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On February 12 2011 00:23 Eeryck wrote:
So the topic of this thread is so you think you can macro?
It has devolved into a 7-minute optimization of getting units out with people even cutting workers in favor of more units (Not a good macro concept at the low levels).
Good macro and being able to macro goes well beyond 7-minutes. If you try and benchmark anything after 7-minutes there is just simply too much variations in build orders and unit compositions that it is truly worth while.
The ability to macro off a FE build once you hit full saturation is a big leap from a strong 1-base push. Your income is coming twice as fast. Then if you get a reasonably timed 3rd you will have 3 mining bases for a period, being able to have enough production to keep that money spent is a horse of a different color when compared to one basing.
So while an initial eye opening and benchmarking is useful, players should quickly move beyond this mentality. Also, players should not consider their macro good if they can match any of these timings/ unit counts.
This exercise should be considered little more than a mechanics check for one-basing. If you want to consider how well you are macroing a better exercise would be something like this:
Do a FE build
Get a third at 11-12 minutes
Stop at 200/200
Watch the replay 1 time looking at the CC/Nexus/hatch.
-note every time you miss a worker, for how long and why. (fix these problems)
Watch a second time looking at the CC/Nexus/hatch.
-note every time you miss your macro mechanic, for how long and why (fix it)
Watch a third time looking only when you get supply blocked
-not how long and why (fix it)
Watch a fourth time looking at your production facility or production tab
-note when you are not producing from any structure you have made, consider if you needed that structure that early or if you were hiding minerals by building it (fix it)
Watch the replay a fifth time looking at your money
-note every time your minerals goes over 500 (fix it only if it is not caused by items 1-4) by building more producing structures
Watch the replay a sixth time in first person view
-note what screens you are looking at and why. Macro while looking at your army or scout, check that you are constantly tapping, bounce quickly to your base to build supply or add production.
Be very very hard on yourself because even the smallest mistakes cost you units. While this 7-minute benchmark demonstrates this well, it also fails in the real game.
Consider if you get in the mentality that you should have x units at y time in game. Then you get harassed or some early pressure. Then at 7-minutes you have less units and you think "OMG I am behind" this is just a bad place to get to.
So while this is a noble benchmarking exercise, it should only be considered the first baby step to good macro.
I mean if you're going to have this attitude, why stop there? Any terrible player can max out in 11 minutes without having pressure applied to them. You won't really have good macro until you can max out on 3 bases while being banshee and medivac harassed by SeleCT.
I'm pretty sure that players who are not in diamond don't even understand the fundamentals of how to fix their early game macro. Any time I watch a player who is in diamond, they get warp gate late, they rarely ever change their gates over right when it finishes, they cut the equivalent of 3-5 probes by 7 minutes, etc. etc. So saying that this stuff isn't helpful for people who are in platinum or gold seems incorrect to me.
EDIT: I'd still like to see replays of people hitting 58 supply in 7 minutes with scouting and with any remotely reasonable build order. (i.e. not 3 rax all-in to the max) I'm practically never behind by 10 food this early in the game, yet the results people are posting would say that I should be.
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
Eeryck the build is a timing push. Whether I have 25 or 30 scvs, it makes no difference if my income is the same.
Yes I do agree that these 7 minute replays are not the full picture to good macro. For me, this thread simply serves as an eye opener to the lower league players to see that they have a lot less stuff compared to a master league player. I'd also argue that being able to match the production of a good player in the first 7 minutes is a great achievement as the player will know that their weaknesses lie elsewhere. They can be confident that if they lost a game, its definitely not due to their initial build order.
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Awesome Awesome Awesome thread, thank you so much for this. I was wondering if there was a resource like this somewhere on TL and now I found it.
Thanks again.
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Mind if I ask what build have you used for 3 gateway expansion to get all that many probes and units. I've been practicing with liquipedia's build and cannot get even close to that. Not sure if it's only my macro or my macro and build order that is the problem 
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The title of this tread poses the question "So you think you can macro?" then goes on only to give a benchmark for 7-minute timing pushes as a means of evaluation.
So the bronze and silver players that read this are going to think, gee I fixed my macro after they figure out how to do this build. Then in a week when the build bumps their MMR sufficiently and they get gold players that are doing a FE build and easily holding this they are going to make a ton of threads. "I macro'd good but lost to the xyz build"
This approach creates a false sense of confidence.
