In PvT), To starve the terran out in the lategame by using army pressure and zealot/DT warpins to deny additional expansions while staying ahead in expansions myself.
LATE GAME:
1) Economy and Expansion Management:
~70 probes on 4-5 bases. My goal is to always have 3 mining bases: when my main runs dry, I need a 4th; when my natural runs dry, I need a 5th, etc. It is VERY important to have at least 6 running geysers.
I can rely on cannons, HTs, and DTs to defend small drops. Storms can buy me enough time if my army is out of position to stop my opponent's army.
2) Army composition:
Stalker/colossus/archon/HT. At about 100 army supply, I should have about 6 colossus, 16 stalkers, 2-3 archons, a sentry for GS, and several HT scattered around the map. (6x6 + 16x2 + 3x4 + 2 = 82 + ~9 HT)
With ~70 workers, this leaves me with about 30 supply open, meaning I can use warpins of approximately 13 zealots/2 DTs at a time.
3) Warpin ability
I need to have to ability to warp in units anywhere on the map in order to achieve my goal of constant pressure, so I want to focus on spreading pylons and having an active warp prism.
My warp prism should always be on the opposite side of the map as my army and poised to warp in when the terran player gets out of position. Additionally, I want to have a probe actively making pylons using my "pylon spreading" method (i.e., building a pylon then moving the probe to the next proxy location, repeat every 30 seconds).
TRANSITION:
Once I have both storm and colossus tech and am approaching maxed, I will move out on the map to pressure my opponent while taking a 4th. My main army will be positioned in a way to protect my 4th while my warp prism will threaten the terran on the other side of the map. During this time I will also fill out my tech tree by adding 4-6 gateways, a second robo, and dark shrine.
By the time I move out, I should have +2/+2.
MID GAME:
GOAL: I want 3 bases, blink, charge, colossus tech, and storm.
Order: colossus/blink -> 3rd base -> storm -> charge.
TAKING THE 3RD:
I will use colossus/blink to secure my 3rd base around 12:00.
I want to be protected vs. frontal assaults as well as defend against drops. I will leave 2 zealots/5 stalkers in my main and the rest of my army between my natural and my third; my MSC will stay parked between my natural and my main. Whenever my opponent moves out of position to attack me, I will drop his main base and keep my warp prism alive. After my 3rd base is up, I will add 4 gateways for a total of 10.
After 3 colossi, I will transition into storm while getting my 5th and 6th geysers up. During this time I will also start charge.
I want to use all my chronoboost on upgrades and colossus/storm/charge tech during the mid game.
SCV PULLS:
To defend SCV pulls, I will pull all of my tech units to my natural and pull back as far as possible while flanking with zealot warpins and templar.
MAP VISION:
It's important for me to have good map vision in the mid game. Therefore, I need 4-5 observers and a probe spreading pylons along the outskirts of the map.
TRANSITION:
I want to warp in 2 rounds of zealots just before 10:00 to deal with the terran medivac pressure. Once I hold off the initial pressure, I want to warp in primarily stalkers while producing colossi.
EARLY GAME:
Blink stalker/colossus opening
9 pylon
13 gateway
15 double gas (2 in 2)
17 pylon
18 core
20 zealot (cancel)
21 warp gate
21 MSC
23 nexus
23 pylon
@100% gateway -> stalker x3 (chronoboost)
29 robo (5:00)
35 forge (5:45)
@100% warpgate -> sentry
@100% forge -> +1 armor
@6:45 gate x2
@7:00 natural gases
@8:00 robo bay
@8:30 twilight
@9:00 gate x3
@100% robo bay -> colossus + range
@100% twilight -> blink and +1 attack
Chronoboost colossus/thermal lance
-> Strong 2-base timing with 3-4 colossus
OR blink/+1 attack
-> Later army, against later timings
-> "powering" option
OR colossus/blink (*standard*)
-> Strong army early
-> faster, safer 3rd base
My MSC will scout the opponent's main at 5:30 to get a good indication of the terran's plan. If I see an early starport, I will place a cannon in my main and use my units to protect the main and photon overcharge and an observer to protect my natural. If no expansion, I will cut probes and go up to 4 gateways ASAP. I will rely on good micro, forcefields, and photon overcharge to deal with any pre-medivac pressure.
Conclusion: I want to open with a fast expansion and power up economically while deflecting any type of terran aggression. I will get up a colossus by 10:00 and blink shortly thereafter and transition into a colossus/blink army to take my 3rd. Once I have my 3rd up, I can start my templar tech and transition into chargelots as well. Once I have +2/+2 and a nearly maxed out army, I will move out to pressure the terran while taking a 4th and filling out my tech tree. The rest of the game I want to focus on continually denying the terran's expansions using positioning of my main army and zealot/DT warpins while always staying on at least two mining bases.
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On November 06 2013 02:29 SC2John wrote:I wanted to give my own example of a comprehensive game plan. This is just a very rough version that doesn't even include half of what I eventually need to know. Most of this is based off of my previous knowledge and what I know to work so far, but it has a lot of holes in it and needs to be revised several times through practice before it becomes a finished product. You can see that I have a much clearer understanding of the lategame than I do of the mid game or the early game; this is because I have a clear vision of where I want to be, but I'm not sure of all the infinite variables leading up to that point. Yet. This is a work in progress and I will post an update when I have it filled out better so that everyone can see the difference. Rough Draft PvT: + Show Spoiler +
GOAL: (In PvT), To starve the terran out in the lategame by using army pressure and zealot/DT warpins to deny additional expansions while staying ahead in expansions myself.
LATE GAME:
1) Economy and Expansion Management:
~70 probes on 4-5 bases. My goal is to always have 3 mining bases: when my main runs dry, I need a 4th; when my natural runs dry, I need a 5th, etc. It is VERY important to have at least 6 running geysers.
