1741

Get all the Marine and Medic ones first, as they are your Staple unit and you can pretty much win every mission spamming solely medic marine. Other then that… Just upgrade the units you think are fun I guess? All the upgrades do help substantially.

1742

Any tech for units you decide not to use are useless. The medic, marine, and scv upgrades are all great but otherwise just go with what you like to use.

1743

Thanks for that. I tried to copy what you did and after several tries I was able to win. I wasn’t able to park my units next to the enemy base without being seen for long like you did (still not sure how you did that), but was able to hold off the second wave of attack and then had my own group in reserve to attack the undefended zerg base.

I notice you moved an SCV early into the zerg base, for scouting reasons I guess? I’ve never been able to use scouting a base to good effect, since it takes my attention away from building elsewhere and I lose valuable time, and the info I glean is never useful to me for some reason (unless it’s seeing enemy units approaching)

1744

I’ve gotten into the habit of always scouting, since they tell you that’s necessary in MP, though how much use I get out of it varies from game to game. As far as taking attention away, if you hotkey your production buildings it’s merely a matter of pressing [number]+S to keep building SCVs, and [number]+A or [number]+D at your barracks to make marines/mauraders, that sort of thing. I find basic hotkeying is enough to allow steady production while I’m microing distant units, though if I want to place new buildings etc. I need to focus back home…

I’m sure the high level players around here can tell you much more useful stuff about all that.

1745

I wasn’t able to park my units next to the enemy base without being seen for long like you did (still not sure how you did that)

I reprogrammed the simulation so it was possible to leave units outside the enemy base.

I don’t like to lose.

1746

I hate to use this phrase, but you just won the internet. Bravo, sir.

1747

Im curious to know how many copies of sc2 have been sold. Has there been any data anywhere stating any of this?

1748

and the info I glean is never useful to me for some reason

The core of it is, what buildings has the opponent got up, and what does that tell you about what units he’s going to build? Then you try to build counters.

This is all easier said than done in my experience, but that’s the idea. Also things like, if he is gathering Vespene gas early, that might mean he is going to move toward midlevel units rather than try a super-early rush. Only, it might not mean that… the more you know all the sides & their units & buildings and what the hot strategies are, the more info scouting will give you, or rather the better percentage that the conclusions you draw from it will be correct…

One simple example – if a Protoss opponent has built a forge very early on, it might mean he is going for a cannon-cheese rush (building cannons in your base), because the forge is an essential prerequisite for cannons. Of course, maybe he’s just going to use it to upgrade his Zealots. But at least you know to be a little more aware of what his drones are doing in your base…

1749

See, that’s why I don’t play MP. I build stuff cuz it’s available to build. “Hmm, looks like I can build a thingamajib now. Let’s see what that does!!”

1750

Had an interesting game, TvT. Just as my 4 cloaked Banshees attacked his mineral line, he attacks my mineral line with a dozen Reapers. The Reapers kill 90% of my SCVs, my two Starports, my factory, my defending marines and bring my (lifted) CC down to 20 health before I can put it down at my expansion and start repairing. The only units I have left in my base are a medivac and a siege tank with about 12 hp and 6 kills.

I almost GG, but he’s lost almost everything at his base as well, and he didn’t manage to lift his CC in time. He has a Viking, bunkers, a couple of SCVs and a few unit-producing structures protected by missile turrets.

I doggedly build back up some kind of economy and eventually drop in the back of his base with a pile of marines. Ah, sweet victory.

As a side note, I’m seeing people GG gracefully only about a quarter of the time. Most of the time people just quit without saying a word and surprisingly often people type GG, but keep on playing and hope I don’t find their second base…

1751

I wonder how this game is being received in South Korea and what it has done to Starcraft 1 over there. Any articles about that somewhere?

1752

surprisingly often people type GG, but keep on playing and hope I don’t find their second base…

Yeah, this has happened to me too. Annoying.

