Quote:
Originally Posted by llama64
I'm completely opposite - not a huge fan of random multiplayer gaming. Course, my enormous suckatude at Starcraft factors into this...
I'm now have a record of 1-6. And the one win was due to disconnection.
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I'm only a top silver, low gold player, but some of the biggest mistakes I've noticed that are easily practiced and will help are the following:
1) Macro - make sure you're not stockpiling any more than 500 minerals and 200gas. If you find yourself having too much money, build another production building, research upgrades, and just keep spending! The hardest time to spend is when you are attacking. Often you'll be so focused on an attack, that when you finish, you come back to an empty base and 2000 minerals. If you can force yourself to keep building during an attack and maintain your effectiveness, it will swing games your way. This is especially true if you win the initial battle with a small group of surviving units. If you reinforce that group mid-battle, that would be the game right there. This is in contrast to letting that group die off when the enemy rebuilds some units.
2) Keep building workers: You need ~25 workers to mine your base with maximum efficiency. Then you consider you will have some that are building, the possibility of expansion, and it makes sense to just keep making more. Many newbies build about 15 workers and never build another the rest of the game. Most pro games (like the replay that Hack posted) has both players upwards of 60 workers in two bases. Knowing when to stop to go lair/orbital command is a bit more advanced (and has no correct answer), but it is something to keep in mind.
3) Units are key! It's nice to have lots of gas and get high quality units, but often, low tech units are nice and can be used throughout the game. They can also be used to stop an early rush as well. So if you're protoss, get at least 5-6 zealots, for zerg, get some lings/roaches early, terran build marines/marauders. Of course, in the early game you have to balance out your economy with that of your military, but I find most people will focus too much on economy and get steamrolled by an early attack. A caveat here is that you may lose some games to people that tech fast, and your units will slow you down a bit (most people in low leagues either rush or turtle+tech to carriers), but it will help you start learning, and then later on once you're more familiar with the possibilities, allow you to read and react a lot better.
I don't know. I still find 1v1 to be really stressful, but just these three things will help a lot in 2v2, because early game you'll have the units to support your ally, and later on, you'll always maintain enough units to help out on an attack or defence because of good macro, even if your micro/strategy isn't perfect.