I can rely on cannons, HTs, and DTs to defend small drops. Storms can buy me enough time if my army is out of position to stop my opponent's army.
2) Army composition:
Stalker/colossus/archon/HT. At about 100 army supply, I should have about 6 colossus, 16 stalkers, 2-3 archons, a sentry for GS, and several HT scattered around the map. (6x6 + 16x2 + 3x4 + 2 = 82 + ~9 HT)
With ~70 workers, this leaves me with about 30 supply open, meaning I can use warpins of approximately 13 zealots/2 DTs at a time.
3) Warpin ability
I need to have to ability to warp in units anywhere on the map in order to achieve my goal of constant pressure, so I want to focus on spreading pylons and having an active warp prism.
My warp prism should always be on the opposite side of the map as my army and poised to warp in when the terran player gets out of position. Additionally, I want to have a probe actively making pylons using my "pylon spreading" method (i.e., building a pylon then moving the probe to the next proxy location, repeat every 30 seconds).
TRANSITION:
Once I have both storm and colossus tech and am approaching maxed, I will move out on the map to pressure my opponent while taking a 4th. My main army will be positioned in a way to protect my 4th while my warp prism will threaten the terran on the other side of the map. During this time I will also fill out my tech tree by adding 4-6 gateways, a second robo, and dark shrine.
By the time I move out, I should have +2/+2.
MID GAME:
GOAL: I want 3 bases, blink, charge, colossus tech, and storm.
Order: colossus/blink -> 3rd base -> storm -> charge.
TAKING THE 3RD:
I will use colossus/blink to secure my 3rd base around 12:00.
I want to be protected vs. frontal assaults as well as defend against drops. I will leave 2 zealots/5 stalkers in my main and the rest of my army between my natural and my third; my MSC will stay parked between my natural and my main. Whenever my opponent moves out of position to attack me, I will drop his main base and keep my warp prism alive. After my 3rd base is up, I will add 4 gateways for a total of 10.
After 3 colossi, I will transition into storm while getting my 5th and 6th geysers up. During this time I will also start charge.
I want to use all my chronoboost on upgrades and colossus/storm/charge tech during the mid game.
SCV PULLS:
To defend SCV pulls, I will pull all of my tech units to my natural and pull back as far as possible while flanking with zealot warpins and templar.
MAP VISION:
It's important for me to have good map vision in the mid game. Therefore, I need 4-5 observers and a probe spreading pylons along the outskirts of the map.
TRANSITION:
I want to warp in 2 rounds of zealots just before 10:00 to deal with the terran medivac pressure. Once I hold off the initial pressure, I want to warp in primarily stalkers while producing colossi.
EARLY GAME:
Blink stalker/colossus opening
9 pylon
13 gateway
15 double gas (2 in 2)
17 pylon
18 core
20 zealot (cancel)
21 warp gate
21 MSC
23 nexus
23 pylon
@100% gateway -> stalker x3 (chronoboost)
29 robo (5:00)
35 forge (5:45)
@100% warpgate -> sentry
@100% forge -> +1 armor
@6:45 gate x2
@7:00 natural gases
@8:00 robo bay
@8:30 twilight
@9:00 gate x3
@100% robo bay -> colossus + range
@100% twilight -> blink and +1 attack
Chronoboost colossus/thermal lance
-> Strong 2-base timing with 3-4 colossus
OR blink/+1 attack
-> Later army, against later timings
-> "powering" option
OR colossus/blink (*standard*)
-> Strong army early
-> faster, safer 3rd base
My MSC will scout the opponent's main at 5:30 to get a good indication of the terran's plan. If I see an early starport, I will place a cannon in my main and use my units to protect the main and photon overcharge and an observer to protect my natural. If no expansion, I will cut probes and go up to 4 gateways ASAP. I will rely on good micro, forcefields, and photon overcharge to deal with any pre-medivac pressure.
Conclusion: I want to open with a fast expansion and power up economically while deflecting any type of terran aggression. I will get up a colossus by 10:00 and blink shortly thereafter and transition into a colossus/blink army to take my 3rd. Once I have my 3rd up, I can start my templar tech and transition into chargelots as well. Once I have +2/+2 and a nearly maxed out army, I will move out to pressure the terran while taking a 4th and filling out my tech tree. The rest of the game I want to focus on continually denying the terran's expansions using positioning of my main army and zealot/DT warpins while always staying on at least two mining bases.
Something I would think would be very interesting is to have 2 similarly-ranked players play a series of games with one of these 'plans' discussed and written down by each player before each game. Then make little tiny adjustments on each person's side to execute their plan better without changing it entirely. Iterate this for 3-5 games, and then compile the whole set of plan/adjustments, colour- or style-coded so you can see what is being changed and how it's affecting the results.
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Everything your said about planning is spot on, but your re-definition of macro still ticks me really hard... Macro is the ability to produce more units in a fixed amount of time, through build optimization and effective apm. You are right that all games (should) have strategies, and that all strategies have timings, but to go further and say therefore an early cheese game is also a macro game because it has a plan is incorrect...
Every strategy relies on three components to succeed: surprise, micro, and macro, but different strategies focus on different components. Not all cheeses have the same emphasis... let's compare a proxy 2 gate vs a sentry/immortal all-in. Both strategies are cheesy but they have completely different focuses. The proxy 2 gate focuses 90% on surprise to catch the opponent off guard, 10% on micro of your zealots, and virtually 0% macro, producing zealots from 2 gateways doesn't require much build optimization or effective apm. In contrast, the sentry/immortal all-in during it's popular days is 70% macro, 30% micro, and virtually 0% surprise. Most zvp games on ladder at that time were sentry/immortal all-ins, even all the pros were doing it, it was the default strategy and you won't catch anyone off guard, hence 0% surprise. What separated the men from the boys was macro and micro, which was what set Parting apart from all the other pros. Parting's build optimization was so superb he produced those 3 immortals faster and pushed out earlier than anyone else (macro), also he consistently pulled off perfect force fields and warp prism/immortal dance (micro). In comparison, the proxy 2 gate is a surprise focused all-in, with little requirement on micro and macro, whereas the sentry/immortal is a macro/micro focused all-in with little requirement of surprise.
