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How's everyone doing? Get some games in this weekend? Any cool VODs/Replays?
I will post my copper league thoughts in reply...
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So step 1 was macro. http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=22567622
At this point you should be able to make the same strong army regardless of your opponent's race or unit composition. Depending on how good you are at it, this should have carried you easily to the top of the silver league, and possibly into gold or bronze.
Step 2 is scouting.
Keep in mind step 2 is decidedly "Scouting", NOT "Scouting and countering". At the end of this step you should be able to infer what your opponent is making. If you still lose to it, that's perfectly fine. In fact I would argue that's the preferred result. If you try to add too many things into your game at once you will retain none of them. After completing step 2 you should be able to perform all the tasks in step 1 and be able to use some of your active thought to determine what your opponent is building.
I've seen a lot of posts of people complaining about scouting in Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2, like Brood War, is a game of incomplete information. It's easy to counter what you know is coming (that's why map hackers are so good!), but it's not hard to assemble the puzzle from small pieces of information.
Your first worker scout should arrive before he has any units. You can gauge how strong your opponent is almost directly to how long he keeps his first scouting worker alive. Seriously. In StarCraft 1 I would often not be able to kill good player's first Probe with 6 Zerglings until I got the speed upgrade. Bisu was able to do this to other Zerg progamers as well, and he was the best Protoss of all time. Practice running your worker around his base fleeing from enemy workers, marines and zealots, while keeping your unit production perfect. Since the AI has been improved you can long run from zerglings, meaning you will lose it pretty quickly. From the first scout you can ask yourself certain questions, such as:
- How many unit-production structures (barracks, gateways, hatcheries) does he have? The more he has the more likely he is to be attacking early with basic units.
- What buildings are there? Obviously a fast roach warren could be a trick, but 99% of the time it means he will be going roaches. A quick forge points to the likelihood of offensive cannons or a fast expansion. A lair before units means you should expect mutalisks relatively early. A robotics points to immortals, whereas a stargate points to void rays.
- Has he expanded? An expansion means he will likely play defensively.
- How many gases did he take and how early did he take them? 1 quick gas doesn't tell you too much, but 2 quick gases increases the likelihood of higher tiered units like void rays, mutalisks and banshees.
- Are there buildings missing? You need to know that "at this time he should have X buildings." If there are buildings missing, specifically pylons, you need to consider the possibility that he is building outside his base, which you should send extra workers to scout for.
At this point, you have probably lost the scouting worker. Although you've gathered information, you need to try again. Sending a second worker when appropriate, you are going to sacrifice it walking up his ramp. You will get a short glimpse of his army and the side of his base. You want to note:
- Has he expanded?
- What is his unit composition? If he has mostly marauders it's likely he's going to continue to make marauders. This applies to stalkers and roaches as well. Players don't often play mind games of showing information and doing something else, especially in something small like making zealots instead of stalkers. 99.9% of players will be very transparent.
- What is his building composition? Players often build buildings near the ramp, meaning you can take note of if he has a quick robotics facility, which barracks add-ons he is using, etc.
- Does he have the right number of units? If he has more units than you expected, he has probably sacrificed economy for unit production. If he has less units than you expected, consider that quick tech units (dts, mutalisks, reapers, helions, banshees) may be coming.
Discussion about other ways to gain information:
- Zerg overlords are free scouting. You should always spread your overlords on cliffs to scout areas. Consider sacrificing an overlord if you are unsure of what your opponent is building. Do not be scared to spread your overlords before they have the speed upgrade - that is the hallmark of a weak player.
- Scan costs the same energy as a MULE, and as such will cost you 240 minerals potentially lost. Consider building an extra barracks and floating it into your opponents base as it will give you better information instead.
- Observers are very strong in this game. If you can't infer what your opponent is doing, your first robotics unit should be an observer.
- The overlord speed upgrade is 50/50 and should be a no-brainer at lair tech.
- Overseers have energy and only one ability to use it on - changelings. Changelings should be cast whenever you can remember.
- Leaving a worker outside of your opponent's ramp but also outside of his vision is a great warning for when he is moving out. It gives you ample time to pump out one last round of units before the attack comes.
- Building depots / pylons around the outside of your base will give you early warning of reapers, void rays, medivacs, mutalisks and nydus worms coming into your base. Again, don't be worried about losing them.
- The Xel naga watch towers are critical in this game. You should put in a reasonable amount of effort to control the key ones with a worker so that you gain vision of his army composition and size.
- Don't forget to scout for hidden expansions and island play in the midgame!
Give that a try. At the end of this you should always know what he's doing and still be pumping out a nice army. You should also be losing games because you're making the wrong units, but we'll get to that.
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