When to.....

Ever wonder when you should be doing ______?

I do. I have a terrible time knowing when to start teching up.

I typically start with 4 gate and get some units up. once 8-12 units are up I begin pushing out. I poke in, see if those initial units are still their, if not I know hes teching up and wont have many units. Thats a clear sign for me to do one of two things. Expand or drop 1 of 4 tech buildings, a Forge, Robotics Facility, Stargate, or Twilight Council. Lets assume I am up against a Terran player. I tend to Expand because it is relatively safe if my army is outside his base and preventing him from moving out. With only  half a dozen marines at his cliffs, that tells me hes either going for some tanks, or Banshees. More than likely its Banshees.

Do I drop a Robotics Facility down instead of expanding?

No, I still will expand, because getting that 2nd base up and going while preventing him from getting his is so important. I'm now in a position to know what hes probably doing, and I have now limited his choices. He can either continue with Banshees and get cloak and probably hold his ramp off if I decide to push in again, or make some more ground forces to push me back. Both are perfectly reasonable. Most players I have faced tend to continue with their Banshees and get cloak. Its important to poke up his ramp to see whats their, as if some Marauders suddenly pop up, I know hes looking to buy time before cloak is ready and hes going to make a push a bit later with not only a force, but also Banshees.. That means I need to have dropped a Robotics Facility sometime after my Nexus gets placed.

See how important Scouting is? I began scouting more frequently and accurately because I primarily play in a reactionary way to my opponent. Because I do this, I need to be knowing what my opponent is doing pretty often. If I see some heavy Marauder play I need to grab an Immortal or a lot of Stalkers ASAP. An observer would also help as well as these provide a way of keeping track of your opponent without having to sacrifice the occasional probe up his ramp.

So what things do you wait for either in your build order, unit count, or what your opponent does to justify teching up?

Back to 4 Gating

So I find myself going back to four gating. My three Gate Robo build was not working out as well as I had hoped. After three week of not playing Starcraft 2, going back to four gating just seemed natural. Its an easy build:

4 Warp Gate Build Order


9 Pylon
13 Gateway
14 Assimilator
16 Pylon
17 Cyber Core
19 Gateway
20 Stalker
23 Gateway
24 Pylon
24 Gateway

By the time you hit your 26th supply(provided you only build 1 Gateway unit and are constantly building probes) Warp Gate tech is ready and you will need to produce mass amounts of Pylons. I like to drop 3 more at once to expand my supply to 50. Then start warping in units and gradually be placing Pylons down as 4 gateway units count as 1 Pylon worth of supply. This is also a good time to put a proxy Pylon somewhere.

Chrono Boosts
Chrono Boosts play a big part in any Protoss Build. No matter what opening build you are doing, you should be going for Warp Gate research. It is the cheapest research with the biggest benefits. It cuts training down by five seconds per gateway unit and allows any Gateway unit to be warped in to your Pylon influence in four seconds. Ideally you can use 4 Chrono Boosts on Warp Gate before it finishes. Each one cuts 10 seconds off the time. However, if your timing isn't perfect you can end up wasting half of the 4th one so I tend to stick with 3. By doing this I can also use 3 Chrono Boosts on my Nexus as well.

Poking and Scouting
While you are getting your base setup, send a probe every now and again to poke into the base, yes you will lose a probe but you will be able to tell what his unit comp is or isn't. In my latest match, my opponent went for heavy Stalkers and very little Zealots, I saw this by simply suiciding a probe onto his ramp. So I quickly put down a Twilight Council and started researching Charge. Zealots with just the movement speed increase move almost as fast as a stalker.

What to transition into.
Before transitioning into Colossus or Voidrays or whatever, you need to take an expansion. Having two bases mining is so important in Starcraft 2. You will want to take you small force in and cause some trouble, make him think twice about moving out. This will allow a safe expansion to be warping in. Once you have two bases its time to decide what to do next. Two bases can support up to 8 Warp Gates and a Forge. However this way leaves yourself vulnerable to Cloaked units. You may want to grab a Robotics Facility to grab an Observer. This will also open up a transition into Colossus. You can make one Robotics Facility and get up to 6 Warp gates for faster unit production. Picking up a Twilight Council as well to grab Charge or Blink is also useful as the building alone allows you to research more effective armor and weapons upgrades.

