Starcraft 2 Guide

This Starcraft 2 Guide assumes you have some knowledge about Starcraft 2 and started climbing the ladders in 1v1-games. If you are haven’t read the Beginner’s Guide, I recommend you check out that first. This guide will not focus on specific races of Starcraft 2, but instead discuss some of the common approaches and concepts of all the races.

Get the money working for you

One of the signs of a good plan or playstyle is not only harvesting more resources than the enemy, but being able to use those resources. Optimally, you should always have your productionbuilding making units, and keep your resources low that way. In the beginning it’s usually easy, as you have trained on your opening build order, and know when you can afford that third barrack or additional warp gate.

Use your money: Make sure you keep using your money. Expand, upgrade or throw down more production buildings. The next time you have too much money, spend them on units from your brand new buildings.

When you get into the midgame, it’s usually a bit more variable from game to game how much you are able to produce. A good rule-of-thumb is that you are able to produce from about 3 buildings continually, with a healthy mix of cheap and expensive units from one base. When you are expanding, throw down a few additional productionbuildings, to make sure you are able to use the resources. For zerg it’s a bit different, as all units are produced from larva. Learn more about that in the zerg guide.

Get your expansion up

In a game where both players are equally good, your economy will often decide who will be the winner. That means you should never be behind the opponent on expansions. If you see the enemy grabbing his second expansion, you need to decide if you should put the pressure on to take down one of his expansions, take your own second expansion or attack to secure the win.

Transfer workers: When you take a new expansion, you should transfer workers there. This is both to get the expansion saturated faster, and to make sure you current bases don't run dry too early. If you are taking a gold expansion, you might even consider fully saturating it at once, as the workers will collect more minerals there.

One of the best practices is to keep producing workers all the time. When you have saturated your current bases, secure a new expansion to make sure your economy will still be growning. The timing of the first expansion is usually the hardest. This depends a lot on what your opponent is doing. You need to make sure you are able to protect your expansion, or you will quickly be behind both armywise and in the economy. Transfer drones from your current bases when your expansion is up.

There has been some discussions on what the ideal number of workers are for mining resources. Blizzards tip in-game is three for each mineral node and gas, but usually you want to get your expansion up before you reach this number. 3 workers on each gas and between 2-3 on each mineralnode is the optimal amount. If you have more workers, they will be moving between the nodes trying to find a free mineral node.

Micro and macro

Two important concepts in Starcraft 2 is micro and macro. Micro is the word used for controlling your army and individual units. It means using the special abilites, attacking at the right moment and moving away injured units. It’s also an important concept when scouting and harassing.

Micro and macro: Microintensive units like Reapers are great for harassing the enemy early on, but make sure you don't forget your macro while you are doing that.

Macro is the big picture. It’s about economy and production. When you are out harassing your enemy, you shouldn’t stop production or expanding. When you are launching an attack, it might be time to throw up an expansion. Use hotkeys to make sure you are always using your resources. Being able to both micro and macro is one of the vital skills of good players.

Don’t neglect upgrades

Upgrades are one of the factors in the game that many new players totally forget or overuse. Knowing then to invest the resources into an upgrade instead of an extra unit is valuable knowledge. If you are using a lot of zerglings you might consider giving them an attackupgrade, even if you never intend to go for ultralisks. When you have twelve marauders, you can improve you army more by giving all of those units extra attackstrength than producing another marauder.

Don’t be afraid to put down two buldings for upgrades of armor/shield/attack if you have resources to back it up. If you are on three bases, you should have the economy to continually upgrade until you are at 3/3-upgrades. When you are getting close to maximum supply, the upgrades are the only thing you can do to make sure you have the superior army. Upgrades takes time, so get them started early. You can bookmark the buildings where you upgrade, and keep checking them continually.

Control the map

Mapcontrol is an important concept in Starcraft 2. It means you have sight on important places of the map, and force the opponent to turtle up in their base. It means you will have a lot of time to respond to attacks and know when the opponent is expanding. One of the vital parts of mapcontrol is having air superiority. If you have a bigger airforce than the enemy, that means he will not be able to move out of the base without risking an attack on his vital buildings or workers. Zerg have mutalisks which is very good at providing you mapcontrol.

