I've been a Blizzard RTS player since WC1, but I've only been old enough to understand strategy since WC3, and then I only did custom scenarios. So my first real experience in Blizzard RTS strategy is the Starcraft 2 Beta. I've been reading a lot of different strategies people have for all 3 races, but no matter what I do, I just can't win a game. I very much doubt I'm still a noob, as I now know most of the winning strategies people use. But they don't work for me, because no matter what I do, I end up with a huge army at my base. The technical breakdown (of my 1v1 matches) is: When I play defense against a rush, I survive the rush, but I lose the battle because the enemy comes back with a bigger army, because building the bunkers/cannons/<zerg building attackers that I forgot the name of> set my economy back too far. When I play defense against that bigger army, I get owned by the rush. When I try to rush, I can't finish building an army before I get rushed, because whether my ratio of gatherers to builders or my ratio of units/buildings to resources is big or small, I never get a big army fast enough. I always come close, but they always seem to have a few more units than me, which makes me lose the first battle, which makes me lose the entire game. Finally, when I try to play non-rushing offense, whether my ratio of gatherers to builders or my ratio of units/buildings to resources is big or small, and whether I have many of each building or one of each, the enemy always gets a big army first. Also, something that fits into the last 4 paragraphs, is when I scout, the enemy no longer has the massive game-winning upper hand when he scouts me, but I take a big economy hit for either teching up to a scout unit or having a gatherer not be gathering/building, so scouting only makes it worse for me. I just don't understand how they always have a big army so fast. They always tell me to train as many gatherers as possible, and then build a bunch of barrackses/warp gates/hatcheries, but considering the time it takes to train one gatherer, that just doesn't work. I've usually got an army of maybe 16-18 units when they storm me with at least 24.
to be honest that is not the best replay to see what you are doing wrong as the only way to counter chessing is to controll front entrance and if you see something come in but not out be aware. also with terran youneed to supply and barracks wall, its what terran are meant to do. if you play random i would love to see a zerg or protoss match as those are my better races. also your build order should prolly be a supply first, ( at around 8/9 supply ) then racks,( both on front door) if you going for reapers get some gas fast otherwise wait and have the mins. also try 3v3 as you can be bouyed up by team mates. defencive things are usefull early game massing them will get you no where i ussually have only enough defense to cover min line and front door but not enough to push back an attack by it self hopefull this is helpful in a general way ( i dunno how to play terran have never won a game with them)
If we look aside from the cheese-loses, then how do you get out-armied when you are the defender? In theory, you should be able to get more military due to having the home field advantage. Is it your macro that needs work?
I will go through what you did wrong. 1: Set the rally point in the Command Center to the minerals. So you do not need to babysit your SCV´s. I can see you know what the rally point does, but you may have played too much SC1, where you need to point at them yourself? 2: You should build the Supply Depot when you have 10 SCVs. Not when you have built a Barracks and Refinery, and have far too many minerals 3: Build more than one Barracks! You should maximum have only 4 Marines on the way, not 8. So, have 3 Barracks and a Factory, and you could easily win. When you have learned from these three mistakes, post a new replay, so i can say something more refined to what you do wrong.
Theres a lot more room for improvement and as your performance dictates according to the posts above me, it basically means you are fighting against much more experienced players, and you are still making newbie mistakes, maybe its much better if you try to observe more games 1st and try to compare it with your game and see what you do wrong compare to them.
Thought's on the replay from a gold player: First thing I notice was the rally point. You should rally to your mineral line, it earns you more money. Terran should almost almost wall of their ramp. It helps prevent a lot of cheese. Down to the important stuff. You made two huge mistakes: First, you were sitting on waaaaaaay to many minerals that whole game. Spend them! if you watch pro replays they never have >100ish unless they're saving up Second, and this is less important for a new player but still huge, you should NEVER, EVER, queue units. When you had your barracks queue full, those resources for the 8 marines that weren't building could've gone to another barracks=faster marines. That's my two cents. Starcraft has never been exactly newbie friendly, but if you practice a bit more you'll be fine. Pm me if you want to play some practice games or whatever.
Thanks for the help. I played another match following all of your input (except the <100 unspent minerals thing, because when I was waiting for the barrackses to be built there was really nothing to do with the extra minerals, unless I wanted to spend it on useless crap I wouldn't use). I feel like I did a much better job, and I think I would have won, but he left the game so I'm not sure. You'll notice I'm still a bit sluggish with macroing and microing (especially during the battle) because, being kinda new to it, it's a little hard to do it efficiently. My own criticism towards this replay is to build a Refinery a little sooner; I was deliberately holding it off until I really needed it because I thought I could keep spending minerals on Marines quickly, but I couldn't. And to get used to macroing and microing. EDIT: BTW, that pause in the beginning of the replay I have before I start gathering was because for some reason, every time I select SCVs for the first time in a match, but not any other race's worker, my computer freezes for like 10 seconds before the game will become non-laggy for me. EDIT2: Ha. My plan before he left after beating that army was to run straight to his base, which I speculated was on the right half of the map somewhere, because that was probably his whole army. I was completely right. Plus with all his SCVs and reactors, if I didn't take my army to his base, I'd be dead.
Now i will go through some of the more refined. 1: You can lower the supply depots if you want to go through the wall. 2: Against a Terran player, you should not wall off. Espescially on Kulas Ravine, since you have no ramp. You felt that, when the marines killed all your supply depots before engaging. 3: If you have some minerals, do not be afraid to use them. Spam SCVs from your command center, build more Barracks, and maybe even a Factory, not less. It was a good idea to place bunkers, but it would have been better if they were at front, not the back. Ask me something specific if you feel like it. Good luck learning SC2! :yes:
Alright, I'm on the right track now. And yeah, I will admit walling off actually hindered me in that game, especially when I was slow with lowering the depots.
Watch Husky's Terran Opener and see how yours differs from his. It really helped me get started and be able to survive early rushes. I think the main thing I've learned in my short time with the beta is that you have to constantly be creating more harvesters and constantly be creating more army units. If you do this much, you'll be okay and you'll be able to learn where you went wrong. I hope this helps and best of luck in the future. Here's the link to his video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQe6UqvCOT4