The debate of whether to focus on strategy or mechanics often confuses players when the word "macro" gets thrown in carelessly and in erroneous context. Strategy focuses on planning, whereas mechanics focuses on execution. The reason most high level players recommend a focus on mechanics is because you Need mechanics to execute strategies. A gold level player executing Parting's sentry/immortal all-in would probably push out at 12 minutes instead of 8:30 due to poor mechanics, vs a master player who may be fooling around in strategy and did a 12 minute roach max, he would stomp the gold player despite choosing an inferior strategy. Had he played another master protoss who went sentry/immortal with better execution, he would die before his roach production even begins. That's why people give the advice of focusing on better mechanics when learning starcraft, and only focus on strategy when your basic are down.
There is such a distinct class of a macro game, it means the game plan focuses on unit production more than surprise attack or micro. In WOL, a protoss 3 base timing to kill zerg before broodlord is a macro game because your success is decided by how quickly you can produce your 3 base army to hit the zerg (macro), too late and you lose. We know that it is easy to produce units early game when you have limited economy and production, but gets harder as your economy grows and you have more things to do. An early game timing attack usually relies more on surprise and micro, because the production part is still easy, where as a late game timing mostly relies on macro and micro, who can produce the most units faster and control them better. This difference is why people look down on early game timings while they hail late game timings, because to execute a late game timing requires more skills in unit production, aka macro.
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On November 06 2013 10:08 w3jjjj wrote:
Everything your said about planning is spot on, but your re-definition of macro still ticks me really hard... Macro is the ability to produce more units in a fixed amount of time, through build optimization and effective apm. You are right that all games (should) have strategies, and that all strategies have timings, but to go further and say therefore an early cheese game is also a macro game because it has a plan is incorrect...
Every strategy relies on three components to succeed: surprise, micro, and macro, but different strategies focus on different components. Not all cheeses have the same emphasis... let's compare a proxy 2 gate vs a sentry/immortal all-in. Both strategies are cheesy but they have completely different focuses. The proxy 2 gate focuses 90% on surprise to catch the opponent off guard, 10% on micro of your zealots, and virtually 0% macro, producing zealots from 2 gateways doesn't require much build optimization or effective apm. In contrast, the sentry/immortal all-in during it's popular days is 70% macro, 30% micro, and virtually 0% surprise. Most zvp games on ladder at that time were sentry/immortal all-ins, even all the pros were doing it, it was the default strategy and you won't catch anyone off guard, hence 0% surprise. What separated the men from the boys was macro and micro, which was what set Parting apart from all the other pros. Parting's build optimization was so superb he produced those 3 immortals faster and pushed out earlier than anyone else (macro), also he consistently pulled off perfect force fields and warp prism/immortal dance (micro). In comparison, the proxy 2 gate is a surprise focused all-in, with little requirement on micro and macro, whereas the sentry/immortal is a macro/micro focused all-in with little requirement of surprise.
The debate of whether to focus on strategy or mechanics often confuses players when the word "macro" gets thrown in carelessly and in erroneous context. Strategy focuses on planning, whereas mechanics focuses on execution. The reason most high level players recommend a focus on mechanics is because you Need mechanics to execute strategies. A gold level player executing Parting's sentry/immortal all-in would probably push out at 12 minutes instead of 8:30 due to poor mechanics, vs a master player who may be fooling around in strategy and did a 12 minute roach max, he would stomp the gold player despite choosing an inferior strategy. Had he played another master protoss who went sentry/immortal with better execution, he would die before his roach production even begins. That's why people give the advice of focusing on better mechanics when learning starcraft, and only focus on strategy when your basic are down.
There is such a distinct class of a macro game, it means the game plan focuses on unit production more than surprise attack or micro. In WOL, a protoss 3 base timing to kill zerg before broodlord is a macro game because your success is decided by how quickly you can produce your 3 base army to hit the zerg (macro), too late and you lose. We know that it is easy to produce units early game when you have limited economy and production, but gets harder as your economy grows and you have more things to do. An early game timing attack usually relies more on surprise and micro, because the production part is still easy, where as a late game timing mostly relies on macro and micro, who can produce the most units faster and control them better. This difference is why people look down on early game timings while they hail late game timings, because to execute a late game timing requires more skills in unit production, aka macro.
Ultimately, though, is not a win a win? I will grant you that a pro player who relies exclusively on micro-based all-ins is going to do poorly in the long run because of predictability, but getting hung up on definitions when you could be focusing on the details of your play seems short-sighted to me.
If I were to put it another way: your definition and my definition (or SC2John's, or vaderseven's, for that matter) do not have to match in order for both of us to play a macro game against one another. Our definitions of macro have absolutely zero influence on the outcome of the game. The only thing that influences the outcome of the game is how well we use the tools based on micro, macro, and decision-making. Not coincidentally, that's exactly what we're discussing here.
Saying "I am going to play macro games to work on my mechanics" is not a game plan, and actually contributes nothing to your ability to win. Saying "I am going to overwhelm my opponent in the late game with sheer numbers of units off of 4 bases" is a specific, recognizable plan that has necessary steps leading up to it. For instance:
Backtracking from that goal, we get things like "I will use Siege Tanks and Marine drops to defend my third, and eventually fourth, bases while pinning my opponent back so he can't punish me."
Back up from there: "I will go up to 5 Barracks with 4 Reactors/1 TL, a single TL Factory, and a Reactor Starport on two bases and use those structures to produce enough units to push out and take my third, while defending against possible allins".
