Table of Contents
Early Build Up Order for Base and Units
Map Types Affecting Build Order
Early Build Up Order for Base and Units:
General Rules/Theories for efficient build up in the early game can be applied fairly well to all species/races (Protoss, Terran, Zerg). These rules are generalized for a medium sized map, with medium defensive abilities. Adapt them accordingly to other types of maps. Only experience and testing will tell you which maps are best for what. Some maps call for more concentration on economy and/or tech tree, while others call for more early fighting. I can give some concrete examples. Such maps that favor early offense are those that are small and/or open (don't contain only one narrow choke point leading to your base). Examples would include Orbital Solar Relay and to a slightly lesser extent The Hidden Shrine. Some maps are better to defend against early offense. Defensive maps would often include maps with a long path to your opponent, big maps, island maps, and maps that have one choke point leading to your base. Examples of defensive maps would be Dire Straits, Discovery, and to a slightly lesser degree The Lost Temple.
Early Build Up:
When building up from the start, quickly separate the 4 peons/workers (i.e. SCV, Probe, Drone) as you put them on separate mineral crystals. Exclusively build peons till you are at 7-8 probes/7-8 SCV's/7 drones. Then build a farm equivalent (Overlord, Pylon, Depot). The general rule is to not build a building if it keeps you from making a peon, except when resources are far away from your townhall (Nexus, Command Center, or Hatchery) or if you are forced to make your farm (Supply Depot, Overlord, or Pylon) and barracks (fighting unit building) in a timely manner. Also, don't make a fighter if it keeps you from making a peon, unless they are attacking and you are outnumbered. In that case build men first.
The next rule to remember is to not build a building if it keeps
you from making a fighter. For instance, if you want to build
a ton of marines, don't build 2 barracks if you can barely afford
to make a marine every time a marine is done building/producing
in your first barracks. Instead, wait; when you have more peons/workers
you will be able to afford to support unit production and build
new structures at the same time. In the very early game never
queue more than 2 units in any building because it is wasted resources.
NOTE: never get so preoccupied in early game with fighting or
scouting that you forget your economy and build up order. Economy
and build up order are the most important things in the early
game.
Your first base should usually have enough men to counter an early
rush. Usually besides Terran bunkers, no other defensive tower
structures need to be built early on because it will just strain
your resources. Don't even build the buildings that are used for
making towers until later on in midgame. Building fighters is
better in most all situations. Towers are best used for cloak
detection, anti-air, and as a distraction for attackers - so use
them as such.
Map Types Affecting Build Order:
There are times when you want to break
these early build up rules. It's impossible to say when they all
are; however, if you understand economy and build up theories
well, the times to break them will be more apparent.
Some good examples of when to break these rules include when you
are on a "rush map" (a rush is often considered to be
an early attack with early 'weak' attack units; a rush map is
a map that is small and often open/not easily defended). You'll
want to make attack units a much higher priority, so build your
barracks earlier and make men instead of workers if you absolutely
have to.
Another time to break these rules is when you are on a very defensible
map. Sometimes on the defensive maps you'll want to go up the
"tech tree" or expand quicker - hence you won't be building
many fighting units. Instead you'll be building tech tree buildings
or new halls (command center, nexus, hatchery) near away resources.
In this sort of a game get your gas mine going quicker. Basically,
break the build up rules when you need something out of the ordinary
to do well in the early game.
Economy
Concentrate on economy and build up during the early game above all, but always keep economy in the back of your mind until the end. Resources are your life in StarCraft. There are two important economic theories in RTS games. I call these two important aspects of RTS gaming Vooch Theory and MayGodHelpU Theory.
Vooch, an old friend and WarCraft 2 hoarding monster, proved to
me many times that hoarding money gives incredible power in RTS
games. If you are richer, you will have a much easier time taking
out the opposition. In FFA's hoarding is excellent! Once they
become rich, hoarders throw men at the enemy without thinking
much of the outcome in order to keep expansions going while their
sheer numbers do damage to the enemy. Note: in War2 this is much
easier to do than in StarCraft because of stronger defenses in
StarCraft.
Another way to approach your economy is
to think of men and buildings in terms of resources. This is something
MayGodHelpU, another friend and WarCraft 2 micromanagement master,
made clear to me. If you keep this in mind, you won't do inefficient
things like waste several precious men saving a cheap building,
like a farm or tower. The mircromanagement player considers each
man precious while keeping in mind when to sacrifice a few men
or buildings to kill several of the enemy. Note: this does not
at all imply being defensive, controlhough sometimes you can kill
more of them on defense. Do whatever works. Try to climb the tech-tree
quickly and get better men so your micromanagement is even more
effective.
Understand and apply these theories! The hardest part is knowing
when to concentrate on which since these two theories sometimes
oppose each other. My style of play tries to mesh these two theories
while being ultra efficient in the early build up.
