[!] Pro Terran Strategy Q/A - Page 10

Yes, my point with that BO/unit mix/overall gameplan is either to gimp the Zerg to the point of making his further growth manageable (enabling me to outmacro him), or if he opts for non-aggression but can't really be attacked himself either without making it too much of a gamble, then outrace him to the point that when he gets out that first round of broodlords two minutes after his hive, at which point I'm likely already maxed, 3/3 and pushing, he still can't compete with my army/econ. According to Day9, hive should come about 17 minutes plus one minute per each push, maybe 15 if he gets totally a free hand with everything. Then greater spire takes 100 seconds and a broodlord takes 40. By that time (including the lean 17 minutes timing to first broodlords) I'm probably maxed on 3/3 and ready to take a late third or even fourth behind the push/defence (so this is very similar to a 2-base all-in or at least a 2-base timing push).

Then, if I get caught up in fighting somewhere en route to whatever I want destroyed, I simply get myself more factories (deeming it safer than a risky tech switch to ports, vikings and air upgrades), more bases to support them (basically planting expos everywhere, cancelling or flying away if needed, defending if expedient, PFs if having gas and not needing to reinforce or build factories), farm plenty of SCVs to be able to drag about 20 or more with each subsequent major push, mules if SCVs (and hellions) die but I'd still like to push on to cash in on the opportunity to win outright or do substantial damage. I use hellions to fry broodlings or zerglings (sitting behind thors in such a situation), make some crowd (to avoid concave/numbers problems) or otherwise deal as much splash damage as possible (kinda like in TvP people use them against packs of immortals) and be a filler when the mass of thors is not critical (enough), upping or reducing the number of hellions vis-a-vis thors as necessary in light of my approximation of what seems better in the current situation (or how much gas I have, TBH, sometimes).

If I end up with excess minerals but can't spare the gas for more factories due to the constant production of thors, which I don't want to interrupt for even a second (unless I'm really forced to base-camp), and expanding isn't really possible or viable ATM (or there is still a surplus of minerals anyway),then I get some raxes and marines to pull marine packs behind the mech pushes to use them for appropriate task, to phase out the hellions if the marines seem to work out better, but mostly to just remax faster (esp. vs Zerg's remaxing potential) and to be able to keep drilling.

So this is the reason why I don't get the ports: they'd interrupt and disturb my comfortable rhythm (with the 150/100 apiece plus addons plus upgrades), delay my favourite timings, take away some windows of opportunity I'm used to (not enough stuff to push with/defend a counterpush or expand), add some windows to the Zerg (esp. when I don't have the same defensive strength due to getting the air at the time, or forcing me to reveal too much to him), force me to use unupgraded stuff (whereas any effectiveness this build has hinges on the synergy of upgrades) etc. but most of all delaying me to the point that the Zerg will be able to farm more broodlords than I want him to have (and I want to kill or cripple him preferably when he has already committed funds but still can't reap the full benefit of his investment). I'd only really go for ports if I ended up with a massive gas bank, which would be extremely rare. I'd basically never really have the window to start making ports and vikings anyway with the mentality of this build.

Using this game plan I very rarely fall to broodlords if at all (I can think of about 1 situation of losing a game in consequence of losing a major engagement featuring broodlords). That would generally require a massive blunder from me (basically one where I'm dead anyway; used to include failure to bring enough repair along, failure to bring more assist along or make it survive, failure to reinforce sufficiently fast but these have all been worked out eventually) or a massively good move from the Zerg (but I've yet to see more than a dozen broodlords alive and in one pack with this type of drilling), usually connected to him outmacroing me rather than anything to do with the engagement itself (so I'm likely similarly dead anyway), as he can't really afford to be herding big packs of broodlords at the edge of the map.

