Introduction
First of all, let me thank you for reading this. I hope it would be helpful for new players as well as for veterans. Second – about myself – I am a casual player who intends to have fun while playing to win. And third – I play as random as possible – therefore this guide/discussion tries to group-up all viable ideas, not particularly focused on one race/map/matchup combination.
Now, Starcraft 2 offers you multiple choices: Campaign, FFA, 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 and some custom games (vs. AI or human opponents). By far the rated XvX games are the most fun and competitive, thus reaching the maximum potential of what SC2 has to offer. Until now, ALOT of material can be accessed regarding 1v1 games, as that is the main focus of the majority of players due to the fact that it’s self dependant. But very little information is on the true multiplayer experience given by the 3v3 or 4v4 games. So I decided to take this challenge and try to clear-up some ideas. Please feel free to share your opinions and comments in a constructive manner.
Cooperation
By definition, a multiplayer battle means that you have to join forces with other players in order to defeat an enemy team. They can be real life buddies or random players. The first thing one has to understand is that this is a completely different game as compared to 1v1. The majority of players try to do “their own imba stuff” and tend to flame others for playing poorly because they did not expand/defend/help enough. The SOLO mind frame must be gradually replaced by TEAMWORK. As you will play more and more games, you will learn to better use your skills for the benefit of the team.
In early stages you cannot defend enough by yourself vs. 3 or 4 other players attacking and you cannot attack by yourself a 3-4 player defensive position. In any of the actions you would usually do in 1v1, you would need the help of your teammates – either for attacking, or for defending.
Communication
In order to start building a successful win scenario for a battle, you have to be able to properly communicate with the other players. This can be done mainly through various programs like Skype, Teamspeak or Ventrilo. I have to admit that I never tried the in-game voice-chat, but it should be a viable solution. Ultimately, text-messaging should be used if you have no other way to transmit information (no mic for ex.). Bear in mind that teams that fail to communicate properly are doomed to lose.
Another important issue at hand is that by communicating I don’t mean shouting like crazy “OMG I’M UNDER ATTAAAACK, PLEAAASEEEE EVERYONE COME AND HEEEEELP MEEE!!!”…
First you should assess ASAP the strength of the attacker, see if you can handle it, then duly inform your allies (for ex. “I’m attacked by 10x mutas in my secondary and I don’t have any defenses” and point on the map, should help your allies better understand the situation and react properly). If you can handle it, tell them anyway, but don’t push them into over-reacting mode and send a dozen carriers half way around the map to help you fend off 2 marauders shooting a pylon.
Spread any information you have – if you see a scouting probe passing your field of vision, if you spot a cloaked observer, an overlord on a hillside, some units burrowing, etc. You must presume that your allies have other things on their mind and cannot see every bit of the battle field (even if they have vision). Don’t hold into this information or discard it as irrelevant, as it will at least help you all have a better image on what your opponents are doing.
Provide as much helpful advice as possible, act as a reminder (if your allies forget to make expansions, or flyers, or upgrades, a.s.o) and don’t flame if an ally urges you to do certain things (in the end, they also want to win).
A normal successful game would have constant chatter filled with useful information. Say anything you find useful. Let me give you some examples to clarify:
- “I’m sending 4 marines to destroy the rocks for the X expansion.”
- “I’ve cleared the way for the middle island for whoever wants to make an expansion”
- “I have extra 1,000 minerals. Who can do something fast with them?”
- “I have an enemy observer in my base; I’ll do 2 cannons to take it out if it stays there. Be careful that they can some with it to your base, so you’d better hide your troops.”
- a.s.o.
Mindset - Play to win
In any competitive game you have to have the proper mindset in order to win games. Believe you can win, do anything you know to tip the balance in your favor and never be afraid to take calculated chances. This doesn’t mean that you should boldly walk to their main heavily fortified entrance in hope to “CRUSH THEM LIKE THE MAGGOTS THAT THEY ARE!”
Asses your chances as best as you can; always ask yourself the questions – Would I win? If I fail this, would I make enough damage to justify the loss of the units involved?
Bear in mind that you have allies; allies that can help you pack a more powerful blow, they can create diversions so that your attack would succeed, they can watch your back, protect your base, help you with resources, a.s.o… simply put – tap the power in unity.