1753

I think the numbers are more than a shit-ton but less than a fuck-load.

1754

I just think the GG etiquette is mainly known to players who are SC1 multiplayer veterans or those who frequent gaming sites and have learned this etiquette from the same. There’s a ton of new players who might not even know about it.

1755

We talking a metric or imperial shitton here?

1756

Clearly imperial - shit-ton, not shit-tonne. But are they short or long shit-tons?

1757

I’d say it running about 50/50 “gg” for me in the bronze league, which I assume is where most of the newbies are. I wonder if it’s any more common in gold and up.

I have to say I’ve watched a few replays from one of the (I’m told) top zerg players world wide. His name is Idra, and literally every game I’ve watched with him versus Terran is him bitching the other person out and saying they are failures with no self-respect (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGQnnMvlAPQ ). It’s some pretty spectacular nerd rage from someone who apparently makes their living playing this game.

Meanwhile, my recent games against Terran usually go with me making a very focused opening, hitting them hard, and taking out their main. Followed shortly thereafter by me getting lazy while “mopping up”, not scouting, missing their hidden expansions, and then getting destroyed by a swarm of vikings or a MMM ball. Man is it hard to stay focused, but I need to remember you haven’t won until they’re out.

1758

Winning a game of multi-player Starcraft 2 is exhilarating. Losing a game of multi-player Starcraft 2 is beyond frustrating. When I win, I’m proud as heck. When I lose, I want to hurl my keyboard through the window.

I’ve played a handful of multi-player games and I’m about 50/50 wins vs losses, which seems to be the case for everyone. I’m still not very good at the game. But I’m a thousand times better than I used to be – which is thanks almost entirely to this thread and the great folks who have given advice. So thank you all! You’ve made a Starcraft player out of me.

I still think about the game while I’m at work and I enjoy playing it for its polish. But now that I’ve finished the campaign and can reliably beat the skirmish A.I on Hard, I think I’m done with it for a while.

The thing I’m finding with multi-player is that the game just isn’t very much fun. All of the fun to be had is found through winning, which (for me) is not enough. The actual playing of the game needs to be fun as well.

I find that in the multi-player games I play, 95% of the opponents are Terran, and 95% of the time victory comes down to which one of us can build faster. My games are almost always won or lost on the first major sortie – might be either my favour or his, doesn’t matter.

It’s not fun. Okay, it’s fun when I win, but it’s not fun during the actual game. And I don’t feel like I’m playing against a human, I feel more like I’m playing against the clock. There’s no interaction … no real sportsmanship or, I dunno, friendly fellow gamer bonding. It’s basically a silent flurry of activity, both of you toiling away in isolation, followed by a big attack and then either victory or defeat. No one ever says “Wow, good move!” because there’s no time to say good move, you need to be building, building, building. And if you made a good move, then you probably just won the game. There’s only time for one move.

I dunno. The close games that people have described in this thread – where they attacked and defended and attacked again and were down but came back to win – those sound awesome. But that hasn’t been my experience.

1759

Yeah it’s pretty common knowledge that Idra is just a flaming ball of rage and fury that happens to be good at SC2. It’s fun to imagine him flipping his desk or punching a hole in a wall whenever I happen to watch a game where he loses.

1760

Sinnick, I’m hardly the person to be giving you advice, but while I sometimes feel the same way, I think the key is to try out different strategies or try to work on different things (scouting, economy, micro, whatever) each game.

Even if you end up playing terribly, you get something out of it. You really have to enjoy the process of honing skills though, because if you don’t, I don’t think you can get much out of the game. I am surprised your games are decided on the first skirmish though, are you sure you aren’t giving up too early?

For me I wouldn’t be doing it if it weren’t for the amazing ladder system which will reliably throw me against someone truly terrible just when my spirits are lowest. I really appreciate what Blizzard has done here, allowing those of us who are hardcore style players, but with very little gaming time on our hands to find some more or less even competition.