So... is it likely that on higher levels, where both the Zerg and I (will) have better/more fluid skills, better control, faster execution, better scouting, more game-sense and more active or at least properly responsive way of playing, the Zerg will easily negate this strategy? As in my game plan here having a lower skill cap than whatever the Zerg would or could use to counter it? Or relying too much on windows of opportunity that only the less skilled Zerg players create but not the more skilled ones (assuming the Zerg is not significantly more skilled than the Terran)?

Also, could I make a TvP build out of this one, with some modifications but using the same principles?

I don't really have a specific level to get to as in this or that league or tournament scene level but in WC3: TFT I was at the point where I was several ladder levels under the top 1000 of the Europe server (I was level 26). A person even registering for tournaments with any credibility would still win a convincing majority of games through mechanics/general dexterity (including a guy I'd coached), although I could still be the more experienced player, which could show in some situations ("don't quit! this 2v2 can still be won if we..."). New rising talents would be somewhat scared of me, more than needed, but they'd invariably have overlapped me after a while of getting coached by the gosus from the best clans. Any ladder game would be a likely win if dragged beyond 17-20 and especially 40 minutes, let alone 1 hour, most deaths being mid-game doom pushes playing up to situational racial/map strengths. The difference from real gosus was that they had more production within the same time-frame when freestyling.

Most of all that I miss from my current skill level in SC2 vis-a-vis how things were in WC3 is that in WC3 I could do all the cute things like teleporting through every expansion on the map using spy critters previously planted as decoys, militia-teleporting to help a besieged ally after losing all our armies in a battle just before, or militia defence of a base with 3/3 militia (as the side effect of 3/3 melee upgrades) and a couple of support casters alone, going without barracks when feeling like it (e.g. a totally caster only composition), beating a numerically superior army off of sheer micro (when being tired and getting sloppy with production timings, punishing the other guy for making more melee units than he could manage or benefit from having), killing a night elf base with his entire army in it with 60-80 gyrocopters in an FFA, gimping an opponent early game by killing/denying his supply buildings for a prolonged time (I guess this is similar to pylon busting with early marauders when you add on more stuff but leave his workers alone unless they're making more pylons, so as not to free up supply for him), dedicated main hall busting, or delaying your own production a bit to scout and guess the other guy and only then come up with a massively bad situational counter, having like 4 hotkeyed research buildings, and other such stuff that was supposedly not doable or few people ever thought about doing.

I'd basically like to get to the same "level" in SC2, not necessarily higher than it but not really stopping there on purpose, either. And yeah, analogies to the examples I gave above are obviously impossible in SC2 or involve a different race than Terran but they are just examples and I'm only talking about the ability to do that type of stuff and get away with it, i.e. not be forevered tied up in the same old low league due to the resulting high loss ratio when things don't work out. So, playing convincingly with one's own ideas (as opposed to only copying popular builds), being able to adapt the game to one's own style (like Goody did), losing to relatively few people in the local scene (e.g. a European country or a state in the USA), even when still being around 50% on the MMR-based ladder because there is, after all, still a crowd of better players continent-wide. From that point, I could perhaps sit down and decide if I wanted to take it further and commit seriously (depending on my family or job situation etc.) or keep playing like this with only the improvement that comes as a side effect of playing or watching more games and reading discussions on the forums.

Does this modify your advice in any way?

Thanks, #1-2 looks great and intuitively very much like what I'd like to be doing (watching a million games helps me tone down the anxiety and feel like the map is my playground again plus I learn some useful stuff). Especially the part about not starting off with ladder games but some other warm-up (not like this is what matters the most but such a warm-up could prevent a couple of avoidable losses). I've occasionally thought about grinding custom games or the more forgiving but still scaled team ladder games to catch up on mechanics (my current most likely cause of death barring several cheeses that I can't counter too well yet) and get a better general sense of the game and my own style before going solo, too (I had started as a team player WC3 but it taught me some habits that caused death in 1v1 due to reliance on situational bailout by an ally being built into my gameply), especially as team play is more forgiving of individual stumbles and the responsibility for a loss is more distributed and less serious anyway, so then I could play team when being tired or unable to focus, what do you think?