Further yet: "I will go up to 3 Barracks and 1 Factory after expanding and defend allins using Tanks and Marines, while checking for a quick third by my opponent with my earliest Marines"
Keep it up: "I will go 1-rax FE in the beginning of the game to try and gain an economic lead, keeping Marine production constant and scouting for 1-base play".
NOW we have a concrete series of statements that form a coherent plan, and not ONCE have we used the word 'macro' in spite of the fact that MANY persons' definitions of macro would line up with the type of game we're playing. And our planning has not suffered in the slightest due to that fact.
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No, a win is not a win in the context of improving, especially for new players. Every strategy focuses on different aspects of the game, you can get wins by doing 6 pool every game, but it won't improve your macro at all and only minimum micro practice.
Nor should you need a strategy to get better, in fact it can be detrimental to new players to focus on strategy instead of mechanics. Saying a "I'm going to play macro games to work on my mechanics" is a great plan, for example, objectives such as "I'm gonna miss as few larva injects as possible" is a very good practice goal. It doesn't matter if you cannot multitask or have no strategy at all and lose the game, as long as you got better at larva inject that mechanic will always benefit your future games, and you reach a point where you no longer need to actively think about larva inject anymore it becomes automatic. In contrast, saying "I'm gonna max on roaches by 12 minutes to attack my opponent's third" is a useless plan if you do not have the larva inject mechanics to pull it off.
What your examples all lack in common is timing, because you are ignoring what macro means, the speed of which you can build units. To say "I will 1-rax FE in the beginning of the game and try to gain an economic lead" is meaningless because it is vague, how soon can you get your CC up? How many scvs by what minute mark constitutes a economic lead? These are Macro questions that new players should focus on. To produce x scvs by y minutes is a way better improvement goal than to say "I will use siege tanks and marine drops to defend my third", you need Macro to execute strategy, a perfect strategy means nothing if the execution is lacking.
I agree with what OP said about the planning process, but it does not appear that he understands what macro means nor how important it is to focus on macro instead of strategy.
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United States4883 Posts
On November 06 2013 11:30 w3jjjj wrote:
No, a win is not a win in the context of improving, especially for new players. Every strategy focuses on different aspects of the game, you can get wins by doing 6 pool every game, but it won't improve your macro at all and only minimum micro practice.
Nor should you need a strategy to get better, in fact it can be detrimental to new players to focus on strategy instead of mechanics. Saying a "I'm going to play macro games to work on my mechanics" is a great plan, for example, objectives such as "I'm gonna miss as few larva injects as possible" is a very good practice goal. It doesn't matter if you cannot multitask or have no strategy at all and lose the game, as long as you got better at larva inject that mechanic will always benefit your future games, and you reach a point where you no longer need to actively think about larva inject anymore it becomes automatic. In contrast, saying "I'm gonna max on roaches by 12 minutes to attack my opponent's third" is a useless plan if you do not have the larva inject mechanics to pull it off.
What your examples all lack in common is timing, because you are ignoring what macro means, the speed of which you can build units. To say "I will 1-rax FE in the beginning of the game and try to gain an economic lead" is meaningless because it is vague, how soon can you get your CC up? How many scvs by what minute mark constitutes a economic lead? These are Macro questions that new players should focus on. To produce x scvs by y minutes is a way better improvement goal than to say "I will use siege tanks and marine drops to defend my third", you need Macro to execute strategy, a perfect strategy means nothing if the execution is lacking.
I agree with what OP said about the planning process, but it does not appear that he understands what macro means nor how important it is to focus on macro instead of strategy.
On playing "macro":
On November 03 2013 18:34 vaderseven wrote:
I suggest learning a game plan that you feel you understand the logic behind the winning move OR to blindly play out a macro build you stole from someone very good at the game.
If you choose the latter, pay attention to what you lose and carefully group the replays. Once you have played and lost enough, you can begin to make statements of logic about how you feel the game can be won. Once you have blindly macro'd to a lose vs a maxed protoss army as terran 500 times you start to see the logic in killing the toss before they get to that stage and you even start to see the logic of killing them at specific times.
Personally, I choose the first choice. Find some kind of logic, to hell with WHEN that logic leads to a win, and build a plan based on the logic. Then gather replays and analyze and modify logically while executing confidently.
The blind macro method can be useful for very low level players to jump start their mind with some metagame as you will see a wide variety of enemy styles which will help to motivate logical plans on how to kill said enemies.
On "macro" as a tool to support the strategy:
On October 28 2013 03:02 SC2John wrote:
I think you're missing the point of my post. Macro, in your definition, is simply a tool to support your strategy. In just the same way, aggression, composition, and hiding information are also tools to support your strategy. A "macro game" or "macro strategy", though, is simply a game based around a plan (according to my definition). If you goal is to win with an attack, the timing of it doesn't actually change the goal; it just changes the way you get there. Whether you attack at 4:00, 10:00, 14:00, or 20:00 for the win, the game goal is still the same.
The purpose of this thread is how to plan a strategy, not how to improve mechanics. If your focus is to work on mechanics (as it should with most lower level players), the best course of action is to focus on mechanics and not on strategy. But from the perspective of planning strategy, the term "macro" means nothing. Good strategies already assume good macro and attempt to hit the best possible timings based on said good macro while bad strategies are either logically flawed or cannot possibly be supported by perfect macro.
If your goal is something along the lines of hitting a powerful 3-base attack before vipers in PvZ, then your timing becomes pretty clear based on perfect macro (before 11:00 if it's a fast hive, before 13:00 otherwise) and tons of practice. If your goal is to win with a 2-base attack with 2 bases and 3 immortals, then your timing is when you get 2 fully saturated bases and 2 immortals as quickly as possible. The strategy dictates the timing based on good macro.