Once you apply this tread to the common advice here "All you need is macro to get to diamond/masters" you are setting the bronze and silver players up for disaster. Because these all-ins stop consistently winning well above the 50% rate at the 8-minute mark at gold level.
Sure you could probably grind it out over a ton of games to a higher level, but why would you want to be a Silver/Gold skilled player in Diamond/Masters.
Take this thread as a good first step. Just don't call it "good macro"
@pja - I thought I was harsh enough, but you are right, until you figure out how to do it under pressure it is still not good. Btw I am in silver and I get it.
@infinity21 - Not to argue about income, but over-saturation does make a difference as soon as the expo goes up. So it only matters after the push, if/when it is defended. Your three cut probes is a pretty subtle move for a beginner trying to smooth out missing workers completely, having bad production building timings and trying to smooth out when to build supply. So while it was excellent 1-base macro for a timing push and sets the bar high with full disclosure of what you did. It does still somewhat obfuscate macro to the less savvy beginner.
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
I do agree with most of your points. I suppose its a matter of perspective. For me, I'm tired of seeing threads that start off with "I'm a gold player with decent macro...". So if you can't match the macro of a good player in the first 7 minutes, then the answer is "no!".
Cutting workers for a stronger push is the correct move as your push will do more damage and win the game for you or force your opponent to lose more workers which makes up for the lower worker count.
As for my replay, I wanted to show that an experienced player can make exception to the often regurgitated rules like "never stop making workers" or "always be producing something out of your barracks" in certain situations. I suppose my point is, if you blindly follow advice such as the ones I said above, then I would say you dont have good macro.
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On February 11 2011 15:17 Obscura.304 wrote:Is this 7 minutes real-time, or 7 minutes in-game? Gold Zerg here, going 14 gas 14 pool, only 36 supply @ 7 minutes in game. http://www.mediafire.com/?9agvp81cndb8puvI'm bad, but close to double my food count? wtf?
What you tried to do here is:
- 10 scout
- 14 gas 14 pool
- Ling speed and queen.
- Expo afterwards
- Get 4 zerglings for map control / scouting purposes (2 larva)
- Keep building econ.
- Get 2nd queen
- Get relatively fast lair.
- Get roach warren.
----------------------
At the 7 minute mark, you had:
- 36 supply.
- 66 APM
- 2 hatcheries, 2 extractors.
- 4 lings, 2 queens.
- 26 drones.
- lair 75% done, roach warren 75% done.
Here's what I did:
- 10 scout
- 14 gas 14 pool
- Ling speed and queen
- 4 lings for map control (2 larva)
- 21 expo
- 2nd queen.
- Econ.
- Relatively fast lair.
- Roach warren.
http://www.mediafire.com/?l5y2504l6c162ve
At the 7 minute mark I had:
- 51 supply.
- 54 APM
- 2 hatcheries, 2 extractors.
- 4 lings, 2 queens.
- 34 drones.
- Lair 80% done.
- Roach warren done.
- 5 roaches building, 55% done. Overlord and 1 ling building.
- Creep between lair and expansion.
Now, I am relatively low masters. I am sure that someone could beat this quite easily (especially players with higher APM). But the difference here is that I am slightly ahead in getting lair, I have my roach warren finished, I have the same gas income that you do, but I have 8 more drones, so I have 28 drones on minerals while you have 18 (I have 150% of your mineral income, equal gas income). And I have 41% higher supply.
With having the exact same plan that you did.
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On February 12 2011 02:44 infinity21 wrote:
I do agree with most of your points. I suppose its a matter of perspective. For me, I'm tired of seeing threads that start off with "I'm a gold player with decent macro...". So if you can't match the macro of a good player in the first 7 minutes, then the answer is "no!".
Fair enough, I agree first 7-minutes is the first necessary baby step. However, even if you do match for the first 7-min and then fall apart, the answer is still "No!"
On February 12 2011 02:44 infinity21 wrote:
Cutting workers for a stronger push is the correct move as your push will do more damage and win the game for you or force your opponent to lose more workers which makes up for the lower worker count.
I agree and understand. This game sense and amount of damage necessary would have been lost on me a month ago (it is very subtle to someone w/o experience), before watching an entire GSL season. I am sure it is still lost on most bronze and silver looking for help here.