Regarding Resources:
Usually try to get about 20-25 peons per
first base, less if there are few mineral crystals. The exact
number of peons can be determined by a few factors. For maximum
efficiency (if the minerals are relatively close to your hall
i.e. command center/nexus/hatchery) build nearly twice the number
of peons as mineral crystals plus the number of peons on gas plus
the number of peons scouting and building buildings. If minerals
are further away you will need more peons. Don't forget to fetch
SCVs when they are done making buildings. For Protoss use one
or two probes to quickly build a few buildings and send them back
to minerals quickly thereafter. For Zerg remember to replace drones
when they are "used up" to make a new building.
Get the same number of workers/peons for your second base if you
can. Your third base, if you get it early, shouldn't have as many
peons. This is because you will be using up too much supply (space
available for units made by Supply Depots, Overlords, Pylons)
for peons and not fighters, and you will being going way too hard
for economy and will be weak for much too long a period during
the game. Usually just build enough peons for gas at this 3rd
mine, and when the "first base" peons are done walk
them over to 3rd base for minerals.
When mining gas, only put 4 guys into the refinery, unless it is far away. Occasionally you'll get lucky and three workers will do the trick. Just watch and see when they only wait in line one at a time at the gas entrance. If more than one is waiting (they overlap for a bit) you are wasting peons. You will not get gas faster if you put too many peons on the gas mine, but it's better to have one too many peons than not enough. Never use gas workers to build buildings. When you expand, pay attention to gas unless it is much higher than your mineral reserve.
High Ground and Cover
Starcraft utilizes the elements of both
higher ground and cover to add a deeper level of strategy to the
game. Experimenting with different units in these terrain types
can yield some very effective tactics.
Units that are in trees are considered to be "in cover".
Any units that are in cover only have a 70% chance of being hit.
Keeping more vulnerable units, such as Marines, under the cover
of trees greatly increases their life expectancy and allows them
to hold their own against more powerful units.
Units attacking from lower ground to higher ground only have a
70% chance to hit. Also, units on lower ground cannot see higher
ground but will counterattack any units that are attacking from
higher terrain (even if the higher terrain is not visible.) Using
units with longer ranges, such as Siege Tanks, on high ground
areas gives them a better field of vision and makes them much
less vulnerable to attack.
Hotkeys and Special Commands
Hot Keys
Every unit command has a hot key, or keyboard shortcut, associated
with it. Holding the cursor over any unit command button will
display the name of the command. Note that one of the letters
appears in Yellow-- this is the hot key for that command. Using
hot keys for special abilities, attacking, and construction can
save a lot of time.
Selecting Units
Double-Clicking on a unit will select all
units of the same type that are on the screen (up to 12.) You
can also do the same thing by holding down the Control key and
left-clicking on a unit.
Sometimes when you group-select a bunch
of different unit types you'll want to add or remove units from
the group. For example, if you've selected a group of Marines,
Ghosts, Firebats, and SCVs, you might want to send the combat
units off to fight, and send the SCVs off to work. In the Status
Display, hold down Control and select the Portrait of the unit
you want to single out. This will select a group of those types
of units. Sometimes this is faster and easier than double clicking
or control clicking individual units on the main screen, especially
while they are moving and/or battles are going on.
Hold down Shift and select units you want to be removed from your
current selection group. This is useful when an unwanted unit
gets caught up in your selection such as an SCV, Dropship and
so on.
Hold down Control and click on one unit
from an earlier assigned group to select all units of that group.
The term "group" doesn't refer to the units designated
to a hot key, but to any units that have been selected as a group
(by any method). If, for example, you select 5 Marines (by dragging
a box around them, holding shift and clicking on them all, holding
CTRL and clicking on one of them, etc), then select a different
unit, and later hold down Control and click on one of those Marines
again, all five Marines will be reselected (note that these Marines
have not been designated to a number key). This control-click
selection works on the last "group" to which that unit
was a member. This will usually lead units hot keyed to a number
to be reselected when one of those units is control-clicked (since
hot keyed units are selected together all the time).
Whenever you hear a unit transmission, such as "We're under attack!", "Building complete", etc. press the Space Bar to center the screen on the location of the last transmission. This comes in very handy, especially in the case of a unit being completed.
Control Groups
You can assign a building, building add-on, or a group of up to
12 units to a single key. To do this, select what you want to
assign, then hold down Control and select a number on the keyboard
between 0-9. Then, when you want to select what you assigned,
simply press the number of the group that you want. Pressing a
group number twice will center the screen on the group.
Careful use of control groups can be vital to building up your
forces during the heat of battle, and being able to rapidly respond
to unexpected attacks.
By assigning a control group to your Command Center or Nexus you
can quickly center on your town by pressing the group key twice.