Even if you are almost wiped out, you’re definitely not out of the game. Never despair, as you have allies. You can expand, build units or simply micro the units of your allies. Even in multiplayer, a small microed force can dish out extensive damage or can harass a lot all the enemy forces and bases.
Some players tend to relax after they blow your base & army away, so it’s a great time to make a come-back. Re-build your base, gather some units, and start fighting back. Secure your allies’ bases, kill some enemy outposts/expansions, etc. Although in the end your game scoring could show a very low number, know that every effort counts – your low score can mean the difference between a win and a loss for the team.
Another aspect for this is commitment. If you commit yourself for one action, then you’d better do it decisively. I’ve played games when I couldn’t decide whether to attack some marines with my void rays or to run. So I moved them back and forth until they started to pop. Never do this. Do a fast assessment and go for it. At least if you lose, you will do some heavy damage.
During your games do the best you can to maintain initiative and mobility. Having initiative gives your team the most options for altering the course of the game. Always favour this versus turtle play. As one of my buddies told us: “Playing defensively means you declare yourself defeated.”
Mindset – the enemy
This is the other facet of the physiological aspect of a game - how the enemy thinks. In most cases you will influence that. Your main aim is to try to create the most stressful experience they ever encountered. Rush them! Harass them! Babble chat with them. Nuke randomly. Drop one zerglings in their main. Use diversions to mask your main force. Simulate attacks. Use illusions constantly. Comsat on a regular basis. Just keep them as stressed as possible. Send a lot of zerglings to one secondary and then switch to mutas in their mineral line. They must never guess where you will attack. You must kill their units at the watchtowers. Kill their creep tumors. Plant turrets with the raven in their secondary bases regularly.
Keep your aggression levels sky-high. Don’t act peacefully because you will only invite aggression. Some people tend to victimize themselves – starting with the impression that the opponents will be better and stronger than they actually are. This will invite aggression, quite obviously matching their fears. You can capitalize on this in most of your games by thinking as a predator. You and your allies are a pack of hungry and vicious wolves! The opposing team is a herd of juicy sheep passing through your woods. This is what you’ve looked for your entire life – prey – now it’s your time to eat. Go get them!
A stressed and scared opponent will be most prone to make mistakes. Use this in your advantage.
Bear in mind that winning will make your enemy play better due to the psychological comfort they gain. And losing quite the opposite, due to the stress involved. So make them get used to losing, so they can lose also the game. Make them lose a worker to another worker. Then a zealot to 4 zerglings. Then a group of mutas to 1 Thor. Then a battle group to a Nuke. Then they will happily GG out to find a less devilishly adversary.
Another issue at hand is the loss by winning problem. This practically means that your team reaches a point where you have the win in hand, wiping out almost all enemy units and bases. And then you decide to play with them, or to experiment various tricks, or simply you let your guard down. And when you get bored and want to deliver the final blow, you either find them strongly entrenched in 2-3 bases, massively producing units; or even you get attacked and wiped out. So, never underestimate your enemies – even if you have total map control and killed their main, if they did not quit already, consider them at least as deadly as you. Continue to produce, expand and attack normally. Better safe, than sorry.
In all your games, you should all make your opponents react to your actions, rather than act on their own. Thus you can establish predictable patterns and counter them before they realize what you did. Build some Battlecruisers and send them into action so they can build Infestor + Corruptors guessing that you will mass produce them, then attack with MMM bio ball. Send 100 zerglings around the map so they can build Colossus + High Templars, then come up with Corruptor + Broodlord in their main. Also be careful to ensure two things – one is secrecy on what you do; and second is certainty that the enemy is doing what you want him to do. Therefore COMSAT, Observers and occasional scouts are really valuable – use them.
Information
Assimilate as much information as you can – how much it takes to research stimpack, how much charge costs, how fast a creep tumor spreads its creep, etc. – you will surely find yourself in a situation in which a detail like this would win you the game. Although multiplayer 3v3 or 4v4 is more of a macro game, using every bit of knowledge you have would put you in a better position than your enemies. You can be more efficient when gathering resources (worker saturation); you would be able to take advantage of the terrain (siege on cliffs, wall-in ramps); you would know to focus-fire the deadliest enemy units (as compared to A-move command), etc. Read strategy threads & forums, play games, watch replays (especially those when you lost), read carefully unit details and patch notes. Every bit of information can be game-changing. You will not be able to know everything. You would not be able to react perfectly in any given situation. But as you learn, you would evolve and you would adapt faster.