Map control: A Zergling at the Xel'Nata Tower can be a cheap and effective way to see a lot of the map.

Zel’Naga Towers is another useful way to provide some mapcontrol. Terran can siege up tanks and build turrets to fortify their position and guard the tower. That way you will know in advance when the enemy is moving out.

One of the closely related terms are containing, which means you are forcing the enemy to stay in his base. Containing the enemy usually means you have mapcontrol, and can expand safely. The enemy is forced to either fly around your contain or meeting it head on to break it.

Use mobile armies

A lot of beginners like build stationary and slow defenses like cannons, turrets and spine crawlers. Sometimes you need a few defensive structures, but try to always build mobile armies. A good opponent will always find ways to break your defenses, and if he can’t he will just expand and out-macro you. Having a mobile army means you will have a strong force within reasonable time in any of your bases to force the opponent to retreat. It also means you are free to attack if you see the possibility. If you have used most of your resources on Spine Crawlers, Turrets, Bunkers or Cannons, you will not have the forces to attack. The supreme mobile army is airunits, which can also provide mapcontrol. Other examples of mobile armies are MMM-balls, Blink-Stalkers and the use of Nydus Networks.

Stalkers with blink: Using mobile armies like Stalkers with blink can help you prevent harassment and save you the cost of building stationary defences like cannons.

Harassing the enemy

Harassing the enemy means using a few mobile or special units to attack strategic target of the enemy, often workers. Examples of this type of units are Reapers, Mutalisks and Dark Templars. It’s also possible to harass with parts of your main army like a Marine/Marauder-drop, Zergling-runby or Blink-Stalkers. The purpose of harassing is usually threefold. First you want to damage the economy of the opponent. Second you want to buy time, building up your army or securing an expansion. The third reason is throwing the enemy off his game. When you attack, he might forget to replace the destroyed workers or buildings and he has to rearrange his defenses. While this might be the least visible effect, it’s often the most important. He might be fearing more attacks, and overcompensating by placing defenses.

Harassing: MMM is a popular choice for army, but they are also effective for harassing the enemy. They are mobile, they are strong and you can use them in your main army.

Attack at the right time

Choosing where a battle is going to take place is very important for the outcome. One of these places are choke points on the map. If you are able to force the enemy into attacking you at a choke point, you can take down or severly damage a superior army. At the entrance to your base there are usually a choke point known as the ramp. In addition to the choke point, there is usually a cliff. This means that the enemy can’t see all of your units, while you have full sight of his. The ramp is usually the best place to defend your base. Some armies do better on open terrain, while others like to have a choke point where they are forcing the army. Zerglings like to have open space and a lot of room, because it means they can surround the enemy. Siege Tanks like to have stay behind a choke while, ironic, tankier units keep the enemy at bay and away from the Siege Tanks.

Know when to attack: By attacking when the enemy is passing through a choke point, you make sure you get a good concave. That way all your units can shoot, while the enemy is trying to get to you to attack.

Timing attacks

Timing attacks is attacks based on an advantage in upgrades or units. Finishing a upgrade or getting out a technologically superior unit early can improve your army, allowing you to do a timing attack. Examples of this is attacking with Marauders just when Concussive Shells finishes. An early Void-Ray is another timing attack, based on assuming the enemy doesn’t have enough anti-air early to keep it back. Timing attacks can often be revealed by scouting, so if you are doing a timing attack, try to deny scouting. One of the most famous timing attacks is the protoss 4-warpgate rush. This attack is based on the Warp Gate-upgrade, allowing the protoss to warp in units close to the opponents base, and having the economy to produce out of four warpgates.

Tripple racks: Many terran players like opening up with three barracks and building marines and marauders. When the first upgrades are finished, they attack, often with great success if the enemy is unprepared.

That’s the concept we are currently covering in this guide. Check out our other guides and articles, or fire up Starcraft 2 and start improving our position on the ladder.