Macro/Micro

Ok... so ive played SC for about... 8 years on and off. Ive heard about it and seen it sooooooooo much. but i still dunno htf to do it >< can someone teach me?

 

Re: Microing ><

Well i think it's just knowing the hotkeys and when to strike them.
EDIT: I also think that microing is exactly opposite to when you go through all menus for peons and buildings manually, and when you manually click enemies and abilities. That's what makes me think it's primarily the hotkeys that's involved.

Could be wrong though :S

 

Re: Microing ><

that's only PART of it. some of it is hit and run tactics. and some of it is something TOTALLY different.

 

Re: Microing ><

(ok I assume you use zerg most often since it's your chosen race in your profile)

1a. you need good reflexes and fast reactions, I personally find playing the card game snap is good for developing reflexes and reactions. Also practise precision when clicking on units, or moving them around.

1b. Like Sirbaron said, familiarize yourself with hotkeys. eg, when controlling a worker B=building, V=advanced building. On an unit A=attack, S=stop. Space bar=go to last reported news. H=start location, etc, etc.

1c. Practice Practice Practice. Be mentally alert at all times. Move your arms and fingers quickly on clicking and pressing. Make decisions fast.

2. Know your opponent's strategies and tech tree direction by scouting/spying. Also come up with your own strategy and tech tree direction. If you are zerg and they are building lots of BCs, you know u'll need to have scourges, devourers, hydralisks prepared. If they are massing tanks then go for guardians and queens. Don't forget while you are preparing to counter their attacks, you also have to prepare units and strategies to launch an attack on their base efficiently. Remember that Offense is the best Defense.

3a. When in a warfront/battle zone, this is where micro skills really kick in. You are probably used to send out masses of lings and hydras and let them do the job.

3b. it's a good idea to group your units, using numbers 1, 2, 3 etc. You can also go straight to your grouped units by pressing the number twice.

3c. When engaged with the enemy, try to get all of your units to attack ONE enemy unit, once he's dead, focus your fire on another ONE unit. By concentration your fire power, you're giving youself an advantage because you are decreasing their number of units faster.

3d. If your units are ranged (eg hydralisks), get them to move beyond or closer to the enemy target before attacking. This is very important in choke points because you 1st role of ranged unit lines up to attack a target and will block all other units behind them from proceeding.

3e. If your enemy send out an un-upgraded zealot and you have an upgraded hydralisk, you can "hurtle" your hydralisk. Your hydra will attack 1st since it's ranged. Just before the zealot reaches his melee range, because your unit is faster, you can move your hydra away from it to a considerable distance. After moving away from it, attack the zealot from a ranged distance, then move away again, then attack again. Keep repeating it until the zealot is dead and your hydra has not lose 1 single HP

3f. Use spell casters. Queens are excellent at taking out tanks and dragoons and lots. Parasite helps you spy on their base. Defiler's plague is great too. And if you have lots of lings, dark swarm can certainly protect them.

4. When using lurkers defensely, keep pressing stop (S) to stop the lurkers from firing. Wait until their units walk ABOVE your lurkers, then you let them attack in all directions. And also remember you only need 2 scourge to kill a muta/guardian/devourer/wraith, 3 to kill a scout/valk, 5 to kill a BC/carrier. Control them properly and don't let them suicide unnecessarily.

Hope I've helped

 

Re: Microing ><

traditional microing. being able to move your units in a tactical way so they do damage, but don't die. i got by that when i play a game

 

isn't macro your peon usage and micro your army usage?

and who uses it.

i micro i don't know about macro. i still dont get the difference.

oh and sorry if this thread has already been made it's 1 AM here and there were 5 pages worth of hits the search came up with ><.well that's it for today. i'll be back tomorrow. oh and anybody interested in a NOOB tournament? i need to ad. we need more people to make it interesting we have some people right now. here's the link: http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/index.php?topic=903.0

 

Check this out http://starcraft.strategy-gaming.com/?page_id=27

I hope it helps.