In the meantime, share any useful information you have – especially with your allies. Maybe you want to keep that secret mass-stalker teleport trick all to yourself (and to other thousands of players), but it will definitely help your allies play better. Tell them anything they might use to play better - it will visibly improve your team’s win ratio.
Patching
Read carefully upcoming patch-notes, as every little detail can (and will) change significantly the game. As it was seen during beta, a lot changed from one patch to another – splash damage, attack while moving, research cost & time, base armor, etc. – thus bouncing back and forth various unit combinations, timing pushes a.s.o. Read the forums and see what people think of the changes – you might be surprised sometimes and learn a lot more that the obvious from a simple patch.
For example a +1 armor upgrade for one particular unit might mean that it would take one more hit to be killed from its normal enemy counterpart, therefore making it much stronger on the long run, therefore rendering obsolete the old counter-tactic, therefore making more important another enemy unit and I could go on and on.
There’s no reason to believe that now that the game launched officially, it won’t change until the next expansion. Discuss these changes with your buddies and test with them how things work under the new conditions. Try and emphasize as much as possible on these details, go over the edge if needed – you might even find a solid tactic this way.
Testing
We can categorize players according to their own implication in playing the game. There are some who prefer to adopt a specific proven tactic and stick with it throughout every encounter. If they will fail at some point, they will simply go to a website and pick a new tactic to use. While using a proven tactic can net some quick and easy wins, this won’t help in getting the edge needed to play competitively or to adapt to changes. These types of players will always be one step behind and dependant on others to play the game for them.
Another type of player is the one who is willing to think outside the box and try things out, even if they’re obviously not viable. Always do this with your team – every time you got the chance or you have an idea, just go ahead and test it. While you might lose a few more games, the knowledge you can gain might prove advantageous later on. Sometimes this might even surprise your opponents and give you the win. Another good side for trying out various things is that it would help you get used to change. This way it won’t come as such a big surprise if the opponents try it on you.
General Tactics & Strategy
There is no fixed or clear strategy, applicable anytime and anywhere, to guarantee a win. Any fixed tactic is doomed to fail at some point, no matter how successful is at the beginning. Even the rules of the game change pretty often (patches & expansions). This doesn’t mean that you should just go play and hope for the best. Planning and preparation is everything if you want to win a strategy game, especially in 3v3 or 4v4 games.
First of all you and your team should know all (or most) of your strengths and weaknesses. We’ll consider that the enemies are an unknown in this equation. You should know what’s your best race, ability (expand, APM, production, etc.), map, etc. Apply this in your battle-plan – minimize your weaknesses and use your best abilities at full.
Playing random race, on random maps, vs. random people, means your tactic will (and has to) always change. This means that each game, according to the race/map/position/enemy composition, your general pre-determined strategy will imply various tactics, usually decided on the spot. Overall you’ll have to play a macro game, with emphasis on permanent aggression.
As 3v3 and 4v4 battles are taking place on rather large maps, the game can take longer – even surpassing the 1h mark. For this reason, although in general the most efficient way to tackle early game (rush time) is to evolve in a standard pattern; in mid game, some windows of opportunity appear for a more role-playing style of play (which I detailed below). Late-game can lead to max-food army battles, so also it’ll be a more standard game-play.
Map Knowledge & Awareness
As each race has its particularities, the same way each map has specific traits. During Beta we only had 2 viable & playable maps for 3v3 and 4v4 respectively. Obviously this will change and we’ll have a plethora of maps from where to choose. For this reason you’ll have to learn the ones you’ll play on. You’ll have to know the answers to a lot of questions: What high ground can be abused? What’s the easiest expansion to get? How big are the chokes? Can you easily move large ground battle-groups on it? Or is it full with chokes? If so, do you use air, or more mobile ground (like colossus & reapers) units? Does it reward defensive tactics (easy to wall and defend from high ground)? Or it’s best suited for a more aggressive play (wide ramps or none, many base entrances)? You’d better know also most of the unit abilities & tricks to move around. Some of these are obviously known, but they can be useful as a reminder.
