FTWins

Receivers get all the glory.

In football the wide receiver and the quarterback get most of the attention because they’re the ones making big plays and scoring points. What people often forget is that the offensive line are the guys making those big plays possible by protecting the quarterback. No, this isn’t a football article or even a sports website, but StarCraft 2 is similar to professional sports. People often focus on the fancy stuff like micro and ignore the less glorious, but fundamental aspects like macro. Macro is arguably the most important part of playing StarCraft 2 as making units is the most basic function of the game.

The first thing any player needs to do to work on their macro is pick a reasonable plan. It doesn’t need to be the best possible unit composition to kill your opponent’s army, it just needs to be able to shoot at it. For example, Zerg should plan something simple like make Zergling/Roach/Hydralisk, for Terran it could be Marine/Marauder/Medivac, or Protoss could make Zealot/Sentry/Stalker. Each of these unit compositions have an armored unit and a unit that can shoot air units. So that covers the basic possibilities that the opponent might make. Don’t pick builds that are more complex like the Terran “1, 1, 1″ build or Nony’s Phoenix build which require a lot of micro.

The second step is to practice placing buildings on time. Placing a building on time means having a worker sitting where you want the building before the minerals are actually available. Also note that if you’re not sure when to pull that worker, it’s better to be a little early than a little late. For example, when making a Spawning Pool, a Zerg player should pull a Drone from mining around 175 minerals if the placement is near the mineral line, earlier if it’s going to be placed further away. Once the worker is in place start spamming the hotkey for the building, that way the moment the minerals are available the building can be placed. Many lower-level players will see that they have 200 minerals and only then select the Drone to move out and make their Spawning Pool. At this point the building actually gets made around 225-250 minerals.

The third thing to practice applies specifically to Protoss and Terran. Constantly be making 1 unit at a time from each production facility the build is intended to use (i.e. a Factory is required to get to Starport, even if the Factory isn’t being used). Don’t try to cut units to get an extra building, as those kinds of decisions are more advanced. Once all of the production buildings are making exactly 1 unit, it will be clear when to make more buildings. If there are 2 Barracks and a Command Center each making  1 unit and there are still 150 minerals left over this should indicate that it’s time to make another Barracks.

Never, ever, ever, ever do this!!!! EVER!

The previous paragraph mentions making 1 unit at a time 3 times. That’s because it’s really important! Queuing units isn’t spending minerals, it’s hiding them. Queuing even just 2 Marines and 1 extra SCV is 150 minerals. That is 1 additional Barracks that could have been made to increase production. Not only does queuing production hide minerals that could be spent elsewhere, it also teaches a bad habit. Part of good macro is checking production buildings regularly. Queuing increase the amount of time between having to check those buildings, getting players in a habit of not checking as often as they should.

Don’t worry Zerg players, I haven’t forgotten the swarm. For Zerg, the Queen is one of the most vital parts of Zerg macro. Take some time to play a bunch of games and only focus on using Spawn Larva. This will build your game sense, and eventually the 40 second cool down on Spawn Larva will become second nature. It’s also helpful to line up the timing of multiple Hatcheries/Queens so that each of the Queen’s Spawn Larva ability comes up at the same time. This makes for less time spent checking Hatcheries; check one and if it’s ready then they all should be ready within a few seconds of each other.

These may seem like very small, picky things as single mistakes don’t seem like a big deal. For example, if you’re late starting a building 5 seconds just one time it won’t matter too much. But what happens when all of a players buildings go down 5 seconds late? It adds up, and suddenly the whole build is 40 seconds behind. Forty seconds in StarCraft 2 is a massive amount of time. It can be the difference between a particular upgrade being finished (e.g. Thermal Lance for the Colossus) or having a specific unit out or not (e.g. a Siege Tank to hold off a Baneling bust). Advanced StarCraft 2 strategy is all about building up little leads and capitalizing on little mistakes to create an increasingly bigger lead. Eliminating these small timing mistakes decreases the amount of things an opponent can take advantage of and can sometimes put you so far ahead in unit production that it doesn’t matter what unit composition they have.

Sure, the linemen don’t end up on Sports Center’s highlight reel. And maybe you’ve never heard Husky screaming out, “Oh my god look at the timing on that Supply Depot!” But good fundamental mechanics are at the core of every good players game. Those mechanics allow them to their units out in a time when they can be the most effective.