Sunday, January 17, 2010

The Value of Prepositioning your units

I suck at the game. I suck at macro, I suck at micro and I suck at keeping up my motivation. This season I have abandoned last season strategy on staying on one map and one match-up. I’m just playing on the most familiar Map of the Week against anyone about my own level.

Amazingly enough I seem to do best in Protoss vs Protoss and not against Terrans. Is all the effort I put into that match-up last season totally wasted? I don’t know.

Some days ago I played this game where the opening did not go as well as I had hoped. He had his expansion up earlier than me, his tech-level was further ahead and yet I did not have an overwhelming unit advantage as I should have. So what do you do?

My 14 dragoons and 1 zealot was outside his base and (as I later found out) he had 13 dragoons and one photon canon. Even odds and with him having shorter distance to his reinforcements an all but lost battle.

So I thought: let me arrange my units in this nice semi-circle in front of his expansion. After all, that is what the pros do. Shortly after being done with that he moved out slightly and I decided to meet him in battle.

To my utter surprise it went extremely well. His units came out in a line and were attacked from all side my my units. His army melted away. In fact he lost everything he had and my casualties were just 4 dragoons and my zealot.

After that engagement I simply killed him of in a matter of a minute or two. And the game provided an object lesson of how much prepositioning of units can mean. A lot. Apparently.

9 comments:

  1. Good job at that unit positioning! I'm glad you've discovered WHY the pro gamers position before an attack. I hope you've heard of Teamliquid.net! Its a great site and if you go to its Strategy section of the forums-> the recommended threads you can find some awesome guides! If you search " Dark Templars Abuse Guide" in the forum's search(on left) then you can find the best guide to Dark Templars I've seen in a while!(remember its about a year old but still pretty up-to-date) In that guide is a link to the Bee suit(Bisu) build! Also, BO=build order. GL at getting to the best level there is! How good is your Iccup rank now? Do u even go on ICcup? if not go to iccup.com to get connected! Its where everyone like you goes! You'll prob get crushed for a while but then you'll get better and better by learning from your mistakes! Post replays at Repdepot.com for the best rep saver when you need to post reps! On teamliquid.net become a member and read the strategy forum guidelines and post a [H[(help) thread when you need help with a problem in a game or [Q] for a question. [I] for posting some new idea u have for a new strategy. also search for answers before posting! GL AND HF Fafner!

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  2. I need to ask you a question, how would u list your favorite opening build order/strategies as?(1being highest) I mean like 1Gate,2Gate,3Gate,FE,Proxy gates, overall cheeses that you perform.

    Also, do you know if Tom Phoenix has completely stopped posting at his Learning Starcraft blog? I liked his blog last year and recently found yours and I would be sad to see Tom's go away.

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  3. Yeah, I know Tom stopped posting. That is too bad. I really wish more people would write about their gaming experience in the world of Starcraft, but unfortunately we are very few.

    Your question is a great topic for another blog posting. Maybe I will come up with something tomorrow :-).

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  4. cool :-) whatever you do, don't stop posting! from now on I'll have you bookmarked instead of Tom, first site I check whenever I come on the cpu. I heard that there is actually a pvp proxy gateway tutorial on youtube which I'll check out tommorow morning(night where I am now)

    You know something else we need? More NICE progamers!

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  5. btw if you tell me what BOs your using(since we are apparently at around the same level) then I may be able to help you face Terran I use a really good 2Gate ranged goons build that gets you around 6 goons in front of your opponent's main/nat at the same time your opponent can get a tank out but BEFORE HE HAS SIEGE MODE! Always remember: range upgraded goons< bunkers/vultures/marines(ranged advantage vs all but maybe vulture)

    I got to D+ with strategy knowledge NOT mechanics so if you ever need help with strategy, I'm your baby ;D!

    Signing off,
    BabyToss

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  6. Babytoss saying quick that I am almost D+ now but I get "out mechaniced" whenever I face D+ people so as of right now I'm just focusing on getting Gate positioning right on lots of annoying maps. I've found the editor helps for pre-positioning.

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  7. What is your iccup name? It's not babytoss :-)

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  8. IDENTITY NOT REVEALED(why do u think I put babytoss as name?) If you ever ask for questions here I'll answer but I won't tell you that. I don't play online much anyways. I would tell u my iccup name except that my parents will only let me play at certain hours, otherwise I'm on my laptop with a broken CD drive(I used to play SC A LOT! ) If you post your BO here it will be a LOT simpler than if we play at ICcup plus I have more chores i'm asked to do when I'm playing a game than when I'm doing anything else! If only SC had a FOREVER PAUSED until both players agree on playing again button lol. I get a lot of money so I can buy a $150 game(SC2) but not enough time =(.

    WARNING I HAVE JUST RANTED ABOVE! lol

    tell me your BOs here and I'll help you with them.
    BTW, have you ever tryed to beat 8 cpus in melee with NO static defense as toss? I once did it and won by blocking my ramp with DTs and using observers+ ranged goons to pick off units trying to climb up. I did this and used a few shuttles to transport units to expansions. I used goons+ observers in hold position for cannons(at least these can move lol) I basically play casual with the mindset of hardcore. If I could I would just play SC my whole life, I have the money lol. now if only I could find a slave in America.... lol jk! But still...

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  9. Babytoss here again...

    learn to do Mine Dragging when facing terrans. I've watched a few of your FPVODs and you don't do mine dragging which is the most deadly technique to terrans mid-late game! You use a speed zealot/DT and activate a mine while quickly running straight into the middle of the terran armada! If they are tightly packed then you cause a HUGE amount of damage! This has changed the tide in many a game of star craft!

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