i play as terran and i normally like to go moderately heavy infantry then siege tanks and that other crap. but what i find hard to do it just finding a time to expand. when i try to expand, i could get attacked at anytime and terran is almost sure to fall to any attack in the early game if you units are out of your wall off. so how do i defend my expansion when i need to expand? thanks in advance
If you feel the pressure isn't too much and you have 400 minerals for the CC go ahead and expand. If it ends up feeling too early or too late, try changing it next time and see for yourself how comfortable it feels
Try expanding while you attack. If your opponent's busy dealing with defense, they won't notice your expansion. Also as Terran, you can build your Command Center inside your wall-off, then float it over to the expansion when you're ready. Also, you should upgrade it to the orbital command before you fly it over because it accumulates energy in the seconds that it's flying. Good luck.
the best time to expand as was said is when you move your forces forward and force him to pull his forces back, even if that just means moveing units in front of his base and then moving them back, or harassing his mineral line, eitherway his units must goi back to deffend it can take some work but that is the best time to do so if you have the command center already made just lift it off and place it when you move forward
how do i defend my expansions in the later stages of the game though? its not like i can have a mobile enough army to defend it in time.
in none linear matches you kinda cant. depending on the mobility of you force, which from the sounds ofit you have a mobile force you should be able to hold that expansion by keeping guys close at hand and moving them where they are needed. but the key to holding an expansion is being aggressive and holdin your opponent at bay, also losing an expansion is not the end of the world. if you cannot get your forces there and have them set up leave it and let it fall use the time to hold the next one.
You can also throw down some bunkers in your expansions and fill them depending on your opponent's army composition. They should hold off a small counter attack for long enough. Plus you should be pumping out reinforcements while you attack, so you can redirect them to an expansion if you need to. If you put units on the Xel'Naga Towers (sorry if I spelled that wrong), you should be able to see an attack coming and have a few extra seconds to prepare.
I'm a nub in bronze (division 17 which I guess is half decent? i think theres 100 so that puts me ofc at 17/100) but what Im currently doing at the moment is seing what I can get away with generally, I do it VERY early now and try to bunker block the path to the new base, if theres two paths I just block the far/difficult one but close to the CC and use my army to respond if they take the other path (seems obvious you would go for the one that isnt blocked, but the point is, it delays "clever" two prongs - you either go up against my block and take it out before my forces get there, or you take the unblocked and my army/deployed siege tanks are waiting. But its as with many newer players, sometimes you think "wow I expanded early and it f**ked them over!" then I'll try it again and someone will murder it because it isnt behind a wall. So I can't give decent advise as a newbie, I can just tell you, you may as well risk it now while players brain's are still too busy to rock/paper/scissor every single movement you make
the problem is with the above post, if anyone half decent scouts you and sees an early expansion as terran, there 99% chance going to rush you, you wont have the minerals to put out units and from then its gg, As for the question itself, i expand when i know ill have 3 things, the minerals to still produce units units to defend the expansion a good understanding of the enemys army. if i have all 3 ill expand as soon as i can, If not then i wont until i have these 3 things
I know that on one expansion, a general rule of thumb is that you can constantly produce units from two tech labs and one reactor. So if you start getting over that (or go for higher tech units that cost more such as Siege Tanks, Thors, etc.), you should consider expanding, otherwise some production builds will be idle at certain points. About what robertb said, I love fast expanding as Terran (against Protoss especially). It sets you up for an explosive mid-game and the beauty about it is that your enemy won't realize you are expanding until you actually expand, because you can build your command center behind your wall and float it off to your natural, then build three bunkers in front of your natural and BOOM, you are defended. I've even fought off four-gate pushes this way. This is the build if you are interested (remember, this is geared towards Protoss opponents): 10 Supply Depot 12 Barracks 15 Orbital Command 15 Marine (constantly produce them) 17 Command Center 18 Supply Depot (you can get this before the Command Center to block off your choke, just in case you scout a rush, if it's a Zealot rush all you have to do is send SCVs to repair your supply depots and attack with marines from behind) 21 Make three barracks as the money comes in 24 Refinery, saturate completely when finished 24 Orbital Command on the new Command Center 26 Refinery, saturate completely Onwards: After this I float off to my natural and put down two or three bunkers to defend it (it doesn't matter too much since they are salvageable) and put my marines in there. I get two tech labs and two reactors on the barracks. I like to build a factory and a ghost academy as well just so I can have some flexibility. Ghosts are also awesome to use against Protoss and I tend to push out once I have a couple of Ghosts out and stimpack/concussive shells researched. You can also build a reactor on the factory while making a starport and swap them afterwards to get Medivacs. After all of that you have a nice bio ball of MMM + G. Pretty nice.