For example on island maps:
- stalkers have a decent range for teleport so they can be used to move from island to island if you have vision;
- in order to avoid anti-air defenses, Motherships will teleport ground units on the closest land mass possible, even if the enemy has it’s base there (very useful for surprise invasions on terrans who build mass turrets on islands);
- warp prisms can be used to warp-in units, but it’d be wise to plant a pylon & cannon on every useful island on the map in order to warp-in assistance a.s.a.p. when needed;
- all nydus are connected, so you can also expand without having to transport drones to new base locations – also later in the game having an expeditionary force in the Nydus Network can help you defend almost instantly any base
- instead of transporting SCV’s to new islands, better build the Command Center in your main, fill it with SCV’s and go to a new island – this way you’ll be able to start mining & building immediately after you land and you minimize the chance of being caught by the enemy while you are still building the CC
- if you can build a secondary without destroying the rocks blocking the ramp towards it, then maybe it’s best to let them there – it can make your opponents think that you haven’t taken it, it’ll stop their ground army for a while, and generally it’ll give you a little more time to use the expansion
- a.s.o.
We can go on a lot with various cases, but I think you got the idea – use the map to your best advantage. Corner in your opponents, if you make them turtle, then start mining the resources more close to them. Build Planetary Fortress there instead of Orbital Command in order to make them work harder to regain it. This way, even if they’ll push and try to expand, they’ll have fewer resources to gather. If you cannot expand there fast enough, then burrow a zergling where they would build their structure, or pour some creep with your overlords, or have a marine patrolling, etc.
Why Random?
Learning curve
As you can remember, at the beginning of this guide I specified that I am trying to play as random as possible. One reason why I do that is that I aim at improving my learning curve.
Focusing only on one race would definitely improve your ability to play it, but is it enough? At one point you’ll reach a top. The only way to go above that would be to play the other 2 races. This way you would have intimate knowledge on how they work, what they can do. You would be much less surprised on what your opponents would throw at you, simply because you would be more familiar with that.
For instance, if you’ve never played zerg, you’d know very little how fast they can rush you with zerglings, when they could build mutalisks, why they can kite your marines with hydras on creep, etc. You would only have a general idea on when those beasts might come at your door, but the surprise is yours.
Not counting the obvious surprise factor on your opponents, playing Random from the start might be a bit difficult as a learning curve, but it would definitely improve faster your skills with and vs. any given race.
Behavioral patterns
The other reason why I play random is to avoid falling into fixed behavioral patterns. Behavioral patterns are rigid ways of dealing with upcoming challenges. While these can be very helpful in most situations, they could harm in others. Playing all races you would know what your opponents can do in certain situations and you can tap into that knowledge to force them react in predictable ways.
For instance, let’s say that you’re terrans and your opponents play Protoss. If they see you doing refinery and tech lab for barracks, they would probably focus in getting stalkers out a.s.a.p. in fear of a reaper rush. This triggers the specific response for what they perceive as a certain situation. More so, this would happen if they usually do the reaper-rush themselves when playing Terran. The problem comes in the moment when you knock their doors with a marine/marauder ball instead of the dreaded reapers. Their stalkers and zealots would die to that pretty fast.
This is behavioral pattern knowledge working for you. Obviously, this can happen the other way around. If you’ve never played protoss it’s probable that you don’t know that stalkers counter reapers and you’d try that anyway. If you fail the reaper-rush you would be at a severe disadvantage.
Assuming that you’re the player with the initiative, keep this in mind: “The ball is always in your court!”
Decision making
In such a fast-paced conflict as we find in Starcraft, timely and accurate decisions win the game. Sooner or later you’ll have to make them. Attack or flee. Defend or harass. Expand or turtle. Help an ally or not. Even not deciding what to do is a decision in itself. So you and your allies will always have to decide what you’ll do to win. But when 3 or 4 people are involved, decision-making becomes as difficult as shitting bricks. Maybe you can do it, but it can hurt as hell. For this reason, before you start playing together, you’ll have to establish a common ground on what to do. Usually one of the players should act as decision-maker for the whole group, with the others’ acceptance.
Afterwards, basically here you have two choices: either split roles from the start (after you know all your positioning, races, map, pro’s & con’s, etc.) and stick to them throughout the game (to use them basically for the mid-game), or establish a leader.