If you have bad macro, either practice a simple strategy with very simple goals (a cheese or a timing attack) or just do the "blind macro" method vader mentioned (i.e., copying Innovation's TvZ and playing it over and over and over). Either way, I'm not advocating that players should ignore mechanics and spend a lot of time thinking about strategy; instead, I think it's best for players to have a general game plan and go into it with the idea of refining it to the point of perfection. If you're refining a game plan, you're going to improve a lot faster (both in mechanics and game knowledge) than you would by simply trying to "macro" to a competent level.
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From w3jjjj
Macro is the ability to produce more units in a fixed amount of time, through build optimization and effective apm.
OK. So macro is a skill, which w3jjjj then goes on to expand into.
From this definition, then it is definitely correct that there is no "macro strategy". There are various strategies that will incorporate or rely on more or less complex and precise macro.
The entire point of this post is that macro is not a strategy. Nobody is denying that macroing more effectively is a valuable skill, or that it will improve your win-rate. You should DEFINITELY be making every effort to improve your macro.
There is another side to this that makes this post more valuable, both from a learning standpoint and a gaming standpoint.
First, as games go longer, macro becomes increasingly more complex. Macroing 3-bases worth of production and income is far more difficult than macroing off of 2 bases.
If you look at how you people learn to increase their (skills, muscle memory, muscle strength, this also works for changing your habits) then the theme that prevails is that of progressive overload. You constantly push yourself a little further, until what was difficult becomes manageable, and then you push yourself further.
Unfortunately, a single game of starcraft in isolation does not allow for this progressive overload. It's too fast.
SO, from a learning standpoint... then it makes sense to learn macro by starting with strategies that require less complex and intricate macro to succeed, and then, when you have developed the macro skills required to execute that strategy effectively through practicing and mass-gaming it enough, moving to a more complex strategy that requires more advanced macro & micro to accomplish.
The other point that's worth looking at is, as mentioned, that "I'm going to play a macro game" is not a valid strategy. Forming a strategy and breaking it down to a game-plan per the above posts is. Know what helps you macro effectively? Having a plan! Knowing what you want to accomplish before you are faced with the decision point helps you to move quickly, increase apm, and effectively accomplish your goals.
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SC2John,see my first post, I never disagreed with your planning steps, only how you re-defined a macro game as any game with a plan. To my knowledge macro had always meant the ability to produce more units in a limited time. My second post was responding to Jazzman88 who claimed that macro focused practice is not a viable game plan to improve... I believe a strategy can only be as good as it's execution. Many good points made in this thread. Cheers
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Actually, SC2John and I are making a point that a macro game doesn't mean having a good a plan and that some game plans that are very well thought out do not really take advantage of macro related skills.
Its not that we are redefining a macro game. We are trying to redefine the mindset of players wishing to improve as currently the accepted logic of the english community has been to learn to macro and then the rest will come easy. I am saying that the rest is not actually easy, strategy and game planning are holding so many players back from doing things with their macro related skills.
Ideally, a player learns mechanics and strategy at a roughly equal pace or works on one then on the other in such a way that they remain well rounded. In the English world, we tell people to ignore game plans and get themselves a build order and macro or just freestyle and macro. I argue that is bad and that a better mind is to blindly macro then stop and think after many games and apply a game plan to solve issues or too learn game plans that are withing your mechanical ability and as you progress in skill you will naturally be able to plan a longer game and play a longer game.
The average Korean gamer that did not just pick up the game has better macro and micro than the average English speaking player that has played the game for the same amount of time. We all know that. Its accepted at this point as factual. I just want to point out that the average Korean gamer is applying a game plan at a better level than the English player that has played just as long.
What prompted my friend to say what he said in this quote was me playing a build order vs him over and over and over and he would do a different style vs it each time:
I used to have a Korean Starcraft practice partner. One day he asked me, "Why do you think Koreans are so cheesy when they're learning to play?" I don't remember exactly what I replied, but it was probably something along the lines of: "They've got better micro, macro, etc., so they can win early." He took a moment, then responded, "No, it's because the goal of the game is much simpler."
He was trying to tell me that it was useless for me to do the build I was doing. I had no idea why I was doing it. I was playing a savior style three hatch muta into lurker into four hatch hive play. I was playing it vs mech, two rax FE into heavy tank marine, SK terran style, you name it.
I couldn't macro it 100% perfect at all so I had variable numbers of units at the various timings.
I never learned till I was much better how that build was intended to be used and I must say that learning an aggressive two hatch muta style would have been so much better for me as it was still going to take my efforts to macro correctly and the plan behind it was something I could grasp even back then just watching vods.
The point is, don't just do super simple plans for easy wins sake. Try to use the most complex plans that you can understand as that will push your understanding and your mechanics at a very fair rate. It will lead to a much better end result. If you are one of the many stuck in plat/diamond with decent apm and sq you might need to relearn the entire game just so you can gain the skill we talk about in this thread.
Thats the point of us talking about good game plans w3jjjj.
Actually, on another note, my mechanics usually go to shit once I go outside the realm of my game plan. I can see myself thinking via extra movement clicks, screen scrolling, staring at things to see them finish, etc.
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Good points vadarseven, and I agree that strategy is important to some degree. I remember a time in BW I was working on macro zvp and I always quickly expanded to 4 bases but I kept dying to 2 base timings, and I had to learn to adjust my game plan and base my decision on scouting, so I know where you are coming from.
However, a different perspective in another story is when I switched from bw to WOL, I did it very late it was about a year into the game already, but because I've played bw for many years, my mechanics got me into master league within a couple of days, I was beating master players who understood the game and knew their strategies, and I didn't even know what infestor were... The longer I've played starcraft, the more I'm convinced that mechanics are more important than strategy. I remember in bw asking an A- level korean why I'm losing to him even though I'm playing the right strategy vs his build, and he simply in broken English told me that I have not enough units...