On February 12 2011 02:44 infinity21 wrote:
As for my replay, I wanted to show that an experienced player can make exception to the often regurgitated rules like "never stop making workers" or "always be producing something out of your barracks" in certain situations. I suppose my point is, if you blindly follow advice such as the ones I said above, then I would say you dont have good macro.
Again, I agree but these subtleties need to be built off of core mechanics. Your exceptions are strategic decisions, that strengthen your plan of a 1-base timing push. So "good Macro" is dependent on your plan.
You can see this in iEchoics new TvT build that is hellion heavy with Banshee/Viking/Raven. Early on he cuts some hellion production to get his double starport tech up fast. His macro is not bad in those games but he is making strategic decisions. However, if the build stands the test of time, you can be sure that it gets much more optimization, that gets it closer to constant production and slightly slows teching up. Of course his scouting is good and he is a reactive player, so if he saw danger I am sure this happens on the fly as it stands today.
Understanding these strategic decisions is only possible after you have some decent grasp of macro. Finally, from a beginner perspective watching the 3-rax or iEchoic build w/o understanding what they are seeing, they could draw the wrong conclusion that "late workers is generally ok occasionally"
Of course you described exactly why you cut worker production so you did the most you could to mitigate the potential misunderstanding.
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
I can agree with that. I believe it was Nony who said if you need to ask when to stop making workers, then you're not ready to stop making workers. So if you don't know when it is beneficial to break these rules, then you shouldn't break them. Going a step further, if you don't know when it is good for you to break these rules, then you still need to work on your macro.
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On February 12 2011 00:23 Eeryck wrote:
So the topic of this thread is so you think you can macro?
It has devolved into a 7-minute optimization of getting units out with people even cutting workers in favor of more units (Not a good macro concept at the low levels).
Good macro and being able to macro goes well beyond 7-minutes. If you try and benchmark anything after 7-minutes there is just simply too much variations in build orders and unit compositions that it is truly worth while.
The ability to macro off a FE build once you hit full saturation is a big leap from a strong 1-base push. Your income is coming twice as fast. Then if you get a reasonably timed 3rd you will have 3 mining bases for a period, being able to have enough production to keep that money spent is a horse of a different color when compared to one basing.
So while an initial eye opening and benchmarking is useful, players should quickly move beyond this mentality. Also, players should not consider their macro good if they can match any of these timings/ unit counts.
This exercise should be considered little more than a mechanics check for one-basing. If you want to consider how well you are macroing a better exercise would be something like this:
Do a FE build
Get a third at 11-12 minutes
Stop at 200/200
Watch the replay 1 time looking at the CC/Nexus/hatch.
-note every time you miss a worker, for how long and why. (fix these problems)
Watch a second time looking at the CC/Nexus/hatch.
-note every time you miss your macro mechanic, for how long and why (fix it)
Watch a third time looking only when you get supply blocked
-not how long and why (fix it)
Watch a fourth time looking at your production facility or production tab
-note when you are not producing from any structure you have made, consider if you needed that structure that early or if you were hiding minerals by building it (fix it)
Watch the replay a fifth time looking at your money
-note every time your minerals goes over 500 (fix it only if it is not caused by items 1-4) by building more producing structures
Watch the replay a sixth time in first person view
-note what screens you are looking at and why. Macro while looking at your army or scout, check that you are constantly tapping, bounce quickly to your base to build supply or add production.
Be very very hard on yourself because even the smallest mistakes cost you units. While this 7-minute benchmark demonstrates this well, it also fails in the real game.
Consider if you get in the mentality that you should have x units at y time in game. Then you get harassed or some early pressure. Then at 7-minutes you have less units and you think "OMG I am behind" this is just a bad place to get to.
So while this is a noble benchmarking exercise, it should only be considered the first baby step to good macro.
No one was claiming that this is the be all end all evaluation of having the best macro you can. It's simply a way for players who think that they're macroing fully efficiently to question that underlying assumption and get some benchmarks of what are possible.
