StarCraft 2

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

Yeah, so I just 1v1'd my friend. The first game was close, there was a point where if I continued to attack, I would have won, but ran out of financing. I lost the second bad because he stopped me from expanding. The particular map had the expansions far away and it was difficult to keep hold of them.

Which brings me to my question...when do you guys expand? I've been doing some thinking and I think that's one of my biggest problems right now.

Are you Zerg? Protoss? Terran? And what race is your opponent? It really depends.

If I'm in a TvZ game, if I see the zerg early expand as they often do, I might expand as well and make a planetary fortress in my natural.

If I'm in a TvT game, then I won't expand until I get some tanks out at least.

If I'm in a TvP Game, I won't expand unless I see the P expand.

So really I can only talk from the perspective of a mainly T player.

[DragoZERO]

I only do Protoss right now. Terran expanding is easy since you can lift off. You can load up a CC and send it over and/or drop in a MULE. Hatcheries aren't as expensive either.

[Alaya]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

Yeah, so I just 1v1'd my friend. The first game was close, there was a point where if I continued to attack, I would have won, but ran out of financing. I lost the second bad because he stopped me from expanding. The particular map had the expansions far away and it was difficult to keep hold of them.

Which brings me to my question...when do you guys expand? I've been doing some thinking and I think that's one of my biggest problems right now.

It really depends on the map, spawn location and match up.

Generally though, I'm trying to practice a lot of FE build in every match up, especially so if the spawn location is at the opposite sides. The only match up that I don't really fast expand might be TvZ.

-TvZ: Because I practice 5-rax reapers for so long, I find it the most comfortable opening for me. So I just 5-rax reapers on almost every map. This build expand when you have spare mineral after building 5-raxs (since reapers is mineral cheap but gas heavy). After waves of reapers, I normally have 2 base running for 7-raxs + Medivac and some tanks.

-TvP: Zatic Build, the 2 rax timing push + expand. This is the build I like the most but also very hard to pull off if you don't have very good decision making (I still suicide my army a lot of time unnecessarily). It's very easy to lose your first batch of army to the force fielded choke and die with 4 gates or 3 gates robo/colossus timing push. But if you manage to save your army, then you are at a very good advantage because you have 2 base running.

-TvT: I tried too 1-rax FE in a cross position but still need to refine my build a lot. Well, maybe because I really like HopeTorture's play against Ensnare so I want to make this build possible for me, but it would require a great skill to hold off the early aggression of the opponent. For other build, I normally go marauders/vikings or Tank/Vikings or Tanks/Marine drop then expand.

Well, I tried a lot of different things unrefined so I end up losing a lot of games more than I should... (except TvZ that I almost open the very same build every time :P).

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

Yeah, so I just 1v1'd my friend. The first game was close, there was a point where if I continued to attack, I would have won, but ran out of financing. I lost the second bad because he stopped me from expanding. The particular map had the expansions far away and it was difficult to keep hold of them.

Which brings me to my question...when do you guys expand? I've been doing some thinking and I think that's one of my biggest problems right now.

You must post a rep to get any real advice because it is all very situational-- trying to analyze a game without a rep would be like trying to figure out a chess problem without knowing where the pieces are. (Pick a site like mediafire, replays are usually lying around in My documents folder, (find a folder called Starcraft II---> then go into accounts---> some stupid random number---> replays)

But in general, you'd expand when it's safe to-- your enemy can't rush it, you are not planning to do some all-in attack, or you just secured yourself an advantage by winning a battle, and of course, if you are mining out your current resources.

[DragoZERO]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

You must post a rep to get any real advice because it is all very situational-- trying to analyze a game without a rep would be like trying to figure out a chess problem without knowing where the pieces are. (Pick a site like mediafire, replays are usually lying around in My documents folder, (find a folder called Starcraft II---> then go into accounts---> some stupid random number---> replays)

But in general, you'd expand when it's safe to-- your enemy can't rush it, you are not planning to do some all-in attack, or you just secured yourself an advantage by winning a battle, and of course, if you are mining out your current resources.

I know it's situational. It's a strategy game. I'll get some replays up when I can. You'll get a laugh at my first 1v1 with my friend. I could have warped in a couple of more zealots and finished him off. I don't know what was going through my head.

