Day 8, Macro Errors 2

Starting on a more personal note today, I was promoted back into master league last night. Because of that, two nights from now I'll start going over exactly what I am personally doing in my play to improve. For tonight, I'll continue covering some basic macro problems, specifically the importance of continual army production for the terran race, and why this is different from other races.

The Difference

Army creation is the most distinctive difference between the races from a macro perspective. Each race has different abilities and requirements involved in making their units.

Zergs are forced to choose between a worker and a combat unit every time they have to make a unit. They also have the limitation of larva imposed, making expanding and larva injecting high priority. The primary advantage of their system is that they are allowed to make any unit from a larva, provided they have the minerals and tech building. They do not have different production structures to create different units, which allows for faster adjustments to composition. On top of this, supply blocks are less harmful to long term Zerg army development. They still affect the short term army, but larva blocks (periods of time where larva are not being producted for any reason) become the mistake that affects later army size.

We will assume warp gate for Protoss gateway units, as in almost any game a majority of gateway units will be produced using this tech. This allows the protoss to create units at will with a short cooldown, rather than being required to wait for a unit for a long time after devoting the resources. That immediate production, combined with being able to warp in anywhere on a power field, allows the Protoss to be more reactive with most of its unit production, meaning that there can be a benefit to unit production that isn't constant. Chronoboost exaggerates this effect, and affords the protoss more flexibility on both the exact infrastructure he has invested in and the timing on his unit creation. The downsides here are mostly that protoss units are very expensive, so each one must be carefully chosen for a strong composition, and some of the most powerful protoss units (robo and stargate based) require that long construction time, which can make handling the compostition as a whole more complicated.

Terran. This is what I see as the most classic RTS unit creation design. Units come out of 6 different structures, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and the number of each of these structures determines most of the Terran composition. These structures create a very rigid army creation method, especially when you consider that each unit has a specific time required to create it. And yes, as someone who is seeing more and more ultras in late game TvZ, a reactored barracks is different enough from a tech lab barracks to be mentioned. Due to these limitations, a terran player must be constantly creating an army, as any time not creating an army is a permanent set back to the final army. This is clearly different from both Zerg and Protoss, as their production relies more on creating the correct units at the correct times, rather than simply always making units after having set up the correct infrastructure.

Tomorrow I'll talk about how to ensure that, as Terran, you are constantly making those units, and if you aren't, how to learn.

Bibbit Canada. July 18 2012 11:42. Posts 4499

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You know, I always thought I read before that you were like silver league or something. I was confused how you seemed to be pretty damn insightful for such a low level player. Turns out I was just 100% wrong :D

I really dig these, nicely done ^_^

See my profile for things I've written. Samsung's Shine has developed a sick new tactic called "Pick a building you don't want the other guy to have, right click it with everything you own, then run away"

Zultar July 19 2012 09:38. Posts 25

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Thanks. Always nice to get some positive feedback.

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