There you have it, the 4gate build order. It is a heavy macro oriented build. To learn more about macro and how to master it check out my post about the subject here.

1v1, 1 v 1, Protoss, Starcraft 2, SC2, Starcraft2, Protoss Build Order, 4gate, 4 Gate, Chrono, Chrono boost, Chronoboost, Nexus, Pylon, Pylons, Supply, Supply Blocked, Stalker, Zealot, Core, Cybernetics Core, Warp Gate, Gateway, Assimilator,Strategy Game, 3 Gate Robo, 3gate robo, 3gaterobo, Probes, Probe, 4 warpgate build order, 4gate build order, Twilight Council, Charge, Blink, Blink Stalkers, Stargate, Star gate, Observer, Macro

How to: 3 Gate, Robo Opening

Ive recently been addicted to this build. I had been using the typical 4 gate opening when playing however I was encountering a problem of when to stop building units and expand. It was also difficult to choose what to transition into. I like grabbing a Twilight Council for Charge however, as I have discovered, having an army consisting mainly of Zealots and Stalkers will get you no where fast if your opponent is grabbing some higher tech.

I started opting for a Robotics Facility instead of a 4th Gateway, this opened up a wide range of possibilities. I can now get a substantial army out quickly and be able to fend off early Stalker, Roach, or Marauders. I usually go for 3 gateway units and 1 Immortal to start off, but this is a quick drain on my resources and 1 base is not enough to support the constant production of said units. So when the gateways are ready for another round, I quickly warp in 3 more and grab an Observer. I should have barely enough for another Immortal and 2-3 Gateway units and then I stop producing and begin expanding. If I don't have enough or I am getting some constant pressure from my enemy, I will keep making Warp Gate units, but only those units, this allows my money reserve to fill so I don't have to stop unit production to Expand.

My unit composition tends to be an equal mix of Zealots and Stalkers and maybe a sentry to use my Warp Gate charge. Early on Zealots are nothing more than meat shields and against Terrans they can absorb a lot of that Marauder and Marine fire.

Now for the next step, applying pressure. I do this for two reasons:

1. I need to expand, what better time than poking into there base?

2. I need to see what unit composition they have.

If they are going for mostly marines, I need to warp in more zealots and drop a Twilight Council down and grab Charge. This will also open up High Templars, which eat Marines for Lunch, or teching into Robo Bay for Colossus. If they go Mass Vikings or Mutas? Warp in some stalkers. Heavy Marauder push? More Immortals.

Once the expansion is down I grab the 2 gas geysers. From this point on, Protoss are very gas heavy so having that extra gas will be useful, if not immediately, then later on. I then transfer probes and begin warping in and training more units. Getting another 3 Gateways, Teching up or dropping a Forge down to get some upgrades going. All these are viable options. The forge is more important as now that you can produce more units and having them deal more damage and take less is super valuable. Just make sure that all your resources are going into producing more units and Pylons as at this point, you will probably have more minerals than you know what to do with.

This build helps me keep a relatively safe position while feeling safe to expand, and I am able to get units up fast while steadily moving up the tech tree.

I have several problems I am curious to know how to handle properly. Early Aggression and when to expand. With the way I'm doing it now, I can get the expansion up around 70 food. Is this too much? I know a lot of people expand around 50, but I feel a little vulnerable. I bet if I tried to make an earlier push, I wouldn't feel so vulnerable.

The most important factor in all this? Play with a real person in some practice matches. You learn more from 1 game against a human than you do in 10 games against the AI.

Plugging Leaks

So lately I have been on a win one lose one streak. Kinda good, kinda not. But I have noticed that the ones I lost, could have been avoided if I did some small changes, like make sure I had Pylons, robe Production didn't stop, I was scouting, getting information I could use and applying it to my build. These things I need to plug to fix the leaks.

So I have been paying against the medium AI over and over again doing the same thing, over and over again.  4 Gate build with a proxy pylon, and a backup in case he finds the first. It took me 8 games to get it down pretty well but I am still not comfortable with it. I think I'm going to avoid playing some match ups for a few days and work on getting my play up to par where it needs to be. Also, since I am a Achievement Whore(2000+ and growing) I found that playing against the AI will get you some points, may as well do it right? Im plugging my leaks and getting some achievements to boot!