For the first choice, the transition from solo play to multiplayer is easier. After everyone knows what race they are, on what map, where are they located, etc., just set-up roles:
The Gatherer – a player who’s main focus is to gather resources in order to power-up allied production capacity after the 5 minutes mark and throughout the rest of the game. This player should be protected at all costs (by the others), as in multiplayer games, the team with the best macro and economy wins. He is to first expand and try to have at least 1-2 extra fully operational bases. His main investments would be to ensure his own survivability. He should research first Armor for buildings, armor/carapace for units (think workers), shields, etc. His bases should be the first to be defended in case of harass or attack. After the 5 minute mark, he’ll be able to power-up…
The Industrialist – he would be the backbone of any mid-late game army. While slowly expanding & fast teching, he will set-up his production facilities for mass units. As the game will advance, he should build fields of factories, stargates, hatcheries, barracks, etc. His main priority would be to constantly produce units and to complete their upgrades ASAP. He will be the main receiver for the resources produced by The Gatherer. All other donations from the other players will surely be transformed into some kind of MONSTROUS BEAST eager to devour your opponents. For the massive amount of units constructed, he will likely be a lesser target to be picked by your opponents (nobody wants a head-on confrontation with a massive fleet of BC’s, when they can pick on the smaller kid). In the meantime you should be aware that the main power of The Industrialist is his capacity to produce fast and in massive numbers. In the end he is still limited by the 200 food limit. Because he will focus on production and construction, the control of his units will be taken over by…
The Warlord – this is the player with the maximum APM’s, with the best micro skills and with the fastest reactions. He will control and supervise all major attacks and defenses. He has the best experience with all 3 races; he knows all the spells that each unit can make. Not only that, but he will use them – defense drones, corruption, fungal growth, EMP, feedback, a.s.o, he will focus fire the right units, he will micro the HSM’ed carrier out of the battle-group – in short, he will conduct the hostilities. The Warlord would pretty much have the same role as the Leader would have in the next thread. Most players do the classic A-move and go back to their base to do whatever. Or they would micro their own units around and forget about their allies, bases, expansions, upgrades, etc. The Warlord would be focused on one thing and one thing only – CRUSH THE ENEMY! And when the battle would be over and the army decimated, he would have a new toy to play – a brand-new battle-group ready for another offensive. But any army commander needs some help; therefore you will need also…
The Rogue – he will be the Warlord’s second-in-command, as well as the cloaked dagger. In large-scale battles he will be the one to plant nuclear bombs on the retreating path of the enemy. He will harass the enemy bases with Dark Templars while the main conflict takes place. He will snipe the High Templars. He will siege/un-siege the tanks in better positions. And if the situation requires, he will bring in the 2nd fleet attacking from the rear. As one player would find difficulties in coordinating a two-front attack, the Rogue takes the role of commanding the 2nd battle-group. He will have to be one of the best at multitasking, switching from base expanding, to harass, then to full scale conflict, and then back to harass. He will use primarily the special units that his allies are making, and use them for full advantage – nuke, drops, cloak, etc. His focus would be to look as inconspicuous as possible (Decent base defenses, but no heavy production facilities, in order to make himself a less-valuable target. Or hidden barracks, or stargates in allied bases, etc.); to do researches like cloak, burrow, speed, etc. (and fully utilize them); and to build mainly specialized units (ghost, infestor, high templars, etc.). For all this, he is to be one of the high-APM and knowledgeable players in the group; otherwise he will simply be crushed in any “rogue” attempts and fail to deliver his pack.
In late-game most players still in the game will have 200 food armies, the ability to rebuild them very fast, most upgrades are already made and almost all base locations are taken. The main battle will be on resources and on killing enemy fleet & production capabilities. For this reason the role-playing will tend to dissipate into a standard conflict. Thus, for the second choice of general tactic (either for the whole game, or for late-game transition from the Warlord role), is to set-up a team…
Leader – mainly he will take over the Warlord role, but with a more relaxed role appointment for the allies. The basic idea is to have the whole team act in unity under one command. Everyone should move their rally points and/or units to designated positions. He would determine expansion points for everyone (so that 2 allies won’t fight over expansions), he will establish the army compositions (Banshee + Corruptors, Siege Tanks + Zealots, Hydras + Medivacs, etc.), he will decide the point of attacks; he will decide who needs most the resources of others, etc. He should also be the player with the best map-awareness from the whole team. He must know all that happens (either by direct vision, or by the information communicated to him). It’s a role that bears much more responsibility than those specified above, but it will make the whole team act as a unit. At start things would look a bit chaotic, but as the team will play more games together, the raw efficiency of focused actions, would bring a lot of wins in your bag.
