http://repdepot.net/replay.php?id=23082

So I got !!!!d by a noob (he said he was noob) terran player yesterday, he used spidermines so I couldn't get out of my base. How do I counter that when I don't know how many mines there are? He totally dominated me.

Yeah, the obvious answer is that I suck, but I'd like some more detail, like what I should do in situations like these, if I should change/improve my buildorder, when I should expand/attack and where the !@## I should get more early minerals to do that, how I know how many workers I need if I need more etc.

Thanks

- At the very start of a game, build your peon first, then send units to harvest.

- When you do send units to harvest, split them up... you had them all go to a single mineral patch. This severely slows down your early economy.

- Anticipate when your peons are going to finish - use the rally command so that your peons are moving towards you minerals as soon as they warp in; intercept them and tell them to go to a patch. Get in the habit of doing this, it will build up your speed a lot.

- Right before a peon is finished, queue up another one so that no time is lost.

- Never stop building probes... you're sat at 8/9 for no reason.

- Try not to queue more than one probe at a time, you queued four which delayed your next buildings.

- Also, you need to build much quicker... your pylon finished and it took forever before you built a gateway.

- Your build is godawful. You make a second pylon way too early, your gateway finishes and you queue up 2 zealots. This is not putting your money to good use. Learn some early game builds... Typical PvT is going to be pylon, gateway, assim, cybernetics core, and from there you can branch out to either 2 gate goons, fast robo for obs(recommended) or reavers, or even fast DT's.

- Your build is REALLY REALLY bad now. You have an assimilator, 3 gateways, a forge and cannon, zealots, all sitting in your base vs a walled in Terran. You're doing nothing with your gas, you have no tech, your cannon is useless at this stage, and so are your zealots. You're giving map control over to the Terran like this.

- Yeah; the T setup a minefield and you did nothing to prevent it; then dragged all your zealots into it. This is when you said he wasn't a newbie, but to be honest he was pretty bad. He did have a better grasp on the matchup though (ie, go straight to Mech as Terran), but his mechanics were pretty horrid.

- Bleh, I just sped through the rest of it...


Alright, you have a lot of stuff to work on. Basic matchup understanding is going to be a huge one - early game PvT your goal is map control; you should have dragoons outside his choke keeping him contained as long as you can while you expand and build up an army. Always make probes. Always spend your money. Avoid queueing lots of units (that's money that's doing nothing for you). Don't send out a couple units at a time single file to their deaths.

I HIGHLY recommend you do a lot of reading, and replay watching. I recommend http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Main_Page for tips, strategies, and build orders, and http://www.teamliquid.net/replay/ to watch some replays of very good players to learn off of.

Here...

http://repdepot.net/replay.php?id=23113

Just uploaded a replay of myself from about 4 years ago that illustrates most of these points. Notice how I use early dragoons and observers to keep the Terran contained, and by the time he has enough units to push out, I've amassed a large army and I wait patiently for him to move out. When he does, he gets crushed. This is a very basic outline of standard play.

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Q u o t e:
To the OP:
3. He keeps his resources close to zero, i.e. he spends his money and doesn't let it accumulate.

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Until the late game at least... my macro is something I've worked on a LOT over the years. ^_^

Thanks for your replies guys! Will do a lot of reading I think ^_^

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Q u o t e:
- At the very start of a game, build your peon first, then send units to harvest.

- When you do send units to harvest, split them up... you had them all go to a single mineral patch. This severely slows down your early economy.

- Anticipate when your peons are going to finish - use the rally command so that your peons are moving towards you minerals as soon as they warp in; intercept them and tell them to go to a patch. Get in the habit of doing this, it will build up your speed a lot.

- Right before a peon is finished, queue up another one so that no time is lost.

- Never stop building probes... you're sat at 8/9 for no reason.

- Try not to queue more than one probe at a time, you queued four which delayed your next buildings.

- Also, you need to build much quicker... your pylon finished and it took forever before you built a gateway.

- Your build is godawful. You make a second pylon way too early, your gateway finishes and you queue up 2 zealots. This is not putting your money to good use. Learn some early game builds... Typical PvT is going to be pylon, gateway, assim, cybernetics core, and from there you can branch out to either 2 gate goons, fast robo for obs(recommended) or reavers, or even fast DT's.

- Your build is REALLY REALLY bad now. You have an assimilator, 3 gateways, a forge and cannon, zealots, all sitting in your base vs a walled in Terran. You're doing nothing with your gas, you have no tech, your cannon is useless at this stage, and so are your zealots. You're giving map control over to the Terran like this.

- Yeah; the T setup a minefield and you did nothing to prevent it; then dragged all your zealots into it. This is when you said he wasn't a newbie, but to be honest he was pretty bad. He did have a better grasp on the matchup though (ie, go straight to Mech as Terran), but his mechanics were pretty horrid.

- Bleh, I just sped through the rest of it...

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I tried your buildorder but in this game my opponent went marines, firebats and medics instead, and roflstomped my army

http://repdepot.net/replay.php?id=23130

(it's very short, this self proclaimed "noob"owned me in less than 9 minutes so I think you can bear watching it, and tell me what I did wrong this time ;)

also, what do you do if you don't know what your opponent are/what units he's gonna build when deciding build order?

Just watched - You still didn't actually do the build I had suggested; your cybernetics core was very delayed, you were building zealots early for no reason, and there was no tech (DTs, Reaver, observers, etc., all of which could have helped here).

But the main reason you lost was simply lack of awareness. You weren't aware of what your enemy was doing, and tbh, you really did nothing to try to be aware. You scouted late, but even if you scout earlier and still a Terran walls off before you can get in, you should still be seeing what he has at his ramp; this guy had a TON of marines sitting at his ramp. If you had moved your probe up and checked, you would have seen that and expected some early game action. Even when he did move out, your probe spotted it but you really didn't do much to make a difference... when out numbered, don't fight your opponent on open ground. Your units would have been much more effective at the top of your cliff. If you are REALLY out numbered and outgunned because you were caught with a surprise build, you can fight with probes too.

You should make it your goal to always know what your opponent is doing. This is why fast robotics and observers helps, but also more scouting with your probe.

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Q u o t e:
also, what do you do if you don't know what your opponent are/what units he's gonna build when deciding build order?

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Oh btw, didn't answer this one... best thing to do is play as safe as possible. PvT, that means go for observers as quickly as you can while pumping dragoons from your 1 gateway, adding goon range and a 2nd gateway to make additional dragoons as quickly as you can. This will...

1) Give you observers quickly to see what build your opponent is doing, and

2) Give you a group of ranged dragoons which are more than able to handle virtually anything the T can throw at you that early.

The only real disadvantage of the build is that your economy won't be as strong as if you had fast expanded, and it doesn't allow you to pressure the T as heavily early on (as if you had gone straight 2 gate goons), but it does allow you to contain, which gives you some early map control and lets you safely expand. This is probably the safest build you can use if you're not sure what your opponent is doing.

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Q u o t e:
Don't get too caught up over *tactics* (i.e. what types of units should I build in what matchups etc.).... tactics is important and useful to know, but don't let that distract you from focusing on basics.

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Actually, I disagree with you a little bit here... learning the standard matchup builds IS part of the basics, and if he doesn't learn that as well, he'll be having a lot of trouble when he faces opponents. I also think fighting against the computer can have it's drawbacks; as if he plays vs the computers, they will almost always go zealot rush, or M&M, and that is NOT what human opponents will tend to do.

I do agree though that, at his level, practice practice practice is what he needs. I also highly advocate watching replays of better players to get a feel for how a game will typically play out.