It also allows you to quickly select the building and begin training
a new worker. For example, if you have a Command Center set to
group 1, you can press 1 then s to train a new SCV without pulling
your attention away from whatever you're currently doing. This
is even more effective when done with the Zerg because in addition
to the functions of the Terran and Protoss counterparts, the Hatchery
produces all Zerg units. Assigning it to #1, you would hit 1 then
s (to select all larvae), then the hot key for the Zerg unit you
want to morph the Larva into. By assigning all of your Hatcheries
to group #s, you can quickly produce large groups of units. Combined
with Rally Points, this allows a Zerg player to very quickly build
up an attacking or defending force.
Terran players will find that assigning one or more ComSat Stations
to a control group they can quickly detect cloaked units and scout
out enemy bases. It's usually a good idea to assign the numbers
1-3 to ComSat stations, so you can instantly perform a Scanner
Sweep simply by pressing 1 s.
You can also use control groups to assign groups of specific units
that you want to find and control easily, such as groups of SCVs
you want to devote to repairing, or packs of Carriers, Battlecruisers,
Scouts, Mutalisks, etc. Use it on spell casters so they will be
easier to find. Assign a number to a group of Defilers then Burrow
them. In the heat of battle you may not remember where you placed
them, but with control #s you can easily find and control them.
The F2-F4 Keys
You can use F2-F4 to assign a specific location on the map to
a key. For instance you might want to keep an eye on the entrance
to your base. Center the screen on the area you want to watch,
hold down the Shift key, and press F2, F3 or F4. To center your
screen on the location again, simply press the appropriate key.
Locations vs. Control Groups
Remember you can assign your main buildings at each town, and
expansion towns to 0-9. This allows you to both center the screen
on each town you may have, and also quickly train a worker or
other unit. However, you can't use control groups to assign a
screen location to a place where there are no buildings, or to
enemy buildings or towns. That's when F2-F4 come in handy. Use
F2-F4 for enemy towns, key ambush spots, and other worthwhile
spots you want to watch but can't keep units at.
Setting Waypoints
Starcraft allows you to guide units along using waypoints. Select
the units, then hold down Shift. While holding Shift down, select
Attack then while continuing to hold down shift, repeatedly select
attack and click on each point on either the mini-map or main
screen you want the units to travel to. When you are done, release
shift. You can also do the same thing by right-clicking on the
map, but that will issue a Move order instead. As your forces
are traveling to the various waypoints, they will not stop or
respond to any attacks on them. Move should only be used if you
don't think the units will be attacked.
* Setting waypoints is very useful when scouting by air. Select an air unit, then set a waypoint at each resource spot. The flyer will head off to each resource spot. This is very good when used with Observers and cloaked Wraiths, since they can easily evade most enemies.
* Use Waypoints to guide your troops through difficult areas.
* There is a limit of the number of Waypoints you can use. You will receive a message indicating when you have reached that limit.
Queueing Commands
Assigning waypoints and queueing commands
are effectively the same thing. To queue commands, hold down the
shift button, and issue commands to the unit, clicking on the
mini-map or on the main screen. When you have issued all your
commands, release the shift key. Each unit is capable of queueing
several commands at once singly or when group selected. You can
queue most commands such as left-clicking, right-clicking, Stop,
Attack, Hold Position, Repair, Move, Patrol, and Load/Unload.
There is a limited number of commands that can be queued-- you
will receive a message indicating when you have reached that Queue
limit.
For example:
You can tell a group of Terran SCVs to repair a group of Wraiths
by holding down Shift and either right-clicking, pressing R, or
clicking the Repair Button and targeting all the damaged Wraiths.
If you attempt to repair a Wraith that is not damaged you will
receive a warning message that the Wraith doesn't need to be repaired,
but it won't cancel out your previous queued repair commands,
so don't worry. The same can be done with buildings, and the last
command can be to return to mining resources.
Another use is to tell an SCV to build then mine. Hold down Shift and select the building you want to build and click where you want it built. Then right-click on either a mineral patch or a refinery. When the SCV is done building, it will start mining. The same can be done with Protoss Probes. This cannot be used with Zerg because the Drones morph into the buildings, causing the loss of the Drone.
Unit Control:
Keystrokes:
In the readme file you can find help on keystrokes. Also, under
F1 there is a keystroke help file to read. Read these and learn
them well.
Learn the hotkeys for building men and
structures. Always use hotkey for special abilities. Nothing is
worse dying because you couldn't cast Psi Storm, Lockdown, or
Plague in time.
Use the "ctrl + #" hotkeys to
group your units in an organized manner and keep important unit
producing buildings quickly accessible. Just don't go overboard
with organization because time is so precious.
Use the "A" attack hotkey to
move units through areas that aren't visible. This way they attack
anything that's a threat along the way and then continue their
journey after fighting. Use the "M" command to make
your units move away from a losing battle without ever turning
back to fight when you don't want them to. The "S" stop
hotkey is great for getting your men to disregard your last order
such as attacking a certain building when you want them to auto-attack
other enemy units near them.