 

micro: you beat 4 zealots with 4 marines because you run/attack etc.. u know.. u r teh gosu.. that's micro.

macro: you have 3 bases, you are attacking player 2, defending base #3 from player 4, building marines in base #1, building scvs in base #2 and building more factories in base #3 while scouting the map with your cloak'd wraith... all at the same f***ing time.

yeah i know my macro example is a bit extreme.. but you get the idea..

 

I watched a good amount of proleague games played by the likes of boxer, nal_ra etc. and I am impressed about how they handle their units.

My question is how are they able to do what they do (e.g. vulture/siege tank mob where the vultures are directed to move in front of the tanks and then start laying mines all over the place simultaneously while the tanks start to go into siege mode). Another unit that is handled very well by these pros are the science vessels. I seen these units move as part of an army but when that army attacks, the science vessel moves with intention, irradiating enemies, moving back when getting hit, staying close to cloaked/burrowed enemies to provide detection etc.

Do pros use cntrl groups or just ctrl right click units? I mean if they are are using ctrl groups that is a heck of a lot of groups since these guys really create MASSIVE armies. How do they prevent from running out of space from assigning groups?

Any comments are appreciated here...

 

Macro Management is the broader control of the game. It deals with everything from mining to unit production.

Micromanagement is the hard part of playing to learn. Micro is the control of units.

 

Micro is short for Microwave
Macro is another word for Nacho.. delicious ;D

 

Lmfao

 

lol

uhm.

micro is short for microsoft.
and macro is short for macromedia flash player. ^^

 

Ha ha

micro is short for micromedia flash player
and macro is short for macrosoft ^_^

 

much wierd stuff here..ill enlighten u abit

micro/macro (easier said, multitasking)

micro - the abilitie to use a unit to its full potential

macro - the abilitie to produce unit at the highest possible rate allowed by your income

the most micro/macro intense race - terran (due to almost all units have special abilities, mines, mode, stim etc)

one little tips to help u improve ur overall multitasking is to start useing hotkeys even from the very beginning of the game (mark CC/nexus/hatchery as 1 or 0 and spam it to get the feel, then mark ur second building as 2 etc)

 

Well said LJYLJ.

It is especially important for Zerg players to hotkey their Hatcheries/Lairs/Hives. As it allows speedy selection and production. Although I don't tend to hotkey CC and Nexus, I usually hotkey Barracks, Factories, Gateways, etc.

Macro also involves managing your economy. That is expanding to new resource nodes at the right time with the correct precision. I think economic efficiency is a good term to describe macro. Like LJYLJ said, it is achieving the maximum output with the minimum input. So you want to produce units to its maximum potential while using the resources available to you. Personally I'm pretty hopeless at macroing as I would tend to overspend and runs out of resources easily (unless it's money map).

Microing involves a precision control over your units. Such as launching psionic storms at a precise location to cause the most possible damage. Or placing and controlling your medics to ensure the least amount of marine deaths. Or placing your lurkers strategically to avoid static detectors while being able to attack the enemy. Of course, there's a lot more to microing, basically you want to cause the most damage and kills to your enemy using your available units, and ensuring the minimun damage/death to your own units.

 

LOL yes!! I could use some Microwaved Nachos right now...

ANYWAY, I think people are right about "macro" being base related. Macro is base management (and worker management) and Micro is army management.

 

pure win

 

I don't feel like creating a new thread for my question because it's related to this topic.
Is it possible to become a fairly good player without the knowledge of hotkeys?

I'm asking this because I just found my discs and would like to get into playing SC again, preferrably on a fairly competitive level. Though I've rarely used groups when I used to play, I did (and still do) have a good understanding of it and its importance and right now I can see room for improvement and it doesn't seem like a difficult thing to master or at least tame, provided I have the time and patience. But remembering all the hotkeys seems like an awful thing and just thinking about it makes me want to give up even before I started ;D

So... without giving an exact idea of what I mean by "farily competitive" (as it's unclear even for myself), do you think it's possible to be "fairly competitive" without the knowledge of hotkeys?

 

I'm still bummed about the whole 12 max units in a single selection tho, kinda hard to manage units, but on the other hand, it makes up for developing reflexes


oh and by the way, nice ava grahamtastic, what d hel is dat?!?! a sc2 reaver?