I guess I'm more traditional in this strategy vs mechanics debate, and I don't advocate new players to study strategy at all, I feel it's sort of detrimental if they waste their time on anything but mechanics. In my personal experience the conventional mindset that you are challenging here actually worked out very well. When I was C/C+ on iccup I was learning all the different "right" strategies but I didn't have the mechanics to execute well and I was stuck at that level, my breakthrough came when I focused purely on mechanics, doing the same build but execute better and better, especially macro, which was to make more units faster, and I climbed up from C to B in a very short amount of time. Perhaps your experience differed and your breakthrough came when you focused on strategy, different players different learning curves.
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On November 06 2013 13:56 w3jjjj wrote:SC2John,see my first post, I never disagreed with your planning steps, only how you re-defined a macro game as any game with a plan. To my knowledge macro had always meant the ability to produce more units in a limited time. My second post was responding to Jazzman88 who claimed that macro focused practice is not a viable game plan to improve... I believe a strategy can only be as good as it's execution. Many good points made in this thread. Cheers
Ooops, that was not the point of my statement - I must have misspoke. I was saying that trying to define macro and obsessing about whether or not you're playing a 'macro game' isn't in itself a game plan. Obviously the mechanics of macro-management are critical to your success, but I compare it to my music. I don't go into a performance saying "I'm going to play the right notes in the right order" because it's just assumed that excellent players do that sort of thing and improving players are working on that. I go into a performance saying things like "I want to build my whole concerto in intensity so that the maximum volume and emotional effect is reached on the last note. On the way, there are several important themes I need to stress in the middle point of the piece so as to draw the audience in."
Sorry if I came across strong - I believe that language has a lot of power, and if we spend our time just continuously arguing about macro, we're not actually improving. DO the macro, and DO a game plan, but don't worry about the appearance of macro or whether or not people will 'look down' on a macro game or not.
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Here is my strategy plan. Simple and effective:
TvX
SCOUTING
Hold ALL watchtowers have reaper/SCV/marine checking for expansions
Make minute adjustements based on scouting information
TvZ OPENING
Reaper opening into hellion reaper (2 reapers, 6 hellions)
CC
Add 2 more Reactored Rax
Stim
Double engineering Bay 1-1
TIMING ATTACK
Move out 11-13 mins with MMMM to kill zergs third
Have 3rd CC building behind it
Add Armory Start 2-2
Add 2 more rax to make 5 and a second factory with tech lab
Research drilling claws
Do not parade push. Push out in contingencies, muster troops at home to defend counter attacks.
LATE GAME
Be sure to add 3 additional Rax when taking 3rd, Have them all tech labbed for marauders
in preparation for usual Ultralisk transition.
If Broodlords, add 2 extra starports maybe 3 depending on economy.
TvP OPENING
Reaper Expand, CC First or 1 Rax FE
Get 3 rax and stim
Ebay for +1
Add Factory with reactor while building Starport
TIMING ATTACK
MMM with +1, combat shields and STIM
Goal is to force gateway units and pick off sentries
Secure a 3rd and protect with sim city bunker and turret.
MID GAME
Adapt to Protoss tech and win by economical advantage. e.g.
3 Colossus, heavy stalker count and high templar. Throw down one Ghost Academy,
get about 4-5 ghosts, 12 vikings, and higher marauder count.
LATE GAME
Protoss should be dead by now... if not slowly transition into BC/Viking/raven.
TvT MECH! - Me personally, never play mech so just trying simple 1-1-1 openings and being creative.
Mainly have fun, dick around, and dont expect to win. This is my fun matchup.
Goal: Gain a strong feel for all mech based units. Copy pro strategies (Strelok!!)
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Here is my strategy plan. Simple and effective:
TvX
SCOUTING
Hold ALL watchtowers have reaper/SCV/marine checking for expansions
Make minute adjustements based on scouting information
TvZ
OPENING
Reaper opening into hellion reaper (2 reapers, 6 hellions)
CC
Add 2 more Reactored Rax
Stim
Double engineering Bay 1-1
TIMING ATTACK
Move out 11-13 mins with MMMM to kill zergs third
Have 3rd CC building behind it
Add Armory Start 2-2
Add 2 more rax to make 5 and a second factory with tech lab
Research drilling claws
Do not parade push. Push out in contingencies, muster troops at home to defend counter attacks.
LATE GAME
Be sure to add 3 additional Rax when taking 3rd, Have them all tech labbed for marauders
in preparation for usual Ultralisk transition.
If Broodlords, add 2 extra starports maybe 3 depending on economy.
TvP
OPENING
Reaper Expand, CC First or 1 Rax FE
Get 3 rax and stim
Ebay for +1
Add Factory with reactor while building Starport
TIMING ATTACK
MMM with +1, combat shields and STIM
Goal is to force gateway units and pick off sentries
Secure a 3rd and protect with sim city bunker and turret.
MID GAME
Adapt to Protoss tech and win by economical advantage. e.g.
3 Colossus, heavy stalker count and high templar. Throw down one Ghost Academy,
get about 4-5 ghosts, 12 vikings, and higher marauder count.
LATE GAME
Protoss should be dead by now... if not slowly transition into BC/Viking/raven.
TvT
MECH! - Me personally, never play mech so just trying simple 1-1-1 openings and being creative.
Mainly have fun, dick around, and dont expect to win. This is my fun matchup.
Goal: Gain a strong feel for all mech based units. Copy pro strategies (Strelok!!)