The "P" patrol hotkey also has
it's uses. Use it when amongst buildings or a mix of buildings
and men.
Again, a better key to use for attacking
in most areas is the "A" attack hotkey. Select your
group and hit "a" then aim past the target units. Your
men will walk towards them and start attacking as soon as in range.
Make sure you specifically tell guys to attack men if they are
going after buildings instead.
The right click is used for many things
including to move units. Use it often, but beware of it's weaknesses.
The specific hotkeys are better to use in many situations.
Sometimes it is much better to have grouped
ranged attackers walk (right click or "M" for a definite
move without attack) nearer the enemy and then have them attack
using the "A" hotkey. This way they'll all get to attack
instead of only the ones in the front and is much more efficient.
To attack a building without being attacked from behind, "M"
move your guys to the building. Only right click your units on
the building if you are watching your units, or they'll be attacked
from behind and die.
Attack types and Unit Size:
In the readme there is a section on the types of attacks and the
sizes of units. This greatly affects which units are good against
which. For instance, Vultures do great damage against Zealots
but hardly any damage to Dragoon's HP's. Learn all of these distinctions
well!
Save your fighting men that are being hurt.
Walk the ones in the front lines who are getting attacked to the
back; if they will make it, you will still win the fight. Sometimes
depending on the situation it is more efficient to let them fight
it out.
Right click units on other friendly units
to make them follow. This keeps them from ever attacking and is
especially useful when you don't want certain units to attack
and alert the enemy of your presence, or to save Protoss Reaver's
scarabs from attacking the wrong targets.
Use hit and run tactics for fast ranged
units against melee units if it kills them better and you have
time to do this.
Use hit and run tactics with shield batteries
for the Protoss.
Burrow Zerg units when they are at risk
of dying and there is no anti-burrow devices around. Remember
that if they are being hit frequently they cannot burrow.
If an enemy is after one specific unit,
have him run in circles around friendly units or towards friendly
units.
Spread units out to avoid area effect specials.
Keep your men moving and there will be less of a chance they will
get hit with the special. You can also place air units above their
own units so their units will get hit by the special too. Send
one or two units to take out the "casters."
Get all your fighters together when you
mount an attack (unless you need a few on defense). Use the shift
key to keep selecting units, then move them all to the same location.
The best way to do this is to right click them all on the selected
unit that is closest to the area you want to go to. That way they
will break formation and come together. Beware of ambushes while
doing this.
Use a few men as a distraction and sacrifice to allow you to cast area effect specials more accurately. Simply have the decoys fight the enemy and then you have the best casting opportunities.
Upgrading men:
In the earlier parts of the game, it is unwise to upgrade armor/weapons/shields very much at all. They are too expensive in gas. At most, upgrade only one of these things. Conversely, speed, range, and special/spell upgrades are much more useful. After you secure another set of resources, then procede to upgrade the armor and weapons of the units you are using the most. Don't bother with Protoss shield upgrades until you are rich.
Expanding:
Before you expand you should have the right
number of men to defend or attack for the specific map and game
you are in. Expand nearby if possible so you can defend both bases
at once, or expand in a strange out of the way place on a big
map to avoid being detected and attacked. Beware of scouts like
burrowed Zerglings and observers when expanding.
Pick easily defendable expansions when
it is convenient. For instance, get a small island expansion instead
of a large one because it takes less towers to keep enemy transports
out. Just do not overdefend in the early or mid game since it
will make you hurt for cash.
Sometimes you should expand a bit early
if your offense is doing well, since they won't be able to attack
you easily while defending. If you are really destroying them,
expand and don't worry about defending that base at all. Wait
for them to sneak attack it then build some defenses. Mostly concentrate
on not letting them expand since you have the upper hand.
Never wait till they expand to expand yourself unless you plan
to destroy their expansion as soon as it is started (or right
when the hall is finished building).
Psychological Factors:
Something that MayGodHelpU has said before,
and I find it to be so true: don't play afraid. You have to be
thinking in a positive manner. If you start thinking of all of
the holes in your defense, you forget to look at his weaknesses
and exploit them. There is probably never a perfect defense, and
if there were it'd be too expensive to make during the early and
mid game. Offense is the best way to go, even if it is the form
of intimidation or pestering. Keep them distracted and they will
lose their pattern of playing. The best players are flexible,
so don't think you can beat everyone just by throwing a new tactic
at them.
Always keep in mind what is important at
that time. You can't possibly do everything you need to at once,
so take a few seconds to think of what you need to do. Don't ever
get in a rush to do something without first thinking of what is
best. For instance, don't be afraid to Psionic Storm or Plague
a few of your men if it means certain death for many of their
men. Another example of thinking instead of reacting, is to pull
your men out of an attack or a defense if they are certain to
lose. Save them for later.