[Sephi]

You can expand when your going for your first attack, make expansion and move out. That way your expansion is quite safe because your enemy has to defend. And ofcourse the points archon wing made.

Remember at first battle, you don't have to fight till you lose your whole army, test their strength. See if you can take the other army or not, if you can't, go for hit and runs and keep him busy until you secured your expansion.

[paladinenvec]

one good chance way to expand its when doing pressure on the oponent by inertia if youre attacking, harassing, or just tasting the land the oponnent will on the defensive then try to expand have some 4 stalkers to acompany your probes made macro at the same time micro the attack it can be done with some practice, anyway its just a way there are many others you just need to spy your enemyoften checking his moves ,expanding as everything in this game its situational you need to learn to read those moments and act accordingly.
Edit:
lol Sephi beat me to it xD

[SoldierOfDarkness]

I usually expand when I attack which is around the 35ish mark.

[-Sho-]

Ow lol that 2v2 game , Random T (me) + P vs T + P .

I watched the replay and i loled specially cuz of T player who did the "Mineral boosting trick"

Check : http://www.mediafire.com/?jcydc8rormwnqyx

[DragoZERO]

Here are the 1v1's with my friend for your viewing pleasure.

[Who]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

Here are the 1v1's with my friend for your viewing pleasure.

Contrary to what you said at the end of the Desert Oasis match, your problem does NOT lie in expanding.

Here's what I observed, particularly in Game 1 in Blistering Sands, as that was the most problematic:

-You moved your Probe out rather late. This is the most minor detail but it was the first. You should have moved the Probe out as it was approaching 100 minerals so that your Pylon would have been built earlier, allowing you to continue building and producing more Probes.
-You did not build Probes past early game. Even in early game, you had intervals of time where you would hold off on building the Probe, despite having more than enough minerals to build several at once and still have enough for army units.
-You can just rally to gas from your Nexus if you wanted. The Probes will enter automatically on their own.
-At around the 6:00 mark, you could have EASILY won with 5-6 Zealots. Your friend had 2 Zerglings, 1 Queen and more Drones than he wanted. There was about a minute's window mark before he started building Spine Crawlers.
-At around the same time, you had over 1,000 minerals. More Gateways, more Zealots/Stalkers, more Probes, an expansion, anything to boost your army/economy in some way and keep that mineral count low.
-When you pressed your attack, you did not produce more units. Always produce more, even outside battle, unless you run into a hard counter; at that point, tech switch or incorporate another unit type. It is almost inevitable that you will lose your units and producing more units will ensure that you do not get wiped like when your friend countered with just Zerglings. It also would've ensured that you won the game when you managed to wipe out his Roach Warren and Spawning Pool. That was the time to press an all-in attack.
-The answer is not always more cannons. This is an understandable reaction; but a few well placed cannons is more than enough to hold off attacks and harassment if you keep producing units.
-Always scout! Scout for expansions, army composition and whatnot. One instance: You had a force in the southeastern gold expansion and failed to notice that he was building an unguarded expo right next to you.

Game 2 was pretty much the same thing in terms of unit production. You let him openly tech up, and late game Zerg is not something you want to face when he has map control and access to tons of minerals and gas.

[Sassarai]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

Here are the 1v1's with my friend for your viewing pleasure.

Blistering sands - Probably should of scouted first before sending all your troops to death by static defense . I wouldn't attack that early since you're on two bases and he's on one. You'll get a lot more stronger than him if you just macro up. Put a pylon by your destructible rocks so you'll know if they are trying to surprise you. I see most protoss wall off to where only a single zealot can fit through. Put a zealot there and lings can't run crazy into your base.

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

Here are the 1v1's with my friend for your viewing pleasure.

Thanks.

Sassarai covered game 1 fairly well.. Basically, if the zerg stays on one base, you will probably win unless he manages to damage you badly so there is little rush to attack

For the Desert Oasis game, it is generally not too great of an idea to do multiple tech routes as once with Protoss. Some Phoneix for killing the mutas worked very well but you didn't really have the gas for void rays and collosi.

The other problem was that you only had 2 warp gates. You usually want some stalkers and sentries to support your units and to fight his air. Phoneixes can handle mutalisks but not corruptors. Theoretically people say a base can sustain 4 warp gates per base (so 8 for 2) but since most of us do not have perfect macro, it could go up to 10 or more.