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There's this big misconception that cheeses and 2-base all-ins are somehow "no skill" or noob builds or "the wrong way to play the game". People play against opponents on ladder who do a proxy 2-gate or pull SCVs or open with speedling rushes every game, and there's the tendency to feel belittled or dumbed down by losing to a well-executed cheese; naturally this excites them and makes them feel like they should have won if they had just scouted better/controlled better, etc. And that's true. All cheeses are beatable at the top levels of play as long as you scout, continue to macro, and control well; when you lose to a cheese or some kind of all-in build, you were lacking in one of these areas, not because the cheese is "no skill OP".
While it is true that there are mechanically better players that lose to people performing cheeses and 2-base all-ins in masters and GM leagues (even on the pro level), this doesn't change the fact that one player simply executed a strategy better than the other. There are a lot of players who don't have a set goal in mind when they ladder; with my definition of macro, you could argue that a dedicated cheeser is technically a better "macro" player than their opponent who just builds whatever works without a clearly defined goal, even if the dedicated cheeser is not mechanically as good.
There's also the flawed school of thought that somehow playing only cheeses and 2-base all-ins is detrimental to your SC2 growth and makes you a "bad macro player". The truth is that there is plenty to learn about the early and mid games through these shorter-term game plans, things you wouldn't necessarily learn by just sitting back, taking 3 bases, and "macroing". If you play only cheese and mid game attacks, you miss out on learning the late game, but it's actually a great stepping stone into what is considered "true macro play".
You should change this into necessary rant, because this was the crucial point I thought you were making this whole time. You said yourself that the Koreans cheese a lot when first learning (lol, i had winning here before. Irony!) to play because it helps you understand one part of the game, whether it be micro, macro, or the interaction between my X unit and your Y unit at Q and Z amounts. Koreans are fucking awesome because they've played the 4 zergling vs 3 marine matchup A MILLION times. That's one small thing in the game, but being able to execute that perfectly is part of perfect play. A perfected cheese play that beats a macro intended play is still a better play no matter what.
The fact of the matter is that Starcraft 2 is about winning, and if that requires that you proxy 2rax every game, then fucking do it. Remember what Morrow did in the beta or somewhere near the beginning of SC2? That fucking reaper build that DOMINATED?! When you look back at that, it's so stupid how awesome that strategy was. He won a tournament depending on it. People complained, and you can say reapers were OP and all that other crap, but the fact of the matter is that it's no different than saying cheese is lame. If they won the game, it's because you failed to do something - whether that's an upgrade, building workers, or gging too early. Wanting the game to change because you keep losing is only a valid excuse for so long - eventually you either change your strategy, or you give up playing.
I believe Harvey Dent made this point perfectly in The Dark Knight - You either die a hero (give up playing) or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain (change your strategy).
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United States4883 Posts
From Day9's Podcast "Hallmarks of Expert Play #1: Winning with an Advantage"
Number One: Always make sure you have an endgame plan before your game has ever started. I see so many players that have a build that will lead them to some advantage and then when they get there, they arrive at this advantageous situation, they suddenly have no idea what to do. Their macro gets screwed up, they don't time their expansions or the rest of their attacks correctly, and that's what ends up losing them the game. And the way to avoid this is just have a very general, straightforward sense of what you're going to do in the endgame. And I'm not talking about anything specific, or anything crazy, just some basic framework that you can always be trying to go for.
Holy shit, that is the best quote ever relating to this thread. This is exactly the reason why I say it's important to have an end game goal already in place that tells you how you're going to win. If you don't have a goal that states how you will win, you'll find yourself in unfamiliar territory the moment you run out of steps in your plan.
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On November 15 2013 12:31 SC2John wrote:From Day9's Podcast "Hallmarks of Expert Play #1: Winning with an Advantage"Show nested quote +Number One: Always make sure you have an endgame plan before your game has ever started. I see so many players that have a build that will lead them to some advantage and then when they get there, they arrive at this advantageous situation, they suddenly have no idea what to do. Their macro gets screwed up, they don't time their expansions or the rest of their attacks correctly, and that's what ends up losing them the game. And the way to avoid this is just have a very general, straightforward sense of what you're going to do in the endgame. And I'm not talking about anything specific, or anything crazy, just some basic framework that you can always be trying to go for. Holy shit, that is the best quote ever relating to this thread. This is exactly the reason why I say it's important to have an end game goal already in place that tells you how you're going to win. If you don't have a goal that states how you will win, you'll find yourself in unfamiliar territory the moment you run out of steps in your plan.
I listen to his Hallmarks of Expert Play podcasts and Game Theory podcasts every few weeks to few months. I dont really pay attention to em anymore but they ring so true for me that it is a great background if I am doing some cleaning and am tired of music for a minute.
You can tell he recorded those shortly after hitting a level of playing ability that was simply of the highest of high levels. They are a beautiful glimps into the thoughts of a truly strategically sound player.
They dwarf every single daily he made (maybe minus the mechanics one as that one demos proper mechanics way better than a podcast is capable of but thats less game theory and more game execution...).
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Northern Ireland461 Posts
This is beautifully done by Day[9], and very relevant to this thread too;
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Day9/Day[9]0014-HOP3-AGoodMindset.mp3
Specifically, his first point on the 'Plan.'
In this podcast Day[9] talks about the importance of having a plan for having a good mindset, I will try to explain my Strategy with the framework I gleamed from the podcast, and the knowledge I gained from this thread. Hopefully someone can tell me if it is good, or if it needs adjusting. From what I could tell from the Day[9] podcast, a gameplan follows this framework;
Plan > Build > Reactions
TvT: My overall plan is to deny my opponents 3rd/4th base with Marine/Tank. In this way I should gain an economic lead, which should result in a bigger army, or higher re-maxing potential, that will allow me to kill him.
Step 1 (Basic Plan): I want a 2/3 base economy to produce a well upgraded Marine/Tank army to use for my overall plan.