When you find yourself in a losing battle, ignore all "rules" and do whatever risky tactic you have to that gives you the best hope for survival. For instance, if they are attacking your workers and you have no hope of saving them, send all your troops to attack their workers/weak points in hopes of drawing their attack away. Another example would be to expand like mad when you are hurt badly. In a FFA I once had to fight two opponents at once and was nearly wiped out completely. I decided my only hope was to get tons of money and hope they would be too busy with each other to finish me off. So I expanded all over, without defending one base. In the end, I pulled it off!
Reconnaissance
Always, always spy on them. Use the 15th
or so peon/worker built for scouting purposes. Of course the later
you use your peon, the less this will strain your economy. However,
on rush maps you need to scout with your peon much, much earlier.
I can't emphasize it enough - spying is
so important. If you see what they are doing you can counter it
by defending it, or even better go offensive against it and hurt
them. If you cannot see them, you have to guess on how to build,
so try to keep them from spying on you. If you have to waste a
couple of Overlords (after early game), Marines, Zealots, or Peons
to spy, do it! It will be worth the money!
Keep an eye on each available resource
area. Have men patrolling back and forth between two resource
spots.
In mid and late game use pylons and depots as cheap "scouts" that extend beyond the fringes of your bases or even completely separate in the middle of the map or near resources.
Recon is one of the most important elements
in strategy games. You must first locate the enemy, then keep
track of what they are doing. If you can immediately locate expansion
towns and destroy them, and always meet your opponent's forces
with counter-forces, victory will be assured.
Your first recon task is to find the enemy. This is important
so you will know what direction attacks will be coming from, and
where you need to send attacks of your own. It's also good to
know what direction your opponent is going in-- if you see a Protoss
player building several Gateways, you can expect a heavy Zealot
attack.
Recon Rush
In Allied games, sometimes a team member might send out a worker
early to scout the map, using shared vision to pass that information
to the other team members. In one on one games, this can be damaging
as even a single worker is very important at that stage in the
game to build up, but in allied games you can usually count on
your teammates to cover for you. After finding the enemy you can
make team decisions as to whom to attack, what person will attack
which enemy or, most likely, who you will all concentrate your
forces on. Zerg Players have the ability to send out Overlords
to scout the map at that early stage in the game, but because
Overlords initially travel very slow, it might be faster to send
a Drone instead. Keep in mind that this will get that scouting
player behind, and they might need to be protected early on until
they can recover economically from losing a worker at such an
early stage in the game.
Zerg players can park their Overlord over
the enemy town fairly early in the game if they happen to find
them. This works very well against Protoss because to attack the
Overlord they must build Dragoons or a Photon Cannon. You can
often sit over their town and watch them for quite a while. Protoss
players should use a Dragoon to get rid of the spy as soon as
possible. Generally, as soon as the Zerg player sees a finished
Cybernetics Core, they should move their Overlord away to high
ground or a safe territory. Terran players can use a Marine to
get rid of the Overlord so this isn't a concern with them. Zerg
players must wait until a Hydralisk is done before they can get
rid of the Overlord. If at all possible, move under the Overlord
before attacking it to increase the chance of killing it before
it gets away. Losing even a single Overlord at that stage of the
game will disrupt the Zerg player's buildup strategy.
Standard Recon
More conservative players can wait until their first attack unit
(Zergling, Marines, or Zealots) before sending out a recon mission.
It is up to you to decide how many you want to send out scouting,
and it depends greatly on the map size. On large maps, only one
Marine or Zealot will take forever to explore the map and find
the enemy unless you get lucky. Most likely the enemy will be
well established before you find them. So the larger the map is,
the more scouting troops you should probably send.
Keep in mind that if you get attacked by
a full force while your troops are out scouting, it could spell
the end for you. Scouting is a risky maneuver but it can pay off.
Sometimes it's simply a matter of luck. If the enemy gets lucky
and finds you early, it can be over.
After you find the enemy you have to make
a decision if you want to attack or continue to build up. If you
see a definite advantage, attack. Keep in mind though that the
enemy may be able to build up a defense in the time it takes you
to walk your troops across the map.
Watching the Enemy
It is important to make periodic checks on the enemy town to see
what units are available to them, and possibly what strategy they
might be trying for. It's important to become familiar with the
tech tree for all three species, even if you specialize in playing
only one of them. For example, if you find a Protoss player with
four Gateways, a Nexus, and nothing else except Pylons, you know
that they are probably going for Zealots. If they have one Gateway,
a Cybernetics Core, and a Robotics Facility, expect a Reaver drop.
Stopping various strategies is often as simple as catching the
enemy while they are attempting them. Examples of this are enemies
building Bunkers/Shield Batteries/Barracks/Gateways outside your
town, trying to set up defensive formations in high traffic or
key locations, or expanding to new resource nodes. As noted above,
it's also important to determine what units are available to your
opponent, and whether they are focusing on a one-unit strategy
or not.
