This situation seems to happen fairly often and I was wondering what you all thought about it; thanks for the input!
Your timings were really weird with the orbital command and second rax. Those could have been seamed more tightly together (I usually start the OC right after first rax is done). Don't build an extra rax if it's going to sit idle- that's just wasteful. You supply block yourself at 27. Your scans were positioned in odd places. The first at the 2nd expo and the second at their mineral line. Try to scan near their buildings to see tech structures and units. You sent all your units up the choke when he had a ton of marines concaved and a wall up- that's no bueno. My advice - stick to a really basic build order and learn how to stay busy with it: Be ahead on your supply, produce units at all times from your command center and buildings. and scout scout scout! scouting is really important dude. Once you get that down start learning variations and how map positioning plays an important role in each game.
I do think that was too specific and above the next level imjo has to reach. Building timings and build order don't mean anything if he is not willing to adapt towards the correct counters. He had plenty of time to transition to hellions after he first encountered the opponent's army but he didn't. I'm thinking (and I don't mean to offend anyone) he doesn't know tech or hotkeys from tier 2 on, meaning he's lost there and prefer to play MM.
True- More helions would have solved the immediate problems. What's that old saying though- ah yes, I remember now. Prevention is better than a cure.
I don't think it was either a tech choice that lost you the game here nor a wrong build order, it was the very basics that went wrong plus some additional bad decisions that cost you the game. Here's some pointers: -The general rule is to keep making workers. That means to saturate your main and keep making workers to set your expansion up fast enough. You stopped at 19 and didn't expand. That was a bad decision... Keeping your money low may seem easy to do when your income is low, but it starts becoming a challenge when you keep increasing your income thus adding a new dynamic into how you spend your money(you have to increase your production to match your capacity at all times). -Bad combat decisions: These are what I think cost you the game. In your first push, you noticed he had an army up his ramp and decided to attack in that choke, when your armies were about even. That was a bad decision. You could have instead tried to contain him, siege up your tank and bring in an air unit to provide vision for you to attack from safety. Perhaps bring up a couple of scvs and make a couple of bunkers and a turret for detection, set your army in a good concave and force him to either die walking down the ramp or exit his base from the side with medvac drops or air units, which would lead to having some vikings be a good idea to contain him from air from the sides of his base. During that time you could have expanded and gained an advantage. Despite this outcome, let's go to the second big fight: He sent a bunch of marines against a good army mix of marines marauders and tanks. You had a really bad positioin though. If you had your army a little back and your tanks sieged up, you'd have easily beaten his army that time... he made a good concave against you expoited the lack of sieged tanks and won... -Most importantly is scouting. Both your and your opponent played blindly. I don't mean to scout what tech path he's going and play reactively, just scout how much he's expanded and where his army is to be ready yourself... You can just send a marine to each mineral patch, a marine to each xel naga tower and a marine right outside his ramp and voila!: map control. Knowing where your enemy is not is often more valuable than knowing where he is. So, to sum up, some general things I think you should work on: 1) Increasing your economy: Focus on keeping making workers, nonstop. This will increase your income and so you can start training keeping your money low. Having 13 scvs on the mineral line does not provide enough income to actually do much and gives you a false feeling of playing correctly(since your money is low so there's not much stuff you can make) 2)Scouting: Start working on having units spread around the map or patrolling specific locations like possible expos etc. That will give you valuable knowledge on the whereabouts of your enemy and when he marches out to attack. 3)Expanding: You should generally(if you keep making workers as intended) expand roughly at around the 7-11 minute mark depending on your general strategy. If you hit the 15min mark without a fully saturated working expo then you're doing something wrong. 4)One of the most important things: Aggression: Try to be more aggressive, and that doesn't only mean attacking, but also expanding or scouting. Anything to get out of your main base, there's a whole map out there and if you get control of it before your opponent you'll probably end up victorious.
Thanks for everyone's help. And yes, it's accurate to say that I don't know really what to do past Tier 2.
The best way to improve is getting a training partnair, imo... Try this forum or a forum like force's (http://www.forcestrategygaming.com/?page_id=68&mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=31.0) or of course some iRL friend of yours and get some matches going... Discussing a game right after playing and wathing replays with friends each watching what the other did(since you know how you played, you can notice more stuff watching your partnair's moves during the replay) and commenting on each other's play. That I think is very very helpful...
OK, I'll make a post on that thread. Thanks so much! Edit: Spent the past couple matches focusing on expanding and making workers...my money is through the roof! I can't spend it fast enough lol. Thanks for that tip guys, my army is replenished faster - its great lol. Thanks for those tips all.