One downside in choosing this path is that everyone thinks he’s the best leader out there. So you will play a lot of games when one or more players decide to take matters into their own hand, thus damaging the whole combined strategy. They will then blame the Leader that he failed at leading and that they alone would bring salvation. The best way to cope with this for a newly created group is to take turns in leading and truly be a follower when the other guy is leading. After some games played together, have a discussion and go with the most successful one as a leader.
Early game
The early game is based on rushes. As we know the aggressive team determines the pace of the game. For this reason alone and you should rush. Quadruple 6pool could bring you a 4min win right there, so why not? Some people would call it cheese, lame, hack, cheat, whatever… But, as the game mechanics provide this option, use it! Same goes for fast reapers, mutas, voidrays, etc. Attack early! Be aggressive! Be fast!
However, due to the nature of the 8 player maps (pretty large), I would advise against rushes that heavily damage your early development. Go for the so called “safe” builds. The reason for this is that you already will have a pretty decent army to attack with (3-4 players, remember?), and you would be in need of constant reinforcements once you pour into the enemy base.
Scouting
Always scout before attacking. I’ve seen a lot of games when the main attack was made vs. the only defended/walled base. Never go one way, and “MAY GOD HELP US CHOOSE THE RIGHT DOOR”. One zergling’s sacrifice can bring you the win. Use COMSAT, workers, units, observers or anything you can to scout your way into the enemy base before attacking.
The same goes throughout the game. Have eyes everywhere. Be it units or buildings, try to have the whole map covered – every xel’naga tower, every route your enemy can take, the sides and corners of the map, all the base locations, etc. Also keep in mind that players usually rally their overlords in the corners of the map. A small fast air force would devastate an enemy zerg before he would be able to retaliate. Also another hint is that pretty often players tend to forget to use observers in their bases and keep them with their main army instead. Small groups of cloaked units can wreck havoc and flee until help comes. Don’t be afraid to use COMSAT to help your ally. Or better yet – you can use your ally spells if you share unit control. So use it. Just make sure it’s not better used elsewhere.
Mid-game
After the rush the game balances itself into a new stage. In this stage role-playing and timing attacks shine.
If you’ve been successful, this either means that you attack constantly while slowly take the map and expand, or that you refocus your strategy for a faster development phase.
If the initial rush is highly effective, then all you have to do is to pump-it up while constantly being with one eye on all enemies so they would not tech up to flyers (zerglings, roaches, marauders and zealots can’t do much vs. them). Even if you cannot stop the tech to flyers, know that ground units can still do damage. Their best choice would be to stop your resource collection by attacking your workers and preventing you to continue your harassment. But if they focus on defending, you still got the upper hand. 3 mutas can hardly be dangerous to 10-15 zealots in his base. And even if they kill them, you and your allies can bring a brand new group.
If you decide to consolidate your positions, expand or tech, you’ll have to be aware that this is a very vulnerable moment. This would be the time when if you would be in your enemy’s shoes, you would want to regain initiative and attack. So you’d better build some troops also. You can hold them in a spot that is most suited to protect all of you, or from where you can easily move them to defend from either way. Never disregard this. Be sure that they will come. So expect it and prepare the counter.
If you failed miserably or you’ve been rushed before starting your own offensive, you will have to expect constant pressure from the enemy. This situation has to change, or else it will bring your team the loss. Here you have three major options depending on situation.
One option is that you can sacrifice yourself (or a teammate) in order to let the other 3 to rebuild their army and retaliate. If you sacrifice yourself, try to use every bit of tactic to hold the enemy on you. Build structures, run with probes to make them follow, cast psionic storms to keep them away, even nuke yourself to make them retreat. Attack and kill the fastest enemy units in order for them to reach slower to your allies, or just kill their big mothership. Burrow your units and take out one at a time, build units from the larva left after your hatch is down… just keep them there. Even send them messages taunting them that they did not kill you, hahaha! Or – “here, you missed a zealot, and it’s in your secondary” stuff. That being the best option to keep them on you – if you’ve some units left and you can avoid somehow their main force, just attack a base owned by them, close to their army and which is poorly or un-defended. Most of the players will move the entire army just to kill your colossus attacking their secondary half way across the map.