Terrans
For this task, Terrans have the easiest time. They can use the
Scanner Sweep ability of the ComSat Station, after building a
Barracks and an Academy. This cannot be countered by the enemy
without destroying the ComSat Station. Terrans can use Marines
initially to scout until the ComSat station is available.
Vultures with the Ion Thrusters upgrade make incredible scouts.
Send them around the resource spots using waypoints. You can lay
Spider Mines at the resource spots to spot and attack anyone trying
to build by them (keep in mind that Mines are not activated by
hovering workers.) Mines make incredible scouts-- lay them in
well traveled areas, and outside the defensive perimeter of your
town to spot and harass enemy troops. An upgraded Vulture can
also be used to run right through enemy towns-- their fast speed
sometimes allows them to zip right past defenses.
You can also use cloaked Wraiths to scout the enemy if they do
not have detection yet. Usually a ComSat is more effective, though,
especially if you remember to use it every time its energy reaches
full charge.
Protoss
Protoss have a hard time with spying until they are able to use
Observers. Use Zealots and Probes to scout the map until Observers
are available. Unless you are really doing well, you won't want
to leave your expensive combat units like Zealots and Dragoons
sitting around resource spots. Once you have enough Probes gathering
minerals and gas at your main base, send them out to sit and wait
until you're ready to start on an expansion town.
Once Observers are available, use them. They make perfect scouts,
since they are small, fast (when upgraded), and, of course, invisible.
Hide them over the resource spots, send them over the enemy towns,
leave them along land routes between your bases, plant them any
place that you can. Researching their speed and sight upgrades
makes them the best scouts available to any species.
Zerg
The main Zerg scout is the Overlord. Be sure to research the speed
and sight upgrades. Overlords are visible, vulnerable, and valuable,
so a better scout is...
The lowly Zergling! Place a burrowed Zergling at every resource
spot. This will only cost a little of money because they are so
cheap. You will find that the computer Zerg AI uses this strategy
quite well. You can burrow larger forces as more minerals are
available-- 6-12 Zergling won't impact your economy much, but
can quickly destroy and enemy attempt to expand. Place Zergling
at other high traffic areas to watch enemy movement. Often your
Zergling will be able to sit there untouched for quite a while,
giving you a free scout on the map.
This also works with Drones and Hydralisks.
Burrow Drones at resource spots until you have enough money to
build a Hatchery.
Queens can parasite units and let the units do recon for them.
Starving the Enemy
Often winning the game is as simple as
making good recon on enemy expansion. It is important to grab
multiple resource spots (especially geysers) in order to build
more units, or to afford the more expensive units such as Carriers,
Battlecruisers and Guardians. If you can deny the enemy these
additional spots, they will not be able to fund further troops
and you will eventually be able to overpower them if you use your
troops effectively.
Many inexperienced players don't realize this, and when they lose the game they wonder why the lost. Often the reason is that their enemy mined more resources than they did. Take a look at the stats after each game, and find out if that was true. If so, you know that it is an area you want to improve at. There are always corners that can be cut to make resource gathering faster. It is up to you to find out what those corners are. While having the most resources doesn't guarantee victory in and of itself, it certainly makes it easier!
Transports
The Basics
Transports are used to ferry your units across vast distances
and impassible terrain. Each race has a unit capable of transporting
ground units. Terrans have the Dropship, Protoss have the Shuttle,
and the Zerg use Overlords. While Terrans and Protoss transports
are designed specifically to transport units, Zerg Overlords must
evolve Ventral Sacs at a Hive or Lair before they can be used
to carry units.
The Protoss Shuttle with the Gravitic Drive
upgrade (researched at the Robotics Support Bay) is the fastest
of the three transports. The Dropship is the second fastest, and
Overlords are the slowest even when after they receive the Pneumatized
Carapace upgrade.
Terran Dropships can be repaired very quickly
with multiple SCVs. Protoss Shuttles can have their shields recharged
with a Shield Battery, but they can never repair hit point damage.
Zerg Overlords can completely regenerate their healh, but it takes
quite a while. With Dropships and Shuttles, you'll want to make
sure you repair/recharge them between sorties. Zerg players usually
have enough Overlords that they can simply grab a fresh, uninjured
group and allow damaged Overlords to heal.
Transports are capable of delivering ground
units anywhere where there is room to land. Keep this in mind
when building your defenses and looking for weak spots in your
opponent's towns. If only land routes and choke points are defended
in a town, it's going to be a perfect target for a transport drop--
Reavers or StimPacked Marines are especially deadly. Be sure to
keep your entire base protected by anti-air defenses, as well
as ground troops to kill off any enemies that do manage to drop
in.