If I post a replay of me playing against select, where I'm getting dropped every 30 seconds, while he's trucking the middle and simultaneousness denying an expo, and then show that to a player who is in bronze or silver, and I made 0 mistakes and I say "if you're macroing perfectly this is what is possible!", they've got nothing to put that in context with. No one has that level of multitasking in the lower leagues, however, if we hand to them a list of stuff you could have at X minutes, and tell them to go into single player and compare them doing that build to the benchmark, you can do that every time. Then, if they're ending up with less, they can question, "Why?" then they go through and fix every little thing they can find and fix those and note the differences
This is a skill all high level players will have and use often. You can show a good player a replay of him doing a build and he can point out all the little spots that he could have done something better to improve efficiency macro wise, which might not be super apparent to a low level player. Things as small as starting a worker too early which delayed my expansion by 5 seconds or something as zerg (you just wasted a larvae). Getting your gas at an inopportune time so you had to make zealots instead of sentries, There's so many little things you can learn from an exercise like this, then carry that into your analysis of your games.
I think you're drastically insulting players intelligence if you think that they'd be watching a replay, got 2 rax'ed, lose a whole bunch of stuff and then they'd think to themselves after the game, "wow, I have less then this optimum amount, guess I'm macroing like shit!"
Why did I pick 7 minutes? Quite simply, everyone's games go up to 7 minutes, unless you're doing some hardcore early rush like a 6 pool. This exercise is just as useful for a 4 gate as it is for a zerg player who wants to play like IdrA. Allot of players in the lower leagues love to do one base plays, and that's fantastic, but why not get the most out of it? If you're not doing a 1 base play doesn't mean that this exercise holds no worth either, as you're still macroing your little heart out at this point, your composition might be different, however. Instead of 15 roaches and a lot of lings you might have 2 lings and shitton of drones.
While I can see where you're coming from, I think you're very severely underestimating the intelligence of low league players if you think that this exercise has no value past the 7 minute mark.
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Also, 7 minutes is a fair thing really. You can say fairly surely that until you hit high diamond at least, you would be better off most of the time doing the exact same thing almost perfectly optimized, than trying to react weirdly to stuff that happens. As evidenced in this thread, there's huge room for improvement.
It's another reason why early all in rushes are so good and can elevate you to masters league: they are easier to execute perfectly, and if done perfectly, they are pretty damn strong.
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So can we get some more strats down. For instance a TvZ. A strong push after so many minutes with a certain army composition. See what the most we can get is. Then you can say for instance 30 +/- so many scvs (due to scout) and marines (+/-) due to early pressure.
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I am currently ~1600 platinum and Ive been working on a 3gate early aggression w/ proxy pylon build that seems to fit well with this time. I usually push at around 6:20 with 4 zealots and 6 stalkers, quickly rienforced by an additional 3 stalkers. If the attack gets pushed back, I pull back and expand instead of reinforcing with the 3 stalkers.
I just loaded up a replay vs AI from when Ive been trying to perfect the opening. with this particular replay I cut probes just before I pushed and reinforced my army.
at the 7:00 mark I have
54/58 supply
26 probes
5 zealots
7 stalkers
2 sentries
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On February 12 2011 08:54 djdoodoo wrote:
So can we get some more strats down. For instance a TvZ. A strong push after so many minutes with a certain army composition. See what the most we can get is. Then you can say for instance 30 +/- so many scvs (due to scout) and marines (+/-) due to early pressure.
Seriously?
It just does not work that way. It is not helpful. If you can't properly value your macro mistakes from what has been shown so far then you need to find another method.
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I would love to see some macro based builds. Like say your in a ZvP, and you see the toss fast expand with a bunch of cannons. You KNOW he isnt going to attack any time soon, so you can get that 3rd hatch up asap and really pump drones, but how many drones should you be able to get by 7 min?
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Yes I definately value how much I could be building instead. The reason I'm doing this is just as practise because as I'm a terran whats wrong with finding out what my potential is and having that bar raised up high so I can try and aim for that in my matches.
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3400 master
1gate robo (g-r-g-g)
7min
33 probes
2obs
4 stalker
2zealots
3 sentries
53 supply
could have started expand w/o making stalkers but made sentries.
a few minor errors as i was chatting but the gist is there i think
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On February 12 2011 09:50 obsid wrote:
I would love to see some macro based builds. Like say your in a ZvP, and you see the toss fast expand with a bunch of cannons. You KNOW he isnt going to attack any time soon, so you can get that 3rd hatch up asap and really pump drones, but how many drones should you be able to get by 7 min?
