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I did a test where I played the super easy AI (in other words, it was invisible) then I played my current favorite build which is a one rax expand bio based build that pretty effectively spends resources all the way till I take my natural, (so it isn't so simple), taking natural at about 8 minutes and starting upgrades, starting on 3rd immediately, then establishing 3rd then taking gold and at about that time I have a 200 army so I just go kill him.
During this build my army is moved around a bit, I put up a few turrets, a sensor tower, a bunker or two. I scouted, without hassling. Try to build out my production to keep pace with income, try not to leave scvs just standing around. I stop building workers at about 69, and all 4 bases are producing at the end but my main is almost mined out. Income/minute ends about 2600 minerals. 200 army/supply size is about the 16 minute mark. I wasn't really trying for maximum army growth here - just playing as I would if not pressured.
I don't spam click the build or move or attack commands except at the start there are a few structures whose timing needs to be just right. I use hotkeys never click the bottom right area.
Anyway in reviewing the replay the displayed average APM rises slowly, from about 55 (before I take natural) to by the time I just start concentrating on moving up my army, it has stabilized at 75.
So my conclusion is getting a 3/4 base terran going absorbs about a 75 APM.
Since in any game I play on the ladder, stressful or not, my average end game APM struggles to reach 90 I can see that there is only about 15-30 average APM "spare" for fighting. That isn't a lot!
I'd be interested to know if these figures are about the same for Z and P (get to 4 bases, get to 200 army, go kill AI, report average APM) or have any other thoughts on what this means, if anything.
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Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran!
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Um, in order to be perfect, considering that you're a perfect human and all and know when exactly you need to do everything, you would probably still need 200 APM at least in order to do everything perfectly.
Lategame, or even when I'm on 3 base, even my 100-120 APM isn't enough to cover everything.
I mean, look at pros, their apm is 200 or even higher, because they have to constantly cycle through buildings so that they can be ready to build more units for the next production cycle.
Now, about the races at a lower level, I think Z usually has slightly higher APM, though I'm not sure about now (did Blizzard change it so that making multiple units with 1 key counts only as 1 APM?).
Like back then, T and P i would have about 100, and Zerg 120.
Edit:
rereading your post, I think I might have been a little misled
You are talking about managing bases without having to "waste" apm on harassment or attacks and etc.
Well, in that case, I still think you would need at least 150 APM if you have a perfect timer in your head, and more realistically, at least 200 up til you get to 200/200 on 3 base.
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Just from my own experience, I play all three races and my zerg has consistently a higher APM.
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I play diamond zerg assuming I dont spam at the start cause Im nervous for like first 5 mins my apm is 50-70 at mid to late my apm rise to about 110-120 with little to no spam. most replays I watch of terran or protoss apm rarely go over 90 with no spam at the start
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On June 21 2011 12:22 closey wrote:
Interesting...but I'd like to object. My average APM is capped around 50-ish even on ladders and I can keep up with my macro until past 30 minutes. I'll do some tests personally, I think we can get lower than 75APM for a 3 base terran!
If your apm is around 50 on ladder games then your not keeping up with your macro at all sorry  my apm is around 130-140 avg and i still struggle to keep my macro going when their is a lot of battles occurring.
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If it's just macroing without any fighting or active scouting, etc. then you can probably do it with 60-80 APM. Protoss will obviously need less and Zerg and Terran will need more.
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Its kind of a pointless gig, because macro falls under the umbrella of creating earlier expansions, managing and defending multiple expansions, powering production buildings at the right timing, etc. Rather than just making units.
For example, Flash has amazing defense, allowing him to get really early expansions while defending with the minimal amount of units. But on top of this, he is also is great at managing 5 bases and keeping them all in check, which requires a ton of apm.
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interesting topic.
I can tell you as a high diamond protoss that when i am just sitting around macroing (and i am not spamming for one reason or another) my apm sits around 50-60. once i get into a battle, or am delaying a hatchery, my apm quickly jumps to 180ish.
I would guess that for a protoss who is only macroing, you generally need only 60 apm to accomplish all of your tasks. I would guess that a terran, since he needs to cycle through more production buildings, probably requires 70-80 and a zerg because of injects probably requires 80-85.
just my opinion.
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I disagree, some people click less and spam less than other players, 50 is kind of low, but 130-140 is not needed to macro at a decent level
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I think the lowest number is most likely whatever Sjow's is, like 75ish? Maybe higher?
I don't think 50 is enough tbh, I have to imagine you would be missing depots/production/floating money intermittently, just too many things that need to be done as the game goes on. Maybe this means assuming there is no aggression/scouting going on but that's not realistic.
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im a diamond zerg and i find that in the early game my apm is around 30-40 then as more things happen, like zerglings and the natural pop, it goes up to 50-60, then more structures and tech come up and im on 3 bases trying to scout and make units, move overlords around, etc. my APM slowly builds up to about 90 lategame and i can feel that its pretty slow. i dont spam at all, i right click once to move units and attack etc. but if i go faster i usually mess up hotkeys or misclick much more often.