Transports unload units one at a time at
a very slow pace. It is best to unload units in areas where they
will not come under attack. You will find that if you send transports
into a hot zone, you will only get 1-3 units unloaded before your
transport is destroyed. If landing in defended territory is the
only option, Terran players can use Defensive Matrix to protect
their Dropships, and Protoss players might consider sending a
few Hallucinations to soak up enemy fire. Zerg will simply have
to rely on sheer numbers, but should be prepared for the drop
in Control if they lose several Overlords.
It is very damaging to lose a transport
full of units because you're not only losing that transport but
all the units inside without a fight. If a transport is in danger
of being destroyed, or is about to encounter attack, try to unload
as soon as possible wherever you can. Better to unload and save
one or two units than to lose all of them. The units might even
be able to help defend the transport from attack.
If your town is extremely cramped, you
might have new units occasionally become trapped when they appear.
Rather than destroying this unit, use a transport to get them
out. It's also a good idea to move your workers from exhausted
resource spots to new ones with a transport, instead of building
a new batch in your expansions.
Loading and Unloading (or, "What good
is that Load button, anyway?")
To load ground units in a transport, select them, then right click
on the transport. The units and the transport will move towards
each other. If you have multiple troops spread out over a wide
area, this method isn't the best to use, as the transport and
units will take a while to coordinate. Use this when you want
to pick up a group of units that are fairly close to each other.
Each transport also has a Load button on it. Select this button
or use the hot key L and click on the unit that you want to pick
up. The transport will move to pick it up. While this may seem
like a more complicated method, you can combine it with command
queueing to explicitly order your transport to pick up several
units in order. Select the Transport then hold down Shift. While
holding down Shift select Load or hot key L and click on each
unit you want to load, no matter where they are or how far they
are away. Release the Shift button when you have clicked on all
the units you want to load. The transport will fly to each unit
in order and pick it up.
You can also do the opposite if you want to load up several transports at once-- select the units that you want to load, hold down the Shift key, and right-click on the transports that you want to load up. The units will fill up each transport in order. This is especially useful when loading up large units like Reavers and Siege Tanks.
Unit Commands
Move
Hot key: M
Move tells a unit to move to the destination
that you click on no matter what they run into. If the enemy starts
attacking them, they will continue on their way taking any damage
without responding. This command means essentially, "Go there
no matter what". This command should be used very carefully--
if you tell a group of units to move to a location, and they are
ambushed by enemy units, they will continue towards the destination
rather than responding to the attack. This can quickly lead to
a massive slaughter of your forces if you are not careful. They
will walk by Bunkers, run straight into and by Siege Tanks, or
anything else that crosses their path. They will not stop unless
they run into some physical barrier such as water, high ground
and so on.
You should only use this command when you
are sure the enemy will not ambush your forces or when you don't
care if your force take any damage from any enemy units they meet
along the way, i.e. if you're trying to retreat your troops or
move past enemy defenses to get to their workers.
Note: right-clicking on an area (not unit or building) also issues
the move command.
Follow
You can tell a unit to follow another unit by selecting a unit,
then right clicking on the unit that you want it to follow. You
can then tell another unit to follow the unit that was told to
follow the first unit. (Still with me?). You can then daisy chain
a group of units, telling each unit to follow another one, until
you have a long group following one unit. Then you need only to
control the main leader of the line to direct the strung out targets
to their destination. This can allow you to control over 12 units
(the selection limit) at one time.
If you want to have fun you can tell the first unit in the conga
line to follow the unit at the at the rear of the line, making
them travel in circles. You can get units to travel in circles
around objects such as buildings, lakes, and high ground. although
this may not hurt the enemy directly, they certainly may die of
laughter.
Following is useful in scouting. This is
especially the case when you want to follow a unit you cannot
attack. For example, if you have a firebat and you see a Dropship
you want to follow, you can order the Firebat to follow the Dropship
by right-clicking on it. You may receive a message telling you
it cannot be attacked but the unit will still follow the enemy.
You can then direct a real force towards the area.
If you have an Overlord or Observer out
scouting and you come across another enemy Overlord, you can follow
it to see where it goes giving you some indication to where the
Overlord came from. This can be invaluable near the beginning
of the game when you're trying to find your opponent's base.
When fighting cloaked units, it's very important to have detecting units nearby, but most detector units are slower than the offensive units that they're escorting. By having your fighting force follow the detector, you can ensure that your units won't stray too far.
Stop
Hot key: S
The Stop command tells a unit to stop where they are as soon as possible, ignoring and canceling whatever previous command they were given (provided you are not queueing commands). Stop is useful when you have a group of moving units that you want to stop and open fire immediately. For example, if you have a group of Marines on move orders, and they encounter an enemy squad, it's faster to issue a Stop command than it is to order them to Attack an area. This comes in handy when your forces are about to run into some serious defenses that you may not have previously known about-- you don't really want your units to retreat where they will continue to take damage nor do you want them to continue where they will come under even more fire.