Another problem was losing the collosi and void rays, while those are strong units, they need support and cannot be isolated. Usually you'd bring them along with a large gateway army. Never send collosi alone-- they are too expensive to be lost.

A key thing to remember is that drops or harasses like Void ray/phoenix harass are only effective when you have air superiority. If the enemy controls the air, it's very hard to pull them off. But if you do have a good amount of phoenix you can always try to kill random overlords near their base.

And finally, there were some expansions he took unopposed because you never scouted them. Those can be game enders if you let him do that too much.

[Reckoner]

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/8...elnaga-caverns

So I gave a go at the 5 rax reaper strategy against zerg, and it works remarkably well, but I feel like I messed up certain details.

Can anyone offer advice on how I could've played better?

[Hooves]

Dont know why... But I think Terran are only gonna be using Reapers now on Zerg ... Which is really bad in my case...

Also cant judge the replay Reckoner have to use a laptop right now that doesn't have SC2...

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/8...elnaga-caverns

So I gave a go at the 5 rax reaper strategy against zerg, and it works remarkably well, but I feel like I messed up certain details.

Can anyone offer advice on how I could've played better?

Once your harass was very successful and his natural went down, you should start a CC in your base as you had many minerals. Also it'd be a good idea to start an ebay immediately after you realize he has mutas. I also didn't like how the reapers were suicided into the queen. At that point you can really just ignore the queen and go to town on his last few drones. Either that or just run.

It also took a while to transition back to marines which made his mutas especially more damaging.

But overall, it was pretty one sided from start to finish.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/8...elnaga-caverns

So I gave a go at the 5 rax reaper strategy against zerg, and it works remarkably well, but I feel like I messed up certain details.

Can anyone offer advice on how I could've played better?

I've actually been thinking about using that strategy.

I'm amazed you were able to get a bunker at his ramp without him noticing it. Had it not been for your bunker your reapers wouldn't have done as much damage.

Only thing I can feedback would probably be to get that engineering bay sooner to not just get turrets as a precaution but to boost your infantry's strength and hence your reaper's lethality.

That and as Archon said, when you have that much minerals, build a CC. In fact according to liquidpedia you should around ~50 supply.

That's the thing I hate about zerg, you can do so much damage against them but they can easily rebound if not kept in check.

[Who]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/8...elnaga-caverns

So I gave a go at the 5 rax reaper strategy against zerg, and it works remarkably well, but I feel like I messed up certain details.

Can anyone offer advice on how I could've played better?

That was pretty good, and remarkable luck on your part that the bunker wasn't noticed.
Ignoring the minerals, which can be dumped into Marines, the gas was just stockpiled. Factory/Starport, Stim Pack, Combat Shields, Weapon/Armor upgrades, anything of that nature would've been extremely beneficial in the event that your opponent managed to somehow hold you off.

[SoldierOfDarkness]

Oye, got slaughtered by diamond players today but I think I lasted a bit longer this time around I tried that reaper tactic against a diamond zerg player but he was able to hold me off with fast creep and speedlings. That and his micro was better. I think reckoner you got lucky because of that bunker. If it wasn't for the bunker your strategy would've failed.

It's funny and I think Reckoner probably agrees but against Protoss I'm diamond level (or at least competent). That's what they all tell me and I do beat them if I follow a stable build as Terran against toss. I'm hoping it's not because Terrans are OP against protoss in general but they didn't say that

Against Terran I can hold my own so long as I"m not doing anything stupid but I lol at a guy who used nothing but mass ravens in a TvT. It was hilarious.

Against Zerg is my worse and so far they are teaching me to go the hellion route so I'm practicing with Thors and Marines backed up by hellions.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by SoldierOfDarkness

Oye, got slaughtered by diamond players today but I think I lasted a bit longer this time around I tried that reaper tactic against a diamond zerg player but he was able to hold me off with fast creep and speedlings. That and his micro was better. I think reckoner you got lucky because of that bunker. If it wasn't for the bunker your strategy would've failed.

Well though everyone says I was lucky about that bunker I was trying to be quite sneaky about it lol. And if I didn't build it there i would've built it somewhere else.

But yeah, the strategy is micro intensive, so if you're not good with micro don't even bother.

I would learn easier strategies against zerg first. A standard play right now is to get a combination of marines tanks and helions with some thors if you see a spire.