I encourage you, if your at this point where you notice small things you can do better, or lose to things you know you wouldn't lose too, take a break, do what I am doing and see if it helps. Doing your build order over and over agian can help you realize when you should be doing something. And its important to note, if you start having more trouble with your build order in matchups, than you are reaching a point where that one strategy you always used isnt going to cut it. It is now time to expand your horizons, think of ways to improve against that type of matchup, knowing what to look for in your scouting to expect it, and keeping an eye on him in general to know when hes making that push. At this point, the small things do matter.

Know thy Enemy….

Being aware of what your opponent is doing is key in all games, especially in bronze and silver level play. Most non-diamond league players will not even bother putting in the effort to kill your scout (Overlord, Observer). Knowing what your opponent is doing effects what you should be doing.

That first scout you send in can tell you more information than any other scout for the rest of the game. That first scout tells you effectively what you should be doing and preparing for.

If you scout your opponent and see 2 Stargates coming up pretty early on, then that means you need to build some anti-air, and fast. Terran always wall themselves in, so being prepared for a bio ball, or Viking push is a possibility, however to properly defend against it, you need to find out what.

If your Terran, then putting a well placed scan can help, if your toss, most Terrans don’t put up Missile Turrets unless they see air coming in so sending in an Observer can be a huge help, and if your Zerg, you should always have an overlord or two nearby keeping an eye on things, again most Terran do not put up Missile Turrets and most Bronze and Silver level players won’t make the effort to kill that overlord off.

It is important to remember that there is no perfect build that can hold out against everything. All strategies have their weaknesses. If your opponent is smart and scouts right, he will know what he has to do, and it is up to you to anticipate it and be prepared for that eventuality. It’s better to be safe in some cases than sorry. Always know what your limitations are.

The Xel’naga watch towers are a huge help in a lot of cases. They give you extended sight of what your opponent is doing before their units get in range to attack.

It’s better to know that your opponent is nearby than be paranoid that he is always right outside your field of vision. This is especially true against a Terran player using Siege tanks. The right time to strike would be when he is moving his tanks. Instead of attacking an entrenched position, you can possibly get close enough to hit his tanks or his units before the tanks have a chance to morph and get a shot off. Two armies of equal supply, one being Terran the other anything else will most likely lose to an entrenched Terran with Siege Tanks.

Suntzu said it, and it is a well known fact, as well as rule in a lot of strategy board games, “The defender always has the advantage.” Whether it is high ground or knowledge of an incoming attack, a player who is ready for an attack tends to win. That’s why you attack when he’s not. Watching and waiting are key. Watch him until he begins to move or get complacent, wait until he is in a vulnerable position, make sure he has no way of seeing you ahead of time, and then strike!.

Dont play against AI

Just as the title says, playing against AI can seriously hurt your game. A lot of people, including myself, created matches against AI in hopes of improving your skill. But all it does it get you into a rut where you expect certain things at certain times. You know that attack will come right after you get that twig light council, and you will need at least 8-10 units to defend successfully. You also know that the computer will have a force defending his base. I tried practicing build orders against Very Hard AI in hopes of improving my game by getting attacked while building my base up. 

When I felt comfortable with it, I tried going back into multiplayer matches. Needless to say, I lost about 5 in a row. I had gotten so use to preparing for that first attack I completely forgot about the key element in multiplayer matches, the human element. AI can get you into a rut where you know they are going to attack, but a human player more than likely will not. An AI player wont try to reaper rush you(unless its on insane, ive seen them do it), or void ray rush you. So don’t play AI it will do nothing but hinder you.

Instead find a friend, and begin playing matches with him, let him know that hey, I want to see how early I can get 4 zealots up, can you send 8 speedlings at me as soon as you get them using the standard 14 pool or whatever it is. Just keep playing matches like that. Can break a particular build order that antoher player is throwing at you? Review the replay, check how much time it takes, then get your friend to do that to you. And try multiple ways of countering it. Here is a helpful tip, if you cant seem to hold out or break it unless you completely screw up your normal build order, than at that point it takes some very good and early scouting to see it in advance.  By just doing this, you just realized the importance of scouting and different ways to counter build orders.

In a future post, I will be talking about when it is acceptable to play against AI.