Attack and Attack-Move
Hot key: A
The Attack Command instructs a unit to
attack a target which may be friendly or not. The unit will move
to and attack the unit or building you clicked on if it is able
to. If it is unable to attack that target, possibly because it
is unable to attack air units, or for some other reason, you will
receive a message indicating that problem to you. You won't, however,
be warned about any obstacles the unit may come across along the
way such as enemy units, rivers, high ground and so on. It is
up to you to make sure your forces reach their destination. You
will find that careful control and Waypoints can help you in this
task.
In the case of buildings with attack buttons
such as the Protoss Photon Cannon, Terran Missile Turret, Zerg
Sunken Colony and Spore Colony, the buildings will either attack
the target you click on, or will give you a message indicating
that they cannot attack the target.
If you select Attack and click on an area,
rather than a unit, the forces will "attack-move" to
the area you clicked on, automatically engaging any enemy units
or buildings that come into their range on the way to their destination.
They will not react to any units that they are unable to attack
unless they are fired upon. For example, if you attack-move some
Firebats to a destination and they come under attack by enemy
flying units they will run, but if they spot an enemy Shuttle,
they will ignore it and continue on to their destination.
Attack-move is by far the safest way to
move units from one location to another. If you use the move command
instead, your forces might walk through an enemy ambush, and instead
of returning fire they will continue on while they are being attacked.
This is only desirable in certain instances better explained in
the move command section. Basically, attack-move can be considered
the same as a "search and destroy" order, and is the
easiest way to clear out towns and allow your troops to deal with
unexpected enemies.
Right Clicking (Command Clicking) on an
enemy unit is the same as selecting the Attack command and clicking
on the unit. If, however, you miss the intended target and click
on the ground rather instead, you will end up issuing a move command.
Avoid using right-click to designate attacks on fast, small and
hard to select units such as Zergling. You will find that it is
a lot easier to select Attack and click on an area near them to
get your forces to attack-move, rather than trying to select an
individual enemy. Use right click when you will have no problem
click on the enemy unit, or if you want to explicitly target a
specific unit, such as a High Templar that's about to use Psionic
Storm.
Try to use attack-move (via clicking on the surrounding area) rather than targeting an enemy unit, unless you absolutely intend to kill the targeted unit at any cost. A common problem is when you select a group of units and tell them to attack an enemy unit some distance away. If that enemy unit is killed, all the units that you told to attack it will stop, since they no longer have a target. Since you won't receive any warning that they've lost their target, you might not realize that those reinforcements that you were waiting for are still sitting halfway across the battlefield. This problem will not happen if you tell the units to attack-move by selecting the ground surrounding the area you want to move to, rather than selecting an enemy unit.
Patrol
Hot key: P
A unit on patrol will effectively perform
an attack-move between its location and the point that you tell
it to patrol to. Just like a normal attack-move, the unit will
automatically engage any enemy troops that it encounters, unless
it has no way to attack them (Firebat vs. air unit, for example.)
If an enemy opens fire on the patrolling unit and it has no way
to counter-attack, the patrolling unit will run and lose its patrol
route.
Once a patrolling unit encounters an enemy, it will attempt to
destroy it, pursuing it if necessary, but it will resume its normal
patrol route once it has decontrol with the enemy. The exception
is that ground units will not chase after air units-- they will
fire on it until it leaves their sight, then resume their patrol
path. This is to prevent your opponent from using air units to
draw your troops to cliff edges and other areas. Air Troops will
chase both air targets and ground target that come into range,
even off their patrol path. They will then return to their patrol
path once the enemy target is destroyed, provided they are not
destroyed.
Use Patrol with flyers to watch resource spots and make sure the enemy does not build on them. This can be done early on with Zerg Overlords, and later using Terran Dropships and Protoss Shuttles. You may want to use non-attacking flyers to scout so they will continue to scout the map without engaging the enemy (provided they are not attacked.)
Hold Position
Hot key: H
Hold Position orders the unit to stay where
it is no matter what happens. If that unit is attacked, it will
fire back if the enemy is within range but it will not chase that
enemy. If a unit on Hold Position is attacked and it cannot return
fire it will continue to sit there taking damage until it is destroyed.
That's the danger with Hold Position-- a single enemy unit with
superior range can pick off your troops one by one.
Hold Position is very useful for air units
that will chase any unit that they come across. Sometimes the
enemy will send in a bait unit that will fire briefly then run
back to cover. If you're not watching, your army might blindly
follow that bait unit back into a trap. That is where Hold Position
comes in handy. Placing air units on hold position will insure
they will not go wandering off. Hold Position is very important
when using Protoss Carriers, Terran Battleships, and Zerg Guardians.
If you don't watch them, they will all separate heading after
various targets on their own.
Arbiters will fire on and chase units that come into their range if they are placed on Stop or normal guard mode (the default mode for any stationary unit). Usually, you want your Arbiter to stay where it is so it will continue to cloak the units under it. By using Hold Position you can ensure the Arbiter won't go wandering off somewhere.