The second option is to bring all the other allied units to help the one attacked. This can right away fend-off the attack and give the possibility of a counter-strike, therefore bringing back the ball in your court. The trick is not to use too little, too late, as you will lose all your forces one by one and never do any damage to the enemy. Those buildings can hold-off a few more seconds, and this can mean that you would be better able to arrive with a superior firepower to crush them and fight back.
The third option (and my favorite) is to use the allied army to attack the enemy bases. This usually stops their aggression and set them in a defensive posture right away, thus saving your ally and maximizing your damage. When you play solo, you rarely have this option, but in co-operative play, usually only one is the one attacked. This would bring the whole team the time to move their army to the enemy base and dish-out some heavy damage. Psychologically their first reaction would be to hurry up and defend. And that’s exactly what you want them to do. They would lose the initiative and with some help, the game.
Late Game
In the last stages of a game, the roles tend to blur and people start to mass-up units to reach the food-limit. Here is when the Macro aspect of the multiplayer games comes best into focus.
Whoever has the most bases, the better economy and the best production wins. Even if you lose a battle, the game can still be won if you out produce them. Now every upgrade will matter. Low-skill players tend to remember upgrades after they lose the game. Mid-skill players have either the wrong upgrades or the wrong units in later conflicts. Good players will have almost all upgrades made – at least the relevant ones. BC’s are ok. But BC’s with 3/3 and Yamato, and +energy are devilishly good. So make sure in late game you don’t have to make upgrades. Also every resource place on the map should be tapped by you and your allies.
Now, your main focus is the resource output of your opponents. 1st strike should be at the richest resource base they own. Also protect your own resource spots. You can lose half your production, but if you lose your resources, you’ll have nothing left to fight with.
Also in fights, use every bit of tools you have – 10-15 SCV’s repairing carriers, PDD’s your mineral line to delay the attack until the cavalry arrives, etc. Don’t hesitate – protect those little workers, because they can do wonders!
Dealing with losing
Inevitably at some point you will lose. Or you will be rushed out of the game. Or you’ll never receive help from your allies. Anyway, something bad will happen and you will suddenly get angry, frustrated, depressed, or whatever. First of all, all this is normal. It’s a perfectly normal reaction. But it won’t gain you anything. Some players just go “bah, let’s play another gaaameeee!!!”… “And anotheeeer!!” Others just go “this game suxx, I’ll better go play with myself instead to chill” They will never get better.
In this case you will have two major options for a positive turn. For those who can, just calm down, breathe deeply, take a tour to the kitchen and grab a beer or a sandwich and relax…
For the others, turn your anger into action. And I’m not talking about smashing your monitor with your keyboard or throwing your mouse at the wall. I’m talking about focusing your anger into APM’s. That’s if you’re still in the game obviously. I’ve seen and played games when the enemies had us 6ft under, but slacked so badly afterwards, that we managed to win. Desperation can make your reaction time skyrocket. You would expand twice as fast, produce units like crazy, you would never let your guard down, you would harass like there’s no tomorrow… Also try not to be one of those, “ha-ha, I will simply do 10x Command centers and I will fly all over the map for 1h in hope to kill you all via heart-attack or boredom". If you believe you have a chance for a come-back, do it! Especially in a 4v4, where you can still have 3 allies untouched.
Also, try to learn from your mistakes. Watch replays, discuss them with your allies, discover the weakness in them and help them improve. This way you also can see who is better at what and strengthen their skills. If someone is able to expand like crazy, but he microed a vastly superior force right in the enemy nuke, just let them grab the gatherer role.
The end?
No, it’s not the end. I’ll use any good advice you’ll come up with and finely tune this guide so it could become an even better tool for anyone who wants to experience a truly professional multiplayer experience. Also I’ll insert any more ideas and/or concepts I find out (by myself or others) to be useful in here.
Thank you all for your time and I hope you enjoyed this read as much as I enjoyed writing it.
GL HF