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If I'm not mistaken, there's something in SC2Gears that allows you to check your Micro APM as well as your Macro APM.
Generally, I think micro takes up more actions in the early to mid-game, that's when macroing becomes extremely important. Remembering to continually produce units, expos and production facilities in the late-game, --when there are many battles happening alongside each other-- is really the time that you can see how efficient you are with your macro.
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If you load your replay in sc2gears, it can give you your APM separated into micro and macro.
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In SC2? I'd guess probably 50-75 if that considering you can hotkey all of your structures and really just hit 5ss4aaa for 2 scvs and 2 marines or whatever. It's obviously a lot more complicated than that in a real game, but if you were "just macroing" it wouldn't take very much apm at all.
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The APM differential required to play zerg is extreme, especially at higher levels. I'm a 1.5k masters protoss and I have an average of 200 apm around the 12 minute mark when everything starts picking up (constant poking, upgrades, building pylons, making gas geysers etc.) However, when I offrace as zerg, the creep spreading and the queen injecting off 3-4 bases gives me an apm spike of around 400, while I maintain an average of ~250 (it would be higher if i was more comfortable with the zerg mechanics).
I do believe that protoss has the lowest apm requirement, as if you watch Huk's stream, he used to constantly type song lyrics in pvps while making probes, colossus, and the occasional unit. I heard somewhere that toss takes 60 apm to play a perfect game?
I've played many players with an average apm around 80-100 and lost to them, but personally I believe you need at least a good 120 average apm to play the game at a very precise level. However, until you reach the tops of the master league, the more important thing is macro and knowing how to macro (what unnits to make, when to add buildings and take expos) and you can do that with around 90 apm pretttty well.
APM will naturally increase as you become more familiar with your race, too, so just keep playing!
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this thread seems kind of pointless, but since im posting in it might as well make it worth it. tbh i bet you can get away with around 35-40 apm on just macroing a base. a lot of people will move the rally point on the mineral field or little things like that which jump it up. but to press s every 25 seconds and construct supply or what ever building you need really don't take up that much. once you have unit producing structures you will be pressing different hotkeys to see which building requires units which will artificially bump up your macro. but some one with good game sense not worrying about micro could easily just hit 4s, 3mmm, and pause for 20 seconds. adding a depot or command center wont significantly jump the apm so you'd be around 35...
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I maxed on 2/2 speed roaches around the 13:00 mark on 4 bases with 70 drones (yes I know my macro sucks). Did 110 APM intentionally not spamming anything, which is slightly higher than my usual APM, probably because I wasn't distracted by my opponent. I'm sure it would have been significantly lower if I hadn't been spreading creep and sending overlords out, but I felt like it would be inaccurate if I didn't, since they're things a good Zerg has to do.
I think that Zerg undoubtedly takes the most APM (not skill, just APM!) because of creep spread and stuff like that, but I think it's somewhat counteracted by it being easier to keep up with production while you're doing other things like microing. I know that back when I was practicing solely against the AI and focusing entirely on my macro, I still couldn't really even keep my money down as Zerg until I had around 60 APM, and I wasn't even bothering with creep or overlords at the time.
Also, I'm not completely sure, but I think I remember Day9 saying that 45-50 APM is the sweet spot where you can do a reasonable job keeping up with your base, but I'm not sure if he only meant that in respect to the earlyish stages of the game, since I can't imagine running 3 bases on 45 APM as any race.
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well that was my point (of the post) when I was bronze league my APM was like 40 and I just could not handle two bases well, or three bases at all. And now I know why.. because even IF you are left alone you don't saturate properly, you don't make enough workers, you don't build enough production and minerals pile up. The story of bronze 
now I am platinum and I can macro OK if I am not pressured, so I was curious to see how much baseline APM that takes and it seems 50 on one-two bases, and 75 on three-four bases is about right, at least during the build up phase.
My 90 average APM now leaves me a small amount spare to harass without stuffing up macro. But not that much because even a little harassing can make you forget your next macro step.
I'd be interested to have a Zerg try a similar one to four base expansion over 15 minutes with mixed army composition without pressure and report what APM they manage. (edit: ok you did, thanks).
I often read terran macro takes more APM, perhaps because you have to fiddle around making production structures and returning SCVs to the line and cope with bumps in production from mules.. but never any solid evidence that this really does need more commands per minute to manage.
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On June 21 2011 12:54 nyc863 wrote:
I often read terran macro takes more APM, perhaps because you have to fiddle around making production structures and returning SCVs to the line and cope with bumps in production from mules.. but never any solid evidence that this really does need more commands per minute to manage.
I'm sure that if you just made drones, units, and upgrades, did larva injects, and did the necessary transferring of workers for good saturation, Zerg would have less "required" APM than Terran, but the other stuff is too important to ignore.
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EPT