I believe I have my standard ZvP up there, and it's macro oriented (Roach/Hydra with a burrowed roach timing attack to seize map control) which is very macro oriented. Czech it out. *edit* checked it and it had a 3rd hatch going down on the test run with no unit production beyond scout lings. In the normal build it goes up when you push your roach burrow timing attack about a minute or so later, but in your case, you would most likely forgo suiciding a bunch of roaches into cannons/defense.
Also in your example, you need a fast hydra den, as he's 99% going to go for an air play.
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Thanks to everyone helping the thread. We could use a few more builds posted, I'd be interested to see some toss and terrans put up FE's and such (I don't play either so my T and P are super basic and limited).
Thanks agian. TL fighting.
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Silver League Macro Meltdown
Boring Intro:
+ Show Spoiler +So I'm silver, and I apparently have some serious macro issues. I am trying this thread out as a bit of an experiment. It could really help people in my situation (and some direct criticism might be nice, I'll try to figure out how to post replays and edit some in). Face it fellow less-than--diamonder's we're all probably delusional to some degree. Especially those like me who study and watch Starcraft more than play the game... literally.
The Build Attempted:
+ Show Spoiler +On February 10 2011 13:58 shimpoe wrote:
So this is what I more generally use in PvT,
@7:00 gate gate robo (chrono probes)(fairly quick expansion)
55 supply
1 immortal
5 sentry
2 stalker
1 zealot
1 observer
rest as probes
natural expansion around 80%-85% complete
What is interesting to me is how little the nexus actually slows things down; considering it isn't complete yet, I haven't inflated my supply with probes or income. I suppose the extra production of the third gateway doesn't have as large as an influence at this point as I would have assumed because it's fairly delayed and hasn't gotten a lot of use yet.
I hope more people catch on and participate in this thread. It's pretty interesting comparing to yourself, but I'd love to see what some other (better) players come up with as benchmarks.
So I'm going for this build here. I figured this is enough said about the general build. Sadly it is not enough info to actually execute a build. More on this later. I played the game against very easy A.I. on Xel'Naga Caverns. There were no interruptions to my macro.
Results:
Game 1:
+ Show Spoiler +
7:00
28 Probes
1 Observer
1 Zealot
1 Stalker
1 Sentry
Supply: 42/42
Avg. APM: 53
Nexus: 100% at exactly 7:00. Not sure how I managed to time it like that.
Unspent Resources: 125 Minerals / 275 Gas
Army Value: 300 Mineral / 225 Gas
Game 2:
+ Show Spoiler +
27 Probes
1 Observer
2 Zealots
1 Immortal
1 Stalker
2 Sentries
Supply: 44/50
Avg. APM: 51
Nexus: 59.7%
Unspent Resources: 155 Minerals / 155 Gas
Army Value: 700 Minerals / 425 Gas
Conclusion:
+ Show Spoiler +My macro is horrible. I'm going to try this same build again tomorrow AFTER looking it up. The most painful and yet obvious mistake was that I didn't know exactly what to build. I think it's almost necessary for us bronze, silver, and possibly gold players to have sticky notes of the opening builds we want to use. Three of of them perhaps, one for each race MU, with actual timing or supply reminders. Believe it or not, I actually study and watch more Starcraft than I play. Since this build is something so far out of my comfort zone of three gate to eventual robo, or four gate then expand, that it was really necessary to have a much more focused goal. This is coming into a sharp and clear reality after being able to compare myself to others in this thread, since I'm clearly not where I could be even though I "know" the rules. I know I can't be supply blocked, but still am. I know I need to be using chrono boost, but I don't. When I wake up and am a little more refreshed I'm going to try it again. Also going to try a four gate and see the disparity between a build I'm comfortable with and the build for these two games, as compared to other players of varying rank and skill. If anyone thinks they could help me with some more info let me know  I'll try to find a way to make replays (surely its not too hard) if this could be a venue for that sort of advice? Also going to try to find the video of day9 where apparently he talks about how he uses his hotkeys to remind him of his macro rotation. I don't even have a macro rotation. I don't really know what that would entail. Would love to see this day9 video if anyone knows what I'm referring to. I'll be looking for this tomorrow, but since I don't think 'Day 9 macro tips' will be very search engine friendly. Sadly I was on my phone when I read that thread I think...
Such.. a long... (first)post.
So tired.
Must... sleep.
TL;DR:
+ Show Spoiler +
Time to stop being delusional and focus on the basics if you're in the same boat as my Silver League ass..
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EPT