Step 2 (Build to allow my gameplan to come to fruition): I will use a gas first cloak banshee build to harass and scout my opponent. This build also allows me to gain a tech advantage. I will produce units off a 1-1-1 infrastructure until I can converge at a 5-1-1 infrastructure on 2 bases, at which point I will hit a timing (+1-1?) to secure my own 3rd whilst denying my opponent his 3rd.
Step 3 (Reaction to scouting information): I am unsure what to put here, I don't generally scout with a gas first opening. My banshee acts as a scout, but I don't feel I need to react to anything I see with it. Any pointers here would be good.
If anyone has anything similar for TvP/TvZ I would love to hear it.
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Hey Sc2John. I know this is a late comment but since I don't want to post under protoss help me thread because this adresses alot of points about planning strategies but I am having trouble approaching pvp. I always execute builds that seem logical for the map pool such as 1 gate expand on Whirlwind and blink on Yeonsu but often times I feel as though I lose but I am not getting outplayed. For example, I 1 gate expand on Whirlwind due to not being able to be hard countered but proxy stargate and 3 gate stargate all in may be too late because of the distance of the map however, there was a situation where I scouted and my opponent 10 gate 3 gated me and I lost immediately. If I use a build that blindly is able to defend against this strategy then I will be behind vs a fast expand build assuming I scout last. Is this a coinflip factor that I am not aware of and is so, then how can I approach this.
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United States4883 Posts
On November 25 2013 08:58 Rickyvalle21 wrote:
Hey Sc2John. I know this is a late comment but since I don't want to post under protoss help me thread because this adresses alot of points about planning strategies but I am having trouble approaching pvp. I always execute builds that seem logical for the map pool such as 1 gate expand on Whirlwind and blink on Yeonsu but often times I feel as though I lose but I am not getting outplayed. For example, I 1 gate expand on Whirlwind due to not being able to be hard countered but proxy stargate and 3 gate stargate all in may be too late because of the distance of the map however, there was a situation where I scouted and my opponent 10 gate 3 gated me and I lost immediately. If I use a build that blindly is able to defend against this strategy then I will be behind vs a fast expand build assuming I scout last. Is this a coinflip factor that I am not aware of and is so, then how can I approach this.
Yeah, to be honest, early game PvP is a bit of a coinflip. I don't like the term "build order win" because you can still defend builds that technically "hard counter" your build...but yeah, to some extent, this is primarily because some builds just end up ahead of others.
In terms of playing in a series or in a tournament setting, you want to try to alter your play as much as possible from game to game and keep your opponent guessing (i.e. in a Bo3 series, you would try go DT expand for the first game, proxy 2-gate for the second game, and 1-gate FE for the final game). However, when it comes to playing on ladder, just choose a relatively stable, mostly safe build (like 1-gate FE or DT expands) and accept that sometimes you will come out "behind".
Or...you can just do what PartinG does and all-in every game :p.
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Off topic note: If you have read the plethora of threads and blogs our main man SC2John has created and gotten as much pleasure and quality learning out of them as I have, you should nominate SC2John for lichter's little popularity contest: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=436616
I'm posting this here because its the most recent/most active of SC2John's threads so I figure there might be some other thankful readers like myself here.
Thanks for all your help and insight SC2John! You're definitely on my list of TL forum awesomeness.
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I remember stumbling across this thread some months ago on my Smartphone and thought "sounds interesting" but lost the tab in my "to-read-pile". Just re-discovered it and have to bump it, because the content is pure gold and still highly relevant.
On October 28 2013 14:57 vaderseven wrote:*Read this quote again from the OP: Show nested quote +[Back when I was playing on iCCup] I used to have a Korean Starcraft practice partner. One day he asked me, "Why do you think Koreans are so 'cheesy' when they're learning to play?" I don't remember exactly what I replied, but it was probably something along the lines of: "They've got better micro, macro, etc., so they can win early." He took a moment, then responded, "No, it's because the goal of the game is much simpler." My practice partner was telling me that when they are learning the game (when they are new) they tend to favor game plans that win the game much sooner and with less steps. By doing that they practice the concept of playing out a game plan instead of blindly playing for a vague later game state.As our convo went on, my friend (his name was HyeongJu Ban or simply Ban) explained that as a player becomes better and their understanding of the game increases, they naturally go for later and later wins. You see, as they get better mechanically they can handle more macro and micro actions and as their understanding expands they can formulate more and more complex game plans. I really see this lack of mindset in the foreign scene as a critical problem holding back the average player and honestly is one of the biggest contributing factors to the difference in average skill between Korea and the rest of the world. The two other large factors (having the strongest professional scene and having the highest density of players in a small physical area) actually help to ensure that the average new player is exposed to someone at the local PC bang that will set them on the right path and mindset. Most of the very best players clearly subscribed to this mindset and a bit of research into their playstyle progressions provide strong support to what Ban passed onto me and I onto SC2John. Look at Flash, MVP, MKP, JulyZerg, iloveoov, Jaedong, Maru, Losira, Bisu, Naniwa, and others (MANY more). All of these players had a reputation among forum posters that speak English as being "very cheesy" and each slowly became known as "macro" players. WATCH a cross section of their games. They didn't change their approach to the game. They simply were executing plans they knew inside and out and as time went on and they played more and more they became familiar with more and more plans of increasing complexity. They were masters of excellent game plans from the start of their careers onward and nothing about their approach to strategy ever changed yet so many people that speak English feel like they went through mysterious transformations from cheesy players to macro gods.
Reading this I remember watching ForGG's Stream as he just began his transition to SC2.
I was expecting some kind of secret practice method from this praised Kespa-veteran. Instead I was watching him building only Barracks and Marines and attacking without any upgrades during all his games for a whole day. The next day he added a single Geysir into his play and got techlabs for basic bio-upgrades or a factory only to produce hellions out of it.
Until now I could not understand what I saw. I assumed he was just fooling around, but now I am coming to the conclusion that I witnessed him learning the game literally from scratch through the described method.
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